Vintage #3

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Originally uploaded by nkiblueeyes

Vintage #2

IMG_1277
Originally uploaded by nkiblueeyes

Vintage #1

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Originally uploaded by nkiblueeyes

Accountability

I cannot quit cold turkey.

I admit it.

So how about I skip Flickr totally for a few days...

And how about I use you as my accountability partners, oh Internet people..?

Here's how I spent my day:

Up at 8:30.  Hard to get out of bed.  Up too late last night...  Hurried shower, dressed the boys, messy kitchen to tackle while making breakfast... grumpy kiddos...  Thomas the Tank Engine makes everything better...  Phone call from the in-laws, plans to drive out to Baldwin City to the John Deere Tractor dealership to get Owen (my youngest) a couple of birthday gifts.  He was uninterested in the kids' toys... but he was ALL OVER the big boy toys...

But big brother, Wyatt found LOTS of toys that he wanted...

Ultimately, I bought a John Deere DVD (one of our favorite things) and a big tractor.  My in-laws got Owen a new John Deere ball cap and an excavator.

It was raining.  A lot.  And it was lunch time, so we went to get some pizza... Owen fell asleep on the way home.  Too much excitement, I guess.  Got the boys to bed and helped my mother-in-law with a couple of things...  Then she left, so I decided to set a timer and work in my attic on some sewing.

Am trying to get blocks ready for a signature quilt for her anniversary party.  With about an hour's work this afternoon and another 20 minutes tonight, I finished the blocks!  Here are a couple of pictures:

I'm really happy with it!  These are all 5 inches.  Made from two charm packs.  Love them.  Must do this again for myself.

So then I did LOTS of laundry.  Washed the vintage sheets I got yesterday and folded them nicely.  I have a couple of ideas for them in mind...

Did Mexican food for dinner and it rained on us trying to get to the car to go home.  A lot.  And it's cold.  57 degrees.

Then the boys played with their daddy while I worked on more laundry (never ending)...  When everyone was tucked in, I decided that I could sew for a while...

Here are a couple other things I worked on tonight:

These are the potholders I'm working on for my potholder exchange at our June KCMQG meeting.  I love them.  Might have to make others because I want to keep them....

And I also worked some on my red scrappy quilt.  It's 120 inches by 66 inches.  Needs to be 100 x 120.  More than halfway there...

Then I decided I'd better call it a night... 

Went to check on Wyatt and found him sleeping in a pile of toys on the floor.  He always plays until he collapses...  Such a sweet little thing.

Long day.  Very tired.  Owen's birthday party this weekend... Family in town next weekend/anniversary party.  Busy times.  Hope I get another chance to sew in the next week... It's my therapy. :)

I Don't Know About You Guys, But....

I'm finding less and less time to quilt because I spend so much time looking for inspiration online.  I spend my last 2-4 waking hours (late at night) curled up in my bed on my laptop just goofing off.  Before the days of Flickr and quilting blogs (or before I knew about them, anyways), I'd have been spending that time in the attic sewing!

So for the rest of the week (or maybe just for a couple of days), I'm going to stop looking at Flickr.  I'm going to stop looking at Bloglines.  I'm going to stop looking at Facebook.  We'll see how much I get done (or at least how much sleep I catch up on!!!)....

Will post pictures of my progress in short order.  BYE for now!

Jumping on the Bandwagon

So Carla and Lauren have gotten me interested in this whole vintage sheet thing...  Apparently, everyone's doing it.  They're participating in a fat quarter exchange of vintage sheets!  Brilliant.  But unfortunately, I missed the deadline...

However, it's probably for the best because before this afternoon, I owned nothing in the way of vintage sheets...

But this afternoon, I went to Savers and walked out 10 minutes later with $45 worth of vintage flat sheets and pillowcases.  Pillowcases were a buck a piece.  Sheets were around $4 or $5 each.

Gotta get those tags off of them and wash them up!  Then chop them up!

Unfortunately, the laundry fairy hasn't been here in several days... Had to put the kiddos in their least favorite pairs of jammies tonight because of it... and I'm starting to run out of clothes, too...  So priority must be washing clothes until I catch up (about 5 loads worth!  geez!) and then I'll be more free to work on my new collection.

I am thinking I'll go ahead and chop them all up into fat quarters.  Then I'll keep a couple of each print in one pile for me... And I'll start up a new collection to save up for the next time they do a vintage sheet exchange...

Most of what I found (sorry I haven't taken a picture yet) were florals with white backgrounds.  Would like to find more with blue backgrounds (my favorite color) and maybe other color backgrounds, as well.  But today I bought all they had.  Need to go to Goodwill (there are two stores nearby) and the other Savers in Leawood...  But probably won't get to it until early June.  I think I'll shop for some in Little Rock when I go visit some family in a couple of weeks.  I also intend to raid my mother-in-law's linen closet and my grandmother's as well...

Will try to post some pictures for you tomorrow afternoon when they're all freshly washed... :)

Another Sneak Peek

My mother-in-law and father-in-law are having their 50th wedding anniversary in a couple of weeks.

We'll be celebrating with a party.  I'm going to have a bunch of these blocks ready for all of the guests to sign... And we'll put together a nice little memory quilt.

All of the blocks are 5 inches square.  I made these out of two charm packs.

What do you think so far???

Sneak Peek...

Am making some potholders... Wanna see what I've done so far???

Tataw's Quilt of Valor

So my mom helped me out on the Quilt of Valor that my friends and I have made for my grandfather who was in WW II.  I finished the top and she coordinated with a quilter in Oklahoma who volunteered to quilt it.  Then she finished binding it for me, washed it and gave it to my grandfather (they both live about 6 1/2 hours away from me).  My cousin took a picture of Tataw (he's 90) and his big sister, Mary (she's 96).

Isn't it sweet how she is sitting so close and holding his hand?  She's visiting for a few days and she lives a little over an hour away from him.  We are so fortunate to have so many long-living people in our family.  Two of their sisters have passed away in the past few years, but they have another sister named Rena who is 92.  Unfortunately, Rena has been deaf most of her life and is now almost blind because her eyesight has deteriorated so badly.  She always has a smile, though.  I hope I can be as fortunate as they've been and live into my 90's.  Think of all the quilting I'll be able to accomplish if I have that much time!!!

Can't Sleep

So tonight was my KC Modern Quilt Guild meeting.  Such enthusiasm in the group!  Am so happy to be a part of something so fresh and energetic.

Had margaritas with some friends after the meeting...

And then came home, peeked in on the kids, texted the husband who was working in the basement to tell him that I needed to play in the attic and then I dashed upstairs.  I've had some white flannel 6 inch squares cut out for a few days.  I could hardly wait to start on a new project I've been thinking about...  

Aren't they fun!?!

What do you think about the pink with it?

Or maybe I should go with some red or blue... and then I could use it for my boys on their beds...  Or maybe I need to buy some flannel to back it with to make it extra cuddly...

I don't even know how many of these I'm going to make...  I haven't quite finished cutting out the white squares.  The fabric for the squares was leftover from a previous project...

The rest of the fabric is from my stack of squares and from my scrap basket.  I could make these for days.  I just love the look.

A Night of Binding

Pictures will have to come tomorrow (too tired tonight), but I finished binding the baby quilt I made for my cousin (the ticker tape one) and also the yellow block I quilted to be a wall hanging in my bathroom.  Am dissatisfied with the quilting and with the binding on the wall hanging, but it's done.  Am relieved.  Binding is not my favorite thing.

They'll both go in the washer with a color catcher in the morning and I'll bring them for show and tell to KCMQG tomorrow.  Then Friday, I think I'll try to get the baby quilt into the mail.

Taking the boys to the eye doctor in the morning for a yearly checkup.  Going solo...  Hopefully the kids will go easy on me.  Will bring plenty of snacks and choo choos...


Since my oldest (Wyatt) gets to be on my banner, here's a recent picture of my youngest, Owen.  They're both charmers.

:)

Playing With My Banner

Went to a little class on blogging and Flickr last night and I've been playing around with my pages...

Added a banner with a picture of my son that was taken a couple of years ago...

Blogger isn't very flexible, but I am thinking of messing with the html... We'll see!

Hexed

I've been playing around with hexagons.  Got a bunch that were already cut out from my friend, Paula a while back.  I have never worked with them before.  Not quite sure which method I prefer, but I've been trying a couple different ways of going about putting them together...

Here's my progress so far...

Hexes

I'm thinking of doing some hexagons...   Haven't ever done them before, but I wanna...

A friend gave me a BUNCh of hexes already cut out for a couple I Spy quilts...

Trying to think of something cute I could do with them...

And also thinking of doing some red hexes with different fabrics to use in my bedroom somehow... Would look so great on a black background, wouldn't it!?!

No pictures yet...  Soon, tho...

Ticker Tape Quilt

So I'm loving my new pastime...  Surfing other quilters' blogs...

And I came across this great idea to make a ticker tape quilt...

So here's my version.  I used a panel (I'm not a panel person... was given to me) for the back and just random squares and rectangles on the front...  Will be sending it to my distant cousin who lost her home a couple of weeks ago in Yazoo City, Mississippi and then had a new baby boy the next day.

Hopefully I can tack down the binding and bring it for show and tell to our KCMQG meeting next week... and get it into the mail by next weekend!

One More Purchase Today...

Besides the 144 yards of fabric... I bought some colored bags to help me sort my biscuits for my biscuit quilt.  Now, at a glance, I'll see which colors I need to use to make more biscuits.  Want to see?

Score!

So I got a heads-up about this person locally who has an online quilt shop but is trying to downsize and opened her basement for ONE hour tonight to sell fabric for (get THIS).... $1 per yard!!!  Had to buy the rest of the bolt, but WOW!  I got so much stuff.  Spent $144.  I also got 2 bolts of fusible interfacing for 50 CENTS per yard...  Oh, my.  Here are some pictures...

Can you believe it?!?  3 or 4 of the bots of fabric had never been opened.  Still had the plastic wrap on them!  I also got a whole bolt of yellow polka dot fabric.  It's very cheerful.  The second to the last picture with the gold, red, light and dark blue fabrics will probably be used for Quilts of Valor.  I will have a hard time sleeping tonight.

Serious Progress in the Attic

What a mess it was!  I still have a few boxes of things I need to go through, but my sewing room is ready to get serious about sewing again.

I still have fabric to sort and put away, but all of my equipment is upstairs now and (for the most part) put away.  I haven't put my design wall up yet, though.  It takes up SO much room, but it's portable and stands alone, so I'll probably put it up before too long...  The last picture was taken at the Blue Valley Quilters' Guild earlier this week when I presented, "Liberated Quilting" at a talent station.

All Play and No Work

So lately when I've had some time (kids sleeping), I've either napped or lamented on how frustrating housework gets when you are behind...

I played too much last weekend.  Mounds of laundry.  My sewing room never quite got organized and now it's a disaster again.  I have sewing things on 3 levels of my house and it's all supposed to be up in the attic...

I didn't drink any coffee today and the bed is screaming for me to just curl up and get 40 winks...

Should I?

Or should I be the responsible parent and try to catch up on this laundry (and run a load of dishes and sweep and mop the kitchen... and vac the living room... or maybe I should just start off by having a brownie and some coffee and see if the spirit moves me...

I'd much rather just quilt.

Yesterday, I went to Quilter's Haven (my closest store- one of my favorites, too) and found 3 fat quarters to help me finish my block for June's KC Scrappy Bee.  Yes, I know... I'm way ahead.  What I'm working on isn't due until mid July and I'm the one that it's due to (it's for my month of the virtual quilting bee) but I am so very excited about it and I couldn't wait to begin it!

Want to see what it looks like so far?  I don't have a picture of the fabric I just bought, but if memory serves, it's a blue striped fabric, a purple fabric and a pink one...

Well upon searching, it seems I haven't taken a picture of my progress on it just yet... So stay tuned.  Maybe in the next day or so I'll get it finished and snap a picture for all the world to see...

But for now, my freshly brewed pot of Dunkin Donuts French Vanilla coffee is calling my name... just a little louder than my pillow is...

See ya, friends!
Nikki

*** time passes...

Update:  4 cups of coffee later and I am jazzed.  I got 3 load of laundry folded and some of it put away... 2 more loads in the washer/dryer and only 3 more dirty piles to go!  Yes!  Also, I worked for about 45 minutes calling people to try to get a firm head count for my in-law's 50th wedding anniversary party (yes, 50 years.  Imagine!) and I had a brownie and some pizza.  Caffeine always makes me WIRED.  So I'd better keep at it...  Maybe my house will be recognizable by suppertime...

So Very Busy

Saturday, I worked during the morning with my Blue Valley Quilters' Guild working on Quilts of Valor and the afternoon with my Kansas City Modern Quilt Guild friends.

In between those two sewing events, I stopped by a 3 year old's birthday party and had some lunch and cake.  Played with my boys and their buddies and left all the rest of the parenting that day to my husband.  :)

Here's what I worked on at the KCMQG sewing day....

Ticker Tape Baby Quilt

Making this for my cousin in Mississippi's new baby.  He was born the day after the tornados that hit Yazoo City.  Their house is now uninhabitable.  They were luckily at her mom's house when the storms hit.  I will hopefully finish it up in the next week and send it to "Little Mike"...

I also put this block together.  It's from the color class I took last week.  I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it, but I think I'd like to make something with it to hang in my bedroom... maybe above the bed...

We were also given some fabric (the center square) to use to make a quilt block for a friend's daughter.  She is going to have to have some pretty major surgery, so we're going to make her a quilt.



Today I had some time to work, as well.  I am getting ready to do a presentation at Blue Valley Quilters' Guild on Liberated Quilting.  I made some blocks from Gwen Marston's new Liberated Quiltmaking II book.  Was fun to play around with new approaches...

Flying Geese...

Check Out My New Bee

Some people I'm acquainted with over at the Kansas City Modern Quilt Guild and I have decided to start a virtual sewing bee.  Check us out and keep an eye on us!  We'll be doing some fun stuff!