Great Friday And Lots Of Fun!

Yippie it is Friday.   Today I've spent almost all day in my studio.  A quick run to the grocery store to purchase needed items for Taco Salads for the bee girls tonight.  Suzanne is bringing homemade brownies....yum...yum.  Just to level out the taco salads of course.

I've been continuing to put my studio back together.  Today I gathered all of my different types of fusible web and put them into one basket.  Now I can go to one spot and find the type of fusible I need.

 Mom loves doing the string piecing and has been using tons of phone book pages but Suzanne bought this deli paper at Costco (it came as 3 boxes to the set and 500 sheets per box) so she gave mom and I a box to use.  It is great for string piecing especially for larger blocks.  The box says it is 12 x 10 3/4, but I measured 11 1/2 x 11 1/2 when I pulled it out.  Mom uses her strings and covers the paper then we can cut it down to whatever size we want.  Works great.

 This is the paper as it comes out of the box.

Here is the back view of a block mom has pieced.

 And now the front.  Cute how she has pulled Halloween fabrics out of the scrap bags to piece these blocks.

 Today and at bee tonight we have been cutting fabric on the accuquilt and putting the scraps into the bin for mom.  We've only done a little cutting and look how many more scraps she is taking one tonight.

 We sewed the binding on mom's braid quilt tonight so she could whip it down at home and I used the left over black binding to bind some more scraps I had left from my yellow and brown braid quilt.  I made a table mat and two coasters.  Cute.

 While we rested today in between projects mom decided that she wanted to make Bonnie Hunter's Bricks in the Barnyard quilt.  So she is going through our precut 2 1/2 x 4 1/2 rectangle (bricks) and 2 1/2 x 2 1/2 inch blocks to pick out the pieces needed for the quilt.  She went home tonight with all of the pieces cut.  All I had to cut for her was the half-square triangles which only took me a few minutes to do.  She will probably have that pieced by next Friday knowing her...hehe.

 Suzanne has been cutting fabric for our Bonnie Hunter class coming up.  She decided to take a rest and look through some magazines for inspiration.

Sue is hand quilting on a quilt as you go project.

 I got a couple more quilt hung today.  My scuba diving quilt and my Uncle Sam quilt.

And look......we're watching Bonnie Hunter's quiltcam on the TV!!  Found out I can get youtube on the TV.  Amazing technology.......now to just figure out all the buttons on the remote!!

Hope you had a great day quilting.....more fun on my list for tomorrow.

 

Happy quilting,

Shelia

I Am Officially Caught Up.....I Think... With The Blog.

Many of you have asked about my blog and when I was going to post again.  Today I think I have filled in as many of the holes as I can.   So there are lots of posts back dated to when it happened.  The past few months have been really busy with work, building the studio and family.  I love blogging and hope now to be able to keep up with it again.  You know once you get behind on something it is hard to get yourself jump started again.  This blog is my life, my family and my quilting.  Each year I have my blog printed into a book as a journal of that year.  Roger and I truly enjoy going back through the year and seeing how much we really accomplished and everything that happened.  It's amazing how much we actually do each year (we all do, it's just keeping a record of it that is hard).

Today we have been putting up the remainder of the hanging pins for my studio.  This allows me to hang quilts of varying sizes easier than with just rods.  I like the idea and Roger has made the hanging racks cover the entire studio. 

 The pins are clothes pins which he has attached to a board and painted.  He put pins every 4 inches all the way around the studio........and honey that is a lot of clothes pins.  I think I bought everyone that the dollar store had and mom brought some she had.  Roger is so patient with projects like this and I always love the outcome. 

 They look great and hold quilts of any size.

Now to get more quilts up.

The other project we are working on today is the TV for the room.  There are just too dang many choices in TV's and sizes these days.  But we chose one and Roger is working on running the cable lines and mounting a shelf for it to go on.

The last project on our list for the studio is my thread rack.  I've been drawing and figuring and trying to decide how big to make the rack.  I have a ton of thread already and want to make sure it is big enough to cover what I have and some extra space.  I don't think I am going to put the longarm thread on it due to the large spools and the additional amount of thread.  I have the longarm thread in a drawer under the machine.....and think it is better to stay there.  More decisions!  Hopefully by this weekend I will be able to post the studio tour.  FUN....FUN....FUN!

Happy Quilting,
Shelia

First Bee Night In New Studio!!

I can't believe that we are almost done with the remodel.  I'm getting things moved back in and deciding just where to put everything.  Decisions, Decisions, Decisions.

Tonight was the first bee in the new studio.  Me, Mom, Susan, Christine and Sue were here.  (Suzanne and Gina are both out of state).  We had a great time.

Sue is working on a Eleanor Burns pattern.  You can see my design wall in the background.  Susan and Christine both brought hand work to do so they called dibbs on the couch.

The door to the right is the one which leads out to our picnic area.

 Mom is at my featherweight piecing on a Christmas quilt.  The salmon colored chair behind her I picked up at a estate auction for $19......a score!  To the right in this picture is my Accuquilt cutting station, still in set up process.

Christine is making a different outside for her purse.  It turned out gorgeous.  She just held the purse up and drew a pattern on graph paper......some people are just smartie britches!

Another awesome evening with my bee girls!!
I will post a full studio tour once I get everything in it's place.  Just in hog heaven right now and working hard to get everything back in place.
Happy Quilting,
Shelia

Folding, Folding And More Folding

Mom and I have spent over 9 hours today bringing fabric back into the studio and refolding to fit on the shelves.  Wow that is a lot of fabric.  Mom is such a trooper and has enjoyed helping as much as she could with the remodel.  She is looking forward to spending a lot of time here quilting also.

The fabric looks great arranged by colors on the shelves.  On the far right hand side you can see the drawers for all of the pre cut pieces.  I use the Bonnie Hunter Scraper User's System so there are squares, strips and bricks already cut and ready to use.  Such fun playing with fabric.

We sorted as we went and made a big pile of pieces that were too small to refold and put onto the shelves.  I'll iron and cut these up on the Accuquilt cutter along and along and add to the precut drawers of fabric.  These are collapsible laundry baskets that I picked up at the dollar store.  They will work fine for the temporary storage of all of these pieces.

Happy Quilting,
Shelia

Fabric Storage Shelves

When we started on the old part of the studio I moved all of my fabric stash into the dinning room on the table, chairs, fireplace, etc.  As you can see there is fabric everywhere.

 We all know that we have fabric stash, but goodness is that a lot of fabric to move around.

Roger has been working on the fabric shelving for my stash and now it is going in.  We had to build shelves as we could not find ones that matched my old shelving.  I had Roger make two of the shelves half shelves so it would not obscure my electrical outlets in the new studio section.  So I now have 4 full shelving units and 2 half shelving units.  I think it should be good.

Now to start moving all that fabric back into the studio.

Happy Quilting,
Shelia

Carpet Going Down

The walls are up, painted and trim done!  Now it is time for carpet to go down in the new addition and prepare the floor in the old studio for the new carpet.  This new studio addition has been a tedious project for my honey but he is doing an awesome job and I am such a blessed woman.

 The carpet I chose is "Cookies & Cream"....hehe. 

 As we complete sections we have moved some things from the old studio space to the new as we work forward.

 Yes it is July and it is hot, but it is so fun to see the carpet going down.

 Carpet down in new section and longarm etc moved into new section so we can refloor and carpet the old section.

With all of this going on there sure is not much quilting getting done......but soon and very soon there will be the hum of machines again.

 

Happy quilting,

Shelia