Another OPAM Finish...So Much To Do

Other than needing  a hanging sleeve (I've already got a cute little hanger) and a label. 'By the Sea' has been complete for just about a week now. Ladies and gents, we have an OPAM finish for July, and we are on a fast track to excel at finishes this month.

If you can enlarge this, check out the 'beach'.

Now we're on to the next class, which was a Beachy tote bag. Today I finished my homework for Tuesday's class and this will likely be finished by Tuesday night. Here's the work in progress for this:

It's chock full of couching, machine embroidery, quilting.

What do you suppose these 20-strip pieces are going to turn into? (there's 3 of them).

Yep, it's Bargello. This is the top half of a table runner. I've stitched together the left side. Still need to stitch the right side strips, then make another one, flip it and attach them., bind, sandwich and quilt. Next class on this is Friday, I just need to have the top finished. (I have a feeling it's going to be a week of late nights, coming up).

I spent all day Saturday in a class and learned how to freeform piece. Here's a sample of a few components of what will become an arty quilt. (Though I'll most likely not use these practice pieces in it)

I'm halfway through my 8 signed up for classes. There are 3 more I'm waitlisted on, so we'll see if I get into any of those.

Of course, I decided I needed batiks for this little art project, so here's yesterday's shopping after class:

 

And who can resist a good online sale?

My latest buy from Fabric.com, I present you a real throwback to the 70s, it's called Hot Flash from Westminster Fabrics, and it was on this super 4th of July sale for $3.98 a yard. Woven, heavy, colorful. Can you say 'what a deal!' boys and girls?

Right now there's plenty of fabric to make a large quilt, I purchased 4 yds. for backing to piece together with that large strip on the left (on top of the backing),

It's been really hot here, as my blog tunes can confirm. Yes, we had an earthquake in Maryland, and no, I didn't feel it. I (along with my daughter 20 miles north) managed to sleep through it (and all the neighborhood chatter that took to the streets as I can only imagine they all fled their homes fearing imminent structure collapse). This is what happens when you stay up until 3 a.m. embellishing tote bag panels--you miss particpating in history.

Should there be an earthquake tonight, I'll be ready. I'm heading to bed after completing a quarter of the homework for Friday night's Bargello class. While it pains me to leave it on the design board (and the other half of the strip sets neatly stacked in order and pinned on the cutting table), I'm hitting the sack with the new issue of Quilters Home.

Ya'll have a super week. Stay cool if you're hot, stay warm if you're reading in AU. Create and be happy!

Happy Easter!

A lovely Easter to all. Hope you are all enjoying beautiful Spring weather. We don't have to be anywhere until 3:00, and it's an easy appetizer to be made to take with, and load the white chocolate truffle cake we picked up at the bakery into the car with the requisite libations, so I'm pretty much free for a stretch.

Finished up EVERYTHING for the quilt show pieces last night (labels, sleeves, bindings). Have got my first April OPAM finish....

I call this 'Bloomin' Baltimore - a quick trip around the Baltimore block.' This is the Guild challenge quilt for this year's show, and likely to be the only non-art quilt challenge. Admittedly, I've got a long way to go on the art quilt front, so this will have to do.

Click on this to see the tiny stippling I went back and added to the center block yesterday.

Speaking of yesterday, the neurotic beagle seemed to think that because the windows were open and the blinds would gently rustle in the breeze, that there was a storm of dire proportion on it's way. This is where he spent his afternoon...in the chihuahua's bed under the sewing table, hyperventilating hot, stinky dog breath on my legs. Note to self....find source of tranquilizers and appropriate dosage for him before we actually do have our first thunderstorm.

Eventually I couldn't take it anymore so I headed downstairs to the office computer to make and print out some quilt labels (so Beagle Bailey here could instead attempt to paw his way through the carpet in the corner next to my desk chair to some imagined safe haven from the nonexistent impending doom of a lovely Spring day). 

Here's the quilt labels I made. I was lazy and just used label templates off the Internet and borders out of MS Word.

As I said,  I've got some free time, so before it gets away from me I'm going to tidy up the studio and spend some quality time with my workbook and EQ 6 software. May as well learn how to use 6 since I just saw in a quilt magazine this morning that 7 is soon to be released (figures!).

I'd love to design a quick table quilt for the Vera's Garden fabric I picked up a few months back. Of course, in addition to playing EQ6 school, I've also got pillowcases/charity quilts/Bernina class next Saturday/quilt show volunteering/Neptune/Kiwi Jubilee/baby quilt/learn to embroider all on my plate for this month. (groan!...oops, forgot income taxes....MAJOR YIKES!)

Sounds like I need to hop on down to the kitchen and refill my coffee cup.

Again, enjoy this beautiful Easter Sunday, and I hope you get to spend quality time with people and things you love today.

Also, if you get a chance, check out the winners and best entries in this year's Washington Post Peeps diorama competition. Fantabulously amusing.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/gallery/2010/03/29/GA2010032903934.html

March OPAM Finishes

It's been a lovely evening. DD's 26th birthday is tomorrow and she's got plans so we had a lovely dinner and celebration this evening. She requested grilled garlic and red pepper shrimp and warm bacon/egg/frisee salad. To that I added steaks, steamed artichokes and the hubs made his special baked potatoes. Add to that a couple pitchers of margaritas and an ice cream cake and it was the perfect birthday celebration (of course, a card full of cash to take to the casino tomorrow (where she's celebrating with her friends), was the real icing on the cake, as far as she was concerned).

Photo above is my studio orchid. Almost in full bloom. It seems to really like the creative vibe in here. I can't remember if was the blooming orchid in here last year or not. There's another in bloom downstairs. I should bring it up to keep this one company.

The reason I'm here is to post two OPAM finishes for March. I almost had another (the challenge quilt), but I still haven't gotten the binding. If you know me, you know when I say it's going to be done that you need to add a week or two to that date. (And if you want me there at 4:00, be sure to tell me you need me at 3:30).

Here's First Cloth Convergence:

This one is Opposites Attract. If I haven't mentioned it before, each black on white fabric is the exact print as each white on black fabric used. Needle turn applique (my first foray) and machine quilted. Swarovski crystal embellishments (also a first).

 

Well, tomorrow is another day. Working, of course. Jealous of the hubs who is taking the day off to golf. I should be able to get some sewing done tomorrow evening. I've got to get a head start on April finishes. There's a couple of Bernina mastery course notebooks, an embroidery module, cutwork software and EQ6 all demanding my attention. I need to start parcelling out time to spend on each, in addition to tackling some of the projects waiting in the wings.

Spring brings us a fresh start. I hope to make the best of it, and also find time to tend to the garden. Where's my DayTimer?

Houston, we have lift-off!

Looky, looky....

at what's on the pinning table tonight...and look carefully....see all the pins? Woo hoo!!!!

As you can see by my sidebar, I was fortunate enough to make it into a motivational group effort....One Project A Month. Seriously, now how hard is it to complete one project a month? (Well, if we consider that this one's been under construction for about 3 months now, I guess it's safe to say that at times I need all the help I can get). Anyway, this is going to be my finished project for January -- I swear! And I hope to gain  a lot of inspiration and enjoy the camradarie of the other bloggers participating in this endeavor. Thanks so much to Peg and Kris for setting it up.

With this new motivation after I cleaned up after dinner I went upstairs, put on my jammies and my Uggs, packed all of my materials in a tote bag, folded up the pinning table and schlepped it all downstairs to the family room where I could park it in front of the tv and watch American Idol with the hubs while I pinned. I told him I thought the reason I was avoiding it was because it's such a long process and it would be so boring to do it in my workroom. Well, that definitely did the trick. It took all of 2 hours to sandwich and pin, and it's done.

The fun part was I got to use the wonky little safety pin tool the hubs put in my Christmas stocking, and amazingly, it worked really well and I love it.

You press it down on the sandwich (which is why my thumb looks so fat and flat) to hold the fabric steady and avoid wrinkling the back and you stick your safety pin in and bring the end up over a little notch in the tool. Then all you have to do is press the head of the pin down and it fastens.

So now we have conquered the Beach House sandwich and pin procrastination madness and will now most likely focus on Beach House quilt freemotion procrastination for the rest of the week.

The Dear Jane book arrived today, so I am one step closer to becoming a Jane-iac (envision me in off the shoulder sweatshirt, leggings and sweatband pumping my legs furiously to the music...okay, bad mental image, I know you're seeing that woman from Quacker Factory, so let's just forget I mentioned that.). The hubs said he didn't quite understand my fascination with this quilt, but if that's what I want to do, go for it. 225 blocks.....definitely daunting. And to think that I've got this snowman quilt (about a million pieces of Piece O Cake applique) book that I've printed the patterns from, cut the templates, organized in a binder and have yet to start on since I acquired it about 4 years ago. Makes me think that this Dear Jane might take a while to launch.

Well, after finishing the BeachHouse quilt, I'll be whipping out a little table quilt for Valentine's Day, that is if I can fit it in with the Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend Challenge. I'd also like to make some little yoyo heart pins, and since I did a Valentime themed tutorial on the blog last year, maybe I'll make that an annual project and get back in tutorial mode with the yoyo heart pins.

If only there were as many hours in the day as I have good intentions.