Tuesday already?

Monday holidays always throw me off. I want today to be Monday, but everyone is posting their Tuesday features (Tool Time Tuesday and Tuesday at the Table) so I guess I need to move on!

I managed to get a little crafting done last night. I was tasked with assembling posters for jazz night. The high school jazz band and chorus will perform this weekend in a party setting, with food and cash bar for adults. It's a fun night out! The photography teacher offered to take head shots of the seniors and did a fantastic job. All I needed to do was assemble the posters. I'm really happy with how they came out. How convenient that there are eight seniors!

 

I promised you a peak at my Ikea haul. The beer glasses will be used as candle holders at jazz night. I'm covering them with vellum printed with jazz music that looks really cool with the candle shining through. I'll set the candles on a vinyl album charger.

Pinterest is killing me and I feel  the need to transfer all the food in my pantry into storage containers. I picked up a few, but I need lots more! Again, Pinterest is responsible for the purchase of 2 spice racks. We want to paint them (black or white?) and store nail polish or crafts supplies on them. We desperately needed new cutting boards and there is a picture ledge for Pete's room to display graduation flair.

 The most exciting (for me) purchase was the cable system. I have been displaying wall hangings on this hallway wall for years. There is a long piece of wood trim that I feed through the quilt sleeves and set on nails in the wall. It worked, but it doesn't look great.

Ahh, that's better! With the cable system and hanging hooks, I can easily change out the quilts and can hang pieces without sleeves. And I can overlap/layer quilts so I don't have to search for ones that fit just right.

In family news, Pete marched in his last town parade. There is much more marching in his future, though! He's happy it will be done in a cooler uniform.

 

He stood at attention during the playing of the Marine Corps Hymn during the ceremony. Our church choir sang the Navy Hymn/Eternal Father on Sunday. I can't sing it! I start to cry by the end of the first verse and it just gets worse as the song progresses.

 

There was some sibling bonding over new airsoft guns. Do you believe he found Marine Corps airsoft? They actually have EGAs on them.

 I'd better get to work. I think it's a yard work day, before the heat arrives later this week. I need to buy red, white and blue annuals for my pots.

To Boston with Love

 I dragged Julia to Boston with me yesterday. I'm so lucky that she shares my crafty passion!

Our first and most important stop was the Museum of Fine Arts. Since it was their community weekend, admission was free, and there were lots of families waiting in the line that stretched down the sidewalk in the drizzle.

We headed straight for the Shapiro Family Courtyard to see this!

After making a flag and reading so much about this online, it was a little overwhelming to see it in person. 

We didn't know if we'd ever find my flag, but in the last corner left to search, we spotted it!

 

With its RIMQG friends!

 

In the view from the balcony (staircase landing), I indicated our location with the arrow. In case you've been wondering (as was I), the big green "tree" is a glass sculpture by Dale Chihuly called Lime Green Icicle Tower.

The toughest part about viewing the exhibit is that it stretches across a cafe in the middle of the courtyard. To see each flag, we'd have to lean over peoples' lunches, which is frowned upon at the MFA!

 After leaving the museum, we were starving, so we headed to the North End for pizza and passed this amazing display of wisteria in Christopher Columbus Park.

The real reason for going to Boston: cannoli from Mike's!

Our last stop on the way home was Ikea. I'll show you the haul and what I plan to do with it soon.

Finish it up Friday

 I didn't get a whole lot of sewing done this week, but I did manage to complete this top for Habitat for Humanity. I'll try to prepare the back and binding tonight, then set it all aside until we buy batting. I'm calling this a finish!

This is the X's and O's pattern from Missouri Star. We had a stash of 6" blocks donated by guild members years ago, and I found the tan in our outreach stash, too. This will make a great quilt for a 10-year old boy.

Julia has been playing with fabric, getting ready to make a quilt for her boyfriend. Most of these squares came from the Big 10 Inch Swap that Monica hosted on Flickr last year.

She decided to go with the Old Italian block from the cover of Anita's book, because the boyfriend will be an Old Italian man someday soon! The first two test blocks didn't turn out very well. The rotary cutter slipped on the blue one, making the center square not square, and the dimensions of the red one are off. One more test block is in order before we start full scale production.

 

The bleeding hearts are blooming this week. Those little blossoms are so cute!

 

We'll be in Boston tomorrow for the "To Boston With Love" exhibit at the MFA!

Now, hop over to Crazy Mom Quilts to see what everyone else finished this week.

Blogger's Quilt Festival- Throw Quilts - Batik Arrowheads

 My entry in the Blogger's Quilt Festival Throw Quilt category is Batik Arrowheads.

I started this quilt in late March as a class project from Anita Grossman Solomon's Craftsy class, Traditional Blocks Made Simple. At about that same time, a family friend was hospitalized and in need of love and prayers. This quilt soon became his.

I really enjoyed diving into my batik stash to find the most guy-friendly prints and colors. We shuffled the blocks around several times before settling on this warm/cool arrangement.

 

The backing is nothing to write home about. It gets the job done. The quilting is simply straight lines in the ditch. I loved how it looked on the back of my brown sofa.

 

My mother tested out the quilt at a Marine Corps function for enlistees. 

 

Again, many thanks to Amy for making this all possible!

 

Settle in with your favorite drink and enjoy the show!

Blogger's Quilt Festival- Scrap Quilt Entry- Emerald Selvage Spiderweb

 I chose my Emerald Selvage Spiderweb as a Scrap Quilt entry in the Blogger's Quilt Festival.

The selvages were pieced on a foundation of painter's masking paper that comes on a roll in the hardware store. I just cut it to the sizes I needed for the blocks and borders.

 The green is Kona Fern, that I thought was pretty close to this year's color of the year, Emerald. A few more selvages were used to make the back large enough.

 I really had fun quilting this!

Motifs in the green spaces and mums in the spiderwebs.

This was my first time making a double sided binding.

This is my favorite quilt of 2013, so far!

Amy has done an amazing job of coordinating all the prizes and setting up the linky parties for all the categories. Head over to browse and vote (next week) and send Amy some love!

Enjoy the Blogger's Quilt Festival! 

A Quiet Saturday

 There's not much going on around here today, but I felt like posting, so here goes nothing.

I started hearing the Baltimore Oriole in the yard this week. Minutes after putting the orange out for him, he flew over for a nibble. He looks a little slimmer than the males we've seen in the past. I wonder if he's a young one.

I finally put labels on the Ninigret Quilters' donations to Project Linus. It was time to move that pile out of my house!

 I was planning to just go into the LQS to drop off the quilts. Then I turned around and saw these! How could I resist? I love how these fabrics look like Malka Dubrawsky's hand-printed work. My LQS owners are at Quilt Market. I can't wait to see what new goodies they bring home!

(In the background, you can see the lilac is in full bloom. That's about as close as I can get to it. Allergies.)

 In family news, Pete submitted his Eagle Scout application to BSA today. Phew! If all goes well, he'll have his board of review in a few weeks, and then we can plan a ceremony.

Enjoy the day!

Quick Pic

Is it just me or is sewing more fun with cute nail polish? My new summer color is Sally Hansen #400, Get Juiced.

My part of the super secret project is complete. Hmm. What's next?

WIP Wednesday

Hello, blogland! I didn't mean to disappear for almost two weeks. I've been under the weather for the past week (allergies/virus/ear infection), but I'm finally starting to feel better. In the middle of all that, I picked up Julia from college for the summer. Yay!  We will be quilting a lot together in the next 10 weeks, so stay tuned!

No finishes to report. Instead, I'll show you my lovely Mother's Day gifts. Gorgeous roses from hubby, a peach bellini scented candle from Julia (we have a thing for bellinis!) and a bracelet from Pete.

I didn't even know this Alex & Ani Marine Corps bracelet existed. I love it!!

In Progress:
Our guild nine patch swap started last night with round 1. Twenty six quilters each swapped sixteen blocks. It will be fun to see what everyone does with them! This is my pile...

and this is Julia's. The blocks we made are at the bottom left.

Here's a peak at a secret project that I need to get moving on, like now! The colors are so yummy.

I pieced this Dory for Julia before she came home. I plan to embroider "Just keep swimming" on the border and make a little wall hanging for her dorm room. The pattern is from Fandom in Stitches, which is a really fun site.

Buyer beware: sometimes, you get what you pay for with free patterns. The eyes were just wrong. I caught one mistake before I started (a line missing at the top of the right eye), but that eye on the left was way wrong. I had to redraw and piece a whole new section to replace it.

I bought some fabric on sale at Fabric.com so I can add a few more things to the to-be-quilted pile. I knew this Martha Negley print would be perfect for the back of the magenta top, but I had no idea how big the grapes would be. Fun, right?

I also purchased a big back (108" wide) for the back of the three by three top. After a good press, this pile will be off to the quilter, Pat at Ocean Waves. I picked up the batting from Ryco with a 40% off coupon. Gotta love those!

I guess my sick leave is over. We'll be back to the machines tomorrow. In the meantime, I'll be browsing the WIP Wednesday entries.