Here comes baby……

not ours yet, or at least I hope not!  And when it rains, it pours!  I had 4 baby quilts to make last month. One was for a baby shower for a young mom at church,one was for a new baby born early, and another was for a “Grandma” shower we have for our sorority group and one more to take with me to Europe for a friend that is due there.  Most of the baby shower gifts I make are the Super Sized 9 Patch quilts

  (this is one of the fabric in two of those quilts—isn’t it  just adorable? and it’s at JoAnn’s of all places!!)

that were featured in Quiltmaker Magazine a few years back. (click on the link for the FREE pattern!)   Sometimes I add the name of the baby if I know it ahead of time. A little scary to do for a variety of reasons, so I only did it on the one.  I chose to do these as the one group I’m in has 24 women and I’m in a church where the majority of women are in their 20’s and 30’s and of PRIME baby making ages!  So, it’s a nice easy quilt to make a LOT of and not break the bank of $$ OR time. I’d rather make a quilt for ALL of them rather than ones that I had the time when it was their turn.

this last one is one from the Baby Fats book. You take 24 FQ’s, cut them all up the same way, but use different parts and pieces to create 4 different quilts. This is 1 of 4 done from that fabric.

Knocked the sense in or out?

Last week we took the grandkids tubing at the closest ski resort (and I use that term very loosely—hahaha—being from Colorado and all) and after we all got bundled up to be warm for the single degree temps and paid a pricey sum, we headed out to pick up our tubes. The kids grabbed theirs and as Kirt bent over to get his, he fell on all 4’s and then slipped and laid sprawled out over the icy incline.  I tried not to laugh as I headed over to help him. And on the second step, I felt my feet slipping and I thought “I’m going down” and that’s all I remember until minutes later I heard him keep asking me what I was doing?  What? I don’t know and I wasn’t sure why I was laying in a fetal position, but I knew I hurt!  He always told me I was hard headed and I guess now it’s a proven fact.  My head hit the ice so hard, it cracked the 3” of solid ice! After being checked out by the medic that I was going to live, but had a mild concussion and would more than likely have a 2 week headache!  I’m just wondering if I knocked the sense INTO me or OUT OF me?  LOL  The jury is out on that one!  So, no tubing that night. :(

Too much else going on and not enough blogging, but maybe now that we are home for a while, house is reorganized, spruced up and looking good, I can get back to my loves…quilting and blogging.

I did get another purse made from the Grids and Grommets pattern. I love the look, the pattern left a lot to be desired, IMHO. I simplified some of the directions to speed the process up a bit. And I made a few more Snap Purses—now THAT is a clever idea! I wonder how they thought of using a TAPE MEASURE to make it snap shut? Some people are so creative.

My quilt group is doing a round robin this year for our ‘block’ exchange, and we were all given a pizza box to put our first block in along with any other fabrics we’d like added to our quiltlet and special instructions, etc. I decided to decorate my box and I think I spent MORE time thinking about how to decorate it than the block itself!!  I went and got paint samples of the colors I would like in my quilt (I’m going to hang it in my office when it’s done) and went through magazines to find letters and any other inspirations.  Finally, all done. Assembled the box and OH MY GOSH!!!!!!  I glued and fused and drew—with a sharpie marker, no less--- on the BOTTOM of the BOX!!  That confirms it….the sense got knocked right out of me!  And of course, no other clean pizza box around and naturally the stuff won’t come off.  So, I scrounged around and found an Apple laptop box. I cut the decorated bottom off the pizza box and glued in onto the Apple box. It’s smaller than the pizza box, so I cut it down and folded over the top edge to make it fit. Whew—that took WAAAAY longer than it was supposed to and you know what?  I need to make the actual block!! LOL  That was the point—I guess I just saw a blank canvas and got all excited.  Oh well, tomorrow’s another day. 

I choose JOY—Joy is my word of the year. I’ve been hearing about people choosing a word to focus on during the year and thought that it would be a fun challenge for me. JOY is the word that kept coming to me over and over, so JOY it is. In fact, I’ve started a new blog, Inspired by Joy, to chronicle that new adventure.  But it’s a bit behind like this one was/is but hopefully I can start doing a bit of catching up on both.

Have a good day and stay warm!

More 2009 finishes

Had to take more photos and I think I’m still missing some, but it’s the best I can do! 

February Wallhanging of Month          

Large 5 & Dime  Posh

 

Flip Floppin’ in Pawley’s

Jacki Frost

ABC quilt

String Star Reunion

Sprout, Grow, Bloom

Super Sized 9 Patch (yellow and girl)

Going to the Beach (sold)
(didn’t have a photo of it quilted)

Fall into Rails

Spinning Stars Table Runner

Happy Hour (sorry—it’s shown sideways and not quilted)

and no photos of these quilts:
Afternoon Tea
Kaffe’s Floral Garden
Batik Cobblestone
Charmed, I’m Sure

and on to a new year!  And I think rather than piecing so many quilts, I better improve my photography skills! First, REMEMBER to take a picture, especially if giving it away!. And second, take better pictures. But that’s whole new subject.  I wish I had a good spot, number one, to take a good photo. And my lighting is not good. They say to not use your flash when taking them, but then they turn out a bit blurry.  What’s your ideal spot/way to take photos of finished quilts? 

2009 Finishes—a partial showing

I created an Excel sheet clear back in 2000 when I tried to remember at the year’s end all the quilts I have finished that year. I, for the life of me, couldn’t remember more than a couple, yet I worked on quilts all year! They call it ‘old age’, I say temporary memory lapse! I find that it’s refreshing to look back over the past year and realize that I really was productive and did more than run around and mess up my studio.  I try to take photos of each quilt when they are done, sometimes I forget and ship the quilt off and that’s okay. They are not masterpieces by any sense of the word, but nice to jog the memory.  Here’s a recap of last year:

Snowman Wallhanging of the Month   

FQ Stars                

Tower of Spools                           

Flowers in the Patches                                        

Daisy Fields                                       

 

Tennessee Waltz

Cottontail

 

Positively Pineapple

Patriotic Stars and Stripes

 

Cobblestone

okay—I guess I better stop here as I can’t find photos of  rest of the quilts. Guess what I’m doing tomorrow?   I really want to have a photo history of what I’ve done, a lot of times the name of a quilt isn’t enough to jog my memory!   So…more to come……

Kquilts Studio Open House

If you live in Central Ohio, this might interest you. Otherwise…you can move on! LOL  I know several of my students follow my blog and I just wanted to announce that the Open House is set for Sat. Jan. 2 from 10 AM to 1 PM.  My  Kquilts Studio website   has all the details of the classes being offered this season.  I have several classes for different levels of quilters (beginners included).  I have 4 PJ parties planned (which are on Friday nights and are FREE!).  They are simple little projects that can be done in an evening …..BUT you must wear PJ’s! Or you will be fined $5.  Lots of fun!  A POWER retreat is also in the works.  And I have one more surprise which won’t be revealed until Preview Day. So…….come join us!

Give this Christmas Away video

What an awesome video...and great message! My parents just got back from Charlotte where they spent 4 days working with hundreds of others packaging all these boxes.

12 days of Christmas

I'm in a sorority and we exchange names for Secret Sisters at Christmas and I drew the name of one of my best friends, who is a fairly new quilter. What fun I had with her gift! I based it on the Twelve Days of Christmas. 

On the first day of Christmas, Joy's sister gave to her:

A quilted purse for Joy----no picture :(

2nd day of Christmas.........

 

two quilting notions

 

 

3rd day of Christmas…….three quilting patterns (again, no picture)

4th day of Christmas……

 

4 spools of thread

 

 

 

 

on the 5th day of Christmas……..

 

 

5 Fat Quarters

 

 

 

on the 6th day of Christmas…

 

a 6” ruler (sorry for the lousy picture, it’s hard to take a good one of shiny acrylic!)

 

on the 7th day of Christmas…..

 

7 Christmas candies

 

 

on the 8th day of Christmas…

 

8” Gingher Scissors

 

 

on the 9th day of Christmas…

 

9 feet of ribbon

 

 

on the 10th day of Christmas….

 

10 sewing needles

 

 

on the 11th day of Christmas…

 

11 Quilting tips

 

 

 

 

on the 12th day of Christmas….

12 Christmas buttons

(and I’m not sure if it’s the picture, or did I really sew on the bottom button crooked?  You’d thought I would have seen that!  It MUST be the picture!)

a free gift for you

I wish I could say this is from me, but it's from Amazon....FREE music! Here's one of the several that I downloaded. I love Point of Grace and I love their rendition of Winter Wonderland.

My favorite Christmas hymn is O Holy Night sung by Aaron Neville. But Winter Wonderland ranks up there in Christmas music. I downloaded almost 300 Christmas songs on my itouch before vacation. (most were of my own CD collection and several of the free downloads). My hubby can't believe that I can listen to Christmas music ALL day long! And I can. BUT only after Thanksgiving and I'll quit the day after Christmas. So, what's your favorite Christmas songs?

hurry to http://www.amazon.com/ and then type in free MP3 music downloads under the search bar. (for some reason, it would not let me copy the link). You can narrow down the search to free Christmas music MP3 downloads as well. If you have never downloaded MP3's from Amazon, you'll have to download the FREE MP3 downloader onto your computer first, but it doesn't take long and well worth the few extra minutes! Thanks to Heather at Freebies4Mom for the tip.

And that's ANOTHER blog you should go visit AND sign up for her daily emails. She is LOADED with all kinds of tips to get FREE stuff!! Already this month, I've gotten free calendars, a free photo book, free Christmas photo cards, free music and a whole lot more. I kept forwarding her emails to my daughters so much, they went and signed up themselves. I just LOVE free stuff, don't you?

Merry Christmas!

where in the world am I?

Yesterday was an awesome day, snorkeling at 3 different sites and driving around, taking in the scenery and a visit into town. I belong here.....they LOVE color! Houses are all different colors and I mean BOLD colors! I wish I could have stopped and took pictures at each new exciting color I saw. Makes for a long trip when you do that, so I was only allowed a few. But I did get to stop and take pictures of REAL pink flamingoes, in their natural habitat....not at a zoo, a hotel, just in their natural living habitat. I had to go through a bit of a marshy area to get even decently close and if I weren't such a pansy, I'd have gotten closer. But, those pictures are to come later, when I get home to that dang computer cord. The pictures I'm going to share are from websites dedicated to this place as well as freebie fish pictures. I spent over an hour and a half sorting through 1000's of photos, trying to find those of the fish I DID see on my little snorkeling excursions. These are just a few that I saw. Blogger is being onery today and so I'll stop here. But great day, just a great day.

So, anyone know where I am?