Friday report

Tomorrow is Sophie's birthday party and I have yet to do any shopping. So today I need to focus on that instead of quilting. I meant to do it yesterday but you know how that goes . . . . I have a pretty good idea of what I'm getting so it shouldn't take all that long. Then I'll come home and piece together the remaining flannel for another quilt back.

Here is the Civil War block for today. One of the interesting things about doing these blocks is reading the stories that go along with them. The author paired every block with a journal entry from the time of the Civil War that inspired the block. Today's block is called "Special Blessings". The journal entry is by Rachel Young King Anderson, a mother of three who worried about her husband away fighting the war. Her diary was written at age 43 in Missouri. The "Special Blessings" entry was written on New Years Day. She is thankful that her husband, son and brothers are still alive and that they have food to eat and clothes to keep them war. She prays for the Lord's mercy to bring them safely through to the end of the war.

OK - time to hop in the shower and get moving - it's going to be so much fun to shop for this birthday!

Two more finishes

Today I put the last stitch in the second camping quilt for Jeremy and Chelsea. I really wanted to get these done so I could deliver them both on Saturday. We are heading down for the celebration of Sophie's first birthday - which really is today. It seems impossible that she is already a year old!

I must admit that I'm really getting tired of the Crumb Chaos quilts. Three of the large ones are now done, with four more to go. I think I have enough flannel for one more back - probably for the smallest remaining quilt. I will be so happy to see the last of these! It does feel good crossing them off my sidebar list however.

I'm putting up pictures of both of them so you can see how similar they look. Funny - since every block is different. These are both quilted with the bear, moose and evergreen tree just like Rick's and Rebecca's. That's what they requested, and it's certainly appropriate for a camping quilt. I'm a bit tired of that pantograph too - the others will definitely have something different on them!

Today's block and a meme

Several people have joined Kathie and me to make the little Civil War blocks. Kathie has the list of participants on her blog. Looks like there are eight of us now - how fun! Here is my block for today. I just love that cheddar print!

Perri tagged me for the "7 things about me". I did this one last year or the year before - let's see if I can think of seven new things. First I need to post the rules . . . I am to tell you 7 things about me that you will be so excited to learn, you will never forget me.

1. Once you are tagged, link back to the person who tagged you.
2. Post THE RULES on your blog.
3. Post 7 weird or random facts about yourself on your blog.
4. Tag 7 people and link to them.
5. Comment on their blog to let them know they have been tagged.

Here goes - what you always wanted to know about me but were afraid to ask . . .

1. As far as I'm concerned there is no dessert that is "to rich" - no matter what others say. Once I made a mocha chocolate cheesecake that included 3, 8-oz packages of cream cheese, sour cream, and a dozen eggs. No one else in the family would eat it because it had coffee in it. No problem - I ate almost all of it - including five pieces in a single day.

2. I love some books so much that I can read them over and over and never tire of them. I've read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy five times, and listed to the audio books another six times. It's about time for me to listen to them again I think. But first I'm going through the Harry Potters again - my sixth time to listen to them. I also read every book again each time another in the series came out.

3. Breakfast is my favorite meal. I'd happily eat breakfast for dinner seven days a week.

4. I absolutely hate to exercise. With a passion. I know I need to however - and I'll start again - as soon as I've made all the quilts I want to make.

5. We are as addicted to books here at our house as I'm addicted to fabrics. I've cataloged about 75% of our library and are up to over 8000 books. And no - I've not read them all. Yet.

6. I'm not a summer person - it's my least favorite season. I can't stand the heat and we have no air conditioning. I love fall the best.

7. I was born when my mother was 40 and my dad 42. They'd been married 21 years before they had their first child. My sister was born 2 1/2 years later. They had to get a baby sitter for their two and four year old children so they could celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary. I was named Patti for the doctor who delivered me - Patrick Murphy. If it weren't for Doctor Pat encouraging my mother to try one more time to have a baby I wouldn't be here.

I think many of you have already been tagged, so play along if you haven't been tagged and would like to be.

A new project

When 2008 began I decided wanted to focus very hard on finishing a large percentage of my UFO's. In prior years I have planned to do that - but because I also started many new projects my UFO list at the end of the year was always as long as the list I started with. I'm determined not to do that this year so I've really resisted starting new projects. Other than I've been fairly succesful so far - I've finished nine UFO's and started only one new project - Bonnie's Carolina Crossroads mystery quilt.

Yesterday my friend Kathie at Inspired by Antique Quilts threw me a temptation I was unable to resicst. She is making blocks from Rosemary Youngs' two Civil War books - The Civil War Diary Quilt and The Civil War Love Letter Quilt. She plans to make one each day, choosing from both books, until she has enough for a quilt. I've been drooling over these blocks ever since the books came out, so I decided to join her. She chose the first seven blocks, and now I'm to choose seven more for our second week. Dawn has decided to play along too - even though she isn't sure if she can keep the one block a day pace - so she will choose the seven blocks for the third week. It's going to be so much fun to see which fabrics we each pick for each block. We will post them on our blogs so you can see too.

Here are my first two blocks. I've posted pictures of the back side also because I know some of you like to see how I press seams to eliminate bulk.

Anyone else want to play along too?

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Gratitudes:

1. Nineteenth century reproduction fabrics

2. The ladies trouncing of the men at hand and foot

3. Rotary cutters and rulers

4. Breakfast for dinner!

5. Four day weekend coming up for Fred

All sorts of good news!

Here is our latest picture of Sophie. Take a look at what they have written on her onesie! This was their creative way of announcing the expected arrival next October. We are all so excited!And now for Joseph. The kids' appointment at the US Embassy is Wednesday February 27th. That means they'll all be home on Friday February 29th! Only two and a half more weeks before I can get my arms around that little guy!

Sunday Stash Report

This week I used stash on my Crumb Chaos quilts borders - a total of 7.5 yards. I also used another yard for the backing and binding of Happy Jack.

No new fabric entered the house this week.

Let's see if I can make a fairly accurate estimate on my stash depletion progress so far this year.

In: 15 yards border fabrics for crumb, string, and postage stamp quilts
1 1/2 yards reproduction double pinks
14 3/4 yards reproduction fat quarters

Out: 1/2 yard for bindings on Christmas table runners
7 yards for backings and bindings for Spare Parts and Leftovers
24 yards flannel for Crumb Chaos quilt backings
1/2 yard for Crumb Chaos Camping Quilt binding
7 1/2 yards for Crumb Chaos quilt borders
1 yard for Happy Jack backing, binding and sleeve

2008 so far - 31.25 yards in and 40.5 yards out for a net decrease of 9 yards. Better than I thought I was doing - those reproduction prints are always my downfall!

What I've been up to this past week

I can't believe it's been five days since I posted. Time has just been flying by. I've spent 90% of it in one sewing room or the other - talk about being focused and one track minded!

When I left Fort Vancouver after my first day of volunteering I brought home a small pile of 1840's reproduction fabric scraps to make into pot holders for use in the fort kitchen. The sewing machine hadn't been invented during this time, so all the stitching needed to be by hand. It's been a long time since I did any hand piecing. I found it very relaxing just sitting piecing away. I felt like our foremothers must have felt - squeezing as many squares and triangles as I could from each scrap. I started with simple blocks like Broken Dishes and Hourglass. The last few were pieced with an oddball assortment of triangles and squares - not really a named quilt block pattern - just serendipitous creations that used up the scraps that were left. I finished three of the pot holders for turning in on Tuesday - the rest are waiting for more wool scraps for their insides.

On Friday I'd used up every one of the Fort scraps, so I switched back to working on my Crumb Chaos quilts. I finally got word from everyone as to what colors they wanted for borders. Friday and Saturday were spent cutting and stitching borders on the remaining six quilt tops. What a great feeling to have every one of those tops finished! I loved crossing them off the unfinished tops list and adding them to the flimsies list! I also pieced together flannel squares for the backs of two of the quilts, and started working on a third. I'm starting to run out of flannel - I hope I can find enough for the entire back of the third quilt.

This afternoon I quilted the small project I'd loaded on Gandalf last week - the Happy Jack Halloween quilt that I pieced last fall while my shoulder was healing. I also took time to bind and label it and also added a sleeve. It'll be fun to have a Halloween quilt at last to hang up next October.

Tonight I'm pressing a huge king size quilt back in preparation for putting it onto the longarm. This is an important customer quilt I've been dragging my feet on - it's past time I got it on the machine and started quilting it. I hope to get it done this week as I'm eager to get back to quilting the rest of the Crumb Chaos quilts.

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Gratitudes:

1. A willing quilt holder in the house

2. Great news from Jeremy and Chelsea

3. Temperatures in the 50's the last couple days

4. Sleeping in

5. Ultra soft wool batting

Blogging Frustrations

I know I'm not the only blogger who is frustrated when a person asks a question in their comment but has their profile set to "no reply" - or even "private". Quite a few bloggers have mentioned this lately in their posts, and I'm going to add my two cents worth.

I really do want to answer questions people ask me. However, I don't want to answer them in future posts. After all, this blog is my quilting journal with other parts of my life thrown in now and then - and responding to people's questions isn't what I want to talk about when I write in my journal. Besides, many people may not be interested in the answer to a particular question. I'd much rather answer questions in a personal email - it's better for me and it's better for the person asking the question.

I'm not at all sure why people are afraid of making their email address available in their profile. Mine has been available for over two years and I've never noticed any increase in junk mail because of it. If you are worried about, that then set up a separate email just for your profile. I want to answer your questions, but the only way I will do that is if I have an email address for you. If you aren't sure how to set your profile so your email address is available then send me an email and ask, and I'll help you work through it.

A good start to the month . . .

when it comes to finishing things. Yesterday I finished the first of the seven large crumb chaos quilts - a big camping quilt for Rick and Rebecca. I think the back with the flannel squares and rectangles is just as interesting as the front. I said I was going to quilt this with a blowing leaves pattern, but I was overruled by Rebecca. Last year I bought a pantograph of moose, bear and fir trees because she'd fallen in love with moose after seeing them at Glacier. She begged me to use this pantograph even though it really wouldn't show much on such a busy quilt top. I'm glad she did - it shows up much more than I thought it would - especially on the back. I know she's going to love how it looks when I deliver it to them tomorrow at our regular Wednesday get together.
This morning I had to quilt a baby quilt for a customer - a rush job I obtained last week. When I finished that I decided to load the crumb chaos doll quilt as I wanted to use the same pantograph with loops and stars. It turned out perfectly - I'm sure our very young friend with the adored dolly will just love it. The perfect way to use those last 10 crumb chaos blocks.

I'm on such a good roll now when it comes to finishing UFO's that I wish I could continue. Unfortunately my next priority must be the other customer quilt I have waiting - a queen-king quilt requiring extensive custom quilting. I've postponed tackling this quilt long enough - I need to get it done. I'm sure it will go smoothly once I get started. Getting started is always the hardest part for me. It's always been that way - and I've never been able to figure out why.

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Gratitudes:

1. Audio books

2. A sweet crisp red delicious apple

3. A sleepy dog happy to stay on the bed for the day

Stash report

Sunday is stash report day - for once I'm meeting the date Judy has set us LOL!

It's been a good week as far as purchases go - there were none. As far as busting stash - the report isn't so good. I didn't bust any that I didn't mention on Wednesday. Until yesterday afternoon I was still piecing flannel into 20" squares for camping quilt backs. Since then I've been prewashing, pressing and sorting the fabric purchases - as well as fabric gifts - from the last six months or so. I'm still doing that this morning. Once I'm finished with that I must get upstairs and start quilting R&R's camping quilt, as I have another top to quilt with a midweek deadline.One thing I did figure out, however, was a much better estimate of how much flannel I busted last week. Now that it's in 20" squares plus long strips to enlarge the back to the needed size the match was pretty easy. Looks like the 15 yards that I guessed in my Wednesday report was WAY under. I'm happy to say that I actually busted over 24 yards - a much better number! I have a total of 66 20" squares plus the extra strips, which should back at least three and possibly four more quilts. And it's so nice to have all those flannels out of my stash! I'm storing the squares on hangers in the sewing room closet for now. That keeps them nice and smooth, ready to sew together into quilt backs with no more pressing.

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Gratitudes:
1. TV shows on DVD
2. A dry day for Fred's golf game
3. Tiny snowdrops blooming along our front walk
4. Daffodils shooting up through the soil
5. Healthy Choice paninis - yum!