Putting the new quilt frame to good use!

Good Monday to all!
My friend Wendi yelled at me last night about my total lack of blogging! So I thought I would get with it today and play a little catch up.

First of all though.... a warning or two, this post contains a lot of pictures... second.... IF YOU ARE ONE OF MY DAYCARE PARENTS OR A FAMILY MEMBER STOP NOW READ NO FURTHER AS THIS POST CONTAINS PICTURES OF YOU CHRISTMAS PRESENT!

OK now that we have taken care of that.. on to the eye candy!

The first quilt I would like to share with you is actually not one of my own. This quilt was made by my friend Wendi for her Husband, a little back story, Wendi's Darling hubby is a car sales man, so naturally he love the movie Cars... thus inspired the theme for his quilt. Now Wendi is nothing if not a perfectionist! And this quilt is probably one of the most perfectly pieced quilts I have ever seen! What makes this quilt so special was that Wendi got it done just in time for her husbands quadruple bypass surgery!
Cars, Cars, Cars, Cars, Cars!

This is the center of the quilt, each square was fussy cut to show on of the characters from the movie!

And the back, perfectly pieced!

I have also been working on a quilt for my sister in law, the original coffee queen! I found this fabric back in October, and thought it would make a great quilt, I purchased what I thought was enough, well I got down to three blocks left and discovered I was about a yard short of the light brown fabric, I went back to the store but of course they were out and this is a discontinued fabric... so on to the Internet, found one place that had it, ordered a yard and viola, here it is, Ruth's coffee quilt! I really like it, I think it is fun.
Here are a couple of close up shots, you can see the different fabrics used. I wish I could get more of these fabric as I would love to make another like this. Oh well, I guess I should have bought more when I had the chance!

Another close up shot... I really did like making this one, it was simple but cute.

When I was the "I Believe" panels at my local Craft Warehouse I fell in love, these are the cutest, so I purchased enough to make a wall hanging for each of my daycare families, I made a total of 5. 4 to give to my families and one I donated to my daughters school for their winter fest. silent auction, the last bid I saw was for $35.00 not bad for a little $6 dollar panel!

Yet another coffee quilt. I actually made this one this last summer it has been in line for it's turn on the frame, I quilted it with coffee words all over, think it turned out great. This is a gift for my friends.... Won't say her name because she knows who she is and she reads my blog and yells at me when I don't post ;)

A close up of the coffee quilt.

Yes this is me, yes I am in my pajamas and yes it is hard to bind a quilt when you have not one but two helpers!

And this is the quilt I was binding, This is for one of my Daycare kiddo's Emma. Emma, is a fish girl, she loves marine animals "her words" and adores Nemo... so I made her a Nemo quilt, The black squares were machine embroidered with line are marine animals, we have Bruce the shark, Dude Crush, The Whale, Gill, Peach the Starfish, Dory and of course Nemo!
Here is a little close up of the line work, you can see there are even Jelly fish on the printed fabric!


My favorite, I quilted it all in waves! And it totally makes this quilt, I have to say this is probably my favorite quilt I have made this year, it was fun and turned out exactly as I had planned, now it was no piecing challenge but sometimes that is OK. And I know that the little girl who is getting this quilt will love it!

Well, that is all for now, I have more to show but must needs get to work.

Thank you for stopping by, and feel free to say hi.
Ginny

What a weekend! Got a new quilt frame!

Oh I am so very very tired so will keep this short! I had an awesome quilty weekend, yesterday I started work on the Christmas panels I am making up into wall hangings for all of my Daycare families! I cannot show pictures because some of them read my blog!

Today was the best. Last week I answered an online ad from a nice lady in Idaho who wanted to sell her Suzy Q quilt frame for an AWESOME price! Well, she lives about 8 hours away, so we agreed to meet half way. Today was the day! Torrie got to drive most of the way, with Stuart taking over in the worst snow areas... So, drove 4 hours there, picked up the frame (it is almost new, not a mark on ding on it!) and then 4 hours back, we all went as a "fun family outing" and really did have a nice trip. This is the longest that Torrie has ever driven and she did an excellent job, she drove through snow, ice rain, up mountain passes, and down again, and she got some night time driving too!

We made it home, unloaded, put the seats back in the van and are now all ready to head to bed.
I just had to share my excitement, now all I have to do is find a buyer for my old Grace frame...

Wish me luck.
Ginny

New quilt photos to share

My sincerest apologies...

I have been absent for the last two months, all I can say is life got really really busy during that time and one of the things I let go was my blog, and the other that got put on the back burner was my quilting. As a matter of fact, when I finally made it back out to my sewing room I discovered my calender still said August, and is was really October.

Nothing bad happened during that time, just the usual craziness that is life. We did get the house completely done, the kids went back to school, my work schedule picked up, and of course I got sick, spent 3 weeks fighting the Super Crud, one very nasty cold bug that knocked me on my A**!

Finally about two weeks ago was able to wander out to my room and spend a day getting caught up on projects. I got Morgen's birthday quilt finished! And I was able to start quilting some of the tops that I had done but not yet quilted. One day I locked the doors and quilted 5 wall hangings!

If feels nice to finally get to spend some time on my hobby again. And to be blogging, I have missed you all and will try not to disappear like that again.

I do have a ton of pictures to share, a few of my most recently quilted projects, I will only be able to put up a couple of pictures today as I have not photographed all of them yet.

I will also be sharing our Halloween pictures soon too.

So, enough ramble.. on the the quilts!

This is Morgen's Birthday Quilt! It is truly a Diva quilt! And I love it! This was also my first attempt at applique' I had never done applique' before because I was terrified of it. Well it did not turn out perfect. But it turned out well enough. And the most important thing. Morgen loves it too.

Here is a couple of close ups of the blocks. Now please remember I am NOT a professional long arm quilter! I am a daycare provider!!! So no judgments on the quality of quilting! please.These are two of my favorite, the kitty shoe and the flame shoe, Morgen has a lunch bag made from the flame fabric that she carries every day so this was perfect for the quilt, and the kitty, well we own 5 so needed at least one shoe with a cat on it.Now for something a little different! The story goes like this. I promised to make a quilt for one of my DC moms.. like a year and a half ago! I never quite got to it.. I know BAD Ginny! So last months block lotto at Craft Warehouse was this pretty nine patch maple leaf.. I loved the leaf and made a small 9x9 wall hanging for myself. Kim, the DC mom LOVED it so I offered to make her one. ( I am sure she was thinking yea right!!!) Well I got to work on it the very next day and had the top done with in three days! Then quilted it that weekend, did the binding over the course of the next week, and was able to give the wall hanging to her yesterday! She was thrilled. I still need to put on a label, but will do that once Thanksgiving is over. Now I just need to surprise her with a pretty spring quilt for after the holidays. (BTW, this quilt will hang right in the entry way to her house, it is the first thing you see when you walk in the door!)

Last but not least... I thought I would share with you all a picture of my darling husband and myself. I don't often publish photos of myself because I am vain and don't like to see pictures of me because it reminds me that I am fat. BUT, I like this picture so here it is. Our annual trip to the pumpkin patch!

Hope you all have enjoyed my latest offerings. I will try to be better about blogging. Thank you all who emailed to ask if everything was OK. I am honored that so many read and worry when I disappear.

Happy Quilting,

Ginny

I am sore, I am tired, but I am BACK!

(WARNING, LOTS OF PICTURES AHEAD!)

HI!!! Like the title says, I am very very sore, very tired but I am back.
We have worked hard for the last week, packing, moving, ripping, prying, cutting, whacking, you name it we have done it this last week!
The Before:

Computer desk- This is where Stuarts new TV is going... my desk has been moved.

As you can see my living room was kind of divided up and did not have a lot of open space, well, that has been solved, the couch that Morgen is reclining on has been moved to the other end of the living room.The dining room, I will be putting our China hutch back, but the other furniture (storage cupboards) will NOT be coming back!The During:

Torrie and Morgen pulling hundreds of staples, the carpet came up rather quickly on Friday, we had it out in less than two hours, and let me tell you, 15 years, 10 years of daycare, 5 cats 3 dogs and two kids will do a number on a carpet! YUCK! One of the things that surprised us the most, the linoleum that was in the kitchen, bath and laundry room, was also under the carpet in the hall way, living room and dining room! So we had to take that out too!Starting work, we did not actually get to start installing the flooring until 1 pm Sunday, all day Saturday was spent fixing the kitchen floor (that is what started this whole project) Then we had problems with saw blades... so late start!Of course every job needs a supervisor... He was a good one too, always had his nose in what we were doing to make sure we were doing it right.This is the end of the day Sunday, the dining room and half of the living room done, we stopped work at about 8 pm. Tired, and sore, I am a big girl and hours spent on hands and knees equals pain!This was the living room we really did make good progress.Dinner time Sunday! The young ladies in the photo are B and B! They came all weekend to help out and let me tell you they were a HUGE help. Little B carried tools and such back and forth so Torrie and I could stay down and lay boards, Big B carried boards, she took ones that needed cut out to be cut, then back in again.. The best part... their Mom, my friend Annie made us a wonderful lasagna dinner!!! I love these guys!So this is the mess that started it all, you see about a months and a half ago my water supply line to my fridge sprung a leak... warped the joist and the sub floor so I had a mountain in the middle of my VERY SMALL kitchen, there was no missing it when you were in there and you would have to step over the bulge! So out went the floor, up came the sub floor, we strengthened the joist after taking out the bulge.We had to go to the store for parts while there was a hole in the floor, well with 5 cats we decided it would be a good idea to cover the big hole... and of course being a quilter... yea that worked!And the final fix! It is so nice having a flat floor again.The FINISH: My kitchen!!! I did not get a picture, but to the right of my fridge is a spot for a pantry.. we will be putting it in this weekend. More storage in my tiny kitchen YEA, and yes I mean tiny, this is taken from outside the kitchen, so you get the entire thing in one shot! (don't the floors look nice!)The dining room! I LOVE IT!The living room, we will be putting in an area rug under the love seat and under the coffee table as they tend to slide! Oh and on the list an new coffee table, I have been doing a yearly glue and hammer repair job on this one for years! Poor ole thing.Last but not least, my computer desk Look at all of that open space! Did I mention I love my new floors!!!

So that is it, we finished installing the floors Monday evening, and I was open for business Tuesday morning. We do still need to install the transitions strips between all of the rooms, but that will not take long. We go this evening to find a new coffee table and entertainment center to go with the TV... Then we are done... Well, except we both would like to replace the old light blue couch...but that can wait a while... maybe Christmas!

So it is time for me to start unpacking, that will take some time as I am purging a ton of junk when I put it all back together. But I promise to get some quilting done... especially since I finally got a stitch regulator for my machine!

Well, back to work. Happy quilting to all.

Ginny

Many Hands Make Light Work

Just a quick check in to show off the work we got done this weekend!

Since we are tearing out the carpet this seemed like the perfect time to paint! So I spent the week packing up my kitchen and dining room, now neither one of these rooms had ever been painted, so 15 years of wear and tear took a bit of prep time. We started early, patched and cleaned then started painting at about 10 am... with 5 of us working it actually went pretty fast. The cutting in took the most amount of time, but once that was done I was able to roll the walls pretty rapidly. I think it looks nice. The color we chose was "pale daffodil"

Morgen and Cassie working hard!

Torrie was really thrilled! She hates painting as much as I do, BUT we loved the results.Yep that's me! I only paint as high as I can reach because I do not like heights! This is after, I love the soft yellow! Another shot, looks much nicer than it did! The room is really open now. And my kitchen, I have the a very small kitchen!

So, that's it for this weekend. I am off to do laundry and pack up the living room so we can start on the floors Friday afternoon. If you look up you can see the ucky old linoleum that is going away! I promise to show pictures of the floors as we do them.

Wish me luck.

Ginny

New floors = Gonna be gone a while! :)

I should start this post with an acknowledgment, I admit... I am terrible about blogging during the summer, I am sorry. The good news, school here starts a week from today! Once my summer schedule slows down I will have more time to blog. Until then I am actually writing to let all of my wonderful followers know that for the next couple of weeks I will be totally out of action. You see, we are going to start on a major (for us) remodel of my house. We are not adding any extra space :( But we do have to repair our kitchen floor due to a leak in our fridge. So while we have the floor torn up and we have a little extra money from some vacation time Stuart had to cash in, we are investing in our floors and walls, new paint in the kitchen and dining room, and we are getting rid of all of the carpet in the main areas of the house!!!

I am so excited, you see our carpets are 15 years old and were put in by the builder so were cheap to start with, in 15 years my poor carpets have withstood... 3 dogs (one with bladder problems when he broke his back) 5-7 cats (we are down to 5 now) two of my own children and dozens of daycare children. So as you can see my poor carpets have gotten a lot of use! Now it is time for a change and instead of putting new carpet in I have finally convinced my darling hubby to let me install laminate wood flooring! I put it in my sewing room and LOVE it!

So what that means is my entire house will be in disarray while we do the floors I expect that it will take us a couple of weekends to do. But while we have the floors up my computer will be down.

I promise I will take a ton of before and after pictures to show when I get back!

Wish us luck.
Ginny

Close ups of the Coffee quilts.

I offered, Jane ask, here they are!
These are the close ups of the three coffee quilts. All three are a very simple square in a square, although I think I do mine wrong since they kind of float... I like the look so since I have yet to meet a quilt police I guess will be OK!This one is cute, I liked the coffee cup sashing.I still really like this quilt, but then I am very fond of blue.

I did mention before that I would be putting one of these three in my Etsy shop. I will be giving one to a friend and keeping one. I am not sure which one will go in the shop, if you have any suggestions or would like to purchase one, let me know and I can make that the for sale one!

OK off to work, today is my FRIDAY! The last 4 day work week I get for oh probably forever! I have loved having 3 day weekends all summer, but it will be nice having a full income again too!

Have a great day,

Gin

Quilty Pictures as Promised!

As Promised, pictures of all of the quilts I have been working on in the last couple of weeks. Some are finished being pieced, some are not, none are quilted yet. I have found that I really like getting 4 or 5 tops done then I spend a marathon week quilting on the frame since I have so little moving room that actually seems to work the best for me.
So, in no particular order...

This is Morgen's 14th birthday quilt! I still have one row of left facing shoes to do. A couple things about this quilt, I was given this pattern by an old friend from high school. Morgen is a shoe fanatic, she has more shoes than I do! She has helped me with this project including picking out the fabric for the funky shoes! Oh and this is the first time I have ever attempted applique!

this is a really close up of my August block lotto block, I go to quilt party at my local Craft Warehouse, this was a really fun block, although the picture is rather yellow the back ground fabric is actually white! I really hope I win the block this month, this would be a fun quilt to do.

For a while now I have been thinking about replacing my King size quilt on my bed, it is old and just a simple blue trip around the world, one of the first quilts I ever made and the reason I got my frame! This is the start to my new quilt for my bed.... What do you think? Each large block is 12.5" x 12.5" This is just a simple little panel I found at the store, it is Animal ABC's, I am going to boarder it, and quilt it and hang it in my preschool room in my daycare.

Coffee, Coffee, Coffee, Yep it is time for the three coffee quilts! They are all very similar, except this one has coffee bean corner blocks, and says cappuccino, espresso and latte in the sashing and boarders.

Same as the one above except, coffee cups on the boarder and sashing and no corner blocks.

This one is my favorite, I has the same latte, espresso... words around the boarder and sashing, the biggest difference is color this one tends is really blue and no coffee bean fabric since it was to dark for this quilt. I should have posted close ups... If you want to see close ups ask and I will post them.

Carl's quilt, finished!!! I was pretty happy with how this quilt turned out once I got it quilted.

I am terrible about putting labels on my quilts, I have only ever labeled two other quilts, I found this wonderful book of iron on label designs that you then color with sharpie... well it had the perfect label for this quilt! We ironed it on a white cotton that had a white dot design... Well the design showed up when Torrie colored the eagle. I love it!

Scoochy just home from the groomers! We have just found a new groomer and she is wonderful! She does a fabulous job and he is so cute, but as always after a big day out poor little baby was so tired! So he snuggled up on one of his favorite quilts and fell asleep.

Well, that is all for today! Now it is time for bed, I have been getting up at 5 AM because one of my kiddo's has to be here by 6 am this week. Needless to say that is way to early for poor Ginny, I have found I need to be in bed before 10 pm or I get really crabby!

Thank you all for stopping by and for every ones words of welcome back on my last post!

I promise once school starts and the summer go go go schedule calms down I will get back to my regular blogging schedule!

Take care

Ginny