Finished!

Everyone asks for the bad news first, and unfortunately, the Phoenix Suns' winning streak came to an end tonight. I usually don't watch men's basketball until March Madness and the NBA Finals, but the Suns are just awesome this year! Steve Nash is on his way to a third MVP award. Hopefully we can win the Western Conference and get to the Finals this year.

OK, enough sports talk. I know you're all here for the quilts! (Except Aunt Gretchen, Ty and Jean...so sorry, I'll post baby pictures tomorrow).

This is one of the wall-hangings I am giving to our small quilt auction. I used left over Stack-n-Whack blocks. I had fun using ALL the scraps from the original project! I just bought some more of the blue background...it's basic enough to use in something else. Here is the second bit of leftovers. I had some of the full "treasure box" blocks finished, so I just made a smaller version of Bethany Reynold's original design.
BTW - you should really try taking photos of your quilts-in-progress. These kaleidoscopes look pretty neat on my computer screen! It's like a reducing glass, you can get a better feel for the overall balance of the quilt and the colors if you snap a quick digital photo.

Sewing Time

We finally have a regular bedtime for Baby K! 7:30pm, which gives me a couple hours for sewing and knitting in front of the TV. Mondays and Thursday are couch potato time (24, Grey's Anatomy and Men in Trees are must-watch shows).

Last night I finished this block for an exchange at my guild:

I don't know the name, but I love pinwheels, so this pattern goes in the "make more later" pile! Everyone was instructed to use red, gold and black, then the blue area will be multi-color/quilter's choice. I had fun digging through my stash for colors! I have a green picked out to make another block.

Still plugging along on bindings and the Jaywalkers and counting the days until the first Rockin' Sock Club package arrives from Blue Moon Fibers!

Finished

in the nick of time, LOL. I planned to use the rest of the bobbin if the spool ran out while I was doing the binding! But, it didn't come to that. It was the perfect week to curl up on the couch under a quilt...I mentioned the record lows here in Phoenix, and yesterday was rainy and 45 degrees. More of the same this weekend, and I have about five projects waiting for binding!

Here is the front of the quilt. I did not make the top - it is being donated to the Quilt Pink auction. I just offered my longarm services!

Awake

Do you know this cute guy?? Josh Groban - AWESOME singer. I fell in love with him 2 years ago when my mom got us all concert tickets to see him. I had his second CD on constantly for about six months! About a week ago, I was watching a Suns basketball game, and they had a scrolling banner announcing Josh's next concert. I immediately went online and got tickets for March 25th, then went out the next day and bought his latest album "Awake." There are more english-language songs this time, but so far, I like his earlier stuff better.

School news...I am teaching AP Government this semester, and it's been off to a rocky start. Imagine - I actually expect my students to do daily reading (5 - 10 pages) and understand most of it on their own!!! So far, about a third of the class dropped out. Their first test is today, so tomorrow the class may be even smaller. As one of my teacher friends says, a smaller class of the brightest kids is NOT a bad thing :-)

And, I coach our school bowling team. We have two more weeks of competition. The boys are number one in the region with a pretty good chance to go to the state tournament. Once that is over (mid-February) then I can go home right after school every day and do more quilting and knitting. Woo-Hoo! I thought about bringing my socks to work on during the test period at school, but I guess I'll just catch up on grading.

As a reward for slogging through details of my boring life, here's the latest Baby K picture:

We stayed bundled up this week since there were 4 days of FROST warnings! Our low on Monday night was 22 degrees - in PHOENIX...that's the lowest low temperature in 30 years! I'll have to remember that when it hits 115 this summer... either way, you just stay inside.

Bunny Picture

Baby K at five months old:


The back of my leftover kaleidoscopes:

I'll show the front again after I get the bindings on. Can anyone explain, or send a link to instructions for applying straight bindings? I usually use mitered binding, but I'm using leftover strips and I don't have the excess to turn the corners. Although, I just bought some more of that blue background to make the hanging sleeves, so I could add more to my binding strips... Now it's just a debate over machine binding or hand stitching!

Next up on the longarm - two charity projects for the Quilt Pink auction! I had hoped to get the first one done over my Christmas vacation, but I was waiting on thread. I prefer PermaCore for the longarm and my favorite store was closed when I needed to order, so I used a different vendor and the shipment got delayed over New Year's Day.

Another question - does anyone save their excess batting? I end up with long strips that are only 6-8 inches wide after I quilt something on the longarm. It seems such a waste to throw that out, but I hate fiddling with leftovers trying to whip-stitch enough together for another project. If any of my quilt-blogger friends can use these scraps, let me know and we'll work out a swap!!

what do you see?

There is a cat stand in this picture. Unfortunately, that is NOT the place that Gidget decides to perch!

I've been quilting the kaleidoscope leftovers and knitting on the 2nd Jaywalker, but you've seen those before...I guess we're done here, LOL. I joined the 2007 Rockin' Socks Club from Blue Moon Yarn, so there will be lots of pretty yarn and many socks in the near future...the first installment arrives in February.

OH - exciting news - I bought Josh Groban concert tickets! He will be in Phoenix in March. Yay!!

Happy New Year!

This is what we did on New Year's Day:

A 500-piece puzzle of the Mission San Xavier del Bac, which is jsut south of Tucson. We thought it sounded like a fun New Year's EVE project, but we went to bed early and forgot about it. OOPS. But it was perfect for New Year's Day with the Rose Parade on in the background. Some of the sky areas were pretty tricky. My method is to leave then come back to it throughout the day. Puzzle strategy - I look for colors that should be in the piece I want and then pick from the remaining pieces. B. picks up a piece, grabs the box top, and tries to figure out exactly where that piece goes. I guess it takes all kinds ;-)

Gidget has become much more active and friendly since she is an only-cat now. Here she is inspecting my thread box. She even made an appearance while my parents were over babysitting! It's the first time they've seen her in several years!

An example of bad math At my first Quilt Camp in the Pines a few years ago, I took a class from Sharyn Craig called "Half Log Cabin." I tried to re-create it here with 2.5" strips, and I ended up with a rectangle! I guess I should try a bit harder to dig out the original instructions...

And finally, here are the blocks I made for our guild meeting in February. Each month we get a new block pattern, and you get a raffle ticket for each block that you bring in the next month. The winner takes home all the completed blocks and is ready to finish a top! I've won two sets of blocks over the past 2 years, so I suppose I should put them together one of these days! (See, Susan, I *do* have UFOs!!!)