Busy Times

Things have really been hopping lately. Late last month I took mom to the CCQG quilt retreat here in Lansing as a Christmas gift.  She had been to one of our small group retreat at Hankerd Inn, but that is usually 12 or less people.  The CCQG retreat was 69 ladies at the Quality Suites Hotel.  The set up was great and the hotel staff were very accommodating. We were set up in the atrium and the three floors that opened onto the atrium gave us a great place to put quilts as there were finished.  All the hotel guests appreciated and enjoyed the impromptu quilt show as well. We decided that we would spend the weekend working on one project, the wedding quilt for my youngest niece.  And we got it done and not a moment too soon as she just got engaged on a trip to Paris.  Great job Jason!

Have been picking up more items for my booth at the CCQG quilt show in May.  I am going to have mostly antique sewing related items.  I will have a couple antique quilts and a few modern quilts for sale.  Will also have items I have been picking up at estate sales, like a large batch of old iron embroidery transfers.  These really remind me of the transfers my mom used to teach me embroidery when I was a girl scout.

I will also be thinning out my collection of sewing related items, mostly pincushions.  Will also have a couple of sewing machines for sale.

Spend some time a a friend's home last night going through bins of sewing related items that she has collected and then decided to thin her collections.  I think I picked up some good things.

Now I am working on coming up with a way to hang a bunch of quilts.  Think I have come up with an idea using pvc pipe.  Will have to experiment one of these weekends.

Have a good weekend.  Spring is just around the corner!

This and that

Here at the school I and the other faculty secretary often get thank yous.  We each had received orchids a couple of years ago.  And we had kept them alive but they had never rebloomed.  So I started to give them a little more attention and bought some orchid food.  And I got them to rebloom. Yeah!!

I waswatching Bonnie Hunter's last quilt cam someone asked about the little "doily" that she had under the spool of thread on her machine.  She showed some that she has received to use instead of the red felt disc under your thread on your spool pin.  A light bulb suddenly sent off.  At an estate sale last summer I bought a whole bag full of old tatting. I figures I could use it for crafts, but I didn't want to see it just thrown away, so I snatched it up.  Last night I look through it again and realized there there were a lot of little tatted pieces what would work perfectly at spool pin doilies.  Great, another item for my booth at the Capitol City Quilt Guild Quilt show, May 4 and 5.

Worst task this weekend is going to be taking apart the plumbing on my tub to clean out the drain. Tub still has water in it from yesterday so no choice but to take it apart to get at the clog.  Oh, the joys of home ownership.



Have a great weekend.  One month closer to spring!!

Estate Sale Finds

For me estate sales are almost addictive.  Seeing the treasures that people have.  What I find interesting compared to other people.  I have been taking some of the girls from work who haven't every really been to estate sales before.  I find myself explaining a lot: why I chose particular items, either for myself or to resell or what certain items are.  I am splitting my finds between my fleamarket stash and one I have started of items I will have in my booth at the CCQG quilt show in May.  Here are a few of the items:

This little guy may stay with me.  Love that blue & white

 

 

Got this cute 1 cup tea pot yesterday.

 

I think this is a match holder.

At Christmas Wendy got a small christmas tree made on a styrofoam cone.  She thought it would look better on a pedastal so I made this one from a candle holder and small plate for her.

In following quilter Bonnie Hunter and my friend, Carol, I have become hooked on recycling men's 100% cotton shirts.  I have found at Goodwill they are $3.69 each, where as at Volunteers of American they are $1.99 and up. And it only recently occurred to me to look at estate sales for them.  I usually don't look at clothing. I have been "de-boning" them as Bonnie shows on her webpage.  These are a few of the candidates I picked up this week.

I plan of making up bags of fronts and sleeves of maybe 5 shirts for my booth at the quilt show.  Will also be selling the buttons that come off the shirts.  I am keeping the backs for quilt backs and have been using the cuffs and collar pieces to make strippy blocks to use in a quilt.  I recently also found a wonderful old travel iron that is small and heavy which will also be at the quilt show in addition to a couple of sewing machines that I have picked up.  Still need to prep them to be sure that they are ready to go.

As I sit here listening to the sleet beat on the windows I wonder what travel to work tomorrow will be like.  Have a good evening





 

 

 

Christmas Quilts

This has been a busy last few weeks.  I had started Bonnie Hunter's Easy Street Mystery, but an a step behind now.  But I'm off until after New Years and hope to get a good piece of sewing time in.  This will be a busy Christmas.  I know I have never gifted so many quilts at one time before.

My maternal grandmother tried to make quilts for each of her grand children when we graduated from high school.  And being there were 40+ she really had her work cut out for her.  Since I am single and have no children, I decided to carry on this tradition with my nephew and 3 nieces.

Darryl being the oldest got the first graduation quilt.  Being a boy I wasn't sure he would have an appreciation for a quilt, so I made him a long twin, where as the girls got full size quilts.  This weekend Darryl was home for the holidays from Chicago.  He had been hinting that his quilt needed a little help.  So I told him to bring it along and we would have a look at it.  For being 14 years old, it has been well loved.  Mostly the binding needs replacing and the back and a few fabrics on the front will need a little patching but that is all doable.

Darryl has been married over a year now and I felt he was due a proper quilt.  My mother made he and Anna an embroidered quilt for the wedding.  I had been working on one as well but didn't want to over shadow grandma's quilt so I mainly work on it at retreats.  I decided this year to get it done and off my list.  My wonderful friend and machine quilter, Wendy Paskus quilted it for me.  Between my mom and I, we got it bound so that I could give it to them Sunday before they returned to Chicago.

In addition to Darryl's quilt I had decided to make quilts for my great niece and nephew, Molly and Jack.  I have had Jack's quilt done for a couple of months, but decided I should make one for Molly as well so that they would each get a quilt.  After quilting Darryl's quilt, Wendy went to work on Molly's.  I got Molly's quilt on Thursday and worked all day Saturday to get the binding on.  So these were both delivered on Christmas eve at great Grandma's home.

 

 

 

 

 

Now back to Easy Street mystery.

 

Easy Street Step 3

Well, this is where I start falling behind.  I still have 50+ of step too to still done.  But just remembered that Bonnie suggested doing what you can of each step  and catch up later.  I have time off between Christmas and New Years and hope to get a good deal of sewing done.  But may also have 2 quilts to bind before Christmas if I get them back.

The other hiccup is that Saturday night while I was relaxing and web surfing someone kicked in my front storm door.  By the time I got over the shock and checked things out they were long gone. But that puts me in a position where I really don't like to go down in the basement to sew.  I found yesterday I didn't mind being down there during daylight, but in the evening I want to be in a defendable position if need me.  Some times I get sooo mad about this kind of s**t.

Well, tonight is Charm Christmas and tomorrow night is Variable Star Christmas. 

Will worry about the new door when I'm off between Christmas and New Years.  At least this is the end of the year and not the beginning.

Easy Street Part 2

The 2nd set on instructions came out for Easy Street on Friday.  Today after the Pline family Christmas I started on it.  Making flying geese is one of my least favorite units to make.  But I decided to try Bonnie's technique and see if they turned out any better.

I bought both rulers that she recommended and went at it.  But still have troubles with them not turning out well.  I know part of the problem is hanging on to them too tightly when I put them through the sewing machine  After the first 10 they seemed to turn out better.  But my saving grace was the "Mini Fit to be Geese" ruler I got for my previous small group mystery.  The ruler is  from Open Gate at www.opengatequilts.com.  It really helps me true these up. 

So for now I have gotten started on them and will see how it goes until next Friday's instructions come out.

Pline Christmas

Today was the Pline Christmas party.  My mother is the second oldest of the twelve children of Martin and Bertha (Felpausch) Pline.  Of the twelve we lucky to still have 9 of them still with us. However, Aunt Pat lives in South Carolina and doesn't always make it up.  This was this years shot of the brothers and sisters.

And this is the rest of the pandamonion that is the Pline Christmas....

 

 

 

It was good to see the cousins.  I don't even try anymore with the great and great-great grands.