On The Road Again

Me and my DH are on the road to NYC today so I thought in keeping with the NaBloPoMo of posting every day in the month of NovemberI would write a post tonight and have it post tomorrow while we are traveling.  He has to go to NJ for Flight Safety and if you remember, I get to go into the city and play for the week!!  We will be driving all the way there tomorrow.

So for your reading pleasure I will be talking about that little quilt I talked about recently.  A friend of my DD1had her grandmother pass away and she donated all her fabric to my church quilting group.  I felt like she needed to have a little quilt made out of this fabric before it all went to the church group.  So I came up with a dresden plate layout.  It was a very eclectic  collection to say the least!  I made the quilt top and decided it needed to be hand quilted.  Do I hand quilt?  Not very well, but I determined to try.  I did alright around the plates but the feathers were so difficult.  I was complaining about it at the gym and one of the ladies offered to do it for me.  I gave her the top and she did the feathers, or most of them.  I got it back and thought that it needed a little more quilting so I quilted inside each fan blade and then I quilted inside the rectangles.  I finished it recently and I was so excited!! I put a label on it the other night just before the party because the woman I was going to give it to was coming to our Halloween party.  I gave it to her and she was thrilled.  Would you like to see?

Here is the back too

And the label

I talked about this quilt and showed close ups of the hand quilting here, if you want to see.  I want to know if any of you are planning on participating in the NaBloPoMo and blogging every day in November too?  I would love to hear from you!!  Next time you hear from me I will be in NYC!!!

I Did It!!

I sure did it! I blogged every day for the last 30 days, every single day in November! Woo Hoo!!
Ok enough celebrating, you came to see the photos of my finishes didn't you? First up is the reindeer table runner that I made for my Secret Santa Christmas Swap. I LOVE it!! It will be difficult to part with it.



Then I finished this wall hanging. It is the third one of them completely finished (thank you LTW and PTM). Here is the front and back.

See how the quilting makes a great "wing" on this one? I love how that happened! Also notice the great plaid I found for the binding on this one! I still need to take a photo of the one I am keeping, hey maybe tomorrow!!

It was darkish and raining and windy when I got home tonight so I had some trouble taking photos. GRRRR I should have done it yesterday. Oh well, here are the next FIVE tops I managed to finish too.

It's really amazing that 4 charm packs and a partial layer cake could turn into 8 great wall hangings isn't it? I think I'm pretty much tired of this pattern at this point. I was talking to PTM the other day and told her I was going to give it away and I guess I'll be giving it away to her!! LOL!! She really likes the pattern so she can have it and make a few for herself or for gifts. She has been doing all my binding, because it really hurts my hands and all the way up into my shoulder. How can you ask for a better BFF?? Answer: YOU CAN'T!! So I told her to choose one of those last 5 to keep for herself. It will be fun to see which one she will choose. I think I know which one but I'll keep you posted!

I still need to make the backs so I can send them to LTW for the quilting. If I wasn't so lazy I would do that tonight. Actually I think I will do just that, although I hear Rudolph on the TV in the other room and it is my favorite Christmas show, so we will see. I went to the gym, came home and made turkey pot pie, popped it into the oven and went to the church to drop off something then home, food and now blogging.

So, I need to get it in gear and see what I can do about those backs, (one continuous piece sounds good don't you think??) I need to put away dinner, clean up, and get the ribs ready for the crock pot so they can be started in the morning before I leave for work. Have a wonderful evening and remember you can do whatever you put your mind to (like blog every day!!)
XOP

Some Finishes

Even though I have been kind of slugish lately I did have some finishes today. DH really wanted me to spend time with him watching movies, so I have spent a lot of time on the couch. Today I managed to extricate myself long enough to finish the laundry, change the sheets and do some stitching. I worked really hard at finishing my cats in a basket embroidery. I need to design a little quilt around it now that I can quilt myself for a guild challenge. What do you think of it?

I'm thinking aqua and red something or other. Really simple though as I have to quilt and bind it myself for the challenge (EW)
While working on this I kept on seeing my real live cats in a basket (really a chair), Aiden and Mosen.

They pretty much stayed there while I was sewing all day today. Lazy beasts!!

I also got 5 more Cardinal wall hanging tops pieced!! Those are now done, I just need to put a back together and make the binding and they will be ready for gift giving. That will make 8 of those in total. Pretty good for 4 charm packs and part of a layer cake don't ya think? So 6 are dark and 2 are "Merry and Bright". Now here's the bad news, I got one of them back from PTM all bound and cute and all and do you think I can find it? I was cleaning for Thanksgiving and picking up the sewing room and now it is MIA. PTM thinks maybe I left it in my car. I looked in the car, twice! I know it will turn up but I hate being so absent minded!! I will have to offer a prayer to St. Anthony. "Tony, Tony turn around. Something's lost that must be found!"
EDITED TO ADD: I guess I must be losing my mind because as I was laying in bed thinking about the wall hanging my thoughts were being lead to remember that I wrote on it. I gave it to Yuki as her going away gift. Wow, thanks St. Anthony. Who says prayers aren't asnwered??
Now I can go off to bed!!

I will try to get a photo of them all tomorrow. Speaking of which, I have to go back to work tomorrow. It feels like I have been off for so long now! Also, in 2 more days I will have completed 30 days of blogging every day! I can't believe it, but I did it. Some days were more difficult than others, LOL. Sorry about the boring days, but those come with the more exciting ones, right? I hope you all had a great weekend.
XOP

NaBloPoMo...Say WHAT??

That's what I said the first time my DD1 told me about NaNoWriMo too. Hers is National Novel Writing Month and I happened to find National Blog Posting Month. For hers they have to write a certain number of words in the month of November (I think she figured she needs to write 5000 per day to make the total! Now for NaBloPoMo we need to post every day for the month of November. I think this will be an interesting challenge for me and one I am looking forward to. I sometimes go without posting and this will help challenge me to be more consistent. So get ready out there in blog land for an entire month of Mama Spark's musings!!

Hey, come to think of it, why don't you join me? I put a button on my left side bar, so you too are just one click away from joining in on all the fun! C'mon, you know you want to! There just might be some prizes involved and your blog will certainly get some more exposure. Let me know if you decide to join in.

XOP