Monday Meandering 1 - 27 - 2020

After a great sewing weekend with Sharon I made it home safely after the 5 hour drive.  I was home by 2:30 totally exhausted.  I was sound a sleep on the couch by 3:30 -- and didn't wake up until 5! 


I'm still sharing things I made for the grand's Christmas presents.  Here's one of the big presents for Ellie and her doll.  (Her name escapes me at the moment...)  For the last year Ellie has been asking me for a wedding dress for her doll.  EEK! A WEDDING dress??  Yep.  And I made it for her! Here are a few pictures... 

Dress in process.  (My spray bottle made a great dress form!) 

Finished wedding dress in the wardrobe Pat made for Ellie. 

Here's the wardrobe loaded up Christmas afternoon.  I'm sure she's hung a lot more clothes in there now. 

For some reason, this year I made way more than I usually do for the grands.  One of the things I made was a sports bag tag for Sophie and Natalie.  

Front of the baseball tag for Sophie's new sports bag.

Bag Tag Gone Wrong.  Notice where the tag is suppose to be sliced open to put the clip in. The sad thing is it didn't show up on the instructions with the cut area to the side.... it was perfectly lined up for the top.  My guess is the embroidery design was changed after the directions were written. Sigh. Needless to say I made another one.  These are made with marine vinyl.  

I wanted to share more photos from our vacation.  We were on an cruise that stopped at Aruba; Curaçao; Cartagena, Columbia; Panama Canal and Costa Rica.  The only stop we didn't have an excursion was Aruba.  We left the ship and walked around town a bit.  This was what we saw as we were leaving the dock. Looks good to me! 

One thing we saw was this National Archeological Museum of Aruba.  It was interesting to see how people lived on the island through history.  I'm not sure what the blue horse was all about but I had to get a picture.  The museum was housed in the green building.  It was bigger than that building hints at. 

We ended up at a bar that had WiFi.  (Unlike other cruises we've been on this one did not offer free WiFi -- even though we did have a suite. Sigh.)  We enjoyed ourselves just watching the main street.  Unfortunately, I don't like beer so I had soda water, which I do like.  Lots of bubbles but no sugar or caffeine.

I'll continue to share photos of the trip over the next few posts.  Knowing me and the fact I'm trying to get a top quilted before January is gone AND I have a challenge quilt that must be done by Feb 8th I'll probably only post on Mondays.  I'd like to get back in the habit of posting twice or three times a week but don't hold your breath.  

I'm linking with my favorite Monday Linky Parties: Oh Scrap, Monday Making and Design Wall Monday. (Design Wall Monday will be added once it goes live AND I remember to do it!) 

I'm calling it quits tonight.  Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie 

Monday Meandering 1 - 20 - 2020

I'm back to sewing again! Friday I drove down to Sharon's house for a mini quilt retreat.  Last year our "in home retreat" with Nancy and MaryBeth was held over MLK holiday weekend. We thought we'd be repeating this weekend at my house but MB had tickets for Hamilton in NYC so the retreat was postponed.  Sharon and I decided to get together to sew anyway.  

I don't have many pictures yet of what I've been working on but I did get the rows sewn on my Happy Blocks quilt.  Once I get home all I'll need to do is find some backing for this quilt and I can throw it on Ruthie to quilt it. I think I have some fabric at home I could use.  

I've had so much fun making these blocks and putting this quilt together.  Many of the blocks were made as "leader/enders" during my Christmas sewing.  I even remember buying some of these fabrics and what I used most of the fabric for.  The orange one in the top row -- soccer balls -- was the backing of Brian's quilt.  Perfect addition to this quilt.  Many of the fabrics were fat quarters that I sometimes buy to add to my novelty prints collection.  

At the beginning of January Pat and I took an 11 day Caribbean cruise from Fort Lauderdale.  I'll be sharing some pictures over the next few weeks.  Here's the first stop -- Half Moon Cay. Great weather, lovely vista and relaxing on our balcony.  Wonderful! 

That's it for now.  I'm linking up with my regular parties: Oh Scrap, Monday Making, and Design Wall Monday. (I'll link this one up when it becomes available and when I remember!) 

I'm looking forward to a great week of sewing, some reading, and maybe some organizing in the studio. 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meanderings 1 - 13 - 2020

Not much is getting done on the quilting front.  I am doing some knitting and reading.  It's down time since I was so busy finishing presents in December. 

My friend Beth comes most Tuesday morning to quilt or cross stitch or gab. (A lot of gabbing goes on.)  Christmas Eve day was no different.  She came along with her mom who was visiting from Oregon.  We had planned to make some small snowman and I had gathered supplies to choose from. 

Here are Beth and her mom sewing away.  We were working assembly line style.  I sewed all the bodies together on my machine. Beth's mom did all the hand sewing on the noses.(Sorry Beth's mom, I never can remember your name.  I always call you Mom when you are here!)  Beth was cutting out.  Once it came to adding the noses and eyes and other features, we each worked on our own. 

We didn't have time to completely finish them that morning but we did get pretty far along.

Bert, Beth's snowman, and my snowman.

Beth's mom continued to work on hers that day and I got this cute picture of "Bert" all dressed up in a new knitted hat and scarf. 

Beth and I finished ours New Years Eve day during our regular sewing morning. (Actually, I may have finished him earlier...I can't remember!) I haven't got a name for him (her?) yet.  But here it is hanging out with some of my other snowmen. 

These cute little snowman were made from a pattern called Warm & Snuggly by Cottonwood Creations.  They are about 6" tall.  We used ground walnut shells to give some heft to their bottoms and then added polyfil to stuff them.  They didn't take all that long and I think they are really cute.  

Are you making snowmen this January?   I'd like to find some other cut snowmen to add to my collection. (Some day I'll take a couple of pictures of the other snowmen I've made.) 

Time to get back to the studio.  

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Happy New Year and Monday Meanderings 1 - 6 - 2020

Isn't it weird to be typing 2020?  When I was a kid 2000 was unfathomable.  So how could it already be 2020?  No matter, I wish a wonderful, quilty 2020 for all.   

I'm right on top of my fabric usage statistics this month -- I really wanted to see how I did this year.  I did use more fabric than I brought in!  YEA. 

2019	Fabric In Month	Fabric In Year	Fabric Out Month	Fabric Out Year	Total In or Out Year
Dec	5.625	55.830	4.750	66.625	10.705

Here's how it compares with other years.  Not bad -- I used more fabric than I brought in.  That's always good.  I'm surprised I didn't have more finishes based on fabric used.  It's probably because I didn't do much for two months and I'm making smaller quilts now. 

Year	Fabric In	Fabric Out Year	Total In or Out Year
2010	65.000	70.250	13.000
2011	186.500	72.000	114.500
2012	113.545	108.970	4.575
2013	100.710	103.015	2.305
2014	108.250	79.750	28.500
2015	66.205	77.150	10.945
2016	83.375	55.375	28.000
2017	118.625	108.125	10.500
2018	85.375	94.250	8.875
2019	55.830	66.625	10.705

Here's some more photos of Christmas presents I made this year. 

Here's Ellie with her new purple sweater.  She was more than willing to pose for me with it on. It's slightly big on her which is great in my estimation.  Now to decide what to do with the rest of the purple yarn.  It was given to me and there is quite a bit more left. 

Next up is the reading pillow I made for Sophie.  When I realized I had a great piece of fabric with Harry Potter I knew it had to be included in the pillow. She's a huge Harry Potter fan.  The embroidery design is from Designs by JuJu.  The directions were featured on a You Tube video.  I used a 17" pillow form.  You can't see the handle in the picture but it's there to carry it around.  Plus the front section is a pocket.  I don't know if Sophie will use it for more than decoration on her bed.  I'll have to remember to ask her at some point.

That's it from me today.  

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie