UFO NUMBER 3 DONE!!!!!!

UFO NO MORE!!!!

Here is another UFO Finish for the challenge from Littlest Thistle.

These are the chenille blocks started by my friend Margaret who died several years ago at 90. She had cut out about 40 blocks and had stitched and cut 10. The 40th block was not complete and I had to sort of piece it together. There were 21 dark plaid background and 19 turquoise.














Here are a couple of closeups of the stitching and cutting. That really took a long time! When I finished with that I had to trim them all down to 12 1/2 inches because they were pretty irregular. Once that was done I stitched them together with 5/8" seams. The good news is that i don't have to do any quilting or binding!


















I decided to make 2 lap quilts. I flip flopped the blocks to make it reversible. One of the quilts has more of the dark squares because of the odd number of blocks.  I will contact her daughter, who moved away, and give her one of them.





















I still have to wash and dry them so that they fluff up and fray, making them really soft and cuddly. After that stage I will post pics to show the before and after contrast. I also need to take them to the laundromat in town so I don't clog up my machines because when they fray, they really, really fray. I don't look forward to going and hanging out there for a couple of hours. I will share pics of that adventure! It has been awhile since I have hung out at a laundromat. I'll take my Kindle and handwork.

Kathy

Music to My Ears and Other Grandkid Pursuits

The 4 grands came and spent 3 days with us. 

Eowyn has been taking piano lessons for several months and entertained us with Ode to Joy.

I taught Ash how to play a piano classic "I Dropped my Dolly in the Dirt". 

Grey accompanied them occasionally with his dancing.

It was so much fun to watch them enjoy the piano. 

I have so many happy memories tinkling the ivories as a kid myself.

Hazel had a stomach bug for the first day she was here, but felt better the second. Ask her what she wants to be when she grows up and she will tell you, "A REAL(WEAL in Hazel Languaage) Queen." 

For now she is a REAL Chuck E. Cheese Queen! She also kept a spare Birthday Crown handy.

Eowyn, Ash and Hazel picked out some fabric to take home. 

Eowyn picked out some black and white fabrics and used fabric markers to color them in. So creative!!!

Hazel picked out baby fabrics and some Disney princess fabrics. I gave her a fat quarter(18"X22") of the princess fabric and she wanted me to make her a dress from it. Oh, my funny girl!

Ash took home some dinosaur fabric that is meant to color on. He was not happy with my fabric markers and wanted to wait until he got home to color it in. I love my picky little boy!

Grey enjoyed one of his favorite toys—the dishwasher! He is sooooooo helpful(AND CUTE)!

Tuesday evening we went to watch PaPaw's girls play basketball. The jr. high girls were not playing as they should(to say the least) and he was giving them correction in a very loud voice. The grands were mesmerized by it. I asked Eowyn, "Has PaPaw ever yelled at you like that?" She answered, "I've never seen PaPaw yell at anybody like that!" Welcome to the basketball court!

We had a great time!

Hazel left a lasting gift—Dan and I both caught her bug!

To top the week off, after the kids went home, Dan's Junior girls won the District Tournament.

My husband, Dan, is not in the picture. He has his assistant, Coach Clark stand with them. I'm going to have to start photoshopping him into these pictures!

His high school girls start their district this week as the conference champs making them the #1 seed.

Go Lady Dragons!!

I hope everyone else had a great week like I did!

Kathy

A Dream Come True!!!!

Last week my granddaughter, Eowyn, gave me a gift she had sewn herself. She used some charm squares and embroidery thread I had given her. She had cut holes in the fabric and laced them together.

She wanted some sewing supplies!!!!!!! Music to my ears!!!!! Last summer we had quilt camp where she learned to use the sewing machine, sew 1/4 inch seams, press, write and draw on fabric and use the longarm quilting machine with supervision.

We had a great time and she completed a quilt.

I came home and gathered sewing supplies for a sewing kit:

A vintage kid's sewing book, an embroider hoop, a container with fabric scraps and a vintage sewing box filled with sewing supplies. The piece of cross stitch on the bottom right was made by her Dad when he took home ec in high school. I thought she might appreciate it(and she did).

I took it to her yesterday and we made an outfit for Possum(stuffed oppossum). No pic due to running interference with her year old brother who was also trying to use the sewing supplies. Eowyn learned to knot her threads, thread the needle, sew a running stitch and sew right sides together(through trial and error). When I left she was sewing more fabric together. It was so sweet. We did this amidst gymnastics, Queen dress-up, Dinosaur model building, and general singing and dancing by her 3 siblings. For some reason I didn't get any pics! We had a great day!

I'll have the 4 of them at my house next week for 3 days and I will try to post some pics then.

Kathy

Finish # 2

Another project completed for the UFO Challenge at Littlest Thistle.

 Here's before and after.
        
                                Before: QUILT of NW Arkansas Retreat Mystery UFO from 2003

   After: Borders added, quilted and bound! Now it's ready to go to Quilts of Valor!!!!

Here is a close up of the border fabric. I am going to request that this Quilt of Valor go to a female soldier. Don't you love it? Girl Power!!!!

Two UFO's done and two to go for this quarter!!!!

Kathy

Another Challenge!!!!!!

I joined a challenge on the Prairie Moon blog. The challenge is to complete 350 quilt blocks in a year.

These are blocks made from some of my leaders and enders. They are 25 patches that will go into a quilt called Five at Five, a pattern from the Wedding Dress Blue blog. I have 13 completed out of 24.

The next blocks are from the Celtic Solstice Mystery from Bonnie Hunter. There are a total of 49 blocks.

Here's the completed quilt!

My total number for January is 62! The goal was 20.

TA-DA

First Finish!!

I joined the Finish Along 2014 at The Littlest Thistle blog. I have my first finish completed!!
The Celtic Solstice is a Mystery from Bonnie Hunter at Quiltville. We got our first instructions on November 29 and subsequent instructions every week after that. The instructions for it are still available on her blog.
This is the quilt in progress. It was a very worthwhile project for me in many ways.
It seems that no matter how hard I try to make sure I have cut accurately, sewn 1/4 inch seams, pressed correctly, and made the appropriate sacrifices to the Quilt Gods, my completed units still don't measure  precisely. I do consider myself math challenged, to say the least, but you would think that eventually I would get this right! I started this mystery with the goal of improving my accuracy and precision.

#1. I tried Inklingo which is a system that uses your printer to print your pieces on fabric. The learning curve was not bad and it did help with my cutting and seam problems. I even got to know my printer better and that will transfer to other projects. I will use it again. It was not problem free and I had some screw ups, but it was worthwhile.

#2. I always thought that I needed to make 1/4 inch seams or maybe a scant 1/4 inch, but I learned that I need to lean toward an 1/8 inch seam or it does not come out right. I never really figured out how much pressing takes out of the block.

#3. My quilting foot is not a reliable 1/4 inch. I was depending on it to make an exact 1/4 inch seam and I think I was going over the 1/4 inch.

#4. Rip out and redo if it is not right because it will not get better as you put more units together—it gets worse!

#5. I used the color green which is not a favorite of mine—ranks right down there with brown and beige. This didn't help with accuracy, but it was beyond my comfort zone.

Well, it is done!

                                                                                    Yay Me!!!!!