Courthouse Steps - DONE!!!

So excited! I finished all the binding and sleeve hand stitching, and Hubby helped me hang the quilt behind our bed. From the time I started this quilt, I always knew it would hang here. It's so nice to see an idea come to life. This is a queen size bed for perspective.

Here's a shot of how we did it. If you look very closely you can see 3 magnetic hangers adhered to the wall just below the crown molding. These are  10 foot ceilings, so it's way up there. This is such a heavy quilt that we ended up adding 2 more magnetic hangers - total of 5.

And while we were hanging quilts, we also hung this one - my Manx Log Cabin - above Sadie's big girl bed. She doesn't sleep here yet - she's still in a crib in this same room. That center pillow on the bed will be changed out eventually to something more colorful.

Here the label for the magnetic hangers we used. 

This is one hanger. The round part is a VERY strong magnet. I bought these at the Quilt Festival in Houston. You used Command Strips to adhere them to the wall, so no holes! For the large Courthouse Steps quilt, I bought long, flat metal pieces from Lowes to slide through the sleeve and stick to the magnets. There were holes already in the metal pieces - we'd laid two of these overlapping to make the correct length and connected them by using cable ties in several places. 

For the smaller Manx Log Cabin quilt, I simply used a curtain rod I already owned in the sleeve.

These quilt hangers worked so well for us. I'm so glad I got them. A good purchase for me! 

We are hosting Thanksgiving this week for our family and special friends - can't wait! We got the quilt hung in the nick of time.

Happy Thanksgiving! Continue to stay safe!

 

Non-Stop and a New House????

I didn't have time to sew this weekend. We went to the Auburn game Saturday - an all day event.

Hubby and I made it on to the Jumbotron!

Sunday evening we attended the traveling production of The Simon and Garfunkel Story. I highly recommend this. Wonderful music and a video tour back in time. Very awesome show! See it if you get the chance.

I got my Courthouse Steps quilt back from my quilter friend - I love it with the Baptist Fan quilting pattern. I have managed to machine sew the binding and a sleeve to this. Now for the hand sewing.... I would love to have it hanging for Thanksgiving.

Here's a bit of Fall loveliness spotted when I was out shopping a few days ago. 

As for the new house......

I did a thing. I bought this vintage dollhouse. I bought it more for me than for Sadie. The house is made of solid wood and it was built in the 50's. The windows have real glass. Both the front and back sides come off for play. It's in really good shape. I do want to replace a bit of carpet and one other room of flooring, but most of the flooring in in perfect shape. I'll share more pictures soon. I love that it's on a stand with wheels.

I'll have so much decorating this. I hope it remains in our family for generations to come. Now I have a figure out where I'm going to put it!

Continue to stay safe!

 

Weekend Happenings

I got back to my football watching/ hand quilting Marshal. I missed the previous weekend due to being in Houston. Look at that cute little fussy cut mouse!

Here's a new purchase that arrived Friday! An electric roaster! I have a couple of good friends here who are from Pennsylvania. They were talking about how they cook their Thanksgiving turkey in an electric roaster. Down here in the South, we've never heard of such a thing! So yes, I had to have one.

Today I'll be trying it out by cooking a large beef brisket. According to the roaster instructions, I had to turn it on high heat for one hour without the insert to get rid of the fumes. I did that on the back porch yesterday - didn't want the smells and smoke in the house. I'll keep you posted on how the brisket turns out today.

The dollhouse project has continued. I'm having a ball making this! Here you can see the teeny tiny curtains sewn in place at the top only. 

Once I read through more of the instructions, I decided that these teeny tiny curtains needed to be lined, though the pattern doesn't call for it. I didn't want exposed raw edges on the back side of the curtains. So now the curtains (there are 6 total) are completely lined. Only the best for Sadie!

Here you can see the lining - simple white cotton.

I also made a lined shower curtain - look at the little rubber ducks!

Under the shower curtain you can see the shower head.

Yesterday afternoon we went to our lake house to check out progress. You may remember, we had a major leak under the kitchen sink discovered on April 30.  All the flooring had to be torn out in the kitchen, dining, and living areas. The kitchen cabinets (most of them) had to be trashed. Lots of sheetrock had to be replaced, etc. It was a mess!

The remodelers are almost done. The floors are in. Insulation has been replaced. Sheetrock has been replaced and painting complete. New cabinets are in, along with the counters. In the middle of the floor you can see a box of tiles. They still need to repair the backsplash in a few areas. Then the next step will be to have the large appliances delivered from storage and installed. We HOPE they all work after they sat in standing water.

Then we can have all the furniture brought back from storage and we'll be DONE! This repair has taken longer than it took to build our Auburn home from scratch. But it looks just like it did before and will be worth the wait. We look forward to spending a Fall weekend there soon. The deer are everywhere - we saw 6 yesterday, including 2 babies. 

And that's the weekend report!

Continue to stay safe!

 

Non Quilting Stitching!

I thought I'd share some non quilty projects I'm working on. I finally started making this soft dollhouse for Sadie for Christmas. The pieces above are fused to interfacing.

 

These are curtains - yes, tiny curtains.

This tiny!

I'll share more progress as I go along. And because I know someone will ask....here's the name of this project. It's printed on a panel and comes with four best friends and their pets.

Do you remember when I started this cross stitch pattern?  I'm determined to finish it soon. However, a couple of weeks ago I discovered a major problem.

I've always started cross stitch projects in the center. And I saw that the pattern was marked for the centers - see the black arrow at top and left side? Or so I thought!

The center was marked just below the gold arch with the word, "DANCE", in the center. But when you look again at the pattern, you see that it's NOT THE CENTER of the design. Oh dear.

So here I am. I have way too much fabric left at the top and will not have enough at the bottom. What to do? 

I'm NOT going to rip it out and start over! One friend told me she would toss it in the garbage and call it a day! 

I'm determined to salvage this.

If you look back at the pattern, you'll see two deer at the very bottom. I've decided to start stitching mofifs at the top to fill in. See the deer? Now above the DANCE. I'll fill in the top and then work on the bottom, using more of the pattern motifs to somehow make it work. 

Wish me luck! I'll need it.

I have a large cross stitch project planned for next year, so I really want to finish this.

Continue to stay safe!

Houston! Shopping!

 

Houston was wonderful, as always! The Quilt Fest was great, too. Let's start off with a bang - I bought a new Bernina! So excited! I bought the 790 CE (Crystal Edition). 

Here's a more appropriate masked photo (Bernina mask!) You can't see my big smile here though.

The machine comes with carrying cases for the machine and the embroidery module.

I will say this about the show: it was much smaller than usual. Usually there are around 1000 vendors, or maybe more. This year there were 206. So there were some vendors I really missed! Sue Spargo, Pineapple Fabric, Moda, Aurifil and so many more. 

BUT, shopping was still fun, of course. Items that were on my shopping list (yes, I do take a list!), can easily be ordered online. 

I got some Weeks Dye Works embroidery floss for a future cross stitch project.

And also I grabbed some Sue Spargo thread.

I bought these magnetic quilt hangers - I hope they work! I'll have two quilts to hang soon.

New needles.

Micro Tip scissors.

Bag patterns!

I've been wanting to make some bags. So I came home with three different patterns. Here's a Tool Tote.

A Macaroon Bag along with the wristlet handle.

And a Big Mouth Pouch.

Zippers for the bags!

2 novelty charm packs - I plan to make an Eye Spy quilt.

And my biggest purchase other than the sewing machine was this wool kit of a gingerbread house Christmas scene. So cute! But I have to finish my wool Happy Birds before I start this!

So that's a good report on what I bought. I'll share some of the quilts I liked in another post. 

My friends and I had a fabulous time - we always have fun together! 

Continue to stay safe!

Courthouse Steps Quilt Top - DONE!

Over the weekend, Hubby played in a golf tournament. So I had LOTS of time on my hands. 

I kept making Courthouse Steps blocks. And then made more. AND MORE! 

I found two major mistakes in blocks and had to remake those.  BOOM!  By lunchtime on Sunday I finished!

Hubby has declared this to be his favorite of all the quilts I've made - wow, I've made a lot of quilts, so that's high praise, indeed!

And it's a good thing he likes it since it will hang on the wall behind our bed!

Courthouse Steps is so much harder to make than first meets the eye. Each block's colors have to match up the the colors of blocks surrounding it. I did a good bit of talking out loud to myself whilst I made it. 

Hubby calls it a 'masterpiece'. I call it a 'monsterpiece'. 

The quilt measures 88"x88". 

I'm a bit sorry to see this one done. It was SO MUCH FUN to make!

I'll hire a friend to longarm quilt it. I already have the backing fabric. This baby should be hanging by Thanksgiving - I hope!

It was the perfect time to finish this quilt. Why? Because...I'm going to Houston this week! My friends and I are flying out of Atlanta Wednesday, arriving in time for Preview Night. CAN'T WAIT!!!!!

Continue to stay safe!

Another Happy Bird!

I'd been trying to make one of these Happy Birds per week. But that nasty cold got me off my schedule - this little bird has been in the making for about 3 weeks. Love it though!

                                           

I adore the little drizzle stitches along the tail. I heart drizzle stitches!

And look! I finished the third section of the big courthouse steps quilt top. BOOM! I sewed this section on (partial seam) and had to take it outside to see how it would look - loving it! 

I'll be done with the entire top in almost no time at all. So glad I took this challenging quilt on! 

And while I was photographing outside....I took my finished cheddar bow ties blocks and laid them all out. 

Of course....I love this one, too! It's got EVERYTHING in it. Christmas fabric. Halloween fabric. Auburn fabric. Kid fabric. Reproduction fabric. Everything. 

I did realize that it needs to be bigger. Darn. That's okay - I'll keep it going. It does need to be bigger.

So yesterday, I did a thing. I went to the mall and actually shopped. And tried on clothes. Oh my. It's been so looonggg! But I did it. It was exhausting. But I needed (yes, NEEDED) some new clothes. I've lost a bit of weight this year and nothing fit. I had success - came home with 4 new pairs of jeans and a few tops. It's a great problem to have. Today I ordered some new t-shirts online. Even my t-shirts are too big. Yay - new t-shirts! (I wear t-shirts a lot!)

And that's the update from here!

Continue to stay safe!