Progress

OMG!  I got the perfect book in the Birthday Raffle tonight.  It is incredible.  I can't wait to try out some of the stuff in there, it is right up my alleyway!  It is called: Quilts From Europe.  Wow!

I worked all day on the mystery quilt.  I have the center complete and the blocks sewn together.   It is pretty cool.  I sure wish i could show it to you guys.  You would love it.

Mine is done with all three fabrics coming from my stash.  I counted them in this last week I think.

Tomorrow I go to get the ultrasound and meet with the surgeon next week.  We shall see what he says.  He is a likable guy.  I actually babysat him when he was younger and his parents were staying at the camp that was next to my Uncle Buddy's camp on Bayou Manchac.  He remembered me too!  LOL.  His dad was Carrie's pediatrician, that is how Uncle Buddy knew him.  Uncle Buddy would deliver them, and Dr. "Pete" (as Carrie called him) would raise them up!

I wanted to complete the Mystery Quilt so I can work on Judy's UFO #1 - the Sri Lanka Elephants I have dreaded for the last three years. I can probably start putting those Ellies together by the weekend.  You will love them when I get it together.

The Tiny Tiny Houses have stayed where they were since I came home from Norma's.  I had such a migraine from the very sweet house she has.  And really didn't feel any good till today.

I need an elephant in one of the windows.

You need to go to see the progress other's are making on their houses.  It is incredible.  You will love that too!  The blog is in Dutch, but she does translate some of her words.

http://buildinghousesfromscraps.blogspot.com/2012/02/hier-ben-ik-weer-here-i-am-again.html

Stuff I can't show you........

I have been cleaning my room, you would be so proud of me! I actually cleaned off a corner of my quilt table!  This piece of my table has not seen daylight in, like, three years!  It was soooo happy. 

Then I organized my shelves.  I took projects that were coordinated fabrics and a pattern (whether it was a pattern or a magazine with the pattern in it) and put them in plastic boxes and shoe boxes.  The boxes fit on the top shelf up to the ceiling.  That moved a lot of stuff

 from the floor by the door where you could barely get into the room!

I can't show my houses yet.  Not until the first of January.  But I have 8 in progress and 4 or 6 finished.  I spent yesterday working on cutting out tiny pieces to make it easier to paper piece the bottom part of the house.  I think I got this conquered.....I think.

Aren't these windows too cute?  A lion and a hippo are looking out of their houses!  LOL.  

I also can't show you the center block I made for the Cotton Robin.  It is too cute!  So instead, you can enjoy this one I did for the 100 Blocks from Quiltmaker Magazine.  Well, I tested the block for them, I didn't design it!  It is in Volume 3.  It is my most favorite block I have done for them.  I really love it. 

I have been piling up a bunch of stuff to give away.  So everyone who responded to the last post, send me your address and I will send you something in a package.  It will probably be next week before I get back to the post office to mail things, but that should be OK. 



You are ALL winners!  Yeah!

My email is obed101(at) cox (dot) net

It feels so good to be back in the world after Dutch, my mom, and all the other crap that has happened recently.  I am quilting with 2 separate groups a couple of times a month, I am doing the Cotton Robin, I created the Mystery Quilt for one of my guilds.  I am in two local guilds.  A group of friends are planning a quilting cruise this year and we have a couple of retreats in the works. 

2012 doesn't have to work all that hard to be better than 2011 !

glen:  Paula and I said we were going to stay drunk until 2011 ended...........

The Amazing and Astonishing Tiny Tiny Tiny Scrappy Houses

Yes, as Charlene said, they are tiny!  LOL.  I didn't realize just how tiny until I sat down to put on together.  Don't let their size fool you either, it took me nearly an hour to finish one tiny little house.

Let me tell you, the learning curve was very steep.

But I worked out a lot of kinks.  I am not allowed to show you any of the houses until the first of the year.  So I will show you bits of what I did and tell you how I fixed it.

First, I had a problem getting the pattern right.  I printed out, well, attempted to print out, a 3 inch block.  I got a 2 1/2 inc block, a 2 3/4 inch  block, a 3 1/4 inch block, a 5 1/3 inch block and a 4 7/8 inch block.  Even a 10 inch one.  But I could not hit the 3 inch block.  So I decided there should be one in EQ that would work. 

No such animal.  So I tried redoing some of the houses in EQ to look like this one, no dice.  The measurements just weren't working.  I even tried to draft one on my own.  And decided to work to maybe anther size like a 4 or 5 inch block. 



Too many of not the right size



I found some blocks in two of my miniature quilt books that would work, one even looked like it was where Jeanneke's block came from.  But after inadequately tracing a couple I gave that idea up.

So I went back to working on the block she provided.  And finally I got that printed out at a perfect 3 inches.  Problem solved......whoa!  Wait......NOOOOOOO! I printed 10 copies of the entire post.........Augh!

So now I have my 3 inch block.  I decided to paperpiece it.  I modified one part to make it easier to piece.  And I began to cut some fabrics for the sizes.  Only cut one wrong and had to rip only two pieces out.  I always mess up the very first piece for some reason.



Pre-sorting the scraps



I was really proud of my little tiny tiny tiny house.  I showed it to Frank.  He looked at it and said, it doesn't look like hers on the computer here.  How are you going to fix it?  Aughhh!

The second one was easier, and the third was much better.  It will be a lot easier to chain piece the sections.  So I spent a couple of hours going through my Bonnie Hunter Scrap System and cutting up some scrap pieces to make about 100 of these tiny babies. 



Pieces cut for about 100



It will be an impressive quilt.  Maybe one that will make everyone at the quilt go, "Ahhhhhhhhh!"  during show and tell.  I can see it now, when I unfold the quilt, they all collectively gasp in amazement at the beauty of my tiny tiny houses.  And they are all astonished at my ability to sew such tiny tiny houses.  It will be a wonderful feeling, standing up there, basking in the glory of the collective amazement.......oh, but I digress.

I cannot just do one a day, I will do more.  I can see how people are hand piecing these, they are so tiny!  I love them though.

This is my last design wall of 2011.  Next week I will gladly enter 2012 and cross my fingers for a much better year!

glen