T-shirt Quilt Top Done

I finally got Michelle's t-shirt quilt all pieced together. I am really happy with how it turned out. I need to find backing for it now and then quilt it. I'm really worried about quilting it because I'm afraid it's going to really stretch. I will probably quilt really big stippling on it, I think that may be better than doing really close. I'm hoping that someone will leave a comment as to whether they think that is a good idea or not? Help!

Some of the shirts had just a small piece on them so I didn't want to make a big 12" square out of that, so I made some 4 patches. I really liked how they turned out too.

Michelle really had a lot of soccer pictures with her teams over the year. Some of the shirts were really faded, but this was good. Her dad coached a lot of her soccer teams and he was in several of the pictures. He really loves this quilt (this is Mark's younger brother Alan).

We're going to Springfield tomorrow and I am going to look for backing fabric, she wants black flannel, which is really hard to find. She said her second choice is blue flannel or light green. Another shopping trip.

I found a really cool app for my iphone to figure how much backing you need for a quilt. You see the commercials on tv that say if you are looking for something, there is probably an app for it? Well, I believe it. :)

Kelly

Show us Where You Live Friday - Guest Bedroom - Man Room - Woman Room Instead

Today is Friday's installment of Show Us Where You Live - Guest Bedroom edition. Well, we don't really have a guest bedroom anymore. We've turned 2 of our rooms into play rooms. One is for Mark and one for ME! Here's the first one, the MAN room.

This is where Mark and Kasey play Wii and sometimes I get to play Wii Fitness, if I'm lucky.

Couch in the MAN's room. On the bookshelf is a ship building project Mark has been working on for a lot of years. He has all of his parts in a Longaberger basket that I let him use. Sometimes I'd like to take it back, but I don't really have a purpose for it right now.

This is a Grandfather clock that Mark got from his Nanny. They bought it for their 45th anniversary. Mark reworked it and put it in the MAN room. It was a regular wind up clock but the mechanism were all messed up so we just ordered a battery clock and put a little shelf in the bottom of it. Then we had a plaque made up with his Grandparents name on it and their anniversary date.

And this is my room, my sewing room. I don't call it the WOMAN's room though, it's just my sewing room. This is a quilt machine that Mark made for me. We found this old 1930's sewing machine and he built the cabinet and assembled it all together for me. I really like it.

This is the other side of the room.

And these are the shelves that Mark built for me, I really should have straightened them up a little bit. Oh well.

So that's the guest bedroom edition. See ya next week with dining room edition.

100th Post

Heh, this is my 100th post, I think that is pretty monumental and deserves its own posting. Course now that I have posted the 100th post, I don't have anything to say, except, this is posting

#100

Show Us Where You Live Friday - Living Room Edition

Kelly's Korner is a blog I like to read and have been reading for over a year. She is hosting a show us where you live Friday challenge. This week is the living room. So here's our living room.

Mark made the cat stand for our cat. I think he did a great job on it. Our cat sits on it a lot and scratches her nails on the post.

This is the gas fireplace. We painted the wall to match our foyer. The picture to the right is one we bought at an auction. I think it came out of a funeral home, but I like it anyway.

The hallway to the left goes into our bedroom and the one right behind the chair goes into the garage. The picture on the wall is a collage that my step-daughter made for me one year for Mother's Day, I think. It has pictures of me, Mark, Kasey and Nicky. She had them developed in black and white and sepia. It was probably one of the most thoughtful things she has done for me. It took her time to get the pictures together, get them developed and put them on the frame.

I didn't get a good picture of the coffee table but it's really a small hope chest. I got it from our neighbor for my 16th birthday. We don't have anything in it, sometimes we use it as a toy box. I really like it.

This is looking out into the foyer, see the matching green walls? The big vase is one that I got from my Granny by way of my mom. I really like it, but Kasey knocked it over one day and broke the handle on it. Mark said he has the pieces and we can glue them back together someday, but I haven't seen them. I thought that my Granny got this from India when she went there one year, but my mom told me that she got it from New Mexico or Arizona.

Well, that's it for this posting. You'll notice that there aren't a lot of things on the coffee table or the end tables, that's because I have a 2 year old and it's just not worth the effort to put anything out. He'll just knock it off or destroy it.

A Quilt Done! Yeah!!

I finally got this quilt done! I started this quilt back in March 2008. I am not sure what took me so long to get it finished (ha! that's funny, maybe a 2 year old had something to do with it?). It's way bigger than what I expected it to be, it's 128" by 128" and I'll put it on our King size bed. It fits great on the sides, but is too big on the top and bottom, but I think that I will quilt it that way anyway, because I won't need pillow shams, will just throw the extra over the pillows.

And here is the quilt I finished today for Kasey. I started it a really long time ago. I finally got it on the quilt machine today, quilted it, and got the binding all done on it. Kasey spent the day with Grandma Joyce today (Sunday) so I had time to get this done, plus watch 2 movies. We say Yes Man with Jim Carey. It was ok, but really kinda stupid. The other one was Seven Pounds will Will Smith. Oh my gosh, that was a great movie. If you haven't seen it, go rent it now! Well worth it.

We also watched Twilight. I am not into vampire movies so I didn't really like it. Everyone was just raving about it so I figured I had to see it. Oh well.

Show Us Where You Live Friday - Kitchen Edition

Kelly's Korner is a blog I like to read and have been reading for over a year. She posted an idea today to put your kitchen pictures up, so here goes.

This is our kitchen.

This is the breakfast nook.

Our refirgerator. Lots of ABC Magnets for Kasey!

The corner by the fridge. I like our little corner roll top storage area. I can put lots of junk in there. :)

I love our plate rack. I have a ton of Corelle plates (who doesn't love Corelle?). I never have to worry about them breaking. I just throw them in the plate rack.

That's it.

Hope you enjoyed it!

T-shirt Quilt for my Niece

Well, I have been working on a t-shirt quilt for my niece Michelle. I got all the squares cut out from the t-shirts and laid them all out on the floor. I think I need one more row down the side and then finish up the ones at the top. I am not going to put any sashing between them, will just sew them all together. I think it's going to turn out really nice. Michelle will need to get some more t-shirts for me, but I don't think she's going to have any trouble finding anymore.

I took a day off of work today, unfortunately, it's called "shared work", in the State of Missouri. I get one day off of work and my company doesn't pay me for it, but the state will pay me a day of unemployment for it, which amounts to $89.00. It's a way that the company can save laying off people, you basically get about a 20% pay cut for the week and then the company saves that much in wages and salaries. So far we haven't had too many people lose their jobs, so having this shared work program probably keeps 40 or so people from being laid off. I think it's a good way to "share the pain" amongst all the employees.


So that is what I am doing today, staying home, working on quilts and other projects that I want to do. Kasey is at Grandma's house for the day and Mark is at work.
My mom and I bought a half a beef that we are going to split, we'll probably go pick it up this afternoon and divide it up. That will be nice to have some meat in the freezer!!