Mystery Quilt #3

Good Afternoon All

I've been out all day doing errands for my Mom's estate but thought I should show you what I've been up too the last few evenings.

Remember I said a lot of things have happened in the last 4 months and I would be telling you about them.  Well one of the things that happened - I volunteered to be Co-Programmer for one of the quilting guilds that I'm a member of.  Its been fun and stressful.  I started in January and showed a quick demo on Chain Piecing to the Next level.  I'm a newbie quilter compared to most of the other members, so I stress out about showing the ladies something new.  In January, I also started a 4 month Mystery Quilt with the guild.  The first month was fabric selection and the second month (February) was cut and start sewing.  Here is a picture of my pieces all cut and ready to start sewing.

I would love any ideas or suggestions you have on what I can demo or do during our meetings.  Our guild doesn't have a lot of members which leads to not much funding to bring in guest speakers.  So all ideas will be welcomed!

Hope you have a Quilty Day.

Vicky K



New room again - Before Pictures

Good Morning All

Today I'm taking my kids to a babysitter so that I can do some errands for my Mom's Estate.  Its gonna a be a day of great accomplishment :) positive affirmations, right.  LOL

I've been trying to do the bookkeeping for a while but I've been getting distracted with moving my sewing room and setting up my esthetics.  And what started the mess of cleaning and organizing - Our trip to Cuba.  I wanted to have gel nails for our trip and because I know how to do nails, it really hurts to pay to have someone else do them.  Well I haven't done a set for 4 years and knew my first ones wouldn't be the prettiest or the fastest but I still had to try.  My niece came over one evening so that I could practice on her.  It took me a very looooong time.  They didn't look bad but I didn't have the time to do mine so I decided to get my nails done by someone else for the trip.  But I had all my stuff for nails in the living room, kids play area downstairs.  And I had to put it away for the kids to play.  So knowing that I would have my nails and my nieces nails to work on, I decided to take my sewing stuff out of the room DH built for my esthetics and set up my esthetics.  In the last 4 years, my esthetics have been stored in the spare room and in my daughter's closet.  Well my quilting room is now in the spare room.  Its a small space and was crammed with esthetics.  So it was a jumble of sorts to get the two rooms switched.  I thought I would show some before pictures of my sewing space.

This is from the doorway looking left. 

  

This is looking straight in from doorway.

 

This is looking in from doorway between above pictures.

 The boxes on the bed are stamp sets that don't fit in my Stampin' Up cabinets.

The garbage bag in back left corner is the bedding that goes on this bed.

 

 Here is the top portion of my closet.

 

Here is the lower section of the closet.

 

Behind wall in closet 

 

Pile of quilting things to put away 

 

Looking at left corner from closet

 

Vanity hidden under all junk. 

 

  I've been working at getting this room organized and useable. I'm almost there.  I need to move my design wall and set up a cuttin/ironing table.  My oversize ironing table I used previously is too big for the room.  My design wall will go against the closet wall behind door.  It sure is coming along but for the cost of my paperwork suffering.

Now off to do errands.

Hope you have a Quilty Day!

Vicky K

Mystery Quilt #4

Good Evening All

Just thought I would sent out a quick post about a Mystery Quilt I just signed up for.  Its called Plenty of Fish and is from Prairie Quilt Mercantile on facebook.  They have listed the fabric requirements and the first clue comes out on March 1, 2013.  It goes for 6 months.  Check it out and join in on the fun.  There are more than 600 people joined.  Click here for their website.

I'm off to see if I can pick the fabrics from my stash.

Hope you have a Quilty Day!
Vicky K

1 inch Postage Quilt UFO

Hello all

While I was moving my room I found the packages of Postage Stamp squares that I received from a swap I participating in about 2 years ago.  I'm making a 1 inch Postage Quit and I want it to be a true (?) postage quilt.  Which means to me - not one fabric is a repeat.  I wasn't sure the best way to go about making sure that there are no repeats in thousands of squares.  So the type of person I'm am - I didn't open the packages.  Well its been a few years now and I need to deal with them.

 Here are my packages waiting to be opened in my new room.

 

When I'm cutting the last of my scraps into my scrap system, I always make sure that I get at least a 1.5" square to add to my postage quilt.  The squares I have personally cut are stored in these muffin containers I got from the dollar store.

 

I've now started going through the packages and have added to my muffin tin.  A few of the packages have had repeats so I lay out all 50 squares from each package to remove any duplicates and then I've been sorting them into Lights, Darks and Brights/Unknown.

The muffin tin is now sitting behind my sewing machine so that I can grab a set of light/dark to use as leaders and enders when sewing other projects.    The white square in the top middle are my squares that I have joined.  When I want a moment of quilting without thinking, I can grab those to iron open.  I've been stalling on that step as I'm not sure how I want to store the twosies and then how I'm going to store the foursies and so on.

I would love some hints or suggestions if anyone else has made a postage stamp quilt.  How did you sort the fabrics, store your squares, and your work in progress.

Oh yeah, and by moving the tin behind my machine, I'm hoping to move this project from UFO to WIP.

Hope you have a Quilty Day.

Vicky K

Happy Mail!

Good Morning All

My little guy woke us up in the middle of the night with croup.  The poor little guy :(.  I know what it sounds like and what to do as I ended up taking him to hospital last year for the same thing.  My hubby thought he was faking it.  So I've kept my kids home from school today.  So far its been a relaxed morning.  Hope to keep the day relaxed.

We have some guys coming to take a look at our bathroom and kitchen sink today (which just reminded me, I should have sink clear of dishes for them).  My Esthetics room where I had my Quilting room previously has a lot of water damage on the ceiling.  So before I set up completely I'm having it checked out to see where the damage is coming from.  My theory is the hubby and kiddies splashing water on the floor and not wiping it up.  Hoping not the pipes.  Hubby redid the bathroom himself about 7 years ago.

On Feb 5, 2013 I joined in at Talking Tuesdays.  The sponsor was the wonderful Sondra from Contemporary Cloth Store.  I won the Giveaway!  Yea for me.  I rarely win so I really appreciate when I do.  Placing the order was easy to do and when I had a question for Sondra, she replied very quickly.  So go check out her store before March 1 as she is having a sale on precuts and konas.

Here is my package.  Of course I had to order as much as I thought would fit into the envelope especially as the postal rates for Canadian packages just increased. 

My goodies peaking out!

  

My fabrics!  Love stash builders.

 

 

Hope everyone has a Quilty Day!

Vicky K 

Going on a Trip in 82 days!!

Good Evening all

Today I took my kids and my niece and nephew to Boston Pizza for heart shaped pizzas for lunch.  And then we came home and played in our backyard.  I think they had good time.  I know I enjoyed spending time with them.

This evening I'm off to my guild meeting - no special time with hubby.  Hmmm, what's more important - hubby and kids or spending time with quilting friends, hmmm.   LOL

My hubby and I aren't big Valentine celebrators.  So its not really a big deal that I won't be home.  My hubby didn't even want to buy the kiddies anything for Valentine's but I ran out last night and bought them some chocolate and a movie each.

I mentioned yesterday that I bought the Quilters' Travel Companion.  I'm really excited!!  A friend and I are going to go to Salt Lake City in May for the Home Machine Quilting Show.  I can't wait.  We are most likely going to drive down from Alberta through Montana, Idaho and then Utah.  Its about 19 hours straight driving.  We are thinking of spending the night near Kalispell and then driving the rest of the way the next day.  Of course, since we are going to be in the States and the prices are so much better we want to do lot of shopping ;)  Please let me know if you have any suggestions for quilting stores or restaurants that we should stop at.

The reason that I'm going to the HMQS is I'm testing out longarm machines.  My Mom passed away more than 2 years ago and I'm finally getting ready to do a major distribution of her estate.  Its been 2 years of hell, please excuse the language.  And I thought as a reward and gift to myself, I'm gonna treat myself to a longarm.  I looking at getting all the bells and whistles that I need (want lol) and right away.  If I don't spend the money on myself it will just be eaten up with the rest of my family's income and then when I'm ready for it with regards to time and space, I won't have the cash available.  And this is not something that my hubby would agree to do on credit.  So here we go :) :) :).

And please pass on any opinions or information on Longarms.  I'm looking really close to APQS and Gammill and then HQ's.  The closest dealers are APQS and HQ's.

Gotta go get ready for the meeting.

Happy Valentine's Day XO XO
Vicky K

Quilt U Be Mine Reveal Day is Here

Hi All

Today my kids celebrated Valentine's at their school which makes today feel like Valentine's Day not tomorrow.  I also went shopping at a LQS and purchased 9 metres of fabric, and Quilters' Travel Companion Book.  More on that tomorrow.

Today I'm linking up to Michele, the best hostess, at Quilts From My Crayon Box  Quilt U Be Mine Round Robin.  If you are new to my blog, Welcome.  If you are a regular follower, please go check out the linky party and see all the great quilts.

I had lots of fun, learned lots of stuff, played with some great fabric, and get an awesome wall hanging in the process.


This was the centre block that I created and mailed out to my fellow swap partners.  I love the look of stained glass and I love to paper piece.  So it was nice to have both in the block.   And.....

My partners also followed through with the stained glass look.

Doesn't this look great! 

 I love it and I can't wait to get it quilted, bound, and hung.

Its almost time for bed.  Have a great night everyone!

Vicky K

Testing out blogging from new phone

Hello Everyone

Long time no blog.  Life has been crazy and quiet at the same time.  Do you ever feel like that?   Lots has changed for me in the last few months and I hope to catch you up in the next few weeks.

I tried blogging from my phone awhile ago and didn't like how it worked.   But I got a new phone a few months ago and tonight I decided to try to blog again.  I  have tried my Ipad and don't like the procesd or results. My laptop is the best device to post with and I don't get to my laptop on a regular basis.  I would like to blog more and hope new phone has great results :)

I'm posting a picture of a quilt I, of course, finished after Christmas.  The fabric is The Grinch.  My little guy loves the Grinch.   The layout is from EQ7.  The top is finished, now it needs to be quilted.

k, I've tried to move the picture to be between my paragraphs and can't do it.  I'm using Blogger for Android.  If anyone knows how to move the pictures, please let me know.

Thanks
Have a good night!
Vicky  K