Weekend Doings

My weekend was so unusual this weekend.  

I had to take the dog to the vet because she had a sore behind her ear and it was infected. 

 Much money later she is home and looking like this:

We went out for dinner with some friends that we had not seen in a very long time.  

Dinner was fabulous, too much wine consumed and a lot of laughing and planning. 

 So good to see our friends. 

The over indulgence of Friday night severely limited my Saturday.  

I did drag my sorry self off to Zumba in the am and then showered and 

most certainly did NOT take the world by storm.  

I vegged out on the couch for most of the day. 

 I found a box of fabric that was my grandmother's and thought I would go through that while watching TV so I could pretend that I actually got something done.

There were a lot of sewn blocks in the box. 

 Interestingly enough most of the fabric did not appear to be cotton, but rather fabric from clothing.  My grandma died when I was only 2 so I have no way to know what the fabrics are from 

(and my mom has been gone for 12 years now too, before I found the box).  

I kept holding up fabrics and saying to hubby, 

"I wonder which of these were he very favorite fabrics, the ones she would hoard?" 

 Of course he had no idea what I was talking about, but I bet you all know!  

Maybe I should label those so that when I am gone my girls will know which ones are precious to me? 

 Just a thought.  

I did have some help with the sorting. 

 Hallie knows all about hoarding fabrics. 

 Just look at that protective paw over the fabrics!

Sunday was a much more productive day for me.  

I did laundry, cut the fabrics for my text swap and made binding for the wolf quilt.

I cut 20 FQ's of this text print for the swap.  

I will get 20 different FQ's back!! 

 So excited!

Then it was off to Lowes to get a new refrigerator. 

 YIPPEE!!  

My kitchen will be so nice very soon.  

New floor, new fridge. 

 Went to the bank and then to the grocery store.  

Put the Christmas tree away, don't ask. 

 Then up to the sewing room to make the Feb blocks for the Ima Bee. 

 Love the block she chose. 

 We were to make 2 of the chosen block and I added one in reverse colors. 

 I hope she likes them. 

 They were fun to make.  

I could see making this block again. 

 I think it would be neat in rainbow colors, with maybe a text or black on white prints for the background.

Back to work for me today. 

 The Bee Vintage bee has begun again too but the Feb blocks have not been selected yet.  

I am looking forward to those too.  

As soon as the wolf quilt is finished I will have a little breathing room to make some new projects.  Can't wait!

How was your weekend?

~XOP~

Pattern Destash. Ready?

As I am setting up my sewing room I am going through things I know I just won't have time for.  Seems a shame to let all these beautiful patterns languish in a drawer right?  

I thought I would post photos here.  If you are interested please send me an email and

 I will let you know shipping costs and get you hooked right up with a new pattern or 2.  

All patterns are $4.

                                                                              Driftwood is sold

                               Quarter Scramble is sold

                            
                                      American Jane is sold                 Fractions is sold

                            Hopscotch is sold

                               
                            Tipsy is sold                               Midge is sold

So if there is a pattern or patterns here you just have to have please email me at 

mamaspark@gmail.com

and we can work something out!

I told you I went to Pink Castle with my friends but 

I forgot to show you the photos of them with their fabric selections.  

Forgive the photos, bad phone pics.

My friend Judith

 My friend Robin

 

I leave you with a photo of the stalker from last night = ) 

Have a great weekend and happy sewing! 

~XOP~ 

Wolf Quilt Progress

I have been diligently working on the wolf quilt. 

 It began with a panel, 2 actually, and some wolf border fabric. 

 Have you watched Teen Wolf?  

It's on MTV and it is young and fun. 

 My eldest DD is the one so involved with the fandom. 

 Recently they were raising money for Wolf Haven. 

 They are a wolf conservation society.  

They were hoping to raise enough money to sponsor the wolf pack for a month. 

 So far they have raised over $10,000 so far!!!  

My plan for the quilt? 

 Use the panel in a circle around a triskelion.  

One of the characters in the show has the triskele tattooed on his back.  

I decided to use the same triseklion as corner stones in the outer border. 

 There was not enough of the wolf fabric for the border so I added words.  

The winner chose the words. 

 So here is the quilt in progress.

 First I had to trace the triskelion.  It was in a 16.5" square so my light box was not big enough.  I used the window for the tracing.

 Here it is all appliqued down.

 I cut the panel apart and put in sashing. 

 The triskelion went in the center.

Then I traced and appliqued the 4 corner triskeles 

Next up was tracing the words and doing the applique. 

 Thank goodness I could watch season 1 of Dowton Abbey as

 it took me about 4 hours to get all that appliquing finished!

Notice that I got a new TV for my sewing room too!!!!

I was able to watch Dowton Abey on the Blue Ray player.

SWEET!!

The light box sure came in handy for this project!

I was pretty excited to figure out how to make the font of my words match the Teen Wolf font!

All finished!

I decided to put wolf fabric on either side of the words to make a top and bottom border like this

I split the rest of the wolf fabric you see in this border, vertically to make the side borders. 

 I had to piece them and managed to piece them so they matched almost perfectly. 

 That was great!  

I didn't manage to get a photo of the finished top but will show the quilt once I get it back.

I handed it off to Liz today to work her quilting magic.

Now I can work on the next two projects.

Have you chosen a Valentines project?  

I'll be sharing one soon.

If you want to play along get your favorite Valentine fabric, a charm pack will do.

One plainish coordinate, oh a FQ or half yard should do 

and a yard of background fabric.

I can't say more about it than that but it is going to be fun!

Have a wonderful day!

~XOP~

Where to Begin?

This weekend was CRAZY! 
More so than usual. 
We re-did our kitchen 9 years ago.
 Hubby said he would put in the tile floor. 
Here we are 9 years later, tile all bought, backer board in place and yet? 
No tiled floor. 

So I finally got the name and number of a tile installer and guess what?
 I have a tiled floor!!!!

This is Ken and how my floor looked before.

 This is my beautiful newly tiled and grouted kitchen floor.
 Woo HOO!!

All my SILs and even one of my BIL's said "call someone, that's what they are there for". 
OMG why did I wait so long??

OK, my internet is down at home, we need a new modem.
 I am going to go get one today after work.

I have a lot to share but will break it up so you are not all bored silly.
I went shopping with my boss's wife and another co-worker to Pink Castle Fabric Shop yesterday.  We spent over 2 hours at Brenda's wonderful shop.
 If you haven't checked her out, her shop has a LOT of great modern fabrics. 
Plus she and her staff are super nice!

My friends bought a LOT of fabric.
  I mean a LOT.
 I bought a little bit. 
I decided to make the Swoon quilt for my nephew for a wedding gift. 
(Crazy Quilt girl has this for sale if you would like to Swoon along with me)
You know you want to!

They wanted navy, white and yellow. 
C'mon now, who are they kidding? 
He graduated from U of M so you know it needs to be Maize and Blue right?
 UGH, why do I always end up using those colors for things?
 It's hard for this old Spartan to do for sure.

Here is the neat little stack of navy and yellows that I picked up. 
I added a couple more yellows from my stash and
bought one more navy online to round it all out to the nine I need.

 

It sure looks pretty.  

The 2 yellows I added were Pearl Bracelets and Pezzy.  

This is the navy I ordered

Even though I am not a fan of the Maize and Blue this should be a beautiful quilt.

I have some destash to list but will do so later.

I also finished the Wolf quilt and will take pics and post about it later too.

It is like 15 below 0 here today, Brrrrrrrr

Trying to stay warm.

Have a wonderful day and we will talk soon.

~XOP~

Don't You Just Love Newbies?

I find such great joy in teaching new quilters. 

 My dentist's daughter, also my dentist, wanted to learn how to make quilts.

  I told her I would be happy to teach her how. 

 She and I went to the LQS and chose some fabric,  

I lent her a pattern, Take 5 and she came to our Wednesday night meetings.  

We got her quilt cut out before Christmas.

 She hasn't been back due to her work commitments but came back this Wednesday. 

 Here are the fabrics we chose:

Perfectly Perched by Laurie Wisburn and some Kona solids.

On Wednesday night we were going to lay outthe blocks and realized she forgot her pattern. 

 She had her hubby take a photo of her pattern and send it to her! 

 Brilliant.  

So we laid out the blocks and she wanted me to sew the first block. 

 I sat down at her new machine and tried to sew, but the feed dogs would not grab the fabric. 

 I thought they might have been down so I got her manual and found the button and moved it. 

 Guess what happened? 

 The feed dogs dropped! 

I guess they were up after all, but obviously not working very well. 

 So I went to move the button again to raise them and it didn't work. 

 GAH!!

  Brand new machine and it's already broken.  

We used another machine at the meeting and made her first block. 

 Isn't she adorable?

I can't wait for next week to make some more blocks!

~XOP~

What I've Been Up To

It seems like the time since Christmas has just flown by. 

 I have been working on a few things but don't really have much to show for it. 

 I am still working on the wolf quilt. 

 I have hit a few snags.  

 I have managed to put the inside of the top together.

I don't really want to try to explain all about it without photos so

 maybe tomorrow when I can go home today and take some pictures.  

I did happen to have some help though.

"Oh hi Hallie!"

I am kind of excited about the scrappy trip because I have some fabric that I think will be great for it.

I kind of overbought (understatement of the day).

I liked it and thought my DD would love it as it is peacock fabric and lots of purple.  

Two of her favorites.  

Sadly, she did not so I have a LOT of it and need to make something out of all of it.

I bought some solids to go with it and think it will be an amazing quilt when I get it made.

This will probably not be done for awhile but maybe I will use it for leader and enders?  

I need a new one for this year so maybe.

Two of my nephews are getting married and I will be making quilts for them for their wedding gift.  Any ideas on favorite patterns for this occasion would be appreciated!

I have to share with you what I found when I got home on Tuesday night from work.

No this is not a trick paint spill from Spencer's, it was the real deal.

 

We have been cleaning the basement and my hubby had brought up this can of paint.  

He had set it on the bench in the dining room and obviously one of the cats knocked it off.  

UGH.  

Thank goodness it was water based.  

A pain to clean up but at least I could clean it up!

I still have not managed to get the tree taken down yet.

Hopefully tonight.

We are going to GR to see my dad on Friday and the tile guy is coming to do our kitchen on Sat.

Don't worry, I'll take lots of pictures of that!

I am not sure what time the tile guy will be there.

At least a before and after as I have Zumba on Sat am.

I have a couple of other projects in the planning stages, but can't really talk about them just yet.

I will say if you think you might like to play along with me

but a charm pack of Kissing Booth by Moda

Crazy Quilt Girl has it

Still thinking about a QAL is anyone interested?

Or are you all too busy?

LMK if you might like to play along.  

I have to finish my commitments first though.

~XOP~

 

Some Fun and More Destashing

I was involved in a swap of 5" squares and all AMH fabrics. 

 We got all of several lines of her fabric.

  It was a LOT of fun. 

 I need to see what I am missing and see if I can collect the ones I am missing.

 One of the women in the swap got in touch with AMH herself and

 lookie lookie what the gracious AMH sent to each of us!

 A signed 5" square and a note. 

 How cool was that??

I haven't gone through any more fabric but still had one thing left to list from the last time. 

 This line is adorable, but I have to pare my stash down so

 I hope someone out there will want to give this grouping a home. 

 It's called Grounded in Love.

Four sets of this panel $5 

I have 2 pieces of this

1 is 60" x WOF

1 is 1yard x WOF  

Both for 12.50

I have 2 pieces of this one also each is 1 yard x WOF $10

This stripe is so adorable! 

 3 2/3 yards X WOF

$17.50

Here are some close ups of the stripe.

Adorable, right??

The whole shebang for $45.  How can you resist??

Decided to work on the wolf quilt today instead of packing up Christmas. 

 I may get to that next week.

Maybe

~XOP~