Catching up time.

I didn't realize it was Dec 1st when I last posted. Dec. sure flies by. I have a lot of catching up to do. And a correction to make about Easy Street. Remember in my last post I had signed up to do the mystery quilt from Quiltville with Bonnie Hunter? Well, I said I was showing you a pic of the black and white 4 patches I made but actually posted the 2 patch before I had them sewn into 4 patches. So here's the right picture along with the next week which is blue and black on white Flying Geese units.

Then it was onto Week 3. I'm not sure what these are called but they were fun to make.

 Week 4 I made orange and blue Flying Geese.

Week 5 not really a house but does remind me of one.

We added scrap blues to the units this week.

Week 6 will be posted on Quiltville's blog tomorrow morning so I can't wait to see what we will be making this week.

Now this is what I'm really excited about.

This is an American Home sewing machine and the sewing cabinet that belonged to my mom. I remember her sewing on this when I was a kid. She made almost all of our clothes when we were kids and also did her quilts on it. She had this machine along with 2 Singer machines. So when we were selling out the contents of her house, I decided to keep the 2 newer Singers and sold this one. This was about a year or so ago. Now that I have the quilting bug, I have also been biten by the vintage sewing machine bug. Not that this is a rare machine but it would be more collectible than the 2 Singers I kept. I have mention several times to my husband that I regret selling it. So for Christmas, can you guess what I received? Yes, It's my moms machine. Not a look a like but the very machine we sold. He and my daughter contacted the guy who bought it (he was buying it for his wife) and asked him if they would sell it back to us. I'm not sure what all was said but they did sell it back.  But what is kind of funny is that we sold it for $50.00 and my husband paid them $75.00 to get it back. I love it and it sews perfectly. You can see how much mom used it by the worn paint along the front edge. I'm so happy to be able to use it now.
                                              Here's another machine I purchased recently.

It's a Singer 66 made in 1941. It needs the power cord and a cover for the bobbin but I will get those ordered. I'm hoping I can get it to sew once I have the 2 missing pieces. It's in very nice condition. Not alot of wear and it was very clean. It came in a cabinet but I think I'm going to sell it. Just not enough room to keep cabinets.

I finished quilting the 1st quilt I had in my longarm quilting machine. I'm not very good yet but I'm sure it just takes time and pratice.  I have the binding sew on the front but still need to get it turned and hand stitched down on the back.

I have been off work since Chirstmas and have been spending as much time as I can sewing. I have been cross stitching on my Prairie Schooler alphabet. I'm working on Q is for Quilting. Go figure! I'm almost finished with it so since I've already stitched R is for Rabbit, I can move onto S is for ???

Can't think of what it would be. Seashells? Ship?

I'm trying to decide if I want to box up and put away all the Christmas decorations this weekend or wait until after new years. I really like to keep it up but also remember in the past years after going back to work after the 1st of the year thinking "Why didn't I do that while I was off and had more time?" So I guess I will see what the next few days bring. I do like to spend some of my time off doing some cleaning. There's something about a new year that makes me want to clean out drawers, closets, etc. and get rid of unused stuff.

Kitchen cabinets were cleaned out before Chistmas so it's onto kitchen drawers.

Until next time, have a Happy New Year and spend time stitching.

Deana

It's a mystery!

I'm working on a mystery. A mystery quilt actually. Bonnie Hunter from Quiltville Quips & Snips is hosting a mystery quilt a long called Easy Street. It will then be published in one of her books at a later date. I was excited to take part in this mystery. As a fairly new quilter, I was interested in what this was all about. We don't know what the quilt design is, but each week Bonnie is giving us our "clues" our instructions of what we need to make for each week. We picked our 3 main colors, our background fabrics  and  one constant color. Here's what I chose. Yellow, Blue and Orange along with Black on white as the background and the dark Gray as the constant.

 It was a little hard for me to choose since I don't really know what the design is. Bonnie showed us her choices on her blog so we did get an idea, and Bonnie suggested we make our own color choices. She also told us how much of each fabric we needed so we wouldn't over buy or run the chance of not having enough.

Last week was our 1st week. Our 1st Clue... take our background and our constant color and make 192 four patches. I cut and sewed for a couple of days and here they are.

That's alot of 4 patches but they were fun to make.

This week, clue #2

I took my blue fabric and black on white fabric and cut 192 flying geese.

Last night I got all the pieces cut while watching Bonnie on her quilt cam. She host an online quilting get together with her webcam. It's so much fun to watch her sew while we are sewing. She reads emails and text that quilters send and she will answer questions while we all sew. She is so helpful with any questions you have and it's a great time to get some sewing in.

She will be hosting the next quilt cam tomorrow at 1:00pm our time. I will hopefully be able to set in and watch and sew up the flying geese.

I cross stitch Austin's Christmas ornament for this year and gave it to him last week when we got together for Thanksgiving.

He has a black Lab named Jeff so he really liked it.

Have a great weekend and take a little time to stitch for yourself.

Deana