More Fun

Have y'all seen this neat website yet? It is Catalog Card Generator and looks to be a useful organizational tool! Or--maybe just a fun toy! I can see it used as a cute little addition to my quilt journal where I keep odd facts and pictures about quilts I have made. Or maybe a recipe keeper. Or a way to keep track of quilt books I've bought--so I won't keep buying the same books twice!!!

Today Bernie went to the sewing machine "spa" for his yearly check-up and a BSR update. He'll be away for a few days--sniff, sniff. In his stead will be this little beauty, Whitey. Whitey is a lightweight machine I bought several years ago to take to classes and workshops. He was quite inexpensive and does a decent job. He has needle down, several decorative stitches, and a few other handy tricks up his sleeve. While I was on a roll to chain-piece more HSTs, I set him up in the living room on an old rickety TV tray (remember those???) and stitched away in front of the TV. To date I have 146 HSTs made towards the Broken Dishes baby quilt. They sewed up so-o-o fast! Of course, the time consuming part is trimming them all out to 3 1/2" square!!!!

Several of these HSTs, though, will probably be culled out and set aside for future projects. The colors are not quite right. It's so hard to tell this until they are plastered to the design wall.

More glorious weather in KC. It's in the mid-70s with beautiful sunshine today. Can the real spring be very far behind?

Playing With HSTs

Several quilts are at a standstill due to the need for either backing fabric or border fabric!!! So, itching to sew this weekend, I went digging through my vast collection of 5" charm squares and started chain-piecing half square triangles with the goal of a baby quilt for DH's niece and her hubby, who have been waiting a lo-o-ong time to adopt a baby. They are slowly inching up the list and we are so hopeful that by June they will have that precious bundle! I pulled from the the Moda's Oh Baby! packet. The colors are so yummy, but there won't be enough for a whole quilt so I will mix in several others. I have become so addicted to the 5" charm squares that I almost hate to cut into them! They are so darn cute all lined up in a container! Add to that the year-long swap my mini-group did last year with 5" squares--I have a few!!! It is so relaxing to sit at the machine and chain-piece. I could do it for hours!!! I am thinking the Broken Dishes pattern will be cute. The bottom photo is the Jo's Scrappy Stars I have been working on for ages--and you are probably sick of seeing it!!! I decided to stick with the scrappy look and just use more of Jo's fabric for the setting squares. I did have to fill in with 3 or 4 fabrics that are not Jo's but I am certain my DS won't know the difference LOL! This week I will take it with me to a couple of quilt shops and search for the perfect border fabs and some extra-wide backing fabs. Anyone know a great online source for the extra-wides?

WIP Wednesday and a Bad, Bad Me

Thirty-six scrappy stars are now on the design wall. These were started as BOMs from my local quilt shop about a year ago and are from the Jo Morton pattern, Scrappy Stars. I am now auditioning setting squares. Today I played with a few print fabric squares. I may look through books for a simple pieced block to try out next. I have LOTS of Jo Morton fabric!!! This

quilt will be for DS2. His townhome has lots of browns and golds so I think he'll like it. On the Quilts-For-Sons front, the strippy snowball/Hawaii-flavored quilt for DS1 finally has some border fabric purchased!!!
Photos on another day.

The bad news is, while I was shopping for the aforementioned border fabric, these three books followed me to the register! I was so sure that I had Folk-Art Quilts but when I wanted to find it the other day, of course I couldn't!!!! So I may or may not have two copies---time will tell. I sure hope the rest of you quilt bloggers do that same thing--buy the same book twice. Humor me and say you do! The other two books just had some neat, neat things in them and as I approach the done-done stage of several quilts, I am chomping at the bit to find some new projects.
Kansas City is still experiencing some very gorgeous weather. 50s and 60s with lots of sunshine. Hope your part of the world is nice too.

Doesn't this look like fun?? A blog hop! Gotta love it. http://www.lazygirldesigns.com/blog

We NEED more ways to while away time on the computer, right?

KC is being teased with springlike weather today. Sunshine, yay! No wind. Yay! Temperatures in the 50s. Yay, yay, yay. It's amazing what a little climate change can do for one's mood. Almost too pretty to stay in and quilt. Almost....

Rocky asks, "Can't I puh-lease go out there??"

Border Patrol

That term, Border Patrol, takes on a whole new meaning when applied to quilting, huh? Past few days have found me adding borders to Chocolates & Cherries and Birds of a Feather. I am thinking about handquilting C&C with fans and brown perle cotten thread. I am not much of a handquilter (or machinequilter, for that matter LOL) but I have really been wanting to do the bigstitch utility quilting lately and this quilt seems a likely candidate. BOAF will go out to my longarmer. They both look, well, so FLIMSY laying across the bed!!! Quilting will bring them to life.

The last photo is of my vintage sewing birds. Finn asked for bloggers to share some of their olden sewing tools so I am obliging! These were purchased at antique malls many years ago when they were still affordable. Last time I saw any around they were going for over $40. Since I am trying to start the downsizing process, I try to resist such wonderful objects! In the front on the right hand side is a wee sewing machine oil can which belonged to my brother-in-law's grandmother. My sister is not a sewer or crafter so I lucked out!

March is upon us. In like a lion here in KC!!! A couple of family crises have limited my time for blogging but I am hoping as March moves on, that will improve.