Two wrongs make a Table Runner.

What? Grab a cuppa

and join my in my rambling as I try to explain…..and the story goes…..

Finally! Some sewing time for ME!  With getting samples done for classes/traveling and a LOT of  redecorating in the house has left little time for sewing since….hmm…November!!  I did make a few baby quilts for others and a little other sewing, but no deep down sew til you drop sewing. And I missed it!  My Friday night quilt group had our annual Winter Retreat a few weeks ago and I decided to get all of our annual block exchange quilts done.

I used to be SO good about putting the blocks together as soon as I got them at our Christmas party.  That is until the year someone decided to listen to her own drummer and made her block different than the others. And then all of a sudden it didn’t fit into my plan and I had a plan.  I was bummed at first and then was in a quandary for quite some time as to what to do. Do I scrap my plan and come up with another?  Use it as is? Re-do her block? Make HER re-do the block?  Decisions, decisions and I hate making that many decisions, especially after I had a plan.  So, I didn’t do anything. Let it sit. 

Next year comes along, and it just doesn’t seem right putting  those blocks together before the prior year blocks, so they sat.

Now we are up to 2006 and still nothing and time just speeds up double time now.  2007………..2008………..2009 and still nothing.  And now I’m feeling really bad because a lot of us are starting to lag behind and if truth be told, only 2 out of the 8 of us were keeping up. :(  I know, how sad. Those 2 proposed that we abandon our annual swap since no one seemed too interested in finishing them up. Okay, okay.  Good thought provoker.  2010 will make it my 15th anniversary of our block exchanges (18 years in the original group—there’s only 2 of us left) and we just couldn’t stop now.  So I vowed and challenged the group to complete our tops. 

Where was I?? Oh yeah, sorry..got off on a little tangent there. But I was just setting you up for my quilt retreat.  I had 5—yes, FIVE years to catch up. ( I finally did get the one that started all my procrastination done about 6 months ago?).  And that was my goal, get.them.done.

And so I did. I completed all the tops. Done. Complete. Okay, to the flimsy stage at least. But ALL design decisions have been made, changed, tweaked, added to and subtracted from, and flimsies are done.

2004

—this was the bad boy that started the whole mess.  I love this little quilt, and I bet I don’t even have to point out the block that was giving me problems. But then, it explains my friend. She just is…..out there……….and she knows it and we still love her for it. Let’s just say that it forces us to be creative----and accepting her for who she is.  She’s always stands out in a crowd and I’m proud to call her my friend. Oops, now can’t find my picture of the quilt top done, but it is done, I promise.

2005

—I LOVE this quilt!  This was a bit of a challenge for our group. Our assignment was to make a flower block of any type, size (except it did have to be divisible by 3”) and style.  So the layout was a challenge.  I think this will end up being one of my favorites.  Look at this center block Lisa did an awesome job.

2006

  I do not like this quilt, I do not like doing Herky Jerky, I do not like my layout #1, I do not like my layout #2.  I do not like this quilt. Are you starting to sing the Green Eggs and Ham song?  Just wondering, cuz I am. Sorry, but I just did not like this. at. all. 

I had a vision of how I was going to lay these blocks out.Drew it on graph paper. Cut all my fabric. Decided it was going to be too big. Re-cut fabric.  Get it all ready so I can just sew during the retreat.  Lay it out on the floor.  I STILL don’t like this quilt.  AND it’s going to be a BIG wallhanging that I will NEVER hang up.  Start sewing because I have it all cut out and ready.  Drats! Sew one piece on backwards.  I really don’t like this quilt.  Row 2, sew ANOTHER thing backwards. Now I really don’t like it.  Someone asked me why I was making it so big if I didn’t like it?  What? I don’t know?  Cuz I had a plan? And it slowly came to me…….I’ve already made TWO mistakes and it was just starting……she is now becoming a Table Runner. And there you go. That’s how Two Wrongs make a Table Runner!  And it was done likity split and now it’s okay.  I’ll use it as a table runner and be okay with it. After all, it’s from my friends! And by the way, I did not deliberately try to take a poor picture of it to present it at it’s worst, nope, did that all naturally—take a poor picture. LOL  psssstt…can you find the two blocks I did?

2007

Another favorite—okay, I admit, this was one of my ideas, but my friends did a great job.  We are only 8 of us, but as diverse as you could ever imagine, especially as quilters.  There are a few art teachers, some very traditional style quilters (in their fabric choices and quilting styles), a few newer quilters and me. Who doesn’t fit in ANY category! LOL  Well, I do like a more non-traditional type quilt, for the most part and I do like bright colors.  So with that in mind, the assignment this year was the Churn Dash block, with a twist.  We could decide how we wanted the block done for us, either traditional OR Liberated style. AND we could choose our color scheme.  It ended up that everyone would love their quilt then. And they all turned out awesome.  Both kinds. Actually I’m only the 4th one to get mine done, but the others will be awesome when they get them done. *grin*

2008

Loving the red and aqua color scheme—again, we got to choose our colors, but everyone made the same Sister’s Choice block. 

2009

—those fabulous 3 dimensional trees again.  It was a pattern from Moda for the Figgy Pudding line of fabric.  My friends loved my quilt so much, they wanted to swap trees this past Christmas.  But we only did the small tree. Again, we got to choose our color scheme.  I handed out the background fabric and then color assignments for my trees…red, green, aqua and yellow.  Just so it would be balanced.  I went to make my Table Runner and could NOT find any more of the fabric I passed out to complete the TR!  And I wanted it done. So, went in another direction totally of what I planned and think I like it better than my original idea.  Things just work out like that, do you ever notice? :)

And so now, I have all the tops completed. And now to the quilting……but that’s another story for another week.

Here comes baby……

not ours yet, or at least I hope not!  And when it rains, it pours!  I had 4 baby quilts to make last month. One was for a baby shower for a young mom at church,one was for a new baby born early, and another was for a “Grandma” shower we have for our sorority group and one more to take with me to Europe for a friend that is due there.  Most of the baby shower gifts I make are the Super Sized 9 Patch quilts

  (this is one of the fabric in two of those quilts—isn’t it  just adorable? and it’s at JoAnn’s of all places!!)

that were featured in Quiltmaker Magazine a few years back. (click on the link for the FREE pattern!)   Sometimes I add the name of the baby if I know it ahead of time. A little scary to do for a variety of reasons, so I only did it on the one.  I chose to do these as the one group I’m in has 24 women and I’m in a church where the majority of women are in their 20’s and 30’s and of PRIME baby making ages!  So, it’s a nice easy quilt to make a LOT of and not break the bank of $$ OR time. I’d rather make a quilt for ALL of them rather than ones that I had the time when it was their turn.

this last one is one from the Baby Fats book. You take 24 FQ’s, cut them all up the same way, but use different parts and pieces to create 4 different quilts. This is 1 of 4 done from that fabric.

Knocked the sense in or out?

Last week we took the grandkids tubing at the closest ski resort (and I use that term very loosely—hahaha—being from Colorado and all) and after we all got bundled up to be warm for the single degree temps and paid a pricey sum, we headed out to pick up our tubes. The kids grabbed theirs and as Kirt bent over to get his, he fell on all 4’s and then slipped and laid sprawled out over the icy incline.  I tried not to laugh as I headed over to help him. And on the second step, I felt my feet slipping and I thought “I’m going down” and that’s all I remember until minutes later I heard him keep asking me what I was doing?  What? I don’t know and I wasn’t sure why I was laying in a fetal position, but I knew I hurt!  He always told me I was hard headed and I guess now it’s a proven fact.  My head hit the ice so hard, it cracked the 3” of solid ice! After being checked out by the medic that I was going to live, but had a mild concussion and would more than likely have a 2 week headache!  I’m just wondering if I knocked the sense INTO me or OUT OF me?  LOL  The jury is out on that one!  So, no tubing that night. :(

Too much else going on and not enough blogging, but maybe now that we are home for a while, house is reorganized, spruced up and looking good, I can get back to my loves…quilting and blogging.

I did get another purse made from the Grids and Grommets pattern. I love the look, the pattern left a lot to be desired, IMHO. I simplified some of the directions to speed the process up a bit. And I made a few more Snap Purses—now THAT is a clever idea! I wonder how they thought of using a TAPE MEASURE to make it snap shut? Some people are so creative.

My quilt group is doing a round robin this year for our ‘block’ exchange, and we were all given a pizza box to put our first block in along with any other fabrics we’d like added to our quiltlet and special instructions, etc. I decided to decorate my box and I think I spent MORE time thinking about how to decorate it than the block itself!!  I went and got paint samples of the colors I would like in my quilt (I’m going to hang it in my office when it’s done) and went through magazines to find letters and any other inspirations.  Finally, all done. Assembled the box and OH MY GOSH!!!!!!  I glued and fused and drew—with a sharpie marker, no less--- on the BOTTOM of the BOX!!  That confirms it….the sense got knocked right out of me!  And of course, no other clean pizza box around and naturally the stuff won’t come off.  So, I scrounged around and found an Apple laptop box. I cut the decorated bottom off the pizza box and glued in onto the Apple box. It’s smaller than the pizza box, so I cut it down and folded over the top edge to make it fit. Whew—that took WAAAAY longer than it was supposed to and you know what?  I need to make the actual block!! LOL  That was the point—I guess I just saw a blank canvas and got all excited.  Oh well, tomorrow’s another day. 

I choose JOY—Joy is my word of the year. I’ve been hearing about people choosing a word to focus on during the year and thought that it would be a fun challenge for me. JOY is the word that kept coming to me over and over, so JOY it is. In fact, I’ve started a new blog, Inspired by Joy, to chronicle that new adventure.  But it’s a bit behind like this one was/is but hopefully I can start doing a bit of catching up on both.

Have a good day and stay warm!