Weed-Whackin!!

I finished the top to the Weed Whacker Quilt today! I like it SO MUCH! All my favorite ugly scraps are in here....as I'm sewing these, I'll pick up a piece and look at it and think "Aren't you out of my stash YET?!??" Some of this stuff has been around for as long as I've been quilting. There are little VIP print hearts..white on red that I know I've had since the early 80's. I know there isn't yardage left....but when you start digging through strip bins, you will find the tail ends of just about everything I've ever worked with. Kind of fun that way.

Just for fun, I also laid out the bocks "straight" in strippy fashion. Wouldn't this be fun with sashings between? I like it both ways! Lots of options.

I also find it a challenge to work with stuff that I would never buy again. I am SO sick of white-on-whites and white-on-creams UGH! I think we've been sewing with them for about 15 years, and it's time for them to go. I much prefer a light print of some sort that has more depth and interest. White-on-whites read so flat to me.....and I just don't like the "painty" feel of them. However, I paid good money for these once upon a time, and they are in my scrap stash, and some still in the yardage stash, so it is a challenge for me to work them into whatever I've got going along with fabrics that I really DO like. (like the shirtings and stripes!)

Now I'm down to borders. And I admit that I am border challenged. I can do pieced borders as much as the next person, but do I really want to spend time doing it? Especially with scrap quilts, the center is so busy, that maybe it just needs a couple plain-jane borders to frame it and tone it down a bit.

The other thought is to go ALL OUT and use the bonus triangle squares in the border...look at this pile! They all need to be trimmed down and squared up, and that is a bit daunting to me right now, but they will be fun to play with at some point. I don't think the border.....maybe the middle of a whole "nuther" quilt! These turn out the same as the bonus tri squares from the pineapple blossom quilt on my website, so you can combine the bonus tri squares from both projects and REALLY have a gazillion!

Foot is still swollen, but I can walk on it. I stayed home from work today just to stay off of it. tomorrow I've got two clients, so I've got to go in...besides...I have bills to pay!

Bonnie

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Fun Picture!

Here is a pic of Lucy and I together! We were at one of the big turn-outs for visitors on the Smoky Mt Parkway. What a fun day we had! I love this picture so much :c)

I had a very *DUH* moment yesterday. I was at the gym...so gungho to get back into my routine of working out. I had my phone in one hand, my water bottle in the other. I put my foot on the eliptical trainer runner and when I went to hoist myself up, the machine started moving before I was ready for it to, and I went flailing.....twisting my left ankle and falling backwards over the back end of the machine, landing on my tailbone on the floor, and up against a stationary bike. My water bottle landed against the back wall of the cardio room...my phone went the other way...Oh boy.

Luckily there was no one there to witness my graceful moment! But...the ankle is very sore and swollen...I spent last night with ice on it. Today it is a bit better, but there is a huge bruise on my butt where I hit so hard! I'm still not quite sure how it all happened, I've been on that trainer 100 times! It just moved like greased lightning before I was ready for it to.....so much for working out!

Bonnie

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New Servers, and the Wonder of the Internet...

Yesterday was a testimony builder for me on the GOODNESS of quilters. I had moved servers over the weekend...small hiccups here and there, but nothing too bad. Or so I thought!

I had already cancelled my other account after I assumed that EVERYTHING had transferred from one server to the other, only to receive an email from a lady stating that she could get to my Bricks & Stepping Stones page but there were no pictures, only text!

I quickly checked my FTP to see if all the files were there, and that whole folder of pics was MISSING! ACKKK! So, I sent out an email to the world...asking if anyone had saved the whole HTML file so they could access it offline, and could they please help me recover the pics, and the response was OVERWHELMING! I was able to recover ALL the pics and get the page back working. I tell you, after the trouble I have had with the lady stealing the pattern and selling it on her website, and then losing all MY pics for the pattern page..I thought this was a cursed quilt! But all is back again and my faith in the GOODNESS of most quilters is restored.

I am posting some pics too....I finished the binding/hanging sleeve on the crazy amish strippy. I took pics outside so I could get the quilting detail to show on the black sashings, so the colors aren't so true...but here it is.

I love how hand quiting looks on amish solids so much that I have started hand quilting another one...a top I finished a while ago, inspired by Gwen Marston's Liberated String Quilts. I've started quilting fans in the border....the sashings and inner border will have cables, and I think I'm going to just echo quilt inside the string diamond blocks. It feels good to have a "couch" project in my family room again.

And here is a preview of the next scrappy pattern I've been working on. I tell you, I got this part way and then it stopped FOREVER because I kept thinking I'd have this big amount of time to spend on it. I realized that might never happen, so I've been sewing 4 block quarters in the morning before the rest of my day gets going. I'm hoping to finish the blocks by the end of the week and start putting it together. I've decided to call this one WEED WHACKER! It uses 3.5" light squares and 2"X9.5" scrap strips. I started this one to use up all the shorter lengths of strips that are in my 2" scrap bin. What's fun too, is you can lay the blocks straight, and it makes a strippy zig zag quilt too....put long sashings in between the rows or not. I'll get some pics of different layouts as soon as I have enough blocks done.

And now I have to put the quilting aside and attend to the rest of my regularily scheduled day!

Bonnie

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Web Server Change Over..

8-25-06 NOTICE!
I am in the process of changing web servers. During the switch over Quiltville.com and my email may be unavailable for 12 to 24 hours!

This will also affect Tonya's pages that are hosted on my server as well. I'm sorry for the inconvenience!

If you need to email me, you can also reach me at quiltville@yahoo.com

Bonnie

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