Short post

Again no pictures.  I basted Cooper's quilt and started quilting it.  I'm not sure I should count this in my quilts this year because it is so plain. I'll take a picture tomorrow.

I'm hoping it will be something he will use.  Right now he uses his brothers' quilts and I'd like one just for him.

This is going to be short because I want to go to bed.  tomorrow is an early day and I am going to the dentist and having blood drawn before work.

I got a thing removed from my face on Friday.  I thought it was just a skin tag, but the dermatologist sent it out anyway.  She didn't say it was just a skin tag .. probably nothing.

Quilt progress, not.

This is actually the process with a lot of my quilts.  I have the idea and then nothing.  I found some fabric today but my YD didn't like it.  I'm going to return the fabric and take her with me so we can get something she likes/wants.  I'm so anxious to get started ...

I started on Cooper's quilt.  I used some flannel sports themed fat quarters and sewed them together.  I'll use the piggy fabric as the backing, add some batting and baste it -- maybe tonight.  maybe not.  it won't be an exciting quilt, but it'll be soft and something that's his.

Sew, New Plan

Well, sort of.  Last night, I was sewing and my oldest grandson decided he was going to "watch" me sew.  So far, so good.  Then he was playing under my sewing table.  Still good.  He had the foot pedal and was moving it around.  I told him to leave it alone.  Not so good. Then he pressed on it and the sewing machine when crazy.  Not good.  Then I screamed at him and the situation.  Not good at all. Sew ....

From now on, unless I am prepared to have him or any other small people help with my sewing, I am going to wait until 9 p.m. to start.  If they happen to be up and want to watch, the answer will be no.  If they want to help, the answer will be no.

Prior to 9 p.m., I will play with them, read to them, whatever, just as long as I am not yelling at them or getting frustrated with them getting into my sewing and sewing area.

New plan.

Nothing New

No work on the new quilt today, unless you count looking at on-line fabric stores for other fabrics.  I was, however, able to sew the wider borders on the BYG duvet cover.

Since I don't have any new fabric pictures, here are some pics taken recently with photo booth.

Wordless Wednesday

15 Minute Challenge

I'm linking up to Kate's 15 minute challenge again.  This week has been a little better, probably because I have a goal and a plan -- a quilt.  Here's how the week went.

Tuesday - nothing
Wednesday - nothing
Thursday - designed block
Friday - figured out how much fabric I would need for the quilt; purchased backing fabric (and the cute piggy fabric below)
Saturday - worked out final plans for the BYG duvet cover
Sunday - purchased fabric (probably won't be used for the quilt, but it was fun to get some fabric anyway)
Monday - made test/sample blocks; cut out additional borders for BYG duvet cover

That's my week. I'm hoping that I can stay motivated.  

First cut

I cut a strip of each of the colors and made the first row. I don't like the way it looks so I'm going to look for other fabrics.  The purple is okay but not the pinkish.

The pattern is fun though and with the larger blocks I like it even more.  Once I fix on the fabrics, I'll really get started.

Happy Birthday Paul!!

Here's wishing my husband a very Happy Birthday!

 

Not too fancy (not fancy at all), but they're what we're eating after dinner tonight!

New beginnings, new fabrics

Fabric purchased!  These are the fabrics I'm going to start with .. we'll see how they look together in the pattern.  I am happy with the purple argyle .. not so happy with the pink.

 

This is Veggie Tales fabric.  I'm going to use it for crayon holders for the boys.

 

These were the other options for the new quilt.  I'll just add them to my "stash".

 

Here are the boys with new shirts from Aunt Anna.  Notice Buzz Lightyear !!

This little piggy ..

I didn't work on the new quilt today.  Last night I bought some flannel for the backing, white with small pink polka dots.  I also bought some really cute piggy fabric, red and white.  I think I'll make Cooper a quilt and use it for the backing. 

I did get together with a friend today to work on / plan the BYG duvet cover.  I need to add additional borders to the top -- I'm going to add 4 inches all around, and then I'm going to quilt it to the top of the old duvet cover.  She's going to take the duvet cover apart for me.  I think she's got the harder part.  I would never have asked her to do it for me, but since she offered ...

Tomorrow I'm going to see if I can find the fabric for my new quilt.  A blog friend suggested I get a little extra fabric, just in case, so I'll get one and quarter yards of each.  Better too much than not enough.

Calculations (aka Maths)

I've decided that I'm going to post, step-by-step, how my new quilt comes together.  Since I'm trying to blog every day of November, I thought this would be a good way for me to do that. (Blogging every day this month is sort of participating in NaBloPoMo (which is on my list) but I didn't actually sign up.)

This also might help me to actually meet the 15 minute challenge a few more times this year, as well as to finish another quilt (see #19 on my list).

So, the next step on this quilt is figuing out how much fabric to get.  I usually just guess at it and have either way too much or not nearly enough. Here are my calculations and it looks like I need to get one yard of each fabric. (Let's hope I did the calculations correctly.)  I usually do this in my notebook, but I didn't want to draw the pattern by hand.   

Oops. I just realized that this says the number of strips needed for each color, but it's actually the number of blocks.

I'm thinking of making 4 inch blocks in the quilt, which means the finished size of each block needs to be 4½ inches.  I was too lazy to figure this out myself so I did some research on the internet to find out what size to cut my blocks to end up with the size of block I want.  The blogs/sites I read pretty much all said that the blocks, before being made into HSTs, needed to be 7/8 inches larger than the finished size, or 5⅜, so I'm cutting the strips/blocks to 5½ (giving myself a smidgen of extra that can just be cut off).  But then I'm wondering, when they say finished size, do they mean the 4 or the 4½ inches?  I'm hoping it refers to the 4 inch block, because I'm doing both HSTs and QSTs and I'm worried that I need to add another ⅜ or ½ (I can't remember which) to each of the pieces of the QST blocks.  I'm going to check the sample block I made last week to see what size the blocks that started out at 3 ¼ squares ended up.

I am excited about starting this quilt.  I want to go to the quilt shop and see what fabrics I can find.