I'm still here...

I have been real busy sewing up a storm. I'm trying to finish a quilt for a family friend to give to her granddaughter for graduation. I machine quilted it this weekend and now I have to hand sew the binding on. That will be night time sewing. I have also just finished the Step 3 in Bonnie's Orange Crush. I am also taking two classes right now from Quilt University. "Combing through your Scraps" with Karen Combs and "Tessellating Stars" with Cindy Thury Smith. I have two more I signed up for that will start next month. "Handquilting" with Nancy Chong and EQ6 Sampler with Fran Gonzalez. There is a lot of home work. Cutting and piecing. I get so busy I forget to take pictures. I will have to try to remember next time I'm working on them. So you can see why I have stayed away from the computer. The computer steals a lot of my sewing time so I have to limit it right now. Just wanted to let you all know I'm still checking on all my favorite blogs but can't find the time to do that, blog on my site and sew. I'll be back soon. Terry

Friday Fill-Ins #69

1. When I fell in love it was with the man I knew I would marry!
2. I feel renewed and look forward to no routine when the flowers bloom and it heats up outside!
3. Oh no! The internet connection is down, oh well, I'll get more quilting done.
4. I would not know what is the craziest tv show ever I don't watch much tv.
5. Cheese and macaroni make a great meal!
6. I planted and we have a garden.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to eating out, tomorrow my plans include quilting a quilt for a customer and Sunday, I want to finish it!

We are back! A very pleasurable weekend away at relatives home. We had a wonderful time. We ate well, had good conversation and played a Wii video game. My son had been wanting one for a while and they are hard to find so when my daughter saw one at the store this weekend she picked it up for him. It came with the sports games and we had the best time this weekend playing with that thing.

I'm very tired today, though, the concert that my husband was going to out of town was supposed to be on Saturday night but unexpectedly was moved to Sunday night because of a double booking. We didn't get home until 2:30am this morning and caught a few hours of sleep before hubby had to get up and go to work. I, of course, could not get back to sleep after he left so I got up and started my day but I'm dragging. Maybe an afternoon power nap will do the trick. My hubby, on the other hand, will have to make it up tonight.

Because I don't have pics to show right now the progress I'm making on Bonnies Orange Crush mystery project, I will show you a picture of a quilt I did way back in 2001. It is a stained glass quilt. This was the second class I took after my beginner quilt class. I must have lost my mind at the time because this was not an easy quilt to make. It is paper pieced. I love the way it came out though, and it hangs in my bedroom.

Speaking of classes, I've signed up for three classes at the Quilt University online. I have taken classes with them before and I love it. I can work at home at my own pace. Which right now is very important since I don't seem to have a minute to spare lately. The first class is "Combing through your Scraps" with Karen Combs. I'm also signed up for "Tesselating Stars" with Cindy Thury Smith and "Hand Quilting" with Nancy Chong. I'm looking forward to learning a lot.

That's all for today. Hope everyone has a quilty day!

Here is a super simple and easy birthday card I made for my daughter. I pulled out a few triangle pieces of scrap fabric from my scrap bag in greens, browns and golds. I stick glued them to the card stock then on my sewing machine I used free-motion thread work. I used only brown thread to sew out the tree, sewing over and over in the same spots to make shadows. Then I sewed over the triangles of fabric free-motion. It was fun, just moving the card around under the sewing machine and letting the thread do all the work. When I was finished, I took a sharpie marker and drew a little bird in the tree with a nest (you can see it is a very simple shape, I'm not that great at drawing things from my head). I wrote my message and then I put some other colors on the fabric with the green, orange and brown sharpie markers just to add depth. I love the way it came out and I know she will like it because it is an original from her Mom. I have wanted to try this for a while. I'm glad I did it was fun and a new way to use some of those scraps, even though it is just a small amount.

Friday Fill-Ins
1. The last time I lost my temper I had trouble falling asleep!
2. People that don't know how to drive and are on the road is what I'm fed up with!
3. The next book I'd like to read is The Quilter's Homecoming by Jennifer Chiaverini.
4. Finishing all my UFO's (unfinished objects, mine are quilts projects) is what I'm looking forward to.
5. If you can't get rid of the skeleton[s] in your closet, learn to forgive and forget them!
6. The best thing I got in the mail recently was a thank you card for a quilt I gave away.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to celebrating my daughter's 26th birthday, tomorrow my plans include going out of town and Sunday, I want to spend quality time with my sister in law!

That' s all I have today. I have been so busy. I hate when that happens. I can't seem to stop and smell the roses and they are all in bloom around me.

I'm home from retreat! What fun it was. Everyone seemed to have a great time. I did manage to get a little sewing done. Not as much as I had hoped but it is not all about sewing, at least for me, I love to visit and catch up on what my friends are sewing. Also, getting to know some of the new comers better.

These are the strip blocks that I got done. I think there are about 45 of them. I need 98, so I still have a way to go.

For the fun of it, I like to go around and gather a few of my friends scraps that they were going to throw away and make some small (4-1/2") crumb blocks. They are always amazed at what can be made from something they were going to throw away. I have some from last years retreat also, but I think those were in bright colors. Won't it be fun to put them together in a quilt and have memories from the several retreats? I love it. By the way you can find out about crumb blocks on Bonnie's web site. I think it is great.

I did get the borders sewed on this panel that I brought. Everyone thought I had did the actual redwork embroidery on these blocks. I guess that means it is a good panel. It was a kit and very easy.

This is a quilt that my friend Eva finished. There are a lot of flying geese in this one (you can click on the picture to make it larger). The fabric is the "Hawaii fabric" that we all got in our mini group from a friend that visited Hawaii. She challenged us to make a quilt with it and all the quilts looked so different. I think I have pictures of mine in the archives. Anyway I love that she finished it and I love the way it looks.

This friend has been working on this quilt at retreat for the last 5 years. It is for her daughter. She started it when she started undergraduate school and now is finished school. The quilt will be finished soon I hope. There is a story that the quilt tells, The blue and green fabrics have a rose print which signifies her love for her daughter, The blue flying geese going up signify "To reach for the stars", and the green tiny flying geese signify "To keep her feet on the ground". What a lovely sentiment. She does have many more rows to put together. It will be a big quilt.

That is all, I have to unpack and housework to do.

Leaving for retreat! In a few hours! My cart is packed with my sewing stuff. I can't wait. It is so needed right now. I have had some personal issues I've been dealing with. I just found out this morning that everything will be ok. Medically speaking all tests came out great so, I can enjoy the retreat. I will be back on Sunday. Bye for now!

Orange Crush Mystery Step 1- Done!

This is the 150- 4 patches for step 1 of the Orange Crush Mystery Quilt on Bonnie's site. It is so fun. This is the first mystery quilt I have ever done. I fell in love with the idea of using orange fabric. It is not a color I use too often so I was surprised that I wanted to do this. But I am now anxiously awaiting Step 2. If anyone is interested I suggest you check it out. It's not too late.

I am leaving on Thursday for a quilting retreat with my quilt guild. I am chairman of the event and it has been some work to organize this. My co-chair has helped me every step of the way. I could not have done this by myself. Now that it is almost here, I'm looking forward to getting away. The funny thing is I didn't think I would find much to work on. I have several UFO's and BOM's but, when I go to retreat I like to sew on something that I don't have to concentrate real hard on. Some "no think" sewing and I haven't been doing much of that lately so I had to go digging in my UFO's to find a "no think" project.

I found a project I had started a while back. It is from Bonnie's website. The Basketweave Strings are foundation pieced and so easy.

I also found a small kit with a preprinted panel that just needs borders. It is a Benartex pattern called "Kaye's Kitchen Panel".

There is also a paper pieced tree block that I need to start working on but it is more thinking than I want to do. Paper piecing doesn't come easy to me. I bought this kit from my guild's Christmas auction a few years ago. I love the look of the scrappy trees. Maybe I will bring this one. Just in case I get all the other things finished and run out of things to do! HA! I think this should be enough to keep me quite busy this weekend. We will also be having a charm strip exchange in batiks. I don't have many batiks so I'm going to participate in this. It will be fun!

My daughter suggested I try these Friday Fill-In's. So here goes.


Friday Fill-In #66

1. Tonight I saw ...I don't know, it's not tonight yet!..
2. Good Motown music... makes me wanna dance!
3. Splitting a few appetizers between friends ....is fun and good variety!
4. My Dad... is someone I'd like to get to know better.
5. The smell of ...cut grass... reminds me so much of springtime!
6. A hug... and that made it all better.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to ...spending alone time with hubby shopping..., tomorrow my plans include ...some sewing and eating boiled crawfish... and Sunday, I want to ...quilt one of my quilts...!


This was fun! I think I will try to remember to do this every Friday.

They were surprised!

Here is Chris with her quilt. She really liked it. I explained that she had the brights because she had a bright personality. I put a lot of thought into these. The friendship stars in Chris's because we became friends over the years.

Here is Mary Lee with her quilt. I did Aunt Gracie fabrics for her because it is more traditional and Mary Lee is a more traditional girl. Nine patches just seem to fit with the 1930's fabrics (and besides, I was sick of making friendship stars.HA!) You can tell by the expressions on their face that they were surprised! They both said they would cherish them forever. That was nice. I told them they were made to be used not put on a shelf and they both agreed they would use them.

They are finished!

I've been working on these since October. I wanted them to be a Christmas present for my two friends but I didn't even make Easter. HA! This first one is for Mary Lee. She is the one who owns the place were I get my hair cut. She is Chris's step mom. Such a special lady. So sweet and kind. I am going to try to get it to them this week.

The one below is for Chris. She is the one who actually cuts my hair. We have been seeing her for over 12 years. She is so upbeat and seems happy all the time. She is always interested and encouraging. I know they will love them and will be happy to receive them. Chris is getting married in August and is so happy about it. Her second marriage. She has three children. All young adults.

Now I can move on to another project. It just never ends. I'm doing Bonnie's Orange Crush Mystery and Step 1 was just posted yesterday.

Quilt til your arm falls off...