Life is good!

School is in full swing, and it's easy to forget how busy this time of year is.  I'm in our local Fine Arts Boosters for our school district.  I'm a huge proponent of arts and music in the school, and my sister is the local high school choir director.  So this is me putting my time and money where my mouth is, but this is a crazy time of year for the boosters.  We have a couple of portable carts at the local university football games, so we have to find volunteers for that.  We made and sold kettle corn at a two day craft fair last weekend.  That happens to be right across the road from my house, so I was there for quite a bit of that.  We sell more kettle corn and biscuits and gravy at the local fall festival, which is this weekend.  And we do a pancake supper at the high school homecoming.  So it's a LOT of rounding up volunteers, and a lot of a core group of us doing a LOT of stuff.  I had to take a half day of vacation yesterday to r...

I'm afraid there won't be much sewing this week.  This weekend I have a wedding to go to, and then the family is getting together for our Fall soup-making.  We're only doing 125 quarts this year, though, so hopefully that will go more quickly than usual! I need to get the Morris blocks trimmed down.  I guess I need to queue up my audible book or some Netflix for that; it shouldn't take long once I get going.  I did start making more of the Prism diamonds.  They look so lovely when together - I have a feeling I'm going to love that one! I opened the kit for Winter Garden, and it's basically a panel with borders so I can finish that with any decent chunk of time.  I also broke out the kit for Quill and am going to press those fabrics soon, and get started cutting. Every Which Way is almost done, I hope to finish that tonight.  I need to get the long-arm freed up for a friend.  Shenandoah will be the next one loaded, I think.  Side note - ...

In the last post I listed a few things to get done -  Finish cutting the sashing for the Morris quilt.  The blocks are almost done. Assemble the top of Bitter Almond Attach the handle of the 2nd Maker's Tote Pictures of Band Camp quilt Assemble the top of Shenandoah (should be quick...) Load every which way onto the long-arm.  The first is done!  I had a bit of a panic, as I'd run out of Kona Charcoal.  No problem, I thought at first, I'll just run to my LQS and pick up some more.  Well, it didn't match.  Ack!  I went back and forth, debating what to do.  In desperation, I checked my solids shelf one last time, and found another half yard of the original cut.  I had this much left when I finished cutting sashing strips. I think the new stuff will be fine to use for the binding.  So now I just need to lay those out and get them assembled.  I still need to assemble the top of Bitter Almond - no progress there, lar...

The family reunion is over, the fair is over, the students are almost back to campus and my kids are getting ready to get back to school.  So it's time to crack down and get back to work! Progress, though - singing the blues is at the Bakeshop! One of my favorite quilty buddies happens to be a cousin, and I made her a Maker's Tote to give her at the reunion. (I cut out a second one for me, and it's almost done as well.) Classic meets modern blocks! Angela Walter's Build a Quilt block I need some good pictures of recent finishes, like Band Camp and my Frond Butterfly quilt And Bitter Almost just needs assembled, although I'm still debating sizing it up for my bed.  It does beg the question of how many quilts do I need for my bed.  I only have two, currently. So things that I need to do: Finish cutting the sashing for the Morris quilt.  The blocks are almost done. Assemble the top of Bitter Almond Attach the handle of the 2nd Maker...

My latest Moda Bakeshop quilt is done!  This was a relatively simple pattern, but with the beautiful blue fabrics and the fun I had with the machine quilting, it's a new favorite. It's a relatively straightforward design and construction.  I put it together in columns, to speed up construction and reduce the number of seams.   I sketched out half a dozen different quilting designs, and went with one that I ended up loving.  It was definitely a challenge to quilt, as it involved rolling the quilt back and forth a LOT on the rollers.  It was enough to make me wonder how expensive it would be to get one of those frames with the automatic advance features, that's for sure.  All of the filler motifs are ones that I've done before, but it's always challenging to do them on the diagonal, and consistently filling in those corners was a challenge, but overall I'm quite pleased.  I also ended up outlining each of the blocks by stitching in the...

There has been progress in the past couple of weeks; nothing dramatic, but it's there! Moving along on the Build a Quilt BOM - this is block 9.  I'm pretty please with how this one came out. I spent some time working with my daughter on a visual arts project for 4-H.  I like the texture in this; she's having fun with it as well. This project jumped into the queue.  I hadn't planned on it for this year, but I'm part of our local Fine Arts Boosters, and we're raising money for new marching band uniforms.  This one is going to be raffled off; hopefully it will at least raise enough to buy one uniform!  Those things are expensive. Another one jumped into the project list as well.  A co-worker of my husband's, who is also a quilter, lost everything in a house fire recently.  She likes blue, so I made her a queen size blue and white quilt.  It's a pretty basic one, but it's done except for the binding. I've made significant progres...

Some charity quilts on the frame - Natalie and I finished these up.  I did some simple quilting on this one - this quilt is really all about the fabrics and colors, so I kept the quilting to a minimum.  I now have a binding pile again! Our guild is doing a mystery challenge, and although I know what the result is, so it really isn't a mystery to me, I'm still playing along.  It's a great opportunity to use up this Kate Spain!   A sneak peek at a mystery project!  Lots of fun quilting on this one...  One of the Build a Quilt blocks.   And another couple of blocks for Classic Meets Modern! I've been making some progress on Bitter Almond - lots of piecing for that one.  I need to get more piecing done for Morris Apprentice, as well.  If I get some time to get something on the frame, I'll probably load up Crystal Gems or the modern quilt.  Crystal Gems is just all over quilting, and I will have a li...