Working on Applique

Good evening,

The humidity is much lower and it is only in the 80's. I hope it stays like this for the rest of the summer, but I'm sure that isn't happening. LOL I don't have alot to talk about, but figured I'd do a post anyway. I crocheted some this morning on the pink baby afghan while watching The Great Outdoors on DVD. We love John Candy movies. We have watched 2 of his movies this week. Also watched Uncle Buck. His movies have brought a lot of laughter to our family.

I have the first 2 parts appliqued on the Birds and Blooms. I think I like the starch and pressing under the seam allowance. Not so sure about the washable glue. I have learned to use very little drops of washable glue and only on the seam allowances. It gets hard and is frustrating to get the needle through. I also learned that the little holder for the tip of the mini-iron also gets really hot. The first day, I burned my right index finger on the rod of the mini-iron. Yesterday, I burned the left index finger on the little holder thingy. I unplugged the iron and grabbed the holder without thinking about it. I just planned to move it. Hmmm, now I am thinking maybe this mini-iron isn't such a good thing for me. Anyone else have trouble with burning themselves while using it? Maybe I am just more of a clutz that I thought. LOL Here are the first two parts all appliqued down. I am getting better, but some of the eggs still had little points. I am just going with the story that the bird laid odd shaped eggs. LOL

I have the next section prepped and ready. As you can see I am back to pins. Maybe I will use the glue some when I get more at ease with appliqueing. I think there will be lots more of this in my future, because I am having so much fun with the Birds and Blooms.

I will work on this pretty soon. I need to cut out some more shirts for Kevin. He loves the shirt I made him and asked for 2 more. Hmmm, not sure if that is a good thing or bad. LOL I am glad that he likes what I made him, but didn't really plan on making more. My head is always full of quilt designs, not clothing. LOL Oh well, it won't kill me. He does lots for me.

I don't think I have shared these little scrap quilts that I threw together for our kitties. I had a bin with some leftover blocks from when I got carried away with a quilt. LOL So I drug it out and just started putting things together. Even the strips and sashing were in the leftover bin, so everything was already pretty much cut. I am sure this was meant to be, because I had just enough scrappy 9-patches left for this. I still have some rail fence blocks left. I have already used some of these leftover blocks in a couple of other projects. Even after making this, I still have a few. I must have really gone hog wild when I was making them. LOL I realized that I have come a long way in cutting accurately. Those red strips were cut about 3 years ago. I was amazed at how uneven they were. Oh well, the cat won't care. LOL I want to use these to practice machine quilting, but just can't quite get with it. I guess I should just do it and get them ready so my kitties can have them.

Before I go there is a great giveaway on this blog. Her birthday is July 18th and she is adding to the giveaway daily. So why don't you visit her blog.

Ok, I want to get busy with something. Everyone have a good evening. Thanks for visiting.

A Slow Tuesday

I never did make it to JoAnn's. I guess you could say that was my dh's Valentine gift. LOL I didn't make him drive me through all the traffic in his old truck. It has a clutch, so kind of difficult in heavy traffic. I told him I would catch their next sale. Not like they never have them. LOL We went to a local deli and I got some chicken tenders and mozzarella sticks (oh my, those mozzarella sticks are so yummy!) and dh got some chicken gizzards. We were both quite content. He left the decision on going to Ryan's up to me. I decided I would overeat there. I know the deli stuff wasn't real healthy, but sure was good. We spent most of the rest of the weekend working on the car. I am the 'go-for'. Dh hopes to have it back on the road by this weekend.

I decided to do a fun project on Sunday evening, so I whipped this up.

I basically took a couple of different quilt patterns, mixed them, and changed a few things to come up with this. I have the binding sewn on ready to handsew on the back. I plan to do that this evening. Look at this picture. The cat quilt is hanging over my machine and if you look right over the top of it, you will see Callie's nose. I didn't even realize she was back there till I was looking at my pictures. I think it is cute. I have been busy the past couple of days. I decided yesterday that I wanted to see my desk again. It was piled high with fabric in sacks that I hadn't folded and put away yet. I didn't take a picture of the mess. I really didn't want anyone seeing that, although it might have made me do better about organization. (grin) I spent over an hour folding fabric around my 6 inch wide ruler. Then I piled it all on my cutting mat. Can you believe all of this was on my desk?

In the back on the right, I have 2 stacks that have fabric of 2 yards or more . I have a couple of stacks of 1 yard pieces, a stack of 1 1/2 yard pieces, a stack of 1/2 yard pieces, a stack of 1/4 yard pieces, at least 3 stacks of fat quarters, and a jelly roll. Whew! The last thing I need is more fabric. I also have at least 5 bins of scraps leftover from previous projects. I really need to make some scrappy projects. I had to clean some stuff off my shelves to make room for all of this fabric. So I worked hard yesterday, but dh noticed and commented on how nice things were looking. (grin)

I also got the quilting lines drawn on the tulip quilt and have it sandwiched. It is ready to quilt, but I am trying to hold off till I get the Savannah Star done. Not sure if I will make it though. This one just looks like it will be so much fun to hand quilt. When I do small quilts, I usually just use pins to baste the layers together.

Doesn't this look like fun to quilt? I have lots of handwork ready. Tomorrow I have to go to the dentist to have a tooth pulled. So I know I will not be too energetic for a couple of days. I plan to just sit, watch tv, and quilt for the rest of the week. Not much more that I dread than going to the dentist, but I don't particularly like pain either. I will just be glad when tomorrow is over.

Look how my sweet potato has grown. I should be able to start pinching the slips off soon. I started this on Feb. 1st, so it has really taken off. The other one has not done as well, but it is growing too.

Tonight is the Biggest Loser. So I will be sitting in my rocker, quilting away, while watching tv. I only lost 1 pound last week. The deli stop might have contributed to this, but it was good! LOL I hope to do better at my next weigh in. My goal was to lose 10 lbs in Feb. So far I have lost 9, so I am happy. I think I will go watch the rest of Judge Judy. Thank you for visiting and please come again. If you think about it, I would sure appreciate prayers for me to be brave tomorrow.