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!