Yesterday I did some repair work on a crocheted afghan that belongs to a friend of mine. It is old but has sentimental value to her. Some of the yarn had deteriorated and I cut it out and crocheted with new yarn and sewed it back together. I will tell her to put it away and not use it because there are other yarns that look like they will not last if it is continued to be used.

My class last night went really good. They both made 12 of there Cobblestone blocks in the light colors. They are doing really well. Fast learners. They make my job easy.

Today I think I will make myself work on a BOM project. I have not felt like working on them and I'm falling behind again. I really need to catch up.

And because I really don't like posts without pictures, I'm posting pictures of a clock and valance that I made for my sewing room a couple of years ago when I remodeled and cleaned out the room. The clock and valance have the same fabric. I made shoofly blocks for both. I used Mod Podge on the clock to glue the fabric down then cut the shanks off the buttons and glued them down. It was an old clock that needed a new look. I like the way it turned out.

I wasn't happy with the effect of the shoofly blocks when sewed together. I made a secondary design I didn't like. but I like the overall effect. I used the stash for these projects. Gotta love that! I really like the fabric with all the vintage sewing supplies on it.

I have finished the step 5 of Orange Crush Mystery. Yeah! It was alot of fun working with that orange fabric. It is not a fabric color I deal with too often. This whole project has been fun! I have enjoyed learning alot of new things.

Tonight I am teaching a class. My SILs wanted to learn how to quilt. Neither of them owned a sewing machine. They each bought one and we are starting from the beginning. Last week we had a good time talking about quilting supplies and fabric. Tonight they will start cutting strips and sewing their blocks. We always have a good time when we get together and this is no different.

I know I have not posted in a while. I have worked on the Orange Crush Mystery quilt step 5 this past weekend and when I finish I will post pictures. Today is guild day. I go to the morning and night meetings so it is a full day. Plus my youngest son has guitar lessons at 4pm. I will be tired tonight. I'm in charge of Door prizes this year for out guild. I get to spend some of the guild's money and buy nice things to give away. What could be better! For this month I bought...I can't tell yet! Some of my friends read my blog. I will share later what I bought. Gotta go, right now I should be getting ready instead of playing.

Tired today!

Being lazy today. It is the first day this week I don't have anything scheduled to do. Yesterday I taught two classes. One Basic beginner class in the morning (my last one with these students) and one Cobblestones class (with my SILs) last night. I was beat! It sure was fun though. I was able to take pictures of the finished tops in the morning class. I will start a photo album of all of my students quilt tops and keep it is class to share. My SILs are quick learners. They got their 1/4 seams right the first block they made. Now they will go shopping this next week for their fabric for the next class.

The quilt below is for my husband's aunt. She is a nun and they are always having fund raisers for the community where she lives. She gave me some antique embroidery blocks to make a quilt with. This is the second quilt me and my friend made the first one was made with embroidered blocks she did herself (the picture at the bottom is the blocks from that quilt).


They both need to now be quilted. Me and my friend will baste these and share the quilting. The picture below is a close up of the embroidered blocks. They were so sweet looking. I chose the yellow and pink fabric from my stash and it was sewed together in one day. We starched the blocks so they would be easier to manage and they were trimmed down to an equal size. Very happy with how this came out.

This is two of the blocks from the first quilt. I have not had a chance to get a picture of the whole top. It is folded on a shelf waiting to be quilted. I like the look of the sashing and borders in this quilt top. It frames the blocks very well. Thank you to my friend who is helping me with this project.

Whew! I'm glad that is done!. That was a lot of work. I'm glad I had the four patches made already. This is the first block in the Orange Crush mystery on Bonnie's site. The first picture is the work in progress. There are 30 blocks and I had to make 120 half squares to go with the four patches.


Here they are all finished! I like the way they look. All scrappy and yet the red and black pull it together so it is not too busy. I can't wait to see the next step. I still have my orange fabric and light blue fabric to cut into. I know it will be big. Bonnie does everything big.

I also made a few more blocks for my Combing through your scraps quilt and this is what I came up with. It is a Crown of Thorns block that I used for the setting and I like it. I will try to get this pieced together before the end of the week. The blocks are on my design board and I have to stand back to see the design. It shows up really good in the picture but in person some of the fabrics blend into the others. I have to look at it in my reducing glass to see the whole affect. This was a lot of fun. I used some scraps (even though it doesn't look like I touched them) and I learned a lot about value.

Now I need to focus on the rest of my BOM's or my boss (aka..friend who is coaching me) will tan my hide. I still have my Thimbleberries for April and May to do and a Houses BOM I need to check on and see where I stand. That's it for me today. I'm off to run some errands before bringing my youngest son to his guitar lessons.

Friday Fill-Ins #72 and some scary weather!

1. There is absolutely NO way you can get me to fly in a plane (that is what I used to say, now I'm thinking of planning my first flying trip)!
2. Hurricane emergency kits reminds me that summer is almost here!
3. I cannot live without my bible first then needle and thread.
4. Painting a picture and flying to Hawaii are two things I'd like to try.
5. When life hands you lemons you believe that God is sending sweeter fruit.
6. Getting a banana seat bike with a basket on the handle bars for my birthday is my favorite childhood memory.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to going bowling, tomorrow my plans include whatever I feel like doing (I finally have a Saturday to stay home) and Sunday, I want to do more of the same (will probably include some sewing and quilting)!


Yesterday we had a scary morning. A twister passed through two doors down. It did not touch down but took the tops of the trees down across our road and the power lines with it. This is the first one I have ever experienced and never want to do that again. It was about 6:30am. The electricity cut off and I noticed my fan had stopped (I was in bed fixing to get up). The wind outside sounded different, it had a whistle to it I had never heard before. I jumped out of bed to tell my hubby what I had heard (he was in the kitchen eating breakfast before leaving for work). We looked outside and the trees were bent in half from the wind and things were blowing all over. It was hard to see because it was white from the rain. My SIL was leaving for work right when it was passing and he saw the trees come down in the road. He ran back into their home and got our daughter and ran over here, they live in a trailer. By the time we let them in (they were soaked) it was over except for the wind and still some rain. By 10am it was all over and the sun was shining. Our whole town got hit some way or another but some parts of town got it bad. There is a place we call the Oil Center (lots of businesses and doctor's offices) that had a direct hit. Windows blown out and roofs blown off. Our doctor's office was one of them.

I am counting my blessings this morning and praying for those that are in need. I'm not looking forward to hurricane season which is due to start here on June 1st.

Busy

I can't believe it has been almost a week since I blogged! I have been so busy. The quilt above is the one I'm doing in my Hand quilting class from Quilt University. I got it together on the weekend and just marked the quilting and basted it yesterday.

This is a close up of the center quilting design. You can't see it that well but the center grid is 1/4 inch and there are wheat stalks and leaves with a 1 inch grid on the outside of the feather ring. There is also wheat stalks in the red borders. It was the first time I marked a quilt design using my light box. It worked quite well but the freezer paper design had to be made before I could do the marking and that took a little longer than I thought it would. But I'm happy with the results.
I'm quilting it with red thread so the quilting will show up good to take pictures for my class. Since the class is online that is the only way for the teacher to see our work.

I am also working on my Louisiana BOM for May. I will post pictures when they are done. And I'm ready to start on Step 4 of the Orange Crush mystery quilt on Bonnie's site. I will have some sewing time today so I think I will split it up between hand quilting and the Orange Crush.

Things just don't seem to slow down around here and I'm trying to figure out what to cut out to make things simpler. I love all that I'm doing right now but can't seem to spend the quality time on each individual thing. It is just a moment here or there that I have to give to it and it seems not enough. I will have to give it more thought. I don't want to give up my teaching of quilting. I'm enjoying that so much. It is overwhelming at times but rewarding. I have two classes on Thursday, a morning and night class. I guess things will slow down after my QU classes are over and my own beginner quilt classes finish at the end of this month. I'm looking for the slow lazy days of summer. Is there such a thing? I will find it. I have to. Well enough rambling. On to sewing. Have a wonderful day everyone.

Here are the split nine-patch blocks that I made for the "Combing through your scraps" class I'm taking from Quilt University. I love the idea of using a block (in this case the Variable Star) to make the whole quilt. I really liked using my scraps and the split nine-patch were easy to put together. I used the Easy Angle Ruler for the half squares. I did find out that I don't have a lot of really light fabrics. I have more mediums. I did as the teacher suggested and used the backs of several of the light to mediums that I had. It worked. I think I will make some more of these and make a different block. I have my eye on an Ocean Waves block and for that I need 48 split nine-patch blocks. It will be an on going project. That's what I worked on this weekend. I am also working on my April and May Louisiana BOM. I had to redesign one of them. It was for LSU in Baton Rouge and I had to do ULL for the university in my city. I now have to do the machine applique on it. I will get to it later this week. Hope everyone is having a quilty day!

This is what I have been up to. I have finished the Step 2 and 3 of Bonnie's Orange Crush Mystery. There are 142 Split 4-patches in step 2 and 44 half split 4-patches in step 3. I'm so looking forward to step 4. It will not be for two weeks so I have time to catch up on some other sewing. Like all the things below.

Below is the 12 inch hoop and the top and bottom fabric I will be using for my Quilt University class in Handquilting. I had to buy the hoop because all I had was a 14 inch one and I found out that the 12 inch works better for me by using one of my friends. My arm is short and the reach is better on the 12 inch. I will be using red thread to quilt this with. The teacher said to use a contrasting thread so when we take pictures to show her she would be able to see our stitch good. The red thread will work perfect because I will be using this as a wall hanging in my workshop and it has red accents.

Here is what I have so far on my Quilt University class-Combing through your Scraps. I spared you the sight of all my scraps everywhere trying to figure out my lights and darks. I have cut half squares and squares of light and dark fabrics and now I'm sewing split nine patches. I'm sewing them like Bonnie suggests, as leaders and enders. Check it out if you want to know more. I'm liking it a lot.

The picture below is all of the BOM's I have done so far on the Seasonal Delights. I finished April and May as much as I could. Some of the applique's have to wait until it is pieced together. This is how these blocks will be put together. I'm liking it so far.

I have more BOM's to do for April and May on Thimbleberries and Louisiana Blocks. I will get to those next week hopefully and post pics.

That's all for now. I must go and sew some more. Lot's to catch up on. (But you know I'm lovin' it)!

Friday Fill-In #70

1. Two of my favorite ingredients in a drink are lime & cranberry juice (a favorite at the moment)!
2. Watching children play often amazes me.
3. You can keep doing that forever, the dog is nowhere to be found (I'm not an animal person.
4. Scraps of fabric & some quality time, mix it all together and voila! You have a quilt!.
5. If I had a yard with a garden, I would love to grow plenty of vegetables (fresh produce is always good).
6. Soap is best au naturel.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to a night out with hubby, tomorrow my plans include lots of sewing (as usual) and Sunday, I want to see my daughter and her hubby off (they are leaving for a one week vacation it's a 16 hour drive)!