Easy Street DWM January 14,2013

These are my first two completed blocks from Bonnie Hunter's Easy Street Mystery Quilt .  She runs a mystery during December every year.  I've made several of the quilts and, while I curse all the fiddly little units, I fall in love with each quilt.  My color choice gave me some pause but after I got all the seams sewn on these blocks I'm starting to really like it.  Each block is a 5-patch, most of those patches have multiple parts so putting together each block feels a little like accomplishing an entire tiny quilt.

I arranged all the parts on my design wall because there are so many opportunities for mistakes and then I debated how to get it transported to my machine without scrambling everything.  DUH!  I do this all the time when I sew an entire quilt together.  So, I stacked all the units just as I would stack all the blocks for webbing a quilt together.  I have a little tutorial planned for tomorrow.

Hop over to Judy's blog and see what everyone else is up to.  Then, go have a productive day.

Chris

DWM 1/7/13

I was gifted a bunch of red/white/black half-square triangles.  They sat and sat, not enough for a quilt but they didn't really go with anything in my stash.  I was out on an innocent trip to the LQS with a friend and several red and white fat quarters jumped into my hand and whispered that they'd play well with the HSTs.  I still may do some rearranging but I'm pretty happy and plan to make this a Linus Quilt.

Go see what others are up to at Judy's blog.

Chris

What is it?

I was going through photos on my phone and I found this one that I don't recall taking.  What does she have in her mouth?  Sadly, I suspect it is one of my very old felt elves. 
She might not make it to next Christmas.

Chris

Finished it!

At 8:15 last night I put the final piece in this misbegotten excuse of a puzzle. The copyright date on it is 1979. I think it's been languishing in my game closet since then. It had to have been a gift from someone who hated me. 
If you look closely you will see that the entire puzzle is comprised of thousands (yes, THOUSANDS) of line-drawn naked people.  My son helped me put together the edges and a few clumps of pieces that had words. Then he declared the thing to be Satan and impossible and no way was he having any more to do with it.  "There's no way anyone can finish this puzzle!" Well, that just sounded like a challenge to me. I'm stupid that way.  Well that and my younger son bet me $20.00 I couldn't finish it by Sunday!
Turns out the saving grace to this puzzle is that all of the naked people are standing with their heads to the top, lined up in rows.
To solve the danged thing I had to line up all the pieces in rows and columns oriented in the same head-to-the-top position.  Then I would choose an area on the puzzle, find the corresponding person on the box top and begin the hunt.  Eventually I reorganized the pieces so those with "bumps" top and bottom were to the left side of the puzzle and those with "bumps" left and right were to the right.  My hunting chant went something like this,"big round boobs facing left". You get the idea. I could only work on it for 29 minutes or so before I got sick of looking at naked "parts."  

I'll be surprised if this hasn't injured some part of my "intimate" psyche! 

Have a great day!

Chris

2012's been very good to me

Like so many others, I can hardly believe that this year is done!  It has flown by.  I always tell myself (and anyone else who will listen) that time goes much faster as we grow older and Thank God that it does!  Can you imagine if every year dragged as it did when we were children - waiting for our birthday - waiting for Christmas - waiting for school to be out for the summer.  Now, life is the opposite: It's as if we're on an out-of-control train flying downhill headed toward the next event - one for which we ARE NOT PREPARED!

"OMG, is Christmas in two weeks?  How did that happen?"  "OMG! is it almost your birthday?"  "How can it be our anniversary already?"   You know what I mean?

Despite my all-too-frequent moments depicted above, I had a great year.
In no particular order of occurrence, here are my highlights:

Son #1 Graduated from Law School.  We got to attend the graduation ceremony and his swearing in.  AND he got a job!!  In a law firm!!  We are so proud of him.  He's also been learning to brew hard apple cider.  His first batch was finished for Christmas.  It was delicious, tasted a lot like champagne, and has a much higher alcohol content than beer.  Apparently, I get just a little louder after drinking only one tall glass.  Oh My!

Son #2 Finished his year-long contract in Haiti.  He did a splendid job. He made us very proud.  We got to visit him and bring him back to the US.  YAY!!  He is currently NOT looking for a job.  But neither is he lounging on our couch.  We put him to work painting the building that houses our offices and he is making plans for two trips.  That boy has the travel bug and he has it BAD!!  He also applied to graduate school for the fall so he is just getting as many trips in before some real work begins.

The Husband actually sold his old car.  Really!  That is such a momentous event.  I am so proud of him,  LOL.


Most of my trips this year were quilt related.  I attended Road to California, a retreat in Tahoe, and another in Temecula.  I'm lucky to have a spouse who understands my addiction and doesn't mind being abandoned for days on end.

Izzy made it through the whole year without breaking anyone's nose or damaging any property.  Amazing!

There was so much more that went on but these are the things that make me smile.

I hope your year was as wonderful and that your next will be even better.

Chris

PS.  If anyone can tell me how to get rid of the spaces at the top of this post PLEASE tell me.  On the editing page there are NO SPACES.  I'm out of ideas.  SIGH.

DWM 12.31.12

Last one of the year!  These cute little blocks have been floating around my 'piles' for more than a year. I finally put my nose to the grindstone and put them together.  The top measures 17" x 22".  I used all 30s scraps on a WOW background.  I think they're pretty cute.  I'm trying to decide if I should add little black buttons for eyes. 

Check out what's up at Judy's blog. 

Happy New Year!!  Be smart.  Be safe!

Chris

Someone needs to tell her

....that 57F is not that cold.

DSW 12.17.12

It's almost the end of the year!  I can't seem to understand how that happened so quickly.
I think it doesn't feel like Christmas because I usually make a lot of Christmas presents.  This year we have chosen to donate to charity in lieu of giving each other gifts so that has freed up a lot of my sewing time.  As a consequence I have jumped, yet again, into Bonnie Hunter's December Mystery.  I have kept up this year for the first time ever!  This is step 4:

128 flying geese sewn into pairs.  I learned that my previous belief that I was a good quilter was completely dashed by these geese!  I cut carefully, I sewed slowly and carefully and STILL they came out wonky.  I made them using quarter triangles and half-square triangles.  Since I sew TONS of half-square triangles, I figured that the bias edges wouldn't give me any trouble.  I was so wrong.  :-(
I know they look right in this photo - they have all their points - but too many of them are just a bit too small or a bit stretched looking.  SIGH.

Tomorrow I'll post about a different method after I make some samples tonight.  All I know is they can't turn out any worse.

Chris

Izzy!

Dogs are so funny.  I've been in my sewing room for hours finishing up Step 4 of Bonnie Hunter's "Easy Street" Mystery Quilt.   Apparently, Izzy'd been feeling very neglected because she brought her big ball in and dropped it on my table.  I threw it for her a few times until she managed to corner it against my mirrored closet doors.  I heard a lot of scratching and annoyed sounds coming from her.  It finally occurred to me that she was seeing the mirrored image of her ball and wanted it.  NOW!  It didn't seem to matter that the actual ball was right there!  It wasn't about what she had it was about what she couldn't have.  LOL

She is staring intently at the reflection of her ball!

Way Too Funny!!

How has your weekend been going?

Chris

DSW 12.10.12

I find myself in possession of WAY too many medium toned 2" squares!  I've been searching around for how to use them.  I usually make 1/2 triangles but I like to use only very high-contrast fabrics.  I find that when I use medium tones I get a mushy quilt.  Cindy at Quilt Patterns from Seattle posted a very cute Scrappy Heart pattern.  I really liked it but decided I didn't want to make that many more 1/2 square triangles so I came up this big heart that uses only FOUR HSTs  YAY!!  In the test heart I also used 2' background squares.  TOO MUCH WORK.  In the next squares I will use strips.

That's pretty much all I have going on.  OH, I'm also considering making Granny Squares with my mediums. I'm kinda liking the ones I've seen around blogland.

What's on your Design Wall?  Check out a bunch on Judy's blog.

Chris