WIP Weds, wk # 28

Yesterday 5 of us went off to Qwiltz which has relocated from Bowdon, GA to the downtown square in Carrolton, GA. Since we are still displaced till August at our regular meeting spot, off we went on another field trip. Google said it was almost 49 miles from the spot where we congregated and piled into my car so not a bad drive.

Robbie had some fabrics marked down to 40% off plus another 10% off that as a sale special plus she had discounted patterns, books and notions as well. There are going to be some cool kids quilts made with some of that sale fabric but this is my booty. Kinda bright and wild, huh?

Well, I have been saying that I need a project or some fabric to get excited about playing with. I think that it will fill the bill. I am going to make this purse you see on the right. I don't care that the fabrics go with maybe two outfits in my wardrobe. I LIKE it, LOL. The two orange-y fabrics on the left end and the pink fats on the right end will probably not go for the purse but I purchased half yards, The purse calls for fats so I will have some leftovers to combine with those.

I may try the purse on something else first as I think I want longer straps and pockets on the inside. Till I know how the thing goes together I won't quite know where to place them in the scheme of things. It calls for a magnetic closer and I want a button and loop I think so it is just best to do a trial run.

We had lunch at a neat spot on the square in Carrolton called the Corner Cafe though there were two other places right by the shop that would have been fine as well. Robbie the shop owner recommended it as a place that had "great soup and sandwiches but funny names for them." If you check the link, you will see what I mean, LOL. I had a hard time deciding what I wanted to order but made a good choice as it was yummy!

Jane had said there was supposed to be another fabric warehouse type thing in town so we asked a couple restaurant patrons if they knew where it might be. One knew the street name and the name (Fabric Peddler) and that it was "on the way out to the college". Our waitress knew what was right next door to Fabric Peddler so she gave us their business card. From that, Jane plugged the info into the portable GPS. It turned out to be about 8 blocks from where we had been. It was all decorator weight fabrics but there was a neat antique shop in the same building so we poked around in there a bit before heading back to Alabama.


This is what I have been working on intermittently the last couple days---July block from Nancy Halvorsen's Calendar Quilts and Stitcheries. Like the others that I have stitched, I re-sized the blocks so the motif will finish at about 6 x 7.5. I have been working through each color thread so it looks like body parts are next, LOL. I have some audio books downloaded from camellia.net so I'll stitch and listen while I "work"

It remains hot and humid but hey, it is summer. The clouds were really darkening up when I got from GA yesterday but it took about 45 minutes for it to actually produce a couple tenths of rain.

The half inch of rainfall that came in Monday evening just made it miserable for my Tuesday morning walk though. Swampy does not even begin to describe it. There were also tons of gnats out in about 5 spots around the track. It was just dark enough at 5:40 in the morning that I didn't see one swarm and walked right into them. UGH! I was wet with sweat everywhere that I could possibly seep fluid but still couldn't cool off. I checked on the computer when I got home to find that readings of 94% humidity, temp of 72 and dew point of 70%. That might explain it. Thankfully, today the humidity was must have been down to something a bit more reasonable as it was not near as bad. I'll be bumping up another lap from 2.24 miles to 2.52 in about another week's time. Trust me, that would be hard to do if all days were like Tuesday morning.

Hope all is well with you. Thanks for stopping by-----

WIP Weds

Another installment of WIP Weds---another week gone and about to switch the calendar over to another month already!

So what am I doing this week? LOL, same thing as last week actually but a little further along. I had decided that I want my Strip Twist quilt to be an 11 x 12 set (8 inch finished blocks) for a quilt that finishes about the size of my Scrappy Bargello as that is working well. I need just a touch more length to go over the pillows though.

As of last night, I had 96 blocks done and 36 more to go. I had purchased 4 more fabrics in the Hearth and Home fabrics so looks like 9 blocks of ea. one. My goal is to have these finished up by week's end. I plan to start with the strip sets during game listening time tonight.

The flimsy assembly will probably wait as I think I need to get started machine quilting on the donation stack which numbers 8 at the moment. 2 of them are my own. I know of about 4 more to be pinned as Linda C has been a busy, busy girl, LOL. More for the stack, in other words! Most are simple zoom lines, stitch in the ditch so should not take too long. Then I will have binding for the quilt group volunteers to work on. Also Marilyn has asked me to quilt up a couple small tops sometime in the coming month. There is also a possibility of another t-shirt commissioned top, I have found out.

The other stack you see on the table above is my FAB friendship quilt. I need to mark the off squares and the setting triangles. I had ordered a couple of stencils from the Stencil Company since I would like to hand quilt that stuff and I hope one of these will work in those areas. Good for a stand up job. (I will stitch in the ditch on the blocks themselves). I hope to get this one pinned at our next meeting as well.

Earlier in the week Lois had called me about making that run up to Boaz and the long arm quilter at Out of the Box. You may recall that we had planned to go a couple weeks ago but that fell through at the time. BUT Lois got her name put on Susan's list of quilts but the poor girl is really covered up with the influx of quilt show entries and ones destined to be Christmas gifts. There was not as big rush to get it up to Susan for that reason. Beverly was able to get away today too.

Here are my day's purchases then. I found a nice rich brown and that middle chunk of yardage on the left was on sale as a flat fold but will work great for part of the backing on the Strip Twist at Out of the Box as it measured out at 6 yards. Perfect! I plan on using any leftover Hearth and Home yardage that is not destined to be binding to get the backing up to the extra required width (8-10 inches over the two widths of yardage)

Next we ran over to Wilson's Discount Fabrics. There I found the lighter plaid that I will work into the mix for that Strip Twist back. I also found a background cream on cream for background for the Atkinson Design's that Norma and I have been talking about doing for several months. The other two 30's repros will be used in the place of the green and yellow posie areas of the design chain. We ran into a woman from the JOY group that Lois and Beverly both knew at the shop. I asked if she wanted to join us for lunch at the Mill Street Deli as it was our next stop but turned out her husband was waiting for her in the car.

I picked up the little striped bundle of 4 fats at Hobby Lobby as we stopped in Gadsden on the way back to Calhoun County. I want to try Robbie's "4 Fats and All That" purse pattern that I got the quilt show. A little coordinated set should work fine to test it out. Only 5 bucks so not much lost if I don't like the process or goof it up in some manner.

We have had a couple of cool nights and gorgeous days, low humidity levels. The internal house temperature is down in the high 60's instead of high 70's/low 80's that I find so miserable. Last night was the first time I have slept without the ceiling fan on in months and months. I had the window cracked even though our thermometer registered mid 40's at daybreak and had a quilt pulled up. Gotta love it! What's more, I do not even want to hear "we need to turn on the furnace" come out of DJ's mouth till the daytime temps get down in the 50's and stay there. Get a blanket or put on a sweater if you are cold! I did switch the fall/winter wardrobe to the forefront this morning and put most of the shorts outfits and sandals away. Watch it get up in the 80's again, LOL. Not much sign of leaves changing color at least where I live yet but fall is here.

Hope you have had a good day in your neck of the woods and thanks for stopping by---------

Challenge reveal, trips here and there

A little over a month ago I was working on a secret FAB challenge that I could not show you. We knew that all the packages had arrived at their destinations and made arrangements to be on messenger last night at an arrived upon time with present and cameras in hand. So now we can share with bloggerland what we have been up to. I tell you, the hardest part for me was not sharing pictures with the non-receipients ahead of time!!

You see, Pam and Norma picked out a piece of running eights at Joann's went they met up earlier this summer for challenge purposes. Shortly thereafter Pam mailed out a section to Cher, Pat and I after names were pulled of who we sent a surprise to. Not only did we need to use a bit of all the fabrics in the half yard--each shade of purple--but were to make something that can be used. No quilts but wallhangings or table mats were okay.

Above you see what Pat made for me--isnt't it the coolest thing? She made her own gift tags and had the pieces wrapped up so prettily. I don't know that she knew it at the time but she used the same graphics that I do on my blog from Graphic Garden to make the tags--link in the sidebar. She made me a Wonder Wallet which I needed to replace my coin purse which is shot. a coin purse/zippered pouch with the purple on the inside of the bag, a cute tissue holder and adorable green purse trimmed with the purples from a placemat! There was also some cute kitten notecards and a tin of itty bitty cinnamon hearts thrown in the box along with some fabric she was returning to me from the quilts she had done and a nice big chunck of batting for filler. Thanks so much, Pat. I will treasure these items. Please visit the other blogs to see their reports and pictures--links above.

Below is what I made for Pam---Stitch Notes by Leslie D. Anderson of "My Time"--these were her Amish Sampler patterns, I believe. The kit had been hanging on my pegboard above the cutting/pressing table for years. Since foundation piecing is what brought Pam and I together way back in 98, I thought it was appropriate especially since we were working with a limited color palette. She keeps saying that they are too pretty to use! I know I made some Christmas foundation pieced cards one year and my sister-in-law wanted to frame hers. Pam might do the same, she said.



So what have I been doing since I last posted? I DID go up to my brother's home in TN last week as planned leaving at 0533 on Wednesday to go up and oddly, 0533 on Friday to come home. Pictured are we three siblings (there are three others) and the 13 and under crowd of nieces and nephews. My SIL and gracious hostess was taking the picture. I'm the oldest of the 6 so I think you know which one is ME. Sorry but the thing won't click bigger for some odd reason nor would the cards---Pam will post on hers if you have to see them bigger.

Later Jan's husband and my youngest brother and his wife ( and 4 of these kids' parents) would arrive from Illinois. My SIL Jan and I went out to lunch on Wednesday with my friend Cindy who lives in the next town over while the rest of the group went to the Nashville water park. I went back to Cindy's till late afternoon so we could visit a bit longer. Friday my brother took my sister and I out to lunch and on to see the Hermitage while SIL Jan took the kids to the pool. Other than that we hung out at the house and visited. And ate---well!

I look and WAS hot as I had just gotten back from walking the dog around Five Oaks golf course and up pretty good hill. At 10 something in the morning in 85 degree heat at least. I can walk the 2 plus miles easily as I normally go 3.3 miles 6 days out of 7 but that is on relatively flat land. I was panting almost as bad as Max by the time we hit the clubhouse area and sat down in the first spot of shade I spotted. A woman who worked at the course saw us and asked if we wanted a drink--her cart had broken down. She came with a big glass of water for us both and a big cup of ice for me. What a sweetie! My SIL said that she has talked with this same woman before when she was out walking. The picture above is at the Nickajack rest stop near Chattanooga on the way home. I would be getting off 1-24 and heading south to AL on I-59 not long after this was taken and through the worst of the steep grade road.

Tuesday the Bama Belles and I (7 of us--3 others couldn't make it) took a field trip just over the state line into Georgia to Bowdon and Douglasville. Pat had offered to drive since she could take more folks in her van though we would have taken a car as well if the others had come. I had alerted the owner at Qwiltz that we were coming and she gave us a special sale of 25% off and if we took the end of the bolt on a stack of fabrics she had set aside then we got another 5% on top of that. I got 4 half yards of fall fabric and two fats of same as well as this Texas Trellis pattern. The shop owner designed the template set for Drunkard's Path and I knew that when I asked where they were in shop. She gave us all a quick demo and sold 3 more sets! Smart lady! Pretty slick way to make these things though it is done in a not conventional sewing manner--which works a lot better, I might say. The set came in 3, 4, 5 and 6 inch and she gave us the 2 inch one for our keyrings. (She had used that size for a santa nose wallhanging on view at the shop. Too clever)

From there we went to a Mexican restaurant near the quilt shop that they recommended and then took a vote whether we went to a fabric shop in nearby Carrolton (that might have two l's) or went on to Joann's in Douglasville. Joann's won since there were coupons burning holes in some of the lady's pockets, LOL. I got a stack of fasteners only because I wanted the container for DJ and a seam ripper and set of paper scissors since both of mine needed replacing. Got home about 6 in the rain--which we need badly.

Other than that I have basically been sewing on that fall project which I finished foundation piecing last night just before the FAB reveal. I had entertained the notion of doing turkeys--- this one in particular which I had re-drawn in EQ5 (6 wouldn't open but tech support got me straightened out--yahoo!) but changed my mind and picked another fall item that had not be added to the robin yet. The floor in here needs a rake and the dust and lint is flying, LOL! I still have one more to do--jailhouse rock theme with a deadline of 8-8 but not today. I need to clean up the mess from the last one first!! If I have any time left, I think I'll finish up that last snowman block. (oh, I could help the person who inquired about those in comments if they will give me their email address, please and thank you. No reply blogger is not a help in this case)

Have a great day in whatever you chose to do----

field trips and good friends

7 of the girls in my quilt group and I went on our field trip today to Cave Spring, GA. I am not sure just how far that is from us but it took just a little over an hour on divided highway and/or two lane road. Just far enough away to know you had gone somewhere but not far enough to get butt weary from the trip.

It had rained during the night last night but it was a Chamber of Commerce gorgeous day today. I took the picture at left through the window of the historic Rolater Park (built in 1851) looking outside at this gorgeous pink dogwood through the stained glass windows.

I am showing you a few pictures of the church interior. The lady in the turqouise shirt is my friend Debora who organized the quilt show. The cat quilt up on the Balcony edge is my "Kitty City" quilt from a few years back. The quilt on the left side of the doorway is the raffle quilt for the quilt guild in Carterville, GA. Also you see an overview of the quilts that were on display. One in the middle of the 4th pew back was one we all were speculating over (near the loomed rugs on the back pew) It looked like a lace almost or perhaps some machine sewn lace that you sew to a water soluble stabilizer. Quite interesting however it was made. You can see the lady working on more of the rugs in the back of the room.

This is looking from the back of the church towards the front. There is Debora talking with fellow Belle Aline with our pal Lois with her back to the camera. Vangie is the other girl in green--from my row quilt group. The bed in the corner was set up for the bed turning presentation. Debora was kind enough to do an unscheduled session for us and the other attendees.

A slightly different view of the room. All my quilts that I had sent (other than the one on the balcony) were on a pew of the right hand side looking towards the rear of the church. I did take a picture of them but you have seen most of them already. I think that turtle quilt in front was too cute! And I love that Jack's Chain in the row behind it. (ed.note: Debora said that the turtle quilt was one of the viewers choice selections along with one on the itsy bitsy yo you quilts that may have shown up in another shot. I don't think I had shown a picture of the one that won Best of Show)

They were having an antique car show, pony rides for the kids and like a craft show/flea market thing in the park but other than taking a stroll around the grounds when we first arrived we didn't stop for that. There were two cafes nearby so we picked one and made sure they had pie--the girls in the other car had been chatting about it on the way up, LOL. You gotta have dessert on girls day out, right?

The girls also had a sweet surprise for me at lunch time. They all knew that I had lost my Pippi late last month and that Skyler had come to live with us two weeks ago. They gave me a Kitty Shower!! It was Marilyn's idea--she called the girls that she knew were coming on the field trip and asked them to bring a cat item today. Look at all the cool toys and such that Skyler got today! Toys that dangle, crinkle, roll, have catnip, feathers and all of that---well, one was in the living room with him---a big fat mouse that squeaks that hopefully won't get stuck under the coffee table, LOL. I am constantly going on mouse patrol for him.

The funniest thing is that one friend is not all that fond of cats to begin with and yet she had to go shop for a cat toy or cat item for me---definition of a friend, right? Just the way she said that at lunch made us all laugh. Another probably was a little embarrassed about walking all the way through the store with that squeaky mouse---every time you touch it it makes noise! They almost had me crying but they were ready with the kleenex just in case.

From Cave Spring, we decided to run back over to the AL side to the quilt shop in Collinsville--3 or 4 of the girls had never been there. Well, lets go then! I only got one 3 yard piece of fabric that I can use for backing on the 9PP. Trust me, the others made it worth their while. After dropping Marilyn back home, I got back in the door at 4.

What an excellent day! How blessed I am to have such loving and caring friends.

another day of running

Sorry the picture is a little fuzzy looking but look at this neat bag that Cher brought me today! It is hand knit and then felted so it feels just like a heavy wool fabric. Do I need to ask you who is sitting on it now? My fault that the fuzzy faced one thought that was an invitation because I left it laying on the cutting/pressing table after I took the picture.

Cher, her sister and her sweetie got here about 10 this morning. After a peek at the challenge in progress and my sewing room, we piled into my car to drive the hour or so up to see our mutual friend Joy. Lunch was planned at the tea room--the only customers since it is by appointment. When we went in February, Joy had selected the menu but this time she told Nessa to just "surprise" her. SO we dined on potato soup, baked chicken breast and an open faced tomato and mozzarella sandwich. Dessert was cheesecake with triple berry topping with apple and grape garnish.

From there we went down to the quilt shop which Nessa opened for us--normally Monday's she is closed. Cher found some prints that will probably be used for her little sweet granddaughter along with a pre-print panel in a soft yellow. My purchase, at right, was some more dark Civil War type prints that may head into that round robin or some quilt in my future. Actually the turquoise is more "me" and is similiar to what will be borders on my butterfly challenge. Patty found another quilt for sale and had Nessa help her with the label information on two she purchased last trip. (Cher insisted, LOL)

Nessa's classroom space where the long arm lives is in the store front next door so we went over to see the set up which was still under construction on our last trip.
Cher and Patty helped Joy with a computer issue but we headed back soon after so they would miss some of the traffic problems in the ATL area, with any luck. I think I got home about 3:30 or so?

I didn't get my challenge quilt done on Saturday after all, with all that ripping stuff. Fortunately on closer inspection I only had to move some HST's not all the strips on the twist blocks as I first feared but only half the quilt is assembled. Sunday no sewing as I was trying to clean up the mess from all the sewing and wanted the house to stay clean for more than 5 minutes, LOL.

Tomorrow the Belles will meet for our last scheduled work date for '06. With Thanksgiving coming up and a December meeting being the Christmas party we won't get back into the swing of things again till January. I know there are some quilts to pin but we are also going to try the Aunt Betty Attic with some of the scrappy fabrics Finn sent recently. Joy sent some WTIL quilts back with me so I'll get some help with sewing on the labels if someone is looking for a sit down job. Take pics of them to share in my next post as one uses a neat twisty star block.

I'll be ready to stay home and sew after three days of quilt shop runs and a meeting day. It's fun but not much production once I get home.

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A few have commented about not being able to respond to comments. Yes, I did switch to beta blogger this weekend. That part is a drawback, I'm guessing since it defaults to "anonymous" or "no-reply" My end directs me back to YOUR blog with a link to email you from there. In many cases I already have had email contact with you and know what your email is so I would not click on the note to reply to it. But I'm guessing the problems will be gone once everyone has to switch. I backed up my blog template just in case but I see only subtle changes to the blog itself. My archived notes appear to be intact so I'm guessing they have a few of the kinks worked out by now. I lost a post trying to post from Picassa so this is my 2nd run at this but that has happened before so I am not really blaming blogger for that. Sorry if this created some inconveniences on your end because I love hearing from all of you to do come by and leave messages. Okay, cross my fingers that this will upload--surprisingly, blogger let me load pics from there for the first time in a long time. How 'bout that?