Project report

Well, I have finished some of the projects. The NICU flip and sews are done, along with "snakes" to match them. The housewarming gift is done and delivered, though I may add some additional items. I did finish 6 place mats and a hexagon table mat. A thank you gift for DD's friend who put them up for 5 days after the car accident until she flew to us is in the process of having binding attached, and should be finished this week. At the Project Linus sewing day, one of the other ladies had a knitted pincushion, and I asked if she had the pattern. She took my e-mail and sent me the instructions, so I promptly started in using up left over yarn, and I've made up 5 of these. If I don't have hand stitching on a quilt to do, I knit while watching TV, and I also knitted on these on the trip to Georgia. I'll include the instructions when I post a picture of them.

We've been so busy otherwise that I've just not had time to get the pictures transferred from the camera to the computer or post. I woke up and couldn't go back to sleep, so decided to write a short update. We went to Georgia again on Feb 6, and returned on the 8th. We drove up to the house to find that someone had run down our mailbox and a trash can, and there was trash scattered in the bar ditch for nearly 200 feet. There was a note stuck in the door from the deputy sheriff with a case number and so on. Surprisingly, when we called the trash people, they came out and picked up the trash, but apparently the person was driving the car is a relative of the owner of the company. DD had been there the night before packing up and moving more of her things and apparently this occurred during the night. DH did a makeshift repair job on the mailbox, but it should be replaced, and DD is getting the accident report and so on. This took a good bit of time, but I did manage to shred a lot of old documents, reducing the number of boxes of papers to bring home from 6 to 3, and my daughters and I packed up 3 boxes of dishes and stuff to bring. There's still a lot more, and I don't know when we'll get it. All 3 of my daughters and my granddaughter came over Saturday to help me go through stuff, and take some of their stuff to their homes, so we actually had a pleasant time. We left early Sunday morning so we could get home and get some rest before DH had to be back to work Monday morning.

This last week, we had new ceramic tile floors put in our bathrooms, with radiant heat in the master bath. We were actually without toilets for 3 days, and the one in the master bath still isn't reinstalled. We do have a Porta-Potti for camping, so we used that. The floor in the hall bath was fine to walk on Friday night, so we were able to use the shower in there, though DH didn't get the toilet installed until Saturday night. The floor in the master bath had to cure another day because it's thicker because of the heat mat, and it should have been finished today (Sunday), but we need an extra wax ring for the toilet, so DH will get that put in tomorrow. We did have a tile contractor lay the tile.

Maybe this next week, I can find time to get the pictures posted.

What I've Been Working On Lately

No pictures today, because I've not got anything finished! I have a lot of UFOs, but of course, keep coming up with new projects. I decidcd I should try to post at least once a week anyway.

My daughter is buying her first house, so I'm working on a house-warming gift. She has the link to this blog, so I'm not going to say anymore about that!

Friday, I went to a Project Linus Sewing Day. The owner of the little quilt shop near me lets them use her classroom. Anyone interested comes to sew or knit or crochet or whatever. It continued on Saturday, but one day is enough for me. The local chairperson brought a huge amount of donated fabric, and some of us picked through it and sewed away. A couple of ladies come just to sew the Project Linus labels onto the blankets. I started two flip and sew from some cute Noah's Ark border print fabric. No panels to go with it, but there were about 3 yards of the border and another 3 yards where it had been cut off. I found another piece to go with it and brought them home to finish. These will be little NICU blankets, about 20 x 24 when finished.

We also shared a number of techniques for making blankets. One lady takes scraps of fleece and pieces them by butting them together and using a multi-step zigzag stitch. She then crochets an edge on most of them. Fleece blankets of various sizes are popular - either with a blanket stitch edge by machine or hand, or with fringe. When you do the fringe, you simply pull the fringes through little slits in the fleece, but to do the corners, you cut out about a 3-inch square. She takes those and other scraps of fleece to make her blankies.

I found my niche for Project Linus. I actually enjoy binding quilts, but many quilters don't care for that part. So, I'm the designated quilt binder. Since the part I find most tedious is machine quilting (although I do do it), I took a couple that I pieced for someone else to quilt, then bring them back to me to bind. I also brought home some really pretty sweatshirt type fabric to do a machine blanket stitch edge on, and a flip and sew that someone else did that day to be bound.

I don't know when I'll get any of these projects finished. Won't get into the sewing room much the rest of this week. My daughter's husband in the Air Force is headed to Korea, so she's moving back to Georgia to stay with his mother and be near her sisters and brother (and us in Alabama). There was an accident a few hours before they were ready to start the trip, and their pickup truck was damaged too much to make the trip. He took off with the rental truck and furniture Sunday morning, and she and the kids are flying here (from Phoenix), arriving Wednesday morning. We were going to go on to Georgia on Friday anyway to see SIL before he leaves for Korea, so she'll go the rest of the way with us. It was considerably less expensive for her to come here than to Atlanta. He'll be going back to Phoenix to be deployed from there, so he'll be there long enough to deal with the "broken" truck before he leaves.

We'll enjoy seeing our grandsons! Leo (4-1/2) calls me regularly, but this will be a chance for Ty (who will be 2 in march) to get to know us better. We haven't been around him very much.

Another NICU Quilt

I found this remnant of a Silly Safari fabric by Moda at my favorite quilt shop and thought it would make a nice bright NICU quilt. The large patches are quick to cut and piece. I liked it so much, I went online to find more of this discontinued fabric and bought 4 yards. The blue and red dots are from Moda's All About Color line. This quilt will also go to the NICU at Phoenix Children's Hospital. This was machine pieced and quilted. This one measures 36.5" square. The colors in these pictures are not quite right. The reds appear too orange.

Counted Cross Stitch Weathervane Horse

I stitched this in 1986. It looks very easy, but it wasn't, mostly because there are 18 cross stitches to the inch. The stitching/bare areas are opposite in the base. The second close up view is where I stitched my name and the date in thread that's the same color as the fabric. You can see it if you look, but it doesn't spoil the overall "picture." It's actually a medium federal blue on off-white fabric, but the color didn't come out well. I didn't want to take it out from under the glass to take the pictures.

Knitted Quilt Block Dishcloths

Quilting is my current passion, but I also love other types of needlework. I designed these two dishcloths myself, in the Nine Patch and Puss in the Corner traditional quilt block designs. I can knit one of these up in 3 or 4 hours, faster than the ones I've made from various leaflets, although I enjoy the more complicated knit and crochet patterns. When I took the beginning quilt class last spring, which was 7 classes over a 4-month period, I knitted up about a dozen of the Nine Patches for my classmates and teacher. I don't like to sew in the car, but I knit or crochet when we travel. If I don't have any hand quilting or binding to stitch, I do other types of needlework while watching television with my husband. If you request it via e-mail, I'd be happy to share the patterns.

Block of the Month

This block of the month started in June. I won't post the other blocks just yet, because I'm going to actually do each block 3 times. The block on the left is as I get the fabrics from the shop, and the block on the right is my second version. I'm going to do the third version in teal using Blank Quilting Company's Inspirations I, II, and III collections. Blank donates part of the proceeds from these fabrics, all in teal, to ovarian cancer research. My DGD loves the color combination of teal and brown, so the background on this will be a brown fusions fabric. I'm going to make an extra block in the blue and yellow/orange, and then turn those 25 blocks into throws and a pillow for each of my 5 grandsons, each one having a different combination of blocks. The teal and brown quilt for my granddaughter will be twin size. The blocks won't be done until next summer, so these will be for Christmas 2009. I'll post pictures of the 3 versions of each block as I finish the brown and teal blocks. This is block #5. The 12" blocks get put together with a sashing of the blue fabric with setting squares of yellow/orange squares sent on point with the corners of the blue.

Blue and White Table Runner

This was a class I took last spring. I collect blue and white china, so it's perfect on my dining room table with the 15 different blue and white plates in the china cabinet. This is machine pieced and machine quilted, and measures 13" by 35."