Quilt finish #11

Hello friends

This will be a quick post and you will probably see another one today.  I finished quilt number 11 in November.  I had wood laminate flooring put in my master bedroom.  The guy that did that is a coworker and friend.  He asked me to make a quilt with his son's baby clothes for his wife for Christmas.  He gave me a bag of clothes including one shirt of his, his wife's and the grandparents.  It is hard for me to accept any commission work.  I always have trouble with them liking what I decide to make.  According to pictures and a message, she loved it.  I am so glad.  Here it is:

The red shirt at the top is the mother's favorite Wisconsin shirt.  You can barely read the lettering on it.  I had a hard time cutting that one up since it was her favorite. 

I used a blue Grunge fabric to set the clothing and a Grunge red dot for the backing and binding.  A big THANK YOU to Heather from Blue Turtle Quilting.  She has rocked every quilt she has done for me.
Next post, #12
Blessings
Amy

House projects

Hello Friends

Hope you all had a very relaxing and fun holiday.  Mine was great with a big surprise.  I will get to that in another blog post.  Right now I want to tell you about my house and what I was able to finish this past month.  Well, almost finish.  As you know I bought my parent's house a year ago.  I have been busy painting and cleaning out the 46 years worth of stuff they had.  I have painted the living room, dining room, downstairs bathroom and now the master bedroom. 
During fall clean up days in our town, I decided to remove the carpet in the master bedroom.  A coworker had asked me to make a quilt for his wife out of his son's baby clothes.  I usually say no to that, as I don't care to do commission work.  But he also does construction and I asked if he could lay some wood laminate flooring in my master bedroom.  He said he would so I picked out the color and ordered the flooring.  While also working on the quilt.  I will show you a picture of the quilt in my next post.  We had to keep it a secret until she opened it. But here is my new flooring:

It's called Mocha Fusion and I bought it from Home Depot.  It's a darker color with hints of gray and cream.  I painted the walls a light gray and I think the white trim makes it pop!  I love my new room.  Now I just need bedroom furniture and I can move in.  I am going to try to hit Ikea next week and see what I can find.  I am so excited to have my own space just to relax.

I also decided the week of Thanksgiving to paint a dresser.  I have been looking for a buffet for my dining room.  I will be painted the table and chairs in that room and recovering the chairs.  I found this dresser in the garage.  I believe it was my childhood dresser.  I worked every night after work and was able to finish this the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving.  My son was home and able to help me move it into the dining room.  I quickly filled it with my Fiesta dishes.

I think it will be perfect for what I need it for.  It's already been fun to decorate the top of it.

Spoiler Alert: I finished my 12th quilt!!!  More on that before the end of the year!

Blessings
Amy

 

Happy Holidays!

Hello Friends

I just wanted to pop in and wish you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
My 12th quilt is ready to pick up from my long arm quilter.  I will have it done before the end of the year!!  Stay tuned for that and an end of year wrap up.

Thank you for sticking with me this year.  Excited to see what the new year brings!

Blessings
Amy

More finishes

Hello Friends

Hope you are all getting ready for the holiday season.  I have been working on house projects.  We have 'junk days' here in my little town twice a year.  You can put out almost anything and they will pick it up for free.  I had 3 twin mattress sets, 4 outside damaged chairs, and some other little things.  On the day before the pick up I decided to remove the carpet from my master bedroom and master bathroom.  It was a big job and I was doing it all myself.  The bedroom is  225 sq. ft and the bathroom is small about 8x12.  The carpet in the bedroom was over 30 years old and bright red.  Yuck!  The walls have never been painted and where white.  I am going to change that.  Remember a while back I mentioned I was doing secret sewing.  Well, it's still a secret and will be shared after the holidays.  But the person I am sewing for does construction and we are swapping services.  I am finally going to put in wood flooring.  The materials have been ordered and the room should be almost complete by Thanksgiving.  I am so excited to have my own bedroom.  I am currently sleeping in the spare room and there are lots of boxes to go through in there. I am also going to be painting the room a light gray color.  Hopefully by next weekend.  Here is a before picture of the floor after I removed the carpet:

The carpet was glued down so I am still scraping and hoping to have the room ready for the flooring when it comes in.  It was a big job but it only took me 3 hours to get that and the bathroom floor out and to the side of the road.  Success!

I work for a large medical software company.  I work in Reception and when I started there were only 6 of us.  Our team has grown to 14 which means they have run out of space.  We were in a large open room but it's so hard to hear our customers.  They decided to make us individual offices.  It was all so exciting!  I helped coordinate the move out and move in.  We were sent to different offices in the building for 5 weeks while they created our space.  I am so blessed to work for this company and have such a wonderful work environment.  I thought it would be nice to give my coworkers a little gift to welcome them to their new spaces.  I ordered these plastic baskets from Dollar Tree and filled them with tissues, lip balm, lotion, hand sanitizer, paper and pen and mints.  I also included a pack of cookies and of course a handmade coaster.  I made 24 coasters just to have enough.

Another success!

The day after the move, I traveled to Las Vegas for my friend's 60th birthday.  We had a lot of fun and ate too much food.  It was a nice long weekend.  Here is a picture from when we landed in Vegas.

It was actually pretty cold there.  I froze the first day as it was 40 degrees.  It did get a little better by the time we left.

This week has been successful in the sewing room also.  I made these Advent Calendars.

My long arm quilter has quilt number 11 which is the secret sewing I can't post yet.  I am working on the border for quilt 12.  Looks like I should make my goal of 12 finished quilts this year!

Time to make my goals for next year.  Do you plan out your year or do you just make what you like?  I usually just make what I like, but since the move I have seen how many quilts I have started and never finished.  This feels so good!

Blessings

Amy

Quilt finish #10

Hello Friends

I am happy to share that I have finished quilt #10.  With the help of my long arm friend Heather.  She does amazing work.  If you are in my area and need something quilted, please contact her here.

This quilt was made about 2 years ago and has been sitting in my pile waiting to be quilted.  I bought the backing and binding over a year ago.  This was made in the disappearing 9 patch style using charm packs.

Of course I was so excited to have it done and get it on here, I forgot to measure it.  It's a small lap quilt.  She quilted it with stars and bats.  It feels so good to get this done.  She has quilt #11 for me now.  I can't share that here until after Christmas.

In between sewing/quilting, I find that I need something to keep my hands busy.  I have been crocheting for a bit.  A couple of years ago, I made dish cloths for all of my coworkers for Christmas.  I even sold a few to a friend to give as gifts.

Lately I have been trying other things.  The colors in the yarns lately have me drooling!  I found a pattern for a shawl and just had to make it.  I am almost done.

It's far from perfect, but it will do the job of keeping me warm.  I have also been making finger-less gloves.  And a Mobius shawl.  Those are for my Bestie for her birthday which is today.  I will post them once she gets them.

I am also still working a little on my English paper piecing Grandmother's flower garden.  More pictures of that soon.

Stay tuned for quilts 11 and 12.  I may even get a 13th one in there. :)

Blessings

Amy

FAL Q4

Hello Friends!

Hope everyone is doing well and getting ready for the holidays.  They are fast approaching and that also means the end of the year.  I love the first week of January.  To me it's full of new beginnings.  I put away my holiday items and gifts.  I deep clean.  And I sew!  I also plan out my sewing for the year.  I do give myself time to work on new and unexpected interests.  This years goal was to finish 12 quilts or 1 a month.  I have so far succeeded.  I am waiting on my long arm quilter to finish quilting #10.  I am working on getting 2 more ready for her.  I have actually only made 3 quilts from start to finish this year.  The rest of my finishes are tops that needed to be quilted.  It feels so good to see the stack of finished quilts.  They are all ready for gifting or display.

So how am I going to finish the year for this challenge?  Here is my list:

• Put borders on my Floral Birch Bark quilt and send to quilter
• Do the embroidery and put together Vintage Christmas Quilt and send to quilter
• Finish 2 of the 3 Advent calendars I am working on
• Finish stuffed cow for baby gift
• Bind quilt #10 and hopefully #11 and #12

Here is a picture of the Vintage Christmas quilt I am trying to finish.  The pattern is from Lori Holt.

The empty spaces are blocks that need embroidery or buttons.

I think that is a long enough list.  I am still doing house upgrades too.  I am also secret sewing and I hope to be able to share that with you by the end of the year.

Time to think about my goals for next year.  I don't have many quilt tops left so they will be a priority.  And then, just maybe, I can start something new.  Lord knows I have the fabric!

I am linking up at Dizzy Quilts

Do you make goals and do you follow through?

Blessings

Amy

2019 FAL-Q3 Finishes

Hello Friends

I just found out that quarter 3 is up for finishes.  I am happy to report I had 3 finishes this quarter.  I wonder how I did on my list. 
Here is my list for Q3:

• continue to finish a quilt a month.  I have enough tops made to finish 12 quilts this year.  I have 6 done.  Hoping to get 3 more done this quarter
• finish the stuffed cow I am making for my bestie's new granddaughter.  She is arriving in September but I would like to get it done now.
• I need to make the setting stones for my Vintage Christmas quilt and get that made into a top.
• I would like to finish my Swoon table runner.  Needs quilting.
• cut out and finish 2 Advent calendars.  I always say I am not buying them any more and then my local quilt store gets some cute ones I can't resist!

Well, I didn't do too bad.  I finished 3 tops, and cut the setting stones and sashing for my Vintage Christmas quilt.  The cow was started then lost and started again.  Did not get the Swoon runner done or the Advent calendars.  They will go on my list for Q4.

Here are pictures of what I did this quarter:

Hex on you quilt finished Sept 2019

Missing U quilt finished Aug 2019

String quilt finished July 2019

Working on the embroidery on the Vintage Christmas quilt.  Sashing and corner stones cut.

I am linking all of my finishes up with DizzyQuilts.  You can find them here.

I will get working on my list for Q4.  Stay tuned!

Blessings

Amy