Quilt-Nut

The baby quilt is finished!

2008-10-21T11:23:00.008-05:00

I used a pattern from the book "Big-Print Quilts" by Karen Snyder. It was originally made with racing cars and bright fabric. My husband suggested this pattern and I'm glad because I like the way it came out. If you notice the three duck blocks are a little different. The printed blocks were given to me a while back from a friend and when they were cut they were not all even. So you make lemonade with lemons, right! The ducks were a little too small so I trimmed them down smaller and added a tiny blue border and white border then squared them the same size as the others. The fact that I used three makes it work. I'm real pleased.

This is the back. You can see the quilting I did around each shape and block. I used some new batting that I wanted to try. It is "Dream Green". Put out by "Quilter's Dream Batting". It is made using recycled plastic bottles. I thought it would be great for a baby quilt because it gets washed so much. I like the fact that it is thin and it feels soft and not real stretchy but when I had pin basted the quilt and started to quilt it the batting did not grab onto the fabric the way cotton batting does and so there was some slipping of the fabric. That is why it looks wrinkled. There are no puckers but I'm not convinced that I will use this batting again. I think I will stick with my cotton batting.

A close up of the back.

Close up of the duck block. You can see I did a continuous line quilting around the ducks and the wheels. It was easy using free motion quilting.

Close up of the center rabbit block.

This is my label. I had this idea to use grosgrain ribbon and my machine's monogramming program. It took me a little while to figure out I needed a stabilizer on the back and the size of my letters but I'm happy with it. I sewed it into the binding by hand.

Now off to work on another project!

I've been tagged!

2008-10-20T08:40:00.003-05:00

by Art and Soul

Here are the rules:
1. Link to your tagger and list these rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog - some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blog.
4. Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

1. I do not like water in my face- it feels like I'm suffocating. (Probably due to #2)

2. I'm claustrophobic- I found this out when I had to do an MRI. I thought I was going to lose it in there.

3. I hate blue cheese. The idea of it (mold-even good mold) grosses me out. Not just blue cheese but any smelly moldy cheese, yuck!

4. I only eat one brand of mayonnaise-Blue Plate-other brands don't even taste like mayo to me (and I love a mayo and mustard sandwich -nothing else just that on it).

5. I have a very strong sense of smell-lots of times others can't smell it and I can-particularly bad smells like, smelly feet, spoiled milk, moldy cheese, etc.

6. I only like to watch romantic comedies with a happy ending. I refuse to watch a movie if it ends with a death. There is enough bad in the world every day I just want to watch good stuff in my leisure time.

7. I have to have some quiet, leisure time right after I get out of bed to gather my thoughts for the day (even though I just woke up from resting all night). I feel out of sorts for the day if I don't have this time in the morning.

That's it. I'm breaking the rules (because I'm just that kind of gal!) I'm not tagging anyone in particular but if you want to play along, by all means, do! Send me a link to your blog so I can read it. Thanks Art and Soul, this was fun and kind of hard!

Top finished...

2008-10-13T10:33:00.002-05:00

The Christmas quilt top is finished. I got the pattern from Bonnie Hunter's website. I love this pattern. It was so easy and so fast. I'm not even bordering it. I will put a black binding on it and call it good. It measures 66 x 90. The person it is for is tall and I wanted him to be able to cover completely. I'm glad for this to be done. I'm also putting fleece on the back and no batting. It will be cozy and not heavy. The fleece will be a novelty sports print. It is his favorite team. I like to make it personable if I can. Now I need to get busy with a baby quilt. A family relative asked me to make one. Her friend is having a baby. She needs it in 2 weeks. I don't know why I always say yes to these things but I do!

I have been working...

2008-10-10T07:36:00.007-05:00

despite the fact that I have not been posting about it. This is what has become of the 4-patches. I have all the blocks assembled and I laid them out on my design board then stacked them up and numbered them. They are ready to be sewed together into rows. This has really been a fast and easy quilt. And I love how it looks all laid out.

This is a quilt I quilted last week. A friend of mine owns a Tin Lizzie18 quilting machine. She offered for me to go over and quilt a quilt on it because she knows I want to purchase one. I was not blown away by it. I guess my expectations were too high. There are a couple of things I really liked about it and a couple of things I didn't like about it. I am rethinking buying one. I have done some research and I'm going to Houston Quilt Festival at the end of this month, I will try several machines out and see what happens. I may end up just staying with what I have. Which is a shortarm system using a B-line frame and Juki TL98E.

Here is a closeup of the quilting. I hope you can see it. I did big loopy flowers in the outside border and inside border. I also did a small loop-d-loop around the blocks. BTW, the center is a panel and the borders were added on. I purchased this several years ago and it was just sitting in the stash so I put it together earlier this year at our guild retreat and thought it would be the perfect project to practice on. It is not finished however. I will do some more quilting in the blocks around the redwork and flowers.

And last but not least this is a christmas gift for a member of a small group I belong to called the Woolie's. We, of course, work with wool. I will show a finished picture when it is done. I did the embroidery and added the pieced borders. Now I'm adding wool accents with the buttonhole stitch. I have not decided if it will be a table topper or wall hanging and I'm not sure how I will back it and if it will have batting or not. Any suggestions?

2008-09-26T10:17:00.005-05:00

What is this?

Could it be?------Yes, there is piecing going on!

See the long chain of black and white?

It became 120 4-patches! Too bad that's only half of what I need! What is it for, you ask? Check this quilt out from Bonnie's site.

And...I also pieced this zig-zag block. I got the inspiration from Material Obsession. Check them out! I want to make this quilt but it will have to wait til later.

Well I better get back to making 4-patches. Lots more to go!

2008-09-23T09:34:00.004-05:00

Hi everyone! Sorry I have not posted in a while. I have not been doing a whole lot of any particular thing. Some hand quilting (which I am doing without a hoop and loving it!) and some hand embroidery for a Christmas gift.

After the two hurricanes we had in this area I just felt lost for a while. We came back from Pennsylvania just in time for the first one and I had not settled into my home routine yet. Then the second one hit. We did not have any damage to our property but the emotional damage was there albeit, temporary.

I worried about the family and when something like a dangerous hurricane happens I begin to think about what is really important. Like when packing things up for safety (important papers and pictures, etc). But I also think about how I have been spending my time. Was it doing something important, something that could make a difference in someones life. If I would die today who would have been affected by me being here. Thoughts like these, throw my everyday routine into a spin. I begin to rethink things I am working on and am I doing enough for my family? I felt kind of lost not only in my everyday routine, including quilting, but in my thoughts.

Are the quilts I'm making important to someone other than myself? Is it bad that I neglect my domestic chores (dishwashing and cleaning, etc)? Should my quilting be going in another direction? Like maybe more charity quilts. I have not found the answers to these questions and it is a daily journey to find out but with the changing of the seasons comes feelings of change.

I don't know what it is about the fall but it makes me want to cook (things from scratch like my mother and grandmother used to do. Using their recipes) and also to clean. Maybe it is that old feeling of "Spring cleaning" but in the fall. So for now not much quilting is going on but, I will continue to enjoy the renewed feelings of cleaning and cooking while I have them (because I know they will not last!) I guess it is all part of the changing seasons.

A friend said maybe I had just lost my "Mo-jo". I don't know, but I am hoping to find it again soon. I had lots of projects planned for this fall. Many Christmas gifts to make. We'll see....

2 posts in one day! Wow!

2008-09-12T09:00:00.005-05:00

I must have way too much time on my hands. Actually I do have other things I should be doing but thought I would take pictures of my last two paintings from paint class for you to see. Last night was our last class and I'm sad and happy. I learned a lot and built up confidence in my abilities to paint but I'm really glad to have my Thursday nights back. I'm very much a homebody and getting out at night to go to a class across town was not my cup of tea!

This is a painting I did from a picture in a magazine. It is not finished but this is as much as I got done last week in class. I have not made the time to tweak it. I think his mouth looks like the "Joker" from Batman but the paint would not dry fast enough to add the color for his tongue. Overall, I'm happy with it. The teacher was very generous with his critic and said this was good enough to be entered in one of the art contest going on right now. NOT what I am interested in doing. Just like my quilting-It is all just for fun!

This is what I painted last night. I can not tell you how much I was dreading this class. We were doing portaits and I don't usually do people as I stated before. But this teacher pushed me to do what I did not think I was capable of. He handed out a drawing of a man's face and said paint this or use a picture you brought. I had brought pictures but was less intimidated by the picture of this man. I started painting and at first it was not much to look at. The colors were wrong ( I used grey and browns for the shading) but after I started to put some flesh tones and add detail it was looking ok. After I did the eyes then he came alive to me. I am most proud of this painting because it is something I did not think I could do. It makes me think what else is possible. Now, can I do it again? That is the question.
The teacher said it was a very strong portait. A great compliment (at least as far as I'm concerned)!

2008-09-12T06:57:00.007-05:00

We are getting tropical storm force winds all day today along with some rains and we may be under a tornado watch sometime today but it beats the hurricane force winds we had 1-1/2 weeks ago.
Thought you might like to see some pics I took of the sunrise this morning. Ike is doing his best to make them beautiful. The clouds were blowing in fast and it was changing fast. I had to be quick to take the pics (not to mention my gown flying everywhere-yes, I was not dressed yet!).
Enjoy! I did!

Quilt stuff...finally

2008-09-11T07:04:00.015-05:00

I haven't posted anything quilty for a while and I finished the labels on these two quilts yesterday and took some pics. These quilts were made for my husbands Aunt. She is a nun and they do a lot of charity fund raisers. She sent me the embroidered blocks (done by her and a friend's Mom) and asked if I would make these into quilts for a fund raiser. No rush, just whenever. I got them last year around Sept. or Oct. and you know how it is, other things come up and these got pushed to the back burner a couple of times. But they were always in the back of my mind. My best friend and I worked on these together and we got them finished. We pieced them together and I quilted the smaller one and she quilted the bigger one (she had the harder job, that was a lot of blocks to custom quilt). I'm glad they are done and we will have to get them to her soon.

This is the larger one that my friend quilted.

Here are close ups of the quilting in the sashing and blocks. She uses a Juki TL-98Q sewing machine set on a table. It is hard to do some of these designs but she is getting good at it.

Here is a close up of the quilting in the border. I hope you can see it. It is quilted with e's and l's that have one echo stitch all the way around.

This is the smaller one that I quilted. I also use a Juki-TL98E set in my sewing cabinet. At first it was hard to decide how to quilt these. I knew we would have to quilt in the embroidered blocks but had never done that before. These were vintage blocks. That made me nervous but, I'm real happy with how they turned out. They are not perfect but they are quilted as my friend likes to call it "Machine quilted by Hand". Every block is different. It is not stitched by a machine so that they all are the same. You move the fabric and so sometimes it is not stitched exactly perfect. But you know what? It doesn't matter. The overall look is good and it is done! Sometimes I think that is the most important thing. To finish the quilt.

Here is a close up of the quilting in the blocks and borders. The border is quilted with e's that are echoed.

Here is a close up of the quilting in the sashing. This was something new to me. I did the small flowers and culi-cues. I usually do straight line quilting in the sashing. I like the way it came out.

I'm also starting to work on some Christmas gifts. I have a small table topper that has embroidery on it and some wool. I'm working on the embroidery right now and will get pics when it closer to being finished.

Every year I make a quilt for one of my in-laws for Christmas. I started this in 2001. The year I learned to quilt. The quilt this year is for one of my brother-in-laws. Making quilts for men and boys is fun and different. Using a different color arrangement to make it more masculine.

My friend is really good at choosing colors and knowing what looks good together so she will come and help me choose the fabrics, from my stash, of course. I'm really trying to use it up. Although, as much as I use it never seems to go down, instead it seems to multiply. Why is that? If anyone has any theories on this I would like to hear it.

Paint class...

2008-09-04T15:08:00.004-05:00

Tonight is paint class. On the day of paint class I always try to do a little painting. Today I tried to fix the house I painted in class last week. I didn't like it then. I like it now. I realized I like a lot of detail. Which I find hard to do with watercolor. You have to be patient and let it dry (or use a blow drier) then add more paint in a darker tone.

Tonight we will be working on painting people. Something I'm not good at and don't like to do. I usually have a problem with proportion. As you can see her chin needs some work and I will continue to work on this picture tonight in class. Over all I'm happy with it. I painted from a picture that the teacher gave us to practice with. It doesn't look anything like the practice piece but it does look like a woman. So I am ok with it so far.

Below is a painting I did last week of a photo my daughter took on a trip they took. I love the picture and thought it would make a good practice piece. I'm happy with it. There is one tree in the photo that has red-orange leaves in it and that is what I tried to capture. I'm happy with it. The road is not in proportion. It should be smaller at the top than at the bottom but that's ok. It was a learning experience.

Looking forward to class tonight! I am learning so much. The teacher is good. He is willing to let us do our own thing and just guides us.

2008-09-03T16:04:00.003-05:00

Our electricity just came back on about 10 minutes ago. Me and my daughter jumped right on our laptops (we have our priorities in order you know). We are cooling down now with the central air on. It is time to clean up. Save the candles and batteries and flashlights (but not too far, there is Ike in the Atlantic to watch). I also need to clean the floors. There has been a lot of family traffic through here in the last few days. My daughter took some video of the storm while it was going on. When she has that posted I will put a link to her blog so you can check it out if you want to. Time to get to work.

Updated: Here is the link to the video on my daughter's blog:
Art and Soul

Goodbye Gustav!

2008-09-01T22:01:00.003-05:00

Hi everyone, the worst is over. It was not as bad as they thought it was going to be. It downgraded to a category 2 real fast. The winds were only 75-80 mph sustained. We had no damage that we can see. There was a small leak in the roof but it was only from the winds pushing the rain under the ridge vent. We have branches and debris in the yard but we can pick all that up tomorrow. We will begin the clean up then and help others in the neighborhood that need it. Our house is fine and all the family is ok. We don't have electricity but we have a generator and it is running the refrigerator and freezer and some fans and of course my laptop (that was top priority you know-HA).

Tomorrow is my birthday. I will count all my blessings and enjoy the day with my family. I won't have a cake (no oven to bake it in) but that is not what is important. This storm could have been so much worst. God has his hand in keeping us safe. A lot of the things they said were going to happen to make this storm bad just didn't happen. We give God all the glory.

There will be some traffic problems when everyone tries to come back their homes. It was the very first time the entire coast of Louisiana was evacuated for a hurricane. Everyone remembered Hurricanes Rita and Katrina and heeded the warnings.

Thanks to everyone that prayed for our well being. Your prayers were answered.

Still waiting...

2008-09-01T07:52:00.002-05:00

Good morning everyone! We are experiencing about 30 mph gusts this morning. Not much rain yet. The storm has weakened some and they are saying now that we will be having sustained winds of 90 mph with gusts of 115 mph. There is a ridge of dry air coming in from the south into the eye and not allowing it to strengthen. We are grateful for that and believe that the prayers are being answered. As I said yesterday we are as prepared as we can be so now it is a wait and see thing. They are saying the worst will be here by 2pm and the worst of the winds will last about 2-4 hours then the winds will get less and less. We should see the eye pass over, which is a really weird feeling. The winds are at their worst then all of a sudden it gets quiet and even sunny outside for about 10 minutes then all of a sudden the wind picks up again in the opposite direction and at it's worst again.

The hardest is the waiting. Your mind loves to think too much when it has time to contemplate what could happen for days. It wears you down mentally and then you are physically tired from all the work of preparing. Picking up anything outside that is not nailed down and boarding up the windows or closing the storm shutters. Buying food, gas, and water. Getting all the things in your house off the floor, in case of water in the house. It is exhausting. But we are grateful for our family and friends praying for us and the storm could be worst than it is.

I need to get off now the winds are getting worst. You can hear the house creaking. We will probably lose power before too long. Bye for now...

Go away Gustav

2008-08-31T20:19:00.004-05:00

On the eve of Hurricane Gustav's arrival I sit an write. The town where I live is supposed to be a direct hit. Me and my immediate family have evacuated every hurricane here since Andrew in 1992. This one we decide to stay.

Why, you might ask? Well, that is hard to answer. We went back and forth for about three days because it was too early for the weather team to know the most accurate projected path. All the times we left before I didn't like it. You are away from your home and some of your family (that are in the storm) and you don't know what kind of damage you will have to your home or if you would have stayed if the damage could have been taken care of earlier. Also, you don't know when they will allow you back in the city to get back to your home. Where you evacuate to also has some bad weather, usually from the rain bands. It is awful to be away from home and going through bad weather. If you decide to leave you may get caught up in traffic and you could run out of gas on the road with no gasoline available. The gas stations run out of gasoline really quick even miles away. When we evacuated for Andrew in 1992 it took us 9 hours to go on a 4 hour trip. The traffic was so slow on the interstate you could stop your car and change drivers right there. And most of the time you can't find a place to stay. Everything is booked and you don't know how far out you have to go. So you see it is not such an easy decision.

Anyway, we decided to stay for this one. It is supposed to be the worst one so far that is a direct hit on our town. The winds are expected to be sustained 100 mph and gusts of 115-120 mph. I have to admit I'm frightened. We have done all we can to prepare. We have food and batteries and candles and water and we have generator for after the storm. We will probably not have electricity for up to a week or more. So you will not be hearing from me for a while. We might not have water and it will be so hot without air conditioning. I have head phones and music so I won't (hopefully) hear the winds. I will place myself in a safe part of the house and I have my bible. I will read and pray. I have all of my children here with me and also my Dad and Step mom. My sister is right next door and my other sister has evacuated and is safe. We are together and will take care of each other. We are praying that it weakens. We don't want to wish it on anyone else so if we have to get hit we just don't want it hard. Please pray for all of us down here. I will check back in as soon as I can.

2008-08-27T19:34:00.003-05:00

We are back from Pennsylvania. My husband enjoyed his woodworking class. He learned a lot of tips and info about trees and how they grow then about how to cut it and make furniture. He made a sofa table but it is not finished yet because he had to bring it home unassembled. When it is done I will post some pictures.

The picture above is a tree that I did for my watercolor class. We were supposed to use one color to learn color value. I used water color pencils and a paint brush. It was kind of fun. The teacher said "The tree has dimension and the trunk is believable. Has visual interest and should be matted and signed. Now try using a full spectrum of colors...". I am happy with it. It looks like a tree to me. My next class is tomorrow night. I missed one class and I they were working on the color wheel so I will have to catch up.

A lot is going on right now. My daughter and her husband are temporarily living in my quilt teaching workshop. They have ordered a new double wide trailer and the company said it would take 4-6 weeks before it was ready so they put their old trailer up for sale and the first guy that came to see it bought it. They had to get busy packing and now they are done and out. Their stuff is in storage except for what they need to live right now. Today the trailer company called and said the new trailer is done and will be delivered to the lot on Monday. Wow! That was quick! The old trailer will be moved tomorrow then cement runners have to be done and a new septic tank before the new trailer can be moved.

And now we are watching a tropical storm that is heading to the gulf and possibly toward us. It is always a scary time when that happens. We will watch, wait and pray.

Trees...

2008-08-15T20:30:00.000-05:00

I signed up for a paint class for absolute beginner's. My daughter is taking it with me. I had my first class last Thursday and we didn't paint-we drew! It seems that you have to be able to draw before you can paint. Why didn't anyone tell me this.
It is a watercolor paint class and for some unknown reason I thought I would just go to class and put paint on the paper canvas and have tons of fun. No, that was not to be. Instead he said draw a tree. A TREE! I don't know what a tree looks like in my mind. How can I do this. Oh well, I thought I can put down lines that look like a trunk. I did and the result is in the upper left corner. He said "It looks like a fantasy tree". Huh, it seems my branches are out of proportion to my trunk. He said "Start over and try to let the branches go off the paper. Don't let the paper confine me". WHAT!
Ok, I can do this. The result is in the upper right corner. He said "You are concentrating too much on the individual leaves. Try to think in color value. Blocks of light and dark." So I fixed it. He said " It looks good. Your strength is texture and detail". Didn't he just tell me not to do too much detail? I'm confused.
I try again using a light source this time coming from the upper left of my page. The result is bottom left in the picture above. He looks at it and tells me to try my darks and lights in different places so I do (I didn't take a picture of that one.) His remarks "You did exactly what I said, but it doesn't look right, you were right with the other one". Huh? Ok, I think, a great teacher, not afraid to admit when he is wrong.
I try for another tree at home and the result is the bottom right corner. Our homework was to read this paper he gave us on "line", which made no sense to me at all and to draw more trees. I don't want to draw more trees, I want to paint some trees. It is a paint class, after all. Oh well, we will see what the class holds in store for next Thursday. Until then, I'm drawing trees.

Thank you Pattie!

2008-08-13T07:50:00.003-05:00

Here are three blocks that Pattie from
Attitude changes Everything
sent to me for participating in a writing challenge she had a while back (check out June 08, if you want to read it). I think they are well made and I love the bright colors. These will probably become a table runner and a reminder to eat my fruits and veggie's, just like Pattie intended. Thanks again Pattie for the gift and I loved reading the card you sent with it. It was heartfelt.

Mechacon Convention!

2008-08-08T09:05:00.006-05:00

Here is my oldest son in his Maes Hughes costume for the Mechacon Convention. If you don't know what that is you are not alone. I've learned a little about it but I still don't understand it all. Basically it is a convention of people that like to watch the Japanese anime shows (kind of like a japanese cartoon-my son will kill me for comparing it to a cartoon but that is the best way I can explain it to you). He ordered the costume to be made from Japan. It was a three day event with films, costume contests, vendors selling action figures and lots of other things like swords (real ones) and large posters and banners. He had fun. This is an annual event that he started going to last year.

2008-08-04T08:42:00.003-05:00

I had fun yesterday! I went shopping to spend some money that my husband found that was given to us at Christmas (he had put it on his night stand because we were not sure how we wanted to spend it and forgot about it, he recently cleaned off his night stand and found it). We bought a new photo all-in-one printer, scanner, copier, fax. It will print some really good photos on fabric for my quilting. We also bought a laptop. I fought this for a while because, let's face it, I spend way to much time on the computer as it is, but I wanted one and we could afford it. I will be able to take it with us on our vacation coming up soon so my son can do his school work on it (we home school). Oh well, I justified it anyway. I am liking the portability (except the battery doesn't last that long). I don't like typing on it though, the keys are very smooth really almost feel like one big key. I find my fingernails get in the way when I type. So if there are some typos please excuse them. I'm sure I will have lots of practice and get used to it.

I have to go and hand quilt now so I will write more later.

2008-08-01T08:12:00.003-05:00

Hi All, it's Friday, my favorite day of the week! I don't have any big plans this weekend but I'm still looking forward to it. I have had to be out of the house everyday this week for one thing or another and I'm looking forward to staying home today. Tomorrow I will be having some of my quilty friends over to hand quilt and a quilt that was made to commemorate the 250th birthday of the Marquis de Lafayette. It has already been quilted but does not have enough quilting in it. When we put it up on the wall it sagged at the bottom. I love to hand quilt. It is so relaxing to me. My thoughts can run wild while my hands are kept busy.

Here is a block that I made for a project that my mini group was working on. We decided to make a Louisiana quilt. There are 12 people that are making a block and the only rules were to make it about Louisiana. It could be any technique and any size as long as it is divisible by two. I did one on Louisiana music. The saxophone for the jazz music and the accordion for the cajun and zydeco music. The blocks were collected and all the names put in a hat and a name was drawn to win them. I did not win but that is ok because a friend won. We will help her to put the blocks together into a quilt. It will be fun. I used machine appliqué with fusing and I drew the notes with my pigma pen.

My first video!

2008-07-27T14:39:00.005-05:00

I'm back! I decided to try to make a video of our vacation to Galveston in June. We had a great time. Hope you enjoy it.

I rode a ferry boat for the first time and it was not so bad except that we got sprayed with water because we were in the front of the boat.
We also went to Moody Garden's aquarium, rainforest exhibit and rode on the riverboat called "The Colonel". The beach was fun too.
You will also see a quilt in the video that I took a picture of at Quilts by the Bay Quilt shop (you know I had to find one!)

2008-07-03T08:50:00.002-05:00

It has been really crazy around here. My oldest son had some medical problems last week and it took a couple of days but he is ok now. My sister and her husband won the St. Jude Dream home on Sunday and the whole day was spent going to the house and celebrating with them. They have not received the legal stuff yet but the excitement is starting to wear off because now they are worried about having to pay the taxes and selling the house. They love where they live and don't want to move. They are middle class with two incomes and live pay check to pay check. I hope it all works out for them. Seems like winning something should be a good thing and not come with headaches but we'll see.

I'm taking a blog break. I can't seem to find the time to blog right now. I am trying to keep up with reading my favorite blogs and even that is hard. The summer is supposed to be a time of relaxation (at least it used to be) and slow paced but my life right now seems to be on fast forward and something has to give. I will try to come back soon. Hopefully things will settle down. I will check in as often as I can.

Finally done!

2008-06-23T20:32:00.011-05:00

This is what I have been busy doing. I've been finishing my Louisiana BOM. I pieced all the pieced blocks together first then I fused all the applique blocks. I kind of fizzled out after that and I wanted to put them away but my friend encouraged me to continue and challenged me to finish the machine applique in a week. I took the challenge but had my doubts. I had a lot of other things to do this week including planning a birthday party and make cakes for my honey and my son. I grabbed every spare moment I could and I finished these up today (one day late). I'm so glad to be done. I'm listing all of them here even though I listed the first three months before in other posts. I wanted a record of all of them together. It is also easier to view them all.

The designer of this BOM had little paragraphs written about each of the blocks and what the names meant. I will scan these and they will all go on my label. To me that is the best part. You get a little history with the blocks and it is all about my home state.

This is the January block. The pieced block is called Shrimps on Point and the appliqué block is called Mardi Gras Krewes.

This is the February block. The pieced block is called Peach Festival (the color in the center is peach even if it looks orange in the photo) and the appliqué block is called Gaston Gator.

This is the March block. The pieced block is called Catahoula Leopard Dog and the appliqué block is called Crawfish Gumbo.

This is the April block. The pieced block is called Mardi Gras (the colors are green, gold and purple, the colors in photo are deceiving) and the appliqué block is called Go Ragin Cajuns.

This block is the May block. The pieced block is called Cajun Spice and the appliqué block is called Hot and Spicy.

This is the June block. The pieced block is called Sweet Potato Pie (the color is a bright orange not red) and the applique block is called Bayou State.

This is the July block. The pieced block is called King Cake and the applique block is called Pierre Pelican.

This block is the August block. The pieced block is called Cajun Two Step and the appliqué block is called Cotton Boll.

This is the September block. The pieced block is called Sun Flower Trail and the appliqué block is called Dixie Land Jazz.

This block is the October block the pieced block is called Blueberry and the appliqué block is called Sportsman's Paradise.

This is the November block. The piece block is called Fried Green Tomatoes and the appliqué block is called French Quarter.

This is the December block. The pieced block is called Strawberry Jam and the appliqué block is Magnolia Blossom.

That's all of them! I'm so glad to be finished these blocks. I will put these away and set them together at another time.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

2008-06-20T16:05:00.002-05:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO TWO OF THE MEN IN MY LIFE!
I LOVE YOU HONEY! I hope you will have a great day today!
My honey is 46 years old today and...

it is also my son's birthday today too! It was quite a surprise when 24 years ago he was born 2 months premature! He was due on Sept. 5, which was near my birthday and he surprised us by being born early on my honey's birthday. My water bag started to leak and they could not stop the contractions when they started. So we had a newborn preemie. He was only 3 lbs and had a little breathing problem but otherwise he just needed to gain some weight so he could come home. He spent a month in the hospital. It was hard to leave him there and go home but we went to visit everyday. He is a reminder to me how good God is.

I LOVE YOU JOSH! Hope you will have a great day.

2008-06-09T17:21:00.007-05:00

Pattie over at Attitude Changes Everything has issued a challenge to type up a post on how attitude makes a difference in living a healthy lifestyle. Here is my two cents:

I have a hard time with keeping a good attitude in everything I do. It is a struggle. I don't know when or how it happened but I had become a pessimist with negative attitudes. This has affected my life in every aspect, my relationships with my husband and children, parents and sisters. In my relationship with my husband it has caused some strained situations, to say the least. My husband is very patient and understanding but it was hard on him. My children have grown up learning a lot of my bad habits caused from my negative attitude. I see how it affects their life and how they now struggle. I'm sorry for that.
This lifestyle has also caused many of my habits to be unhealthy, not just physically but mentally, emotionally and spiritual. A few years ago, I decided that it was time to change. I was not sure this could be accomplished but I wanted to try. I was unhappy and sometimes miserable.
My Mom was very sick with lung cancer, four years ago, during this beginning time of change and many things I had to deal with during her illness were a blessing in disguise. I literally became the parent and she the child. Just this alone, can change your attitude. I was faced with having to do things I had never done before. Driving her to some of her doctor visits was difficult. You have to understand that I usually drove only in our neighborhood or on certain streets that I felt comfortable. I would worry about going to a place I had never been before or driving on a street and getting lost. This worry was due to my negative thoughts, I always worried about everything. Not driving many places was not usually a problem because I knew my husband or my mother would always take me where I didn't drive, but now my mother was sick and could not. My husband worked and it was too much to ask for him to take off of work to do this for me. So, I had to learn and do it. My attitude began to change and I realized this was something I could do. It is still a work in progress. I have to tell myself not to worry and get it done if I have to drive somewhere I have never been.
Speaking up for myself or my mother was another thing I had to learn. I usually kept to myself. Didn't speak to people I didn't know unless spoken to and even then, kept it short. I didn't know how to carry on a conversation. In my opinion I figured that no one else was interested in my business because I was not usually interested in theirs. Bad attitude, I know. This had to change. My mother was seeing doctor after doctor with new medicines and I was hearing medical terms I had never heard of before. I had to find out about these things for her sake. I had to talk. Sometimes stand up for her if I thought there was something bad for her or making her feel bad. That was so hard for me. That is just a couple of things that changed during that very hard time in my life.
I had also discovered quilting a few years before my Mom got sick. If I wanted to do quilting things like meetings and classes I had to get out of the house and drive there. Talk to strangers (who soon became friends). After Mom passed away I threw myself even more into quilting. I realized also at this time that life is short and I was wasting mine away. I needed to live life to the fullest, to enjoy it more. This all came about and started to change my attitude.
I now try to think positive. I try to enjoy every minute of everyday. I said I try because I don't always accomplish this, it is not easy. My old self wants to slip back in occasionally but I feel I have come a long way. My new friends have a hard time believing me when I tell them how I used to be even just five years ago because they say I'm not like that person I describe. They say I talk, am helpful, and have patience (this one I find funny). I'm not sure about all that but I am trying to get better at being all those things. I have discovered that I like to teach and I'm now teaching quilting to others. That is a big step for me.
I'm reading my bible on a daily basis now and have seen a positive change in my spiritual life as well. I have begun eating healthy and trying to lose weight (even though I have a long way to go). I eat better now than I ever did before. I feel better. I hope that the way I live now can be an example to my children of how attitude can make a difference and a person can change to be more positive and happy.

I'm not sure I met Pattie's challenge and it is probably way more than any of you wanted to know about me but it is me from my heart and how I feel about my attitude.

If you enjoyed reading about my attitude changes then go one over to Pattie's site and read about how you can join in this challenge.

So Sweet Beets!

2008-06-06T11:36:00.012-05:00

This is what I was up to this morning. Pickling Beets! My Dad gave these to me yesterday straight from his garden. He has had a garden for as long as I can remember. I remember working in it every Saturday. Forget watching American Bandstand on Saturday's. The only time I got to watch it was when it rained. But that's another story for another day.

Anyway, I thought I would share with you the process. The picture below is cleaned beets ready to boil until tender. Cover with water and boil (do not peel first, the red color will leak out into the water and your beets will be a light pink color. They still taste the same but they are not as pretty). After they are fork tender the skins slip right off. I love this part. It is fun to hold one of the beets and slip the skins right off. Very textural. I know, I'm goofy!

Next you get the jars sterilized and ready with the lids and rings. I usually put them in my dishwasher and run them through a cycle but this morning I put them in the canning pot with water and boiled them.

After I slipped the skins off then I slice them into the jars. Isn't that color just delicious? I got seven pint jars full.

Now it is time to fix the pickling juices. Remember this is pickling, which you can do in a water bath, if we were just canning them, without vinegar, then they would have to be finished in a steam pressure canner. In a small pot on the stove I have the lids soaking in hot water (not boiling) they will be ready when I am.
For four pints (I doubled it today because I had 7 pts.) you put:
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups sugar
2 cups vinegar
1/2 cup water
Bring to a boil in a medium saucepot and boil for 3 minutes. Remove from heat and fill jars. Remove air bubbles by sliding a knife (plastic is better than metal) inside the jar along the sides. Add more juice up to about 1/2 inch from the top of the jar and make sure all the beets are covered.

Wipe the top of the jars clean. Place lids and rings on top and hand tighten. Place in canning pot that is filled with hot water. Make sure the jars are covered by about 1-1/2 inches of water. Bring to a boil. This takes a while on my electric stove. After it comes to a boil, lower the heat to simmer and cook for 30 minutes.

Remove from water bath and place on towel to cool. Make sure there is no drafts in room (like a ceiling fan right above the jars that is on, speaking from experience here). The jars can cool too quickly and break.
Aren't they lovely. I really love looking at them when they are finished. Anything I can from the garden, I love the look of them. I told you I was goofy. I put them in my canning cabinet when they are cooled off. I will take a picture of this later when I have time. It was built by my husband. I told him I wanted it built like a pie safe. It has screen on the doors in the front.

Isn't that color spectacular! (Did I say that already?) Anyway, just beautiful. And yummy too!

Hope you enjoyed my journey through Pickled Beets. Come on over and I'll share!

2008-06-02T12:17:00.003-05:00

This morning I started with the first class of my beginner quilt class. This is the third go around. The three ladies in this class are all friends that I have known for a few years. It went pretty good. They learned cutting and 1/4 inch seams. One of the ladies has a 1/4 inch foot on her sewing machine that came with her machine. It was not working correctly. The little metal guide on the right side would bend out whenever she put the foot down to sew. It was frustrating for her. I marked her machine with blue painters tape (about 4 layers) to make a guide for her to follow but I suggested she let the dealer know about the problem with the foot. I wish they made one 1/4 inch foot that fit every machine. It would sure make it easier.

We had a busy weekend. It passed so fast. We were invited to eat at my BIL's house on Saturday night and went to the movies with them on Sunday night. It was a lot of fun. The men went to see "Ironman" and the women went to see "What happens in Vegas". It sure was a funny movie.

I think it is time I got off this computer and got to some sewing. See ya!

2008-05-30T08:22:00.007-05:00

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.

2008-05-29T08:18:00.002-05:00

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.

2008-05-27T07:44:00.002-05:00

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!

2008-05-23T11:26:00.004-05:00

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.

2008-05-20T10:56:00.003-05:00

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!

2008-05-16T10:01:00.003-05:00

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

2008-05-13T10:00:00.002-05:00

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.

2008-05-07T15:05:00.002-05:00

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!

2008-05-03T11:59:00.007-05:00

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

2008-05-02T08:37:00.002-05:00

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)!

I'm still here...

2008-04-30T14:11:00.002-05:00

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

2008-04-25T08:25:00.004-05:00

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!

2008-04-21T09:19:00.004-05:00

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!

2008-04-18T16:11:00.002-05:00

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.

2008-04-18T09:15:00.002-05:00

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.

2008-04-14T11:12:00.007-05:00

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.

2008-04-10T09:36:00.003-05:00

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!

2008-04-06T16:27:00.009-05:00

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!

2008-04-04T09:24:00.002-05:00

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!

2008-04-01T13:08:00.005-05:00

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!

2008-04-01T09:28:00.005-05:00

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...

2008-03-27T15:35:00.002-05:00

This is what I did today. My Thimbleberries BOM for March. It was not an easy one to do. There was a lot of pieces in this one and I find it very hard to piece half square triangles when you have to start sewing with the bulk of the two seams. I'm glad they are done.
I think I will color the center of one of the blocks and leave the other one like it is. Change it up a bit. One is supposed to be for the front and the other is to go on the back but I'm making two quilts instead. I would hate to put those blocks that were so much work on the back.

My son has his two cousins visiting right now. They will be here until Saturday. All the boys are about the same age(15-17). You should see my house. It's a wreck! But they are having fun. Video games and TV and movies. They are good boys. No trouble. They have a little sister that is 2 years old and the cutest thing. I bet she is missing them something awful right now.

Quilt til your arm falls off...

2008-03-24T08:39:00.008-05:00

I hope everyone had a good Easter Day yesterday! We had a good day spent with family and friends. My oldest son was working but we were able to bring him a plate of food and visit with him in the evening. I also was able to bring the table into the house! It is finished! (I know you are probably tired of looking at pics of this table but I most show them anyway). My husband put many layers of tung oil and it and it is smooth as a baby's butt.

Here it is in place in the living room. I love it! It has a wonderful color to it with a little sheen.

Here is a close up of the top. My MIL is going to bring over some doilies that were crocheted by my husband's grandmother years ago. I will choose one to put on the top of this table. I want one with a lot of open space because I don't want to cover up that beautiful wood grain. History from both sides of the family. Puts a warm feeling in my heart. Bye for now, I have lots of work to do today.

Quilt til your arm falls off...

And the winner is...

2008-03-22T10:15:00.008-05:00

Before I announce the winner I want to show you what I'm sending out...

The quilt came out so cute. It is hard to give it away but I enjoy making things to give away, it is rewarding. The small bag is one that I made last year, the applique is wool and it has a small rusty bell on the pull. There is also some crocheted coasters. I make these out of selvages (I do rugs too). The last item is a finger pin cushion. I made a lot of these a few years ago for some guild members and have several left over. They are made with the lid from a 20 oz. plastic soda pop bottle. I thank every one that checked out my blog and entered the drawing. I have enjoyed having this blog and finding others to inspire me. Now on to the important stuff. The drawing!

I printed out and folded all the little slips of paper and put them in a bowl
(for lack of something prettier).

Mixed them all up (excuse the dryness of the hands and arm, how gross, this is what happens in winter time). It sure was fun mixing all these up. Then....the winner is!

harts4Him. Congratulations, my friend! I will send you an email letting you know you have won and so I can get the prize to you as soon as possible. Thanks again for everyone that participated. This was so much fun, I will have to think of a reason to do another one.

100th Post Give Away

2008-03-19T16:06:00.005-05:00

Here is a peek at what the 100th post winner will be receiving. There will be other things to be given away with this but just thought I would give you a look see (check out post below for details).

Last night my daughter was over at my house to visit. It was getting late and we were acting silly. She decided to start coming up with names for Quilt Movies. After a while my son got into the act too. We laughed so hard at some of these. I thought I would share them with you. (I apologize now if these offend anyone but we thought they were funny).

The Ruler of the World
Sewing Machine Smackdown
The Case of the Scissor Snatchers
The Iron Ma'am
The Fabric Hunter
Jackie the Ripper
Eye of the Needle
One Woman's chronicle to no longer be a Fat Quarter
The Texas Rotary Massacre
Thready Kruger...the Comedy...He keeps you in Stitches
Evelyn Scissor Hands
Measuring Tape Strangler
Mortal Kombatting...the day the tension was off
The Needler: needle me this...
Spiderman 4: Fusible Webbing

Would you go see any of these movies? HA! Anyway, that is what you get when it's late and you start acting silly.

Quilt til your arm falls off...

Past the 100 mark!

2008-03-18T13:34:00.003-05:00

I just noticed that yesterday was my 100th post! How could that have slipped by without me noticing? I never thought I would make it because sometimes it is so hard to figure out what to post about, but it's here and I would like to do something special. Others have done give aways and I think that sounds like a good idea.
Leave me a comment and mention you want to be included in the 100 post give away. On Saturday I will put the names in a basket and pick one winner. At this time I'm not sure what I will be giving away but I will put a package together, maybe some pieced blocks or red work and a bar of felted soap and... I'll figure the rest later. So leave your comments today until Saturday morning. Make sure when you leave a comment that I have an email I can reach you by if you win. Good luck!

Update: Forgot to mention, drawing is limited to the United States.

2008-03-18T13:16:00.006-05:00

The table is nearing completion. It needs to have a coating of tung oil and polyurethane for durability. I love it! My honey has done such a great job! The wood grain is so beautiful. He has done a good job at the lathe.

Here is a close-up of the wood grain on top. It looks like feathers to me. It will be even more prominent after the tung oil. The top is more an oval than a circle. That was due to the length of the chunk of branch that he had to work with. (Check out Feb. 21 to see the top and pedastal before it was cut)

This is the whole top. I love the knot holes. This table is so special to me. Made from a tree I used to play under and made by my husband just for me. His own design. Designing as he went along. There were some complications, like the top being bowed and the cracking that occurred because the wood dried out some more after the bark was removed from it, but I love the character the knot holes and cracks give it. The bowing was fixed with some ingenuity by my husband. There is a plate of metal underneath that you cannot see screwed into the top to pull it flat. Just can't say enough about it's beauty and specialness to me. More pics later after it is completely finished and in it's place of honor.

2008-03-17T07:35:00.008-05:00

Morning routine. This is where you find me every morning. With my tea and my books. It gives me comfort to know exactly where I'll be each morning and what I will be doing before my day starts. I'm a very routine oriented person. I'm not sure I always like this about myself. Sometimes it is not easy for me when things happen not as planned or spontaneously. I'm learning, but it is a hard lesson.

This is a project for a friend of the family. I was working on it this weekend. It is the second of two quilts I am making for a grandmother to give to her granddaughter for graduation. The first was made in 2003. All the blocks are made from the older clothes of the grandmother, mother and granddaughter as a child. The quilt also has nine photo's in it. The picture below is of the first one I made and when I get further along in this one I will show pictures but they are the same quilt with small differences. Some of the fabrics are different because the girls wore different clothes as children but most are the same because they shared outfits and the mother and grandmother fabrics are the same. The difference is in the backing of the quilts and the pictures. I am still waiting for the graduation picture to come in so I'm trying to get as much work done on it as I can now. They want it for graduation on May 17th!

This is the quilt I quilted on Saturday, by the hardest. My thread kept breaking every other row and my frame was unleveled and caused some problems. I got it done though, and I'm glad. I need to do the binding on it and I have another one to finish. You have seen the other one before. It is the same as this one but in brights. I dyed the backing the other one and I need to square it up and get it ready for quilting. These quilts are for a daughter and step mom. They work together cutting hair in their own shop. They have been cutting our hair for over 12 years and are friends of ours. They will be so surprised to get these. The fabric hanging on the wall behind this quilt is a piece that was dyed on the same day as the other pieces I showed you in a previous post(check out March 10th). It is the one that looks like the backing for the other quilt (you can see a picture on that quilt here , check out Monday Feb. 11th.).

That's it for today. I need to get to work on these unfinished projects.

Quilt til your arm falls off...

2008-03-11T08:42:00.000-05:00

Here is a small quilt I made this past weekend. The block is called many different names but our guild used it for a Lotto block and called it Square Peg. It was very easy to do. I'm not happy with the border fabric but I was trying to use the stash instead of buying something. I only had 1/3 yard of the dark purple and needed 1/2 yard. I had to substitute another dark purple to finish the blocks and find something else for the border. I would have liked a darker purple but didn't have anything else. It looks like a baby quilt. I don't have any particular plans for it right now.

Quilt til your arm falls off...

2008-03-10T11:09:00.005-05:00

These are pictures of fabrics that I dyed when my friend and I got together to dye fabrics a couple of weeks ago. We used the Procion MX dyes. We had taken a class about 3 years ago on dyeing fabric and had did a batch up at home after the class but this was totally different. We didn't follow all the rules. The one above I just squirted the dye onto the fabric and instead of waiting for the 24 hours we rinsed it right away. Most of the blue washed out but a little bit of it is there in the background and kind of looks like a shade of purple.

This one I pinched and swirled before dyeing. It looks like tye-dye. It is knd of fun looking. I thought the colors would be more vibrant but in sat for the 24 hours and some of the dye that it was sitting in the bag kind of muddied together and so the colors are a bit muted.

These two pieces are smaller. The red one is only one color that used very little dye and came out kind of mottled. The one next to it was fan folded and squirted with different colors. I sure was fun! I also dyed a large piece for backing for a quilt I'm needing to quilt. I will take pictures of it maybe when it is finished. It looks like the sunset at dusk. Lots of yellows and some magenta and oranges.

Quilt til your arm falls off...

2008-03-09T11:38:00.004-05:00

These are the BOM for March. The two at the top are for the Louisiana BOM and the bottom is for the Seasonal Delights BOM. I decided to get them done while I had everything out already. Now I'm glad I did them. I just have the Thimble berries BOM left to do for March. Don't know when I'll be able to get to those but I will do it before the end of the month. The crawfish was very challenging. It is fused and machine appliquéd. It had a lot of small areas to stitch. I'm happy with how it turned out. The fabrics in this kit are fabulous hand dyes and batiks. It blows me away every time I open up a monthly packet. Today I'm sewing up blocks for a new beginner quilt class I will be teaching in May. My SIL came over last night with her sewing machine she got for Christmas and I was able to show her how to thread it and make bobbins. I taught her a few other things about her machine too, like how to set it for some of the decorative stitches she has. The best part is I talked her into taking my beginner quilt class. It will be so much fun. Two of my SIL's and a friend of one of them. Will we get any work done! I hope so. I want another quilter in the family besides my MIL. We could have our own mini quilt retreats when we get together, without the men of course. That's all for today. Have a great quilty day!

Quilt til your arm falls off...

2008-03-05T12:54:00.006-06:00

Here is a lovely yellow tulip in my flower bed. I am so enjoying them. The winds we had the other day kind of messed them up. I have some without petals and some of them broke off at the stem. I was a little upset about it at first but as my husband said "That's nature babe"!

This is a Thimbleberries BOM from 2005 (I think). I have been working on them this year and trying to get them finished. This is January and February. You got two blocks each month because one of the sets of blocks is supposed to be pieced to make the back of the quilt but I'm going to make two quilt tops out of it. They are a little hard to work on (alot of pieces in some of them) and I'm trying to sew my very best and make these the right size. You know how sometimes you finish your block and it doesn't measure what it is supposed to, what! that never happens to you! Well, it sure happens to me! A Lot! Well, on these I'm trying really hard to sew and exact 1/4 inch seam. It is stressful at times but I'll be happy with the finished results.

This is some other BOM's that I'm trying to finish. The two at the top are for the Louisiana BOM I purchased in Shreveport a few years ago, and the bottom one is for the Seasonal Delights BOM I have. These are the February blocks The January blocks are on January 19, 2008 if you want to check them out.

That is what I've been up to. A friend and I also dyed some fabric last weekend and I'm needing to iron them after washing then I will get some pics of them. When I do I'll post them. That's all for now.

Quilt til your arm falls off...

2008-02-28T09:14:00.003-06:00

Happy Birthday to my youngest son!
Today he is 15!

and a blessing to have around.
We are having family over this evening for hamburgers and cake then tomorrow night we will go bowling with some of the family. He loves bowling. We don't get to do it as often as he would like but every now and then we go. Bowling has gotten so expensive to do regularly. I remember when it was cheap!

Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday to Anthony,
Happy Birthday to you,
And many more....

Love you, Mom

2008-02-26T06:59:00.005-06:00

My tulips are starting to bloom! Yeah! I think they are lovely. I can't wait until they are all in bloom. I have never grown tulips before but always admired them. Just thought I would share.
Guild day today. A morning meeting and a night meeting. A long day.

Quilt til your arm falls off...

2008-02-25T10:09:00.006-06:00

The is the housewarming quilt after it is quilted. My friend quilted it on my frame in an all over large meander. It looks great.

Here is some pictures of her quilting it on the frame.

I don't know why but a quilt always looks good to me when it is on the quilting frame. It may have something to do with seeing a quilt loaded in an old time quilt frame and being quilted by hand from pictures long ago.

She is trying hard to concentrate when starting out at the beginning of a row. It doesn't take very long to get to the end of the row because the sewing machine is a Juki a 9 inch bed. I only have about 6 inches of sewing space to work with at the beginning and depending on how big the quilt is I may only have 4 inches at the end of the quilt. It's frustrating but I can't afford a larger system right now. I'm saving up. It is teaching me patience. HA!

Today I'm quilting one of the Home of the Brave quilts that the mini group made. I have two of them to finish. My friend is quilting one on her regular machine. All together we will have four of them finished soon. Feels good to get projects done.

Quilt til your arm falls off...

2008-02-21T08:05:00.010-06:00

Thought I would show you what I was up to yesterday. This is my friend sewing the border strips together for a quilt she is making for a housewarming gift. She started it on Monday and needs it finished for Sunday. The blocks were all done when I went to help her yesterday. We laid it out on her design board and decided on a setting. Started sewing the rows together. It went so fast with two people working together.

This is the finished top. (Sorry for the blurriness) It came out so good. I love the setting we chose. It measures 57 x 81 inches. A good lap size. If you click on the picture you can see the border better. We sewed the two border strips together first then sewed them on as one border. I love the way it adds a design element in the corners of the quilt.

This is a close up of the blocks. It is a Jacob's Ladder block. A lot of pieces. I don't know how she got those blocks together so fast. She said she did sleep!

I had a request for a picture of the machine my husband used to make the table leg. Here it is. The lathe was given to my husband by his Dad. He could not use it anymore so he passed it on. My husband loves woodworking and the lathe is a new toy. I think he will enjoy using it.

Thought I would show you what it started out looking like. This is how it was cut from the tree. My husband had to shave off quite a bit before he could put it on the lathe.

This is the boards he glued together to make the top. It will measure 18 x 20 inches. A little bit oval shape. This is all the wood he has and is having to make do. I'll show more pics when it is further along.

Today my friend is coming over with the housewarming quilt to quilt it on my frame. Hopefully I'll remember to take some pics when it is finished to show you.

Quilt til your arm falls off...

2008-02-19T08:21:00.004-06:00

My husband was given a lathe by his Dad. He is trying to learn how to use it. This is what he did this weekend and last night. The wood is from a cottonwood tree that I grew up playing under. My Dad had it cut down several years ago because it was becoming dangerous to his house (we do live in Hurricane country!) My husband took some of the bigger cuts and has been letting them dry out. This will be a side table in my living room next to one of my chairs. I love the way it looks. I love that it is made by my husband and that the wood has some sentimental value as well. It will be a special piece of furniture for me for sure! It measures about 5 inches in diameter and stands about 2-1/2 feet tall. It will have feet on it also. I can't wait for it to be finished but it is fun watching the process too.

2008-02-18T08:13:00.005-06:00

My daughter's duck. She had two of them at one time. Her husband had bought them for her for Easter a while back. The female died last year and her companion (this male duck) was a little worst for wear for a little while but he bounced back and is doing well. They brought him over this weekend for my niece to see. When they put him down he went straight back home and to his pen. (They live right next door to us) We found this funny that he would know his way back home and right to his home instead of wandering around in the yard. He is a beautiful duck. I love the color of his beak and his feathers are a lovely white. His name is Deuce. The female's name was Daisy. My daughter is allergic to cats and dogs and most other animal dander so she has really enjoyed being able to take care of the ducks. The female even laid eggs and they would enjoy them for breakfast (well my daughter would, my SIL didn't want to eat them).

Today I'm making binding for a Home of the Brave quilt I finished quilting this weekend and I'm also making the binding for the other three that my mini group just finished putting together. I'll try to get pictures of them tomorrow. I'm also going to work on my UFO BOM's for February. I did one of them week before last it is a Thimbleberry BOM from 2005. I have three other BOM UFO's. Two of them have two blocks for each month. It is alot of work. But this method of doing only one month at a time like they were intended to be done works and takes some of the pressure off.

That's all for today.
Quilt til your arm falls off...

2008-02-16T17:00:00.005-06:00

Here is a raised flowerbed my husband built me. I could not bend over to tend to it so he made it raised. This is the rosemary that I have on one end. I would love to have more herbs in it. Maybe later on. It is full of purple and yellow tulips.

Here on this end I have parley.

Here is the whole thing. It is very lovely with the look of the wood. I can't wait until the tulips are all in bloom. I will take pictures again when that happens.

2008-02-11T09:04:00.000-06:00

Here is the Heart and Friendship quilt finished top. I just sewed the borders on and I'm happy to say it is ready for quilting (just as soon as I find a backing for it. I'm real happy with how it turned out and I didn't have to buy any fabric for it. It is all from my stash. Boy does that feel good.
The hearts have been in my stash since 2001. I ordered them from Keepsake Quilting. I didn't know what I would do with them except that I knew my daughter loved bright jewel tone colors but never got around to using them. I have the hearts in 1930's fabric also and that quilt will be finished next. That quilt has nine-patches instead of friendship stars but is put together the same way.
Because I used my stash and I wanted to use the turquoise fabric for sashing and I only had 1-1/2 yards I had to make my sashing 1 inch instead of the 2 inches I intended to use but it all worked out because I love the way it looks. The 2 inch might have made it look chunky and I like the way the blocks are the focus. What do you think?
I also have 5 more 4-patch blocks that I was going to add to the bottom row but it would have made it out of proportion, long and skinny, so I chose to not put them on. Now I have 5 orphan blocks. I'm not sure what I will do with them but I'm sure I'll figure it out. Well it's time for me to go. Hope a great day everyone!

Quilt til your arm falls off...

2008-02-07T11:36:00.001-06:00

This is a picture of the blocks I have been working on since before Christmas. There are 70 friendship stars and 70 appliqued hearts. There will be sashing in between the four-patched hearts and stars. I'm looking for just the right batik to go with these brights and jewel tone colors. Maybe it will be too busy with a batik. Maybe I should go with a solid. What do you think? Any suggestions? It is a very busy quilt. I have another one I am working on that is exactly the same except it is in 1930's fabrics and the friendship stars are nine-patches. I am looking for a fabric for the sashing on that one too. I will try to get a picture of that one on another day. I love all of the colors in this. The quilts are for two friends of mine that are stepdaughter and stepmom to each other. They are wonderful people. Always friendly and uplifting. Good friends. That's all right now. Have a blessed day.

2008-02-07T08:23:00.000-06:00

I know I haven't posted in a while. I have been a little under the weather. I have a case of bronchitis. I am beginning to feel better but the coughing fits still happen sometimes. The nights are the worst. I will begin teaching my beginner quilt class on the 15th of this month and I have been busy getting ready for that also. I have not taken any pics of my workshop and hope to get that done so I can post them soon. I have also worked on some older BOM's that were in my UFO pile and it sure feels good to be getting them done. Well hopefully I will start to post more in the future. That's all for now.

Quilt til your arm falls off...

2008-01-28T07:48:00.000-06:00

Nothing special today. Just cleaning house. I have friends coming over on Wednesday and I can't do it tomorrow because I have guild meeting in the morning and evening. We will be sewing quits for the Home of the Brave organization. The quilts are given to the families that have lost a soldier in the war from Louisiana. We have enough blocks for four quilts. So alot of piecing sashing and borders will be going on. We will be eating Taco soup. One of my friends is bringing it and the others are bringing the condiments to go with it, like cheese, sour cream, fritos or tortilla chips, onions, etc. We will also have plenty of desserts. We love to eat here in south Louisiana. I will hopefully be able to take pictures soon of my workshop, where I will be teaching. It is finished and ready except for the valances that are going up on the windows. They are redwork designs and I am only on the first one so it will be a little while.

Enjoy your day!
Quilt til your arm falls off...

2008-01-25T08:44:00.001-06:00

Not doing much today. It is so cold here today. Suppose to start warming up tomorrow. I will be making some phone calls. I'm starting my Basic beginner quilting class next month and need to call some of the people that were interested in taking the class. I am also going to try to finish quilting my sample and bind it by the end of the weekend. Next week will be busy. I have my guild meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday I have one of my mini groups coming here to sew together 4 quilt tops for the Fallen Soldiers families here in Louisiana. On Thursday a field trip to Baton Rouge to see our new and old state capitol with the homeschool group. And on Friday me and my friend leave for a quilting retreat. So much anticipated fun! That's all for now. Sorry I don't have more but that's how it is sometimes.

Pictures are of a rainbow that I took not too long ago. It wrapped around the whole sky. Beautiful!

Quilt til your arm falls off...

2008-01-22T09:16:00.000-06:00

I don't have much to post about today. I'm going to the bowling alley later with my son and some homeschool friends. I think it will be fun for him. He loves to bowl even though we don't go very often. Maybe we should try to go more often as a family. When I was growing up we always had someone over or we were at someone else's home to visit. We don't do much of that anymore. I think it is a shame but I am as much to blame as anyone for not doing it. I rather stay home and quilt or read or any number of things that I am interested in doing. Even my family, which live all down the same street, sisters, Dad, aunts, uncles, all together, I hardly ever go to visit them. Sometimes I feel bad about it but I guess not enough because I still don't get out there and visit. Maybe I need to try harder. Make time. I know it is important to get to know people better. It is better for you and for them. Visiting seems like a lost art in a sense. I am always afraid I won't have anything to talk about. I think being able to conversate (is that a word? probably not) is a gift. My Mom was good at it. We would meet up with people somewhere that we had not seen in a while and boy could they talk. Maybe it takes real interest, you know, really be interested in others lives. Maybe that is the problem with me, I'm not always interested. WOW! that is horrible! How could that be? When did that happen? Something I really need to work on. Well, by now I'm sure you are absoulutely bored with me and not interested so that's all folks. Off to try to get a little sewing in before the bowling alley.

By the way, what the picture has to do with this subject--Rocking chairs always make me think of people visiting on the front porch.

Quilt til your arm falls off...

2008-01-21T07:25:00.001-06:00

These are pics I took last week ago. Every winter we have an abundance of birds that fly in. Whenever we see a large flock like this all over the yard and fields we know there is cold weather to come. At least that is how it always seemed to me since I was little. We have a cold front come in this weekend as expected.

I love watching them. At the slightest noise the go flying off. One following the others. It is wonderful to watch.

I of course could not get them all in one shot but, here they are just starting to fly off. A car went down the road and they started off only to land in the yard of the neighbors behind us. Fascinating!

Today I am off to my best friend's house. We will look at quilting books, current projects and just hang out and talk. It is the most fun! Later tonight I have a "Woolie" meeting here. I need to go and bake a fig cake for refreshments. Yesterday I got my teaching quilt basted and tomorrow I will start to quilt it. Things are coming together. I love the feeling of getting things accomplished. Me and my friend leave in 11 days for a quilting retreat! Yeah! I can't wait. Lots of fun! Bye for now.

Quilt til your arm falls off...

2008-01-19T11:09:00.001-06:00

This is what I was working on yesterday. The two blocks at the top are January Louisiana BOM's and the bottom is a BOM I bought from a friend. It is from the book "Seasonal Delights". I have 4 BOM UFO's and I promised myself I would get them done this year. It is past time. I will do all the January in Jan. And Feb. in Feb., you get the idea. The other two BOM's I have the Jan. blocks are done already so I didn't take pictures of those. I will take them out in Feb. and take pics then.
The Louisiana BOM has two blocks each month, a pieced one and an appliqued one. The applique this month is called "The Mardi Gras" it is a Mardi Gras mask. The pieced one is called "Shrimps on Point". They are all LA related and very nice. I'm looking forward to getting these done. Today I have a small quilt to quilt on the frame and my small teaching quilt to sandwich. I better get busy. Bye for now.

Quilt til your arm falls off...

2008-01-18T07:54:00.001-06:00

These are some pictures from Christmas Eve that I didn't post about. My brother in law closed in his carport with roofing felt for us to cook outside without being too cold. We thought it looked dull so we grabbed some chalk and prettied it up. What do you think? We all got into the act, even the kids. It was fun.

See the pot of gumbo cooking in the bottom corner? It was so good! The snowmen look a little afraid that it might make them melt. Don' you think?

How about this little tree? It was so fun to just draw and not think about whether it was perfect or not. The kids loved the little gifts underneath. And the snowflakes were wishful thinking. I don't think I have seen a snowflake in this area for a long time. It nevers snows in the south. (well not never, there were about two times in my lifetime I can remember snow on the ground but it wasn't much and melted quick.)

I like this fireplace. Santa better watch out! He's about to get burned!

And here is a picture of my Nanny's feet. She always wears these flip flops. They are a special kind that she bought about 5 years ago and she swears she can wear not other shoe because they hurt her feet. She has bought many a pair over the past 5 years.She wears them year round and so this Christmas she had these cute socks to go with them. Very appropriate, I just had to snap a photo. Good thing she doesn't read my blog. She tan my hide if she saw this! That's all folk's. Have a great quilty day.

Quilt til your arm falls off...

2008-01-17T09:25:00.000-06:00

Good morning everyone! We are going to Pennsylvania in August! My husband has gotten in a woodworking class that is taught by JD Lohr. His class is in Schwenksville, PA. He recommends hotels in Pottstown and we are close to Valley Forge. Does anyone out there live in that area? Can you suggest a place to stay and sites to see? We went to Lancaster in 2006 and had a great time but this time my husband will be in class all day long for 6 days. My 14 yr. old son and I will be on our own. I will bring my sewing machine and sew in the hotel/motel. I can't be without it for long you know. But, I would like to hear from someone in that area with info to share. Thanks.

Here is a picture of a used sewing machine I bought just before the holidays. I love it! It has a lot of quilting features on it and it has a larger bed area for quilting. I am enjoying piecing on it. I can make and accurate 1/4 inch stitch because I can move my needle over slightly to the left or right. Don't get me wrong, I could quilt just fine without this machine but the inconvenience it provides is helpful.

Today we are going to Chuck E. Cheese with some other homeschoolers for a day out. I will also get some much needed shopping done while I am out. Are you like me? I hate shopping, even fabric shopping. I don't know what it is about it but I just can't stand to go. Oh well, sometimes you've got to bite the bullet and do it. My daughter loves-loves-loves to shop. Hey maybe that's where all my likeness for shopping went. Yeah, that's it, I gave it all to her. It's not my fault I like to share. That's all folks, have a great quilty day!

Quilt til your arm falls off...

2008-01-16T07:23:00.000-06:00

I have not posted in a while but I have been busy sewing, finally. I have many projects to work on but have not felt like sewing because the things that I knew I had to work on I didn't want to work on. So this made me feel like I could not work on anything at all until the things I needed to get done were finished (I'm sure I'm the only one that understood that!). Does anyone ever feel like that? My creativity was stifled because of things I had to get done and did not want to work on. Anyway my friend suggested that I work on the "have to" project only on Saturdays and the rest of the week can be split up doing the projects that I wanted to work on. Such a simple suggestion but one that opened up a whole new concept to me. I didn't have to work on the same project everyday until it was finished if I didn't want to. (I'm a little slow sometimes!) Well anyway, that is what I started doing a couple of weeks ago and you know what? I finished the "have to" project on Saturday and I finished the "wanted to work on" projects yesterday. How about that. The creative juices started flowing and I got work done. So thank you my friend for the suggestion and here is a picture of the "wanted to work on" project. I will post pictures of the "have to" project later after it is quilted and bound. It is for a friend and her Mom is getting one too so I plan to work on the Step Mom's quilt at a retreat I have coming up in February.

It is two versions of a quilt that I will be teaching beginner quilting classes with. The first one I made on the right is very simple in it's color. I chose only a light, medium, and dark in three colors from the border fabric and the only other color is the sashing. I will use it to teach them about color value. Then I will show them the quilt on the left (which is my favorite) to show them that they can use many fabrics and still use color value and a border print to choose fabric for their projects.

I still have to type up cutting and piecing instructions and do a lesson plan but I should be ready to start in February. I'm so excited about this new venture in my life. I can't wait to help others get excited about quilting! That's all for now. I will hopefully be able to post more often. My daughter says I have to! HA!

Quilt til your arm falls off...

2008-01-10T13:34:00.000-06:00

I haven't posted in a while. Trying to get back into the swing of things or just trying to organize the projects I have to work on. I am in the process of making a sampler for a beginning quilt class that I am going to teach. I have never taught beginner quilting before so there is alot to figure out. Like, how long will it take for the students to cut out and make the blocks? I have to figure this out because I need to know how long and how many classes to have to finish the 4 block sampler I will be teaching. I also need to organize my thoughts as to what I want to teach them. All the tips and techniques they will need to make a quilt and to move on to their next quilt. Anyway that is what I have been up to. I have also begun working on past UFO BOM projects. I have 4 of them and I will begin this month to do all the January blocks and next month the February blocks, etc. Hopefully I will have them finished by the end of the year.

My daughter (who says she has no interest in quilting) came over the other night with a pair of jeans to make a purse. She sat at the machine and proceeded to make one. She cut them up and had an idea in her head of what she wanted to do. These pictures are of what I found when I walked into my sewing room later. She had gotten into my jar of small scrap fabrics and was piecing crumb blocks to put onto her purse! Yes she was piecing! She denied it but I ran for my camera and got the evidence. Look and see!

After I saw what she was up to, I went and got out my box of trims for her to use. This is the purse when she was finished. It is great! She really likes the way it came out. And she was quilting! Yeah! Maybe there is hope yet.

Quilt til your arm falls off...

2008-01-03T13:26:00.000-06:00

Thinking that I wish I had one of these today. My husband and I have wanted a wood burning stove for a long time and have not been able to work it out. One day maybe it will happen.

Sitting around in my PJ's today. Felt like it was about time to have a day all to myself to do whatever I wanted to do and this is it! I'm playing on the computer (EQ6 program for Christmas) and just hanging out. Spent time on the phone with my best friend this morning (the only thing better would be if she were here and we were sewing--maybe not, the sight of me in my PJ's might scare her off!) Anyway, I am going to head to the sewing machine later and if I feel like fixing supper later I will, if not, I will order pizza. That is what I'm up to today. Just taking it easy.

This is my son with his new car! He bought it last week and today he is signing the papers to sell his old one. His first car was a mustang. He bought it in his teens and had an accident (though no fault of his own) hitting a light pole and the insurance totaled it. He was given my Mom's car when she bought a new one. She has since passed away and Little Red (the name my Mom gave the car) will go to a new owner today. Hard to see gone but necessary. He loves his new mustang.

Quilt til your arm falls off...

2007-12-31T08:50:00.000-06:00

Anyone else thinking back on the year we just had and thinking ahead to the year to come? I can't help myself. I find myself thinking about all the things accomplished this past year, the friends I made and the time spent with family. I also can't help but think about all the things that I want to do in the new year. It is like a clean slate. One that I can write anything I want on it. This time of year seems surreal for me. I am so blessed with my family and friends and I feel like anything can be accomplished. I hope everyone else is having a good last day of the year.

Quilt til your arm falls off...

Christmas Pics...

2007-12-27T07:12:00.000-06:00

Here is a picture that was taken on Christmas Eve at my sister's house of my husband and me. We had a great time that night, lots of family and good food.

This one is to show you what I got for Christmas. I can't wait to start learning how to use it to design my own quilts.

My son in law on the left on Christmas Eve showing us his gift card. He also got one to the music store and it is already spent. He is learning how to play the guitar and needed some music books.

My oldest daughter and son on Christmas day. They look like they are having a good time. We all had such a good time. It is good that we were able to all be together on Christmas. My son has moved out and I miss him. My daughter lives next door and I get to see her more often but the house is much quieter with only one child at home. The day went pretty smooth (considering all the food prep and lots of family coming over). The company left around 3:00pm and we were able to settle down to watch a movie (Mr. Bean's Holiday, my son got it for Christmas).

My youngest son. See that grin. He got a DS lite for Christmas and a couple of games. He is very happy.

That is all I have for today. I hope everyone had an enjoyable holiday and remembered the reason for the season.

Quilt til your arm falls off...

Decorating Christmas Cookies

2007-12-24T08:26:00.000-06:00

Saturday we decorated cookies with my nieces and nephews. They will go home with the ones they decorate. They look forward to it every year but this year they tired of it only after about a dozen cookies. My husband and I had to decorate the rest. I had baked a lot of them this year.

Here is my niece decorating her cookies. She is concentrating very hard to get it just right. Her cookies look wonderful!

This is her brother with the sprinkles. Can you tell he loved them? He did a great job on his cookies and was even trying to tell the others how to do it like him. So funny!

This is another nephew. He liked drawing faces on his cookies. I told him is cookies would not be as sweet because they didn't have a lot of icing on them. He didn't seem to mind. He also did a great job!

Even hubby got in on the act. He did most of the gingerbread men. And that is my son(on the right) trying to keep up with him.

He has a way with the knife to get it just right. I tried but could not do it as well as him.

These are some of the cookies after they were done.

These are of the ones that I did. I used a toothpick to spread the icing in the center.

The counters were full. They were all over the place. The table also had a bunch on it. I had to let them dry out so I could put them stacked in there tins.

That is all for today. I have several things to do this morning. We are going next door to my sister's later today.

Quilt til your arm falls off...

Baking...

2007-12-21T06:52:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I baked Gingerbread men and Sugar Cookies. Every year my niece and nephews look forward to decorating the cookies for Christmas. It started with my own children when they were younger and they still like doing it if they are around. They make a mess and it is a lot of work for me (easier is I would just do it myself) but they are making memories. And they remember every year and ask about it. This is the first year that I make the cookies ahead of time. I usually do it all in one day, the baking and they decorate, but this year I thought I would get a head start. That way I can sit with them and help them out. Usually I'm cleaning the kitchen after all the baking to make room for the decorating.

I didn't get any photos of the sugar cookies. I will take some pics on Saturday after they are done. Today I have an MRI scheduled for 11:45am. They are looking at my head/brain and pituitary to see if they can find out why I still have a full feeling in my ear. The fluid is all drained out because of the tube that was put in. The doctor has done a couple of hearing test on me and my hearing is 100%. He is not sure why I still have a full feeling in my ear. So I have to have an MRI to look inside. Pray that all will be fine and everything is in it's place and there is nothing in there that is not supposed to be there. I will probably not get the results until after Christmas. I'm not a very patient person but in this case I have no choice. I will trust God will take care of everything. Hope everyone is having a non-stressed holiday.

Quilt til your arm falls off...

Gifts and good friends...

2007-12-20T18:57:00.000-06:00

This is a Christmas gift from my best friend. Isn't it lovely? She worked hard on this. The poinsettia in the middle and the leaves and berries around the outside edge and raw edge appliqué, which she loves to do. I love that the colors are not necessarily Christmas colors. I probably will leave this on year round. I just love it V. thanks again.

We had a Christmas get together, my friend and I, on Monday to exchange our gifts. We ate lunch, visited, ate chocolate pie, sewed binding on another quilt, and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We don't get together often enough anymore. Our lives are very busy. It is a shame because we love to be together and to be able to quilt together is the best. It is just great to have a best friend that shares a love for quilting. We have lots to talk about always.

This is a close up of the star. The quilting in the dark green looks like reindeer antlers to me. She did a wonderful job on them. Need to go and clean the kitchen now. I baked cookies all day today for my nieces and nephews to decorate on Saturday. I will show pics of the cookies tomorrow.

Quilt til your arm falls off...

It's been a bit crazy around here...

2007-12-19T07:21:00.000-06:00

I finished the Christmas quilt after much fighting with the quilting. I made a label which came out very good (not an easy task for me, my handwriting is awful). I sewed it on and then threw it in the washer (I always wash the quilts I give away, just in case something bad happens to it) and when I took it out it had bled. I think it was the binding fabric but was not sure. I tried several things to remove it, stain remover, bleach, but nothing worked. As you can see from the pictures below, it was pretty bad. All over the quilt. I called my husband on his way home from work to stop at Wal-mart and pick up some Rit Color Remover (if you are not familiar with this product, it removes color from white fabrics that have bled). The package said for a large load to use 2 packages so I followed the instructions. The quilt is a large one. It removed all the bleeding but it also removed some of the red color in the other fabrics. The red centers are now orange and several other red fabrics in the quilt are now brown or orangey. It doesn't look bad (a lot better than with the bleeding on it) so I dried it and wrapped it up last night.

You can see the pictures below are of the quilt after it was washed with the color remover. If you compare it with my last post you will see the difference in colors. Oh well, still a lovely quilt.

I also finished knitting my Step Mom's scarf/wrap but didn't get a picture of it before I wrapped it up. I will try to get a picture of her wearing it to show you how it came out. I wrapped all my gifts yesterday and they are under the tree. Now maybe I will have a couple of down time days before I have to start my baking. I have all my nieces and nephews coming over on Saturday to decorate cookies. A tradition started several years ago. It is a lot of work for me (they make a mess!) but they love it and ask every year "when will we be decorating cookies?" So I have to do it. Hope everyone is having an enjoyable Holiday Season. Bye now!

Quilt til your arm falls off...

2007-12-13T07:46:00.000-06:00

I'm working on finishing some Christmas gifts today. I will be quilting on the log cabin quilt for my Sister in law. I was afraid it would not get done in time for Christmas. I had quilted it on my frame and there was something wrong with the tension. I found out only after I had about 3/4 of it done. I had to rip out all of it. So now I am quilting it on my regular sewing machine. It will take longer but I know the tension is good. I like the way it is coming out. The picture below is a close up of the quilting. Hope you can see it. It is simple and fast. I did a row yesterday now I only have 7 more to go. Hope to make a big dent in it today.

The picture below is of a scarf/wrap I am knitting for my Step Mom. I think she will like it. The yarn is Bernat Boa. I have not knitted in a long time. I am more of a crocheter. This yarn is like eyelash yarn, it is hard to see your stitches, but I love the way it is coming out. I could have crocheted on but I think that knitting is softer and more stretchy than crochet and I wanted it to have that soft feel to it. I just might have to make me one when I am done with this one.

Well gotta go get busy! Have a good day everyone. Only 12 days til Christmas. Anyone singing the 12 days of Christmas today?

Quilt til your arm falls off...

Fun Party...

2007-12-11T08:47:00.002-06:00

I had a really good time at the party last night. Good friends, good food, great gifts. This is a picture of all the things I received last night. We are 13 people in the "woolie" group. We make (or buy) a small gift for each member and give them out at the party. I made felted soap for everyone and they seemed to like it and wanted to know how to make them. I told them I would give a demonstration later on after the holidays.

There is a lanyard with a little wool sheep on it, and a checkbook cover with bees and a beehive (everyones cover had something different on it), There is a small bag with a wool flag on it and it has my name embroidered on the back of it. The bag in the back has a wool sheep appliquéd on it. One of the members made us calendars and note cards with our sheep logo on it. Can you tell we love sheep? Everything was so beautiful and creative. You can click on the pictures to make them larger.

Here is a close up of some of the items. There is a measuring tape covered in wool made by my best friend, isn't it adorable. The sheep next to it is also a tape measure, you pull on the arm and the tape comes out. You can see the lanyard here and a pin with a appliquéd cardinal on it.

This is a close up of the checkbook cover and wool pincushion made out of scraps of wool roving. The pillow has the sheep and a star on top. She also put a label on the back with her name and the year. So cute. It is a lot of fun to exchange gifts and to see all of the creative flow that people have. It inspires!

The picture below is the last ornament I have to show you. My daughter made it in elementary school and has a picture of her in the center (can you tell it was the '80's). She has several ornaments made in school with her picture. These are very special to me. I can always remember what she was like when she was young. Those times pass so fast. Wish they lasted longer. Merry Christmas and I hope everyone is almost finished their shopping.

Quilt til your arm falls off...

More ornaments...

2007-12-10T08:56:00.001-06:00

I have a busy day today. I have another Christmas party tonight. It is with my "Woolie" group. I have to make bread to bring and I need to get to it. I wanted to share some more ornaments with you. The one above was given to me last year by a "Woolie" friend. She collects old tins. She uses them to make plaster molds and sometimes fills them with cholocate. I love the look of this old santa.

This one is fairly new. I got it in an ornament exchange a few years ago. To me it stands for all things old. The teddy bear, rocky horse and bicycle wheels all things of the past.

This one was given to me by my best friend a few years ago for Christmas. I just love it. It represents the love of quilting we share.

This is one I bought. It is supposed to be left out for santa to use to get in through the front door. I thought it was very old looking and liked the thought behind it. I don't have small children here at home any more to share the story with but still it is fun to think about. We don't have a fireplace for santa to come through so it was appropriate.

Well gotta go...

Quilt til your arm falls off...

Promised Pics...

2007-12-07T08:48:00.000-06:00

This is the panel Christmas quilt that I won at the auction. I (my husband) hung it on the wall last night. It looks very festive.

This is the pics of the teapots I won in the Christmas auction the other night. The white one in the front was made in England. The one in the back is Cloisonnes. My favorite is the yellow and blue one to the left. It is metal. I love looking at them. (Looks like I have a sheep collection growing also.)

Here are two more favorite ornaments:

The one above I made about 3 years ago. I love redwork and found this pattern in a magazine. You can't really see it in the picture but the outline of the bird is trapunto. I had never done this technique before and thought this was a small project I could give it a try on. I have three of them on my tree. They all have a different red border fabric.

This is about 10 or 12 years old. It is Noah's Ark in the whale. It is heavy and I love it. I am real careful with it every year.

Quilt til your arm falls off...

Late Start...

2007-12-06T10:51:00.000-06:00

Getting a late start today. My husband and I had a dentist apointment this morning for a cleaning. It throws me for a loop when things happen out of the ordinary. I just caught up on the blog reading and I still have about a million things left to do today. I'm sure it is the same for everyone. So I think I need to get to it. But first, I had a great time at the Christmas Party/Auction Tuesday night. I bought a Christmas panel quilt (which I will take a picture of later after I hang it up in the livingroom). I also bought a basket of small teapots. I have an unexpected collection that is growing (you know the kind I'm talking about, the kind that you don't plan on but someone buys you a teapot then someone else buys you one, then they see you have two and assume you love them so it becomes a collection because after that people buy you more, then you think you have a collection because you do and you start looking for them to add more) anyway, they are small and I think so cute. Again I will post a picture later. For now I will post some pics of more ornaments for my tree. I hope you are not sick of them because I kind of like to look at them.

This one I got in an ornament exchange at one of the Christmas guild parties about 3 or 4 years ago. I love the embroidery work on it. She is sweet looking.

This one I made last year. It is made of felt and it was a set of 6. It is a little bag and I put money or gift cards in them last year. I like the colors and simpleness of this one.

This one is about 6 or 7 years old. The snowman is blown glass and the long swirl bottom is molded. It has already broken (one of his arms) and been glued back on. It is very delicate. I try to buy a glass ornament every year. My hope is that one year I will be able to put up the tree with just glass ornaments but for now I have alot of other ornaments I like. Maybe a smaller second tree somewhere will have to do later. Hope you enjoyed looking at my ornaments. Time to go.

Quilt til your arm falls off...

Christmas Party/Auction...

2007-12-04T07:11:00.000-06:00

Our guild's Christmas Party/Auction is tonight. It is our only fund raiser for the year. All year long our members donate items for the auction (or sale table, we take anything). We have a dinner then an auction to sell our things. The only problem with it is, it is only open to members. That's right, we donate the items and we buy the items back. How crazy is that! It started when the guild was small and I can understand why they started it this way but, we are a larger guild now and it would be wonderful if we opened it to our family and friends and others to buy our items. I also think we would earn more money, but we have members that have been with the guild a long time and they want to keep it the old way. You know the saying "You can't teach an old dog new tricks"? Well that is abundant in our guild. We have members that are set in their old ways and want to keep things going the way they have always been. Good thing I just want to quilt and don't take all of these things personally. But it does stop progress. I for one am tired of fighting (I use this word loosely, we really just don't see eye to eye is all) with them so I have decided to stop volunteering for things. I can spend my time at home quilting. After saying all of that, I am looking forward to our Party tonight. These ladies are a funny breed and good entertainment.

I have some more ornaments to show you, if you want to see.

This one my sone made. It is a beaded crawfish. If you live in South Louisiana you usually love crawfish. I think he is real cute! It looks like he has shades on but it is really his black beady eyes. I know they don't look appetizing but I have already had some boiled crawfish and the season has really just begun. They are small in size and sometimes hard to peel early in the season.

This is a new one this year. We went on a field trip to a Christmas Tree farm and syrup mill early in November and they had these ornaments in their gift shop. I love blue and white and fell in love with this little beauty. It has holes in it, through the Christmas trees. I just love it.
Hope you enjoyed the ornaments. I have plenty to do today before the party (one of which is to decide what to wear) does anyone else do this? Wait til the last minute to decide what to wear to a party. I always do.

Quilt til your arm falls off...

Manual Fix...

2007-12-03T17:45:00.000-06:00

I checked on the photo problem that Blogger is having. They said they are working on it but in the mean time there is a manual fix you can do to make the pictures enlarge like they used to. You have to change some things in the Edit HTML. You can find this fix listed under Known issues under the help center.(Just in case any one wanted to know that) I fixed the pictures in past postings and they enlarge now. Just thought I would let you know about it.

2007-12-03T08:01:00.003-06:00

Our tree is finally has ornaments. We did it Saturday night. I thought about going with a smaller tree this year but, I tell you, after putting the ornaments, I don't see that I could. We have a lot of them. I'm thinking about packing up the ones that are each of my children's in a separate box for them to have when they want them for their tree. The children still want them on my tree but something has got to give. I could not even put them all on the tree this year. It was too full.

Here is a couple of my favorite ornaments on my tree. I am thinking of posting a couple everyday until Christmas. This one my older son made in elementary school. They used paper and paint. Isn't she cute. There are several of these in other shapes. He hangs this on our tree every year.

This one below is one I purchased from our guild Christmas auction a couple of years ago. I had one similar to it already (painted differently) and I love the way it was painted. Isn't it beautiful? (I could not get the full picture of it. It has another dog on the right of the lady.)

Have a wonderful day everyone!

Quilt til your arm falls off...

AHH...Friday

2007-11-30T08:25:00.000-06:00

I love Fridays. The end of the work week (for some) and the beginning of the weekend (for some). I don't have anything on the agenda today except ripping out some quilting stitches. On Monday I was machine quilting on the frame and the freemotion foot broke. I didn't realize til later that is was acting up for a couple of rows back. I have a new foot but I can't continue until I rip out a row or two. It is hard work standing up. The stitches are too loose. The tension was off because of the foot (at least I hope it was because of the foot). If I rip out and start to quilt again and the stitches are still not right I will have to start trouble shooting. ARGH!

How about some pictures of some quillows that I made for my niece and nephews a few years back. They are so quick and easy. I tried to match the fabric with what they were interested in.

This one was for my niece. She was into Clifford the dog so I found the fabric and this is it. She uses it a lot.

This one is for my godchild. He likes to fish and I thought he would like this fabric. He uses it on his bed and to lay around on the floor.

This one is for another nephew. He is very much into cars and trucks (at least at the time, now he is into dirt bikes). I'm not sure where he keeps his but I know he uses it.

I love making things for people. I enjoy the moment when they open it or receive it. The look of surprise on their faces and then the satisfaction I get when I know they like it is like nothing else. That is why I give away so many of my quilts (that and the fact that I would have had to move out to make room for all the quilts I've made if I would have kept them). Another reason why I love Christmas so much is all the gift giving. There is no other time of year when people are so giving. I just absolutely love it.

Quilt til your arm falls off...

2007-11-29T07:25:00.000-06:00

Yesterday was a long day. Our mini group met with the Christmas committee in our guild to organize all the things that were donated to our Christmas auction/party which is next week. There was a lot of stuff to sort through. Lots of boxes to load and unload out of our cars. I was so tired when I got home at 2:00pm. Then last night we were putting up the tree with our kids. I had to arrange it on a day when my son would be here and he was here washing his clothes. We had supper and we put the tree up but we had so much trouble with the lights that didn't have time to put the ornaments on. We will schedule another day for that. After every one left I fell asleep on my chair while trying to watch a movie with my husband. Oh well, can't watch 'em all. HA. This is our Christmas tree with just lights (there are lights on it but I used my flash and they don't show) The picture below is without a flash and you can see my husband and daughter working on the lights.

I really enjoy the holiday season and I love having a tree. This tree was given to our family by my husband's aunt. She bought it and realized it was too big for her house so she gave it to us about 14 years ago. (Wow, I had not realized it was that long ago) I sheds just like a real tree and to me it looks real. It fools people all the time. The only problem is because it is large I have to move furniture around to make room for it. This is the first year I have it in this area. It will take some getting used to.

I have a doctor's appointment this morning so it is time to go.

Quilt til your arm falls off...

2007-11-27T06:41:00.001-06:00

Today is guild day. I go to the morning and night meeting so it is a long day. Today we will have someone from a local quilt shop come to show us the new things she/he found at the Quilt Market and Festival in Houston. We will also have some of our members that went do a show and tell of things they bought. It ought to be interesting.

The quilt below is a quilt I made in 2001. The year I learned to quilt. While I was taking quilting classes I wanted another project so I started this one. It is from a book by Melissa Rae Hawley called "Fat Quarter Quilts". I just used some fabrics I had here at home (some are probably not even all 100% cotton--OH, for shame). I call it my ugly quilt because of the bright pink and green together, that is the first thing I thought when I finished it. Now it is the most used quilt in the house. We cover with it in the evenings. I need to think about changing the name. I don't even have a label on it (shame, shame, shame).

Quilt til your arm falls off...

Help finding...

2007-11-26T10:14:00.000-06:00

There is a series of movies I am looking for. I have found two of them at a reasonable price. "The house without a Christmas Tree and Easter Promise. But the one called "Holiday Treasure" is too expensive for me to consider purchasing.

I have searched online everywhere and I find it for the same price. They are all available on Amazon.com. The Holiday Treasure is based on a book called "The Thanksgiving Treasure" Me and my children have read this book the week before Thanksgiving every year since they were little. We don't read it anymore, now that they are grown but my daughter still borrows it every year to read. Here is what I'm asking. Does anyone have this movie that I could purchase or borrow it to watch? I know that is asking a lot, if you do have it, it is a keeper. I just thought that maybe someone has it and would be willing to share. Thanks, Terry

2007-11-26T06:46:00.000-06:00

Today I must get some machine quilting done. I have to quilt a log cabin quilt that I made for my sister in law for Christmas. The top has been finished for a while and I got it loaded in the frame last Friday. Why I procrastinate these things I don't know. But no longer. Today is the day. I received a call last night from a friend that needed a small quilt quilted and normally I don't take outside quilts in during the holidays but she said it was a small one and to do something simple and she was in no hurry. So I said yes, why did I do it? I have so much to do already. Ah well, to help out a friend of course. There will be time for everything, right? Anyway, are you sick of looking at my older quilts?I hope not because I have more to show you today.

These quilts are ones I have made for Project Linus. In the past our guild would make quilts to donate for this project and I participated. This one above was made with a lot of bright fabric with cats on them. I tied it instead of quilting it. It is courthouse steps design. I have always wanted to make a large and scrappy version of this quilt but after doing this small one I decided it would be too much.

This is a quilt design by Kay Wood for fast easy quilts to make for children. I think it is called the 6 hour quilt. It is reversible and it did go together quick. This is the two sides of the quilt. It takes 6-inch wide strips (which are easy to cut because most rulers are 6 inches wide). I enjoyed making it.

The one above on top is a fleece blanket with tied edges. It was very fast but I didn't particularly enjoy tying all the knots and it was small, 36 inches square maybe. It has trains on it. The one on the bottom is a panel. I thought it was lovely and enjoyed quilting it. That all I have today. I need to get up and get busy.

Quilt til your arm falls off...

Table Runners

2007-11-24T09:42:00.001-06:00

When my daughter got married in 2004, I had some really good friends help me out with the food and serving the food at the reception. I wanted to repay them for their kindness and hard work so I thought about making them a quilt but, I didn't have the time (after all my daughter was getting married) so the next best thing is table runners. This first one is flowers and a chicken. The friend loves chickens. She has them in her kitchen. The appliqués are made of wool and the rest is cotton. I thought it came out really cute. She liked it.

This one is wool appliqué's of fruit. This friend has her kitchen decorated with fruit. The colors are colors she likes and I thought it would fit her well. She was so surprised when she received it and she seemed to be happy with it.

This one is fused appliquéd dolphins. This friend loves the beach and oceans. The background is a batik that I used on the wrong side because the right side had streaks of gold color and wrong side of the fabric looked more like water.

Here is a close up of the quilting. I quilted seashells. All different kinds. I hope you can see them in the picture.

The bottom picture is the beaded tassel that I made for it. I had bought a lot of bead stuff to make the bridesmaids some earrings and bracelets as gifts for the wedding. I decided I had more than I need for that so I made the tassels. I like the way it came out. I think she loved it and still uses it.

Hope you enjoyed looking at these pictures.
I am enjoying the walk down memory lane.

Quilt til your arm falls off...

I'm back...

2007-11-23T07:42:00.000-06:00

I took a much needed break. My surgery went well. The recoup time is still ongoing but not bad at all. There is still some swelling and I need to use saline solution religiously. The ear is still stopped up which concerns me. The doc says the swelling needs to go down more before it drains, I hope he is right. I have my doubts only because I have been stopped up since August. I don't know what it would feel like to have it clear. If it doesn't work, I'm not sure what the next step is. Oh well, cross that bridge when I get there.

I hope I have not lost some of the readers from my absence. I have not felt well enough to post. I really did not feel like posting anything as of late. This morning I decided I missed it all and thought I would post some more pictures of past quilts.

This is a quilt I started working on for an auction that was being held for a person that needed help paying for her medical bills. She was very sick. It was someone my brother in law knew and asked me to make it. I started work on it and my Mom was very sick with lung cancer. She died while I was working on this and while finishing it I was grieving. I could not let it go. It is dedicated to her. So I started another one for the auction. The picture below it the one I gave away. It went together very easy. It is a Crossroads to Jericho pattern.

This is a quilt I made early on in my quilt life. It is made using bandannas. You place a piece of batting on top of the bandanna and then start laying your pieces of fabric on top (kind of like crazy patch) raw edges overlapping. Then you sew the fabric edges down using decorative stitches on your machine. I used red thread mostly and some jean and blue fabrics with red highlights. It is heavy and we use it for outside on the ground, picnics and such. Its not a real good picture of it but you can see some of the colors and if you click on it, it will become larger.

I also bought me a new sewing machine (well I bought it used but it is still new to me). It is a Janome 6500P Memory Craft. I wanted a sewing machine for quilting and piecing. So far, I like it. I bought it from a lady in our quilt guild. She wanted a smaller machine to bring around to classes. This one is heavy. If anyone has this machine I would like to hear from you. I can always use feed back. Do you like it? How do you use it? Have you ever had trouble with it?

That's it for today. I will try to post more tomorrow.

Quilt til your arm falls off...