Monday Meanderings 3 - 12 - 2018

I've been making steady progress on my Jamestown Landing quilt.  Mostly I've been making broken dishes units.  But I have made a few more blocks.  Here they are on the design wall.

Hum, there are a lot of the more green than turquoise pieces.  I won't be putting rows or bigger squares together now since I really want to mix up the fabrics a lot.  At the class I lost count of how many half triangle squares I'd made.  I keep making some but who knows whether I need lots more or 5 more.  I do know I will make some pillow shams so I'll need extra blocks.  I haven't been working on the string blocks at all.  I think I need 100 more of those.  I prefer the blocks that look more white with less beiges in them.  Me thinks I'll be making more of those then I need too. 

My OMG is showing progress.  In fact, when I looked at it last night I realized I probably have enough of the blocks done.  I've even got a few extra of those blocks ready to put into a doll quilt.  

Although this week was busy I did squeeze in a little shopping time.  Yes, I enhanced my stash a bit.  Although all purchases except one were for specific quilts.  I'm a fan of Kona solid fabrics these days.  So when they were on sale at JoAnn stores and there was a 25% off all purchases I went over to pick some up.  Royal, red and white. (No this isn't the color scheme of a new quilt!)  The multi-color fabric was really hard to find this year.  In fact, this doesn't have quite the colors I was hoping for.  I wanted more primary colors but this will do.  Hum, don't know when I'll get to either of these projects.  One may get cut out and go with me to the retreat in May. 

The Alabama T shirt quilt I'm making for a customer is now to the point I can make real progress on. I've got the design planned.  It's time to execute it.  First up is trimming the shirts to a bit bigger than needed and adding the stabilizer.  I would love to get that done this week.  

I'm linking up to my regular linky parties: Oh Scrap, Monday Making, Main Crush Monday, and Moving It Forward.  Go get a cup of tea (or coffee, just not my thing!) and spend some time seeing what is going on across the internet. 

Happy Quilting! Bonnie 

Day of SCervice

"Hey Bonnie!  You can't spell, can you?"  Well, yes, yes I can spell.  

I meant to type service as SCervice because it was the University of Southern California's day of service to our communities yesterday.  USC has named it the Day of SCervice. All the USC alumni clubs and students on campus are encouraged to have a day of SCervice. It's always the 2nd Sat. of March.   And for the first time in several years I got to participate because it was scheduled at 2 pm, rather than the morning when I tend to go to the Powhatan quilt guild. And, I liked where we were volunteering. 

We volunteered at Richmond SPCA, a no kill shelter.  It was a very busy day at the shelter as it was a free adoption weekend.  We were 17 strong ready to help work and enjoy a few animals.  Here are some of us listening to our instructions. See that pile of crates to the far right.  That was one of our jobs.  We were to sanitize, wash, scrub, rinse and dry the crates.  Good thing there some of our folks knew their way around a crate as we were taking them apart to clean them. But we also had to put them back together. 

We also cleaned some heavy plastic panels that were placed on the cages to keep the dogs from barking as much.  (I'm thinking of this as out of sight, out of mind.) Richmond SPCA is a huge place.  This is just one room where collars were being stored/washed/sorted.  All the dogs had on a collar because they got to go for walks with volunteers.  

This dog looks like a twin to our dog Kona. Hum, it's hard to tell if this dog has upright ears like Kona. See that aqua panel in the front?  That's one that we took off and scrubbed.  

And here's Kona -- she has more white on her. 

Here's what greets you as you come into the building.  A cat fish! 

And it's good buddy, a dog fish.  These are quite large sculptures.  The window behind the dog fish is the store that sells pet supplies.  I assume the proceeds go back to the organization to help support their work. 

Lest you decry that this is a quilting blog not a pet blog, I did see this quilt being used on a dog's bed.  Part of me wanted to cringe.  The other part of me was "isn't that nice there is a quilt for the doggy to cuddle in." Sometimes quilts just need to be given up to a new life. (Preferably not the one you spent 300 hours on.  But why not the fast quilts that don't take all that long to make.) 

Just a little update on the timing on Saturday. I left the house at 8 am to make it down to the guild meeting for the 9:30 start.  It wasn't a particularly long meeting which suited me fine as I wanted to go shopping at the local quilt store and the used book store before the volunteering. Pat had left at 7 am for a barbershop all day rehearsal. We met at the Richmond SPCA.  After our volunteer stint we had dinner with Doug who we went to school with.  We got home around 6:30.  Kona had been by herself that whole time but she was great. No signs of little problems, no piles of chewed up paper, no gnawed on wood! We promised we'd hang out with her today.

I'm linking up with Can I Get a Whoop Whoop? I'll be back Monday with my normal "quilty" blog.   

Happy Quilting!  Bonnie 

Weekly Goals & Stashbusting

Oh yea!!! I busted some stash this month! 
I bought a couple of yards to use in my Jamestown Landing Quilt -- all whites with either a little grey or light beige and white. And, I won some fat quarters from the guild. You can see why I'm using lots of exclamation marks.  This will probably be my best month of fabric going out all year. 

2018	Fabric In Month	Fabric In Year	Fabric Out Month	Fabric Out Year	Total In or Out Year
Feb	5	5	14.75	24.375	19.375

And, here's what's happening with my goals. 

February 28, 2018

Finish quilting Plus Quilt and bind it√

Finish embroidery and bind Alphabet Challenge√

Work on Jamestown Landing√

Design Outside border of Taps Quilt√

Make a pillowcase or two -- oops didn’t get it done

Work on T Shirt quilt√

And what I'm hoping to get done this week. 

March 6, 2018

Work on T Shirt quilt – finish plan, start backing ts and trimming to correct sizes

Make a pillowcase or two

Work on Jamestown Landing

Making blocks for FCQ Quilters

Load and quilt Taps Quilt

Attend USC Day of SCervice

I have agreed to make a T Shirt quilt for a customer using her incredible collection of shirts from University of Alabama.  I will be adding "Work on T Shirt quilt" until it is done.  I'm hoping to have it completed by May 1st if not sooner. Hopefully I can share some of what I do over the weeks.  

I'm linking up with To Do Tuesday, Midweek Makers, and WIPS on Wednesdays.   I'll link to Midweek Makers tomorrow. Take some time to see what folks are working on this week by visiting a few of these blogs.  

That's it from me.  

Happy Quilting All. Bonnie 

Monday Meandering AND OMG March

It's time to set the March One Monthly Goal.
I've spent a bit of time trying to figure out what would be a good goal this month.  After thinking and looking at several projects I decided I would finish the second top from the Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2017.  You can see the first one in this post.  I never posted that quilt finish! Hum, I guess I'll take pictures soon so I can share it with you. 

I used a cool braid block from the pattern Braid Shuffle by Karie Patch Designs. Here's where I am with the second quilt. I didn't use any pink blocks in the first quilt because my nurse friend who distributes them says dads don't want any pink in their boy's quilts.  These will be donated to a NICU in Richmond though Country Piecemakers.  My thought is they could be saved for twins.  I have quite a few blocks that need to be finished and a few more that I'll need to start from scratch.  The suggested border is a very dark purple.  I'm guessing it might be too dark so I'll wait til the center is done before I commit on the border.  

Which leads me to my next topic.  Over the weekend I was asked if I might be interested in some fabric from a friend's daughter's friend's mother's estate. Ok, forget the relationship.  Let's just say the daughter was thrilled someone was interested in the fabric and took it off her hands.  Three of us went over to see what was available.  The other two took some fabric and craft things for themselves or for other friends.  I took the majority of the fabric because no one really wanted it.  I know I have a lot of contacts with people who make charity quilts so what I don't want will be moved on to others. 

This is a 25 gallon tote.  I've been going through and getting rid of odd ball pieces, patterns and separating the rest.  A lot has been washed, dried and folded. Some I've added tags telling how much there is. There was another box almost as big as the tote.  Can you tell where I was sitting as I was going through the bin?  Folding. Separating.  You get the idea. I've still got quite a bit of fabric that needs to be washed.  For the most part this stuff is in good shape. So far no bugs and not much of a stale smell either. And, surprise, surprise there were several 1 yard and bigger pieces of purple.  Maybe there will be a different border on the above quilt. 

This last picture is my fabric purchases at the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Show held a little over a week ago.  The bright fabric is wool pieces.  The two bottom light pieces will be added to my Jamestown Landing whites.  I like that there is a little color but the backgrounds are basically white.  I also found some usable white on whites in the fabric I picked up this weekend. Yippee!  A little more variety. 

As I mentioned last week I won't be sharing goals on Mondays any more.  It just took me too long to do that when I have so much I try to squeeze in on Monday mornings. (And, nope, I'm no good at getting my blogs written in advance.  Sometimes I get the pics taken a day or two before which does help.) 

So that is it for this post.  I'm linking with all my favorite parties: Oh Scrap, Monday Making, Moving It Forward, and Main Crush Monday.  It's a lot of fun scooting around the internet seeing what folks are working on.  Unfortunately it gives me way too many ideas and not enough time to do it all! 

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie 

OMG Success and Weekly Goals

YES! (I'm shouting this!)  I finished my OMG for February with one day left.  Kind of close to the wire but I've finished it.  And I really like it.  As I say when Pat asks where the quilt is going "It's living here for a while."

I pieced the back because I just don't buy fabric in big hunks.  I did find a 3 yard piece of orange leaves but that wasn't going to be big enough.  I had a few plus blocks left over so I decided I would make a few more and put them in the middle of the backing.  I didn't get around to finishing the backing until Saturday afternoon.  That's important because on Wednesday last week I was paying attention as I was looking at Bonnie Hunter's quilts -- front and back.  She often pieces her backs from extra blocks or old left over blocks.  But I noticed she didn't split a bigger piece of fabric and put blocks in the middle.  LIGHTBULB moment for me.  It would be hard to get the quilt top lined up in the middle of the backing.  

My way of dealing with it was to attach the blocks to the wof.  I had an extra wof piece that I realized would be perfect to split down the middle and sew end to end to give me another piece to make the backing wide enough.  I did mess around a little bit while trying to place the top to the backing on the long arm.  I would have preferred a bit more orange on the right side but, yep, it takes a bit more fussing than I wanted to do at the time. 

Here's a close up of the quilting. 

I bought a new design specifically for this quilt as I wanted to enhance the fall look of it.  I used Maple Sugar by Apricot Moon.  I used So Fine thread on the top in soft orange.  I chose to use a different thread in the bobbin.  It was Essential Pro, Pumpkin by Connecting Threads.  I used some of the Pellon 80/20 cotton/poly batting that I bought on Friday. I even got a label made and inserted between the binding and the back of the quilt.  DONE. 

Tomorrow I plan to bind the doggy Alphabet Challenge quilt.  I'll have two finishes for this month along with a couple of pillowcases.  It should be a good month for fabric usage. 

Since I skipped the goals on Monday, here's a look at my goals from last week. Wednesday may be a good day to list them.  At least I might get into the habit of doing two (or more) blogs a week. 

February 19, 2018

Prep for + attend Bonnie Hunter’s Jamestown Landing class (Whoop! Whoop!) √

Attend Bonnie’s lecture √

Attend Mid-Atlantic Quilt Show √

Finish hand sewing on Alphabet Challenge almost done!

Put borders on Taps Quilt Need to figure out outer border – not enough fabric

Make 3 pillowcases 2 are done

And here's what I'm working on for this week. 

February 28, 2018

Finish quilting Plus Quilt and bind it

Finish embroidery and bind Alphabet Challenge

Work on Jamestown Landing

Design Outside border of Taps Quilt

Make a pillowcase or two

Work on T Shirt quilt

After I get the next binding on the rest of the goals should be easily reached. Plus, I have NOTHING going on this week for the most part.  I'm going to be reading, sewing and surfing the web.  (Ok, I'll probably continue to seek genealogy info -- I'm looking for info on my Great grandmother on my dad's side.  They lived in Montana -- Anaconda and Butte at various times.  Anyone have any hints on how to find out more from Montana? I'm using Ancestory for the time being.) 

I'm linking up with To Do Tuesday, Midweek Makers, Wips on Wednesday and Elm Street Quilts One Monthly Goal Finish.   I'll have to come back to link up one of these. (Hopefully I'll actually remember to do it!  Yep I did!) 

That's it for me today.  I think I'll do a little surfing now. 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie