FINALLY!!!!!!

Geesh, I have got to be the slowest quilter known to woman-kind. :o) But it's done, finished, fini! And it only took me five years. LOL I pictured the quilting on this quilt to be some gorgeous feathers and swirly vines and leaves. Well, those visions were only in my head and since I'm too cheap to pay a longarm quilter, that's where those visions stayed. So this quilt was done with plastic stencils, stitch in the ditch and a little free hand drawing (in the sashing).

As I was trying to find out when I started this project for the label, I saw in my webshots album that it was 4/7/05! Five years ago. Man, I REALLY had to think about the quilting on this one. LOL I talked about this top and then showed the quilting in a couple of other posts, here (scroll down) and here. I never added any fabric to make it bigger. I'm not sure if I'll use it on my bed or not. If I do, I need to buy something to cover the "drop" that this won't cover.

As my husband held it up for me to take a picture, I told him that it's not big enough. He said, "Well, why didn't you make it bigger?" I told him when I started it, it was a class and I just wanted to try using templates. Then, by the time I decided I wanted to make it bigger, I couldn't find any more fabric. Guess I'll have to make another quilt and make it a driveway quilt like Peggy does, a few examples here and here! :o)
I have til the end of the month for this UFO Challenge I'm in. I started quilting another quilt while in Lake Arrowhead. I wonder if I could get it done? I'm a pokey little puppy so who knows. Guess it's worth a try........

A snow day in CA?

We don't often have snow days in southern California but we almost missed work today because of one yesterday. Our little mini treat in Lake Arrowhead was awesome. Lots of laughing and sewing and shopping and chocolate!

This is a picture of the walkway to the Village. It's a bit of a walk but a nice one. However, when we go up to sew, we barely make it out of the condo! We did take a walk around the complex to see the lake and it did not disappoint us. It was gorgeous. About 70 degrees, blue skies and a nice breeze. That was Thursday.....


This is the same view but on Sunday!

The two girls I went with, Neena and Susan, both checked the weather and it said it was going to be sunny all weekend. Hmmmm, somebody didn't tell Mother Nature. hehe Lucky, the sun came out and the snow started to melt and we got down the hill. Darn it. lol

In between the sun and the snow, we got a lot of sewing done. I finished the last border on this quilt. Now to go through my stash and see if I can find something to use for the binding. I don't know why I don't have enough fabric but I don't.


I got four of these bags made but was short one zipper. The zipper goes in last so I was able to make the fourth bag and bring it home and will just have to pop in a zipper. My daughter had been asking me for a bag for a while and I thought the other two might want one too. I love the lavender make-up print fabric. It made a really cute bag.

This is my little 1 1/2' snowman, that looks more like a white owl. The snow was just screaming "make a snowman". :o)

I guess the almond nose and raisins from the trail mix weren't the right fit for this little guy. Or maybe I should've kept digging in the trail mix and used m&m's for a mouth. It doesn't matter I guess. I went to the edge of the balcony to take a picture and stepped on him and squished him dead. LOL

On the dark side

Sunday I tackled some more parts of my current project, my Star Studded quilt. You might getting tired of hearing about this one. It's taking me a long time to get it done. I hope I don't get tired of looking at it before it's finished since it's supposed to go on my bed! LOL

Yesterday I got the sashing done and two outer borders. I laid it on the dining room table to spray it with a mist of water to get the blue marker off and let it dry under the ceiling fan. It was late so I turned off the dining room light to go to bed and in the dark, the lamp from the living room created a great glow so you could see the quilting on the top. Of course, I put the breaks on and took a couple of pictures. Hopefully, you can see it all - the stitch in the ditch around all the blocks, the small vine in the sashing, the quilt motif in the blocks.

I sandwiched this on the table so I'm not sure why it's so rippled. Maybe I made it too taught or not tight enough. Anyway, here's a great picture of the block design.

The cornerstones are kind of puffy so I thought about doing an "X" in them and my sister suggested doing an echo 1/4" inside the seams. I think I'll do that instead. Sheesh, another part to quilt!!!! I have the seminole border to do, which I think I'll stitch in the ditch around the red paisley squares and have to order another roll of Quilting by the Roll for the outer green border. My sis gave me the one she had but it was just enough for one border. THEN I'll be finished!!!! Well, except for binding, label, washing............ How did the pioneer women EVER finish a quilt!??

A quilting dilemma...

I got back into my sewing room. Monday night I marked the rest of the six blocks on this quilt. Everything on this quilt seems to be taking me forever! I had to change the colored pencil I was using because I couldn't see the lead on light fabric and dark lead on dark fabric so I had to keep switching them up back and forth. Sheesh. I got the blocks quilted last night and they look decent. There was a lot of sewing back over my previous stitches to get to the next point and I missed a lot but this quilt is for me, for my bed. And my bedroom is dark. And there are usually clothes on my side so I'll just make sure the good blocks are on my husbands side. LOL

So now....the dilemma.....the sashing.....

....and this border. I have a few leaf stencils but OMG, the thought of transferring it on each sashing piece and then doing a bigger leaf design on the outer border just about throws me over the deep end. I guess I need to break this down in little sections so I don't cry.

I think this is why longarm quilters are worth their weight in gold!!! Wish me luck!

My new baby

Recession? What recession? lol I got a new sewing machine. Move over to the other five in my collection....there's a new girl in town! I got this BabyLock Espire.

I have a Pfaff 2044 and there was nothing wrong with it. I just took it in for service and walked out with this one. Eeegads, I've got no spine! LOL Actually, I used a machine like this at a retreat in Apple Valley over a year ago and really loved how it sewed. Of course, they try to sell you the machine you were working on but I wasn't willing to pay what they were asking at the time. I'm sure there's a newer model so that's probably why these were on sale. I financed it.....all by my little ol' self. So far, I'm loving it. It's got lots of bells and whistles and I don't know how to use them all but so far I'm loving the cutter, leg lift control and auto foot control. I have a class scheduled to learn the ins and outs later this week. Here's a peek at just some of the stitches.

They wanted to give a credit for a trade in but I didn't want to give up my Pfaff. I've heard horror stories about new machines and wasn't going to give up my old one. Plus, my daughters sew so I'd just assume hand it down to one of them. I told the saleswoman I would go to Goodwill and buy one if I had to trade it in. She said not to bother. She would just tell them trading in my machine would've been a deal-breaker. And she wouldn't be lyin'!

Last night I sandwiched one of my UFO's. This one is a little short on the sides to be a queen size but I'm going to use it on my bed anyway. Guess I'll have to buy a bedspread and then lay this over the top. That's what my sister said she did and I never even noticed. Works for me.

I love the stars and the seminole border, but with all of that going on, it was hard to figure out something that worked to make it bigger. I know the book had a bigger size quilt in it but I bought fabric to make the single size and couldn't find any more of the fabric even back then. I think this top is a couple of years old already. It was just waiting for perfect quilting. But I'm doing it so it'll be far from perfect!!! LOL
I have this stencil but it's just a little bit too small. I got it at a quilt show, Long Beach I think. Luckily it has the sticker on it so I went to the site, www.quiltingstencils.com and got an 11" one. I like the way it looks on a couple of the blocks.

It doesn't fight with the stars.

So over the next few nights, I'll try and stitch in the ditch around the sashing to anchor it. That way when the stencil comes in the mail, I'll be ready. Hmmm, I should make some sandwiches to practice these puppies until the big stencil comes in. Now there's an idea!! :o)

Celebrations, cards and quilt sandwiches!

I guess when I don't show up for a while, you might know I'm off living life and being a 'BusyLiz'. :o) Since my last post ten days ago, I've been to two birthday celebrations, made a some birthday cards and prepared some parts for quilt sandwiches. Sounds pretty good (like I did a lot) when I say it all in one sentence. lol
My aunt had a birthday party on Saturday. A BIG one! She is my "Tia Ramona". Sounds like a brand name of tortillas, huh? LOL She turned 90 years old and we hadn't seen her for a while. She looked great! Actually, her birthday is on Leap Year and I think she actually only turned 22.5 years old but in 'real birthday years' she turned 90. She is my dad's sister-in-law. My dad, her husband and all the siblings are all gone now but the surviving women in the family are going strong. I wish I was in that gene pool because I have a lot of quilts to finish!!! ;o)


That is her DIL Lisa with her. I wonder if they coordinated their outfits. :o) Oh, and that cake....it was delicious. It was called Hawaiian Sunset something or other. YUM!!!

Then.....on Sunday, my daughter called at around noon and asked if we wanted to go to dinner with them to celebrate her boyfriend Jason's birthday. We went to some restaurant called Koji's Sushi and Shabu Shabu in Orange (CA). Uhhhh, sushi? Bleck. But it was okay. They also had food you could cook. "You" being the key word. :o) There was a boiling pot, white rice and two yummy sauces. Shabu Shabu means "swish swish" and that's what you do with your meat to cook it. There are spices like garlic, onions you put in your water for seasoning and get a plate of cut up veggies like cabbage, carrots, green onions, mushrooms, etc. Everything is ready for that pot of boiling water.

I survived cooking my own meal and I didn't even have a hot flash! :o) We did find our skin was remarkably soft and subtle after the steam facial. LOL

Afterward, we went over to Kelley and Jason's apartment for dessert. Kelley made a spice cake with cream cheese frosting. It doesn't look like anything you'd see on "Ace of Cakes" but it was delicious!! Thatsa my girl!

Enough about food. Onto the cards. I whipped up this card for Jason because his birthday kind of snuck up on me. I want to be better about sending birthday cards this year....and making them myself. Since redoing my room, I am enjoying the process. It was a simple card and almost not photo worthy but I'll show you anyway. I cut the balloons out with my Cricut and used a few background stamps. I don't do too well with boy cards. I never really made very many manly cards. I guess I need to practice to get the boy mojo. LOL

Then I did this card, which might be my favorite right now. I can only show you a tiny bit though because it's for my sister Isabel and she reads my blog. Her birthday is at the end of March and I don't want her to see it yet. Don't you love the colors? I copied a card I saw online. It's delicious!

Then last night I cut out a couple of cupcake cards using my cricut and some paper I got at Joann's in one of those big paper stacks. I got this card idea online too. I love the examples online to give the rest of us 'crafty, non-creative' people something to work with! *sigh*

It took me a little while to figure out how to cut the pieces so they would be attached on the fold but my Design Studio software came in handy for that.
And just so you don't think I sold my fabric and hung up my quilting tools, I have been doing this too!

I have been piecing backs to quilts and cutting batting. Getting my sandwiches ready for quilting on about 12 UFO projects. There are three on this chair. I cut and pinned two others last night. I'll sew those together tonight.

And then I spent some time "looking" at this top. It's from a class I took several years ago. I got the border on it another couple of years ago. The book is called Star Studded Quilts. I love this one and might put it on my bed but I need a little more 'quilt' for the drop on the sides of the bed. The quilt ends at the green border. I just laid the yellow fabric under it to see if I could get away with adding more fabric and it looking alright. I don't have any more green mottled fabric but have about a half yard of the green in the blocks. That might do for a small strip to break up the yellow or for binding. This one will require more playing..........which is why I put it away the last time!!!

And that's what I've been doing! What have you been doing?