Ramblings From Randi, The Wild Rose Quilter
My adventures in quilting, my adventures at Hackberry Spring Ranch, and other tidbits of my life.
It’s only Wednesday, and for some reason, I woke up more tired than when I went to bed. I feel absolutely exhausted this morning. I just want to crawl back in bed, but I have to go to work. It’s only 14 degrees outside, too. Good day to stay in bed, all warm & snuggly.
I finished Joanna’s quilt, and it is in the mail on it’s way back to her. Thought I’d share a couple of pics right quick.
This week my fabric busted is gifted fabric. 3 yards for a birthday gift to a guild member, the one who gave me that awesome reindeer ornament, and another 3/4 yds. to another recipient, and another 1.5 yds to another recipient. But the last two don’t know it yet, so I won’t say who. I did start that little applique block of the month, but I haven’t figured out how to count that yet. I had to use bits of two fat quarters, but the rest I am using scraps. I have a feeling I will be using the rest of those two fat quarters in the project, but will know more when we get the next block. If I use more of them, then I will count them as busted, in a later report. At least they are off the shelf.
So my report for this week is:
I have made some more progress on the stash projects I started right after Christmas. I cut up some more of the fat quarters for my Gracie’s Star, and they are all ready to sew into blocks.
I have these left to cut up.
I cut my Kona white into these.
Started sewing them onto these.
I had to go ahead and sew one corner together, just to make sure it was going to work.
I’m really enjoying my time spent working with these fabrics. I love them! I hope to enter this quilt in some shows. At least some smaller, local area shows. And I may even get brave and send it somewhere like MQS next year, to get some judge’s comments. We’ll see.
Finally, I’m to the part of Joanna’s quilt that I have been looking forward to quilting the most! The looonnnggg feathered strips. Oh yes!
I think our quilting plan has come together nicely.
I started a little basket.
Lord knows I needed another project to work on right now, so he made sure I stumbled across this one from Bunny Hill Designs…lol. It’s called a Tisket A Tasket, and it’s a free block of the month.
http://bunnyhilldesigns.com/dynamic/?page=Free%20Patterns
Applique is really a struggle for me, so mine may not get any further than this, but I’m going to try. Just one a month. We’ll see. That tiny little carrot nose almost did me in. I am using the Sharon Schamber applique method, which involves a stabilizer under each piece and lots of washable Elmer’s glue. Right now, glue is the only thing holding mine together. Also, there’s the issue of the hand embroidery that has to be done. Not sure how that is going to work out for me. Succeed or fail, I will keep you posted! But isn’t it a cute project?
I am still quilting on Joanna’s Five & Dime. I have one last paisley/peacock filler block to finish with the lighter thread, and then I will finish the flower blocks. I have the swirlies done. There are a few blocks that I will use a darker thread in, the pinkish blocks, and the three long strips. After I finish with the rest of the flowers, I will start quilting some feathered hearts, using a hook type feather in the remaining blocks, that measure 9.5″ square. It’s been going well and I’m anxious to see it unfold, so to speak. It’s fun watching the transition from unquilted to quilted. I never get tired of it.
Enjoy your Saturday! Try to spend some time doing something you love!
Making some quilting progress!
This will be another short post. I’ve been busy, but just don’t have a lot to show for it. I used 3.25 yards of stash this week in my guild project. Year to date totals:
I’m still going in the right direction. Yay!
I was coming down with a head cold earlier this week. Friday and Saturday, I was not feeling so great. I did get a customer top loaded yesterday, and today, I got all the SID done. Joanna, these are scrumptious fabrics you chose. I love them! I’m going to enjoy looking at them while I quilt this. (Oh, don’t pay any attention to that snippett of football fabric you can see pinned to the leader…it’s not part of the quilt. It’s just there so I have enough extra backing to work with it on my machine. Thank you for adding that to make my job easier, Joanna!)
I said something about ordering some more thread yesterday, and my husband told me that he was planning on buying me thread for our anniversary, which is coming up March 1st. Yippee! A gift I will love and love using! A longarm quilter, or any machine quilter for that matter, can’t have too much thread, now can they?! I’m sure looking forward to that shopping spree.
Have a great week!
Wow, January is just busy, busy so far. This week I had quilt guild Tuesday night. I’ve also been working on end of year tax stuff. Fun, fun, fun. I typed all our W-2’s, only to discover I was checking a box I didn’t need to check, and now I am about to go retype them. I need to balance the company check book, and do the sales tax filing for December. Of course, we have to get everything together for our accountant.
My son has not had anymore hives breakout since Sunday. Yay! But now, I swear, I am coming down with something again. Sheesh, how many times can I catch this crap in a three month span. But the nasal stuffiness and scratchy throat feeling is back. I’m crossing my fingers it’s the crazy weather, and I’m not really getting sick again. Yesterday we were in the 50’s, today at 1:00 we had only reached 20. It’s FREEZING cold out. But, I think it’s supposed to be a short cold blast, and back to 50’s.
I finished the quilting on this one. Not the greatest pics. I couldn’t get really good light today.
It’s a cute, fun quilt, and I thought it needed fun, cute quilting. I sure hope you like it, Betty! 🙂 Thanks for letting me quilt for you!
Now, I’m off to redo W-2’s. 😦
My stash report is very boring this week. Nothing new in, nothing new out. As I stated in my previous post, it was a stressful week last week, between my son having hives, and getting caught up in some stupid drama at work. And tomorrow starts a new work week. I hope it’s a better one. I’m usually pretty good at keeping up walls, but occasionally let those down a bit. The events of last week have me feeling it’s time to reinforce walls again. I’m feeling in “retreat & retract mode”.
In the meantime, I’ll give you a sneak peek of how I spent 5.5 hours of my Saturday. This cutie also belongs to my friend Betty, the owner of the previously posted Pumpkin table runner.
What a week it has been. Getting back in the groove at work, and dealing with a 17 year old who came down with a severe outbreak of hives. I’m talking head to toe hives. This started Monday evening. Tuesday I tried to get him into the doctor, but they were booked. Ended up in the ER with him Tuesday night, only to find out I was already doing pretty much everything that could be done. They did give him some stronger antihistamine and a shot of steroid. Today has been the best one since, they were pretty much nonexistant til about 6:00 and a few popped back up. It’s a weird thing. I mean he was completely covered in them. I tried to get him to let me take a pic of his back for my blog, but that got an emphatic “no!” LOL. We have no idea at all what caused them. Very frustrating and unsettling. Many thanks to Jan for giving me advice and moral support!
Between that and a stressful week at work, especially yesterday, I haven’t taken a single stitch til today. I got off work at noon, and got to work on this adorable pumpkin table runner for my friend, Betty. I bought the same kit, only mine is still in the bag. At least I will know how to quilt it when I get it put together. 🙂
TGIF!!
And we’re off! A whole new year of busting that stash has begun. I’ve been working away on some new projects, and preparing to do some more work on some older WIPS.
Stash busted that I am counting for this week is as follows:
5.25 yards finishing up the commissioned memorial t-shirt top, preparing the backing, and the binding.
3.75 yard in 30’s repros. for the Boston Commons quilt.
I also got 4 more stars made for Gracie’s Star today. I am not going to add this to my totals til the stars are all made. This is a queen size top, but when I had the stars laid out on the bed today, I realized that I could easily make it big enough for my kingsize bed by adding a border. So, I may do just that. This one is going to use up some stash!
I got quite a lot of pressing done this weekend, too. In addition to pressing the fabric for the t-shirt top, and the fabric for my star blocks as I go along, I pressed 10 yards of backing for one of my 9P & stripes, I pressed 5 yards of Kona white for my Boston Commons, and I pressed the border fabric for the other 9P & stripe quilt.
The white is a fabric I will likely restock in my stash after I use it. It’s a good staple to have on hand, because when you need it, you need it now…and it’s not like I can just run out to a fabric shop and pick some more up. I try to keep some of both white and black.
I ended up with 15 finishes for 2008.
And my final stash reporting for 2008 was:
I’m already having fun quilting away in 2009. I guess that’s it for this week. Can’t think of anything else! Tomorrow will start my first full week back at work since the holidays and my vacation started. It’s going to be hard to get back in the groove. Have a good one!
Ramblings From Randi, The Wild Rose Quilter 