Sophie Junction's Tea Towel Challenge

If you are keeping up with Sophie's Tea Towel Challenge over at her wonderful blog Sophie's Junction then you will know I should be further ahead than I am right now.

What else is new?

So I plan on working on it this weekend.  Stop in and see if I have anything done on it.

Maybe I will start tomorrow after I
get some work for CAAWS done.  We were the lucky recipient of a large donation of $25,000.  A huge donation, in fact.  And the donor has said that if we match the donation, he will add additional money.  So CAAWS has constructed the CAAWS Big Money Match Campaign.  We will launch it in 17 days at the CAAWS Mystic Krewe of Mutts Parade on Feb 16, Sunday.

I need to get some signage and sandwich boards made and work on some direct mail.

In a week or so when it all comes together on the website, I am hoping that each of you will visit our website at www.caaws.org and make a donation of even a single dollar toward that program.  100% of the money CAAAWS takes in goes to the animals in some way.  No one takes a salary, we all work for love!

Kelly should have a specific donation button up next week.  For those in Baton Rouge, look for us on the morning TV
programs talking about the parade and the CAAWS Big Money Match!  If you want to help with the parade or the Big Money Match Campaign please email me and let me know.  We need bodies too!



This is the first big project since I became President.  Whew!  Hard work making money for Spay and Neuter!

Off the wall Friday

Nina Marie at Creations has a "What Are You Working On" for each Friday and I have been lax.

I have to beg off this week, well, because I just plain can't show you what I am working on!  It is for a challenge at River City and I don't want th skew thr results of my first place win by showing you what I am doing!  But I guarantee it will be amazing and you willme majorly impressed!!!

So no picture this week,  just trust me that I did finish this week.  Landscape Lady Carol has seen it!!  She can testify!

Top Complete - Now We Need A Name

Since I am not retreating, I worked out at the gym for an hour or so and had lunch with Frank.  After
vacuuming the house I settled into the sewing room with my trusty Quilt Dog DiNozzo.

I squared up the center and then finished the borders on the leaves.  I am trying now to figure out what it needs to be named.  I have some names in the wings waiting for the perfect quilt.  Lets see if I can find the perfect name for the quilt!
.
The fabric for this quilt came entirely from my stash.  I searched high and low for colors to combine, colors that would go with things I had already pulled.  then when all the leaves in the center were done, I looked once again to the stash to find the inner border and the outer border.  I can say  that i would never have chosen that fabric had I gone to the quilt shop!  But I think it works.  And it was "free".

The pattern is called Autumn Colors and was designed by Cynthia Regone of Cajun Classic Quilts.  She has papers that make the triangles easy and uniform.  It really speeds the process.




My total fabric  usage for this quilt top is:

18+18 Fat Quarters = 9 yards
3/4 yards inner border
2  yards for outer border and triangles

Size is 71 x 63 so it is a large quilt.







Still need the backing and the binding and it needs to be quilted.  But I can do that this  weekend maybe.  It needs to be complete by the March meeting of Remember Me so I have a lot of time.  But I am  looking forward to having it as my OPAM finish for February!



I am auditioning things like:

Searching for the Utopian Forest
the Nightingale Sings in Berkeley Square
Sitting Up Waiting For You

What things  can you come up with?  Give it a try

Retreat!

Drive to the retreat center

I was so excited.  It has been a few months since I have been to a retreat and I am so ready.  New year, new machine, new outlook and new projects to work on.  I am stoked.

deer out the back door by the lake

I spent all afternoon worrying about the weather and plotting the route I would take.  I was heading to the frozen north.  To the far reaches of the Louisiana pine forests.  I planned which quilts I had that were the warmest ones, although weather gurus said it would be towards 70 degrees by Saturday.  I was still thinking cold.  I washed all my fleece doggy pjs and stuffed them into my duffels.

Fall 2011

I combed through the fabrics all week and planned projects.  I get so much done at a retreat.  Non-stop sewing, cutting and piecing.  The weather alerts and freezing rain kept me inside until this afternoon when I hit the grocery store and bakery and breathed in luscious goodies and beautiful baked goods.  I stopped at the bakery and ordered a birthday cake for Paula, her day is Sunday.  Chocolate on chocolate with chocolate roses.  All ready for the ride north.

Alice needed more light so
she appropriated a lamp

The SUV is packed to the gills with warm things, sweet things and fabric things.  I was just settling down to take my bath, shave my legs and condition my hair for the weekend, when the phone rang.

Spring 2010

I figured it was Cynthia telling me when she was heading out, or Paula telling me when she was hitting the road, or maybe even Caroline telling me when she would motor off.

It was Cynthia, but with a more ominous declaration.

Seems the pipes burst last night at the retreat center and they didn't know that until they went  in today to set up for us. Cynthia had spoken with them yesterday and relayed to everyone that the electricity was on, the place was warm and waiting for us.  But the water gushed all night and all morning ruining the hall, room, main room making the place uninhabitable for us.

I was stunned.  I am sure everyone else was as well.  Cynthia said she had made chili for 20 of us and had a LOT of chili.  Hope she has a place in her freezer for it!

Cynthia

I am bummed.  No retreat and I have to do all this unpacking.  And it is a good thing too, because I realized at that time I had packed no socks!

At least we can eat all the food I made to leave for Frank for the weekend!  I don't have to cook for a week!  And since I cancelled all my duties, I can sew in my lonely room, all by myself and eat all the fudge and cookies I bought to make everyone else fat.

Winter Sewing - What Else Can You Do When Stuck Inside on a Freezing Day?

Well, my husband offered, you can vacuum and dust. 

Well, no........I can't.

I can sew though, while YOU watch the wild child!,

Well, he didn't watch the wild child very well.  MGee got into the recycle bin and ripped up a bunch of paper.  He found 1 1/2 yards of fusible interfacing and shredded it in his crate.  He ate another roll of toilet paper behind a baby gate that was not in place.  He got into the pantry by standing on his hind legs and reaching REALLY high, and got the pasta shells I was going to cook for next week.

And I didn't even come out of my room!

Here is what I got accomplished while in my room ignoring the chaos outside. 

Made 15 leaves
Trimmed all 49 leaf blocks

Put them together in rows
Made those little triangles for the ends
Sewed the rows together

And here is what it looks like so far.  I need to make a 2 inch border.  And the outer border, which will be the fabric of those triangles.

And I didn't purchase a single piece of material.  It is all from fat quarters and yardage I already had.

This is one of the possible choices for the inner border.

I like.

OPAM finishes

This January I joined the ladies at OPAM (One Project A Month).  The idea is to PLAN to finish at least ONE project eah month.  If you just do one a month that is still 12 projets that got finished.

If you want to see more about the OPAM check out the following:

Tag Along Teddies - OPAM

These are the finishes I  am claiming for January.  I may have more after being "snowed" in  today, there are several just hanging around waiting for binding.  Three to be exact.

Teal Twins
Luke and Myles

Wizard o Oz

It started with the freezing rain about half an hour ago.  And now it is mixed with some actual snow flakes.  They have begun to close the bridges.  We have lots and lots of bridges!  It is impossible to get anywhere in the city without crossing 12.

Let me go work on some bindings.

Winter Storm Quilting

Let me tell you about the quilt in the header.  I thought it appropriate that I put the Snowball Quilt since we are supposed to be having snow today.  The weather was supposed to "degrade" by 6:00 AM but we stilll are just cloudy and no rain.  Click on the highlighted area to see the weather map.

The quilt was a Mystery I did at River City in 2010.  I am the Mystery Chair for the guild.  Planet Patchwork has their mysteries all laid out and sells licenses for a guild to use.  Since the quilters did not know what the quilt would look like, the colors were fabulous when the 16 quilts were displayed at the meeting.  The one that won First Place was a red snowflake with a yellow background.  It was so bright and SPRING!

I did two quilts for the mystery that year.  The other one was a cool orange/blue hand dye fabric.  It still needs to be quilted.  The quilting on the blue is Chantilly Lace done by Norma McDaniel.  Maybe the orange will get quilted this year!

Well. we are waiting for the real snowflakes to fall.  The city is already shut down.   The schools are closed.  And no snow.  Not even rain.  the grocery store shelves are stripped of bread, milk and water.  Geez, you would think a hurricane is coming.

SOMETHING NEEDS TO HAPPEN ALREADY!

Sigh........I guess I will just go quilt.........

Design Wall Monday 1-27-14

Can you believe this weather?  Here, South Louisiana now, the weathermen are predicting 4 inches of snow on Tuesday.  It is not expected to get above freezing for 2 to 3 days again.  And you saw what shut down the city on Thursday and Friday last week!  Do you think we will be paralyzed now?

Of course, we have no snow plow, no salt trucks, no structural roofs that are able to handle the snow load weight.  So we are Snow Wimps, as Carol (from  VERMONT) pointed out. 

And wouldn't you know, Thursday I am heading to a retreat.  Maybe.  It is an old building from the 40's that is perpetually cold, with bumpy beds, and cold showers.  But the food the staff cooks is amazing hearty country fare that quilters love enough to lick the plates!  We go twice a year, year after year!

We shall see!

Here is what I have going on this week:

Bind Twin Babies.

Bind 4 completed kid quilts

Get ready and get to the retreat!  LOL  I have 5 quilts to work on there.

I am linking up with Judy's blog.

WheW! It has been a busy weekend!

 Carrie and I got together yesterday and today.   So I spend all moring making lasagna so Andrew would come and put my computer on the cloud box. (It was amazing!!!!!  The Lasagna, I mean.)

She wanted to quilt the twins baby quilts herself!  Wow!  A total and complete first!  So she came by today and we fired up the Avante and she quilted the two quilts!

And they look awesome!

Here are the backs I made with the babies names!




And the fronts.


I will have the quilted photos for you tomorrow.  My  batteries died.  Of  course.

But are they unreal!

My stash report looks fabulous!

For January
Used this month	-11.18
bought this month	3.5
plus or minus	-7.68
Used this week	-6.83
bought this week	3.5
plus or minus	-3.33
Total for 2014
used this year	-11.18
bought this year	3.5
plus or minus	-7.68

A Day of Freezing Rain and a near Quilt Finish

Frank actually had to meet a client in Geismar, about an hour east toward New Orleans.  He made it there using the old back roads.  I stayed home, had butternut apple soup I made a few days ago and a square of Ghiradelli chocolate.


Chloe was very upset because late in the afternoon one of the fire alarms started that beeping that tells you the battery needs changing.  She was so scared of the sound all she wanted to do was go sit outside in the 22 degree weather!  We got the batteries changed but the sound continued.  How many sit coms have you seen lately where the characters ended up taking ALL the alarms down and stomping them to bits!  We almost had a Basset doing that today!

All day long, the frozen rain fell on the city.  It never got above 26-28 degrees.  It did accumulate a bit, but the most interesting thing was the icicles that formed on everything, the bird feeder, the eaves, the car.

So I spent a day quilting the Low Volume Baby Quilt for Carrie to give her friend.  Carrie designs buildings but she cannot see the architecture of a quilt and the quilting yet.  It is what we take for granted.  Or, maybe, what some of us struggle with as well.  I had this fabulous panto of an elephant and she loves elephants.  I would have thought she would love the combination.  But no!

 She wanted a single echo inside each block.  I even tried to talk her into a couple of echo lines in the blocks,
but she was having none of it.

I used a paperpiecing add a quarter ruler to use against the hopping foot to give me a straight edge.  It worked in about 95% of the time!  Which is good for a first time makeshift ruler work.

So it is done and needs a binding.  I will go to the quilt shop tomorrow and see if I can get a pale grey or yellow to finish it off.

We DID Get Snow!

So to speak.  I know y'all are gonna laugh, but the city is shut down, the Mississippi River Bridge is closed, the one on the Interstate 10 -a major East/West artery.  The schools are closed; people are not going to work. 

Actually it is more freezing rain, we can hear it quitely hitting the ground.   Frank is home, cozy in his office making phone calls. 

And Charlene should talk!  She got way more snow than we have!  And we think that is no fair!

Here is our city-shutting-down-snowfall:

Snow???????

Yes, that is what they say!  They have proactively closed all the schools, even though it was  60 degrees today and we are only 38 now at nearly 10 o'cock.

The frozen precipitation is coming from the west and is nearing the Mississippi River.  We may see some tonight!

Maybe I will have some photos of Louisiana Snow for you.  It is something we don't see very often.

This is a photo of the Fabulous Bonnie Doon in 2008 in the last  time it snowed in the city.

I miss my girl.  She was famous through the Swissy world for her fabulous personality.  She was one of a kind for sure.

glen

How to Use Up Pieces of Batting

I can't show you my piece but I can show you one thing I did putting it together.

I hate to get out a big piece of batting to use for a quilt that is smaller than the batting in the bag.  So I try to take some larger "small" pieces and put them together.  As long as the batting is the same type you can do this.  You should not use dissimilar batting types because they will not be even inside the quilt.




Take two pieces of your batting and lay them side by side.  If the sides are straight you can join them by butting them up against each other and using your mending stitch (a zigzag stitch on your machine) to join the pieces.  Do not overlap them, merely butt them up to each other.



 If  the pieces are not straight, over lap the two pieces slightly, maybe 2 or 4 inches.  Using a rotary cutter, cut a gentle S curve all the way down the length of your pieces.  

Discard  the smaller pieces and butt the remaining larger pieces together.  The curve is like a puzzle and will help you keep the pieces straight as you use the mending stitch,




If you are careful not to stretch the batting, you will have a larger piece from your smaller pieces. 

Oh, use a beige or white thread and you won't see a thing!  I  also use a lint roller from the dollar store to get all loose threads from those pieces of batting that have been stuffed in the Batting Pieces box!