Quilt and Stitch Expo

I'm off to Pueblo, CO to the Quilt and Stitch Expo today. It's about a two hour drive from here to Pueblo. I'm going by myself but I have my iPod loaded with podcasts and music. I've also got my camera, my purse with cash and credit cards and a nice tote bag to carry my purchases.

Hope you have a good day - I plan to!

A Give-Away

I'm working today - no sewing - boo hiss. While taking a grading break I happened upon a great give-away. Head over to Jandi In Stitches and leave her a comment to enter. Who knows, you just might be the winner! I've recently become a believer because I was a winner on Pat Sloan's Creative Talk Radio show and blog. (The link is for the blog. You can get to her show from the blog). I received my book on Monday but have been too busy with "life stuff" to have time to read my new book or blog about it. Stay tuned ... I'll do my first book review after I've had a chance to actually look at the book.

Laundry room floor - aaaaahhh!

Not a very quilty post today, but I am so excited to finally have a laundry floor I can be proud of. The house is a bit stinky from the silicone caulking used around the edges and the adhesive, but doesn't it look nice? Scroll down to the last photo to see ugly green "before" floor. It was painted linoleum and the paint came off a little bit every time I mopped it. I'm probably going to just go sit in there for a little while tomorrow (after the smell dissipates). We still need to put the cabinets back in along with a few other things and the ceiling still needs some work, but it feels so nice to have this project proceeding so nicely.

The ugly green went into this little half bath too, so it also got a face lift this morning!

Here is the before shot. This was taken before I painted too.

I have been busy making thread catchers this morning while the floor was being installed. My husband just got back from Walmart with more fish tank airline (used to make the bag hang open nicely) so I can finish these up. Photos to follow in a few days.

Groovy Baby and Funky Buttons Patterns

It has taken me a while, but I finally have the patterns written up for the Groovy Baby (photo above) and Funky Buttons quilts. I had to do them together because the Funky Buttons quilt (see photo below) was a bonus project using left overs from the Groovy Baby pattern. Of course, you don't have to make them both in order to do one. If you just want to make the Funky Buttons quilt, you can just follow the applique directions for the Groovy Baby quilt only reversing the colors. That is, cut the applique shape out of your white "background" fabric and apply it to a colored square.

If you have any questions, please just ask. I am not a professional pattern writer. While my directions make sense to me, I understand that they may not to clear to anyone else.

Here are the patterns. I am not sure how this works (or if it will work). Supposedly, you can upload files to Google Docs and then link to them in your blog. We'll see if I can do this. Please let me know whether or not the link works for you. If you really want the pattern and I can't get the link to work, I will just email it to you.

Happy Easter

Check out this cute crocheted water bottle cover one of my quilt guild friends made for Parker. It was so sweet and unexpected! This just arrived in our mailbox last weekend addressed to Parker. He has enjoyed using it.

Tony went skiing again today. The last two weeks he has said that this is the last weekend of skiing for the season, then gone the next weekend. He didn't say that this evening. I am going to the Quilt and Stitch Expo in Pueblo next Saturday by myself. If he wants to go skiing next Saturday he can take Parker with him or make other arrangements for Parker. Let me say again - I am going to the Expo alone!!

In between entertaining Parker today, I've been cutting out more thread catchers. I think I have about 16 cut out and partially sewn. I don't think I mentioned that someone else called me and wants to buy 4 more! That's in addition to the two already ordered by the lady who bought one at the guild demo day. So 6 of these are already sold! I could have never predicted that these would be so popular. Does anybody else want one? They are $10 plus shipping if you don't live locally. I'll only charge you what it actually costs to ship it. I hate it when sellers try to make additional money off the shipping. Stay tuned ... later in the week I'll post photos of the finished thread catchers I started today.

Disappearing 9 Patch for charity

This is the finish quilt top using the disappearing nine patch blocks that I am making for charity and as a sample for our next guild block swap. This top used 10 1/2 nine patch blocks, cut into quarters. I made the nine patch blocks from 5" squares. So the nine patch blocks measured 14" before cutting them into quarters. The top measures about 40" by 47" - a perfect size for a kids charity quilt in my opinion. My guild buys batting for the members to use in charity quilts. I picked up some batting yesterday to use for this quilt and a few others that I have ready to be quilted. Quilting these tops will be my main project for the next week or so.

My son has today and Monday off from school so I'm not sure how much quilting I'll get done before Tuesday - not much is my guess. In addition, my husband is going skiing AGAIN tomorrow. I thought ski season would be over by now, but not at Wolf Creek Ski Area. They got more snow yesterday.

I will soon be getting a new floor for my laundry room! Yesterday I pick out some nice vinyl and a guy came out to measure. I hope to hear from them today with an estimate for the installation and then schedule the job. I'm really motivated to get the ceiling finished up and have this room DONE, finally!

Cub Scout Disappearing 9 Patch

Here are some in progress photos of the quilt I am making for Parker using the Cub Scout and Boy Scout fabric I bought recently. I'm still trying out block placement patterns, but so far this (above photo) is my favorite. Below is a photo of the two nine patch blocks I started with, then quartered to make the blocks above.

p.s. i quilt did a really nice tutorial for making the disappearing nine patch block. I've also heard it called tossed nine patch. Here I found a nice one page downloadable pdf instruction page for the block. Tomorrow I'll show you the scrappy version that I am making for charity and a sample for my upcoming guild block swap.