Wednesday Weather Report #18, HeLP, Squishies & Christmas

Did all y'all miss me Sunday? Did you remember there should have been a HeLP post? I remembered way too late and then forgot again and then remembered again yet this is the first I've had time to post all week. I am sooooo ready for the "weekend" to get here...

77 - 73 - 77 - 79 - 81 - 82 - 77F

Squishy from Sharon with scraps for my secret-for-now project

Squishy from Chantal for my hexie fabric stash

Squishy from Julie with scraps for my secret-for-now project

Woohoo!! The top is done and I've opened out all the outside seam allowances.
It will be trimmed straight after I figure out how to quilt it.

This backing matched better in the store but I still kinda like it.
If I don't find anything better at the 2 stores I'll be going to this weekend
or in early October I'll go ahead with this one.

Yipp - my Christmas Cactus is getting ready for an early show.
This plant often blossoms three times a year if I ignore it properly.

Feel free to link your temperature quilt or any hexie project to our linky party today!

An InLinkz Link-up

Feline Firday - 8/11/17

Dude - it is exhausting making friends with that new black & white "cat" in the neighborhood...

Look what Auntie Sharon sent Momma!!
A tote bag with kitties on each outside pocket and another on the inside.

How did she get my picture on there?

An InLinkz Link-up

Wednesday Weather Report, a squishy and flowers!

It's been a red hot week.

Yesterday there was a house fire a few streets from where I work. Those poor fire(wo)men with all their gear on in that bright afternoon sun were just sweating buckets. I'm sure they got tired of me pushing bottles of water and Gatorade at them but they needed it. They did jokingly ask for a portajohn but I couldn't help them with that. LOL. Now if only I had had some sunscreen with me...

Thankfully today is much, much cooler.
Today is an orange day, since you asked. Barely an orange day.

Earlier this week I received a squishy from Denise!!! Every other month we send each other a squishy based on a predetermined theme. This month was cats & birds. We were supposed to send one bird FQ, one cat FQ and either a cat or bird related gift. Neither of us follows the rules explicitly, as you already noticed.

I tried to get the approval of my new cat socks from the resident approver of all things here at Casa Grande but he was more interested in attacking my Sketchers.

And last but not least, I raided my garden this morning! Pink and white peonies, yellow iris and 2 kinds of hosta leaves. My office smells divine!

Linking to Midweek Makers #76.

Design Wall Monday - 11/28/16

(Once again, pixler isn't working to edit my photos...when it feels like working I'll replace these large photos and remove this note)

Other than a killer sore throat (like lets not even thinking of eating or drinking or swallowing) on Thanksgiving day, I had an excellent long weekend. I can't say that I accomplished much but I had fun cleaning up the quilt lab, prepping cookie dough for cookie day and whipStitchin'.

This was where I spent a good deal of time. I'm putting the fillers on the sides and the quilt is just too big to handle in my lap, especially since a certain FlufferNutter would prefer to be occupying my lap instead of any quilt. The cats don't bother the table so I can leave it set up for the next time I have a few extra minutes. I've got both the filler pieces on the right side done. Tonight I'll start the left side.

Hexie Club is Friday night where we will reveal our UFO challenge projects so the pressure is on. There is still a lot to do to consider my project "finished" but since I still needed to make 6 out of 23 stars back when the challenge was thrown down in June/July and it's now it's almost in one piece with just the pieced borders to go, I'm considering this a win!

I decided to make Bonnie's Mystery Quilt this year! The colors are right up my alley so I'm all geared up to do another mystery. I'm not soooo geared up that I actually have fabrics pulled but the mystery uses my 3 favorite colors so it was a no brainer to join in. That and I love her mystery style of making all of each unit (4patch, 9patch, HST, etc) at once.

Can you guess how many 4patches I had done when I took this picture?

It just so happens that my 2" strip bin had a ton of neutrals already cut so it was easy to whip up 93 4patches. I'm making a smaller version of her quilt so this will be enough for now.

I also received 2 squishies recently!!!

LOVE the bowtie selvage!

Sharon surprised me with a box of selvages - my January honeyDo list includes playing with selvages.

She also included this great hexie fabric. Yes - the search for new hexie fabrics continues - if you find one at your LQS I would love to hear about it!

I also won this great pair of tea socks from a new to me tea blog: http://www.friendshiptea.net/. Thanks Linda!!! I've got them on today but I just couldn't finagle a decent photo.

Joining Design Wall Monday and Mystery Monday Link up #1

HeLP for Hexie-aholics - 12/17/15

Welcome to the Ho Ho Ho edition of Hexie Linky Party for the lovers of EPP!!!

Photobombed!!

I thought I would start today with my new Christmas dress.

It's kinda hard to take a full length selfie so I added this closeup. Just promise to ignore the damp hair from walking in the rain. Fantastic dress, no?

I've been working on my Twisted Hexies since the last HeLP and it feels so good to have a large portion of it together. Nowhere near half together but it's great to see it in such a large piece. I have a number of the large rosettes made already but I've been focusing on making more smaller rosettes which are easier for lunch hours or the last spare minutes before bed. After Christmas I can pull out the big guns on this project again.

I've been using this new little yardstick box to hold my rosette parts while I work. It was part of a squishy I won from Janet a few weeks ago!!!!

She included a mini candy bar/2.5" squares, a tiny little stocking to add to my small collection and her scrumptious homemade soaps. You know I'll come up with some hexie pattern for the fabric squares :)

Gotta love the 2 kick-pleats and attached neck scarf!

OK - back to that dress. Ya'll don't really believe me do you? Anyone local would have started laughing riotously as soon as I said I was going to wear a dress and continued laughing when I said I was wearing it on a holiday. This jeans and a t-shirt gal is very very very very very very rarely seen in a dress - especially a fitted one. The LQS owner who initiated and continues to promote my hexie obsession, Claudia, found it at Goodwill a few weeks back. I may have lost a couple pants sizes walking for the last 6 months and this dress is supposedly in my old size but you can probably tell from the first photo that there is no way this will fit - it's not even zipped. Maybe by next Christmas!  Just to give my family a fright!

Ok, my hexie friends, it's now your turn. What projects are you dreaming of? Working on? Found in the back of the closet or finished for Christmas? Do share!!

An InLinkz Link-up

A Squishy, A NEWfo and a Challenge!

Last week I received a surprise squishy from my friend Chantal at Ramblings of a Quilter!!!

The contents of the package were not so much the surprise but their arrival was! I had commented on the fussy cut Santa fabric some time ago and Chantal thought she might have some extra bits laying around (large bits I might add!!). And then Chantal spoke up that she had also found another fabric she knew I would like - and boy was she right!!! How could this hexie girl not adore a  lime green hexie fabric called "honey hive"??? Thank you Chantal!!!! Your timing was perfect - having been sick on my birthday, it was a nice pick me up. I think I might have actually jogged back to work from the post office so I could open it :)

The new honey hive fabric reminded me that I wanted to start a new project. I now have 34(!!!) hexie related fabrics. I did NOT want an EPP quilt just for the irony and didn't even want hexie shaped pieces of fabric. I also thought it would be a fun twist for my hexie trunk shows this fall. It won't be finished (how does one declare a quilt finished when there are more fabrics to collect??) but it will be fun!

Then I remembered this project and thought it could be the perfect pattern if I used scrappy black-on-black for the setting pieces since the hexie fabrics were in such a wild array of colors.

Sorry, the colors are really wishy washy in this photo - it's overcast and snowing again today :)

I have four blocks done so far. My current concern is that there is too much black between each of the blocks, even if I do have to account for seam allowances. I might make a couple blocks in non-hexie fabrics with smaller setting triangles to see how I like them. The other side of the coin is that this is a really dark black so that might make it seem like too much black.

My fav block so far is Super Hexie-Man!!!!

And now for the challenge...
I am hoping all y'all will help me with my search for hexie fabrics. I am willing to trade or pay whatever you feel is fair. At the least I need a 5" charm square but I would be thrilled for more! I would even appreciate black-on-black fabrics. They seem few and far between here in my neck of the woods.  Thanks!!!!

Another squishy report...

...and this one ain't so squishy!

About a month ago, Vicki posted a giveaway on her blog. She had recently purchased 3 metal barn quilts and mounted them over her hand dyed gradients - it's gorgeous! Long story short, Mark, the owner of Classic Metal Company, offered a 2 foot quilt in the design and color of the winners choice for her giveaway. Lucky me!!!! I chose the feathered star in black. I went with black because I could frame it over fabric but a lot of the accessories in my house are also black. Be sure to look at the gallery on Mark's site because they are just as gorgeous in other colors or grouped to form a real quilt.

Where I am going to hang my quilt is still up for debate...We haven't redone my studio yet and the quilt won't show well on dark panelled walls. I could hang it outside on the front porch. It would still be sheltered from the weather and it would be another clue that a quilter lives there - as if peeps can't tell by looking in the front windows at my studio LOL!

Squishies!

I've got some squishies to share and some are way overdue thanks to (delayed) sick leave.
I'm sorry :(

Some time back Nines had a giveaway of 6 crocheted doilies. The rules said you had to specify which doily you would like in the comments if you were to win. It just so happened that 6 people entered and they each wanted a different doily. How perfect is that?! Thanks Nines!!!!

Of course I picked the hexie shaped doily :)

I'm a lurker of the smallquilttalk group at yahoo.com and we recently did a swap where I was partnered with Ines in Scottsdale, AZ. She wrote about some pretty hot temps - Yikes - it hasn't been that long since I lived in Miami but those temps sounded stifling. On the other hand she spoke of the beautiful scenery colors! Ines made this very pretty and festive doll quilt using 3D bowties. I haven't quite figured out how they are made but I'm still on it. It was quite the coincidence that the package arrived with the strawberry FQ on the day of our local Strawberry Shortcake Social (a fundraiser to restore our Doughboy statue). The leather covered measuring tape will be put to use in my travelling sewing box as I often forget to take one with me to the LQS.

Last but not least would be my latest gift from my guild Secret Sister. Everything was gently wrapped in the green fabric which matched the green gift bag - we were off to a fun start. The luggage tag also holds a tiny sewing kit - there has got to be a way I can convert it to a hexie kit somehow! BTW - The tag was purchased from a vendor who was at the last/local quilt show. Is that a clue to my sister's identity?! The mouse pin cushion is adorable but I hate to stick pins in him! I don't seem to have the same problem with my chicken pincushion. Weird.

That's it for now...I'm waiting on one more squishy in the mail...

Secret Sis Report

My quilt guild is doing a secret sister project for a good share of this year. Anyone that wanted to participate filled out an index card with some personal info and then we swapped. Of course, I thought of a dozen other things to list after I looked at some of the other cards but oh well because so far my SS has been spot on!!!

This was the adorable bag I received on Tuesday. Since I was part of the team handing out gifts this month I only had time to give it a quick glance at the meeting but knew I liked everything immediately.

Yes Midgie...you can be in this photo...

Look what I got!!!! The glass cat on the left has a spot on the back for a tea light (the glass colors will be gorgeous when lit up!), pomegranate hand soap, a tiny picture frame and a lovely green/flower FQ. The cat on the right was *not* part of the gift but was begging for treats. Someone is spoiled...

In looking at the FQ closer, I realized it had the cutest selvage. Now I wonder if it was a coinkydink or did my SS remember my selvage project and pick this FQ on purpose?


Sheep of a different color!



And since I can't find where I blogged about last month's SS gift...

A lovely purple FQ and a pretty sticky note packet.

I am guessing that next month will be a yellow FQ since those were the 3 fav colors I listed...We shall see...

Thankful Thursday!

I can't remember how long I have been stopping by Vicki's Blog but back in January she committed to at least 6 months of Thankful Thursday giveaways on her blog. They have ranged from her hand dyed fabrics to duplicate books from her library. Back at the beginning of March Vicki offered an antique toy sewing machine and I finally decided to give it a try and left a comment hoping to win.

I was quite excited the next week to find out that I had won - that never happens. LOL. Denise wins everything. Bwahahahahah.

The sewing machine arrived earlier this week and I am pretty sure it's a chain stitch machine. You know how you pull on the thread to open a bag of cat food? That's a chain stitch. Vicki had kindly threaded the machine for me but I've now broken the thread in playing with it (YES, it works!!) and have to figure out how to rethread it. I'll get it eventually :)

Thank you Vicki - it was a wonderful surprise for what has turned out to be a loooooog week with not much sewing.

Batik strip quilt

I have no idea why I decided to make a sample before I made the class sample but that's what this little batik baby is. I modified some of the dimensions to fit the smaller overall size - enjoying all of EQ's talents along the way. And now I best get to the actual sample quilt...

We are not going to talk about my wavy borders
(even tho it is a fab fabric) cuz I'll just quilt that out...somehow...

I also received a squishy in the mail this week!!!!
Ladyquiltsalot at Pieces of My Heart had sponsored a giveaway for surpassing 5,000 page hits. Lucky girl! Anyway...this great little pincushion winged its way from Canada to my house this week. It was a fun little surprise I had forgotten was on it's way so it was a very happy mail day :^)     Thank you !!

Almost caught up

I was able to finish cutting the 128 triangles for step 2 this morning. As you can see I used quite the variety of purples. I also included a purple with silver on it (5th from the left) which make me think of Denise! Hey this almost caught up business is fun - I'm just not getting anything else accomplished...

I received another squishy yesterday from my friend Erin for helping get her addicted to learn how to do hexies! It's a well known fact I can usually be bought with choco, even tho I told her it had been totally unnecessary.

Foiled Again

Have you ever made plans and they got foiled, really foiled? Well of course you have...

Yesterday was such gorgeous weather and I still needed to get my Christmas lights up but when I got home it was raining...I told myself I'll just do them in the morning...

While watching Bonnie's Quilt Cam last night I was able to press all my foursies (woot woot!) and get started on the seam pinwheeling. I told myself that I would start cutting the purple triangles needed for the goose units in the morning and then have something to blog about.

This morning I realized at 7:30 (I had been hitting the snooze since 6) that I had to have my car at the repair shop in a hour. I had no time to hang lights or even look at purple fabrics.

I did receive a squishy earlier this week! Lucky Denise had won a couple copies of the most recent 100 quilt block magazines and offered to send one to me! Isn't she great?! When the package finally arrived (oh, I was just being impatient) I opened the package to a lovely kitten/tea card, pattern copy of a mini quilt made with 3/8" hexies, a color wheel card from Quiltmaker and a gorgeous FQ of cat fabric (oh, how am I gonna cut into that? Maybe it will be a mini quilt backing) but no magazine. Denise feels awful that the magazine was no longer in there but I think I have deciphered what happened. The clasp is torn right off the envelope and the edges were all bent up. Someone put a huge chunk of packing tape over the end of the envelope to keep the rest in but without the usual post office label that something was received in an open or damaged condidtion. I just hope someone is making pretty blocks instead of the magazine sitting in some dead letter file somewhere...

UPDATE - The blogiverse is a wonderful place - I have already received an offer from another online friend to send me her extra copy of the 100 blocks magazine.

PS - it's currently not even half of yesterdays high of 70F (and dropping fast) while tiny snow flakes are drifting down from a gray sky the color of my foursies :)

Mail Call!

Sew...I finally made it to the post office this past weekend and what do I find but two squishies mixed in with the junk and bills.

First up was more selvages from Janet - she's been a regular supplier for a few months now and I love seeing what she is up to. I don't think once I have received a selvage from a fabric I also own...there are just too many out there :)

And there there was the monstrous box from Julie - thank god for flat rate boxes because this girl knows how to stuff a box.

As soon as I opened the end, it was exploding out of the box.

And just to explore what was there, I dumped it into one of the drawers I salvaged from the fire (they were going to be tossed for smoke damage and I wanted the fancy drawer pulls)

Yes, this drawer IS quite large and it's overflowingl!!!

You guys are the best and I can't wait to start playing with all the new colors for my selvage collection :)

Design Wall Monday - 3/12/12

I've managed to get the center of my batik quilt together! It feels really small compared to some of the other quilts I've worked on recently. I know it still needs the borders (and I had planned 3  which would make it 48" x 57") but I'm actually considering adding another border of HST to make it bigger.

On one hand I would just like to just get it done as is but on the other hand I would like something usable. Mom says the current size is great for a lap quilt, which is true but not really my style as I want to be *covered* by a couch quilt, or I could use it instead of the cream afghan to cover the ottoman, a fav pussycat hangout. Washing a quilt or afghan is much easier than cleaning the upholstered ottoman. What do you think - finish it as planned or make it bigger?

Ooh ooh – almost forgot I took this next picture. I think this loud striped fabric would make a fun border or even the binding. The colors are spot on!

I also wanted to tell you about 2 squishies I’ve received in the last week. Bonnie had Yard Sale Saturday back on 3/3/12 and I purchased this great neutral with roosters from Julie. She even included the cutest quilt label for me.

Back on Leap Day I entered several give-aways on a Leap Day Linky Party. I actually won one of them from Jen at Quilter’s Daughter !! It did kinda throw me for a loop when I picked up the package at the post office this weekend as Quilter's Daughter is the name of our LQS (my next stop after the PO) and I had to think for a minute what would be in the squishy.



Midgie and I were bummed that the post office clerk crossed out the stamps
when they hadn't been properly postmarked.



I won 5 green FQs and a spool of green silk thread for hand quilting. Thanks Jen!!