Red and Aqua

So I'm apparently one of the last people in the world to realize that red and aqua is such a nice color combination. I was picking out fabrics for our guild's block of the month for this year and decided I'd seen a great color combination on Happy Zombie and thought maybe I'd try something like that. By the way if you don't read Happy Zombie's blog you are missing out. She has the cutest quilts and a great sense of humor. Love her!

So anyway back to my story...

I decided I wanted to do the BOM in red and aqua. I went to the stash and started picking out fabrics. I have almost no aqua. How can that be possible? Aqua is such a pretty color. Lots of blues but very few of them really aqua. It is tragic. I think this means I am going to have to go fabric shopping.

After I decided to use red and aqua I started seeing it everywhere! Check out TLC's new summer ad campaign. Red and Aqua. It seems every other commercial I see has red and aqua.

A quick search on google comes up with this lovely piece of eye candy on All Things Lovely


It's everywhere! How did I miss it before?

Little update on my quilting...
This week I got all the rest of the blocks cut and pieced for my pansy quilt. I'm ready to start sewing the blocks together. I don't have a picture right now because the quilt is too big for my design wall. I've got the blocks laying out on the bed in the guest room. To get a good picture of that I'd have to climb on the dresser and stand on tip toe then reach as high as I can with the camera and hope I'm pointing it at the bed. Not worth it. I'll post pictures when I get the top together though.

Check out my Wordle!

I saw this on Creations by Melinda. It is a really cool site. To try it out for yourself check out Wordle

Getting organized ..again

I revised my To Do list for this year. I had a schedule for this year. I was a little too optimistic about how much work I'd get done. Ok a lot too optimistic. So I threw out the schedule. I now just have a list. I've trimmed some stuff off of it, but since it is already May I had to do something.

I printed out my cutting instructions for the setting blocks for my Pansy quilt.


I've decided to do the Underground Railroad borders as a leaders/enders project. We'll see how that goes. I haven't done that before.

This month our quilt guild started the new Block of the Month. So I'm going to try to keep up with that.

I also have a new quilt added to the list. A coworker is having a baby. I finally get to make a girl baby quilt! Yay! Every baby quilt I have done so far has been for a boy. I think I'm going to do Elisabeth Hartman's New Wave Quilt pattern or curved blocks from Blendable Curves. Or maybe I'll combine the two. That quilt needs to be done in September.

I think I'm going to have time to myself to quilt Memorial Day weekend. So maybe I can knock out some of these projects.

Still a bad bad blogger

Well, I'm still a bad blogger. I haven't been on since the end of January. I haven't been doing much quilting either. There are several reasons for that. I'll get into some of those later. But I did finish the Salt Water Taffy quilt for my friend's new baby. Well mostly...I have to sew on the label and then ship it off.

Here is the front. I still need to get better at machine quilting. I can't seem to do anything but meandering designs. I tried loopdeloops on this one.

Here is the back.

I love the backs of the quilts by Film in the Fridge. So I decided to take a page out of her book for this back. Sorry my picture quality isn't very good. I usually edit my photos or at least crop them. Now you get to see my cheap vinyl tablecloth design wall.

That is pretty much all I've done since I last posted. Oh.. except that I started sewing together the blocks for my Underground Railroad quilt border. You can see them on the top of the design wall. They are just hanging out waiting for me to get my act together and finish them up. My goals for this year are totally shot already. I think I'll have to revise my schedule.

So just what excuses do I have for my lack of quilting, you ask? Ok, maybe you aren't asking, but I'll tell you anyway.

Meet Miss RegEx Rhapsody. My husband and I are both computer geeks. We started naming our dogs using computer terms. We have Reboot, ASCII and now we have RegEx Rhapsody. We actually call her Rhapsody or Rap. RegEx is just there to continue the tradition. I haven't let my husband know yet, but it is also starting a new tradition of naming the dogs after quilts. In this case I'm thinking of Ricky Tims' Rhapsody quilts.

Rhapsody is a 13 week old Border Collie. She is a handful as most puppies are. I have not been going up to sew much because most of the time I need to take her with me. I have a lot of electric cords and stuff in my sewing room and since she is still in that phase where she wants to chew on everything. I really can't concentrate when she's up there. She is not the only reason I haven't been sewing, but she is the biggest little 16 lb reason I've got.

My other excuse is that I had to go out of town. My grandfather is not doing well. He has Alzheimer's and has been hospitalized twice with pneumonia since the beginning of the year. The last time when he returned to the assisted living facility he was put into hospice care. I flew out to Palo Alto, CA to visit him. My father flew out at the same time and we stayed with my uncle. I'm not sure Grandpa ever really knew who I was. He recognized my father though, so I am happy about that. It is so difficult to see a man who had a photographic memory and taught classes well into his 80's so confused.

While we were there we went to the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles. It was interesting. They had quilts from 3 or 4 different artists and they had an exhibit of beautiful woven rugs. They totally blew me away.

I also got to go to a quilt shop near San Jose, Eddies Quilting Bee. It is a two story building loaded with fabric, sewing machines and classrooms. I highly recommend stopping by if you are in the area. They even give a discount to out of state shoppers. I of course had to take advantage of that. I got all batiks.

Do you recognize that fabric on the left? It is the fabric I fell in love with while working on Salt Water Taffy. No idea what I'm going to use it in. I may just put it under my pillow and gaze at it each night before bed. It still makes me very happy.

I really enjoyed the trip. I don't get to see my dad very often. So it was great to spend time with him and with my uncle and his family. My cousins are both grown and married. I really enjoyed getting to know them again, and meeting their spouses, kids and pets. My aunt was wonderful and made me feel so welcome. I even got to spend a day in San Francisco. We went to the Golden Gate Bridge and Fisherman's Wharf. I of course forgot my camera, so the only pictures I have are on my phone.

That's all I have that is new and quilt worthy. I will try to post again sometime soon.

Design Wall Monday

Currently on my design wall is a baby quilt I am making for a friend of mine. This quilt is from a kit called Salt Water Taffy. I spent an hour today arranging and rearranging the blocks to keep from having too many darks or brights in one place, or too many of one color in one place. Every time I fix one problem area, I create another.


My husband came up and took a look at it and his only response was "That's bright". I asked if he saw anywhere where I had too many of one color together. He said "No you pretty much have a technicolor yawn there". Thanks, sweetie. I appreciate your support. But he went on to help figure out what was going on with the battery backup for my TV and DVR in the sewing room, so I won't complain too much.

Even if the quilt is bright, I am loving the batiks in this kit. This one is my favorite. I'm thinking I need to find a couple yards of this fabric. It just makes me happy.


So it is the end of January already and I still am an awful blogger. I did not accomplish everything I hoped to in January but here is the rundown.

These were my goals for January

1. Make demo blocks of the Stars 2009 BOM for the January business meeting
2. Write up instructions and prepare templates for teaching the January work night
3. Finish 2 other Stars BOM (2009 BOM) blocks
4. Finish the Underground Railroad borders
5. Finish quilting 1 charity quilt for the quilt guild (turn in Feb business meeting)

I got the stuff done that I had to do for the quilt guild. Not that I had a choice on that. It was either get it done or look bad in front of the whole guild...which turned out to be 5 people this month. I got one of the two extra Stars blocks done. I trimmed all the bunny ears and squared up the blocks for my Underground Railroad border, but they are all still sitting in two neat piles next to my sewing machine.

On Friday I got an invitation to my friend's baby shower in Colorado at the end of February. I won't be able to fly out for the shower, but it did kind of make me feel like I'd better get to work on her quilt, which was one of my goals for February. I've got all the blocks pieced for the Taffy quilt. I will try to get the top pieced, and the whole thing quilted by the end of the month.

Oh, I also was having so much fun with those batiks that I made a little pin cushion with scraps. The heart pattern is the same pattern I taught at our guild work night. The inside of the heart is pieced with scraps and the outside of the heart was reverse appliqued. For the pin cushion I experimented with machine applique using a zig zag stitch. It didn't go well. But the little heart is kinda cute anyway.

Update: I almost forgot to say that you can see what other people are up to this week by going to Judy's weekly design wall posts

January Week 1 Update

My plan for this week is to work on the Stars Block of the Month demo blocks. I will make one complete blocks and make a few other blocks to show how to do different steps to assemble the block. Our guild business meeting is next Monday, so this is my priority today.

I also will start working on writing up instructions to teach the January work night. This is a small valentine's day project based on an article from the "Hearts Alive" article in the February 2009 Quilter's Newsletter. I signed up to teach this last year when we were setting up our guild calendar. I have the final quilt complete (except that I want to frame it), and I have some demo blocks done. This needs to be done by the 4th Monday of this month for our guild work night. I've tried to plan in some hand or design work each month. I can do that in front of the TV with my husband. Then I don't feel like I'm ignoring my husband so badly.

If I have any time left over this week, I'll start catching up on the 2009 BOM blocks.

Next week I'll let you know how I did, and post pictures of the completed blocks.

To do list for 2010

I am not much for resolutions. I do have a few things I want to work on this year though. Things like losing weight, exercising more, trying to keep the house clean enough that I feel like I can have company more often, cook more often, spend more time training the dogs, and spend more time quilting. All this will dramatically cut into my Facebook time. I log into Facebook and all of a sudden 2 hours of my day is gone.

I have several quilt projects that I'd like to finish this year. I've seen many blogs with bucket lists, or UFO lists. I love the idea, so I thought I'd start my own and mark of what I get accomplished this year. If nothing else I can see what I've completed. Hopefully I'll post a picture with each completed project. So without any further ado here is my 2010 To Do List as I see it right now. I'm breaking it out by what I want to accomplish each month (I am resisting the urge to create Gantt charts to plan this thing). I'm sure I'll end up pushing some things off to another month and working on others early but this is my initial plan.

2010 To Do List

January

1. Make demo blocks of the Stars 2009 BOM for the January business meeting
   
2. Write up instructions and prepare templates for teaching the January work night
   
3. Finish 2 other Stars BOM (2009 BOM) blocks
   
4. Finish the Underground Railroad borders
5. Finish quilting 1 charity quilt for the quilt guild (turn in Feb business meeting)

February

1. Bind 3 charity quilts for my quilt guild by the Feb. business meeting
   
2. Do 2 more Stars (2009 BOM) blocks
   
3. Finish 1 more Tree of Life Block of the Month Quarter block
   
4. Start Jo's baby quilt
   
5. Choose pattern for a quilt for Kate and start to gather fabric
6. Make sure the guild meeting minutes/books are ready to turnover to new Secretary
   

March

1. Finish Jo's baby quilt (including quilting and binding)
   
2. Start Irish Chain quilt for my cousin Gina
3. Finish 3 more Stars (2009 BOM) blocks
4. Piece and quilt one small charity quilt for guild
   

April

1. Finish remaining 2 Stars (2009 BOM)blocks
2. Assemble Stars (2009 BOM) top
3. Continue Irish Chain quilt
4. Start on setting blocks for the Pansy quilt
5. 2010 Guild BOM

May

1. Finish Irish Chain quilt and send out to be quilted
2. Finish Pansy Quilt top
3. Piece and quilt one small charity quilt for guild
4. 2010 Guild BOM
5. Finish 1 more Tree of Life Block of the Month Quarter block

June - may have some traveling this month

1. Start piecing Kate's quilt
2. Finish 1 more Tree of Life Block of the Month Quarter block
3. Start quilting or send out Underground Railroad

July - May have some traveling this month

1. Finish 1 more Tree of Life Block of the Month Quarter block
2. Continue Kate's quilt
3. Piece and quilt small charity quilt

August

1. Start quilting Turning 20 quilt
2. Finish piecing quilt as you go quilt (from 3 years ago!!!)
3. Finish Kate's quilt top

September

1. Either quilt or send out Kate's top
2. finish binding on Kate's quilt
3. finish binding on the quilt as you go quilt

October

1. Decide and start on any home made Christmas presents

November

1. Christmas Presents

December

1. Christmas Presents

Notice that the end of the year got kind of lean. I figured I should give myself a little wiggle room in case some of my earlier projects run long, and because I am not yet sure what I want to do for Christmas presents this year.

My plan is to post weekly updates on what I've accomplished and what I plan to do. Probably I'll try to do this on Mondays with Judy's What's on your design wall updates.