I Did It!

I totally finished the additional 6 quilts last night. 

 First I went out to dinner with my good friend at a new (to me) place for mediterranean food.  

Let me just say it was AMAZING!  

If you live in the Canton area you need to go and check out the Sheikh.  Here is their website.  

Fresh hot bread, amazing garlic sauce and their hummus...YUM!

OK back to the quilts.  

I just had to put on binding last night (yes, *just that*) . LOL .

 Of course, since I was at work all day, when I got home the boys wanted my attention.  

So as I sat down to do binding, I had BOTH of them "helping" me!

Here are all 6 finished.

Some shots of the quilting.

I used up some of the binding scraps on one of the quilts.

I love my SIL and she is one of the only people I would kill myself like this for.  PHEW!  

I am happy they are all done, now I just need to get them to her!

~XOP~

Can I Actually Do It?

This is the question I keep asking myself, (along with "ARE YOU CRAZY?") 

My sweet SIL was talking to me about how she was going to be making bags and nap quilts to give away at her granddaughter's 2nd birthday party this Saturday.  

She was just out of the hospital the day before we went to the quilt show in GR.  

The bags are amazing!  

She was appliquing dinosaurs on each bag, along with the child's name.  

She had those all fused but still needed to sew all the pieces down (on 12 bags!!) . 

I thought she needed some help so I offered to do the quilts.  

I have no idea what I was thinking, LOL.  

She gave me only 5 of the quilts.  

So on Saturday I spray basted them, quilted them and sewed on the binding.  

YAY!  GO ME!!

Then the crazy hit.  

My husband was going to be at his uncle's house on Saturday after dinner 

so I sent the quilts with him, to give to her.  

THEN, I decided that I should offer to do the rest.  

He was coming back home on Sunday am before leaving for Canada so perfect right? 

 I would have all Sunday to work on them. 

Except, he left them in his truck, an hour away from home.  

Fortunately, one of his cousin's kids works here and lives there 

so I met up with her after work yesterday to get the additional 6 quilts.  

I spray basted all of them and got them all quilted and trimmed after work and before bed yesterday.  I made all the binding for them too.  

Tonight is dinner with a friend but maybe I can get binding on a couple of them tonight. 

 After I sew them on I will turn and glue then machine stitch the binding in place. 

 I used a cool stitch over the binding that made it go quickly.  

You can see it below.

OK, PHEW, want to see the first five?

Cole was my helper.  He kept the tape in place.

Pretty simple quilting.  Although I did several different patterns.

My handsome boy!

All five FINISHED!

Isn't this a neat way to stitch on the binding?

I LOVE the binding like this!

Some different quilting.

More quilting patterns and check out the binding stitch on that one!

I will take some pictures of the other 6 when they are finished.

The dino fabric is different on those.

Wish me luck!!!

~XOP~

AQS Purchases

I could NOT walk away from all the cute children's quilt patterns I saw at the AQS show.  

I snagged just a few (gross understatement, LOL)

I thought about trying to embroider some dish towels for hubby for Christmas.  

I bought two different patterns.  

I thought some would be cute in the camper too.

I love this book and can't wait to make things from here too.

 I bought some cute cat fabric and found some awesome Petosky stone fabric too.

The rock hound in me could not walk away.  I used to hunt for these every summer up north.

I hope to start on a new baby quilt soon that will be using these colors.  

I need 1/2" and 1" rick rack for the quilt as well. 

I found some half inch so bought that.  Now to look for the 1".  

Anyone got a source for that??

By far the BEST find of the show is this original Heather Ross Mendocino!!  

I could not believe my eyes when I spotted this. 

It is the original NOT the reprinted stuff! 

 Could it get any better?  

You bet, it was on the clearance table too!

Stopped at Stitched Studio and found these beauties.

VERY productive trip.

I can't wait to dig in and sew.

I really need my "have to" projects to be done, LOL.

~XOP~

AQS Grand Rapids

On Wednesday I went to AQS with my SIL in Grand Rapids.  

We had such a great time!  

I took a few photos of some of the quilts I really loved so thought I would share.  

There was a guild challenge and it was to use the Bow Tie block in your quilt somehow.  

I took pics of a couple I really liked.   

The Mary Poppins quilt was pretty sweet.

I loved the geometric hide and seek of this one.

By FAR my favorite was this one using the Bow Ties for the body and heads of the black cats!

I LOVED seeing this quilt that featured Tula Pink's Neptune line

P is for Pokemon!

I thought this was stunning.

I found this interesting as I have considered making a quilt along this line.  

THIS was my favorite quilt of the whole show.  My photos do NOT do it justice.  A giant flowering snowball with Ohio stars inside.  The quilting was amazing too.  LOVED THIS!

The Cherry Wood fabric challenge had all these gorgeous blues.

I fell in love with the cat.

Big surprise right?

This was in a fairy tale challenge quilt.

I love how they pieced this cat face!

I bought a few things and will share about that tomorrow.

Hope you enjoyed the peek into the show!

~XOP~

My Mouse Block and My Life

I've been doing some pattern testing for Quilt Genius for her Mad Scientist quilt.  

The latest block was done at my suggestion and inspiration.  

I sent her a photo of what I thought it should be and she worked her magic to make it happen. 

I absolutely LOVE this block.  

My favorite of the entire series so far.  

Her pattern for this should be available in the near future 

(September, I think, if you need to make one too).

We work with C57B/6 mice and they are a super dark brown with black eyes.

I decided to try to re-create that mouse for my block.  

If you look close the fabric looks like swirls of fur!

Cole was in my room "helping"

Then Melissa from Weird Cats painted my Finny with Hallie creeping in the background and Jack hanging out.  It is so cute!  I, of course, had to buy it.  I plan on getting it framed and giving it to my husband for Christmas.

Speaking of him, guess who bought himself a brand spankin new fishing kayak?

Happy Thursday!

~XOP~