Heartstrings QOV Quilt

I finished the blocks for this at Quilt Group Tues. night and finished setting them together today.

I could go ahead and quilt and bind it as it is, but I think I'll cut some 5" strips of some sort of patriotic looking fabric and put a border on it. That'll contain the scrapiness a little and give it a more finished look...to my mind anyway.

It Only Happens To Other People....

....Not always.  A few days ago I mentioned a pain in my back that I blamed on too much fabric cutting with a somewhat dull rotary blade. Hah!!...if only.  That pain was the Shingles virus waking up. So now I have a lovely, blistered rash. Sore now, with itching to come, I'm sure.  

(Picture from the Internet)  Similar to mine. Wraps around to the front on the right.

Not as painful as I've always heard it is. Everything I've read tells about the pain from nerve damage as well, with treatment doing very little. So far, so good. I think my saving grace is that I've taken Alpha Lipoic Acid supplement for years to counteract diabetic  nerve damage. Sure hope it keeps working.

 One of the natural remedies I read about is Apple Cider Vinegar...both taken internally and dabbed on the rash. I'm trying that as well. I smell like a pickle but if it helps I really don't care. The rash is hidden by clothing so I've kept going to work, though I try to move around as little as possible while there since some of the clothing rubs cross the rash and I don't want it getting sorer than necessary.

Just one more experience in life, I guess. One I could have gone a long time without.

Stolen Quilt Alert

Please check this blog post for details:

http://quiltville.blogspot.com/2012/02/help-get-word-outanother-stolen-quilt.html?showComment=1329443931411#c2507675859339920876

Spread the word.

Valentine's

Quilt Club tonight. If I was really organized I would have a special little treat for everyone. But, I'm not so I won't. Besides, we're all sweet enough already. :)

Don't you find the news depressing?

I sure do. Yesterday Greece almost had a deal on their debt bail-out and stocks looked good. Today the Greeks don't like the austerity measures that go along with the bail-out so stocks drop.

When will people, including us in the U.S., understand that when you are in the hole the first thing you need to do is quit digging?  That means NO MORE SPENDING unless it's absolutely necessary to stay alive. You simply can't have what you can't pay for. Duh!!!

I have no desire to ever have an elected office like President, Senator, Representative, Governor, or any other. But, if the position was open, I'd like a chance to wield the red pencil on the Federal budget and cross off all the pet projects and other wasteful stuff. Shouldn't SOMEBODY be doing that? And this business of tacking pet projects onto Bills that have to pass to keep the country running?  Use the red pencil there to. If it can't stand on its own it shouldn't exist at all.

OK, I'll step down off my soap box now.

Here they are....

.....the rest of my Orca Bay and Jamestown Landing.

 

You have to use your imagination.  :) And yes, I probably got a little carried away cutting strips. I wanted a good variety so I cut and cut and cut. Then just for good measure I cut up some r/w/b for QOV quilts.   I'm pretty sure too much cutting is what gave me the pain in my upper right back. At least that's what I'm blaming it on. The only truly comfortable position is standing up....and it's a little hard to sleep that way.  I'm thankful someone invented Exederin.

I need to cut a few foundations for the QOV blocks and some center strips, but I'll try not to get too carried away.

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.

Last Day Of The Year

Wishing everyone a safe, healthy, prosperous 2012.

Gotta Love Dr. Seuss

Lottsa Sewing

Got quite a bit accomplished in a couple of mostly uninterrupted afternoons of sewing. It may not look like much in the picture, but those little piles represent a lot of cutting, sewing, pressing and trimming.

All the components are put together now and the next time I get back to this the blocks can be put together. Unfortunately, that won't be today as it's back to work for me. I'll have to work this evening too.

There's a really nice extra benefit of the holidays....plenty of leftovers so I don't have to cook, the house is nice and clean, and days off from work so there's that uninterrupted sewing time.

Lunch Break!!

Time for a late lunch of more Christmas dinner leftovers. I think we'll finish them off for supper. And that's a good thing because as good as they are we're getting a little tired of the same things for every meal. :)

Now that Christmas is in the rear view mirror I got back to sewing.  After a couple good nights sleep and late rising mornings I felt ready to tackle something other than Christmas preparations.  Sooooooo......I pulled out the quilt I had started cutting strips for just after Thanksgiving. Yesterday I cut, cut, cut. Today I have sewed, sewed, sewed and this is what I have to press, press, press and trim, trim, trim before I can sew some more.

Yes, another Bonnie Hunter pattern. Christmas Lights.

I tolerate the cutting, love pushing unit after unit through the machine, pressing....not so much. But, I'm having some lovely dark chocolate for dessert after my leftover pork roast sandwich so that might help me get through it. :)

And now it's over.........

Christmas 2011 that is. After all the time spent preparing it's over in no time at all. We'll barely recover before it's time to start thinking about it all a over again.  Here's a peek at this year's festivities.

When can we rip 'em open?

How many are there anyway?

Best gift of the day?

Keeping this one for blackmail purposes.

Can you see me now?

The end.

Hope you all had a great Christmas too.  Best wishes for the New Year.

Merry Christmas To All

Merry Christmas, Blogger friends. I hope you all have a very nice holiday with family and/or friends.

Lookin' more like Christmas

Goals for today:

   1.  Wrap presents.

   2.  Get cards ready to mail.

   3.  Get a load of wash done.

Presents are wrapped. They kind of disappear into the quilts covering the couch.

  

And here's the tree my women's club set up at the Library as a Giving Tree.  The hats, gloves and scarves will get donated to the schools in Orchard and Clearwater for the kids who come to school without so they can still go out and enjoy recess.  (Do kids still get recess??)

Last One For The Year

I finished this one last night. It's in the washer now and will be packed up with the RWB Heartstrings quilt I showed previously to be sent to Alycia in Co for QOV.

The Heartstrings one was going to be sent off last month, but then I remembered these extra blocks and the little cut-off black & white triangles from another project and put this together.  There is room in the box for two, so I waited.

Are you ready for Christmas?  I still have to wrap presents and then do the boring stuff like cleaning.  This year I'm shaking up the Christmas Dinner menu a bit. For the 20-25 years I've done Christmas Dinner, ever since my mom quite doing it, we've had turkey and all the trimmings.  I'm ready for something different so I'm doing pork loin roast and scalloped potatoes along with pies and dinner rolls. The kids can bring the sides.  I'm sure there will be protest, but as long as there's pumpkin pie I doubt if they'll leave before eating. :)

Be Careful Out There

Afternoon Project

Good grief, it took me the better part of the afternoon to make a tea cozy. Admittedly,  it was my very first one, but I've made entire quilts with less futzing around. Do you suppose that's why they're so expensive to buy??

To Do....To Do

What the heck....maybe if I put it in writing it'll get done. :)

1.  Get a load of laundry done.
2.  Get quilt top for QOV finished. Backing made, batting cut. Ready to load on quilting machine.
3.  Get returns packaged up.  Just before I crawled into bed.
4.  Make Blueberry Sour Cream Pie before sour cream goes bad.  Yum.
5.  Put roast in oven for supper.  Leftovers for lunch tomorrow.

I think that's enough goals for one day, don't you?

Turkey Day

Teenager!!! & QOV Quilt

Yep, Granddaughter #2 is a teenager now. Heaven help us!!

And Friday she broke her wrist in basketball practice. No matter what she's doing she gives it all she's got. We keep telling her to "slow down", but that's just not who she is.

Another QOV quilt finished. This one is from the blocks I did back in May. Instead of spending six hours on the road to go to the Fremont Heartstrings Sew-in I stayed home and sewed blocks.  The quilt is in the washer as I type and will be off in the mail to Alycia in CO on Monday or Tuesday. (Hopefully. LOL)

Quilt Club Christmas Party.....

.....in pictures.

Maxine went all out to make it special for us.

Prezzies!!

The feast!!

Show and Tell

More Show and Tell

Lots of friendship, food, games and visiting.  Now we're in the spirit to start the holiday season.

Recent Finishes

These will be my Show & Tell at Quilt Club tonight.

On the left is a table runner project done at Quilt Club a couple months ago. On the right is also a Quilt Club project.....from more than 10 years ago.

This was either a Quilt Club project or a class at Cornerstone Quilts. I remember there was a group of us and we all brought strips of fabric to trade. I don't remember the name of the pattern, but I think it was in the Fons & Porter magazine.

Orange Crush. A Bonnie Hunter mystery pattern. LOTS of pieces.

Roll Roll Cotton Boll. Another Bonnie Hunter mystery pattern. Even MORE piecing...and it's BIG. I think it will serve as my Christmas quilt this year.

The last ten pints of squash that I intend to can this year are finished. Now on to putting together the chicken casserole and broccoli salad for the Quilt Club potluck tonight. Tomorrow morning I'm off to a meeting of the Antelope County librarians...I get to go the round about way to Clearwater.  Will that bridge EVER get rebuilt???

I'm Keeping Busy....

...but the results don't really look like much:

14 pints of squash done on Friday

Small Christmas gift projects

NONE of these buttons work for these table runners. Drat!!!

I really couldn't believe that NONE of these buttons matched the table runners. And I thought I had bought buttons to match any project the last time I was in Hobby Lobby. Maybe I'll pay them another visit?? It isn't even easy to find buttons anymore. Doesn't anybody sew clothes??

Working on canning more squash today...another 10-15 pints. DH had a bumper crop and we've already given lots away and once I get what I want we'll give more away.

I have some more finished projects to show but it will have to wait until I get around to "staging" them and take some pictures.