Wednesday, December 28, 2011

OHHHH Road trip

There will not be much sewing around here today! My quilting pal and I are heading to town. No we are not hitting quilt stores...............dang! We are both on no buy due to the drated economy and no jobs! But we are doing the normal things girls do when they go to town. You know the drill groceries and have to have stuff. BUT the biggie here is we are doing it together which means it WILL be fun. First off we have about 60 miles to drive while we chatter and yack about all things important. Then we have the WalMart stop where we always have lots of giggles due to some of the crazies (like us) that frequent the store. There may be a Starbucks stop too which is always fun because of the decisions we have to make in order to have coffee! In any case it will be a much needed girl day! Most important it is a day with my pal which have been few and far between of late. Miss Tilly will stay home and guard my sewing corner; in between bouts of chasing her tail.

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Orca Bay part 6

Since the hubby and I had a very pieceful Christmas weekend, we didn't even put up a tree this year! Which was fine as there is not really room for one in this tiny abode, I decided to spend my time doing what I love! SEWING!  I worked on clue six of Bonnie Hunter's Mystery Orca Bay. We are supposed to use our QSTs from clue 1 and 2 1/2 in squares to make Ohio Stars 28 with black squares and 28 with nutral (light) squares. Here I am just beginning on the black.



And here is a pile of them chain pieced! It reall is more organized than it looks.

Some of the light ones all sewn up!


I finished up all 56 blocks on Monday morning! I just had to lay some out to see how they look! Oh this is going to be a wonderful quilt I just can't wait for Friday!  You can click here to go to Bonnie's site and join the fun it is NOT too late!
  

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Orca Bay part 5



Here is the link to Bonnie's blog head there now for full instructions and join the fun



700?  Really?   Yep 700 little 2" triangles!  It went pretty fast  BUT now to sew one to each side of my HSTs from step 3,   I doubt it will go as fast as the cutting! 

They are realllly cute though so it won't take that long. Every step of this has been a challenge but fun!



haha and look what they do while you sew them! I have never gotten to see this because usually my little helper is in the middle of what I am doing. But she was outside, it was a beautiful warm sunny day here in Wyoming.




This is what normally goes on! Tilly believes she has to check my seams.

Monday, December 19, 2011

Little Baskets!


I use my scrap master ruler by Judy Hopkins to make these little baskets.


The measurements of the ruler are perfect for the size block I am doing, you could add an inch to all the measurements to make a bigger block. You would need to use a different ruler if you choose to do that.




 I was shown how to do these a long time ago and have become addicted to them. I have not as yet done a full quilt with them. I have used them for table runners, pot holders, pillows and candle mats.  They are quick and easy and I dare you to make just one. 

For each little basket block you will need two rectangles measuring 4 1/2 inches X 6 1/2 inches. One is for the background and one is for the basket.




Decide which one you want to use as the background (mine is the rust print that reads solid) from this rectangle cut one 3 7/8 in square, cut this square in half on the diagonal to make two triangles. Cut two 2 inch squares.






 From your other print cut one 3 7/8 in square, cut this square in half to make two triangles too. Save one






 From the other cut a 1 inch strip from the bottom, this will be your basket handle.
 Cut a 2 3/8 inch square from this rectangle as well then cut it in half on the diagonal to make 2 triangles..




Fold the little 1 inch strip in half (I just finger press them)


Now pin the strip to one of your background triangles and stitch about 1/8 inch from the outside edge, take the folded edge to the outside and stitch it down using an applique stitch.



Now you have your handle on you can stitch the rest of your basket together. Tune in tomorrow December 20  for more pictures and directions!

playing catch up!

Today I have got to catch up on my Orca Bay 5 clue. I have all of my triangles cut but I got side tracked on those dang little basket blocks. I decided to cut more pieces for my scrappy hand pieced basket quilt, then of course I just had to watch football and piece  some! I don't really watch football, it is just an excuse to do hand work. I did get four of the little blocks done though so Sunday was not a complete waste. I got a batch of Rocky Road done too, like I need to be eating high calorie chocolate goodies!

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Cleaning? Sewing?


This is Kimber who LOVES to have her picture taken, she sees the camera and runs to get in front of it. I guess beautiful beings always do.As you can see she is very beautiful and she uses that beauty to get everything she wants!


This is the living room all dressed for fall, as you can see it is very small.
It promises to be a really busy day. I have 44 more blocks to do to keep up with the Orca Bay mystery. I am afraid if I fall behind I will give up and not finish. But I also really need to clean the house. This is a TINY house, even a small amount of clutter will make it look as if I have not cleaned for months. LOL So I really need to clean and de-clutter.

Another day with the doctor

Went to Sundance Clinic this morning for followup concerning Larry's eye and the metal he got into it last Thursday. It was not healing as well as the doctor felt it should. So off we speed down the interstate to Gillette! My little Focus prefers NOT to run at 75! Well that isn't really true I prefer not to fly down the road at 75 the car likes it fine. She still gets 41 mpg and does so comfortably. But I do not like going that fast! So we speed west right into a snowstorm, not severe just enough to make one nervous. REALLY NERVOUS. We get to the specialists office and of course wait-not very long actually and the doctor is not nearly so worried as the doc at Sundance. He does prescribe some drops and wants Larry back in two weeks. Another day spent dealing with something that could have been prevented if only the man had worn his safety glasses!!!

Monday, December 12, 2011

Orca Bay Progress


Finally about four in the afternoon we each had 20 blocks done. Of course we would have had more done if we had not played around and had so much fun. BUT it would not have been so much fun if we had not clowned around. These sewing days are meant for fun after all and believe me we live up to them!



Here are the strings we are doing. No wonder red is my favorite color!








NO those are not the strings we are working on!




Some progress starting to show!



Then we started to sew!





Friday was great fun. My quilt pal and I sewed all day on our red strings for Bonnie Hunters Blue Orca Mystery. We chopped and shared our red fabric, dug out some red that was already in strips and set some aside for later.

Friday, December 9, 2011

previous quilts

This is a memory quilt I did for my oldest grand son a few years ago it has pictures of him and his grand pa on a real dozer along with the dirt work panel. He loves it

Clue 4 for Orca Bay

Clue 4 is up! Bonnie put up the fourth clue this morning and it is red strings. YAY  red!

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

TILLY, TILLY WE HAVE FOLLOWERS!!!

YAY   We are so excited.  Thank You Emma for being our first follower...............so I will leave a special little package at R's  the next time I am there and make sure the ladies know who it goes to.. may be a few days BUT IT WILL BE THERE
Of course as is always the case, Miss Tilly is looking over my sholder making sure I do it correctly! She even has the nerve to check my seams!


I sew and I sew and I sew. There are 350 of these little darlings! They are to cute, I just can't wait to see how all of this fits together! Bonnie's mysteries are always beautiful, so you can imagine how anxious I am to see where we are going with this.

On to step 3

As you can see I am getting directions from her highness Miss Tilly! She knows everything there is to know afterall!
Last Friday step three was posted on Quiltville.com. So I dug through more scraps and started cutting. I am finally using a ruler I got about two years ago- I wish I had tried it before!  It makes half square triangles a breeze. It is the Easy Angle and it truly is easy, it omits the need to cut squares first. It is really amazing. If you go to quiltville.com you will find not only the ORCA Mystery but a wonderful tutorial on the use of this ruler!

Catching up

I completed step two of  Bonnie Hunter's ORCA Bay Mystery, this is just a few of the little blocks. There are 72 in all. String blocks! I had forgotten over the years how much I enjoy these.

Saturday, December 3, 2011

This is what I did with the little brown ones. As you can see they can be used in lots of ways.
This is one of the others, using up some of my 30's scraps. This will be a queen sized quilt one day......in the future.
This is a little basket quilt I have become really fascinated with. They stitch up super fast I use my scrap master ruler on them. They start with two blocks 4 1/2 by 61/2 in two different colors. This group is in the same color plan. But this is a wonderful way to use up scraps. I have two other projects going using these baskets.
Not one stitch yesterday! Had lots of plans but it was one of those days that just did not go well for stitching! I did finally get all of the apples peeled, cored, sliced and cooked into apple butter. The house got cleaned and lots of folks dropped by. One of my quilting students came for another lesson and we managed to get her three little wall hangings layered and basted for quilting. I cannot post pictures yet because they are for Christmas Presents. YES Christmas...... not holiday presents! They are adorable though and her own design so keep checking back I will post pictures when I can. Today I fully intend to get some cutting and stitching on ORCA!

Thursday, December 1, 2011

This year's mystery

The first clue is hour glass bolcks in blacks and neutrals.Here you can see my quilt partner Sheryl is working on her first blocks, she finished them yesterday. Isn't she adorable? We stitched non stop for two days and giggled till my checks hurt!
The second clue is little blue string blocks. Using up these scraps is terrific.  Check out Bonnie's web page! She is terrific and this year's mystery is there. It is Blue Orca and great fun!  Just go to your search engine and type Quiltville.com

While the apples simmered I stitched

I am doing Bonnie Hunters mystery quilt  this year and I have the first two clues done. While I am waiting for the newest clue I am working on last years mystery. I started it last year but life got in the way of my completeing it so now I am doing it. 

More apples today?

I did manage to get four jars of apple butter out of  32 apples! The house smelled wonderful, and I got some stitching done while I waited for them to cook down. I turned out realllly tasty, in fact it is going on sour dough pancakes this morning!