Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Easy Street 5

Happy Holiday and Merry Christmas!

It has been crazy here for days. Bet it's been like that at your house too!
Easy Street Part 5 went very fast. Cut out on Friday and finish sewing blocks on Saturday.

Here are all my blocks! Ready to be assembled. Can't wait for the next step.

In the meantime what am I going to sew. I mailed all the Christmas goodies I made. Cleaned up the sewing room and made a few more e-reader stands.

The only thing left is to dig into the UFO pile. There are many! I gave away a lot of orphan blocks several months ago that were haunting me. I only kept a few really old things. One was the Pumpkin wall hanging from way back when, that I quilted for Thanksgiving.



This is another one from around 2000. It was a sorry little laptop. I was teaching a class on fusible web. At that time fusible web was like a brick. So thick it made the top really rigid. I used blocks from several books. I don't remember where I got them at this point. I think I drafted the angel and snowmen but not even sure anymore. LOL

On Saturday after starching the daylights out of the top, I sandwiched it and started FMQ. Even with the starch the white area was stretching. So I quilted the heck out of that area. All and all it looks nice. Nothing I would want to give away. Just a quilt we will pull out for Christmas.



GRANDSON APPROVED!

Merry Christmas!


Go to Bonnie's Linky page to see what eveyone else is up to!

Monday, December 17, 2012

Easy Street 4

I have been plugging away at step 4 of Easy Street. Wanted to finish them before my birthday today.
I am a big OLD 60 today!This will be my quilt. I guess that would be my Diamond Jubilee quilt!
I can't wait to finish it.


Some trials and tribulations along the way. I did a few upside down and a few wonkier than I would have imagined. The seam had slipped but I did not notice untiI I tried to sew the two geese together. I was able to cut the 145 green squares. I only have 18 more geese to sew together! WOOT WOOT!!!

Go to Bonnie's Linky page to see what eveyone else is up to!

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Oh Christmas Tree

Happy Holiday everyone!

After making the Pumpkin wall hanging in October, my daughter requested a Christmas Tree shaped walling hanging. She lives in upstate NY and wall space is very limited. I surfed around and quite by accident I came across an idea for a space saving wall hanging at Buzzing and Bumbling. It is a Christmas Tree wall hanging with so many possibilities. There are no specific cutting directions but the idea was just what I was looking for.
I decided to make 3. One for each daughter. So I washed, cut, and starched enough fabric for 3 plus a little extra to make a small tree for AAQI.

This is the one that is now hanging in my living room.

Since I have to mail out the Trees, I wanted to send them ornaments with it as well. I didn't want to spend a fortune on those ornaments either. I hit the local Walmart, and the Dollar Tree. Then Target was next and they had some great Christmas balls for $3.00 a pack. I think there are a dozen in the pack. All in all, I think I only spent about $10.00 for the ornaments for each tree. They are plastic so they won't break in shipping. I did get a long string of red beads for $2.00 at the Dollar General and it was enough bead garland for all three trees. I sewed on ribbon to secure the beads. My daughters will have their trees against the wall. Mine is hanging on my quilt rack. This caused some bowing at the bottom. I fixed this by putting some tabs on the bottom back and running a wooden dowel through the loops.

What I learned --- 1st tree took me about 6 hours to figure out. Next two where sewn up in about 2 hours. Since you have to sew the ribbon tabs in as you go, it is hard to judge how many you really want. I started with the bottom row and worked my way up. 1st and 2nd quilt I have bottom row tabs. On the one going to my daughter in Seattle, I left out the bottom tabs. Hers is going to hang in her cubicle at work and may cause the ornaments to hit the desk top. In other words, customize it for your needs. As for the FMQ, really had to be careful not to quilt down those tabs. I had to pin them out of the way as I added the long loops to mimic tree foliage on the green. Couple of oops moments but not bad. The star at the top did not stand out on the background. I should have used a deeper gold color. Solution was to zigzag around star. I did one in black thread and it was too dramatic so this one I sewed in red instead.

I think half the fun for the recipent will be dressing the tree. My daughter and grandson had a blast putting the ornamanent on while Grandma kept plugging away at the other 2 trees.

Decided at the last minute to make a Christmas stocking for grandchild #3 that will be coming in March. It was a rough year for my daughter. She miscarried earlier on  and was quite depressed. This baby is very special. She will be the first girl! I am very excited.
Last year I made them all Christmas Stockings. Could not wait for Christmas 2013 to make her a stocking, so here it is!

This is a pattern from Calico Moon Patterns. It is called Bottoms Up!
I changed it a little so that it has a lining. It only took me a couple hours to get it done. You can put stuff in the pants as well as the front pocket. Really a fun stocking.

Hope your Holiday is full of Peace and Joy

Aileen from FL


P.S. Amber just posted her tree on FB! So here it is. She loves it! I am so glad!!!!


Shara received hers last night. Here is her decorated tree. 
She loves it. Her co-workers keep stopping at her desk to look at. 
So glad I made it for her!

Also sent her a tiny 8" wreath. She had fun decorating that too.






Happy Holiday!

Monday, December 10, 2012

Easy Street

Easy Street Monday Linky!

I finally got done with my Christmas presents. They are in the mail flying to Seattle and Upstate NY. My daughters read my blog so I can't post until the gifts arrive on Tuesday. They were great fun to make.

Cleaned my sewing area and the began my Easy Street Mystery. I have been looking forward to this mystery. I made Carri the Orca Bay quilt. Finished it in late September. She loves it and sleeps with it every night. All my girls have quilts. Even made king size quilt for my husband. Time for a quilt for myself!

Part one is complete. Part 2 -, I have all cut, but only sewed 30 blocks. Decided to try part 3 and have 20 units done. Easy Peasy so far!!!. My goal this week is to catch up by Friday.


Just wanted to add that I have been collecting B & W and W & B, lime green, purple and teal for 2 years with nothing in mind. Bonnie did blow my mine when she posted her color suggestions!...That is when I knew this quilt was definitely for me!