Hexie Temperature Quilt

Wow, it’s been more than a  month since I posted! I don’t think I took my sewing out even once while we were camping. I know that the week we were gone I spent a lot of time swimming with the kids, and reading. In the last month I’ve gotten 3 blocks completed, I think I need one more block and I can put the next row together. I need to start pulling fabrics for the rest of the year, hopefully I can do that once school starts and the kids are both at school.

I really want to get back to working on hexie insanity and Dear Jane EPP. But I need to get something finished!

Linking up to Sarah Did It.

Hexie Day

Sarah over at Sarah did it! has a HELP for Hexie-aholics post one day a month and I finally have something to link up! I’ve been working on my 2017 hexie temperature quilt lately, and I finally got the first 2 rows put together! I had pulled fabrics for the first half of the year awhile ago, and I have gotten enough hexie flowers put together that I can applique them to the background squares and do the framing of each block.

I have a good handful of hexies ready to put together into flowers, before I need to pull fabrics for the rest of the year. I’m hoping that I can get the flowers done next week while we are camping. I need to get working on all these UFO’s!

July Goals

Ugh! Has it really been 3 months since I’ve posted? May was so busy with end of school activities that I don’t even remember doing any sewing. As soon as school was out it was off to California to visit the in-laws, then another trip to Virginia for more family visits. Here it is already in July and we are home for 2 weeks before another camping trip. I’m really hoping it’s enough time to get some things done!

Last month I had plans to join the guild community sewing day, but kids halted that plan in it’s tracks. Alex had a fever and wasn’t going to be going to his Lego Camp so I had to stay home. So at the guild meeting I picked up a kit to make a small quilt for one of our community groups. I’d like to get this finished before our meeting next week.

I have 2 quilts that I need to do for my friend, both are signature quilts that won’t take long to put together, I’ve made at least 4 of them for her in the past, I just need to get moving on them! So this month I want to at least get them cut out and the tops put together. If I get more done great, if not that’s ok I’ve at least gotten some work done on them!

I hope to be doing more sewing, but summer is hard when the kids are here all day or we are gone camping. I’ve slowly been working on my hexie temperature quilt, but I have a LONG way to go on that one!

Linking up to Elm Street Quilts.

April Completions

I really need to start posting more, not just when I complete (or set) my goals for the month! It’s been a crazy month, getting things ready for the end of school year, teacher appreciation gifts, business items that need to be done, the list just goes on and on.

I did manage to finish Good Night Irene, put the last stitches in it last night while the kids started watching a movie. Threw it on them for a photo, then the dog got in the way. 🙂 Needs a good wash and then I can write on the label. Very happy to have this one off my list of to-dos. This was started January of 2014 and was supposed to be a SAL, well little Cassie was born and quilting, heck sewing!, was just not in the cards. Finally finished the top March 28 last year. I have GOT to stop letting these tops sit so long!

The commission quilt that was supposed to be done for May has been changed to May of 2019, so there’s nothing to work on for that anymore. I will probably get it done over the summer, along with the one due in October. The fabric is here and I can work on it when ever I have some free time – HA!

I did also get the 9 designs stitched out for my blue and white quilt for the guild quilt show. Not sure when I’ll finish the blocks or the alternate blocks, but at least I’ve made a little bit of progress on them! Maybe next months goal will to be to cut out all the pieces and start making blocks? We’ll see!!

Linking up to Elm Street Quilts.

IGSecretPals Swap

So last year I saw some of my IG friends getting packages every month and there were some really cool items in them. Mini quilts, spectacular mini quilts! So when the post went up for signups for 2018 I decided to join in! I’m having fun “stalking” Instagram and Pinterest for my partners each month and deciding what to make/buy them. I haven’t received my March package yet, not sure what’s going on there, but I’ve loved everything I’ve gotten so far! My February partner even sent something for the kids! I’ll continue posting as the year goes on, so far all my partners have liked what I sent!

April Goals

I would absolutely LOVE to get another quilt finished this month! 🙂 I actually have 2 goals this month, I want to finish my Good Night Irene quilt that I basted last month, and I would like to start working on my blue and white challenge quilt for guild. I have the quilt designed, and I need to stitch out blocks on the embroidery machine.

I also have a commission quilt that I need to have done for next month, but I don’t know an exact due date yet, as soon as the fabric I ordered gets here I’m going to get to work on that too, the top should be done by the end of the month. So many things that need to be done this  month, but I don’t think there’s a lot going on around here and I might get a lot of time to work on projects this month.

Linking up with Elm Street Quilts.

March OMG Results

Wow, I wasn’t sure I’d meet my goal this month, but somehow I managed to fit it in with all the other craziness going on! I’m pretty sure I know how I’m going to quilt it, hopefully that can be done in April. I think this will be a quilt we can throw in the trailer for camping season, we are always needing one outside or just as an extra on the bed.

Here’s the reason I could barely get a quilt basted this month! This little sassy princess turned 4 this month. We just had her annual checkup and she’s 3’2″ and 32 lbs, she’s so tiny but her doctor says she’s perfect. I’m still in disbelief that she’s already 4, seems like just yesterday that we were at the hospital getting ready to bring her home. Before I know it she’s going to be 5 and ready to join Alex on the bus ride to school. Time is flying by WAY too fast!!

Linking up to Elm Street Quilts.

Knitting and some Cross Stitch

So over the weekend we were childless, my wonderful sister took the kids for the weekend. That meant Saturday night we could make a nice dinner (something the kids won’t eat) and start working through all the shows we needed to catch up on. While we were watching shows I was working on various projects and made a decision. Last fall I had bought 5 skeins of yarn that were on clearance and decided to make a blanket for Cassie’s former day care teacher that was having a baby in December. Now I am a VERY slow knitter, especially when it’s long rows. Saturday I decided that I hadn’t made a very smart choice to make her something and it was time to set that particular project aside for  now and work on other things. I’m almost through with the 2nd skein and I’ve a long ways to go on the project. At some point I’ll finish it and give it away, but right now it just needs to be put away.

Once I got that decision out of the way I pulled out the dish cloth I’ve been working on since November 2016 and finished it. I don’t know why it takes so darn long for me to work on knitting, wait yes I do, I have too many projects that are hand work!!! 🙂 The yarn is Peaches & Creme in colorway Pink Lemonade that I picked up at Walmart just because I liked the colors. I’ll see how I like using it to clean the kitchen and maybe I’ll make more someday.

I mentioned cross stitch in the title, I’ve found a pattern that I was really interested in making in January and I kept going back and forth on whether I needed another project. No not really but I did it anyway! I bought the pattern and the fabric from the author and started in on it. It’s a small section a  month, and once I’m caught up it shouldn’t be too hard to keep up with everyone else. I’m almost caught up now, once I get the rest of the title done and March’s block that was just released I’m golden! Hubby and I are BIG Harry Potter fans and I just loved the idea of having all the classes in a sort of sampler piece. No clue where it will go when finished, but that’s ok I’m making it anyway! Perhaps I can start working on other cross stitch pieces too, I have a Cleveland Cavaliers one and a Monopoly board around here somewhere to make!

March One Monthly Goal

This isn’t the best picture of it, but almost a year ago I finished piecing Good Night Irene, a SAL that I participated in in 2014. Now, it took me a long time (obviously) to finish the quilt, because 2014 was the year that my little Cassie girl arrived. I had a hard time sitting in front of the sewing machine and then once she arrived, sewing time went out the window! Anyway, my goal for the month is to get the backing sewed together, I have the fabrics sitting here ready to be cut and sewn, and then get it basted. IF I have time I’d like to start quilting it, but since Cassie turns 4 in a little over 2 weeks I’m not sure I’ll have the time! I was really hoping to get this done in March, it just didn’t happen though. Hopefully I’ll have more time than I think and I’ll have it all done before the end of the month, yeah right what am I thinking!

Linking up to Elm Street Quilts.

February OMG Update

Well it wasn’t the easiest tasks I set for myself this month, but I did finish both of them! The first item was Alex’s winter jacket that the dog decided to snack on the zipper. I finally got the darn thing off and it took 2 afternoons to get the new zipper sewed on. It’s NOT even remotely perfect, however I am not a seamstress, I cannot stand mending, but it perfectly wearable and no one would notice that it’s not aligned properly unless I point it out. Alex is happy and it’s one more thing off my sewing table!

The other item I wanted to get done this month was a secret project, my husband’s t-shirt quilt that I don’t even remember WHEN I started! I’ve had the top done for SO very long and I know that I’ve gifted it to him at least twice already over the years – once for his birthday and then again for Christmas (I think the same year!). I knew he was going to be out of town from Sunday to Thursday and I knew if I worked hard I could get the whole thing quilted and bound before he got back and then I could gift it to him for Valentine’s Day! I’m not 100% happy with the quilting, I just meandered all over it – gray thread in the blocks and black thread in the borders. I had a lot of problems with the t-shirts and puckering, it’s been so long they aren’t sticking to the fusible anymore and moved around a lot while I was quilting. The issues in the border are because the end was in sight and I wanted to get it finished, there’s a lot of eyelashing on the back because I was going way too fast. At some point I might take it out and fix it, but for now he’s able to use it and it’s off my list. One of the reasons I was procrastinating on this quilt was because I don’t like piecing backs. It takes so long to get a piece big enough and I’d rather get to the quilting. I was walking through Pat Catan’s (local craft store) and saw the beer can fabric and knew what I could use it for! This is the brand hubby drinks, so I knew I needed it for his quilt. I even went back and got an extra yard so I could use it for the binding. The patches in the corners were chest images from t-shirts or patches from actual shirts he’s worn. He was so surprised to see it done, and that I had even included those pieces in the corners. I have a gazillion more t-shirts I’ve stashed away over the years and I’ll do more quilts at some point, but right now I’ve got too many things to get completed first!

Linking up to Elm Street Quilts, Crazy Mom Quilts and My Quilt Infatuation.