"Q is for Quilt"

28 years of service

2012-02-16T20:21:00.003-06:00

Twenty-eight years ago, I purchased this European model Pfaff Synchromatic 1215 sewing machine and today it may have sewn its last stitch. It has sewn many miles of thread and fabric - everything from clothing to crafts to curtains and finally, quilts. This morning, I was hurrying to finish piecing a donation crazy quilt wallhanging. Finished one seam and when I wanted to sew the next, my machine would not sew unless I turned the wheel by hand. My husband thinks it may be the motor but I'm hoping not.

It will be next week before I can take it to the repairman or look for a new sewing machine. I'm in the middle of several quilt show quilts, other projects plus the donation quilt so something will have to be done soon so I can sew again.

I won't have access to my computer this weekend but I'm wondering if there's anyone willing to share what kind of sewing machine you use and if you'd recommend it. I'd appreciate hearing from you!

What just happened here ...

2012-02-11T19:06:00.005-06:00

Did I start some new projects or what?

I guess I can blame it on the cold weather we're having! Do not want to leave the house much except for food or fabric.

This is only part of a Rocky Road to Kansas crazy quilt. Just the strip piecing is done, still have to cut and sew the red insets and borders before I start stitching. Without being aware of doing so, I think my color choices were influenced by Amish / Mennonite quilts.

These wonky applique circles are part of a donation crazy quilt and one for me too! I think trim or lace or embroidery or something will be needed to make those circles look better.

More of the fabrics I'm using in that crazy quilt wallhanging. This one's a tough one for me because I'm used to working with strong bright colors and I'm trying to make something more in the pastel range and sweet, very sweet. I'm afraid I'm losing the battle and some brights are sneaking in.

These blocks are not new. I found them when I was looking around my sewing room for more fabrics to use in the Rocky Road to Kansas crazy quilt. All the fabric is brushed cotton / flannels and is striped. I remember now why I only made four blocks before I folded it all up and carefully put it away with the pattern (Antique Rug by Aardvark Quilts). See all those stripes? They have to match to create the design. At the time I started these, I didn't like matching but now it seems very appealing to me. Not sure when I'll get the chance to work on these again but I hope soon!

Remember my clamshell quilt? If not, you can see it here. I think I've decided to big stitch/utility stitch it in, gulp, orange perle cotton 8. Someone suggested orange to me this afternoon and my immediate reaction was less than positive but I've done some test stitching and it looks surprisingly good.

If I wake up tomorrow morning and hate it, I guess I can always blame it on the weather too!

Building Code Violation

2012-02-07T06:51:00.002-06:00

This probably means I shouldn't try to build my own house to live in, right? I paper pieced the first house but decided to hand piece the next house so that I could get the flower centered in the window. In the past, I've not been very good at making my own templates and its obvious that I'm still not very good at making my own templates. Back to the drawing board!

Anyone know of a good tutorial about making templates?

I'm also still plugging away at making hexagons for my version of Anna Ruggles hexagon quilt. See my previous post for a link to it. These hexagons should be enough to finish the round of rosettes I'm working on. It takes a surprising amount of time to stitch them together, especially using the method I'm trying to keep the stitches from showing. Will share that with you another time.

You may have noticed that I removed the brown background from my blog. I'm still looking for something I like to replace it so things may look different the next time you stop by. Not so sure I like the creamy swirls, just a little too yellow for me. Not that there's anything wrong with yellow, its just not "me". The question is, "What is me?"

Bison or Bear?

2012-01-30T12:37:00.002-06:00

I started a hexagon quilt project last fall because I just had to get it out of my system!

After viewing some cute hexagon projects on the internet and even though I really didn't need another project, I could no longer resist and started a copy of Anna Ruggles' hexagon quilt. Click here to see her quilt.

I don't know that my version will be that large, probably more like a wallhanging. When I get tired of making hexagons, that's when it will be done! I'm doing English Paper Piecing using 1/2 inch hexagons (the side measurement) which are actually starting to seem large to me. Also trying to limit myself to using only my Jo Morton fabrics except for the cream colored backgrounds.

This is another one of those long term projects so don't expect a lot of progress quickly. From time to time I'll show you how far I've gotten.

I'm still working on the inventory project for the Mennonite Heritage & Agricultural Museum and I had hoped to share a favorite quilt from their holdings today but instead here is an interesting lap robe we've found.

Was it a bison or a bear?

This sort of a lap robe would have been used in a carriage or buggy and is considered a transportation accessory in museum nomenclature. So far here in southcentral Kansas, we've had a mild winter but I don't think many of us can imagine what it must have been like to travel out in the open during winter! I'm so very thankful for modern conveniences.

Sunglasses on?

2012-01-25T17:07:00.006-06:00

As my daughter put it, "Wow, the whole room got brighter!" Is that good or bad? Maybe our brown Kansas winter is getting to me.

When I started this quilt, I never envisioned that it would be quite this bright or colorful. Seems a little brighter in the photo than in real life but not by much. When its quilted and bound, I think I'll hang it in an area of our home that needs a little brightening up!

Still have much work to do on it but the borders are on. Quilting will have to wait as I have another project promised to someone which will have to come first.

By the way, my next project (already working on it) is in pastel colors (so far).

Staying Busy But Not Quilting

2012-01-22T19:40:00.004-06:00

I wish I could say I'd been working on my clamshell quilt this past week but that, unfortunately, hasn't been the case. However, in the photo above you can see both the inner and outer border. I chose to use Philip Jacobs' Japanese Chrysanthemum in the scarlet colorway for the outer border but didn't have enough to match the pattern and had to order extra. My fabric order has arrived and I hope to finish hand sewing on the outer borders this week.

I haven't had the chance to work on my houses made from scraps project either. You might say I've been home-less for two weeks now. I'd like to spend a day catching up and working ahead but we'll see what my schedule will allow.

What I have been doing is creating a membership directory for Wichita's Prairie Quilt Guild. We have about 650 members to keep track of. I'm happy to say I finished the directory yesterday and tomorrow, unless something unforeseen happens, it goes to the printer.

I've also been volunteering for an inventory project at the Mennonite Heritage and Agricultural Museum in Goessel, Kansas. Goessel is a small town with a population of about 450 people. I grew up near there and thought that once I graduated from high school, I'd never go back. Ha, I'm the only person I know who will drive 50+ miles one way to dust and clean up old stuff!

Since I don't have much to show for quilting progress, I thought I'd occasionally show you something we find while doing the inventory.

Anyone know what's in the picture below? I remember it being used at my mom's sewing society meetings at church especially when they were working on mission projects. Occasionally when school wasn't being held, I went with my mom to her meeting and was put to work with this. Something is missing from the photo which would probably give away what it is.

You can see the slotted metal spindle coming out of the wood to the left and a handle on the right. Its obvious that it may have been clamped to a table to make it more stable.

I'm sure most Mennonite girls of my era will recognize this as a bandage roller. Strips of clean white fabric and sometimes worn out sheets would be ripped to the correct width. Then one end of the strip would be threaded through the spindle and when someone turned the handle, the fabric rolled into a, hopefully, neat roll of bandage. I remember this being a two person job - someone to control the fabric and someone to turn the handle. The bandage rolls were then shipped to a missionary for use in hospitals or clinics. I don't think that bandage rollers are used by any of the sewing societies anymore so they've been donated to the museum.

We have found a few quilts and with the museum's permission I'll show you my favorite next week!

Stitch & Soak

2012-01-09T09:42:00.002-06:00

I'm stitching the clamshell rows together and then have some last fix it things to do on my clamshell quilt. You can get a peek of my narrow border choice to the left of the quilt top. The main border, not making an appearance yet, is quite colorful and bold.

Question - Should I soak the glue basting out before I stitch the borders on or afterwards? I can think of pros and cons of doing it either way but which do you readers think would be better? This is the first time I have ever glue basted and some of the glue has been in the fabric for months.

The body of the quilt measures about 65 inches "square". Because its so large and I don't want to distort the top, I plan to put an old sheet down in the bathtub and then fold the quilt on top of it before adding the water. Any words of advice?

House #1

2012-01-07T10:07:00.005-06:00

Here's my first house for Jeanneke's Houses from Scraps challenge! If you click on the button on the upper right hand column, you can read all about it.

I know some people are making one a day but my goal is to make one a week which is more doable given my schedule. This was my second attempt at the block and even then had to take it apart because I sewed the window flower in upside down!

Each little house finishes at about 3 inches and its a challenge to get used to working with such small pieces. A very good way to use up scraps though!

I've chosen to paper piece using old telephone book pages which I'm able to feed through our printer. Rather than tear each page out of the book, I took it to Office Max and had them do one cut as close to the binding as possible. Its a nice even page now although a little smaller than standard paper.

Clamshell update: I've sewn several rows together and hope to have the main body of the quilt top stitched together by next weekend. Pictures coming soon!

Favorite Christmas "things"

2011-12-22T06:25:00.007-06:00

Most of the things in my home have a history or are there for sentimental reasons and today I'm sharing three of my favorite Christmas "things".

This Nativity Scene dates probably from the late 1960's and my sister and I set it up under our family's Christmas tree every year. I don't know where my parents got it, perhaps at Woolworths or at a farm auction, but its no longer in its original box.

By the time I received it, the cardboard stable was bent and missing some of the woodshavings on the roof. Some of the figures are missing too and I don't even remember if we ever had them. I still set it up every year.

Besides the story of Christ's great sacrifice, it reminds me of the great anticipation and planning that went into Christmas in my younger years. I miss the wonder that Christmas brings to children!

Several years ago, I purchased this old magazine cover in an antique mall. I don't know who the artist was but this is another "thing" I make sure is set up every Christmas. Perhaps it reminds me of some happy memories of Christmas caroling with family and friends.

Unfortunately, I've not been blessed with musical talent so please don't expect me to come carol at your home!

If you came to my house, this is what you'd see in the entry. Its nearly the same every year - the red and white Drunkard's Path quilt, the wreath and the old, battered kerosene lamp - but this year I added the wooden creche purchased my first year in college.

I've finally finished the shopping, baked two kinds of peppernuts (nearly all gone!) and assorted goodies, sent out some Christmas cards and generally just got caught up in the busyness and stress of the season. I must always remind myself to look beyond the many activities, decorations and obligations to keep my heart focused on God's plan which He set into motion long before the stable.

I hope you are having a wonderful and meaningful Christmas season!
See you next year, Mayleen

11 out of 13

2011-12-14T20:05:00.010-06:00

Does that sound like a math question at school? 11 out of 13 = 2!

Only 2 more of the 13 diamond blocks need sashing strips sewn to them! That means I've sewn sashing strips to 11 of the blocks so far.
Of course, there's still the setting and corner blocks, deciding on a layout and then hand stitching all the blocks together. My next goal is to finish sewing the sashing strips to all of the blocks by next Wednesday, the 21st. I would really like to finish hand piecing this quilt top before the new year begins but unfortunately, I don't think I'll have the time to do that.

I have a bad habit of overcommiting myself, mostly to things that are worthy and need doing, but just who am I trying to impress? Instead of working like a mad woman on this quilt just so I can say I finished it before the new year, I plan to slow down and enjoy the process.

The Christmas season can be really stressful when we try to live up to other people's expectations. I'm going through one of those times today and feeling very torn about what to do.

Time to slow down, time to decide what's really important and time to enjoy the process!

Wednesday's clamshell progress

2011-12-08T06:29:00.003-06:00

My clamshell sashing progress is going slowly. This past week, I either hurt my shoulder by doing too much handwork or the pain was weather related. I've noticed I tend to tense and scrunch up my left shoulder and also hunch over my work. My left shoulder muscles were very painful this last week so I took some necessary time off from hand piecing which just about drove me crazy!

Yesterday, being my sewing day, I spent a few hours hand piecing the first sashing strips to the clamshell diamond blocks as the photo shows. I tried to be really careful about my shoulder and, so far, my shoulder is relatively pain free. The lower left block is just laid over the sashing to show you how it will look when finished.

My biggest challenge with the sashing strips is how to applique the narrow stem (?) with its sharp point at the base of the bottom clamshell of each block. This is the first time I've ever had to do this and would love to receive any advice you readers can give! The top block was my first attempt and its point seems a little blunt. The next block was the second attempt and its stem and point are better but seems bulky even with careful trimming. Any advice?

Wednesday - Sewing Day!

2011-12-01T06:05:00.005-06:00

I always think of Wednesdays as sewing day!

My mom was part of a church sewing society which met on Wednesdays during the fall, winter and spring months. Many of the women who attended were older farm wives and this day was not only a day of growing spiritually and doing something meaningful for church missions but it was also a day of socializing.

No socializing on my Wednesdays but I try to keep it just for sewing and not let a lot of errands and "things to do" creep in to my day!

Fifteen years ago, my mom embroidered tea towels with scenes of teddy bears doing housework. I wanted my kids to dry dishes with them so they've seen a little wear. Instead of them just laying in a drawer and never being seen, I decided to make them into a wallhanging. This is a little on the "cute" side for me but I still like them and hope to finish hand quilting this wallhanging someday.

About the block above, I'm not particularly fond of mending but I do enjoy sewing!

Clean day is also not a favorite day for me but it needs to be done. No cleaning fairy at our house!

Probably my favorite day is Bake Day! Unfortunately, that usually means an unhappy moment on the bathroom scale the next day.

Back to Wednesdays and sewing days - Yesterday, I finished handpiecing the clamshell blocks! I can hardly believe the blocks themselves are done. Here are some of them, not in final arrangement yet though. There are 13 full diamond blocks, 8 half diamonds for the sides and the 4 corner blocks.

Next up is figuring out how to make and sew on the scalloped sashing. My quilt is inspired by Kaffe Fassett's quilt in his Museum Quilts book. He used a narrow bias strip to make his sashing but had to make small tucks at each scallop. I don't want to do that so I'll have to draft a pattern for the sashing. The sashing fabric is green and will also be hand pieced/appliqued to the blocks.

I hoped, in one of my more optimistic moments, to have the top completely done by the end of the year. LOL My schedule this month has gone crazy with something on our calendar nearly every day of the month. I'll be checking in from time to time though and will let you know how my sashing saga is progressing!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2011-11-21T05:48:00.005-06:00

This is our cat, Charlie, reminding you to be thankful in all things!

Charlie came to us the night we moved into our house, a very skinny burr infested stray. Our two other cats were not excited to see him but he made his way into our lives and into our hearts. Although he feels he should get more attention and definitely more tuna, if cats can be thankful I'm sure he is!

The "Be Thankful" quilt is a Pat Sloan design (maybe) from way back when. Because I didn't think my cutting and piecing skills were very accurate, I decided to try making folk art type quilts which I thought would be more forgiving. Instead, I made a lot of mistakes on it and had a terrible time trying not to match things up! I was, indeed, very thankful when this quilt was finished. It usually hangs on our living room wall during this season but this year, it became a couch quilt and we like it there!

I haven't blogged much lately simply because I'm working on some larger projects and not getting anywhere fast. Remember my clamshell quilt? I've been working on it off and on for over a year now but I'm determined to get the top done by the end of the year! I've finished all 13 of the clamshell diamonds and am now hand piecing the side half diamonds.

Last week, a local quilt shop was having a storewide 25% off sale so after doing numerous calculations and rounding up for a little extra just in case, I purchased fabric for the borders and sashing. I hope I purchased enough fabric!

For those of you in the United States, I wish you all a very meaningful and happy Thanksgiving! We are sharing our Thanksgiving dinner with two other families. I'm in charge of making the pies which I enjoy making. I'm planning to make Pumpkin, Pecan and Apple pies and maybe a pumpkin roll. What I'm not planning to do is step on our scale for a few days!

Ta-Da!

2011-11-04T13:50:00.003-05:00

Here it is, finally finished!

"The Parlour's Tin Ceiling Quilt",
my version of Jacquie's Tin Ceiling Quilt!
You can get the tutorial and see her quilt here and here.

The quilting design is by Angela Walters. I liked it so much that I asked my machine quilter, Jan, to do something similiar on my version of the quilt. Yes, it does remind me of the tin ceiling in my parents' farmhouse! However, we certainly weren't fancy enough to have a "parlour" so that's a reference to the spiderweb. Perhaps you remember a poem about a spider and a fly, "Will you walk into my parlour, said the Spider to the Fly."

Thank you to everyone who sent me selvages! Some responded from a request on this blog and others heard about it at quilt guild. Even after making the border, which I thought would use almost all of the selvages, I still have some left. Looks like there may be another selvage project for me but definitely not one this large! It began as a throw and ended up Queen sized.

The pictures have been brightened up a little to show the quilting but the quilt is still a little on the bright side. You may have to put on your sunglasses to look at the back! Can you guess that I really like bright pink?

Binding Quilt #2 this week

2011-10-26T12:57:00.003-05:00

I finished binding my daughter's 30th. birthday quilt and am moving on to binding quilt #2 - the Selvage Spiderweb Quilt! I have to be in the right frame of mind to make binding. It's not that I dislike binding but I don't like working with long bias pieces of narrow fabric!

I measured the selvage spiderweb quilt top, made some calculations to find out how many inches of binding I'd need. I came up with 400 inches which turned out to be too much but I'd rather have too much than not enough. Extra binding I save to bind scrappy projects.
I find that if I wind it up and then rubber band it, I can control it better as I'm sewing the binding to each side of the quilt top.

Here it is machine sewn on and tomorrow I'll start hand tacking the binding down. I hope to finish it before the weekend, create labels for both quilts and then they'll be done!

Another picture of the beautiful machine quilting done by Jan!

Binding in my future

2011-10-21T10:30:00.002-05:00

Can you guess what it is?

Last weekend, I picked up quilts from two machine quilters! Both quilts are beautifully quilted but quite different from each other in pattern and quilting.

You've seen my daughter's 30th. birthday quilt before while I was embroidering the blocks and machine piecing it. It was the first quilt I picked up and was machine quilted by Siriporn Hollar.

I'm in the process of binding it so if you look closely, you'll be able to tell the binding isn't tacked down on three of the sides yet. I like a narrow binding so I usually make a 2 1/4" bias binding. Whenever I make a straight binding, the quilt corners are pointy which is a pet peeve of mine. Even though a bias binding uses more fabric, I stick with what I know.

I was disappointed the large photo didn't show the machine quilting better but you can get an idea of the beautiful quilting on this photo of one of the blocks!

I'm sorry I wasn't able to wrestle this monster up to hang from the top of our bookcases for a better picture. Its the back of my queen sized Spiderweb Selvage Quilt! I'm only showing you the back this week because I haven't even begun to make the binding for it yet. As you can guess, I didn't have enough of the pink floral fabric so had to piece the back with two more blue fabrics and even more selvages. Pictures coming of the front when its bound next week.

Jan did a wonderful job quilting it. She's probably resting her arms this week after quilting all those little swirls! Check out her website for a look at the Prairie Quilt Guild's beautiful Opportunity Quilt. I've been trying to figure out how many tickets I need to buy so that I can win it at the Common Threads Quilt Show in Wichita next June!

Was Granny Smith really a Northern Spy?

2011-10-13T16:59:00.003-05:00

It's been a bed sized quilt year for me!

Here are a few blocks from the next bed sized quilt I'm planning to finish. The blocks will all be red and green and after being trimmed and sewn together, the red diamonds should match at the points. I started it months ago but got a little bored with making the same block over and over again so I set a goal of 20 blocks a week. Very do-able and I have only 30-ish blocks left to cut and piece before piecing the top!

This pattern is from Bonnie Hunter's book, Scraps & Shirttails II. She calls it "Criss-Cross Applesauce". I wanted a name with a little more personality so in keeping with the apple theme and with a nod to the Civil War, I'm calling it "Was Granny Smith really a Northern Spy?" Both names will be on the quilt label along with giving Bonnie credit as the designer.

Here's a picture of her version from the book. By the way, I recommend this book for anyone who likes scrap quilts. I try not to buy a quilting book or magazine unless there are 3 or more quilts I want to make in it. This book definitely qualifies!

My Big Fat Pink Life

2011-10-05T18:47:00.005-05:00

See this stack of bright pink forms?

These are membership forms for Wichita's Prairie Quilt Guild! This year, I agreed to serve as Membership Chair and for the past month I've been processing forms, over 400 so far. Our guild's membership has been over 700 in the past few years so just a few hundred more to go!

I have to ask you to do this.

OK now, repeat after me:

"I promise to fill out membership forms entirely. Yes, ENTIRELY!"

I feel so much better now that you've promised!

What's that you say? Speak up, don't mumble.

Pink, yes. Big stack, yes. Fat, huh?

Fat is what I'm going to be if I'm not careful.
Here's how I've been coping with the forms.

No indication whether its a renewal or new membership, eat an M&M.
Contact information missing: eat another M&M.
Can't read the writing: have an extra M&M.
Finished processing a membership form: reward yourself with an M&M (or two)!

Help, I've had to buy more M&Ms, the large economy size from Sam's. I'm no longer concerned if I'm eating them in ROY G BB order and very shortly, I'm going to have to spend quality time with the Mr. Treadmill and I absolutely dislike, abhor, dread the thought!

Be kind, fill out your guild's membership form completely, OK?!?
Membership committees everywhere thank you!

Other people's scraps!

2011-10-03T09:26:00.003-05:00

Would you get excited about this?!?

I would, I did and I am!

Decisions, decisions.
Those are 1/4 inch and 3/8 inch paper hexagons laying next to the quarter.

I'm going to allow myself to do this because

1. I'm crazy enough to try.
2. I need to get it out of my system.

Things are a little stressful in my life these days and whenever things get that way, I cope by pouring myself into something very detailed. I'll let you know how it goes but I may not be able to start this anytime soon. For now, I'm dreaming and planning!

By the way, the selvage spiderweb quilt is now in line waiting to be quilted by the machine quilter. I still have selvages left but need to work on other things for a little while. So far this year, I've made several bed quilts and several more are in process. Its safe to say that the hexagon quilt I make will NOT be a bed size quilt!

Scrappy Tripping Around the World!

2011-09-14T06:23:00.003-05:00

Monday evening, I went to hear Quiltville's Bonnie Hunter speak at the Walnut Valley Quilter's Guild in Winfield, Kansas. She's a great speaker and I loved her Fabric Food Chain quilt since I'm really trying to use up 30 years worth of fabric!

Here's Bonnie with her Virginia Bound quilt which is another quilt I'd like to make "someday". In fact, I'd like to make 3/4 of the quilts in her latest book Scraps & Shirtails II.
Here's her version of Scrappy Trip Around the World. I got to take her workshop for this quilt on Tuesday! She's a great teacher so if you have a chance to hear her speak or take a workshop with her, be sure you do so!
Below you can see the blocks I finished in class. I made mine with 2 inch strips and set 9 strips in a row.

Its a lot brighter than I thought it would be and I'm not so sure I like it. What do you think I should add? More prints or more greens or blues? Can you tell I have a lot of pink and red fabric to use up? I'm working entirely from my stash so I'm somewhat limited. A big problem I'm having is that the strips need to be 18 inches long. Quite a bit of my fabric stash is not that long or is yardage I'd like to keep for backings. Any suggestions?

Flopsy, Mopsy & Peter

2011-09-01T10:23:00.002-05:00

Look what I found next to the hose reel this morning!

Can you see them? Flopsy, Mopsy and Peter Cottontail. Click on the photo to see them better if you need to.

I hope I don't regret being a foster home for baby rabbits! No garden this year and no dog right now but we do have a cat and the occasional sighting of a black snake. Eeek.

The line up

2011-08-31T13:10:00.002-05:00

First came this mini wedding ring quilt on its own quilt rack. It was a gift from a ladies group to me for speaking about what I'd learned from making quilts. I probably should have made that a really short presentation because the more I quilt, the more I realize I need to learn a lot more!

This summer, Karen Griska surprised me by sending this cute little cupboard of "quilts" just because I let her borrow a quilting book. It joined the quilt rack on our fireplace mantel.

Last night at the Prairie Quilt Guild's last board meeting for the year, our President Jan gave each of us a one of a kind pincushion. Later as I walked into the house with mine, three people turned, looked and after a pause asked, "What is that!?!" Of course, they are kind of used to me liking things with a bit of personality but this one stumped the guys and my nonsewing daughter.
Personally, I think it looks really good with the wool wallhanging in the background!

30th. Birthday Signature Quilt

2011-08-27T12:32:00.003-05:00

Here it is - my daughter's 30th. birthday signature quilt top!

The quilt blocks were signed by women in our church who also added a favorite Bible verse reference. I embroidered their names and the reference saying a prayer for each one as I worked on their block. At first, I thought the quilt might be a throw or lap size but it grew to be a full size quilt!

Micaela chose the mostly Jo Morton fabrics with a few other reproduction fabrics thrown in. She likes scrappy quilts so I tried to mix up the fabrics as much as possible.

This morning, I delivered the quilt top and backing to the machine quilter. I think it turned out well and am looking forward to seeing it quilted and bound. The machine quilter's waiting list stretches all the way to the end of October so it will be a little wait!

For some reason, our cat, Charlie, took an even more "like" to this quilt and especially to the border strips as I was laying them out. He didn't really care for the Picket Fence quilt I made last year, the RRCB quilt was good enough to sit on but this one, he made himself right at home on!

Pedal to the Metal, oh yeah!

2011-08-12T12:35:00.005-05:00

Pedal to the metal .... ummm, pedal to the carpet? That just doesn't sound very exciting and hey, it doesn't rhyme either! I guess you all know I don't have a metal floor in the sewing room. Please ignore all fuzzies, threads and ??? on the floor. And yes, I do store my little box of batik fabrics underneath on my sewing desk shelf. What else would I store there?!?

After a week of no time to sew, I'm determined to not be interrupted and to not find something else which needs doing! Plenty of that around here, unfortunately. I'm determined to get the last of the signature blocks pieced and maybe even cut the setting triangles this afternoon.

M&Ms have this effect on me. With all the unfinished projects around here, I need to buy a case or two of M&Ms to keep me on track!

A birthday quilt

2011-08-04T12:35:00.005-05:00

Hmmm, I obviously took a blog holiday.

Its been really difficult to get motivated in the heat and drought in Kansas. The other day it was 112 degrees here and everything is drying up (except the weeds). I water my flowers, shrubs, trees and our yard almost daily just to keep them alive. Last night we finally got rain - a little over a half inch - but the straight line winds that hit Wichita missed us. I'm very grateful for that!

OK, what have I been doing? My big quilting project has been and still is the signature quilt I'm making for my daughter's 30th. birthday. She's convinced I won't get it done for another ten years but I have all but one of the blocks embroidered and am now piecing the blocks. My dd chose a scrappy look made with Jo Morton fabrics. The on point blocks will have sashing between them so obviously not even sewn together but here's a sneak preview:

I was surprised how much I'd missed embroidering so there may be another crazy quilt or embroidery project in my future. In fact, I'm pretty sure there will be a traditional crazy quilt start up soon. I have no idea why they attract me but they do.

I'm also still working on my clamshell diamonds and the selvage quilt. One of these days (soon?) there's got to be a finish to show you!

Finally, a blog update

2011-07-11T20:45:00.002-05:00

A week ago: "Today I'm going to update my blog."

A few days later: "Today I'm really going to update my blog."

A day later: "I really need to update my blog!"

Yesterday: "I really want to update my blog!!!"

This morning: "I'm going to update my blog today!!!"

Tonight: "NOW!"

I thought that once the quilt show was over things would slow down a little but not so far. I do have hopes of more free time next week though.

My daughter's turning 30 this week and our church's ladies ministry is having a decade party for her. I've been involved with some of the preparation for it and since dd reads my blog, I can't share anything about the party. Ha!

However, I can tell you about the signature quilt I'm making for her. I asked the ladies at church to sign a block and include a favorite Bible verse. So far, 38 blocks have been turned in with just a few left out there. I'm grateful to everyone who wrote large because my embroidery looks pretty good on those blocks and I'm grateful to those who wrote small for providing me with a challenge! My embroidery skills are improving and small cursive letter e's no longer look like blobs. I have over half of the blocks embroidered and will share more about this project later.

Its really hot and dry here in southcentral Kansas but with consistent watering, I've managed to keep my flowers blooming! This is the hibiscus plant I accidentally brought home from my mom's flower garden. The bees love it!

I like sunflowers and I even like daylilies even though they're starting to spread a little too much. I think this fall I need to dig and move a few plants because somehow they're growing nearly on top of each other! The birds help me plant the flower bed each year by dropping in sunflower seeds they get from the bird feeder. I'm no better a gardner than they are because I seem to have planted the tall flowers in front of the shorter ones.

PS - I like sunflowers so much that I deadhead them!

The Joy of Paper Foundation Piecing ...

2011-06-24T14:11:00.003-05:00

I'm afraid I'm not so joyful about picking the paper foundation off blocks! Its really time consuming. To answer a few questions I know you might have: Yes, I did use newspaper for the paper foundation. I haven't noticed any news print being left behind on the blocks but I did make sure to use older newspaper.

I'm back to working on the selvage spiderweb quilt. Since I took this picture, I've added more blocks and have decided to make it a twin size quilt. Hope to begin sewing it together next week and I may add borders if I can find the right fabric.

Here's another quilted wallhanging I really liked at our recent show. Donna Bradbury pieced it and calls it "Strips & Curves in the Bedroom". Kim Hull did a wonderful job machine quilting it.

Just a few from the show!

2011-06-22T09:25:00.003-05:00

I wish I could just set up a slide show of the wallhangings at the "Once Upon a Wall ... " quilt show but instead I'll show just a few that really spoke to me!

"Storm at Sea" made by Jenny Hutson, measures approx. 22x22 - Wonderful piecing!

This cross-stitch and quilted wallhanging was made by Ann Boese. - I admit to having a thing about barns! In fact, I wish this wallhanging were mine.

"Apple Pie" by Fran Rogers - My favorite color is red/pink and love apples so this one can come live at my house anytime!

"Spring Storm" made by Colleen Westerman, 25x27 - She told me she spent months getting the applique colors just right and I believe her.

Janett Wiebe's "Midnight Stars" - I've got the perfect place for this one!

Blogger won't allow me to put in any more quilts so I'll post a few more next time but right now, a quilting project is calling my name!

Someone's been eating my oatmeal!

2011-06-19T06:05:00.002-05:00

Today is the last day of the "Once Upon a Wall ... " quilted wallhanging show at the Mennonite Heritage & Agricultural Museum in Goessel, Kansas! If you're within driving distance, we hope you can come out this afternoon.

This is a photo of the Goldilocks & the Three Bears setting.
Baby Bear is stumped as to who could have eaten his oatmeal and broken his chair. Mama Bear is shocked that someone did it and Papa Bear is definitely unhappy. Goldilocks is no where to be seen and truthfully, I wouldn't like to be in her shoes with Papa Bear looking like that!

I'll share some of my favorite quilts from the show later this week. We begin tearing down at 5 this afternoon and I'll likely be a bit on the tired side for a few days. However, I'm already thinking of which quilt project to pick up and work on.

See you soon!

"Once upon a wall ..."

2011-06-14T20:20:00.002-05:00

I've been busy making the fairy tale sets for the museum's quilted wallhanging show and very soon the show will begin. In fact, the "Once upon a Wall ..." quilted wallhanging show is just three days away, on Friday. We're in the middle of hanging wallhangings - everything from 8x11"-ish to 92x92" and even a 3-D butterfly!

Here's a scan of the counter card for our show.

If you are anywhere near us in Kansas, I hope you come see the show!

I've been realizing that even though I'm several years over 50, I can still do quite a bit but my body is sure telling me that setting up the show is taking a lot out of me this time! For the past several days, I've been setting up the fairy tale settings and hanging wallhangings. Every morning I wake up stiff and sore and when I get back on the ladder to hang another wallhanging, I can almost hear my body saying something like this. "What? Are you kidding me? Didn't you hurt enough yesterday?!?" Apparently not because tomorrow I'll be back at it and probably on Thursday too.

I'm thankful for a very patient understanding helper who, so far, hasn't run screaming from the museum when I've repinned a wallhanging for the umpteenth time because its "just a little crooked"! In fact, I heard her say something like, "I think its about 1/16th of an inch off. Can you move it?"

I'm thankful for the museum director who's been trying to get her own work done in the middle of creating a quilt show booklet and answering questions like "Where is the (fill in the blank)?" and "Can you call So and So and ask him where the watchamacallits are?"

By this time next week, the aches and pains and the frustrations will be in the past. Cleanup and quilt return will hopefully be done. I'll share photos of my favorite quilts with you on this blog.

At some point, I'm going to wake up and my legs aren't going to be aching from getting up and down ladders or standing on cement all day. At that point, I'm thinking of going into seclusion in my sewing room. Just me, my Pfaff, the ironing board/iron and fabric - I can hardly wait!

PS - a blogging question:

I haven't been able to read many blogs lately but when I have and tried to comment, I can't. Blogger keeps telling me I need to sign in but I already am. ??? Any ideas on how to fix that?

Window Peeker!

2011-05-28T05:53:00.003-05:00

Its been too long since I was here last!

I've been busy trying to make Little Red Riding Hood stop peeking in windows, wondering how to make Jack's beanstalk look less like a cornstalk and more like a beanstalk and, I think I just figured this one out, how to make a bowl of fake oatmeal! This weekend my goal is to paint Cinderella's pumpkin coach. This will involve glitter which I'll probably find all over the house for years!

I've been enjoying the flowers blooming in my garden and spending some relaxing time out on our deck. Here's a picture of my helper, Charlie. For those of you who are owned by a cat(s), do you find they have favorite plants? Charlie ignores the mint (in the same family as catnip) but loves the butterfly bush but only a certain one!

We've finally been getting some rain so everything looks nice and green.

I'm especially happy with the poppies this year. They reseed themselves wherever they feel like growing and usually not where I would like them to grow. Every spring, I find them in the lawn and under shrubs, right next to the house foundation, etc. This year I was able to get some started and bloom in the actual flower bed!

Clamshell update: I'm working on stitching the second diamond together for this month. However, there aren't many days left in the month so I don't know if I'll make my goal of finishing it.

Do you have a tradition of taking flowers to loved ones' graves on Memorial Day? I always enjoy stopping at an old family cemetery in the country. I do have a relative buried there but I'm more interested in another grave which is literally covered with flowers someone planted there years ago - irises, roses and several I can't identify. Someone must have loved this person very much to have planted the flowers and cared for her grave in this way. To me, it seems a wonderful way to be remembered.

Have a very happy and safe Memorial Day!

Clamshell Diamond #11

2011-05-11T21:01:00.000-05:00

This past week has been a hard one for me. I came down with a cold and although I'm doing better, its not gone yet. My husband now has it too so it will be quite awhile before life is back to normal around here.

I'd planned to work on the quilt show's fairy tale settings but was just too miserable. Instead I was able to do some hand work and finished clamshell diamond #11 which is in the middle of the photo. In the lower right corner, is #12 waiting to be glued together. I'm not sure about some of the fabric placements so that may change.

Since I've used up most of my favorite colors of clamshells, its getting more difficult to get a good color layout so I've begun cutting out more of the brighter colored clamshells. I think my favorites are the clamshells made from Kaffe Fasset fabrics probably because the colors are so intense. A few years ago, I never would have believed I'd write that!

Be back soon!

Wolfie!

2011-05-04T14:38:00.007-05:00

You may have to use your imagination but here he is!

This is the wolf I made for the Little Red Riding Hood setting in the "Once Upon a Wall ... " Quilt Show coming up on June 17, 18 & 19 at the Mennonite Heritage & Agricultural Museum in Goessel, Kansas.

This year, the show will feature quilted wall hangings hung in fairy tale settings.

I have more work to do on Wolfie and the rest of the Little Red Riding Hood set but wanted to share him with you. If you can't guess where we are in the story, the big bad wolf has scared off Little Red Riding Hood's grannie and has donned her nightie and night cap to wait for Little Red Riding Hood. By the way, he does have two eyes but unfortunately the angle I took the photo at makes him look like he has only one eye.

How do you like his reading material?

Clamshell Update

2011-04-29T10:00:00.003-05:00

I've picked it up again!

Thanks to a few questions from Jan at the latest Prairie Quilt Guild meeting about my clamshell progress, I've started hand piecing it again. The middle diamond block is my latest finish which makes it block #10. I was sure it was block #11 but after a fruitless search in my sewing room for an errant block, I've decided that was wishful thinking!

Here are all the blocks I've finished so far on my design wall. Ten blocks finished, only 8 more full blocks, 10 half blocks and 4 quarter blocks to go. After that there's a narrow sashing to hand stitch between the blocks and finally borders to add.

In other words, this is a long term project. As I see it, I have two choices. Either I can decide to make it a wall hanging instead of a queen size quilt or I can persevere but I may have to take it to the nursing home when I move there! Just kidding, I hope to have it done much sooner.

Other news: I have finished the wolf! He is generating a little bit of a love/hate relationship with everyone who sees him. I'm afraid the sentiment is running to the "spooky" side. Pictures coming soon!

No such thing as just one bunny!

2011-04-18T14:27:00.005-05:00

These paper mache Easter bunnies have seen a little wear and tear but I wanted to show them to you because they hold so many happy memories for me!

This is an Easter tradition my family had when I was growing up and even on into our adult years. After the traditional ham dinner and waiting for our moms to do some initial dinner clean up, we cousins were cautioned to stay away from the windows and not to peek while our grandparents and perhaps some of the aunts hid our Easter bunnies. Instead of looking for Easter eggs, we roamed the farm searching for the bunny with our name on it. Each held candy in the basket on their backs and hollow bodies.

There were always one or two of us cousins who couldn't find theirs but after some cryptic hints, we were all happily eating our Easter candy. Then came the fun part for us kids, we got to hide our grandparents' bunnies! Some years we made it easy but other years it was a challenge.

This tradition repeated itself at my parents' house. One year I remember hiding my dad's Easter bunny on top of the basketball goal which took him a really long time to find. The silo, of course, was off limits but that would have been a really good hiding place!

Do you see the silver box in the wheelbarrow? A few nights ago, I went to our church's Ladies' Late Night meeting and this is the craft we made. I'm used to working with fabric so folding my own paper box was new for me. Inside are some tiny cards and envelopes we also made. The silver box represents the words we say to each other and our families - hopefully an encouraging gift!

I'm always looking for new recipes for delicious desserts and snacks so here's what I took as a snack for the Ladies' meeting - Chocolate Dipped Brownies.

Chocolate Dipped Brownies

Bake your favorite recipe of brownies and allow to cool completely.

In fact, it might be better to bake them a day ahead of time.

After they are completely cooled, cut them into small cubes and place them on a wax paper lined cookie sheet. Mine were about one inch square. Freeze for approximately one hour. This is to help the brownie cubes keep its shape and also to minimize crumbs.

Melt chocolate dipping candy using whichever technique you prefer - stovetop or microwave. Using two plastic forks with the middle tines broken out, dip each frozen brownie cube into the melted chocolate completely coating it. Try to shake off any excess chocolate. Place chocolate dipped brownie cubes back on the wax paper lined cookie sheet to dry.

Decorate tops with candies, nuts, chocolate chips, coffee beans or whatever you'd like. You could also swirl melted white chocolate on the top to dress up the brownie cubes even more!

These were really good!

Is it really "finished"?!?

2011-04-04T12:41:00.005-05:00

That's what I'm asking myself. Am I sure its really "done"???

It seems like so long ago when I started with this stack of scrap fabrics. I believe it was only back in December but it seems like much, much longer.

This was the beginning of my version of Bonnie Hunter's 2010 mystery quilt, Roll, Roll Cotton Boll! (AKA Peppermint Hot Fudge Brownie Delight and today I feel like I really need one of those even though its chilly out!)

I sure went through a lot of learning experiences working on this quilt. Let's just say that my new seam ripper got a good work out. I remember nearly giving up when I found out shortly before Christmas that the quilt needed 600 HSTs! When I finally had it all pieced together, I didn't think it was big enough for our bed so I added another narrow green border and a brown border too. I was concerned there'd be some shrinkage because of the machine quilting but I don't think it would have been a problem.

Here's the quilt on our extra bed. My bed has a taller mattress so the quilt won't seem quite so large on it. So ... I thought my version of Bonnie Hunter's RRCB was finished. I even made a quilt label for it and hand stitched it on. I should have known that it couldn't have really been over. Unfortunately, the quilt had to go back to the machine quilter for some touch ups. These were done quite quickly and now ...

I'm happy (very) to say that RRCB/AKA Peppermint Hot Fudge Browne Delight is done, done and done! Time to move on to some of my Works In Progress of which there are many.

Giveaway Winner!

2011-03-20T20:14:00.002-05:00

Oohhhh, I think I must have made this giveaway question too easy. You all guessed the correct answer - the wolf from Little Red Riding Hood! So, I had my random number generator (my daughter) pick a number and then I matched it to its corresponding comment. Merilyn from Quiltminstrel is the winner of my giveaway! As soon as she sends me her mailing address, I'll put the prize into the mail.

Tomorrow, I hope to start making the wolf. I think it will be a challenge and I hope its recognizable so when people see it, they don't say, "What a nice lion!"

Thanks everyone for entering my giveaway!

PS - I picked up my RRCB quilt (AKA Peppermint Hot Fudge Brownie Delight) from the machine quilter and am getting ready to put the binding on. I'm also in the process of making a machine appliqued quilt block for someone (gift). Unfortunately, I can't tell you much about it because its for someone who reads my blog. I decided to do fusible applique and now need to stitch around the edges. Some of the pieces are less than a 1/2" square! Its been a really, really long time since I've done something that small so I sure hope they turn out nice.

Time for a Giveaway!

2011-03-16T15:26:00.005-05:00

Here's what you could win -

4 fat quarters of Isabella by Skipping Stones Studio for Clothworks

plus other goodies which will make their way into the package!

A side note - I found out today that its National American Chocolate week. I've never needed a time frame for an excuse to eat chocolate but I guess this makes it more legitimate! What's a giveaway without chocolate?!?

You might win the prize if you can guess what I'm going to do with this (below) and the corresponding fairy tale:

First off, what is it? This is a coyote form used in taxidermy. Before we go any further, I do want you to know that I'm not taking up taxidermy! I borrowed form #4 from a young man at our church who does taxidermy. I do not plan to keep #4! Bear with me now because this could be a long explanation.

For those of you who have read this blog for awhile, you might remember that I helped coordinate "Covered With Love", a doll and crib quilts show, at the Mennonite Heritage & Agricultural Museum last June. We set up scenes with the doll quilts showing how a little girl might have played with her doll. You can see some of these in the pictures at the end of this post.

This year's quilt show theme is "Once Upon a Wall ... " featuring quilted wallhangings displayed in fairy tale settings. For one of the settings, I will need an animal and I'm going to have to make him because I can't think of an inexpensive way to include him otherwise. Basically what I need from the coyote form is the facial structure and I may have to pad that a little. I'm not going to use the body.

OK here it is, to win the giveaway prize tell me what you think the animal might be and which fairy tale he'll represent! I hope this isn't too hard, just use your imagination! Make your comment on this post only and please be sure I can notify you by e-mail. The giveaway contest will be open until 8 pm CST on Sunday, March 20. I'll draw the winner from the correct responses at that point.

Here are some fairy tales to choose from:

Goldilocks & the Three Bears

Rumplestiltskin

Rapunzel

The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe

Little Red Riding Hood

Cinderella

Jack & the Bean Stalk

Chicken Little

Hansel & Gretel

And a clue:

1. The background fabric under the Isabella fat quarters.

Looking forward to your guesses!

Some scenes from the 2010 "Covered With Love" Doll & Crib Quilts Show at the Mennonite Heritage & Agricultural Museum in Goessel, Kansas. Enjoy!

Back to School!

Washing dolly's clothes

This was the final scene, a doll choir singing Handel's

"Hallelujah Chorus".

National Nap Day, Weirdness & Delicious too

2011-03-14T14:37:00.006-05:00

Today's National Nap Day! Did you get one?

It was started back in 1999 and happens every first Monday after Daylight Savings Time begins. I'm sorry to say I don't think I'll get one today. I hardly ever nap because having one seems to make it more difficult for me to sleep at night. However, I do regularly fall asleep on the couch in the evenings. We have two couches. If I sit on the full size one, I can stay awake but not long after I sit down on the loveseat, I'm asleep no matter how much I fight it!

There is some weirdness going on here. Maybe winter has finally gotten to me but every now and then I have to do something weird and now's the time!

Anybody know what this is? In the next few days, I'll be back with news about a GIVEAWAY! Hint: it will be quilting related and don't worry, you won't be winning whatever this is! Kind of doubt that the average quilter would have much use for it and I know the person I borrowed it from wants it back!

This recipe, however, isn't weird, its delicious! I made it today for a function my daughter's going to tonight and thought someone out there might like a new recipe. After 31 years of cooking, I'm always on the look out for something new and easy to make, especially something for company or to take as refreshments. Hope you enjoy this as much as we do!

HOT PEPPER PEACH CHEESEBALL

2-8oz. packages cream cheese, softened
1/3 jar of Hot Pepper Peach Preserves
1 heaping tablespoon chopped onions
1 level tablespoon chopped jalapenos
grated Monterey Jack cheese

Cream together well and chill for about one hour. Form into a ball and roll in Monterey Jack cheese. (I usually omit the cheese, just spoon it into a bowl and call it a dip.)

Keep chilled until ready to use. Serve with your favorite cracker. It can be prepared up to 48 hours prior to serving.

Company coming!

2011-03-05T06:15:00.002-06:00

Company's coming and someday spring will too!

The entryway is one of my favorite places to hang a quilt in our house. This wool patch quilt is actually the only known "quilt" to have been made in my family. Unfortunately, we don't know who made it or when. It's probably made from men's suit samples which have been put together randomly. I especially like the different colors of feather stitching around each block.

Our son and daughter-in-law from Florida will be here visiting for a few days so I'm taking a short blogging break. See you soon!

Cottage Cheese Containers

2011-03-03T20:31:00.005-06:00

My parents were fairly thrifty people probably because they lived through the Great Depression and its aftermath. As with most others who lived during this time, they amassed a large collection of stuff to re-use, just in case. I know because I found their stash of stuff when it came time to sort through the farmhouse. Some of those things were cottage cheese containers, shoe boxes, corks, wrapping paper, spools, etc. They did it for economic reasons because going green hadn't even been thought of yet. As a kid, I thought re-using stuff was embarrassing but guess what?

I'm starting to wonder if I could have a problem with "just in case"! It all began when I read that quilters were re-using clean fruit and salad to-go containers for sorting quilting supplies and blocks. (Our version of cottage cheese containers.) That's about when I started looking at containers a little differently and realized potential quilting containers are everywhere!

One evening my husband and I even debated whether we should use the divided or undivided clear plastic containers for our to-go food from the grocery store salad bar. The dilemma: Quilt blocks cannot lay flat in a divided container so you should choose an undivided container. However if you choose an undivided container, your salad will get all mixed together and certain ingredients will touch each other! Help. Just so you know, we settled on divided containers. I guess food still wins over quilting!

This blogpost is just a little light hearted poke at our own tendency to save stuff. They probably aren't the same things our parents saved but I wonder if my kids will find ceiling high stacks of clear plastic to-go food containers.

I can just hear them say, "What in the world was Mom thinking?!?"

unQuilty Domesticity

2011-03-01T06:20:00.004-06:00

Remember this plant?

Its the Angelwing Begonia which outgrew my mother's apartment. She referred to it as, "The Elephant Plant" and with a little imagination you can see why she did. I broke off a few of the longer branches and gave away the plant that grew from them.

It grew even leggier than in the first photo and measured about 44 inches tall. While looking for care instructions for it on the internet, I found out that Angelwing Begonias can grow up to 5 feet tall in ideal conditions! I don't think my house qualifies as ideal conditions but taking no chances, I finally had enough and decided to prune it down and now it looks like this!

To see it is quite a shock and even my husband feels sorry for the plant! I could have cut off all of the stems at 6 inches as the website recommended but lost my nerve. We weren't really sure if it would live or die.

I'm happy to report that there are new little growths appearing from the stems so it may live afterall. I planted all the cuttings and leaves from the original plant and if all of them live (highly doubtful), I will have 15 new plants. Since I don't need or want more than one, I plan to give away a few and donate the rest to the upcoming MCC sale. No promises though because quite a few of the baby plants look rather sad.

So what else have I been doing instead of quilting?

Last week when my husband moved our older mattress set and frame to make way for a new set, I had a bout of spring cleaning. It was just something I could not ignore. I knew it would be dusty under where the mattress had been so I was ready to tackle vacuuming and wiping down woodwork. My next step did me in though. I didn't think the light bulbs were bright enough to let me see if I was really getting things clean or not so I opened the window shade blinds. When I did that, the lace curtains and swag fell off and the blinding sunshine revealed all! Yes, I had quite a dust and cobweb collection going. Instead of an hour clean up, I spent the entire day moving furniture, washing every textile in the room, cleaning windows and mirrors, wiping down all the woodwork, sorting and putting away things and oh yes, vacuuming. I tried to think of it as aerobic exercise!

I was tired at the end of the day but when I got up on Wednesday, I decided to tackle the living room, dining room and kitchen. I have to admit I didn't clean as thoroughly in those rooms as in the bedroom but they got cleaner than normal. I'm not sure what came over me except to blame it on spring cleaning fever! It is nice, though, to walk into our bedroom and find it clean.

Read this on an LQS' sign:
Whenever I get the urge to clean, I lay down till it passes!

Since this is supposed to be a quilting blog, I'll say that when I'm not tormenting plants or ridding my house of dust, I'm working on Bonnie Hunter's Criss Cross Applesauce quilt and thinking about how to fix the Selvage Spiderweb quilt. Looking forward to some quilting time at the end of this week!

Color Therapy, I need some

2011-02-15T13:02:00.005-06:00

Do you force yourself to sew/piece/quilt when life is not turning out like you expect? Do you let things bother you and affect your sewing? Or are you an even keel kind of person?

I sure wish I could say that I leave my emotions and frustrations at the sewing room door but that's not the case. Some days just playing with fabric helps me de-stress but unfortunately that sometimes isn't the case.

I've always felt a little guilty for setting aside a project and working on something else but that's exactly what I should have done last week. I've been piecing the selvage spiderweb blocks together and here are two rows of the blocks. Take a closer look at the web on the far left. Half of it is colorful and maybe even a bit too red but what happened on the other half? Brown, brown, brown. Guess what kind of mood I was in?!? I realize God made every color beautiful but brown is just not one of my favorites.

Some of you might not even notice the brownness but every time I see that row, I'm reminded of something very disappointing that happened in my family last week. Its not going to go away and I can't change it, just my attitude toward it.

I'm stepping away from the selvage spiderwebs for at least a few days and maybe even a week or two. No matter how badly I'd like to finish this quilt, I need to wait until I'm excited to work on it again. I'll pick out my brown spiderweb, change it out with some more colorful pieces and restitch it one of these days but not now. Most of the time, you can have a do over on a quilt but usually not in life. We all live with the consequences of our choices.

So what am I working on? This past weekend, I purchased Bonnie Hunter's new book, Scraps & Shirttails II. Most of you know I've been trying to sew down my "Resource Center" so I'm always looking for projects that are scrappy and I found several in this book I'd like to make!

From the moment I saw the "Criss Cross Applesauce" quilt, I knew I wanted to make it so I've begun to cut out the pieces. I hope to reduce my green fabric by half and the reds probably by that much too. I'm not even half done with cutting but this step has been very therapeutic so far. That could be because there's a new blade in my rotary cutter or maybe its because I like the idea of using up some of my old fabric or very likely because its the excitement of a new project!

Here in Kansas the snow is melting away! We're enjoying mild temperatures this week and very possibly next week too. I highly doubt this is spring but believe me, I'm enjoying every minute of the weather this week!

All done, I think!

2011-02-03T10:12:00.007-06:00

Its done, its finally done!

Yes, I've finally finished my "Roll, Roll, Cotton Boll" AKA "Peppermint Hot Fudge Sundae Delight" quilt top! I've been working steadily on it for at least six weeks and have done a lot more picking out on this quilt than any other project in recent memory. I'm pretty sure that was because of my own lack of quilting skills and "let me do it my way" attitude!

I may add a label to the backing before I take it to the machine quilter. I've always wanted to do that but usually don't. For some reason, I always wonder if I'll get the placement right and the label will be half on the quilt and half off or if the machine quilter will get it straight. Not sure who would notice if the label was straight or not when the quilt's on our bed!

So yesterday when I finished sewing the backing together and pressing it, I felt a little adrift. Kind of like "Its done so now what?" Believe me, it isn't like I have a shortage of projects to work on so its on to my next UFO or PhD project, whichever initials you prefer! And that project is the selvage spiderweb quilt.

I'll be delivering the quilt top and backing to a machine quilter next week when its supposed to be a little warmer and will probably not get the quilt back till late March.

Heat wave here today with an expected high of 20 degrees! Much, much better than yesterday. I hope all of you who were affected by the storm are doing OK and staying warm!

Jewels in the Crown, Sweet Fellowship!

2011-01-31T13:13:00.005-06:00

Just checking in to let you know I'm still alive and well, still trying to get my added borders sewn on to the RRCB quilt and, no surprise, have started a new project! Who was supposed to be in charge of keeping me from doing that anyway?!?

This is the January block for Morning Glory Designs' free BOM called, Jewels in the Crown. If this pieced BOM looks like something you might like to make, don't wait too long before going to her blog for the instructions. I like it because it reminds me of a stained glass church window. My goal is to use up some of my batik fabric scraps on this project.

I did finally get the pieced border to fit right on my RRCB quilt but have decided to add another border to make the quilt a little larger for our queen size bed. I hate it when quilts aren't large enough! Of course, part of the problem may be that one of us likes to hog the blankets at night, ahem. Anybody else know what I mean? OK, enough personal information!

Yesterday we got together with several other families at a church fellowship meal and several of the ladies there found out about this blog. If you were there last night and decided to come check out my blog, thanks and come back again! Thanks to everyone else who comes by here too!

Also, I took a dessert to share at the meal last night. Kind of nervy of me since I'm trying to lose weight, right? I made it through the evening without splurging but I'm wondering how many parents had to scrape their kids off the ceiling last night because my dessert definitely fell into the "SUGAR" category. I know one or two ladies were wondering about the recipe so I'm going to include it in this post. It made the rounds on some blogs last year and I'm not sure where I saw it first so I can't give credit to the creator but I printed it from Pioneer Woman's blog. Enjoy!

Apple Dumplings

2 Granny Smith apples, or whatever apple you have available

2 cans crescent rolls
2 sticks butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

cinnamon

1 small can Mountain Dew

Peel and core apples. Cut apples into 8 slices each. Roll each crescent roll triangle around an apple slice. Place in a 9x13 buttered pan. Melt butter, then add sugar and barely stir. Add vanilla, stir, and pour over apples. Pour Mountain Dew around the edges of the pan. Sprinkle with cinnamon and bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes. Serve with ice cream and spoon some of the sweet sauce from the pan over the top.

This is a quote from the recipe I printed out,
"WARNING: PREPARE THIS DISH AT YOUR OWN RISK. IT IS BEYOND IMAGINABLE."

It was definitely a time of sweet fellowship last night!

:( Unhappiness is ...

2011-01-21T10:24:00.004-06:00

... gray overcast skies,

waking up with an achy hip,

family drama,

and then there's this:

"This" means I will need to take off all four of the borders it took me all week to sew on. Sew on correctly, I thought, ha. If you can't see what's wrong, the corner unit is supposed to match up to the side borders but its off by quite a bit so no amount of stretching or easing would work. Trimming or sewing the seams deeper would only make the squares obviously smaller than the others so all that is left (unless someone can offer me a miracle fix) is to pick out all of the border seams and try again.

I wanted to share this frustration with you just to show some of the newer quilters and the people who read this blog just for the eye candy that not all always goes well and perhaps not all is even fixable.

This morning when I saw what I'd done, I really wanted to wad the whole quilt top into a ball, stuff it into a grocery bag, stomp on it a few times and toss it onto my P.I.G. (Projects In Grocery bag) pile. However, I hate to give up so it will not be a P.I.G., at least not today.

Since then, I've pounded out some of my frustration and unhappiness on the treadmill and I've decided to pick out the border seams and try again. I'm going to "treat" myself to a new seam ripper and go to it tomorrow. Believe it or not, I've still been using the seam ripper I got for my high school home ec sewing class until now because I can't find another one I like. Those of you who know me can calculate how old that ripper must be! I'm just amazed it still cuts thread.

Since I've told you what unhappiness at my house is and I don't want to leave anyone in that frame of mind, go over to Loft Creations to see what happiness is!

I guessed! I won!

2011-01-19T18:37:00.003-06:00

Look what came in the mail for me!

I won Staci's giveaway and she sent me a fabric bundle of linen/cotton blend fabrics from Canton Village Quilt Works. I still can't believe I came close to guessing how much her scraps weigh but who am I to argue?!? I needed a pick me up of colorful fabrics so Thank You again Staci!

I should have learned by now not to predict when I'll finish a quilt as I did in my last post. I'm finally ready to put the borders on my RRCB aka Peppermint Hot Fudge Brownie Delight quilt. No pictures yet but they're coming soon. It really is a pretty quilt and I'm looking forward to having it machine quilted and on our bed!

I've already started thinking about my next PhD (Projects Half Done) - the selvage spiderweb quilt. I laid out the pieces I've already finished and here it is.

I would like to make it a bed size quilt but how large it will be depends on how many selvages I have. I do know that there are selvages everywhere in my sewing room and when this quilt is finished, I'm planning a big clean up job in there!

Full Steam Ahead!

2011-01-11T18:13:00.006-06:00

Progress on Bonnie Hunter's latest mystery quilt,

"Roll Roll Cotton Boll"!

All of the blocks are pieced and this afternoon I started sewing the rows together. Since the quilt is large, it needs a lot of space and so here it is laid out on our living room floor.

I'd like to get the rows sewn together tomorrow, square the top and start looking through my stash of green fabrics for possible border fabrics. I may not have enough of one fabric so do you think a scrappy narrow border would look good? No problem if I have to go to the quilt store as I need backing fabric for it anyway. I'll brave the really cold wind chills we're having for a trip to the LQS for some show and tell and shopping therapy!

Of course, there's one more step to this mystery quilt - the pieced final border. Its definitely going to take me some time but if I'm really dilligent and nothing happens to keep me from my sewing machine, I might be able to finish the quilt top by the end of the week. I am certainly hoping so anyway!

Bonnie Hunter has named this quilt "Roll Roll Cotton Boll" but today whenever I looked at the colors, I kept thinking "Peppermint Hot Fudge Brownie Delight", a hot fudge sundae made with peppermint ice cream served on a warm brownie. Mmmmmm, my favorite! I think I can identify better with a hot fudge sundae than a cotton boll so maybe a name change is in the works for my version!

Disappearing HSTs

2011-01-06T09:13:00.004-06:00

I'm working, as I can, on Quiltville's latest mystery quilt, Roll Roll Cotton Bowl and thought I'd give you an update. Actually the reason I'm posting is I'm probably just procrastinating getting started on it today! You've heard of the Disappearing Nine Patch pattern? This post is about my disappearing Half Square Triangles.

Here's one of the finished blocks from the step released last week. Don't be too impressed because I only have 3 of them done! I've finished parts of several steps but I can't seem to totally catch up on all of them. I have no idea why I'm struggling with the neutral string blocks but I'm way behind on them. Tomorrow, Bonnie Hunter will release the final step which may be a pieced border. What else would you do with 172 parallelograms from Step 6?

Okay, here is what my ironing board looks like today. Well not quite true, I've artistically covered the water stains my iron has left behind but otherwise, this is what's on it. You can see Half Square Triangles sewn into groups of 5 and a few stacks of groups of 4 which should be 5, more red/neutral fabric plus the triangle paper. Guess what that means?

This afternoon, I'm going to solve the mystery of the disappearing HSTs. A few days ago, I determined I was short a few of the red/neutral HSTs. Then the number ballooned up to being short 20 and last night I decided that even though I was really sleepy, I'd recount because that number couldn't be right. I was right it wasn't correct. I now need 37 more red/neutral HSTs! I even got out my trusty old calculator and rechecked. How could it be an odd number? Where have they all gone to? Are my math skills that bad or am I having a senior moment?!? I do know I better make those 37 HSTs and sew them into blocks before I'm short even more.

Part of the problem may be that I didn't get started on the RRCB step to make the red/neutral HSTs until almost Christmas Eve. When I saw that the quilt needed 600 HSTs, I nearly threw in the towel. I'm glad I hung in there but its kind of disappointing to think you have enough made and then have to go back and make more.

I used to think I'd like an entire bed quilt made out of HSTs. I'm rethinking that but you know, I have a short memory so who knows what my quilting future will hold?!?

PhD fun!

2011-01-02T18:43:00.008-06:00

Time for a new start on my quilting projects so I've joined the PhD Quilt Challenge!

PhD stands for Projects Half Done and I know I have more than these three but I'm challenging myself to finish the following projects:

These are some of the blocks for the selvage quilt. I've pieced more blocks but don't have enough done yet to finish the quilt. It will be twin sized, at least. Thanks to everyone who has donated selvages! I'm hoping I have enough now to finish but I may need more later.

My second PhD challenge quilt is this clamshell quilt which I want to make into a queen size quilt. Its all hand pieced and progress just depends on how much time I have to stitch by hand. During October, I was able to complete 7 blocks but it took me all of November to finish the next block and here it is January and I'm still working on the last one. Pease ignore all the mess to the left. My quilting room is in serious need of reorganization and decluttering!

I've been working on this Quiltville mystery quilt lately when I've managed to find time to spend in my quilting room. The quilt is called "Roll Roll Cotton Boll". I'm struggling to get those string blocks done and I'm in the middle of piecing the rows of HSTs. This Friday, Bonnie Hunter will reveal the next step which I think will be a pieced border. Help, I feel like I'm falling further and further behind! As with the other projects, just not enough time to piece lately.

I'm for sure not getting anywhere fast when I make mistakes like the one in the block above. I was so pleased I hadn't chopped off any of the points on the HSTs that I didn't notice for quite a while that something was wrong! How could I have missed that? I really hate to pick out seams but I fixed it and have been careful, so far, to not repeat that mistake.

I'll be checking back in weekly to let you know how I'm doing on the challenge. I want these quilts finished by the end of June but if they were done tomorrow, it would be even better! There's always another project lurking in my brain but why have they all been bed sized lately?!?

So many quilts, so little time.

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-22T12:26:00.002-06:00

Wishing you all a very blessed and meaningful Christmas

and a Happy New Year!

I'll be back soon with news about my current quilting projects. I confess with only just a little encouragement from Linda, I began working on Quiltville's latest mystery quilt, "Roll, Roll Cotton Boll" (RRCB). Did you know we grow cotton in Kansas?

So, now I'm working on three bed size quilts at one time - the Selvage Quilt, the Clamshell Quilt and RRCB. I may need an accountability partner to help keep me on track to finish all of them!

Again, Merry Christmas and many thanks for reading my blog,

Mayleen

Some of my favorites

2010-12-15T05:03:00.002-06:00

Our house will never look like something out of a magazine and we're happy with that! At Christmas, we like to "decorate" with things that are meaningful and have special memories for us. This is our piano which, unfortunately, no one plays anymore so I decorate it with some of my favorite Christmas things.

The framed, limited edition picture hanging on the wall is very special to us because I purchased it years ago as we were becoming more and more disappointed with the overcommercialization of Christmas. Week after week I admired this picture in the store but I wasn't able to afford to purchase it. Finally one of the clerks arranged that I could purchase it through layaway, something they normally did not do. I hope you can see the details in the picture but if not, try clicking on the photo to enlarge it. It's a boy and a girl surrounded by toys gazing into a nativity scene globe.

On the left is the Weihnachtspyramid we purchased when we lived in Germany 20+ years ago. We've set it up every year since then but rarely light the candles. Too afraid we might set the whole thing on fire! I need some advice though, how do you dust one of these? I'm seeing dust and someone has left a very noticeable thumbprint behind. I've tried using a clean, soft paintbrush to get between the little figurines but I invariably break one off and have to glue it back in. Any suggestions?

In the middle you might notice a kind of shabby looking creche. This was the nativity scene my parents owned and I remember my sister and I setting it up under the Christmas tree. I'm sure my parents purchased it secondhand because we rarely bought anything new. The stable is made of cardboard and there are still some wood shavings on the roof but its missing camels for the Wise Men and there is only one shepherd. A puzzler for me, although I think I know the answer, there are three angels?!? Obviously, two belong to something else but they all look like they could be one set. Whenever I see a nativity set for sale at an antique store, I always check if there are camels or shepherds which are the right size for my set but so far, I haven't found any.

And, last, in the very front is the book Take Joy! by Tasha Tudor opened to one of my favorite illustrations. For some reason, I just like the aqua color so much. I didn't know anything about Tasha Tudor until about ten years ago but now have several books about her and her gardens.

I enjoy baking cookies almost anytime of the year but I have several recipes I usually save especially for Christmas time. I've gathered them from magazines, books and friends so as I share them, I'll try to give credit to where its due. Here is the recipe I plan to bake today:

Poppy Seed Hearts

1 cup butter, softened

2/3 cup sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon poppy seeds

Lemon Frosting

In a large bowl, beat butter for 30 seconds. Beat in sugar and salt until combined. Beat in egg and vanilla until combined. Beat in as much of the flour as you can with the mixer. Stir in any remaining flour. Stir in poppy seeds.

Divide dough in half. Cover and chill for at least 2 hours or overnight. (If chilled overnight, let dough stand at room temperature for 15-30 minutes before rolling and cutting.)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. On a lightly floured surface, roll dough, half at a time, to a 1/4-inch thickness. Using 1 1/2-to 3 1/2-inch heart-shaped cookie cutters, cut out the dough. Place cutouts on ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake in the preheated oven for 10 to 12 minutes or until edges are lightly browned. Transfer cookies to wire racks; let cool.

Spread or pipe Lemon Frosting onto cookies.

Lemon Frosting

In a medium bowl, beat 6 tablespoons butter, softened, with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Gradually add 1 cup powdered sugar, mixing well. Add 1 tablespoon lemon juice. Gradually beat in another 1 cup powdered sugar. If necessary, stir in milk or lemon juice, 1 teaspoon at a time, to make a frosting of spreading or piping consistency.

This recipe is from the Better Homes & Gardens Christmas Cookies 2006 magazine, P. 103.

Enoy!

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-12T20:23:00.002-06:00

... Or perhaps a better title to this blog post would be,

"What have I been doing instead of blogging for nearly a month?"

Life seemed to get a little busy just before Thanksgiving. My husband was quite unexpectedly hospitalized with Atrial Fibrillation, no past history of heart issues. He's now on medication and doing much better. The day after he came home from the hospital, I received a letter from my doctor telling me I needed a repeat mammogram. Thank you to all of you who were praying for me, the second mammogram was clear! Since then there have been several more routine end of the year appointments to keep us busy.

Unfortunately, I haven't had much time to sew/quilt. In fact, yesterday was the first time I'd been able to sew in over 3 weeks. With the help of my family, I finally finished decorating for Christmas today. The picture above was taken in our entryway. I purchased the Drunkard's Path quilt but did make the table runner. I'm in the process of writing notes for Christmas cards, have done a little baking and the shopping is almost done so perhaps I'm making progress!

I'll blog again soon about the snail's pace progress I'm making on the clamshells and the selvage quilt. And, I'd like to share some special Christmas decorations and memories. Be back soon!

Selvage Quilt update

2010-11-14T20:18:00.003-06:00

I'm working on my selvage quilt blocks again. This is a photo of a block I put together to show some women who have given me selvages. No one could imagine what a spiderweb quilt made with selvages would look like!

Each block uses 8 subunits and there are usually 8-10 selvages in each subunit.

After working off and on sewing selvages together into subunits, I only have enough subunits to make almost 9 blocks. Obviously, I have to make more time for this quilt as I'd still like to make it a throw or twin size. If I stopped now it would only be about 45x45 or if I still wanted a throw or twin size, I'd have to add really wide borders!

Want to see one of my P.I.G.S.?

2010-11-08T09:31:00.007-06:00

OK, not this kind of pig! Sorry, I found this photo on the internet and just couldn't resist.

Here is one of my P.I.G.S. (Project In a Grocery Sack) Of course, someone might argue its really a Flimsie, which it is, but since its also not finished I'm calling it one of my P.I.G.S. Its been laying on an antique washstand in our bedroom for years because I haven't gotten around to having it machine quilted. One clue why it isn't quilted yet is that I dislike sewing together backings for large quilts. You can see the backing fabric under the quilt top in the photo.

I've always wanted to take beautiful photos of quilts hanging on a wash line gently blowing in the breeze. As you can see, its just a little too breezy in Kansas this morning. By the way, we're expecting winds of 20-30 miles per hour today which is not terrible but since its so dry, the fire risk is high.

Here's a photo of the quilt top taken inside. Its a large queen size and I'd originally thought of using this on our bed which probably will still happen if I ever get it to a machine quilter. I've been saving the border fabric for years and finally used most of it on this quilt.

A few more photos of the scrappy nine patches. Some of the fabric was old when I made the quilt. All of it is older now!

This past week I spent quite a bit of time at the hospital with my mother. She's back at her home but between the two of us, we have enough appointments to keep us busy! Thanksgiving seems to be right around the corner too. Its looking like I won't reach my goal of finishing all the full clamshell diamonds this month but that's OK. I'll check back in when I've actually accomplished some quilting!

Clamshell Update

2010-11-01T07:05:00.004-05:00

This was my first month working on the clamshells and here's my progress!

I have finished appliqueing 5 of the clamshell diamonds, 2 more of the diamonds are glue basted and another 2 more ready to be glue basted. As you can see, this is going to be a very bright quilt! I may name this quilt "Myriad Gardens" so I'm trying to think of each diamond as a garden. A little blue for water perhaps in the form of a fountain, bird bath or pond, some brown and green for trees, shrubs and grasses and some color for flowers. Some of the gardens have more attitude than others!

Sometimes its been difficult to use both my older fabrics and the contemporary fabrics. They might look OK together but don't have the ZING I think is needed. I'll soon need to cut more clamshells and am seeing which fabrics work better than others in this quilt.

This past weekend, my husband and I took a quick trip to Illinois to see his family. I was hoping to get more of the handwork done in the car but I quickly discovered how difficult it is to make tiny stitches in traffic! Threading a needle was a challenge too so I was only able to work on it during the evenings. I'm happy with my progress though and hope to finish or come close to finishing the full diamonds during November. Next will be the half diamonds and corners but at this point, I'm trying not to think about how much handwork is left to do!

Yes, you need a grid

2010-10-25T09:42:00.005-05:00

The next very important step for putting the clamshells together is one I probably would have ignored if I hadn't read the other clamshell blogs! You most definitely need a grid or some other way of keeping your clamshells straight and spaced evenly whether you intend to put them together in a straight row or another shape.

Some of the bloggers are using a fabric grid but after reading Journey of a Quilter's blog post about her grid drawn on paper, I decided to try it. I taped sheets of copy paper together to make a large enough grid for my diamond shape and started drawing lines. I'm not sure I can easily explain the lines but perhaps you can figure it out from my photos and her post.

Here I'm laying out my first clamshell diamond. Notice that not all the clamshells have turned out the same size so the grid is very important to keep them aligned. See the glue dots? I'm using a fabric glue to baste the clamshells together until I applique around each one. Just a word of warning, do not put too much glue on because it does seep through the fabric! Luckily, I had covered my paper grid with contact paper so its not sticking to the clamshells.

These are the first two diamonds on my design wall. I try out colors together until I'm "satisfied" and then transfer them to the grid to be glued together. I enjoy playing with the colors but working in my old fabrics has been frustrating sometimes. As my daughter said, "Somehow it all works together!"

These two diamonds have been hand appliqued together and more in the works!

Prepping clamshells the beginners way

2010-10-21T14:44:00.011-05:00

This is how I made my clamshells, a very basic way to prep applique which works for me! There may be some people who don't know about this technique so I'm documenting how I go about it.

This is a fat quarter from my stash and you can see that I've used part of it. I'd like to use it up so its prime fabric for any scrap quilting projects!

Also in the photo is a pigma pen but you could use any kind of marker or pencil you like to draw around the template. Important - I'm using heat resistant template material. I've traced my clamshell template from Kaffe Fassett's Museum Quilts book. It includes the 1/4 inch seam allowances around all edges. If I were to do this again, I might draft my own template because I don't think that my template is an exact copy. In fact, I know it isn't.

I choose to draw around the template on the reverse side of the fabric. For this particular quilt, I will need 4 clamshell templates of each fabric I use for each diamond except for the very middle shell. There are 49 clamshells in each diamond.

Here they are cut out. Its an easy project to do in the evenings.

After the clamshells are cut out, I sew a basting stitch around the top of the shell about 1/8 inch away from the edge. For the next step, I spray some spray starch into the lid of the starch can and allow it to bubble down. You will also need to make a finished size clamshell template.

Here's the clamshell with the finished size template laid on top. Again, its important the template be heat resistant. The blue line on the template transferred from the pigma pen ink I used to mark the fabric. This may not happen to you and it would probably be better if it didn't!

I carefully eyeball the template into the "correct" position. If I were to remake the template, I would make only the rounded curve on top the finished size. This would help keep the size more accurate and help with layout of the clamshells.

Next, I pull up the basting stitch to fit the curve of the clamshell and swab the edge with the spray starch using a Q-tip. Then lightly press with an hot iron. Careful about your fingers! Heat resistant template material can still get very hot.

Here's the finished product.

If I want this to be a bed size quilt, I will need 1226 clamshells according to the instructions. I find I can prep about 100 a day before my back starts to hurt! Of course, the 100 a day means no interruptions, no laundry, cooking or phone calls, etc.

I've begun stitching together the first diamond but there's another step in the process that I'll show you next time!

A clamming I will go!

2010-10-17T14:37:00.006-05:00

I'm not even sure where or when I purchased Kaffe Fassett's Museum Quilts book but I'm sure I bought it because of the colors of the quilt on the front cover! This has been one of those quilts that will not go away and I've finally given in. I'm going to make it or maybe I should say, try to make it! He calls this a "challenging quilt" which should tell me something, shouldn't it?!?

My version will be made from both my stash of the past 30 years and from contemporary fabrics some of which are Kaffe Fassett fabrics. When I first saw his fabrics, I thought they were so ugly! I was especially turned off by the cabbage and roses fabric. Ugh. BTW, fat quarters of both the yellow and purple color ways of this fabric are now in my posession. I've decided I like the intensity of the colors. I'm not sure yet how well they will play with the dusty rose and sunflower fabrics from my crafting days!

I've been busy cutting out clamshells and preparing them for putting together the diamonds. Because I took the "Process Pledge", I've decided to take you along on this journey so my next post will show you how I've been preparing the clamshells.

I've made over 700 of them so far so please (!) don't tell me I've done it wrong! I still need to make around 500 more but I've decided to start putting together the diamonds first. Does the amount of time spent on making something with that many pieces scare you? I found this quote on Journey of a Quilter's blog.

"Don't let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish

something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will

pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to

the best possible use."

- Earl Nightingale

To help keep me motivated and encouraged, I've joined the Clamshell Club a group of bloggers working on clamshell projects! If you'd like to see our progress, click on the button in the upper right hand column. Click again on the end of the month updates (top of the page) to see a list of bloggers who are sharing what they've accomplished on their projects.

Spiderweb Selvage Quilt update - I've found some wider bright selvages so I can make more blocks! I'd really like to finish this top before Christmas.

Giveaway Winner!

2010-10-15T09:32:00.005-05:00

Canadian Kristin is the winner of my Fall into Fall Quilters Giveaway!

She wins these beautiful fat quarters from Kathy Hall's Indian Summer fabrics, a package of John James quilting needles and a pair of stork scissors.

Thank you to everyone who entered the giveaway!

Its almost over!

2010-10-14T20:05:00.003-05:00

Probably some of the last blooms on the zinnia flowers for this butterfly to enjoy!

The Fall into Fall giveaway is almost over too! If you'd like to enter my giveaway, be sure to leave a comment on this post before tomorrow October 15th. at 9 AM CST.

Fall Color in my Home

2010-10-09T09:32:00.005-05:00

I'm not working on a fall project right now but I thought you might like to see some of the wallhangings I put up in my house each fall.

I made this wallhanging from a pattern called "Fall Memories" designed by Edyta Sitar. Cutting out and fusing the pieces for those skinny blackberry branches was interesting! I machine quilted the leaf veins, pumpkin and stitched in the ditch around the border but didn't do anything in the background. I wish I were a better machine quilter but I simply don't take the time to learn and practice.

Here's my Purple Pumpkin Berries quilt hanging in our entryway. The pattern is by Needl'Love. Keeping it real here - that mirror needs cleaning and I just cleaned it a week ago! Guess I didn't do a very good job. If you'd like to know why there are purple berries on this quilt, go to this post. You can also see better photos of it and the beautiful quilting done by a local machine quilter!

On the top of the dresser is a log cabin doll quilt I made and hand quilted for the Small Quilt challenge earlier this year.

This wallhanging was a BOM at a local quilt shop but I waited until it was nearly over to sign up and then waited even longer to work on it. Its called "Forgotten Farms" and was designed by Bee Creative. Its fusible applique and I did machine quilt it myself, a mistake as the stitches are very close together. I drape it from the plant ledge in our living room and secure it with some crocks.

Fall is really my favorite season of the year and its probably the time of the year when I start the most quilt projects! This year, however, instead of starting something new, I'm continuing to work on the selvage quilt and have also been mostly cutting and prepping clamshells from my stash.
Will give you a peek at my projects next week!

2010-10-06T20:53:00.002-05:00

Unofficially, it looks like cleaning the bathroom is winning the least favorite chore with dusting coming in second! I was surprised how many of you didn't like unloading the dishwasher or folding clean laundry. I wasn't surprised, though, about all of you who don't like cleaning ovens! Guess what I had to do tonight?

Dinner exploded quite literally when the glass baking pan shattered in the oven. There went the Kickin' Chicken and the baked home fries I was planning to serve for dinner tonight. The pan shattered into lots of pieces and there was sauce all over the oven. Thankfully, my oven is self cleaning but first I had to clean out the glass and wipe out as much of the sauce as possible. What a mess. I must have done a fairly good job of cleaning it out because so far, the smoke detector hasn't gone off! (That's what usually happens when I run the self-cleaning cycle on my oven.)

I've been feeling quite restless lately but I have been doing a little quilting as I have time. The stack of spiderweb selvage blocks is slowly increasing. BTW, Thank you to everyone who's contributed selvages recently! I'm trading off working on them with working on my clamshells.

Don't forget to enter the giveaway by leaving a comment about your favorite or least favorite cleaning chore on my previoius post!

Fall into Fall Giveaway!

2010-10-01T06:57:00.005-05:00

Today is October 1st. and the first day to enter my Fall into Fall giveaway! Yesterday I teased you with a photo of wheat as a hint of what you might win. Today I'm revealing the prize - Five fat quarters from Kathy Hall's latest group from Andover Fabrics, a package of John James Big Eye Quilting Needles and a stork scissors! I'm afraid the picture doesn't do justice to the beautiful colors in the fabric but trust me, they are beautiful. Yes, that's wheat on the lower right fat quarter!

Here's how to enter: Leave a comment on this blog post (and only this post) about what your favorite or least favorite cleaning chore is and why. You must include this in your comment to enter my giveaway. There must also be a link back to your blog or be sure to include your e-mail address. If you'd like to become a follower, that would be great but its not a requirement. I will ship international.

I shared with you yesterday that I don't like to clean wood blinds. The reason is that you have to wipe each slat down separately and I never feel I get all the dust and cat fur wiped off of them.

How about you, what's your favorite or least favorite cleaning chore?

P.S. - The drawing will be October 15, 9 AM CST.

Winner Update - The winner is Canadian Kristin who has been notified! Thanks everyone for entering my giveaway, Mayleen

Scratch & Sniff the Cleaning Solution

2010-09-30T19:39:00.007-05:00

Remember the sunflower hint for the give away? Well, scratch that as life happened and my idea for the giveaway didn't work out. Instead, this picture is a clue about what will be given away! No, you're not entering to win a bushel of wheat. Sorry.

I'll be posting about the prize Friday morning or early afternoon so check back then. You are eligible to enter my giveaway by leaving a comment on tomorrow's blog post. In your comment, you must tell me what your favorite or least favorite cleaning chore is and why. If you'd like to become a follower, that would be great but its not a requirement to enter.

Its been a crazy week here and tomorrow will probably be more of the same. I'm scheduled for my annual stress test in the morning and then need to finish doing some deep cleaning.

Does anyone else remember being taught in school back in the 1960's that by the time we were grown up, there would be self-cleaning houses? I keep wondering what happened to that idea! Today I cleaned the entry way, living room, staircase woodwork and part of the dining room. My least favorite "serious cleaning" job is cleaning the wood blinds and I cleaned six of them too. Husband just got done shampooing the living room and dining room carpet.

I smell like cleaning solution, my hands are dry and need lotion and muscles throughout my body are sending me messages like, "What were you thinking?!?" I'm going to stiff and sore tomorrow. I hope I don't smell like cleaning solution when I go to my appointment!

Even if cleaning is not one of my favorite things to do, I'm thankful I can still clean. Thankful I can still get up on a ladder, thankful I can still pick up furniture to move it around and even thankful I can get down on my hands and knees to scrub something if I need to. I may be a little slower but I can still get it done!

Remember, check back on Friday and leave a comment on Friday's post about your favorite or least favorite cleaning chore to enter my giveaway!

Giveaway Hint

2010-09-27T20:53:00.003-05:00

It seems that I brought home something from our trip besides good memories - a stomach bug. Ick. I think I'm finally on the mend and trying to catch up on life around home!

Remember the Fall into Fall giveaway? My prize will involve something similiar to what's in this photo. Be sure to check back on October 1 for all the details! Maybe a few more hints along the way.

Fall into Fall Giveaway

2010-09-22T17:00:00.004-05:00

Its the Fall Into Fall Quilters Blog Giveaway! Follow the link to Debi's blog to read all about it and see the other participating giveaway-ers. I'm sure that's not a word but that link is where you'll find links to all the bloggers who are hosting a giveaway. If you're a blogger and would like to be part of the giveaway, join the rest of us and sign up too.

You'll have to wait until October 1 to enter but I'll be giving you hints about what my prize might be and establishing a few rules too. The drawing will be October 15. Why does that sound so far away but yet I know its just around the corner?!?

The 5300 mile wedding trip

2010-09-20T11:14:00.018-05:00

The newlyweds: our son and his wife -

Brendan & Megan Vinson

married September 11, 2010

Nevada City, California

Our daughter, Micaela, is the middle bridesmaid.

... and now for just a few of our trip photos!

We decided to drive to California for the wedding and see some of the national parks and sites that we've always wanted to see. We were also trying to transport 10 pounds of frozen BBQ Brisket for the rehearsal dinner. If anyone needs tips on how to keep meat frozen for 10 days on a road trip, I can help you!

Hint: dry ice and the right way to pack the meat.

Okay, so this isn't a national park but we stopped to see Carhenge out in the middle of a pasture near Alliance, Nebraska. We'd heard about this place and when we saw the sign for it, decided to stop in.

Mount Rushmore National Memorial
We took an all day bus tour that included Mt. Rushmore and the area. I was so glad neither my husband nor I were driving the road through the Needles Eye Tunnel! I'd recommend the bus tour if you're planning a trip to the area.
We also saw the Crazy Horse Memorial on the tour.

Right before we left, we realized we'd need more dry ice to keep the brisket frozen. Its readily available in our area at grocery stores and Wal-Mart so after many phone calls and starting to panic, we were surprised to find that its only available at one grocery store in Rapid City, South Dakota. If you're going to use dry ice, make sure you know where to find it before you leave home!

We made a short stop to see the Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming, established in 1906.

Here's Old Faithful Geyser erupting in Yellowstone National Park. We took the "Yellowstone in a Day" tour to get a good overview of the park and let someone else do the driving and parking. It was Labor Day weekend and the park was busy.

This is a beautiful waterfall at Yellowstone but unfortunately I can't remember if its the Lower Falls or the Upper Falls! Can anyone help me on this? I think its the Lower Falls.

This was the view from our Gardiner, Montana hotel room one morning - snow on the mountains! At 7 AM the morning we left Yellowstone, Sept. 7, our SUV's thermometer registered 16 degrees. Brrrr.

While we were at Yellowstone, we also took a short trip south to the Grand Teton National Park. Wish we could have explored more of this park but we ran out of time and began the final leg of the drive to California for the wedding. We stopped for a quick look at the Utah Salt Flats and were on our way again.

For those of you wondering, the BBQ brisket arrived in California frozen hard. I slowly thawed it, reheated it in a crockpot and it was enjoyed by the rehearsal dinner guests.

After the wedding, we drove to Kings Canyon National Park and Sequoia National Park in California. This is the General Grant tree, the third largest tree in the world.

This photo is about where we noticed the SUV's brakes were overheating! If any of you have driven through Sequoia National Park, you may agree with me that some of the roads twist and turn a bit, especially for someone used to driving flat straight roads! The road was under construction and traffic was only let through on the hour so we parked and let the brakes cool. This was the beautiful view from our car while we waited to be allowed to drive on.

The next day we drove on to the Las Vegas, Nevada area where we saw the Hoover Dam. As you drive in, cars are stopped for a security check and we were wondering what the officers would think of the blanket draped load of wedding presents in the cargo area of our rental SUV. Apparently we have honest faces because after a few questions, we were allowed in.

After staying at a "luxury hotel" for the night, our next national park was Arches National Park in Moab, Utah. By now, both my husband and I were tired so we just took a 2 hour driving/short walk tour of the park. This is a photo of the Delicate Arch.

We made it to the Colorado National Monument before my husband said, "I'm done travelling." Spent two more days in Denver before driving home, 18 days and about 5300 miles on the road.

I'm definitely looking forward to some quilting time soon but this week looks a little full so I may not get to blog or sew much. Check back again soon!

Be right back!

2010-08-30T20:27:00.004-05:00

The bridesmaid dress is done and so is my blouse! I'll post a photo later so you can all to see what I've been doing lately. I think they turned out fairly well for not having sewn clothing in years. Those 5/8" seams sure look huge compared to a quilt's 1/4" seam!

My husband and I will be travelling to the wedding in a few days so a blogging break is in order. See you soon, Mayleen

Sewing project update

2010-08-22T20:31:00.009-05:00

Just an update on my sewing projects - my daughter's bridesmaid dress and my blouse. I've sewn in the invisible zipper, altered the side seams numerous times, replaced the bodice because of a pulled thread in the fabric and basted in the chiffon sleeves twice but now I'm at a standstill because my daughter has come down with the flu! I still need to line the dress and do a rolled hem (another first).

The dress is still not fitting as well as I'd like but we've decided to not push it further. My sewing rule is that I will take apart things only three times and after that leave it. I find that after that many times of picking seams apart, the fabric is deteriorating and the results of further picking out and resewing will usually not improve.

I needed a lot of M&Ms this past week! You will notice they are not in Roy G Biv order. When stressful times arise, I'm not too concerned with the color wheel! I shouldn't be eating all those M&Ms if I want to fit into my blouse so a prayer request for me - please pray that God will give me the wisdom and skill to finish the bridesmaid dress and that it will fit well and look good.

So not being able to sew any further on my daughter's bridesmaid dress until she feels better, I've been working on my blouse. I decided to make it in the matte side of a teal colored polyester Charmeuse fabric and save the bright pink fabric for another project. This fabric is not normally one I would choose because I don't like shiny fabrics and it can be difficult to sew. A challenge but so far, so good.

Vogue classified this pattern as "Easy" and perhaps it would have been if I hadn't altered the size and lined it. Click on the link to see the blouse view I'm making with the draped front and no collar. After I sew on the front facing, I'll be ready to insert the 3/4 length sleeves. Finally, the hem treatment and some handwork, a good going over and a final pressing. I will probably need another full day of sewing with no interruptions before its finished so that means at least two normal days around here!

I am trying to read a few blogs every day but am unfortunately, not able to keep up on answering everyone's comments. I have only a week and a half to finish the dress and blouse so am fully focused on those two projects.

Looking forward very much to sewing mostly straight lines on cotton fabrics! Be back to quilting soon, Mayleen

Chiffon - A word that strikes terror into a quilter's heart

2010-08-16T20:45:00.003-05:00

I know some of you are wondering what I am doing since I haven't posted anything for days! Well, I'm still working on my daughter's bridesmaid dress and trying to find something for me to wear to the wedding.

The bridesmaid dress will be made of wine colored satin with chiffon sleeves and belt of the same color. Definitely not fabrics I'm used to sewing or even enjoy sewing! I am doing OK with the satin but the chiffon ... oh my. Anyone who has sewn chiffon have any good tips? I had to buy more of it today because I made a mistake on the belt. Tomorrow is another day and I've already got plans how to not make the same mistake.

Meanwhile, I've given up on finding something ready made for me to wear and today I purchased a pattern and fabric for a dressy blouse. Its been a really long time since I've sewn a Vogue pattern and we shall see how "Easy" it really is!

I'm not convinced I picked the right fabric though. I wanted something that didn't clash with the wedding colors (wine and black) and complimented my gray hair and complexion. This shouldn't surprise me but I bought my favorite color - a bright pink crepe fabric for the blouse. Not so sure that it really goes with the wine color so I'm still open to other possibilities.

A close second choice was a green chiffon print but as soon as I checked the fabric content on the end of the bolt and saw the "C" word, I put it back on the shelf! Need something a little less stressful than that.

If you e-mailed me and I haven't responded its because I'm trying to finish the bridesmaid dress and my blouse. Hopefully, I will be able to post photos of them soon. You probably have no idea how much I'm looking forward to sewing with 100% cotton fabrics again!

Its scary in there ...

2010-08-06T21:06:00.006-05:00

... and that's why the door is closed to my sewing room!

I took the Process Pledge so I'll tell you its a messy process in there with three projects + going at the same time! There are selvages every where, strips in a neat stack (at this point) and clamshells divided by color. There's also fabric that's waiting to be cut into strips and then clamshells. Trying to be organized but its a challenge for other family members to find the ironing board!

However, it is not this bad! This "100 Ways to Hide Your Stash" You-Tube video is by Cathy Miller, the Singing Quilter. At least my selvages and fabric are not falling out of the microwave!

This afternoon, I added more confusion to the sewing room by making a large crazy quilt block for me to stitch on tomorrow at Threshing Days in Goessel. I'm doing a crazy quilt embroidery demonstration there.

I recently read an article about copyright issues for quilters in a McCalls Quilting magazine. Anyone else read it? If its correct, we will have to check with the quilt designer before we can post photos of our finished projects on our blogs. As I understand the article, before we can enter a quilt into a judged quilt show (for prize money), we would also have to get the designer's permission. I'm probably not being very clear but if you can find the magazine, read it.

To end this post on a happier note, look what's blooming in my flower bed! This spring, I dug up some orange daylilies at my mother's apartment to transplant into my flower bed. The others all bloomed orange much earlier but this pinkish purple one is just now blooming. Interesting that my mother never had daylilies this color.

I also accidentally brought home a white hibiscus plant and a blue morning glory plant which is starting to vine everywhere! Most people wouldn't get excited about morning glories since they're sometimes considered a weed but I've never been able to get them to grow until now. If I could only get hollyhocks to grow and bloom!

Getting Serious about the Stash

2010-08-02T09:47:00.006-05:00

Last week was not so good on the sewing front. I got a few more spiderweb selvage quilt block units finished and a few more started. I'm not sure what happened but I didn't have much ambition to sew.

Toward the end of the week, I received a package of selvages from Barb which helped get me back in the mood so many thanks to Barb!

I've redoubled my efforts to sew down my stash and have decided to cut 2 1/2 inch strips from my older fabrics in an effort to use them up or at least reduce the number of them. So far, I've only made it through the tub of green fabrics.

I recently saw a picture of this scrappy bargello quilt and I think I'll use the strips to make it. I especially like this Christmas version and this one too! Plans could change though. I've never really done much in the way of strip sewing.

I've admired the lovely clamshells the ladies in the Clamshell Club are making and I've finally given in! As I cut strips, I put the fabric on the stack to await marking and cutting clamshells. I have a few marked already and will use my evenings to cut out the pieces. It will probably take me quite some time to get anywhere on the strip quilt and the clamshell quilt but I'm working toward them.

Below is a photo of my older fabric "stash". Not so pretty to look at! The majority of this fabric is 10-20 years old. I'm sharing the photo with you because I want you to hold me accountable! Use it or lose it is my motto. If I haven't used it by late winter next year, I plan to donate it to the Kansas MCC sale's Quilter's Corner.

This may not seem like a lot of fabric to some of you but its taking up space that I could use for my newer fabrics and my sewing room is not large. Confession - There's also fabric in the closet but some of it is more suitable for clothing or curtain construction. I'll deal with them another time.

I'm expecting the bridesmaid dress fabric to arrive anytime so probably not much quilting time for me for a few weeks. I'll pop in every now and then to let you know how things are going!

Selvages, selvages everywhere!

2010-07-25T20:09:00.007-05:00

Have you heard about the Process Pledge? Its a blogging idea that encourages bloggers to tell more about their creative process instead of just showing a picture of their final project. I just took the pledge and I thought I'd share a little about the process of making my selvage spiderweb blocks!

At this point in my creative process, my sewing room is a mess! There are several piles of selvages on the floor, on the ironing board and on my sewing machine cabinet. This pile is the largest. These are all the selvages I've used in the inner rings which still have more selvage to use.

I still have about half a tub of selvages to go before I start over on the pile. So far, I've only made 13 square blocks and if I'm really going to make this a bed size quilt, I have quite a few more blocks to make!

I've been following Tallgrass Prairie Studio's tutorial on how she adapted Quiltville's instructions to make a Selvage Spiderweb quilt. The slippery and shiny project I was working on has been put aside so I can concentrate on this quilt for a while. Looks like I'll soon be making a bridesmaid dress for my daughter so I want to get as far along as I can in the next week!

Cut down to size

2010-07-21T20:22:00.009-05:00

First of all, I apologize about the quality of my photos. My excuse is that its been a hot humid day here!

Guess what I'm getting ready to do? It is very quilt related although you can't tell by this photo. Nothing against "Annie", by the way!

I finished the Custom Harvesting exhibit today so I'm getting ready to begin working on my selvage quilt! This is the quilt I'd like to make in a bed size so I'll be at this for awhile. The process for making the spiderweb selvage quilt involves paper piecing and when I do that, I like to use newsprint because it tears away so much easier than regular paper.

It means cutting the newsprint down to the size you need. In the past, I've also sent it through our printer to print the block design but that won't be needed this time. You can see I've already made the template for the piece of background fabric which will be between the spiderwebs. Its a little difficult to explain but I think you'll understand as it comes together!

And here are all of the selvages some very generous blog readers have sent me. Thank you so much! It would have taken me a lifetime to save this many. I'm not even sure this is enough but I should be able to tell how many more I might need as I begin piecing.

There is everything from chicken fabric to florals to reproduction to Kaffe Fasset and I'm looking forward to seeing how it all comes together. Tomorrow, I'm planning to mark background fabric, cut and hopefully begin piecing so check back again soon to see my progress!

The Elephant

2010-07-16T21:01:00.003-05:00

I like plants but I don't necessarily have a green thumb. That's probably why I buy a lot of floral fabrics and as you see, floral wallpaper. My mother regifted me with this Angelwing Begonia plant gone wild. She called it "The Elephant" and I do have to admit that one stem could pass as an elephant's trunk!

So now it's mine to tame and its definitely time to do a little pruning back. Know anyone who wants to start an Angelwing Begonia? Actually quite easy to grow.

I hadn't noticed until I took the photo how this plant just blends into the wallpaper! Does that make it a wallflower?

I finished hand sewing the borders onto my tumbling block quilt today. I went with the dark brown borders because I like the contrast and I also already had the fabric! That was a big plus, just a little more fabric gone from my "resource center". Next step is hand quilting it but that may not happen until winter.

A few days ago, I purchased the light blue background fabric for my next selvage quilt! If I missed posting photos of your selvages, be sure to look for them in the blocks as I begin posting them soon!

P.I.G.S.

2010-07-12T20:47:00.005-05:00

Cut and paste, cut and paste. That's what I worked on today for the exhibit - cutting out titling, mounting and pasting. I like cutting and pasting but I'm starting to not be fond of the letter "e" and cutting out that little piece!

I decided to give myself a little break tonight and finish hand piecing my tumbling block quilt. Here are several choices for the borders. The sides will be one fabric and the top and bottom will be the other.

I don't think the camera is doing a very good job with the colors. The dark brown right side fabric in the lower picture is a little washed out.

Tell me what you think, would you use the dark brown or lighter brown? The top dark brown or the lower or none of the above?!?

I'm afraid that if I don't make up my mind soon it will join my other P.I.G.S. and may not see the light of day for months, years even! Only kidding, nothing resembling pork resides in my sewing room. Dust bunnies, yes I've got those but no pork. P.I.G.S. is cute way of saying Projects In Grocery Sacks and I've got more than a few of those!

So help me keep my sewing room grocery sack free and tell me which border fabric you'd choose!

Its been a long week

2010-07-10T20:44:00.004-05:00

It sure feels like its been a long week of running errands here and there. We returned home from our July 4th. weekend trip on Monday and I didn't get to sit down to sew/quilt until Friday. Part of that was because I'm just not happy with my border fabric choice for the tumbling block little quilt. I'm auditioning another fabric for the border and am hoping to find one more fabric to add to it. What do you do when none of the fabrics you pick seem right?

Wondering what this photo has to do with quilting? As far as I can tell, it has nothing to do with quilting. I'm putting together a museum exhibit about Custom Combiners and this is one of the photos I'll be using. I grew up in wheat growing country so I like this photo and hope you do too. I can almost smell the wheat dust! Just curious, has anyone else chewed wheat kernels to make gum?

I enjoy doing research and putting together exhibits. This time is a little different though because someone else has done the research and I'm putting their photos and text into an exhibit for them. This will take quite a bit of my time for the next two weeks so I'm probably not going to be making much progress on my quilting projects.

Do you think that kept me from starting something new? Ha. My next project involves hand piecing slippery, shiny pieces of fabric that measure one inch or less! This is a personal challenge to myself because I do not like sewing slippery, shiny fabrics. Its a reproduction of something I saw 2+ years ago and its now or never to try making it. If it turns out, I'll post a photo when I'm further along. If it doesn't turn out, I'll post a photo just to show you that not all my bright ideas are so bright!

Just Tumbling Along

2010-07-01T20:24:00.007-05:00

I'm back at work hand piecing the tumbling blocks for my little quilt. This is my first attempt at hand piecing and I've enjoyed the process but I have to say, I'm so thankful for my sewing machine!

I just cannot imagine what it must have been like to sew all your clothing, quilts and linens before the sewing machine. Probably, my family would have had very simple clothing and comforters, not quilts.

As you can tell in the picture, I've pieced the lower half of the little quilt together and tomorrow I hope to finish piecing so I can buy border fabric over the weekend. Its made entirely of Jo Morton fabric and I think its a charm quilt, no fabric repeats but there may be the same design in a several colorways. I say "think its a charm quilt" because as I was beginning to piece one of the rows together, I noticed a repeated fabric so I did a little ripping and stitched a new diamond in place.

I'm struggling a bit with the hand piecing and have the occasional hole in the middle of where the seams should join. I know the reason behind this is not stitching up to the 1/4" seam allowance even though I think I am! Considering this is my first hand pieced project, I think I am doing fairly well though.

This Kathleen Tracy pattern is from her book, "Remembering Adelia". She used two brown fabrics for the borders so I'm auditioning some brown fabric from my "resource center" to see if I like it. I may go with a completely different color but feel I need something darker in the borders to act as the frame around the quilt. Perhaps I will even have the top pieced by early next week!

*****

Thank you, Betty for the disc of Missouri River Quilt Guild Quilt Show photos! I'm enjoying looking at them and finding lots of inspiration there!

*****

Be sure to go to Loft Creations to vote for Viewer's Choice in the Parade of Strings! This string project challenge was why I began blogging back in January. Stephanie has included my "30 Years on the Fence" quilt in the choices to vote for Viewer's Choice. There are many great string projects there so go check it out!

Best of Class!

2010-06-27T19:26:00.004-05:00

My crazy quilt won Best of Class in the Traditional Other category at Wichita's Prairie Quilt Guild's quilt show, Common Threads, this past weekend! There weren't many quilts in that category but the judge will only award ribbons if she feels the quilts are worthy of the prize so I was excited to win the ribbon!

Seeing my quilt hang in the show was great but I was surprised to see how dark it looked. When I tried to take a photo of it, the fabric appeared grayish blue. In the photo above, the colors are more true but a little brighter than in the quilt. Click on the photo for a closer look.

This past weekend, I finished hand-piecing the three piece tumbling blocks for the tumbling block quilt from the book, "Remembering Adelia". Tomorrow, I'd like to piece the blocks which just have two pieces and start arranging and rearranging the tumbling blocks to get the colors balanced. Unfortunately, I'm not one of those quilters who can randomly stitch blocks together. I like a controlled scrappiness.

The next step after I'm satisfied with the layout is stitching the blocks together into rows and then the rows together. Perhaps that will be something for me to do on Wednesday, the day I'm having dental work done. Its work that needs to be done so I'm trying to prepare myself for the worst part of it for me - the needle sticks (cringe!) and the numbness. Difficult to talk, drink or eat, that leaves me with napping and, as the numbness goes away, I'll plan to do some stitching as a reward for making it through another session at the dentist!

Life's Bouquet

2010-06-22T19:27:00.005-05:00

Remember the embroidery on the back of my crazy quilt that reminded me of weeds? I decided I wanted to add something a little more to the quilt backing, something that summarized my feelings beginning with last year.

I'm sorry I didn't get a closer shot of this but look at the base of the "weed shrub" to see some of the emotions I felt last year. It started with Fear. Fear of the unknown and what could happen. It was really hard seeing our son go through his health crisis and easy to let fear take hold. There were many sleepless nights and tears.

Next comes Faith - my own and other's. My faith grew because life became stripped down to the important things. I am so thankful for the many prayers that were offered for us by people we didn't even know.

There was Hope for the future even though it wasn't the kind of future any of us had planned. After months of health backsets, there was hope that things would improve and that life could be full.

And finally, Love. Our family grew closer together. There were many acts of love shown to us but the surprising thing was by whom. We learned who would stand by us and who would fall away. I especially learned that sometimes its best to show your love by being still and just being there when someone needs you. I continually need to remind myself of this.

It was a year of following a different path than what I'd expected but a path of maturing and learning. I don't want to forget even though its so easy to do just that. I've already embroidered in the year 2010 and hope to add something for every year until I fill up Life's Bouquet!

*****

Totally different subject - Look what came in the mail for me from Barbara! More selvages for my next selvage quilt project which I hope to start in July. Thank you very much!

Crazy but sane, I think

2010-06-20T19:31:00.010-05:00

In my last post, I told you I would share with you what was happening in my life while I was making my crazy quilt.

Early last year, my son was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis and between January and July, he had numerous medical appointments, needed almost weekly blood transfusions and was hospitalized four times. Since I took him to the appointments, I needed something to do while I sat and waited. I needed something that would keep my mind off of what might happen and what did eventually happen.

This is my version of Wichita's Prairie Quilt Guild's 2008-09 block of the month Crazy Quilt. I began the quilt in February of 2009, about three or four months late. Every month, we received instructions for the next step but were encouraged to be creative and personalize the quilt. Since I began working on it so late, I had a little catching up to do but plenty of opportunity to work on it!

While I waited at my son's appointments and through his hospitalizations, I hand-embroidered the quilt blocks. It often helped me strike up a conversation with other anxious people in the waiting rooms. There's just something calming about watching someone create a design with needle and thread.

Some of the embroidery motifs have great symbolism for me - the bottle of tears, the Bible, the bluebird of happiness, the wheat, our pets at the time and much more. I also embroidered all of my family's initials on the quilt. There are velvet leaf and flower appliques plus vintage black button embellishments. I chose not to use lace or ribbon on this quilt. The fabrics are all 100% cotton except for the green velvet outer border.

Its kind of like an "I Spy" quilt because the more you look, the more you see! I hope you can click on the photos to see the detail. If you like, check my previous posts for more photos. One of my favorite parts of the quilt are the fan edges. It looks a little like lace but is actually an embroidered design.

I "finished" the quilt just a week before the Kansas State Fair's entry cut off date in September of 2009. It won a blue ribbon in the crazy quilt amateur division. Tomorrow, I'm dropping it off to be entered in the Common Threads quilt show in Wichita. It will be judged and I'm a little nervous to see how it fares with all the other crazy quilts there.

Making this Crazy Quilt was an incredible stress reliever for me! Our experience with a serious illness and major surgery brought me into contact with people undergoing far worse things than we were. I hope I never forget the things I saw and experienced during this time even though they were often painful and emotional to me and sometimes still are.

This quilt can look quite dark when you stand back from it. In fact, its hard to get a good photo of it. As you come closer though, you see the bright colors and handwork. To me it says there's beauty all around us even though life can often seem dark and dreary.

I don't know if I'll ever make another crazy quilt because right now, I simply don't have the time. This one is and will always be so very special and personal to me.

If you're interested in crazy quilt stitches, I'd like to recommend this book to you, "Treasury of Crazy Quilt Stitches" by Carole Samples. There are no instructions, just page after page of illustrations of stitches that she has collected over the years. I used many of her ideas and highly recommend this book. It is normally bound but I had the spiral binding put on so it would lay flat.

Next time I'll share how the embroidered weeds on the back turned out!

Tomatoes and my Crazy

2010-06-17T19:38:00.009-05:00

I picked the first tomatoes from my garden a few days ago. I've decided that this is not really the tomato plant I thought I was buying because its only 6 inches tall! It is bearing tomatoes but as you can see in the photo, they aren't very big.

That's a quarter laying next to the tomatoes just to give you an idea of their size. I'm not complaining though because my other three tomato plants are only just starting to bloom and set on baby tomatoes!

I wish I were a better gardener and that weeds didn't exist. I've been pulling grass and bindweed out of my new flower bed every morning this week and there's still enough growing to keep me busy for a long time.

What do you think this is? I'm not sure either but its what I'm embroidering on the back of my crazy quilt. I hate to say it but parts of it remind me of bindweed!

I started the design several months ago and then set it aside when life got busy but now I've got to finish it because the Prairie Quilt Guild's quilt show is just around the corner. There'll be 900 quilted items in the show and two of those items will be mine.

I'm entering my Little Red Zinger and my Crazy Quilt and have to drop them off on Monday. I still have to finish the embroidery and sew a label on the Crazy Quilt. The Little Red Zinger needs a label and a sleeve.

Here's a sneak peak at part of my Crazy Quilt. The next time I post, I will tell you about what was happening in my life while making it. Probably the hardest thing I've gone through so far.

What is it?

2010-06-12T20:19:00.004-05:00

I've been having a little guessing game at the quilt show about my doll quilt shown below. I found it in a half price tub of vintage linens at an antique mall in Wichita and since it was so unique, it became the first doll quilt I purchased.

I've been asking our quilt show viewers what they "see" in the doll quilt. So far, some of the guesses have been:

1. This is in the style of Gee's Bend.
2. A house (the blue triangle is the roof).
3. Sunbonnet Sue gone bad!

Tell me what you "see"! What do you think it is? I think I will go along with guess #2 about the house unless someone sees something even better!

Tomorrow afternoon is the last day of the quilt show so if you're in driving distance of Goessel, Kansas ( population 450-ish), be sure to be there!

2010-06-11T20:22:00.004-05:00

Just checking in after some long exhausting days getting ready for the "Covered With Love" doll quilt and crib quilt show at the Mennonite Heritage & Agricultural Museum in Goessel, Kansas. The show runs through this weekend and we're hoping for a good turnout. Here are two photos of our doll quilt displays. There are 109 vintage to new doll quilts on display. Hope you enjoy the photos!

Covered With Love

2010-06-04T18:48:00.006-05:00

Just after Memorial Day, the real work started for the Mennonite Heritage & Agricultural Museum's doll quilt and crib quilt show, "Covered With Love", began. Of course, the preparation began months ago but the quilts and props were pouring in before our deadline. This week, I've spent much of my time helping catalogue quilts, photographing quilts, looking at props and planning displays.

If you'll be in south-central Kansas on the weekend of June 11-13, come join us at the quilt show! There will be over 100 doll quilts and almost 50 crib quilts on display in the Prep School. Some antique and vintage cradles, dolls and toys will be there too.

On Sunday afternoon, there will also be a car show for the guys while the ladies enjoy the quilts. Should be a great weekend to spend at the museum!

This is the doll quilt that my grandmother made for my younger sister and I to play with. That was about 50 years ago and during that time, my cousins, my daughter, nieces and basically any little girl who visited our house played with this doll quilt! It now belongs to my daughter but she lets me display it.

I was able to hand piece 16 tumbling blocks before I absolutely had to put them away and concentrate on the quilt show. Surprisingly to me, I'm enjoying the process and I think I might say its a little addicting! I hope to get back to them soon.

I'll be posting pictures of some of our displays of quilts from the show next time!

Thank you very much to Michele who sent me an envelope of selvages! Do you have any idea how hard it is for me to resist playing with them?!? July is only a few short weeks away and I plan to start the spiderweb selvage quilt then but its oh, so tempting to sit down at my sewing machine now!

Remembering

2010-05-28T14:42:00.007-05:00

I've been admiring the "One Flower Wednesday" projects and the "Klosjes" that other bloggers are hand-piecing and decided to start a hand piecing project of my own! Here's my very first hand-pieced block, a tumbling block for Kathleen Tracy's Tumbling Blocks Quilt from her book, Remembering Adelia.

I need a portable handwork project and since I've been wanting to make this quilt for awhile, its now time to get started on it. I'm hoping to make it a charm quilt and use only my Jo Morton scraps. Only 53 more blocks to go!

Look what was delivered in the mail today! These selvages arrived from Amy and will join the others just waiting for July when I plan to begin work on the spiderweb selvage quilt. Thank you very much, Amy!

I'm still trying to recover from a cold. Still a bit fuzzy in the brain sometimes and this weekend looks full so I will probably not post again till middle of next week.

I want to wish all of you who remember and honor Memorial Day a very special weekend! The past few years, I have been taking my mother to local cemeteries to put flowers on our relatives' graves. Its a time for us to share memories of those who are no longer with us. The rest of my weekend will be spent attending a wedding, enjoying company, good food and possibly attending my high school reunion. Again, have a great Memorial Day!

Purple Pumpkin Berries?

2010-05-26T20:55:00.009-05:00

Stitched in Time, continued: "Know When Enough is Enough" & "Forgive Yourself!"

This pumpkin table topper contains one of my most embarrassing quilting revelations but it is also a beautiful example of machine quilting and a fix that saved the day!

How many of you have ever seen berries on a pumpkin vine?

This project was one of the first times I'd appliqued anything and I think I did a fairly good job on the pumpkins. I wanted all the vines to be alike so I carefully starched and steamed them into shape. Then I pinned them on to the quilt top and gave them a few extra bursts of steam from the iron. I told myself, just one more burst of steam should do it.

When I tried to pick up my iron off the quilt top, it was stuck to the pin heads and the pin heads were stuck to the quilt top! I had melted the plastic pin heads to the quilt with all that heat and steam from the iron. I was so angry with myself and couldn't believe I had done something like that! (Yes, I know I should be using glass head pins.)

I was able to scratch most of the melted plastic off the quilt and clean up the iron but there was still some hard residue left on the quilt. I knew I'd just ruined it. Thats when I thought about adding the berries to hide the damage I'd done.

So while those berries add interest to the table topper and some people think they are even part of the design, they are actually there to hide an ugly mistake! God is teaching me that I need to know when enough is enough and that if I let Him, He can take my mistakes and make something beautiful out of them.

I like to put this table topper on an old dresser I have in our front hallway. I usually set a dark brown small crock filled with twigs, berries and leaves in the center.

The name of the pattern is Pumpkin Crazy and is in Need'l Love's book, "Falloween Threads".

This is the back side of the table topper and I'm showing it to you so you can see the beautiful work the machine quilter did! Click on the photo for a better look. This is one of my favorite quilts because of the work she did and yes, because of the lesson of the purple pumpkin berries!

"Do Something You Don't Want to Do"

2010-05-24T20:42:00.003-05:00

Friday my throat was dry. Saturday, it was sore and I had all the other usual cold symptoms too. I thought I was better on Sunday but today, I am worse. So far, 3/4 of my family has the cold. I have places to be and things to do so I definitely don't want to feel bad! But, since I have a cold, usually a winter thing, I thought I'd continue posting parts of my "Stitched in Time" presentation.

This is my "Winter in the Woods" wallhanging.

The blocks in this wall hanging were made by members of my quilting bee. We meet once a month usually to work on our own projects but occasionally to participate in challenges. The goal for this challenge was to learn how to put together different size blocks.

I confess that I didn't particularly want to do this challenge because I thought snowmen were just a little too "cute" for me. I went ahead and made eleven of my snowman blocks (the one with the pink scarf) so I could trade blocks with each person in our bee. Surprisingly, I was the first person to finish her wall hanging!

Since we did this project way back in 2005, we have lost several of our bee members. One has moved away, several no longer attend for various reasons, another has health problems that keep her from attending and sadly, one has passed away.

This wall hanging is all I have to remember some of these women. Even though you might think something is too "cute" or whatever reason is holding you back, make a memory! Every January, I hang "Winter in the Woods" and remember my bee members.

Value friendships, sometimes you just have to do things you don't want to do!

Flimsy Friday number 3

2010-05-21T10:06:00.005-05:00

After a few days of gloomy, rainy weather, it's beautiful outside today so I decided to take a photo of my third Flimsy Friday project hanging on my clothesline! It is a little breezy so getting a photo was a bit of a challenge but here it is.

I saw this crib quilt in an older Fons & Porter magazine and even though I didn't know anyone having a baby at the time, I knew I had to make this Rubber Ducky crib quilt! I still think its cute so I'm not sure it would be easy for me to part with it unless it were to a close friend. Of course, it won't be going anywhere until its machine quilted!

The duckies are fused and machine blanket stitched. If I were to make another quilt like this, I would probably line the ducks as the blue fabric shows through their yellow bodies. Not a difficult quilt to make at all but very cute!

"Be Grateful & Thankful"

2010-05-19T09:11:00.004-05:00

I enjoyed giving my presentation, Stitched in Time, yesterday at the AGAPE Senior Center in Goessel, Kansas. Unfortunately, I forgot to take the very first quilt I was planning to share! Can you believe that? I'm just about to the point where I'm going to have to pin a note to my clothes so I know what I'm supposed to do when!

This wool wallhanging hangs above the fireplace in our house and I'd planned to take it down on Tuesday morning to add to my quilt stack. Tuesday morning, I packed the car and left without it. Most of the morning I felt like something was wrong and only an hour before the presentation, I realized I'd forgotten the wallhanging. Since I was 50 miles away from home, it wasn't possible for me to run home to get it. The presentation went on without it.

I'm not going to have much time to quilt for a little while so I'd like to share some of my presentation with you every now and then. It was all about life's lessons I am learning (and relearning) through quilting. So, here is what should have been my first quilt of the presentation!

I named this wallhanging, "Now Thank We All Our God", for His abundant harvest and the family and home life he's given me. My life is far from being perfect just as this wallhanging isn't perfect.

I think the pattern was actually called "Abundant Harvest" and was a BOM in the Quiltmaker magazine several years ago. I tried to talk myself out of making it several times and finally a year after the last part of the pattern was published, I gave in and decided to make it! Have you ever had a project that you can't get out of your mind? This was one of those.

Wool projects are not popular in this area so I had to really search for colors in the local quilt shops. When I couldn't find the right colors of wool, I went to thrift stores, purchased wool garments in the colors I needed and felted them in my washing machine. For the philodendron block (lower right), I had to dye wool to get the different shades of green.

This project reminds me to be grateful and thankful for all of God's blessings in my life even when I take them for granted or don't see them in a positive way!

The ladies at the Senior Center gave me this cute little quilt stand and quilt yesterday. I know there are a few ladies from Goessel who read my blog, thank you so much to you all!

Stitched in Time!

2010-05-17T19:55:00.006-05:00

Here's a photo of the pincushions I've been working on. They're a combination of Miss Rosie's Fruit Salad pincushions, pin cushions from Martha Stewart and Heather Bailey and another free internet pattern.

That's the watermelon my daughter thought was a bird. Be honest with me, does it really look like a bird?!? I made the patchwork squares on it to measure only 1/2 inch square! I have no idea what they're really supposed to measure. I just looked at the picture on the internet and decided to make one like it. Then there's the red velvet strawberry with the white blossom and cherry tomato with the white button.

Wondering why I need three pincushions? Well, they're really not for me! I'm going to give them as prizes tomorrow at a presentation I'm giving for a Ladies Tea at a senior center. I'm taking along 12 of my quilts, some are finished and some aren't, and will be talking about being "Stitched in Time". They'll get to hear the inside story (and some of the dirt) on my quilts!

Public speaking really isn't my thing but I can surely talk about quilts for a half hour! I'll let you know how it went on Wednesday.

Monday ... Monday, Monday!

2010-05-17T05:50:00.005-05:00

Welcome to everyone who's visiting me from the Selvage Blog! I noticed the photo on Karen's site looks a little fuzzy so if you'd like a better look, please click here. If you then click on the photo, you can see the "Little Red Zinger" up close and personal!

I wanted to make Karen's "Red Zinger" but knew I didn't have enough selvages and I really wanted something smaller for the wall space I have. So I settled on a 3 1/2 inch finished block which makes it about 28 inches square. I'm entering it in Wichita's Prairie Quilt Guild's quilt show coming up in June. If you're in the area, please look for it at the show.

I'm collecting selvages for a spiderweb selvage quilt and hope to begin it in July!

My second Flimsy Friday!

2010-05-14T20:37:00.003-05:00

Here's my second flimsy (with the promise of more to come)!

Last fall, I noticed the bloggers who were doing the Year of Schnibbles. I didn't have a blog yet so I thought I'd just sew along and as an added challenge, I'd use only my Jo Morton fabric since I already had it on hand. Ha. I made exactly one and this is it. Its called "Cindy Lou Who" and is a Schnibbles pattern by Miss Rosie.

I made it in what I think of as Christmas colors from Jo Morton's Crimson & Clover and also her shirtings lines. It measures about 34 1/2 inches square. I did start marking the quilting lines but got busy with other projects and put it away. Didn't find it again until I moved back into my sewing room last week! I'd like to have it quilted and ready to hang for Christmas (this year).

Now while I was working on the snowball blocks in the "Cindy Lou Who" wallhanging, I trimmed off quite a few corners. Having the genetic disposition I do (being frugal), I sewed all those triangles together to make HSTs, trimmed and saved them in a baggie (which I also didn't find until after I moved back into my sewing room).

One day last week feeling quite frustrated, I sat down and sewed all of those HST together to make this little quilt. The HST are 1 inch finished and the quilt measures approximately 7 1/4 x 10 inches. I used a piece of flannel as batting and quilted it by machine, stitching in the ditch on the diagonal.

Quilting is usually my stress reliever and so yes, I felt a lot better after I made this quilt!

Catch up time!

2010-05-13T21:06:00.011-05:00

My computer is back up and running although not the same. Even though we were running Norton Antivirus, the computer was infected with the Rootkit virus. I hope this never happens to any of you! It was definitely not good and after trying several fixes, my husband had to reconfigure the computer. I'm having to relearn how to do things in different ways. I can't change that but I sure wish I could!

I have a few things to show you - First off, here's my full size "30 Years on the Fence" string quilt back from the machine quilter and bound! Just needs a label and it will be officially done. Its difficult to get a good photo of it but this shows how it looks on a bed. Here are a few pictures of it as I was piecing it which will show you different views. My favorite part is the zig-zag edge!

This quilt, except for the backing and binding, was made entirely from fabrics in my "resource center" and some that were given to me but if I were to make this quilt again, I would probably not make it quite so colorful. This is definitely a memory quilt for me as many of the fabrics are from dresses I made my daughter years ago and other sewing/quilting projects!

On Tuesday, I finished piecing my "Holiday Inn" wallhanging from Jo Morton's Little Women Club #8. Its about 44 inches square and one of the few applique pieces I've done. This was a kit I purchased last year through Liberty Quilt Shop but was unable to finish until this year. I'm looking forward to having it machine quilted and hanging on a wall in our house!

Surprise! I received an envelope of selvages from Betty! I really needed a little encouragement on Wednesday and there it was waiting for me in the mailbox. Thank you again, Betty!

I spent part of my day today trying to make a watermelon slice pincushion. If you have seen Miss Rosie's Fruit Salad pincushions, this was what I was wanting only smaller. When I asked my daughter what she thought it was, she guessed it was "a bird". Help.

I'm looking forward to "Flimsy Friday" as I'll be showing you not only my unfinished project and but also the finished project I made from its trimmings. You'll have to wait and see but I think you'll be impressed!

Computer Problems

2010-05-12T09:43:00.003-05:00

Just in case you're wondering ...

Somewhere, somehow a computer virus got past our antivirus software and infected my computer. It was so bad that my husband had to reconfigure my computer. Unfortunately, its still not back to "normal" and I'm having some problems.

I plan to post again tonight but if I don't, its because of yet another problem! I'm working on numerous projects, keeping very busy and am close to finishing up some quilting projects to show you.

My first Flimsy Friday

2010-05-07T08:32:00.010-05:00

Here's my first Friday Flimsy - a pieced but as of now unquilted quilt top! I like the flower and vegetable blocks and the whole quilt actually. It makes me want to go out and garden. You know, grow enough veggies to feed my family and enough flowers to have beautiful arrangements every week. Reality is that something has already eaten the zucchini plant I set out a few weeks ago. I hope it was tasty and I also hope whatever it was that ate it won't find the three baby tomatoes on my tomato plant!

Some of the fabrics in this top go way back to my crafting days. The panel blocks are from Susan Winget and initially I also had cutsie heart ticking fabric and her heart striped fabric for the backing. When I found the blocks in my "resource center" a few years ago, those fabrics were just too much for me and I decided to give it a more updated look. After much searching at my LQS, we came up with this combination which I really like!

I'll tell on myself a little here about my early quilting efforts. When I found these blocks, I realized that I had already started making this quilt sometime in the past. Unfortunately, I didn't know how to make Flying Geese units and improvised. Some of those blocks were definitely not going to work. There's not much you can do when there's no fabric for a seam allowance. Worse yet, I'd "gathered" or I guess in quilting terms "eased" some of the blocks together when they didn't fit correctly. It looked more like "gathering" to me. I'm glad my quilting skills have improved over the years! I took all the blocks apart and started over with the new fabric.

The pattern I used was from this "Quilt" magazine dated Spring, 1995 when most of the magazine was still printed in black and white. Yes, I save "old" quilting magazines and books and often put a sticky tab on the page of something I'm interested in making in the future. Sometimes I do make the projects and most of the time I don't but I can now use this as an example when my husband asks me if I really need to save all those quilting magazines and books!

My favorite block - the tomato. Well, maybe not.

OK, the Iris block is my favorite ... uh, oh.

The Zinnia block ... well, if its not my favorite, it did inspire me to go plant some zinnia seed this morning! Hope they all grow but I'm not sure where they'll pop up. Something I should have known - never try to plant seed when there's a wind advisory!

I've folded the quilt top back up and will put it together with its backing fabric into the sack I found it in. Now that I've written about it, I know it won't be in there for long. I hope to be enjoying it long before my garden is done producing this year!

The day I got my sewing room back!

2010-05-05T19:12:00.004-05:00

Today I got my sewing room back! Oh my, its only a small bedroom filled with my sewing machine cabinet, the ironing board, an old table my serger used to set on, a 6 foot table for fabric and some shelving! Right now, its very disorganized in there so no photos. It will take some time to get my fabric organized again. It feels great and I look forward to spending time in there!

What am I working on these days? I'm half done hand sewing the binding down on my "Thirty Years on the Fence" quilt. Still need to make the green Flying Geese for my "Holiday Inn" wallhanging border. It will probably join the other flimsies waiting to be quilted but at least, it will be that much further along.

On Friday, I'm going to start featuring "Flimsy Fridays" as part of my blog! I've noticed I have a few unquilted tops and I'd like to share them with you. I'm not sure why I haven't had them quilted but they are ready and willing at anytime. See you Friday!

500 inches of Binding!

2010-05-03T13:40:00.008-05:00

Look what's home from the machine quilter - my "30 Years on the Fence" quilt! I've got the binding sewn on and will be starting to hand tack it down later. It looks great! So great, in fact, that my daughter has decided to claim the quilt. Ha, its mine, at least for now.

Can you see what's in the Seven Sisters rosebush growing up the side of our deck? We discovered the nest last week. Our cat, Charlie, was and is still very interested! There was no discouraging Mom and Dad Cardinal though and she is now sitting on 3 eggs. I'm doing my very best to keep Charlie away but its going to be a long month till those babies hatch and fly away!

News coming soon about our new pet!

Hard to believe but I won!

2010-04-29T19:35:00.006-05:00

I know this will be hard for people who know me to believe but I won a prize for explaining to Michelle how to link from her blog to another blog! Why is this so amazing? Because I'm the kind of person who can't remember how to get her cell phone messages even though my husband explains it over and over! My technology ineptness is so bad that my family's been threatening to get me a Jitterbug cell phone. "No complicated menus or confusing icons!"

Thank you, Michelle, for the beautiful fabric, fun pattern and the Godiva Chocolate bar! Feel free to link to my blog anytime!

I thought I would be back to working on string projects by now but instead I've been motivated to finish some of my Jo Morton projects. You saw my "finished" Country Lanes little quilt top on Monday. Yesterday and today I've been working on one of last year's Jo's Little Women projects which I participated in through Liberty Quilt Shop.

This is the Holiday Inn wallhanging which still needs 2 more borders! The next one is Flying Geese. I worked on the applique block while my son was in the hospital last year and then I put it away because it wasn't possible for me to work on it any longer. It hasn't been difficult but those half square triangles were time consuming! I really dislike trimming and squaring up which there was a little of to do! Just to give you an idea on the size of the blocks, the half square triangles are one inch finished.

When this project is done, I will need to prepare my crazy quilt for a quilt show coming up in Wichita. I've done some embroidery on the backing and definitely need to finish it up since I think the quilt judge might find it hard to overlook that!