Knitted Hat..

I finished my first knitted hat. I used to use the loom but decided I wanted to learn how to knit with needles. I am planning on knitting up a bunch of hats to be donated next winter to various causes. Don't want to think about winter at all but it will be a good summer project for when I am too tired to sew at my machine or for take along projects. I am really enjoying the process. I printed out a bunch of different easy hat patterns from the internet. This hat is slightly too small for me but I am thinking about modifying the pattern and making more as I like how it looks. Gotta run to work now!

Frame on the move!

My frame was on the move this last weekend. We are doing some remodeling in the basement adding a jacuzzi tub in the bathroom. The bedroom that my frame was in lost a wall in the process. So I needed to move my frame to its new home in the other half of the basement. This is a room that is about 14 X 28 or so. The back half still has the family room stuff in it but my frame now sits in front of these wonderful windows. The light is so great and now quilting is so much better than when I was stuffed into that small bedroom. Plus I can turn on the TV to keep me company as I quilt. I have a charity quilt loaded on the frame and will be quilting it after I am done here. The lighting is not the greatest in these pictures right now but that is because this is a southern exposure which is why the view is so great. As you can see I am excited about my frames new space. I will post some pictures of the quilts I am currently trying to finish as I get them done.

Janet

Mystery Revealed!!!!

Here is the Library Mystery Quilt that I have been working on for a few months now. The lighting is not the greatest on my bed but it is too big for my design wall. It took me all afternoon to finish up. Sometimes I think Borders take just as long as the quilt blocks do, or at least it feels that way. Some of my bed quilt is peeking out the bottom and is not on the new quilt. I still have to quilt it but it feels good to be done with the top. I have until April 29th to quilt it for our Show and Tell meeting at the Library. It will be fun to see the other fabrics in this quilt. There were two layout options and I liked this one best. I think after seeing this I am going to keep it for myself. You can never have too many quilts, right? I really like purple so it does not surprise me that I would want to keep it. All of these fabrics came out of my stash as I did not want to go shopping for any fabric considering I have tons to use up at home first. They suggest a diagonal quilting but I will probably load this on my frame and do an overall meander of some sort. There are stars in the quilt so I would like to star meander it but I am not good at that freehand yet, so maybe I can find a pantograph to use instead. I was thinking I could even freehand the stars on some paper and then just photocopy that until I have a pantograph long enough for the frame. I have some books so I might have something already.

HS Graduates quilts for Church

Here is one of the graduates denim quilts that we are making at my church. We have 4 out of 6 done. Another gal is helping me work on the last two and then I will get them back to finish up the binding. They finished up at 50 X 80 and will be a good size for a dorm bed or where ever they use them. The denim is all jeans donated by congregation members. We had a sewing day this last Saturday and 8 ladies showed up to help out! I was excited as in the past it has not been easy getting help. The answer I always hear is "I don't know how to sew". I keep assuring everyone that there is lots to do that does not require you to know how to sew! Apparantly it finally sunk in. It was encouraging to me as I have been struggling with it.

Library Mystery Quilt

Well I am making progress on my mystery quilt hosted by our local library. We are up to Clue #6 and I am caught up. I think the next clue comes out the end of this week. I was a little behind so spent the last few hours catching up. I have been accomplishing quite a bit today with my day off. Next I need to work on my "Nesting Robin" that my local guild is doing this year. It was going to be a round robin but instead of passing along your block for someone to work on it, we keep it ourselves and do the next required step. I have also worked on some more of the split 9 patch and animal blocks. Will post more of those pictures when the quilts are completely finished.

One finished, 8 To Go

I put together one of the quilts from the blocks from the kids at school. I used some challenge blocks from my split 9 patch challenge I hosted with the Sunshine Quilt Guild (at http://www.sunshinequiltguild.blogspot.com) I really like the results. I have probably 15 more quilts to make with these challenge blocks so I am getting two projects done at the same time! This feels really good considering how little time I have these days. I think I am spending too much time on the computer and not enough at my sewing machine. I need to get these quilts finished by mid May to have them back to school for the kids to see. These quilts will be going to Wrap them In Love which donates quilts to orphanages around the world. You can read about that program at our Guild blog also.

Bonnie (http://www.quiltville.com) is starting a new mystery quilt and I am also going to start that project. I think I am an overachiever! But all these projects are soooo much fun. Well I better get busy and use my day off to its full advantage!

Need Motivation!

My Son's block is the whale, or is that a dolphin?
Here is my son coloring in his block.

I have been lacking in quilting motivation the last few days or so. Today I went to my son's school and had the kids color in muslin quilt squares that I will then sew into quilts to be donated to http://www.wraptheminlove.org/ to go to orphanages overseas. This is my fifth year working on this project. I think so far I will have to make 9 quilts as I do a quilt for each classroom.

I have started knitting a baby sweater and I enjoy doing that when I watch TV or want to relax and do nothing. No babies in my house, but the church I work for puts together layettes so I am planning on donating there. I just like to have my hands busy, I guess.

I started working on some UFO projects today. I have miscellaneous blocks in ziploc baggies that are waiting to be made into quilts. I really need to get these done and out the door. I made the mistake of counting how many I actually had laying around. My guild is having a challenge of how many UFO's you can get completed and when I found out you can also include any charity quilts I decided to play along. I finished up one top and got the backing ready to go and now am working on another set of 4 patch blocks. I have four days off over the Easter weekend so plan on getting some serious sewing done then, hopefully.

Grand Prix winners!

My son won 1st place in his Awana Grand Prix race today! He also won 3rd place

in Design! He did all the painting himself and the design was all his idea. My car placed 4th in the open class race. No trophy but my car ran a very good race and all four cars in the final race were very close! We had a very good day today.

Janet

Awana Grand Prix car's

Well here is my finished car for the Awana Grand Prix race on Sunday. The painted car is my son's (3rd grader) and the kind of quilted car is mine. I used some fabric scraps that I rec'd from someone (sorry can't remember who sent it to me) Purple just happens to be one of my favorite colors and of course I love to quilt! My son spent alot of time painting his car and is very pleased with how it looks. Our race is this Sunday so I will let you know if either of us wins!

Fabric Panel

I went to a quilt guild meeting yesterday. A guild that I am considering joining. They have meetings on Saturday mornings and now that I don't work Saturday's anymore this may work. I do belong to a guild but this guild has alot of members and it seems to have some younger members. Anyway I did some shopping while I was out. I saw this panel and decided I had to buy it. I have no idea what I am going to do with it but I am thinking I may just make it into a lap quilt for myself somehow. I like the colors and of course what it says just sings to my chocolate heart!

I retaught myself how to knit yesterday also. I have tried knitting in the past but could not coordinate my hands to work with the long knitting needles and always ended up getting my stitches too tight on my needles. I watched a video on how to knit online and I am starting with a prayer shawl. We will see how far I get before I have to rip it out. I have started and stopped only about two times and luckily I was only a few rows into it when I hap to start over.

Janet