Finish It Up Friday and Finished Or Not Friday 11-2018

I am always glad to have a plan.  I was hoping to have lots of photos to show on this first Friday of the month post.  You know what they say about best laid plans.

We traveled the first part of October and visited our son and daughter. Our son had a milestone birthday and is by himself. So of course I made him a quilt. He lives in Phoenix, a may not really need a quilt.  But now he has one!

We were home for one week and I was planning lots of projects for a 4 day retreat in the Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming (it's my home state and only 60 miles from home). We always have lots of fun and usually accomplish a great deal. But the Friday before the Monday of our first day, they had a water well or water line problem and had to cancel. Because they also host hunters and hunting season is in full swing in this area, we could not reschedule right away.  Now we are looking at a couple of option in the coming 3 months..but driving is "iffy" in Dec and January.  It could be lovely, but it could also be treacherous. I am not sure what we will decide. We meet on Wed the 7th for our regular monthly get-together.

One of my project to do at the retreat was to have 8 blocks complete for CiL Block Drive.

These are Grown Up  I Spy blocks. You can read more about this project here and  here. They have been sent off to Kat.   The new block drive is in full swing and I am gathering fabric for it.

The last Friday of October, my sister lost her husband of 31 years. He had been failing for a while, but boy is it hard!  I want to "hover" and "be there", but she is 2 hours away and hates to be "hovered over"  So I will be available to talk, to text, to support her in any way I can.

And now it is November and there are lots of new challenges to keep me busy. My new One Monthly Goal is to get HALF of Rick Rack Nines put together.  You can see my post about that one HERE. 

I have a local challenge due to be revealed on the 18th of this month at our Quilt Chicks gathering.
It is this quilt and it is done.

The stripe binding is laying on the top in this photo but it is quilted and bound. I know I have a photo of it complete, but I can't find it this morning. I will take a picture at the reveal day and then I will have one.

binding the Magnolia Quilt

My project #4 for the All People Quilt UFO challenge is to make a heart shaped large pincushion. It is ready to go.  I have had this fabric for maybe 15 years, it's time to use it!

Sew it's time to get busy and finish up some projects. And Christmas is only 7 Fridays away.!!



Stay Busy and Stay Happy

I'm linking up with Amanda Jean at Crazy Mom Quilts, Finish It Up Friday and 

Myra at Busy Hands Quilts, Finished or  Not Friday

OH, and I finished reading the Storyteller by Jodi Picoult and The Dry by Jane Harper.  Both really good. 

November One Monthly Goal Link Up

I've been working on making 9 patches as leaders and enders for the last several years. Then I picked background fabric, Downstairs at Downton Abbey (cream with light olive green sprigs), from Andover Fabrics.

There are 290 9-patches needed, here are 110!

 I started to lay it out in April of 2018. This is a Bonnie Hunter pattern called Rick Rack Nines from her book, Adventures with Leaders and Enders.  You can read more about the beginning in THIS post!  I packed it back in it's project box because I needed my design wall for another UFO project!

This layout shows an "oops".  I packed it back in the project box.

Now I am ready to get the top together.  My OMG for November 2018 is to get half the blocks sewn together. This is a big top and is put together on the diagonal. My design wall will barely be big enough for the half triangle. Bonnie Hunter suggest putting it together in 2 halves also.

It is on my design wall. The first bottom left corner triangle is sewn to row 1. Row 2 and 3 have been added. Row 4 is sewn to Row 5.  More 9 patches and background squares are laid out. 

This will probably take me all month.  There is Thanksgiving coming up. My sister lost her husband after a long and complicated illness last Friday, the 26th. She lives about 2 hours away from me, but I may make a trip or two over there just because.  She has no children, so she is really all alone.


I will link this post up to Patty's OMG November Link Up.


Stay Busy and Stay Happy

October OMG Finish!

My goal was to make at least 8 blocks for Kat's  CiL Block Drive. September and October Block Drive was to make a 10 1/2" square using this tutorial.   You can check out my original goal setting post here.


Today 10/22, I was supposed to be headed to a retreat at Ucross WY. Just up the road from our house. Well, 57 miles, but not that far!  I was so looking forward to having some sewing time and some time to connect with my friends in our Loose Threads group!  On Friday we got word that the retreat had to be cancelled due to some water line problems at the resort. Well, ya gotta have water!  So, needless to say, we are all disappointed. One of my projects was to finish the Grown Up I Spy blocks for The Covered in Love Block Drive. So this weekend I decided to get that done and mailed off to Kat in Texas.

 A cute reindeer, buttons, raspberries and four leaf clovers. On the right, Cola bottle cap, Victoria lovers, and though you can't see ( my picture taking skills are lacking)  the word "Brrr!"with mittens and a cap and some green beans.

 Left:  Peanuts, guitar, bottle of beer and four leaf clovers  Right: Football helmet, books, coffee beans and a red star!

 Left: Cream Soda bottle cap, an Arizona Cardinal, Harley Davidson flames, a guitar!
Right: Coffee beans, beer mug and bottle, Santa, and a blue "Texas? star!



Eight blocks completed!
Update: 10/25 - They finish at 10.5" and are in the mail to Covered in Love!

I'll be linking up with Patty's OMG- October Finish Link-up!

Stay Busy and Stay Happy

ps:  I also finished reading The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult!  Excellent!

Slab Blocks Are Green and Wonky

We are home from nearly 2 weeks of road trip and visiting our 2 kids. Our son lives in Phoenix and our daughter lives in Lakewood Colorado.

We had a great time visiting, celebrating birthday and seeing extended family. Two of our great grands live in Phoenix too!.

I finally had time to pull some dark or sage green and make some slab blocks for RSC18.

These have not been trimmed to size yet. I am still on the fence as to what size I want them.  You see that pumpkin peeking at the edge.?

I have been wanting to do this quilt for a long time. It is Halloween Haberdashery from Melissa Mortenson of Polka Dot Chair. So when she had it on sale and was offering a quilt along, I purchased the pattern. I thought I had lots of Halloween fat quarters. And enough low volume fabric for background.

I printed the pattern, because I purchased a PDF from her website. And gathered my fabrics. This is what I accomplished before we left for vacation. 

I think I will just work on it a bit at a time. The pattern is somewhat time consuming for the hats. And maybe I'll end up with a smaller quilt than the pattern.  So another WIP to add to my list. And I need to gather more low volume prints in white with black or gray. It won't be done for this Halloween, but maybe next year. 

That's all for this week and next week is our retreat. I should have lots of photos to show at least! "smile"

I'll link up with Finished or Not Friday and So Scrappy Saturday. 

Stay Busy and Stay Happy

ps: we listened to two audio books on our road trip. Both Michael Connelly , Bosch series.  The Wrong Side of Goodbye and The Burning Room were both really good and both read by Titus Welliver (  actor who played Bosch on the Netflix series)

A Small Finish

We have been home for 4 days from our vacation. The laundry is done and I have spent most of the week preparing to attend a retreat next week in the beautiful Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming. I planned projects, thought about what clothes to pack.  It will be cold at night and we walk to the dining room. I called and confirmed my reservation.  But, I was a week too early. We don't go until the 22nd of this month.  Boy, am I glad I called and checked.

So I have another week to work on some projects, but not the ones packed and ready to go to retreat!

 I finished the binding on this little table runner Wednesday night while we watched Chicago Wednesday on television.

 It's kind of a funny little runner. I took a disappearing nine patch class at our state convention in 2017. The instructor gave us some fabric to sew into 2 nine patches so we could practice cutting, before we cut into the fabric for our project. That was cool. I sewed, and cut, but cut one wrong!  So I learned from my error, and went on to the class project after packing away the miscut block with the 2 that were correctly cut. When I dug it out again to finish it, I found some fabric that was close in color range and added a strip on to the short cut sides. Then I planned the layout so the repaired fabric would be at an edge and hopefully mostly covered by the binding. Then as you may notice, I did not have enough of any fabric that worked, to complete the binding.

Can you see the strips added to the top right hand block and the bottom near the red strip?

 So this miscut, mismatched table runner will be a utility runner on our coffee table with my Christmas Cactus sitting on top of it!! 😥

This was the class project: I like it much better!

I will link up with Myra at Busy Hands Quilting's   Finished or Not Friday.  and with Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict's "Can I Get a Whoop Whoop?"

Stay Busy and Stay Happy

A Birthday Quilt Delivered

This is my finish for this month. A quilt for our son on his 50th birthday.

Pattern:  Intertwined by Cheryl Brickey from the book, Modern Plus Sign Quilts.

Fabric: B and W: Plus Signs = Tag by Cheryl Arkison from Connecting Threads

Green : Latifah Saarif's Graphics collection = Brick Wall

Border: White Out by Robert Kauffman

Backing: Cheers by Robert Kauffman

Binding: from my stash: Vintage Wheels, I have no idea who the designer is. 

Quilting:  Retro Graphics 2 done by my friend Marva Mooney on her long arm. 

We hand delivered it to Phoenix and he was pretty happy!  We had a great week there and now are on our way home. 

Stay Busy and Stay Happy

I am linking up with Finish It Up Friday and Finished or Not Friday!

October One Monthly Goal Setting Post

Complete at least 8 blocks for Kat and Cat's Quilts  CiL Block Drive for October.

The block drive is an Adult I Spy blocks as directed on her August 29th blog post. This block drive is September and October and I have started.  I have sewed some, cut the rest.

I hope to have some that are more male in focus and some, like the buttons, would be more geared to female.


 I will be attending a 4 day retreat in beautiful Ucross Wyoming from the 15th through the 18th ( was a week early when I posted this, actual dates were 22 through the 25th) with my Loose Threads group.  This photo was taken in 2016, it was cold ( as evidenced by my Car-hart jacket) and windy( cause it is Wyoming after all!)

We always have a ton of fun and I am looking forward to sewing with no other distractions or obligations. If the name Ucross ,Wyoming sounds familiar, you might be a Longmire fan.  Have you read or did you watch Craig Johnson's Longmire series?

Here is his newest book and if you haven't already, check out the series on Netflix. 


Stay Busy and Stay Happy

We  are  away from home this week, so I hope to have a few minutes to link up with Patty's October Goal Setting linky party!