Sunset

Well, I wasn't going to do another post for a few more days, but there was such a gorgeous sunset here today.  I took several pictures and wanted to post a couple for you to enjoy
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Another Christmas Runner

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends.  And if you're part of the Black Friday shopping frenzy, I hope you get some great bargains.  I used to be a very dedicated Black Friday shopper, but these last few years it just hasn't interested me much.  I may go out in an hour or so just to see if there are any bargains left.  The crowds should be a lot smaller at this time, especially since many of the sales began yesterday.

I've been working on another Christmas table runner.

This is a pattern from Heather at Anka's Treasures and is very easy and fun to do.  It is from her book Angles with Ease, and also uses her Triangler ruler.

I have a couple more Christmas related items to finish; then I can get started on more non-Christmas quilting.


I'm linking up with Sew Darn Crafty

Swirls and a Christmas Runner

Here are a couple of things I've been working on this week.

This unfinished wall hanging is made with a charm pack, which is all I had of that fabric, and white tone-on-tone for the background. 

However, I really like the fabric, so I just ordered a layer cake.  When that comes, I may sew a few more blocks to make this into a bigger quilt.  Not sure yet, but I did want to get more of the fabric while it's still available.


I also finished this Christmas table runner. 

It's made with a jelly roll and is meant to be put together in a random manner.  I have a lot of trouble doing random, especially when the blocks are right together with no sashing.  I'd prefer to have a bit more structure to the look.  So Mr. M laid out all the blocks for me (he's good at random), and I sewed it together just the way he laid it out.  He likes the way it turned out; I'm not sure yet if I do.

The backing is a panel that I had in my stash.

This is a special weekend coming up:  our daughter will be here for a couple of days. We have spent opening deer hunting weekend together for several years.  We always do fun things together, so I'm really looking forward to her visit.


Joining the    Sew Darn Crafty Linky Party

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Back from the Retreat

Hi there!  We're back from the retreat.  What a great time we had seeing old friends and meeting new people.  The Rochester location was wonderful, but they are already booked for next year, so the retreat will be at a new location.  Wherever it is, we'll be there; wouldn't miss it for anything.

I didn't get as much accomplished as I had hoped to, but that's okay.  It was fun anyway. 

I did get a couple of quilt tops finished, though.

This one is a wall hanging made from a Quilt in a Day pattern. 

As a side note, we were able to attend Eleanor Burns' show while we were in Paducah last April. She is just a "hoot", and such a nice person.


I also made this quick and easy quilt top using 2 charm packs and some  sashing.  It'll end up being about 45x56, so just a nice lap size.

I was also able to get the blocks for a wall hanging and also for a quilt finished, but I'll keep those pictures for another post.


I'm entering the Sew Darn Crafty post over at Sew Many Ways:

Also at Anything Blue Friday:

Crumb Catcher

Here's what I've been working on for the past couple of days.  It's called a Cookie Plate Crumb Catcher.  You can see the tutorial over at The Crafty Quilter.  She's doing a Christmas Once a Month tutorial on the 15th of each month this year, and this is the October project.

I just looked through my smaller fabric pieces and found a few that I thought would work.
This was fun to do; a quick and easy project.


Next Thursday my friend Kaci and I are going to a quilt retreat sponsored by Roseann of Rosebud's Cottage in White Bear Lake, Minnesota.  This year it's in Rochester, Minnesota.  This is our 4th year going to Roseann's retreats, and we always have such a good time. 

These are some of the charm squares I'm taking along.  They're from the line "Lovely" by Debby Beaves for RJR Fabrics.  I bought two charm square packs, and I'm going to make an easy four-patch quilt with them.  I love the purples and greens and the black background on some of the fabrics.

I have about 5 or 6 projects to take along.  I'd rather have too many to finish than too few.  Although with too few, I'd have to run out to a quilt shop and buy more fabric, etc.  Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing after all.

I'll be back after the retreat with some pictures, hopefully of a few finished tops.

Vacation and New Fabric

I was out of town last week having lots of fun.  Can you guess where??

Yes, Las Vegas!!  Our younger son lives there; I was visiting and helping him move to a new apartment.  We got the moving out of the way at the beginning of the week.  The top picture is New York New York casino and the middle one is the lion at the MGM Grand casino. 

The bottom picture of part of the strip was taken from the Springs Preserve, a large area right in the city which comprises the Nevada State Museum, a natural history museum, and a desert living center.  On the left is the Stratosphere, which is on the north end of the strip.  The other buildings are part of the strip also, not close enough on this picture to identify.

One day we went to the Bellagio on the strip and had brunch--very good!  Then we walked up and down about half of the strip, wandering around in a couple of casinos.  I bet a few dollars, made a few and lost a few, so ended up about even.


The next day we drove five hours to the south rim of the Grand Canyon.

I lived in Denver for several years and never made it to the Grand Canyon; now that I live twice as far away I finally got to see it.  Even though I had seen pictures of it, they simply don't do it justice.  In person it is just awesome!  A magnificent treasure that we are lucky to have in this country.  If you have never seen it in person, put it on your bucket list.  It was worth every minute of the ten-hour round-trip drive.

A couple more pictures from different vantage points.

The sky over the canyon was the most beautiful blue.

Here is the Colorado River at the bottom of the canyon.

We also spent some time downtown on Fremont Street.  There is a huge TV screen above about two blocks of the street; it's billed as the largest tv screen in the world.   Las Vegas is nothing if not excessive at most everything they do.  At night there's a light show on this screen and the colored lights bounce and wave across it.  It's very pretty to watch.

We ate at a nice Mexican restaurant a block or two from here.  The area adjacent to the Fremont Street "mall area" is slowly being refurbished.  We also toured the Mob Museum, three floors of pictures, videos, and information about the Las Vegas/Mob connection.  It was very interesting.

I had such a wonderful time visiting my son and seeing Las Vegas and the area.


Something else wonderful:  I ordered a jelly roll from the Missouri Star Quilt Company, and it has arrived.  It's from Wyndham Fabrics, called Christmas Peace.

I'm either going to make the Jelly Roll Jam pattern with it or do the one that Jenny Doan shows on the Missouri Star Quilt Company's website. 

I really need to avoid opening their Daily Deal emails because I would end up buying more fabric than I should.  Is it possible to have too much fabric??  Umm, probably not!

New Sewing Machine

About three or four months ago, I was able to buy a new sewing machine.  I've had a Viking Lily for close to 15 years.  It has been a very good machine, but I wanted one with a bigger throat area.  I spent about a year and a half researching different brands--looking on quilt forums and talking to company reps at quilt shows. 

At the beginning of this search, I was pretty sure I wanted another Viking.  However, over time I heard nothing but positive comments about Janome.  There happens to be a Janome dealer here in town; he is the person I've taken my machines to for cleaning and maintenance as well as any repairs needed.  My mom used to take her Elna to him for servicing also.  He does a great job. 

So in the end, I decided on a Janome Horizon 8900QCP and have no regrets at all.  It is a fantastic machine!

Some of the features I especially like are the needle threader (my eyes don't work as well as they used to, so this is very nice), the thread cutter (which is also a big thread saver), and the exterior spool holder.  The foot pedal is extra wide, there are two needle plates that are so easy to change, and the machine has 4 or 5 lights to make sewing and quilting much easier.  The acrylic extension table came with it, and after using this I would never want to be without one again.  The extra space and support it gives are wonderful. 

After working on an almost king-size quilt, the thing I really love about this sewing machine is the 11 inch throat area.  It allowed me to do the quilting with basically no struggle.  In this picture, I am working on the outer border, but even when I was quilting in the middle of the quilt, the large throat area made it much easier than the 7 inch on my Viking.  I would never have attempted to quilt something so large on that machine.  The extra 4 inches on this one makes a huge difference.

There is also a knee lift, which I'm just beginning to use.  There are so many more features that I haven't even had time to explore yet.  The cost of this sewing machine was a bit higher than I originally wanted to pay, but I am so glad I didn't settle for anything less than what I really wanted.

As you can tell, I am happy, happy, happy with this new sewing machine!


I am linking up with http://www.sewmamasew.com/2013/10/sewing-machine-reviews

and also with http://sewmanyways.blogspot.com/2013/10/find-friend-friday-and-ask-world_18.html