Design Wall Monday~January 9

Just a short post. I'm in mourning over the loss of our sweet dog Huckleberry. We're adults. We've lost pets before, but most often you can see it coming. They're old or they have a disease. This was unexpected. A stroke Friday morning. He was 11 1/2 years old. To some that might seem very old, but dachshunds often live to be 15. He had always been healthy. I'm just thankful I was home when it happened.

I finally put my swap blocks together from the "Heat Lightning Swap". My personal goal is to get it quilted before month end. My machine is in the shop and they said "two weeks". My back up machine just doesn't cut it for machine quilting.

The other thing I'm part of is a QAL for Flying Geese.  

https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/A-Quilt-Block-A-Day/211113868950661

It's for three months. I struggled. What pattern to do? There are so many choices! I've decided to do three small ones and until yesterday I thought I had decided which three and what colors. Now I've found another one that I think I just "gotta" do. We will see which wins out. For my first one I am doing a "faux" flying geese. This is on the small design wall. See? It's really half square triangles? But they look like flying geese arranged like this.

I was inspired by this miniature. Mine will not be a minature but more like 24x36 or there abouts.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ilively/467663659/in/faves-43767908@N08/

Visit Judys blog for more design wall inspirations. http://www.patchworktimes.com/

Be certain you hug your furkids every day. You don't know what is going to happen.

Toni

Design Wall Monday~January 2

Good Morning and HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Isn't it great to have a date that we get to start over and try to get everything right? Okay, in my case, I "start over" many times a year but I still like the idea that it is a brand new year.

I do not have anything on my design wall. Literally! Saturday I made certain that I sewed the rainbow blocks into a top so I could count it as a flimsy for 2011.

Last year I said, several times, that I was going to get into the closet and count how many UFO's I had to complete. I never did it. Yesterday I did. The reason? Because I needed to come up with a list of UFO's to finish for 2012. I can happily report that I did finish my goal of 12 last year.

Nooowwww, this year a goal of 12 would be more difficult. The reason? Because last year I had UFO's that only required binding or were smaller projects. What is left are UFO's that are bigger AND there are none that are layered. They are all flimsys or blocks. No choosing an easier UFO when I"m having a busy month.

Back to the numbers. Last year I finished 12 UFOS.  Some dating back from the '80ies. Seen here.

But then I counted how many I started and didn't finish. Flimsys and blocks. By blocks I don't mean single blocks, I mean how many potential flimsys had I finished enough blocks for but hadn't sewn into rows and into a flimsy. Does that make sense?  See these?

Flimsys

Blocks

Anyway, what it comes down to is that although I finished 12 UFO's last year I now have a NEW 11 projects that I've not finished! Can you believe it?

And the final number? How many unfinished projects do I have after taking everything out of the closet? Get ready! The number is much higher than I would have guessed! And remember this is after finishing 12 in 2011.  The number is 26 tops and 4 more where there are finished blocks but they are not yet sewn into a top! Incredible!

So I am reducing my goal to 10 finished UFO's and I have a goal to not generate any more UFO's than I finish. Next week I will have a mosaic of what new quilts I did start and finish in 2011.

Visit Judys for more Design Wall Monday. 

http://www.patchworktimes.com/

Enjoy!
Toni

Design Wall Monday~December 26

Good Morning!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas or at the very least a terrific Sunday. We ate waaay too much and not just yesterday. How about the day before with trying new cookie recipes with my husband. And his failed fudge. Yes. He tried. Yes, he spent literally almost an hour trying to get the sheen off that fudge but…finally I did make the kind with chocolate chips and marshmallows. Do you think I can lose 4# by Thursday night weigh in?

Nothing new on the design wall.

My Christmas was wonderful. I feel very fortunate to be able to have family and friends close by that come and celebrate with us. They are also too generous and I feel guilty over the number of nice things I received yesterday. I won’t list them because it is too embarrassing. Really!  I will show you one as it pertains to quilting/sewing. (Ignore the industrial shelving. Although not pretty, it does a great job of holding my "stash")

 I had seen it months ago at a Senior Center craft store and had said to my Mom “If I had room, I would buy that to decorate my sewing room.”  She remembered that but by the time she went to buy it, the store no longer carried this item. But, being ever so helpful, they tracked down the original guy and he made one especially for me. And of course, you know, I will find room in my sewing room for this! Is it silly? A bit maybe, but I’m still wanting a doll bed too!

Visit Judys so see other, more productive, design walls:

http://www.patchworktimes.com/

Love and Hugs to all,

Enjoy!
Toni

Design Wall Monday~December 19

Just a couple of notes here….of course I’ve waited until the last minute to finish some of my sewn gifts so I shouldn't spend much time on the computer.
 

Last week I mentioned that I wasn’t feeling the love for my rainbow quilt but then seeing the picture of the few blocks on the wall I thought “it might be okay”. Well, now all the blocks are done and I DON”T like it, let alone love it. And it has to do with proportion and scale. Even tho’ we think we can enlarge any block, we have to realize it won’t necessarily have the same impact. That is the case with this simple quilt block. I liked the inspiration quilt as the blocks were smaller but the larger blocks just don't have the same impact.

Now my only question is; should I cut circles out of these blocks and do something like the following?

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kirbylou/3544549482/

Or should I just finish it and donate it? I’m sure someone will like it, and maybe even love it.

This is the first year that I’ve not been stressed over shopping . A few items on line, a few items home made, lots less money spent. As they say “Priceless”

I hope everyone is taking time to slow down and enjoy the holidays.

 
Visit Judys for more Design Wall Inspirations;

http://www.patchworktimes.com/

Love you all!

Toni

Show Me Yours~Scraps

Says Rachel
http://www.stitchedincolor.com/2011/12/show-me-yours-scraps.html

How fun! But how do you define scraps? These are pictures of my less than half yard "remains". Scraps? You decide! Only this last year did I start saving those smallest pieces and often I ask myself, why? I mean I'm not interested in making miniature quilts and I can only make so many bookmarks. I guess I'm just crazy!

So, just for fun, here are my pictures.

Four large totes like this

Six Bags like this

One Large Tote of strips of varying widths. Not sorted in any way.

Two medium plastic containers sorted like this.


They look rather pretty, don't they? 
Enjoy!
Toni

Design Wall Monday~December 12

Good Morning!  Another week closer to Christmas! No sweat! I’ve got it licked this year. Small homemade gifts for friends and family. No waiting until the last minute for me!
 

Here is what is on my design wall this morning. I’ve not been working on a quilt, nor quilt blocks. No swaps, no Quilt Alongs, no exchanges and I was missing making blocks. Inertia and/or indecision were getting in my way. Piecing is the most soothing part of the quilt process for me. Even making a decision on what block to make can be stressful! There are so many choices and so many on my bucket list. I wanted to have something going, in the theory of a block a day. That meant it was going to be scrappy. I went to my saved favorites.  I decided to do these blocks.

Go see the quilt that inspired me.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/potterykate/5794276044/in/faves-43767908@N08/

See the rounded corners? That did it. When I first started making quilts, back in the ‘70ies, I had taken a class at a church and I learned to make blocks and I learned how to layer the backing, the batting and the block. And I learned to hand quilt. I did NOT learn how to sew a mitered corner. For  at least a year my first quilts all had rounded corners. So once again what is old is now new.
 

I’m not feeling the love, yet. Maybe my blocks are bigger. I’m making a bigger quilt. I’m going to continue. I figure, worse case, I will cut circles from these and make some circle blocks. I find that I am low on orange. Orange never having been high on my favorites list, until I did “A Blockwork Orange”.  Now I love orange and wish I had been collecting it over the years. I hate that I am going to have to buy some. Anyone want to donate some strips?

My husband wants me to make fudge. He loves fudge. Of course I’ve made it over the years but as I don’t like it, I don’t make it very often. I asked him “Do you prefer the kind made with marshmallow fluff or the kind made with little marshmallows?”  His response? “No I want the kind that you make from scratch, where you drop the syrup into the water to see if it’s cooked enough.” Well, I think “HA!” to that. If I have to make it that way, he’s not getting any fudge. At the grocery store, the day after this conversation, the fluff was on sale. I bought one. He put the groceries away and crumbled about the fluff. I’ll wait a week or so. His choice will either be fudge made with fluff or no fudge. I wonder which he will choose?

Check out other design walls by visiting:

http://www.patchworktimes.com/

Enjoy!
Toni

Design Wall Monday~December 5

Egads! It is almost Christmas! What happened to Nov 21 and Nov 28? Okay, nothing happened to them but I wasn’t here. November 21 I just missed doing a post and November 28, we were at the beach, clamming. Having fun without a computer.  I didn’t figure you would like to see pictures of razor clams…but what the heck can it hurt?

Today I don’t have anything on the design wall…at least that I can share.  I am going to show you a couple of shots of color/fabric that I am using for Christmas gifts but I can’t share until after the holidays. Other than my sister, my husband and my Mom, everyone is getting a homemade gift this year. Even those three are getting small homemade gifts in addition to a store bought gift. There have been some great tutorials on different websites for wonderful wonderful  gifts!  I’ll share pictures and sites after Christmas.

 As for me personally?  I have one more UFO to finish this year to make my commitment of twelve and I have two quilts percolating in my mind. One will be a circle quilt of some type, probably with Kona ash as the background and a second quilt, Swoon? Or a sailboat quilt to give as a gift? I’ve been researching sailboat quilts for a while. This gift is a “just because” gift to a friend so there is no deadline. I can’t decide if I want to go with a “real” looking sailboat or this quilt that is more impressionistic. I love playing with prints and colors, more scrappy looking, but this one is stunning and appeals to me as a modern interpretation of a sailboat. What do you think? Mine would be similar but certainly without that lovely, lovely, quilting.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz3dxvDuJVWL8c-9T6kjuw4qLkPCqpTgIpH79uKzE3RFIcryzM1Jp4U8WEOtLnC9EpNkPs60pkLvlTI3yPLokqmFiy724QxR4kbrVxnrk7QaOcFVECSDv5wtWhAMga5lepvMV_RnD1itI/s1600/IMG_3944.jpg

 I apologize a hundred, thousand times. I don’t know whose gorgeous quilt this is. I would certainly share credit next week if you do know.

I will be back next week. Hopefully with a start on the circle quilt. Visit Judys for more Design Wall Monday juiciness!

http://www.patchworktimes.com/

Enjoy!

Toni

p.s. I’m putting this here hoping that not many people will see it. This is a candid picture my husband took Dec 2. Trust me…I would have put makeup on for a candid if I knew it was coming. I also would have included more quilts! Do you see four dogs? There is actually a fifth one under the covers.