Mosaic fun

Saturday's Black and White Mosaic class was fun. This version of a stained glass look uses strip piecing methods and goes pretty quickly. You make squares like this, then put them together with sashings for the final quilt.

Lots of great colors!

 I am off today, so plan on sewing most of the day. While I was making the Lotus quilt, I could see a pattern the blocks make that looks like flowers, if the coloring is placed differently, so I cut out some more jewels yesterday using the HexNMore ruler. I want to play a little with the patterns you can get by placing the colors in different arrangements. I will try to remember to take pictures as I go...I do play around with different settings a lot but don't always remember to take pictures of the steps.

I went to Mangelson's yesterday and got more of the small dot print to make more pillows for the library. I was glad they still had it as it was on the clearance wall. If you live in this area, they have a nice selection on their clearance wall right now at 30 & 40% off.

I'm so behind on posting....

     This week has gone by so fast. My class last Saturday went well, with lots of ladies sewing feverishly to get their blocks made. It's amazing what people can get done when they have uninterrupted sewing time.    

 I had two of my three monthly night classes this past week, so that kept me busy Monday and Wednesday nights. It's fun watching student's skills improve as they progress on a sampler quilt.

I am still playing catch-up at school, as I try to familiarize myself and the students with the new library. All the books are in new places! I still have a list of things to get done, but it is slow going. It is hard to get into a routine too, though I know it will come. It sort of feels like a new job. But it is really nice to walk in to such a beautiful place to work each day and it will eventually come together.

My daughter and I went to my hometown for another great-nephew's birthday party Sunday. He was the second of three great-nephews born in the last year. I had a great time...here is the birthday boy with his books from us. 

 Here is last month's birthday boy with his grandma.

 Love that cake!

That darn witch....

You might remember that I put up a display of Wizard of Oz fabrics and books to reflect our moving back theme of "There's No Place Like Home". The kids love the witches legs I made the best! I have gotten all sorts of comments, my favorite being "Where's her head?" as they try to look underneath to see the rest of her. And lots of them just have to touch them too! Most of the kids get the movie reference, but not everyone does. Some just think I like Wizard of Oz. It's been fun! I plan to move the legs around the library a bit for the next week or so, kind of like Where's Waldo, before I take the display down. 

My sister and her husband are flying back to Vancouver Island tomorrow, so some of my family will be bringing them down tonight. We will all meet for dinner and then they will stay here so they are closer to the airport for their morning flight out. It's been nice seeing her more this holiday season, and we'll miss them!

I am teaching the Peas in a Pod class tomorrow, so I will take lots of pix to share! 

Circle pillows are IN the window now!

 I brought the circle pillows to school and put them in the window....it really is a big window! They are about 25" and seven of them don't cover it. They almost do if I don't bunch them up, but they look nicer piled up a bit. Guess I need to make about 3 or 4 more if I want them all the way across!

 I have some of the fabrics from the Circle and Spin pillows left, so might be able to piece something together for the fronts. Or I might go see if I can get some of the small, circular fabric I used on most of the backs and just make some pillows out of it.

It looks great with the rest of the pillows.

I'm still not used to the beauty surrounding me every day....but I do love it!

 I haven't taken any pictures of the mess I had left to clean up...unpacked boxes etc...but I can walk through now behind my desk, so it is getting better. I had put all of it behind the desk to keep it out of the way of the kids.....I have been open to kids all week, so have been working on it gradually.

Conrad looks so big now when he stretches out on the floor....like he's posing for me!

I have worked on the flying geese blocks and quilt some more this week, am figuring out the borders now. My stitching group meets tonight, so that will be fun. I always love to see them and what they are working on. I need to cover some pillows for my daughter, Rachel, so I might work on those tonight, if I feel ambitious. Sometimes we do actually sew!

Flyaway, flyaway again

I spent some time the past few days working on these flying geese blocks. I made a small quilt back in Sept. to take to a demo I was doing and decided I wanted to make it bigger. I have almost enough blocks finished, but think some of them are too busy (large polka dots, for one) to go with the others, so today I am going to make some more. Hopefully there will be enough eventually to have a nice mix of colors and I can start sewing it together!

I don't often take pictures of quilts in my sewing room, but I have my extra table set up right now so it is the perfect place this morning.  It's not a large room, and I have my computer, TV and sewing machine in it, but with 6 windows with south and west exposure, it is usually bright and cheerful. 

Winter break is over and it's back to school for me tomorrow. That means I'm back to the job of putting together the new library. Even though I got the main job of putting the books on the shelves finished before break, there is still a lot to do. I bought the pillows yesterday to go inside the new pillow covers I made last week, so it will be fun to see how they look next to the big window. I will be open for student checkouts tomorrow, so I will just have to gradually get things finished in between. 

Busy week off!

 I went to my folks' house on Tuesday for New Year's dinner. It was great, Nancy insists on making everything. She has a special recipe that she uses to bake the halibut and it is wonderful. My sister Sharon made lots of candies for the holiday season, so we had some of those and some of Mom and Nancy's decorated cookies for dessert. It was a great day and fun to spend time with family.

I finished the borders on Wendy's quilt on Monday, so took it up to show off...and got some tall guys to hold it up for me. Now to find a backing and get it quilted.

Sharon has her quilt top finished, and it is beautiful! If you enlarge, you can see the small pinwheels on the bottom row of the quilt. Her grandson was running around while we were taking the pix!

Here is a closeup of the borders on Wendy's quilt that I took at my house, so the coloring looks a bit different, but is pretty true. I love the wavy pattern of this blue/green batik and she loves it too!

I spent Wednesday sewing with friends at the store....my last time before going back to work on Monday. That was fun, lots of laughs and I got some flying geese blocks made. Yesterday two of my sisters and my mom came down shopping, so I spent the day with them. It was fun. It was mom's first shopping trip in a long time and she found lots of goodies.Since it was my sister Debs's birthday, she chose Cheesecake Factory for our lunch destination. It was delicious!

 I had to snap these pics the other day....I guess HyVee makes good nap sacks!

Not sure what is on the agenda today, probably a little sewing, maybe a little cleaning, and dinner with friends tonight. I can't believe my time off is almost over, and I will be back to work on Monday.

Happy New Year and a Lotus finish

 I finished the Lotus quilting yesterday, and sewed the binding on, so I guess it is my last finish of 2012. I don't really keep track of all the quilts I make or finish throughout the year. Maybe I should, but I don't think like that. I don't make resolutions either, but I do know what I want to accomplish and just aim for that. I don't always have time to quilt and bind quilts before teaching the classes because of my day job, so I finish what I can, and try to catch up on some of the others when I have time.

I wanted to quilt this one before hanging as a class model because the pieces are cut on the bias somewhat, so I was afraid it would get wonky if I didn't. I basted the raw edges since it doesn't have a border.  I had a hard time choosing the quilting pattern as the quilt is so geometric and I wanted something to soften and curve, but didn't want to do flowers. So I used Oriental Illusions, which wiggles around and looks like crab legs to me.

 I used a black batik with a circular pattern for the back and gold variegated thread. I like the quilting to enhance but not take over, so this thread blended well with the fabrics.

 I am going to my hometown today. My sister, Nancy,  always brings halibut from Canada with her (bought fresh, then flash frozen) and treats us all to a delicious New Years Day dinner. She will be here for another 10 days before she heads home. I am also going to check and see if she had a chance to work on her quilt anymore since Sunday. I know Sharon did, so I hope she brings it with her today so I can take more pictures! Happy New Year!