Andrew's Bag

So, I went home at lunch and whipped up this little tote bag for Andrew.


I think it turned out pretty good with one exception.
The straps are a poly (I think) webbing. Janet gave it to me I believe. When I was pressing the top edges before I topstitched them, I ran the iron over the strap and YIKES....black stuff all over the place....on the bag, the ironing board and the iron. I'll have to deal with that little issue later.


I'm not sure if it is big enough to hold the quilt, but I think he will have fun carrying it around. Maybe he can load it up when he comes to grandma's house for an overnight!

Whew - A Clean Stovetop!

Yesterday Bingo Bonnie posted a challenge to do something that you don't like to do and she cleaned her stovetop. Well, I knew that mine needed to be cleaned, too. On Christmas Day I had a big spill of Green Bean Casserole in the oven and I ran the cleaning cycle a few days later and got it all wiped out, but neglected to do anything to the top. Her challenge was just what I needed, so I had a quick dinner of leftover chicken burrito with rice and then it was time to get out the Mr. Clean Magic Erasers. I LOVE those things. I went through two of them, but have a sparkling clean stovetop now. You can see that I was finished around 7:30pm and that left me just enough time to load and quilt Andrew's I-spy quilt.





I used Lava Deep Sea for the top and PermaCore Flapper Blue in the bobbin, Popcorn Panto and Hobbs 80/20 batting that was from a package and it is quite a bit lighter weight than what comes off the roll. I guess I didn't realize that before. The quilt is a bit larger than I intended, but I had so many cute novelty prints that I just kept sewing them together. Julie actually cut quite a few of them for me when she was making Rylan's I-spy quilt. She took my novelty drawer home and cut away. I ended up with an odd number of squares, which wouldn't work since I have 2 of each fabric so he can play a matching game. So, I printed out a photo of him to use as one of the squares. The first one I printed was too big, so I printed another smaller one.



I came up with an idea in the middle of the night and when I got up this morning I cut some fabric to make a tote bag for him with his picture on it and I embroidered his name in big block letters before I left for work. I will go home at lunch and assemble the bag and get some pictures of the quilt and bag.

Stashbusting Week #1

January 1-4, 2009

Fabric Added This Week - 0 yards
Fabric Added Year to Date - 0 yards

Fabric Used This Week - 10.375 yards
Fabric Used Year to Date - 0 yards

YEAR TO DATE NET TOTAL: 10.375 yards

Guess what? When you have a new grandchild born, you don't have time to go fabric shopping.....
I did manage to get in some quilting time though.

A New WISP Challenge

One Project A Month Challenge
While catching up on blog reading the other day, I came across this challenge that started between Kris, May and Hanne, to finish one WISP a month. They decided to extend it and now have over 100 bloggers signed up.

Now, if you know me, you know that I cannot pass up a challenge, so over there>>>
will be my monthly list of WISP finishes. I actually have one almost ready to post, maybe it will be finished tomorrow....

IT'S A GIRL!

OH MY, I'M SO EXCITED!

My daughter and her husband are the proud parents of a baby girl. She was born at 10AM today and weighs 8lbs, 3ozs and is 21-1/2 inches long and just the sweetest thing ever. Today is Jim's birthday and what a birthday present for a proud father. Of course, after 3 boys they don't have a lot of girly things, so grandma has already gone shopping for some pink.



I think Andrew likes her:

2008 - A Year In Review

This is how I used over 400 yards of fabric in one year:
I completed 21 UFOs from a list made on January 1, 2008

I completed a total of 137 quilted items including:
8 queen quilts
5 twin quilts
17 lap quilts
6 wall hangings
18 baby quilts
83 other projects including 19 stockings, 18 pillowcases, 8 fabric baskets, 6 placemats, 9 bags/purses/wallets

Where are they now? Of those 137:
70 - went to charity
33 - were given as gifts
25 - are mine
9 - were commissioned


In addition to the 116 items that I started and completed this year, I have 17 NEW UFOs to start this year with.

Whew, it makes me tired to compile all of this. Tomorrow or Saturday I will post a summary of quilting for others.
That is, of course, if I can tear myself away from that new little grandbaby due tomorrow morning at 11AM.

Pretty Breast Cancer Ribbons

The Breast Cancer T-shirt Quilt was picked up today and they loved it. I think it's the nicest T-shirt quilt I've done. The quilting is a simple ribbon meander and the batting is Hobbs 80/20 with pink PermaCore thread.



Several of the shirts only had a small image rather than a full front or back. I sewed two of them together to make some corner blocks.




There was one shirt that had this little embroidered ribbon and I sashed it and placed it on this empty space.