Time Flies....

 I didn't realize so much time had passed since my last blog post.  Needless to say, I've been pretty busy with the Thanksgiving holiday.

On the 17th, we had my husband's family over for Pre-Thanksgiving.  Everyone had a great time and we had a ton of food.  Thankfully some of the extra turkey went home with my husband's parents and his uncle, and the rest was mostly eaten by two friends who came over on Sunday to do some hunting on the back of our property.  No luck for them though as a coyote chased off the deer just as the deer ere getting within range.

Right after Pre-Thanksgiving, it was a short week at work, but that just meant that we tried to fit 5 days of work into 3.  After work on the 21st, we drove out to Syracuse, NY to visit my parents.  We stayed there through Saturday morning and we arrived back home Saturday around lunchtime.  It was good visiting with everyone and we helped them put up one of the Christmas trees.

Saturday afternoon Rich and I put up our Christmas tree while watching White Christmas. :-)  Its a tradition in our family to watch White Christmas while putting up the trees.  Besides...I love the movie!

So on the quilting front, there hasn't been a ton of quilting done as I've been cooking, cleaning, putting up trees, etc.  I'm not even going to bother listing the last post for Make-A-List Monday as I really didn't get much done.

I haven't shared pictures in a while, so here's some things that I have been doing:

The Whirly Stars quilt is completely finished.  I decided to do string blocks in the corners with the strings pointing towards the center of the quilt.

We also finally  hung the Starry Night needlepoint that I finished last year.  We've had it framed for almost a year now, but hadn't figured out where we wanted to hang it.  Its now hanging in the dining room.

We also had a little bit of snow a week or so ago.  It was really a wet rain with a little bit of snow.  We had more snow over this past weekend, but I didn't take any pictures.  Its all gone by now despite it remaining cold out.

I also finished the binding on Shine on Bayou Cane.  I haven't washed this yet, but its already getting some use on our couch for snuggling in at night.  I laid it out on the queen-sized bed in our guest bedroom to get a good view of it fully laid out.

And here's a close-up of the quilting.

This coming week, I do have some things I'd like to finish/start.
1. Post pictures of completed quilts and update blog.
2. Quilt charity quilt for guild.
3. Post pictures of Patchwork Garden completed.
4. Post picture of Christmas tree.

Happy Crafting!
 ~Sarah at upstateNYCreations



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Make-A-List Monday

 Another week has already gone by and we're in the middle of October.  Time sure does fly.  I've gotten a lot of sewing done the last week, although I don't have pictures uploaded yet.

Part of the reason for the lack of posting is that I found out this past week that the usual site I use for hosting pictures (Webshots) is changing their service and will no longer be free.  So I've spent part of the past week transferring images from Webshots over to Flickr and updating my blog posts.  I've updated all of the individual posts on this blog, but I'm debating on what to do with my old blog.  I have a lot of pictures there and just general documentation of things that went on in my life for the past 4 years.  Webshots is discontinuing their free surface on November 1st, so there's really no way to update all the posts by then.

I do have the pictures downloaded and labeled the way Webshots had it labeled, so I should be able to back-track the pictures to the posts at some point in the future.

The other thing that has been keeping me busy this past week is quilting on the client quilt.  It took a bit longer than I expected to get quilted... a total of 7.5 hours.  It looks absolutely gorgeous though and the quilting added so much texture to the quilt.  I'll share some pictures a little later this week.

So the list from last week:
1.  Complete 3 rows of quilting on client quilt each night.  DONE!
2.  Add binding onto quilt on Friday evening.  DONE - but not on Friday.  Binding got machine sewn on Sunday evening.
3.  Hand-stitch at least half the binding down by Sunday evening.  I only have 1/4 of the binding down.
4.  Sew strips together for 2nd baby quilt. DONE!
5.  Play with EQ6 to get fabric amounts/colors for a smaller version of Judy's Sing A Happy Song quilt pattern. Not done.

Overall it was a pretty good week and I'm glad I have the quilting done on the client quilt.

Here's the plan for this coming week:
1. Complete hand-sewing of binding on client quilt.
2. Press strips together for 2nd baby quilt.
3. Design 3rd baby quilt (yes, another one in addition to the one from last week).
4.  Play with EQ6 to get fabric amounts/colors for a smaller version of Judy's Sing A Happy Song quilt pattern for 4th baby quilt.
5.   Hand-sew binding on Shine on Bayou Cane quilt.

Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Make-A-List Monday

Last week was another fairly productive week.  I was able to get some sewing done on both Thursday and Friday nights, which made for a good week. :-)

Here's the list from last Monday:

1. Post photos of Shine on Bayou Cane's label and binding.  I machine stitched the binding and label on yesterday, but the actual hand-stitching is going to wait until it gets a bit cooler.  DONE!  See post here.

2. Sew rows together for Wildflower Fields. DONE!  See post here.

3. Post for Wanna Know Wednesday. DONE!  See post here.

4. Trim up extra pieces of fabric from backing of Shine on Bayou Cane to use in scrap quilts. Not done.

5. Post about Quilt #4 on the blog. DONE! See post here.

 I also started quilting on a quilt top that I did for a class last summer.  I have all the stitch-in-the-ditch quilting done and am now going to start the custom quilting.  I'm going to try out some new things with this quilt and hopefully use it as a sampler.

So here's the plan for this coming week.  Its a shortened plan as my hubby has to have knee surgery on Thursday morning.  He doesn't handle illness well and this will most likely be worse.  I will definitely be tied up on Thursday with that and we'll have to play it by ear on how he does on Friday and over the weekend.  Hopefully it won't be as bad as he thinks it will be.

1.  Plan stitching for Quilt Sampler and start stitching blocks.

2. Post for Wanna Know Wednesday.

3. Post about Quilt #5 on the blog.

Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Stashbusting 2012 - Week 29 & 30

 Since there wasn't any post last week for stash busting as Judy implemented her new blog, I have two weeks posted here.  I did get a fair amount accomplished, but not a lot of stash used.  I made a label and added binding to Shine on Bayou Cane, but I counted the binding fabric when I cut it....back in 2010!

I have a bunch of pictures here, so please be patient with the page loading. :-)

This is the panto that I used to quilt Shine on Bayou Cane.  I had a leaf pattern that I like from a picture online, so I was able to trace it and make it into a pantograph.  I also had to re-size it because the original picture was about 8" tall, but my throat space at the bottom of an 80" long quilt is just shy of 5".

The thread I used on it was Superior Threads' Bottom Line in the bobbin and their "Lava" thread in Fern Grotto.  I also used Quilter's Dream Cotton batting in Select thickness.

Here's a close-up of the quilting...

And the backing....

This is the best picture I have of the quilt as I was taking it off the frame.  Once I have the binding hand-sewn to the back, I'll post another picture of the fully completed quilt.  The binding won't be hand-sewn until this fall once it gets a little cooler.

Here's the label I made for the quilt.  I didn't judge the thickness of my seam for the binding though, so a small amount of the text will be covered by the binding when its sewn down.  I'll correct that for the next one I do. :-)

This is what else I've been working on.  On the far left are two blocks for my random scrappy quilt.  It will be made of 16-patch blocks that use 2" (finished) squares from every quilt I've made.  The other blocks/rows are from Wildflower Fields (Bonnie Hunter's Orca Bay pattern).  I have just under half of the rows put together. 

I probably won't have a lot of stash usage in the next few weeks as I've started quilting a quilt I started last year in a class.  I counted the backing and binding for that last year, too, so while I will get a finish done in the next few weeks, it won't change my numbers.  However, at least I'm in the positive again, which is definitely good.

Here are the numbers:
Added This Week:       0.0 yards
Added Year to Date:    18.54 yards
Used This Week:          0.42 yards
Used Year to Date:       20.14 yards
Net Year to Date:         -1.60 yards

Go on over to Judy's post to see how everyone has done this week.

Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Make-A-List Monday

Last week was a fairly productive week for me on the quilting front.  I think a large portion of that was due to the fact that I actually left work reasonably on-time.  I just was not going to put in 50 hours last week after coming back from vacation.

Here's the list from last Monday:
1. Post for Wanna-Know Wednesday. DONE!
2. Finish quilting Shine on Bayou Cane. DONE! Finished on Thursday evening.

3. Post for Stash Busting Sunday. Stash posts were not held this week as Judy had her blog re-done and it was not available for most of Sunday.
4. Post entry for other quilts I've made besides the first quilt. ;-)  DONE!


I actually got all of the items accomplished last week, which is a minor miracle. ;-)

So here's the plan for this week...

1. Post photos of Shine on Bayou Cane's label and binding.  I machine stitched the binding and label on yesterday, but the actual hand-stitching is going to wait until it gets a bit cooler.

2. Sew rows together for Wildflower Fields.

3. Post for Wanna Know Wednesday.

4. Trim up extra pieces of fabric from backing of Shine on Bayou Cane to use in scrap quilts.

5. Post about Quilt #4 on the blog.

Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at upstateNYCreations

Make-A-List Monday

I'm a little late in posting for Make-A-List Monday since its already Tuesday morning.  Yesterday was my first day back at work after being on vacation for 11 days, so it was a bit hectic.  I had over 250 emails to dig through and figure out which ones needed answering and which ones could just be deleted.

So here's my list from two weeks ago:

1. Post for Wanna-Know Wednesday. DONE
2. Post picture of the Lone Star quilt. DONE
3. Sew the first row together for Wildflower Fields. Sort of - I sewed the 2nd row completely together, but since its the first row I sewed together, I'm going to count it. ;-)
4. Post for Stash Busting Sunday. DONE

So this week is going to be another busy week is my guess.  It may be slightly quiet though as there are still a lot of people on vacations.

Here's what I would like to accomplish this week. 
 
1. Post for Wanna-Know Wednesday.
2. Finish quilting Shine on Bayou Cane.

3. Post for Stash Busting Sunday.
4. Post entry for other quilts I've made besides the first quilt. ;-)

Happy Crafting!
~Sarah at UpstateNYCreations