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.

Merry Christmas

 

ASCII wishes you all a very merry Christmas!

Making Christmas...

Remember that song from The Nightmare Before Christmas? Well, I've made a little Christmas this year. This year I made purses and a wallet for my mom and my mother in law. Neither of them read my blog, so I have no fear of spoiling the surprise for them.

I was in a rush to get stuff shipped out, because I never get anything done early. So I forgot to take pictures of the first purse and the wallet I made. I'm hoping I can get Sam's mom to take a picture for me.

I did remember to take a picture of my mom's gift. Mom likes blue, but I thought that brown with blue might be a bit more versatile than all blue.


The bag is a Claire Bag from Lazy Girl Designs. This was the first Lazy Girl pattern I've used, but I've been wanting to make this bag since the first time I saw one. The pattern was well written and it was pretty easy.

The wallet, glasses case and check book cover to go with the hand bag are from Vera Bradley. I intended to make a wallet to go with this one like I did for my mother in law, but I just ran out of time. I think this pattern goes really well with the fabric I chose.

The wallet I made was based on a tutorial from that*darn*kat. It was really fast and I actually think I like it better than the Vera Bradley wallet. I used a button and ribbon loopto keep it closed. I'm a little worried the button will come off with use. The next time I make one of these, and there will be a next time, I will use snaps.

What I'm currently working on...

I have posted pictures of the Underground Railroad blocks I worked on over the past year.


The quilt blocks are now all sewn together with the sashing. I wanted to put a border around the outside and had planned on doing 2 plain borders. When I started planning out the border, I decided that this quilt deserved some more exciting borders. So I decided to try a pieced border (insert ominous music and thunder claps here). I know how important good borders are but I have a tendency to just slap on plain old borders and call it done, so this is a challenge for me. I'd seen a ribbon border in one of the quilts from Elm Creek Quilts that I thought would look good. Judy has a similar border (except more colorful than mine) in the quilt in her post about deciding whether you need odd or even blocks in borders. This is the first time I've added my own pieced borders to a quilt.

I laid the quilt out in EQ with blank blocks and used a Y block to make the border. The problem was that EQ wouldn't let me have more than 24 blocks on one side of my border. I don't know why but the little drop down only went to 24 and it wouldn't let me type in the field. You might be able to see in the image below that the blocks on the long sides are not square. This meant that I couldn't print out correct measurements and cutting instructions for the borders. I finally just adjusted the size of the block when I printed out the cutting instructions for the block.


I added some "floaters" around the outside the quilt to make it the right size to use 3 inch blocks in the border and to make the ribbon look like it was kind of floating in the border. I've got all the blocks made and just need to finish squaring them up and sew them together. Hopefully all my math was correct and the borders will fit!

I'm working on a few Christmas gifts right now, but hopefully I'll get back to this before the end of the year...End of the year! What happened to August?!?!

Catching up...

During my long absence from my blog I have been doing some sewing. Our guild had both a quilt challenge and a quilt show in October.

We had a Log Cabin challenge. Basically we had to have at least 3 log cabin blocks (12 inches or less in size) and the quilt could be from table runner size to lap quilt size. I decided that I wanted to do a quilt with different shaped log cabin blocks. I used EQ and tried using different blocks as quilt layouts and setting log cabin blocks in each section of the quilt layout. Here are a couple of designs I came up with:

I think this is a Lone Star block layout:


Storm at Sea Layout - This is the one I chose. Mostly because I was worried about having enough time to complete the Lone Star quilt above.


Here is the final quilt. I paper pieced it, although it wasn't really necessary since those are pretty large blocks. I was a little worried about getting the angles and corners right if I pieced it traditionally.

I also ended up switching out the corner blocks from log cabin blocks to plain square in square blocks. I just ran out of time trying to get the quilt finished.

This is the first quilt I've designed in EQ and actually completed the entire quilt. I've got a few others that I've designed and haven't made yet. But I do enjoy using the software and have a couple other quilts in the works.

I'm am a horrible blogger

I have been away way too long and will try to be better. This summer and fall have been really busy. I realized I didn't even give an update on Valerie. So here is a quick update, then I'll try to get back to blogging more frequently and get back to quilting.

The Belgian Shepherd Rescue Group was able to raise enough money to pay for Valerie's surgery. Valerie's leg was amputated just above the knee. Everyone at the vet's office fell in love with her while she was there. Valerie also had to be spayed.

Val had to keep calm and quiet for several weeks following the surgery while the sutures healed. She had a hard time with our hard wood floors..they are a little slippery. So Valerie would try to jump or run from one rug to the other to minimize the time spent on the slippery floor. Of course that just made her slip more. So we ended up making paths of rugs everywhere we wanted her to be able to go.

Valerie healed quickly and before long she was able to go out and run around with our other dogs. She and our Standard Poodle, ASCII, liked to play in the yard. Valerie could almost keep up with ASCII, even with three legs! She likes to play fetch and when she runs you can't even tell she is missing a leg.

While Valerie stayed with us she was one of the easiest, sweetest dogs I've ever known. She even got along with our cat. We did find out that she was scared of thunder. So we had to make sure she was inside and kept calm during thunderstorms. I'm pretty she ended up in the animal shelter with a broken leg because she panicked during a thunderstorm and just started running.

My husband took Valerie to obedience classes and she did very well. Valerie even went to a doggy yoga class with me a couple times. She loved the part where she got massaged.

Valerie stayed with us from around the 4th of July until Labor Day Weekend then went to another foster home. Her new foster mom loved her as much as we do. She had 3 other Mals to play with. Including an older male who she seemed to take a shine too.

Just this week Valerie went to her new forever home in Connecticut. Her new family seems to have fallen in love with her right away. They have been sending us daily updates and it looks like she is getting spoiled rotten already. I'm so happy for both Valerie and her new family.

I can't express enough gratitude to all those people who helped Valerie out. She is a really special little dog who got a second chance at a good life thanks to those people who helped her out.

Update on Valerie

Thanks to everyone's donations Valerie's surgery was paid for. She is doing great. She is starting to get up and moving around a little more now.

She likes toys. She chews on all the tough rubber toys. She's still learning how to act around the other dogs. She doesn't display the best dog manners when sniffing the other dogs, but she'll get better. She loves to be near people and loves to be petted.

From Valerie Day 1 After Surgery

Valerie Day 3 After Surgery

Guild Challenge Quilt

I am dying to post my EQ design that I'm going to do for my challenge quilt for our quilt guild. I'm not going to post it until after the challenge in October just in case any of my guild members actually read my blog.

We are doing a Log Cabin challenge. I've decided on blue and green as the main colors. I'm also not doing all traditional square log cabin blocks. I need to get started on this quilt if I want it finished by October.

Just a little teaser.

Valerie..Dog that needs help to live up to her name

This is the story of how I met a wonderful little Malinois who we are all calling Valerie. Valerie means health and strength... This is a strong little girl that we would like to see get healthy again.

On Saturday morning my husband received an email from Malinois Rescue. A veterinarian doing health checks and vaccines in a kill shelter in North Georgia found a young female Malinois with a broken leg. The bone was poking out of the thigh and the dog was in danger of being put down.

The vet does not have her own office and did not have the equipment to be able to give the dog the medical care she needed so she contacted Malinois Rescue. The coordinator was scrambling to find someone who could help the weekend before a holiday when many people are on vacation. My husband and I said we would help.

Sunday night I drove an hour and a half to Braselton, GA to pick up the dog. When I got there I found a little, dark red girl, who wiggled her butt at me then immediately rolled over to get a belly rub. The leg was bandaged but still flopping all over. When I took her leash she went with me and even looked like she was going to try to jump into the back of my car by herself. She moves really well on her three good legs.

I loaded her into my car and gave her a few treats which she took gently, but you could tell she was hungry. She drank a little water, then made a nice cushy nest from the blankets I'd spread out for her, and went to sleep. I started to drive back home cringing every time I hit a bump. I can just imagine what it feels like to have broken bones getting jostled all over.

When Valerie and I got home we got her some food and slowly introduced her to our pack. She was good with our dogs, did not seem over protective of her food, and paid attention to the cat but did not go after it. She went into her crate when told and turned around to have her leash taken off. She was quiet in her crate all night and every time my husband woke and checked on her she would give him kisses. Obviously she has been trained and I wonder if someone is looking for her.

This morning Hubby took Valerie to our veterinarian. He said that her leg has probably been broken for two to three weeks and there was nerve damage and massive infection. My husband said that Dr. Moore was frustrated because if he had gotten to her earlier he could have saved the leg. Now it would have to be amputated above the knee. He did the surgery this afternoon and Valerie is recovering overnight at the hospital. Tomorrow afternoon she will come home and we will foster her while she is getting medical care.

Valerie's veterinary bills will run at least $1300. Malinois Rescue is raising money to help pay for it. If you feel you can spare anything to help her that would be great. If not please keep her in your thoughts.

I'll keep you up to date on her progress and post some pictures when we get her back home. Sorry about the wordy post.

I'm a bad blogger!

I know it has been weeks since I have blogged. I got started on "What's on my design wall?" and then never updated anything. I will get that done tomorrow (only 5 days late but who is counting).

The last couple of weeks have been really busy. I think last time I mentioned that a big release was due at work on June 19th. I put in a lot of hours in the last couple of weeks to be ready for that. Last week while trying to finish everything up for the release, I got hit with a really bad sinus infection. I have not been that sick in a long time.

I mentioned that I won a giveaway from Patchalot More. I got the patterns in the mail, along with a nice note from Marcie, and a package of quilting note cards. Thank you, so much Marcie!

The last update I have for now is that I did not get my Facebook block swap blocks done in time. I was a little ambitious with those blocks. I had a little bit of difficulty piecing the flowers, especially the 8 sided star. So I switched out the 8 sided star for another 4 petaled flower. I got two blocks done. The swap coordinator said to hang on to them because they will be great for a Spring swap. I'll probably finish up 6 of them so I'll be ready for that time. I'll post pictures of those later.

ASCII talks about Doga

It is me, ASCII. I'm back again and this is just for you Beth. Today my mom and dad took me and Reboot to Doga which is a doggie yoga class. It was at Playful Paws. There were about 10 other dogs and owners there.

It was nice. Mom and Dad stretched and Reboot and I got petted, massaged and loved on. Mom started out working with Reboot and Dad worked with me. In the middle of the class Reboot and I decided to switch places on them. It was very relaxing. I fell asleep at the end while mom just sat with her hands on me.

The other dogs in the class were nice. We saw Lois and Augie who are always at agility trials. One dog, Pepper..I think he was a labradoodle, really wanted to play with me, but mom and dad said it wasn't the right time. Pepper kept trying to sneak over and play but eventually he calmed down. All the dogs were pretty calm. I think they were just soaking up the loving from their humans.

After class we met another dog that survived cancer like Reboot did. He is a Visla and he lost one of his front legs to cancer. He is a really amazing dog. He still does hunt trials and even got his Master Hunter title, and he is going to be a therapy dog. He even swims with only 3 legs. I don't like swimming at all and I have 4 legs.

We get to go back to Doga every weekend in June.

I won!

Have you noticed the quilt pox immunization patch on my sidebar? This came from Marcie at Patchalot More. She had a drawing for two of her patterns for people who "immunized" their blog by adding her patch. Well guess what! I won.




Thanks, Marcie! Everyone go visit her site and get the Patch. I hear those quilt pox can be nasty.

What's on my design wall?

Last week Judy at Patchwork Times by Judy Laquidara started "What's on your design wall". Each week we can post what is on our design wall, then the next week we update on our progress.

Last week I posted my Underground Railroad quilt laying out on my "design bed". I had hoped to have the top finished by this week.

Well, it is still sitting there. I walked in and looked at it a couple times, but that is as far as I got.

The only quilting related activity I did was to cut few patches for my June Facebook block swap. This time we are doing basket blocks. I need to make five blocks for the swap (plus one for me) and mail them to the swap coordinator by June 19. Funny, that is the same day that I've got a meeting with my business users to turn over our latest software release for testing. Something tells me the next two weeks are going to be busy.

Here is the block I intend to make.

I found the block in EQ and tweaked it just a bit so that it would be easier to piece. I'm a little worried about the points on the flowers. Those stars can be hard to get right. The only time I've tried it before I did them by hand. I also have to do set in piecing with this block. I tried to print out a foundation piecing pattern for, but I must be doing something wrong. The piecing order made no sense at all, and I couldn't figure out how to get it to work.

So my goal for this weekend is:

1. Finish at least 2 of the basket blocks
2. Put together at least 2 rows of the Underground Railroad quilt
   

Non-Quilt related side note:
At the risk of sounding like an enormous flake, I want to tell you that my husband and I will be taking two of our dogs to a Doggie Yoga class on Sunday. Should be interesting. I love yoga and need to do it more often, and I love spending time with my dogs. I never really thought about combining those activities before. I'll keep you posted on how it goes.

ASCII Takes Over The Blog!

Hi!! I'm ASCII! I'm a two year old Standard Poodle. Usually my mom writes on this blog, but she hasn't been posting enough so I decided to post for her. I'm not the first dog to try blogging, my dad knows a Malinois that blogs all the time. If Leinie can do it then why not me?

I spend most days helping my mom and dad work. Some days mom works from home and other days dad does. Sometimes I have to tell them that it is time to stop working and play with me! The best way to do this is to sit directly behind them, stare at the back of their head, and whine. Sometimes that doesn't work and I have to put my head on their lap and whine some more.

On weekends and some evenings mom and dad take me to go do agility. I like the teeter, the dog walk, the A-Frame and tunnels. If I get too hot sometimes I go in the tunnels and don't like to come back out. Sun is hard on a black dog. I also like seeing the other dogs at agility, and nibbling on Miss Cyndy's ears.

My favorite things to do are playing with the cat, nibbling on people's ears (it makes them giggle), the teeter, and curling up on the couch next to my dad. I live with 2 other dogs. Kiwi and Reboot are both older and slower than me, but sometimes they run around the yard with me.

Well, mom says I have to go to bed now. I'll be back next time she doesn't have anything to say.

What's on my design wall?

Judy Laquidara from Patchwork Times by Judy Laquidara is asking this question every monday. This was the first week.

Well currently I have a design bed. My sewing room is a bonus room over our garage. I have about 4 feet of wall, then the rest is the angled ceiling. I still love my room, but it isn't easy to make a design wall. I have a large piece of foam board that I will eventually make into a free standing design wall.

So what is on my design bed? Our quilt guild did the Underground Railroad sampler by Eleanor Burns as our Block of the Month last year. I have all the blocks completed with the sashing and cornerstones. Hopefully by next Monday I'll have the top completed.

2009 Star Block of the Month

I started the first block for our guild's block of the month yesterday. I have the task of demonstrating the first block. Before I could sew the first block I had to decide what colors I wanted to use for the quilt. The brown fabric with multicolor...uh blobs is the best word I can come up with.. is from Kaffe Fassett. I bought all they had left (a little over 2 yards) when I was at Sew Bee It a couple weeks ago.

I think this is going to be pretty and I love that the brown fabric will tie all the colors together so well. I'm excited about this quilt. I have the first block done, as well as some partially finished blocks that I'll use to demonstrate the construction of the block. I'll show those in a separate post. I so rarely have anything interesting to say I need to drag this one block out as long as possible.

And now back to our regular programming...

I'll get back to quilting talk soon. I did get a set of blocks from my Facebook block exchange group. They are all really pretty. The next block exchange is going to be basket blocks. Those are due in June.

I'm going to start the first block for our quilt guild block of the month this week. I have to present it next Monday. Eeek...where did April go?

CKC Agility Trial at Georgia Dog Gym Part II

The second day at the CKC Trial was fun but our performance was a little disappointing. There were only a couple of us there and we were all running for exhibition only because we had not qualified for Supreme the day before. We ran three Supreme runs and then did 3 games. Cyndy Douan, and the GDG and CKC staff did a great job at keeping things moving, and keeping organized. I wish more people had come on that second day. I think they would have had a good time.

We did get some cool ribbons. Two qualification ribbons for the Novice I and Novice II titles, two second place and a third place ribbon. We also got one of the big Wow trial ribbons, because there were two of us that stuck it out all weekend and ran every run.

I think that ASCII and I would have qualified on one of the Supreme runs and maybe on the Dare to Double game. ASCII did not want to be there though. He used to run ahead of me but this weekend he just kind of drug behind me. I talked to the judge, who happens to be our trainer, and she said to throw a party before and after each run. I'm not very good at being really energetic and enthusiastic. I'm kind of quiet even with the dogs. ASCII needs a cheerleader. He doesn't respond to just treats, and doesn't care about retrieving a toy, so its going to have to be me just being excited and telling him how good he is. I also might try the Kong spray cheese stuff again...we call that Doggie Crack. Sometimes I'd let him go to my husband after a run and let him give the affection and praise. He needs to get it from ME since I'm the one he is working for.

I have been calling him off of obstacles when he is about to go off course and did that a lot on Saturday. He has lost confidence and it isn't fun for him right now. We will work on that. I need to practice more outside of class, and let him take the obstacle even if it is the wrong one. Most likely if he's going the wrong way it is because I was not clear, or quick enough. More practice will help me with that too.

After the run I have to throw a party and be excited even if I'm not happy with the run. Also while I need to be respectful of the time I take to get in and out of the ring, I need to take the extra few seconds required to immediately praise him and make a big deal about it. Too often I am so worried about getting my leash and getting out of everyone's way that I delay in throwing the party. By the time I do it, ASCII has pretty much turned off. Can I get someone to kick me in the butt when I start to do that please? Yo dummy! Pet your dog!!

We are doing agility for fun, not so we can get national titles and stuff like that. If ASCII isn't enjoying himself then it is not worth continuing. A year ago he was so excited to be out there that he would take off ahead of me and run like a wild dog. One of the people running the ASCA trial said he was a great dog and to just just make sure he kept having fun. We started reigning him in because he was not listening and just running around taking what ever obstacle he wanted, I think we went too far. I'm not sure if we can get the galloping, prancing, goofball agility dog back now...I sure miss him though.