A full, but enjoyable, Saturday

I figured the best place to start is at the beginnig of the day today....

Today was the 5K race in Baldwin, WI and was the first race for my co-worker, Jan (pictured middle). I could make an entire post just on the race itself, and how SILLY Jan was talking. "I may just be having the 'big-one' (heart-attack) here......" "I'll be fine just as long as I beat that wiener-dog to the finish line......" "HOW far away is that finish line yet? I don't think I'm gonna make it--you and Julie are going to have to carry me to the finish line, or at least roll me!"..... Oh ----she was a hoot! I won't say this too loudly (in case she's listening), but the race for me was very fun, nice and RELAXING! The pace was at a much slower-than-normal-pace for me; my only goal of the day was get Jan to the finish. So, at 34:14, she crossed the line! Yeah :0) AND, we met her goal of NO walking (outside of the teeeeny-tiny .1 mile up-hill portion).

After a little relaxing and watching the awards ceremony, we hit the road to head back home. However, I took a slight detour to get to Rice Lake to test-drive the Janome6600. I sadly didn't have much time (only about 30 minutes), and that was BARELY enough for me to get out all my questions to Angie, the sales lady. But, I at least have a bit of an idea about the 6600 BEFORE travelling THREE HOURS to Rhinelander tomorrow to try out the Bernina440QE. (Yeah---I only thought it was TWO hours away, but good 'ol Mapquest.com quoted me just shy of 3 hours!!! UGH!) BUT---I have a baby-sitter lined up for the day, so I should be able to relax and just ENJOY! My game plan is to head out around 8:30 am, arrive just before noon, and "play" until WHENEVER (most likely 2-3 hours---they close at 3:00 pm).

Anyway....more about that when I get back home tomorrow....back to today.

Once I got home and after a quick lunch, I headed downstairs with one goal in mind......clean up the mess of scraps under the ironing board. I was off to a great start---a good hour and a half! Ironing, cutting using the Scrap-Users-System. Sadly, I BARELY made a dent! So, I took a break, had a snack, and checked into the Quiltville chat for half an hour.

Then.....Cassie asked if she could have some Wafer cookies that were in the cupboard. Not a problem......... A few minutes later, she said...."Hey mom--look! Isn't this neat?" And I'll tell ya, inspiration strikes at the most ackward times! I HAD to grab the camera and snap a pic


---because I didn't see cookies. I saw a BLOCK!
So.................You can probably WELL imagine what I did then!!!.........
And these are only a start. I have a pile behind the machine right now of LOADS of pieced strips, ready to be cut. I don't have a layout completely in mind, yet. However, this at least gave me the opportunity to tackle that pile of scraps a bit more. I'm using all scraps of pink, orange and brown---simply because I don't have enough of any one fabric of orange or brown. GOLLY---as if we haven't had enough orange already!!!

Oh yes....and last night (once I finally stepped away from the computer for an hour), I came across my left over CC rail blocks. So, I was in the mood to putz.....and I pieced them into these blocks. I have 16 complete blocks from my left-overs; so I'll just make a simple wall quilt for my sewing space (or I'll gift it to my mom, since she has the CC quilt.)

Railfence background choices...
Flowered brown











Green













More Railfence background choices.
Light yellow












BRIGHT Pink










And here is a shot of all 16 blocks on the green, which I'm leaning toward. However, seeing that pink in a photo is having me reconsider. If you feel like sharing, please leave a "vote" of your choice as a comment. THANKS!



So, it's been a NICE, relaxing "playing" day. AND.....I'm still trying to contain my excitement of my day ahead tomorrow. ALSO, because of my latest "push" for a new machine, the OC quilt and wall-hanging have been folded up and will wait for quilting until I am comfortable with my new machine (WHICHEVER it may be.)
This is another quilt that might get ripped out and re-quilted. I do not like how it turned out. I adore the top, but the quilting just is "blah." I think PART of the reason is the batting is too thick and "poofy."

Anyway.....I think that's enough to read for now. You can count on me bloggin tomorrow evening about how the test-run went. *sigh*......tomorrow is so far away!

CC All done, but no label

The quilt is done, already packed away and wrapped to be gifted to my mother a weekend early for Mother's Day. The gas prices have finally hit home and have pushed us to alter our travelling plans. Since I am heading "home" this weekend, we have decided NOT to travel "home" again for Mother's Day.

Pictured here is the back, pieced by two different shades of pink flannels. I putzed around with the Fabric Printer Sheets since I haven't been able to hunt down any Bubble Jet Set. I'm frustrated! NOT because I can't find BJS, but I'm frustrated because the printer sheets just aren't working for me.....*sigh*.....I printed.....I waited 4 hours to "dry".....I ironed......I rinsed......*sigh*......and most of the ink washed away......
With the day I've had....I'm just throwing my hands up in the air and then forming a big "W" on my forehead for..."WHATEVER!" As you can see, the quilting was a simple geometric grid, with a little hand-quilted heart.







Not to "vent," but I just can't shake the ickyness of this day----and it's ONLY Monday! I'm a bit stressed this week due to my schedule. I had a 3 hour meeting today (12:15-3:30) for Curriculum Council, which I Co-Chair. Rather frustrating meeting today with many loose-ends hanging when the time chimed 3:30. *sigh* Because of the time of the meeting, I was not able to have my "prep" time to grade papers, write a quiz for tomorrow, etc. No biggy, IF the rest of the week wasn't so chaotic either! Tomorrow (Tuesday) is the only normal day for me this week. AND, it's the only day where I will actually have a "prep". Wednesday, we have a Teacher Inservice/Early Release day for students, so once again, no "prep." (My Prep time is 1:30 - 2:30). This wouldn't be so bad if I didn't have to get things ready for a substitute on Thursday AND Friday. (My state Math convention is this week.)
So........my "to-do" list tomorrow during my only prep this week:

• plan Thursday's schedules for Web Design, Math 8 and Algebra 8
  
• plan Friday's schedules for Web Design, Math 8 and Algebra 8
  
• Write HW Quiz for Algebra 8 (and maybe Math 8???)
  
• Create a Graph Handout for Math 8
  
• Plan for Monday's schedule (so that I'm not "winging" it when I come back next week!!!)
  
• Write last minute PO's to purchase calculators: deadline this Friday----oh yeah...which, by the way, we JUST were told today via email from our Superintendent
  
• prepare documents for IEP meeting after school
  

Other "to-do's" tomorrow

• Pack clothes for all three girls---to include outfits for Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday??? (We might come home Saturday
  
• Print directions to Math Convention site
  
• all the other "mother" things we do everyday.....ya know..
  
  
  
  • laundry (specially since I won't be home until later this weekend)
    
  • dishes (god BLESS the inventor of the Dishwasher!)
    
  • pick up the house (because I HATE coming home to a dirty house after being gone)
    
  
  

Okay, I guess after listing out everything, things aren't completely as bad as they seem. But......it's just been a rough day!

Come ON already !!!((*&@^(*&^

Please, please please, please, please, please..............NO MORE SNOW!!!!!!!!
This was the "lovely" picture we woke up to today.......I am so TIRED of snow!!




Okay, now the NEXT frustration to get off my chest...!!!!!!
I put my "sandwich" together last night and started to quilt. I followed the suggestion of Amanda, and I decided on a simple meander.
*sigh*
Well folks....read on.....an LEARN from my mistake......
An hour and half into quilting, I decided to take the quilt out of the machine to see how equally spaced the meanders were. The top was about half complete, and looking okay. UNTIL............. I looked at the back!!!
My
Heart
Dropped!!!!!!!

Terrible!!!!!!!! My tension must be SO FAR OFF! The back looked terrible-----I can't even describe what it looked it----just.....BAD! No "nice, even" stitches, but rather.....loops coming from the "top thread", and ......GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!
I sat for 5 minutes, wondering if there was ANY other option than pulling out the stitches......but..........*sigh*.

So, after a 10 minute break AWAY from the quilt (because I was so MAD!), I grapped the ripper.
The only good news about this situation-----it was rather EASY and QUICK to pull out most of the stitches because they were so loose! BUT STILL......I started "unsewing" at 7:00 pm, and pulled the last stitch at 12:13 am!! Non-stop!

So, here I sit, saturday morning, with the quilt sandwiched directly in front of me, WITHOUT a single stitch of quilting!!!!!!
AND, I have NO INTENTION of figuring out my tension problem right now. I don't have the patience.

So, Angela (soscrappy), I am going to follow your idea of a grid-line form of quilting. I really want to finish it this weekend!!! I don't know exactly if I'll be able to . We are supposed to go to the cabin today; in fact, we should already be on the road, but this weather is delaying us from making a solid decision.

*sigh*

TADA! The top is done

It's done! It's done! It's done!

For THAT, I'm happy.....

BUT.....

*sigh*.....NOW I'm hitting a road-block on how to quilt it. I seriously stood for 30 minutes...looking at the top quilt, moving around it to different view points, tried to picture different designs inside the blocks, around the blocks....should it be circular? or perhaps a simple meander? do I have the skill for a baptist fan?

AGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

So, if any of you have ANY ideas, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE leave me a suggestion in the comments???...???....????

Here's a close up of the center, which I also used as the image on the label..

OH! WHICH, by the way, was done by using a piece of white fabric, IRONED to freezer-paper, and then......GET THIS-----Sent THROUGH my printer!.......BRILLIANT!!!!!!! I can't believe I never thought of doing that!!! There's NO POINT to investing money in the fabric sheets!!! This was an idea shared by someone from the QuiltvilleChat group......what awesome ideas that come thru the group!

A little more progress....

No pictures tonight, and I was only to put another hour into the CC. I pieced a few more rows together---I think I only have three more.

But, seriously, I must have stood for TEN MINUTES and stared at the layout-----eyes skimming over the rows----picking out some "exciting" areas----contemplating what color(s) to use as a border----what a perfect backing would be.....

THAT was a fun 10 minutes!!!!

Oh, Oh, OH!!!! And then I brainstormed about what I should use for quilting------to really ATTEMPT the infamous Baptist Fan on it, or to stay with a simple meander????----perhaps more of a swirl??......

Anyway...it's getting late, but I want to stop by a few blogs before logging off.

I hope to have the entire top pieced tomorrow evening :0)

BUKU Progress!!!

Direct Translation: BUKU=SUPER LOTS!!

Last night, I DID go back to work as promised, but only for another half-hour. 8 hours of quilting all day deemed enough. I was getting tired. So at 6:00, I sat back, read LOTS *like....all!* of the Blogs in the Mystery Quilt Ring, while watching "Kong."

This morning, I was back downstairs by 7:30 am. I finished up the OHIO blocks of Part 6 around 10:00, only to get about 10 minutes into the second block - "HALF STARS" - when....ummmmmm......the directions confused me!!




Her picture (which I use dearly!!!) showed contradicting information! On the "pre-sewn" image, her bottom row of hour-glass blocks show her reds going verticle, BUT on her final sewn block picture, her reds are going horizontal. ........So...up to the Chatgroup I went.



In the meantime, I took this as an opportunity to complete a few of the OC#2 blocks. I was able to whip out 30 in no time. I am at a stand-still now until I cut some more light triangles.


20 minutes after my post, Linda came to my rescue with information about the correct placement!

Around noon (I think), I was able to complete all of CC#6. Wooo-hooo....this quilt MAY just get done lickity-split!






After a little lunch break, I came upstairs to print out the FINAL CLUE! Yeah. Whew------it was a doosey piecing the final block together. It took me all afternoon, actually!! But....done!

And then.....the moment I've been waiting for!!!

THE LAYOUT!!!!



It DEFINITELY looks scrappy! But, I love it!!! I snapped a picture super-quick to come up right away to upload it. However, DH was on the computer, so I went back downstairs to start piecing the strips together.

I completed (sorta) the bottom right three diagonals. Oh deary-me! Do you see my boo-boo in the picture?!?!?!?? (I know it's difficult to see because of the carpet color). I guess a mistake was going to happen sooner or later! JEESH!!!! I think it's quitting time, ya think! I'm not in the mood for the seam ripper right now!!!

Ahhh...lots of progress!

It's almost 3:30, and I'm taking a small break.

The first progress of the morning was to try out the OC#2 block. A few people from the chatgroup were writing in that difficulties were arising, so.....rather than cut out ALL the light strips, I wanted to be sure I could handle the block without difficulty. I dug into my 2" square stash and pulled a couple of squares, grabbed a handful of light triangles, and a couple of dark triangles, and ................
.....v'iola! Not a problem!!!!


So, I set those aside------I WANTED to continue, but....I made a goal that today I would tackle as much of the CC as possible. So...off I went, back to the CC. I already had all the pieces cut to finish up part 4. YIKES! It still looked daughnting with all those teeeny-tiny triangles. But....after only 2 hours, I was done. WOW! That went pretty smooth!

I already had CC#5 printed out, so......on I went. I was glad to see I was able to dig back into my Pink stash. It's unfortuate that we needed to use 2" strips instead of 1.5" strips though! I really went overboard with Part#1 and cut TONS of 1.5" strips. I guess I'll need to peek at Bonnie's site for a pattern that'll burn up those strips.
Anyway....It took me some time to cut up some 2" strips from both my pinks and browns. However, within an hour I was cutting them into triangle pieces using the Companion Ruler. What a GREAT TOOL! And, rather than cutting ALL 200 triangle sets out to then be sewed; I sewed as I cut. I would cut one strip set, which usually led to 6-11 pairs, which I then took right to my sewing machine to piece. And, as Bonnie always says, I had quite a nice "MILE OF CHAINS" behind my machine.

Ironing isn't my favorite, but I didn't mind seeing the pieces come together. In fact, I never used to iron and would OFTEN be diappointed in the blocks I was producing. Well, DUH AMY, the seams never came together right; when I finally would iron, I would often have 'buldges' because the piecing just wasn't accuate! I am now a full-fledged IRONER!!!

So, right around 3:00, I was done with CC#5. (See all those little dog-ear pieces that were cut from the blocks! I WILL eventually start tossing those into old pillowcases as was suggested on the chatgroup. In fact, I'm thinking of sewing together some smaller pillowcases using fabric from my stash and make my own pillow forms using my tiny scrap throw-aways! The smallest pieces I keep now are 1" squares/strips.)

I am now taking a small break; updating the blog, checking email, resting my back and shoulders, kickin' back with some ice-water and relaxing. However, the main reason I'm on the computer is I need to print out CC#6. YEAH! Bonnie eluded to the fact that #6 starts putting all the pieces together.

So, once again, I'm off and sewin. In a few more hours, I am plannin on showing the progress.
Later.

It's the WEEKEND!!! Bloglines?

I haven't sewed since Wednesday, nor will I bother tonight.
I'm beat, tired, wiped out, AND I need to catch up with reading some blogs and emails anyway.

First of all, I've been diligent tonight and graded three HW assignments, two quizzes, one test, and a class full of websites. Whew! That only took me three hours!!! BUT, I KNEW I needed to get them out of the way so that I can spend the rest of the weekend sewing without any "stresses" in the back of my mind. With that said, I STILL need to write a quiz and a test for Monday's Math 8 and Algebra 8 students, but that shouldn't take too long and I can take care of that tomorrow (or Sunday.)

Secondly, I was just visiting Amanda site and agreed with her! I don't know how people find the time to keep up with all these blogs!!! There are a few that I check regularly just because we've made some connections :0) In Amanda's comment section today there were two people who mentioned about "Bloglines."

BLOGLINES??? If ANYONE can help me out with what this is and how it works, I would be so grateful!!! I'm not tech-iliterate at all, but I just haven't heard about this.

Thirdly
I haven't run in weeks!!! Since I am ALONE all weekend, I am going to set another goal to hit the road sometime tomorrow to cover a few miles. I've lost my motivation; and sadly, the motivation usually doesn't return until Summer begins. I'm just so tired all the time. And if I'm not, I so "Quilt-obsessed" lately that running has taken the back-seat.

My To-Do list for the weekend is:
Continue sewing the CC clues. I'd like to gift this to my mother for Mother's Day (May 17?), so I need to keep clipping away at it. If I don't make any more progress on OC #2 this weekend, it won't bother me a lot. Since Bonnie is spacing the clues out around 2 weeks, I should have ample time to finish them before #3 comes.

Just like everyone else....

Is it REALLY going to be surprising when I say I worked on the OC #2 tonight!??!!?
My goodness---some of the ladies were so GOOFY with their posts while they were waiting (impatiently) for clue #2.

yeah, yeah, yeah....I'm sure I would have been the same way had I not needed to work today :0)

But...yeah....I set the CC aside for now to get a little start on #2. So far, as you can see from the picture, I've cut the 3.5 half-triangles, and started cutting the 2" half-triangles. I didn't realize how much RED scrap fabric I had!!! AND, this is the first project I've done where I've used the Easy Angle Ruler. How FUN!!! And EASY!! I'm not really going to rush this part; it DOES seem daunting though!! SO many pieces!!!

I have chosen to use the same "light" farbic for the OC quilt. I sure hope I have enough!!! I don't think it would look that great if I had to go "scrappy" now that all of my #1 and #2 "lights" are from the same fabric. We shall see.......

Here's the update on the CC too----I've started step #4 after completing step 3 the other night. Tonight, I DID finish cutting the 1.5" brown squares before starting in with the OC, though! I'm surprised I was so prioritized enough to do that!. This part of the CC ALSO seems daunting! Come on!!!!! 120 Little, Teeny, Tiny Triangles!!! YIKES!

And here we have all the CC steps 1-3 shown. I think I like the greens so far, but it's so hard to tell until it's all together!!!


DH is planning on taking the three girls to the "farm" (cabin up North that used to be an old farmhouse.) He's allowing me to just kick back, alone, and quilt away the weekend :0) *relaxing sigh*....I can't wait for some quiet time :0)

Not much sewing tonight

The late nights are catching up with me. I wasn't too bad in school today--I think I was my typical self. BUT, I started slowing down after dinner tonight.

At about 6:30 pm, I printed off CC#4 and started sewing the 1.5" strips for the "two-piece" pieces; cut all the 2 7/8" squares and only a few of the 1.5" squares. I started getting the girls ready for bed at 7:45, and by 8:10 all were nestled, teeth brushed, stories read----and I was DONE! Energy zapped! So, I went downstairs to turn everything off and hung up my rotary cutter for the evening.

I'm kickng back right now, feet up on the ottoman, rocking in the glider, watching some show on the Food Network Channel, and surfin.

A lot of great responses to the "Fabric Labels" post. One lady suggested ironing my fabric onto a freezer paper sheet and put through the printer! What genious!!!!!

On the topic of freezer paper, here's another link shared by a post:
http://purpleandpaisley.blogspot.com/2008/04/freezer-paper-piecing-tutorial.html
It's a UNIQUE way (at least to me) to utilize freezer paper WISELY and saves time! I'll have to try it with some of the quilt patterns for Grandma's 50 States quilt! Some of those blocks are near to impossible to piece!!!

Short and sweet tonight...
Perhaps I'll be up for more sewing tomorrow night!

Amazingly NOT tired today!

Whew---Once again I made a bad choice last night. Sure, I packed up the quilting area by 10:00, BUT...then, of course, I had to update the blog, check emails, look at Bonnie's site to be sure I agreed on the "Fun with Bricks" pattern, look at the next clue for CC.......

you get my drift......

by the time I finally hit they hay, it was midnight ONCE again! I thought I'd be the typical "evil-teacher-from-the-night-of-the-living-dead" today. However, a good cup of nicely sugared and Vanilla-creamed coffee this morning MUSt have done the trick, because I was raring to go all day, and, *looking at clock,* STILL am going at 10:25 pm!!! BUT, I'm going to wrap this up tonight--no new pics.

However, I DID complete CC #3 tonight---all 80 9-blocks are set. I will start tackling #4 tomorrow night.
I also started ironing a FEW more pieces from the stack, cut some 2" strips, and stuffed them into a bag from my Dad's quilt.

Goodnight-----HAVE to get sleep tonight.

The weekend is over...

Well folkies, after a short snooze with the girls, I spent some time browsing through Bonnie's site in search of a pattern for my Dad's retirement quilt that my mom has requested. I'm liking the "Fun with Bricks" pattern the best, with "Chunky Churndash" second in line.

I've been working on another of her patterns: "Oklahoma Crossroads" and I layed it out today to see how it was looking so far. I figured I could give that to my Dad, but....eh......there's something about it that doesn't fit him. But the "Fun with Bricks' layed out with the diagonal pattern seems to fit. I'm already thinking of a name...."The path of Retirement"....not sure yet.




The ironing is on hold! When I need some fabric, I'll iron it. Otherwise it's just going to sit until I feel in the mood again.
Poop! I wanted to take a picture of some fabric I came across today in the stash that might be a great border fabric for the CC I'm making.

But I did come across two other fabrics that wouldn't be my first choice when out shopping, but I kinda like em!
First of all, this strawberry pattern is screaming to be made into a "Strawberry Shortcake" quilt. Gonna keep my eye out for the perfect pattern...

Also, this rose pattern is SO PRETTY and ELEGANT! It doesn't fit in my house, but.....??? It'll be one of those fabrics that'll sit until that PERFECT MOMENT!







So anyway.....tonight, I finally got back to working on the CC. I started cutting a few more strips of Browns and Greens for part 3 around 6:00pm.
Candace fell asleep on her Dora couch, so Cassie and Catilyn joined me downstairs, plopped a movie in and relaxed after their baths. Meanwhile, I was sewing the strips together into the 3-grouping sets. At 8:00, I shushed them off to bed, read them a story, and then came back downstairs to sew some strips together.

Once I had the strips sewn and cut, I figured----DONE for the night. But..hmmm...it's only 8:50...it shouldn't take that long to sew them together, right??? So, off I went.
30 minutes later, I had only sewn 2 sets of 3-patches together. I wasn't about ready to put another 30 minutes in tonight to finish them up. SO, they will await until tomorrow to get the final pieces together for step three.

It was eerie downstairs tonight, alone. DH is gone for the weekend, fishing with buddies. So after I put the girls to bed and went back downstairs, I didn't turn the radio or TV on. I wanted to hear the girls if they needed me. It gave me time to hear my thoughts....and my first thoughts were..."What am I going to call this quilt? Am I just going to keep it Carolina Crossroads? Should I use the graphic Phyl shared with the group? What if my quilt is found in an antique shop 75 years from now---whoa...that would be weird! If that label is on there, it might be a Collector's item....wow...I wonder if anyone else has thought about that....?"

Then my thoughts moved to --- "Hmm...this would be a great gift to my mom for Mother's Day. Okay....that's about 4 weeks away...that should be enough time to finish this and quilt it. Ooo...but then will I have enough time to make Dad's quilt before his party the first weekend of June?...oh dear...."

I can't express through the right words what joining this group has done for me. I read the posts daily, respond personally to some, but learn so much! The links being shared are great!