Sew,sew,sew,

Hey all,did you miss me in blog land?  I sure missed reading my favorite blogs,and am hoping to get caught up soon!  The first week of vacation was a lot of driving,and visiting family.  The visiting part was great,the driving part not so much...

This week I have been trying to stay off here and get some of my sewing goals completed.  Which is going pretty good :0)

Before I show my progress so far though...  One Happy Mom and her quilt!!  The lighting where we stayed was not very good,but good enough for a couple of photos for my album :0)

Magnum Block for the skill builder QAL I joined,both this one and the Sound Wave block still need to be quilted,but at least they are pieced!

My February Bee block,Pippi Longstalking!  Even though I chopped off her feet (oops) this one is still super cute :0)  I plan on making more Pippi blocks in the future.

Row 10 in my row along,little Houses.  Although the blocks themselves are about 6.5x8.5 there are 20 little pieces that make up each block.

Welcome to my "Quilters Neighborhood"!  Only five houses on this street,mine is the one at the right end.

Surprised that my house is not in  the green prints?  Me too,but as you can see there are still plenty of green prints on some of the other houses.

Row 11,something that all us quilters use by the Spool!  Yes,Spools of Thread.

I decided to make my thread spools look like antique wooden spools,they turned out rather nicely.

Last night Jolene,helped my with some things on my computer,so this morning while typing up this post I decided to play around a bit with the photos.

Lastly,a tease photo for my swap person on FB!  Hope everyone is having a super week with at least a little sewing thrown in :0)

Meet Star Granny (January's Lovely Finish)

I can not believe how quickly this month has just screamed by!  At the beginning of the month I decided that this month's project for A Lovely Year of Finishes would be a quilt for my mom!  The idea has been there since last year when I raided her stash while visiting asked her if she would give me some of her stash.

My first thought was to make a quilt using only granny square blocks,but when I actually started pulling the fabrics I decided to include another block for a little interest.  The second block is called Scrap Jar Star which by the way,I really liked and will be using again in the future.

Here she is..it was super windy and very cold after work when these photos were taken  (after just three quick photos my hands were like ice)  So the top row is not visible,because the only way to get a shot of the quilt was to hang some of it over the rail to help hold it in place.  There are five rows of four blocks each,the quilt finishes out at about 48x60.  Which will be a very manageable size for mom!  She has osteoporosis,and lost 9 inches this last year,so I wanted a quilt that she would be able to manage easily herself.

The back side is a antique white shade with an all over print of tiny leaves.  Mom loves flowers and roses are one of her favorites,the top strip is one of her fabrics,while the center one is something I had buried in my own stash,they both have roses all over.  So did you notice the problem with this side?

At first I thought that my iron was in dire need of being cleaned,that was not the problem though because after taking a minute to clean it,I realized that it was not dirty.  So the only thing I can figure is that  the iron was too hot for the fabric sheet that I used to print my label on.

At first I was so upset about the scorch mark (the large one at the bottom of the label) but after I took a minute to get a grip... and decided that since this was not fixable,I made a couple other smaller controlled scorch marks on purpose.  Why would I do that?  Well,while getting a grip my thoughts were what would mom say when I tell her how this happened?  She would probably say something like,that just makes it look like it is aged/antique...

My good friend Jamie suggested that a scrappy binding would look great on this quilt,I really liked the idea and decided to do just that.  Thanks Jamie,I really love it :0)  In spite of the little mis-hap on the back side,which by the way mom would say "adds character" I am very happy with how this one turned out!

Linking up over at the finishes party   My first of many (that is the plan anyway) finishes for 2013!!

A Ripping Good Time (Not)

  Good Morning peeps in blog land :0)  Did you have a busy week,or was it kind of laid back?  Mine was super busy,and productive too.  Well,that is after all the ripping of mini star blocks,and re-sewing them!  Yep,story of my sewing life.

Here are all 16 of them,all stacked up and ready to be sewn into a nice new row,row 9 to be exact.

That is until I took this photo and realized,that Huston,we have a problem!  The one on the left is what they are supposed to look like.  Unfortunately,it is was the only one of the 16 that I sewed correctly :0(  Why is it that I never see things like this until taking photos?

Dang that Murphy anyway!@&*!  Moving on....

Here they are next to my blocks for mom's quilt blocks,just to give you an idea of how small they are.

Twinkly Winter Stars all re-sewn together!  They are very cute,and very Done :0)

Last night I finished sewing the last block for mom's quilt,AKA,Star Granny quilt (the name I have decided on).  This morning is grey and cloudy,it is supposed to snow!  Thank goodness there is no wind yet,because the first thing I did was to grab all the blocks and run outside to spray baste them!

After breakfast,it was off to sew up my January bee block.  A stripy dresden plate in blue tone on tones with white.  Thank goodness this one went together without a hitch :0)

The rest of my day will be spent working on getting the Star Granny quilt blocks quilted!  Hope you all are having a wonderful weekend ;0)