Happy Easter!

You think one of us could have taken photos of the twins before they were all disheveled, but no. Here is Mr. L, shirt untucked and all. Poor little guy hasn't been feeling well, but he smiled and was good as gold for all the people loving on him today.

Here is Miss S. in her Easter dress still looking pretty good after a long day of being passed from person to person. She was a bit fussier about who held her, which is kind of a new thing.



Here is a video I find appropriate for the time. Sometimes I need that reminder that Sunday is on the Way and the victory has already been won.

I hope all of you that celebrate Easter have a lovely day. Jesus is risen!

Getting Ready for a Marathon

OK, if any of you were thinking running marathon, sorry, I have no athletic ability. I am however getting ready for a sewing marathon. I haven't sewn a stitch all week, which is pretty sad. I did, however, lay out three quilts to be assembled.



This is on my sewing cabinet, ready to go. I have two quilts here, ready to sew into rows. The blocks from each quilt are obviously different sizes, so it's easy to keep each quilt straight.


The rows that wouldn't fit on my sewing cabinet are here, along with the blocks for a third quilt. It will be an assembly marathon when I get to it.


The log cabin with stars quilt I am making I am still cutting out. I have all my light strips ready to go, and I have the white and burgundy squares for the stars cut as well. I was originally only doing burgundy stars, but when I made it in EQ, they just didn't show up well enough in the dark areas, I also halved how many stars there will be. EQ is great to preview quilts in, you can see what isn't working before you commit your time and fabric to a project. I am anxious to see how the design I settled on will look in real life.

I'm working on cutting the dark strips to size now. I am about halfway done with the darks. I love my June Tailor Shape cut rulers for cutting. My Accuquilt Go is great, but you just can't cut everything with it. The Shape Cut rulers really help me cut accurately and quickly.

Today I'll be cooking all day. We are celebrating Easter a day early, because DH's first day back at work after his crash is Easter Sunday. I am expecting about 20 people for dinner tomorrow, not counting the twins.

Next week is all about getting ready for the scooter rally which starts next Friday. The last few days before a big event event like this are always crazy, so I'm not expecting to get much else besides rally stuff done.

This week I had a reminder that DS the Younger graduates high school in a month, and I am so behind on even thinking of it! After the rally, I'll have to make some plans for some type of dinner or party for him.

Finally! A New Quilting Project

I am finally finished all the scooter rally sewing projects, so now I can start a new quilting project! I am so excited! After making 72 rally bags and 46 cool ties, all identical, I am thrilled about making a scrappy quilt with lots of colors and action.

The quilt I'm making will be about 102" square. I needed to thin out my 2" strip drawers, and I thought this would make a difference. Well, I can notice a difference in my light strip drawer, because I didn't have as many of those to begin with, but honestly, I can still barely close my dark strip drawer, and I pulled 70 dark strips! How many strips are in that drawer anyway?

Last night after I sewed close the last cool tie, I got out my laptop, played with EQ and changed my planned quilt a bit. I decided some of the elements weren't noticeable enough, so some I eliminated, and on others I changed the colors. I am much happier with the design now, and I can't wait to see it in real fabrics. I never use EQ's cutting directions, but I figured out my cutting plan, and after I pull a couple pieces of yardage today, to be my constants in this scrappy wonderland, I'm hoping to get the center of the quilt cut out today. I'll cut the borders after the blocks are done.

I have a couple of quilts ready for assembly, so I will be playing on my design wall too, getting a quilt laid out to assemble as my leader/ender project.

Rally Bags Done!

Here they are, 72 rally bags waiting to be filled with goodies! I am so glad to be finished with these. They are cute, but making 72 of anything exactly the same is boring. I can make 600 HST's for a quilt and be fine, but at least I'm working with varieties of fabrics, these are exactly the same!

This week I hope to get all the cool ties made, but I only have about 4 dozen of those to make, we had some left from last year. DH did vacuum up all the denim bits in my sewing room, broken arm and all. At one point I had denim threads in my hair! This was a messy project.

I posted a while back about buying quilting supplies in the hardware store. Now I'm buying them in the hair care section of the grocery store. I was sick of getting stuck by pins while sewing on binding. I saw some quilt binding clips but they are just the same as these barrettes. The quilt binding clips come in packages of 30 for anywhere from $3.50 to $7 depending on where you buy them. The barrettes are 12 for 99 cents at multiple stores, and are readily available.


On the rally quilt I used the clips to hold the binding on and only used pins in the corners. It worked great and I never got stuck by a pin. This photo is just a leftover block from the quilt, not the quilt itself, but you get the idea. I was concerned the barrettes might get easily knocked off, but they did fine. I've been buying more packages two or three at a time, so I can have enough to bind a larger quilt and only use these clips. I think pins in the corners are better, but it's not too hard to avoid pins in just the corners.

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel as far as the rally projects go. I'm babysitting tomorrow, and I'm hoping I can spend naptime figuring out the cutting plan for the next few quilts I'll be making. I can't wait to get back to quilting :-)

I See Rally Bags!

I wish I could say I was finished the rally bags, but I'm not. I have three dozen finished, and one dozen ready for the casing to be sewn down which is the last step. Two dozen are not worked on aside from having the shredded denim sewn to the bandanna fabric. In the photo, if you look at the carpeting you can see little dark colored spots on it. Almost every surface of my sewing room is covered with those dark spots, which is shredded denim bits. My guess is it will take several vaccuming sessions to rid myself of this mess. I don't see the point of cleaning up until the project is finished.

These rally projects make me glad for my stash, and not just my stash of fabric. So far I am on my fourth spool of red thread, but I had eight in my stash so I'm still OK. I used almost 100 yards of bias tape for the drawstrings, but I had it. (I'm also glad to get rid of it, because it was not good quality. I have since found a source to buy good quality bias tape in 72 yard rolls, and I am working on getting all the colors they offer.) Yes, I have a lot of supplies stuffed into my sewing room, but I am using it all the time.

For someone who sews a couple times a year, buying the quantities of anything I have would be ridiculous, but sometimes, I just find a deal too good to pass up. I bought a couple hundred zippers on ebay a couple years ago. I spent $30 including shipping. I've used a couple dozen of them so far, and just that usage paid for the whole lot, when compared to what I would have paid per zipper elsewhere. I sew almost every day, and often for hours on end. I use a lot of supplies, and honestly, I am thankful I have them.

I'm not thinking much more than some rally bags will get done in the next couple days. DS the Elder is visiting from Texas for just a couple days, so I really want to spend some time with him.