Is it bedtime yet?

Sooooo tired!

I stayed up as late as I could last night - but was in bed by ohhhhh....8.   

.....and up at FIVE!!!

However, on the plus side - I finished two quilt tops this morning. Yup - and even started piecing the back of one of them.  All before heading out to work!

On the negative....I had about 6x as much coffee as any human should safely consume - - and my boss commented that I was in a "weird mood" and categorically refused to go on any field trips with me to Members of Parliament's offices.   (I just wanted to say "hey!")

Taking the Plunge

I've never done a Bonnie Hunter online mystery before, but as I started seeing more and more finished Easy Streets from last year's mystery, I told myself I wasn't going to be left out again - - I can't NOT be part of the phenomenon any longer.  I'm a little scared of the colours, but I'm all in for Celtic Solstice, and I'm going with the flow.

(image "borrowed" from Quiltville)

There is a Lowe's in the city where Itty Bitty attends university (by the way - - Midterms were last week - - who got straight A's???  Yeeeee-ah, my boy!) so I sent him to hook me up with the paint chips and told him to mail them to me immediately.  He called me tonight from the paint aisle at Lowe's.  Such a good boy.

Hopefully I will have the paint chips by the weekend, because there is a Shop Hop on Saturday - - you know I'm going to have to shop for fabric for this project!

Does this look familiar, mom?

Yes mom, it's finally quilted, and I'm sewing the binding on.  I'm really pleased with the design the quilter chose, and that she went with turkey red thread.  Good job Linda!

I woke up this morning thinking about these crumb blocks that I've had in a drawer - - enough to make a good sized quilt, but I've never seen a quilt that is nothing but crumbs.  Just to add a degree of difficulty, I'm putting the blocks on point and adding a 1/2" strip around the side triangles.  I have no idea what this is going to look like.  

This Week's Report

It's been a week since I've posted - just been busy! After a week of holidays from work, things have piled up at the office.

I signed up for a scrap swap at Lia's Handmades - sounds exciting!  I love scraps!

Hubby is at work today - which gives me about 4 hours of solo sewing time.  I'll post later with pictures of what I've been up to.

What Does a Cat Have to Do to Get Into a Picture....for crying out loud...

Itty Bitty is home for the long (Canadian) Thanksgiving Weekend.  We dropped Hubby off at work bright and early this morning, and I forced him to drive me to all of the thrift stores in town, looking for some quilting goodness.  I bribed him with a stop at Tim Horton's for a Pumpkin Spice Muffin and tea.

I bought some quilting magazines, Amy Butler's book "In Stitches", a zipper, and a bag of scraps - all for less than one new magazine on the news stand!

Whose bum is that sneaking in on the perimeter?

Well look who's here?  It's Gibby!  Look at all 

the good stuff I found at the thrift stores!

Whatever...just scratch my chin - wouldya?

REEEEE-TREEEEEAT!!!

I'm on vacation this week - and spent a couple of days at a cottage in Port Lambton with my mom and sister, and some of their scrapbooker friends.  I took my sewing machine, and finished this quilt top:

Plaid Obsession has been on the top of my to do list forever!  I'm really happy with how it turned out.

Quick tip - Glue stick

I made a 6" wonky star block for a label today - and thought I'd share this tip.  Turn the edges of your label under, and use an ordinary washable glue stick to temporarily tack it down to to the back of your quilt.  So much easier to hand stitch down without a zillion pins, and will ensure it is straight and unpuckered.

It took me all week...

It took a whole week to finish stitching down the binding on my latest Shirt Stripe Boxes.  But it's still not done - it needs a label.  I'm bad at this - so I took a look around the internet for inspiration - and if Jenny from the Missouri Star Quilt Company says I can just write on the back of my quilt with a Sharpie...I'm all for it!

Just kidding...I'll try a little harder than that!  I'll get back to you with whatever I decide to do.

The reason it took so long to do the binding is because I tried very hard to work on my Plaid Obsession Quilt every night for at least an hour or two.  Last night I started putting the rows of blocks together!  

In the meantime...there's a sweet story in the video above.  Take a look if you have a spare 4 minutes and 11 seconds.