Monday Meandering 8 - 22 -2016

Great things happening here today.  First off my shelving has arrived and is installed. Here's the left side. 

And here is the right side. Now the hard part comes -- deciding where everything goes and getting it all put away.  That may take a while ... lots of other things happening this week.  

Including the first quilt going on Ruthie since we moved in. My daughter Jenny has made a quilt to send to the collection for Pulse night club.  She asked her friends to send her heart blocks and she put them together.  Hopefully I'll have it quilted for her and will be able to give it back to her on Wednesday when we meet for us to take the grands for a few days.  Here's the back being loaded. Tomorrow I'll start the actual quilting. 

I did pretty well on my goals last week but I bet I've put too many goals on the list for this week. 

August 15, 2016

Continue on the RWB project√

Work on the “Online Friends” piece√

Work on another block from Christmas Favorites- planned one of the blocks

Clean out “stuff” stored where new shelving is going√

Finish the last 3 blocks for secret project “B”√

August 22, 2016

Quilt Jenny’s Heart Quilt for Pulse

Finish the “Online Friends” piece

Begin Shadow Box Mini Quilt for quilt along

Start filling my new shelves

Enjoy Sophia and Natalie visiting us

Today I'm linking up with Monday Making and Main Crush Monday.  Go take a look.  

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Monday Meandering on Tuesday

It's been nearly 3 weeks since we moved in to our new house.  The great room, dining room and Pat's office are pretty unpacked and set up sans anything on the walls.  The kitchen, not so much.  The new kitchen is definitely smaller than our old one.  We've annexed a linen closet into a pantry so we can store all of our kitchen items.  No doubt we'll make a shelf in the basement into a storage for extra can goods.  We're now waiting for a spice rack to put on the back of the pantry door because we have way too many spices! 

The big news is we've made a lot of progress in my basement studio.  Here's looking from the doorway outside into room. (I've taken must of my pictures from that door because the light plays havoc with the pictures.) 

Here's looking to the left from the same doors.  

Here's what the same space looks like now. This is the table for Ruthie.  That dresser is moving but we're not sure where at this point.  My desk for the long arm stuff is in place as is my couch. 

My cutting table is back together and ready for use.  Today I found my rotary mats, rulers and ruler holders. After looking in nearly every box (probably 50 or so...) I hadn't found a cutter.  I finally looked in one of my machine carts and there was a cutter.  I wanted to cut some squares for my red, white and blue quilt so I can start putting it together.  I also found my white fabric pile so I could use some of it along with the white piece I had in the project box.  Who knows where the other three rotary cutters are! 

I'm using my old sewing cabinet for my Bernina.  It's ready for some sewing...except plugging it in. Later, if I decide a new cabinet is needed I'll look at what's available. Considering how much stuff I have I doubt I'll look for a new cabinet.  The other side of this is my other sewing desk: an old coffee table sans legs put on two filing cabinets.  I've used that as a sewing station for a long time.  

The big box on the right is Ruthie's sewing machine. We got the sewing head out of our storage unit yesterday. We didn't trust putting it in with the majority of our household goods so we drove it up and stashed it in a rented storage unit with air conditioning!  Here it is ready to be re-set up.  We're holding off for a bit so I can get more of the room set up.  I'm not ready to start quilting quite yet although I have several tops I could do. 

Thursday I'll be going to the quilter's group that meets in our new neighborhood.  I'm ready for some time sewing rather than unpacking.  I haven't decided whether I will work on my red, white and blue project or the spring flying geese and appliqué project.  I'll make my mind up tomorrow. 

Friday I'm driving up to Maryland to visit with Sharon and take a class with Vikki Pignatelli on curves. I'm hoping to get the whole project done by the end of the month as my One Monthly Goal.  

I'm linking up with Monday Making and Main Crush Tuesday -- yep Beth is also running a day behind!  Spend some time cruising to the different blog posts. I know I plan to spend time this week cruising through the various blog posts.  It's been a long time since I've been able to do that. 

Happy Quilting All! 

Sewing Space In Use

In my last post I shared my daughter Jenny's new sewing space.  She got a little bit more done in the last  day or two.  Since I ended up staying another day with her I decided I would start working on some blocks I brought with me.  First pictures of sewing machine in the middle of sewing and then the cutting table in use.  (I "loaned" her my old Bernina when I got a new one several years ago.  She loves it and I did too when I used it today -- did I really need a new one?) 

Sorry, the cutting table photo is a little dark.  What this doesn't show is that the table is not tall enough for me.  I've got at least 5" on Jen so what fits her is uncomfortable for me and vice versa when she's trying to cut at my table!  But all I needed to do was cut some strips to the right size.  I got several ready to sew. 

Here are the blocks I am making to use up the rest of the challenge fabric I got from Faithful Circle Quilters.  (All quilts will be going to Project Linus.)  I'm mixing a lot of my own fabric into this one.  It's going to be for a boy.  Maybe an older boy depending if I have enough fabric to make it big enough. 

Hum, I'll need to pay close attention to the layout of these blocks once I have more finished. I like the block but it is a bit fussy with all those 2 1/2" squares to sew together.  Hopefully once I'm home I can get some more of them made up.  

I also made up the star block below.  When one of my friends was cleaning out her mother-in-law's fabrics, she ran across several unmade blocks from 2011 BOM from JoAnn stores.  She wasn't sure what to do with them nor did she really want to make them up herself.  I took one home to make for her.  I suggested we offer blocks to other guild members to make and then we can make a quilt to donate to a good cause.  

The block is huge -- 15 1/2" unfinished.  It won't take many to make a decent size quilt.  This was fun to make especially since it was already cut out.  The directions were well done and included ironing instructions.  We'll see if we can get any one else to make up some of the other blocks.  

That's it for me today.  I'm going to link up with Needle and Thread Thursday.  

Happy Quilting All! 

April Stashbusting Report

I'm doing a little happy dance around the studio today!  I love it when I use more fabric than I buy and that is exactly what I did this month.  In fact, I used enough fabric to wipe out my excess fabric in from last month.  Yee Haw! Comparing this year to last year,  I'm ahead on fabric used through last April and behind in fabric coming in. And, that is exactly what I like!  Of course, I'm fabric shopping tomorrow.  

2015	Fabric In Month	Fabric in Year	Fabric Out Month	Fabric Out Year	Total In or Out Year
April	4.75	23.75	11.00	26.65	2.90

Earlier this year Sharon moved her studio into her basement.  I'm sharing Sharon's new studio.  She loves my former-attic studio.  We have a lot of fun sewing together when we get together.  Her original studio was a pretty small bedroom on her second floor.  Previously, when we sewed at her house either we'd set up on the dining room table or I'd plan to cut something out or we took turns at her sewing machine.  Well all that has changed with a move to the basement.  A lot of work went into freshening it up and making it work for her sewing. Dale did a great job fixing it up for Sharon (and me!) 

Viewing the basement stairs from the main floor.  Great quilt on the wall at the bottom.

This is one of two sewing stations.  You can see the second one at the back of the room on the left. 

Here's the second station looking to the left of the front section of the space.  It's an "L" shaped room. 

This is taken from the room in background of the picture above looking at her cutting table and sewing station number 2.  If I remember correctly, the double doors on the right house her stash. (If I am wrong, it's the doors going to the water heater and mechanicals.) 

Can you tell she is partial to blues? I'm pretty sure she has more fabric in another closet cause she's missing purples and bright whites.  Just saying! 

That's it for today.  I have a big quilt on Ruthie that is almost finished.  That's today's goal and I've been writing this instead of getting upstairs and finishing it.  I have until Sunday so I'm not worried as there are only 3 rows left, maybe 4.  

Happy Quilting All.