AccuQuilt Now Offers GO! Custom Dies!!!!

Oh, heart be still!  I'm am swooning!  Custom dies for the GO!  I've been dying for this option since the beginning of my GO! die obsession!  You'd better believe I hopped on that bandwagon as soon as I opened the e-mail notification.

I've been especially craving a die for my FQs that I can cut multiple shapes from in one pass for my scrappy quilts.  I love me my scrappy quilts!  Yep, I've already submitted my prototype (using my trusty EQ7 program) -- here it is:

I know you're eyeing that 1/2" strip and going "hmmmm" since there would be nuttin' left over after 1/4" seams, but they will be used in string quilts and I will use tiny seam allowances.  I didn't want anything to go to waste.

The overall size of the blades will be 8-1/2" wide by 21-1/2" long, so I'll just have to fold my FQs in half once and I can cut 3 FQs in one fell crank.  I didn't want to make it 9" x 22" in case the FQs are cut a smidge too small.  So whatcha think?

I think I'm in looovvveee!
Suzy

P.S.  I see another FQ die in my future utilizing brick shapes and half-square triangles...(*fans self*)

Setbacks...and Playing Catch-Up

Whew...that was a long blog break.  I've been outta commission in one way or another for longer than I thought.  First was the ribs thing...and just as I was getting all healed up, bam, I messed up the tendons in my left arm and shoulder.  Man!  The pain was worse than labor pain...no lie!  At least with labor pain, you get the slight reprieve between contractions -- not so with this kinda pain!  So after dr. visits and quartizone (sp?) shots and pain meds, I was finally feeling up to snuff again and just in time for my trip up north to spend three weeks over Christmas with my sister and her family.  It was a great visit, up until a week before I left and then, bammm, a lousy cold.  I blame my brother-in-law, he started it.  Then I got home and the cold kept getting worse and worse.  Finally dragged my stubborn butt to the dr's and what do you know -- bronchitis, strep throat, sinus infection and TWO ear infections.  Jeez, can a girl get any luckier?

Anyway, I'm doing much better now, although I still have a lingering cough.  Hope that's it for me in the poor health department for the remainder of the year.  LOL!

On the sewing front, nothing got done while I was out of commission; except for one good week at my sister's when they were at work and my niece was in school.  That's when I managed to get quite a few Farmer's Wife blocks done.  I'm now in the mid-50's!!!!  Honest, I will post pictures soon on that.  :o)

My Easy Street sat stagnant at the four patches (first step), until recently.  Now I'm caught up on all the parts and am starting to put it together.  I have the four corner units done and one of the side units.  I'm getting there!  I'm loving how it's turning out and the final quilts that everyone is posting are gorgeous!

I'm also working on a mystery lap-sized quilt that I had a workshop for this past weekend.  Just have the borders to put on.  It was a fun class and we didn't know what we were getting fabric-wise as all the kits were in brown paperbags.  I'm happy I got oriental fabrics, but not sure yet if I like how they play together.  I'll have to let it marinate.  If I still don't love it, I'll donate it to our guild charity.  Here's a pic of it layed out while it was still awaiting row construction:

Well, that's it for now.  Hope you all are healthy and happy in this New Year!
Suzy

Projects In Progress...

Three weeks later and my ribs are feeling much better.  Not 100%, probably more like 90%, but I can now spend quality time at the computer and sewing machine.  Here's what I've been working on...

This little applique project will finish at 16" square.  I'm not sure yet what I will do with it; whether I'll frame it, or make a pillow out of it, or maybe even the center of a quilt.  I'm still stitching around the shapes with a buttonhole stitch in black rayon thread.  I'm loving how it looks.  :o)

And this little (soon to be big) project is Bonnie Hunter's latest online mystery.  This week we are to make 192 four patches from 2" cut squares.  I'm following her color suggestions; just because when I pulled them from my stash they looked so pretty together.

I used my AccuQuilt GO! to cut all the 2" squares, which made that step go very quickly.  And since I have a touch of OCD (smile), I've arranged all like "twosies" together in piles and as I sew I am picking up one from the first pile and matching it with one from each of the other piles; then picking up one from the second pile and matching it with one from each of the other piles; etc., so I don't get two of the same "twosies" in a four patch.  That's why you'll see some of my "twosie" piles on the slant -- I've matched those with the others already.  I know that probably didn't make sense to you, but it does to me.  LOL!

It's only week 1, so it's not too late to join.  Come on in, the water's fine!  Click here for the mystery information, and here for the linky post to some of the other crazies committed quilters who are having fun along with me!  Hehe.

See ya next week with my results of the next step of Bonnie's mystery,
Suzy

Houston Pics

Hi all.  Finally getting around to posting the pics from Houston.  See, I broke my ribs the day after I got back from the trip.  Don't ask.  Stupidity on my part...  I'm slowly healing, but can't spend much time sitting at the computer without it aggravating them.

Anyway, suffice it to say we had a great time, although I'll never travel that distance in a bus again!  LOL!  Hope you enjoy the pictures.  I apologize for the blurry ones.  Must have been so excited that my hands were trembling.  Teehee.  The gorgeous red, white and blue quilt was the Best of Show.  Breathtakingly amazing.  I'd write more, but, well, the ribs thing.

Click here for the pictures!

Catch up with ya later,
Suzy

The Latest

Sorry for the lack of posts.  I've been busy.  Busy, busy, busy. 

I finished my two Christmas quilts.  I love how they turned out.  I had the quilter do overall pantos of holly and berries on the green one and poinsettias on the red one.  She did a wonderful job.  Two more gifts down...

I've also started another UFO and only have to cut and put the borders on it.  Sorry, no pic yet.

But, here's what I'm working on today...

Been watching Bonnie Hunter during her QuiltCam episodes as she puts her Bow Tie quilt together.  I'm loving the cheddar she used to ground all the scraps of the bow ties.  She made her bow ties from leader/enders, but I'm late out of the gate and with all the UFOs I've been completing (13 so far this year!), I decided I wanted to work on something new.  I want to set them differently and played in EQ to come up with a setting.

Me likey this setting and the open space it creates for potential quilting designs.  So here I am in my creatively messy sewing room zooming little 3" finished bow tie blocks through my machine.

 

And the mess shall stay here for a week as tomorrow a girfriend and I leave for the Orlando area where we will spend the night at a hotel so we can catch a charter bus at 3am on Wednesday morning headed for ... H-O-U-S-T-O-N!!!!

Yes, I am excited beyond the happy dance stage!  I'll be packing today for me and my dog, who will be spending the week with a neighbor friend and then my youngest daughter and grandson will be house/dogsitting over the weekend.  I'm bringing my iPad, so if I can find some time between the QUILT SHOW and sightseeing, I'll post and share.  :o)

Also, please pray for those impacted by Hurricane Sandy.  My dad, sister and her family, my two brothers and their families, as well as extended family and friends, are being directly impacted.  Luckily my dad packed up and hightailed it out of dodge (Toms River, NJ, right on the coast), to my sister's in PA.  Although they are still going to be hit pretty hard where she is, it's a safer alternative than my dad staying put.  I have a feeling when he ventures back home, there will likely be damage, but have my fingers crossed and prayers said.

In a quilt frenzy,
Suzy

Done and Done...



JuJu Beads

  

Whacked-Out Stars


Quilty Hugs,
Suzy

Design Wall Monday - Another Finish

My Keepsake Squares quilt is now completely done!  YAY!  I love how it turned out.  See, even the tiniest of pieces can become a quilt.  These little squares were from years and years back, when Keepsake Quilts offered their Gold members a 2" square of each of the different new fabrics of the season that they were carrying, as part of the membership.  Yeah, long time ago, right?  Even the flowers in the border were made from these squares, which I sewed into four-patches and cut into the flower shape.  I love the echo quilting around them.  Really makes them pop.  And yes, I still have more squares left over.  LOL!  The finished quilt measures 50" square.  Psst, if you look at my blog header, it may look familiar.  ;o)

I also have two more quilts just back from the quilter--my Whacked-Out Stars and JuJu Beads quilts.  I sewed the bindings on last night and started stitching them to the back.  Should be done in a few TV nights.  Hehe.  :o)

More to come,
Suzy

5D Quilt Design Creator

I have a new toy.  I recently purchased Husqvarna Viking's newest software -- 5D Quilt Design Creator.  I have a Viking Designer Diamond sewing/embroidery machine and already own the 5D Professional Embroidery software, so this was very appealing to me as I watched many YouTube videos of the software in action.  I was intrigued.  Needless to say, this software rocks (and no, this is not a paid advertisement, LOL!)

After following a lesson in the user's guide and learning the in's and out's and what buttons and tabs do what, I decided to try my hand at designing my own quilt motif.  It was so fun!  I then downloaded it to my USB stick and popped it into my machine and stitched it out.  What you think?...

More fun to come,
Suzy

Christmas in August?

I was in need of a simple, fast, mindless piecing project.  This disappearing 9-patch using Christmas-print charm squares fit perfectly!  All pieced and cut in record time, I'm now assembling the rows together.  Fun!  I think a border (or 2 or 3) are in the near future for this quilt top.  I also think I'll be making another one.  Then I can keep one for myself and give one as a gift (or more likely, give both as gifts).  LOL!

Ho, ho, ho,
Suzy

Quilt Retreat!!!

Took me long enough to post about it, but a couple weekends ago my quilty friends and I had a three-day quilt retreat at a condo that one of us owns as a rental unit on Cocoa Beach.  We had a blast and made a lot of progress on some of our projects.  Nothing beats spending three whole days and two nights with your besties.  I am now on Block 24 of my Farmer's Wife blocks.  Only 88 more to go.  LOL!  I'll share those in a separate post.

Quality time with quilting friends = PRICELESS,
Suzy