Shopping

Hand Quilting and More Shopping

So one of the days last weekend while Alex was napping and the hubby was spending time with his friend I decided to watch some TV and work on my hand quilting. I had mentioned earlier in the month that I bought some 1/4″ tape for hand quilting. Oh my do I like it! I still need to work on keeping close to the tape and not veering off. It is SO much easier than drawing all the lines. I really would like to finish this before I start working on my hexagon quilt, but I am willing to set this aside to start working on the other one. Mainly because I put it on my list for the guild quilt show in October, so I need to get working on it!!!

I went to Anna’s this week and got almost all of the fat quarters I need for the fat quarter exchange. I need to get 1 more still, and it’s hard because not everyone has music themed fat quarters! There’s 1 shop close to the house that I can check, but I really don’t like shopping there because of how they make customers feel. I’ve talked with others that have the same opinion of them. No, I will not mention the name of the shop, everyone should make their own decisions!

Gotta run time to clean up toys so I can spend the evening working on hexagons after Alex goes to bed!

I know I shouldn’t be spending money on fabric and notions, but sometimes you just can’t help it ya know? I needed batting for a couple of quilts so I went to Joann’s last week. I need some more pins for hexagons, so I can prep more for basting. I think I’ve figured out what blocks I want to do for the guild block exchange and I needed a 3″ finished half square triangle die. Unfortunately I’m a dope and forgot that I already had that die, now I need to take this one back. You know how when you have a 60% off coupon, you HAVE to use it? Well that’s why I bought the jelly roll, absolutely no clue what I’ll do with it, but I loved the pattern!

I’m also participating in the fat quarter exchange at guild and they are due at our next meeting. So Alex and I went the other day to Olla Mae’s, which happens to be closing by the end of June!, and I got almost all of the 26 fat quarters I need. Of course I bought a few things for myself too! The aqua-ish fabric is for the block exchange, I just need a few more fabrics and I can wash it all and start working on blocks! They aren’t due until September, but as the coordinator I want to have them done early.

I’ve spent the last few days working diligently on the final cross stitch project for my cousin’s twins. Now I need to wash them and get the sewed into wall hangings before the party on June 8th. Shouldn’t take too long, so I’m not worried. But that means I can now start working on my hexagons again. Got the first round completed last night on one of them, hopefully I can finish that diamond tonight. Then I’ve only got 1 more and I can add the next row to the mother ship.

Hopefully be back soon with an update on the hexagon diamonds quilt!

Design Wall Monday – May 13, 2013

Well I managed to get 2 more diamonds completed the last few days. I finished the blue one during the guild meeting Tuesday and the pink one last night after we got home from camping. Two more diamonds and I can put the next row together. Unfortunately I need to put this aside for a little while so I can finish a cross stitch piece that is a present. I had started 2 pieces for my cousins twin for Christmas and just ran out of time to complete them. I have 1 more part to finish on the second piece and then I can put them both together.

I passed out the challenge fabric for the block exchange at our guild meeting last week, and now I need to figure out what my 2 blocks are going to be. I can’t get additional fabrics until I pick my blocks though. I also need to go shopping to get some fat quarters for the fat quarter exchange. They are due at our June meeting, so I need to get busy!

I am planning on going to Joann’s tomorrow to get some batting so I can finish some quilts. I’d like to work on the red, white and blue quilt for donation at guild. I also want to get my first hexagon quilt ready to be hand quilted. I’ve committed to putting it in our quilt show in October, so I need to get started working on it! I’ll finish the test piece once the hexagon one is done.

We had a speaker at guild last week that owns a quilt shop, Quilts & Sew Forth. Of course they brought products to sell. I don’t usually find anything that I want to buy, but I saw that they had a charm pack of Fossil Fern. 100 charms for $27!! I could not pass up that deal!!! Don’t know what I’m going to do with it yet, but it’s sitting here and ready to use for something!

Shopping Again

I was blog surfing the other day and found one that was using 1/4″ tape for quilting lines. I had asked where she found it because that is really what I’d like to use for my hand quilting since it’s easier than marking all those lines! My shipment came today from Connecting Threads and of course I had to add some items to the order since the tape was pretty cheap. I ordered 2 packs of 4 different charm packs to try their fabric. Each set should be enough to do hexagons, or triangles, or some size squares with. Not that I’ll be doing anything soon, but at least they are here and ready for me when I have time. Of course what do I see at Walmart today? The same quilters tape!! Oh well, I can always get it there when I run out of the 2 I just got today.

I managed to get another diamond completed and I have the next 4 prepped and ready to go. I’m hoping to get some work done on them this weekend since we’ll be camping and I won’t be able to watch much tv! I really like the colors in this one, I love the orange!!

I need to go and get the fabric for the block exchange split up and ready for the meeting tomorrow. Need to get everyone working on their blocks! I need to go shopping for some coordinating fabrics, plus fat quarters for the exchange, those are due in June.

Wiggly Whimsy – Row 3

I am FINALLY able to sit at the sewing machine and work on a project. We’ve had a lot of illness in the house the last few weeks and when we weren’t sick we were either packing my sister’s apartment or actually moving her to the house. The move is all done and while Alex and I are still sick, we are feeling much better!

So while Alex napped today I decided to work on the next row for Wiggly Whimsy. 3 rows are now completed and I can’t wait to see this completed. I think it’s going to look really cool with the black background. I’m really happy with how this quilt is turning out. I just finished sorting the rest of the 2.5″ squares into 4 piles for the rest of the rows. I might see if I can get all of the squares put together tonight – unless the hubby wants to watch shows! I took a picture of all 3 finished rows together, just looks cool!

Since I have a lot of projects that I’m working on that are using black as a background, I decided to get a bolt of the black Kona from Joann’s. A bolt is 8 yards and while it’s 7.99 a yard, I got a discount on the last 3/4 yard since it wasn’t a full yard. Plus I used a 40% off coupon and paid less $45 for 7+ yards of fabric plus a couple of water soluble markers that I need for my hand quilting. I shouldn’t need anything else to finish Wiggly Whimsy, and hopefully nothing else for the hexagon diamonds quilt.

I don’t have an update on hexagon diamonds, since I haven’t really been working on it lately. When I was sick I just didn’t feel like working on any hand work. I was working on the hexi prep during the last guild meeting, and it just sat for a week or 2. I almost have 1 of the 4 diamonds completed that I need for the next row, hopefully will be putting that all together by the weekend.

I’ll try not to be a stranger anymore, Alex has finally hit the terrible twos and I need the sewing to keep my sanity!

Design Wall Monday 030413

I haven’t had an update in awhile. I’ve been busy working on putting the next row of diamond hexagons together and finally finished the fifth one yesterday. Here’s my excuse 🙂 hubby decided we needed to reorganize all the hard drives on our network (including buying 2 new ones!). So I spent quite a few days moving files and renaming things. Then I was sick over the weekend – as in I was so cold that a blanket AND a fire didn’t help! Feeling much better now, but not much got done while I was sick. Oh yeah, I did read Jennifer Chiaverini’s The Giving Quilt that came out last fall. I liked it, but would have like more story around the main Elm Creek Quilter’s. Hopefully the next book will have that!

So I did get 2 of the diamonds attached last night, the other 3 are just in place and I hope to get attached tonight. I had originally planned on getting this done by the end of March. I am finally realizing that I was WAY too ambitious. Since we still not sure when the RV will be ready I guess it doesn’t matter. Besides, we don’t have the first camping trip planned yet! So I will keep working and see what I can get finished.

I was looking for something the other day (can’t for the life of me remember what it is now) and found a ziploc baggie with yo-yo makers and some fabric scraps. Red, white and blue of course! I’ll need to get these ironed up and run them through the Go, just need to decide which die to use. 2.5″ squares, chisels, drunkard’s path….so many choices! They really aren’t big enough to do anything else with, I’d rather make them into a size I can use.

I spent some time on ebay recently and found some really cute Valentine’s Day 2.5″ squares – 200 of them and for less than $10!! Of course I had to get them! Haven’t decided if I am using them as squares or if I will turn them into hexagons and them make something out of them. I’ll decide eventually, too many other projects in line before them! I have something else coming that I finally won, I’ll talk about that once it gets here!

Love Fat Quarter Shop!

I got my shipment on Friday, but it’s been a little busy around here and I haven’t had time to post it yet. I love the way things are packaged when you get order from Fat Quarter Shop. Everything is in nice zipped bags and fit in just the right size box with no extra shipping “junk” in it. I got a few things for myself, charm packs of Moda marbles – bright, pastel, citrus and warm – and a mini charm pack of Indigo Crossing. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with any of it, the mini charm pack might end up being a hexagon pillow or something since they are already 2.5″ squares.

The main purchase is the Camp Peanuts bundle to make a quilt for Alex’s bed in the RV. I need to decide on a pattern, I’m not sure the one I was thinking of will work. I’m going to need to muddle on it for a week or two before I start anything. Alex saw it the other night and flipped out, he likes Snoopy!

I’ve been thinking about getting an Accuquilt Studio lately. They have a sale going on that ends today, but it’s not enough of a sale to tempt me yet. The Studio cuts more layers of fabric, the Go can only do a maximum of 6 layers. I’m just starting to think I need more of a power house than the Go. It would have to be just the right sale to get me to do it though, since it’s a lot of money! There are more dies for the Studio than the Go and now that they have a tray that you can use the Go dies. So I’m not wasting the ones I’ve already bought. I’d still keep my Go since it’s portable and can be used anywhere. I’d just have to figure out where to put the Studio in my office, since I’m a little packed in here already. I might be able to put the printer somewhere else and put the Studio in its place. Since I’m not ready yet it doesn’t matter too much though! But that is something to think about before I buy it!

I don’t have anything new to show on Hexagon Diamonds, I wasn’t feeling well part of the week and didn’t do much work. I did however get all 5 diamonds prepped with the black pathways and I’m almost done with the first one. I hope to finish it tonight while we watch the Miami-Cleveland basketball game. Hopefully I’ll have an update on that soon!

New Fabrics!!!

Oh my goodness! I was scrolling through my Facebook feeds today and came across a post from Fat Quarter Shop. They have a Camp Peanuts collection that would be PERFECT for Alex for the RV. Of course I had to order it! I’m thinking I’ll cut the panel apart and use it in blocks, but I’ll have to wait until it gets here to figure out the pattern I want to use. Depending on the size of them I might even know one already, but I’ll have to wait and see. If it ships today I’ll have it on Friday, if not it’ll be here Monday. Can’t wait to see it and get a quilt made for Alex!

Odds and Ends

Decided to take a trip out to the nearest Hobby Lobby today. I was not impressed. There was a lot of frames, flower “stuff” and knick-knacks. Not much of a fabric selection for quilting, a few cross stitch kits that I would love to get, but they were $42 each and I just couldn’t justify it right now. I didn’t find any of the items I was looking for, which means I’ll need to order them online now. I’ve been looking for some vinyl numbers (years) for a project that I found on Pinterest. I finally remembered that one of my friends has a cricut and I’ve asked her if she can do what I need. I doubt I’ll go back there, especially since it’s almost a 45 minute drive from my house.

Back before Christmas I was playing with a new Go die I had ordered and decided to use up some scraps to make a runner for the island. While I finished the top, I never got it quilted before the holidays and just put it on the island as a top. I managed to quilt it in January but hadn’t sewn the binding down to the back. I also had a pile of additional pieces cut out to make a smaller runner for the dining room table and got that put together and quilted over the weekend. So my Super Bowl project was sewing down binding on them. Took me a few days to get all that binding sewn down, but I’m loving how they look! I used scraps for the back and for the first time I sewed pieces of scrap batting together to make pieces big enough. It was not as hard as I thought it was going to be, and I used up a bunch of littler pieces. For smaller projects this will be a great way to use up all those little pieces. I just can’t see doing it for a larger quilt, I’d rather buy the right size instead of piecing it together.

I also spent a little money this week! I decided that instead of printing and cutting more hexagon pieces myself (which would involve getting more paper the right thickness), I’d buy some from paperpieces.com. I ordered Sunday, they shipped Monday and I got them on Wednesday! Can’t beat that! I ordered the biggest pack of hexagons, and I also bought some diamonds and triangles that will match up with the 1″ hexagons, just because I have ideas in my head I’d love to try out sometime. If I was ordering I might as well get all the pieces I wanted at the same time. I need to punch holes in the center of the hexagons so I pin them like all the ones I’ve made myself. I’m trying to decide if I want to make all the hexagon diamonds first or put them into the quilt as I make them. Having this many hexagon papers will help, but I still don’t think it’s going to be enough. One of these days I need to count how many pieces are going to be in this quilt. If my calculations are correct there are 1605 hexagons in the diamonds (half and full). I have no clue how many hexagons are in the pathways, that will take a lot longer to count up! Maybe this will be enough hexagons. I also need to take all the papers out of my first hexagon quilt so I can use those too, that will be the next one that I hand quilt, if I can ever get back to my second practice piece.

I’m thinking about joining a hexagon swap, I can’t commit to the current one because I need to get other items done first. I’m just concerned about the way they baste, I’d like to baste my way!

Oh well, things to do around the house, hopefully I’ll be back with some updates soon.

Ironing Station

Well, my order from Joann’s showed up late last week and I got the cubes put together. Need hubby’s help to put the casters on and we need to see if we have a piece of plywood we can use for the top or if we need to buy one. I’m really hoping we have a piece that we can use and that I can get hubby to help me get this finished. I have lots of left over batting and I need to pick some fabric to use. I think I’ll use some of my brown equinox fabric – not a lot of things I use it on since it’s a weird brownish color. No pictures yet, everything is spread out in my office. I’ll get some as soon as it’s all together though!

No sewing or stitching was done this weekend, it was such a nice weekend weather-wise that we took Alex to the park on Saturday morning. He loved playing on the equipment, looking at the geese and then we went walking on a bridle trail. He did not want to turn around and go back to the car! Needless to say he slept quite well that afternoon! I think the fact the he likes the outdoors is a big plus because we bought an RV yesterday! Spent 6 hours at the RV show and decided on one that has 4 bunk beds! Have to wait 6-8 weeks for them to build it and we cannot wait to go camping! Never thought I’d say it though! My idea of camping is A/C, heat, kitchen, bathroom – not tents!!! Oh and now I need to make a queen sized quilt for our bed!!!

I hope to have an update on the Cavs cross stitch soon, I’m working on filling in the white letters now.