July 30, 2013

What's happening?

By    7:43 AM // 4 comments
When you hear the phrase What's Happening, do you think of that show from the late 70s? I do. Yes I am old enough to remember it but thankfully I look younger than I really am.
Anyways...to answer the question...not much really. And that is a bummer. Normal everyday life is busy as usual. Work. Laundry. Kids. Dirty dishes. The typical stuff that eats up creative time.

At least on Friday I was able to accomplish this!
While I'm still waiting for Joey's 100 Good Wishes quilt to come back from my longarm quilter, I finally have time to start getting to know Penelope. There are no deadlines on my calendar so what I choose to do next is totally up to me. Yippee !

I hadn't touched her since I brought her home and set her up 3 months ago. The 1st thing that needed to be fixed was the fact that I had one part of the carriage on backwards, so off came the take up bar so that I could turn it around. Let me tell you, lifting up a 75 lb machine and flipping that board around and then getting the machine back on the carriage in a good spot wasn't an easy task by myself but I did it. 

Once that was complete, I added the furniture mover pads under the legs to make sliding the frame out on the carpet when I want to quilt  much easier. I brought my laptop upstairs to my studio so that I could watch the How To videos while learning where to oil my machine, how to thread her and how to load a quilt. The fact that the Windows Media Player on it kept getting hung up made this part take much longer than it should have. I ended up watching them on the desktop in the 1st floor office, pausing it and running back up stairs to do each bit. At least I got lots of exercise. You can chuckle at me for being willing to admit that at first I pinned the backing onto the wrong bar and had to change it before I could load the top.

This is just some really cheap practice fabric that I bought from the big W store and some left over batting. For my 1st messy practice stitches I didn't want to waste perfectly good fabric and using this nasty stuff keeps me from feeling guilty about its eventual destination..the trash bin. I know that I will never use fabric from that place for anything but practicing. Trust me, it doesn't feel nice at all.

Unfortunately I had to go pick up the kids from summer camp right after I snapped this photo so no actually stitching was accomplished. Then Saturday we ran a bunch of errands and the rest of the day was spent cleaning for our pending Sunday to Monday house guest. To top it off I came down with a summer cold yesterday morning. I sure hope I'll be up to actually turning Penelope on and testing her out this week but only time will tell.

I hope you are able to find some creative time yourself this week.

July 28, 2013

I have a request

By    9:11 AM // 19 comments
With all the shake out I think is still going on for many people when Google Reader shut down, so many thing that most of us had gotten very used to are changing and where that will ultimately lead us is currently unknown.

Obviously you've chosen some way to continue to follow your favorite blogs whether it be my personal choice Feedly
or you are lovin Bloglovin.
Or perhaps you are following by some other method. What ever method you use to find your way here, I thank you for continuing to follow my quilting journey. But the one thing that is still open ended for me is my reader count, how to know just how many readers I have. Like many other quilting bloggers, I like to celebrate my loyal readers and have had giveaways when I've reached another milestone, a party for my followers to thank them for finding my content worthy of continuing to read. It feels to me like I've "met" a new friend. I have a Bloglovin counter on my sidebar and I don't think Feedly has that ability available yet but now I have absolutely no idea whatsoever how many readers I really have.
No true way to count equals no reason to celebrate with a giveaway party.
Now you will read all over the internet that when Google shut down its reader it also shut down Google Friend Connect. But in truth that doesn't seem to be the case. Just this past week I joined a few new-to-me blogs through GFC and although I needed to manually add them to my Feedly list, they are also showing up in my Blogger list. Obviously if you don't use Blogger this isn't relevant to you but obviously the talk of the demise of GFC is a bit premature. Will it totally disappear in the future? Who knows but for now I'm going to continue to use it to join new blogs and to count my followers on my blog.

So what favor do I need from you? It's easy. If you originally started reading my blog by joining through Google Friend Connect you don't need to do anything. You are already in that count. But if you've recently found me and are following through one of the other reader options, I'd like to ask that you also "join" through my GFC. I would really like to know just how many of you there are, how many of my Bloglovin readers are already duplicates of my GFC number and how many of you there are that don't show on a counter here at all yet. Until a better option comes along (I truly hope something does eventually), that is how I will count my number of readers and then host another giveaway.

And who doesn't love a giveaway?
I'm really close to 350 and since it has been a while since I've had a giveaway here, I'll do it once that goal is reached. I have a basket full of goodies that I've collected for just such occasions and I'll pick a couple of them to offer up to one lucky winner.

So please, if you haven't already, join my list of readers through Google Friend Connect so that I can continue to share my love of quilting with giveaways for you.
P.S. If anyone out there knows of a better solution to this issue, I'm all ears.

July 24, 2013

Here it is - my Modern Mini Mystery Round Robin 2013 quilt

By    5:32 AM // 10 comments
This is how my humble little block started back in January. While searching for an inspiration for this year's round robin block, I decided that I wanted a wall hanging for an empty space in our bedroom and these colors of Chocolate Brown and Blue came together to complement our room's decor.
Of course I had no idea what my group mates would do with this block. Would they stick with my color scheme or play tricks on me and take it in a totally different direction altogether? I had absolutely no idea but that is the whole point of this round robin, everyone gets to add what they want. 

When I finally received the envelope containing my quilt back home, just like last year I was nervous about opening it. Would I like it? Would I be happy with the quilt that they created for me? I sure hoped so and I wasn't disappointed. This is the beautiful quilt that unfolded before my eyes.
There is so much movement going on in this quilt and so many great shades of Blue and Brown and I know that it will look fantastic on the wall of our bedroom. 
I'm glad my little assistants were willing to help for a few minutes so that I could get these pictures but let me tell you, these were the only good ones I was able to get. They weren't cooperative for long.
The plan was to have this all quilted and bound before reveal day but because of finishing Joey's 100 Good Wishes Quilt, our vacation to Florida and my weekend trip to Vietnamese Culture Camp, there just wasn't time. Plus I want to quilt her using Penelope, my long arm machine, not on my domestic machine Lucy.

This piece has been hanging on my design wall for the couple of weeks since it came home and just the right quilting design inspiration hasn't come to me yet. I guess my mind has been filled with too many other things lately. Oh well, I know the perfect vision will come. 

Thank you so much to all the terrific ladies in my group...Caroline, Angela, Carol, Samantha and Renae. You did a wonderful job and I love it! Once it is completely finished and hanging on the wall, I will be appreciating it for many years to come.

July 23, 2013

Joey's 100 Good Wishes Quilt and a MMMRR Reveal Day Reminder

By    5:37 AM // 3 comments
Recently I finished piecing together the top for Joey's 100 Good Wishes Quilt and before I went away for the weekend, I fixed piecing together the backing, after putting the borders on the wrong sides the 1st time. I cannot thank all of my readers that sent fabric and wishes for this quilt enough because it because of you that this idea became a reality. 

I desperately wanted to quilt it myself but since I really don't know how to use Penelope yet, I certainly don't want to screw this up and it is most important to get this quilt finished and off to Kris so that it can be given to Joey, I delivered it to my long arm quilter Dianne to do for me. We picked out the design and the thread and she promised to have it done quickly. I expect to get a call from her any day now.
I had doubts about whether or not I picked the right fabric for the sashing/border, was it the right Red that I envisioned, but once it was done, I saw that it turned out just as I had hoped it would. It will be another mad rush to get the binding done, only because I want him to have it as fast as possible.

Kris will be taking pictures when this quilt is given to Joey and I promise to share them once I receive them from her.

Oh and don't forget about tomorrow's big excitement. It is the Reveal Day for the 2013 Modern Mini Mystery Round Robin.
There are 17 mini quilts and 1 not-so-mini-any-more quilt ready to be showcased, the talents of each of the 3 groups of 6 ladies. I for one am always anxious to see what the original center blocks turned into. The party starts bright and early at 6 am EST so put the coffee pot on and join us, won't you.
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