A Couple of Cards

 I put these cards together and into yesterday's mail.  The upper card has a swath from the Jean Wells class I took in May.  Both cards have "reject" Grandmother's Flower Garden flowers that were as far as I got when trying to do Lesson #1 for Katie PM. 

Other than that, today I am found sitting in clouds of white satin, as I make the flower girl dress for next week's wedding.  All that is left to do is to stitch together the overskirt, baste it to the skirt, gather, attach to bodice, and insert zipper.

hmmm.  More than I thought when I walked away 15 minutes ago.  I'd best get back to work!!

Wrap Up

Now that the Katie PM class has wrapped up, I thought you might like to see the debris field it left behind in my "sewing annex."  You can see most of the projects from the 8 lessons (7 on the board, 1 on the bed), as well as the fabrics I'd pulled to make said projects.  The green quilt and the kelp quilt have their sleeves hanging across the front of them.  oops.  To date, 3 quilts are finished, 5 are waiting to be quilted.  I will be finishing each and every one of them, hopefully before too long.  :)

 I was in Target the other day, and saw this display.  I may have burst out laughing, because this is the silliest thing I've seen in a long time.  Organic candy?  Really?  Do Trick-or-Treaters really care?  I don't think so!

And that's all I've got for today.  Gotta go make that flower girl dress.  Goals are good!

Ta Da

This is the top, as submitted for my final project.  I'm not sure if it's finished or not.  Last night, when I headed to bed, I thought that it needed a brown 3" "picture frame" around the edge.  Or not.  For now, it is set aside.  We have a wedding coming up in...11 days?  And I still need to make a dress for the flower girl.

Sew, sew, sew.  Better get on it!!  :)

Still Here

wow!  I hadn't realized the time gap since my last post.  Sorry about that.  I've been...busy.  Is that what I've been?  Since I last posted, I made another card.

But I still haven't made the labels for those baby quilts.  groan.

I made Penny's Halloween costume, and sent it to her.  It arrived a few days ago.  She is Princess Jasmine.  Always a princess.  :)

I have the makings of her flowergirl dress waiting for attention.  My youngest son's wedding is November 5.  Better get sewing, Gramma!

I added the binding to the green Lesson #7 quilt, from the Katie Pasquini Masopust class, so it is finished, except for the sleeve and label.  Those labels.  They're holding me back!  ;)

Lesson #8 - the last one in the class - is due on Monday.  A day or two after it was assigned, I enlarged a photo from Oban, Scotland, thinking I was going to focus on boats for my final project.  When it got to Friday, 10/21, I realized the boats would never be finished by 10/24.  I made a much smaller enlargement of a much simpler photo, and I am now in the middle of sewing Harvest Barns.  Here is my photo:

 This is what I had by about 5pm Friday afternoon.

I have since filled in all of the pieces, with the exception of the bottom 2 x 7 block quadrant.  I should be able to finish the piecing today.  Goals are good.  I highly doubt I can have it quilted by tomorrow midnight, which is its deadline.  I'm not sure if I will even try.

In other news, I now have a new dishwasher.  The door kept falling off on the old one, and the handle broke.  I have yet to use this one.  It seems to hold a lot more dishes than the old one did.

Also in other news, the local Joann's closed their super store and opened a cleaner smaller store in a different shopping center.  I may have gone hog wild when they marked apparel fabrics down to 90% and 95% off, when you finished the bolt.  I "saved" over $2000.  Such a thrifty shopper!  Most of my haul consisted of tulle and costume fabrics, in pink, purple, and turquoise.  I also got some "grown up" glitz, which I sent to my teenaged nieces.  This is some of what I sent to them:

 Within 24 hours of its arrival in Alaska, my eldest niece had made this pillow out of the grey roses.  For $24.99/yard?  I never would have purchased it.  For $1.25/yard?  I bought the whole bolt!

I was not the only one bargain hunting at Joann's.  One of my sons bought dozens of fixtures, which he is using to organize his garage.  When he was leaving with the last load, the liquidator asked, "Don't you think you could use the cash register counters as well?"  Yesterday we were over there, dismantling them and hauling them off.  Seven register cubbies, plus the electrical, plus the huge customer service booth are all now fighting for space in the garage.  Such a deal, such a deal!  Who could pass up free?!  I am thrilled to know that my thrifty ways have been passed along to the next generation. 

And with that, this has just been too long.  Stay tuned for my finished quilt top from Lesson #8.  It's definitely not my usual, though you can probably tell I made it.  :) 

check, check

I am so behind on baby quilts.  I think baby Adali was born in February.  I finished her quilt last week, except for the label.  Once it is labeled, I will be happy to deliver it.

 How do you like the yellow bird fabric on the back?  I absolutely LOVE it.  I bought it years ago in Napa, but didn't know what I was going to do with it.  The bird fabrics on the front were purchased at Best of the Valley at least 2 years ago.  They've been set aside since then, waiting to be cut and pieced.  It feels good to put them together, but unfortunately, I pieced them with half of the 2" birds upside down.  oops.  The baby won't care, will she?

Lesson #7 for Katie Pasquini Masopust was turned in last night.  The assignment was to do a study in analogous colors, with one complementary color thrown in for pizzazz.  It is hard to tell, but all of the fabrics used are either bluegreen, yellowgreen, red, or 7 shades of green.  The way they butt against each other makes them look white and blue and all sorts of colors in between.  It's incredible.

This quilt has been quilted.  All that remains to do is to bind it, and I think I will bind it in the usual way.  I don't want those little strips to fall off the edge, which I think would happen if I faced it instead of binding.

I have another baby quilt pieced and ready to go.  Perhaps I will be able to get it quilted today.  Goals are good!

My eighth and final assignment from Katie PM has arrived and is under consideration.  I've got two weeks to complete it.  wow.  I don't know if you can tell, but this has been the most amazing, intensive, productive class that I may have ever taken.  I've taken wonderful classes that have taught me new techniques and others that stretched me, but this one?  It's run the gamut and shown me that I have good quilts within me.  All I needed was the incentive to sit down and sew them out.  I can't wait to see wait I come up with for Lesson #8.  woohoo!!

Check!

Two very belated birthday cards are in the mail.  Two more check marks on my Guilt ToDo List.  woohoo!

The little houses were from a class I took sometime during the past year.  The class was a bust, but I did walk away with a couple of free form houses.  They look okay now, in fact, I think they're kind of cute!

Two baby quilt tops are half made on my sewing table.  Today's goal is to stitch them together.  Goals are good!