Easy Street part 5

Despite it  being the weekend before Christmas, and working, I managed to get a few things done.  Most of Easy Street part 5 got done:

This is just a smattering, I love these colors together,  Does anybody know how many clues are coming?  I am chomping at the bit wanting to know how this turns out.  I am also one of those sad people who have to read the end of the book before I start reading it! 

I was also asked to please, please, please make a toddler sized Florida Gators quilt by Christmas eve.  This was last Thursday.  Yep, I was busy.  Got the top done, put it on the frame, where everything went crazy.  I kept dropping bobbins everywhere, the thread kept breaking, and making birds nests on the back.  Finally got it done around 1 am Sunday night.  When I went to put the binding on it, my thread kept coming out of the machine, etc.  This was one quilt that did not want to cooperate! I didn't get a chance to take a picture, my camera was dead, but here is the aftermath:

I learned two things: orange and blue are not my favorite colors, and that Walmart carries Gator fabrics when you frantically run in at 11 pm the night before Christmas eve, because you don't have enough for the backing.  But, it got done, and she is happy with it. 

On another note, my oldest son moved out, so his room is being turned into just-the-sewing room. 

There is still the fish tank and the turtle tank.  He keeps saying they'll be by to get them, but they haven't yet.  The poor suckers are lucky I remember to feed them, in this house if you don't remind me by asking " when's dinner?" or bark and beg for food, I will forget.  Don't ask about the beta fish my daughter used to have.  If they don't come to get them soon, I may put a posting on facebook that reads " Free to good home- one abandoned turtle and a fish family, very loving even if I get a disgruntled look on my face if not fed on time"  ( just kidding- maybe) .
Hope everyone had a great Christmas, and bring on 2013!
Happy quilting,
Marianne

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone.
Marianne

easy street, part 4

I have been slowly working on easy street , part 4, Bonnie Hunter's latest mystery quilt. 

untrimmed flying geese

stack of purple and white geese, with stack of purple and turquoise geese.

geese sewn together. 

I really can't wait to see what this comes out to be. Bonnie has also created a pattern for a scrappy flying geese quilt, called  geese on a string, based on an antique quilt she found.  I love anything with little scrap pieces of fabric!  This is one I will be making in the near future.  This week will be finding me celebrating Christmas on Tuesday ( my kids are going to their Dad's in Alabama for the holidays), work and cleaning my house, something it is really needing.  I will also be moving sewing machines and tables into what was my son's bedroom, and getting some sewing done, instead of laundry and dishes.  Yeah, 16 days of freedom, just me, my mom and the dog! I'll miss my kids, but they'll be back before I know it. 
Hope everyone has a great week,
Happy quilting,
Marianne

What am I working on today?

Today, I finished the string blocks for Bonnie Hunter's, Blue Skies, from her book: String Fling, scrappy, happy and loving it.  Over the past week, I turned these:

Into these:

And finally to these:

Now, onto making over a thousand half square triangles.  Yikes.  It's going to be great when it's done though.  Only problem? My scraps seem to be multiplying! :)
On the home front, school is over for this semester, and I have a month before it begins again.  And, my oldest son moved out, so his room will be turned into the sewing room!  Yippee!!! Oh, and my two youngest kids are going to their Dad's for Christmas and New Year's.  So, I will be cleaning house, and rearranging and moving sewing gear and fabrics.  The quilting machine and such will stay where it is, it fits perfectly there, but I will have a room where I can close the door on the mess.  Can we get a whoop whoop!!
So, time to get cracking on some more sewing today.  I am trying to get clue 4 of Bonnie Hunter's
easy street mystery quilt done, or at least some of it done today.  Have to be at work by 3.  Why does life have to get in the way all the time?:)
I do however, have all the other clues done, and for once they are all in one container:

 Yep, time to get sewing! 
Hope every one has a great day.
Happy quilting,
Marianne

Easy street part 2

I am loving this mystery quilt so far.  Much easier, like Bonnie Hunter promised it would be this year.  I worked on clue # 2 this weekend, but not as much as I would like to.  I came down with the flu, and it is kicking my butt.  So, I am in bed, trying to get my energy back. Get your flu shot.  ( my public service message).  So far, I have about 1/2 done, and the rest will get done when I am back on my feet.

I am having an issue with my pictures being blurry in the middle. No clue why, probably a setting or something.  I have a tendency to fiddle with things, then forget what I did, and how to undo it.  Well, time for a shower, and then a nap.  I feel like I ran a marathon, and all I did was get up and get a cup of coffee. Oh, and look at the kitchen- yep the hurricane I call family has been through there.  Sigh~.
Happy quilting everybody,
Marianne

Lots of pictures ahead

I think I may have fixed my photo issue.  Apparently, this has been happening to a lot of people.  So, I set the pixels to 2048 for photos, and hopefully, that will settle that. 
I have been pretty busy the last month or so.  Studying, studying, studying.  I realized I needed to get back into sewing when my blood pressure spiked and stayed there.  It hit me then that I hadn't sewn in about 2 weeks!  The minute I sat down to do some hand sewing, I felt my entire body relax.  My BP has been fairly normal since then.  So, schedule in that sewing time!
I made this cute little dress:

Isn't it so cute?  (ignore the untidy shelves behind it).  I lined it and everything, and-ready for it- put in an invisible zipper!
Up next, pumpkin pies for Thanksgiving and Christmas! Between my son's girlfriend and myself, we cooked down 2 pumpkins and made about 7 pies! Two went straight in the freezer for next month, the rest are gone already. 

 These quilt tops I got at a local flea market, and got a great deal on all 3, and a quilt!  The lady didn't want to have to take them home and clean them.  It took me 3 washes to get the smell out, but worth it.  It's worth going to the flea market at the end of the day, people are willing to let things go for a bargain.

hand pieced.  this one will be done way before mine will be :)

One of my bosses retired after 27 years with the company,  6 years of being my manager, so I decide to make her a quilt.

I had people from work sign a piece of fabric with fabric pens, heat set it, and then quilted it on the back.

I am so going to miss her and her british accent!
Well, gotta go and have some more medicine, I am nursing a wicked cold and sore throat!  There will be no sewing today :(
Happy quilting,
Marianne

Easy Street, part 1

I am officially a Bonnie Hunter fan.  I realized today I have made 5 quilts from her patterns, including mysteries, and am working on 2 more.  Yep, a fan.  So, when her newest mystery came out, I knew I would be doing easy street.  Clue one took me a couple of days (pesky work got in the way), and I am now eagerly awaiting the next clue, due out on Friday morning.

some of the fabrics I picked

A few of my completed 4 patch blocks. 

Happy quilting everybody,
Marianne

Trying again...

I deleted a bunch of old posts (backed them up on my external hard drive first), and went to my picsa album, and deleted a lot of pictures.  Don't know how, but there were multiples of multiples of the same picture at times! No wonder I had no more room.  Anyway, this is what I will probably be drinking in a while if this doesn't work:

Yippee!!! I am back!  More pictures and a new post tomorrow!  Off to have a delicious drink now (I was gonna have it either way :) )
Happy quilting,
Marianne

Can't post more pictures

So, blogger is telling me I have run out of room for pictures.  Does anyone know how I can remedy this without deleting any of my previous pictures?  Any help would be appreciated.  Thanks, Marianne

Happy Thanksgiving

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving. I will try to post this weekend, in the meanwhile, bring on the pumpkin pie!!!

Cute little block

Isn't this the cutest little block?

Anybody else remember the little iron on designs?  I first started doing those when I was about ten or so.  I loved to do fill in embroidery.  This, and the others are to follow are for my new little nephew, James Robert (due date of Feb. 14, 2013).  I am doing several blocks, and then try to figure out how to set them together.  Right now, I am having so much fun doing them.  It's just so relaxing.  Here is my next block:

Just have to figure out what colors to use for the butterflies. 
Hope everybody has a great day!
Happy quilting,
Marianne

Too much going on.

Yep, a lot going on in my house lately.  My school work is in full swing, and math is getting a bit harder than in the beginning.  So, I have been studying that a lot.  Math whiz, I am not. I have been sewing a bit.  I finally got the retirement quilt top done:

I had my mom and my son holding it sideways, it's kind of long.  I am doing a special label for it, when I get it done I will show it.  Have to wait on the label before I can quilt it.  I will try  to quilt it in the next couple of weeks.  I just thought of the fact that we have only about 8 weeks until Christmas.  Where did the time go? 
Happy Quilting,
Marianne

Still plodding along

I have been somewhat lax in my blogging lately.  With my math homework driving me crazy (who comes up with some of the problems to solve- 12 steps to come up with  the answer being 7?!!!), and work, I have been feeling somewhat stressed.  But, I have been doing some paper piecing to make a quilt for one of my managers at work.  She and I have worked together for about 5-6 years now, and she is retiring in December.  So, of course, I have to make a quilt.  I decided to make some simple, yet colorful blocks, 48 total, then put together in a design.  Here is the pieced block:

 Untrimmed block, pieced on a paper backgroung.

Here are the 4 rows laid out.  I will try to put them together tomorrow, or maybe tonight after I get off work.  I am thinking a solid color inner border, maybe a 1-2 inch width.  Then, a wider outer border maybe 5 or 6 inches.  I do know though, that I will be quilting feathers in the light blue star points. 
I love to quilt feathers. 
Well, I hope everyone has a great Friday.  I have to head off to work in a few minutes.  Oy, the things I do to earn money for fabric! :)
Happy quilting,
Marianne

My Bailey is here!

Yippee, I so love the UPS guy.  Look what he brought me yesterday:

Ok, so I was a little bit intimidated by all the parts in the box.  Luckily, Mary (who I bought it from), had everything set up, and a page of tips, all I really had to concentrate on was getting the wheels for the stitch regulator on properly. 
Before I could set this all up today though, I had to finish the quilt that was 3/4 of the way done off the frame.  I did it, but it was a major hassle!  I think the machine didn't want to go!  I had threads shredding, breaking, I kept running out of bobbin thread, and having to wind more, etc.  I got to the last 3 inches of quilting, and ran out of bobbin thread again!  But it did get done.

It's one of Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilts, Roll, Roll, Cotton Boll.  It is so big, almost too big for my frame!  I had about 2 inches on each side to attach to my clamps for tension.  I used a soft gray thread, and an allover swirl design to quilt it.  I can't wait to put the binding on it, and use it on my bed.
So, this morning, I got up, and what did I do first thing:

Made a big cup of coffee, I was going to need it!

I then proceeded to take my Janome 1600P  with its stitch regulator off the frame.  It took a little while, there were wires everywhere. 

I then went ahead and got the Bailey on the frame, it really didn't take much time at all.  Like I wrote before, it was mainly making sure the wheels for the regulator were running smoothly. 

I used electrical tape to secure the button for the stitch regulator to the handle.  I am right handed, so it works great. 

Here's my first practice piece.  I love having the extra space!  I can do way bigger designs now.  I was having some issues with the bobbin not working right, but I oiled the shuttle, and loosened the bobbin case, and it works great now.  A lot of the tips and tricks I used for the Janome seem to work here too.  So far, so good.  I will do a couple more practice pieces, ( I want to try out some new quilting designs) before I load a proper quilt.  Plus, I need to get a new extension cord, mine won't work with this machine. 
Hope everyone has a great weekend (I'll be working and doing homework),
Happy quilting,
Marianne

Coming soon.

My Bailey will be here the day after tomorrow.  I guess I should finish the quilt on the frame if I want somewhere for it to go huh?  Thursday can't come soon enough...

I did it!

I bought a 15" Bailey mid arm quilting machine with a stitch regulator from Mary at www.MaryMansonquilts.com.  I am so excited!  Like a kid at Christmas! This will be the last gift from my dad, and I figure do it now, or I never will.  Got a good  deal, and best of all, I will be able to do bigger designs, including the feathers I love doing so much.  Really, by the end of a quilt, I have maybe 2-3 inches of quilting space left, and it's like quilting into a brick wall!
Well, gotta go,
Happy Quilting,
Marianne

I must be insane quilt update

I am still plugging away at Bonnie Hunter's Santa Fe Star quilt, aka " I must be insane" quilt.

 Here I am sewing onto my phone book paper pieces.

 This is the one tote I got my scraps from.  The more I pulled from the bottom, the bigger the pile got!  How does that happen?  LOL

The pile of pieces waiting to be trimmed down.

trimmed down pieces.

Here are some of the pieces sewn together to make up just 2 of the star pieces.

 That's how far I have come since yesterday.  I am going to try to work on some today, but I have to get my math done today for my class.  I tell you, math is not my forte, but I am muddling through.  Now history, I love.  No real problems there.  And in case you thought school and quilting were all  I do, I have also been doing some of this:

Homemade pear butter in the crockpot (it was so good)

 Banana muffins and banana bread.  Still have a ton of frozen bananas in the freezer, so need to make some more.  They didn't last long.

I am also trying to get into making some clothes for myself.  I am one of those larger uptop ladies, and finding clothes to fit me is hard ( and expensive), and I am getting tired of t-shirts.  So, I am trying. 

 On a last note, I have an opportunity to buy a mid arm quilting machine for a very reasonable price, and sell my Janome 1600P.  Still trying to decide for sure if I should go for it or not.  It's a 15" Bailey with a stitch regulator.  It will just fit on my frame, and would give me lots more room to do bigger designs, as I am thinking of starting to do allover quilting for others.  Argh, decisions!

Well, happy quilting,
Marianne