Blue and Gray Take 5 Quilt is done!

I have been busy the past week and a half trying to get the blue and gray Take 5 quilt done. It has been one of the most difficult finishes I have had. This was my first flannel quilt and I don't think I will want to do another one any time soon. The flannel along the edge borders stretched and got out of shape so the binding would not go on properly, I had to cut the borders down just a bit to get it to lay flat. But finally got it done tonight. I was trying to get it done by last Friday because that was Airmen Sanchez's birthday and I have been making this for him because he really liked all of my other quilts and he wanted one for himself. He is about my boy's age as are most of the Airmen I work with so most days I feel like the mom of a bunch of kids. It has been washed and it is in the dryer right now so I am very happy that he will get it tomorrow. He is going to take me out to lunch on Thursday, that was my price for making it for him.

Here is the finished quilt. I am so happy that it is done. It is also one of the largest quilts I have done. I did the quilting myself on this one by just stitching in the seams around the blocks. I think it turned out very patch work-y.

These are some pictures of it while I was putting the binding on. As you can see it is a lot of quilt to be working on! I also finished a baby quilt for Dave's Jeep friend. It was a printed panel so all I had to do was sew around the edges of the borders and around the animals in the quilt. I put a pink satin binding on it to dress it up. It turned out really nice.

I also starting working on a floral red and black dragon quilt for my friend Michelle. She liked the dragon one I made for Mark so I used the same dragon but I am making it more feminine for her. I just have one large border and the square blocks to put around the edges and it will be ready to go to the long arm quilter.

Next project up is for my friend JoAnn, she is getting married in October so I am making her a quilt as a wedding present. She has purples and lilacs in her bedroom so I picked out a nice pattern with those and some other colors in it. The pattern is call Good Fortune and hopefully it will bring them good luck in the marriage. I am doing the pattern called Dora. It has the pattern between a solid rail, kind of looks like a window panel. I am really excited to get going on it.

I have an order from my friend Beth to make a wedding throw for her daughter. The wedding is in February so I have a little time to get it done. I have bought some fabric for it and settled on a pattern that I like. Her wedding colors are Ivory and Lapis (a blue purple color). The pattern is called the Waltz. I will take out the middle motif and put in their names and wedding date.

Well, that is the update for now. I am keeping very busy with all my projects. I have to start thinking about some birthday and Christmas gifts. I may already be behind the power curve for this year...

Sorry it has been a little while since I posted. Trying to learn how to do things on the iPad. I couldn't figure out how to transfer my pictures from my phone. I have it figured out now. So the room is getting put to good use. I have finished the baby quilt I was working on for Dave's Jeep buddy. I started working on the red and black floral dragon quilt for my friend Michelle but have put it aside to work on the blue and gray take 5 quilt for the Airmen at work, I found out that his birthday Friday so it is making me get it done, no more procrastination! Clarinda and I went to our usual shops last Saturday. This Saturday we a going to look at some new shops in Cincinnati. Dave has a Jeep Jam to go to so it is a good weekend to look at something new. I am not sure air Melissa is going with us. Tomorrow night I am hosting another purse party. Mostly to show off my new craft room :) I have a few ladies coming over so that will be fun. Well I just tried to upload pictures and it is not going to let me. Hopefully I can figure this out and get them posted.

Updates

I've been quite busy with work tasks. I'll be glad when the next few days are over so I can catch up with my regular work. I have not done much crafting either. I worked on the baby blanket, sewing around the panel lines. I am waiting on the frame to come so that I can roll all the layers together and quilt some of the animals so they will stand out some. Then I will just need to bind it. The frame I am getting will allow me to do some free motion quilting with my current machine. I hope it turns out as well as they show it in the instructional video. It will be fun to try doing the quilting myself although it won't be the fancy stitching of the long arm quilter. I am certainly enjoying my new room. I've already had my first sewing guest over. Melissa came on Saturday and she got a binding sewn on and work on a baby quilt using the disappearing 9-patch pattern.

This is the pattern I bought to make a quilt for Beryl. I was going to do something different but then saw this with the British Union Jack so of course I have to make it for her - Limey that she is..

Beryl loves purple so these are the materials that I am going to use. In the pattern you can see they did each flag different but I am going to do them all the same. I am excited to get started on it but I have to finish up the other three that I am working on.

This is my son Mark and his new girlfriend Jaclyn. I am so happy he has found someone and they seem really well suited.

Here are our remaining children still at home...LOL

This is my new iPad. I gave Jack my laptop for school and wanted a tablet. I got the Ipad and a neat carrier that has a key pad built in for it. I like it very much the only thing I have to figure out is how to save my photos from my phone so that I can post to this blog. I am currently using the little notepad that was Jacks to post this and it is quite slow. On that note, I will say bye for now and will hopefully have more to post in the upcoming days.

New Room!!!

My new room is complete!! I haven't had time to post to the blog because I have been moving things and putting stuff away. I think I finally have things set up the way I want it. It is still a bit messy but I'll get things put away by the end of the week. The floor turned out beautiful but now it makes the kitchen floor look bad so we will have to do something about that. The table turned out a little larger than we had thought it would so not as much room left as we were imagining in our heads but it is a great table and I can't wait to get one of the big quilts on it. Today David moved my felt design wall. This is the wall you see in my other pictures where the quilts are hanging. I just had felt tacked up on the walls and some plastic hooks to hang the quilts on. Now I have a nice framed felt wall and it looks great! I just have to figure where to put the hooks, I might get some of the clear ones. I haven't really worked on anything. I have a baby quilt going for Dave's friend but other than that I haven't done anything in about a week. I need to get the backings done for the Take 5 and the Yellow and Black so I can finally finish them up. Here are some pictures of the room:

Here is the big table. This is two dressers back to back and 3 IKEA table tops which Dave put together and then 4 IKEA legs. At far end is another IKEA table that is holding my sewing machine. On top are 4 cutting mats which gives me about 2 yards on the sides to measure. Also on top is the baby quilt I am working on.

This is my couch, lounging area, it is very comfortable. I take my 10 minute naps here...

This is the fireplace and TV, it is directly across from the couch. I am still figuring out the bench and cubes. Not sure if I like where they are. The table was originally going to go in this area but then we swapped everything when the table turned out so big.

This is the cube storage and a place for me to put my knick knacks. I have my mom's shoes and little vases displayed here.

Back to the table. It now has an IKEA lamp hanging over it and boy does it put out some light! Dave hooked up a remote to it so I just have to push a button to turn it on...very nice.

Just another view of the table. I am thinking about decorating the drawers with some decorative paper. Haven't made up my mind though.

this is close up detail of the molding Dave put around my felt design wall. I think it looks awesome!

Another picture of the design wall.

Another view of table and design wall. This is what it looks like from my couch That's about all the news from here. Jack and I went to the community college on Monday and sined him up for his first classes. They start 27 Aug. He has to get up and get to an 8 am class Mon-Wed-Fri, that should be interesting :) Talk to you later!

Braided Rug

I have been working on a braided rug this past week. I've gone as far as I can with the strips that I had from my scrap bag. I'll have to find a similar color pallet and cut some more or I may just get a plain beige and alternate with some color.

I secured my braid to the basket handle and then wrapped it around the handle as it grew in length. This kept tension on the braid. I am not sure how many strips I used or how long they were I didn't think to measure them before hand but final braid was about 4 yards long. So, to start you take 3 strips secure to something with a safety pin and start braiding.

To join the new strip in, you cut a slit in the end of the strip on the braid and the new strip. You put both strips slits together (material right side to wrong side) take the opposite end of the new strip (end without slit) and put through both slits and pull it through, pull tight. This will join the strips securely and you can continue with your braid.

After getting all the strips braided, you start shaping the rug how you want it. I decided to make this one oval. So, begin your center, I started with about 4 inches and then just start going around that center piece, round and round until you get to the end of your braid.

This is what my oval looks like right now. I am going to get some more material to cut into strips to finish it up. I'll probably do another 8 yards to make a fairly large rug. I will show how to sew it when I have finished with the next braid addition.

Here is a few pictures of the room. It is all done now. Going to start moving my stuff in tomorrow and hopefully be all moved in by Sunday. I am so excited! Dave did a really awesome job! I'll post more pictures once we get everything set up.

Craft Room

I decided not to add another border to the Yellow and Black quilt. I like it just the way it is. I need to do the backing for it but I am going to wait until I have my big craft table in my new craft room, it will make it much easier to square things up with the new table. I finished the Blue Take 5 quilt. I had it pretty much done I just needed to do the borders. I started on the boarders last night and stayed up until about 2 am to get it done. So, now I just need to do the backing for that one as well. I am still up in the air about whether to quilt them myself or send them to the long arm quilter. I think I will see once I get into my new room. Here is a picture of the finished Take 5 top:

David started working on the new craft room. He tore out all of the carpet and is stripping out all of the molding and patching the walls right now so we can paint tomorrow. We went to Home Depot today and got the wood flooring so he can put it in this week. We just came back from IKEA where we got two table tops to make the big cutting table. I also got some new curtains and a light to hang over the cutting table. I have been up here in the old room trying to organize things prior to moving down there. Hopefully, I can move by next weekend. Here are a few pictures of the room now.

This is the room looking towards the outer wall. The carpet has been ripped out. Looks like they might of had tile or linoleum squares on the floor at one time.

This is looking towards the front door. Puppy is helping Dave out by following him around! We have two of these dressers so we are going to put them back to back and put a top on it to make the new cutting table. I got a hanging light to put over the cutting table.

This is the pallet of flooring we got at Home Depot. 19 boxes in all. Two of them had damage so we got 10% off of them. Hopefully we got enough to do the whole floor. Each box does 13.1 sq ft. We have about 240 sq ft in that room. That's all for today, I have to get back to cleaning up this room!

One More Border

It has been a pretty good weekend. I got off early on Friday and went to a one-stop shop hop with Clarinda and Melissa. I picked up a few things there, a couple of kits and a couple of new things I hadn't seen before. Saturday Clarinda and I went to Creative Fires over in Springfield, OH. I found this great new flannel there and got a new pattern to try. It will probably be awhile before I work on this and it will probably go to the retreat with me in October. We also went to JoAnn's and Hobby Lobby while we were in Springfield. I took her out for lunch since it was her birthday and I got to ride in her brand new Ford Explorer, it was a pretty nice ride! I think it is about time for me to trade in my car for something new but Dave doesn't think so...LOL. Here are some pictures of the material I got:

These are the new fabrics that I got. The one on top is actually from last years line but I really liked it from when Melissa and Clarinda bought it last year so I took all that they had left. It will be the backing for the quilt.

This is a close up of the new floral. I really love this pattern and it goes well with the coordinating fabric.

This is the pattern I am going to use for this material. It is like a crazy quilt pattern. It is a bit involved because you aren't cutting out strips to piece together you actually cut out different shapes to put it together. Below are the pictures of the Yellow and Black quilt. I am trying to decide whether to add another border.

This is halfway through putting the borders on the sides.

This is how it looks right now. I think I will put one more boarder on it. That's it for tonight!