Snow Days

We had 10" of snow here last Sunday and then on Monday and Tuesday the temperatures were way below zero. Purdue University and The National Group was closed for business, so that meant snow days for us.

 I still considered myself and Mabel on vacation, so I didn't do any customer quilting, although I could have gotten a lot done. Instead, I rearranged my sewing room so that I could see my new flat screen TV (Christmas gift from Dan. Thanks honey!)

While rearranging and sorting through things, I came across a bunch of little projects that I thought I could whip out really quick.

This I-Spy quilt just needed the small yellow borders attached. They were all cut and ready to go. I wonder why I didn't do that before?

These pillowcases were ready to stitch together too, so I got out the serger and they were finished just like that and they are ready to donate.

On Facebook, one of my friends shared this idea.

What is it you might ask? It's a room heater, made with tea light candles, a meatloaf pan and clay pots. My sewing room doesn't have a furnace vent and it gets really cold in there. After having this going for several hours, the temperature was 2 degrees warmer than the living room. Pretty amazing! Here's how to make one.

I also spent quite a bit of time playing Candy Crush, that dreaded time-sucker that I love! I posted on Facebook asking my friends how many levels they passed during the snow days. My friend Peggy said she was assembling her row-by-row quilt. Oops, I forgot about that quilt, which is to be shown at this month's guild meeting on January 15th. Yikes!!! I had barely even looked at my rows since we finished passing them months ago.

I decided on the sashing fabric and was auditioning the borders here. I'll show you the whole thing after the meeting next Wednesday.

 For those of you that might not know what a row-by-row is…
There were 7 quilters in our group and we each supplied our own fabrics, made the first row and put them into a tote. Each person selected a block to use to make their rows. So, I made the same row of blocks, just used a different quilters fabrics each month.
Here are some of the rows I made:

Paper Piecing, Row-By-Row and Doll Clothes

Last Thursday I led a group of quilters in Frankfort at L&S Fish Sew-N-Vac in their first adventure in paper piecing. Paper piecing is one of those things that you either LOVE or HATE. Of the 6 that were there only one HATED it. So much so that she left after 15 minutes. Made me feel really bad :(

Here is my project, ready for quilting. I think I will buy a hanger from Ackfield Wire to display it. If you haven't checked out their quilt hangers, you should do it now. They have great products!

The other 5 quilters finished the top of their piece and had every intention of taking it home to finish the rest of it.  The block is Desert Lily by Caroline Reardon, Block #248 from Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks, Volume 3.

Last weekend I worked on Judy's Row-By-Row and I am happy with the result. We each picked a block to use and mine is a double square-in-a-square. The blocks are 8" and the sashing strips finish  just shy of 1.375. Here are all three of her rows so far and mine is on the left. She asked for the yellow to be used as a background.

And last but not least, a set of PJ's for Liz's American Girl doll, Julie. I intended to do these for her birthday but they got buried in the sewing room. I'll probably keep them for a while as she doesn't play with Julie as much as she does Lily. You may remember that Lily got some clothes for Christmas last year.

That's what has been keeping me busy lately, when I'm not quilting with Mabel.

Janet and Mabel!

Janet came to quilt yesterday. She brought her Row-by-Row quilt from last year. It's a very pretty quilt and she did a great job. I made the 2nd row from the left.

We had a false start, as she tried a new panto, Bush Berries, and didn't like the thread or the panto. So, 2 hours later she was off to a much better start, with a lighter thread and Popcorn panto.

Concentrating really hard:

And the back:

Mary's Row-by-Row

Last year our guild had a three groups of row-by-rows. Mary made this beautiful one. She wanted an all-over design and I chose Bountiful Feathers.

The fabrics are pretty and the rows are cute as can be.

Hobbs 80/20 batting and PermaCore Mother Goose thread.

My Row-by-Row

I showed this at guild on Wednesday and we washed it tonight and it's on our bed. There were 13 of us in this row-by-row and I may have said this before, but I didn't realize we were all going to make a row for everyone. When I've been in row-by-rows before with lots of peope, we just made rows for say, the next 6 or 7 on the list. So I may not have made rows for the same people as my other friends did. Anyway, I love how this turned out. I ended up with three 6" rows, which I took apart to fit around the dresden plates Janet made. I had five 8" rows and took one of them apart to use as corner stones for the 8" round. I had four 12" rows and took them apart and used sone of the leftover pieces in my tote to make them the correct size.



A closer look at the quilting:


Most of my fabrics are batiks or hand dyes, with a few regular cottons.

And the backing.



I quilted this with Bountiful Feathers after much deliberation. Lava thread and Hobbs 80/20 batting.

Guild Row-By-Row

I put the final stitches in the binding of my row-by-row this evening. I'm really happy with this quilt and I was amazed at how well the rows, made by 13 different people, went together.

I'll take some photos of the whole quilt tomorrow, but here's a peek:

Design Wall Monday

Last week's design wall(floor) stayed that way until yesterday. I wanted to have a post for today, so I got busy after spending the afternoon at the movie, seeing "The Help" with Janet and Randy. It was a great movie!

I took apart the 12" rows and added 6-8" pieces to make up the needed space. I used that butterfly backing fabric for the corners.

I may just load this one and quilt it today.



It was 11pm when I finished and Dan was in bed, but I was wide awake, so I pulled out the blocks for Jeff and Dané's new king size quilt and started sewing them together.



This is how far I got before the stroke of midnight and my signal that it was time for bed. The black horizontal strips are not sewn to the rows yet, just wanted a peek at how it was going to look.

Quilt of Valor and my last Row-by-Row

I had the honor of attending the presentation of a Quilt of Valor to a wounded Marine yesterday at the Tippecanoe County Fairgrounds. It was one that I quilted and it did my heart good to see this young man and his family accept it.


I will be turning over my last row-by-row this evening and I must say that this has been one very long row-by-row. We ended up with 13 or 14 people and I thought we were only going to do the next 6 or 7 people on our lists, but we ended up doing all of them. I'm not really sure how I'm going to put together 14 rows, but I'll give it my best shot.

Here's Shelly's row that I made:

FNSI

I did get some stitching done......I finished Laurie's Row-by-Row.The block is Louisiana from quilterscache.com
Mine is the top one:



And here are all of her rows so far. She ran out of background fabric before I got her tote, so mine is the only one with the new background. Maybe she'll make 2 quilts? or maybe not.

Floral Baby Quilt

My daughter-in-law is attending a baby shower next week and asked me about a quilt. I had this one ready to be quilted and loaded it up and quilted it last weekend. I finished the binding at quilt guild last night. Hearts and roses panto, Hobbs 80/20 batting and Permacore Eggshell thread.



Such a pretty soft green for the back:


Before guild I sewed some leftover strips together and stitched them down the center of some bibs for burp cloths to match.



I even used one of my decorative stitches to stitch down the seams. You probably have lots of those stitches also and if you're like me, seldom use them. As I make more clothes for Elizabeth I will probably use more of them.


I threw it in the washer and dryer last night and now it's all ready to be sent to Dané.




Row-by-row
I can show you the latest row that I made as we meet later today to exchange row totes. This one is Cheryl's and she has a very retro style, even her house has a retro look to it, just cute as can be. Anyway, her fabrics are 1930's and I picked a bowtie block for her. I'm not sure of the "actual" size of a bow tie block, but I made mine 6" finished. I cut the big squares 3.5" and the little ones 1.75, so I could cut one 3.5" strip and then subcut.

Odds and Ends

My Valentine's Day rose:


I finished my sweatshirt jacket last night and I must say that it looks much better on my co-worker Margaret than it does on me. The sleeves are SHORT, even though I added a 1" binding to them, they could have used 2" at least. Maybe the cuffs could have been re-attached? The jacket itself is rather short, but I guess not too bad. I will probably be making another one of these, maybe not so scrappy next time.




Here is Jane's row-by-row. I made two inch 4-ptch posie blocks and put them on point.



Can you guess what this is?

Time flies!

Where does the time go? I can't believe that it's almost Friday already....it was just Monday!



I must put these blocks together tomorrow and could use some opinions. There are 6 blocks in this row-by-row and I can't seem to decide on which way they should be sewn together. The pic is 4 different layouts.

I think my problem is that one of the light backgrounds is too dark and that's throwing me off. The other challenge is whether to have the blocks all going the same way or to alternate the orientation. The block pattern is Starry Ways and Marcia shows them alternating when used to make the entire quilt.

On another note, I must confess about an embarrassing moment. A couple weeks ago, Janet was here cutting strips on the Go Cutter. She came back from the bathroom and said, "Maybe you already know this but I noticed that your candle mat in the bathroom hasn't been handstitched closed on the back." Well, I did know it when I put it out, but planned to stitch it up sometime during the holiday season. We had a good laugh over that one and this week I stitched it up and even added some crosshatch quilting.



So, now it can be washed and put away for Christmas 2011.

Row-by-row

Here is my row for the new RBR that I am joining. My online friend Gracie from New York actually made these blocks for me in our 12 Days of Christmas exchange, and I had not decided what I wanted to do with them.



The RBR needs to be passed tonight, so last night I sewed these beautiful blocks together, gathered up some batiks and I'm all set.




i got the borders sewn on the stack n whack from Monday's design wall photo.

Row-By-Row

I received my tote back last night from our row-by-row and I couldn't be happier with what my friends have done. The fabrics are Kansas Troubles and I made the row on top to start it off. I said that I wanted something with a "lodgy" look. Well, I think they did just that. I'm not sure why 2 of the rows are so long, but I may make more of the flying geese and use them as one of the borders.

Thanks to Linda, Lisa, Peggy, Cathy, Vicki and Adrienne. I believe that's the order of the rows starting with the 2nd from the top.

Design Wall - October 19, 2009

This morning my design wall looked like this:



After we looked at a house this evening, I sewed the blocks of this row-by-row together and it is ready to hand over to it's owner on Wednesday.



To see other design walls this week, check out JudyL's blog.