Time to head to the border!

No... were not going to Mexico...i just have a ton of borders to put on so i can finish some quilts. I don't know what it is about borders, my second least favorite thing to do (after squaring up hst blocks) is borders.

But... Drum roll please..... Happily Ever After is in one piece and ready for borders. Granny squares has a name, its Happily Ever After since I'm going to give it to Ralph as a wedding gift. I am planning a little tan border then some blue that he likes for the outer border.

I did finish the borders of ___'s Flower Garden. (Since she reads my blog i cant put her name here because its a gift and i don't want to ruin the surprise.) I am going to pin it and quilt it this weekend and hopefully have it in the mail soon (and yes i have more than one person who reads my blog that is due for a gift that i would mail, so i didn't ruin the surprise!) I like how the borders turned out. Ralph actually gets the credit for the border selection. I was going to just do the blue but he told me before i even got it on that it would need a brighter border after that and he was exactly right.

Landon and Trevor's Paw Paw Kisses... oh boy... have we seen these before. I have had them finished other than borders since before Christmas and i swear i will not work on, hmm start another quilt till i get these borders on! lol... i really do need to finish them.

What else is still in the works...

Travis' Star... I did a little of the hand binding but not alot. Its the first of the month so that means were busier than usual. The 2nd and 3rd week... that's when I'm looking for projects to do while at work!

Stephanie's Stars... totally put on hold due to my granny square fever.

Dallas' soar.... I'm still working on squaring up blocks. I am seeing progress on the pile.. in fact i think the squared pile is bigger than the pile i have to do yet!

Orange Crush.... I started this a while ago for myself and decided it needs to be one that i work on again soon. We went to the beach last weekend and i decided i need a good beach blanket and Orange Crush is gonna be it.

Ok... so there are about 6 or 7 others that I'm working on... but i think if i go on i will overwhelm myself... so we will stop here. Hopefully i will have more progress next week.

One thing getting in the way of the quilting progress is we have been spending the weekends doing research. We need to open another store and we are looking for a location for it... or we may do something totally unexpected and crazy... but either way, although we are making money with the one store, we both would like to make more! (and were workaholics)

Last weekend we went to Crystal Beach or Boliver Peninsula and looked around. It was hit by a hurricane in 09 and we were hoping it had rebuilt more than it has. I also wish it had more of a "town square" than it does. I don't think that is what were looking for so next weekend were going on another fact finding mission somewhere else... not sure where... We will have our minds made up by the time of the wedding... that's all we have decided so far. (still... its taking alot of my quilting time... Sundays were my days to sew and i don't get to do that when were hitting the road!)

Just have to throw this in here too... i decided to get adventurous with a dessert at the store. This is my Mexican Mocha Cake:

I haven't perfected the recipe yet... but when i do I will share. Its baked like a cheesecake... but it has no cheese and no flour in it. (but it does have a touch cayenne to make it interesting!)
I'm linking up to Freshly Pieced WIP Wednesday. Be sure to go check out other lovely works!

Love

I admit im obsessive.

There are times I cant make myself quit cutting and sewing.....

I cut and i sew....

Dishes pile up... dust bunnies collect....

its a process of selecting fabrics.... pulling out scraps... staring at it all together...

and i cut some more and sew some more....

My poor doggies have to look pitiful for me to pull myself away to feed them.....

and then i sew and i sew......
I admit i dont sleep... i sometimes get up at 3 am to cut.... and sew....

Ralph feels neglected, and worried.... and sometimes even jelous.....  but i still sew and sew.....
and really he should be jelous...

because its all in anticipation of this momment....

when i fall in love!

Ive been working on my granny squares for about 2 weeks.... obsessively. Last week i started sewing them together and it was love at first sight!!

I started this one for myself but had contemplated gifting it to someone else... nope... sorry... i need another quilt for my bed and im claiming this one! It is from my red and blue scraps and chunks. (and i still have a big ole healthy pile of each color! The tan fabric were curtains in my guest room that had seen better days. I used 2 1/2" squares and since i hate messing with setting squares im doing this in strips instead. It will be a queen size quilt and there are 81 granny squares in all!

but beeeeep... we put this quilt on hold to bring you this!!!
since i needed a gift for someone... this is what i did over the long weekend! I have some borders to add yet before i quilt it... im hoping to have it done next weekend. (SuzyQ is saying aww mom, cant i have it... its so purdy!)

This one was a challenge in that i decided i couldn't use a solid and i was going to try to put fabrics together that matched, and once i got going I had to stick with florals... so yes... they are all florals! All the fabric is from my stash and i kinda grabbed as i went along... not alot of planning! Ill get some more shots once i quilt it. I think it looks kinda eastery. Ralph's daughter Caty (who is the artist in the family) said wow, your colors actually go together instead of all over the place. lol... i like my all over the place scrappy quilts, but i did try to challenge myself to match this time (and not be red and blue!)

I also prepared the binding for this one... will work on it when were slow at zippys.

OH! we also hosted a wedding at my house!! Congratulations Buck and Sharon. They were married Saturday in my backyard (that was kinda unexpected... they had to change their wedding to our back yard on friday night!! yikes!) But, we were more than happy to host it.. they have a beautiful family and i couldn't be more proud of them.

Im linking up with freshly pieced Work in Progress Wednesday. Be sure to go check out the other great WIPs!

Work in Progress Wednesday

I have loved my mornings lately, lots of sewing. I am really happy with my quilting life right now. I am not feeling alot of pressure to do anything in particular. I am making progress on the quilts that i need to and im also spending time just playing and being creative. Once in a while i think i have way too many works in progress but phooey... I am still finishing them and im enjoying making them. What, is the quilt police going to come lock me up because i start a new project every day!? lol.

I think im an ADD quilter... i have to work on 3 at a time! 3 just seems to be the magic number.

so... this week:

I finally finished "I Love Sophie" It has been delivered to the little bundle of joy and everything!

I have finished Kegan's Zig Zag!!! Before the baby was born... lets see if i get it in the mail though! lol.
I am really proud of this one. I can see where my skills have really improved both in piecing and quilting!

Dallas Soar: I am still squaring up my HST's. I think this is one of the reason i am working on three. I can only stand squaring up blocks... so i do 10 every so often.
Stephanie's Stars: I have 30 of the 9 patchs turned into stars. I need 41. I have the squares cut for the rest of the star points and i make a couple of these every morning. Another one that will take a while if i just do one or two per day. Why not more... because its more squaring of blocks and THAT my friend is my LEAST favorite thing to do! So i do a few everyday and plug away trough the parts i dont like, i do eventually get to a fun part again!

Mostly what i have been doing is moving my sewing room from the extra bedroom to what was my office. I really haven't been using the home office... and we did want a guest room (my sister is coming for a week when we get married)

the bookcase on the left used to have our CDs in it. I packed them up since we no longer do the radio show and how cool is this that it holds my fabric!!! The one on the right we bought the other day for my stuff... i have both bookcases full now... and ive moved about half of my stuff.

this dresser has my "scraps" in it... I have a blue, red, yellow and orange, pink and purple and green and brown drawer.

My scraps are in different sizes, anything too small to fold as yardage I call pieces (this includes fat quarters). Pieces that are smaller than 6 " square is a chunk (i keep these in a bin in the drawer for that color) anything smaller than 1 1/2 in square is a "bit" and ive been tossing those into a bin... I keep a pretty good stash of precut 2 1/2 in squares and 1 1/2 in squares cut and they are in bins too. My strings are in containers... i have those too!)

Well... i have been saving the bits and as i was moving things i thought... will i really EVER use these tiny pieces??? I started sewing this....

HOLY SCRAP, BATMAN!

I love it. So... yes, I use even the bits!!!

Oh... and i put up a pretty good fight not starting this one but... the Granny Square bug bit me firmly on the butt this weekend and i have started a red and blue granny square quilt... i am determined to not start putting this together till i have all 100 squares ready.. yep... 100 (I actually only have 18 of the squares to sew together now! and they are already cut out... so looks like this weekend i will be laying it out to put it all together!

Travis' star: this is one of the denim quilts that i made for all the sons and son in laws. I pinned and quilted it yesterday. This weekend i will finish the binding and woohoo another one done!

Pink and purple scrap quilt... hmmm thought about starting this one for a wedding present for someone. not sure if i will. I have some 2 1/2 scraps of pink and purple, not sure what to do for a background fabric and well, do i really want to do JUST pink and purple or should i just make it an all color scrap. But i probably will start working on this.

Another one that ive been looking at finishing is paw paw hugs for landon and trevor... I just need borders so hopefully they will be in the tada pile soon!

Im linking up to Freshly Pieced Work in progress Wednesday! more eye candy!

Bloggers Quilt Festival Spring 2012

Lonesome Dove

This is by far my favorite quilt so far. I finished it in January and Ralph and I claimed it immediately. It was my first attempt at HST's and I think it turned out nicely.

It is entirely from scraps.  I didn't buy any new fabric for it. Alot of the plaids were scraps from the quilts that I made for the grandsons with their Paw Paw's shirts in them.

There is a neat texture to the quilt being from scraps, some fabrics softer than others, a little homespun and i love the textured blue polka dots in there. It reminds me of the quilts my mom made back in the 70's with polyester in them (NO! there is NO polyester in this one!!!)

It is 90X90 and fits our queen bed perfectly. We like a little extra on our queens since we have a dog that sleeps between us and she is always stealing the covers! The binding is a piece of red calico that i found in Ralph's mothers fabric stash. His mother passed away in the 80's so finding her stash and some unfinished quilts was quite a treat!

I machine quilted it on my home machine and it is by far my best quilting so far. I quilted with straight lines on either side of the diagonal seams.

The backing is is two vintage sheets.

It got its name because i hand stitched the binding one Sunday afternoon while Ralph and I were snuggled up in bed watching the whole 6 hours of Lonesome Dove, one of our favorite movies. Even he refers to the quilt as the "Lonesome Dove Quilt" because the name seems perfect for it!

I hope you enjoy my entry into the bloggers quilt festival - spring 2012. There are over 600 entries and LOTS of inspiration so I hope yall hop over and take a look at some great eye candy.

hours of fun!

I actually got to enjoy more than a half hour here, half hour there of sewing!! Saturday I spent 8 hours in my sewing room and by the end of the day i was surrounded by beautiful works!

Lovely Little Windows:

This has been something i grab and sew the 1 1/2 in squares when i dont have much time or when nothing else is ready to sew. I started peicing the squares saturday and ohh and ahhh... i love love love it! This is going to be the width, i am going to do a wide border on it.... I now have it hanging on the wall in my sewing room and if i was a wall hanging kinda gal i would probably quilt this and leave it there, but i love it so much and cant wait to see it on my bed!!

Dallas' Soar:

this one has a name now, it looks like soaring birds. I try not to start piecing something like this till i have all the pieces cut and squared so i can lay it out and make sure the fabrics look random, but i couldn't resist.... well, i can never resist really, so here are a few blocks i had to sew together to see how it was going to look! I still have to sew 50 HST's and square up over half of the blocks.... but im excited about finishing this one.

Sandy's Kalidescope:

I am "making fabric" for this one out of strips and strings that i cut to 6 7/8 length and random widths then sewing together. I will then cut the triangles from the strips. I started foundation piecing them but that is a pain in the patootie so i just started sewing strips. I will starch the snot out of them before i cut the triangles. I figure this is about 1/3 of what i will need for the quilt.

Stephanie's Scrappy Stars:
I have alot of the star points made... going to keep working on them. I have been using a new method of making the HST's and i love it. (I have been looking for the tutorial that i read to make these... but i cant find it. In brief you take 2 squares, sew them together on all 4 sides (pretty side in) cut it diagonally in both directions and presto... 4 perfect HSTs! Have to stop trying to find the tutorial because while looking for it, i got sidetracked and ordered 40.00 worth of fabric... opps... i will post a link to it if i ever find it but right now i cant afford anymore fabric!)

HA... Jeni of In Color Order posted a link to it yesterday and i just found it! here it is

Kegan's Zig and Zag:

woo hoo i finally finished the flimsy. I had alot of problems with this one since my first attempt i reversed the rows and my zigs weren't zagging! I trimmed it down (yes i made it WAY too big and cut a whole row off the side and bottom) This weekend i will work on quilting.

this was inspired by this quilt. I changed up the colors and i don't know what size her blocks are but i cut my strips 2 1/2 x 6 1/2, I also put my blocks on point.

I Love Sophie:
I have had this at work, working on it when we were slow, which wasn't a whole lot of time this past week! I will get it done by the weekend!! Here is a picture of the little darling who will one day say "this is the first quilt that Mimi made me!"

Wedding Plans:

I have been collecting canning jars for my centerpieces. I love this look:

Source: google.com via Tamara on Pinterest

I am linking up to Freshly Pieced Work in Progress Wednesday Be sure to go check out all the other lovely work!!!

changing directions

Just to be sewing something new i started 9 patch blocks a week or so ago. My plan was to make them into a quilt for a friend who has had surgery recently... simple 9 patch blocks with some sashing.. batta boom, batta bing, i have a quilt.  but... as usual my plans change.

I'm using my 2 1/2 in squares or cutting from my stacks of scraps for the 9 patch blocks and its totally scrappy (no matchy matchy for me) I do try to match the 9 patches but i have everything from hot pink and black to baby blue and purple in the 9 patches.

I love the scrapiness of the original idea, but, its too simple and plain to be that scrappy... does that make sense? I want to scrap it up a bit more. So i think I'm going to be taking the 9 patches and making them the center of stars. so some scrappy points with a background fabric in something other than white then a scrappy corner block of some sort.. hmm...  i will have to play with it.

 I also have a TON of 2 1/2 in squares that are red yellow and blue, (and even more small pieces that i can cut into squares) i think i will make a bunch of those into 9 patches and make the original quilt that i had planned... still scrappy but tied together with the color scheme so that makes it ok that its that simple.... maybe a corner block that ties it together even more.... so does this mean im starting ANOTHER project... hmm have to finish a few before i start that one.

What have i finished this week????

Ally's Dress:

When her mom brought her into the store in it i just squealed. With the big red daisy and her big blue eyes... she was absolutely beautiful!

I Love Sophie...

ok, so i haven't hand sewn the binding down, i plan on finishing that today and tomorrow at work during the slow times... but I do have it quilted and the binding attached.


The other finish soon progress:

bathmat - no progress, its buried under a pile of fabric right now!

kegan's quilt (heard from his dad, still no baby yet... but he and his gf are planning on moving to Texas in the next year. They are currently in Alaska. The army owes both of them a move and it will take some paperwork to get that done, but as soon as they can they are coming home. I asked how many "they" are.... (we haven't met his gf yet and i knew she had some kids before Jess) and he said 2 adults and 4 or 5 children! akk... i have more quilts to make for our growing family!! He wants to build a house on the ranch so they will be close and it will be more kids we get to spend time with! I'm so happy and i hope he really moves home this time!) - but... i did put what i have done up on my design wall and tomorrow i will finish piecing the flimsy. I think i just have 5 strips to sew together yet!

Jonathan's Camo: still sitting in the neat pile on the extra chair in the dining room waiting for me to pin it.

Dallas HST - Ive been trimming these suckers... and have decided this will be the layout.

I don't know what it is but i have been more tired than usual and i haven't been spending as much time sewing. Sunday i took a 4 hour nap instead of sewing!

Wedding Progress:

Ralph's friend has agreed to marry us. He is an ordained methodist preacher who doesn't have a church (he is a postmaster instead) Ralph married him and his first wife a long time ago (ralph used to be an ordained preacher) and now Richard is going to marry us!

The bridesmaid dresses. Am i crazy... i want to make them? We picked out this dress which has the colors but i really wasn't in love with it. I just dont think it would look good on everyone.

Source: jcpenney.com via Tamara on Pinterest

but if i made 5 using this pattern:

Source: simplicity.com via Tamara on Pinterest

and these 5 fabrics:

 

oh boy gotta run.... linking up to freshly pieced work in progress wedensday. Go check out some other great progress!

of course it was a quilt that inspired the colors of the wedding!

Source: etsy.com via Tamara on Pinterest

To give credit... the quilt is for sale on etsy and the seller is kelbysews. BUT when i checked the listing today she has taken it down and says she is moving. Hopefully she will have it back up for sale soon because it is a beautiful quilt!

Anyways, this is the inspiration. I love the blues, teals, light blues and light greens. It is all over the place as "sea glass" inspired. Sea glass, however beautiful doesn't really inspire me because well, we live 200 miles inland and it is not a beach wedding! however i then saw this.....

Source: google.com via Tamara on Pinterest

The photo is by One Girl Photo and her website is www.onegirlphotography.com

I cant afford the blue jars but i am definitely using the hydrangeas and the jars... The reception will be after dark so i also plan to make ball jar candle lanterns for everywhere. And I'm calling it sophisticated country. Why sophisticated country? One from somewhere other than East Texas might think that its just plain ole country, or simplistic country... well its sophisticated because camo weddings are all the rage here and THAT is country for this part of the world... we're going a bit more sophisticated than that! lol.

We reserved the church yesterday. We are going to get married at McMahon Chapel which is the oldest protestant church in Texas. It is beautiful inside. Ralph is a HUGE history buff so the history behind the church makes it special. It was a Methodist community formed before Texas got its Independence. The creepy side is that founder is actually buried under the pulpit. This is the third church built in this spot, each time they are careful not to disturb his grave... ok... creepy... wont think about that while I'm getting married.

Source: toledo-bend.com via Tamara on Pinterest

Ok... yall might get tired of hearing about the wedding... sorry... I'm preoccupied with it right now.

On the quilting side... a friend just had surgery. I'm trying to finish up a 9 patch quilt for her in the next week! Pictures to come.