A Peek at this Week

Our grandson Caleb is still here visiting.  Tuesday we took him to the lake for a little swimming and cooling off. He wasn't sure he wanted to do that but once we strapped on a life jacket and he saw that he could float around as he paddled and kicked he thought it was pretty fun.  I forgot to get a picture of him in the water this time, so we stopped and took one at the lookout point. 

After that for a treat we stopped and got some Taco's from Del Taco.  Wednesday I finished up the
Wool Take and Make packets for the retreat. 

After I finished packing those, I started cutting strips to make strip sets for the border of my patriotic on point quilt. 

I worked on that Wednesday and part of Thursday  - 4th of July.  

God Bless America. 

We did go to another firework display on the 4th. I didn't get as good of picture on this one we were a little farter away, but it was still fun. And we ate ice cream while we were waiting for them to start.  Before we left for that I prepped a couple more blocks for Caleb to work on at the cottage for Friday. 

Another Wolf:

A Baby Tiger:

And then my friend Cheryl made him a little wool monster block to see if he liked doing that.  The Monster: 

Friday - we did go to the cottage and and he worked a little on the monster and some on the wolf.  However he had his computer this time and watched movies so he didn't get as much done as he did the week before. I worked on the wool mat and was able to get the center flowers on, now they just need their leaves. 

Next week - they are bringing him cake and ice cream because it will be his last week at sewing and I said we could get pizza for lunch.  (Spoiled kid)  :)

 Saturday we kinda laid low.  I worked some more on the strip sets, and started pulling out some fabrics for the President quilt top I will be making, and colored my hair.

Today - I worked more on sewing the strip sets, my machine is pulling some stunts again...GRRRR.  But I did get some more done.  I have broken and bent so many needles I need to get to the store to buy some more I am out.  I have one more I think I can use that is not a leather or jean needle.  I'm super low on rotory blades as well as the machine needles.  Guess I need to make a trip to the store tomorrow at some point. I want/need to do some cutting out and then get started on the President quilt top so I might need to put the strip sets aside for now and get going. 

I'll let you know.  

Have a Blessed Evening - 

Lynn 

CRQ 2019 Retreat

The retreat came and went and now it's time to gather up the pieces and figure out where I'm at and what to do next.  
But before I try to figure that all out - you want to hear about the retreat don't you?  the is a new venue for our retreat, and even though no one knew if it would work, I think it worked pretty well.  
The room was huge, and gave everyone lots of room.  

This Was our table.   Gloria and Cheryl are sitting down and my chair it there at the right of the picture.   

Those are the blocks that I made - then I bordered and added the sashing. Here is my progress as of day 2 of retreat.

 Here is my friend Desiree and her cute quilt with mice on it. 

Here's Annette and her quilt top.

Here is my quilt with the final sashing on.  I am now going to put another pieced border on it, so that got put aside for a while.  Cheryl is going to bring me a bin of red, white and blue fabric to make sure I have enough for the block border.  I'll starting cutting that out in a couple of days.  

Next I worked on my patriotic friendship stars.  I had 6 to start and got 12 more done and 4 half done, before we had to leave.  I think I have 36 cut out so about 20ish to go :). 

It was a fun retreat and the new venue seemed to work just fine.  

Now to unpack and get re-focused on what needs to be done. 

Have a Blessed day!

Lynn 

Making the Cut

I have been doing a lot more cutting than sewing.  Aside from my Bakers Dozen of quilting and finishes I want to get done in the next 6 months, I have other UFO'S and scrap busting I want to accomplish.  
My next retreat is coming up in a month, and retreats are often times I start a new quilt top - then I think great another top that will need to be quilted.  So while I was doing some organizing in my sewing room (no I'm not done - ugh) I found some old ufo's.  (like I needed more ufo's than the ones I know about ha ha) 
Any way I found two patriotic ufo's that I started years ago.  One,  I had started cutting out a Quilts of Valor Mystery - I had Clue 1 and 2 cut... a ton of 2 1/2" Squares and some 3 1/2" strips. 

  Well it's been long enough now that I can look at the finished quilt.  Uh - No!  It ended up being a really big log cabin quilt, I don't do log cabins well.  So now what do I do with all of these red, cream and blue squares?   Here's what I came up with.

 I'm using the "On Point" method to make 11" Squares.

  

then framing them and sashing with pinwheel cornerstones. 

 That is Project #1. These little pinwheels could take me some time so this might be enough for the whole retreat.  If I get done or bored with that one - here's Project #2 of the patriotic ufo's I found. Scrappy Friendship Stars.  I had 6 sewn and about 10 more cut and lots of  scraps of patriotic fabric in the bag.   

I've been cutting, cutting cutting.  :) Paired up with matching colors - I have separated with scraps of paper. 

I think I have enough to make 42 blocks 6 x 7.  They are 9" blocks so with a border or two it should make a good size lap or even a twin size. 

These two will accomplish a couple things, I'm getting ufo's done and I'm using up some scraps and stash. 

Speaking of using up stash. - if all of that wasn't enough to keep me busy at the retreat, and I'm sure it is.  I have cut out some pillow cases. 

Not sure what I'll do with them, but it's using up fabric I don't have another use for.  I may donate them to be sold in the quilt show boutique.

But wait there's more - Guess what else I found, another old UFO.

There are 8 completed blocks - 4 to go. I may or may not put the fancy border on the outside.  It involves quarter square triangles and I'm not sure I want to do them or make the quilt that big. Pattern says it finishes at 60 x 74.  The ribbon border is 4 1/2" so that would take 9" off .  51 x 65.  We'll see.   

So here's the good the bad and the some ugly.  

Good: 

* I now know what I'm going to work on for the retreat in June and possibly in August.

* I'm working towards getting UFO's done instead of starting all new projects. 

* I'm using up some stash an some scraps.

Bad: 

* I'ts creating more tops I'll need to Quilt.  

* I'm still not getting to the new projects I'm itching to start.

Ugly:

**  There's still way too many UFO's, Scraps and Stash left.  :( 

Ha Ha.  

Okay and for my final little part of this post.  Now that things are settling down again - I'm working in some of our low carb recipes again.  This morning I made zucchini fritters with eggs.  Bacon for hubby and a little piece of ham for me. 

For tonight's dinner I think I'll make a Mexican casserole that will be kind of like a Tamale Pie but with cauliflower rice crust instead of corn meal Polenta.  

I'll let you know how it turns out.  

Have a Blessed day.  

Lynn 

Stars and Strips

There's a few of the kids that I haven't made quilts for. So I want to make a quilt for my Daughter in Law.  She is very supportive of the military, police and fire department so my husband suggested a patriotic quilt of some kind.  I started looking for some patterns. This one would be good because I've been making these blocks for my rainbow scrap quilt.

This one is similar. 

 I have this panel but not sure.....

I finally settled on this one.  

 I pulled out some civil war / Americana fabric however, my hubby thought maybe it would look better in brighter fabrics.  And since I feel like I'm bulging at the seams with fabric I really don't want to go buy some right now, but couldn't really find the right blue.  Low and behold my friends came to the rescue.  We went to our friend Barbara's house in Kingman, because Vickie wanted to use her cutter to cut some animal appliques out.  Cheryl mentioned that I was looking for a bright blue so Barbara opens her closet and tells me to pick something that will work. 

Then she starts pulling out star dies for her cutter and white fabric and fusible and next thing you know I'm all set up to make the quilt. Instead of piecing the star blocks I'll applique them.

I already have a couple of different reds that will work and a white on white. 

I have some pretty special friends.  There are a few other quilts in the works right now, but will work at getting this done for her December birthday.
As a side note the next day my big machine started acting up really bad. I have been having trouble with it skipping stitches.

Well it got super bad - I can't even sew a straight stitch anymore so..... another trip to Kingman.  It's not too far about 45 mins to an hour one way - but had I known the machine was going to get that bad, I could have taken it the day before. I haven't been sewing, I was cutting out and fusing the rest of my scottie dogs.

It wasn't until I started sewing the strips that I realized how bad it was.
Oh well.  Lucky for me I have a couple of other machines I can use. I have a travel machine that I use for retreats, so got that out and cleaned it, omg was that bad.  I don't think I've ever let my machine get that bad before cleaning. 

So since I've pulled my machine out of the travel case, one of my doggies decides this space makes a nice new little dog house for her.

I let her be for the day but have since closed the side up. Sorry Punky that's not your dog house. 
Well I've got lots to do, sew I better get at it. 
Have a blessed day,  Lynn

America the Beautiful

I've been told that as you start quilting more and more that the quilts will start speaking to you and telling you how they should be quilted.  Well I don't know if I am there or not, however, yesterday as I started quilting this quilt, not sure what I wanted to do I started getting these Ideas.  I knew I wanted to do stars and so I practiced them then started in.  But all the sudden I had this urge to use words.  I'm not sure if  I've free motioned words before.  Oh well it's what was calling to me - so I'm giving it a try.  I am still in the beginning stages so not all my loops are smooth, but I like what I did.  

It's hard to see but if you zoom in you can see the words.  

So I'll be working on it a little more today - and I'll see what I come up with.  
Have a great day!   
Blessings. 
Lynn 

PS  I'm not always good about leaving comments either - but if you can say Hi and let me know you were here.  :)