UFO, WIP, Flimsy parade - time to get organized!

I decree that yesterday's new name shall be - "Tally Tuesday"

Also, when ya can't beat the heat to sew comfortably in the loft (since we frugal ol' fuddy-duddies haven't folded to turn on the AC yet), t'was time to ORGANIZE all the bins and shelves and 'chair piles' downstairs in the basement quilting space. Don’t get me wrong! I like the heat but this task needed to get done all the same.

I haven't truly been in full-blown 'quilter-mode' since probably 2013/14, as my faithful followers of year's gone by can attest to; life simply got busy with the girls growing up . However, with a couple recent quilt-top finishes this week that had been in almost-finished stages, I really wanted to get a gauge of the status of all the other "things" down there. Ya know... to make plans and goals!

The parade of current UFOs (unfinished objects), WIPs (works in progress) and FLIMSIES (quilt top ready for quilting), plus a few HMIDs (holy moly, it's done) quilts.

[[alright, I made up that last acronym]]

FIrst up, the Flimsies...

Omigosh flimsy - 73"x 92"
Designer: Susan Garman

Omigosh perspective

Soaping Sunday, RSC 15 & some quilt reparing

The lard-rendering crockpot was emptied and turned off last night at 11:00;  four quart jars were filled and cooled overnight...

...never having rendered lard before, waking up to this picture was kinda fun!  Pie crusts recipes were sought out and discussed, however, the first use of the lard was reserved for a new soap recipe to try!

Tropical Vacation, hot process soap will spend the night in the mold seeing I didn't make it up until mid-afternoon.

The 2015 Rainbow Scrap Challenge had me teaming up with Andee (The Modern Diary).  She pieced up Bonnie K. Hunter's "Betty's Choice" blocks (shown below) while I designed up a simple connector block; each of us creating two blocks per month;  one to keep and one to share.  A final block (aqua) was pieced today to round out my collection to a dozen.  I can't wait to see these blocks play together!

A bit of time was spent organizing up my 'piles' around the sewing area, and an old "FIX-ME-UP-SOMEDAY" quilt has me inspired.

This Blue Hearts was one of my first quilts made in the early 2000s, and is begging for some mending.

The quilt was only tied with buttons & yarn in a few locations; clearly this was created LONG before I knew about the method and idea of actually QUILTING the layers together! 

It has been loved and wore in, certainly!  A poly batting had been used, a simple muslin backing -- it was such a snuggler!!!!

....and falling apart at the seams from its use.  

I've already separated the layers and stitched up the seams that were falling apart.  I'm planning to play around with the quilting, branching out with some custom quilting rather than a pantograph.  It'll be a good piece to practice with.

Happy Sunday everyone!

RSC and Talkin' Turkey scraps

In case you haven't noticed, it's summer vacation around this place!

What is this... my sixth post now in just a few days???  :D

My days have typically been starting around 5-6AM by CHOICE.  And, if you've been following, gardening a'plenty lately.

But today, I sewed!!  All. Day.

Angela's Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC) color for June (light blue) was first on my agenda.  Andee and I are teaming up this year, each creating an alternate block that will play nicely with each other.  Take a look at her blue block.  We are both very excited about this quilt coming together at the end of the year.

Then, I tackled getting caught up on all the colors so far this year;  I only had purple left to do.  I perceived myself being further behind than that.... hm!   AND, I'm ahead of the ballgame, having done some red blocks back in January.  How's that for ambition?!

Once done with the alternating block, I tidied up the cutting mat, taming scraps as I went.  Rather than tucking some of the scraps off into their drawer hiding places, they were sewn up into some Scrappy Talkin' Turkey block centers. 

Once these eight are finished, I'll have 16 blocks up on the design wall.  As most projects in the past year or so, I have no plans other than...."let's make another block.  And another.  And another?"  When I get tired of making them, they (usually?) get pieced into a quilt center and set aside for a time when border inspiration hits me.  (THAT's not very often though) :(

Now.... perhaps some crochet.
Happy Saturday!

Worried about frost; Jamestown Landing nearing completion

After spending hours planting portions of the garden last weekend, we sent up a simple wish for warmer temperatures and mild rain.

The strawberry patch was beautifully and dutifully weeded and mulched yesterday.

All week long, the temperatures have been typically decent, and the order of rain came through, but....... FROST last night.  Dag-nabbit!  We woke to a light frost this morning;  and the strawberry blossoms are now at-risk since we didn't cover or irrigate.  Drat. Drat. Drat.

Caitlyn and I covered the cucumber plants we had transplanted last weekend, so they should continue growing nicely.

Cassie had taken charge of planting corn.  Clearly, we continue to await for the ground (and air) temperatures to increase and stabilize before hoping for any germination.

The broccoli didn't have to worry about rain OR temperature since SOMEONE couldn't pass up the fresh leaves of the new transplants.  Grrrrrr......  EVERY LEAF -- stripped away!

And since my chickens can NOT pass up these delicious snacks, we need to come up with a simple fencing solution for our strawberry patch.  Otherwise, we'll lose any berries to our chickens that may end up surviving this frost.

In other news.... Mama Rock has successfully hatched out six babies on Thursday/Friday.  We expect to see another seven coming home from Caitlyn's classroom incubator this week (we offered some eggs to the class incubator), and we're hoping Mama will embrace them as her own since they are essentially the same age (3 days apart).  

Additionally, OUR incubator is coming due anytime over the next 3-4 days;  thirty-three eggs, which we do not plan on handing over to Mama.  LOL.  Instead, they will be raised as a new 2015 flock to be complete with a new coop too :)  (YET to be made).  The jury is still out on whether another full set of eggs will be placed in back-to-back incubator hatchings.  The vote in leaning towards, 'ya better start setting some eggs aside when you perform your daily collection.'  ;)

On the quilting front, a few hours have been spent in front of the machine when the weather has been less than garden-worthy.

Rainbow Scrap Challenge updated a little bit;  I'm still shy of a couple of colors, but I'm 'ahead' with the red.  ;)

A new deadline project for a customer has been loaded on the frame;  Bonnie's Jamestown Landing, one of my favorite designs she's come up with!

One more week of 2014-15 school year.  Or as Cassie says..."four and a half days, Mom.  Friday is only a half day."

;)

More RSC '15, other scraps, and Caitlyn's BB

For whatever reason, Paul's alarm went off at 4:30 this morning rather than 5:00.  He stayed in bed, snoozing away, but after a few minutes, I decided to get up.  Why not, right?!?!  The day was WIDE OPEN for anything.  It's amazing how different it is mentally on a Sunday vs. any other day of the week.  

Once he walked out the door at 5:40 a.m. heading off to work, it was downstairs for me.  I will give Deb credit for the task of making up two whole new pink RSC connector blocks instead of just fixing up the 9-patch center of my last boo-boo ones.  Ah heck... we all have oodles of scraps, right?  When lookin in my drawer of 1.5" scraps, you can't even tell I made up another 2 pink blocks!  LOL.

For the rest of the morning until noon, I tackled loads and loads of bonus blue/neutral triangles that have been collecting for the past couple of years.

The blue/neutral block was inspired by a pic I saw during a random search over Christmas vacation;  sadly, I don't have any linky information on it :(  The other ones, with the splash of red, were initially made for Judy's 2014 January Scrappy T block, and then I've extended that scrappiness by piecing 9-patch and/or crumb centers rather than using a big ol' 3.5" square.  I have 20 total blocks made (10 each).  I really don't know how many more I'll make;   my pile of blue/neutral bonus tris are finally dwindling.

As for schoolwork, I was able to complete a decent amount of it between games yesterday during Caitlyn's BB tournament.  Seeing the girls progress from beginning-to-end of the season is always fun and amazing to witness.  They have one more tournament next weekend to wrap up their season;  Cassie, however, continues to compete until the end of February.

Happy Sunday everyone!
Here's to another week.

FEBRUARY!  Spring is nearing day by day.... ;)

RSC15 - Connector blocks

Yay :D  Angela already posted the color planned for February, and I decided to spend a productive hour playing around with my pink and neutral 1.5" bins.

These have plans to become connector blocks when paired together with Bonnie's "Betty's Choice" scrappy blocks published in one of the Quiltmaker magazines.

And.... *forehead slap*!  After snapping the picture and posting to FB, I realized....... the inner 9-patch has the pinks/neutrals in the wrong places.

The neutrals should play nicely along the diagonals....

**shrug**

Ah well.  The pink blocks will be fixed up at a later time;  it's not even February 1st after all.

"Always Time" quilt top and Taming of the Scraps

Always Time (79 x 103)

Always Time has come together with some dedicated time over Thanksgiving vacation, a couple of weekends and some time during this Christmas vacation.  The blocks are larger, therefore it has been a decently quick quilt top to piece.

Many of the fabrics are from the "Twilight Frost" line that was discontinued to Connecting Threads a couple of years ago.  The pattern is the Rambling Aunt Sukey design from Marti Mitchell (published in the from Jan/Feb '08 Quiltmaker magazine).  

Like many, many others;  it has been folded and added to my ever-growing--never-shrinking pile of quilt tops ready for quilting.

The 2014 Rainbow Scrap Challenge was wrapped up with a final gray block in order to round out the year with twelve blocks :)    

Naturally, it would be right for me to pass up a year of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, so.... I'm in for 2015 too!  I don't really have a solid plan in mind (yet), despite spending countless hours last night and this morning searching the net for that perfect idea.

Although, this morning, with my new rotary cutter in-hand, I started trimming up numerous bonus-HSTs in blue (January's color), trimming them to 2".

With a few hours of "Avengers" and "Avengers" in the DVD player, (yup...when it ended, I simply pushed 'Play' again),  I added four scrappy star blocks to four block I had pieced last year during Judy's Scrap Challenge for January.  (All pictured lower left).
Yesterday was a day well spent trying to tame all (some?  a few?) of the scraps I had scattered around the sewing room.  All the while, sew-skyping with buddy Nancy.  It was the first day in a LONG time that I felt my quilting mojo had come back.  It truly felt good using up SOME of the scraps, even through, TRULY, barely a dent was made!!!!

The OMIGOSH blocks (upper left) have been an on-n-off Leader-Ender project of mine for the past couple of years.  The scrappy Talkin' Turkey blocks (upper right) are a Bonnie-design, these done in scrappy though :)

Although I'd love to keep my quilting mojo flowing, I don't know if I want to head back downstairs since I've spent the past couple of hours upstairs, cleaning and decluttering the kitchen and laundry/entryway room.

Maybe some more Gibbs (NCIS marathon on USA) and my crochet hook ?? ;)

Happy New Years everyone!