Busy Morning

There was a call for love blocks by one of my friends for a love quilt so I spent most of the morning making a bunch for her. Hope they work :)

Then I decided to see what we still had in the garden with all the rain last week and the high heat and humidity this week. Aren't these just breathtaking??????






And then I was going into the house to upload the pics and I hear the faintest Meow- seems I didn't pay proper homage to the resident princess -lol.

Borders Monday

I wish it meant I was relaxing at Borders Books having a nice cold coffee type drink, but no today was clear the table of things that needed finishing. So before the mystery quilt got shuffled around I put borders on that *VBG*





and I finally finished the rows and borders on a love quilt for a friend going through a hard time. This one will loaded on the frame tonight and quilted tomorrow and Wednesday- depending on how hot it gets as my frame is in the garage and it's been pretty hot here in NJ :(

But there's been another call for blocks so I guess I'll go make some green mini bow ties as it's for a man.....

Hopefully the sun tea is done cause I'm parched-lol

What did YOU sew today????

What I did all day- this mystery top minus borders for the little girl next door.

I had fussy cut Tinkerbell fabric for the centers but that little pixie was hiding when it was time to do the blocks . So I cut these centers and got about half way done and I went to put away the extra pinks and there she was, all 24 of her . Oh well I have lots of purple in the stash to do it again .

I got 10 of those 16 patch blocks done as a leader /ender project

and managed to trim 30 hsts of yellow and white and 20 pink and white- Finn I need lots and lots to do all those quilts VBG

and I even got a nap and made dinner and brushed my new best buddy- this cat is getting pathetic- you can't hold him for long but if I have the brush he will lay on his back and wants his belly brushed and he drools when he purrs . By the end of the summer he'll be able to go to the vet I think, and he's got some big paws- he's going to be a small lion-

New Bags :)

This is what I've been doing most of the day.
It was a pattern I bought a couple years ago from Keepsake Quilting- it was ok. I would have changed some of the instructions but fun. So my daughter and I have new bags for shopping etc. Her's has Tinkerbell fabric for the flannel and I have a blue paisley.
But now that dinner is made, eaten and cleaned up- it's time to finish cutting the fabric for the mystery tomorrow on some of the yahoo groups. Hope it's a good one as I'm making a CHristmas present for the little girl next door with mine.....
Hope to see lots of pretties tomorrow night and Monday-

How could I forget

To post a pic of the finished wallhanging??? It's been done for a couple of weeks and looks great hanging over my bed :)






Isn't this great how close this butterfly let me get to him in my lily????

Isn't he cute????

This is Cliff,the cat. He's a stray that decided he likes us and wants to be our friend. He's been hanging around for months and always taking off when you got near him. 2 weekes ago "HE DECIDED" we're ok and now comes to be pet and brushed. Good thing as he has these HUGE mats on his back. Really bad like dread locks actually. I got 3 off and 2 more BIG ones to go. But Cliff doesn't like to be held yet. ANd he can't come in till I can get him to a vet for shots etc. Not taking any chances there.

I've been hand quilting the Hawaiian quilt slowly and making more and more hsts for depression quilts. I need 7 quilts by June of next year-lol. All the same except borders will be different fabric/colors. This is the last year of Girl Scouts and I figured the girls have seen me sew enough bindings on during the meetings and they have all asked for one- well except dd. What a better ending gift for all huh????AND I get to BUST THE STASH at the same time!!! Snoopy dancing here :).

Ann Smith is doing a mystery this weekend on a bunch of groups and I've yet to cut my fabric out. I can't decide which of the 2 fabric groups I want to do.....sad isn't it? PLus as a bonus I have a gazillion 2 1/2" squares here from scrap cutting this week for leader/enders to make more 16 patch blocks :)
So maybe, I should get to cutting huh?????

Swooze and Mare I sent the squishie's yesterday. Courtney's will go next week as not to get loney in the mail box while you're gone :)
Have a great weekend and hope to see lots of pretties on the blogs after the weekend !

Rainy days and Mondays

I think Cyd has the right idea for today :(
It's been raining pretty hard all morning. Though I got alot of "wifey" stuff done, baking fresh banana bread yummmmm, the never ending battle of laundry and dirty dishes. It's a struggle to keep moving :( and not lay down with Cyd and take a nap. One of the teenagers is at work clap clap and the other at 12:34 PM is still sleeping- nice life huh? But today's a day I don't need to hear "i'm bored" so I'll let sleeping dogs lay-lol






I finished the applique part of this baby blanket for a church member . Her shower is in 2 weeks . I will add borders this afternoon or evening and baste it and start the hand quilting on it- yep I said hand quilting in a tradition Hawaiian design for kukui block. Some kind of tree that's all I know about it. In June I bought a great booklet of 20 different blocks for $2 and just by using one of the patterns already I think it was money well spent :)

I too Nancy Chong's class at Quilt University last year and need to practice my needleturn applique and believe it or not, these are the easiest for me to do. My hearts always look lopsided and I really need to master this by next year as my SIL will be 40 and I make queensized quilts for siblings and spouses for the big 40. She wants all fall colors and oak leaves appliqued on it- great **rolling eyes**

So that's my day in a nutshell, hope everyone else is doing something constuctive :)

Dishtowels

So this is what I've done most of the day *VBG*
I got the pdf pattern here:
and the actual step by step directions are here:
http://calamitykim.typepad.com/photos/whip_up_a_darlin_dress_to/index.html
I have 2 more to make and then I'm out of towels to play with.
I think they'd make a great secret sister gifty- don't you?????

Gotta kiss alot of frogs................

Before you find your prince :)
I made these 2 today between errands with the kiddies all day.
They were "supposed to be" toys but I shrunk the pattern either 20% for one of them and 30% for the other. 20% is plenty and a cute size :)
I got them here
http://www.purlbee.com/purl-frog
I have to finish the felted ones too , maybe tomorrow and I have a bunch of dish towels I found an "excellent " pattern to work with for them.....pics coming soon :)

Playing with wool part 2

Ok I was asked what the wool does....see I bought packs of roving the green stuff on left. You seperate it into a bunch of pencil thin or so strands and start wrapping it up like a ball of well like wool to knit :)
you can do all one color or a mixture, then you put it in a knee high panty hose, twist tight and wash in hot water. When the wash is done you roll and compress the wool to get the air out and let dry and you have a wool pincushion. Then you can take embroidery thread ( dmc type not machine thread) and reg wool, like the charms I got in Lancaster last fall and decorate to look like previous post :)

Something different to try that kept me out of the fabric stores for the afternoon-lol

Playing with wool

above pic is from MCCALLS Quilting 2007

A few months ago at guild one of the vendors sold wool roving. Why I thought I needed that is beyond me but I bought 4 little bags of the stuff. :)
And then this morning going through old magazines to make a pile for another quilter, I saw an article how to make the above !!! WOW!!! I wonder if they come out as cute as this one??? Time will tell, I have 3 little wool balls in the washer in hot water :)
I'm "supposed " to appliquing a baby quilt top or cleaning my sewing area. I tried doing that this morning and ended up doing a pretty nice sized strips piece that I want to use to cover a small photo albulm :) Or add to my crazy strings pice that I have going- like a giant crumb pieced block :)
I just can't get into a sewing mode or even cleaning of the mess for that matter....sigh

Quilting Meme

Let's see what the quilter's have in common besides their love of fabric- I think the knitters can do it too if they subsitute fibers for some of the questions.....copy and paste to your blog and change the answers to yours

1: How long have you been quilting???Since the late 70's

2: Did you take lessons ??? not until recently, mostly self taught

3: Favorite Quilting teacher??? Sharon Schamabers

4:Do you follow the patterns you buy? Sometimes but usually with my own "twist" in it somewhere

5:Favorite block? Hope of Hartford

6: Favorite technique? examples, applique,hand piecing, machine piece? depends on the block- I do love hand piecing though

7: Favorite Quilt book??? Right now, Liberated Quilting by Gwen Marston

8: Do you dye your own fabric?? But of course, doesn't everyone?

9:Do you have a quilt YOU made on YOUR bed?? yep right now 3

10: Why do you quilt???? It's cheaper than therapy

11:Favorite color combinations??? Blue and White or Red/white and blue

12:Quilt you want to make in this lifetime? King sized Lone Star or New York Beauty

13: What kind of machine(s) do you own????? Janome Gem for piecing, 2 vintage treadles, vintage homemark ,2 other singer sewing machines for backup and DD when she's in the mood to sew, and the juki for machine quilting on the frame

14: Favorite quilting tool? my seam ripper more like an ball tipped awl- Marianne showed us it last fall and I have to have all the cool toys

15: Do you have a sewing room studio??? Nope just an alcove in the dining room for sewing and part of the garage for quilting

16:Do you belong to any guilds??? Yep, Vice president of it too

17: Do you belong to online groups?? Yep but recently dropped a bunch of them and will drop more by end of summer

18:Do you read other peoples blogs to get ideas??? but of course, can you imagine how many quilts I'd get done if I quit reading blogs???

19: Do you hand quilt??? Excessively

20: Do you have a pile of UFO's just waiting to be finished??? I think I'm up to 6 now Not in any kind of finishing mood lately

Pay it Forward (PIF)

Seems to be the trend on the internet this weekend the idea of paying it forward.
Quilters are the nicest people :)
So the first three people to leave a comment and promise to pay it forward also will get a gift from me :)
And those lucky people need to leave a couple color choices as it's fabric dyeing week here- how cool is that????

Well I finally finished the top :)
Not that I liked the technique :(
It's fused. So it's going to be a pain to quilt- especially all that bias binding used for the lead.
But that will be tomorrow's project to finish .....

I tried the heart yoyo maker so very cute and easy....I made 5 yesterday- need to figure a cute way to use them in a wall hanging....maybe I'll try the flower one tomorrow at guild's quilt as you like day :)

Squishy Day :)

Don't you love getting packages in the mail??? I ordered the books on Amazon and the clover yoyo makers from one of my fav sellers on Ebay *VBG* I got both the flowers and the hearts in both sizes. I'll try them out later while watching baseball, it's old timers day at the stadium :)
I'm prepping another SBS for appliquing down, and broke out my tumbling blocks- plan is to do 10 a week- should only take a couple of years to finish them all that way *wink* That's what I get for starting all these hand sewing/quilting projects at once.......


Here's DD's cat, Cyd, trying to be my new best friend since Chat is gone.
She would NEVER go on my bed if he were here to protect the quilts.



Have a great Saturday, going to be a hot one here today...

Still Sewing and gardening

Look!!!! Almost 2 cups of yoyos!!! What I'm going to go with them, I'm not sure but they look so cute in the canning jar :)
And the SB Sues from Christmas hell-lol. On retreat last fall a friend ( what friend would pass on such ugly Christmas Sues, especially since it was a 20+ year UFO for them? I ask you who would do that to a friend???) Gave me these "lovelys to finish. And just when I had the top pieced of 12 , she sends 8 more! grrrrrrrrrrr
So now I found them under my bed and started them again today and ripping the borders off to use as sashing AGAIN. And wait for more ugly Christmas fabric to come to the stores- needs that gold in it to be true to the original Sues....sigh. I have 2 more appiqued down and 5 to go- the last one I"m going to keep for a sampler quilt.
***rolls eyes***** since the last sample quilt I made, DD "borrowed" and never returned-







and my first callas of the year are blooming, *VBG* my favorite flower




there are just so many colors and types of lilies this year, FINALLY :)






Isn't this a HUGE flower??? I have to remember to dry some for a wreath this year.

July 5th

Hope everyone had a safe and Happy 4th.
Boy did ever rain and rain up here in NJ :(
But it gave me lots and lots of time to goof off and watch the Twilight Zone marathon on the Sci Fi channel, read blogs and finish this wall hanging I started last week. VBG



But before it rained I was able to take a few pictures of the flowers in the yard.
There are just so many of them.



Here's DD's cat, Cyd Vcious hiding in the leaves of some of the lilies

At least it's something

Well I tried working on my ocean waves quilt this morning...wasn't in the mood. Also tried the love quilt I need to finish- nope, not that either :( .
But I grabbed the card tricks wall hanging, my hand quilting stuff, bottle of water, my ipod and I went OUTSIDE to work on my hand quilting.
I just love the backs of hand quilted pieces almost as much as I love the fronts. Sometimes more the backs. I would so love to be able to design a wholecloth and hand quilt it in this lifetime. I really need to work on my stitching and this seemed like a small enough project that won't stir up the dreaded carpal tunnel. And it's very soothing to just sew without worrying about anything.

Not alot going on

Been a day where I tried to stay busy. My quilting buddy and bestest animal friend fell suddenly ill Thursday and had to be put down yesterday. Very sad :( .




Here he is Wednesday relaxing on my GMFG quilt- the difference of a few day. So I spent the day quilting 2 blocks of the card trick wall hanging and prepping 30 little squares of muslin for my 30's cathedral windows quilt. Played in EQ .

Tomorrow will be a block of card tricks in the morning and then I really need to get the top of a love quilt pieced and borders on and quilted this week. I want it in the mail by Thursday, wish me luck.

But clover yoyo toys will be shipped from Texas tomorrow so maybe by the weekend I'll have some cute new yoyo's . I'm thinking I "need" to make a basket wall hanging and make a bouquet of yoyo flowers. But first I need to cut the fabric for the mystery alot of groups are doing. Ann SMith is the designer, very beginner friends and this one is a STASH QUILT DESIGN!!!! Jumping up and down with glee. I'm doing mine in pinks and whites and I will have a Christmas present done for the little girl next door. Woo Hoo!!

Tomorrow I need to also get back on track with piecing the blocks for the quilts I need for next May only 140 blocks to make 7 quilts for my Girl Scout troop as they're all seniors in HS next year and it will be the end of the GS for them and me.