Easystreet Comming To An End

Ok still working on Bonnie's Easystreet.  I'd better post now, I didn't get as far as I wished but I keep on plugging aay.  This is the first Mystery challenge I have ever done.  I really enjoyed doing it and never thought I woould ever make a quilt with this many pieces.  Here it is so far...

 

 

 

 

 

The individual blocks

 

 

I hope I can get the top finished this weekend and then start thinking about a border.

Please check out all the quilts at Bonnie's site

http://quiltville.blogspot.ca/p/easy-street-mystery.html

 

 



 

Wednesday middle of the week is it 1/2 over or is there still 1/2 left?  I think this week  its 1/2 over for me.  The weather is suppose to be nice all week, and I'm getting closer to finishing Easystreet, last night was able to get a corner triangle done 2 border triangles, and was even able to sew to squares one corner triangle and one tap triangle together.  Which leaves me left to complete 3 corner triangles 6 B squares and 9 side triangles.  My goal is to have it all together by Sunday. Have to take the pup Amy to the vet tonight, she had an accident with her eye and has had stitches keeping one eye closed for about 10 days now.

I guess it will be a short post today as there is nothing else I have to say.  Have a good day.

Tuesday A day closer to the Weekend

Tuesday morning! It is a dull day here in Montreal, but on the warm side for a winter day 36 degrees F or 1 C.  I took this picture this morning from one of the windows on the floor where I work.  It is one of my favorite windows to look out.

Last night I did some work on the Easystreet project, but don’t get a lot of time during the week.  By the time I get home from work eat supper, talk to hubby, I have about 3 hours to do work on something, and I like the last hour before I go to bed to be something that I can sit in the living room and watch tv doing.  So as of now I have done the 16 blocks of  A, and 1 of block B, so still 8 more block B and 12 triangles and the 4 corner triangles, then I Should be able to start putting it together.  I’m interested in seeing what it will look like finished as this was not well planned on my part.  I started by ripping apart theses squares that I had done,  I didn’t like the look of the squares at all, so apart they came.  

Then I wasn’t sure that I even like the colors themselves, but at the time I wanted to buy fat quarters and this was all the store had .  So I decided to try this mystery challenge by Bonnie Hunter.  I worked on the quilt during the 10 days I had off at Christmas,  I was always concerned that I would hit a part where I wouldn’t know what to do.  I was able to follow along the complete time, ok not sure if those flying geese are flying or have crashed, but they are there.  I then needed some other colors to go into the quilt, and I knew I had bought a few different types of black on white prints on my travels, so out came those from my stach. Now let me explain I have two spare rooms upstairs, but do all my sewing at the dining room table.   When I need to press seems which I needed to do often in this quilt, I pull out some spare material and use it as an ironing board.   While I was pressing the pieces from part 2, 3 and probably 4 I uses this Orange fabric I had.  I had bought this a few months back it was very wide material,  made for backing, but I loved the color of it so I bought a meter of it.. Yes here in Montreal we use the metric system and believe me I’m old enough to remember the days before we did, I always remember that a meter is basically 3 inches longer that a yard.   Well I then needed another color added to the quilt so figured why not use it, so that how the orange ended up in this quilt.  Tonight I hope to get at least 3 more of block B done and maybe a triangle or 2.  

Square A there are 16 in this pile and they are bot pressed yet

This is square B 1 finished and 11 more to go 

Years gone bye

I’ve just spent a few hours looking at all the quilts from easystreet by Bonnie Hunter, and the more quilts I looked at the more I like the real scrappy ones, not the ones that looked like Bonnie’s.  Now don’t get me wrong I think hers  is beautiful, but this was a scrappy quilt, so I expected people to use scraps they had, not go and buy the fabric for the quilt.   I spent 2 weeks during Christmas working on the quilt, and I loved every minute of it, I didn’t buy any fabric for this quilt, all the material I used was material I already had.  I kept feeling my grandmothers hand on my shoulder saying “go girl, now you understand”.  She quilted crocheted knitted and painted.  I’m sure she didn’t go out and buy the fabric for her quilts but used material from clothes or sheets or whatever.  I know that we should use cotton thread on are quilts, but shhhhh for the piecing I use polyester as my grandmother had spools and spools of thread, and I refuse to throw it away and go buy cotton.  I have to be realistic with myself, I am never going to be a good quilter, with working full time and having so many different crafts I am interested in  I just don’t have the time or patience to be a good quilter.  So my quilts are not going to be handed down and become treasured treasures, they are just going to be for my pleasure.  The one thing that will take a long time with all my quilts is going to be the hand quilting part.  Yep hand quilted, first I don’t want to pay a $100 dollars to have someone machine quilt It for me.  I also am not sure I like the idea of machine quilting a hand made quilt.  I know I pieced the quilt using a sewing machine, so what is the difference?  Well for me I sewed the pieces together, not someone else.  I remember one of the last quilts my grandmother made, she had finished it and was going to start the hand quilting on it, when my dad came up with the idea to use the sewing machine to quilt it.  He sat down at the sewing machine and machine quilted the quilt, and my grandmother just kept saying “that is not the right way”.  I guess for me I am like my grandmother, it’s just not the right way.

Yes that time of year back to work. Work really is a 4 letter word. I'm getting tired, ok being 56 doesn't help and being in a field (computers) that changes constantly  is difficult. Just when you think you know something they change it on you.
I worked during the Christmas holidays on the easystreet mystery quilt. I spent 10 days catching up, and just like me there was absolutely no planning. I decided to do the mystery quilt as I had  a package layer cake and jelly roll that I had bought a year ago.  I had started a quilt and didn’t like it,  I’m not sure I even like the colors in the layer cake.  I bought it because it was a layer cake and I had read about them but hadn’t seen any.  I live in Montreal, Quebec and there are not may quilting stores here in Quebec. This past weekend I finished 14 of 16 of the main squares in the quilt,  I hope that I can sew at least 2 squares of the 9 I need each night this week.  That way I will only need to do the triangles and put it together by the following weekend.   I’m not sure that is realistic.  If not I’ll just post what I have done.

2013 a NEW YEAR begins

The start of a new year.  I just had 10 days off, but unfortunately back to work tommorrow.  2012 had good points and bad ones.  One of the good points as Amy a new little pup we adopted in December her mom was a german shepard but a dad or grandparent must of been a bernese.  She is adorable and has a great personality.She likes quilted things too,  Because of Amy we didn't have a tree this year so the christmas ornaments I made ill have to wait till next year to be hung on a tree,

December 18 already.  I haven't even started to do Christmas shopping yet or decorate the house.  It just hasn't felt like Christmas till today.  I think my Christmas spirit doesn't kick in until there is snow on the ground.  Well we had snow today, those big fluffy flakes that make you think of sleigh rides in the country.  I'm stuck here at work for another 1/2hr.  When I leave it will be too dark to take pictures outside, so I will try to take some tomorrow morning.  I hope I get some taken as they are calling for warm weather on Thursday which means it will all probably melt, but then the weather men are usually wrong, and this time I'm hoping they are.  I want a white  Christmas. 
 Hubby and I as our Christmas gift to each other decided to get a new puppy.  We have 5 dogs now, but our oldest dog is getting to be really old and her time is coming to an end, and she is our guard dog. So we wanted a new pup that will be a guard like Trish, so I wanted a smart dog and decided I wanted a German Shepard.  We wanted a female as our big dog Buddy gets along better with females than males.  So found the litter 9 puppies in the litter 6 cute little German Shepard pups, and 2 black and whites pups that looked like Bernese Mountain dogs.   Well lets just say our new pup Amy is black and white.  She is a real cutie, but some how I don't think she is going to be much of a guard dog.
Only 3 more days of work till I have 11 days off for Christmas.  I'm so looking forward to the time off, I can do some work on projects that I have around the house.  I should make myself a list of things that I want to finish in 2013, and start getting at them.  I am also making a promise that I will post at least 4 times a week in 2013.  Oh and I'm also going to quit smoking on January3,2013.