Retreating at the Lake

I had a chance to get away to the lake house for a couple of days and focus on sewing and hooking (and working a bit, but that part isn't fun to talk about!).  I've been spending most of the time doing applique and managed to finish my third rose block. That makes five blocks out of twenty - and three out of four roses finished.



















I also finished two more of the applique blocks for my house quilt.  Four more and I will be able to piece the top and add the rest of the applique.

I have made progress on my Sauder Village rug over the past week or so, too.

I plan to finish the chair tonight and start on the lettering.  I'm heading home tomorrow so I want to make the best of every uninterrupted minute I have left!  Too bad I don't have any of these to munch on while I hook:

Amaretto macaroons from Missouri Baking Company on The Hill.  Delicious!  It's a shame they are back home in the freezer!

Basket Fun

I had a little time in the sewing room this weekend and was able to finish up another basket block and prep two more.
 

I am absolutely loving this project!  These baskets are so much fun to put together and I am very happy with how they are turning out.  I really want to have this one finished for the quilt show.  So far I've finished 3 blocks...only 17 more to go!  I'm planning to work on another while sitting through a 3 hour conference call today.  It sounds wrong, I know...but I am completely amazed at how much better I listen to calls if I stitch during them!  It prevents me from multi-tasking with other work and I actually pay attention. If the people on the other end of the line only knew!

I am also working on a new rug project - hopefully one I can knock out quickly before my next workshop in June. This is Linda Pietz's Sauder Village pattern. 

It's a very fun pattern and I am particularly enjoying doing the color planning as I go rather than thinking it through in advance.  It probably isn't the smartest approach, but hopefully it will all come together in the end!

Back to Reality

Paducah was wonderful (as always) and I actually managed to make it through the week without going too far overboard with purchases!  I picked up a few patterns (they are easy to find a home for in the sewing room), a little bit of fabric (we won't count the bolt of black batik - at only $5 per yard I would have been a fool to leavie it behind!) and one kit. I was trying to avoid kits but the colors in this quilt were absolutely gorgeous, and since I already had the pattern, how could I resist?  I am so tempted to start on it but I know I need to focus if I am going to get anything ready in time for the 2013 show.

Speaking of getting things ready for a show, I finished (okay, almost finished) my rug late Friday night, just in time to get it into the show on Saturday.  Hook-in St. Louis was outstanding!  Donna, Nina and Maria did a fabulous job! 

I still need to sew down the binding tape.  I made it about half way around before I left for the show - but it was close enough!  I will be glad to mark that one off of my list.  It's been around for a while!

My next rug project is the Sauder Village rug.  I started it last night.  It seems like it will go quickly, but I'm sure that won't be the case.  I am aiming to finish before my next workshop...that gives me just shy of two months to work on it.   I think I'm up for the challenge!

One More Week!

I am SO ready for vacation!  I always get really pumped about Paducah.  Something about being able to totally immerse myself in quilts and quilters for a full four days makes my heart happy. I can't wait!

Last week was a very busy work week and I really didn't have any time to work on anything.  I'm really getting down to the wire on my rug.  I registered it for the show so I have to get it finished (or at least hooked and steamed) before I leave for Paducah. I have made progress:

The border is very tedious.  Doing "hit or miss" is much more difficult than it looks! The colors are so close to one another and require more planning than I would have hoped.  I'm also thinking that I will need to hook the outer-most border.  There's a half-inch or slightly larger border drawn outside the piano keys that I was hoping to be able to ignore, but I think it is needed in order to make the border proportional.

I managed to finish my second Grandmother's Garden block over the weekend.

I had so much fun with the embroidery!  I started prepping the next block. I have to figure out how I want to do it.  There are four of them in the quilt. The original Nancy Page pattern has a flat "blobby" rose. I like the Eleanor Burns dimensional version looks much better, but since I am going with the non-dimensional approach I don't want the roses to look like they don't belong.  I may try to find a middle ground between the two - separate petals instead of blobs, but still flat.

Hopefully I can wrap up work at a reasonable time this afternoon and get back to my rose. I will get back to the rug this evening - hopefully I can get around the next corner and make decent progress up the next side.  I've got a lot of hooking to do between now and next Tuesday!

Only Two More Days!

I am so excited about April!  Only two days until baseball season opens and only three weeks until Paducah!  I have a horribly tough work schedule the next couple of weeks so it really helps to have something to look forward to.

I haven't been able to work on much of anything since Kinderhook.  I did manage to get quite a bit of work done while I was there - not nearly as much as I hoped or planned for, of course.  I completed 25 of the 45 stars for Stars & Sprigs:

I also put together 8 or so baskets for my Grandmother's Garden quilt.  I prepped the applique for my second block yesterday.  I love the colors I am working with and am really excited about this project.  Hopefully I will have a finished block to show by the end of the week  My goal is to have this one finished in time for next year's quilt show.

We had a great TAS meeting this weekend, working on embroidery stitches.  We were having so much fun that we ran out of time and really didn't get to spend the time we wanted to on some of the techniques!  We may have to have a "part two" at the next meeting.  Getting back to emboridery meant that I had a chance to finish my sheep from Jan Vaine's class:

I absolutely love him although I have no idea what I am going to do with him!  I wish I would have kept track of the number of colonial knots - it took two complete skeins of wool embroidery thread to fill in his little body (he's less than 3" tall)!  His legs, face and ear are ultrasuede.  He was so much fun to make!

Bits 'n' Pieces Quilt Show

I had the opportunity to visit the Bits 'n' Pieces Fanfare of Quilts this past weekend.  It was a very nice show.  They said the show featured more than 500 quilts, although it didn't really look any bigger than ours. They did have a large number of very small quilts and hung them in large groupings - far more efficient than pinning them on curtains.  I think we need to consider doing something like this for our show (although I'm sure no one will be too happy about needing to make sleeves for their wall hangings!).

I fell in love with this version of Dinah Jeffries' pattern - it made me want to dig out my blocks and get back to work on them.

I love the oval setting!  The pattern has cutwork blocks in between all of the flower blocks (which are cut square).  It is a bit daunting.  I think the ovals highlight the applique beautifully.

I also really liked this setting for The Raspberry Patch  BOM from a few years ago:

It's really amazing what a slight change in setting fabric can do!  The kits included a yellow fabric with black polka dots where the orange-red is used in this one. This is another project on my list for "one of these days".  I have all the BOM kits stashed away somewhere in the sewing room.

There were two versions of Sue Garmin's "Ladies of the Sea" in the show, both made by the same quilter.  Can you believe it?  I can't imagine completing one, much less two!

Amazing!  I was also excited to see a couple of quilts done from Kim McClean's patterns as well as a gorgeous William Morris-inspired applique quilt. 

I will have to follow the guild's website to see who won the Viewer's Choice - there were a lot of great quilts to choose from!

Belated Look at Lenexa

I didn't get a chance to post about my trip to Lenexa when I returned home, so this update is a bit dated.  The hook-in was very nice and drew a large crowd.

It was nearly impossible to shop in Kris Miller's booth.

Nola's booth was busy, too, but much easier to access.

I totally fell in love with one of Sally Kallin's patterns - the floral one in the back corner below.

In a weak moment (luckily the only one of the day), I ended up buying the pattern.  Here's a closer look - it is gorgeous!

There were lots of great rugs in the show, too.

After the hook-in, I headed over to one of my favorite quilt shops, Prairie Point Quilts.  The shop was hosting a special red and white exhibit.  Red and white fabrics and quilts were everywhere! 

From there I headed to Columbia, MO and visited Appletree Quilting.  The store has expanded and had a great selection of fabrics.  I exercised incredible self-control and managed to leave both quilt shops without buying a single thing.

Fast forwarding to this past weekend (after a very busy week attending a conference in Atlanta and getting almost no sewing or hooking done), I had a chance to spend quite a bit of time in the sewing room.  I didn't do a lot of sewing, really.  I spent most of the time preparing for an upcoming retreat.  I did manage to sew a little bag from a pattern and kit I picked up at Cross Patches a few weeks ago.

 I spent all day Saturday cutting fabric for the pieced blocks in my Stars & Sprigs quilt. It doesn't look like much in this picture, but since all of the prints are only used once, it took a LOT of time.

I also prepared some of the pieces for my Grandmother's Garden quilt.  I don't think I posted the first block when I finished it a few weeks back.  I plan to piece all of the other baskets while at retreat, so that will be left is the applique.

 I am SO ready for the retreat!  I am considering bringing along a third project - my strips from our guild exchange.  I always have such high expectations!  I will definitely have to stay away from the snack table and focus on sewing like a maniac.  Or perhaps I should stay on a constant sugar high?  Hmmm....