Freeze Frame - Quiltathon complete :)

Freeze Frame (69" x 86")

This morning, the final two hour clues (#11 & #12) were completed;  a load of nested borders!  But they didn't get the best of me :)

Angela's Rainbow Scrap Challenge this month is "teal."  I don't have any scrap teals, but I did burn through over a yard-n-a-half of teal yardage with all of these borders.

I would LOVE to load it on the frame right away;  I am absoLUTEly in love with this one!  I haven't sewed with fun, bright, jewel-toned fabrics in such a long time;  I loved every time I had to press the borders because I was able to look at the border blocks.  Really "happy" fabrics!

Anyway---yes, I would love to load it on the frame, but I still have Star Harbor loaded, and I don't think it will see much (any?) action today.  The tomatoes and chickens are screaming my name for the afternoon.  I'm in charge of making chicken stock---for the first time.

I hope your Saturday is amazing!  The weather here is GORGEOUS!!!!  Sunny and LOW LOW LOW humidity.

If you missed my 1000th post, consider taking a moment to read it?  I don't think you'll be too disappointed.

QAT - hours 9 & 10

Hour #9 (FINALLY!)

The girls had fun laying out the 34 blocks around the quilt center for hour #10.

Hour #10 completed

Hours 11 and 12 are the last two and involve borders.  After almost 11 straight hours of quilting....I don't think I have it in me to push a couple of more...with BORDERS!  Nu-uh :)

And look who has decided to take over the corner of the sewing room completely now :)  She designed  a quilt on paper and I have given her permission to use some of my stash (**jaw dropping!**)  Who does she think I am???  The stash-fairy??? 

:[

We'll see how long this spurt lasts :)

Hmmm.....what to do now?  I haven't turned Olympics on yet; I suppose that's always an option.

QAT: Hours 5, 6, 7, 8

Hour #5: center unit with 1st border

Hour #6:  Yeah, yeah, I know!  It doesn't look like much, BUT we ALL know how long borders can take (regardless of their sizes!)  (Although, this clue didn't quite take me a whole hour) :)

Moving into Hour #7, blocks for the outside, I started cutting up some of the fabric I had set aside.  ...

HMPF!  I don't like signs!!!!! and I REFUSE to take this as a sign!

:p

HOW MANY BLOCKS do we need for that outside anyway?!?!?!  34!  That's how many!  Was Judy distracted by Vince when she wrote this clue? 8-)  There is NO WAY to make 34 blocks (WITH CUTTING) in one hour!  

I have been cutting for WELL over an hour; close to 3(?) (with a few interruptions). Therefore....I went back to read Hour #7...

HA!  Only 10 required for this hour. LOL.  That makes more sense :)

So, Hours #7 (10 blocks) and #8 (12 blocks) have been cutting, cutting, cutting for me with no sewing of the 34 blocks.  By the end of her Hour #9 step, all 34 blocks are to be completed.  I'll be there soon :0)

Paul just left (4:00PM) for another side-job, taking Cassie with him, so I should have a couple more hours for my sewing.  Candace and Caitlyn have finished their chores, so they are relaxing with a movie.

Happy Friday.

Stay tuned!

Oh, have you checked out my 1000th Post?  I'm sure you won't regret it if you do :D

Quiltathon Friday [with updates]

With Judy's announcement that she was a new Grandmother the other day, I figured she was going to reschedule her August Quiltathon that was meant for this weekend.  Therefore, yesterday, once I hit the quilt room, I didn't check back in with her at all.

Well.....that lady!  She still has full intentions of hosting her quiltathon.    Her first post about the QAT is here, listing the fabric requirements: Judy's August Quiltathon; and her second post is here, listing the unit sizes for the blocks.   When I read about it last night, I was ALL SET to spend today quilting away with her QAT!

But first, I wanted to take a few minutes to tidy up the scrap collection pile, and cut some of these down to 2" at the same time :) {{See the copy of the directions on the left?  I'm running out of printer ink :\ }}

And, OF COURSE, as I was tidying......something ELSE jumped out at me!........

And my August 2012 QAT took a detour-----all the way back to 2009/2010!

These fabrics have been sitting since 6/28/10 with all the intensions of being made into Judy's Freeze Frame pattern that she offered out to us in 2009 as a Quilt for an Hour pattern.

 See!  6/28/10!  LOL;  All tidy together, all printed out....

SO, I was off!

Hour #1.  

I pulled the 3.5" squares from the scrap drawer.  Some of the 2.5" borders were from the 2.5" strip drawer, but four of them needed to be cut from the fabrics I set aside.

Hour #2

ALL of these 1.5" units were pulled from the 1.5" strip drawer!  No repeats in this quilt YET!  And I've barely cut into the fabrics I originally set aside for the quilt.  My goal---BRIGHT and FUN colors!

I'm using white as the light background;  and black for the dark background (different from my original plan.)  I WANTED to make a black quilt, and had full intentions of using black with Judy's August 2012 QAT......so I'm sticking with the black plan :)

Stay tuned for more Hourly steps.  Lunch is over.  Cassie chose Pizza Bagels----YUM!  Great choice Cass!

Happy Friday!

{{1:00 PM update}}

Hour #3

Hour #4

Quiltathon -Friday Jump start

Judy at Patchwork Times is hosting a Quiltathon this weekend, and since I had the day off of school for our Winter Break, naturally I wanted to get a jumpstart at the festivities.



I was able to get downstairs rather early (for this house) this morning, but didn't really have a definite "must-work-on" project in mind. So I did a little tidying, put away some thread spools, trimmed up some scraps from the recent Q4K's projects, a little this, a little that...and then I spied the stack of red/black/white Pineapple Blossom blocks that I worked on during the last Quiltathon as a swap. Since then, the swap has been completed and mail back to participants, so I played with some layouts, and came away with this as the layout (top left). Two more blocks were needed to finish up this layout and sewing up the bonus triangle pinwheels at the same time, that is where they were left for the remainder of the day.

My day was really a day of a-little-of-this/a-little-of-that. I pulled out the fabrics I had cut a few weeks back for Hannah's Rotation [[will that quilt ever have a different name??]] and started planning out how to bring her design to life. In the end, I grabbed a black sharpie and simply cut the design up into 30 12" blocks. Oooooo.....a lightbulb JUST went off when I typed the word cut. Ahhhhhh! I'm gonna grab the scissors tomorrow and actually CUT the 'blocks' out from the paper. I really don't see any other way to accomplish that design; there aren't any repetitions (except for the 180 rotation). Anyway, the bottom-left and small-bottom-inset-right show my work on that project.

Then I was inspired to pull out the fabrics from the other Math 8 quilt design (the runner up - Jade's Heart). I really liked the pattern, and it will be quite simple to make, so.....I'm making it. The first stage is to make 50 4-patches [[shown in the other three-small-inset pictures. ]]

I wasn't able to work non-stop since all three girls are home with me today, and that my parents arrived at 3:00 this afternoon. BUT, sitting with the Olympic Opening Ceremonies on the TV tonight really was a great opportunity for me to start putting some binding stitches onto Perkiomen Daydreams, which arrived unannounced from Carol Cornfield Quilter last week, but I forgave her due to the beautiful quilting that she did!!! :0) Sadly, my blogworld will need to stay in suspense until it is finished and hung on the wall. It will be the first quilt that I will (attempt) to enter into Quilt show(s). Bonnie Hunter's design is absolutely amazing!

Cass has basketball tomorrow morning at 9:00, so I don't anticipate being able to get to any sewing until noonish.
Happy Friday everyone!

4 day weekend--PERFECT timing for a quiltathon

Judy at Patchwork Times is organizing another Quiltathon for this weekend. Has it REALLY been a month already since the last one??? Holy cow.

So---no school today; no school Monday...what can all be accomplished?

(Oh, and G'ma and G'pa are visiting us for the weekend....)
Happy Friday

Sunday's Quiltathon status and Stash Report

I actually SET my alarm for this AM so I could get cracking bright-n-early at quilting. Funny though, I snoozed for about 45 minutes anyway!
But by 8:00, I was rockin-n-rollin!


Row 1:
8:00 am - Started cutting template pieces for February's BOM (**GASP**)! Yes, TEMPLATE pieces will be coming in February, ladies!
9:15 am - Trimmin' off some dogears
10:30 am - Sneak-peak at one of the completed February BOM.
10:35 am - Cutting HST's for the 2nd February BOM
Row 2:
10:53 am - Cutting complete -- time to sew some HST's
11:10 am - Pieces pressed (yup ladies! ALL those pieces are going into ONE 12" block---and there are a few more than just these)
12:00 pm - Pulling out Steppin' Out - dyed. No WONDER I set this project aside---I only have a GaZILLION HST's to square up....
12:30 pm -- still squarin' up!
Row 3:
12:40 pm - pieces squared
12:45 pm - Adjourning to the upstairs to watch the game and press
1:12 pm - Pressed and dogears removed
1:30 pm - family arrived home and Caitlyn helped me put labels on my Swap Blocks
Row 4:
2:39 pm - Carolina Christmas Step 2 pieces cut
4:18 pm - Carolina Christmas Step 3 pieces cut
6:09 pm - Back downstairs, more CC pieces getting cut
7:02 pm - The status of my sewing table after calling it a night. CC Step #2's first part was just chain-pieced and will await pressing for tomorrow evening.

LOVELY LOVELY weekend! Sadly, YES, I DO have school tomorrow---we never have Martin Luther King day off----hm! Wonder why!

Follow other Quiltathon-er's progress!

Stash Report: January 11-17
Used this week: 9.75 yards
Purchased this week: 4 yards
Used-to-date 2010: 21.375 yards
Purchased-to-date 2010: 13 yards
Net used: 8.375 yards

Quiltathon - Ahhhhh! SO READY!

TRYING not to feeling guilty.....
my entire family headed up north tonight to the farm for a weekend of fun and relaxation. However, **I** wanted a weekend of fun and relaxation HERE---quilting!

Over at PatchworkTimes, she's organized a Quiltathon for this weekend. JUST what I need to have some motivational productivity downstairs!!!

Tonight, I had some brief time downstairs to just check the status of the room; seeing what projects were out-n-front-n-center; of COURSE it's the Pineapple Blossom Blockswap, so I got a headstart into tomorrow's task by tackling another set of 12 blocks.
This is the current status of my sewing table when I turned out the light this evening; ONE final set cut and partially sewn.
Tired of sewing (gasp!), I decided to start pressing the bonus-triangles from the blocks.....Two full sets pressed....
one more set awaiting on the ironing board. OH!!!! That reminds me. I never informed you, my readers, that I was gifted a new WIDER ironing board for C'mas from my parents. LOVELY!!!


Status: TWO complete block sets (10 +1/charity in each set) to be sent off (left). ONE complete block set that I will keep (NOT quite up to par for a swap). When all is said and done tomorrow, THREE full sets will be sent off to the swap, a 4th will remain here, so I'll have a quilt using 42 (FORTY-TWO) blocks, set 6x7 once the swap is final. Red & Black aren't exactly my colors, but I eyed this GORGEOUS chinese-style fabric at Hancocks last weekend. They have a 50% sale coming up at the end of the month and HOPEFULLY the fabric will still be there (if it's meant to be). It would make a BEAUTIFUL border for this quilt.

Happy Friday. I hope you can find some quilting time for yourself this weekend!