Sunday, December 28, 2008

Sunday Evening

Hi Friends & Relatives

Here's hoping everyone had enjoyable holidays with family and friends. We enjoyed all the C'mas cards and lovely letters and pictures of families! I tried to keep up but I ran out of cards and was too lazy to go get more so I will be emailing messages to a few people! We had a quiet day with Nate & Deanie and Mark! Lots of good food and leftovers - of course! Tracy called and we chatted for a bit. J.D. is in Phoenix with his mother. He calls and taunts us with weather reports! We hope he's enjoying his visit there, he's due back here on Friday. We've had a couple of days with temps in the high 50's and low 60's - a real treat after the bitter cold.

Mark will have his teen house guests for the week - he's gone to Fort Wayne to meet them and will bring them back here. Tia & Tori have grown up so much since they left; they keep in touch with school friends here and make frequent visits. Mark is so good to them - even takes them shopping!

It's rained a lot here and it's been rather gloomy. Even my big fabric stash didn't tempt me to sew very much. I did make a small wall quilt but can't post a picture of it yet - it's a gift and won't be a surprise if I show it now. So - maybe next week!

Friday I fired myself up and decided to get back to sewing. A few years ago I made the Pioneer Braid quilt shown below and there were a lot of pieces cut in that size so I decided to add more fabrics and started cutting. Saturday morning I cut some more and this morning I began to sew the strips. I have four finished this evening. It is truly a scrappy look quilt but it will keep someone warm.

Often someone will ask me how long it takes to make a quilt. There isn't anyway to know unless you time the entire process. So out of curiosity, I tried to keep track of this one. I estimated 8 hours to dig out the fabric, press it, cut it into strips and then cut to sizes I needed. Today I made the four strips (need a total of ten) and it took about an hour and ten minutes to piece one strip. So - get out your calculators! I'm far from finished and hesitate to begin doing a tally! ! Anyone want to figure it for me?




It will be a quiet week here - I plan to keep working on the quilt. In a few days I'll put away the C'mas decorations - that won't take long tho. The fireplace mantle will stay for a month or so - I love to see my collection of snowmen and Chet likes the lights behind them as his night light! We will also work something out to visit with Tia & Tori and hopefully JD will be able to spend a bit of time in town before he goes back to Bloomington.
Till next time - - take care and keep in touch. . . .

5 comments:

Amy said...

I like the pioneer braid. I hate when people ask the same question. it or they say how much would ya sell one for. It is hard to say unless you really keep track, and hard to do with scraps. thnaks for sharing,

Colleen formerly of South Africa said...

Love the pioneer braid. I just dug out for the mystery qulit...and thought I must come up with something that would use up more of those strips!This may be the thing.

Comfort Cove Designs said...

I love that braiding technique!! I made a Christmas stocking using the braid as well as a border on a Round Robin one time. I have a pattern here to use the braid into a full quilt. I will make it someday :)

Quiltingly Yours
Andrea

Anonymous said...

Hey this is cool, I never left a message here...it is like a facebook or my Caring bridge site! The quilt is amazing...I sure love mine, Larry has even gotten a few naps out of it, and he thinks it sleeps real good too!

Anonymous said...

I l o v e i t ! !