What I've been working on...

Cause I know you are just dying to know. I've been getting into the Christmas spirit around here and working on these.



Aren't they cute! I downloaded the pattern last year so unfortunately I can't give credit to where I got it from. I love, love, love gingerbread men! They are too cute and these will look good on my tree. I've got a really cute chef ginger bread man holding a bag of gluten free flour that I put in the kitchen for the holidays. The craft show where I got him is coming up and I plan on going back to that booth for a few more of the other gingerbread men she had. Hopefully she will be there again.

This is the first one I made. It's the original size of the pattern.



After making this one I decided to enlarge the pattern all the way to full page size and that is what you see in the first picture.
This one I did completely by hand.



Here is a close up of the stitching on the leg of the one made by hand.



I really like the look of the hand stitched one but my stitching is too messy for my taste so I went back to using my sewing machine. It is much faster and neater looking. while making these I watched a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and a Charlie Brown Christmas. Nope, no Christmas spirit yet. Maybe it will show up after I do some Christmas shopping the day after Thanksgiving. I do really enjoy doing that with Dan every year. We don't do the 3am thing. We go out later in the morning.

I've also been working with those strips of fabric and they got cut into these.



What did I turn those into you ask, well I will show you when I have the top together which should be very soon, yay!

Bye!

What was I thinking!

It's horrible, just terrible, what was I thinking!

Okay, it's not that bad but it was an attention getter right?

What was I thinking telling Dan that I could go a year without buying fabric?? Don't get me wrong, it's not a will power thing. I have no problem going a year without buying fabric, I've gone much longer than that and that is where my problem is. I have not bought fabric in several years! I've been working from stash and buying what was needed to finish a project or make a project. Not much left over except maybe a little for a future applique project. For sure not enough to make 4 large quilts for graduation. I am left with uglies! And not enough to make 4 quilts and really, who wants to gift an ugly quilt let alone 4 of them? Not me! So I pulled a lot of my fabric out and cut it into 2 1/2 inch strips thinking I'd make some log cabin blocks and here is how far I got with one before I could not stand to work on it any more.



It's not horrible but it's not colors I like together at all and it definitely not for a teenage girl.

So I started with these colors and got this far before I wasn't sure what colors to add to it so I called in Dan to ask his opinion on these and do you know what he said?



He said "You need to buy fabric." Ha! He disliked it as much as I did, possibly more. So I started searching the internet for fabric and found fat quarter sets I liked but I wasn't ready to give up yet so I started playing with some tea dying and Rit dye and white Kona cotton.



And I ended up with this from the Rit dye. Whoops, I forgot to take a picture of the tea dyed fabric but I will try to remember to get one but here is the purple and orange I did.





I spent 2 days cutting 2 inch strips out of it and here are those strips along with colors I pulled from my stash to go along with it.







I then sewed and sewed and sewed and here is some of what I sewed.



I know you are wondering what I am doing with these strips but you will have to be patient and stay tuned!

And just for kicks here is the awesome gluten free hot dog buns I made. Finally! Good hot dog buns!



Also, because it makes me laugh, Susan in her last minute Halloween costume.



Bye!

New machine & a finish

First off I will show you my new machine!



Isn't it georgous! I just love it. It sews so nice and has so much room for quilting. Unfortunatly I haven't played on it a ton because I've been pretty sick with some kinds of weird sinus infection or some thing. Also a problem with a tooth that has been so so painful so I have just been a vegetable on the couch the last few weeks.

This is my finish. It's a quilt I started several years ago and got stuck on. I finished it for my moms birthday this year.



Here are a few close up photos.







So I guess that is all I'll post about right now. Blogger is being a pain and taking forever to upload photos.

Bye!

Quilty finishes!!

Shocking I know. More than one finish to report on in less than 6 months! Okay, I may not be that bad but I do know how to age my ufo's that is for sure. This first one is my Wizard of Oz quilt. Actually finished with in a few months of buying the kit if you can believe that! It's also the quilt I chose for my Fandom challenge on the yahoo 6500 challenge group. I love the Wizard of Oz so was very excited to find this kit in a quilt shop I was browsing. Sorry about the shadow on this one. I still haven't figured out why it does that some times.



Here is the one I was able to get when Dan got home and could hold it up for me.



So you may be wondering to yourself why are there 2 different blocks in this quilt. Did you notice the green ones in there? Hummm....perhaps I shouldn't have pointed it out but since I did here was my problem. Turns out I was short enough fabric to fussy cut the last 2 blocks so I went back to the shop I bought the kit and of course they didn't have the fabric I needed but had the new line of Oz fabric so I picked one that I thought would blend in well. I like it with the 2 odd blocks.

This is my latest Downy Quilt for Kids quilt. I really loved the fabric they sent. It was so cute!



And a close up so you can see how adorable this fabric is.



I also bought a new machine. I thought and thought until my brain hurt (no wise cracks please) on which machine I wanted. Researched and researched and finally visited a shop that had the 2 I had narrowed it down to and I played with both the Pfaff Expression 4.0 and Janome Horizon. You know how you can tell which machine is right for you just by listening to it? Well it was the Janome that called to me. It's got a ton of neato stitches and the accufeed on it is so great! I love it and Dan did a beautiful job of making the hole in my desk big enough for it and the table that came with it. I did forget to take some photos so I will share those in my next blog post. Yes, I was too busy having fun with it and forgot the photos of it, slap me with a wet fat quarter why don't cha.

Off to work on a ufo that has been waiting for several years to be finished.

Bye!

Quilting and Peachy

So I have another finish to report! Unbelievable I know but it's true, I swear! This one is not a UFO (unfinished object). It is a kit I purchased a couple of months ago. I actually started it and finished it within 5 days. I haven't done that in a long time. It could have done it in a shorter amount of time but my sewing machine is still giving fits and when it frustrates me I walk away for a day or so. I have decided now to either get the Janome 6600 or Janome 7700. The Pfaff had so many features I wanted but all the bad reviews just could not be ignored. I'm leaning towards the 6600 but I will not for sure when I actually go to purchase and play with them and see which I like better. Anyways on to the finish. Here is an over all picture.



And here are a few various close ups of the quilting and stitches on this little wall hanging. I think it measures only about 20" wide.







I've also gotten my Wizard of Oz quilt pin basted and started the quilting on that one last night. Here are some photos of how I pin basted it. I layed it over the top of my cutting table.



And here is just a look at the quilt top while it is layed out. You might notice a couple of different blocks but I will explain about that when I post it's finish.



And to finish this is just a s couple of shots to show how big Peaches is getting. She is such a good dog and she just loves playing with her toys.





Bye!

Baby quilt finished

Well it's been awhile since I've done a blog post. Dan reminds me of that every once in awhile. I haven't blogged any really this summer because there really wasn't much to blog about. We were working on the house non stop for awhile and when we hit Susan's birthday we kind of hit the breaks and haven't done any thing in awhile. I would sure love to have it all done by Christmas but we shall see.

This summer has been unbelievably hot. I've holed up in my house with the blinds and curtains closed and the air running. Just about this whole summer I just have not felt well at all so a lot of days have not done a whole lot. Thank goodness for Dan is all
I can say.

So I have a Janome 6500 sewing machine that I love. The problem is that they can not seem to fix it. It's been in 3 times and is still having a bit of a problem. It has enticed me to start looking at new machines and I started looking at different brands, particularly the Pfaff brand. The machine I have chosen is the Pfaff Expression 4.0. It has some fantastic features that I would love, love, love to have! This is the machine I want, now to get Dan to buy it for me LOL. I do plan on selling my Elna 8007 embroidery machine and eventually the Janome when I am sure I will not use it any more.

Now on to the quilt. Some friends of ours had an adorable baby girl and here are photos of the quilt I made for her.









I loved making this quilt. It was so much fun.

School is starting in a week here and Susan is in her last year of high school if you can believe that. we've already had our first football game and will have the second this Thursday. 2 games before school even starts.

Well, I'm off to find some thing to do. I have one small wall hanging I want to start and one wall hanging I want to finish.

Bye!

Meet Peaches & Sewing

Hello to all.
First I want to introduce you to our new family member Peaches!



Peaches is Susan's dog and so far she is taking good care of her when she is home. So far it's been me most of the time with her being so busy but that's okay. This is a fabulous puppy who picks up every thing very fast. She's mellow and a very big sleepy lump like the rest of our dogs. She fits in just fine.









On to the sewing. I made a collar for Peaches and a matching leash.



This is a Wizard of Oz quilt kit Dan bought for me. I loved the quilt it made and am very excited to make it. I have started the cutting on it.



I also bought a kit to make a little wall hanging with cupcakes on it. I thought it would be nice to make and hang for birthdays. Gotta get this one done before July.



Finally, here is a block from a baby quilt I am working on. You can see in the photo that I still have some stitching to do on this one but you can still get an idea on how it will be. All the blocks have different bugs on them. In my post before this there is a photo of the quilt from the book.



Well, that is it for now.

Bye!

Sewing room remodel & prom

My sewing room is done! It turned out great if I do say so myself. The colors are exactly what I imagined. The before pictures I will hopefully be posting are older photos from when I did a sewing room clean up about a year ago or so. I say hopefully because I hope to find them in all the photos on this computer.....

Well, no such luck on finding those before photos. If you got to an older post on my blog you will find a sewing room clean up post with all kinds of pictures of my sewing room. I will post a couple of photos that were taken of sewing projects and in those you will be able to see what the walls looked like and the carpeting I had in there. This picture shows some pants I was making but if you look at the bottom you will see the carpet that was in there.



In this one I was making an apron but you can see what the walls looked like and you can see the carpet in this one too. I must have just cleaned my sewing room because it's looking pretty cleaned up LOL.



Ok, now for the new sewing room.

Ta-da!!









Looks great right! I love working in there. It's so much fun.

What will the first thing I make in there you ask? Well thank you for asking! It will be a bay quilt that I have been dying to make ever since I bought this baby quilt book. Here are the fabrics I will be working with.



It will turn into a version of this when it is done. Sorry about the photo being on it's side.



This past weekend was Susan's prom. Her and her friends had a good time even with some disaster along the way that ended up with them missing the post prom party bus and because of that they were not allowed to go. Not their fault at all. Completely the limo drivers fault, but the important part was they did have fun even though they are pretty upset about missing the post prom.





Well that is it for now. I'm off to do the dreaded grocery shopping and then into my sewing room to play!

Bye!!