Lavender Fields forever..

Oops, no not really the song but a guild field trip on Thursday. 

A intrepid group of quilters and friends headed out for Glen Allen to 

Lavender Fields to make wreathes. 

This is the beginning of Diana's.  There is floral foam in a plastic ring.  First we put in a base of greenery. 


Then we went over to the home garden to get some greens to put on the top of the wreathe.

Here's Kay working on her

Here's a finished one -- sorry don't remember who it belongs to. 

After the wreathes were done we could wander around the grounds and also check out the river near by. 

We also had a great lunch in the sun room.  Chicken salad, pasta salad, fresh fruit and yum, lavender lemonade.  We had a choice of several different ice creams for dessert.  I chose 1/2 honey and 1/2 lavender.  The honey ice cream was spectacular.  The lavender was good but I wouldn't want a lot of it at any one sitting. 


Here's the group just before we left. 

It was a beautiful day to spend out side and in the garden.  Not sure what our next field trip will be but no doubt it will be lots of fun. 

I've been working on Ruthie today.  I'm about 1/3 the way through a twin quilt.  Hopefully I'll have it done tomorrow -- at least the quilting part.  

Happy quilting all! 

October Stash Report Oh My!

October Stash Report

Fabric used:  5.875 yards

Fabric purchased (acquired):  20.375 yards  OH MY!

Net fabric ADDED to stash: 14.5 yards 

YEAR

Year to date fabric used: 61.375 yards

Year to date fabric purchased: 92.25yards

Net Year to Date Acquired : 30.875 yards

Yes, OH MY!  I have definitely run amok with fabric acquisitions this year.  Things I've noted over the last two years of keeping track of my fabric usage: 

• I've bought more fabric this year than I have for all year in both 2009 and 2011. 

• I've used more fabric this year than last year when I compare from beginning to October.  This will probably change drastically as last year I finished a queen size quilt in October if I remember correctly. 

I need to ramp up my fabric usage for the last two months of the year.  I have a twin size quilt ready to quilt but it will not take all that much out of my stash as most of the blocks came from the FCQ Equilters.  And, even though I bought a wide back for the backing I'vw only counted it as 2 yards coming in so it can only be 2 yards going out. 

I will be evaluating my ufo's to see what I can make up in a hurry.  I need to locate the tree skirt pattern I used last year -- I have all the fabrics to do another one.  Maybe I should make a dress or two for Sophia? Perhaps a pillow case?  Maybe I should spend less time on the blasted computer!  

This weekend I finished this quilt on Ruthie for Kay:

White thread, Daisy Swirl panto by Willow Leaf.  Pattern: Yellow Brick Road by Atkinson Designs.

If you would like me to quilt for you send me an email.  I have time slots available to finish your quilt before the holidays. 

Happy Quilting All!  

Design Wall Monday 10-31-11

Not much to show on my design wall.  I made two of these blocks for a Halloween block of the month opportunity. I need to get them in the mail to my guild in Maryland.  I don't want to win them... I just want to use some fabric this month.  

Saturday we went to a big commercial craft fair.  None of us bought a whole lot but we did have a great time, as usual.  Here we are in the sales aisles. 

 We also stopped by to get a few grocery items.  Jennie really wanted this cat to put on her yard.  It was cool -- the eyes lighted up and it moved its head back and forth.  But where do you put the darn thing when Halloween is over?

Goals for Week of 10/24/11

Trim and bind Quilt for Kids√ need to sew it on but it’s pinned

Wash, iron, fold and put away recent fabric purchases √ at least some of it is… even used a piece

Quilt Kay’s quilt√

Work on beige and turquoise quilt √

Work on stars for stripes quilt

Sew rows together of 16 patch quilt

Last week wasn't the most successful week on record.  I spent more time reading and quilting on Ruthie than piecing.  Hopefully this week I'll get a few tops and quilts completely done. 

Goals for Week of 10/31/11

Finish binding on Quilt for Kids

Wash, package up and send Quilts for Kid quilts

Keep plugging away on beige and turquoise

Sew rows together on 16 patch quilt

Load red, white and blue twin size quilt on Ruthie

Make lavender wreath 

Mail packages

This weeks goals are modest.  Hum, does that mean I like to actually accomplish my goals?  I guess so.  I'll keep them light in hopes of actually getting some things done! 

I find it interesting to see how other people work on their quilts... the process they go through.  I noticed on Judy's design wall today she has the components to make up blocks.  Hum, does that mean she makes all the components up and then put all the blocks together?  I notice she made two sample blocks... Check out her design wall and others across the net. 

Happy quilting all! 

Road Trip Part 2

Lunch came after our exhausting time in Mary Jo's.  Well, not all that exhausting we just needed re-charging for the next challenge.  We hit this barbecue restaurant.

 The help tried to talk us into barbecue with slaw.  Not my cup of tea but I did agree to slaw on the side. In fact most of us did.  Along with hush puppies, onion rings and fries. Nancy shared some of her fabulous chocolate chip cookies with the guys working at R.O.'s.  

Here we are regaining our strength and chowing down on everything.  The slaw was not the green cabbage type you'd normally expect.  It was more like a chili-flavored french dressing and it was fabulous. We all ended up putting it on the sandwiches.  Yummy.

After lunch it was on to our next destination. 

 

Nothing like a store with a big sense of humor.  Sharon immediately forwarded the picture to her husband.  I'll let Pat read it when he checks my blog next. 

Long Creek Mills sells threads.  Lots of it.  So we spent at least an hour, maybe longer trying to decide what to get.  If I had an embroidery machine this would have been heaven.  I ended up getting some cotton yarn in hopes that I can make Sophie a hoodie.  Probably will start later this year and try to get it to her in Feb/March.  I picked red and white varigated.   

We were able to peak in the back room and saw the cones being filled.  Not all that much to it.  Big cone of thread ran through the guides to fill little cone of thread. 


And here is one of the rows of thread -- the blue row.


They also had a few notions and ribbons.  I bought some ribbon, the red and white yarn and one spool of thread to try on Ruthie. 


We eventually headed for my house to hopefully get a good night's sleep and then my travel buddies headed north to Maryland.  Could this become an annual trip?  Maybe. 


Here's the results of our shopping at Mary Jo's.  Well, at least my purchases.   

From the Civil War row: 

A bright orange, a pale orange and a couple of yellows. 

A bright blue to replace the one I bought in August and all but used up... a couple of black on blacks and a cute black and white.

 Do you remember this green, red,white and gold fabric Kevin and Aimee brought me from Thailand?   Look at the gorgeous red and the gold and white go with fabrics I found.... Should be stunning when I find the pattern I want to use with it.  Now, where did I put the thing? 

 Here are a few of the items from the notions wall.  Chalk refill for a chalk marker.  A Row Marking Safety Pin set --  designed to let you pin an ID letter on your rows so you don't have to leave them on your design wall forever.  I am going to mark a 16 patch and take it off the design wall.  Of course, I've been telling myself to finish it for pity sakes.!  Sharon and I split some Genie washers. But the item I am tickled about is the mini scallop ruler.  I hope it will work really well on my little quilts.  I'll let you know later this year when I get to use it. 

The last part of the Mary Jo collection was some fabrics.  The royal blue is a wide back for the twin quilt that is ready to be quilted.  The rest are smaller pieces to use as "go withs." 

I have to admit I haven't used any of these since I got home.  The backing will be put to use as soon as I finish the quilt currently on Ruthie.  I've started Kay's quilt and hopefully will have it done by tomorrow.  I am not a really fast quilter but I work steadily -- with enough breaks to read or check my email. Now it's time to get back in the studio. 

Happy quilting all! 

Design Wall Monday 10-24-11

Yeah, right, like I got anything done quilting this past week... 


The road trip was fabulous.  Rather than showing you my work from this past week I'm going to share our whirlwind 48 hour trip to Gastonia, NC. 




I'm not sure where during the trip I took this photo but getting in and out of a car happened a lot during this trip.  Here are MaryBeth and Nancy, our driver.


We got down to Gastonia late evening... arriving at our hotel by 8:00pm or so.  We had a relaxing glass of wine or two and then hit the bed.  We needed our strength for tomorrow... 

 We begged some very nice woman to take our picture on the way in to Mary Jo's.  Poor lady didn't know we were all going to give her our cameras...   Here we are Bonnie, MaryBeth, Nancy and Sharon ready to shop. 

 MaryBeth shopping hard. It took us a good half hour to get beyond the notions wall. 

There were rows of Civil War fabrics.  All my Small Quilt Yahoo Group readers ... this one is for you. 


We got to the store about 9:30 am and it was after 1:00 pm when we left. Yikes, we were all exhausted and dying for a drink of water. 

Checking out -- Sharon, MaryBeth and Nancy

And the winner is ... MaryBeth

My purchases went into my Fabric Fondlers bag.... 

 And, another picture on the way out... this time a young gal volunteered to take a photo of all of us. 

The car seemed pretty full to me after this stop but we had one more place to go.   I'll post the next part of our trip another day.  

Goals for Week of 10/16/11

Bind Quilt for Kids

Make snap bags √

Make gift bags √

Change guest beds √

Put outdoor cushions away √ (make big bag to store them in?)

Work on beige and turquoise quilt

Work on stars for stripes quilt √

Most everything got done... now for the coming week... 

Goals for Week of 10/24/11

Trim and bind Quilt for Kids

Wash, iron, fold and put away recent fabric purchases

Quilt Kay’s quilt

Work on beige and turquoise quilt

Work on stars for stripes quilt

Sew rows together of 16 patch quilt

Not much on this list.  Note Quilt Kay's quilt.  Yes, I'm once again taking quilts to quilt on Ruthie.  I would be happy to quilt your quilt too.  I will commit to one quilt a week until December 15th or so.  If you are in need of utility quilting or basic meandering send me an email.  brsinstitches @ gmail . com. (take out the spaces...)  I'll get back to you with more information and pricing.  If you want custom quilting or IQ stitching I'd be happy to recommend some other quilters for you.  


Don't forget to view other design walls (oops, maybe I should take out "others" as my design wall is no where to be seen!) go visit Patchwork Times. I'm off to start on that goal list.  And, load Kay's quilt on Ruthie.  


Happy Quilting All! 

Road Trip South

I'm going to Mary Jo's Cloth Store in Gastonia, NC today with friends from Maryland. Woot! Woot!

I finished my products for the Festival of the Grape. 

I packed my bag.

I'm waiting for  my friends to show up.  

And, dreaming of all the fabric I could be buying!  Or, not buying as the case may be. 

No quilting was done this week -- I was making snap bags and gift bags for wine bottles.  Didn't get all that many made but hopefully will sell enough to pay for my trip.  Thanks Jennie the baker for letting me add my stuff to your stuff. 

Happy Quilting All! 

Design Wall Monday 10-17-11

Hum, I just threw this up on the design wall and took a picture.  This is from a Terry Atkinson book.  I thought it would make a great quilt for Quilts for Kids or some other organization that needs quilts for teen boys.  My starting fabric was the beige, brown and rust print in the lower left corner.  It's actually cowboy things.  I pulled other fabrics from my stash.  Looking at it here I think I might have too much contrast.  It's made with fat quarters.  I've had to augment it with yardage.  I've been calling this the beige and turquoise quilt.  I really hope I like it better after I get more pieces sewn together. Go check out Patchwork Times to see other design walls. 

Goals for Week of 10/10/11

Make up Potato Chip Bag √

Work on stars for stripes quilt √

Quilt Quilt for Kids quilt,√ bind

Work on beige and turquoise √

Make cupcakes √

Decide on UFO to work on and do something on it

Yep, I did pretty well on my goals.  Just don't ask how much I got on open ended ones starting work on....  I did get the Quilt for Kids quilt done really fast.  I think I had it completely quilted in 2.5 hours.  Amazing. Then we went out of town and I didn't get it bound.  

 Here's the Quilts for Kids quilt -- stippled (or is it meandered?) Used Glide thread with Magna Glide bobbin.  I love the sheen on this thread. The color is  Mango.  


Click on the little pic to see a close up of the meander. 

Goals for Week of 10/16/11

Bind Quilt for Kids

Make snap bags

Make wine gift bags

Change guest beds

Make shopping list for Mary Jos Cloth store trip

Put outdoor cushions away (make big bag to store them in?)

Work on beige and turquoise quilt

Work on stars for stripes quilt

Pretty weird goals list.  I agreed to do some products to sell in my neighbor's booth for the Powhatan Wine Festival.  So, I need to get some done NOW!  I'll be making a bunch of snap bags and wine gift bags from my stash.  Hey, I might actually make a dent in my stash.  Um, er, except I'm going to Mary Jo's this weekend.  And, if that falls through I'm working the booth at the festival.  Either way I'm having a great weekend. 

Happy Quilting All!