Crumb Blocks

This week I have been making more crumb blocks. The blocks on the top row are some of the blocks I made this week. The blocks on the bottom row are blocks that I made earlier. I have sewn four of these smaller blocks together to make a larger block (12 inches square). This layout is what I am using on this quilt. I will sew 4 smaller blocks together to make a larger block. Then I want to set the blocks together with sashing and borders.

In my crumb box I have 55 blocks sewn which includes the 8 blocks that are sewn together into the two larger blocks. I figure I will need at least 60 to make a lap size quilt, which is my goal right now.

Not much else has been happening at our house this week. Tuesday and Wednesday was babysitting, and Thursday is always recooperation day from two days with the grand baby!

Our weather is beautiful today. The sun is shining, but it is still cold. The weather reports indicate warmer weather this weekend. Maybe the ground will warm up and dry the grass. My sewing room is still cold, as well as the computer room (aka boys' bedroom).

Since it is almost noon, I am off to the television viewing area for my noon dose of Perry Mason, then some more crumb block sewing. I really need to get sewing on the exchange quilt, but I am having a difficult time stopping my crumb block sewing! Crumb blocks are so addictive to me. I am trying to get all the scraps sewn from the bag I received recently. There are still a lot of triangles left in the bag to be sewn. I may set those aside and get back to my regular sewing. I also have many BOM blocks that I need to sew in order to catch up to be current. Until then.....

Happy Quilting

Scrap Bag and Monday Report

Here is my Monday report of what I accomplished last week. No great sewing report, but I did finish 5 blocks: 4 crumb blocks and one Mary Engelbreit BOM. I have three more ME BOM blocks to go and I will have all of the blocks done and I can put the top together. I also had baby duty for three days instead of two. I remembered to take my camera on Thursday so I have some new pictures. I am enclosing two darling pictures (I hope). I still don't have this new picture thing down pat yet. It is always an experience (a challenge really) to get pictures in my blog from this new setup.

Yesterday DH and I went to Modesto to a quilt show. There were some very nice quilts exhibited, and some great vendors, too. We encountered a lot of fog along the way. The fog is worse today. All the bridges are so fogged in that the news traffic cameras cannot get any good photos of the traffic. I am glad I was not commuting across any bridge this morning.

I received a bag of scraps from one of the ladies on Saturday when I was at Quilting 101. I opened the bag after I arrived home and I have been playing with that fabric ever since. I sewed up 4 crumb blocks and have lots of strips left over. I haven't gotten the triangles out of the bag yet. I just pulled out some of the strips and big fabric pieces. I love playing with scraps. I woke up this morning thinking about what I could make with some of those scraps.

The crumb blocks I am making will go into a quilt for the Community Quilts program for my quilt guild. My goal is to make and donate at least one quilt a year. I have made that goal for a few years, but with all the fabric I have at my disposal, I should be making more.

Last week I was very busy, but this week looks quieter. I hope I can get more sewing accomplished this week than last week.

Happy Quilting

BOM Blocks

These turquoise spiderweb blocks are four of the eleven that I won at my last month's quilt guild meeting. Along with the eleven blocks, I also received four more turquoise squares to make four more blocks. I put the eleven blocks out on my bed and the four blank squares. It would be a small lap quilt. I went to the fabric store where the ladies originally purchased the turquoise fabric, and I purchased another yard of fabric so I can make a bigger quilt.

I thoroughly enjoyed sewing these blocks. I pulled out one sandwich-sized baggie from my scraps and started sewing on strips. I was having so much fun I didn't want to stop. That is what happens to me when I start sewing crumb blocks. It is addictive and I do not want to stop!

The other picture is the last $5 BOM block that I finished yesterday. This morning was the monthly meeting for the Saturday Sampler at In Between Stitches in Livermore. I overslept and we were late getting to Livermore, so I paid $5 for my block for next month.

I had issues with this month's block. I cut one of the fabrics wrong, and did not have enough fabric in the kit to recut my pices and correct my mistake. I found some brown in my stash that blended with the other fabrics, so I substituted it for the original fabric. It turned out okay I think. As a matter of fact, I like the substitution better than the original fabric. My substitution added one more fabric color to the mix.

I was lucky to find a brown fabric that worked well for this block in my stash. I do not have much brown fabric. I have brown fabric for baskets and tree trunks, but that is about all. When I need brown fabric, I make a field trip to a fabric store and purchase what I need.

I have decided to write on my calendar in the sewing room all my finishes for this year. So far I have a UFO quilt top finished, and four BOM blocks finished in the first week of January. I really want to focus on "finishes" this year. I hope that seeing my finished projects written on the calendar will motivate me to finish more. I have so many UFO projects. I have pulled them out at various times. I have written a list by category. I have many exchange blocks that I want to make into quilts. I have quilt projects partly sewn. I have four large quilts in the computer room (aka boy's bedroom) that need binding. I have several quilt tops that need quilting then binding. I have several quilt kits still in their original bags. I have mending that never seems to get done. So I think I should get busy sewing!

Happy Quilting

Still Christmas photos

I am attaching a couple pictures of the grandbaby. I have some quilt photos somehwhere in picture Nevernever Land in my new computer, but I haven't figured out how to get them where I need them yet. When I have solved that problem, I will post them.

These pictures are from Christmas day when all the kids were here for Christmas brunch. It was fun having the baby here. She changes every day it seems. I have not been seeing her as much the last few weeks. Her mother has a break from work, so I have not been taking care of her as often. I was there last Wednesday with Lizzy. Her mom and dad had a date for a movie and a meal, so I took baby duty for them so they could have some time together sans baby. I think DIL returns to work next week, so I will be back on my weekly schedule then.

Until next time....Happy Quilting

P.S. I won 11 blocks at my guild meeting last night!

Completed UFOs Finally

This is the post I wanted to post on January 1, 2011. Today I was finally able to access my photos.

Happy New Year!

Last fall Finn invited all interested parties to participate in a challenge to finish UFOs before the end of 2010. I pledged to finish five UFOs. I actually finished 4.9. I finished the fifth UFO on January 1, 2011 (1-1-11). I sewed until midnight on December 31, 2010, but I did not finish my last UFO. So, I finished it the next day, January 1, 2011. Today I was able to get a picture of it, as well as my green quilt (the last one that I finished in 2010).

I had issues with my last quilt. It is one of Judy Laquidara's designs, Bears in the Farmhouse. When looking back on the pattern, I realized that I started this quilt in February 2009. It was an online activity. At each step we emailed Judy our progress, then she sent us the next step in the pattern. On the last step, my quilt did not measure what Judy had indicated in the pattern. The last step started with sewing together 86 HSTs for a border. Since my quilt did not measure what it should according to Judy's instructions, I did not want to sew the last border together until I could solve the measurement issue. It was a very simple solution, but I think another quilt caught my eye, or else I had another class, and I started another project. I thought I would go back to the bear paw quilt shortly, but I did not.

When Finn's challenge came along I decided the bear paw UFO would be one that I would finish along with the green quilt (my Mandarin Squares quilt). After solving the measurement problem, I sewed together the 86 HSTs and finished the bear paw quilt. I did not have enough yardage to use the stripe for the border as indicated in the pattern, so I made the border one-half an inch narrower, and inserted cornerstones in all four corners. With those changes, I finished my quilt and ended up with about one-quarter of a yard of the border stripe left over!

I am excited to have these two large UFO quilts finished, as well as three other UFOs. I also finished two lap quilts that I have already sent to a machine quilter. I will post pictures of them when they return from the quilter. I also finished a needle case that has been floating around on my sewing table for couple of years. Now I can get two stacks of fabrics back into my stash (hopefully) and off my sewing table. BTW, I made the Bears in the Farmhouse quilt totally from my stash. I was so excited to be able to find all those fabrics in my stash. I don't know yet what I will do about putting together a backing for the bear paw quilt, but at least the top came from stash.

This new year I have started by finishing a UFO on January 1. I feel this will be my motivation to finish more of my UFOs this year. We shall see! LOL!