A Book Giveaway over at Jill's blog

Go check out Jill's blog. She is giving away a new book by Sandra Dallas. I love Sandra Dallas. She writes great books. If you haven't read The Persian Pickle Club or The Quilt That Walked to Golden, you need to put these on your summer reading schedule. Stories about women and quilting, a great combination. She has other books that I've read but I can't remember all the titles but she is a wonderful author and definitely worth reading. I just found Jill's blog and I will be catching up on reading it. Go check her out and post a comment. Today and tomorrow are the last days, so hurry...click here to go to her blog.

Two blocks for my sewing group and the Mesquite Quilt Show

Friday night I made two blocks for my ASG group. I made this month's block and the block for next month. I used the pattern from Freda's Hive for this month. She is one of the guest designers for the Jelly Roll Quilt Along that I'm participating in. I liked her block so much that I decided to share it with my group. Her directions were easy to follow and my group could use these to make their blocks. I made next month's block to show the girls and I used Quilter's Cache website for this block. Both of these blocks were easy and quick to make. I'll have two quilts when I'm through with this project. I like that, two for one! I'll decide what to do with these quilts once they are together. I'll show you when they are together...

This is a block I made using the directions from Freda's Hive website:




Winged Four Patch from Quilter's Cache website



Saturday was the Mequite Quilt show. It was a good little show. I enjoyed walking around and looking at all the pretty quilts. I bought a few kits and some other little items I just couldn't pass up. I'll use the kits to make Christmas gifts so I do not feel guilty about buying those! They are already cut up kits so they should be quick to sew. There were alot of traditional quilts anda few not so traditional. I took a few pics of some of my favorite quilts so I hope you enjoy them....til next time.

The first 6 quilts are Mini quilts for our silent auction. These were some of my favorites.













Best of Show in the Mini Quilts...made by two of my friends. Sharon made it, (this is her first applique block) and Sharron B hand quilted it. Good job girls!



These are blocks for next year's raffle quilt.

This is Delilah's block. She is also in my tatting group, See the little tatted butterfly? Too cute...


The right block was hand drawn by Mae...Hand drawn girls...You should see some of her other drawings. She is an amazing artist.















This is called Remembering Wisteria. Lovely fabric and the 9 Patch Pizazz book-a lethal combination.

Green Fairy is having a great giveaway!

There is an AWESOME giveaway happening over at Green Fairy Quilts. Go check her out but you have to hurry, the drawing closes tomorrow....

See, I do have some plants too...

Here's some pics of my beautiful flowers. I'm not very good with flowers but I try.

A beautiful Yellow Day Lilly. I planted this last year and it came back. This is the second bloom. It has about 5 more blooms on it.


I have two pots of these, one at each end of my house.


This plant is an Althea Bush that I planted 3 years ago. I love this one cause my Mother had these in our yard when I was a kid and I remember how much she liked these.


Ok, I know this doesn't look like much. I just planted this one in the spring and it was a twig...A twig. It has grown and bushed out very nicely and I'm surprised it has bloomed this year. It is also an Althea Bush but these also have another name and I don't remember what it is...I like these alot.

Terry told me the name! Thanks, Terry...I was going crazy trying to remember it. Another name is Rose of Sharon. Don't you love that?



The Rose of Sharon Quilt Pattern:

VBS with my grandson

This week is Vacation Bible School and I'm helping with the babies. Well, they really aren't babies anymore...My grandson is now 18 mos and Sam is 17 months and I had a little girl too named Kaitlin. She is only 13 months old and just starting to walk but with help... Trent and Sam liked to rock together. Aren't they cute?
Our church does not have VBS for kids this young. These are the worker's children I'm watching. This is alot of fun but three hours is a long time for babies to be in a room...Thank God for animal crackers! It's a long time for me too!

Trent and Sam (Trent is the one on the left smiling)


Miss Eva and Kaitlin


Kaitlin


Sam


Trent (my grandson)


Sam and Trent having a snack

Friday night sewing , finishing up my exchange and my iron bit the dust.

I came home yesterday and started setting out my blocks from my exchange. We finished our exchange Thursday night and I now have all of my blocks to do this quilt. I couldn't wait to get home and start this quilt. I put them all out on my design wall and started arranging/rearranging until I got them like I wanted. I sewed up the middle section and then started on the top section.










I sewed those two sections up and then stopped. I came downstairs and watched TV and tatted on my flag. I decided I would get up early and try to finish this top up...It was going together very well but it was more time consuming than I thought it would be. It was set on point for the top and bottom sections and that always throws me a little. I decided I wasn't going to rush this.

I got up this morning and made my coffee, looked around at some blogs and went upstairs. I moved my portable design wall closer to me and I was able to just turn around and pick up the blocks and sew them in the order they needed to be. It was much easier. I sewed a few and pressed and I was going along pretty good...My dog, Brandi wanted to go out so I thought this was a good time to take a potty break too. I went downstairs and let her out and piddled around in the kitchen putting dishes in the dishwasher. I guess I was downstairs for maybe 15 minutes before I went back at it. I went back upstairs and started sewing again but I started smelling something really funky....Not a good smell, either. I got up and walked over to the ironing board and smoke was coming off of my iron. I thought hmmm, smells like something rubbed up against it like plastic. I grabbed it and ran it along the end of the ironing board and it immediately scorched the ironing board cover. It was so hot! I unplugged it immediately and that's the end of that one! I'm so glad I was up there when this happened. It was so hot, I think it was close to bursting into flames. I'm also glad I didn't put it on my fabric. Boy, I would have been highly upset about that! Anyway, I was very fortunate today and have learned a good lesson from this. Don't go out of the room and leave your iron on (or any appliance, for that matter.) Turn them off just to be safe.

My Rowenta is the one that got so hot...I loved this iron, it was a great one...



I put all the blocks together and put my final borders on. I pulled out another iron and did my final press with this old thing. I picked this up at my small group. I got it for a small donation. One of our members brought it up to sell in our garage sale cause the steam part didn't work. I don't use steam so I bought it. It's nice and heavy and gets pretty hot. I will definitely watch it though now.

I'll be using this nice, heavy Sunbeam for a while...




My quilt top is together and no fires, so I'm a happy camper! Here's my top, I did this from the last issue of The Quilt Sampler magazine. There's a new issue out now but this one's still available somewhere.

Finally, a finished top. I think it turned out ok. If I had it to do over, I would make sure the pinwheels were darker so the album blocks and basket blocks would show up better. Other than that, I'm very pleased. The top went together very good and all the blocks were pretty accurate.




Here's the magazine that this pattern came out of.


Here's the picture in the magazine so you can see what the top looked like there...

Sew What's and some quilts to admire that are on display at the City of Mesquite, Tx.

I went to my small group meeting last night and we worked on making heart pillows. We make these pillows and give to various hospitals in our area for breast cancer patients and heart patients. (Presbyterian Hospital has received these in the past but I just took 9 bags -120 pillows in all- to them a few weeks ago and they can't get anymore right now. They don't have anymore room for them!) We got alot done but I didn't count them all. We had a great time chatting and visiting too while stuffing and sewing up the pillows. Several cut out, one sewed, one ironed, and many stuffed. It was a great assembly line and a great way to get things done in a hurry for charity. We've done this before when we made baby quilts for the area hospitals.

We only had a few people bring show and tell, but, guess what, my camera was dead. So, no pictures from our meeting. They are going to tell me about this one, I'm sure...

Today:
I left work a little early this afternoon and went over to the City of Mesquite. I have three quilts on display there along with about 36 other quilts and I took picturs of all of them. The city asked us to display our quilts to advertise for our upcoming show next weekend. We have a quilt show every year the weekend after Father's Day. So, here are the quilts that were on display. Most of these are ribbon winners from year's past and some are not, but all are beautiful quilts. I hope you enjoy them and if you get a chance and are in the neighborhood, please come to the Quilt show.

The show is at Rutherford Recreation Center
900 Rutherford Dr.
Mesquite, Tx. 75149
June 25 and 26, 2010.
The doors open at 10am and close at 5pm. We have vendors, demonstrations, door prizes and a Mini quilt auction.
Here's a sample of the workmanship you will see at our little show. We have some very talented women in our group and they love to show their talents off....Enjoy the samples...

Blue Willow by Sandy


I Speak for Myself by Sharon


Dear Jane by Betty


There's a Dog on My Quilt by Sandy


Sandy's Garden by Sandy


Seven Sisters by Nancy


Cosmos by Nancy


Echoes by Mae


Radiant Swirls by Grace


Embroidered Baskets by Mae


Wild Thing by Ethel


My Pink Sampler by Naomi


Martha Washington's Flower Garden by Ethel


More Half Square Triangles by Naomi


Grandmother's Flower Garden Basket by Sharron


Apple Core by Betty


Grandpa's Flower Garden by Shirley


Sixtet Splendor by Shirley


The Bear Family Album by Linda


Hip to be Square by Evelyn


PicNic by Sharron


Delectable Mountain by Shelia


Grandmother's Fan by Mae


Tulips by Ethel


Grandmother's Fan by Nancy


My Delectable Mountain Star by Linda


Cats More Cats by Shelia


Patriot Blooms by Linda


My Reward by Nancy


Made in the USA by Beverly


Paw Paw's Neckties by Ethel


Pink and Gray and Red All Over by Shelia


Tripping Around by Sharron


Prisms by Betty


Carson City Honey Bee by Mae


Heart's Desire by Nancy


Josh's Diamonds by Mae


1930's Reproduction Dresden Plate by Nancy


This one is on permanent display at the City of Mesquite. It was made by a friend of mine and has all the firefighters on it. My friend, Nancy made this for the Fire Dept. a few years back. Her husband was a fireman for Mesquite and is now retired. This is an amazing quilt and she did a wonderful job on this quilt.