WIP Weds

If I live to be a 100, I will never get these silly photos to load in the order I want------grrr.

Skyler in his favorite spot lately---watching the birds from the bedroom perch. He is so near but yet so far from their nest in the holly bush. The problem is that he almost insists on having the blind and/or the window open as soon as it is light so he can start his patrol. It has made for some early, early mornings lately.





I finally got the giftie quilted on Monday. Not an easy process because neither of my quilting machines seemed to be doing a very hot job of it. It is a gift after all and I want it to be special instead of adequately holding the layers together. SIGH. I am working on the binding now. Obviously can't show you yet.

Just to have a quilt related picture, I took my hand quilting to the meeting yesterday. The binding is dark fabrics, dark thread and I needed far better light than I had available to me at the church. So hand work it was though I debated about this or the basket blocks right up till the last minute. One block of the 12 is done and most of the the one you see hooped up in this earlier shot. Maybe I stand half a shot of getting this one done by Christmas! One of the Belles asked if I was planning on quilting something more in the sashing area, other than the SID I had already done. I wasn't necessarily but may see if I have a nice cable that would fit there. I have a bunch of quilt stencils in my sewing room closet and if you don't use them now, then when?

We had a good time at the meeting. Some of the girls could not stay long for various reasons but it is always good to catch up with each other. In this case a lot had happened since we last met. We met on the 26th and the EF4 tornado for one thing and whatever they termed the morning storm---straight line winds or tornado in roughly the same area came the very next day on the 27th. Some of the girls have been busy helping with the Salvation Army tornado relief efforts. The old Fort McClellan commissary has been set as the distribution point--good plan since it is centrally located in the county plus has a big enough warehouse space to do this. They were helping sort the donated materials and getting what the people needed on their lists once folks were I.D'd by FEMA number. Another of the group and her husband are first responders so she was telling us what her day was like during the storms. Another related how the family farm was hit earlier in the day by the first round of storms---outbuildings destroyed, downed trees, power out but no one hurt. Cows are missing though. I digress...................

Rosa has her house on the market so is purging things and brought a big pile of magazines to share. I came home with a few issues to study a bit closer. We have a library cart at the meeting place where we have some quilt books and other literature to share with each other so I stashed the mags on there for other meetings and ideas.

Silly me though---I went off without my camera! Aline shared a quilt her daughter had made that was recently picked up from the long armer----French Braid in deep rich, masculine colors. Gorgeous! Lois had a cool top that definitely requires a design wall, not sure of the pattern source but I will find out down the line.

Janet was working on binding that cool runner she had started at the sew-in but needed help with the join. Brenda was pressing fabrics in preparation to a cut a 5- 1 yard quilt pattern she had picked up at recent Atlanta shop hop. Beverly was binding her gift quilt for a great-nephew while Rosa had her machine out working on her hidden spools.

Jane was busy dispersing quilt show entry forms for the JOY guild show this weekend. Many of our group are members of that group but the show is open to anyone, not just member owned and member made. LOL, how many do you want, Jane? Quilts and wallhangings, I have. Which ones already have sleeves on them? I got busy this morning and filled out entry forms for 4 of my collection. I saved out my most recent completions so I can share them at the Friendship guild on Saturday though.

And that is how it goes here. I best get my fingers to stitching this binding as unfortunately, it does NOT stitch itself. Darn it, LOL!

Mother's Day

Image on google search found HERE

Love you, Mom!

4-27-2011

Why we will never forget 4-27-2011 in Alabama

(Image Source: HERE at srh.noaa.gov)

Look at all the tornadoes that came to the state that day and see how many were EF-3 and higher.

This map does not include the whole state at this point though the southern third was largely uneffected by the storm systems. I think that this map might be just the market area covered from the Birmingham branch of the National Weather Service. The

Huntville, Cullman, Dekalb County, the counties in the upper Tennessee Valley are out of the "Huntsville TV market" . Here is more info on the mystery northern section---HERE)

News cycles are short. National news especially will move on to the next "shark attack"...........or oil spill, Mississippi flood, etc. They always do. Prince William got married, bin Laden killed in the intervening week. We won't forget when so much work still lies ahead. I have not been north on 431 since this happened but the landscape will be unmistakably changed on that oft taken trip.


Here in Calhoun County:

• Tornado classified officially as an EF-4. It was part of the same one that hit Tuscaloosa and the BHM suburbs that lifted briefly and reformed to angle across the north end of the county.
  

• According to the local paper, 3500 homes affected

• 11000 residents impacted and 9 fatalities

sew-in pics #2

Pat was working on this piece. She had found a clipping in the magazine and located the pattern source to make it--- "30 Stars for 30 Years" from Country Threads.






Lois was busy with her 2 1/2 inch strip bin for the starts of another Scrappy Trips Around the World from Bonnie Hunter and quiltville.com. I believe this may be part of the Belles' scrap challenge this year---or at least some of it is.


Betsy was working on completing this Disappearing Nine patch. Some of the blocks were donated. In fact, Linda C made most (if not all) of the purple ones. Betsy had requested abandoned quilt blocks from her quilt group to make Quilts of Valor so she gets a lot of blocks to assemble.




Janet was preparing to make this wonderful ring runner featuring the wild life yardage. I can't wait to see how this turns out as the technique looks interesting. If you click on the picture to enlarge it, you can read the pattern cover and designer.




Brenda was working on binding when I took this picture but this was her sewing project. The blocks have a cathedral window feel, don't they? "Wild Roses" from the quilt mag you see on the table next to the pieces.



Aline was sewing some of the sampler star blocks from Eleanor Burns' Stars Across America book. I may be wrong but I think she started this project as a block of the month with the quilt shop that used to be in Pell City. It, like the other panel piece in the previous post, will be going to the Veteran's Home. I showed you her table mate Jane's quilt project in the previous post.



Beverly was busy with the wonderful scrappy string blocks that is part of our scrap challenge for the year. The pattern is "Waste Not, Want Not" which you can see when you click the picture bigger. Not sure of the pattern source but I can find out.




Linda C had several projects with her and this was from a Fons and Porter magazine. Not sure which issue but I can find out. She also has a cool wool project going but I didn't get the camera out till after she had put it away.



Like Linda C, I had a couple of things that I can't show you right now but I got a bit more of the triple rail donation challenge top assembled. It is approximately half done at this point. I cannot decide if I need 11 or 13 rows though. Pattern--public domain. Strips are cut 2 x 5 and the blocks finish at 4.5 inches.





And here is Rosa's project, Hidden Spools from Quiltville. She had started these a few years back, she said, before she and her husband had moved to Alabama.

I hope you enjoyed seeing what the group was up to!

sew-in pics #1

Aline's Patriotic quilt for the Veteran's Home being built in Pell City, AL. The panel is designed by Marcus Brothers and available at Hancock's of Paducah HERE.




Aline's challenge quilt with the Michael Miller "Romance" fabric. Aline and her granddaughter LeAnn shared their yardage and this was all that was left after LeAnn made two tops. Cute, huh?

Linda C. turned in this disappearing nine patch quilt

Linda C turned in this Thimbleberries sampler that I had quilted sometime last year.

Jane was working on this colorful Snuggle Up quilt.

More picture in another post----------

stitching

I guess you can tell what I have been stitching on by the picture at left. I DO love to embroider! I just got done with a bit of stitching on the left side of the design and all those French knots.

March themed basket block from Bee Tree Designs--pattern found on Flickr HERE .

I don't feel like sewing or quilting, unless it is hand quilting right now. That's okay. This happens and it passes at some point. I may do a little hand applique or hand quilt this afternoon. Or read since I picked up a couple books at the library when I delivered the donation stuff in my last post around town.

Actually the only thing that I have sewn this week was a project DJ and I had. The cover we bought for the BBQ grill keeps blowing off as the wind billows up under the cover. Next thing you know it will laying out in the backyard somewhere. DJ had an idea to put some holes in the cover and then bungee cord the thing down. For that purpose, I had picked up some grommets at Hobby Lobby for this purpose a month ago. The instructions tell you to use some reinforced twill tape or double layered fabric behind it. I used some steam and seam 2 and fused a couple layers together and then stitched it down through the cover before cutting the holes. Of course, as is typical of the two of us, we could not get it work properly the day we tried and gave up, thinking we needed to get the industrial strength kind from the hardware store. Still, even with the holes I had cut into we could at least bungee it down. Not ideal but it would work. DJ got the grommets in yesterday. Woohoo! Turns out we were not doing anything wrong with our process but it took way more hammering than we saw in a video online, let me tell you.

I still mean to post the sew in pictures and will do that in another post.

not quilting

I wasn't sleeping this morning either. Awake at 330 and did not go back to sleep. By 515 I just bailed and started cleaning out my dresser drawers.

I went thru the blanket chest, armoire, dresser drawers and both closets plus the book shelf and under the bed storage. I even straightened out the jewelry box which I had dumped on the floor recently and just piled stuff back in. Summer clothes are pulled out and swapped with heavy winter stuff---now watch, we will go thru a cold spell. Have you ever seen it to fail?

The 4 bags of books you see above are going for donation to the Friends of the Library. Not sure when the sale is coming up but normally it is in the spring sometime. A couple of the books came from there to start with, LOL. Book recycling.


DJ calls my car trunk my "office on wheels" and he may be right. The file boxes of handouts, strip plugs, cone thread holder, table risers and so forth. The fold up pull cart is under the bags. My Jem sewing machine and two project boxes are in there as well. If I have my car, then I can sew anywhere though I might need to borrow a pair of clippers.

But the 3 large bags of clothing are ready to be donated. I guess I took a cue from my friend Pat since she and DD have been hard at clearing the play room and bedrooms this past week. LIM

I still need to dust and vacuum in there but that can wait till tomorrow. That early morning hour is starting to catch up with me. That, and Skyler has been quite intent on birdwatching from the bedroom perch. I think the birds have built a nest in the bush right in front of him. At any rate it keeps him busy for hours! If I fire up the vacuum, he loses his vantage point.

And so it goes-------no sewing or quilting but a productive day, nonetheless.