Back to the machines

Hi everyone!  Long time no see!  I don't know what happened, but I didn't sew a stitch for about 10 days.  Just didn't feel like it. (Not exactly true--I actually hemmed and mended some clothes. The horror!) That ever happen to you?  Pretty sure everyone has a spell like that once in a while.  How do you get interested again?

Here's what got me going again:

Yep, I started making a bunch of Drunkard's Path blocks from my leftover hand-dyed fabrics.  I started putting together the Grandma's top and I finally found a border that I thought would go really well with it.  Here's a sneak peek of the border:

The border is 3 blocks wide, but until I put this up on the wall I forgot that I needed to cut some full squares.  I guess I'd better do that before I get too far along.  I need 76 of these babies, so it might be a bit before they're finished.  They're fun to make, though, and you can't say the border won't be colorful.

And what is that?

I'm not sure, but I *know* that can't be squares and strips for neutral 4-patches, because I am not making Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt. Nope. No.  Besides, I really hate making 4-patches, so you know I'm really not doing it, right?

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday.  One really fun thing that I got to do over the holiday was meet up with Preeti of Sew Preeti Quilts.

Preeti (left) and me at breakfast.

It was so fun!  We had breakfast together and it was as if we had known each other forever.  She brought some show and tell and her quilts were even prettier in person.  And look what she brought me:

A zipper bag of my very own, filled with fun fabric just right for a grandson quilt! Plus some great-smelling sandalwood soap! It was so generous and kind, and I love it.  I'll be keeping my colored pencils in it, and there's some extra room for a little pad of paper too, so I can take it along in the car.  Thank you so much, Preeti!

I also got a chance to meet up with Nancy of PugMom Quilts, and her lovely husband Mike.

Don't we look like fun people?

It was so great of them to take time from their family vacation to stop by and see us, and I hope we get to do it again soon.  This is the best part of blogging--getting to meet people who are as obsessed as I am with fabric and the fun things you can make out of it.  I got to see some of Nancys great quilts, too, along with some works in progress.  We had a great time together!

Finally, thanks to everyone who has participated in the Gratitude Sale so far.  At this point, there's been about $250 donated to the three charities, including some donations I made on behalf of others.  Yay!  I decided to keep it open until the end of the year, so there's still time to head over and take a look.  

Hope you all are having a great week.  Now that I'm getting my mojo back, I'm ready to sew up a storm.  But I am *not* making 4-patches.  Nope.  Really.

Sharing at Let's Bee Social, Oh Scrap! and soscrappy for RSC16!

Grandma has all her blocks

Hi everyone, and welcome to the politics-free part of the Internet.  It's nice here, isn't it?  So many nice people, so many pretty things to look at, and no name-calling.  Ahhh.

This week I managed to finish up the last 6 Grandma's blocks for one of my RSC16 projects!  Here are last month's:

Maroon and red, plus a deep gold.  I think this would be a great color scheme for an entire quilt, especially if you're a Harry Potter fan.  Here are the ones for October:

Sunny yellow and orange!  That gives a lot of life to any quilt.

Now that the blocks are done, you know what I had to do:

Yep, play with the block layout!  This was the most fun I had all week.  I think it's possible that this is the final layout, but I might play with it some more.  That one lighter green one bothers me a little bit, but I think I'll keep it. In the actual quilt it will blend right in, even if it looks like a hole in the quilt in pictures.

So now I need to figure out some border options.  Any ideas?  I'm thinking maybe piano keys, but there is also my recent "modern" favorite of just a small, clean border, maybe with a colorful strip in between two lighter layers.  I guess I'll have to play some more. Won't that be awful?

Doesn't this look peaceful?  Ahhh. . .

Hope everyone has a great weekend.  I had a lot of stress this week, so I'm hoping to relax a bit this weekend.  Next week the asphalt guys are coming to fix the driveway, which won't be stressful at all, I'm sure, and the kitchen guys are also coming back.  Piece of cake, right?

Sharing at Finished or Not Friday, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, and soscrappy for RSC16.

Life in flux

Hi everyone! How was your week? Life around here has been crazy.  Why did we decide that a good time to move was right at the beginning of a school year, at the end of summer, and during the hottest time of the year?  I guess we are desperate to get out of this condo.

So, this week the only thing I accomplished was to catch up on the Grandma's blocks for one of my Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects.  Here are the blocks in this month's colors:

Definitely grayed tones, which were not helped by the afternoon light.

When I counted my blocks, I discovered that I was 9 blocks behind, so of course I decided to make them all at once.  Why not?  There's nothing else going on, is there?  Here are the 9 that I accomplished this week:

Whoo-hoo, I'm all caught up!  At least for the next 4 days.  Some of those colors are really great, too.  The yellow and coral on the left are my favorites of this batch.

I cut all of these out at once and made them assembly-line style, and it still took me all week.  I am putting things in boxes and doing various other things in between as well.  For some reason, the hubs still wants to eat every day.  Even though I am packing up many of the pots and pans.  Can you imagine?  The nerve!

Just to congratulate myself, I laid many of the blocks out on a bed (sorry for the lumps) just to see what the quilt will look like:

I've been thinking all along that I wouldn't have sashing but would just stitch the blocks and let a secondary pattern come through.  Now I'm wavering.  What do you think?  Also. does anyone have any opinion on any missing colors?  I know we have 2 months to go, and one of those has to be a red, but I need 6 more blocks to finish it up.  Any suggestions?

Everybody have a great weekend.  It's going to be hotter than blazes here, and we'll be packing. When did we get all this stuff?  We also have to shop for appliances, so it looks to be an expensive weekend for us.  I think I may need to have a break with some ice cream or something midway through!

Sharing at Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Finished or Not Friday, and soscrappy for RSC16.

Strawberry rhubarb

Heat plus humidity--anybody else think this is a bad combination?  It's oppressive here!

This week I made up the pink and green Grandma's blocks for my Grandma's quilt.  Poor neglected Grandma.  I haven't made any blocks for a couple of months.  I'll need to catch up!  Here are the pinks and green for this month:

Gosh, they're so pretty! I don't remember my grandmother ever wearing this color combination, but it's one of my favorites.  I love pink and green together.  They always look happy.  One of my friends went to Sweet Briar College, and their colors are pink and green, and I'm always jealous!

And speaking of green. . .the other thing I was working on this week was the tiny squares quilt.  I like the bright green one:

And what can I possibly be doing over here?

I guess we'll find out!

I have to go now and make an offer to buy a house!  Who else is excited?  I'm finally, finally getting out of this condo! I'm so excited I forgot to publish this post on time!

Have a great weekend!

Sharing at soscrappy for RSC16.

Grandma's gone green

Wow, I am feeling a lot better now!  Yesterday I cleaned the kitchen, made some blond brownies, scrubbed the tub, and then I sewed for several hours!  I feel like a real person again, and since it's been raining for something like 15 out of the last 17 days, all of that seems like it was a grand idea.

Of course, the first things I stitched up were these:

Green Grandma's blocks!  I braved a break in the weather to take a picture among the other green and growing things, but I didn't dare take the rest of them outside.  I'm sure they would have blown away and ended up in the street somewhere, in a puddle. 

Because I need 30 blocks for the quilt, I made a lovely light purple one too:

The accent color for this month was supposed to be brown, but I just can't face brown right now, plus I always think green and purple look really good together. It looks kind of gray in the picture, but I promise that it's really lavender.

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!  I think I'm going to make some chocolate chip cookies and then go back to the machine.  There are so many things to sew!

Yep, it was wet outside!

Linking up with Angela at soscrappy for RSC16!