Still partying!

Today was the Bama Belles turn to party!  We had decided to forego the potluck lunch deal and just go out to eat somewhere.  This is such a busy time of year and people not only have family events but have other groups to party with---other quilt groups, events their husbands are involved with, Sunday school class events, you name it.   Add dietary concerns and we decided to go the buffet route at Western Sizzlin' so you could pick and chose (or avoid).

Ten of us were able to be there today---pretty much our regular group really.  I was so busy running some errands before I was to pick up Marilyn that I completely forgot to bring my camera to take pictures of "show and tell".  Bev and Lois were taking pics with their cell phones so I at least have these that Bev took to share!  I would forget my own head sometimes if it were NOT attached to my body, I swear!  

A few of us had our Tons of Black Challenge pieces------others have started but are not done, anothers have not seen a pattern that tripped their trigger yet.  One said she could not find her yardage, another said she could have hers, LOL.  Whatever, they show up eventually.  I still have part of my Romance challenge piece left from two years ago??   You may remember seeing these in previous posts, the now archived material.   Regardless, I'll share them again if you are new to my blog.

First up, Lois' Night and Day using an Eleanor Burns pattern

Mine,  Mock Trip Around the World

Beverly's String quilt in a sunshine and shadows I want to call it set

Bev used Lorelei fabric to make her quilt but I think the "Tons of Black"was mainly in the pieced backing.  See it the 2nd picture.  Bev is the one who found all this fabric at a yard sale and donated it.  Lois washed it all up to take care of the stiffness so we could use it.  Up to us to find a home for it.

Then we had a couple other items to share.  I guess I did not get a picture of the bag with sunflower that Betsy had been busily working on as a Christmas gift.  Pattern was from Fons and Porter---very cute.  One of the others may have it though and just haven't emailed it back to me.

Here was a cute holiday bag that Bev found at a yard sale for a dollar!  The handles were hold together with a faux fur band.

Lois Twister Wreath

Lois Strings-----there is also a picture of the back so you can see how she quilted it.  

can you see the hands?

This is Lois' Quilt as well.  I want to say it is Daisy Chain maybe?  Or something similar to Double Irish Chain.  The embroidered bits are so pretty and were done as part of the quilting.  See the backing picture as well.

I got home about 2:30 or so??  About the usual time for a meeting day actually.  A good day spent with friends and no pinning!!

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I had talked to DJ this weekend about whether he wanted to put up the tree this year.  Skyler was not horrid about bothering it or the ornaments but he wasn't exactly an angel either.  Still, he did not feel like the hassle of digging the box out of the shed rafters necessarily and I did not insist.  Instead when I got home from the party today, I told him I thought I would put the ceramic Christmas tree my mom had made for us years ago on the empty plant stand (he was definitely HORRID about messing with the plant that used to live there!!)  While Skyler often jumps up in the empty stand to look out the small window flanking the fire place, I thought he would leave it alone if I drug in a stuffed item that he adored last year.

My friend Joy who was my secret pal on Christmas made this stuff mouse for me years ago and I set it up under the tree along with another small stuffed reindeer.   Skyler spent a good bit of his time last December dragging this by its tail all over the house.  Miss Mousie would turn up in the kitchen, half way up the hall way but I would never catch him actually dragging it.  Today he latched onto it like it was an old long lost friend.   It was up and down the hall several times but it drags more easily on the laminate floor in the kitchen.  Silly, silly boy!   Of course, he is completely sacked out now.

I hope that you have had a good day----I sure did!

finished to flimsy

As planned I finished up my "Tons of Black" Challenge piece yesterday afternoon.  I'm pleased with how it turned out.  Good size.  May work for a guy as I don't think the grayish green looks girl-y though it is a vine print.

I spent part of  last evening knitting---making some progress on this latest hat, playing with the double point needles.  Ordinarily I would not worry so much about capping the tips but I am still afraid the stitches might slip off the back end of the needle.  I just move them as I knit around and around.   I've got an inch or so to go before I begin the decrease.  I'm doing to try it on the circulars next, practicing what I picked up on the video links I posted recently.  Like the blue color??  Uh, make that "shaded dusk"

Today was Bama Belles day---the weather was kind of miserable--cold and wet but thankfully the rain seemed to slow down to that misty stuff when we had to haul things in from the car.  I'll report on that later as we had a bunch of quilts turned in at the meeting.  I did a little bit of sewing on the Criss Cross  pro bono top I had been working on at the Friendship Quilters sew-in.  Initially I had planned on putting the binding on my Christmas Patience Corner but I didn't want to be hauling that around in the rain.  It was already in the car, the car is NOT the pampered princess that gets to sit in the covered car port, not worth getting it wet when I can do it here at home.

Aline will have one for me to quilt but it was short backing fabric when the girls pinned it today.  Once that is straightened out, she'll bring it by.

So stay tuned---pics in a day or two!  You know where to find me----------

Tons of Black Challenge

Half done with the "Tons of Black" Challenge piece----bottom half will be a mirror image of this.  I am liking how it is turning out though I keep having to flip seams.  It might have been easier to not press them in the first place but that would have made squaring them up a little harder, I guess.

And look who has to test out the pieces!   Actually he has been trying to get me away from the sewing machine to come play/chase him around the house.  He is NOT a cat that entertains himself very often.

I'll finish this up tomorrow---and then plan on putting the binding on my Christmas quilt for several days of hand work.

And sew it goes----------

More blog content?

Now that I archived the older material to a 2nd blog  I need to get some material up here, on the original location!!  http://catsnqlts2archive.blogspot.com/ in case you need to book mark it.  Guess that means I better get busy doing something.

What prompted the move?  I had hit the maximum amount of storage for pictures.  Norma had done this with her blog and started another one rather than start paying for more.   It is working for her but I don't think it is going to do the trick for me.

The rates are like 2.50 or 5 bucks a month.  I think it is a bit of a rip off.  You know how sometimes you cannot get a picture to show up so you load it again-----all those dupes are stored and goes against your account, whether you could use them or not.   My left handed quilter friend suggested re-sizing the pictures.  Do they click bigger so you can actually see what you are looking at??    I suppose I could and hit the dupes at the same time?  When I can make some time to just fiddle on the computer.

I moved the posts to the archived blog.   I deleted the posts from this blog to start over.  Those posts exist but elsewhere but they still are labeled as being from the original location.  It appears that I lost a few pictures but that might be because I deleted some from picassa web.  Some I could replace fairly easily---others, not sure I have the pictures anymore due to computer crash in early 08.  The ones I deleted were in older titled blog albums that no longer exist but apparently the folder names do not change???   Some they won't let me delete.  I keep checking to see if the number of pictures is actually a true measure of what is going on but unless something magically happens in the next 8 hrs, IIWII. 

BTW too---the capacity measures google drive that I don't really use, google mail which I do use and picassa..  Anyway, deleting some other photo albums and some I should have kept, in retrospect,  dropped my capacity down to about 94% and bought me a little more time.  I honestly do not want to lose my old content as I refer to it often but may revisit that idea.  977 posts since March 2006---some could go, yeah but do the pictures go with it?

Okay, enough about that.  I've got some sewing to do today.  I pulled out Lois' mom Singer Stylist to sew with on Wednesday.  If you have the machines, you need to keep them working, after all.   It has a nice stitch and one of those holes where you can screw in a seam guide.  None of the bells and whistles, like the knee lift and automatic needle threader but it works great.  I am working on my "Tons of Black" Challenge using the Mock Trip Around the World pattern from Quilting assistant.   I have long admired some of the quilts that my friend Pat from Bell Creek Quilts has made from this pattern and took my inspiration from one of her quilts.  They look good in about any color way!

I am using a black and white print that I got from my mom as the light and a Jinny Beyer vine print in a dusty blue shade that Cindy shared with me.  There is plenty left to back the quilt or make another, LOL. The dusty gray tone and tone that I have been calling black (but isn't) is the challenge fabric.  It is a simple block but doesn't it look more complicated when you put it together?  I am going with the basic set appearance of the Trip Around the World---7.5 inch finished blocks set 6 x 8.  The size will finish closer to the WTIL target range.    She shows a cool many trips version that would have worked with smaller blocks and 8 x 10---maybe some day but this time it all came together to do what I ultimately decided on.   Other fabric choices may influence other repeats.

Thanksgiving Day itself was quiet as most holidays are when you are far away from family.  Just DJ, Skyler and me.  To be honest, even if we were back in Illinois, Thanksgiving was a "catch as catch" can proposition.  When I was still practicing nursing there were three others in the medical field in some capacity so that means, shift work, working holidays and making scheduling problematic.  It was hard enough to get together at Christmas!!  Then add in-laws to the mix---you are expected two places at the same time.  ai, yi, yi!  DJ's son was expected at his mom's and squeezed us in between his in-laws.  The way it goes.  Then we moved about 700 miles away and don't normally travel in the fall and winter months as you don't know what you will get into halfway home.   We stay home and be thankful for each other.   I spent part of the evening typing up the rest of the minutes for guild as Jackie will be needing them soon for the newsletter---I was procrastinating and it needed to be done before I can play today.

And because I don't really have to shop for Christmas, I will be avoiding any retail spot, online or otherwise, this weekend unless I absolutely have to go that direction.  Not sucking me into that Black Friday mess!  I will have to get groceries at some point but that's the other end of the store.  I hate that people had to go to work at 8 p.m. last night, on a holiday, so others could buy into that bull and "come on's".  You just know that the lead story on the news tonight was how long some people stood in line to get that big screen TV or whatever or do the tradition of shopping on Black Friday---like IT was the holiday instead of Thanksgiving day.  SIGH. 

Norma has her Christmas Patience Corner quilt loaded on her long arm now that she is home from her trip to AZ.  We hope to work on our binding at the same time.  But first!  I got to finish my challenge top.  Maybe by Sunday??

And sew it goes--------