2 Finished Table Runners

Last night was binding night at my house so I cuddled up under my Shabby Roses quilt and stitched away. The first table runner I finished was my Valentine's Day table runner which I'm now calling I Heart Pink.

This runner is made using a Thimbleberries pattern called "Queen of Hearts". It was a give-away item from a 2 day quilt shop hop I attended years ago with my Mom and two of her friends. I decided to quilt it using wavy lines using my walking foot without marking. I did the first line across the middle and then loosely echoed it. Not only was this a lot of fun to do but I really like the relaxed look of it!

I think I was done quilting this in about 30 minutes! I'll definitely be doing waves again.

Next up was my Christmas Stretched Stars table runner. I found a perfect tiny Christmas metallic floral in my stash to use for binding but I had to improvise when I was about 10" short. Luckily I had a wonky strip left from squaring up the fabric so I took a leftover strip of the background fabric for I Heart Pink and improvised a filler strip. Whew~!

I've decided to call this one Leoni's Floral Stars after the swap hostess who ran the most wonderful monthly nickel (5" charm) & noodle (2.5" strip) swap group that I've been lucky enough to be a part of! I used Pat Speth's "Nickel Quilts" book for inspiration. Autumn Stretched Stars is the pattern.

I'm so happy that I changed course and made it into a long (18" by 54") table runner instead of a square topper. I love how it looks on our dining room table. My only regret is that I'll have to wait a year to enjoy it.

The fabrics are so stunning! Look at that beautiful cardinal perched on his glittery branch.

I love the heavy gold edging on those red roses - another favorite of mine.

A peek at a few more - I think the paisleys are fun and break up the poinsettias and holly nicely.

These are UFO Finishes #8 & #9 for 2013. And, I'm up to 25 UFO Finishes on my UFO Countdown... which means I get got to do a little quilty shopping as a reward. Yes, it arrived today!

I'm linking up to TGIFF, Can I Get a Whoop Whoop and Link a Finish Friday.

January in Review

A bitterly cold month in Minnesota proved to be a good month for quilting as I finished 9 UFOs in January. A quilt to donate to QOV, 3 kids quilts for Project Linus, a wall quilt, 2 lap quilts and 2 table toppers to be exact!

1. Patriotic Squares, 2. Minnesota Ladyslipper, 3. Sports Kid, 4. Shabby Heart, 5. Shabby Roses, 6. Animal Pairs, 7. Ballerina Cats, 8. Leoni's Floral Stars, 9. I Heart Pink

A review of my January goals looks like this:

1-Finish Stretched Stars Table Runner-DONE

2-Finish Christmas Stockings 2,3 & 4

3-Bind Shabby Florals Lap Quilt-DONE

4-Bind Shabby Heart Lap Quilt-DONE

5-Bind Minnesota Ladyslipper Wall Quilt-DONE

6-Finish 2 Project Linus Quilts -DONE

7-Finish Valentine’s Day Table Runner-DONE

8-Finish Craftsy FMQ Class-DONE

9-Do 10 FMQ Practice Sessions (1/2 hr)-7 DONE

10-FMQ 1 Project Linus Top

I'll be moving those Christmas Stockings forward and I have a new plan for continuing my FMQ practice in February but I'll post about those goals tomorrow. I'll also have a separate post about my last 2 finishes. Too much going on right now! Plus, my Juki F600 arrived yesterday and I haven't even taken her out of the box - now that is just plain WRONG my friends! ;-)  

Last WIP Wednesday in January

I find myself feeling a bit stressed about wanting to get all of my January goals done and then I get annoyed with myself for feeling stressed over my fun hobby! Does anyone else go through this cycle?

I would consider myself a "reformed" Type A person. When I was younger I was certain I could do it all and worked myself into an abyss trying. Now that I'm older (and I think wiser) I try to set goals and make lists to help me focus but in the back of my mind there is still a remnant of that "do it all" me.

Without goals I tend to drift about, but they are also a bit work-like which I don't care for. It's all about balance isn't it? And, if they don't get done, there is always next month and a fresh start. No harm, no foul! Maybe if I keep telling myself that enough it will finally sink in.

What's Hot:

Christmas Stretched Stars is quilted and ready for binding. I'm thrilled with how this looks!  I used gold thread and grid quilted each block, I'll post some close ups when it's finished.

My FMQ loops might be Ready for Prime Time I'm thinking. If I set my Juki speed on the middle notch (between rabbit and turtle) I am able to get into a nice rhythm with meandering loops. What do you think?

I'm ready to quilt my Valentine's Day table runner. My first thought was to outline stitch the hearts and then channel stitch the border, but now I'm kind of leaning toward some gentle walking foot waves or randomly spaced lines across the width.

What's Not:

I don't know what my deal is with these stockings! In December I practically forced myself to get this one done. It's not that I don't like it, because I do and it matches my family room decor perfectly. It's not because it's hard... I just don't know anything other than the fact I do NOT want to work on the next three. Hmphh~!

What's New:

The Triple-Zip Along got underway on Monday. These are my fabric choices and I'll be getting started on it after I quilt the Valentine's Day runner. This is will be my January NewFo for Barbara's challenge at Cat Patches.

I also need to do this month's block for And Sew On. It looks easy so should knock that out today minus the embroidery to create a tape measure since I miffed on ordering fabric for it.

I'm linking up to WIP Wednesday@Freshly Pieced.

A Non Quilty Finish!

The 3000 piece Golden Gate Bridge puzzle is done... the last piece clicked into place at 2:02 AM last night! This huge puzzle takes up 2/3's of our dining room table with both leaves inserted. My daughter and I worked on this puzzle together the 1st week of January. She did the skyline, the bridge deck and most of the water while I did the sky and the bridge tops. I posted about the start of it here in Cat Antics Part 2.

When she went back to school, all that was left was a bunch of mostly black pieces which make up the trees along the bottom and the bases of the bridge. Talk about hard! I've plunked in a piece here or there but on Sunday I got the bug to finish it up. I sat down and sorted all the blackish pieces into groups - no knobs, 1 knob, 2 opposite knobs, 2 side by side knobs, 3 knobs and 4 knobs and put each group in one of these boxes.  It was the only way to finish this off.

If you enjoy puzzles you will LOVE these boxes! I bought a set for my Mother-In-Law for Christmas a few years ago and treated myself to one too. When we start a puzzle my daughter & I make a plan for sorting the pieces into separate boxes. On a normal sized puzzle you can get all the pieces face up but on this one we had a few boxes that were 3-4 pieces deep! We had an orange box, a yellow box, a blue box, a black box, a skyline box, a water box and a box with the bridge lights. When we emptied a box we would resort a full box - I had 3 shades of yellow in 3 boxes while working on the sun.

Remember this lovely feature of my quilting room?

My DH's monster Ab machine is gone! On Thursday night I stubbed my toe hard on the leg next to the bed, somehow I caught the edge of my toenail and did a nice partial removal. Major ouch. On Sunday we took it apart, moved it downstairs and brought up a desk for another sewing station. Sometimes it takes a little blood to make a major improvement!

So I've been doing some rearranging and a much needed tidy up in my quilting room in between bouts of puzzle mania. Now I have all day to sew and see if I can wrap up a few more of my January goals.

Sunday Stash Report - 1/27

This week my BIG box from eQuilter's year end sale arrived so my report looks like I'm planning a shop of my own! 48 yards is lot of fabric. But at prices ranging from $4.38 a yard down to $2.55 a yard (yes the prices were THAT good!) for quilt shop quality fabric I'm not feeling guilty at all.

I found some great backing fabrics for Project Linus quilts, some great novelty kids prints and some for me too. Here are my favorites.

I have a hard time resisting cute Paris fabrics and I especially love the text print with the Paris attractions. I've started buying diagonally printed fabrics for bindings, the novelty houses & vehicles are just plain fun and while I have no idea what I'm going to with the big coffee print it is WAY cute!

Pink Chalk Fabrics is new to me, I had read on a blog about their Bits & Pieces Scrap Bags and before I knew I'd ordered one! LOL. Actually I needed a bit of neutral Sew Stitchy which I'm using for my Quiet Play "And Sew On" blocks and thought I'd fill out my order a bit.  And look - a scrap of Sew Stitchy 5th from the left which is way cool!

3 to 3.5 yards of scraps for $14.95 is a good deal in my book and I'm quite happy with the selection of prints sent.

Used this Week: 19.5 yards

• 5 for Ballerina Cats
• 5 for Animal Pairs
• 9.5 for Shabby Roses

Used Year to Date: 52.5 yards

Added this Week: 52 yards

• 4 @Pink Chalk Fabrics
• 48 @eQuilter (Year End Sale) 

Added Year to Date: 107 yards

Net Added for 2013: 54.5 yards

YTD Used for Charity: 29 yards (55% of total used)

Now that the crazy year end buying is on the books I'll be catching up in a hurry with all the UFOs I have in the pipeline. I'm linking up to Patchwork Times and Finding Fifth.  

Weekend Sew In

I love a weekend that has nothing on the calendar except Saturday night dinner out! I've been taking full advantage to work on my January Sew Alongs and the last items on my January Goals. FNSI with Handmade by Heidi got me off and running Friday night. Hot pink blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge hosted by soscrappy were first up. I've decided to make 6 blocks a month of each color and either add another color in December or make more of the gender neutral colors so that I'll end up with 80 blocks. That will translate into 4 quilts x 2 block styles for a total of 8 quilts to donate to Project Linus.    Here are my Crossroads blocks.

 And my Birds in the Air blocks, first in a chevron layout...

and in a different layout.

I am loving both of these blocks! The Crossroads blocks make such a fun secondary pattern and the Birds in the Air blocks will give me lots of layout options. I'm wondering what color we will be sewing with in February? I've loved working with pink this month.

This weekend is also the designated Sew In weekend for the Yahoo! Stashbusters group I belong to. Yesterday I pulled out my Christmas Stretched Star UFO and spread it out on my temporary table. I find that when I have to make my own design decisions I tend to procrastinate a lot. I've had this UFO out a few times and ended up stalled so I was determined to be brave, make a decision and move forward.

These are 5" charms from a swap I did years ago of metallic Christmas florals. They are really gorgeous! Last time I touched this I decided to make a table runner instead of a square table topper to best show them off on my long dining room table, but couldn't decide on the best size. 

Yesterday (Decision Day!) 4 x 12 blocks seemed like a good size so I laid the completed blocks sewn in pairs out by background color (light, green, red and black) and added some new charms to try and balance them a bit. Sometimes a bit of logic helps me work better with scrappy! I remembered having too many poinsettia prints the last time I laid them out so I added some variety. I had one too many black background so put it in the red column.

Do you know what is scary about working on old UFOs - see that strip of background fabric on the bottom? That is ALL I have left of that fabric! Talk about pressure to not waste a scrap with a mis-cut. I very carefully cut the corner squares needed to finish the new charms, laid them out in a pleasing way and started sewing them together. Here is half of the runner laying on top of the rest of the blocks.

Today I'll lay out the rest of them, take a picture of my layout for reference (I'm terrible at messing them up during assembly!) and add the top to the ready-to-sandwich group. I'm thinking a simple grid for quilting using gold thread, I want to let these fabrics shine without distraction.

 I'm linking up to soscrappy's Scrap Happy Saturday.

Traveling Stash Box #2 GIVE-AWAY!

And... in this corner... Traveling Stash Box #2! Click HERE if you missed yesterday's post about the 2 Sisters Traveling Stash Box give-away.

Box #2 is one of 9 that are traveling all across the US. Cherise who blogs at Sewingly Along is the manager of this enterprise. You can read more about how the give-away works at the end of this post and if you want to see what's happening with all of the boxes you can click HERE. This box came to me from Helen who blogs at Time for Mimi.

Here are the goodies I am keeping from this box:

2 novelty fat quarters, about a 1/2 yard of green fish fabric, 3 patterns, some 5" Christmas charms, a pkg. of cute sewing theme buttons and a package of hooks that I'm convinced will come in handy to hang something from something! Fun stuff right?

And, here is what I'm putting back into the box:

4 patterns, 5 fat quarters, some bicycle hooks for corralling a quilt top and a super handy tool for drawing lines on HSTs (I bought & opened this one before I found one hiding in one of those baskets I cleaned out in December!).

Here are the fabrics I'm leaving in the box - the bottom row is mostly fat quarters and the top row has longer lengths (please don't ask me to measure anything). There is a nice stack of batik squares (purple on top) and a charm back of Jo Morton fabrics on the lower right.

This box also contains LOTS of patterns, books, notions and other goodies!

How would you like this box to come for a visit to your house?  First you need to be willing to follow these rules . . .

Rules:

1. Be an active blogger. Post about receiving the box on your blog in a timely manner. Post the giveaway for the box soon after receiving it.
2. There's a note in the box that logs where it's been. Please add your info and place the note back in the box.
3. There's a list of Rules and Guidelines in the box. Please read and follow these and return the list to the box. 
4. You may take anything you like from the box. Just replace every item with comparable quilt shop quality items equal to the amount taken.
5. Ship the box to the next person in a reasonable amount of time.
6. Due to the amount of postage shipping is only within the USA.

You must be willing to pay USPS Priority Mail fees for a large flat rate box after you have shopped, restocked and hosted your own blog giveaway to send this box to your lucky winner!

This giveaway is now closed!

Random.org drew the winning entry...

Who is:

Maribeth blogs at Simply Delighting if you'd like to follow this box along to the next stop. Congratulations Maribeth!

To be the winner of this box, all you need to do is leave a comment. If you are a no-reply blogger be sure to leave an email address in your comment. I'll chose one lucky winner via Random.org on Thursday evening, January 31. As soon as I receive the winner's address this box will be on it's way ASAP!  

Good luck!  I've loved having this box visit me.

Cat Antics: The Finale

My household loves The Far Side! Little Jax got "tutored" during his visit in early January. Our vet is much cheaper than the vet where my daughter goes to college and we thought it would be a good idea to have lots of us around to love and cuddle him when he came home. Here he is taking a snooze next to the kitty toy bowl. When they visit that bowl gets emptied a couple times a day, the J-cats do love toys!

More nap time.

Tucker seems relaxed too with only one cat to watch out for!

J-Meow lived with us for a year while our daughter had a not pet-friendly landlord. During that time our seal point Siamese Simon was still with us. J-Meow had a thing about Simon. He loved to touch him! It was so funny, he would wait until Simon was asleep and then he would slowly inch over until he could reach out a paw like this.

When he really got brave (or Simon was really tired) there would be close snuggles.

J-Meow and Tucker didn't have much to do with each other then and they still don't. Jax tries hard to get Tucker to play, I think J-Meow knows not to waste his time! And, now he has Jax to tumble around with.

I gave my son a daily cat desk calendar for a stocking stuffer. We both got a good laugh from this!

I'm linking up to It's a Saturday Sharing Day.

2 Sisters Traveling Stash Box GIVE-AWAY!

I have been trying to win one of these boxes since I started my blog in September and I finally got lucky! In fact, I was SO lucky that I ended up winning 2 of the boxes the same week. So stay tuned because I'll be posting the give-away for Traveling Box #2 tomorrow. You can enter to win one or both - it's up to you!

The 2 Sisters Box is one of 9 that are traveling all across the US. Cherise who blogs at Sewingly Along is the manager of this enterprise and she is also the person who had this box last. You can read more about how the give-away works at the end of this post and if you want to see what's happening with all of the boxes you can click HERE.

Here are the goodies I am keeping from this box:

I love working with charms so the book is a no-brainer, 6 fat quarters, a bundle of 4 bright FQs, a pkg. of Magic Bobbins, some Perle cotton and a pkg. of 2.5" squares. Nice!

And, here is what I'm putting back into the box:

4 books, a 2/3 yard length of fall fabric at the top and 8 fat quarters. If I find anything fun in my notions drawers this weekend I'll tuck them in as well. Oh, and the black fabric 2nd from the bottom has adorable teacups on it... I should have shown more of it in the pic.

These are all of the fabrics that I resisted! The bottom 2 rows are mostly fat quarters and the top row has longer lengths (please don't ask me to measure anything). The bundle on the upper right is a coordinated bundle of 4 FQs.

And here are the rest of the goodies. Some books, patterns, notions and a cute little bundle of 3" charms. In the upper right corner under that plastic glare are some cute Christmas ribbons and a roll of Chenille-It.

How would you like this box to come for a visit to your house?  First you need to be willing to follow these rules . . .

Rules:

1. Be an active blogger. Post about receiving the box on your blog in a timely manner. Post the giveaway for the box soon after receiving it.
2. There's a note in the box that logs where it's been. Please add your info and place the note back in the box.
3. There's a list of Rules and Guidelines in the box. Please read and follow these and return the list to the box. 
4. You may take anything you like from the box. Just replace every item with comparable quilt shop quality items equal to the amount taken.
5. Ship the box to the next person in a reasonable amount of time.
6. Due to the amount of postage shipping is only within the USA.

You must be willing to pay USPS Priority Mail fees for a large flat rate box after you have shopped, restocked and hosted your own blog giveaway to send this box to your lucky winner!

This give-away is now closed!

Random.org drew the winning entry...

who is:

Nina blogs at Quilts, Life and Balance if you'd like to follow this box along to the next stop. Congratulations Nina!

To be the winner of this box, all you need to do is leave a comment. If you are a no-reply blogger be sure to leave an email address in your comment. I'll chose one lucky winner via Random.org on Wednesday evening, January 30. As soon as I receive the winner's address this box will be on it's way ASAP!  

Good luck!  I've loved having this box visit me.

A Friday Finish & A Winner!

Shabby Roses is UFO Finish #7 for 2013!  

The pattern I used is called "Down the Garden Path" from an April 2002 issue of McCall's Quilting. This quilt was inspired by a set of fat quarters I bought from Keepsake Quilting. The fabric line is Tudor Garden by Faye Burgos for Marcus Brothers. This quilt was pieced in 2005.

 I don't have a very good place to take pictures of quilts this size!

Shabby Roses was professionally quilted in December 2012 by Nancy Clayburn of Quilting by Design.  Nancy used large diagonal loopy feathers to accentuate the layout.

I'm a hopeless fan of shabby florals and paisley prints.

I love the rich burgundy colors in these fabrics. The detail on the roses is so gorgeous!

I had to scramble to piece a backing large enough when I realized I had not purchased enough of the large floral on green. Fortunately I found the matching large floral on tan in my stash and had enough leftovers from the top to make it work!

This quilt will definitely warm up my living room with all these rich colors! Another keeper.

Random.org came up with the winning number for my 100 Follower Give-away...

who is:

I have emailed Linda with the good news!  I really enjoyed reading everyone's answers.  

Five words to describe myself would be content, quiet, creative, wife, mom.

The only things I actively collect are Christmas ornaments from trips or significant events. I collected tea pots for a time but ran out of room to display them! I also have a collection of Kurt Adler lighted houses & figurines from Snow Town, Angel Heights and a few of his Easter houses. And, I have a LOT of vintage china (think fabric stash)! Most of it is chipped or cracked and will be used for mosaic projects, but I like to keep a piece or two of each pattern for a shabby mismatched table setting.

I think a Ragdoll kitten will appear on the blog sometime this winter/spring, but I'll keep thinking about the Shiba Inu for now.  Maybe Spring 2014 when ALL of my UFOs are done and I'll have lots of time for walks and driving to puppy classes!

I'm linking up to TGIFF@Made in Home, Can I Get a Whoop Whoop@Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Finish It Up Friday@Crazy Mom Quilts and Link a Finish Friday@Richard and Tonya Quilts.