Happy Summer!

On my way home from my financial adviser meeting I decided to stop in at the new Goodwill outlet - you know, just to see what I might score ....

There was a lovely set of 8 Johnson Brother plates, I purchased the best 2 - love the floral centers, the yellow borders and the gold trim! Then I found this fab wicker basket .... I plan to use as a sewing basket when I travel to our Stitch-n-Bitch - opps, I mean Quilting Get-togethers ;)

 

Silly me managed to miss last weekend's 50% off sale ;(;( but still managed to score some fabric this week at the local fabric store, also on sale (40% - not bad) At the top next to the basket is a coral to use as sashings for the black & coral spinning 4 patches (S4P), the dark green in the bottom left will be an inner border for the burgandy S4P (original fabric on top), and on the right is a hot pink  backing then a lovely lime green (sorry the pic isn't good colourwise) to use as an inner border. Yes, I will have to unsew the borders in order to insert the lime green, but I think it will be worth it. It's raining this morning so I'm inside blogging - hope to hit the patio real soon and will engage in the unsewing then!

Happy summer everyone .....

TTYL

Spinning 4 Patch!

 

 A few months back I took a fab workshop with my quilt guild for the Spinning 4 Patch technique - a derivative of the Stack-n-Whack technique. I had such fun in the workshop, but couldn't decide which fabric to use, so I use the fabric I brought with me (pictured above), and bought some fabric from the workshop teacher (pictured below). Yesterday the local fabric store (not a quilt store) had their frequent 50% off sale, which inspired me to get at the blocks I cut but had not yet sewn. My question is why do you always end up with one extra block? Huh ? How does that happen?What will I do with them???

Who knows, I'll just change the layout maybe. Anyway, needless to say I did not make it to the 50% off sale, so I still do not have any backing fabric for either. The burgundy one I have four choices for sashing fabric. Still need to decide on what to do with the black one. No hurry though, guild quilt show isn't until October .....
TTYL

Happy 85th!

 Happy 85th birthday! This weekend the family gathered and celebrated our mother/grandmother's birthday. Dinner out at a local restaurant (Michael's) then cards and gifts. They say this side of the family are long livers. I hope so, only  7 more years and she will surpass Great Grandma B! I know she's hoping to see a great grandchild - no pressure on the new bride ;) ;).

So I have not been lazing around . It's a hot humid Sunday and I'm in the kitchen making Strawberry freezer jam! I know they say it will only last in the freezer for 6-8 months, well, I last made jam in 2005, and finished the last jar about 2 months ago. The berries are LOCAL, and cost a fortune (I should have picked my own ...) It will be worth it next winter when I'm craving a PB&J on a toasted English muffin!

I am well on my way to getting my "scraps" in order. Above is a pic of the three boxes I have organized so far. (left) large strips, (top) small 1" strips, and (right) various sized squares. Of course I have a basket yet with various sized triangles, and just plain scrappy scraps which need to be cut into some shape/size then sorted.
And that's been my week/weekend. How about you- whatcha been up to?
TTFN

Spring Cleaning!

Now that the wedding is over I can concentrate on Spring cleaning! As you can see, the second room I attacked was the sewing room. Oh No!!! SILLY Silly girl! Well, it started with "Oh, I must put away all

those fat quarters I bought this past winter" and quickly moved into "Oh, that box is full, must move them into a bigger box"! YIKES! as you can see from the pic on the left I destroyed my sewing room and spent days reorganizing and shuffling fabric. PHEW! On the right are the fat quarters which have yet to make it into a box! Wonder how long that will take me ....
Although it took way too many days of my "week off" I am pleased that my sewing room is once again organized and clean. On the left is the cupboard - notice the boxes are all labelled (yup - I'm a wee bit OCD on that one) and on the right is my closet. Once again I am using the large wicker hampers I purchased years ago. I did have 3+ boxes of blue fabrics, and can hardly believe that the one large basket barely holds all my blues. Got to stop buying blue!

Well, as you can imagine that expedition into the my sewing room encouraged my organization mania and I am now in the thick of "organizing" my scraps. If I could give new quilters one big HINT - it would be to organize your scraps from the beginning! Here's a pic of my couch. I have gone through the first scraps box and sorted into strips (lights, mediums and darks) small, medium and large squares and rectangles. There are two more boxes of scraps to go!!! Do I see a scrap quilt in the making?? You betcha.

In case you think - silly girl is that all you did on your vacation? Well, no. A good friend and I escaped the city and went to Christie's antique show last weekend. I found a replacement chimney for my great grandfather's oil lamp and this plate for my (not antique) china. Woohoo!

And to finish it all off .... my peonies bloomed! YEAH Here's a pic before the requisite rainstorm blew most of the blossoms away. Luckily I cut two bouquets before the rain, so I had something to enjoy :)
TTFN,