9-patch minis ready for mailing

Aren't they sweet? I have them all packed for mailing and a hostess gift included. I cannot wait to get the return blocks. I really like these swaps.

mini 9-patches and some kitty pictures

I am in a swap on a Yahoo group. We are each making 10 sets of 10 different 3 1/2" 9-patches. I am nearly done making this little beauties. So I am sending in 100 blocks and will get 100 back! WHOOOHOOO!!!!!!

There are 5 cats in this picture. From left to right they are: MaggieMay, Pearl, Baby, Macy and Bess. Yes, I have 5 indoor cats. I love each of them!

MaggieMay is on the smaller table. Pearl is on the blue cutting mat. Baby is sitting like the sandbag she is (20#'s) and Bess is peeking out the window at the birdies.

Hubby just called and said he has seen robins today. It makes him so happy to know Spring is coming and that there will be no more snow plowing for him.

Black and White 9-patch exchange quilt finished

I have discovered a totally new use for my machine quilting frame. I have been doing this for many years now. I use it to pin up a quilt for either hand quilting or machine quilting on my DSM. I can literally have a quilt all pinned and ready to go in an hour! Honest! It is so much better than crawling on the floor or trying to do it on my too small dining room table. And there have never been any puckers.

These blocks came to me from an internet swap I did many, many years ago. I even think it was the first swap I ever entered. I remember I was still working full time and was only able to marathon sew on weekends after the housework was done. The finished size is 6". I added hourglass blocks between the 9-patches.

I quilted this on the diagonal and then on the square making the quilting go through every piece so this quilt can be abused as much as Amanda wants to abuse it. The quilt is 66" square.

This quilt is for my grand daughter Amanda's birthday on March 10th. She was born on my own birthday. So we are both Pisces. Also there is to be a full moon on our birthday. Howllllllll!!!!

Basting Brights safety pins

Carmen...you did not leave me an e-mail address to answer your question.

I found many sites that sell these basting pins. I know I bought them through Joann's online. It looks as if Nancy's notions have a good price but don't know what the shipping costs are.

http://www.nancysnotions.com/product/supplies/pins/basting+brights+200+pkg.do

http://www.amazon.com/Basting-Brights-Safety-Pins-200-Pkg/dp/B000BHZWQE



http://www.joann.com/joann/catalog.jsp?CATID=cat3433&PRODID=prd34525

Guild Mystery Quilt quilted and bound

All done, labeled and bound. Started quilting at 7 this morning and was done at 1:30! I love my Janome 6600P. The 9" throat allows so much room for quilting. I did a diagonal cross hatching. I used a southwest horse fabric for the backing. This quilt is for my grand daughter Arika. She loves horses. The print went very nicely with the border fabric. Her birthday is March 7th. I am early and have it ready to take to the guild meeting tonight. WhoooHoo!

I used 200 safety pins to baste this quilt. I know it is 200 because I opened a new package of these "safety brites" and I used all of them plus a few extra I had on hand. I had to open a new package because the bulk of my pins are in two hand quilting projects. I love hand quilting but it takes sooooooo long to finish them. I am glad I had another package of these pins. If you haven't tried them yet do so. They are very sharp and very easy to see. I basted the quilt on my machine frame. Took only an hour to load the machine and put in all the pins. I did that yesterday while doing laundry. So much easier on the back than crawling on the floor.

I did not have any idea of how I was going to quilt this when I stated this morning. After I went around the borders a couple of times I could see what the quilt wanted. It did not take away from the piecing at all. I love it!

I added a label and one of my "SubeeSews Originals" labels. I used the navy fabric for the binding. All in all it came out great! I cannot wait for my guild friends to see this quilt. Several ladies have brought their quilts in for show and tell. They all look so different. None has shown one like this one yet!

Cats and the quilting process

There is nothing more precious than a child or an animal asleep. They are so innocent and trusting. MaggieMay is leaning her head on a fold of my quilt. She can be so very trying at times. And then I find her like this and I forget all the troubles she can cause.

I was chosing thread colors for Arika's birthday quilt. I left the room for a moment to get the bobbin thread and Pearl decided this was a great place to take a nap. I used a "King Tut" thread for the top and a John Flynn "So Fine" for the bobbin.

Guild Mystery Quilt finished (sneaked it in)

All I needed to do was add two borders to finish this project. I need to show it finished by Monday's meeting to get two credits for the year's final drawing of finished projects. I also needed to get it finished as it is destined to be a birthday gift to my grand daughter Arika whose birthday is March 7th.

Here I am trying out some border fabric. I decided I needed to miter those corners. The fabric has been in my stash for years and years. Guess I have been saving it for my next life. HA!

I was very brave making this quilt. I had limited yardage of all the fabrics. That is not how I usually do quilts. I am walking on the wild side anymore! I have been buying fabrics in bolt quantities for a couple years. (Especially the neutrals.) But not for this one. I really dug to the back of my stash for these fabrics.

This was sewn back in November when the mystery started. I guess my short term memory is gone because I do not even remember sewing on it at all!