It’s been awhile….

I know, I’ve been absent for awhile. I don’t get much time to sew anymore since I spend all my free time (and some that’s not free) with Alex. I can’t believe he’s going to be 5 months old on Monday! Time is going by way too fast!

Anyway, since I don’t have time to sew at my machine anymore, and since I’ve been kinda jealous of Karen with all the hand piecing and hand quilting that she does. And because I have my little tubs full of already cut up scraps of fabric, I decided to start hand piecing a quilt. Once Alex goes to bed at 9, I’m just too tired to sit at the sewing machine to sew. But I’m awake enough to be able to hand piece blocks while I watch basketball games or movies with my husband! I’m making 4-patch blocks, 2 white and 2 scraps. I had to pull a bunch of white fat quarters out and cut them into squares with my Go, because I just don’t have a lot of white scraps. Not quite sure why. I took it with me last night to guild and managed to sew 17 pairs of 2 together. This is not something I even care about being finished right away, and I might set it aside and work on something else, but for now it’s the only sewing I can do!

The start of the hand pieced quilt!

I did pick up 3 kits from guild last night to make charity quilts. I need to help more in the guild and I really need to get in front of my sewing machine before I forget how to use it!

In addition to working on the hand pieced quilt, I’ve decided that I want to learn to hand quilt. Again, since I don’t have a lot of time in front of the machine, I need to do things that I can work on in the family room while Alex is playing or we are watching tv at night. There is a class in May that I’m going to sign up for, hubby can take care of Alex for a 3.5 hour class! Oops, just realized that I have a dentist appt that day, now I don’t know if I can sign up…..doggone it!

I’ll try not to be a stranger anymore….I need to start reviewing books, blogs, something!!! Oh and here’s a gratuitous picture of my baby!!! 🙂

Alex lounging on Lady

Happy Day!!!

I’ve had my Mini-Pinni frame for almost 2 years now and have really only played with it. I haven’t finished a SINGLE quilt on it! It wasn’t until March that I figured out why it wasn’t working correctly (this post). I decided that if I’m going to get anything else on my PhD list done before this baby is born, I have to be able to do some pantographs. So I went up today and tried the free one that came with the frame package. It worked! 🙂 I need the hubby to help me figure out the right way to hook the laser up to my machine so I don’t have to hold the button down while I’m sewing, but it works! I think the first one I do is going to be the Quilter’s Suduko that I put together in January. Hopefully I won’t make too much of a mess of it and be able to put the binding on in a few days!

Last weekend I put together the backing for the quilt for the shower. I mentioned last month that I wasn’t going to actually quilt it until after the shower, but I figured it might save me some time later if I figured out the backing now. I got out my Accuquilt Go and cut out tumbler blocks out of all the fabrics that were used in the front. Lucky for me I had just enough tumbler blocks to have enough for the backing without adding anything! This left some of the fat quarters that I didn’t know what to do with. So I got out the die that came with my Go and starting cutting them up into 4.5″ squares and 2.5″ squares where I could. I now have a nice pile of 4.5″ charm squares that I can use to make some more quilts! Not that I need to make anymore!

Since I already had the Go out, I decided to start going through all my scraps and see what could actually be saved and cut up into 4.5″ or 2.5″ squares or 2.5″ triangles. I still have more scraps that need to be cut up, but it will get done sooner or later. I also have a small pile of scraps that can be cut into 1.5″ strips (this needs to be done by hand since I don’t have the die for my Go). The 1.5″ strips will be used for my locker rug hooking. I know, I have way too many projects going!!! 🙂

Sorry, no pictures today!