Something Fun

Last year I picked up this fun pattern at the AQS quilt show in Iowa. I have been wanting to get started on it for a long time and finally decided to just go for it.

Paper Dolls pattern by Phyllis Paul of Cozy Quarters

Check out the kit packaging--awesome!!

My cousin Barb bought the whole kit--adorable!!

There are 49 blocks, and so far I have cut out the 49 skirts, 49 bodices, and 49 head, hand and leg sets. I still need to cut out a lot of the backgrounds, but I couldn't wait to start putting a few of these ladies together. I am going to mix and match up their outfits as I go along.

These are my first blocks.
Some of the ladies will have head wraps that are sewn in as the block is constructed.
The rest of the ladies will get appliqued hats later. 

This lady gets a head wrap to match her skirt. 

Catching Up

Yesterday was kind of a bummer-type day. It's never good to find out that your new vehicle could catch fire at any moment. The good news is that the vehicle will warn you before you are engulfed in flames.

Fortunately the dealership where we purchased our vehicle has rented an upgraded SUV from Enterprise for us to use while they figure out how to fix the problem. Apparently this could take weeks. Mr. Moosebay had to drive our combustible SUV down to the cities to swap it out for the rental.

 I wisely cowardly declined to ride along and stayed home to clean the house.

Much more preferable than becoming toasted briquette.  

Last week I was working hard on a top secret project (Christmas gift). Now that I've finished that, I decided to catch up on the Grandmother's Choice blocks. I had fallen way behind! Barbara is on block 14, so I had twelve blocks to get sewn in order to be up to date.

All caught up!
A lot of these blocks are pretty challenging and that is what makes them so fun to work on. 

Grandmother's Choice

Amethyst
This one is a little boring (the fabrics--not the inset seams)
I may have to redo it with more interesting fabrics.

Union Square

Kansas Sunflower
I hand pieced this block. It seemed easier than machine piecing.

New Jersey

Aunt Eliza's Star

Alice's Flag
This one is done with English Paper Piecing using diamonds.

Rocky Road to Kansas
Same block as #2 but with string piecing.

Brick Pavement

Add caption

New York

Little Red Schoolhouse

Everybody's Favorite

Bride's Knot

Little Boy's Breeches
More set in seams--ach! These are little pants in honor of Amelia Bloomer.

Let There Be Light

One thing all quilters need (especially at my age) is good lighting.

Since my sewing room is, in reality, a master suite, we felt we couldn't do too much structurally in the event we may need to move to a new home. Not that we are planning that, but you never know what life throws at you, right? So, even though I would have loved to put in some mega overhead lighting, we left our old ceiling fan as is and I rely on one of the quilter's best friends, the Ott light. I have Ott lights everywhere. And still, it wasn't enough light in my sewing room unless it was a very bright, sunny day. Okay, maybe I need to schedule cataract surgery, but I'm not rushing into that without some kicking and screaming.

I've had Lasik eye surgery and I imagine cataract
surgery is similar. 

I belong to an online machine quilting group and one of the gals mentioned replacing the regular bulb in her ceiling fan with an Ott light bulb. It had never occurred to me that there was a screw-in type Ott bulb, and on my next trip to Joann's I noticed that they had them in stock and (even better) they were on sale! I picked one up and installed in when I got home. It works great--lights up the entire room with day light. I can see!

This bulb replaces up to a 100W bulb. It screws in like a regular bulb. It's not pretty , but it does the trick!

The package says the bulb is "instant-on" but I have found it gets much brighter after a minute or two
.
The fixture is a limited edition Hunter ceiling fan in an old  Pfaltzgraf pattern: Wild Rose, I believe. It was purchased for our previous home (but never installed--maybe you can relate?), so somehow it ended up in this room and is totally inappropriate for the decor.  

You can see the bulb here on sale at Joann's right now.

I looked everywhere for pulls for the fan and suddenly it dawned on me that I had a whole big jar of them!
Mr. Moosebay found the little washers and the rest is history. 

The Rest of the Story

These are photos of the other side of the sewing room. 

When you first walk into the room you will see my HQ16 quilting machine. There's a double closet on the wall to the right. We haven't chosen closet doors for this room yet, so I have temporary curtains hanging over the two closets (I dislike dusting my clothing). 

I'd like to say that I listen to classical music or  books on tape, but the truth is, I am hooked on Court TV.
Someday I will invest in an anti-fatigue runner to stand on while quilting. In the meantime, my yoga mat is doing  the job. 

This bookcase (made by Mr. Moosebay!) holds my quilting tools, books and patterns.
It's also where my sock monkeys live, along with my jars of wooden spools and buttons.
The quilt hanging on the wall started with the sock monkey orphan block.
Right next to the bookcase is the door to the master bath. With one wall of all windows and another of all doors, it 's really difficult to come up with a way to arrange things. 

The cutting table sits at the end of a stack of shelving. The drawers hold machine embroidery supplies (that I never use) and rarely used specialty rulers.  My sewing area is behind this area. Sorry for the glare--it was a very sunny day when these photos were taken! 

This is where I sew--directly opposite my computer. I know it seems like a tiny space, but it works for me.  I picked up the  Scandinavian shelving system from the backroom storage areas when the Petrie Stores closed down. We have a ton of this shelving and use it in our garage also. I'm hoping that when (if?) I whittle down my stash, I will replace the shelving with something less bulky and open up the sewing area. At least I face the window overlooking the lake! 

You Must Remember This....

A while back I showed you some photos from my previous sewing space (shudder). 

I'm trying to forget this--yikes!

I just realized that I never showed the "after" photos from my new quilting space. I took these photos a while back so things don't look quite as organized today, but it's better than what I used to call a sewing room.

This was Mr. Moosebay's closet when we used this room as our bedroom.
 My  youngest son made the little book shelf that holds my favorite quilt books.

More books and magazines are stored in stacked fruit crates inside the closet.
I have lots of fruit crates from when I sold antiques in Crosby--they make nice modular shelving!
I hang my quilting templates on a cork board back there.

This is the closet straight-on. My Hardanger valance is a garage sale find.

Next to the closet is my pressing area. There's an air conditioner behind the  quilt on the wall.  Mr. Moosebay attached a board with hooks to the wall so I can hang my portable design wall. If I decide to take it somewhere, it can be lifted off of the hooks.  I think I took this photo in September judging by the A Bountiful Life progress on the design wall. 

This is directly opposite the design wall. To the left, is a big window between the air conditioner and another fruit crate book case. I tried to stay away from putting anything too close to the window because of the base-board heating unit beneath the window. My laptop is there by my bungee chair and my printer is in the foreground on the right.
Mr. Moosebay and sons installed the hickory flooring and the new moldings.
You can see I get a lot of nice light when the sun is shining!

Check back....more photos of the sewing space next time!

New Model/UFO's

I just dropped this little quilt top off at the quilt shop. It will be available as a kit at Colorz for Quilts soon. 

The pattern is Cottage Fair by Annemarie Yohnk. The little houses finish at  six inches--cute!

There's not much else going on in the sewing room. Yesterday was sew-in day at the Breezy Point Conservation Center, so I worked on hexies--too lazy to pack up my machine for the day! 

This was the design wall on Monday morning. Yep, nothing but UFO's, and orphan blocks.

I wanted to add that the quilting on this quilt I posted in a previous entry is one long continuous line that spirals out from the center. I did have to mark a small circle in the center about the size of a quarter to get started and then just kept turning the quilt sandwich until I reached the outside edges. 

I'm so excited that a photo of my quilt was posted on the Andover site today. Whoohoo!!

I hope you have a wonderful turkey day.
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

Confessions

I finally got around to putting these away (three weeks late):

Part of my Black Cat collection

And put these out with five days to spare:

That's the extent of my turkey collection!
I made them many years ago when I was in my decorative painting phase.
I like how they look with my new little table topper.

My friend Mickey introduced me to this quilting design.
Just start in the center (I marked a small circle to start) and using the edge of your walking foot as a measure to gauge the spacing, sew your way out. Super easy and looks pretty cool!

Don't worry about wobbles or bad spacing--it looks fine when it's all done.
I did this on my Bernina and I think it's perfect for a little quilt.

I have to confess that I went WAY off my fabric diet when I found this bundle of
Blueberry Crumb Cake at Gruber's. It's in my color pallet and it has BLUE sampler fabric (okay, I had already added some of the sampler fabric to my stash, but now I have all of it's friends!).

And I'm patiently waiting until next year when my pre-ordered fat quarter bundle of Indigo Crossing will get delivered
to Colorz for Quilts. In the meantime, I will pet this charm pack that Susan got from the sales rep and so generously
passed along to me--be still my heart!!!