A finish!

NYE 2012 (73" x 87")

Yup.  I put the binding on tonight (no new picture).  The binding is the same green that shows up throughout the quilt.  And although Candace shared some wonderful name suggestions, I think it'll simply remain as NYE 2012.

So, it has been folded and added to my stash bag of finished quilts.  (OH!  You can see the binding in this picture!)

At the same time, I unfolded and refolded a few quilts that have been not-so-patiently waiting on my QOV pile.  They will eventually make their way to you, Alycia!!!

And then....... wanting to stay on a motivational movement, I loaded Scrappy Picnic and finished off one bobbin's worth of quilting.  I am keeping the pantographs put away, and am trying a free-motion "circuit" pattern.  (Yes Angela---I loaded this BEFORE I read your email response to my 'quilting competition' comment.) :D

This post is taking a bit longer than usual to type up because we have the 10 o'clock news on in the background.  The flooding damage in Duluth is the lead story.   (We are the blue dot in the picture above....Duluth is about 80 miles due-north, right at the western tip of Lake Superior.) 

Here is one article of many that has been written throughout the day about the damage.  A boy amazingly survives a mile-long culvert 'trip,' a dozen animals perish from the Duluth Zoo....the stories continue to evolve.

The power of mother nature!  No matter where you live, there's always the potential for some type of natural disaster.  The good news........ the next 5-day extended forecast shows VERY LITTLE rain.  Time to wring out everything and take a breather.

Really? Another 2 inches???

Candace's rain gauge has seen a LOT of action so far this summer!!  Yesterday another 0.5 inches fell, and today... 1.5 inches (so far) with another line of storms heading our way.  Yes, we've had rain.  Yes, we've had OVER our share of rain, but still not nearly as much as the extreme north of Wisconsin and Eastern Minnesota (Duluth/Superior area).  Massive FLOOOOODING!!!  I feel for everyone who has to live through the damage all this rain is creating.  Thankfully, we haven't been flooded, although we do have water in the basement, but that's been an ongoing problem we've needed to deal with since we built in 2004.  

At least the dill seems to be liking all this rain!  Likewise, the raspberry bushes should be flourishing from all this water too.

Mama has been roaming with her chicks into a bigger expansive area lately.  There have been times where she has even completely left them to go off with the other hens and rooster;  just like pictured here, taken this morning.

Almost in unison, Paul and I were talking about this exact same chick.  His comment towards it was "Eww, ugly duckling?"

WHAT???  My thoughts were COMPLETELY opposite!  The coloring is amazingly unique and gorgeous.  So, what are your thoughts?  Whose side are you going to choose?  Paul's or mine?  Then again, you may simply be thinking...."Guys!  It's a chicken!  Who cares?"   :0)

Tonight when I arrived home from my day-long math assessment workshop, I grabbed the camera for my walk around the yard/garden.  The chickens were hanging out down by the pigpen area, eating what they could scrape up from the pig feed trough.  I spied Big Mama amongst them....with no babies.  At that point, Paul said it was time to gather up the chicks and separate them from Mama.  

So....after securing the help from Cassie, Caitlyn and Candace, we all (minus Paul--he was making bagels in the house) ran around the yard, trying to catch those seven lil' buggars.  

They are all now safe-n-sound in the remodeled chicken pen where we have the other 26 meat-bird chicks.  I'm a little worried about how Big Mama will react and I plan to keep an ear out for her tonight.... to see if she'll be clucking away, trying to call for them.  We've never had to separate a mama and chicks before.  This is new to me.

So, tonight.....my schedule has opened up since Cassie's softball game has been cancelled.  Maybe the New Year's Eve mystery WILL see a finish after all.

Know what?  I really need a name for that quilt!  Any suggestions?

I really need a finish....

This afternoon, Diamond Fields chain blocks were completed and added to the design wall.  Once pieced, the quilt center will measure approx. 56"x56", so my next task for this design-in-the-making will be to come up with some border treatments.

But, with the middle-of-the-year mark looming on the horizon, and only ONE FINISH under my belt for the year (OMGoodness!!!!!! What?!?!?!)

I finished up the quilting of the New Year's Eve mystery that had been percolating on the quilting frame for the past couple of months. 

With the quilting complete, I got side-tracked with making dinner, and then playing Jarts outside with the girls, which lead to walking around the yard and ooogling the garden, and fruit trees, and playing with the goats, and giving the pigs some grass clippings....and then hanging another load of laundry out on the clothes line....

Basically all of that says that I did not attach the binding yet, so it's not quite a finish yet!  

The next two days are booked with math summative assessment meetings and softball games, so this may not see a finish-finish until Friday.

Progress......

On a completely non-quilting note:
Just took a load of clothes off the line;  9:30PM at night.......BEAUTIFUL outside!
Crickets chirping, but I dare say the frogs are out-croaking the crickets tonight.  Finally a non-rainy evening ( at least for now ).  Storms are tentative to roll in;  under a Tornado watch until 1 AM.  **shrug**

What'cha gonna do?

Organizing scrap boxes

Alright...I KNOW this doesn't look very organized, but this IS my "AFTER" picture. :\ On second thought....perhaps I shouldn't call it an "AFTER" picture quite yet. It's definitely more like a "DURING TRANSITIONS" picture.

THIS was the "BEFORE" picture. You can't even SEE much of the carpet, or even really determine how many boxes are present. Yesterday and part of this morning, I spent time sifting through these boxes; pressing, cutting, and reboxing fabrics that were not quilt-worthy (some homespuns, lots of polyester and some too-flimsey-fabrics that have been given to me in garage-sale-find boxes).

I've been cutting up loads of "nickels" and piecing a few more "Scrappy Pieces".

And when I had had enough of that.....I headed over to the quilting frame and spent a couple of hours behind the machine.

I just ran out of wound bobbins, so I took that as a sign for a needed break. A little coffee and bagel....checking to make sure the girls are being respectful to each other (aka: not killing each other), and I'll be back at it all again soon.

Happy Easter Saturday!

New Year's Eve Mystery - top done; Orca Bay almost with a correct layout

2011 New Year's Eve Mystery

(73" x 87")

On-point setting; bonus triangles used in a pieced inner border

This will be set aside and be added to the Must-Quilt list

While relaxing with Cassie and the movie "Yes Man," I finished up ripping out my orange string placement errors on Orca Bay. The orange "sashing" rows are now completely pieced CORRECTLY! I did not rip out the four Ohio Star rows I sewed oh so long ago now.....

:|

However.....

when I look back at this layout (with the light Ohio Stars in the "center" of the green strings),

I still like it better.

Therefore, tonight, I'll sit and rip those last few rows.

I will ALWAYS judge layouts with pictures in the future BEFORE actually sewing rows together :0)

Some Basketball and quilting (NYE mystery)

No sleeping in for us yesterday - nope, nope, nope. It was a Saturday morning full of basketball; the first non-sleep-in-Saturday of five coming up over the next handful of weeks.

Caitlyn had Little Lakers basketball practice and inter-school scrimmage from 8:00 - 10:00. This is her first year playing the game; she says she's enjoying it, but I would put a million dollars on it if our school were to offer gymnastics, she'd dropped basketball in a heart-beat and join gymnastics. However, we're a small school and gymnastics is not an option. (I foresee cheerleading in her future though).

Cassie's first game started at 9:00 in a different school, so we missed it but heard she played well despite a 10-12 loss. I was told she made the last three baskets and almost made a game-tieing shot with a few seconds left on the clock. She's really finding her love for the game.

Her second game was at 11:00, so we all were able to watch. The coaches do an excellent job making sure all fourteen girls (YIKES!!!!) get an opportunity to play. The periods are 6 minutes in duration, and they (coaches) switch out a full 5-person squad every three minutes. Cassie again made some good plays and landed a couple of buckets. She's improving on her dribbling skills and I THINK she's growing into her height nicely, finding her coordination. WHEW!

I didn't do ANY quilting yesterday, unless you call ripping out my 8 rows of Orca Bay while sitting at the games quilting. I suppose it could be considered UN-quilting :0) Then, the rest of the day, I totalllllly relaxed in the glider with my feet up, reading on my Kindle App and reading the back of my eyes from time-to-time too.

However, today, once the morning got started; coffee brewed; laundry well underway....

I spent an hour piecing four more blocks for the NYE mystery quilt's setting triangles. I simply cut them in half diagonally. I KNOW I will lose the points once a border is attached, but it was the price I accepted in order to have the half-blocks as setting triangles. I literally only had 2" of my background fabric left (aside from some crumbs) once finished, so I couldn't do the setting triangles like they needed to be done. {{I still think it'll be great, even though there won't be any pretty points along the center's edge}}

Naturally, all those bonus triangles needed to be pressed and pieced to be put into use. Once completed, I'll have 77 bonus pinwheels that will find their way into the outer border. Somewhere I must have another HST "lost" because I SHOULD have enough for 78 pinwheels. I looked for a bit and then gave up; no biggy. I'll make 'em work :0)

So, now... I have my feet up once again, waiting for the Packer game to start. GO PACK!!!!!

I also have to spend SOME time on my school work; I have yet to do that this weekend. BUT, the upcoming week marks the end of the term, so Pre-Calc will be wrapping up. Two days of review and a final and then....DONE with PC for the year.

Some fabric sanity...subtle Orca Bay differences and NYE Mystery layouts

Without time to sew lately, I at least played around with the Orca Bay layouts.

You may recall my post last week where I was panicking that my orange strings (Bonnie's blue strings) were going the wrong way. Here are the 8 rows I had pieced, with strings going the WRONG way, that will SOON be ripped apart and fixed. At least only 8 rows were completed and NOT the whole top! Whew.

Pictured: Orange strings going RIGHT way, mimicking Bonnie's 100%. For those of you who say "Ah, Amy, your 'wrong' layout works." I disagree. If you "relax your eyes" with both pictures, you simply MUST agree that a diagonal pattern is CLEARLY visible when the orange string blocks are placed in the CORRECT arrangement as opposed to my WRONG placement pictured at the top of this post. The strings accompany the diagonal pattern created by the Birds in the Air triangular blocks made with the green strings.

However, as I have been watching more and more quilt tops being completed, a few ladies chose to switch around the Dark/Light Ohio stars. So...pictured: Orange strings going RIGHT way with LIGHT Ohio Stars in the center of the green strings. And...me thinks me realllllly likey it!

This project has been an excellent reminder of TAKING A PICTURE and looking at it before making final decisions. Just seeing it in print (on screen) gives such a different perspective than just standing in front of it.


Therefore, since I was downstairs with my camera, I decided to layout my New Year's Eve mystery blocks as well.

Pictured: layout as suggested.

But then came some playtime with an on-point layout. Ooooo.....THIS is a fun a layout! BUT, those green setting triangles just don't work.

Grabbing my extra blocks, and folding them diagonally in half......v'iola! Oh yes. Quite lovely and most likely what I will end up doing in the end PENDING I have enough background fabric to make a few more blocks to create the setting triangles.

So...no sewing, but ideas ideas ideas galore rambling in the mind.

I hope your Tuesday was glorious!

New Year's Eve Mystery [updates all day] - 3

Still plugging along.....with step #5. More double-sewing here for another 140 bonus triangles.

...and step #6

Step #7 update


And I just checked the file section-----no Step #8 yet. Hm......can't believe I "caught up."

Time to make dinner anyway :0)

New Year's Eve Mystery [updates all day] - 2

Step #3 took a bit more time than probably it should have. The interruption of lunch took away about an hour... And the double-sewing of the corner-to-corner 2.5" squares ate up some additional time as well.

As with most quilters, I try to save time by keeping the initial chain together and simply refeed them into the machine for the double-sew stitch.

So, three hours after completing step #2, step #3 is now complete. I haven't pressed the 140 bonus triangles, but you can bet they'll show up in a pieced border.

UPDATE 20 minutes later

Okay....step #4 was SUPER FAST! Whew! Gotta love those easy ones.

New Year's Eve Mystery [updates all day]

The quilting mojo has returned.....inspiration is everywhere. This morning, it came in the form of catching up on emails and ready my Daily Digests from QYMysteryQuilts. Ann has been gearing everyone up all week, and I didn't decide until this morning to join in with the fun. The classic internal conversation was haunting me all night.....

Devil's advocate voice: Oh Amy, you know you want another project. Look at that sidebar; the UFO listed isn't too big, and your WIP list is soooo tiny.
Rational voice: Yes, but, imagine what I could finish off my list if I only were to work on my UFOs and WIPs. I could check off one more project to wrap up 2011 in good fashion.

By the title of the post, you can already determine which voice won :0)

I'll be a bit behind in the posting of the clues all day since I hadn't even chosen my fabrics yet, much let completed all the pre-cutting. It took me a moment to determine whether I wanted to create a R/W/B quilt, or use these wonderfully feeling "fall" Moda/Red Rooster fabric colors I received in a "scrap" box a few months ago.

I haven't done a time-lapsed post in a long time---I thought it would be fun and exciting to create track this way today since I have NO OTHER PLANS besides sewing (and feeding my family as needed).

The actual sewing of step #1 went quick; less than an hour...

So between steps 1 and 2, I assisted Cassie in rearranging my sewing room. She wanted to have her sewing setup in my room rather than be out in the carpeted area. I can't say I blame her; the feeling of being out in the open carpet area is so lonesome as compared to my secluded (heated) TV-equipped sewing room.

Step #2 asked us to "flip-sew" a 1.5" square onto a 2.5" background square. TYPICALLY I double-sew these seams to create bonus triangles.....but even **I** know when enough is enough. No double-sewing for these babies.....trim, trim, trim and toss, toss, toss. They didn't even make my crumb box.

Step #2 completed; just in time for a quick coffee break before starting step #3.

Andee is playing along too....can't wait to see what she, DJ and Kathy come up with :0)