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)

2011 Completed Quilts

As many of you are also realizing.....

YES! It IS that time of year. ALREADY!!!

Jimminy Crickets!

2011 was a MUCH quieter year for me in the quilting department...



Green Beauty: Completed January 16, 2011. Gifted to Kathy Sutarik, Christmas 2010.
New Year's Eve mystery - Serenity Started Dec 30, 2010; Completed June 13, 2011. Awaiting gifting/donating.
Blue Ridge Beauty: Ongoing L/E in 2010; Completed March 20, 2011. Awaiting gifting/donating.
Red Blossoms: Started February 5, 2011; Completed June 10, 2011. Awaiting gifting/donating.


Roll Roll Cottonboll: Started November 12, 2010; Completed March 29, 2011. Self owned.
Raven Stars: Started January 31, 2011; Completed May 20, 2011. Awaiting gifting/donating.
With Heart: Started June 4, 2011; Completed June 13, 2011. Made for coworker.
Hostess with Heart: Started June 7, 2011; Completed June 9, 2011. Made for a coworker's daughter's bridal shower hostess.



Simple crib quilt: Started March 23, 2011; Completed June 10, 2011. Donated to Zion Lutheran Church.
In Flight: Started Sept 12, 2011; Completed June 19, 2011. Awaiting gifting/donating.
Transitions: Completed July 16, 2011. Gifted to Lindsey for graduation.
Splendidly Marching Along: Started June 14, 2011; Completed August 10, 2011. Awaiting gifting/donating.


Hopscotch: Started: April 3, 2011; Completed: August 16, 2011. Self owned.
Quilts for MIL - quilting time gifted.
Blue -n- Gold Pride: Started June 12, 2011; Completed October 23, 2011. Made for Cassie (and football games!)

Guess who's all caught up??? ;0)

Pictured: Steps 1-7
As the picture shows, it was a full day in front of the machine, cutting table and ironing board. Can you say....'ahhhhhhhhh' ?? :)

Attaching the 'wing' triangle units to the green strings was first on the to-do list. I grabbed, I stacked, I pieced .....and when I took a break.......I counted.
:\
I was eight short.
Hm....
I counted again.
Yup, still eight short.
:\
...**scratching head**.....thought for sure I sewed 64 strings a few weeks back....**shrug**... but who knows.

So, I was side-lined for a bit to complete those eight.

And then it took a bit to complete Bonnie's 'easy' request to make up "only four more" "wing" triangle units.
Only....I didn't have ANY 2" scrap strips/squares left in my purple. Can you believe that?!!!?!? Seriously. When I finished steps 3 & 5, I used the last 2" purple strip from my scraps/strips/bins.
....so I dug and dug and dug in order to finish those up. Remember the other day when Bonnie was asked if she kept 3.5", 4.5"... strips? I haven't done ANYTHING with my 3.5+" bin in AGES, so I decide to blow the dust off the cover and see what it had to show.
JUST enough purple strips to cut down to 2" is what I found :0)

And while I was sorting and cutting 2" HSTs for those four additional 'wing' triangles, I also cut up the QSTs pieces too.
So......by late afternoon,

I WAS DONE!!!!

It wasn't 5:00 yet (my predetermined ending time)....
I did some tidying.... swept up some dust balls (ick)....moved some projects around.... filled a couple of bags with some old, questionable fabric that I simply WON'T ever use ...

and then......

I pulled out the ScrappyHappy (name????) blocks from Angela's 2011 Rainbow Scrap Challenge. Eight of them had been completed, so I pulled some yellows to make a ninth. And then...quite honestly, while looking around my room for another color and some more scraps......I came up empty (psht, yeah right!!! Do you really believe that????). But, rather than packing them back up for the shelf, I decided that a small crib-style quilt would be ideal for the nine blocks. I SURE hope they don't remain like this on my design-wall for the next few months!!!... :0)

Happy Friday

Orca Bay - (almost) caught up

I'm on Orca Bay overload right now. I'm seeing purple in my sleep; I'm kinda hoping some more green shows up.....maybe some more orange.....but I hope the purple (black) ship has sailed :0)

Caitlyn wanted to be downstairs with me and was asking how she could help out. Sadly, there wasn't anything with the Orca Bay steps that she could help me out with, so I pulled out some of my Jamestown Landing blue/neutral HSTs and she went to town with trimming off a bunch of dogears.

After lunch, both she and I were getting tired of our tasks, so we pulled out her purple block from.....psht.....August??

After a little batting and pinning and a slow-sew machine setting, she was introduced to Stitch-in-Ditch.

And now....we're all awaiting Paul to come home with some green peppers so we can make up some Sweet-n-Sour Pork for dinner. I finished up all 28 "light" Ohio Stars, but still have 12 more "dark" ones to do before being completely caught up. I COULD work on them tonight, but I highly highly doubt I will. I'll putz along with them tomorrow, depending what step #7 brings from Bonnie.

Happy Thursday

Orca Bay - Steps 3, 5, 6

I slept until 8:30 this morning..... Hmmm....in actuality, it was more like.... I slept until about 7:30, but laid around in bed until finally feeling I needed to get my day started by 8:30.

After whipping up a batch of muffins for the girls, I was downstairs starting my quilting day by 9:00.

Angela (soscrappy) wrote to me regarding yesterday's slump in quilting mojo...

Seeing the blocks come together should be enough motivation to get through the rough spots. The Ohio stars are pretty cute and don't need any HST units, you could cheat and put some of those together first. It will all get done eventually, right?

So, with that type of mentality this morning, I decided to cut and cut and cut out the pieces needed for step #5 and step #6 before actually doing any sewing today.

And then.....working with a batch of 50 at a time, step #3 HSTs were pressed and one HST "wing" for step #5 was added.

This worked out QUITE slick! I didn't feel bogged down at the ironing board pressing all 350 HSTs at once......ugh---the tedious repetition of extreme boredom!! I was able to stay "entertained" with the changing over of task every 50 units...

I'm absolutely amazed how long I was at my machine, cutting mat and ironing board today......yet.....

It doesn't appear that I have a super lot to show.

All 350 step #3 HSTs have had one "wing" attached, and 100 have been 100% completed with the 2nd "wing." (shown below in the upper corners) Behind the machine, another 100 await pressing and trimming, before tackling the last 150. Pictured above left are all my units waiting for step #6.

Paul informed me that he needs to work yet again tomorrow, so I'm thinking one more full day downstairs and I should be all caught up, just in time for clue #7 on Friday.

Hmmm.....9:00 start; a little break for lunch time and dinner prep; and closed up shop at 5:00. Seven hours today of sewing.

Orca Bay & Puzzle progress

My quilting mojo is slow on the return. I spend a couple of hours today cutting and sewing the 350 HSTs needed for step #3...

And pressing....UGH! Wasn't in the mood today at ALL for pressing........{{goodness! You think I need to wash that iron board cover?}}

...so after pressing about 60 HSTs, I headed up to make dinner.....

....

and never made it back down. Not in the mood :\

HOWEVER! Cassie and I were successful at finishing up the puzzle together!!!!

500 pieces; Age recommendation: 13+. It got easier once the pieces were getting filled.....but HARD to start!

So now....she's ripping into her new 500 piece from Christmas; another wolf one. We hope to pick up some puzzle-glue tomorrow or Thursday in order to glue and frame today's puzzle for her room. It's quite neat in that it glows in the dark. We tested it out. I attempted taking a picture of it, but it didn't turn out.....all black....too dark.

So now....I think I'll relax with Cassie on the new puzzle. Or read.... or ...... *shrug*.... just relax.

Happy Tuesday

Puzzle Progress

A couple of hours yesterday, and the sky took shape. A few more hours this AM, and the bottom "river" area has seen loads of progress. But now....Cassie will be fending for herself. I'm off to sew.

Snow tubing at Christie Mountain

Despite having NO SNOW in our area-------INSANE, AbsoLUTEly INSANE on December 26, 2011----in NORTHERN WISCONSIN!!!!!! I mean...really!?!?!?!? WHERE is all of our snow????????

A-haaaaaaaa.......Christie Mountain stole it all!!!!!!! ;0)

Nah......but I'm glad someone invented a snow-making machine! Because it certainly allowed us to enjoy our day.....

A "NERF" Christmas - 2011

The girls were super excited to see presents under the tree Saturday morning! I'm super glad Santa is an understanding soul...he was willing to stop by the house on his way to Australia so that we could all enjoy a day of gifts and play since we needed to be on the road on Christmas day.

Even Dad was on Santa's "good" list this year...

Candace was super delighted that she finally received a NERF gun...

And after the initial NERF WAR commenced, Dad needed to doctor up the "extra" darts in order to fit his Automatic Tommy-20 gun....

I found myself dodging bullets for much of the morning!


While the rest of the family was Nerf-warring away.... I was slowly slowly slowly working on Cassie's birthday puzzle. My goodnesss!!!!! I lose patience with puzzles!!!

As for quilting....with a week of vacation, I will get some machine time in. I'm not in much of a hurry (yet).

Today's agenda-----Snowtubing! Pictures to come later - promise!

Weekend interrupted

My typical relaxing weekend in front of the sewing machine (or school books :\ {{blah}}) was interrupted by......

some AMAZING, RELAXING FUN!!!






And if you ask Cassie on a scale of 1-to-10 about her enjoyment of the day.....she'd say....

"Nine. It WAS a 10 though....before we went on the 65-foot-drop ride!"

Tee-hee......
HOLY BUCKETS! I'm ALLLLLL for thrill rides, but even THAT one was only a one-time-ride deal! Enclosed in a capsule...and the floor opens beneath your feet.....**shudder**.... If you ever are curious as to how many times a person can say "oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, let me live, let me live, let me live" within 5 seconds, just ask me! :0)