Eventide: Cutting and Sorting

As hard as it was, I did unwrap my fat quarter bundle of Fig Tree fabric and spent a good deal of time on Sunday ironing and cutting and more ironing and more cutting. 

Good thing I put a new blade in the rotary cutter. I love the colors in this line.  Peach, robin's egg blue, new leaf green, creamy white, a taupey gray, bright lilac, and a wine purple as a dark accent.

I always write all over my patterns with notes, check marks to show the steps I finished, and the colors for the different pieces. Do you?  










The next step after cutting was sorting all the pieces into block sets.  Voila!  Did that too. Now all of this fabric goodness is happy in its project bag waiting for some sewing time.   I bet lots of Eventiders out there have sewn blocks so this post is probably boring but it's progress!!!  Hooray for progress!!

February Le Petite and Catching up on Civil War Blocks

After a very long week at work, today was definitely a sewing day.  Finishing up the February Le Petite project was first on the list. This month's pattern was a Schnibble called "Sweet Spot" and I used a Moda line from a few years ago called "Chocolate"

It was a fun quilt to make, even though I am not a big fan of making flying geese.

Maybe it has something to do with a quilt I made with 482 flying geese early in my quilting years. I have a photo somewheres (I gave it to my grandparents).

Next on the list was catching up on Civil War blocks of the week.  Here is today's called "Birds in the Air."  I loved the idea of using blue for the birds to represent bluebirds.  I have some bluebirds that hang around the house and they always make me smile.

I liked Karen's ( Sew Primitive Quilter ) use of the "union" fabric so I found a similar fabric in blue in a charm pack of Barbara Brackman's new fabric line "Civil War Reunion."  The fabric for the large triangle reminded me of feathers. 

I didn't make last week's block "Cotton Boll" so I made that one today too. Now I'm all caught up.

More sewing is on the agenda tomorrow.  Shhhhhh don't tell S. He probably thinks it will be a spring cleaning Sunday.

Eventide: Fabric Choices

 Along with all the other BOMs, BOWs, UFO challenges, and whatever else I have going on (I really need to get this on a spreadsheet or all mapped out with my new personal assistant iVan), I am joining Thelma at Cupcakes 'n Daisies in a quilt along for the quilt Eventide. Call it Quilter's Optimism.

Quilter's Optimism:  the belief that you can accomplish many more quilting projects than are humanly possible in any given period of time.

I have successfully obtained the pattern from Kimberly at Fat Quarter Shop and chose a bundle of Fig Tree fabrics from my stash (I had the choice of three...count them...three different Fig Tree bundles in my stash...oh my!)  I chose the bundle Fig & Plum from (I think) 2008.  I had another project in mind for this but have repurposed it for Eventide.

So that's my progress.  This week.  Come back next Tuesday and see if I've untied that uber-cute Moda twill trim yet.  Why is that always the hardest part??!!??  Unwrapping that nifty (and aging) bundle...

A Monday Post

Mondays always come around too soon.  Today is President's Day so at least traffic wasn't bad this AM.  Here's a couple of blocks I finished this weekend. 

The second block for the Bunny Hill's BOM Henrietta Whiskers. 

No, your eyes aren't blurry, I think the photo is blurry.

Must have been a Stella-assisted photo when she decides to paw at me while I'm trying to do something.



I hope to finish the top for this month's Le Petite project. February is rapidly getting away from me.  Here's the sawtooth star blocks made at Thimbles on Saturday. The pattern is a Schnibble called "Sweet Spot".

This week is a really busy week for me at work. Wish it was Friday already! 

Spring Cleaning & a Pre-treat

One of my philosophies is treating yourself BEFORE you start a project you are not looking forward to starting. Seriously...
Life is short, have a treat first.  A pre-treat if you will.

It was a somewhat sunny day today and still warm so I decided I better get started on some spring cleaning along with the usual weekly chores.  Before I started though, I treated myself to a slice of this

Key lime pie.  A rather spring-y pie.  It always makes me happy when meringue turns out and doesn't shrink or weep.  I had an extra homemade pie crust in the freezer so used that instead of the usual graham cracker crust. 







I haven't even unpacked from Thimbles yesterday.

No sewing yet today. 
I haven't even unpacked from Thimbles yesterday.

Typing with one hand

A short post with no photos because Morpheus is sound asleep on my other arm and I don't want to wake him. Awww who is the most spoiled cat in the house?  Today was Silver Thimbles Club and it was great to see everyone. I worked on a Schnibble and will post photos tomorrow. After sewing I ran fifty-eleven errands and was gone the rest of the afternoon.  This is why Morph won't give me my arm back.

Back from AWOL with a loooong post

I can't believe it's been so long since I last posted.  I guess I hit a blogging slump.  Hope I didn't lose any readers out there in blogland.  Things were busy but not really busier than usual. Here's a short run down of what happened that past 12 days:

Lots of work bother. What else is new??

Valentine's Day--very nice dinner, wine, and dessert at home with S.on the Friday before V-day.

On Valentine's Day itself (should have seen this coming since it was a Monday...), experienced the joy of a plumbing repair bill due to tree roots growing in the main sewer drain line and causing "issues".  Now I usually do my own plumbing repairs but this was a little beyond my DIY capabilities as it required a big machine to go into the pipe and cut and pull out roots through the bathroom. Lovely--not. I am rethinking joining the plumber's union.    

I finally saw the movie The Social Network.  Great movie but not Oscar worthy IMO. My vote is still True Grit although I haven't seen The King's Speech yet.

The cats did lots of this as always. Although it is unusual to have all four of them in one spot. 

Civil War block of the week: log cabin.  Not much other sewing completed.

 A Fat Quarter Shop delivery of some wonderful Kate Spain Central Park fabric and the pattern for the Eventide quilt along.  I think I'll use a fq bundle from my stash and I'll dig it out and post on Tuesday. 

I was going to show the rest of the Kate Spain fabric but somePoe wanted to be in the photo.  In this photo you can see Edgar's elaborate whiskers.  He has crazy long whiskers, which reminds me of Victorian-era sideburn fashion this Wikipedia link has some great photos.

It snowed again with a light dusting and now it's 70F.  Global weirding at its finest.



I missed all my sewing friends who were at retreat last weekend. Maybe I can get wait-listed again for next year.

On Tuesday the 15th my new BFF arrived.  OMG I love this phone!!!!  Now you need to know that I have had the same phone (a Motorola Razr) since 2006 (I thought it was 2002 but checked on Wiki and the Razr wasn't made until 2006--fact-checking seems to be a dying art in the media...anyway where was I....).
Texting with my old phone was time-consuming, to put it lightly, with the standard phone keypad (but I did it with proper punctuation because I'm a grammar nerd!). So I decided to jump into the whole smartphone scene.

I am now crazy obsessed with my new toy and its inky black screen
and I just love that it came in its own cute little sarcophagus (am I the only person that was reminded of sarcophagi when this arrived?  wonder what the Apple marketing people would think???)  

This whole smartphone thing is great (yes I know everyone else on the planet already knows this...).  It's like having a little personal assistant. I wanted to name my new assistant iVan (get it iVan the iPhone haha! I crack myself up) or maybe iGor (pronounced eye-gore) but S. thought that was just silly. OK please tell me someone else out there has a name for their smartphone...
Of course having this phone probably means I'll just be taking even more photos of the cats.  I'm such a nerd.

But a nerd with apps!

hipstamatic app

Super Sunday Sewing

Edgar Poe being very cute :) and "helping"

No big (American) football fans here and yet I still went out to get pizza, Greek salad and buffalo wings for dinner LOL!  Not a whole lot going on this weekend, although at was at Sweet Home Quilt Co. twice this weekend. 

Saturday was the last Groovy Girls meeting.  I can't wait for the next season to start sometime after spring quilt market.

Today, I was there to pick up the first blocks for a block of the month.  I came right home and finished it. Each month is two 6-inch blocks made from Thangles.  There are three different colorways to choose from. I picked "folk art."

I finished sewing the jelly roll sampler top on Saturday (with Edgar Poe's help of course) and started my February UFO challenge (oops forgot to get a photo--will do next post). I also made this week's Civil War block called "Richmond".  Something was off with the measurements and it ended up kinda wonky with points missing. If I get ambitious, I may remake this maybe with the 4-patches a smidge smaller or just live with it.

I can't believe it's nearly Monday already.  Seems like this weekend flew by too fast.

Cold Rainy Friday = Time for a Latte

After a long week; a very dreary, cold, gray, rainy day; and a Friday full of meetings, it was time to hit Starbucks for a cup full o' pick-me-up!


 Yes that is FOUR shots of espresso in that grande cup.



Told you I needed a pick me up....  

I came home and was ready to sew sew sew!!!!!!

I whipped out that last three blocks from the 2010 Jelly Roll Sampler by the Quilt Room. 

Zoooooooom! 

And started working on sewing the rows together.  I hope to get this top finished tomorrow and get the backing and binding pieced.

In other news:  After only looking through two bins, I also found my  February UFO challenge project.  As nicely packaged today as it was when I bought it...



.... in 2004!!!!!

I hope to either get working on this or finish up January's project this weekend.

I may need another latte...

UFO Containment Plan: January Report

Well I have to confess that I did not finish my UFO project this month for Judy's UFO Challenge. And I'm even late with my confession because I had to work late last night.  Oh my this is not starting well.  I did work on it though and will continue to get it finished (during this shortest of months...).

The project for February is #10 on the list.  Oh no!  I am so doomed.  I don't even know (exactly) where this project is!!!  Somewhere in the depths of my project bins. Oh my!

SCORE:  UFOs 1    Me 0