Granny Squares have taken over the building

 Today I want to start off and say sorry to http://grammieq.blogspot.com/ I won a fugly bundle from them and I thought I had posted about it already but just realize I forgot too.  Or I am posting twice about it not sure which.

 Today I cut a 2 1/2 inch strip off every single FQ that I have saved up (while the ones I had not already done in the past) and as you can see their is a pile of them.

While I was doing all the cutting today I ended up watching the first 5 shows from the show Jericho if you have never watched this show before you may want to check it out it is interesting.

 Here is a close up thought it looked cool so had to post it.

 I also finished sewing together my brothers queen size rag quilt.  Rebecca my daughter even sewed X's in the last 20 or so blocks while I was cutting the above strips.  My wife, Rebecca, and myself each sewed some on this project.  It will not be completed (we still need to cut the edges of about 1/2 of it and wash it) for a couple more days but my brother has been pestering me for this one so it was a needed thing to get done today.

 Rebecca spent some time today also sorting all of my 2 1/2 inch squares into piles and then putting them into bags to keep them all strait.  After sorting all of them she decided I had to do my pink blocks today.

 I ended up with 2 5 x 5 blocks in pink today.

And 5 of the Granny Square blocks.  I now have squares cut for maybe 5-6 more colors sets and we even found a few more green, purples mixed in so may end up with another block or 2 their also.

My wife made the comment though that maybe we will have to make more then 2 for the grandmothers maybe with luck I will get to make one for me.

The addiction has expanded!

Having one sewing machine in the house is not working, so we have Expanded a little. We have been looking into getting a 2nd machine and my wife has been reading, looking, and pondering what to buy. This machine was on sale at Hancock fabric and my wife decided to buy it. We went to get it last night and got there too late, so we went this morning.  My wife went with me for fear that I would come home with the embroidery machine I keep talking about.

Rebecca quickly put it to use and made this doll a bed complete with a brand new quilt.  She first made a pink block for Julia, our not yet born new one. You can see it on the left of the picture below.  Then she made a pillow.  Then she made a mattress.  Then getting bold she decided to make a quilt.  She had originally planned to just make 2 pieces of material and sew them together.  I talked her into a little bit more fancy and it turned out fantastic.

One last picture of Becca while sewing.  She plans to make a post on her new sewing blog in the morning, but it got too late.  I could not resist posting about it first, so some time Sunday I will give a link to her complete post.

Just so you all don't think I am sleeping all day, I have been sorting, cutting and piecing together granny square blocks and some 5 by 5 color coordinated blocks.  Like normal I can't do things simple.  My plans are to make 2 quilts out of the granny square blocks.  Fitting for the name, the plan is to give them to our Grandmothers.  Both Tanya and I, have one living grandparent each and that is a grandmother on each side. I plan to make them each a lap quilt.

Oh the green ones by way were Saturday night and the purple ones some how missed getting posted from Friday night.

Oh and if not enough other things happened today I also got some mail from Karen at http://www.kaholly.blogspot.com/ she sent me some denim to add to Jared's quilt.  Jared was pleased to see it and of course asked me when it will be done.  I have gotten totally distracted and not worked on it in a month.  So it seems that soon I need to put more of a effort into it.  The plan for the Denim quilt is to tie it after I get the top sewed together.  Because of the weight, the plan is hand tie the quilt, the way my mom did when I was a kid.  When I started this adventure a month ago, I did not realize you could do it all on a machine.  Anyway I got quilting frames from my mother in law, that was missing 2 boards and some clamps to clamp it.  I bought the boards and clamps today.  I am going to use the board to help me stretch out my next quilt and bast it on the quilting frames so I can try to get a little less pucker going.  My plan was today to quilt the fugly top I made last week, but it looks like it will be a Sunday project (if I go to bed this 12am posting is not going to be good on my sleep).

As a last quilting thought, a guy down the street from me created this cool tool which he sells for $20.  It helps you put the tacks in the old fashion quilting frames and pull them out. The tool on the left is a push tool that pops the tacks in and then you pry-bar them out with the bar on the right.  I also picked this up today.  If any one is interested in these little toys let me know and I'll get the guys contact info for you.

Just in case you think all I do is quilt (I do a lot of it but I do other things) I created a new blog to go along with my http://trackmyshows.com site which is designed to help track the TV shows you watch.  The blog is at http://trackmyshows.blogspot.com  I am still setting it up and deciding what to do with it but it will be a place I can post about some of the more popular shows being tracked via my tracking site and info about those shows and a place where those interested in TV can talk about it.  Any way I have had a few comments about wow you do so much.  My quilting is just one of my passions.  TV is another (tracking it as much as watching it).  Also my wife and I are both involved in scouting.  My wife is a Webelos Scout leader in Cub Scouts and I am a 11 Year old Scout Leader (Webelos are 10 years old) and I have the 11 year old's the year later you can see one of the fun activities I did with the Cooking post I made last weekend on Beccas blog here along with pictures of our scout and my assistant leader. BBQ Chicken and Rice with the Scouts

A Few Of My Favorite Things

 Another finish for my wife Tanya and I, she is the one responsible for this quilt.  It was her idea and she sewed the X's in I believe most of the blocks.  I did sew all the blocks together though,  and she points out that the 3 blocks I managed to put side by side on the bottom 3 rows(all the same) was my fault not hers.  I did pretty good not getting others side by side.  The black ones that are side by side are different colors of black.  This will be for Tosha my wives's sister.  Tanya is the oldest in her family (Her dad calls her #1) So this quilt is for #2.  She is the mother of the girl that will get one of the Dragonfly Quilts.

The quilt has purple, black, butterfly's, and dragonfly's.  So Tanya called it "A Few Of My Favorite Things"

The back of this quilt is  roses that I first bought for my man quilts, but later was told by wife, not manly enough lol so they have been re purposed.

Ank my Block Partner sent me the below block.  She felt that the first block she sent was not as good as she desired so she sent this as a replacement.  I loved her first block and I love this one also its hard to tell but the background is a aqua or light green with purples It is totally beautiful

You can see the other block she sent on my block swap page. here

Tonight I did not get a lot done. I cut up some white squares for my granny square blocks I have been working on and was able to finish these 2 5 x 5 blocks in green and have the squares for 4 granny square blocks sitting next to the sewing machine.  I did not get a lot done tonight because I took Tanya, my wife, out to dinner to her favorite Mexican Restaurant Garcia's near Layton Hills Mall. I had the plan of afterwards going to buy a new smaller sewing machine that my daughter could use (and wife or me depending who is using the other). It was funny we got to Hancock Fabric 10 minutes after the store closed.  They have one on sale that my wife found and read the review on. It was kinda funny that we were just a few minutes too late to buy it.  So Rebecca (my daughter) and I  will go buy it in the morning.

One last thing remember to put your guess in for the baby quilt giveaway links for the 2 pages to put the guess on is found on top of menu on the right of the blog.

Linking too

http://emsewandsew.blogspot.com

http://quiltedeuphoria.blogspot.com

Link A Finish Friday #5

The Goal for me this year is 52 Finishes in 52 weeks help keep me honest and show off your own finishes at the same time its a Link A Finish Friday!!

This Week 4 finishes including this one Sweet Dreams.  2 were quilts and 2 were hot pads.  That puts me at 9 completes for February (though will maybe have another tomorrow afternoon finished but will put that into next weeks) and I have 7 finishes for January.  So that's 16 finishes so far this year and we are into week 8 So I am right now at a rate of 2 per week.  But I am sure in a month the new baby will slow me down a little.  Don't forget to put your guesses in Julia's Quilt Giveaway as this finish this week will be one of 4 choices.

So for the rules.

1) Who likes rules. Toss them out.
2) Add a link to your finish blog or where ever you show off your finishes (Not limited to quilts but I like them the most).
3) Visit a few of the finishes and comment or encourage them on.

Not Required but fun to do

1) Follow my blog.
2) Follow the blog of all those that link.
3) Link back to my blog.
4) No finish, go quilt and stop reading the web.

Another Direction, Easily Distracted

I never realized how exhausting it could be to just cut up little squares.  I have gone though about 2/3 of the scraps and left over stuff from other projects and made 2 1/2 inch blocks for my granny squares and also my 5x5 color blocks for 2 different quilts I want to make. 

 I don't have any where near enough variety yet to make a cool quilt but I have a ton of a few things (Green, Purple, Orange, Black/Gray's) I need a lot more of a few colors. 

 Good thing my wife has that huge FQ stack going to have to swipe some of it when she is not looking.  

My son Jared was trying to make a Fish with his wedgits and every time we went to take a picture it fell apart.  So just pretend that is a fish in the picture.  If you look over his left shoulder their is a sneak peak at Tosha's Rag quilt its a combo of purple and grays left over stuff from 3 previous quilts. 

Don't forget to stop by Friday and link up your finishes. I promise the Linky will work this week.

Also remember to put your guess in to win a quilt.