STAR RUNNER FOR MY FRIEND

I can post this now that it has been delivered...i made this runner with a quilter friend in mind when i started...i had been tinkering around with some stars with triangle blocks squares leftover from the big star quilt...then i made some other stars the same size maybe to have a big quilt someday with all them in it...Well when working on this runner it was looking a little plain so i decided to hand quilt in the white with blue thread...and after all that i thought it needed more so hence the stripe binding....Not too bad but i would have liked star binding better but no luck....

Today i have been working on another small quilt for charity...2 inch squares around a 5 inch center square...i have a lot of solid colors that i can get the centers from and a lot of 2 inch squares to pick for the rest...i think i will need 35 blocks then i can put together...i might machine quilt this one before i send....we will see later......that is all for now...will be a quiet holiday here that is ok...time for sewing?????.....more later...

STAR QUILT TOP TOGETHER, YAY!

I got this quilt put together today except for the border....it will be 80x100 when finished...being it was 8 inch blocks it went togther alot faster than the little pinwheel blocks i have been working with..I have been collecting purples, magentas, teal, and other batiks since i bought the 9 patch fabric a year ago...i saw this quilt when i looked at that fabric lol...i dont have floor space to lay it completely out so the couch had to do....

I had been looking through my stencils this last month and using a few here and there or parts of them...i have a good collection but a person gets tired of using the same ones over and over so i got an order together and hope it comes this week....the ones shown are some that i used this past week...i needed some inbetween 4 and 7 inches...when i first bought them those were the sizes i thought i would need...now i seem to need all sizes....i guess i am doing more quilting these days...

I have a couple more things to show but have to wait till the person get them cause they may read this blog and i want it to be a suprise for them lol...so will post pics of them later....for now that is it....more later....

I'M SEEING STARS THIS WEEK!

Last week i dug into my big basket of blocks again...its always a treat to see what i find in there....i bag blocks and toss them in there for future use ....the bag i dug out was blocks i had started about a year earlier....and i have been gathering more fabrics for the stars...i had ordered the print for the 9 patches a long time ago and i think the right background fabric...its a very pale blue gray which blends great with all the fabrics i am using...i have a lot of purples, blue-greens, orchids and others i hope will blend...the bright one in the foreground of the picture is magenta...might be too bright ...i know its going to take a lot of  colors....I remeasured the background fabric again and re-calculated to make sure i would have enough of it for a good size quilt....i cant get more i dont think so it will be as big as i can...

I have 5 quilt tops sitting out right now waiting for borders ...i have to get those done so they can be hung till i sandwich and quilt....i need a crew working for me lol....

I have been thinking about Christmas this year already....if i get in gear i think the kids will get a quilt as a bonus this year...one of my daughters spied one that she would like so that gave me the idea considering it might take till Christmas to get them all hand-quilted...at least the tops are all made except for the borders....a big plus...

Well i want to get back to the stars and find some more colors in my stash to use....i need 50 more stars and 9 patches...it will be awhile before  they are done.....more later....

UFO GETTING ATTENTION TODAY

Today while drinking my coffee still trying to wake up I decided to look at the back pictures in my camera file to see if I missed anything....sometimes I take a lot of pics to use with posts here and I miss one now and then....well I am not sure but I think I found one lol....

This a UFO I started couple years ago...all it is lacking is the rust border maybe about 5 inches or so then it will be ready for quilting....I started it because I wanted a different layout for the string blocks...I call it southwest stars....it reminds me of the colors you would find there....the background looks white but it is a very light gray...these colors you wouldn't normally find together but they somehow work just like the sunsets in the southwest....it will be bed size when finished....this is on the agenda to finish before the year is up....

I seem to have a fascination with star blocks....

I keep going back to a challenge that I participated in while back and made this topper....I like the colors and the design of the topper ....I wonder if a large quilt would look good with them.....or something similar ....maybe more later on this one...

Update on the snowball quilt....I did get it to the narrow border stage after getting the rows done but didn't take a picture yet....I have been trying to decide on just how big to make the borders or how many....that will be the story for later this week lol.....

One of the first things I have to do today is do up the dishes and straighten up the kitchen....when I work on a project in sewing the kitchen always suffers ...I just eat and pile dishes and go back to sewing....so now it judgment time lol plus I gotta cook something today so I can do both at the same time lol....geez its a new week again....time is flying....and so am I lol....more later....

GETTING A LOT DONE THIS WEEK

Yes i am getting a lot of sewing done this week...from the 'old' bags of projects in my basket to the new one that i am going to show you today....

this quilt started because i wanted something more to show off the strings instead of just putting the strings side by side...so i thought maybe stars on the outside of them would be good....then i decided it needed more color than the rust so opted for the green in the white space....this quilt makes me think southwest u.s. or mexico....it is bright in person...my laptop doesn't show colors very well i dont think....there is a bright rust and a brighter green in the picture than shown....

i double stitched to make the triangles for the flying geese so i now have a lot of rust triangle squares and green ones too from the leftovers to make something more....

that makes very little waste in this quilt...the ends of the strips were about the only waste i had....as you can tell i started making pinwheels from the green ones so far just not sure where its going yet lol....

i have just 3 small   UFO quilts left to quilt and maybe will get 2 of them done today then the rest of the ufos will be bigger ones to work on....got to lay out another large batt to be ready as i want to put one of the larger quilts in the frame to hand quilt a diagonal feather design down throughout the quilt....

i made my new challenge item for my sewing group but cant show till they are all shown so that is out but i did finish a ufo topper and the little mini squares quilt i showed in last post ....did all this yesterday....so i hope today is just as productive.....more later....

FINISHED RUNNERS PLUS

Well here are 2 pictures of runners i finished....i am so disappointed....they are batiks and they photograph bad....in an earlier post i posted one of them and these didn't turn out any better...in person they are fine....i guess that is what counts but they wont look very good in the book i keep pics of my projects in

They are about 12 x30 inches,

the bottom one a little smaller....but i got a lot of practice with my machine quilting on them....

More practice is coming....i have i hope the last of the smaller quilts with courthouse steps to quilt....i could have finished it while back when i mentioned it, as i had a back ready but changed my mind and ordered fabric i saw for the back...

The fabric at the top is the back and the lower one is the quilt....I think it will look great with the variety of color the quilt has....so i am going to work on it sometime over the week end unless i get side tracked....

I made a bunch of labels for my quilts while i was waiting for the new quilting foot to come to replace the one that broke....and now  i have all but 3 sewn in the quilts....guess i should have made more of them....i have a bunch of partial filled bobbins that would be good to use up ready to wind for full bobbins and new quilting....

I took this picture through the storm door of the back porch and yard....we dodged a big snowstorm that was headed to the midwest thursday over night....we only got less than 2 inches....i was glad so i didn't have to shovel snow....we need the moisture and have gotten a lot of rain this winter instead of snow that should help....its blowing and dreary looking today so i suppose the snow could blow...but it looks like we got some ice on top of it .....

well going to sew this afternoon after i figure out what kind of a meal i will have later...maybe something simple so i can sew more....lord knows i need to sew 24 hours a day as many projects i have going at the moment....more pics about them are coming in more posts lol....but for now gotta run.....more later....