Wednesday, October 24, 2012

It's Wednesday and I've Made Progress!

Here it is Wednesday again and I have made quite a bit of progress despite a computer problem that resulted in euthanizing my favorite lap top and going without for an entire weekend while my IT guy switched everything over to this new lap top.  At least I didn't lose anything, but I am just not as comfortable with this newcomer laptop!  My old HP laptop was kind enough to last for 8 years.  The battery needed to be replaced, so I replaced it.  Then it decided to choke on a hairball and freeze up on me just when I had given it a nice new battery.  This new keyboard is smaller and the keys keep making typos!  Hopefully, I'll get use to it sooner rather than later.

On to my progress:  As I mentioned last week, I have renewed my bee commitments significantly and wanted to get started on one of the larger projects, so I started searching for the right block for my 4x5 Hive 8 commitment.  

I saw a block called Shattered Chevrons:


and was led to a wonderful tutorial on AsDesigned's (Anne's) blog  Shattered Chevrons here.  Anne's block had a border around it that I ultimately decided to leave off, increasing my chevrons by 2 to result in a 12.5 x 12.5 block.

My test block looked like this:



Anne's tutorial was easy to follow and allowed me to quickly get these blocks pulled together for everyone in the bee. 









I am really liking these blocks and am thinking I might make a pillow out of this pattern for the Pillow Talk Swap (my next project).  I'll let you know what I come up with next time.

Sorry for typos and strange alignments.  I'm on training wheels with this new lap top!

Aaaanway, that's it from the Robertson household!








 

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

It's Wednesday and I Have a Little Work In Progress!

Here I am again!  I do have some quilting progress to blog about.  I saw a cute little baby quilt that I wanted to try my hand at.  One of my guild members had made it as a charity quilt and provided the tutorial.  Here's the Link  It's called a strip and flip baby quilt. 

I started with a fabric pull like this:

 
 
I pared down the pull and then cut the strips and put them in this order:   

 
Next I sewed the strips together, cut off a segment, added a strip of white to each side, flipped the strip and put it all together and...
 

 
A couple of shots in the garden of the top. 
 
It was easy and it makes an attractive cheery quilt for some little person in your life.  Of course, there is a bit more work to be done before it's an actual quilt...stay tuned for Kathleen's attempts at quilting (usually, I quilt by checkbook.)
 
Even though I said that I was not going to join any other bees, I re-joined the 4x5 Bee for another quarter and round 9 of the Pillow Talk Swap.  So that brings me to Bee Awesome, Round Boo Bee, 4x5 and Pillow Talk Swap, plus the challenges and swaps from the BAMQG.  I pared down my commitments and then, slowly, they creep up on me again.  Does that ever happen to you?  Don't get me wrong, I like every bee and swap that I am in, but in the back of my mind I know that I want to spend more of my time working on my own projects.
Life is full of so many choices - I need to get a little better at filtering the choices.  And, of course, enjoy the choices that I have already made.  I hope that you are enjoying your choices and bringing creativity into your life on a daily basis.
 
Aaaaanyway, that's it from the Robertson household.   
 
 
 
 
I 


Tuesday, October 16, 2012

I've Taken My Traveling Shoes Off

No more long trips for me until Thanksgiving!  I will have some time to stay in the Bay Area and enjoy the Fall, make some progress on my sewing projects,  and see if the Giants can make it to the World Series.  (They won last night, after losing the first game and now they're on the road to St. Louis for game 3).  If you limit your blog reading to quilty topics, there's not much for you in this blog.  Today I'm writing about everything but quilting!

Since I last wrote, I have been in Reno for the little boys' 3rd and 5th birthdays.  That was the weekend of Oct. 6 and 7.  The birthday party was held at Pump It Up (a building full of bounce houses, bounce slides and other contraptions if any of you are like me and had not heard of such a thing).  The tiniest little bitty kids climbed up the huge inflated slide and came flying down at warp speed!

Here's a shot of Mason on the slide and the boys with their birthday cake:
 
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Then the boys and I decorated pumpkins for Halloween.  We drew faces on pumpkins, honeydew and little watermelons and then applied Angry Bird and Piggy decorations on more pumpkins.  Their neighborhood is full of kids, so there are Halloween decorations everywhere, warranting several walks to see the sights. 

I came home Sunday evening and then took a red eye out to Philadelphia Monday night for an ABA meeting.  I had no idea Philadelphia was such an interesting city - I mean beyond the historical aspects of the city.  We went to the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall and the Constitution Center, Betsy Ross's house and saw the oldest residential street in the country (Elfrey's Alley).  We had a Philly cheese steak sandwich at Geno's (no cheese wiz for me) and went to the Barnes Foundation to see the single largest collection of Impressionist paintings in the world.  Dr. Barnes had 181 Renoir's alone in his collection!  And his paintings had not been loaned out, so these were paintings that I had never seen before.  More Impressionists than at the Musee de Orsay in Paris!

We also went to the Magic Garden to see the mosaics.  My friend Jaye, from the BAMQG, had blogged about this place and I had to see it.  Amazing place where every square inch of the building and the garden (as well as buildings near by) were covered in mosaics made from throw away items - dishes, bottles, bicycle tires, spoons, wire, you name it. 

 

 This shot is from across the street. 
 

 This is the actual entrance.

 
This is some of the magic inside the garden.
 
 

 
And this is a shot of the ceiling of the Magic Garden building.  Truly a strange and wonderful place.
 
I'll write tomorrow about my limited sewing experiences.
 
Aaaanyway, that's it from the Robertson household.


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About Me

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I'm a grandmother, a lawyer, a quilter, a cook and the human companion of Boo, the labradoodle. I am also a collector/hoarder and ultimate consumer of fabric. Can't resist touching and/or buying it! I also love sharing every day with my doodle. Please look at my work and let me know what you think. I plan to share my thoughts and experiences with you and hope you will do the same. Boo sends his tail wagging greetings to all. If you meet him, you will know exactly what I mean!