Labels, Baby Quilts, and Vintage Singers!

I have had some real fun things come in the mail this last week!  The first thing is my first set of quilting labels!  I have at least 4 quilt tops waiting for me to quilt and bind.   I can hardly wait to have a real finish so I can add this into a quilt.

Oh, I just noticed I said Handmade instead of Homemade.  Hmm.
Does a quilt sewn on a machine qualify as handmade?

The second thing is a quilt kit I could not resist from Shabby Fabrics.  My oldest son recently had a sweet baby daughter (his 2nd) and I realize I have been a horrible grandma and not made them quilts!   This newest granddaughter is named after both of her great grandmothers so she has quite the old-fashioned name.  Bettymae Ofelia.  This  quilt has a sweet vintage vibe to it.  I really like it.  Hope she does!  I got all the pieces cut out today.

Here is the sweetie-pie this will be made for, she's almost 2 months old.  We need to figure out a way to tame that hair!

I need to figure out what I'm going to make for her older sister who is already two.  So many quilts, so little time!

The third thing that came in the mail is a new Accuquilt.  Along with three strip dies for 2 1/2", 3 1/2" and 4 1/2" strips.   I have a project that is all strips and this will speed things up a great deal!  I had fun with my test run today.   I ran down to the thrift store and found a yard of lilac fabric for 25 cents.  Love finding those kind of deals!  

And in no time at all, I have  2 1/2" strips and squares.
I think I'm going to have fun with this new toy.

And last but not least is a new treasure for my sewing room!  I am in love!  This one did not come in the mail.  This little darling was found in a local shop and just begged me to take her home with me.  I cannot resist rich wood with curvy lines . . .

Or beautifully embossed metal . . .

Or vintage decals that are still beautiful . . .

Isn't she the prettiest little thing?  She's over 100 years old (1906).  Not only beautiful but fully functional I was told.  I have not tried her out because I'm not sure how everything works yet but I will learn.  I bought this little beauty not only for her looks but because I can sew with her even if the apocalypse comes and there is no power anywhere. (great justification, don't you think? hee, hee)  In the meantime, she will look gorgeous just sitting on display in my sewing room.  I need to find a name for her.  Something old fashioned and feminine.
Any ideas for me?  

So I managed to talk and show pictures about sewing things even though I didn't sew a single stitch this week!   This house finish can't come too soon for me.  Today my hubby spent all day laying tile in the bathrooms.  It's going to save us quite a lot on the cost if he does that part himself.  

Here are some house updates!

Here is the front entry.  The door hasn't arrived yet so this is just a temporary construction door.  The trim which is typically white is a darker color than the walls.  I really like this!

Coming in the front door here is what you would see.  The entry closet.  It has no doors yet as all the doors were just painted and are drying out in the garage.  Peaking around to the left you can see that the beautiful Brazilian Tigerwood has been laid down in the dining room and kitchen.   It hasn't been sealed yet and very dirty and dusty right now.  But following is a picture of that.

I can hardly wait to see what this looks like cleaned up and sealed.  It also darkens with age once exposed to the light.  I think it is going to be stunning!

Here is a closeup of one of my favorite pieces.  So much personality!

This next part we're not yet sure what we're going to do here.  This looks like a fireplace but it is actually a very highly efficient wood stove built right into the wall.   Since my husband is in construction we have TONS of scrap wood from all of his jobs that we save and burn each winter.  This should keep our whole house fairly warm with a minimum usage of the heating system.  We aren't sure what color the mantel will be stained and I think we're doing some sort of tile around the box and also on the floor in front of the hearth.  

Not much to show in the quilt room yet.  The shelves have been painted the same taupe color that I showed you in the entry way.   It is going to look really nice with the flooring I chose for that room.  I'll wait until that is installed before I show more pictures.

So that is my week.  I enjoyed watching the 12 Days of Christmas Blog Hop and am looking forward to some more Christmasy things when the 2017 New Blog participants show us their block designs.  It should be a lot of fun!

I hope you enjoyed your visit.  I love it when you stop by!

Linking to:

Crazy Mom Quilts
Busy Hands Quilts

Quilt Room Progress

Soooo excited to see the built-in shelving go into my quilt room yesterday!

 I am going to have so much fun figuring out where I am going to put what on which shelf!  One thing I saw that I really, really want to try are these!

A tutorial for making these can be found at SewCanShe.com  Click here for the direct link to a free tutorial.  Caroline at SewCanShe calls these BIG Fold Up Baskets and I am guessing she probably has tutorials for smaller ones as well.  I love the look of these and how sturdy they are!  Aren't they pretty?  I believe they are reversible too.

Yesterday, in addition to the shelves in my quilt room, shelves and cubbies were being installed in the rest of the house too.  I am loving all this storage!   Here is the pantry . . .

Here is the back entry coming in through the garage.  This will have coat hooks along with the cubbies.

And here is my daughter's bedroom with a window seat for reading and writing (her favorite occupations).  She is starting college at the end of August but I'm sure we'll be seeing her on the weekends now and then.

So that's what's happening inside the house.  I believe painters will be coming through next.  That will be very interesting because we did something adventurous with the colors on the inside.  No, nothing bright or too bold (are you surprised?) but there will be three colors in the main living space.  I'll show you when they are done.

And finally, if you read my last post you know that I was struggling with a block because I kept making mistakes on it.  I took a break from that pain in the neck and tried again yesterday.  I could not, for the life of me, get those points to match up correctly so don't look too close.  I sewed and ripped several times and I'm calling it good.  Here she is . . .  ornery little thing!

And here are the three I have made so far all together . . .

I LEARNED SOMETHING NEW!!  I got to visit and sew with Robin my BQF (Best Quilty Friend) yesterday and she taught me something new about my machine!  I'm sure I'm probably the last person on earth to know this so please no snickering if you've known this for decades.  I know there are other new seamstresses out there besides me so for your sakes I don't want you to be sewing on your machine for years before you figure this out!  

Here is it:  When you are stopped and you only need to go one more stitch, instead of stepping on your foot pedal real quick in hopes that you only add one more stitch, step on the heel of the pedal and it will go a 1/2 stitch at a time.  If the needle is up, it will go down and stop.  If the needle is down, it will go up and stop.  I don't know if all machines do this or not, but I did not know that MY machine does this (Bernina 440QE).  THANK YOU, ROBIN!

Hurray for learning new things! 

Linking to:

Quilting is More Fun Than Housework

Cooking Up Quilts

Love Laugh Quilt
Bambi's Show & Tell Monday

I Just Had to Laugh

Some days you just have to shake your head.  It started out innocently enough with some really cute hourglass blocks which were required for a July Block of the Month block I was making.  OK, so far so good.  Really like these!

Next was to add units to either side.  So I did that, but whaaaat?  There goes a new addition to my set of "One of These Does Not Look Like the Rest" flash cards.

Small sigh . . . and out comes the seam ripper.  Thank you to the quilting angel that sent me a seam ripper recently, you know who you are.   It got a workout this week!

There we go!

These units are to go on the side of a block I had already made.

And another whaaaaat?  They are too big!

So I checked my directions and discovered that someone had hand changed the size of the white rectangles and the little green polka dot squares to be a 1/2 inch bigger, and unfortunately, the original instructions were correct!

So I guess, I can just trim off the extra and everything will be fine.  As I was doing this, I noticed that according to the instructions, I had sewn those white and green units on the wrong side of the hour glass squares anyway!  Remember the one up above that "does not look like the rest"?   Well, it was the only one that was right!

What is the matter with me?  I must have been too tired and should have not been sewing that night.   Anyway, needless to say I decided to stop and continue another day!  On days like this, I just have to laugh at myself and move on. 

 On the bright side, I got some VERY HAPPY MAIL!!   Myra Barnes, the queen of rainbow quilts, had a scrap giveaway.   She makes gorgeous quilts but she doesn't like dealing with the scraps so I entered that giveaway and won!  I got that package yesterday and had a good time sorting them by color.  I had fun teasing her a little bit and said either you don't like orange and purple very much, or you like them a LOT and used it all up.  Actually it's neither one.  She just likes to use what she already has and apparently her stash doesn't have a lot of purple and orange at the moment.  She effectively tripled the size of my self-imposed trailer-sized scrap stash.

I got a few more Stash Bee blocks completed this week but need to get them mailed off.  I don't think it counts for being on time unless you actually mail them.  This one is for Jennifer at The Inquiring Quilter.  Jennifer, I hope this is the ombre effect you were going for.   I struggled in a few places getting the points to match right, but after several rippings and resewings, finally had to call it good. I hope it is sufficient.  I'm going to blame it on trailer light.  Yeah, that's it.

The second block is for Karen in Hive #6 of the Stash Bee who requested string blocks . . .

And last but not least, is my June block which Julie graciously gave me a few extra weeks since this kind of all happened about the time we had to move out of our house.  Packing and moving do not mesh with sewing very well.  She requested the Houndstooth pattern which can be found at Blossom Heart Quilts.  This will look really cool put together with all the other blocks she receives.  If you follow the link to the pattern, you can see how it looks with other blocks.

I actually do have one more block to make for July, but I'll share that another day.

I don't really have a house update to share today but I will next time!  They are adding on the outside stone work this week.   

I have decided to go with hardwood for the floor in the quilt room and to help with any long standing up projects will get a portable cushy rug (well padded) for my feet.  Here is a sample of what that wood will look like.  We can't afford to do tiger wood in the whole house so I went with rustic in my quilt room.  This isn't actually wood, but an engineered laminate made to look like distressed wood.  Almost as tough as wood and a fraction of the cost.  

So that's my sewing adventures for the moment.  My goal for this week is to finish that fourth block, and get all of them mailed.  MAYBE finish that ornery BOM that I kept goofing up on.  I have begun referring to myself as Miss One Block Wonder since that is all I have been finishing lately.  I am DYING to finish an actual quilt!  

Thanks for stopping by and hope you'll stop by again soon!  

Linking to:

Free Motion by the River

To-Do Tuesday
Love Laugh and Quilt
Main Crush Monday

And the Winner is . . .

Orange swirl with calico and upon the suggestion of several of you I switched out the blue for the stripey fabric.  I LOVE collaborating.  So please keep participating when I ask for ideas.   I really  like it!!  This fabric combination left me with quite a bit left of both the swirl and the stripe so I have some more playing to do.

If you're just reading this post and wondering what is going on, you can read the last post to see what the voting was about.  I am trying to sew for this next month, until we get into our new home, using only one bag of scraps and not buying any fabric (except possibly for Stash Bee requests).

In addition to this result of scrap playing, I also had my June block of the month to do.  I actually had some free time today and got that put together as well.  Love this pattern!

 I tried to do a fancy shot with a blue tractor but I don't like how it looks on point and the wind kept trying to blow it away.  There is NOTHING else around here but dirt!  Can't wait to get some landscaping around this place!

House update!  The sheetrock is up and they are taping now.  It shouldn't be long before we start seeing some finishes going in.  I showed you the outside paint last time but we didn't know what stones we would be using.

Here is the stone.  I'm not sure if you can see it in the picture but it has shiny flecks in the rock.

Here is the granite that will go on the kitchen and bathroom countertops and it has some shiny flecks too only bigger flecks! It is a choice that can go with either gray or beige.

 

 I forgot to show the kind of kitchen cabinets we chose so that will be on the next update.  We haven't picked out light fixtures yet but are possibly going to have Brazilian Tigerwood hardwood floors!  Have you ever seen that stuff?  Take a peak here.  It is amazing!  It might be outside the budget so we'll see how all the costs are coming in closer to floor time.  I know, probably too busy for some of you but I just love all the different shades in this wood!

Speaking of floors, I would like to hear your opinion on the pros and cons of flooring in a sewing room.  Carpet or hardwood?  And why?  Thanks so much for all the opinions you share with me.  I love hearing from you! (Anja, you don't have to answer this one because you already told me!)  

Linking to:

Love, Laugh, Quilt

Em's Scrap Bag

To-Do Tuesday
Free Motion by the River

Next Improv Block and House Update

It was an adventure creating a new block improv style!

When I showed you my pile of scraps that I have limited myself to using while we are waiting for our house to be built, several of you mentioned the bright orange swirly looking piece and wanted me to use that for the next block.  So I dug through and found all of the pieces left of that one.  Here they are:

Next, I dove into the pile to find something to go with it.  I found these cute little miniature floral pieces:

   And laid out this:

I like this!  But I wanted to explore ALL of my options.  So I'm going to show you some other choices and let you help me decide which direction to go.  Please vote!  :)

There will be enough to put that bottom border on but I didn't want to cut it yet until I decide what I'm doing!

I think I would cut this up and do something more interesting than just a framed square.  If this is your favorite, what would you do with it?

OK, this next one is a little bit out there with traditional calico and this crazy swirl.  The nice thing about this one is I would still have quite a bit of swirl fabric left for another block.

And last but not least, the swirl fabric with some orange and red solid looking fabrics:

I am envisioning some kind of star block or something with flying geese.  I could actually sew some of the swirl strips together again to make a larger piece and you would hardly notice it.  Now please do leave your vote in the comments, won't you?  Which one (or two) choices do you like best?

I said I would have a house update but it's soooo hot out there!  It got up to over 100  degrees today!  It's almost 6 pm and still in the 90's.  Do I HAFTA get up and take pictures?  Oh, all right.  Ya talked me into it.  I'm heading out the door.  And please feel properly guilty for making me go out into this weather.  I'll be back in a sec.  OK, here ya go.

The red in this picture almost looks a little purplish, but it is a barn red.  The bottom of the posts will have horizontal strips of stone.  We haven't picked that out yet.  Today, we picked out the granite and carpet.  I'm not going to show anything inside yet because it's very boring.  Just bare sheetrock and every room looks the same right now.

The front looks very narrow, but it's pretty wide and goes back quite a ways.  Below is a view looking in the front window . . .  That first door you see on the right is the hallway to my quilt room! The 2nd door further back is the kitchen pantry.  This front room will be open to the large dining room (planning on putting a Walton Family size table in there) and then all the way to the end is the kitchen.   Ceiling height throughout the house is ten feet.

I'll share the progress as it happens!

Linking to:

Crazy Mom Quilts

Busy Hands Quilts

Confessions of a Fabric Addict