Opinions Please

Here is something I'm currently working on. I want to add a 2 inch border of white and then a color and then another 2 inch border of white...but what color to add? I'm stumped!

Over 1/2 gone!

Well I woke up Saturday morning with a bad cough that followed me around most of the weekend. I didn't get any sewing done. However, I did some reflection, planning, and organizing in my sewing room.

David has agreed that if I can find a buyer for the twin bed then we can get rid of it and that will free up a lot of space in the room. I need to move some stuff out of the way and take the frame apart and post it on Craigslist. Anyone local to Dallas know anyone who'd like a Twin bed with a Red metal headboard in great condition? It's really cute, just not needed.

I went through my tubs of blocks. I posted over a year and a half ago my list of 'BIB's (blocks in bags). At that point I had 73 sets total. I now have a list of only 25!!!!! I should go back through the old list and count the ones actually made into tops, but a lot were given away or traded away. Some still on the list don't really speak to me anymore so I'm thinking of trading or giving them away too.

My new list of 25:

Crumb Blocks
Black & Bright Pinwheels
Fall Sampler blocks ( I have enough blocks for 2 or 3 quilts though)
30's Sampler
Brown/Pink/Cream Sampler
Black/Pink/White Sampler
Blue & Yellow Sampler
Christmas Sampler
Halloween Blocks
Black & Bright Indian Stars
Lot O' Hearts (won in QATW February Block Lotto)
30's Churn Dashes
Spring Fling
Tennessee
Orange/Yellow/White Sampler
Better Be Bright Blocks
Red & White Sampler
Pink & White Sampler
Butterfly FBS
Pink & Purple 16 patches
Black & White & Wild Friendship Stars
Batik & Cream Sampler
Kids Buzzard Roost
Scrappy Bowties

That doesn't count a few UFO's. To me UFO is anything I'm currently working on, or have started and not finished. That list includes

Pink & Red Random Blocks
Babs meets Freddy & Jane
Adagio
Rocky Road to Kansas
30's Shooflies
Red/Green Dutchman Puzzles
Black & Bright Zig Zag
Spiderweb

In the next couple of days I'll post my list of October Goals.

150th post!

This is my 150th post! To celebrate that and the great news I got from the Oral Surgeon today, I'm having a giveaway. I've gathered up a bag of 150 scrap pieces from one of my scrap tubs. Nothing in this bag is smaller than 2 1/2 inch square. There are a lot of 2 1/2 inch strips, 4 inch charms, and FQ's with one corner cut out. There are several whole FQ's.

Anyone who posts on this comment gets a chance in the drawing. If you feel inclined to do so and post something on your blog about me, my blog, or my giveaway, you'll get another chance.

I'll draw a name and post the winner at 4pm on Wednesday Sept. 30th.

The good news from the Oral Surgeon is that the 2cm x 4 cm chunk of white stuff on my tongue that they removed came back as "pre-cancerous". I'm sooo glad she decided during the biopsy to take the whole thing at once rather than 1/2 of it as I would have had to go back for another surgery.

The bad news is that once you get 1 of these you are likely to get them again. So I get to stick out my tongue a lot the rest of my life and check for white spots. LOL.

I'm still sore and can't eat real food yet and still talk a little funny and don't really feel like going anywhere so I feel another sewing marathon coming on....

Sewing Marathon

Here it is several weeks later but I finally did my weekend sewing marathon. I need to do these more often. I got so much done. I had a medical procedure done on Friday and didn't feel like doing anything except sleeping and sewing. So that's exactly what I did.

First- I tackled "Medina's Project". She and I exchanged blocks a while back. She sent me 7 blocks and extra focus fabric. I'm glad for the extra because 3 of the blocks were so far off in measurements there was no way of saving them. These had been blocks from "friendship swap" and you know how that is sometimes.

I spent a long time trying to decide if I should take the bad blocks apart and try to use some of the fabric and remake new blocks but after playing around in EQ6 and looking through books for layout ideas, I decided to make 9-patch blocks. There was exactly enough of the fabric for that. So here is Medina's top. I hope she likes it and doesn't think it's too dark. It's only 48 inches square but I think it will make a nice wallhanging behind her couch.


I also owed her 4 Dutchman Puzzle blocks from another exchange. She wanted 30's and Cream.

Then I made these "Jacks-n-Six" blocks for a swap in "Friends Who Quilt". The colors came out sort of dark but they are Orange, Brown, and Burgundy on Cream.


I'm still recovering from the procedure and cannot talk very well. I'm also on a liquid/soft foods diet for a week. I hope to get some more sewing done this week. I want to get back to working on my pink & red "random blocks" and I may try to finish up the 30's Shooflies top I've been puttering around with for a couple of weeks.

As far as the medical procedure- I won't go into all the details here but I had a biopsy done on my tongue for a large white spot I'd found. They removed the entire spot and I'm awaiting results on Friday. Please keep me in your thoughts and prayers. If you'd like to know more, just e-mail me.

Calgon.....

I know I've slacked off on posting. I've slacked off on sewing too. I went to the guild meeting last night though and showed off the "Hole in the Barn Door" and 1 of the shooflies. Got lots of compliments and got lots of inspiration to get going again.

There's a game going on at QATW where we chose 3 UFO's to work on for the month. They'll draw a number every night and the next day we're supposed to work at least 20 minutes on that project.

The UFO's had to be at least 3 months old, so I chose....

1. Rocky Road to Kansas- need to make tons of block parts.
2. 30's shooflies- already sewn into rows now
3. Black & Bright Windmills. I have 8 blocks, want to make at least 4 more

So she'll draw a number between 1 and 3. Or if she draws the Joker, then we get to pick any of the projects to do.

This weekend I'm going to have my own mini-sewing marathon and see what other stuff I can get done. I have Christmas presents I'd better get to working on too.

Thimbles? and blocks

They still did not have the power restored. After calling all the parents to let them know I went to JoAnn's. I picked up a bulb and a spare. I looked at thimbles....hhhmmm...I don't know anything about thimbles. I had no clue what kind to get...do you have a favorite? Ideas? Your suggestions and recommendations are greatly appreciated.

I did buy a little bit of fabric. I have realized in making these blocks that a lot of my fabrics are Tone on Tones. I needed something white with pink and red in it. I found 2 fabrics that were perfect and bought just 1/2 yards of each.

Here are the blocks I made last night and so far today. I am probably going to make all the 12 inch blocks first because they are the easiest. I have 7 made so far, just 20 to go.


I won't post pictures every time I make a few, I just seem to be on a roll. These are so addictive that when I get this top made I'm thinking of doing one in brights to use up some scraps and stash.

Pinks and Red Random Blocks

After writing earlier this morning I got a call from work NOT to come in. They had some guys come in to tear up part of our parking lot and re-do it and somehow they managed to CUT the power lines to the school. They had to call all the parents to come get their kids NOW and then they called me. Hopefully they'll be able to get it fixed tonight.

So since I was home I got a few things done around the house and started working on these.

Only 33 more 6 inch blocks, 25 more 12 inch blocks and 9 18 inch blocks to go. But they are going together really fast. I'm going to keep working on them the rest of the day so we'll see how many I can show y'all tomorrow.

I tried to do some binding work but I kept sticking myself. I need to get a thimble. I also need a bulb for my machine cause it went out. I'll be going to JoAnn's tomorrow for sure. Just going to stay away from the fabric area because I DON'T need any.