Say goodbye to Sue and Sam!

We get on the plane for CA tomorrow morning, and it can not come soon enough for me!  I am needing a little warmth and sunshine!  We've had a little these last few days, but just a teaser.  And the snow has hardly melted at all.....we still have mounds and mounds of it everywhere!  We'll be wearing shorts and skirts with sandals tomorrow.....bright white legs and all!  lol

I finished the Sue and Sam quilt a couple days ago.....no panic, right!  I'm quite pleased with it, and am so glad I changed it up from the solid pink blocks.  What a difference.

I did about 8 different fill patterns in the blocks, and then an all-over circle/swirl design in the between areas.  Each of the Sues and Sams got flowers thrown on them to keep them from poofing to much.  I didn't want to take away from Grandma's lovely handwork, but they needed to be tacked down.

One of my (now) favorite fill designs is the Radio Static design from Leah Day.  If you haven't checked out her blog, do it!  She is a fabulous machine quilter, and she's doing a FMQ Project of 365 designs.  The designs are great, and she has a quick video for each on how to do them.  Wonderful!  She was also the clincher in me getting my new Juki machine.....and I love it!  It did not let me down on this quilt, which was a monster!

My other favorite fill pattern is the pebbles.....it took about an hour for each block I did in it, but I just love it!

And we're calling this guy 'Lefty' or 'Shoeless Joe'!  lol  I really needed every block I could get, as it was, there were only 18 of them that were usable, so the size of the quilt is a little odd.....but on-point is a bugger for making things come out a do-able size!

The back of the Sue and Sam quilt got a (fairly) quick pieced back to it.  I was able to use up a lot of the pinks in my stash, which my MIL will just love!  I can't wait to give it to her tomorrow!  I'm waiting to do the label when I get to CA, cuz John doesn't know his Grandma's ACTUAL name!  (Come to think of it, I don't know mine, either!......Nana!.....That's it!)  And because it's a surprise, I'm not calling to ask.

I'm sure hoping to be able to check my favorite blogs while I'm gone.  It's become a ritual for me, and I don't think I could go a whole week without seeing what everyone is doing.

I prepared a bunch of hand piecing (the grandma's flower garden) to take with me on the plane!  I took a lot, so just in case CA is boring, I'll keep busy!  lol

Silly me, I thought I was so clever!  I purchased a 'meant for air travel' scissors a few weeks ago.  They are completely made of plastic, with blunt tips (like a child's scissors), so I thought I would be good to go!  Well, last night I was putting all my stuff together for the trip, and I thought I'd try them out!  THEY DON'T EVEN CUT THREAD!  Sheesh!  They'll cut paper, if you hold them JUST RIGHT!  But thread, and fabric.....NO!

Make me crazy!  So I'm returning them today.  I do have a nail clipper without the spear/file attachment, so I think I'll be good with that.  I just needed something to cut thread, so the clipper will do.

I went to Sephora today, cuz they carry the Bare Minerals line.  Has anyone tried it?  I thought I'd give it a shot, cuz at work yesterday, a gentleman told me that I had a mark on my face, as though it could be wiped off.  NO.....that's my face!  I have marks, and blemishes, and redness, and little spidery veins showing, and the old-lady bumps (that was the mark he was talking about).....and so I'm trying the Bare Minerals to see if I can stop looking like the old hag from Maine!

Wish me luck!

regan  :o)

What was I thinking???

I've had the Sunbonnet Sue/Overall Sam quilt pin basted now for nearly two weeks.  Have I even touched it?.....No!  I was dreading it!  I had come up with an all over heart-on-a-vine type quilting design for it, but that was a far as I had gone.  Didn't even want to think about it!  And I put in the spare room, and closed the door!  Didn't even want to look at it!  Sheesh!  Something's wrong here!  But what!?!

Then I got on the blogs this morning and it hit me like a lightening bolt!

You know how sometimes you just have to hear someone else say it.....and then it all makes sense.  You can be thinking the thoughts, but they are all jumbled in your mind.....but the minute someone else says it......there!  That's it!  THANK YOU!

There I was on Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville blog, and over the weekend she was making a baby quilt.  And (I think it was Saturday) she was having a devil of time making sense of the sashing.  She was feeling obligated to incorporate the minty green color scheme of the baby's room.  And it just wasn't happening for her.  The green didn't look right, and colors to complement it didn't work either.  No matter what combo she tried, it just wasn't good.  Kindof put her at a standstill.

And then she realized she needs put her own look to the quilt, so she could be happy with it.  And it turned out beautifully (of course it did!....her quilts always looking amazing!)

So I was really thinking about the Sue and Sam quilt after that, cuz I KNOW the reason I don't want to deal with it is because it is not ME at all!  Nothing about it is anything I would normally do.  I was totally trying to make a quilt my MIL would think was pretty.  And was second guessing myself the whole way, cuz let's face it......her comment on receiving it is going to be "Well, it's about time!".....so does it really matter what I think she might like!?!  NO!  I should be making something I want to work on.....with choices of fabrics that I would normally pick......so I can love every minute of doing it!  This was my lightning bolt moment!

Then, I was still browsing blogs, and came across a new one (to me) and whammo......another bolt!  Karen at Little Pieces of My Life had a Sue and Sam quilt right there for me to find.....and love everything about it!  Oh my goodness!  I'm so very happy right now!

I've just spent the entire afternoon unpinning and then seam ripping the entire top of the Sue and Sam quilt.  It is now back to single blocks, and I'm digging through the stash right now to put some fun colors and patterns with the blocks!  No more solid pink!  Whew!

The thought of all that pink, and all the perfect quilting it would need through the solid parts.....well, it was just a nightmare to me!

And Karen's setting will totally work with my blocks.....each of which is a different size, because of the aging and fraying.  I can add a bunch of rounds like a log cabin block, and still keep them on point with off-set rows.  I'm so looking forward to this now.  I will post a pic when I have some put together.

In the meantime, I've been working on my Roll-Roll Cotton Boll quilt from Bonnie.  I got a late start to the mystery, and only had the first two segments done before it was finished by Bonnie.  But it turned out for the best, cuz I needed to make changes to it, but there was no way to know what to change until it was over, and you could see how it all came together.

First off.....there is nothing king size in our house.....that is just way too big for us!  So I knew I was going to have to scale it down to a queen at the most......and this was where the tricky part was.  How do you know midway in a mystery what percentage of pieces you will need for a different size!?!  There's just no way to tell!  So, I was glad I was late.

As it worked out.....I totally skipped the string blocks and decided to sash the pieced blocks instead.  I also changed some color schemes a bit.....no red.  Instead, I did the 1/2 square triangles with neutral and brown.  And I put them on facing out......which gave the inside blocks a kindof spinning effect!  Love it!

In the pic, I was trying out the different combos for the sashing and cornerstones.  Have decided on the pink sash and brown stones, which is good, cuz I don't think I have enough of the browns for the sashings.

I will still use the border pieces that were cut on the first segment of the mystery!  Love the way they look!  I'll have a bunch left over, but maybe I will do something with them on the back.  Will post more pics when I get more of this done!

Hope you're having a great day!

regan

Sue and Sam, and a Amish Wedding

I haven't been doing much sewing, except for the hand piecing at our little group last night!  Our last 3 meetings were canceled due to icy roads.  It was really great to be back at the group, even though it was just 3 of us who showed up!

Prior to the meeting, I went to the town office to sandwich the Sue and Sam quilt together.  I love that I can use the big long tables in the meeting room, shove 3 together, and sandwich any size quilt!  Pinning the middle is tough, and hard on the back, but at least I'm not on the floor!

Here is the Sue and Sam with pins all over!

And yes, it's pieced so it lays long-wise horizontally.  I did it on purpose, as this will be for my MIL to wrap herself up in when in her chair, or can lay it across the back of the couch when not using it, and this way, all the Sues and Sams are standing up!  She pretty much lives in the living room.  When my FIL was alive (he passed several years ago), he needed to be propped up in bed, because he had a laryngectomy, and if he lay flat, he could choke.  So he pretty much got the bedroom, and mom stayed on the couch.  This was life for them for the past 20+ years.  So I think she is set in this way, and I hope that the quilt will make her spot on the couch a little nicer!  As I've said in my blog before, she turns 80 in March, so this will be done by then!  I have over a month....woohoo!

And as I was piecing last night on my flower garden pieces, I was thinking that I was nearly finished hand piecing the top of my Amish Wedding Ring!  This morning, the search began for where it was hiding!  I finally found the tub, and when I put it on the design wall......YES!.....it is nearly finished piecing!

The white tags are my markers for not getting it mixed up when I brought it to our meetings to work on.  When I started piecing it, I never gave too much thought into where the different colors sat.....it's a total mix.  But when the circles and slivers came together, I found a lot of same color right across from each other.... it took many hours of moving stuff around one day, to come up with the placement so it was still random!  And there was no way I was going through that nightmare again, hence the markers!  They aren't coming off until the whole thing is in one piece!  This top was started when I lived in Hull, Massachusetts......13 years ago!  Sheesh!  But I still love it!

My plan for the wedding ring is to attach black borders with a 1 1/4 inch strip of mixed squares between them.  The ring pieces are 1 1/4 inch wide.

As with so many other bloggers right, I too, have been purging the stuff in the house!  I went through several stacks of my quilting/crafting magazines, and found many that are of no use to me now!  Post-its on pages got yanked when I realized "I don't even like that now!".....and sooooo many magazines had no post-it at all!  I went page by page, just in case, and still found no reason to keep it!

I'd given up all of my quilt and craft mag subscriptions when I realized that I had at least 6 subscriptions, and months would go by with nothing of interest in any of them!  What a waste!  Does this happen to you?  The gals at the meeting last night were of the same consensus.

So now, when I'm in the bookstore, I flip through the mags, and if there is something I just MUST make, then I'll buy it.  But no more subscriptions!  I'm finding I get a lot more inspiration from reading the blogs of other like minded quilters (antique/reproduction/traditional) and looking around on Ebay.  As it is, I've NEVER followed a pattern exactly as written....I've always changed something about it to suit my taste/need.  I've never liked the idea that I was making the same exact quilt as a 100 others were.  That kindof bugs me.  That's one reason I really love scrap quilts.  No two are alike, even with the same pattern.

And with that said, I'm heading back to the sewing room, cuz there are leader/ender squares to prepare for my next project!  (I hate starting anything new, without having those squares ready to go.....Bonnie Hunter is a genius!)

regan