More papers to sign...tomorrow the big day

Late today we got the final figures for closing. We will get our closing package tomorrow, the. Off to the bank for notery of signatures and wiring of money to close the deal. Then we will become "official sunbirds". It is a beautiful home. We will not be there until later in January 2016.

Weekend review and more

Continue to work on the addictive scrap vortex.

• I made one for the Arizonia home.
• Made one of left overs for Grand Illusion mystery quilt, a table topper
• Today worked on a small one for dresser from my retirement fabric gift.

Now they are ready for some machine quilting. Will try out the circle quilting tomorrow.

Arizonia scrap vortex for the kitchen dining area

Took these and paired them up tow times. Now will wait for this weeks clue.

We also went here this weekend with Hannah. Always good food.

However they ran out of the above so had to drink cranberry wine.

Then always the band...Bobby and the wayouts. Then tend to play the same songs. Stayed for the first  set to listen and enjoy people watching.

Today our realtor did the final walk thru of our home. Sellers returned home. We continue to wait for the closing package. Hopefully will arrive soon as closing is Wednesday.

Cooler weather continues, but allows for nice evening walks.

Scrap Vortex Arizonia style

Today worked on a wall hanging for our soon to be Arizona home. Took scraps from material purchased in Tucson and used as backing for Downton Abby backing and some other matching fabric.

Ready for tomorrow's directions.

Quilting inspector looking over main scrap vortex quilt.

Next row please...

Geese blocks

My Downton Abbey quilt- Team Carson continues with the next row. There are two rows of these and I have choose. This quilt design sometime ago. Easy, elegant and detailed. I switched to a smaller #9 quilting needle. Seems to work just fine and sligh,y smaller stitches.

Hawiian fabric invades Scrap Vortex

I was thinking about the backing of this quilt. I have some Hawiian fabric that I purchased on our trip to Hawaii several years ago. I decided that it would be part of the backing. I also have some left over rectangles from a previous quilt that I changed from white to purple. I did four rows and will work on more tomorrow.

I am almost finished with the black border of the Downton Abbey quilt. Soon on to the flying geese. It is amazing that when you out something down for awhile, when you come back you spend more time with that project. I have a goal to have this quilt finished by January 2016.

Downton Abbey quilting continues

So the quilt has been starring at me in the chair. Today time to pick it up and do some hand quilting. So relaxing, however with warm temperatures, the quilt is a little warm. ( I quilt with no hoop and quilt in my lap)

Made excellent progress finishing up 1 1/2 blocks and proceeding to the next black border. I am doing squares and rectangles, nothing too detailed as more details will show up in the flying geese blocks. I have already a quilting pattern picked out.

Finished these blocks

Main block with quilting.

Rectangles and squares in red. 

Also some auditioning for the next group of blocks flying geese. I however have picked out the quilting pattern I want to use. Maybe I will get to those later this week.

Fish Fry Surprise and Scrap Cortex

Celebrated and early Father's Day surprise with a Fish Fry. With the help of mom we got dad here for a delicious fish fry. It has been a long time since I was here. They have a lovely bar area that looks out to Silver Lake. I remember in the past we would buy a pizza and watch the boating on the lake. The dinner was delicious. Dad was surpised. Our daughter Hannah was able to attend as other daughters working. Boris the bull was recently replaced as it was damaged from a Carr accident.

My husband seems to like this quilt as he mentioned it looks like it will be big to cover our bed. Well it actually will be smaller than it looks presently. So I decided to take some of the scraps I still have out and start again at week one with sewing of pairs. So I spent most of the day doing this and during our drive up north to Silvercryst I cut and trimed them. I have another shoe box of week one blocks. Today I will try to do week 2 and 3 steps to add to the above. 

Closing approaches in AZ and other escapades

Arizona home-Sunflower

This week has seen some emphasis on our arizona home. We signed some update papers for lender, sold some bank shares and even touched base with sellers. Email communication turned into a phone call from sellers. They were so happy we purchased the home, they love the home, but 17 hours plane ride home was too much as they both are working. We got the list of furnature we wished to purchase but they are now want to keep the spare bedroom set, which we really liked. So disappointed and now a little leary what else they are going to take. We set up out utilities and found they left things running with little regard to cost. With setting up utilities we had more questions which I sent in an email. 

Also reached out to the welcoming committee chair and had a delightful email response. We had entertained the thought of going down for closing, but decided to leave things the way they are and continue plan to go down in January. The little cost start adding up when starting up a new home with services.

No recent viewing of current home. Thinking about removing it from market in fall. Tomah cabin is currently off the market, so looking at possible back up homes again.

We went kayaking this week, first time this year. Warm sunny day. Very relaxing on the lake.

Tonight a Brewers game.a shirt and palooza pants. Sunday to the Jordy Nelson baseball game in Appleton, Arron Rodgers and Clay Mathews will play. We have grass seats.

Part 2 of scrap votex quilt is fun. One needs to take brakes. Must be too much energy with matching up pairs. Started this yesterday and have spent about 3-4 hours so far. Will be a great quilt when complete.

Day 2 of Scrap Vortex QAL

Pair sewing continues

So enjoy going thru my scraps. Some of them are from my mom. Many are from previous quilt projects. I am going about this with picking those that look great together along with those combinations that are unexpected. Today focused on different sizes of pairs and mixing it up. What I do is sew pairs for a hour via string method. The cut them apart, press and trim. This usually also takes about an hour. Yesterday I spent 2 hours. Today about 5.5 hours. Would have loved to do this I. My outdoor sewing room, but too windy. So far I have 3/4 of a shoe box filled when pressed down thight. I will take a break this evening and work on some hand quilting on my Downton Abbey quilt. I have lost my calus so that tells you long long it has been. I have had some slight discomfort in my right hand with the hand quilting, so wanted to take a bit of a break. 

So excited on the next step after sewing the pairs. Hopefully will get posted this Wednesday. 

Some projects complete, some in progress and some are new!

I am really enjoying so many of my creations. I am also inspired by so many others.

I finished the Purple Carousel quilt top, and ordered the backing. Once I get the backing I will machine quilt the quilt. Probably straight line quilting. Here are a few pics.

Completed top indoors.

Outdoor picture..windy day.

Backing ordered.

I have continued to work on the Dutch Treat blocks..

Diamond Square

Doily

And then another quilt along was found. 

Scrap vortex QAL by from crazy mom quilts

See the below link:

http://crazymomquilts.blogspot.com/2015/06/scrap-vortex-qal-week-one.html

So I spent 2 hours sewing scraps the in pairs this afternoon. I will love to do this quilt with my many scraps and the cute fabric in my possession. This will be a great summer quilt project.

Sunday..recipie from the box..Grandma Jean

Recipie from the box...

Found Grandma Jean's recipie box and decided to pull a recipie from it to cook for the family. Today's draw....

Chicken subgum

1. Subgum or sub gum is a type of American Chinese dish in which one or more meats and/or seafood are mixed with vegetables, and sometimes also noodles, rice, or soup. Wikipedia

   
   

   Substituted turkey for chicken. Thumbs up from the family.

Campfire and marshmallows

Cool evening in Wisconsin. Time for a fire and marshmallows for me and s'mores for others.

Purple Carousel....progress

Playing around with main blocks and light and dark purple washing. I finally have it the way I like.

I completed seing the sashing, four block rows. Tomorrow will work on the rows with the main blocks. Monday I plan on ordering the backing...Capitals Hocky team fabric. Hannah will love it.

Graduation/home gift for next spring. I plan on maching quilting it. Will have to find a staight line design.

Flowers planted, a few tomato plants and a house showing

Yet another call to view the home. So today was cleaning day. Made a trip into town to get some flowers for the pots for improved curb appeal. Very warm and humid day today, but flowers look great. Hopefully they will not be disturbed by evening animals. Last year they were dug up.

Young couple viewed home. Not sure that this is going to be a buyer. We are getting some more movement on home in Arizona. Planned closing is July 1st. So that is exciting.

Yesterday continued the outdoor sewing with purple twirl blocks. Also working on Dutch Treat blocks with another two more completed. Once I get these planned ones done will go back to the Benjamin Biggs BOM that I am way behind on. Appliqué on a larger scale.

Outdoor sewing room today

Outdoor sewing in the Sunshine

Today was a beautiful day. Very light winds, so perfect for outdoor sewing. I decided to do some twirling blocks from Bonnie Hunter from my bonus triangles from cutting out yesterday's project. I may use them for the backing of that project. While I tend to be very color block focused, I decided to mixup the triangles in the block setting. Here is the final result.

Scattered blocks and triangles.

Outdoor sewing room set up.

The view.

The final result. We will see how big the mystery quilt gets to see if more blocks or added borders are needed.

Process pledge ...the quilt journey.

The Process Pledge

I found this on a neat blog this am that is totally me. I am trying to do this with my blogs as it is fun to do and able to retrace the quilting journey of my quilt constructions. I actually did this with my Dear Jane and Dear Hannah quilts using notebooks.

Taken from: Rosie Hutchinson
http://r0ssie.blogspot.com/2010/05/process-pledge.html

This is where in quilt blogging we discuss and show our works in progress. This includes those that might have inspired us and the many decisions we make in quilting or anything we do. This allows us to share our process of quilting.

•  What caused us to do the quilt
• How did we pick the fabrics
• What special cutting or sewing techniques we used
• Our mistakes or great pointers
• Steps of construction 
• Final top
• Quilting process
• Time commitment 
• UFO finally completed

I have made a process pledge:

I,_______________, pledge 
to talk more about my process, 
even when I can't quite 
put them in words or 
be sure I'm being totally clear. 
I'm going to put my thinking 
and my gut feelings out there.

Thanks Rosie!
Will do!

Looks what has been cut and under the needle today...

Did I start and other project????

This is what happens when you do some online surfing. I ran across a web site with a mystery going on that I just could not resist. I cut and finished sewing the first four blocks with next posting on Friday. I used some different colors with fabric on hand. I also decided to do half the size. I certainly do not need another large quilt to quilt. It has been fun today. 

Here is the web site link:

http://www.desertbloomquilting.com

Ready for next posting!

Had an opportunity to sew some extra triangles on corners and will do the Twirling block by Bonnie Hunter. I may use it as part of the backing. Will work on these extra blocks tomorrow. They are tiny with many pieces. Good project until our Wisconsin weather gets warmer.