Social Weekend

It rarely happens that we have a weekend full of parties, but last weekend was one.  

I was supposed to pick up a vintage sewing machine (more on that later) on Sat morning but could not manage to hook up with the person, so on to plan B.  

We began watching the football game for while.   

In the early afternoon we had to leave for a Clam Bake on Lake Erie with some friends.  

Now mind you, I have never experienced a clam back and this was fantastic!  

They dug a pit on the beach and made a fire. 

 It doesn't look big but the pit was like 7' across!

Then they bagged up lobster tails, clams, potatoes, corn and carrots to put in the fire. 

 I think they let it become coals, put on seaweed then the food then more seaweed. 

 It was fantastic.

Unfortunately there were 40 mile an hour winds coming from the east across the lake.  

Gigantic waves, 3-4 foot!

On Sunday we were invited to a BBQ at one of my new boss's house.  

I don't usually socialize with my lab mates but the Chairman of our Dept. 

(one of the new boss's for me) 

personally invited me, so I put it on the calendar.

I managed to get some sewing done before we left, but did not manage to get any pictures!  HA!

I have been piecing a back for this most recent wedding quilt.  

Is anyone interested in seeing the process I have been using to design this back? 

 I made three large squares (16") to have at the wedding reception.  

People signed the squares and left well wishes.  

I embroidered the label, on the same gray I used on the front (which I used on the back too).  

I don't know about you, but I HATE sewing the label on after I make a quilt. 

 If I incorporate it into the back it is MUCH less painful for me.  

Bonus that the label can't be removed either!

If you are interested in seeing my dimensions and how it put the back together, 

I will take a photo of the graph and the back.  

I still need one more piece of gray (which I hope to have tonight) 

to actually finish assembling the back and then off to the quilter before I leave for NC.

Have a great Hump day everyone!

~XOP~

Plus Quilt Gifted

I was fortunate enough to finish my quilt this week and to gift it yesterday to my friend that is going through treatment. 

 Here are some photos of the finished quilt.

Linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts Finish It Up Friday.

 This came out so great! 

 Thank you to everyone that sent me blocks! 

 I was able to get this quilt plus 2 smaller ones

 (I still need to put the second one together) 

out of all the blocks.

 I am loving these cats.  It has been one of my "go to" gray fabrics!

Oh look, Sparty snuck in there.

I love Jenny's little Pezzy plus.

Metallics, and pearl bracelets and AGF oh my!

It was so fun to have skinny and chubby and such nice variety in this quilt.

You may remember that I did a large green cross on the back with the label centered but it really shows off the quilting on that flannel!

This may be my favorite photo of the group.  You can really see the quilting and the brilliant texture my LAQ, Kathy, gave this quilt.

I am working hard on the last wedding quilt (for now anyway).

It looks like my weekend is totally taken up with non-quilty things this weekend.

I am hoping to get time tonight to sew.

Anyone in North Carolina, Mebane area?

We are going to be in Mebane in 2 weeks.

We will be spending a few days in a cabin in the mountains near Ashville too.

So if you are anywhere near Durham, Charlotte or Raleigh lmk and maybe we can meet up!

Have a great weekend and thanks again, SO much for helping me complete this quilt so quickly!

The quilting community is the BEST!

Linking up to Let's Bee Social

~XOP~

Weekend Musings

My weekend was a little bit odd.  Husband and son were gone deer hunting 

from Friday to Saturday night. 

 Michigan had 2 odd deer hunting days in certain overpopulated counties. 

 Both my son and his friend, got a doe.  

That kept them busy for a few days.  

I had to hurry up and finish a quilt for a really dear friend that is in the hospital.  

She has cancer. 

 I don't want to show her quilt just yet but here is the label.

I can show you the back too.  I used cream flannel on the back. 

 She is in ICU but I am hoping that she will get to use this. 

 Please pray for her.

I almost have the green and gray plus quilt bound and finished too. 

 I need to take some photos once it is finished. 

 Kathy did a great job quilting both of these quilts for me!

I did happen to make an Infinity scarf and can see more of these in my future.

Though I would not make them so wide and I would wash the fabric first, for cotton.

My ever present helper was not in her usual place.  She got tired of me shoving her off the dark green flannel and retreated to a nice fabric lined cubby!

 I needed new jeans badly.  Mine were getting so big. They were on sale. 

 I tried on one size smaller and lo and behold it was still a little big. 

 I tried on TWO sizes lower and they fit!!!  

I texted this to my husband and he asked me if my cup size was two sizes lower too.  MEN?! 

 I sent this photo to my daughter and she said they looked big still, but they fit just fine!

I also managed to get the wedding quilt top finished but need to move on to embroidering the label.  Once the label is finished then I will figure out how to incorporate the signature blocks 

and the label directly into the back. 

 I HATE sewing on labels!!! 

 I did some weeding (pictures later) and finished the second baby quilt top for donation. 

 I need to make backs and bindings for those and take them to my other quilter friend.

Phew, glad to be back to work!  Wait...did I just say that??  LOL

How was your weekend?

~XOP~

Will I Make You What??

This was my question last night when my beautiful daughter brought over her pea hen, Beep.  

The request that prompted that question?  

"Hey mom, will you make Beep a chicken diaper?"  

She had used an online place to purchase previous chicken diapers from for her other pea fowl that lived in the house but Beep is a female and a little smaller.  

The online place is no longer making and selling chicken diapers hence the request.

  *sigh*

 The things we do for our kids, eh?

So while I tried to figure out how to go about making a new chicken diaper, Beep and her owner were hanging out in my sewing room last night.

She will fly right on to your arm too.

I needed to get that diaper made quickly as I didn't want her leaving her calling card in my room.

All that being said, here is the finished "chicken diaper".  You put a resealable, plastic bag inside.

Here is Beep modeling her new garment.  

I thought we should have used something more flashy for fabric.  

My daughter assured me it needed to be brown so as to blend in.  

Anything else would not be dignified. 

 (you do know your bird is wearing a diaper, right??)

Who knew I would be spending my night creating a chicken diaper!

We are up to our eyeballs in canning, but I had to beg off helping to make this.

Hubby put up ~20 quarts of tomatoes yesterday all by himself.

He still needs to can the corn and the beets.  

I have to trim a quilt and sew on the binding.

I am hoping to do that when I get home and maybe go to quilting tonight.

I may get pressed into canning service.  

It seems unfair to expect him to do all the work alone.

We shall see.

So what do you think?

New business venture?

LOL

Have a great day!

~XOP~

Charm Pack Charity Quilt Update

I finally settled on a pattern for my charm pack charity quilt.  

I wanted something I could make relatively quickly.  

I borrowed a book from a friend that had this pattern in it.  

The pattern is called Connect Four.  

It was so quick to make!  

I cut out the backgrounds and did all the sewing in one day!

I had that pale yellow in my stash and the charm pack was from a swap in the A2MQG.  

We were supposed to make a quilt using the charm squares from the swap.  

I ended up with enough blocks to make 2 tops the size we need for donating to Mott.

Sorry for the poor lighting, my hallway is not lit well at night.

It needed to be just a touch larger so I need to put borders on it.

Oh, thank goodness the quilt inspector showed up!  

Don't know how I would get anything done without her supervision!  

There is the first top all put together.

  I realized that I did not have enough of the yellow to do a border for the second one 

so I went digging through my stash and you know what?  

I found more of it!  If you need a super easy baby quilt this one just might be a good one!

I need to find some flannel from the stash and get this ready to quilt!  

I did get the binding on another quilt all sewn down on Sunday too while binge watching Haven 

with my daughter.

Hubby has been feeling ill with a cold all week, so we were kind of low key this weekend.  

I actually had to do some cooking (ew, ick).  

I made some chili and it turned out pretty well.

Linking up to WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced.
Also Sew Fresh Quilts Let's Bee Social

~XOP~

Fox Quilt is Finished and Gifted

I worked like a fiend to finish the Fox quilt for the baby shower last Saturday.  

I had all the quilting to do and then the binding. 

 The shower was in the morning too.  Here is how things progressed.  

I wanted to make straight lines so decided to use my Hera marker to mark the lines.  

You can see the lines in this photo, they are more of creases.  

It was a little difficult to see them during the quilting so not sure I will do this again.  

I may resort to my trusty masking tape!

Autumn was helping as per usual.

I used invisible thread but in hindsight I might have liked regular cotton better for the background.

I will probably use that for the other fox that I need to quilt.

Supervising the binding.

Here is a cat free photo of the finished quilt.  I LOVE how this turned out!!!

I had this backing fabric in my stash so decided it would be perfect for a fun backing.  I have enough of this to back the other fox in too.  YAY!

Here is a photo of Khali opening the quilt.  

Sorry the photos are so dark, but you get the idea.  She was pretty happy with this.

I also made a chenille blanket using Detroit Tigers fabric and

 the signature navy and orange for the chenille. 

 I love how this came out and will make more of these in the future. 

 Maybe one for Mott.

I am linking up to Finish It Up Friday.

Have a great weekend!!

~XOP~

Is It WIP Wednesday Already?

Wow, it is difficult to believe that it is Wednesday already!  

I hope everyone in the States had a nice long holiday weekend, I know I did.  

I took Friday off too so it was nice and extended for me.  

It was super hot and humid for Michigan so not much outside work. 

 I did manage a little weeding but not much.  

I tend to wilt in the hot weather.

I hope you were all able to work on something fun over the weekend. 

 I worked on getting my bee blocks finished. 

 I also worked on my Fox quilt but more on that later.  

These bee blocks are part of the Emerge.do good stitches bee.  I really loved these. 

 They were easy to make and I had fun sorting through the scrap bins to make them. 

 I think this would be a fun way to use up monochromatic scraps and make a kick ass quilt. 

 Wouldn't this be fun in rainbow colors?  

Maybe we could do something like this as a QAL?  

First I made monochromatic log cabin blocks like this.

Then I surrounded those with larger, low volume logs for a finished block like these.

The original, inspiration quilt for these can be found here, at Quirky Granola Girl's blog.  

This is what it looked like. 

 Her process was a little different.  

She started with the monochromatic log blocks then added in low volume logs to complete her quilt.  Go over to her blog post and check out the process.  

What do you think about doing something like this as a QAL?  

I think it would be a lot of fun.  

The A2MQG is going to enter a charity quilt at Quilt Con this year.  

The person in charge of our quilt asked for Mod Mosaic blocks ala Elizabeth Hartman. 

 The finished blocks were to be in multiples of 6 " sizes, ie. 6 x 6, 6 x 12, 12 x 12 etc

Let me just say how much I HATED making these blocks (sorry Ann).

I didn't mind making them so much as making them to a specific size.  

That being said here are my 2 (after about 4 hours of making and re-making, UGH)

They were to be made using the solid sashing of one color and solid of another of the chosen colors.

I also managed to make 3 bindings.  

I don't like making bindings but at least they are ready when the quilts come back to me.

Fox, Tardis and Rainbow Plus bindings are ready for application.

 As per usual my supervisor was hard at work "helping"

I know some of you must wonder what my quilting area looks like 

so I took a wider shot with Autumn on my sewing table.  

As you can see this ginormous table takes up the entire center of my room! 

 I need to take you on a sewing room tour someday too.  

My space is not that big but I am grateful I have an entire room.

I took this one at the end of the night of sewing on Monday.  

Autumn is covering her eyes and it looks like she is praying. 

 I love it when she does that!

I am linking up to WIP Wednesday and Let's Bee Social.  

Be sure to let me know if you would like to participate in a QAL. 

 Otherwise, maybe we could do a monochromatic log cabin block drive. 

 What do you think about that? 

 You could send blocks like I made, or even just the monochromatic log blocks with some low volume strips and I could put them together for charity quilts.  

I don't have much in the way of low volume prints.

Any interest in something like that?

~XOP~