I Broke Down

I told you in the last post about the big sale on Super Bowl Sunday at our local Ben Franklin store. Regular fabric was 30% off while Christmas fabric was 70% off. I went in about 5:30 (under the guise of needing milk) and the clerks were doing an impromptu tally of sales for the day; they were nearing $1000. They were pleased with that. Our town is small, and I would consider that a successful day, indeed!

Anyway, I broke down, as I allude to in my title. Broke down and bought fabric, that is. I bought two, actually, and I feel certain that they were necessary additions to the stash.

Emma's t-shirt quilt backing; it is 58"-wide flannel.

Emma's flannel backing with a strip of flannel sashing.

 I recalled that DD Emma and I were there early in January and she selected a backing for her t-shirt quilt. So I got it, and I also picked up a neutral just for the heck of it. A quilter always needs neutral yardage, right?

The neutral I chose. Over 3 yards; I just took all they had; it was a flat fold.

Also, in the previous post I mentioned that DD Erin and I pulled fabrics for a Kaffe Fassett quilt called Hot Diamonds. It is from this book:

I will not be using those templates to make this quilt. I have already studied the directions, and I will sew strips together and use the 60-degree angle on my cutting ruler to get the diamond shapes. Should make faster work of things, I would imagine.

Sharon is coming today for sewing; I heard from the Ben Franklin clerk that she made quite a large purchase, so I hope to hear all about that when she gets here.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Super Bowl Sunday

Big doings in America today, folks, as in some way or another we all get into the Super Bowl spirit.

For quilters who don't really follow it or care at all, our local Ben Franklin always holds a sale on this day. Big discounts on regular fabrics and bigger discounts on Christmas fabrics. Then there is also double yardage on the 50-Yard Club. Do you know what that is? The girls there keep an index card on every customer with the yardage bought over time. When a customer gets to 50 yards, she is rewarded with a discount on the next purchase - 10%, I think. So on Super Bowl Sunday, you get credit for double yardage. So if I were to go there today and buy 10 yards of fabric, they would write down that I bought 20 yards. Nice deal, eh?

For quilters who do have an interest in the football game, like me, there is the making of snack foods, and a project that is football-watching-friendly. I have a binding to stitch, so I will work on that.

In the kitchen I plan to make a big batch of black bean salsa, a pot of potato soup, and a cake or some sort of dessert. Not sure on that just yet.

DD Erin and her boyfriend Jeff are visiting this weekend. Erin was promised a quilt at Christmas time, so we visited the new sewing room to peruse the Kaffe Fassett books. She listed several that she liked, but tossed that list when she saw Hot Diamonds. I will have to get the title of the book, but the minute she saw it she knew that was the one she wanted. The next step was to pull the fabrics.

The fun part, right?? I love going through my Kaffe tubs. All these fabrics just invite stroking. Erin had a couple of years of art training, so she has a good eye for selecting colors.

Wouldn't you have liked being here with us for this wonderful birth of a quilt??

Here are the winners, in the order she wants them used. I took this pic, along with several closeups so we don't lose the order. When we put them away, we put them in order, as well, and again, I took another picture. We are not going to make any goofs with the order here. Hopefully!

When Erin comes, her cat Rocky also comes. he loves roaming our big house after being cooped up in a 3-room apartment for a month. He is quite a character, and we love his little kitty personality.

When I say Rocky explores every bit of available space in our house, I am not kidding. Even open fabric drawers are fair game. Can you tell he is enjoying the fabric as much as we were??

Happy Quilting, Friends! Enjoy your Super Bowl Sunday!

A Quilt Kit Project

On Thursday when Sharon was here for sewing, I pulled out one of the items on my 2013 quilt goals list. I bought the kit at a quilt show perhaps 2 years ago. In the process of moving the sewing room, I began studying this quilt and decided that it looked really easy and would make up fast.

Since Miss Bernina is still in the fixit shop, I am cutting and NOT sewing, but that will come in time. I trust she is in good hands. This quilt will be ready to hit the machine when she's back in action.

I cut 6 of the 12 fabrics following these instructions. Do you see the problem? The measurements add up to more than 22"x18". Hmmm. Drat. What to do?

Contact the shop and hope for a workable resolution. I did that through an email to them explaining my predicament and asked if there'd been any corrections posted in the intervening months/years since I bought this kit.

 Within a day, the friendly folks at Bits 'n Pieces responded with a solution to my dilemma! I was not expecting this to be as easy as this was turning out! They said yes, there had been a correction, and that for a time it was posted on their website. They asked how much fabric I'd used, as they had put some back for this very situation. Now am I a lucky gal, or what? They sent a PDF attachment of the correction, and it all makes sense now.

Here are the pieces I cut. I love this line! I am frankly surprised it took me so long to get this going. The fabrics are just luscious!

More lusciousness...Le Petite Ecole by French General.  These are the pieces that I did not cut. I am so glad that I paid attention to the directions as I was cutting. Lots of times I just charge right into cutting a project with little or no regard for the number of pieces or the sizes of everything.

Here is the layout of the block. You can see that I did not waste much in trimming, and the pencil and paper there is proof that I was checking my math! Yikes! Not a fun thing for a former English teacher!

So I am getting back to the folks at Bits ' Pieces. Hopefully I can get the exact pieces I have already cut. It will be a fun quilt to work on, too; I am looking forward to getting to sew it.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Tumbling Blocks Progress

When Sharon was here yesterday afternoon, she got to a point on her Tumbling Blocks that it became evident that she really is getting this quilt done!

This quilt is going to be a whopper. It is a king size quilt, and it's made fourths at a time. Sharon completed half of the quilt at 2011 Quilt Camp. Remember how she hung the strips from the bulletin board? It was like working a jigsaw puzzle.

Well, enough time had passed that digging it out again meant figuring out the "process" all over again; but just like riding a bike, it came back to her. She has been making steady progress on it when we sew together each week.

This is the culmination of just 2 or 3 days' work - spread out over 2-3 weeks, of course - but it's coming together!!

My Bernina is still in the fixit shop, so I continue to sort crap stuff in the sewing room move, and when I grow tired of that miserable work, like I did yesterday, I cut out stuff so that I will be ready to SEW-SEW-SEW when Bernina returns!

I will show you my cutting-out progress in tomorrow's post.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Ready to Bind

Terry had Mom's quilt ready for me last Friday when we got together at Sharon's. I have thought all week that I would get a picture of it on here, but just got busy on it today.

I just love how it turned out. The gentle meander quilting is perfect for both the pieced blocks and the very busy setting blocks.

I am turning the back forward to bind the quilt. With basketball games and the Superbowl going on this weekend, I think I will get a good portion of the binding completed.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Birthday Goodies

A few of you know that I have a January birthday. Celebrations with various groups have been going on for awhile now. Any opportunity to get out to a restaurant and visit with dear friends, you know?

Well, even though we are weeks past the actual birthday, on Saturday the Frienzies met at Olive Garden for our January get-together. It was great fun, but only half of us could attend. :-(
I think you quilters will be interested in the great gifts the dear Frienzies gave me for my b-day.

A portable little iron to take when quilting away from home. I've used one of these before; someone else's and it sure is handy. This was from Kay, who also had another goodie in her package.

A handy free-standing cutter. I think Kay has both of these items, and knows how helpful they are in one's sewing room. I can't wait to get a chance to use them myself. (Still waiting on machine's return from fixit shop.)

This is a "bowl" for, I'd say putting out your fruit on the table or counter. But I see it serving a different purpose . . .

Why not re-purpose it in the sewing room to set up a pretty bowl of fabrics? That's what I'm doing. :-)

Do my friends know me or what? I have many of the Kaffe books, but not this one. So Sharon P. remedied that situation. There are at least 2 quilts in this book that I MUST make. (And they are not on the 2013 list!)

And, finally, tucked into a card from Lyn was a quilt shop gift certificate, so I really had a great "haul," wouldn't you say?

Concerning that 2013 list, I have been giving that some thought since posting it. I notice that I began with "finish" 3 quilts, and I ended with "finish" 3 quilts. That would be a wonderful accomplishment right there! A couple of those have been long-time UFOs (as some of you know).

Well, I get my 2nd sciatic shot tomorrow, and afterwards, Sharon P is coming to sew. We had a conflict of duties on Monday, but we are determined to get this routine established again.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

The Goals are Posted!

It has taken me most of the month to finalize the goals list for 2013. I put them on the sidebar yesterday. It is a rather long list, much longer than last year's, for sure. There are a couple of items on the list that have been on the UFO to-do list for the entire time I've done this blog, so I really want to accomplish them this year. There is no excuse for not getting these things done. Absolutely none.

I hope that I don't get so caught up in completing the list that I forgo doing things on a whim. Sometimes, things come up! I want to be sure to take off on a tangent if so moved.

I generally don't have a problem making this quilting thing mostly fun. That's what I love about it!

I have worked off and on on Emma's t-shirt quilt over the past month or so. I will make it a top priority when my machine comes back.

Short and sweet today, Peeps!

Happy Quilting, Friends!