Get me out of the kitchen!

For someone who hates cooking, I am spending an awful lot of time in the kitchen lately! Today salsa was made, chicken soup made and is being canned now, grocery shopping was done, more cukes and tomatos were prepped for canning tomorrow night, etc. I am truly in awe of how much bounty my little 20 x 20 garden has produced. I can't wait for the second garden to come in and I know my family will be eating well this winter!!!

I did manage to get into the sewing room and finish up all my bowties. I even had time to put them into blocks!



I ran out of the blue sashing material before I had all the blocks I wanted so I am rethinking my quilt. Ah...love being able to just veer into a different direction when I need to! I am going to play around tonight with the setting and decide if I want to figure out a different sashing or not.

Here is this week's list to get done (wow...actually on Sunday, not Tues! lol)

1) last 100 blocks magazine test block
2) finish up last blocks for Scatty Christmas Stars
3) piece together more batting
4) quilt either Mercy House quilt or Chunky Churndash
5) keep playing with bowtie quilt

Wish me luck!!

A Few Mo' Bowties

Got to work for a little bit in the sewing room tonight and I now have half of my bowties done for my project. That would be 60 of them so far. I have some of them already made into my blocks (sheesh..I just COULDN'T wait to see!) and so far I am still loving it! Whew lol. The plan is to finish up the bowties on my Thursday Night Quilt League. Then the real fun can begin as I put them into blocks and get them put together. Still not sure what I am going to do about the borders, but I still have time. That is the best thing about this quilt. I am keeping it, so I can take my time..no rush, no deadline. What a glorious feeling!!!

Bumblebeans and the Kitchen Sink

I am "friends" with author Marie Bostwick on facebook. She posted that she got to meet a really terrific lady who has undertaken a HUGE project. The lady is Victoria Findlay Wolfe and the project is Bumblebeansbasic. I won't go into all the details as you can just click on the link to get all the details, but I will sum it up that Victoria needs 400 quilts...by November! Mind you, that is to add to the 300 she has already gotten! Anywho, Marie and a fellow Cobbled Court online quilt circle member, Carla H, threw out the challenge to the other members of the circle to finish up a UFO and donate it. I jumped in and this afternoon, I pulled out my Kitchen Sink top and got it all quilted. Now I just need to handsew down the binding tomorrow night and off into the mail on Tuesday. Here is the quilt:



The pattern is Kitchen Sink by Kim Brackett in her Scrap-basket surprises book. It measures 57x62. They need all sized quilts. Check it out and donate a quilt or 3!!

So, I didn't get Mercy House or Chunky Churndash quilted like on my list, but I am happy with at least getting one UFO done!

I also didn't can green beans. I did can this:



That is 6 pints of relish, 6 pints of bread and butter pickles and 6 quarts of dill pickles. I have never made any pickles before, so this was way cool for me!! I also made these:



Dilled eggs and cidered eggs. Haven't made those before either and hub can hardly wait to eat'em!!

I got these all done today. The rest of the week I only got 1 set of blocks done for the Scatty Christmas stars quilt, I made my 2 test pattern blocks and made more bowties and got a few of them set in blocks. Hopefully will have more time to work on those this week. I will be thinking about my list for this week and will post it tomorrow. For now...bath, book and bed. Night, my friends!!

Ohhhh!!!

My Thursday night quilt league is getting a late start, but I am so excited about something that is rolling around in my head, I don't care!!! I saw a pic of an antique quilt that I just LOVED and it reminded me of one I had seen that I knew was similar. It takes my old brain a while to kick into gear to remember things, so it FINALLY came to me. It was Bonnie Hunter's Bowdacious bow ties quilt. Yay! I have the book that pattern is in, so I can use a little bit of her and a little bit of me to start this quilt!! Oh, I hope it turns out as wonderfully in real life as it looks in my head! lol

Bad news is...that means items on my list for the week are going to take a back burner tonight. Oh well, there is always next week's list! lol

Will report in soon...hopefully with some progress on my bowtie blocks!!

Update:



Here is a pic of some of the scrappy bow ties I made tonight. There are more, but I already got them made into blocks and I don't want to show those just yet. I want to surprise you! So far, I am loving this!! Unfortunately, my mind is still racing and wanting to sew, but after working 10 hours today, my body is saying, "no way, old woman!!" LOL..guess the body wins. Off to book, bath and bed for me. Hope I don't have to wait until this weekend to work some more on this!!!

List for week of 8/15

I didn't work nearly as much on my projects while we were camping as I had planned, but that is okay because I spent that time doing things with the family and building some wonderful memories! We went on hikes on trails like this:



We also played a ton of board games and ate like there was no tomorrow!

I did manage to finish outline quilting all the petals on the Giant New York Sunflower and started quilting a design in the first set of yellow petals:



Here is my list of goals for this week:

1) test 2 block patterns for 100 Blocks Magazine
2) finish up last 2 sets of blocks for Scatty Christmas Stars quilt
3) can green beans and plant more!!
4) piece together batting
5) quilt second Mercy House quilt OR Chunky Churndash depending on how big the pieced batting turns out
6) finish putting blocks together for Delfina's Baskets quilt

There sure are a lot more projects I could add, but I know I am going to be REALLY busy out in the gardens this week after being gone all last week!!

Day behind Christmas quiltalong

Well, we got back yesterday from vacation, but it was too late to join in the Christmas quiltalong. I figured that between doing the laundry from 6 people camping for a week, I would try to fit some sewing in. So far I have the first 4 sets of star blocks done:



I, of course, could not find block #5 so Sue graciously just sent it to me. I am hoping to get those done and the rail fence blocks done tonight. Doubt I will get them put together, but any little bit is good!!

We had a wonderful time at the cabin in the woods. We had this right outside our door:



I don't know if you can see it well, but it has a face like Pinocchio on it. The nose is pointing off towards the left, eyes above it and it looks like he is whistling or sticking his tongue out.
Another visitor we had was on Sunday night..a big black bear came right up to our porch! I was sitting on the porch by myself and this guy was so quiet I didn't know he was there until I he was right on the other side of the porch railing! Of course it was 10 o'clock at night and all I had was my cell phone. Black bears in a black forest at night, just don't come out in pics! He wasn't phased when I hollered for my hub to come see him. He just kinda ambled around a bit. Hub put the van lights on to try to get a better pic, but it didn't work. He finally just wandered back into the woods. So, here is my pic of the bear...that no one is gonna believe me really IS a bear!! lol



Hub and the kids got to see another bear crossing a road on Friday night on our way back from a beach party, but I was driving another vehicle and missed that one. After 5 years of going to the park, we finally got to see bears! YAY!

Unfortunately, we also had a bad accident there:



This is what happens when your van loses BOTH brake lines and shoots down a hill BACKWARDS at 35 mph!! The power lines were all down around it, it hit hard enough to break the driver seat and both driver AND the seat were thrown into the back, the front passenger also was thrown into the back and just about all 4 passengers hit their heads on something. God was watching out for us, though, as no one was hurt. The area this happened in, is usually filled with kids playing, cars around, etc..and there was NO ONE around when this happened. Only God could make that happen!!

Despite that, everyone had a great time down there (once the shock and fear wore off). I will post more pictures in the upcoming posts. Now, back to laundry, dinner and then more sewing!!!

Buh-bye!

We are heading off today for our week in the woods at Allegany State Park. Boy, do we NEED this. Life has just been out of control and some down time is just the answer. No electricity, no running water in the cabin..BLISS!

It does require some thought on what to bring along to work on, since there is no electricity. I am bringing along the Giant New York Sunflower quilt (up on the header here) to do some more handquilting on when the light is good and I will be bringing along some yarn and needles to start a pair of fingerless gloves (how I LOVE those things) when the light isn't as good. I am sure an extra project or two will end up in there.

The kindle is a definite, lots of board games and some good hiking shoes. I won't have much accomplished by the time I get back, but hopefully I will be refreshed and rejuvenated so I can make some good progress when I get home!

Btw..you can still vote at the online quilt contest for my quilt, Pete and Bev's Hideaway, at http://quiltinggallery.com/blog-posts/ The quilts there are so gorgeous, it is worth a peek!!!

Take care, my friends, and see you in a week!!!

A BIG favor, please!

I entered the log cabin quilt I made for my inlaws in an online quilt contest over at the quilting gallery. Remember this one?



If you wouldn't mind going over to the site and checking out the quilts, I would appreciate it. Vote for whichever one you think is the best, but of course I am hoping you think mine is! It is called Pete and Bev's Hideaway. Voting is today through Sunday and you can vote here

Enjoy looking at all the gorgeous quilts!!

The room is DONE..whew

Yup..I know I said I was going to do a little each day, but once I started, I couldn't stop. I actually finished it late last night and it was no where near as hard as I expected it to be!

I got a lot of emails saying that the room didn't look too bad. Well, you will see how bad it was in the before and after pics here. The whole room shot didn't show all!



This was to the left of the entrance to the room. On the left is a mound of upholstery samples I was given, there is a bag of jeans there, a small box on top of some projects that are either done or need a little something to finish them off, and the big box is..gasp...SCRAPS!
Right next to that was this:



Buried back there is a bookshelp my Dan made me in high school. Fabric is hanging off the top and there are 2 old pillowcases stuffed with teensy bits to be made into dog beds.

Now it looks like this:




Is that a box of scraps or WHAT?? New rule..every time I step in the sewing room, I have to cut down at least 1 handful of scraps! I completed the odds and ends on those projects and mailed them or put them away, the little cabinet is filled with threads and notions and the dog beds have had pillowcases made to cover them and are being given away.

Next is the old entertainment center. It has no other home so it sits here. Should have been great for storage, but not the way I was using it! See?:




The top..covered in flimsies, fabric from completed quilts that needs to get put away and a box with a project in it.

Now:


Then the middle:



One side holds who knows what and the other is hiding bits of batting and it looks like I found an old utility quilt that I have been looking for!

Now:



All my WIP's on one side in containers and all my shirts and jeans on the other.

The bottom:



Puzzles and junk!

Now:


A box of items for my applique and some tote bags and the other side has all those upholstery pieces!

Whew..worn out yet? That was the worst part. Here is the easy stuff. Next to the entertainment center tucked in a corner:


A knitting machine, the box for my Janome and who knows what else!

Now:


A container holding my batting, the Go next to it and a bag of flannel that needs to get cut up on top.




The cubbies themselves weren't too bad, but look at the boxes of projects and all those shirts piled up on top! Also a bag of fabric on the floor waiting to get put away.

Now:



Bookcase on top and everything else cleared off..'cept my book cover of Marie Bostwick's newest book and my radio!

And last..my little shelf by me and my machine:



Cluttered with stuff falling everywhere!

Now:



All clean!!

I am THRILLED to get this done. I do need more storage, but those aren't in the budget right now, so this will do. I am already chomping at the bit to get going in my newly organized room. I do have to get in there and see what I am going to bring with me to work on next week while we are camping. Ah...and just think..I will now be able to FIND what I need when I need it! Wooohooo!!