You Can Quilt That Out

Inspired by PINK!

I love this time of year, about a month after planting flowers, they are getting filled out and not getting that bedraggled look they get after a long hot summer. Here's a few from my yard...

Yeah! I got my hydrangeas to bloom, I just love them

Impatiens starting to fill in

Astilbe --such a soft looking flower

gerbera daisy--JoAnn's finest!  hahaha  these are in a metal pitcher in a place that is hard to get a hose, but yet I wanted color, so I cheated! It looks great from the road. I might have to re-think my planting next year and totally wipe out all that watering time. 

Inspired by the colors in my yard....I grabbed all my pinks, oranges, yellows and a bit of green here and there to make....

60 degree scrappy diamonds.  And then turned 40 of those into this.....

A baby quilt for some sweet little girl.  Next, I'm going to gather blues/greens for a boy quilt.  And my scrap pile is still as large as it's ever been! How on earth does that happen?

by the way, thanks to those who commented on giving me advice with my new Mac.  I'm loving it..I wish I could have unlimited time to sit and play with it. I've been spending a lot of time on it, but there is just so many hours in a day and too much to do. But I am making headway and learning something new each day and even teaching hubby a thing or two....

Switching over to the other side

Got your attention, didn't I? LOL I'm switching to the iMac. There, I said it, so therefore I'm committed.

It was a Christmas present. Yep, I said Christmas and I am just getting it out of the box. Let's just say I've been a bit reluctant to do the big switch! Don't get me wrong, I've heard wonderful things about them, but when you've been a PC user since the Commodore 64 (egads--did I just date myself or what??), I was just hesitant. But, but, but...what about my website? Still in a quandry about that. iWeb (Mac's built in website builder) seems a bit weak, but I'm not ready for the big guns, like DreamWeaver either. So...I wander around the web, hoping an answer will pop up. and what about.......

EQ7--so not compatible with Mac. :( I was bummed about that, but am NOT about to give it up, so it goes on my notebook.

3D Embroidery--not compatible either. And I need it for my embroidery machine. Load it on an older lap top to use exclusively for the sewing machine. And now they just came out with 5D--amazing how quick our programs become!

Cook'N- a recipe/cookbook software program where I get a free cookbook download each month. Where to put it? Notebook? Old laptop?






Quicken--got the Mac version, but in order for it to port over, I need to change the file name size to a certain size.....geez, it's easier to start new.
Microsoft Office Suite--I got the Mac version, but since it's a newer version than I had before, it's all new to me anyway. Do I just switch to a Mac version?

It's all so much to learn and not just one thing, but A LOT!! I feel like I'm drowning a bit and no one to throw me a life jacket!! LOL I did get the One to One membership where I get free training for a year, but they were really frowning when I brought my sleeping bag.

So--anyone out there been through this? Any helpful hints? tips?

Joy, joy, joy

I’ve got the Joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart…..down in my heart……oh wait, I mean I’ve got Joy on my mind.  Joy was my Secret Sister in my sorority this past year and as usual, I make my Secret Sister a quilt for the final revealing day.  Not only is she my Secret Sister, but she’s a close long time friend, who has gotten into quilting in the last couple of years, making her even a closer friend!    I made Nana’s Garden (a Quilt in a Day quilt!)  It started out as a sample for a class, but I loved it so much, I am giving this one to her and making one for me as well!  I used up almost all my scraps to make this one and I STILL have florals out the wazoo!  (yeah I know—the spell check doesn’t like that word!) 

I used a stencil and a blue wash away marker to mark the feather wreaths and the little side triangles thingys, and it took several days of spraying those marks to get them out. I don’t get it…when you want them to leave, they resist going. But boy, if you need them, they disappear overnight! 

I just bought this latest round of embroidery designs (from the Embroidery Library) and I just love them.  This one is from Flowers of Faith (Set #1—there are 2 sets).     I made the label with this flower on it, figuring it was perfect since it was a floral quilt and that’s her name!

 

 

here’s another good one, from Flowers of Creativity from the same company…

Wouldn’t it be cute on a pocket of a tote bag?  on a shirt?  in a blank block on a quilt?  possibilities are endless!

 

 

 

Nana’s Garden for Joy

Enjoy—Joy!

Welcome Leia Noelle

Bad, bad Nana—my newest little granddaughter is now one month old (born April 13—on my grandmother’s 107th birthday, or would have been).  I’m just NOW getting the pictures up and how she has changed already!  She was a big one (9 lbs, 4 oz) and struggled a little bit coming into the world, but all is good and what a happy, content baby she is.

Mom saying her first hello…

 

Proud big sister

Big brother (who walked in and asked where the baby was, peeked at her and then asked for the Ipad!—boys!)

and finally, curious sister (who checked her COMPLETELY out and is fascinated by her)

Welcome precious little one….God is so amazing in bringing us fresh miracles each day and there is no bigger miracle than a little baby.  I love you Leia. (pronounce lay-ah)

More finishes

As I was updating my Excel spreadsheet on the status of all my quilt projects (yes, I have THAT many to warrant a spreadsheet!) and I realized that I have finished 17 projects so far this year!  As in FINISHED—quilted, binding on AND label! I won’t allow myself to call it finished and put in the DONE column until it has a label. I’ve seen too many quilts without labels because they think they’ll get to it later and then later never happens, or worse, they can’t remember when they made it!  Okay—I admit, I once was guilty of that, but no more. Actually, I’ve done that for years, just for my own memory’s sake. 

Now I feel better about being absent from my blog, I’ve been sewing! and sewing…and sewing!  A little cooking, laundry, treadmill work and minimal cleaning thrown in, but mostly sewing.

Here’s more that I have finished this year:

Disappearing 9 Patch

I loved how simple this quilt was, yet so striking. I wasn’t liking the D9P (as it’s also called) being totally scrappy, so opted for a bit more planned version. Fits perfect on my kitchen table.

Circle Game

This was done using Lollipop’s Bindings, which are GREAT.  Her bindings come in lots of fun colors and she also sells kits to use them in as well.   My granddaughter chose this as her new quilt at Nana’s. All the kids have quilts that are just theirs when they come stay here. They noticed a few months ago that they have kind of outgrown their original baby quilts. And since the oldest granddaughter got to pick out a new quilt (that was on my design wall at the time), they wanted to as well. So I showed them all the quilt tops in line waiting to be quilted if they wanted one soon. ;)  I had the most adorable quilt picked out for the Divine Miss M, but she kept saying, ‘or you could keep it’.  LOL  I finally got the hint and let her choose her own and this was it.

Salt Water Taffy

a class I taught about 1 1/2 years ago and my grandson decided he would like that to be his new quilt at Nana’s.  Good incentive to get it quilted!

that’s it for today…more coming.

I have a blog?

Oh yeah!  I have written DOZENS of posts……too bad they were all in my head!  Oh well, I keep saying, there just ain’t enough hours in the day I tell ya. Little mini dramas going on with Sheleah (our adult daughter w/Down’s) and am not liking where it’s headed, but God gave her to us for a reason and we’ll just keep hanging in there trying to figure her out!  If anything, she keeps us on our toes.

Since I’m a bit behind, I’ll just start showing  pictures of what I’ve been working on, and they might be out of order of being done, but hey, what can I say?  :)

Saw these type of quilts all over the Internet, so taught a class and shared the ‘tags’ with the students, everything from fuzzy minkee, bumpy fabric (for the bottoms of slippers), ribbons from satin to grosgrain, chenille.  I made this little Tagalong for the newest grandbaby that is to be born next Tuesday, April 13!!  The blocks were leftover from a quilt I made for Alia, 2 1/2 years ago. Sad to say she doesn’t carry that one around, but a ragged old fleece Tinkerbell blanket. :(  This Nana isn’t happy, but what can you say?  I’m hoping that making a smaller quilt with lots of textures and softness, the new baby might be more inclined (as well as Mom & Dad) to carry this one around. I made another Tag Quilt for a couple at church, but it got wrapped and out the door before I remembered to take a picture, but then, I think you get the idea. :)

Liam turned 4 in March and I came across this panel (I added the last two borders) that I bought a few years ago (probably when he was born) and never made it. I thought I better get it done before he outgrows it!  He already is done with Thomas the Tank, Cars, and now is into dinosaurs and Super Heros.  So, Thomas the Tank got put on the back. He picked the fabric out one time while wandering through Wal Mart, he put the whole bolt in my cart!  So, I better use it up while I can.  The panel was a little village with streets and lots of different buildings. So,  I wrote the names of his city on the Post Office building, the name of the hospital where he was born and added in the names of his siblings and cousins as well. They all loved searching for their name. I guess they start young liking to see their name in print. I like adding words into the quilting on a quilt when it’s for someone special, makes it all their own.   I still had some fabric leftover, so decided to make a pillowcase. Well, when your cutting table is overflowing and you need to start measuring to cut at the 10” mark instead of the 0” mark, you need to ADD 10” to the other end. Hmmmm, wonder why my pillowcase ended up short and then had to add to it!! Dumb, dumb!! He won’t know.  Guess I better clean up my work room a bit.

Two wrongs make a Table Runner.

What? Grab a cuppa

and join my in my rambling as I try to explain…..and the story goes…..

Finally! Some sewing time for ME!  With getting samples done for classes/traveling and a LOT of  redecorating in the house has left little time for sewing since….hmm…November!!  I did make a few baby quilts for others and a little other sewing, but no deep down sew til you drop sewing. And I missed it!  My Friday night quilt group had our annual Winter Retreat a few weeks ago and I decided to get all of our annual block exchange quilts done.

I used to be SO good about putting the blocks together as soon as I got them at our Christmas party.  That is until the year someone decided to listen to her own drummer and made her block different than the others. And then all of a sudden it didn’t fit into my plan and I had a plan.  I was bummed at first and then was in a quandary for quite some time as to what to do. Do I scrap my plan and come up with another?  Use it as is? Re-do her block? Make HER re-do the block?  Decisions, decisions and I hate making that many decisions, especially after I had a plan.  So, I didn’t do anything. Let it sit. 

Next year comes along, and it just doesn’t seem right putting  those blocks together before the prior year blocks, so they sat.

Now we are up to 2006 and still nothing and time just speeds up double time now.  2007………..2008………..2009 and still nothing.  And now I’m feeling really bad because a lot of us are starting to lag behind and if truth be told, only 2 out of the 8 of us were keeping up. :(  I know, how sad. Those 2 proposed that we abandon our annual swap since no one seemed too interested in finishing them up. Okay, okay.  Good thought provoker.  2010 will make it my 15th anniversary of our block exchanges (18 years in the original group—there’s only 2 of us left) and we just couldn’t stop now.  So I vowed and challenged the group to complete our tops. 

Where was I?? Oh yeah, sorry..got off on a little tangent there. But I was just setting you up for my quilt retreat.  I had 5—yes, FIVE years to catch up. ( I finally did get the one that started all my procrastination done about 6 months ago?).  And that was my goal, get.them.done.

And so I did. I completed all the tops. Done. Complete. Okay, to the flimsy stage at least. But ALL design decisions have been made, changed, tweaked, added to and subtracted from, and flimsies are done.

2004

—this was the bad boy that started the whole mess.  I love this little quilt, and I bet I don’t even have to point out the block that was giving me problems. But then, it explains my friend. She just is…..out there……….and she knows it and we still love her for it. Let’s just say that it forces us to be creative----and accepting her for who she is.  She’s always stands out in a crowd and I’m proud to call her my friend. Oops, now can’t find my picture of the quilt top done, but it is done, I promise.

2005

—I LOVE this quilt!  This was a bit of a challenge for our group. Our assignment was to make a flower block of any type, size (except it did have to be divisible by 3”) and style.  So the layout was a challenge.  I think this will end up being one of my favorites.  Look at this center block Lisa did an awesome job.

2006

  I do not like this quilt, I do not like doing Herky Jerky, I do not like my layout #1, I do not like my layout #2.  I do not like this quilt. Are you starting to sing the Green Eggs and Ham song?  Just wondering, cuz I am. Sorry, but I just did not like this. at. all. 

I had a vision of how I was going to lay these blocks out.Drew it on graph paper. Cut all my fabric. Decided it was going to be too big. Re-cut fabric.  Get it all ready so I can just sew during the retreat.  Lay it out on the floor.  I STILL don’t like this quilt.  AND it’s going to be a BIG wallhanging that I will NEVER hang up.  Start sewing because I have it all cut out and ready.  Drats! Sew one piece on backwards.  I really don’t like this quilt.  Row 2, sew ANOTHER thing backwards. Now I really don’t like it.  Someone asked me why I was making it so big if I didn’t like it?  What? I don’t know?  Cuz I had a plan? And it slowly came to me…….I’ve already made TWO mistakes and it was just starting……she is now becoming a Table Runner. And there you go. That’s how Two Wrongs make a Table Runner!  And it was done likity split and now it’s okay.  I’ll use it as a table runner and be okay with it. After all, it’s from my friends! And by the way, I did not deliberately try to take a poor picture of it to present it at it’s worst, nope, did that all naturally—take a poor picture. LOL  psssstt…can you find the two blocks I did?

2007

Another favorite—okay, I admit, this was one of my ideas, but my friends did a great job.  We are only 8 of us, but as diverse as you could ever imagine, especially as quilters.  There are a few art teachers, some very traditional style quilters (in their fabric choices and quilting styles), a few newer quilters and me. Who doesn’t fit in ANY category! LOL  Well, I do like a more non-traditional type quilt, for the most part and I do like bright colors.  So with that in mind, the assignment this year was the Churn Dash block, with a twist.  We could decide how we wanted the block done for us, either traditional OR Liberated style. AND we could choose our color scheme.  It ended up that everyone would love their quilt then. And they all turned out awesome.  Both kinds. Actually I’m only the 4th one to get mine done, but the others will be awesome when they get them done. *grin*

2008

Loving the red and aqua color scheme—again, we got to choose our colors, but everyone made the same Sister’s Choice block. 

2009

—those fabulous 3 dimensional trees again.  It was a pattern from Moda for the Figgy Pudding line of fabric.  My friends loved my quilt so much, they wanted to swap trees this past Christmas.  But we only did the small tree. Again, we got to choose our color scheme.  I handed out the background fabric and then color assignments for my trees…red, green, aqua and yellow.  Just so it would be balanced.  I went to make my Table Runner and could NOT find any more of the fabric I passed out to complete the TR!  And I wanted it done. So, went in another direction totally of what I planned and think I like it better than my original idea.  Things just work out like that, do you ever notice? :)

And so now, I have all the tops completed. And now to the quilting……but that’s another story for another week.

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.