Eye Candy

You will remember the above fabric that I got today.  I was making more 5x5 and granny squares tonight and was enjoying the bright colors so much I had to make some eye candy.  My wife just laughed at me when she saw these.

Might as well show you the other blocks I made but they are not the eye candy of the night sorry about not cropping images too tired tonight to care.

Fugly Wins and a Blog Hop

 I promised my self that I was not going to stay up too late tonight getting my blog post in for the day so I am home from work and going to do it first thing.  And to my delight piled high on my desk was 3 packages.  What fun it is to get mail.  I use to hate looking at the mail and now I love it.

The first to be opened was this wonderful fabric to the right from http://smalltownstitcher.blogspot.com/

Like every one of my fugly wins that my wife Tanya has seen, her first words is that's not fugly.  And then of course she lists the project I could make it into.  This one is destined to be a part of a quilt for her mother.  Her words is that looks so much like my mom.  If we added blaw blaw blaw (wait I have to admit like most men when the wife starts going on you just start saying ya ya and nodding the head at the appropriate time).  But hey as long as she has a plan I am happy and I am sure she will smack my head for not listening to all the important details she was sharing.  But she will re-remind me of them later.

 Next up Amy from http://threadrobin.blogspot.com sent me the bricks and batik fabric.  It is very pretty and I love it.  My wife is not a bright and flashy fabric person and this is not on her list of likes (in fact any thing I have suggested similar she drags me in another direction). My my mind is calculating a good project for it.  Though my first thought is wow some of those would look neat in my 2 1/2 cuts for my granny quilts and other 5 x 5 blocks and depending where the cut ended up it might be in purple, maybe in blues or pinks or yellows and a few others (oh ya more colors on the same material on other side).

As for the bricks the plan is to make some "Love At Home" Decorations.  We have been trying to work with our kids over the last few years to convince them that if they love each other dad will have less of a desire to clunk their heads together.  Has not worked so far but maybe some decorations will help.  My wife has even offered to hand sew the text on for me and do other things.  I am unwilling to hand sew its not my thing but a plan is in place.  If you remember right last week I got some clouds too that would go great with the little houses.  So maybe in a month or 2 will have something amazing to show you.

As for the last package it was HUGE I had never though about it when I won these, but man it takes a monster envelope to shove rulers in.  I won these rulers in the Craizee Corners Nifty Notions Cut for the Cure Giveaway One thing I love is rulers.  I now have 2 long ones one 6 inch wide one 8 1/2 wide.  I also have to smaller squares 6 inch and 8 1/2 the long ones I use to cut the half width of fabrics (folded so cutting full length across.  Then the littler ones to cut to size.  Also have a 12 1/2 inch square and then 5-6 other strange shapes.  So this will be a great addition.

Last but not least I want to mention the Leap Day blog hop.  As soon as I get done with this post I will go write my post for that day.  I have a giveaway that I am excited about.  More info on the hop by following the button on my side bar or this button here.




Don't be a fly on the wall for this hop, get involved.  It only lasts one day and if you miss it you can't get involved for another 4 years.

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