A COMPLETED QUILT TOP, AND A STRANGE NEW QUILT AS WELL....

Well it's 4 o'clock Wednesday afternoon and I am going to try and put up a QUICK post...yah, right your thinking, lol. But seriously, I am going to try.  Soo let's see.  I have spent the last couple of days finishing up the quilt that is to be the wedding present, and going over to the quilt shop to see about getting it quilted and picking out the backing for it.  I have ended up REALLY liking this quilt.  Which is good because I thought at one point I HATED it, and even considered just putting it in a drawer somewhere and moving on as if it never happened.  I couldn't quite make myself do that so I pressed on, and now I am glad I did.  It is a very modern looking quilt in my opinion, which I think should suit this gal great.  For right now I am dwelling on my options to have it quilted.  If I do what I REALLY want to do, which is totally customized quilting, rather than an all-over design, it will really be pretty pricey.  Glad I didn't know how pricey quilting was when I got into it, or I might have not done it.  The fabric alone was really pretty expensive.  HOWEVER, in my opinion it is one of those things that at the end of the day is worth every penny.  You have something really nice, personal, and should last for years and years.  Can't really put a price tag on that.  So I will see what hubby thinks and let him make the call.  Either way I have my date secured, but here is the other frightening part.  It won't be done until the 17th of Oct (early in the morning she said) and the wedding is on the 19th!  I will still need to get the binding on it which of course doesn't leave me much time.  But if I have the binding all ready to go hopefully I can do it.  Soo I need to get the backing ready, (and I am going to do something a little different there too) and get it over to her by the first of Oct. to secure my place in her line.  Then I need to make a label (which will need to be embroidered on my machine) and then get the binding ready to put on, and I will be all set.  I have taken a couple of crummy pictures of the finished quilt top with my i-phone which I will show you, but when it is ALL done (binding and all) I will drag out the camera and get a good picture.

VERY DIFFERENT.  I WAS VERY PLEASED HOW FLAT MY BORDERS LAID THIS TIME...LEARNED THAT LESSON FOR SURE, LOL

ANOTHER ANGLE.  IT IS A LITTLE LONGER THAN WIDE

Then....I went back to work on my own hour glass quilt made with the civil war fabrics for my family room. Here is the story on that quilt.  I will try and be quick...honest!  I originally picked out the fabric with another complete pattern design in mind.  When I went to put the first couple of blocks together I decided it was TOO stressful and changed to a simple hour glass design.  I wish truthfully I had pressed on and just tried again before throwing in the towel, as now I have put together all these hourglass designs and when I began to lay them out side by side truthfully it was just not what I had in my head, and I really didn't like it.  So I have been kind of dragging my feet pondering "what" to do with all these hourglass blocks.  I had NO PATTERN I was using, just a bunch of hourglasses.  Sooo I began "messing" with one of the blocks.  I took my rotary cuter to it (always dangerous I am sure lol) and cut it into 9 equal sized pieces and then began playing with it to see what I could come up with.  I can't even tell you how many different layouts I had going, lol.  I finally decided to go on what my very first idea had been.  Diane was here today and I was able to take advantage of her very good eye on such things.  So now I have 40 blocks to cut apart and put back together in a different way, AND 40 other blocks to cut down some so that they will be the same size as the new block.  Then I will simply lay them out every other block.  I have NO idea how this will eventually look. Perhaps like some amateur cut apart a perfectly good tried and true block and put together some odd combination and called it "_____" lol.   Obviously I am hoping to get a beautiful, very unique, different, personal quilt out of it.  Guess we will see.  I am cutting all the blocks with the striped backgrounds, and trimming down all the ones with the flower backgrounds.  This will be VERY scrapping looking, and honestly I would never call myself a "scrappy" kind of gal.  WAY too OCD for that.  But I do intend to put on both a small burgundy border and a larger navy one as well which should take away from the wild scrappy look somewhat, lol.  So now let me show you some VERY bad pictures of this...I will take more when I have made more progress.  I have alot more done then I am showing you here, but still this is going to take me a while.  And meanwhile, I actually cut my fingers TWICE on the rotary cutter today already, so I think it is time to take a break until tomorrow.  Here they are...

HERE IS MY "NEW" BLOCK...

SO HERE IS HOW THE TWO BLOCKS WILL LOOK SIDE BY SIDE..

AND LAID OUT WITH A COUPLE MORE...

Needless to say I am really hoping that I don't end up tossing this all into a drawer with the lesson learned of NEVER just start putting blocks together without a definite plan.  We will see.  I am getting my hair taken care of in the morning, but after that I will head to the sewing machine so I can get a few more of these done so I can lay them out and see what I think.  Hope you are all having a good week.  Blessings and joy to you all!  Debbie

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I forgot to mention the WONDERFUL day I had yesterday!  And we can't have that.  I picked up my 13 year old grand daughter Lindsey and went over to Victoria Gardens for a little shopping and lunch at Kubuki.  At her age it is hard to find clothes that are both cute and stylish (a MUST at this age!) and yet appropriate for school and don't cost an entire arm and leg either, haha.  Lindsey is such a cute girl it is really pretty easy though as everything looked just darling on her.  We settled on two pairs of shorts, and cute little skirt and a darling little top.  And even though everything we bought was on sale and a pretty good price, it still cost more for her then the 3 boys combined, lol.  I remember the days of dressing a teenaged girl well, so I am glad we were able to help out some.  I wanted to buy her EVERYTHING she tried on, but I did restrain myself, lol.  Lunch was VERY yummy.  Haven't had sushi in a while.  Then we decided to see a movie to finish up our day.  We saw "What If?"  It was a mindless cute little romance and we both enjoyed it.  These are the kind of days that are right up grandma's alley, and I could do them VERY frequently I think.  Lindsey is a straight A student, active in student council, VERY active with sports, and assists in the special ed program at her school.  She is a sweet, helpful, respectful young girl and grandma is very proud of her.  Can you tell?  lol

Just had to show these cute little pics of these grands too.

HOW DARLING IS THIS CUTE LITTLE HELPER....DONATELLA WILL GET HER TURN THIS WEEK-END, AND I AM VERY EXCITED TO HAVE HER ALL TO MYSELF FOR A DAY OR SO...WELL MAYBE I WILL SHARE HER SOME WITH GRANDPA, LOL

VINNY PUSHED A STOOL OVER TO THE COUNTER AND CLIMBED UP TO GET HIS SWEET LITTLE HAND IN THE COOKIE DOUGH, LOL.  TAKING AFTER DADDY I THINK.