A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

The snow came again through the night.  The sun is now out and the snow is beautiful.  Another inch is to come this afternoon.  I‘m sure this last stuff won’t stay too long.  That inch should make this the snowiest February in our history.

I thought that I would show you the socks.



  I like to take these to the girls appointments.  They are coming along nicely.  The knitting group gives me a hard time that they are not done yet.  They also give me a hard time that I chose the hardest thing to start with.  They forget I don't work on these very often.

I am waiting for the dishwasher to finish to start the next loaves of bread.  I also picked up Bonnie Hunters’  “Scraps & Shirttails”.  I ordered it into my local library.  I wish I could find one of Judy L.’s books in the library system.  I am looking forward to quilting on my Round Robin today.

Two design Walls in a Row!

I just want to start by thanking you all for the wonderful outpouring of care and consideration last week.  I am feeling much better.  Things are very rough at work and when my time off is rough too…let’s just say, I am doing better.

The girls are off today with President’s Day.  Lola decided to go on a shopping spree.  With a friend they are traveling an hour to the outlet mall.  They have arrived.  We  gave the girls about 5-6 hours there.  MJJR and I are home and cooking.  I check out the book Judy L. raves about “Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day”.  Here is the first loaf.  It isn’t very big.  It looks great and smells wonderful.  MJJR was wanting to cut into it before it was even out of the oven.
MJJR decided to do some of her own cooking.  She made no bake Special K squares with Peanut Butter.  MJJR has deemed them “good.”  (A direct quote).

On to the design wall. It looks the same as last week.   I did get it put back up, it started to fall back  down again.  That’s okay.  I haven’t been working on this project anyway.  I have been quilting on my UFO Challenge Quilt. 

This is the Round Robin from 2004.  If you click you can see some close up of the quilting I have finished.  I have 3 more borders to finish.  I don’t think that I will finish this before the end of the month. The last border is applique, I figured out the leaves are prepped yet.  I am very excited that I am closer that I ever thought that I would be.  I am hoping to take this to my sit n sew group on Thursday night and show them my progress.  This is the group that created the Round Robins.  I haven’t mentioned to any of them I was going to quilt it.  I think only 2-3(there is about 9 of them) of the quilts have been finished.
  I still don’t know what type of binding to use.  I may go and purchase something, I have a $5 off a $10 purchase from my LQS.
 
One of these days, Judy L. will pull one of my easier challenge #’s.  I did make most of my challenges, a real challenge.  I am hoping to catch up on one of the slower months. 

I also am heading to retreat next month 4 whole days of quilting.  If she can pull a good # I might be able to finish at least January’s in addition to March.

Design Wall Monday

First, Here is the Design Wall.  This is the story of my life.  I am falling apart.  This is the just one corner of the sew room.
After the family getting sick over the last month or so, I finally lost the battle.  My ears are plugged, the skin hurts and am just plain falling apart. 

What do you think?  Is the sew room falling apart? 

You can see my UFO #10 in the machine.  There is usually a quilt hanging in front of the pictures over the counter, it keeps falling down.  I put it back up yesterday, that is why the stool is in front of the counter.  The UFO quilt isn’t getting much work since I am felling so nasty.  Is this going to be another month of not accomplishing the UFO?  You can see my failure for January’s UFO. 
I will say that I am getting more things done.  We turned off the TV yesterday, I am doing a little work on my socks since I can lay in bed and knit.
Lola went to Sadie Hawkins.  She had a good time.  MJJR had a basketball tournament.  They won a game, first time in a while that they have won.  The last game for the year.
Check over to The Patchwork Times and find more Design Walls.
Enjoy the Life You Have,
Just Another Quilter

February’s UFO

Now I know that I did not finish my January UFO.  It did have some extra ordinary problems.  I now need to decide if I am going to work to finish January (there is probably 1 week of work left) or start on February. 
Here is the quick peek at February…
This quilt was a Round Robin adventure by our Sit n Sew.  The top was completed in 2005 and took 18 months.  We did not get to see our quilts during the whole 18 month period.  Each person in the group added a border to the quilt.  I made the center star with the red.
As you can see it is my standard colors.  I initially had wanted to make this quilt a little larger and put it on my King Size bed.  The lights in this quilt did not go with the wall hanging that is above the headboard.  I kept looking at the quilt and trying to decide how to bring in more rose color from the wall hanging and tone down the “lights” that the wall hanging didn’t contain.  The wall hanging is my variation of Buggy Barn’s Crazy Ray.  In the end I decided to take the remaining Crazy Ray block and begin another quilt similar to the Round Robin.  That is how the KING was started.  At that point the Round Robin was sent to the corner, rarely to be seen.  I am excited about working on it.  I think that I will probably put the Christmas quilt on the back burner for a few days and see how much this quilt will entail to finish it.  My quilting ideas are starting to flow.
I did a few modifications to this quilt.  My quilt seemed to have missed the applique round, so I added the burgundy swirls.  I also have some coxcomb flowers and bias to finish up the outer border.  I think that I will sew the applique down and quilt it at the same time.  Back to quilting.  Oh by the way, I am not sure that some of this fabric won’t run….Joy.

Stop over and see Judy L. at "The Patchwork Times".  She is the one organizing the UFO Challenge.

Just Another Quilter….Enjoying another challenge.

My January UFO…Finished or Unfinished?

Well, 
Here it it February 2nd.  The UFO Challenge Project that is running at “The Patchwork Times” has come to an end.  I have worked many days on my quilt.  I must say those that follow me on Blogger are already aware of the issue I had. 
My project was the Alaskan Christmas Quilt.  I had lots of quilting to do.  I was well on the way to finishing.  On January 9th, all that remained was quilting on 1 small border and 1 large border.  I was thrilled with my progress.  As I was spraying the “blue pen” out of the inner border, it appeared to not come out.  In the end, it was the back fabric that bled onto the front and not the evil “blue pen” that we have all heard stories about.  I made the problem worse.
So for the last few days, I have ripped.  I ripped the back fabric off, I ripped off the borders, I ripped out quilting.  Monday…I found fabric that matches the new quilt.  Did I mentioned that I tried to remove the color bleed with the RIT dye remover.  The whole quilt ended up losing the browns.  The quilt is now a different color.  Soooo, I can not just remove the bad fabric and replace it with the same fabric…they are not the same color anymore. 
I replaced the back fabric today.  I bought fabric to match the new color.  Yes, I could find some.  What do you think?  You can still see the areas that I haven’t replaced yet.  Most of it is just top stitched down.  I am no longer making the heirloom Christmas quilt.  Now it is a quilt full of stories.  If you click on the quilt you will see the green that I am going to have to live with.  You might also see the change in some of the colors.  
I did do a little work on some of the other projects while trying to decide how to tackle my problems.  I almost finished my top for project #2.  I did some work on my socks (project #9).
Here are a couple picks of the snow that came through.  We ended up with 16-18 inches.  The kids were out early yesterday, today and they just called it for tomorrow.  I am wondering if they have some damage at the school.  The roads aren’t that bad now.  Lola said last week some of the ceiling was coming in after a big snow.?.?  DH & I hit the driveway at 4:15am with our his and hers snow blowers.  What fun.  You have to understand…both of us did our stint in a part of the country that easily gets more than 120” of snow a year.  It is no big deal to drive in the stuff and we don’t mind clearing it.  DH went and picked up 2 coworkers to carpool into work.  They had to walk about 1/2mile, that is as close as DH could get to their homes.  It took about 30 minutes for him to go about 10 miles.

Enjoy every day.

Just Another Quilter