Quick update

I finally made it to a guild meeting - it's been since April as my schedule often conspires to keep me from going to meetings. Part of the problem is that it's close to an hour's drive. Once the weather gets bad, I won't make it at all.

I am sometimes still very angry about what the bitches in my village did when I miss getting out to go quilting. The way "lady jane" walked in, took over the group I started, and then behind my back rescheduled it so I could no longer attend.....I get mad just thinking about it. Sad thing is, I knew she would do just that but being a nice person I invited her to join anyways. Looking back, I never should have invited her, but that would have made me like her and her little disciples in the group.

It was a work meeting - people had ufos there were working on or cutting out cuddle quilts.

I took that last qayg parrot block and worked on it. It is almost done.

I also got the opportunity to ask some advice on putting an on point (Christmas Lights) quilt together. I'm not a fan of quilts on point, and needed some help. I hope to start assembling that quilt next week.

Post-IPM update

First - the IPM quilt show was nice - the plastic shielding the quilts was a visual distraction and I suspect it muted the colours significantly. I didn't get a lot of time to look, but I did like several of the quilts.

I bought a Halloween quilt kit with a cat and moon on it called "Meowing at the Moon". It is so cute. I can't wait for a good chance to work on it. Maybe Thanksgiving weekend.

I didn't take the last qayg Parrot with me. I still have half of the last block to finish. I've been making GFG blocks. I did 2 1/2 on the train to the plowing match - was too tired to piece on the way home.

Hexagons

Well, so much for no new projects.

I've started cutting a jelly roll into hexagons to do a grandmother's flower garden as a hand piecing project. I have been resisting doing this for a couple of months. I had bought a package of templates specifically for jelly rolls some time ago.

I've got about 80 more to cut - there will be 560 in total. Ow. I am feeling it in my wrist and back. The colours are interesting. It's an American Jane set of fabrics - sort of limey green, peach, red, blues, pinks. I think the end result may be very pretty. A couple of the strips and polka dots, don't really lend themselves to GFG, but I don't care. I'm going to use them anyways.

The next thing will be to choose the colour sets. Each Jelly Roll strip produced 14 hexes. This will make two flowers and two centres. A total of 80 flowers. I think the final result will be a large lap quilt. The test flower ended up about 6 1/2" across.

Onward ever onward

It's starting to get cold at night so I'll soon start lap quilting a larger project so I have something to snuggle up in. I have a magic tile quilt that has 3 of the 12 tile blocks quilted, but was set aside when the weather got hot. I'll start working on that at home once I get the last Parrot block quilted and until I get the border for the Parrot figured out.

I figure (if all goes as planned) I'll have the last of the parrot blocks quilted this week. That will leave me without a take-along project for when I go to IPM in Earlton next weekend. I'll have to figure something out for in the hotel at night and during the train ride.

I do have the Birthday blocks that need to be sorted and pulled into a quilt. I just haven't figured out how I want to set them so that I can deal with the varieties in size. I don't really want to do the same as the Parrot quilt. I was thinking an Attic Window's approach, but then there is the problem of varieties in size - how do I make them match up? and also what colours do I use for the windows? And the backing? I'm not exactly ready to tackle that one yet, although I would like to get it done.

The guild is doing the block exchange with focus fabric again. This time I've decided not to participate - my attendance is not exactly regular due to work and the resulting set of blocks is a pain in the ass to deal with as they are all different sizes and fabrics (polycottons = yuck!), not the 12 " finished and 100% cotton like they are supposed to be.

The light at the end of the tunnel....

I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel with the parrot quilt. I started quilting the final block QAYG today.

Unfortunately I am wondering if there is a train attached. I haven't quite figured out how to handle the border part. That could be interesting or nasty. I haven't decided which. I also haven't decided quite what Iam going to do for the border yet either. Decisions, decisions.

Fall Fair results

I did well at the fair. The patchwork scottie dog won a second with a note that it was very unique. The hand-pieced, hand-quilted irish chain crib quilt won a second. My catapillar wool bulky knit sweater also won a second, so all in all, I did very well.

not much happening...

I'm halfway through block 11 of the Parrot quilt - haven't had a lot of time to quilt.

Put the hand-pieced irish chain crib quilt in the fair, along with the hand pieced scotty dog stuffed toy and a bulky knit sweater. I'll find out saturday how they did.

OK - so much for not starting anything new. I did a small table topper/centerpiece. It's 5 16-patch blocks with setting triangles. The 16-patches are yellows, pinks, greens and blues mostly. I'm using pink as binding. I finished piecing it yesterday, and for a change, basted and machine quilted it. It's rare that I machine quilt anything.

This morning I sewed the binding on. I just have the hand-stitching of the binding to finish and it's done.

It's a new project, but it's been very satisfying to whip something together - a great feeling of accomplishment. I found some beautiful fall FQ yesterday and will make another of these toppers in fall colours at some point in the near future.

I basted another parrot block yesterday. The 10th one is almost finished quilting - just a little bit around the border and it's done. I hope to finish it at lunch time.

I'm going camping for the long weekend. I'll take the 11th parrot block and the table topper to hand-stitch the binding on.

I'm back

Having spent the better part of the last two weeks in the city and working, I am now back. I have worked 4o hours overtime in the last two weeks. So when I finally got home/slowed down I have not gotten much done.

While away, I did finish the quilting on 2 of the qayg Parrot blocks. I am working on yet another and have 2 more to baste and then the blocks for that quilt is done.

My leaders/enders 9-patch has been pulled together into a crib-sized flimsy.

And on a whim, I pulled a bunch of 2" squares together to make a quick (maybe) table topper.