Sunday 4/27/08
Carolina Crossroads--Almost done!!!
As you see, the top is completely put together! I finished piecing the top by putting on borders Wednesday evening. I wanted to start creating the sandwich Thursday night, but in-laws visited, so the sandwich was made Friday.

The quilting: I agreed with both Amanda and Angela from my blog comments---both basically said that "simple" was the best because of the "buzy"-iness of the top. So, a simple meander was my final choice.

After an hour and a half of quilting, I paused for a short rest. I decided to take the quilt out of the machine to lay it out and get an idea of how it was looking in the "big picuture."

The top was nice---rather evening placed meanders.....so then I turned it over....

My

Heart

Dropped!!!

Loops---terrible stitches---I cried! My machine's tension was very CLEARLY not set correctly! I cried some more! I stared for 5 minutes, hoping there was some other, ANY other, solution other than pulling all the stitches. I cried one last time!

So, after a 10 minute break (because I was SO Mad!!!), I grapped the seam-ripper, and started. *sigh* That was 7:00 pm.

At 12:13 am, I pulled the last stitch! And then I was DONE! "Fertig!!"

Saturday morning: *sigh* At the beginning, all over again! I was still a bit upset and frustrated about the BOO-BOO. I didn't have the patience (or calmness) to figure out what was wrong with the tension, so I had a new challenge of figuring what other "simple" quilting I could do. Simple gridlines was the decision!

By 11:00, we hit the road for the Farm---all quilting completed---the "fake" binding complete too. It was then that I had the brainstorm to create a simple hand-quilted heart in each of the brown squares using pink thread. (It is a bit difficult to see this in the picture...)

I took the quilt along and stitched on the trip. We needed to gas up in Trego, WI-----ahhhhhhh! Right next to my local quilt shop. So I had Paul drop me off while he put gas in the vehicle because I was looking to purchase some Bubble Jet Set. (That's a whole-nother frustration that I'll talk about on some other page...)

She didn't have any; nor did she have any Fabric Printer Sheets----but she told me about another shop that is right on our way on Hwy 53. So....Paul was great about it---20 minutes later we stopped at the "new" shop. Victorious! She didn't have Bubble Jet Set, but she did have some printer sheets. Now, I'll be able to put the quilt label on tonight when we arrive back home.

Sunday: So, here I sit, updating the page, wrapped up in..... (what else?) ----Carolina Crossroads! I still have 10 more blocks to stitch the heart, but my thumb and finger are hurting! (I didn't think of packing a thimble.) I still plan to gift this to my mother for Mother's Day, although I have fallen in love with it. It's light, yet heavy; it's warm, yet cooling; and the flannel backing is soooooo soft and comforting!

I can only see having one more update on here----the final picture! (and perhaps some pictures of Mom opening her gift.)

The image to the right is being used on the label.

4/20/08
Carolina Crossroads--Part 6 (pdf): The BLOCKS!!!
I started piecing some of the Blocks requested in Part 6 yesterday already, but I didn't get very far. I hung up my sewing machine at 6:00 pm and serfed the Blogs online while watching "Kong."

Anyway, so this morning I was back at it by 7:15. The OHIO STAR blocks took quite a while to piece together. By 10:00, I was ready to tackle the next of the three blocks requested in clue #6. HOWEVER!!!! Bonnie's pictures had a slight Boo-Boo. Her pre-sewn differed from the Final sewn picture for the half-star blocks. I headed upstairs and sent out an SMB ("Save my Block") call to the Quiltgroup. In the meantime, I went back downstairs to complete the 4 Corner blocks AND I did some OC#2 blocks.

By 10:30, I was back working on the Half-Star blocks, with MANY thanks due to Linda.

Carolina Crossroads--Part 7 (pdf): Last block, and putting it all together!
THE FINAL CLUE! YEAH!!!
The final blocks took a couple of hours to pieces. In fact, almost all afternoon was needed!!!
Paul arrived home with the girls around 2:00. We ate a late lunch; and by 3:00, I was back downstairs to continue working on these blocks.
I finished them right around 4:30....and then.....THE FUN PART I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR!!!!!..

THE LAYOUT!!!

I snapped a photo right away and came upstairs to upload it, only to find Paul on the computer. So, I went back downstairs to start connecting the blocks into the rows. *shaking head*.......take a look at what happened 15 minutes later......

The picture is a bit darker, but I'm SURE you can see the "wonky-doesn't-belong-there" triangle!.

SO, I was done. I wasn't in the mood to pull out the seam-ripper. I'll do that tomorrow.

Part 4-finished!
I wrapped up Part 4 right away this morning. Although those little triangles SEEMS as if they were going to be a pain to piece, the blocks actually went quite smoothly.

I'm not a big fan of ironing, BUT I now know the importance of it. It's no wonder I've had blocks in my past that didn't "look" right or fit correctly together.

Carolina Crossroads--Part 5 (pdf):
Cutting the 2" strips went rather quickly. I was bummed that we weren't able to use our left over 1.5" strips. I went a weeee bit overboard when I cut them for Part 1. I guess I'll just have to peek at Bonnie's site for a way to burn those up!

Here you see (as Bonnie always states it) the MILE LONG CHAIN of hour-glass blocks in the process of being made. The first pair of triangles are shown here. I used the Companion Ruler for the first time, and LOVED IT! Rather than cutting all the strips and then sew, I sewed at I cut. I would cut one set of strips at a time, which yielded 6-12 triangle pairs, and then took those pairs right to the sewing maching to piece.

By noon, I was completed with #5. The blocks are a good 1/8 - 1/4 inch too small!!! Oh no! I hope I'll be able to "muddle" them into theirs spots though.

4/13/08--#3 DONE!
Carolina Crossroads--Part 3 (pdf): 80 9-blocks
UGH! Just what I DID NOT want after making all those 9-blocks from Clue #2! But, I wrapped up clue 3 tonight. They are shown in the bottom stack in this picture. This shows all steps 1-3 completed, in addition to a few loose-strips (just in case I will need more for future steps.)

4/16/08--Part 4 STARTED!
Carolina Crossroads--Part 4 (pdf)
All the 2-piece 1.5 squares are pieced (bottom stack in picture)
All the 1.5 brown squares are cut, and all 120 green triangles are set! YIKES! Those triangles are tiny!!!
Since the OC Clue #2 came out today, I didn't not work more on these, other than to finish cutting the 1.5" brown squares. All pieces are now set aside; waiting until I finish OC #2 (check out the OC page).

I get to dig into the brown fabrics now. I spent ONLY about 30 minutes cutting up ONLY A FEW brown strips (as compared the the green and pink strips used in part one.) I had sufficient green strips left from part 1, so I was ready to hit the machine quickly today!

I didn't think the 100 9-blocks were going to take all that long. HA! How wrong I was. I can't even imagine why it took most of the day, afterall, I worked rather continuously, only breaking a few times to check on the girls, make up some lunch, and visit the toilet as needed. However, it wasn't until 5:15pm when I finally finished the 100 9-blocks, as well as the 25 3.5 inch green and brown squares.

I decided NOT to go scrappy with those squares and cut all 25 from the same fabric. I hope this wasn't a bad move.

Rails are done! It only took me until 11:00 tonight to finish them. I suuuuuuuure hope we have a snow day tomorrow like many are hoping for.

If you can count the sets, there aren't 10 (which would be the 100 I need).

Instead, there are EIGHTEEN SETS!!! Oh my! That's 180 rails. I contemplated cutting 20 more rails so as to make two quilts; I'll wait and see how the rest of the clues turn out. If nothing else, I saw an example by Ingrid on the Quiltville Chat site that used rails in a pieced border.

Here's her picture.
http://ph.groups.yahoo.com/group/quiltvillechat/photos/view/1fde?b=40

*closing eyes and wishing*
Snow day tomorrow, snow day tomorrow, snow day tomorrow......

I have chosen PINK to be the "accent" color that Bonnie refers to in her directions. The green will then become her "blues" while brown will become her "neutrals." I spent about 1.5 hours tonight cutting up strips from my stash. Most of the stash has been accumulated from my "inheritance" from my grandmother and my mother.

I actually needed to force myself to quit at 10:15 pm so that I could come upstairs to upload my evenings work so that I can actually get to bed by 11:00.

I plan to continue working tomorrow evening, cutting more green strips, and then finally start putting the rail-fences together.