Egg Carton quilt progress

Although Bonnie Hunter was my first quilt designer crush I have another crush on Edyta Sitar of Laundry Basket Quilts.
The pattern called Egg Carton quilt is in her book titled Scrappy Firework Quilts.

I love 1 1/2" strips, squares and small units of course. And after lots of seams you end up with a much larger unit. And Edyta uses batiks and cottons in my personal color pallet. Yummy!!

This is just half of the blocks I made. I have enough for two smaller quilts.

When I am not sewing I am crocheting. And here is Lucky claiming my place in the recliner last night. Sleeping upright until I snapped the photo.

We are surviving minus 15 temps with minus 45 wind chills. I have filled the bird/squirrel feeder with generous amounts of high calorie food. House is snug with rugs at the doors blocking any cold air seeping in. We have lots of quilts and lots of food. Parts of our small town lost power last night. Our power has been flickering but has remained on. The snow heavy tree branches and high winds are not powerline friendly!

XOXOXO Subee

Hexagon progress

Lots of progress on my Hexagon quilt...well it is still in the designing phase.
They may be a border on that triangle center made all from batiks.
But they may also end up being a small quilt all on their own.

But...I have exhausted my supply of fussy cut sewing machines and cat fabric motifs. No problem...I will simply cut lots more. And if I do remember correctly, when I started this project it was only a test to see if I liked the whole fussy cutting experience. YES I DO!!!!!

  I whacked a hunk off the bolt and did some tracing. Then did some cutting.

So here I am again. Enough centers and kitties for 23 more blocks.
I also cut 23 2 1/2" batik strips.  I need 12 batik squares for each block after I get the first round of kitties done. These batiks are not in the first group of blocks. So far there will be no repeats. I will continue this process until I am done....

In love again with Hexagons & Eye Fooler Quilt is done!!!

First off I have to say I am so very sorry to the HGTV group. I resigned from their swap. I had many good reasons.

The biggest one was that the hostess says she is deathly allergic to cats and their fur. I have four cats. Okay...I can deal with that. Clean clothes every time I sit down to sew. I used a lint roller to remove any hair from the chair I am going to sit in. I yelled at the cats to leave me alone while sewing. They did not understand.

I bought new papers for the swap from her suggested site. 1200 of them. I worked in a factory that had a metal stamping department. I understand about sharp dies and slag. The papers had such rough edges from a dull die that I was worried that the hostess would not accept the hexies from me for this reason. This is a issue that was NOT my fault.

I have a lot of fabric. But had to look at my fabrics with a new eye. Not  many had small enough designs to meet her criteria. And she also said no batiks...arrgggg. Half of my fabric collection is batiks. But I spent an anxious two weeks pulling enough fabrics for the 1st swap. I found all I needed. Thanks goodness I did not cut into them yet.

Then there were basting rules. I baste all behind the paper and not through it so I do not have to remove any basting when sewing together. She wanted all basting to be through the papers. And not only that but she wants them basted exactly as she had shown on her blog. Okay...I sewed for two weeks using her method. I kept her blog photos in front of me trying to make mine look exactly like hers. So slow....

The more I grumbled at the cats and complained about the basting through the papers, my husband had enough..."isn't the best part of sewing the "joy" of the journey?" he says. Yes...he was so right.
I wrote to her and told her the reasons I was resigning. She wrote back accepting my resignation.
Me? A weight has been lifted.

I  am working on an early hexie project. Little fussy cut sewing machines surrounded by fussy cut little kitties surrounded by my lovely batiks.

I had these already done. And I was able to sit in my furry chair with a warm kitty at my side and totally enjoy the process. I even let my work touch my body!!!
No contamination here!!!!

My Eye Fooler is done. I did some investigation on this pattern. It used to be called "Sparky". Check my earlier posts. The designer is still at the same address and is still offering the pattern.
http://quailvalleyquilts.com/eye-fooler/
The designer contacted me and this pattern is still available.

I want to make another one. But I am going to reduce the unit sizes. I need to go through and do the math. This is one big quilt!!!! Yet I loved the whole process.

As I enjoyed making the East Street designed by Our Bonnie Hunter. I am no longer afraid of patterns that have more than 1000,2000,3000  pieces.
Who cares how many????

We have been without a home phone for nearly a whole month. Turns out it was some squirrel damage. It had to have been the backyard squirrels as my front yard squirrels are very well fed.

This is Macy and my DH. Macy hates cold weather. She has her own heating pad. It usually sits on hubby's desk and she stays right there with him. He swears that she was trying to drag it to the couch yesterday. So he helped her. She is not spoiled at all.

And here is sweet Pearl. She looks so nice against a pink quilt. I am sure she practices looking deep asleep. Love her stripes!!!
XOXOXOxo Subee

Circles are appearing and 1st Hexagon set done.

Yes, we have circles appearing in my batik version of the Eye Fooler  pattern designed by Krisanne Watkins.

Krisanne Watkins

1428 Pheasant Run Drive

Springville, Utah 84663

I KNEW I would love this pattern. And I was right. Even DH likes it!!!!

I need to make more of the "B" block. I was not sure I was going to make a full size version of this pattern. But I am. So more blocks need to be made. I did go ahead and make all the units needed ahead of time. I can always use them in another quilt.  They are waiting in an ice cream container. But I am totally loving how this has so much movement and will make it as big as the pattern calls for. It says to use a 90" X 110" batting. And I am sure that is a smidge bigger than the finished size of the quilt.

This was my first circle appearing this morning . WHOOHOOO!!!!

Then my design wall began to be VERY overcrowded. I had to move all the other projects temporarily. Yes, I work on multiple projects at the same time.
And I can see they are all batiks.....love 'em!!

I have my first set of hexagons done for the swap I signed up for. Only 34 more sets to go. Well, I actually signed up for two swaps. The other one is all 30's fabrics (35 sets also). But I have to go dig that fabric out from under the quilt frame. I will do that soon....as I said I multitask.
At last night's guild meeting I was able to baste 12 hexies while visiting. Then we played a round of quilting bingo so I had to stop sewing. I have never played bingo before. It was fun. I won a nice quilt journal.

I made homemade chicken and noodles a few days ago. I had lots of broth and chicken meat leftover. So when DH did his snow removal yet again, I made chicken ribble soup just for him. The ribbles have not been added yet. But doesn't it look yummy??? I am not a good cook. My food is not pretty or fancy. But there are a few meals that I do like to make because they always turn out for me.

DH says he heard a robin sing this afternoon. I believe him!!!!

XOXOXOXO Subee

Making some Geese

What does one do when they have an overflowing box of 2 1/2" neutral squares and a bunch of batik 2 1/2" strips?

I am such a "lover" of my EZ Angle rulers that I had to force myself to not use them for this project.
I needed to use up those squares, remember?
And as a bonus I now have 300 2"  triangles.
So, what am I making?
I have no clue...

Here are 150 2 1/2" X 4 1/2" Flying Geese.
And also 300 2" Half Square triangles.

Here is the box where I found the batik strips. These came to me through an exchange a few years ago. This was BEFORE I became one of the swap hostesses on the quiltvilleswap group.
I love batiks...they smell so nice when pressed. And the colors are all so great.

XOXOXOXO Subee

Pfeffernuese Inspired and Thangles

All done!!! My Pfefferneuse inspired quilt I am calling Cinnamon Triangles.
It is now 56" square and I am very pleased with the adventure and results.
My biggest thanks to Our Bonnie Hunter for this pattern. I loved the units!!

 Monday night was a planning meeting for our guild's next meeting year. Games, exchanges and ideas flowed like lightening! It was a very inspiring meeting. I always seem to leave more anxious to sew than before I came. Yet I do not see how I could love sewing any more than I already do. I am staying up later and later and have the machine humming everyday as it is!!!

We are going to be doing a triangle exchange every month. Inspired by the show where we went and listened to Edtya Sitar. And we all fell in love with her color sense. Her hubby does all the cooking and housework so she can sew. How to get mine to do the same??????
I had three different programs/methods for making these little gems.
(not counting my EZ Angle ruler)

The planning group have each picked a quilt to make to get the juices flowing for the other guild members. We want a lot of participation in this undertaking. Variety makes for a much more interesting quilt!!!
And being the over achiever I am I had to actually start on a quilt using what has yet to be exchanged!!! What's a gal to do?
Why use up those batik 2 1/2" strips to make some triangles with the Thangles method.

Chain piecing is the way to do these! I made 288 units in only one day of sewing.
I only stabbed/impaled myself a few times with pins before I changed the direction of those dangerous points. HA!
And you need to see where you are going. So I advise an open toed foot as opposed to your normal 1/4" foot. You need to see where the sewing line is at all times.

Such a satisfying photo. An endless line of units being fed through the machine.

 And of course I had to cut one to see how it looks.

We are going to use Autumn colors only for the exchange. I am not sure if we are going to ask for batiks only or ask to have a few batiks mixed in with the quilting cottons. They do play well together.
XOXOXOOXO Subee

Orca Bay Mystery Clue #7 progress

I am loving the look of these Sunset/Sunset colored Flying Geese units. But I am not loving all the bulk of the seams. I have not pressed them yet. I may have to "whack" 'em with a piece of wood to get them flatter. I am honestly not sure if I am going to continue making these units. As you can see, I have not cut all the string blocks in half yet. I may end up doing my own thing with these units.

Update: I missed a step...did not use the Companion Angle ruler to trim the string blocks. Once I did that the units are much more to my liking and I am plugging away now a much happier quilter!

 But then again...I may just plow on ahead...bulky seams be dammed.

 I made many more "Birds in the Air" units than Our Bonnie originally told us to make. I am glad I did since she asked us to make 4 more units this morning. I am so there already.
Are you ready for the next photo?
Hold on to your hat....

I am an OCD gal. I have a large mason jar with nearly every "dogear" I have ever trimmed off a unit in my entire quilting life. This small container is stuffed full of the dogears from this project only.
I know.
I am odd.
My guild members laugh at me and tell me to get a life. But I love the look of that mason jar with the colored bands that are a history of my quilt life. I did meet another quilter in blogland who has "SEVERAL" jars full of her own dogear trimmings. I am not alone in this obsession.

 I spent the rainy morning in the cutting room. I have a drawer of 3 1/2" strips precut. One side of the drawer is colors and the the other is neutrals All I had to do was pull all the neutrals out and give them a nice press with my Reliable Digital Velocity iron.
( I love this iron. It is heavy but does the job so nicely )

 And since I wanted to be efficient, I cut into all the strips in that drawer. I have many more than I need for this mystery. (both quilts of course)
But I figured that I might as well cut extra and I am sure I will use them somewhere.
They do not fit in the pencil case. In fact this picture was taken only halfway through the cutting process. I have twice as many done now. I may skip the first part of clue#7 and work on the other section instead. That will take the pile down a bit. HA!

Just a picture I failed to post while making the Quarter Square units. I saw on the Yahoo group that a quilter had squared up her units by only trimming on two sides. Not centering the ruler and trimming on all four sides. Been there...done that. I feel for her. Even with the EZ rulers there were a few that were oversized here in Subeesew's world. I did trim all four sides by centering the ruler. That must have been caused by the strip width. Some were a thread or two over the cutting line. I figure that bigger is better sometimes. It is so much easier to trim units to size.
Some of my strips that I received in the last red and black/white swap were cut too small. They were not a true 2 1/2" cut strip. That is just the difference between quilter's rulers and cutting methods. I think their rulers must have slipped while they were cutting. I spread my fingers wide and brace the ruler to the table with my little finger. I push it right up against the ruler and I "walk" my hand up the length of the cut. And some quilters use their cutting mats as the cutting guide. I never do that. Yet some of my guild members use the cutting board lines. It works great for them as all their strips match. But to try and add them to another quilter's stack is really a bother. Oh well...not a big deal. I noticed this when we were cutting up kits to sew on Project Linus quilts. Our guild made 100 quilts in the last year alone for this worthy project.

 Here is a peek under my cutting table. In each drawer is a basket that can be removed without distrubing the strips. These get filled as I work. The strips do not stay in these drawers very long. I have larger containers for the strip sizes all sorted by size and color. Of course...OCD Me!

 And while I was sitting on the floor I took a picture of some of my shelving and fabric bolts. I can get down on the floor just fine. It is getting up that I have issues with. It is a bummer to get old. My head is still young!
And yes, there are rulers hanging from the ceiling of the room. They are very handy.

 I love my Digital Velocity iron. It is made by Reliable. It has a removable filter that gets nasty leak causing minerals before they enter the steam chamber. I get a nice steam facial when I use this iron. I only use it for fabric prep not during piecing. It is way too big and heavy for that.

And this is a closet in the cutting room. I cannot get into the closet. Those are empty hangers. And the stuff way in the back of the closet is Cross Stitch supplies and yarns. The big clear container is stuffed with BATIKS! I love BATIKS!

Facebook Quilt World Mystery quilt

This was a mystery from Facebook a few weeks ago. Since I had re-discovered my extensive stash of batik fabrics, I felt this would work well for them.
I used the EZ Angle ruler to cut the patches from 2 1/2" and 4 1/2" strips. I ended up having two cutting sessions. I did not double the amount stated in the instructions. They were using the "sew across a square twice" method. So, after a false start I was on my way to making this beauty.
I did not like how the design was just cut off, so I added/extended the pattern into the border and then added another strip of the taupe batik to call this done!

 It is so hard to quilt with kitties. If any of you do have cats, you know how they NEED to lay on whatever you are sewing on. MaggieMae was just telling me how lovely her fur looks with the batiks! HA!

 I used leftover strips as short as 6" to make the multicolored binding. I totally lucked out that not one seam hit a turned corner! I just did straight line quilting around each patch and extending out into the border.
I used Quilter's Dream Green as the batting. It has a nice firm feel and lays so nice.

My niece is getting married this weekend. (Oct.16) So, I started her quilt two days ago. Not one to wait until the last minute. But I was also waiting for her to decide on her colors. All I need is to do a couple small borders and then quilt it. I still have three days!

 One of my favorite bloggers, Elaine Adair, turned me on to the 45 degree Kaleidoscope Wedge ruler by Marilyn Doheny. Between the two of us we have made many, many quilts with this ruler. Each one is unique and a work of art. I love how the circles move...first a dark circle and then you see a light circle! Too Cool!

 I love "Back to school" time. I picked up several of these pencil boxes. These are 1 1/2" squares for my current Postage Stamp Swap that I hostess over on Yahoo. They fit perfectly. There are 50 different fabrics in this sweet little pink box.

And here are my packages all sorted, sealed and ready for the Post Office. The PO clerks are always so nice. This is job security for them!

Smith Mountain Morning -all done!

Well...all done but the quilting. I am in awe of how easily this went together.
Bonnie Hunter's patterns all seem to have lots of pieces. Yet, they all fit together flawlessly!
Here it is on my familyroom floor:

 And here it is on my queen size bed.
Those rust fabrics still scream out at me but they are like a cheery on a sundae per one of my commentors.
So true...

 And I am still working on a mystery quilt from Quilt World on Facebook. I decided that since I unearthed all those batiks that I need to use them. It is rainy and cool here in Indiana. A perfect day for sewing. A better day for hand quilting but Pearl has taken over the recliner for now.

 I threw them all up on the design wall. What a difference from what was on there all last week. I bounce between styles of quilts. I like them all!!!!!

Not sewn yet and I still have more blocks to make. My OCD of "matchie-matchie" is terribly challenged with this quilt. I just have to pick up a random HST and use it. Only rule is none of the same fabrics in a block. So far it has worked for me.

Kona snow Bowties and Batik bonanza

In addition to making the Cheddar Bow Tie quilt ala' Bonnie Hunter, I decided to also make a more traditional one with Kona Snow. I dug into my "charm" collection to begin this quilt. One 5" square is more than enough to make a Bow Tie unit with a nice rectangle left over. I will use the leftovers as a Piano Key border. WhoooHOOO!

 We swapped out all our old hollow wood doors inside the house to white 6 panel solid doors. What a difference it makes. Anyway...I had to move a large stack of plastic containers to allow DH to get to hinges. I came across 4 huge bags of Batik scraps. All wrinkled and smushed and unusable.

 I started pressing and sorting by size yesterday. The above is just the beginning. I soon had to switch to a larger plastic container to hold all the scraps. The teeny ones are in the small container for string piecing.

 Here is the end result. All pressed and sorted...but not sorted by color yet. But all pressed.

 I am in Batik heaven...what to make ...what to make...

 Batik envy anyone???

 I wore out my poor old ironing board cover. Sigh! I am so hard on irons and covers.

 I bet this weighs 20#'s...all deliciously clean and straight and all the same fabrics together. I am thinking of taking them all out and do a color sort while I am in the obsessive mood. There are times that being OCD is a blessing. This is one of those times......

Any suggestions? I have an urge to just make some Peaky and  Spike units and some 4-patches and some HST and some Pinwheels and some Ohio Stars....

Am I going crazy????

BTW...I am almost done with the repair of the Butteryfly quilt. Just a tiny bit of hand quilting. I am so very proud of getting it actually repaired when I had been dreading even starting the fix.

I am going to a Kaye England lecture this Friday. She is such an awesome speaker. Some of the LQS's are doing a Shop Hop that involves NO driving. All 20 shops will be under one roof. We can just go to booth to booth. I have been saving some money...It will be all gone before the end of the hop.

I am taking my old/new friend Victoria to meet Kaye. She is a tailor who has been bitten by the quilting bug via me!!!!!!!!! We have been apart for 30 years. We cannot remember why we stopped seeing each other. I guess life got in our way. We are tight again. I do love her so very much. It is like looking in a mirror sometimes. We are both Pisces...we are both the same age...we both played violin in school...we both crochet...we both sew clothes...we both love Laurel Burch designs...we both love cats.

There is a whole lot more of what we both have...but what we both have right now is each other!

I love you Victoria!