Summer Fun hot pads

A week or so ago I got a large box of fabric from a neighbor of mine. It was fabric from their mothers old quilting stash.  I was very happy to take it off their hands.  I have been going though the box looking for things to do and found a lot of fabric that I called plaid.  Well my wife tells me that I am wrong that its actually called gingham.  Well I told her I am a guy and I can call it what I wanted. She punched me.  I seem to irritate her well when pregnant. LOL.

So any one that guessed the 18 for the birth day your wrong. (Wife tells me I should be more tactful.  Its been a long week.)  My wife is still waiting for the day to fast approach.  Her next appointment is tomorrow and we are hoping for better news about her body being ready.

My wife was laughing when I was making them.  As I show you my process you might laugh too.  I have this 4 1/2 inch diamond ruler and while I have wanted to use it since the day I got it.  So I took the Plaid (ya ya Gingham) that was while spring/summer colors and started cutting up diamonds out of them.  The whole time my wife sat on the couch moaning about Julia kicking her.  Once I got done sewing them into rows I sewed them into a giant Diamond.

Then the fun began as both the wife and daughter started to pester me about what the heck I was doing.  All I knew is I wanted to make hot pads to practice more FMQ on.  Any way I diced and sliced the giant diamond into 8 hot pads roughly 8 1/2 inches in size and 1 mug rug.  I had read on a blog about the joys of basting with that nice spay glue stuff.  So I took 4 of them and on the front porch I glued them together.  Now this is the point where reading instructions may have come in handy.  But I am a man and what fun are instructions.  If men read instructions, how would all the doctors keep in business.  No I did not hurt myself but freshly glued together hot pads and my wonderful sewing machine do not mix well. (That stuff sure is sticky).  I managed to break 5 needles and damage the bobbin holder on my sewing machine.  I gummed up everything.  Sigh.  Someone that is smart on this spray basting, please let me know the proper way to do things.

In the process of breaking all the needles I managed to mess up the bobbin holder.  Not to be discouraged, I got sand paper out and um repaired the holes I stuck into the bobbin holder, by sanding out all the nicks that were catching on the thread.  Needless to say I have ordered a replacement bobbin holder as mine is toast (though I did get them quilted and bound but never could get the FMQ done as I messed it all up.

Though one last note for the night and the means to to the madness I have 2 pot holders in the wash and as soon as they are dry I am taking them and the box that the fabric came in (they wanted that back) and a thank you card to the neighbor.  So it all ends a good day.  Oh and since I added the picture and forgot to mention it I received one of my 2 block swaps last week.  I updated my block swap tab above on the menu and added the 2 blocks I sent and this one that I received.

So wish us all luck that the baby will come soon.  And remember I will post a picture or 2 of the baby here when born but I will post a ton on her blog at http://juliadawnhealey.blogspot.com/