It's getting there...

Two more rows to go and this quilt will be ready for the borders. I'm going shopping today to pick up more of the creamy white that makes up the lattice. Sure hope I can find it! I have one yard left at home so that's enough to do the blocks I want to add. The binding will be one of the oranges used in the quilt... right Jenn?

Bright Reds ...mmmmm

Stopped by the LQS shop today to pick up some BRIGHT REDS for the strip swap on http://www.blockcentral.com/ (click on FORUM).... These look kind of orange in the photo but they are nice bright reds... SO PRETTY. I can't wait until these start arriving in my mailbox.

I'm adding the final rows to the my bright charm quilt today. It's 8 blocks x 10 blocks right now (4' x 5'). I think it needs a little more length and then it will get a plain white border (the same fabric used diagonally in the blocks. The binding, choosen by my DD Jenn, will be orange. Not sure what I'll use as a backing yet... I'll have to did through my large pieces and see what works with it. Maybe I'll let Jenn chose it since she wants this quilt.

Finished my Mother's Choice block

I'm happy to say that my "Mother's Choice" block is finished!! At least the first one... one more to do. I finished this off by using the English paper piecing method.. by hand. It's so much easier doing set in seams this way. The second block will be done by the method from the website.. gonna give that a try. I know it will be easier but will it be precise?... you know.. all the points meeting where they should. We'll see...

Movie Night!

This is a picture I took last night at about 2am. The film crew are shooting a scene where the "bad guys" have just torched the house and the cops are arresting them. The guy on the motorcycle is our friend and real estate person from town that is doing some stunt work for the movie. The second photo is a contolled burn of the house. The firemen are inside trying to put out the fire so that they can shoot another take. The fire got a little out of hand at one point and started the porch on fire but they cleaned it up quickly. We tried to stay to see the part where the whole house goes up in flames but it got to be 4am and Al was tired and frozen...went down to the 20's last night.

Making a movie in Charlevoix...

We have a film crew making a movie in Charlevoix. Tonight they are burning a house as part of the filming. This is house...sniff, sniff... It's kind of cute, don't you think? I have a soft spot for old homes.. I have albums FULL of pictures of them. I love the porches, the pillars, the screen doors.. EVERYTHING!

So tonight at midnight, it's going to be torched. Al and I will be there to take some pictures (if I don't fall asleep in my chair). I'll post them tomorrow if they come out.

My NEW BLUE Quilt

Well, it's getting there... I have about 5 more blocks to make before I sew this all together. I'm adding a border of HSTs around it ... I want a sawtooth look, then a 12" white border, then another sawtooth and finally a dark blue border. I'm planning on doing some applique in the white area.

Now here's the question I have for all of you... Would you use aqua leaves and stems on the flowers or green? I was thinking maybe even a deep teal or blue/green so that I'm still all blue but with the feeling of green. Not sure...

The flowers will be all shades of blue and there's going to be stems of berries (BLUEBERRIES) coming off the vines here and there. I'm so excited about this quilt. Blue is one of my favorite colors. I made a quilt YEARS ago in the sunshine and shadows pattern ...all blue. LOVED that quilt but it wore out and I tossed it (sorry... didn't realize how special quilts were back then). So this is going to be my new BLUE :)

How did you spend QUILTING DAY? I had the blues :)

This is my attempt to make the Mother's Choice block.

This weekend was my weekend to sew! I had a great time down in my sewing room stitching the hours away. Al had to work so I spent a good portion of that time sewing and then a little time cooking and baking.

I put in a few hours on my block for the FAVORITE BLOCK swap. My block choice was Mother's Choice. NOT AN EASY BLOCK!! At least the way I made it wasn't easy. I guess if I had followed the online instructions I would have been able to get both of them made in no time ....BUT NO... I had to do it my own way.. the old way. NOT FUN! I spent over 2 hours working on it and got a little over 1/2 way through. I'm going to finish it up the old way but the second block is going to be done using the instructions I found online. Can't believe that any lady (back in the day) would have made a WHOLE quilt from this block, unless they did it completely by hand... too many set in seams for a machine to do it correctly.

Well enough ranting and raving about that... After getting almost nowhere on that blue block, I started making some really easy strip blocks with my blue fabrics. I have blue fabric overflowing EVERYWHERE so it's time to make some scrappy quilts using up at least a tiny bit of my stockpile.

Much needed SPRING CLEANING Day

Today I started spring cleaning. I started with my bedroom. I know we've been gone for two months but where did all this DUST come from? Seems like everything needed a good wipe down... the ceiling fan was the WORST! We have an 11' ceiling in the bedroom so I needed to take the mattresses off the bed so that I could put a ladder in that area so that I could reach the fan. I'm not as steady as I used to be so this was a scary job for me. Almost lost my balance once but grabbed ahold of the fan (luckily it held!) to steady myself.

I got the windows washed inside and out... the baseboards nice and clean... vacumned under and around everything... even cleaned out a few drawers. When I moved this plant to clean around it, I found that it had attached itself to the wall (in quite a few places) and was slowly crawling up it! Guess it's been longer than I thought since I did some major cleaning... wonder how long it takes for a plant to grow this much.

Mom, if you're reading this, I REALLY am not that bad of a housekeeper... I just have a REALLY green thumb!!

A quick stop at Mom and Dad's

Stopped at mom and dad's on the way home from AZ. We didn't get a chance to do much visiting since we got in late and left after going out to breakfast but we needed to get home. Short but sweet!

Making a quilt from 6 inch charm squares

I'm making a new quilt using 6" charm squares that we are trading on www.blockcentral.com. I made a pattern where I cut the 6" blocks in half, diagonally then sew a 2" strip between them. After that, I lay my 6-1/2" template over it and square it off. I'm starting to get a nice collection of these but I cant decide on which version to make. I took a picture of 4 of the possible ways to put it together... which do you ladies think is the best? I'm leaning toward the last one.....

Change of plans

Tonight Al and I are checking into a hotel in Yukon, OK. (Shouting a hello to Jenell and Dorene!) Did quite a bit of driving today and we're both VERY tired. Just glad to be out of that car.. LOL. Tomorrow we hit the road EARLY and do another long day of driving. We had to change our plans.... we were going to visit our friends in Texas and Alabama but due to problems we're heading straight home.
Al's knees are really hurting him and his blood pressure is way up... he needs to see the doctor when we get back... no excuses! Add to that our broken phone... we are down to one cell phone and that got washed :( It dried out but only works when it's plugged into a wall plug. And even then it isn't working all the time... Two more days of driving and we will be back to the Detroit area where we can stay with Mom and Dad for a day or so then head up north.
The trip was SO FUN but these last few days have been VERY TRYING! At least with all the car time I'm getting lots of work done on my Seven Sisters...