Finished a quilt, and other news

I finished a quilt this week, one I started five years ago. It's so nice to be able to use it. I am also working on a quilt top I started when pregnant with my daughter, who is now twenty months old.

Other news... The girls I take care of want to learn sewing! So fun. I have a sewing room now, and I'm trying to unpack and make room for three to sit and sew. Hopefully we can get the oldest a sewing machine for her birthday this month.

Thanks for stopping by!

quilting as I go

Here are my current QAYG blocks. I am not trimming them down until I am ready to start joining the blocks together because I don't want to fray the edges or cut through the stitches without being ready to stabilize them. The blocks in these photos are all 15x15 top layer, and I will trim them down to 14.5 or 14 inches. I am really enjoying this quilting and also playing with the white spaces.

I began this project with an idea in my head, and the first block shown (top) is a good representation of what I was going for. For me this project really is about process rather than product; I have already confirmed that my machine will not do free motion quilting. I do like the look of the quilting with the concentric squares, and I'm already thinking about how to shake that up too.

I've been drawing these past few days, trying to come up with a continuous star quilting, with only straight lines. Its been challenging as I piece things together.

Friday sewing day... all day long!

Well I've the first part, getting up on time(thank you annoying cough) so here are my goals for today.

• wash new fabric and iron
• iron fabric sitting on the chair
• put my sewing machine back in the room
• fix dh's jeans
• make a mini quilt for a swap i joined
• make the apron for Ly that she won
• mail as many things finished as possible

i'm hoping i sew til i can't stand it anymore

New things

So since i got my second job at the start of October i have been working like a crazy person. MTW 9-6 at the preschool, in the baby rooms, which was so not what i signed up for. Baby room= me being bored out of my mind, because i want to work with 4 year olds. Huge ginormous difference. TH/F is 9-2 preschool, 3-1:30 hospital, where i answer phones, and Sat. is 3-1:30 at the hospital. 65 hours a week with little sleep between Thurs and Fri. Sundays i have off, woo hoo.

Basically my only time to sleep and see my husband is on Sundays, and sadly, lately id rather sleep. or craft, which relaxes me so much. its very difficult because in the few hours i have off, i don't have time to do what i want or need. And it took me about 1 month to crack. Crying, miserable, don't even want to make things, just sitting in my sewing room wishing i had time to do something. See, the preschool job was supposed to be fun. I love teaching preschool, i usually want to go spend time with the kids in my class. but not here, i was with the wrong age group, spoke up about it, and stayed where i was. No helpful boss trying to put me where they said id be working in the first place.

So what did i learn here? manage to speak to some employees away from the boss during the interview. because while they are great at an interview, they just might be the worse boss you could ever have. but people still work there, even tho they hate the boss. and never get their days off on the days they want/ need them. Because the pay is GOOD, about $2 more per hour than is typical in orange county, ca.

What now? i will not be working at the preschool any more as of Friday the21. One more week! my husband is almost done with the semester, and will be able to find a job that goes along with his career choice for post college, as he will now have some decent availability, and a much lighter load next semester. So we will be back to 1 income for a couple weeks, and i think we can survive it. I am also getting a much better time slot at the hospital, 40 hrs a week, m-th, 10am-8-30pm. its the same thing i do now, only better and more hours. and if it is designated full time i will not have to pay for my ohsoinexpensive health insurance. which is like getting a raise. pray for the free health insurance!!!

Eventually i would like to go back to being a preschool teacher. its what i love and i still collect ideas for stuff to do with kids even tho i don't have a class. This was just the wrong place for me right now. And really, i did not want to be working for that boss long term. no way.

Since my new schedule wont start till dec 8. and i took thanksgiving weekend off, i have like 10 days off after this week. And i have alot of stuff planned.

Like this:
quilt or crochet a baby blanket for cousins new baby, born like 2 days ago (yay!)
dress up some plain onesies for same baby
finish my camera case i started last weekend
take pictures of projects and post them
finish quilting the crayon box quilt, which i didn't even reroll after pics, its just folded on the couch.
work on wedding quilt

I might do this (after that of course)
cut out binding for "my first quilt" in purple.
trim the edges of said quilt and begin binding
start working on the Josephine apron, which is in a pile already cut on my sewing table
buy more safety pins, the smaller ones
iron the fabric that was washed, dried and left on the back of my chair
practice my free motion quilting on the sampler quilt.
buy brown thread for wedding quilt quilting

Funky sampler blocks

These are not all the same size, and I had too many for one post so I'm missing a star and a tree, but here are my sampler blocks. I finished this boat this morning.


This one (above) is the very first block, I didn't have to take anything apart and I was very happy about that. And I love the color combo for the 9 patch, it pops so nicely even tho I wasn't trying.
I am pretty sure this will look rather funky when I get it together, I might do the last block tomorrow before work if I get up I time, and then I will post a pic of the whole thing. I am actually using a pretty fabric for the borders, because it was what I had when I started and I already cut it. I will probably use some muslin for the backing that I have in a drawer, so I don't use up something pretty. And I need to buy some batting.