Quilt Prepper

I've said more than once that there are times I like the prepping almost better than the actual doing.  I'm a plan-a-lot-amus.  I love the planning and prepping process of a new project, which I'm sure goes a long way in explaining why I have so many UFO's that I've started.  :)  Well now that I've exposed my flaws maybe I should show what I've been up to the last few days.  Well last Wednesday was the 1st of the month and I did my post for my monthly goals and then in the afternoon, I started looking thru my patterns and some books to see what I wanted to prep for blocks from this months UFO.  Christmas Quilt from Cheri Saffiote Payne.

This picture already has some substitutions in it,   Here is the original picture that is included in the pattern from Cheri. 

One of the things I've had to relax with, is that it's okay to make a quilt my own and change things around.  :) So in this one I am changing things as I did in my Sweet Land of Liberty.  I will be doing some from the original pattern, some from the quilt above and some that are in different patterns all together.  So that's what I did on Wednesday afternoon, I looked for patterns I wanted to use.   On Thursday we had to have the plumber come.  We have really hard water here and years of it had beaten up a couple of our faucets. And since it means literally cutting fixtures off it's not just a simple replace job.  What does it mean when you're on a first name basis with the plumber and his helper.  We make jokes about being invited to their family BBQ's  :) :(.
But after the 3 hours it took them to replace the kitchen faucet and an outside one, I went in a started prepping the blocks I had picked out for the quilt above.
Here's what I came up with:

Then Friday I worked on the block that was already prepped when I pulled out this UFO -  I didn't get very much sewn but here's what I did.

Saturday Hubby and I drove down to Lake Havasu for the Grand Opening of Fabrics Unlimited in their new location.  I love how they have put the new shop together.  And can you believe I did not grab any photos.  RRRR   But I do have this one that I took when we were helping to move them, it will have to do until I can get more.

Sunday - I just laid low.  I wasn't feeling wonderful and so I tried to nap and couldn't and really just couldn't even find the energy to stitch.

Monday - I had to work on my computer - it was having some issues and so in between checking that I got my house cleaning done.   Then after all of that - I started quilting the train quilt.  Can you believe it. I stitched along the tracks to frame in areas.

Then we ran a couple errands and I picked up a large flash drive to back up pictures and patterns just to be safe.
















Tuesday - In the morning I backed up my pictures and pattern files and then did some more quilting on the train quilt and decided to start burying some of my threads.

We were heading to Vegas.  Part of our family was going thru Vegas on their way to California so we went there to have dinner with them.

Hubby's Brother on left, and his wife and their grandson.









Our neice and her daughter, she's also the mother of the grandson in picture above.  Behind her is her Mother-in-law the other Grandma.










 We brought clothes just in case, but weren't sure if we were staying or coming home. We ended up stopping to see another friend of my husbands, and she got us a room for free, so we ended up staying. Nice Room -

 Considering we didn't end up eating until about 7:30 it was good we were staying and it was like a mini vacation.  :)

Wednesday we grabbed a buffet and headed home. We had some lunch and then took a nap.  We got up and had dinner, watched some TV and headed to bed.

Thursday - well I think the nap from Wednesday backfired - I didn't sleep very well at night so I was in a hazy funk.  About the time I was waking up in the afternoon, we had drop in company so I didn't go in and quilt on the train. And by the time they left we were hungry for dinner so I made some spaghetti.  By the time I was done with dinner had the kitchen cleaned up I was tired again - so I sat back and just did some hand stitching on the little embroidery that I started on the plane in April on my trip to Oregon.  I am almost done with it.  I just need to finish the lettering and then do french knots around the flowers. and the bird legs.

Today - Friday  My honey headed out to play an early round of golf with the neighbors and I will be heading to the cottage for open sew.  I will be working some more on the Christmas quilt that I was working on last week.  And I'll let you know how much progress I make.

In the meantime - Have a Blessed day!
Lynn

May Finishes and Junes Goals

May Goals

1. Scavenger Block - Sunbonnet Sue - Queen of Hearts and Embroidered Block.  Not totally sure how I'm going to do this but I may paint part of it like I did the frog.   Goal Met. 

I changed my mind a couple times on this and it's funny each month how I'll think of doing these blocks one way and then do them totally different.  

Isn't she cute?  :)  

2. Buttermilk Basin  Finish "T" Block  and "I"  Block and prep the next "T" Block.  Goal Met ??  They released an extra block in April with the letter "I" it was a snowflake.  I have been watching and looking and waiting, but have not seen the next letter - "T" released. So I've done the two blocks from April - and I can't prep a block I haven't received. 

3. Work on gifts!  Towels, Scissor Fobs - need to make progress on gifts to give. Finish Ronni's Mat by Retreat time. Then I  want to also paint another block and make it into a wall hanging for a friend.  So this may be my gift goal for this month.     Goal Met - I did work on the gifts. 

I did the last little bit of Stitching on Ronni's sewing mat and gave it to her.  :)

Then I worked on the painted wall hanging that I wanted to do for my other friend and it kept wanting to bleed on me. I don't think I've had it do that to me like that.  

Time for a do over.

I will now quilt it and make into a wall hanging. 

4. Quilt something.  Not sure what just get some quilting done. I keep saying Bee Hive Baby, but maybe I need to pick something else to get me going. :)  Here are a few that already pin basted - so I just need to get going on them.   Goal Met - don't fall off the chair I actually did quilt something.  

Here's a close up of some of the quilting.  I'm still working on my free motion quilting and this was my first spider webs.   Not perfect but it was fun.  

5.  UFO's  APQ random ufo buster # 7  Which is too funny.  Because I am doing 6 UFO's for 2 month's each #7 is the same as #1.  Which is the same as last month.  :)   Porch Time.  As always the goal is to make progress. Goal Met!   I wanted to get even more done - But thankful for what I did get done. 

 I worked on this area - I got one of the small hands appliqued on and then put the strips on the side so I could put the next hand on. 

I got the flower blocks trimmed and sewn together

And then I prepped most of the blocks in this sections and appliqued the star block.

Again - wish it was more - but it was some progress.  

6.  Retreat Projects - Make Progress - Yep got another retreat going on.  May 19 - 21. Back in February when the power went out on us - well they offered us free rooms because of that - So what do you do with a free room?  Well we book a new retreat.  :)   I reserve the right to change my mind but as it stands now I am planning on taking my very old "Quilt as you go" Quilt to finish up.  Nope didn't take this one. 

Next I am planning to continue on with the "Snowman Collector" that I took to the retreat in February.   I have one more block to applique and top stitch and then I can start making the sashing and borders.

This one I did take and made progress so - Goal Met.  

I had this one last block to do.  

Then I needed to put all the 2" squares for the sashing and borders. The blank area above will contain the letters to spell out "Snowman Collector".  Which my friend cut on her AccuQuilt cutter.  

The Retreat was a little different than some of the others I've gone to but still ended up being good. You can read more about it Here.  

7.  Charity!   Goal Met

7a. I want to finish up the 1/2 quilt that I've got going on for the CRQ guild.   Done

7b. Along with that I need to work on some charity stuff for the SNR guild.  Here are some orphan blocks I'm going to sew together to make a couple of tops.

Here is what I got done.  

7c. Bonus Points -  If I get the quilt made for SNR  then quilt it.     No Bonus Points for this - However I have a feeling it will be in with Junes goals.  

8.  Blog 7-10 times.  Goal Met! 

Extra's - 

The wallet - I blogged about it here and here.   

I re-covered some dinning chairs -  Not a quility thing, but I wrote about it here. 

And the Dress for my Great Niece.  I blogged about it here.

And a picture of Ava in the dress and Ava with her twin sister Brynn.

Well  I did pretty good this month I at least met each goal except the bonus points so I'm happy about that.   So what does June Bring?  

June Goals

1.  Scavenger Block(s)  At the June SNR guild meeting, our last meeting for the summer, I will be handing out the remainder of the scavenger block clues. The goal is for everyone to get the blocks done and a quilt made by December's Christmas Party which is the Second Tuesday in December.  That should be plenty for June - Then I can use July and August while we are dark to do some of the others.

Goal for June is to get at least one block done and Bonus Points if I can get more done.    

Junes items are:    Any Star Block - Snowball and Musical notes.

July's items are:     Flip Flops - Thimble and Polka Dots

August items are:  Something Plaid - Spool of Thread and Hankercheif

  

2.  Bear Quilt - I haven't had that one on the list for a month or two and I need to get back on it.  I want to work on getting the bears on the background with the Aspen tree's, branches and leaves in and around them.  This will involve the tracing cutting and fusing of all the tree parts - So the goal will be to have the bears placed and fused along with the some of the tree's and leaves. 

Since there are two of them I need to figure out how far apart I want them and then will fill in with the aspen trees and the branches and leaves. 

3.  Continue with quilting.  This needs to be an all quilting summer.  I want start quilting  the train quilt for my grandson.  Goal is to have it at least half done.  

4.  More quilting.  I have 3 charity quilts for SNR that need to be quilted. I thought I was going to be able to hand them off - but the couple that does the quilting have 90 quilts backed up for charity so I think I need to do these myself.   Goal:  Have at least one of them pinned and quilted. I have 3 months while the guild is dark to quilt 3 quilts so I need to do at least one a month along with my own stuff. 

5.  Buttermilk Basin BOM - The next letter.  They normally release them on the 3rd Friday of the month.  If that's when it's released my goal is to have it prepped and ready to stitch.  It should be the letter  "T".    

6.  APQ   UFO Buster # 10  - Christmas Quilt.   This is a pattern by Cheri Saffiote Payne. I originally started this with a group of friends when I still lived in Oregon and we would get together one Saturday a month and work on it together.  At the time I was still trying to finish up my "Sweet Land of Liberty" quilt that the rest of the group had already finished and did not get very much done on this one.  It is small though so hopefully I can make some good progress this month.   

Beginning Status: 

 I am doing this turned under with a primitive whip stitch with black quilting thread. Since this is how I started this - I will continue it that way. 
This is where I left off.  And it's been so long since I've worked on this I wasn't even sure what it was.  LOL  But it is Santa and I posted the pattern below it.   So it looks like I have about 1/4 to 1/3 of the top blocks done.

Since this is my first of 2 times to work on this UFO this year - I may be able to finish this UFO this year. But before I get ahead of myself :)  .... for June 2016 

Goal:  Make Progress

7.  Blog 7-10 times.  

Bonus Points

There is always something that comes up that I either need to do, or I want to do. Or my sweet husband thinks I'm talented enough to do.  (chairs)   Since I don't really know what these things are ahead of time I am going to award bonus points to the extra's - whatever they may be.   :) 

I'll keep you posted on how it goes.

Have a Blessed Day - Lynn