Going To Pieces - March 2008

We had a fun time at Going to Pieces Quilt Group in March! Thanks everyone for coming and sharing your cute quilt blocks. Such Progress. Becky, you've got lots to catch up on, but I'm sure school-teacher Sandy will help you get caught up on your homework. We missed our 3 newbies to the group and hope they'll be able to join us in April.

I totally confused Illene by sending her a South Weber Quilt group reminder and she thought we had moved the Going to Pieces group to my house on Thursday. Sorry about that Illene!! We'll get you caught up next week.

Be sure to show up on April 22nd for next months meeting of the minds!! Crazy Minds that is. It also looks like we're going to go to an ALL EVENING group. So the 2 morning ladies will be joining us for the evening group. The more the merrier!!!

Enjoy the slideshow.

Have a Great month of sewing, we can't wait to see your show and tell. Also, if you're confused about any assembly of the blocks, just email me or leave a comment on the blog, and I'll try to post an explanation with pictures.

Gratitude

Yea! I remembered to blog about something on Tuesday, so I can be part of Lara's Talk about Tuesays!

So I had a lightbulb moment recently and thought I'd share.

All you moms out there can probably understand the dinner dilemma. It's not that I hate cooking or baking or that I can't do it either. It's just the dinner thing that I hate. I've decided, it's because it's a thankless job. My kids aren't way picky eaters, but it just seems like they never like what I happen to make for dinner unless it's a frozen pizza or tacos. You know what I mean.

Since Josh has been home, he never eats a meal without making a big deal about how good it is, and he actually seems to look forward to mealtime. I know it's because he realizes he doesn't have to shop for it, put it away, cook it, or even clean up after it. He's learned after 2 years on his own what it means to come up with a well thought out meal.

You know what affect his gratitude has had on me? Well, I find myself thinking: I need to come up w/a menu and go shopping, and in the morning what am I making for dinner, and I'll bet Josh will really like this. WOW! I don't hate thinking of dinner and what to make, I don't procrastinate the decision of what to make, and I actually plan ahead. All because someone is expressing appreciation for my efforts.

I decided, "Man, I need to point this out to the rest of the family. So they will start appreciating me more, too!" Then like a ton of bricks it hit me. Do I appreciate my family for the wonderful terrific people that they are? Do I tell my kids thanks for being straight A students? and doing it without my having to hound them. Do I tell my DH thanks for going to work everyday and holding down a steady job to provide for all of us! NOPE was the answer.

So I guess what I'm saying is, that if we'd show a little more gratitude it can change everyone's attitude and make life a whole lot sweeter! So THANKS for listening (reading) and I hope you have a Grateful day!

YEA! Taking a quilt off the machine!

WOW! It seems like this quilt has been on the machine forever. Not that quilting it took forever, just that my life/family haven't let me get down here and quilt like I need to be doing. Having Josh home is great, but has add another dimension to our home life. I always said that Josh was the catalyst in our family. We are a pretty calm quiet even going family, then you throw Josh in the mix and it all speeds up. He's still the same!!!

So here's pics of the quilt I just took off. I think it turned out nicely, I really like these flowers that I quilted on it.

Now moving on to my next quilt. Lara! It's yours. If you want to know what I plan on doing to it give me a call!

Happy Quilting.

It's Raining!

So there isn’t a vehicle at home and I decided to walk 2.5 yr old to play group this morning and then I’d go for a walk as my exercise today. It was a really great plan until it started sprinkling!!! Well, I decided that it wasn’t bad enough to not walk him up. Besides that I had no choice if he was going to go to play group. So we walked up. We were a bit sprinkled on, but I was rethinking the walking for exercise part. I mean I'm all for exercise, as long as it isn't too uncomfortable!

As, I head down the hill ready to go home, I decide that it feels pretty good and so I decided I’d walk down to View Dr and around like I had walked the other evening. Yep, you guessed it the rain picked up. But it wasn’t too bad and the rain was encouraging me to walk faster, so I was thinking this is a good thing. Because of the increased rain I decided not to walk down View Dr, but just turn and come back up. That’s when the uncomfortable part began! I had been walking w/the rain and breeze at my back. But on the way home, now the rain was blowing towards me. Let’s just say I was pretty soaked by the time I got home.

Still working on the quilt. Will post pictures if I get to quilt today. I have to go pick up 15 yo at the JHS that is 20 minutes away and take her to the Orthodontist today. Let's just say the whole experience will probably take 2 1/2 hours!!!

Happy Quilting!

Struggles

I'm struggling with the current quilt on the machine. I found the perfect pink thread in my drawer, but it isn't playing nicely with my machine and I keep getting loopies on the back. Very inconsistently and it's driving me CRAZY!!! I really hate quilting when things like this happen. I love it when everything works nicely together.

So the dilema, take all the current stitching out and start over w/a new thread? Or keep going and fix the loopies after all is quilted?

Here's Hoping your quilting is going much smoother!

Customer Quilt DONE!

I just finished a baby quilt. The daughter of a neighbor of had a baby and she called to see if I could "make" a quilt for her. Basically it was 2 pieces of fabric I quilted and put binding on for her. It actually turned out way cute and I forgot to take a picture!!! I don't know if you've seen the Olivia books? It's about a pig? Andover Fabrics has some fabric out that says Olivia all over it and these new parents are naming their new daughter Olivia. So they bought two pieces,



And I quilted them together in red thread and echoed hearts. I called the new grandma last night and she picked it up.

One more task done! Yippee! I was so excited to have another something done, I forgot pictures. I really do try to photograph every quilt I quilt. Oh Well.
Happy Quilting!

Sewing a Square in a Square!

So to create a square in a square. You start w/your center square and sew Half Square Triangles (HST) to each edge. The tricky part is to make sure that it ends up as a square again. So I like to fold my square in half and pinch each edge at the mid point. I've inserted a pin to show, since the fabric is black. Then I take the triangle and pinch it in half.

Since this triangle was cut w/the NN rulers it has a blunted point, but that's OK just imagine the point is still there and make the other point match up w/the edges. As in the photo.

Then match up the pins or centers. You will have a point hanging off on one end and not the other. Your 1/4" seam should start right where the point starts to hang off the edge, and should finish right off the blunted off point on the other end. See Photo.
Do this w/each edge. Usually I do the two opposite sides, press and then do the other two.

Your finished Square in a Square should be nice and square.

Happy QuiLtInG!

A Project Finished! Amazing!

Actually 2 Projects finished. I will be shipping out the "family gift quilt" and my niece's baby quilt!! YEA!!!

Sorry the gift quilt is packed and ready to go, but you saw it almost finished already any way. But here is a picture of the baby quilt. It's all quilted and bound and ready to go!


I hope they are both happy with them!