Sunday, January 13, 2013

Time to kick up my feet.....

Kicking up my feet and having a cup of Lipton's White Mangosteen and Peach tea.


I just finished my December and January calendar blocks that are due at tomorrow night's guild meeting.  You have to have a completed block to get the next month's pattern.  I am thinking February has  to be hearts of some sort. 

Anyways...here is December's. 


Of all the doodads I have in this house, I could not find one jingle bell to put on the tip of Santa's hat, so I will be doing that at a later date. 

Now, January's block.


As cute as all those snowmen are, I am ready for Spring.  It doesn't even look like winter outside right now here because of all the rain we have had here in the last two days, all the snow has been washed away.   I am still ready for Spring.  

Oh well....I just need to be patient.  

Friday, January 11, 2013

Help me save this quilt......

This is the third quilt of my son's that I need to do something with so that I can get it "out" of my sewing room and get on to "my" things. 

 
I  love this quilt and have won ribbons and $$$ with it.  It is my son's wedding quilt (he is a landscape architect), so the pattern seemed to fit.  

Here's a close up.



Anyways, a few years back, he went through a very nasty divorce. 

Now he is engaged to someone that we love  dearly and she likes this quilt, but the problem is this.....


The back of the quilt is covered in signatures  in the light colored areas.  54 out of 100 of those light rectangles have signatures on them.  

My original thought was to applique a rectangle over them, but that is more work than I want to put into this quilt.  I have more fun things that I want to move on to.  

So, I am looking for suggestions on what I can do on the 54 blocks or all of them if need be....dye?.....pen?.....crayon?....????  that won't go through to the front of the quilt and ruin it.  

Please help.  I want this done and over with.  I would appreciate any suggestions.  

Thanks ahead of time.  



Thursday, January 10, 2013

Two quilts going home....

Part of the New Year's clean up in the sewing room was to get a couple quilts that belonged to my son back to him. 

This one was made by his grandmother back in the 80s.   It was a die-cut kit  that she hand button-hole stitched and the quilting bee ladies from the church hand quilted it.  


Here's a close up of her beautiful stitching.  It could almost pass for machine satin stitching.  

She only made six quilts that I know of in her lifetime and they were for her six grandkids.

I had this one to wash and to finally put a label on this quilt.  Thank goodness my mother-in-law gave me the dates for each of the quilts so that I could put the history of them on the back of the quilts. 

Then there was the choo-choo train quilt that was my son's when he was a little boy made for him by my mom.  This was a much loved quilt and had lots of wear and tear on it.  


The quilt had to be bound to cover the thread bare edges; and the trains hat and scarf which were made with  seersucker  were falling to pieces, so I appliqued over those pieces.  I nearly gave up on this because it just wasn't fun.  But....my 35-year-old son wanted his quilt and I wanted it out of my sewing room. 

 

So here he is with his "choo-choo train" quilt.  LOL!!

Two down, one more to go for him, but that one will be another post all by itself.  

So, that makes two more things off my check list of things to do in the sewing room.  Every little check mark makes me smile. 

Happy quilting!

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Oh my Gosh!!!

Where was this article two weeks ago when I was gutting, purging, cleaning and organizing my sewing room?

http://www.quiltviews.com/lets-get-organized-by-carolyn-woods

I could have written this article!!!

 
Of course, now I have to show you my cleaned sewing room (no before pictures as it was quite depressing).
 
Closet #1
 
 
All boxes are labeled.
 
 
Closet #2
 
 
Clean sewing table.
 
 
Straightened out cupboard.
 
 
Ironing board to the side of the cupboard.  According to the article, I will have to get rid of that brown paper bag.  There is a project in there and it IS easily forgotten because I can't see it. 
 
It pays to be organized.  Sure glad I started out the new year with an organized sewing room. 
 
Now to get busy!  

 

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Determined to move ahead....

Sewing room is all organized.  Lists have been made as to what needs to be done as far as projects go and as I have been told....not all of  the things on my list are considered UFOs; but I figure if it is weighing me down, then it is a good thing to list them and then scratch them off when they are done. 
 
Take for instance....this little safety pin.
 
 
I can't tell you how long that has been there, but  it has been a loooonnnng time.  It is there to remind me that there is a little snippet in the fabric that needed to be fixed.  Even the grandkids kept asking me why there was a safety pin in the quilt.  Well out of sight, out of mind.
 
When I organized the sewing room, I came across 1/4 yard of the red fabric that I used in this quilt.  I appliqued a square covering that whole little block and now it is scratched off my list; and I can't even find it anymore. 
 
Next, I got a couple of my son's quilts here to do one thing or another with.  One of which is the one his grandmother made him.  She made one for each of the grandkids (six in total).  All of them were hand appliqued with a buttonhole stitch.  Well, she never made labels.  So, today I made three labels. My son's is now sewn on and I have put out a request from the girls to bring theirs over so that I can sew their labels on.  Grandma is gone and I am so ever thankful that she gave me a list of all six quilts and the year she made them.  Here's a peek at his quilt.
 
 
 
That is some pretty fine buttonhole stitches all done by hand. 
 
As for me.....I am only going to own up to a handful of UFOs.  I know I posted pictures a few days ago of all the block sets that I found, but in my heart, they aren't headed to be a quilt just yet.  The only UFOs I have that are started and I can see as a quilt at this point are  my Hearts and Hands, Dear Jane; Winter Botanical and even though I haven't started it yet, my black and white scrappy "Chinese coins". 
 
So, tonight I got out the Hearts and Hands to see just where I was in the process. 
 
Had to organize the blocks with the pattern to see what still needed to be done.  Here's how I handled that.
 
 
I laid each of my finished blocks onto the corresponding pattern.  I only have 18 applique blocks to go.  Of course, I think I did all the easy ones first!
 
Then there are these.
 
 
I need 49 more of these.  Of course, they are the most complex of the New York Beauties in this quilt.  But hey....just one at a time.  I think the hardest thing is putting fabrics together. 
 
So...I have sewn on the 1st day of January and if the rumor is correct, I should be sewing the rest of the year.  
 
Hope everyone had a  Happy New Year.  I am off to do some more stitching. 
 


HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

I am planning on being in the sewing room all day today, because as you know, what you do today, you will do all year long. 
 
So take some stitches today so that you are assured of a quilty year for 2013.  

Michigan quilters, take note

  Come see us at our first Quilter's to Quilter's sale.   Don't know what that is?  Well, it will be 28 quilters/vendors selling...