Hump Day Sunshine

It looks to be another gorgeous spring day, chilly to start, but as the sun rises, I anticipate a walk in my future today!  One of the things I promised myself I would do in retirement was to exercise more.  I always used the "I don't have time" or "I am too tired" after working to fit in any kind of exercise.  I know I could have found the time, but the "excuses" out weighed me actually finding the time.  Now I have NO MORE excuses!  I just need to DO IT and make it a habit, just like fitting in all my crafting!

Today I plan to catch up on the three quilt blocks I am behind in the 52 quilt blocks in 52 weeks challenge.  First to cut out all of the pieces and hope to have them completely sewed together by lunch time.  One is fairly simple, but two of them have quite a few small pieces seeing that the finished block is only 6 inches!

I have been spending some of my time working on another 1000 piece puzzle.  This one seems to be on the easier side.  It is a LONG and NARROW puzzle, all of billboards for movies.  Pieces are very small, but seem to make decent progress every time I sit down to work on it.

Here is a photo of it as I started it.  The puzzle is so wide that the photo on the front of the box is NOT the entire puzzle!  It was confusing at first as I was trying to put the border together until I realize that another paper was included in the box, which folded out to show all of the billboards.

Happy Crtafting!

Day of Errands

Today is a day of appointments and running errands.  Even though I am retired and have few commitments during the day, I still try to combine errands and appointments as much as I can.  It is nice to know doing this helps with the cost of gas, but allows me full days to work on my crafts.  I am one of those people that likes to craft in bigger chunks of time, rather than pick it up for thirty minutes here and there.

Friday I completed the last of the 13" quilt blocks for my king size quilt.  All 36 are pressed and ready to be squared.  Plan to work in squaring them tomorrow and laying them out on our bed to figure out a design.  There only a few squares that are the same, so I need to make sure they are not near each other before I add the sashing and cornerstones.

It is a busy week with one getting the final preparations completed, food prepped and packing of all of the supplies for the 11th D & D Papercraft Event that will be held in our community clubhouse for 24 women this Saturday.  Hope to get some quilting done, most likely getting caught up on the blocks I am behind on my 52 blocks in 52 weeks project.

Friday I also finished the puzzle I was working on and yesterday I picked up another one to work on.  I already have about half of the border pieces completed.  Not sure about this one quite yet...…….
1000 pieces as usually but they are REALLY small pieces.

Here is another cute cartoon for your enjoyment today as I finish up my post and head out to start my errands.

Happy Crafting!

Counting Down from NINE!

Nine quilt blocks to put together for the king size quilt I am working on.  Decided to catch up on the 52 blocks in 52 weeks quilt until I have the blocks done for the king size quilt.  Mostly because I have them all over our kitchen prepped to put together.  Barring anything out of the ordinary, I should have these nine blocks completed by early next week.

Eight days until the next D & D Papercraft Event, so I will have to take some time to finish the last minute details to make this event our 11th successful day with great friends and catching up after the LONG winter!  Looking forward to seeing everyone again and check out all the projects everyone is working on.

Couldn't pass up on this cartoon I saw yesterday on Facebook!

Happy Crafting!

Puzzle Mania

During our weekend trip to the clubhouse to exercise, I picked up another puzzle to work on!

This one still has 1000 pieces, but the dimensions are huge and the individual pieces are larger.  In a few days I already have several large sections completed.  Puzzles are a nice and welcomed break from crafting and I hope to continue doing them even in the summers.  When I was growing up, they were a "winter" project the whole family would work on.  I remember though, my dad was the one that spent the most time working on them.

I mention my dad in todays post since this weekend my sister gave me two huge boxes of family photos to go through and have my other two siblings go through and pick out what they want to save.  There were so many pictures of friends and family that I decided to pick out a few to create some scrapbook pages for my personal scrapbooks.  It was a lot of reminiscing as I spent a few hours looking at each and every picture, some of them over 100 years old!

Now to pick out some paper and embellishments to create some very special scrapbook pages!

Quilting is NOT forgotten.  Once the chores are done for the day I hope to finish a few blocks before the end of the day.  Stay tuned.....

Happy Crafting!

Fifteen to Go

It is amazing how busy one can be even through they are retired!
After three months of "retired living" I seem to be busier than ever!  Very rarely do I find myself sitting down with nothing to do.  Never thinking "I'm Bored!"

This week was no exception!  Monday was the road trip to Wooden Bridge Dry Goods Store for the rest of the fabric for my king size quilt.  I finished 4 blocks on Wednesday and 2 blocks yesterday.  I had hoped to do more yesterday, but I ended up cutting the rest of my fabrics in to the 5" squares I needed to make sure I had enough to finish the quilt.  Fifteen blocks to go out of the 36 blocks I need for the quilt.  Each blocks uses 2 fabrics in addition to the background fabric, so I spent the time to also match them up.  Now I am ready to sew the rest of them, and hope to have all the blocks done before the end of the month.

Here are three of the most recent blocks made with the new fabrics I purchased on Monday.  As always the colors are not showing up as vibrant as they are in person, but I love the choices selected.

Hope you all have a great weekend!
Happy Crafting😃

Tuesday Agenda

It has been over three days since the sewing machine has been plugged in and running.  I needed more deep purple fabrics for my king size quilt.  A road trip was scheduled with my sister-in-law yesterday in hopes of finding and purchasing the rest of the fabrics that I needed to finish this quilt.  I still think it will take me at least the rest of the month to finish, but I wanted to be ready to have the backing fabric so when the blocks are done and sewed together I can find someone to long arm quilt it for me.

I find these cartoons as I call them on one of the Facebook groups I belong to.  It made me think of my dad......when I was young (Maybe around 10?) and started to sew after being taught by his mother, my "grammy", my dad use to tease me that he hope I never drove a car as fast as my sewing machine use to run!

The road trip was a success!  I was able to find backing fabric and three more fabrics in the purple/pink family that will coordinate with the blues and other purple fabrics I have been using  My sister-in-law barely pulled out of the driveway to head home and I had the fabrics in my washer, preparing them to cut blocks.  I finished cutting them just as the hubby came home from work, so later today I will start sewing more of them together.  Here are the three fabrics I selected.

The colors are so much brighter in person, and the far right one is shades of a deep pink/purple.

So I am off to finish answering some emails, work on some lists for a scrapbook event I am co-hosting the end of the month, exercise class, grocery shopping and then I can finally quilt until dinner time!

Happy Crafting!

Road Trip!

Headed out to Wooden Bridge Dry Goods to shop for the "ingredients" to finish up the blocks, borders, binding and backing form my king size quilt.  Stay tune for a follow up tomorrow!

Happy Crafting!

Quilting Maniac

I have been on a roll lately when it comes to quilting!  All I want to do is piece more and more squared in order to complete the king size quilt I am working on.  There is no hurry to get it done, I just am enjoying the process of looking at each block as I sew them together.  I wonder what they will look like when I add the sashing, cornerstones and borders.

Yesterday I spent most of the day working on the blocks until I realized I wanted MORE choices of color combinations of fabrics.  I spent almost an hour working on the size of the quilt I want, and determined I need 36 blocks.  I have 15 done so far, so not quite half way there.  I have my spreadsheets completed and can now figure out what I need for backing and the second border.

ROAD TRIP here we come!  I was in contact with my sister-in-law yesterday and we will be heading to Kutztown on Monday to find some extra fabric and might also purchase the rest of the material to finish the second binding and backing for the quilt.  Nervous that I make the right choice in colors as this quilt is so different than what I planned.

When I finished what I could on my big blocks, I pulled out the fabrics for my challenge of 52 blocks in 52 weeks quilt.  I neglected to complete week 7 before week 8 came out on Tuesday, so I whipped together both blocks in less than an hour yesterday.  Here they are!

So what will I do today?

Time to pull out the scrapbooking!  I have several pages to complete from my Scrappin by the Sea weekend where I need titles or a few embellishments.  

Happy Crafting!

Trip to Fabric Store

Despite the tundra like conditions, yesterday I took a quick trip to my local quilting store.  I was on the search for some batik fabrics to coordinate with the king size quilt I am working on.  The fabrics I thought were "purple" turned out to be more "pink" and with the gray looked washed out.  I wasn't sure how I would make out, since it is a smaller store and of course has a lot less choices than the other store where I bought the original fat quarter bundle.  Maybe that is good for me, since I do not have a good eye as to what I want, so fewer choices are better?

With the help of an informative sales person, I was able to find three fabric samples that I believe will work!  Nothing off the bolt, but the sales person pulled out fabric scraps, fat quarters and half yard pieces they had in shades of blue, gray and purple.  I would have liked more yardage, but I believe these will work to add some purple highlights to the quilt.  When I got home, the fabric was washed, dried and before dinner I had put one quilt block together and I liked it!  Now to continue on today with block # 16.  I still have not decided how many blocks I will need.  Guess I need to add that to my "to do" list so I don't make more than I really need.

Here is a really lousy pictures of the three fabrics I purchased.

Happy Crafting!

Is Winter Over?

Not sure people who read this blog will appreciate my title😃
I really am trying to be optimistic that we have seen the last of any snow that accumulates and requires the snow blower OR shovel to come out of our drive.  It is good exercise for us, but I am so ready for spring!  How about you?

Been a busy several days with three winter precipitation events in the last week.  Sunday nights storm, dumped over 6" in our area, and normally there wouldn't have been too much of an issue.  Of course Monday had a scheduled doctors appointment in Chalfont, so we were up bright and early to clean the driveway.  Roads were already plowed and the gorgeous sunrise made up for all that snow.

On the quilting front I am on HOLD right now.  I really am not liking the fabric I purchased to add a twinge of purple to my gray and blue fat quarters bundle I purchased.  Once the blocks are together they look more pink than purple.  I plan to head tot he local quilt store later this week to see if I can find some deep darker purple that is not a shade of pink.  I need to find another few fabrics since I will not have enough of the gray/blue fat quarters.  Wish me luck!  Picking fabrics is NOT one of my strong suits.

So until I purchase the fabrics, I will be working on the block for the 52 blocks in 52 weeks.  That will take all of an hour, so a new puzzle was started over the weekend.  This 1000 piece puzzle looked easy when I started the border, but I find at one sitting I can only find a half dozen pieces!  They say that working on puzzles can keep your mind sharp.  I was hoping that would be true for me, but then why did I pick up another book to read, only to find out it was one of the books I already read this year.  DUH!

I leave you with this photo for today!

Happy Crafting!