Friday Friends Sewing

I do so love having my friends over to sew on Friday - we had a lot of fun yesterday and everyone was getting a lot done!!  Even me!  I finally put a binding on a practice quilting piece that will become a cat blanket and started some more mice.  By the way, the name of the mouse pattern is "LittleMouse Needle & Thread Keeper" by ArtFabric Studio.  I finally found it!  They have several nice pincushion patterns available, you can find them at:  www.artfabricstudio.com

Here are a few pics of "the girls" hard at work in my sewing room:

Cindy & Anita were hand applique-ing, Margaret was knitting, Judy finished 2 quilt tops, Susan was working on her red & white double wedding ring, and Sena was quilting an irish knot wall hanging!  Very productive and talented group!  I'm humbled to be among them.

WOWE Quilt

Here's another WOWE quilt I quilted & bound the other day - love the colors and patterns!

Got "the Girls" coming over this morning!  I'm so looking forward to seeing everyone - sometimes a week seems like a long long time.  There's a group of local quilters that I hang with that meet every Friday at someone's home.  Today, it's my turn!  We start around 9-9:30 am and sew until about 2 pm.  Perfect!  Here's a pic from a Friday at my house a while back:

I'll try to get an updated pic today.

Hope your Friday is fun & fabulous!

This is a little baby quilt I made last weekend for a sweet little girl!  The green fabric I got at Hancock's in Jackson, TN, on sale last year.  It was too cute to pass up - little clothespin people!  They also had it in grey, which I snapped up, but at a different sale price!!??  Same fabric, just a different background color...does Hancocks price by popularity?  I would've thought the green to be as desirable as the grey.  Anyway, the block is a "disappearing" snowball type block that Cindy Barnes and I developed one Friday and I really like it!  Fast and fun.  Here's the quilt:

 As you can see, I just quilted it simply with straight lines on my Janome 6600p with a walking foot.  I used some Quilter's Dream wool batting I had, which I thought would be soft and cuddlely for a baby.  I didn't think about washability, but I don't think there will be a problem.  I put a care tag on it to wash in cold on delicate & damp-dry on low.  It's a baby quilt, wear is expected!

Mice!

Here is an on-going project; Mice!  I started making these mice last year for our WOWE fundraiser and everyone seemed to like them so much, I've continued to make them "as needed"; with all the $$ going to the non-profit White Oak Women's Exchange (www.facebook.com/WOWE2012).  I used a pattern that I bought at Quilting by the Bay in Panama City, Florida (http://www.quiltingbythebay.com/) by a cute pattern company, but I've lost the original pattern so I don't know the name. Urgh.  I "adjusted" the pattern and tweeked it here & there to make it easier for me to follow and the results are below:

They are cute... and useful!  They are designed to be pin cushions, but also make great rings and jewelry pins holders.  Anyway, they're fun to make and make me smile, what else can you ask of a pin cushion?

Just a quick little post.  What do you take with you sew when you leave home to sew?  I have an on going project that is easy, mindless and quick to do that has become my "go to" take along sewing.  I pack up my travel Janome & my Tutto rolling case, a big bag of selveges and a bag of used & washed dryer sheets and off I go to sew at guild meetings, friends homes or any other off-site sewing situation.  Here is what I did yesterday at our "Friday Friends" quilting group:

In the top picture you can see three different dryer sheets I sewed selveges onto.  The 4th pic is the back side so you can see the dryer sheet.  The bottom pic is a little bit closer on one of the sewn dryer sheets.  I use these in all sorts of projects, which I'll show you in a later post!  I'm always surprised at how many I can get done in an afternoon, but that's because they're so darn easy to do and don't take a lot of concentration.  Perfect for sewing in a group setting!!

Do you have a project you take along?  What is it?

Well, it's a cold one!  The thermometer on the side of the house read 5 this morning.  Was a bit chilly doing chores and keeping brother moving.  He moves at a slower pace than i do and sometimes i feel like I'm an electron flying around an atom, or whatever they zip around.  But we got it done.  In an attempt to keep this blog as honest as possible and use it like a journal, I have to report that we had a dead baby goat this morning.  I'm not sure who's baby she was, but last night my other half noticed she was a little stand off-ish from the other kids.  Don't know cause of death, probably never will, just one of those things.  I don't often admit to "failures", like kids dying, just keep them to myself, try to adjust what I do so they won't happen again, and go on.  But, I've about had it with the un-pleasant side of goat keeping, like death and disease.  I'm seriously thinking of reducing the herd down to a few does and just having pet goats.  No more breeding, kids, market days, fighting with wild goats...just enough goats to enjoy and smaller feed bills.  Have to talk with the accountant.

But, on a happier note, I have another quilt done on my Gammill to show you!  It's made from fabric I got at Yards 'n Yarns in Tennessee Ridge to use in a WOWE (White Oak Women's Exchange) quilt.  I quilted it with an all over meander.  Here it is:

I think the quilting stitches were better on this one and I didn't do too bad with the meander.  Still working to keep my rhythm consistent, but I'm doing OK with that.

I guess I didn't get any good pics of the main fabric, it's a beautiful wild duck scene.  It'll be a nice "man" quilt.

bye for now!
Kim

My First

Here it is!  The first thing I quilted on my Gammill!  And "thing" is the correct noun.  I didn't know what to do with it when i finished quilting it.  It was a panel I got for little $$ a couple of years ago and I thought it would be a good practice piece - and it was!  The quilting actually isn't bad!  What a relief!  I may not stink at this!  Anyway, it turns out that the size of the completed piece is perfect to cover me up when I'm watching TV in my recliner (oops!  did I just admit I laze around watching TV in a recliner??? yep, that's me!)  So I bound it and here it is:

2015

Well here it is, 2015!  I'm sure we all think about the year gone by and what the new year has in store for us.  For me, once 2015 arrived; I've just about forgotten 2014.  Not one to dwell on the past.

It is said that whatever you're doing on January 1, you will continue doing it every day throughout the year, or something like that.  Well, I hope it's true because I spent New Year's Day quilting on my new-to-me longarm quilting machine!  Whoo Hoo!  I love love love it!!!  It has really reduced my quilting anxiety - my fear of producing more quilt tops than I could ever quilt on my home machine.  Now I know I can quilt a top in no time on my Gammill, so bring on the quilt tops!  I have about 15 tops that need to be quilted and my priority is to get them done by the end of the year.  How's that for a New Year's Resolution!

Here's my Gammill

And here's some of the work she'll have to do!

The top shelf is finished quilt tops, the other 3 shelves are fabric (100% cotton only!) and on the floor...works/experiments in progress on the left, my travel machine, my wrapping paper etc box, and out of the picture on the right, a box of batting scraps. Yikes!

Oh, and about New Year's resolutions, they're fun to make and I always do, but they are just guidelines, right?  So here are mine:  1)work on time management and 2)QUILT MORE!