Cutting

Tonight I spent my 15 minutes cutting paper into 8 x 8 squares for my album. I may do more tonight but I need to work on our budget since I lost it this weekend.

Well, It's Not Quilting....

But I did spend some time today cleaning up my craft space and organizing my current scrapbook project. The Quilt That Never Ends almost did in my machine so I sent it to be serviced this weekend and will be without for two weeks.

For my current scrap project I decided on all the paper colors and identified some pictures I still need to print. If I can get one page done a night I should be able to finish the projects right after Thanksgiving, sooner if I can devote a few hours this weekend.

Tomorrow I want to continue cleaning my area (it's a huge mess) and scrapping.

The Quilt That Never Ends... Ended Today!

Today I finished the quilt that has tested my patience. It turned out way better than I ever thought it would. I sent it to the quilter today along with the Big Block Throw from the retreat.

Although I don't need another project...

One thing I'm hoping to work on is my first Mystery Quilt, put together by Bonnie at Quiltville.

I'm super excited because I've never done one and it seems like a great way to use up my scraps. So one task for this weekend would be to try and get my fabric together and sorted, but I'll need some bins and bags...

But for now I must sleep.

I Have Been Plotting and Piecing

So I really have been working on crafts this week, just not being he best about posting.

On Monday night I picked out fabric for a Christmas gift project. I won't put much more info here to keep it a surprise but can you guess by the picture?

The other nights I've spent working on the Quilt that Never Ends. I finished the blocks and sewed them into rows. My extra fabric arrived so if everything goes well I can sew the rows together and add the border on tomorrow. Then Sunday I might be able to take it and another quilt to the long-arm quilter.

From then on it's all about the Christmas presents followed by a desperately-needed machine servicing.

Binding and a Movie

We did A LOT today around the house and yard and my legs are killing me! The thought of working the foot pedal on my machine made me hurt more. So I put in a movie and grabbed the Christmas quilt and started binding.

Tomorrow I will hopefully get back to working on The Quilt That Never Ends and the upcoming holiday gifts.

The Quilt that Never Ends

I spent a lot of time working on this quilt tonight and still don't have the blocks done. Hopefully only another hour or so to finish the blocks. I did find the fabric I need online so I will be ordering that soon so I can finish the border.

Now I am alone for the evening since Kyle has to work the time change. What's a girl to do? I am torn between setting up my machine and sewing some more, laundry and general pickup or working on a scrapbook design.

Stupid Squares

The woman who made this pattern does not know how to figure yardage or write a pattern. At the quilt retreat I spent hours trying to determine how to cut all the pieces out of the fat quarters without repeats (not a chance) and then spent an entire day cutting fabric. There is so much waste in this pattern that I'm mad I didn't spend the time to re-figure the pattern for less waste and more clarity.

Anyways, we went out for birthday dinners tonight so I didn't have a ton of time. But squares are easy so I decided to cut the 120 4.5 inch squares needed for the final nest and then the border from the same fabric. Of course I didn't know when I bought this fabric that the pattern maker didn't figure her yardage correctly so of course I am short about 10 inches.

Tomorrow before the quilt time I will go on a quest for this fabric in the local quilt shops. I might end up ordering it online though. I don't think the quilt will be the same if the border isn't the same as these squares. The other option is no border. I don't think I'll like that so much though.

Binding Boredom

I hate making binding. I hate putting the binding on by machine because it takes so long. But I don't mind hand binding. It allows me to feel productive while I watch tv or movies.

Tonight was the first night since Sunday where I had 15 minutes to spare for quilting. Since I had no hand projects to work on I thought it might be good to start working on the binding for my last big quilt to finish in 2009. I started by just cutting the excess fabric from the quilt. Then I moved to searching my stash for just the right fabric (Kyle assisted) and just went for it by making the binding and attaching it to the quilt. So now I have a very large quilt that I can bind while watching tv, talking or waiting my turn at the dog agility trials.