Design Wall Monday

Does ONE block and a container of strips even count? It's what I've been working on...the red string-pieced blocks for the Orca Bay quilt.

I know some quilters don't like doing the string-pieced parts, but they are my favorite and I do them first. I find making the QSTs and HSTs much more tedious, especially the cutting.

To see more of what others are working on, head over to Judy L.'s  website for more links.

SOPA & PIPA: Bad News

The majority of people probably don't know anything about a couple of bills certain industries are trying to get pushed through Congress,  SOPA(Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA(Protect IP Act) and frankly, couldn't care less. On the surface they sound like a good thing. Stopping the piracy of movies, tv shows & ebooks and stopping the distribution of counterfeit designer goods sounds OK, right? The problem is that the way they are written gives the industries and government almost unlimited powers of censorship over the Internet. If the following videos work the way they are supposed to, they give a little more information---mostly the stuff the sponsors of the bills and the entertainment & publishing industries would prefer that people NOT hear.

 

 

You can do a search for SOPA and PIPA on youTube for other videos offering information on these Congressional bills as well as another one called ACTA(Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement). Be aware that some of them might be a little extreme...people feel very strongly either for or against.

Definition

Says it all.

Deals of the Day

While I don't spend much time on eBay I was cruising around it today and found a couple of pieces of fabric, 10 yds. each, for $3.50 a yd. including shipping.

They will make great backings for QOV quilts with some left over for borders.

Crunch....!!!

My son's poor little Aerio

It was parked in the parking lot near the office at Nucor and somebody on some big piece of equipment backed into it. Nucor is supposed to be paying to fix it but the repairs are going to amount to twice or better what the car is worth so I'm wondering if they'll stick to that.  Son's feeling kind of bad. It's the first car he bought brand new and kept long enough to pay off.

On a happier note, I finally did some sewing. In the past couple weeks I did lots of cutting for a couple different quilts but finally have something to show for it. The blue strings are all sewed to those little 3.5" blocks for the Orca Bay quilt.

Technically, this was supposed to use up blue strings I already had, but my blues were so dark & dull I cut brighter ones. Now I have more strings than ever.  LOL

And, SOMEONE did lots of this during the cold days.

Looking back at my blog posts I see that I never posted a picture of the Christmas Lights top when it was completely finished. Oh well, now I might as well wait for a picture of the finished product once it gets quilted and bound. If I ever get some batting. The stores around here just don't sell what I like so will probably have to order online. So much for shopping local!!

Not Much Going On

Nothing exciting going on around here. Jan. 8th we went to DH's sister's house for the annual after-Christmas get together for his family. As always, a good day...got to see the whole family, plenty of food, crazy card bingo game, sister-in-law thought she lost her rings but found them, lots of good visiting.

Quilt Club the following Tues. Everyone made it there and we made some cool zippered bags(why don't I have a picture of mine?) and enjoyed "sack lunches" prepared for us by hostess Linda P.  Felt kind of stuffy by the time I went to bed that night, but thought it might be a reaction to someone's perfume.

Nope, it was a cold. So battled that for several days & finally felt better by this past Sunday.  Colds have to be one of the most miserable drug out affairs there is. But now I'm back to my usual sniffliness so all is well.

This past Sat. we found ourselves with the usual sewer problems. Since it was a 3-day weekend again we were lucky to get the main line jetted out on Monday. Now I can't bring myself to trust that the drains will actually drain when I wash clothes, run the dishwasher or when we take showers so run to the basement often to check.  I told the town maintenance man that before he takes the next 3-day weekend he'd better plan on jetting that line first. He thought that was funny, but I was SERIOUS.

The only thing quilty I've done in all this time was cut some blue strings for the string blocks in the Orca Bay quilt. At this rate who knows when it will ever get finished.  Sorry there's no pictures in this post and it's kinda boring, but that's been my life lately.

Just Checking In.......

.....Nothing too interesting going on. I've been slicing up scrap fabrics into strings for the blue string blocks in "Orca Bay" and 2 1/2" strips for "Jamestown Landing".  Let's just say I'm getting real tired of blue!!

Some of these pieces are pretty good sized so strips are finding their way into the strip drawers to as well as being cut into squares and bricks. I see a Bricks & Stepping stones quilt in my future. I also want to revise the size of the smallest piece I'm willing to keep....from a 1 1/2" square  to a 2" square.  I'll do 1 1/2" strips, but not squares...to small for me.

Some of these larger scrap pieces were in the scrap bin because of light damage. I look at them and tell myself to just toss them in the trash. But there are good sections and that little frugal quilter in my head says, "Fabric is selling for $10 and more a yard. Those sections are worth that so how can you throw them away?" And, you know what?? I CAN'T THROW THEM AWAY.

So there you have it.

Baby Steps

Just to be doing something quilt-y today I rounded up the blue scraps I had sorted out a while back and started ironing them. I can cut out HSTs for "Jamestown Landing" and cut strings for the string-pieced blocks of  "Orca Bay".  I was surprised at some of the bigger pieces of fabric I found among the scraps, but upon looking closer I saw that some were light damaged and those parts will have to be cut around. What I don't cut for the two quilts will be cut into strips for the strip drawers or squares for the squares drawer. Anything that won't make at least a 1 1/2" square gets tossed. NOTHING is going back into the scrap tub and box!!

Time to go to bed now....my four days in a row off work is just about over. Tomorrow it's back to the usual schedule.  It will be quit awhile before I get that many days in a row off again. :(

Today's Accomplishment

"Christmas Lights" is a top now!!! YAY   I am SO slow at putting borders on, but it all lays pretty flat so that's  a good thing.

I Have Something For Design Wall Monday!!

OK, I don't have a design wall, only a floor, but here it is:

Christmas Lights designed by Bonnie Hunter

If you see something that looks wonky, give me a shout.

Starting the New Year Right

The blocks for Christmas Lights are all put together and the setting triangles are cut. Tomorrow might be a good day to vacuum up the cat hair and sock fuzz from my design floor and lay them out and get the middle of the top sewed together. If I'm really cookin' I might even get the border strips cut!!

I don't have a picture of the soup I made for lunch, but I swear, it's the BEST hamburger/vegetable soup I have ever made. I usually prefer to make my vegetable soup with left-over roast beef but this turned out great.

If the saying about what you do on New Year's day is what you will do all year is true then I'll get a lot of sewing done and we'll be eating good food.....and my one goal for the year is to lose 50 lbs. hehehe   We'll see how that works out.  Guess maybe I should quick go do some genealogy so the year will look good for that too.