Quilt Bee Night

Tonight the bee girls are coming over to play....YIPPIE!!  I sure need some time with my crazy bunch of girls. 

Why is it when you cook a huge pot of chili you make a horrible mess in the kitchen?   Or is it just me??? 

Either way it is dang good chili and it has been hard keeping Roger out of the pot today.  I'm making chili, Sue is bringing cornbread, Gina and Dave are bringing drinks and Suzanne is bringing dessert.  YUM, YUM!

I've been busy today cutting more 2 1/2 inch strips out of the donated fabric to our quild philanthropy project.  It would have taken me forever to get this done without the accuquilt.  See this picture.....now that is a bucket of strips!! 

All of these beautiful strips are just waiting for a guild member to work their magic and turn them into some beautiful quilts for habitat for humanity.

Not sure yet what I'll be working on tonight with the bee girls or if I'll just be laughing my pants off!  Either way it is good for the soul.

Holy Cow....I just realized that tomorrow is December 1st.  Where did this year go.  Time to start looking back and see what I've accomplished this year.  And what else I want to get done before the year is over.  I do have 31 days to get some more projects completed.

Happy Quilting,
Shelia

Enjoying My Accuquilt Cutting Machine

Today I decided to do some cutting for the guild with my Accuquilt.  A month or so ago a lady donated a lot of fabric to our guild to be used for Habitat For Humanity Quilts.  Susan and I cut out a lot of kits at bee one night and we were able to hand those out at our last meeting.  This time Sue asked me to cut fabric into 2 1/2 inch strips which the ladies could use to make some Habitat quilts.  So today I've been "stripping".  Below is a container that I am putting the stips into for the guild.  The first picture is where I was after about an hour of cutting (bear in mind that I am having to press some of this fabric to get the strips cut).

 The second picture here is after about 3 hours today of playing, pressing and cutting.  I don't know how many strips are in this bucket but it is really heavy.  I just kept mashing the layers down and adding more.  I think that some ladies and gentlemen from the guild are going to have fun piecing some quilts from these strips. 

There are some beautiful fabrics that she donated and I'm almost to the bottom of the box she donated.  Looking forward to getting the box out of here and getting back my space.  Whew....but the accuquilt made the job so easy.  Cutting 60 strips in one pass is awesome! 

Today being cyber Monday I did take advantage of the sale at Accuquilt and ordered a few more dies for my machine.......early Christmas present..hehe.

Happy Quilting,
Shelia

Yes It is Cold This Morning!

While on my way to work this morning I looked down at my outside temperature guage......and yes it reads 27 degrees.....burrrrrrr.

Knowing me you know that I am not a cold natured person, but something about this morning, maybe the 10-15 mph winds have me cold to the bone.  I don't think that I got warm today at all.  But the ER being busy sure kept my blood working.  No time to really think about being cold.

A couple of days ago Bonnie Hunter posted about using the extension table from her Janome 6600P for her featherweight.  I thought that it would be too big....but I was wrong.  Look at that pretty thing.  I put a phone book under the machine and wow.  My husband saw it and said it was great too.

Guess that I will be taking this with me to bee next time.  Thanks Bonnie Hunter for all of your great inspiration!

Happy Quilting,
Shelia

Sewing Day With Mom

I set aside today for working on a special project and to sew with mom.  Our sewing time together is so precious to me.  Mom sewed some of the blocks for my special project (I can let you in on it later) while I cut out more fabric for the quilt.  We got all of the partial blocks done and now all I have to do is complete the rows and add a border.  Yippie.  I hope to complete that project this weekend.

Mom brought some Christmas fabric today and wanted to cut out a Christmas quilt.  We cut out a quilt using this ornament fabric as the center of a signature block pattern, without the signatures...hehe and are using green Christmas theme fabric for the triangles.  We cut out this entire quilt in just a few minutes using the Accuquilt cutter.  Wow does that save me a lot of cutting time.  Love this machine.

Since we got the first quilt cut out so quickly mom decided to cut out another one using this red fabric in the center.  So she is working on two Christmas quilts.

 Here's mom piecing a couple of sample blocks for her quilts.

Below is a picture of the green Christmas prints that we cut out for her to use.  See in the front on the right stack......that is Elvis Christmas fabric that she brought. 

Mom has also been busy piecing string blocks on phone book pages to use in quilts.  She pieces them and brings them to me to square up.  Today I had a lightbulb moment.  Why not square them up with the Accuquilt?  I had not tried it before because of all of the layers in the string blocks.  But why not?

I looked at the blocks mom had pieced and decided I could use my 5-inch block die.  It will cut 8 blocks at a time and 10 fabrics deep.

The first time I laid one string block on each space on the die and cut out 8 perfectly square 5-inch blocks.  YIPPIE!!  That was exciting, but you know me I couldn't just do one layer.  I carefully looked over the blocks and estimated that I would count each block as 3 layers......so technically I could layer two or three of the string pieced blocks at a time and cut our 16-24 total 5-inch blocks with each turn of the machine!!  I chose to play it safe and layer only two blocks at a time.  Man I can tell you that this truly saves me a ton of time.  We cut out over 100 blocks that mom had pieced in just 15 minutes.  I can truly say that it would have taken me a long time to get all of those blocks squared up for her using my rotary cutter and a square ruler one block at a time.

See the beautiful string pieced blocks.  Mom is going to have some wonderful quilts out of these.

 And here are the remains......I convinced mom that we could throw these out.  We don't have to try to piece these into any more blocks.  She agreed that she thought we have gotten the money's worth out of these scraps.

Not to let you think that she is finished piecing scrap blocks, she went home with a trash bag full of scraps from us cutting out some Habitat quilt kits, her Christmas quilts and my special project quilt.  I'm sure I'll have many more strip blocks to square up soon.   But now I have a secret weapon..  Thank you Accuquilt!

Better go check on the hubby....he's watching the Florida/Florida State football game and is planning to watch the Clemson/Carolina game tonight.  Maybe time for some snacks.

Happy Quilting,
Shelia

Thanksgiving Memories

Happy Thanksgiving

Today we have so much to be thankful for.  Our home, family, friends, jobs and wonderful food to enjoy.  We have had a good day today and here are some of the many memories we shared today. 

 

Roger and Roger III set up the horseshoe stakes and played for a while.  They really had a great time.  We had taken up the horseshoe pits when we built the garage and I think it is past time for us to put them back out.  I think at Christmas we need a little gender competition.  I think the girls can take them!

 So good to see grandfather and grandson having so much fun!

I finally got to give little Anthony (Great grandson) his quilt.  It was so cute and Haley loved it.  Here is some pictures of Anthony with his quilt.

 I can't believe how fast he is growing. 

 Here below is Anthony with Great-Great Grandma Betty Adams.  They both look great.

 Roger decided it was his time to feed Anthony, so Great Grandpa Roger did the honors.  What a sweetie.

 Here is pictures of Haley receiving a package of goodies from Great-Great Grandmother Alberta Hudson (who lives in Florida).  She sent several outfits that Anthony can grow into and some that he better wear quick.  Especially as fast as they grow. 

 Grandson Roger III had a great time time.  He stayed until after 5 today and watched the football game with us and ate supper.  Priceless time together.

 My beautiful Great-Neice Taylor Black, how quickly she has grown into such a beautiful young lady.

My Great-Nephew Dale Black.  He had a blast today playing kickball out in the yard with Taylor, Roger III and Uncle Roger.

 Sweet Grand Daughter Haley and our little Anthony.

 Always a cut up.....little Dale.

 A blessed family enjoying a wonderful Thanksgiving Meal. 

Me and little Anthony.  Isn't it wonderful how a little one at a family gathering just keeps everyone smiling.

 Me, Anthony, Taylor and my Niece Kelly Perkins.

There's Great Grandpa with little Anthony again.  Such handsome fellas.



We all have so many blessings everyday.  Don't forget to tell those you love how much they mean to you each and everyday.  You never know what tomorrow will bring.  Sure miss my dad today!

I'm off to work tomorrow.  Mom and I plan to do some quilting on Saturday. 

Many Blessings,
Shelia

Veterans Day

 A day of thanks to all of those who have served our country.  Thank you for the freedom that we enjoy.  Your service is appreciated and not forgotten.  I have many service men and women in our family who have given of their time and talents to serve our country and protect our freedom.  THANK  YOU!

Today has been a very good day.  But my kitty thinks it is a little chilly.  I had been looking for my jacket......finally found it.....with a little hidden kitty trying to get warm.  Got to love her!

My goal today was to get little Anthony's quilt finished so I could show it at show and share for the guild meeting tonight.  So I have a lot to get done.  Below is the quilt being loaded into the longarm.

YIPPIE......it is finished with binding sewn on!  It has been a very long day but I am sooooooooo tickled.  I am wanting to give this to Anthony and his mom at Thanksgiving.

A closeup of the quilting. I quilted around the edge of each block, then outlined each of the letters.  I did the loops in the borders.  Fun to quilt. 

And of course the label on the back.  I decided to use my own handwriting for the label so that he would have that piece of history with his quilt.  Your handwriting is such a special thing to those who come after you.  I treasure recipes and cards written by my grandmothers and my mom.

 

Next I finished the binding on mom's second donation quilt to Habitat for Humanity.  This is the backing which I loved.

 The front of the quilt is the strip race quilt.  She just started sewing strips end to end.  Brought the final end back to the beginning, sewing that long seam, cut it and started again.  What a fun way to make a scrappy quilt.  She will be turning in these two quilts tonight at quild meeting.

Back to work tomorrow.  So hope you have some time to quilt some fun into your life.

 

Happy Quilting,

Shelia



Progress On Anthony's Baby Quilt

Today I've had a little bit of time to spend working on Anthony's baby quilt.  I want to get this done so I can give it to him at Thanksgiving.

Here are some of the rows going together.

 And here is the finished quilt top.  I really like how it turned out.  Now to get it quilted and bound.

Happy quilting,
Shelia

YUCK!

Yuck I have the nasty respiratory bug that every patient has been coughing on me for the past week!  Not a happy camper here.  Not only am I coughing my head off but I have to work in a mask!  YUCK!   Hope you don't get the same bug.

No quilting going on here right now.

Shelia

Anthony's Baby Quilt

This week I have been collecting the fabrics and working on my great grand son's quilt.  I'm having a blast picking fabrics for the letters.  I have to admit that when I started this I thought I would have no problem pulling fabric from my stash to do all of the letters......boy was I wrong!

I thought I had a lot of novelty fabric that I could surely find things for every letter of the alphabet.  I did not have apples, ice cream, zebra fabric, etc.,  I wound up going to several quilt shops and finally having to order some online to get things for each letter.

Here is the monkey's for M.

 Bee's for B

Gingerbread people for G.

 Lady bugs for L.

 And my friend Suzanne gave me Skelaton's for S.

This is such fun picking out fabrics for each one.

Can't wait to get this done.  My goal is to have the baby quilt done and ready to give to them at Thanksgiving.

Happy Quilting,
Shelia