have ripper, will sew

In recent days I have been tagged for the "Thinking Blogger Award" by Darlene, Patti and Judy that I know of--I'm a bit behind in reading. Thanks so much for the "shout out", ladies. I just keep plugging along doing my thing but it is nice to be noticed for my efforts on behalf of Wrap Them in Love. I've been active with the group since the fall of 99 and consider it my mission to use my time and talents to make quilts for children in need. I don't know that I will tag anyone as I consider you all my inspiration and would not want to leave anyone out. Also, some who would have been my picks have already been tagged and some more than once.

Just a comment though in response to what Darlene and Judy posted. I DO make my own stuff just not often or most of my stuff is not finished. Until we get to the goal for the quilt numbers we need it will remain that way. Normally by late summer/early fall then I can pay a bit more attention to personal projects. This past year my time got sucked up doing commissioned work before Christmas. I'm not complaining though as that helped pay for a new sewing machine!

Okay, what are you looking at here? Warm Wishes, hot off the press. The link will take you to the full sized bed pattern but HERE is the crib sized version. Sorry for the blurry picture--I may need to invest in a tripod if I can't take a clearer picture than that. It is an old pattern used originally for Project Linus some years back but for some reason I never had made one---till now. Beth commented the other day that she was planning on making one too for a neighbor and from her description this one was in the same colors, more or less. I'll be interested to see how similiar they are.

Definitely busting stash on this one. The dark gray and white are leftovers from the aforementioned commissioned SEC quilts. The Dalmatian fabric is leftover from one of the Belles quilts from a few years back. The gold tone of tone? Well, I use that often and had a far amount of yardage from Ellen, the founder of WTIL---a fabric company donated two different colorways but that gold is my fav piece.

I wanted that Dalmatian fabric gone so I pieced the backing as well but this time found a use for the gold with the uggy red vein that is also part of that same fabric donation. Click larger if you dare, LOL. The first time the Belles and I tried to pin a quilt that had a back pieced similiar to this we had to move that thing six ways from Sunday trying to center it. It was starting to get frustrating for the ones at the pinning table but a little funny too. We eventually got it figured out and the quilt turned out beautifully. Lois has done the sort of pieced back since, a couple of times so I don't think it will be much trouble now. I know, I know the purists would tell you to center the seam down the back etc but NOT for donation quilts and NOT when that means moving the quilt on the pinning table more than you need to. Start pinning in the upper left and take from there. All we worry about is directional prints and that the piecing seams do not land where the binding might go.

The piecing went pretty quickly on the Warm Wishes though we had an afternoon power outage of about 90 minutes. Oh, I had a few rail blocks that were turned the wrong direction and sewed one row on backwards. Have ripper, will sew after all. Better too that I caught it while still stitching. I had a block turned the wrong way dead center of the quilt on the Beetle top. You know I switched it back to where it should be.

If I were to make another one though, I would follow the instructions that my little voice had tried to tell me when I cut and kitted this thing up. Make the strip set and however wide the thing measures, that is the measurement to use when you sub-cut it into squares. Mary Ellen Hopkins works that way---it makes sense. I don't know if I had mis-cut the strips or am still working out where to set the seam allowance on my Brother but they should have finished 6 inches---it didn't.

This is going to sound like I am a perfectionist or anal retentive but I trimmed the dalmatian blocks down. I know that they could have been fudged in as they were not off but 1/8 inch or a hair more. The beetle top I just finished ? I had cut all the black squares too small. I used them anyway but in some cases where I had chosen to offset the undercut squares left me with too little a seam allowance and having to zigzag the seams to keep it reinforced for the wear and washing stress the quilt will receive. Double sewing? No thanks. Didn't want to do that again so soon.

Other than that---a surprise birthday party to go to yesterday but I had also gone to the "faux" one Thursday evening hosted by the quilt group in an effort to throw him off. Several of the Belles were there so we got to visit a bit. Walking was out today due to the cold, blustery, windy weather. We had hoped for a bit more rain that we received---many of our bushes are drying up on top due to the lack of rain. We are some 8 inches behind on precip totals so far this year. Some stuff he waters but the established plants and bushes he doesn't. Not a lot going on this week and I'll be back to quilting once errands are run tomorrow. My usual Monday, in other words. This is my 2nd stab at posting this---hope this time I don't lose it--my fault, not blogger, sorry to say, LOL.