Centennial Update

Almost halfway on the Arizona Flag centennial project! 900 squares done, 1112 to go. I fashioned a design wall by using a piece of batting and some push pins so I can audition the fabrics. I am trying to do several four-patches each day. In a perfect world, the top will be done in June and I can quilt it during my summer vacation. We all know how "people plan and God laughs," so stay tuned for progress reports!

My "leader ender" project has been Bonnie Hunter's Boxy Stars. (Leader Ender: something to feed through the machine while chain piecing, hopefully to eliminate thread tails and waste when you finish a set of blocks for your main project.) I made a version of this quilt about a year ago, but this time I think I will add sashing between the blocks.
Bonnie typically makes scrappy quilts, but I like to control the color palette a bit more. I started with a rainbow selection of 2.5-inch strips. I need to work on the border design to bring it up to Quilt-of-Valor size (about 60x72), so I'm going to play in Electric Quilt.

Stars

Quilts of Valor needed some donation blocks, so these will be in the mail tomorrow, on their way to the Dallas Quilt Show for people to sign. The blocks will eventually be made into a quilt to comfort one of our returning soldiers.

Completely unrelated, Kendra has a new fascination with my camera. She's actually pretty good! First is her favorite stuffed animal, Monkey Dog:
Then Mommy...
And one of our cats...
and Daddy!

New Project!

I cut some blue squares for the Centennial project, and then decided I needed some instant gratification. I pulled out a roll of 2.5" strips that I bought last summer, and started cutting for:
Boxy Stars, a Bonnie Hunter pattern. I like to make scrappy stars in rainbow colors. I need to do some quick math and then supplement from my stash because I'm planning this to eventually be a Quilt of Valor, and I want a 4 by 5 layout.

As I was sewing, I had the thought that this is one of the few times I have repeated a pattern! First, I was thinking it was the ONLY time I repeated, but then I realized I have made several Sudoku quilts. Those are such fun to plan! And, I've got plans to repeat another old favorite as a class sample...someday, when I get the sample done and have time to approach my LQS and get on their schedule, LOL. My brother's opinion comes to mind...he never re-reads a book since there are so many great books out there. What do you think - repeat a fun pattern or find something new and exciting?

Lone Star Class

At Quilting in the Desert this week, I took "Lone Star Sparkler" taught by Helen Young Frost. (pictured here during her show and tell).

I showed up for class with a variety of fabric...

And chose these three for my first star:

Here are the pieces for the star points (mine on the left, a classmate's at the top is actually green with purple accent fabric, and my friend's earth tones on the right).

Jeanne and I at the end of the day! We both like to finish as much as possible in class, so we stayed in and sewed during lunch.

And my first stars! You can see I have a problem with the blue star, the red fabric is very rippled. Jeanne's solution is to rip it our and applique the star onto the background, but I think that A-word is nasty! I'm going to email the teacher and see what she suggests.

Since I had some extra time and fabric, I pieced an orange and green star, but it's just pinned to the background. I might try the background again, but I am nervous about screwing it up again! I thought I did a careful job measuring, cutting and pinning...wish me luck on the next attempt.

Mysteries

I am working on two mystery quilts, destined to be Quilts of Valor.
Mystery #12 from Persimmon Quilts...traditional red, blue, cream and gold. I'm working on Clue 3.
JudyL is designing this one. Bright colors with cream background and green accents. Working on clue 3 on this one as well!On the longarm is the wedding quilt, which was paper pieced. The wedding is this Friday. I totally blew the deadline, as explained in the last post :-) So, now I can relax and enjoy the process of stitching. The jewel blocks are in purple, blue and green, and these stars appear in the corner. I am quilting a feathery pinwheel in the purple area, and I will use some concentric teardrops in the turquoise triangles.The view from the back - I am using a different design in each jewel block. I love this purple thread, it's King Tut and it is working like a dream in my machine! At the top of the photo is the over/under feather I used in the inner border.

ter

National Quilting Day

I am going to miss my guild meeting because Kendra has strep throat. That kind of put a damper on my Spring Break plans to quilt while she was at daycare...and I am officially sick of all the cartoons on Disney Channel and Nickelodeon. Thank goodness there is basketball this time of year!

I am working on the last six blocks of my paper pieced quilt, so that huge project is on track for its June deadline. I had most of the thread I need for the quilting stage, and managed to pick up the last two colors at the annual show last weekend.

Kendra is a budding artist herself - she is in a rainbow phase, and must cover every square inch of paper in her drawings. I've learned not to pick her up during art time at daycare, because I have to wait for her to finish. This week she colored what looked like a log cabin quilt block, so I had her dig through my scraps to find fabric pieces - TA DA!

New Project!

We bought a new Christmas tree, and I'm looking forward to decorating it tonight. Bentley says we'll have some popcorn, too, and I always watch "The Sound of Music" when I put up my tree. Not really a classic Christmas tale, but it was always on TV during the holidays when I was little, so there's the "tradition."

I cast on for a sweater vest. It uses two colors of Noro variegated yarn. I love watching the new colors emerge! This is a testament to my increasing skill as a knitter...it is working up very quickly.
The mitered blanket is about halfway done. Yes, I *have* been working on it for years! I finished the individual blocks a few months ago, and I started the seaming process. Note my two different techniques. The right side is done with crochet, and the left is mattress stitch. I'm kicking myself because I tried to figure out mattress stitch from a book, decided it didn't look good, and went with crochet. The crochet doesn't look very good either, but it was faster than my interpretation of mattress stitch! Over Thanksgiving, my mom taught me the right way to do mattress stitch, which doesn't take very long, and makes an invisible seam. You guessed it, I will be taking out all the crochet seams. This project has taken so long that it is worth doing the best I can.

The purple beast left my house a couple weeks ago, hooray! I am taking a break from quilting for other people so I can work on a few of my own projects. I dove right into this beauty.

Paper pieced, 40 pieces per block, and I need 42 blocks. Oh, and to make things exciting, it needs to be done (pieced, quilted and bound) by mid-June. (No, I can't quit my day job)
1680 pieces to sew, plus picking off all the paper...I'll play Scarlett O'Hara and think about that tomorrow!

I quilted today!

Yay for me! I had a doctor's appointment this morning, so I burned a whole sick day and enjoyed some quiet time in my sewing room. Judy has started another Quilt for an Hour project. I was able to finish the first two steps...instructions are only posted on weekdays so I will definitely us the weekend for catching up!Does it count as stash-busting if you use someone else's stash??? I raided my mom's fabric collection for green and browns. I'm thinking masculine colors for a potential Quilt of Valor donation. I'd better get busy at the longarm so all the QOVs I've done this summer can be put to good use!! FYI - visit qovf.org for details about a Vermont effort to collect 200+ quilts for service members.

Of course, since I did NOT buy season tickets this year, the Phoenix Mercury have advanced to the second round of the WNBA playoffs! I keep meaning to go to a game, but when it comes right down to it, I'm usually too tired, don't want to drive downtown and pay for parking, food, etc. I've been able to watch most of the games through a live feed on my computer. Some of the playoff games are on ESPN2, which makes for good knitting time.
I'm almost done with my mitered square blanket!I need to block the blue-yellow-green squares, then the blue-pink-purple will be my last color combination, for a total of 81 individual blocks. I've seamed about a third of them, so I need to finish that and then knit the border. Maybe it will be done by Christmas?!?

Of course, I need a few days for this...
I got an email coupon from Barnes&Noble, so I stopped by after my appointment today. I didn't realize it was new on the shelf today! This is #7 in the Outlander series, so you really need to start from the beginning to get the full effect of Claire traveling through time via stone circles and falling in love with Highlander Janie Fraser. I've heard rumors of a movie version, but this is definitely a case where no mere human actor will be able to live up to the millions of reader fantasies!

Avoidance

I waste too much time on the computer. It's one habit that I am trying to break! Of course when Kendra decides to have a tea party, the computer gets left in the dust :-)

I'm a bit intimidated by the next quilt I have to do...antique signature blocks and a request for feathers.
So, I am going to find some stencils today and tackle this one...on Monday, LOL. Hey, don't roll your eyes like that, my weekends are busy with family! Do you know how hard it is to get anything done with a three year old running around??? Luckily there are 10 days left before I have to go back to school, so the goal for next week is to JUST DO IT.

Of course, I haven't touched the seam ripper since I admitted my mistake on the other quilt. ugh. There are many hours of repair work waiting for me in the quilt room...see why I play on the computer so much?!?

Colors

Quilts of Valor issued a new challenge - use the Disappearing Nine Patch pattern to make a quilt. I've seen this pattern before, but never tried it myself. This version uses 5" squares. My last QOV project decimated my meager stash of red, white and blue fabric so, oh darn, I will have to go shopping before I go any further with this!

Temptation from Wendy:
She organized an I-Spy swap. I have ideas for several I-spy theme quilts, so this will be a fun way to get lots of different prints. (Amy sent me such a big bag of goodies that I am sharing the love!)

Kendra has been busy for about three days now with a highlighter marker. She can even draw a recognizable face! Parents - remember the simple joys of empty boxes and colors :-)

Current Events

Quilter's ADD...I started a new project, even though I haven't finished the QOV Mystery or the May blocks for my block-of-the-month project! And I have quite a pileof UFO's tucked away that probably only need a border or something to finish. But, at least this is a stash project, so I do get credit for avoiding unnecessary spending. The pattern is Twisted Sister by Ami Simms. I am using black backgrounds and a variety of brown, gold and green batiks. Hopefully this is a masculine look, because it is destined for another returning soldier!

Friday the family went to the Desert Botanical Gardens to see the Chihuly exhibit "The Nature of Glass." This blue and purple collection was in perhaps the most gorgeous section...right under a palo verde tree that provided lots of shade!

Here are some pink "fiddleheads" with green swirllies (yep, technical term) among some prickly pear.

At the entrance, you are greeted by glass yucca formations and agave/century plants on the terraces. The whole place is beautiful.

May Update

Finished half of a pair of Shur'tugal socks in STR Alley Oop (details on Ravelry).

Almost to the end of the mystery quilt!

Baby K continues to brighten every day with her smiles.

Daddy brought home a huge flower arrangement from his school's graduation, and K "planted" on in the yard.

And then she got in touch with her inner farmer...

Sunday Sewing

To satisfy my quilting urge, I started a scrappy project using Bonnie's Boxy Stars pattern. I personally have issues with totally random scrap quilts, so I made the main star potion of each block in similar colors...of course, once I took the picture I can see that my values (light and dark) are way off! Oh well, that helps with the scrappy feel.
I am going to add more red and blue stars and send this to Quilts of Valor. They are trying to collect over 1,000 quilts by May 31st to present to a Marine Battalion that is returning home. I have some other blocks ready to assemble into a top, so I hope to contribute several finished quilts to this effort.
Some quilters have trouble with their cats laying on their projects when they are trying to take pictures...I have an enthusiastic little girl! I asked her to help, and first she rolled among all the blocks, then started throwing them in the air.
This next photo is just proof of my insanity: When I trim the corners of the Boxy Stars, I have half-square triangles, already matched in lights and darks. They are about 1.5inches square. My mom and I have had this conversation for years. It seems like such a waste to throw all these scraps out, but really...when are we ever going to sew them into something useful??? Well, I'm making a dedicated effort to use them as leader/enders when I chain piece, and I promise blogland that I will find a pattern for HST and work on it this summer! Maybe Broken Dishes?

Quilt Lesson

I gave my friend Michelle her first quilting lesson today. Isn't it fun to share hobbies with friends?!? A few months ago we went shopping and the pattern "Reel Fine" appealed to her. She is an experienced sewer, so I assured her that while the pattern looks difficult, she could handle it step by step. She fell in love with some batiks:
(What looks like two pieces on the right is actually from a single piece of variegated fabric)
I made a sample of the pattern in EQ6 so she could see how the colors went together:


She cut everything for a queen size quilt in just a couple hours, and when she started sewing, she said, "You know, this isn't brain surgery." Yep, step by step is all it takes! She wants more lessons as she puts the blocks together. Oh wow, an excuse to quilt all day! "Sorry honey, Michelle needs my help...I'll be back in time for dinner." :-)

Here's a sneak peek of a quilt that will be entered in a show in a couple weeks. I'm about halfway done with the binding. I had fun with the meandering leaves.And I'm almost done with the body of baby K's knitted t-shirt. I love watching variegated yarn knit up. It's always a surprise.