Hexagoning along

I've been working the last few days on my hexagons. Way above the four a day I need to have this completed by Valentines Day.  Pretty exciting stuff.  That leaves more time for me to cre8te my background.

We finally got around to going to look at Christmas lights.  Year after year we visit Candy Cane Lane which takes in donations for the MACC Fund.  We were a bit surprised that even though they were supposed to be open through last night, over 3/4 of the homes had their decorations out but not lit.

Here is an old time favorite of mine.  I'm not even sure why.  Maybe because it's so comical?  Maybe because I can't fathom where they store this dinosaur ever year?

I fed my snowflake addiction...and held the shutter open a wee bit too long.

I've decided to name this home "Christmas Massacre."  There's just waaaaaaaayyyy too much going on.  BUT, some of their paintings do include Nightmare Before Christmas characters so maybe that IS what they're going for afterall??

Moving out of Candy Cane Lane and into Morgan Oaks, I leave you with my two favorite holiday houses.

-Jen

Tree Skirt in Progress!!

Last night Holly and I went to my Mom's while Mike watched football.  While we were there Jen stopped by to pick up a notebook wrap that I had made for her mom out of a new Kaffe Fasset print that I knew Diane would love.  I still have one to go for her sister but as a Thank You, Jen gave me an Aster Manor Charm Pack and Honey Bun.  I was so shocked!  She didn't have to do that!!

A few days before Christmas, Mom had mentioned that she really liked the Figgy Pudding line of fabric and would really like a new tree skirt.  Tonight we got the fabrics laid out just the way she liked them and next thing I knew I had figured out my strip sizes, cut the strips, sewed the strip sets and cut one of the strip sets into wedges.  Before I knew it, I had a 1/3 of the tree skirt put together.

Of course, I can't visit Mom's without shoving my camera in Maggie's face.  She should be happy I'm not snapping away with the flash....just getting up in her craw using super macro.  Giggle.  Poor Kid!

Fabric Watch Band Tutorial

Do those special pieces of fabric make it hard for you to cut into them or decide what to make with them?  The simple solution is to make a watch band.  By cutting a small strip and turning it into a watch band you can wear your current favorite fabric on your wrist, and enjoy it on a daily basis!!

Here’s what you’ll need:

• 1 Ribbon Watch Face
• 2 strips of fabric—1-3/4” wide by length of wrist + 3-1/4” (Example: My wrist is 7” so my strip will be 1-3/4” X 10-1/4”)
• 2 strips of  fusible interfacing - 1-1/4” Wide by Length of wrist + 3” (Example: My wrist is 7” so my strip will be 1-1/4” X 10”)  I used Pellon Craft Fuse 808 or Decor-Bond 809 with great results.  This gives your watch band a nice crisp edge.
• (2) 1” D-Rings 

Directions:

1. Iron interfacing in place on the wrong side of both strips of fabric.  
2. Place strips right sides together.  Draw a 45 degree line from one top corner on the interfacing. 
3. Using a very short stitch length of approximately 1.5, sew where the red thread is shown on the picture.   DO NOT SEW ALL THE WAY DOWN EACH SIDE!! 
4. Trim the top edge approximately 1/8” from stitching line.
5. On each piece of fabric, iron the bottom edge up over the interfacing and then follow up with ironing each of the sides.
6. Turn right side out.  Use a point turner or something similar to help push the point out.  Be careful to not push it all the way through.
7. Topstitch the two layers together for a clean finish.
8. Feed 2 D-rings through the squared off edge.  Fold over and sew down as close to the D-rings as you can get.
   
                  
   
   
   
9. 
   
   Feed watch face through and wear!
   
   
   
    
   

Quilts on Barns - #84 Grandpa's Delight

This block I had to twist Jen's arm to get her to stop so I could snap a picture.  She was bound and determined that we get to a quilt shop in another town before 4pm and it was already about 3:35.  The Grandpa's Delight block is located at W4876 County C in Monticello, WI.  This block has a little history behind it:

The barn quilt design is fashioned after a picture made from wooden pieces by Lawrence H. Karlen. Lawrence (1927-2009) was an avid woodworker and enjoyed sharing his various wooden creations with family and friends. The barn quilt is a memorial to him, thus the name Grandpa’s Delight.

With about 10 minutes to spare we walked into Patches & Petals.  It was a pretty cute shop.  I'd go again!

This marks the end of the first half of the Green County Quilts on Barns.  There's still another 30+ to discover in Green County.  We just need to be able to find a good chunk of time to go searching for them!

An Insane Grouping of Topics...

I'm very glad that the stress of Christmas is now behind me.  I had so many plans of things to do for Christmas this year but when it came time to actually do them, some projects just didn't get carried out.  It was one of those, if it can go wrong, it will go wrong kind of seasons.  It all seems so trivial right now but here's a few examples just for laughs...

I tried to print out a few sheets of Hexagons so that I could cut them out as part of a gift for my mom.  The printer kept jamming, I ended up giving up and taking a nap because I didn't feel that great.  Mike kept fighting with the printer and eventually he was victorious.  Do you have any idea how long it takes to scissors cut 175 hexagons?  I didn't keep track but wow...a really long time and I got addicted to the show Jersey Shore on MTV while I cut.  If that isn't a train wreck of a show I really don't know what is!!

My blackberry was having problems for a week so I hooked it up to my laptop to do the software upgrade that it prompted me to do.  The blackberry network had also been down here and there as reported by JSOnline.  After two hours I couldn't get my blackberry to even turn on.  Mike went to the AT&T store with it and they declared it dead...a mere 5 days past the one year warranty.  I'd feel a lot better about the whole situation had I dropped it or something but all I did was plug it into the computer.  I ended up with a shiny new iPhone and a pink case thanks to Mike.  I was so frustrated with the phone situation that I declared I hated the iPhone.  Of course now I've found a few quilting apps that I can't wait to play with - FabricStash, Quiltfab, Quiltref & FabricJournal.    In the mean time, I still have a hard time typing on the darn touch screen so if you receive a crazy message from me it's because I just can't type!

Mike sent my laptop into Dell to finally get it repaired.  I went to use my old laptop to write up a few of my Quilts on Barns quilt block patterns for my Mom to add to her Christmas gift but Microsoft Word decided it's now corrupt and can no longer be used on that laptop.

Back down to Mike's computer -  where my fabric picker tool is now MIA in EQ6 so I couldn't design yet a different pattern that I wanted to work up for my Mom for Christmas.  Couldn't print out some of the paper piecing templates because again, the printer hates me.  As of Christmas night, I have all of my hexagons basted and can start sewing them together.  Here's a picture of what they look like all laid out so now mom can get going on hers.  Anyone want to join in?  I told my mom if she basted and sewed 4 or more per day she'd have it done by Valentines Day.

I decided I absolutley HAD to make myself a selvages notebook wrap on a complete impulse (Like I didn't have 37 other things to do??).  Could I use the selvages that were in the bag waiting for me?  Nooooo, I had to pull out my favorite fabrics from my stash to cut off their selvages and now all that fabric is in a lovely heap on my sewing table....lots of re-folding to do!

In the end, the only thing that truely worked out for my Mom was a Quilting coupon book that I made for my mom.  18 coupons that included a tree skirt (that she told me she wanted a few days before christmas), a few different quilts of hers that I'll quilt, some quilt kits that she's been hanging on to that I'll cut out for her, backings that I've offered to piece and things like that.

Of course, there's the cutest puppy in the world...Maggie Mae who has come into my Mom's life.  She's a doll.  Holly even likes her which of course had NOTHING to do with Maggie being under the couch...

My mom gave me a hilarious t-shirt for Christmas from the Bitchy Stitcher's Cafe Press Store.

I leave you with this video that shows fantastic puppy parenting...

MVI_3598.MOV

Quilts on Barns - #83 Farm Angel

The Farm Angel block we found at N5334 Highway 69 in Monticello, WI.

Quilts on Barns - #82 Amish Rubic's Center

Merry Christmas! I saved my most favorite quilt block for Christmas Day. The Amish Rubic's Center is located at N3643 County F in Brodhead, WI.

Quilts on Barns - #81 54-40 or Fight!

This is the second time I've seen the 54-40 or Fight! block while on the barn tour.  The last time was in Racine County.  This one is located at N4253 Rechsteiner Road in Monroe, WI.