Back from Colorado

The renuion was a blast! Being from Denver, I really miss the mountains. I live in Central Ohio, where it is flat, flat, flat! What was really sad though was to see the damage from the forest fires. The picture shows one that was caused by a cigarette or something stupid like that. How sad. The weather was superb, as always. We had about 70+ people attend, from 5 weeks old to 78 years old. It is so fun to get together with family that is scattered throughout the USA and we missed those that couldn't attend, including 2 of my daughters and their families. I realized that when I went to post, that almost ALL my pictures are on my laptop. So I'll just share the pictures I took the last day. We played lots of games, including a scavenger hunt that required you to get pictures of different things. I downloaded everyone's camera onto my laptop and then we scored the teams on their efforts. Then I had a slide show to let everyone see what the people saw through their cameras. I think we had over 1200 pictures! It was a lot of fun. Now I'm going to have to load them onto my PC. Hmm, might take a while! We held our reunion up in the mountains, at the Church camp. What a wonderful, secluded place to be. We swam in the pool, took hikes to the waterfall, to the top of the mountain, had church in the little chapel, played silly games, ate a LOT, made beaded bracelets and just had plain fun. The picture on the left is my youngest daughter, Sheleah, with my cousin's daughter, Kaylee. Sheleah attached herself to Kaylee and she was so sweet to her. The other picture is of my immediate family, my parents, my brother and family and my family minus my two daughter's families.
The only thing that put a damper on the whole thing was my back did not cooperate very well. I had one awesome day and the others, well, not so great. The day we left to fly home was the worst. So my husband called our doctor so the very next morning (Wed.), I had an MRI. And it confirmed what we thought--I have a severe herniated disk in my lumbar region which is wrapped around the sciatic nerve. I have 3 options left--oral steroids--which I am doing right now, 9 days worth. An epidural injection of steroids, in which I'm getting tomorrow, and I'm a little nervous! the last option is surgery, so I'm praying that the first two work! I've tried different meds, stretching, chiropractic care, inversion table, massage therapy, biking, you name it, and I was trying it. I'm ready to be free of pain and get on with things!
I made two quilts for everyone to sign, one for me to keep and another one that I raffled off. I'll donate the proceeds to the Breast Cancer Foundation. I'll post pictures when I transfer the pictures over to my PC. All in all, a wonderful long weekend. It went by so fast, I wished we would make it longer.

Mission: Attack the scraps

Egads! This is just ONE of the bins of scraps I have. I keep all my bright scraps in this one and then I have a neutral bin, a red/pink bin, blacks/browns, greens and blues. And then I have drawers with different sized strips/squares. They are taking over my room. So, my mission is to reduce the scraps and stop the overflow.





Here is the first quilt--actually it's only 40" square, but I'm going to leave it like this for a class on using that Quiltsmart's method of doing Drunkard's Path. After class, I'll add more until it's at least a twin size.














I had more to post and had another back spasm. My miracle didn't happen:( Oh well. I will probably have an MRI when I return from my trip.
I did get 2 quilt tops made for my reunion, which starts tomorrow! Samantha--I'm heading your way. We are flying into Denver tomorrow and headed up into the mountains. We rent out the church camp for 4 days. I'm looking forward to it and hope my back decides to behave!

It's dry!

Here it is...the very last of the fabric, cut into little pieces, all the little "trimmings" and I added little bits of bright yarns to make this FABRIC BOWL. .... So there it is, my challenge that literally used 100% of my fabric. It was hard to get a good picture of it. I made it by laying all the fabric pieces, etc. in between layers of Super Solvy, stitched in grids, diagonally and then a little bit of free motion and washed it almost all out, but left a bit of the Solvy in to hold the shape. I draped it over a bowl to form it. If you wash the Solvy completely out, it would have been flimsy with no form or shape.



And so to reward myself (I've also been cleaning out scrap bins, and have made 2 things already...another chapter), I bought this: more pinks/blacks as I'm doing a room in those colors so it really was necessary! :) And then that poppy print--I just loved it! so I bought a little fabric to go with it because I KNOW that I won't have anything to go with it at home.

Christmas quilt pattern

Thank you for all your kind comments on my Christmas quilt. Blogger hasn't been playing nice with me. Half the time I can't get into anyone's comments to make one or even my own! But I wanted to offer the EQ5 file to anyone that would like it. Just email me and I'll be happy to send it to you. I would link the post that it was in, but I don't know how to go back and link my own posts. I can do other links. Help?

Finishing up the challenge

Remember that challenge that I was working on? Well, I finally finished up the very last THREAD of that fabric! I ended up with 14 things--granted some are small, but nonetheless, I made very good use of all that fabric. I'm not sure what this block is called, but I used the "bonus" triangles from the Star quilt to make 6 blocks. I couldn't figure out a nice setting plus I didn't care for two of the blocks that had very light colors in them, therefore not allowing the design to show as much. I finally settled on making a wallhanging with 4 blocks (shown without the white borders) and two pillows with the other 2 blocks. The original pack of fabric had 30 FQ's in it and we only used 24 for the challenge. So I used 4 more FQ's to make the pillow backs(the kind that overlap). One is slightly bigger than the other because that's what size pillow forms I had!




I made 2 of these postcards, using 3/4" squares. I'm sending one of them to my friend that I did the challenge with and am keeping the other.

This little quilt used up those little bits and pieces that were leftover. The size is about 10x14.



This Postage Stamp Baskets ended up being about 2" per basket. I kept having to re-size my pattern until I got to a size that allowed me to use what fabric was left. I think the whole wallhanging size is 19" square. It's all pieced and I lost some points--but I had no more fiddlin' room, so the points are gone. I did fuse the handles as I was NOT about to do little bias stems! Plus I did not have the fabric for that. I pieced 1" strips for the 2nd border.

I have two other projects, but one was still wet?? :) and the other one needs to be quilted to show all the details and I'm done!!! This has been fun, and it was hard to stop--I could have made a few more miniatures I think, but enough was enough. I'll hopefully post tomorrow the last and final project. I squeezed every bit out of that fabric, you can't say I didn't get my money's worth~

NQA Quilt show winner

Congratulations to Ted Storm (by the way, Ted is a nickname given to her by her little brother years ago--her name really is Riette) on winning Best of Show-Wall Quilt, Best Hand Workmanship-Wall Quilt and especially for winning the Master Quilter Award at the National Quilting Association's 37th Annual Quilt Show for her "Nocturnal Garden" quilt. Today is the last day of the show, being held in Columbus, Ohio. Ever since I first saw this quilt in a magazine, I have been in awe of it. The pictures absolutely do not give it justice. This is Ted's 3rd or 4th quilt-ever! And it took her about 5 years to make, working on this exclusively. It also won Best of Show in Houston in 2001.
I'm gonna brag here a bit, sorry, but I get to pick her quilt up today at the end of the show! I wonder how it's going to look in MY house? LOL Ted is coming to visit me in July, so I will have possession of the quilt for 3 weeks. I met Ted when I took a week long course from her in France in 2002. A long story short, we became close friends. It's been a lot of fun and a HUGE learning experience for me. She is so knowledgeable in fine, hand workmanship skills, which I am so lacking. I don't think I'll ever be at her level, but my handwork has vastly improved since meeting her.

Ted is also the inventor of the ThumbThimble, a thimble to worn on your thumb while handquilting. It replaces your thumb nail. For those of you who hand quilt, you know what I mean. You use your thumbnail when you want to quilt in an opposite direction in which you are accustomed. (i.e., like going from right to left, and going up). It's a wonderful tool. She developed the ThumbThimble while quilting on her Nocturnal Garden. Ted used to quilt in a hoop, but when she made her NG quilt, it has many shi-sha mirrors on it, preventing her from putting it in the hoop as they would break. So she had to work in a frame. And for those frame quilters, you know that you have to be able to quilt in all directions. I'm a frame quilter, and Ted asked me how I quilt in other directions. I told her I just moved my chair to the opposite side of the frame. :) The Thumb Thimble makes it so much easier.

Retreat quilt

I sometimes host retreats for other quilters and this past weekend was one of those retreats. There was no "theme" or instructions given, just finishing UFO's. Which means I get to sew! I still help the others quite a bit, but I did get some personal sewing done too. I finished the Row by Row quilt that I taught all year (from Sept. to May). I just need to add borders. This was made entirely from my stash. Mostly from leftovers from other Christmas quilts. My bin does NOT look like it has gone down ANY! Looks like I'll get a few more quilts from my scraps! I do have to buy the last border as I don't have enough of any one fabric to do the border. PS..do you see the one block on the bottom row that's different? LOL I didn't notice it until later. I tried to justify keeping it in. If it were in the center, I might have gotten by with "I meant to do that!". But I knew better. So I spent an hour yesterday picking the block out of the row, correcting the center and inserting it back in the row. I'm happier now! My students get a charge when they see me make a mistake. I tell them that I make all the mistakes first, so then they don't have to make their own! Actually, I think it boosts their moral a bit when they see me make mistakes. They realize that's just part of quilting. You laugh, take it out, do it over and go on.














This is one of my students who qualifies to be a real Stashbuster! She finished a class project (the Pineapple quilt) and then wanting to use the rest of the fabric and the "boo boo" blocks, she made her backing and busted ALL her leftover fabric from this quilt. Me? I would have hoarded the rest of the fabric, thinking I could put it in other projects. Which is why my closets and bins are overflowing. I love her backing, it almost makes it a reversible quilt. Way to go, Linda!
On a non-quilty note, I have been struggling with my sciatica nerve being pinched by a herniated disc. It started flaring up when I was helping my husband after his injury. I thought that once I quit lifting his legs, etc. it would get better. Well, it's gotten progressively worse to the point that I'm living on painkillers and anti-inflammatories to get through the day. I am NOT a pill taker, so it bothers me that I'm masking the real problem. My leg is numb down to my toes. Two nights ago, I got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and got stuck. Couldn't take a step because I was in so much pain. My hubby jumped up, got me to bed and got my drugs. I knew I had to do something. All the research we did on my problem all stems back to the compressed disc. Chiropractors haven't been able to help. Someone else suggested a Back Clinic that you lay on their tables and they stretch you out, getting the pressure off your disc. I didn't want to be tied down to running to doctor's and clinics all the time to get relief. So I ended up buying an inversion table (the ones that hang you upside down). Well, come to find out, you don't hang there for more than a minute, you oscillate back and forth, getting the spinal fluid moving. And you don't start off hanging straight up and down, 60 degrees is the one that you normally use, but you work up to that. I started at 20 degrees, and that wasn't enough, so I'm now using the 40 degree angle for a while. It felt good to be stretched out that way. I was hoping for a miracle and would wake up this morning free of pain, but I'm not. I don't know if it's my imagination or wishful thinking, but it seems as if it's not quite as painful. I know, this has taken 2 months to get to this point and it's going to take a while to get better. Let's just hope that I've found something that will truly help without using drugs.

Faithful Friends Quilt

This is a quilt I made for a long time friend who is in a sorority with me. I drew her name for Secret Sister. I always make a quilt for the last meeting of the year (which is in May) to present to my secret sis. Well, this friend has been dabbling with some quilting over the past years, but recently has decided this is something she really likes to do. It's so fun bringing little lost sheep into the quilter's fold, isn't it? :) Anyway, she saw a poster of mine that had all kinds of verses about friends and commented on how neat it would be to put those into a quilt. So I did! I made friendship stars for her to gather friends signatures and then when it's filled, I'll quilt it for her. She was happy with it, so that makes me happy. I liked the way it turned out, I might make a similar one for my family reunion this summer. Add different verses about family or something. But geez, it's only 3 weeks away and there is so much to do!

Mini Sampler

I'm in the process of teaching a sampler class and after many times teaching it, I get bored making the same block over and over. Last year, while teaching and doing demos, I made a Half Pint Sampler. Meaning, instead of making 12" blocks, I made them 1/2 size, or 6". I decided to take it one step farther and really challenge myself and make them 1/4 size or 3" finished! And I'm making them the same way they are, so no paper piecing. This one shows MY block and a student's block to show the scale of mine. Hmm, don't think I'll go any smaller! LOL

This is a 9-patch/snowball block and the finished size on those 9-patches are 1/2". I don't know how people make them any smaller. I could barely hang on the the things to sew them! And I have fingernails.

Memory Quilt & T-shirt quilt done!

Look how the light shines right through the center section of that quilt-it's even quilted and has Warm and Natural batting. I did have to piece in a lighter piece of fabric through the center of the backing because when the man's wife added more to the quilt, it made me short of the backing I already bought (the last of the bolt). I finished the binding and the label and then called him to tell him it was done. They came over right away! And they loved it. It's always a concern when you put your own twist on things as to whether they'll like it or not. A big sigh of relief! I quilted in her mother's name along with all her children's and grandchildren's names. It will take them a while to find them all, as some are quite unnoticeable! I think that adds something to the quilt--putting something hidden in to make them keep looking.

This is the other quilt I finished this week for a customer. I use pictures for the center block and then cut out small portions of other T-shirts and applique them on after it's quilted. That way they can get a lot more in the quilt. I also printed out some quotes she wanted and appliqued them on as well. I deliver it tomorrow and I'm done!

more condo pictures

This is bedroom #3-- bedroom #4 just like it but in a soft lime green.
This is the Master Bedroom and was going to make 1 King bedspread and buy 2 XL twin comforters in black. All gone--discontinued. So...I bought King comforter in black and had to make 2 bedspreads. Well, only had fabric for one and of course, they have no JoAnn's in Myrtle Beach area. So I had to do that when I got home. This is a swing king bed, meaning it's a King bed that "swings" apart to make 2 twins. Men would never sleep in the same bed, and since it's in a golf course community (close to the beach), we had to go with this bed.

My other pictures won't load--but everything else was done and I could move on to other things!

Lots going on and LOTS done!

Whew! I'm back and with lots of pictures to share, but blogger gets a bit picky when you try to load too many, so I might not share all. First of all, made a flying trip (by car!) back to SC to finish my condo and it's all done but one bedspread. Well, it's done now and it took a UPS trip to SC to complete the condo. I'll only share a few photos, I might load the rest on my webshots site.

Here is the outside--there are 4 condos in the building, 2 up and 2 down. Mine is on the lower left. This is when you walk in the front

door and the picture below is the kitchen/dining area.

Memory Quilt

I finally got the Memory Quilt done that was commissioned 2 days before hubby fell. I normally don't make quilts for other people (for $$) for various reasons, but this gentleman was so persuasive and was so sweet, I couldn't say no. His MIL passed away and he wanted to have a quilt made for his wife in her memory. He said that he wanted his wife to cry when he gave it to her because he thought of it. He had it all planned out how he would present it to her, etc. How could I resist? Well, unfortunately, she found the receipt that he paid the deposit, so the cat was out of the bag. Yes, she did cry! But she really wanted to see it in the planning stages. She decided that she wanted it larger, a poem changed and a few of the pictures changed, so I made all the changes for her. In a way, it's a good thing she did find out as now, hopefully, she'll really be happy with it instead of thinking, I wish this or that was different. I'm going to just loopy-ti-loop quilt it with stars and I'll write in the names of the mother, her kids and grandkids randomly.

Whoooosh--hear life roaring past you?

Whew! where does time go? I made a whirlwind trip to SC to get our new condo ready. And of course, I thought I could make bedspreads and dust ruffles for 8 beds in one day! Really! And then reality sat in and I only got 4 beds done in 3 days! So, I must return for Round Two. Oh well..

Here is one of the bedrooms that is done. So much to be done, wonder if we could squeeze 48 hours per day? At least boredom will never set in with me. :)

Challenge Quilts Part II

Okay--here are the rest of the challenge projects..

#5--Drawstring Purse--I know, it's not a quilt, but when I was looking through books to get ideas I saw that this purse required 1 strip 1 1/2" wide from 24 fabrics--how could I NOT include it?

These little blocks used the "bonus" half square triangles I got when making the Stars quilt. They measured out to be 1 7/8", so I just cut the rest of my squares that size. It's going to be an odd measurement, but it's my quilt--so who cares? I have about half of these done. I'm not even sure what this block is called. I have one more quilt to do after this--and it will be a miniature Chinese coins quilt, of sorts. Well, that's the plan. And you know how well my plans have been! LOL So stay tuned to see what I REALLY come up with for those last bits of scraps. Now how is that for stash busting? Does this qualify, since it's relatively new fabric? How long does fabric have to be in your sewing room before it qualifies as stash? Does it have to make it to the shelves first? All I know is my hubby bought it for me at Christmas and it sat on my cutting table in a nice little ribboned bundle for 3 months. I wanted to show him that I really do use the fabric he buys me--and this time in a fairly timely fashion!

Standing up to the Challenge!

AAARRRGGGHH! I just spent 45 minutes typing my blog, loading pictures then when I went to post--it lost it all. So I have to start over! This might have to be in two parts as the first time, it wouldn't let me load all my pictures. I think I need to find a way to shrink my pictures before loading.

Anyway, remember when I did all my Kaffe Fasset quilts in January? I was given 24 FQ's by a friend and I came up with a plan to use every last bit of fabric. Well, when showing another quilter friend, she wanted to play the game too. So we came up with a challenge:
1. Use 24 FQ's--use them all, minimal waste
2. Make at least 1 twin size quilt
3. May add only 2 additional fabrics to each quilt (okay, so we both cheated, on our largest quilt, we each decided to add a third fabric for our border. )
I couldn't wait--heck, this was easy the first time around, why won't it be the same this time? I planned my quilts, making sure to use every available inch of my FQ's. and away I cut.
Here's what I came up with so far (quilts #6 and #7 are still being worked on)

#1-"Crazy Friendships" This used 9" squares. I paired them up and layered them, 2 x 2. The first pair I cut into 9 patches with curves. BEEP! NOT again! So the next ones I just cut wonky into 9 pathes, re-arranged them and sewed them back together. I originally planned to then sew them into 4-patches, sub-divide them again with 1" strips of brown. Nope, didn't like it. Didn't decide that until AFTER I already cut 24 1 1/2" strips!

#2. "Hopscotchin' with Friends". Used 3" squares. Change of plans on this one too! The sashing that I planned on using and made about half, made my blocks disappear. So on to Plan B, or is it Plan D by now? changed the sashing and the setting and now I like it. It's 51" square.










#3. "Stars of Friendship". Used 5" squares. This one didn't get even made into the first block I had planned for these squares. After looking at what I planned, I didn't like it. So, now we are on like, Plan J??. Found this pattern in the "Nickel Squares" book by (? hmm, forgot the name right off the top of my head). I'll add one last border (and will use that 3rd fabric) but it will make it a hefty twin size quilt then.











#4. Friendship Daisy Chain" I wanted to make a larger version of this, but since it was a last minute decision, I was stuck with what fabric I had left. This is 39" square. It's very retro looking and very springy. I really like this one. I planned on using a brown to blanket stitch the flowers, but decided it would overpower the petals. So, I'll just accentuate the petals with my quilting to nail them down. (they were fused)

Close up of Daisy Chain

Doin' more than meandering!

Whew! I'm bushed. I've been trying to catch up on things and have been sewing non-stop for the last few days. I had to get my Tropical Feathered Star done for my new condo as we are going there tomorrow to get it decorated. I was a little afraid to load it on Zoe, (my HQ!) as I wanted to do more than meandering. I finally traced some stencils on it and kind of sketched out my feathers. It made me nervous because I had to do feathers sideways, rather than from top to bottom like I normally do. So be gentle, you long-armers--it was my first attempt! I'm trying to challenge myself to do more than meander, loop-de-loop stuff on the big machine. The machine goes so fast, it's scary sometimes so I fall back into what I feel comfortable with doing. I have a lot more quilts to practice on now.

Baby quilts done!

Whew! I had these baby quilts mostly done for the longest time--including the one for my newest grandson, but didn't have labels on them. I'm a big proponent of labels, so won't let them out of the house or count them as done until a label is on it.
The first quilt is for a client of my husbands who just loves quilts. He and his wife go to quilt shows just to look at the quilts! Imagine that! So I thought I'd be nice and make them a quilt for their new little son.

This is for my grandson, my oldest granddaughter made all the center blocks for this quilt. She was so cute, I was helping her with ideas of what to put inside the blocks and we were running out of ideas. She looked at me and told me to look around the room and just THINK of what we see. What a smart little 5 year old! And to think I'm not even biased! :)

Lots of catching up!

Happy Easter! Life has been hectic around here, as can be imagined and I've missed everyone's blogs. I hope that I can get back into the swing of things as things start to calm down around here. Thanks for all your prayers and nice comments. My heart smiled every time I read one. We have a lot to be thankful for and here's just a few:
1. Daddy Day Care (aka "the office") Kirt is going into work now, shortened hours, but it gives me some time to do other things! Like take care of taxes..done! Yeah!
2. Grandkids are doing great, and the youngest one is the best little baby. Makes me feel better since I wasn't able to help my daughter like I planned. I'm glad the baby is doing so well, making it easier on her.
3. I see sewing time coming back! Yeah! I did get a quickie baby quilt done for the little Liam and worked on a challenge quilt (more later.)
Here's Kirt--enjoying the beautiful Easter day. Still in the scooter (what a G0d send that has been to him AND me!) for a while longer. But he is able to get around pretty well now. It surprises most people that he is sitting and moving around with all his fractures. Especially of the pelvis and hip. But it's the weight bearing on his leg he cannot do.
What a beautiful day for hunting for Easter eggs! Grandkids are the best, aren't they?

Liam missed all the fun! But he was a good boy today and we actually got to see his eyes today as he decided to stay awake for a bit. But we missed it with the camera. Oh well, another day.

It's a BOY!

Welcome Liam Matthew to our family! Born on March 23 at 6:43 PM, 7 lbs. 12 oz. You were the brightest spot in our week. Papa is really sorry he couldn't be there when you arrived, but we kept him in the loop the whole time by cell phone. And thank you so much for waiting for me (Nana) to get there before arriving. Mom only had 3 pushes left to get you out. We are so glad you are here and healthy.




Your big sister, Mia, is glad you are here too! And I think she forgot that she wanted a baby sister. She was very curious where your toes were, we reassured her that you do have them, but you were wrapped up very tight. She wasn't happy that she couldn't give you a bottle like her baby doll.








Your cousin,Kai, just loved you. He was asking his Mommy to please get him a baby brother. He's not very fond of older sister sometimes and a little brother sounds like fun! I imagine lots of fun days ahead for you.










First stop home from the hospital--to see Papa. Well, at least for him to see you! You are such a good little baby and seem very content. You sure brightened our week.









Congratulations to our daughter, Tenille, and her husband, Matt, on the new addition to your family.