How Tanya and I make a great team

My wife and I have one of those schedules that really sucks.  I get up early go to work.  Tanya gets up takes kids to school. Tries to sleep some (she works late at night and daytime is her night).  I get home from work about 15 minutes before she leaves for work so we get to do the quick kiss, catch up on what the kids are doing and what she/I did and then she rushes off to work.

Well then I am brought down to the sewing room and she shows me a rag quilt that is finished being sewn (I will not tell you what it is so she can show it off when done).  She then shows me this stack.

The purple (and light purple thing on the right) is a folded up quilt top.  This is her sampler quilt that she did as part of the Beginner Quilt along over at quilting gallery.  She has sorta taken over where I failed on this.  Meaning that she is now going to finish her sampler top along with the 2 I was going to do, before I got distracted (I never do that).  Any way this stack includes the center of the quilt and my Job if I so agree (or even disagree whats it to her) is to sew the white strips on as a border.  After those are sewn on I am to sew the purple leaf things on as a second border so her top is done.  (She completed the  3 x 4 block center last night they are 12 1/2 inch squares)  Then of course she hands me another pile. 

These are some applique blocks that she has been working on for yet another quilt she is doing.  She tells me that I need to sew around the applique's as they are frustrating her.  Then of course she points at yet another item.

This quilt is one that I started quilting last night (she finished basting it last night)  she threw me the material for the binding, and told me to finish quilting it and bind it.  So now the question is can I get all of the projects done that I have been tasked with?  Or will I just get distracted with my http://trackmyshows.com/ website that I made quite a few changes on this last week. (I added ability to log in with Facebook and also to have the application write back to Facebook about your activity on site).   I know to all you quilters out their it sounds boring to program, but hey I have to do something to slow me down a little other wise my house is going to be floor to ceiling quilts.

Now as to the title of my post.  How Tanya and I make a great team.  I love to quilt and she likes to design and pick colors.  I hate to baste quilts and she is willing too.  I work on things that frustrates her and she works on the things that frustrates me.  So the magic of Richard and Tanya quilts is that Tanya and I make a great team (Or if you have been reading the message hidden in the post) Tanya is a slave driver.

HAHA  Just kidding good thing she is at work and won't be home for hours to smack me.

One last thing before we leave I want to announce the winner of our Link A Finish Friday for September.  

Another thing my wife does well is she picks winners.  Then she makes me inform the winners.  So today I was happy to let Amanda from http://fabricengineer.blogspot.com/ know that she won and got to pick 1 yard of fabric from Fat Quarter Shop. And below is what she picked Congrats.  And I look forward to next month giving away another yard of fabric.

Wait I have I guess 2 last things.  This weekend is the start of Sewing Summit which is happening here in Salt Lake City, UT (just a few miles in fact from where I live).  If you are going to be in Salt Lake City for it or even not they are having a get together Friday Night sponsored by the SLMQG I will be at this get together and I will sadly probably be sitting alone, as I am the Token Guy at a all girls thing.  Any way come kick me in the leg or something and tell me hello!  It will be at 

Gracie's at 326 South West Temple from 8pm Friday night to 1 am Saturday Morning  Hope to see you there.

Vacation and other fun things

My family the last few days took a long over due vacation.  We went up to Bear Lake, in northern Utah.  We of course did what we do best and that is work on a quilt.  Above is one of many tops we plan to make out of our ghastlie reunion material stash.  This one will most likely be Tanya's Sisters quilt we give for Christmas.  While we were on vacation I made 6 bands like the one on the bottom row.  We also framed about 30 of the picture frames (Tanya cut them kinda wonky on purpose, to make them look more interesting.)

While there Julia was as always helpful.  She is getting quite fast at moving.  Its so wild to think she is only 6 months old, but in just a few minutes can get from one side of a room to the other side and grab the only single item in the room she should not touch (for example she really loves my pedal for the sewing machine or the basket full of rulers and fabric).

Of course one of the best thing of going up in the mountains was the great views while driving.  The red's, green's, yellow's, and orange's.

Last week before vacation, I also finished up 2 blocks for my 12 1/2 inch swaps and canceled them.  I have been doing 2 swaps and one of them has been giving me great grief about how slow I have been on doing the swaps (which I was slow on some), but at the same time only about 1/2 of the time I got the block I was supposed to get from my block swap partner.  Anyways has any one other then me had issues with block swap partners?

For any one that thinks I have forgotten, tonight Tanya And I will pick the winner of Link a Finish Friday.  The winner will get to pick 1 yard of fabric from Fat Quarter Shops website.

Link a Finish Friday #35

It is now time for Link A Finish Friday.  Today I would like to start with a big Thank you to Fat Quarter Shop who has offered to Sponsor our Link A Finish Friday with Prizes.  This month's winner (September) will be able to pick a yard of fabric of their choice.

Please remember to thank our sponsor by visiting their store at http://www.fatquartershop.com/ their blog http://www.fatquartershop.blogspot.com/ and Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/FatQuarterShop

A new month has come and gone.  I will draw the winner of last month and announce it next Monday.

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.
4) Monthly random winner picked from all of the months linkups to one yard of fabric from Fat Quarter Shop.

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.

Work in Progress Wednesday #29

 Today is WIP Wednesday and sadly I have little progress to report.  I have not yet bounced back from the last few weeks with the stress of my dad and the rush of things to do that come with it.  I have nothing new to report but I have been working.

I have in the past done a number of quilts with 2 1/2 inch blocks.  Over the past 2 weeks in the little bit of time I have had between every thing else going on I have been going through the scrap bin and cutting all the little pieces into 2 1/2 inc squares.

I have not yet decided exactly what I will make with them but i have a few thousand squares cut and I have more that will be cut in the next few weeks.  I am debating on doing more of the 5 x 5 color blocks or just a random color block and doing a full quilt that way only time will tell.

 I have a few days off work this week with nothing planed and I have been looking at the mound of Ghastlies that I have on the corner of the desk and it has come time that I must make a ghastly quilt (or 4) and I am pondering over what to do.  If you have ideas or suggestions let me know as I am still stuck on what I want to do but will at the very least complete one top this weekend (that is my goal any way)

My true desire of the day is just to feel energized and not feel so tired.  I have emotionally gone over board the last 2 weeks and I just need to sit down and do nothing for a few days and get caught back up with life.  I so need this vacation.

Twirl Brick Baby Quilt

Today I get to show off our Twirl Brick Baby Quilt.  This is one of many quilts we created specifically to add to our Etsy Store. Sadly these quilts have been done for a while, but because of events out of our hands its been a few weeks since there creation.  They are not recent finishes, but rather recent items to show off.

Tanya finally sat down today and put all of the quilts we have for sell on the Etsy Store and we now have 20 items for sell.  Tanya and I have agreed that we need to stop our fabric shopping util we get a couple quilts sold.  Good for us is that we still have tons of material to make things with a current planned list of more then 30 quilts (most of which is for the family this Christmas).

Today I was happy to find that we had a sell of one of the rag quilts on the Etsy Store .  This is great as we have a few quilt tops we have finished and a few that we want to do soon, but do not have backs for.  We have been waiting for something to sell to afford some backing materials.

This is the 6th quilt we have made from the Twirl bundle I got for my wife.  She totally loves this line of fabric from Me and My Sisters a Moda line of fabric.  We partially won and partially bought from Fat Quarter Shop  I still think we have a little twirl left maybe we can get another quilt out of this fabric yet.

Here are 4 of the finished quilts made out of Twirl

Twirl Magic

Doll Quilt

Tanya's Quilt

Sands of Time (oops we messed up)

Still under construction is a baby quilt top Tanya Made shown in this WIP Wednesday post I am using it for practice with my FMQ so its a slow WIP