Carolina Christmas Top Finished

I'm happy dancing now:  Carolina Christmas top is finished!  There is no place in my house big enough for me to lay out the whole thing. It is 102"x102", big enough for our king sized bed.

 

 

 

Here's 1/4 of the quilt:

 

 

I started to rethink the piano key border because it meant using up a lot of my reds, and I had planned to start  Bonnie Hunter's Turkey Tracks quilt this year.  Then I decided that if I do use up all my reds and need more, I'll just buy new fabric. And I will buy it without guilt!  That is almost a foreign concept for me since I've been trying to USE my stash, not add to it.  I will also need to buy backing for this quilt because most of my fabric is in fat quarter pieces or smaller. 

 

Linking up with Sarah: http://confessionsofafabricaddict.blogspot.com/2015/02/can-i-get-whoop-whoop-checkerboards_27.html

 

and http://blog.richardandtanyaquilts.com/2015/02/link-finish-friday-157.html

 

Whining About the Weather

Frances of The Off Kilter Quilt podcast does not complain about the weather.  She is a better woman than I am.  I am sick, sick, sick of the cold and snow!  It is almost March, and things should be improving, but we are getting more snow tonight.  I've been keeping track of when my first daffodil blooms for a few years now. 

Year                  Date of First Bloom

2012                  before 2/1/12
2013                  2/21/13
2014                  3/10/14
2015                   ?


Do you see a trend?  It seems like spring is coming later and later each year.  Makes me sad! 

I forced bulbs this year with mixed results, but these are blooming now.  Next year I need to plant more of them!

Stash Report, Wild and Goosey

I have some yards used to report this week, thanks to all the snow.  There was nothing to do but sew! 

Used This Week:  2.5 yards                                                    
Used Year to Date: 12.5 yards 
Added this week:  0 yards 
Added year to date: 19.5 yards
 Net Added:  7 yards

Today I put 26 of my Wild and Goosey blocks together:

 

I'm not sure how big I'll make this quilt, but I love the idea of using up a bunch of random scraps.

 

 

To see more stash reports:  http://www.patchworktimes.com/2015/02/22/

 

 

Dandara's Quilt

The schools  here have been closed all week because of the snow and record cold.  We got about 6 inches on Tuesday.  Yesterday a front end loader came into our neighborhood and moved  snow onto the center island of our cul-de-sac.  People had been driving on the snow for almost two full days, though, so a lot of the snow had been packed down by the cars, and there was ice under the snow that the guy couldn't do anything about. I chose to stay home this week because of the bad roads and my bad cold.

 I have been doing a lot of sewing.  Today I finished a quilt top for the seven year old girl my brother is planning to adopt.  The color in this picture is way off, and I'm not sure why as there was a lot of light in the room.  There is an aqua and a blue that look like almost the same color in this picture.  The coral looks almost orange in this picture too.

 

The background is a Dr. Seuss black on white print that I've had in my stash for a few years.  I almost bought plan white for the background but I think the black on white print works.  The quilt is throw size, 52" x 64".  I want to use minky on the back, probably pink or purple since those are Dandara's favorite colors.

Linking up with Sarah:  http://confessionsofafabricaddict.blogspot.com/2015/02/can-i-get-whoop-whoop-little-hint-of.html  and Crazy Mom Quilts  http://crazymomquilts.blogspot.com/2015/02/a-dresden-block.html

Snow!

We got about 6 inches of snow last night.

It is up to my little dog's belly, and he hops around like a bunny in it.  Very fun to watch him!  DS plans to do the shoveling.

I have a bad cold, so it's a sewing day for me.  I'm going to try to get my 10,500 steps done walking around the house.  If I do 3000 after each meal, I'll get close. 

Scrap In A Box Mystery

I have very little quilting to show for the past 4 days because we were out of town.  We went to visit our son in Lititz, PA. The company he works for was having an open house on Saturday, so we got to tour the warehouse and see the projects he is working on. http://www.taittowers.com/  Our son loves his job, and I'm so glad he has found a place where his creativity is rewarded.

 This weekend also happened to be the Lititz Fire and Ice Festival. http://www.lititzfireandicefestival.com/  There were ice sculptures all over the downtown area and in the park Friday night.  The temperature was in the low 20s, and we were surprised to see so many people out in the cold. They had bands playing, food trucks, and vendors.  It was a lot of fun! We were walking around downtown while they were setting up the ice sculptures, and we met one of the drummers in one of the bands.  We also met the owner of a small downtown diner when we went in to get warm and have coffee.  She convinced us to come back on Saturday to try their pork-a-roni (macaroni and cheese, BBQ pork, peas and French fried onions) for lunch.  Yum!

We also did a couple of touristy things:  we went to the chocolate factory in town and toured the pretzel factory. It snowed while we were at dinner Saturday night, and when we went out, the car was covered in snow.  It was very dry, though, and just brushed off the car.  We tend to get heavy wet snow here.

 Right now it is snowing.  We are supposed to get 9 to 14 inches here tonight.  The people in Lititz know how to clear snow.  Here in Richmond, our major roads get plowed, but they tend to just let the suburban streets melt on there own.  Once in a while they will dump some sand on our street, but that's about all the help we get.  The good news:  our 18 year old is looking for prom money, so he will be out shoveling driveways tomorrow.

I did get clue #2 of Charlotte's Scrap In A Box Mystery done today:

 

I'm using a bunch of my ugliest scraps just to get rid of them.  This will be a utility quilt.  I am not sure who will get this one.  Maybe it will go off to college with my son.

Need Borders?

Usually when I make a Bonnie Hunter quilt, my pieced borders go on perfectly.  This time, though, I should have measured!  The borders I made for Carolina Christmas are too big for my center, and I've already added the inner border.  I don't want to remove the inner border and resize it because I don't have enough of the same fabric, and I really like the fabric I used.  So Plan B is to make a piano key border.  That way I can make this quilt big enough to fit our king sized bed.  

So, if you are doing a Carolina Christmas quilt and have not made the outer border yet, mine are up for grabs, just leave me a comment, and I'll send them to you.  Otherwise, I'll take them apart and do something else with them.

 

 

Here's my Carolina Christmas with its inner border.  I don't think I'll finish this quilt in February, but at least I have a plan.