Crazy Jane - Row I finished!

I am definitely slowing down on my progress, but trying to stay determined to keep working on the Crazy Jane blocks.  Row J had a lot of tough blocks, but it is now finished and added to the rest of the center blocks!

Row J has a ton of applique.  Oh Jane, why did you love making those melons so much?  I think I will take a day and just prep all of them at once, then I can grab a bag and sit down for a bit of applique in the evenings.

When I'm not working on this, that is:

Yes, I've managed to find another person with a Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt that needs to be finished!  This one is in reproduction fabrics.  It's queen size and they want each hexagon to be quilted all the way around.  Yikes, I think it's going to take longer than I thought it would.  Last night I found that my thimble had a hole in it and snapped the eye off a needle!  Had to go through my drawers to find a better thimble to use.  I think this is the third one I've worn through now.   

I also have some shirts to finish putting together - I have to put the sleeves on, hem the bottoms and bind the neckline.  They are cute, so I will definitely try to remember to take a picture.

I was trying to take some new quilt pictures yesterday afternoon, but my handsome helper showed up and distracted me - 

He looks really nice on that bright quilt!

Guess I'd better get busy, plenty to keep me busy for a day or two.  Have a happy day!

Rainy Days are Quilting Days!

I'm glad we spent the last weekend up north instead of this weekend!  The weather today is very wet and chilly - perfect for staying indoors and quilting up a storm - or maybe doing some fun reading.  I was excited to win a $100.00 gift certificate from C&T publishing as part of the Christmas Caroling Row Along, and I just received my package:

I had a blast going through their online catalog trying to decide what to pick!  I started out by looking for Angela Walter's books - I have Free Motion Quilting and Shape by Shape Collection 2, but never got a copy of the first Shape by Shape book, so that was first on my list.  Then I was tempted to pick up Free Motion Meandering, but instead I got her Free Motion Quilting Workbook, thinking that would be nice to have to play with design ideas in the evenings when I'm not in my sewing room.

After that I checked out Bonnie Hunter books, can you believe that I don't own any?  I picked up Addicted to Scraps, because...scraps!  I have lots of those that need to used! 

After that I browsed around looking for something fun and inspiring and I found The Little Spark!  This one has been on my Amazon wish list for a while, so I was super excited to see it.  By this point, I just needed one more little thing to fill out my cart and found this interesting Trim-A-Tip tool so decided to give it a try.

My package just arrived on Thursday, so I am looking forward to going through my goodies this weekend and being inspired.  I don't purchase many books anymore because I've been quilting for so long that I have a very full library, so this is quite a treat for me!  I did notice that there are quite a few e-books available as well, so I will probably be purchasing some of those in the future - it's a great option and requires far less storage space, plus they are a bit less expensive.  Though I do have to say, I totally love print books and enjoy flipping through the pages as I relax in my chair - total bliss!

Here are a few pictures from last weekend, we had so much fun seeing our grand-kids and hanging out with their parents :)

Can you see Mount Hood in the distance?  Hard to capture it with a photo, but it was gorgeous!

You can see it peaking from behind the trees a bit here.  The day started out very cool and foggy, but once the sun came out it was perfect!  Layer by layer my outerwear came off until I just needed a light sweater in the warm sun!

One more shot of Mount Hood as we traveled north into Washington!  While we were there we had several lovely views of Mount Rainier, but I never got a picture of that one.  We enjoyed a sunny Sunday afternoon at a local pumpkin patch, but I guess I never took any picture there, either :(

Another foggy morning that turned into a beautiful day!  After dropping Emelia off at school on Monday we went out for breakfast, then spent an hour at Goodwill.  I found some good books for fall reading, a beautiful coral sweater, a new jigsaw puzzle and a pretty white tray for my sewing room.  I don't usually find that many goodies, I'm pretty picky when thrift shopping, so it was very fun to walk out with a nice pile of goodies.

Tuesday we got home mid-afternoon, and I got busy with laundry and planning out my week.  I got started on the next baby clothes quilt, this one is going to be stars:

I plan on having this ready for quilting next weekend so it can go out at the end of the month.  Lots of fun stripes in this one, it will be so cute!

I finished up this puzzle so I could start a new one - I find that I am sleeping a bit better by not being on my laptop or phone so much in the evenings.  Trying to stick to books and puzzles more, so am trying to find a better time in my day for writing patterns and blogging.

And Scamper had to go to the vet for shots and a check up.  He has a lot bare patches on his rear and belly.  We haven't found any fleas on him, but the vet says it's pretty classic flea allergy reaction.  So I am vacuuming and washing his blankets as well as ours.  Hopefully we can get this under control without having to give him a cortisone shot - seems like many people in this area are seeing this in their cats this fall.  We did have a very nice summer, I suppose the fleas like the warmer weather as well!  We are trying a new flea medication to see how that goes - we actually haven't had to use any for over a year, so hopefully this will be under control soon.

That's it for my week in a nut shell - it's good to be home with no travel plans in the near future.  I love visiting family, but truly feel there is no place like home.  I love my normal routine, and I have missed my fun sewing time as well as blogging regularly over the last couple of months and am happy to settle in for the rest of fall and enjoy doing my favorite things again.   I'll be working on the rest of the year's Quilter's Recipe blocks over the weekend and planning out some more fun projects for next year. 

Enjoy your weekend, too!

Sewing up a Storm

Whew, I've been sewing up a storm today, and am officially done with my Christmas sewing!  I think it's actually a record for being done early as a matter of fact - no last minute up all night in the sewing room finishing up for me this year.  Yahoo!

I've got a big stack of cuteness ready for wrapping paper, ribbons and bows tomorrow.  My plan is to clean up the sewing room and keep the wrapped gifts there for a couple days to keep the cat from chewing them up.  He's such a little brat.  He thinks it is great fun to hide under the Christmas tree and jump out - Surprise!  This is is him a couple years ago:

And here is a cute one of him sitting on the corner of the bed.

I also got my sugar cookies baked and ready for frosting.  So I have plenty of projects for tomorrow...looking forward to the arrival of all of our family on Wednesday!   This is a fun and busy time of year, but the best part is being with our kids!

Movie Theater Popcorn

Wouldn't you think for what they charge at the movie theater for popcorn that you could expect at least a decent bag of popcorn?  When we went to go see In The Heart of the Sea today the cashier not only really tried to upsell us the huge Star Wars Plastic Bucket of popcorn, but acted pretty put out that we wouldn't even shell out the extra 25 cents for a large instead of medium.  Then, when we got in the theater and sat down we found that she seems to have scraped up all the small and semi burnt pieces at the bottom of the popper especially for us!  Honestly, I felt like taking it back to the counter for a refund, but I resisted.  I settled for sending them a message on their facebook page.  I mean, you take it for granted that movie theater popcorn is a rip-off, but I really felt taken advantage of after this bag!  At least the movie was worth it - we really enjoyed it.  I never realized that whale oil was actually used for in that time.  Excellent movie, but definitely not for the younger kids.

Rant over...it was a nice relaxed day today.  I remembered to take a couple pictures of our decorations!  The quilt above the mantle came from the book Calendar Quilts. One of my goals is to make all the quilt in this book.  I think I have four or five left.  Maybe in 2016!

Our tree is looking good!  So glad I bought a new stand for it - it's such a nice looking tree for being artificial.  We should get many more years of use out of it now.

This quilt is a round robin.  It gets a lot of compliments when I put it out.

And a picture of our Scamper.  He is such a funny cat.  I keep catching him looking at the Angel on top of the tree.  Hope he doesn't get any ideas!  This week he is sleeping in the recliner.  So funny the way he changes his favorite spots around every week.  Last week it was the back of the loveseat.

Not too much sewing today, but I finished the sewing for step one of the Allietare mystery and started cutting step two.  Maybe I can catch up this week if I work a bit at it!  I've got the curtain panels cut from the good fabric, and the company is sending fabric to make up for the flaw.  I'll get those done early this week and have the rest of the month fairly free!  Tomorrow I am devoting to Allietare and possibly starting to quilt the last year mystery as well.

Not much news...

The fabric arrived so I could get back to the curtain project that got shelved.  I'm going to spare you the picture of a lot of plain blue fabric sewn to white fabric with embroidery on it which is all sewn to plain blackout lining.  Not very exciting!

I also worked on my Blue and White quilt, but that picture would look an aweful lot like the one I took yesterday!  The good news is that I am now halfway around the white border.  I really feel like I am getting the hang of the swirl and hook now!  Still contemplating what I will do in the last border.  There is a bit of a print on it that I am thinking I may be able to use as a guideline for quilting.  I'm still not sure, but I have at least a couple more days to decide.

How about a cat picture?  I took a couple good ones of our Scamper last week:

As you can see, he has claimed my lap quilt as his own.  Luckily, he is fickle and when he is tired of using it I will switch it out for another one.  It's not like we don't have plenty of quilts around this place!  The quilt on the back of the cushion is a flannel rag quilt I made.  It usually sits on top of the back of the loveseat, but he likes to knock it off when he runs around the room.  You can also see the two pillows and fleece blanket on the seat of the chair on the right.  This was his preferred spot for a while, but now he shuns it.  Cats.  Who knows why, but he will not even look at that chair - at least not the seat.  He will stretch out on top of the back of it on a rainy afternoon!

Here is a nice closeup of the handsome boy:

It's hard to get a picture of him because he is generally a feisty kind of a cat!  He is very entertaining, but not a lovey kind of kitty.  He and I have a truce.  I get one side of the loveseat and the other side is his.  If I go over the line he will attack my hand!  If he tries to come over on my side I threaten to squirt him with my handy water bottle.  He does like to be loved on in the morning time though - he sits on the bannister upstairs and meows at me until I pick him up and hold him - I do enjoy our lovey times because later in the day - watch out!

Hope you enjoy the pictures!