Incoming this week! 30 yards! Only 5.25 yds busted.
- Incoming Yardage to date: 38 yds.
- Outgoing Yardage to date: 35.75 yds.
- Total Stash Busted to date: – 2.25 yds.
Y’all knew I couldn’t be that good for too long, right? 🙂
Author: Wild Rose Quilter
I’m a simple woman…at least that what my DH (Dear Husband) used to say about me…I was a wife, I am now a widow, mother, step-mother & step-grandmother, quilter, and have a full time job in criminal justice. I lost my DH on May 22nd, 2011. I live in a small town in Texas. I love piecing quilts, I love quilting quilts. I have a serious addiction to fabric. I’ve been quilting since 1998, and purchased my first longarm, a Gammill Premier, in 2004. I upgraded to an A-1 Elite, named Corky, in March, 2007. I am in the process of rebuilding my life after losing my spouse. All photos and content in this blog are my own, and I request that you not download, copy or otherwise use anything here without my permission. I hope you enjoy visiting my blog and would love to hear your comments. Thanks for stopping by!
One Block Wondering
Ok, so I’ve told y’all that I’m supposed to take a One Block Wonder class with the quilt guild, but it isn’t til April 18th. Who can wait that long, once they have the book already? Not me! I had to go ahead and do some playing. I finally felt like fondling some fabric again, and instead of working on one of the gazillion projects I already have started, I wanted to do something new. Maybe it’s spring fever. Since we are doing the octagon version at guild, I pulled out the original fabric from my stash, that I wanted to use, but didn’t have enough for the eight repeats needed. Since the hexagon version doesn’t use as much fabric, I have enough for it.
The fabric, with my new rotary cutter laying on it, just because I noticed that it matches…lol!
The first set of blocks:
This is so hard to stop working on, once you start. Each block is a little surprise. I can’t wait to see how the next row of blocks turns out, and how they look added into these. Not only are the blocks a surprise, but you don’t know what the quilt will look like, either, till you get all the blocks together, and start playing with them. Too much fun!
What Have I Been Doing?
It would seem that I’ve been really, really busy…given the obvious lack of blogging, but I don’t have much to show for where my time is going. I have been being much more faithful about squeezing in some time on the Treadclimber, after I get home from work, before I prepare supper, and have lost ten lbs. since the first of the year. I’m very happy about that, but I’m also where I was when I got stuck last year, and then discouraged. I’m trying not to do that this year, no matter how slow it is coming off.
The dinner I am cooking tonight might not be conducive to weight loss. Here it is before going in the oven. Yum. I like some homemade pizza.
I have been trying to prepare more of our meals in the evenings. That eats up a chunk of my free time, along with the workout beforehand. It seems when I add a new activity, something else is sure to fall behind. Right now, it’s the housework and quilting. Isn’t is always the housework, though? Dust…where does it all come from??
I have been doing some reading. Even though I haven’t taken a single stitch in about a week, I’ve been reading about quilting. My Quilter’s Home issue came, and my OBW book, for the upcoming class at guild.
Mark has a pattern for a mini iron & crystal wand keeper, that I really want to try to make. I’d like to make one larger, also, for my curling iron or flat iron. There’s also a great scissor review in this issue.
I bought fabric for the OBW quilt. I mentioned it in my last stash report, but here’s a pic. I bought it from Knot & Bolts. I think it will make a cool OBW.
We aren’t supposed to start any of it til the class. At the class we are doing the octagon version. And once I break down and buy some new fabric, for any reason, that seems to be all it takes to get me started. I will have confessions for this week’s stash report. I bought another fabric that I thought would make a good OBW, but now that I have it in my possession, the pattern isn’t as large as I thought, so I’m doubtful that it will be successful, but I’m going to try it anyway. And I’ll try the hexagon version with it. I hope to work on it before I go to class. After reading over the book yesterday, I was One Block Wondering in my dreams last night.
And when I went to checkout, my cart told me I could get XX more yards for the same shipping price. (I’ll not tell how many yards til Sunday!) Well, I had already seen this cutie, and, promptly went back and added those XX yards of it to my cart!
Love those funky little chickens!
I also read a book that I loved…Same Kind Of Different As Me. I read it, then read it aloud for my DH. He loved it, too. It was a very emotional read, for me.
April will be an even busier month for me. I have to travel to Austin, with my boss, for a few days, for the Texas Probation Association annual conference. When I get home, I have some special company coming for the Easter weekend. The next week, we are off to Lubbock for my son’s district golf tournament, and while we are there, my DH has an appointment with another doctor for his ankle. Then, depending on how the team does at District, I could possibly be traveling back to Lubbock the next week, for regionals. I am taking a short break from customer work, til my life slows back down a bit. I have some quilts in queue, but they aren’t in my possession yet, and I think I will leave it that way til later in May, or possibly June. I haven’t even started the quilting on my 9P & Stripe quilt I have ready. I have to find my limitations, and learn to work within them, or I might implode.
Technical Difficulties
This blogger is currently experiencing technical difficulties, most likely due to the recent “spring forward” time change. She is finding the adjustment period especially challenging this year. Hopefully, the situation will correct itself soon, and she will return to a more regular posting schedule. Thank you for your patience. 🙂
Sunday Stash Report
Wow, I went a whole week between posts. But it was a busy week with my day job, so there wasn’t much to say. Not that I could post about, anyway.
I do have changes to report in my stash this week. I busted 10 yards for backing, and it is just barely going to be big enough for my top. I knew it would be close, but I really want to use this fabric for the back of this quilt. It’s flannel, so I think there may have been a bit more shrinkage than I might have had with a regular cotton.
As you can see, it’s a real tight squeeze on the sides. I have plenty extra the other direction, though. I will make it work!
I also ordered 8 yards for a one block wonder class I’m taking next month, for quilt guild. I tried my best to find something suitable in my stash, but the only two that I thought would work, I did not have enough yardage. So I had to order some. It will arrive some time this week, but I’m going to go ahead and count it as incoming today.
So here’s my yearly totals.
- Incoming Yardage to date: 8 yds.
- Outgoing Yardage to date: 30.5 yds.
- Total Stash Busted to date: 22.5 yds.
I also finished the binding on the memorial t-shirt quilt, and made the label. I just have to attach the label and it will be completely finished. I was able to use some of the scraps from the first quilt, made of his plaid cotton shirts, in the back of this one.
I also made some good progress on one of my stash quilts today. My Boston Commons top.
Now, I have to decide how I want to quilt my 9P & stripe, that I made the backing for. It is going on the longarm next! And it’s MINE! Yay!
Have a great week! Try to find time for something you love to do!
Sunday Stash Report
No change in my stash numbers, but I did finish up my customer’s Spiderman quilt. Yay! I have a wallhanging size to do a pantograph on next, and then one of my own is up! And it’s a king…so that is gonna use up a nice chunk of fabric for backing.
And Happy 12th Anniversary to DH & me!! Yes, I’d marry him all over again if I had it to do over. 🙂
And Woohooohooo, Bobby Labonte got a 5th place finish at Las Vegas today! Yes!!
Sleeping Beauty
I should have turned the TV down before filming Libby, so I apologize in advance for the background noise. Once I started filming her, I couldn’t reach the remote. I think you will still be able to pick the out her snoring from the roaring engines in the background. Obviously Libby isn’t the NASCAR fan that I am. 🙂 And now I present to you, Snoring Sleeping Beauty.
Wednesday WIP, 2-25-09
Still working on Spiderman. What I thought was going to be “light custom” is taking me much longer than I expected. This is part of the longarm learning curve I am still trying to get around, determining what quilting goes in which pricing level. This one is much more time consuming than I had envisioned it. But live and learn. I find these kind of quilts quite challenging to begin with, and I just hope my customer likes how I have decided to quilt it. I am quilting word related to Spiderman, and the child’s name in the outer borders, along with some spiders, and then just an angular meander around that.
I am putting four spider webs, in the four corners of the inner borders, treating them as one, then doing the same angular meander in between the webs. For the very inner blue border, I just did a good old puzzle meander in the red thread.
I decided to do a bit of outlining on Spiderman, and will quilt on the webs behind him, in the center panel. I still have some outlining to finish, and I think I will connect the spiders with a wave black line.
Yeah…”light” custom….well, I’ll know better next time…lol. If it has Dorothy and her little dog on it, or cartoon characters, etc., unless doing a pantograph allover, it’s full custom. 🙂
Stash Report and Thanks to the Princess
The stash report remains unchanged for the 2nd week in a row. All my quilting efforts recently are customer quilting related. Hopefully, I will have Spiderman finished soon, and will post some pics of him when I’m done.
Today, I want to give a shout out to my friend, Princess, and thank her for teaching me how to make popcorn in the microwave, using regular popcorn and paper sacks. Awesome! (If you click on the link “Princess”, it will take you straight to her instructions for making the popcorn.)
I put a smidge too much butter and salt on this batch, but it was my first try, so I will do better next time. Other than that, it worked great, and the bites that did not have too much butter and salt were delicious! I have some butter flavored popcorn oil, and I’m wondering what would happen if I put a little of that on the kernels prior to popping. I may try that next time, also, and if it works, maybe I can just put salt on it, and no melted butter. I’ll let you know how that works.
Ankle Fusion Anyone?
Well, after years of suffering with a bad ankle that is getting progressively worse, it looks like my husband may be facing an ankle fusion. I’ve been quite preoccupied with this worry recently, and it’s part of my lack of blog postings. Nothing I read about it looks like fun. But he can’t keep on like he is, as it’s getting almost impossible for him to even get around on it. He is at the doctors in Amarillo today, while I am here looking up scary things on the internet. Access to lots of information can be a good thing, and a bad thing. But I tend to want to read it all, or hear it all, so, if anyone has any personal ankle fusion experience they would like to share with me, either publicly or privately, I’d be interested to hear it. If you want to share, but prefer to keep it private, just post a comment asking me to contact you back, and I will respond to your comment via email. From what I’ve read, I understand recovery is quite lengthy. I’m trying to convince him, though, that if it will result in easing the tremendous, life sucking amount of pain he is currently in, that it will be worth it in the long run. And that’s all I have for today.
Ramblings From Randi, The Wild Rose Quilter 