Celebrating My Own Smith Mountain Morning!

The borders are on, it's ready to quilt and I am super happy to have this done. Much sooner than I had expected but this week I was free to sew without distractions, no little boy and DH is away in Colorado!

It went together so nicely, all the outer border pieces fitted perfectly without a whimper and it's nice and square. I have another quilt that needs to go on the longarm first, I have been waiting on the backing, then I can mail it back to it's owner, but after that I will quilt SMM, maybe even later this coming week, woohoo, can you tell that I am excited about this one!

I went to Bernina Connection on Friday, they have a huge sale, so I picked up backing for SMM at 75% off.

And then just for fun a bit of this Goanna and Snake fabric to add to my Aussie fabric collection-truly I need to make a quilt with them perhaps this will inspire me!

Floorplan Quilt Has A New Home!

Today I delivered this to my friend who is facing major surgery in two weeks. I thought the colors were ocean like and she has an ocean/seaside theme in her living room and the Swirls I quilted on it remind me of ocean waves.

It's a comfort quilt to let her know that she is not alone.

This evening Smith Mountain Morning is together, tomorrow I will work on the pieced border. At this rate I do not have to worry about completing it before the new mystery begins! Might even get it quilted too.........

Somehow the camera never does justice to the colors, it's really much prettier!

Courthouse Steps Blocks For SMM

All 28 Courthouse Steps/Log Cabin blocks are done!

Tuesday Progress on Smith Mountain Morning

I am linking up with Heather over at Books And Quilts for Needlework Tuesday.

To date, I have completed the 28 star blocks, 16 blue and 12 brown.

There are a total of 784 pieces in these 28 blocks, so you can see why this quilt is not made overnight!

Currently I am piecing the 28 Courthouse Steps/Log Cabin blocks and I thought they would go faster than the stars but it seems to be taking me longer, there are all those 1.5" squares to sew onto the ends of the strips. In addition I was distracted by my audiobook and mistakenly sewed the squares onto the wrong strips so I had to remove all 116 of them and now I am sewing them onto the correct strips. Argh, that was an hour or more of wasted time! These 28 blocks also have a total of 784 pieces so it really should not take longer than the stars. With any luck these will be finished today and I can begin construction of the top tomorrow.
And now I am off to the gym for an hour or so!

Update on Smith Mountain Morning [SMM]

The last few days have involved a great deal of cutting, and some piecing of the great number of each  involved in a Bonnie Hunter Mystery quilt. SMM is no exception, and I am finally ready for the fun part, putting the blocks together to find out how they will look. The pieces, now ready for stitching may not look too impressive but what you see below is the result of many hours of rotary cutting, a bit of sewing and of course the all-important pressing!

I am using predominantly Civil War Replica fabrics for this quilt, it looks very traditional both in design and the scrappiness. This afternoon I even made a start on construction of the star blocks, and now I am hopeful of getting well under way with this before Thanksgiving. After having this quilt on my wish list for so long I am anxious to see it come together, the worst part for me is over, all the mind numbing cutting and I am excited to show my progress the next week or so.

Happy Halloween!

Superman!

Trick or Treating...........

first stop........

Daddy came direct from work......as himself!

 

After the first couple of stops Matthew got right into it!

Trick or Treat...........

I think he was slightly dubious about "Elvis"!

 Happy halloween!

This was the last stop at the home of friends where we went in to enjoy some adult type treats!

Smith Mountain Morning

This Bonnie Hunter design quilt has been on my list for a year or two since I quilted Andee's beauty.
I think it's my all time BH favorite so when I saw this post on Andee's blog I thought I must join in with Jo's challenge and finally get to work - isn't it beautiful?

Andee had given me her left over bits so I have incorporated those with my own fabric choices and been busily cutting.

It may not look like much but it is some hours work, and there is still much to do- I have yet to cut the strips for the Log Cabin/Courthouse Steps blocks and all the pieces for the borders!
And here I am also committed to Bonnie's newest mystery, Celtic Solstice which begins November 29th.
Sigh, this is absolutely all that I can cope with at one time, in fact SMM may have to become an ongoing project with no set timeline! Andee seems to be able to juggle a lot of different projects at one time but I cannot!

Walk For Autism

Today was the 8th Annual "Walk Now For Autism Speaks", here in AZ. at Tempe Town beach and all four Grandparents and an uncle came to walk for Team Matthew. We had a great morning and when we returned to the car we had walked over 4 miles, didn't need to go to the gym today!

Here is Nanna taking a picture of Grandnanna!

Left to right, Grandfather, Uncle Josh, Matthew, Poppa, Nanna and Grandnanna!

 Yah, we made it! It was quite warm by the time we finished so we are all happy it is now late October and no longer triple digits. There was also a 5K race but we decided to walk!

 A short break for lunch before heading home. Sprouts stores are one of the major sponsors and they had all kinds of goodies for participants of the event. Matthew even took a bite of hot dog, a new "adventure" for him.

Matthew has a whole selection of "goofy faces", he can be quite the little clown and he knows he is funny!
Nanna and I decided that next year we will be much better organized, we will have T-shirts made and try to do some fund raising ahead of time.

Thanks to all the generous supporters of Autism. Matthew is an amazing, clever and totally delightful little boy and we are so thankful for the opportunities now available to open up his world to us and our world to him.

Block Of the Month

We have only two more months to the end of this BOM from 35th. Ave quilt shop. I believe that next month we will make four more of these sort of blocks, and in December we receive lay-out directions and instructions for the optional applique stars for the border.

 I am not at all sure that these are correctly constructed, there is no color shown in the pattern directions [below] and the written instructions leave me wondering if I have interpreted aright!

Following the pattern I have done the best I could, referring to the actual picture of the quilt here.
I checked over on Andee's blog and her blocks look the same so I assume that we are both correct!
One more quilt completed, Floorplan-below- now has the binding. I do not like UFO's!

Butterfly Quilt

This one is also Hannah's.

The border is butterflies and there's an applique butterfly in the middle of the quilt. The batting is Quilter's Dream Angel, their non flammable batting without nasty chemicals! 

 Hannah prefers less dense quilting, the end result is a softer more "cuddly" quilt. The thread is a soft pink from Superior Thread Company that blends in nicely.

 The panto I used has flowers and butterflies all over - it's from Deb Geissler. These will go back to Hannah tomorrow for binding.

Hot Off The Longarm!

This pretty quilt is Hannah's creation for a family member

 I used a panto called "Garden Patch" by Donna Reinarts.........

 off white thread and Hobb's Heirloom batting.

The quilting design can be easily seen on the tone on tone backing.

I think it compliments the quilt top quite well.

The Grim Ripper........

Saw this very cute wall hanging on a friend's blog, Gari had made one, the pattern is from Fons and Porter. I came across it right when I was ripping out the quilting from Tobacco Road, and it seemed a very appropriate thing to have hanging on the wall in my longarm area. It's also "that" time of year, Halloween, when these type of decorations are all around us!

I used a novelty black fabric with sewing notions printed on it, "Bare Essentials" from RJR fabrics. The background and ripper handle are printed with quilting/sewing words, "TangledThreads" by Red Rooster fabrics.
After I was all done I realized I should have embroidered Grim Ripper, darn! Perhaps I will make another some time, it didn't take long.

Tobacco Road

Kathy made this one and I was able to finish quilting it [late] last night to return to Andee and Kathy today at the BOM pick up along with the Swoon quilt.

 I am so much happier with this panto, Maple Breezes by Judy Lyon.

You can see it from the back, it really doesn't show up on the front, except in the borders.
I will take a short break from the longarm and finish up a small wall hanging, then load another quilt mid week.

In Memory of Mum

January 13, 1918-October 18, 2001
I miss her still.

Andee's Bed Quilt

This delightful quilt Andee is keeping, it's for her bed! 

 The lady gives away almost everything she makes so it's nice to know that she will enjoy this one in her own home.

 The batting is Hobbs Heirloom and the thread Superior So Fine in white. The quilting is more dense than I would normally do, but Andee has puppy dogs and at least one kitty I think, and if they spend any time on our beds our quilts need to be very sturdy to survive our four legged friends and the additional laundering they often require!
Tomorrow I hope to begin again on Tobacco Road, I would like to deliver both quilts to Andee at the 35th. Ave. store on Saturday when we collect our BOM.