A couple of pictures

I took this picture of Rosie tonight. She was curled up on a pile of stuff cleaning the tip of her tail. She looked so cute I just had to grab the camera.

The other picture was taken yesterday (Wednesday- yes, January 25!). These bulbs are planted under my front window and a couple of them poked up above ground before Christmas. I just happened to realize that there were so many up. I know it is too soon to bloom but I can't wait! I am going to be watching closely for buds.

3D Bow-tie BABY Quilt Top Finished

I made this baby quilt for a class at work. It is the same 3D bow-tie block made out of scraps once again. I used pastels and children's prints and bought a lavender-dot fabric for the background. It is 8 blocks by 8 blocks for a total of 64 blocks. It measures 40" square and I am not going to put borders on it. I have just enough lavender-dot fabric left to use for the backing. I think I will look for solid or near solid lavender for the binding. I think that will set it off nicely! It is really prettier than the picture shows. I even took it outside in the driveway for a picture but the colors were washed out. I should probably have done a close-up so you could see how nice the dot background looks.

3D Bow-tie quilt top finished!

I have been working diligently on my Bow-tie quilt and it is now finished to flimsy! After I got the 400 (yes, 400!) blocks put together I serged around the outside edge because there were so many seams to the outside. The quilt has no border. I don't think I ever made a quilt without a border before. Most of the fabric in this quilt was from my scrap bin. Some were from smaller pieces of fabric I bought in the back room at WV Quilts in Barboursville. The background is the same in all the blocks. That is from the Nursery Department at JoAnn Fabrics. I hope to bind the quilt with the same background fabric. Maybe I can get this quilt top to Quilts by Phyllis in Hurricane this coming week. I am going to check with Debbie and see if she can get free for a little road trip. I can't wait to see this one quilted!

By the way, while looking for the little travel iron I have found some things I didn't even know were missing, but the iron hasn't been found yet.

Just checking in

I haven't posted in a few days so I thought I would let everyone know that I am still alive and kicking!

I worked today but we weren't very busy. I was able to get twenty or so bow tie blocks made and fourteen rows of four blocks put together. I have the main quilt big enough now to cover my king-size bed but it doesn't hang over the top. I decided to add four rows to one side and the bottom to make it bigger. I would love to get it to the long-arm quilter before the retreat.

Speaking of the retreat, that is Feb. 3 - 5 at Cedar Lakes in Ripley. I am taking my Viking Designer SE sewing machine and enough projects to keep me busy. Debbie and I are making a quilt called Jelly-Ohs made from a jelly roll and some coordinated fabric. We also have a cover to make for our Kitchen-Aid mixers. If I happen to get all that done, I will probably work on my Orca Bay Mystery Quilt, which has stalled the past couple of weeks. I have been looking for my travel iron (I haven't used it since the last retreat) so I have my sewing room turned upside down. On the other hand, I did get my storage wall organized and cleaned. Tomorrow I want to uncover my cutting table and pull everything out from under it. There is a lot of stuff stored down there! Hopefully I will find my iron.

Debbie took this picture of me with her cell phone at the retreat last year. The little iron at the front of the picture is the missing one.

A little snow

I wanted a picture of the new roof with snow on it, so I braved the wind and went out and took this picture just now. We got about an inch of snow during the night and the temperature is in the lower 20s. It is definitely too cold to hang around outside! I think the roof looks good with its thin coating of snow; I wonder how it will do with a foot of snow??? We were fortunate in that neither of us has to work today and we can stay inside out of the cold. Richard has to work tomorrow though.

Richard's remote to the garage door opener was stolen out of his car the other night. We didn't miss it until that afternoon. We completely disabled the door so that the remote will not open it at all. Unfortunately, my remote won't work it either. Richard says he can reprogram my remote so that the other one will never work again. I hope he is telling me the truth. Why would anyone steal your remote unless they are planning on getting into your house??? Mine is hidden in the car and when we get Richard a new one it will be hidden too. He had it laying on the console between the seats. We don't use them often because we don't park a car in the garage.

I am really getting somewhere with my Bow-Tie quilt. I have 144 blocks together now. That covers the top of my king-size mattress. I am going to add four more rows down one side and across the bottom and call it finished. I can't wait to take it to Phyllis in Hurricane for quilting. I haven't finished a quilt in some time. I am still working on the Orca Bay Mystery Quilt, but the blocks are not quite ready to put together yet. After seeing pictures of some of the finished quilts I am questioning my color choices. Mine is going to be heavily medium greens with some darker blues and little touches of yellow/golds. I wonder if the little touches will be enough. I am sure I will have to use yellow/golds in my border somehow to tie it all together.

Richard's Car Broken In To!

At 5:30 this morning Richard woke me out of a sound sleep and said that someone broke into his Dodge Nitro during the night. The light fixture was hanging from the ceiling and the glove boxes had been emptied onto the seat. There was a dollar bill in the chamber between the seats and that was gone, but that was all that was missing that Richard could tell so far. He was late to work and didn't get to spend much time looking into it. I took these pictures real fast before he left for work. We didn't get to report it to Police. I was the last one in the car yesterday. I didn't lock it because he always locks it with the button on his key. I didn't think anything of it. Now he blames me for not locking it up.

Cheddar Bow Tie Quilt

This is part of my Cheddar Bow Tie Quilt. Bonnie K. Hunter of quiltville.com sort of issued a challenge to make these blocks last July as a leaders and enders project. I used this sort of cheddar dot fabric for the background of all my squares and I am making them the 3-D way. The middle section of the bowties actually sits above the rest of the block. I have now made hundreds of these blocks, mostly at work when I wasn't busy. I am putting together a king-size quilt out of them and I think I am making a twin also. I have used a piece of all my scraps (that I can find - I am sure I have more) and friends are saving their scraps for me too. I love this block!

Orca Bay Mystery Quilt - Part 7 (and 8)

Bonnie Hunter posted part 7 on Friday morning and then this morning (Sunday) she posted part 8 - the final part of the quilt. I have slowed way down finishing each part because there is now no urgency to get it done each week. The units in the picture are all I have finished so far. I have the green wing sewn onto the right side of all the rest (and pressed) but I still need to do the left sides. The quilt is going to be gorgeous. Bonnie Hunter's quilt looks like stained glass since she used mostly black and white. I think the greens and blues will be equally spectacular. I am going to keep on plugging on.

Notice the new picture at the top of the blog? That is Sascha. She was on the bed when I wanted to pull the sheets off and wouldn't move, so I just threw them up around her. I finally had to make her get out of there!

Did you get your cabbage today? Mom always cooked cabbage on New Year's Day. She always said you would have money all year if you ate it on NYD. She cooked money into it; I don't do it. I know how unsanitary money is and I can't make myself cook it in. I did not learn how to cook it before Mom died and I have had to figure it out on my own. I think I did a good job - I ate two bowls of it before I quit! Richard took a bite (he hates cabbage) and Audrey came over and got a small bowl of it for her and Jason to eat. In a little bit I am going to have some strawberry shortcake. Yes! The fresh strawberries from Florida have begun to arrive! Richard was called in to work on Friday and found the strawberry van parked out back of the hospital. He got a half flat and I cleaned and sweetened them immediately and baked a pound cake. I had a can of Reddi-Whip in the fridge so - instant strawberry shortcake! I hope to eat strawberries every week until late spring!