July (& April) UFO Challenge Finish!!!

Miracle of Miracles I finished the July UFO Challenge!  This was a top I made way back when I first started quilting and I have no idea what I was thinking when I picked the fabric.  I'm guessing it was a fat quarter bundle of a single fabric in all it's color ways....and like a doofus I put them all in the same quilt top.  Ick.  The challenge for this top was to put on borders and call it a top.  Well, I just didn't like it At.All.  So......I cut it in half, which minimized the matchy matchy and then bordered both halves and VOILA!  I've got two nice donation quilts!  The pattern is from Kwik Krazy.

Earlier this year the number 11 was chosen for April's UFO challenge...it was to quilt the finished Phat Kats quilt top.  And in keeping with the Cosmic Plan that I only seem to be able to complete something every other month, my HQ16 got sick and I couldn't finish the quilting.  She's been to her spa treatment (thank you Spring Water Designs!) and has been working great so I finished up and now (3 months too late to count...) it is a completed quilt!  Phat Kats is from an Erin Underwood pattern:

Quilt Retreat - Project #3

This one is beginning to look like one of those Lifetime Projects - I took a class with Bonnie Hunter a million years ago and I'm still working on it.  While I got a lot of piecing done at retreat, unfortunately there's a lot of piecing left to do - a gazillion little 9 patches.  At one point I thought I could just take some of the finished blocks and knock out tablerunners for gifts but it's honestly just too scrappy for that (I can NOT believe I'm saying that but it's TRUE!).  At this point I plan on getting enough blocks completed to make a lap size and count it done.

Tumalo Trail in progress:

During the school year these classrooms have desks with arms on them but the university pulls out long tables and sets them up for us.  Sometimes the table space leaves a little to be desired, but I was just happy to have a table to myself!

Quilt Retreat - Outhouses

On Day 2 & 3 I worked on another UFO - I had started the pattern Outhouses by Carolyn Friedlander but, as with all things quilty, it got set aside in a nice, safe Ziploc bag.  The pattern wasn't difficult at all, but one did have to pay attention while piecing (more on THAT concept below...).

I used her fabric lines Architextures, Doe and Carkai. 

The fun part - picking out the paper....

So now let's get these bad boys up on the old design wall and see what's what.  These blocks were sitting up there for a few days...I kept looking at them...moving them around a little....fine and dandy.  Then I pull the picture up on my phone to show someone and I finally notice - one of these is not like the others:

Well that was a lot of fun.

But in the end there is a top - borders even!

Quilt Retreat!!!

I'm on a quilt retreat this weekend at Mount St. Mary's University in Emmitsburg, MD.  It is with the Mid-Appalachian Quilters..or...MAQ.  I come every year - can't remember for how long, but LONG.  I just love it.  I think someone said there are about 300 quilters here this year.  There are classes you can sign up for every day (Friday, Saturday, Sunday) or, like me, you can sign up for "Studio."  This is simply a room full of quilters trying to finish stuff and the "teacher" for the past few years is Fran Kordek - she's there to help figure things out if we get stuck and when necessary, she gets out her seam ripper and helps with that too!

This year I brought some serious UFOs - ziplock bags with some blocks, some cut fabric, maybe a pattern, things that have been sitting in a closet for literally years.  Took a class 8 years ago and didn't finish it?  Well, there's a ziplock bag for that!  This morning I chose the UFO that was the quickest to finish - a beginner Baltimore Album block from a class I took with Mimi Dietrich many many many years ago.  The block itself was done; it only needed to be put on point and add a couple of borders...why have I waited so long???

We stay in the dorms and eat in the cafeteria.  Let me just say that both are infinitely superior to what I had "back in the day."  I got here early enough this morning to get breakfast before the day began:

All things considered, the rooms aren't bad.  They are suites, so I have my own bedroom, and there is a living room (with frig for my beer - not like in the old days in college!):

And of course....my favorite:

Life.Is.Good.

Mending and Alterations Oh My!

Seriously - I will sew miniscule squares and rectangles together until they make up a king size top...happy happy happy.  However, who among us wants to mend things?  I mean, I even pay the tailor at my dry cleaners to hem pants!  Do.Not.Want.To.Mend. So naturally when my daughter asked me to lengthen the drapes I made for the first granddaughter's nursery because they're too short for the baby's nursery windows in the new house, I said "Why I'd love to, sweet pea!"

Somewhere there is a picture of the first nursery in all it's glory but I can't find it.  I made the drapes, pillow, crib quilt and dust ruffle.  I did manage to find a picture of the pillow and one of my husband holding up a finished curtain panel in our house.

Luckily I had saved all the fabric.  I was trying to make this as simple as possible so honestly, I just wanted to pick one of them and add on one more border piece at the bottom.  Dear Daughter wanted none of that.  So I sliced off the bottom piece and since I had enough of the same fabric to make two longer panels, I sewed them on, hemmed them and voila!  I'm done.  They're off with UPS on their way to NC.

What we don't do for our children.....

Happy 4th !!!

Happy 4th of July!  I just got a picture of all my girls ready for their neighborhood bike parade...I miss them...