Cold Birds.......

The temps reached all the way to 29 today.  Positively sweltering.  We are now heading toward 48 hours below freezing.  My fountain is almost solid, and the dog water has been solid since Monday.

I picked up frozen poop all day. 

I am putting the birds together.  I must have made a million HSTs.  Every time I thought I had the spaces filled, I would see more to fill.  I was moving them around until they had a comfortable place to nest.

Interestingly the twins did not want to be next to each other.  And the Love Birds...Oh my!  They wouldn't leave the nest long enough to get any HSTs!

I hit on a great fabric sale and bought 4 yard lengths for backings.  This grey one I bought 8 yards.

I am thinking the yellow birds, well, will be for the Daily Bird Quilt.










Here are some other fabrics that came in the shipment somehow.  Also in 4 yard lengths, go figure.

The solid grey is actually a pale aqua, maybe a teal.....which is more green I guess.

I started filling in the holes and some birds got an extra layer of HSTs.

I couldn't get these two silly birds to stand correctly.   They wanted to hang  off the side of the design wall.

Some got  a surrounding of HSTs.

Still clinging to the side though.

 I decided to add a date and my initials to some of the larger spaces. It was either that or  more HSTs.  I intended to try some branch blocks, but totally became obsessed with making those HSTs. The 2 really does look weird, though, huh?

Here is what it currently looks like.  I hope it is not jumbled looking.  What do you think?

I am going to use  this as my OMG for January!  Go see the rest of  everybody's goals for the month.








I started putting the blocks together in larger blocks.  Here is my first corner.



Geez, those Love Birds................look at the mess they made on the floor.....

Design Wall Monday

April Fool's!    This is the REAL post!  Got cha, didn't I!  McGee, while not totally well behaved, did not eat my Nudes........yet!  LOL

Even though I only worked on my Nudes Bathing last week, you know they are so small they just use bits of material, I am still down about 20 yards in my stash.  Well that will end this week.  And its not my fault!

My cousin Karen brought me two bags of vintage materials from her mom's stash of 50's and 60's pieces when she was sewing stuff.  So it really isn't my fault!  LOL.  But they are really cool things.  I will show them this week, I have misplaced my camera and have no idea where it is.

I think I left it at the Donahue's party.........and they have not returned my phone call yet.  I sure hope they have it!  I don't know where else it would be.

I plan to spend time this week working on some backings, which will use up a lot of fabric.  I want to get some of these tops out of the way, or at least lined up for June.

What is June all about?  Well, PattyA has challenged me to have my annual Finish-All-You Can-Do-In-June called the Quilt Your Quilts Challenge finish month.  I find some prizes and we see how many people can finish up things in June.  Are you in?  You have a couple of months to ready yourself.  Last year Patty won the overall with her great push to finish a ton of quilts.  I looked back to see how many, and all i could find was that she had 18 finishes so far in 2012.

I spent the day making strawberry jam from a flat of local strawberries I got from the Farmer's Market yesterday.  The pics were taken by my iPad, not bad! I got 18 pint jars from 12 pint baskets of huge sweet strawberries!

And i went to the Donahue's and traded out some pints of jam for my camera!  YEAH!

Ending 2012

Tomorrow will be the last Stash Report for 2012.  This is much more dramatic than the Design Wall Mondays which will just report on what I am currently working on.  (which is not much at the present time until Frank goes back to work and I can actually get something done around here!)

But the last Stash Report for 2012 will be the culmination of an entire year of keeping track of what I have bought and what I have used.  I can't believe I am in the red.........That I bought more than I used.  And this happened in two periods.

The first was when Fabric Krazy had 50 and 0% off their stock so they could move to a smaller location.  I went three times to that store.  And I bough over $100 each time.  But I got some great new stuff to mix in with the old stuff from Pat and my mom.  So it was good.  All good.

The second period is the last of the year end inventory sales, all 40 50% off.  And I went to several stores and bought over $100 each time!  LOL.  Mia's shop was the biggest culprit there!  But, again, I got some really great new stuff to mix in with the old.  And there was Houston, yes, Houston...........(she says dreamily)

In 2013 I would like to be in the black, that is to use way more than I buy.  I was pretty good for most of the year, but those whopper sales did get me in trouble!

glen:  hey, this one looks like the ghastlies.......hmmm, maybe I need some zombies

The Haul of Loot From Houston!

I know you have been waiting for this.  Hey, Swooze, here you go!  Drool, baby, Drool!!!!!


I bought 6 of these fat quarters to add to my red/white/blue Round Robin from two years ago.  I hope to finish it before the year 2525.  Not sure where its other friends are hiding.  McGee probably has them stashed somewhere to suck on later.





These beauties are from Fern Hill.  You must go there when you have a few dollars to spend.  These are deep rich colors by Barbara Suderman.  The panels are 3/4 of a yard wide and two flowers deep.  The color wash and the small lily you see there are supporting prints that make a quilt called Ker Bloom!  It looks like the fabric exploded all over the quilt!  LOL.  Really, but I can't find the pattern in the stack of my cutting table.......


I have been bidding on some vintage tablecloths and found this reproduction of one for what I was willing to pay.  I was always getting outbid on Ebay.  So I can cut this one up and finally make my cowboy quilt.  Don't you love the little fork on the pouch?  It comes in a pouch, too cute!


Charlene gave Frank a Lighthouse pattern a few months ago.  It has a lot of varied background sky fabrics and I was lamenting that I was going to have to buy a lot of blue hand dyes to get the blocks.  But at the show was the lady who did the pattern and she was selling the sky backgrounds!  What an amazing bit of luck that was....Now I have the skies!



Here is another Fern Hill.  Did I say I love them?  This is the pansy panel and 3 yards that go with it.  I want to make a set of pillows for Carrie for Christmas.  Don't worry, she never reads my blog!  Sigh.  Her sofa and room is white, this will look beautiful in there.  But......you know she will hate it, so I will reclaim it and love it.



I asked Margie what the name of that Taupe quilt she did several years ago that I fell in love with.  She said, oh, they are here!  And sent me to booth 1559......you guessed it, Fern Hill!  LOL.  I bought things every day from them!  Go figure.  The quilt is called, its a snap and the kit is made of totally awesome taupes.    I know the picture looks yellow-ish, but the fabrics are not!

Karen Stone - EQ CD..........yes!  And it works!  Becky couldn't get hers to work, but mine does fine!







I bought two pantographs for the long arm from Urban Elementz.  I love their stuff.  It is so new a modern.  They will take any of their existing patterns and custom size it for what you need.  I need 5 inches and they took care of that for me.  These are the elephants.  And I have an Aztec design I cannot find right now......does that surprise you?  I ordered 3 more from them that will be delivered soon.



Love love love this pattern.  It is paperpieced umbrellas!  So cool!  And I have all the fabric I need for it right here at home!  It is real Oriental looking.  I loved the quilt in their booth.

That is most of my haul.  Apart from some books, and the subscription of the Modern Quilting Magazine, that is about it.

glen

How Do I Organize Fabrics For The Quilt?

To me, this is the most exciting time of a quilt.  The very beginning.  Not the picking out of fabrics or pattern.  But the cutting out once all that is done.  Sometimes, when it is being sewn together, and I am seeing how things are going, it gets a bit discouraging to see difficulties.  So the cutting out is the best part for me.

Here is what I do to organize my fabrics when I am cutting out a quilt?

((((((((OMG!  you are not going to believe this.  I just deleted my entire folder of Paperweight pictures.  How did THAT happen???????  I hate computers~!))))))

Plastic bags.  Lots of plastic zip lock bags.  Lots and lots of them.  I keep mine in a, well, a zip lock bag!  I recycle them over and over and over again.  I have some that are for sure 8 years old!

I make address labels and stick them on the bags to indicate what piece this is.  Luckily there are only 5 pieces in the Paperweights quilt.

A through D and the background.  I sorted out the fabrics by color and then as I cut them, placed them in the bags.  I don't have the ruler yet, that should come on Monday, so I can't cut any of the backgrounds out yet.  Not a problem, I am into making the strips right now.

So when I am ready to sew, I can just line my bags up on my table, dig into the bags to get what I need and I am ready to go!


glen