working on samples

With all the kids gone, hubby is in Vegas, I stayed in SC for a little while longer to catch up some sewing with friends, playing cards with my folks and making some samples--oh, and a little sun too! :)

I realized that too many of my classes that I teach are too much for the beginners I have, so I've gone back to a little more basics. So, I'm starting off with a Disappearing 9 Patch that is so popular right now. I did mine a little more controlled (instead of totally scrappy) and forgive me, I saw one similar but now I can't find it to give her credit. I used black/white and lime green.

I'll use mine as a table topper in my new kitchen.

Rail Fence is another easy block to do for beginners, so I pulled the rest of the 2 1/2" strips I had used for another quilt in fall colors. I'm going to add random appliqued leaves on top, but didn't bring any fabric with me. It looks a bit wonky in the photo, but it's straight, honest!

I'm also offering another layout option for the Rail Fence and brought JUST what I needed for the top. Well, some of the fabric wasn't quite wide enough to get all the cuts I needed, so what's a quilter to do? Piece stuff out of the trash! I figured I'm acting like an original quilter! LOL It's okay, in the end, it won't be that noticeable. I couldn't finish the top here though, because although I wrote down the strips that thought I needed, I didn't bring them all! Oh well, I'll finish when I go back home.

On a non-quilty note, look what I found crawling up my book. It was so cute, I have no idea what it is, but an inch worm comes to mind. It was really skinny and long and had kind of webbed suction feet and webbed little legs in the front. It was almost like it should have been in a comic strip or cartoon. I had a hard time getting a good close up photo, darn camera! I wish the kids would have been here to see it. I didn't have the heart to kill it, so took it outside.

Fun in the Sun with grandkids

We just spent a fun week in SC with the 3 oldest grandkids (8,6,6) and Sheleah. And man, are they busy! Almost every waking moment was spent in the water or me cooking for 6 and then cleaning up! But we had a fun time with a movie thrown in, some card playing, puzzle making and teaching one of the 6 year olds to ride a bike. I thought I would get to sew in the evenings after they went to bed...HAHAHA! I was pooped and just vegged on the couch and ended up going to bed early myself.

The kids got some silly little wiggle worm thing and then decided it needed a quilt to cover up at night. So Kajsa and I ended up making 3 little quiltlets for these silly little toys that they will never play with again Here's looking through my one basket of scraps down here. I don't keep fabric here, I just have kits (that I've made up) to sew, but I do keep my leftover scraps. But it was fun teaching her some more sewing skills. She is SO good at a 1/4" seam. She sews slowly, but so accurate. And then was teaching her how to properly put on borders. She's learning to pin her own pieces now.

Here's little brother with his quiltlet. The 2 six year olds thought they wanted to make one, but their attention span was about a minute! So Kajsa ended up making theirs as well (well, with a little help from Nana!)

Okay, I can't get the last two pictures where I need them, but you get the picture! :) I have a new little 10" Dell computer, which I love but the screen size sometimes is a hindrance. But I love how lightweight it is!

the 'girls' learn how fun it is to quilt in pj's!

On our recent retreat, I warned them all that I only get dressed if I'm going somewhere (other than the pool) and I RARELY go anywhere! LOL I live in PJ's and swimsuits while in Pawley's. How much better can it get? Quilting and sunning...my idea of an ideal vacation. And they all got in the spirit of it all and learned that pj's are okay to where, even at 3:00 in the afternoon! It's so fun getting away with other quilting friends. And boy, do you learn a lot when you get them away from home! Whooo--eeee!! Did we learn about the 'other' side of everyone and decided that some things are just better left among just us! So, my lips are sealed. But let me tell you, we sure did some hootin' and hollerin' and lots of laughing when some 'secrets' were revealed. Don't ask, cuz we won't tell.

We had daily classes on learning/perfecting quilt techniques and by the week's end, they all had their quilt tops done. A couple of them had only to fuse on the lettering, but they decided to do that at home because they were leaving early to stop at yet another quilt store on the way home and wanted to leave time to shop! But other than that, they all got them done along with a few UFO's.

More finished photos to come.......