Some Fun and A Finish!

As promised, my son took me to Fort Worth to get my machine home, and I have been really enjoying getting to sew again on it.  The Viking served me well while the Janome was getting its annual physical, but it just doesn't have all the conveniences I had learned to love on the bigger machine.  Anyway, I've been having fun.

I stayed busy on the "Family Rules" wall hanging until I got it finished.  I did a quick and easy quilting job on it, straight underlining under each line, and a gray "X" in every black square of the border.  The backing is light gray with white dots, and I used a light gray thread throughout.  It took me a few minutes to figure out why the corners matched on the diagonal corners instead at top and bottom.  I counted and found that I had an odd number of sets of checkerboard blocks!   I got a little hanger rod for it and some black ribbon with white dots to go with it for the youth auction.  I think it will "show" better for the auction with the rod in the hanging sleeve than if someone was just trying to hold it up.  Hopefully two someones will get a bidding battle on so it will bring in more money for church camp kids.   Here it is.  As usual, I didn't do very well with the picture last night.

After I finished the donation quilt, I decided to get my Moda Block Heads blocks together and off my design wall.  I probably should not be calling it by the Moda name because it is not all Moda fabric.  Some of it is, Marbles, and others, and the sashing stripe is Moda, but I also used a lot of my other patriotic scraps.  

I had been looking at the blocks for several days, and really could not decide on any better way to place them than what I had slapped up there earlier.  For some reason I just didn't want to put them in the order they were presented.  I did finally move two or three blocks around, but I was so tired of messing with those little blocks; I was just wanting to get them sewed together and out of my way.   I'm still undecided on whether or not to put a border around it, or just let a navy binding be the finishing edge; or maybe 2.5" red and 2.5" white, then a navy binding.?  Now it measures about 61" x 48".  I just really don't want to spend a lot more time on it; it is certainly not one of my favorite quilts.  Any suggetions?  Here's how it looks for now.  

One of the busiest quilts I've every made;
no place to rest my eyes!

Closeup of Center;
One good thing - I got all the sashing irregular stripes going the same direction!

I think I may start making those big stars again that I ditched a couple of weeks ago; at least make a table runner, if not a quilt.  I probably should quilt those two scrap quilt tops before starting something new!

Yesterday I did something I hadn't done in a while.  I got up early to go to an Estate Sale I heard about.  On the way there, I stopped at two yard sales, and bought one vase at one for $1, and at the second,a crystal plate with frosted roses engraved on the back side for 50 cents!  The vase is tall and has a purple iris on it.  In my back yard, I had a purple iris almost ready to bloom, so I thought I needed to get that pretty vase for it.  

When I got to the Estate Sale, the first room was full of tables covered with beautiful crystal pieces and Roseville and other gorgeous pottery pieces.  Glass of any kind is a severe weakness of mine; I just cannot resist it; yet I have no room for any more.  I just had to handle some of it, and one of the workers came up to me and said, "I can tell you need to buy that piece."  I told her I do not have room for any more glass, and I told her I needed to get out of that room and on to what I really came for.  She laughed and asked what I wanted to look at, and I told her to take me to the vintage linens, which she did.  I've been doing a lot of research on using vintage linens in a quilt someday.  However, I was disappointed in a lot of what they had, but I did bring home quite a few pieces, all of which will have to be doctored, of course, before I can use it, if at all.  I've been researching how to do that too.  Here's some of the things I got, and perhaps should not have.  

The fan above the large embroidery piece is starched stiff and fluted!
That will definitely require some special attention, but I hope I can
get it useable someday.

I'll get lots of practice cleaning vintage pieces when I get around to it someday.

I also got a small quilt rack, a beautiful porcelain Robin Red Breast figurine for my bird collection, a framed cross-stitch poem about Friends to give to my BFF for her birthday in May,  and a beautiful china dish with pink roses, like I've never seen anywhere before.  I'll have to get better pictures of these things before I can show them.

For the two yard sales and the Estate Sale, I spent a total of  $18.50; not too bad I'd say.  I may have found a new hobby for Saturday mornings!  I really had fun digging through other people's trash and treasures!  

Our weather has been a real roller coaster ride every day this past week.  From 75 to 80 degrees one day and the next into the low 40's, then the next day back into the 70's and actually to 85 yesterday, and this morning down to 34 degrees; and not out of the 40's all day.  A light freeze may happen again in the morning, and then warming to the 60's tomorrow.  Next week is looking better hopefully!  We never saw the sunshine today at all, and the wind chill factor was in the 20's all day!  This is April?  Hard to believe!

The doctor has put me back in physical therapy to see if maybe they can help me walk better again.  I'll be going twice a week, which is going to cut into my sewing time.  Something else will be taking sewing time too ---- I've just got to clean house someday soon.  Tonight on my refrigerator, I noticed a little magnet note that says, "I try to clean house every other day; today is not the other day!"  My feelings exactly!

Have a wonderful Sunday, and a week of fun quilting"

---"Love"