Pineapple Quilt Progess

Just in case you thought I'd fallen off the earth, nope, I'm still here. I've been spending some time at my sewing machine this week (very unusual of me, I know). You see, I've gotten very bored with the hand-quilting of Mom's tablerunner (which is supposed to be finished by July 14)...so I've been bouncing between projects right now, trying to do a little bit of something and then going back to the hand-quilting. It's not exactly working...

Here are my working stacks of fabric next to my sewing machine...I know, the creams are washed out by the light, I'm a horrible photographer...

I tried to take a shot of me sewing on one of the blocks - how do you ladies get these kinds of pictures in focus??? You can tell from this photo that these blocks aren't large - only 5 1/2" finished.

Here is the beginning of a block...boring to start..

But look what 9 finished blocks looks like!! I haven't sewn these together yet, they're just pinned to the design wall right now. I'm liking them more and more :) I've finally gotten it down to about 1 hour to sew a block, from the 1 1/2 hours it was taking me....I think this is going to be a quilt where you either love the process or you don't make the quilt...

One last shot of Felix. He likes to sit between our legs if we have our footrests up. He doesn't bother my sewing - too much. If I happen to dangle a thread within his line of sight, he'll attack it, oh yeah. Doesn't he look like he's just waiting for that to happen? LOL

Am I still here???

My life has gone on hyperdrive since my birthday last month. I've now become the official back-up babysitter for my sister's 2 boys. Which is taking up a fairly good amount of time. And Kendrick has hit the stage where he is testing to see how far he can get away with things..and he doesn't seem to like his little brother, so there is a LOT of hitting going on. Good thing Grayson is so laid back about it. Anyway, life is very full with this new responsibility - and I've only watched them 5 days out of the last 3 weeks - wow, it seems like it's been a lot more than that! LOL

I've also discovered the fabric/clothesline bowls craze that was going around a year ago or so. Man these things are addictive!! I made a couple for my mom and sis for Mother's Day and am now trying to build up a small stash of them to offer for sale at the yard sale we're planning to have this weekend. I currently have 3 made - hopefully at least 2 more will join the party.

I also spent today painting the living room with DH. Talk about hard work!! I was in charge of trimming the ceiling and baseboards so DH could follow with the roller....which meant I was up and down the ladder alllllll day. And did I mention we have 10 foot ceilings in our house? That's a long way up!!! The first time I went up the ladder this morning I thought I was going to have a panic attack (I have issues with heights) and DH would have to to the ceiling bits. But I finally conquered my fears and didn't look back. We now have a lovely green living room and we even got 2 coats on in one day!! All the neighbors were impressed (yes, we had to show it off to someone!).

Let's see....oh yes, I'm also working on a surprise gift for Mom for her birthday in July. I had some blue and cream log cabin blocks floating around my sewing room for years. I had originally bought the fabric to make a log cabin quilt for my little brother and his first wife. He's now on to his second wife and I never managed to finish the quilt. In fact, I only had 6 blocks made. So I got this bright idea to round out the number of blocks to 8, and sew them in 2 rows of 4 blocks to make a tablerunner. I'm going to cut the corners off to make the ends pointy and am in the process of hand quilting it now. I'm about 2/3 of the way finished with that and am still on schedule to get it to her by her birthday. And I repurposed the blue and cream fabrics to make my pineapple quilt.

I've also been working on my pink and brown Candied Hexagons quilt blocks. I've got 3 rows of blocks completed and on my design wall. I'm waiting until I get all the blocks pieced before I decide on an actual layout. In the meantime, I'm placing them in position the same way the quilt I'm following for the pattern has the blocks placed. I'll rearrange to make the colors flow right once they're all made.

I was able to get my grandmother's sewing machine fixed recently, too. Apparently the ceramic plate in the foot pedal had cracked, which made the entire machine not usable. The local quilt shop's father (a retired electrician) replaced the foot pedal for me for only the cost of the pedal. How awesome was that!

I've had another interview since my birthday rejection. And they didn't want me this time, either. My mom and sis think I need to dye my hair. I went gray really early - first one found in high school, major additions in college. I'm really starting to think they might be right...sigh...

Now that I have access to my blogger account again (I was locked out for a week or so) I hope I'll keep up with somewhat regular posts....but we'll see.

Project Updates..

First off - I'm sorry the photos today are so blurry. I'm not sure what's going on, other than I was the one taking the photo - DH does such a better job of this than I do.

I have been spending most of my time lately on the Halloween Quilt. I've managed to get all the center blocks embroidered and cut down to size. I just need to assemble them together now. Then it's deciding what to do with the border...I've got 3 or 4 options and am just letting things ruminate for now. I'm still hoping to have this on the wall for Halloween - but it may just be a top...we'll see.


This next picture is of a pineapple block I made this week. You may recognize the fabrics as those being used in the Log Cabin quilt I posted about earlier. Well, as I was working on those log cabin blocks, it became painfully apparent that I could not get 2 blocks to come out the same size. They varied from 12" to 12 1/2"...and I'm too much of a perfectionist for that to be acceptable. So, I had to come up with a different plan.

That's when I remembered these paper piecing patterns I had floating around my sewing room for a pineapple quilt I had wanted to make. It kept getting put on the back burner, but I still had these patterns done up. And then it hit me. The strips I had cut for the log cabin quilt would work perfectly in the pineapple blocks! So, I did a quick block this week to see how things worked out. Other than the very outer corner pieces, I think this is very good! And I get the accuracy I prefer using this method, as well. So, I do believe the Log Cabin Quilt will stop at 8 blocks (I'll figure out what to do with those some other day - maybe the back of the Pineapple Quilt?) and the Pineapple Quilt was begun :) I'm happy with the decision.


This last pic is Teresa Wentzler's Unicorn. I'm at the half-way point on it and decided it was time to snap a picture - blurry though it is. I'm leaving the unicorn for last, as an incentive to finish the design. I have a tendency to put things down and move on to other projects, you know. I'm now working on the upper right-hand side of the pattern, where the house is. I'm hoping that the greens in the lower right-hand section won't feel as tedious if they are closer to the end of the project. We'll see how that logic works out.