Spring and other wonderful things!

Seems spring has sprung in my front yard! I think it's a bit early, but we have had a fairly warm winter this year.

Today is going to be a fantastic day! Going over to the local Bernina dealer to buy a new machine. I'm not positive, but right now it's looking like I'm going to be getting the 430. My sister, Betsy, has the 440 which she LOVES and this model is that one minus the stitch regulator. I was going to paint the kitchen today, but this pretty much trumps painting!

I'll keep you posted!
Melanie

Progress!

I had such a great weekend sewing and quilting! I just didn't want it to end! Crazy work gets in the way, but these days I'm feeling blessed to have a job so you won't find me complaining!

So I wanted to show you my finished block for Gail Pan's BOM that I finished this weekend. Isn't it cute??

Plus, I managed to get started on some machine quilting that is LONG over due and here's a peak at that. The picture is purposely dark to emphasize the quilting....


I think I've had enough fun for a while and my taxes NEED to get done, so off I am to visit the tax man.

See me later!
Melanie

Weekend Finishes

Managed to get a few blocks done so far this weekend. Still working on a few that might also get done, but I MUST start doing some machine quilting today! Until last year, I always quilted a top before finishing another, but my flimsies just started to stack up last year. There must be at least 5 tops ready to go. Some of them even are layered and waiting by the machine! Yikes! I start today!

What you see here is triangle T10, Precious Gems with 34 pieces (regular and paper pieced), E7 Bread Basket with 37 pieces (regular and paper pieced)(this block was a redo), and E5 Rising Sun with 18 pieces (paper pieced and applique). 2 more blocks from row E are in the works as is triangle T12. T11 looks really hard, will have to think on that one a bit!

I'd also like to start a Mariner's Compass this week. Our quilt group is starting a new progressive in March and the project is one where you bring something to the group that you have started, but never finished. I really want to finish all the projects I've started so something different will have to happen. I love, love, love Mariner's Compasses and New York Beauties and have never made a quilt with either one, so I'm challenging myself to do one or both-with existing stash fabrics! I'm really excited about it! Can't wait to show you what happens!

Until then, I must go get a walk in before it starts raining again! Tomorrow I'll show you the finished block for February from Gail Pan's free BOM!

Happy Stitching!
Melanie

DJ Design Wall

Thought I would share a photo of my design wall that shows how I'm coming along. Seems to move so slow. Most of the 4th and 5th rows along with all of the top triangles have been added in 2009. I started this project in November of 2007 so that's when my DJ Year starts. I attempt to hit my goals by 11/1.

Think I'll go walk the dog and come back and hit the sewing room!

Good luck with YOUR stitching this weekend!

DJ Activity from last week

Last week I made E4, Buffalo Tree Topper (sorry, the picture is a little blurry) and T8, Needle's Point. The triangles are a challenge for sure, but seem to be somewhat easier as I go. I STILL have no idea how I will possibly figure out L1! This week I will do T10, Precious Gems and E5, Rising Sun at least. Hopefully I'll get more done than that. In my first year of doing the Dear Jane quilt I finished 75 blocks and 3 triangles. I'd like to finish my second year with 150 blocks and at least 25 triangles done. Ideally, I'd like to keep up the pace of at least one tri per week, that way I could get them ALL done this year, or close to it! This week I'm going to try to repair a few blocks that aren't quite right as well.

I plan on hand quilting this quilt in sections. So far I have 3 rows sewn together, but I won't start the quilting until I have the triangles done for that section.

2 More Finishes for February!!

Tonight I finished my 3rd project for the month and I haven't even shown you the second one yet! So here are both. You may recognize the fabrics from the little table topper from a previous post (the Super Bowl Sunday sale). I think it measures around 21". Then I also finished the new covers for my little black rocker.

I've started BOMs by Bunnyhill Design and one from Gail Pan Designs. I'll get their buttons up here sooner or later! This all is still new, and thus difficult for me. Seems it takes me so long to figure out the smallest things! I just need more time in the day!

Back to Dear Jane tomorrow!
G'night!

So here are some photos of the damage from my little doggy getting trapped in my sewing room. It's pretty incredible. I wonder how long she was in there, poor thing! In case you were wondering, that IS blood on the wall from trying to chew through it. She also dug a hole in the carpet as you can see!

We will be leaving the door shut so she can't get INTO the room from now on.

This weekend I finished the little table topper that we put together at my quilt group on Monday, made one cushion cover for my black rocker and made DJ block D4, and Triangle T9. Oh I also prepared a few BOMs I've just started! I'd show them to you now, but I still haven't mastered arranging photos on blogspot!

Have a wonderful week!

My Sweet Little Doggy

I love my little girl so much. We adopted her from the pound in June of 2002. We think she was around 8 or 9 months old at the time, so that would put her around 7 years old. Her name is Kali and she's been having so many troubles lately! One evening in November, just after lights-out she flew out of bed and was thrashing at the bedroom door. We turned on the lights to find her having a seizure. It was awful! Really awful! We rushed her to the emergency vet only to have her be perfectly fine by the time we got there. 2 days later we came home from work and she had ripped off one of her front toenails and there was blood everywhere and she was really hurting. Again, awful! We've since decided that the loss of the toenail was probably caused by another seizure that happened while we were away. I was giving her small amounts of over the counter pain medication which was really tough on her digestive tract and she had a couple days of bloody diarrhea, so we put her on a special diet of rice and meat until that cleared up. She was seizure free for a couple of weeks and then had a couple more in a 3 day period the weekend before Christmas. I started researching dog health on the internet and decided to make the switch to cooking her meals for her. So I bought some books on cooking a balanced diet for dogs, hit the health food store and stocked up on vitamins and all kinds of other healthy stuff. She eats grass a lot so I bought wheat berries and started growing wheat grass that she gets a little bit of with each meal. I'm really pleased to say that she has not had a single seizure since I started cooking for her just before Christmas. I think this Saturday it will be 8 weeks. I am pleased to say the least!! The best part is we haven't had to put her on mind-numbing medications.

Today it was different, but more drama just the same. She is a very jumpy dog. Lots of things scare her, so we give her access to the house while we are gone even though she chooses to spend most of her time outside. Something happened today that made her go downstairs into my sewing room. She may have been hiding, I don't know. At any rate, the door to my sewing room will close on its own unless it is propped open. Somehow she must have caused the door to come loose from it's stop and it closed behind her. When my DH got home tonight he looked and looked and couldn't find her. Finally he noticed the closed door to the sewing room, opened it and out dashed my little girl. The room did not fair very well. Most of the trim on one side of the door is gone and she scratched 2 holes in the carpeting all the way down to the carpet backing. Wow, it looks like she was totally freaked out! I feel so sorry for her! I'll show you a picture of the damage tomorrow....

My poor baby!

Blocks from last week

Here are 2 blocks I made last week. The first one is D5 Cathedral Window and as I've mentioned before it was pretty much a disaster! I will definitely be redoing at least a couple of the corners. It just came out so wonky! The next one is not perfect either, but I can live with it. It's J2, Picture Perfect.


I will probably be doing triangle D9 this week. It looks easy! I'm now done with row D, except for the redo of D5. I have the first 3 rows put together. Later this week, I will show you a picture of my DJ design wall.

I'm pretty busy getting ready for my sister and some of her family who are coming this weekend for a visit. Her hubby is turning 60 on Thursday so we will be doing some celebrating for sure and if I know this family we'll be giving him a bad time too! Also coming will be her daughter and SIL, the foreign exchange student (FES) she is hosting from the Philippines and her friend who is from China. So all together we will have 8 adults in my home for the weekend. It will be a bit tight, but we'll have plenty of fun. We have a good chance of rain so we may be finding indoor activities.






My sister, Priscilla, has also made a baby jane. She is bringing me a flimsy she's done and we are going to try to figure out how to do scallops on it. Anyone want to come help??? Last time (which was the first time) I did scallops, it took me several attempts to get it right.

More later!

It's a Wrap! Er, Wallhanging...

Whatever it is, it's done! My project for February done on the 8th! I think I'll tackle something else too! I have some pads on a rocker in my bedroom that need a new cover, so I think that's next. Here's a picture of the finished wall hanging and the next project too!

Now I need to get down to my sewing room and do E7 before the midnight deadline...pictures to follow!

Baby Jane T8

Finally finished triangle T8. Also finished block D5 and I'm so disappointed with it! I had to remake 2 of the outside paper pieced triangles and when I put everything together it was all wonky! Grrrrr. I've placed it on the design board and will see if I can live with it or not. I'll show you a picture later. I just don't want to look at it anymore right now.

Today I've been working on my taxes and think I have them done, but I usually get to this point and walk away from them for a while, then come back and go over everything to see if anything jumps out at me as being wrong. The state of California is so messed up right now, they aren't sending out refunds anyway, so no big rush!

My man will be gone a large portion of tomorrow, so I plan on having lots of time to sew, sew, sew! How great is that???

Help!!!

I purchased these little Dresden Plates from an ebay vendor a few months ago. I think I bought 6 of them. Aren't they cute? Well, I'm doing my baby Jane quilt from these very same prints and so have LOTS of them laying around that aren't going to be used for much. A few months ago one of the quilters magazines I've subscribed to ran an article on how to make these very same little blocks and I was so thrilled because I thought I could make some companions for the ones I bought and make something FABULOUS! Alas, I subscribe to way too many quilting magazines and after going through one after another and back again, I can't figure out which darn one it was in! So I'm calling out to you all....HELP! Does anyone know what magazine and which edition that article was in???

Thanks ever so much for your help! Tomorrow is Saturday and it's time for some serious stitchin'!

Drum Roll Please......

Announcing my WIP for February....

This is a quilt top that was made by my friendship group. I believe it was the last one we did. The way it worked was that we each made a container for "stuff" to be put in. I purchased all these materials and appliqued the vase onto the background. My lovely friends did the rest and a FABULOUS job they did! Thanks ladies!

Now, it's up to me to get this thing finished and hung! Who wants to give me some advice about how to quilt it? I will do it by machine for sure and was thinking about just using monofilament because of all the different colors. The backing fabric is black and white. I will use Aurifil 50 wt in the bobbin, either black or white or maybe some of each. Anyone have any better ideas?

My hope is to have this done by Sunday evening! Wish me luck!

Keep stitching folks!

How's about a little more DJ??

Hello All! Well I've been working just a bit on my baby Jane quilt this week. This is a photo of one of the blocks I made this weekend. It's called Battlefield (D10) and has one hundred thousand pieces. Oh no, that was a bit of an exaggeration, it really has only 42 pieces. It was machine pieced and foundation pieced. The colors seem a bit dull, but they say it's good to have some of those fabrics in such an intricate quilt. Tomorrow I'll show you how I've goofed up a very simple block, D5, Cathedral Window. It's truly amazing how easy it is to botch one of these little babies!

Tuesday's done

The day is over, except for maybe a little stitching and some bible study. Thought I'd share this block with you that I made last week. It's called Mouse in a Mirror and has 32 pieces. I did it in reverse from the original by accident, but I'm pleased with it. This pattern is very similar to the kite in the top left corner and now I'm excited to tackle that. It will be my first kite. That's all for now. Keep stitching!

The Monday After

Happy Monday!

Not sure if this is common in most places, but here on the Central California Coast, the local quilt/fabric stores have sales on Superbowl Sunday. I wasn't feeling much like buying more fabric, but I do have something special coming up, so bought just a bit of fabric along with some sewing and quilting supplies. They had everything in the store 25% off!

I belong to a friendship quilting group and on our invitation for the upcoming meeting, it says we are going to make a project at the meeting. It will be a table topper and that is all I know! No idea of the pattern so I'm hoping these fabrics will do. I just love them! In case you can't tell, the brown polka-dot is green on brown and goes perfectly! Can't wait to share that finished product with you!

Trying to get a lot done this week. Namely, taxes, cleaning my office, bringing some household clocks current (just for you, Beck) and not the least of which is doing DJ blocks D5, J2, E7 and Triangle T8. Think I can get it all done on top of keeping up with my Beth Moore bible study???
We'll see......

Keep on quilting!

DJ and Other Accomplishments

This first photo is of my completed project for January, my Whig Rose quilt. I've been working on it off and on for almost 2 1/2 years. It is all hand appliqued and hand quilted. It was a project I chose to do to help get me used to (ie not afraid of) hand applique. It worked! I actually don't mind doing hand applique at all now! I finished this project today, even though it was my January project. But finished is finished, by golly!

The lovely triangle you see here is Dear Jane triangle T7 called Norway's Fjord. Let me tell you, this thing gave me fits(as is evidenced by the diamond teetering at the top)! My sister, Betsy who you can see over at Quiltedobsession.blogspot.com, (can someone please tell me how to make that link?) came to my house for the weekend with her youngest daughter and her son. Betsy is also doing a Dear Jane quilt and actually is almost done with all the center blocks. We had a good time and managed to work on this triangle together. It was a struggle for both of us. I kept sneaking into the sewing room to try to get mine done before her, but she always caught on and ended up easily beating me to the punch. Her's looks fantastic!

I also finished a block for the week, which I'll share later. I've prepped a triangle and block for this coming week and hope to get more than one each done this week. That's it for me for tonight! Happy stitching!