Living4Quilting (and Tatting and sometimes Knitting too!)

Happy Scrappy Saturday

2012-02-04T15:17:00.000-08:00

I have been working on green scraps today and I've gotten a few things done with my scraps. I'm really enjoying the scrappy Saturdays. I can cut my scraps up and sew them together and watch the grandbaby at the same time. No pressure. I brought one of my machines down from my sewing room and set it up on the kitchen table. I'm all spread out there and the family aren't crazy about that but that's ok too....We usually eat in the living room in front of the TV anyway, so I just gave them an excuse to do that without feeling guilty! So, I made 5 green disappearing 4 patches to go with the 5 red ones I did last week. I made 20 more little 3 inch 9 Patches and I made more trees. The 9 patches and the trees are for exchanges I'm in this year and I'll be doing 40 nine patches a month for that. I'm through with the trees for the exchange, I've made my 20 for that and now I'm just working on my trees. I need 53 trees for a small quilt but I don't know if I want a small quilt. I don't have any small beds so it's really no use to me for this size. So that means, I need alot more trees. We are only exchanging 20, I don't know why but that's what was decided. That means I have to make 50 + trees myself and I want them all different. I'll be using up some more of my green scraps for these as I go along. Here's some pics of what I did today and I'm still sewing. I have some other red and white things left to do for my Valentine surprise....more to come on that later.

40 little 3 inch 9 Patches

I'm so enjoying making these trees. These are easy and fun to make and this quilt is going to be so cute. I'm so glad they talked me into this exchange...

I saw these blocks on another blog last week and I thought they were so cute, I just had to make some. I'm making 5 of each color. Which means in 12 months, that will be 60 blocks. These are small blocks- 8 1/2" unfinished. I might have to rethink how many I make of each color...Plenty of time for that, right?

I've had some of this fabric for awhile and I'm glad I'm using it up. That floral was one of my favorites way back when....

This last picture is my sweet Mother In Law and the grandbaby. Mom came by today for a visit and had to hold the baby before she went down for a nap. They both look pretty sleepy here.

Ok, gotta go do some more sewing before everyone comes home. Have a great weekend and I hope you get some time with your sewing machine, uh, I mean family, maybe a little of both! Have fun.

Some red and white quickie projects

2012-01-28T20:02:00.000-08:00

Here's the red things I did today. I cut out these big hearts and made hot pads out of them. I still have to bind them but I'm going to use bias binding (the kind you buy in packages) on these instead of making bias binding.
I finished the placemat I made last week. I have decided to make a placemat in all the colors we work on this year for the rainbow challenge so I can have some rainbow placements. I think the grandkids will like these.
I made a little snippets bag, a big zipper bag to hold some of my tatting shuttles and thread, a coaster and 5 heart hotpads. I'm showing the backside of one of these to show you the silver stuff (I don't know what it's called, but it's ironing board fabric.) All of these are finished except for 4 of the hotpads.

I was going to make this bigger snippets bag out of red but I didn't have big enough scraps of red. So, instead of red, I used white fabric that wasn't good enough for a quilting project to make the bag. I don't know where I even got this fabric but it's too heavy for quilting so I decided it would do for this little bag or whatever you call it. This is one of the things I was going to show you this week. I saw one of these at my sewing group last week and decided to see if I could make it. This turned out ok. I used a big equilateral triangle to cut the triangles. I cut 8 triangles out. Put two triangles together and sew them right sides together, repeat for a total of 4 sets. I sewed three of these from the bottom up 5 inches. I then sewed the final triangle on the bottom. Fold down the tops and put a button on each corner to hold them down....In the picture you can see the triangle ruler I used. It is an 8"-60 degree ruler. I still need to sew the buttons on and it will be finished. This one looks pretty plain and will look better with buttons but it will do what I want it to anyway.... The one I saw was cuter with prettier fabric.

I also cut the corner triangles and setting triangles out for my heart quilt but I didn't sew them yet. I'll try to sew those tomorrow afternoon after church. Until next time, happy quilting!

Happy Scrappy Saturday

2012-01-28T07:58:00.000-08:00

Ok, today is the last red Saturday and I have got to get busy. I'm watching the baby today but she's playing and quiet right in her playpen now so I'll slip upstairs and grab some fabric to work on. I have an idea or two and I'll show you later what I worked on. I'll be working on red at least until the mid part of February....I have more ideas but can't share those just yet. I'm going to be sharing those on Februay 14th, Valentine's Day, for the Show Some Love Blog Hop! Mark your calendars and drop by to see what I'll have to show. I'll be having some drawings for you to enter too so please come by.

Gotta go for now to get busy, check back on me later today. Now, go sew!

My First Thimbleberries Sew Day

2012-01-25T22:12:00.000-08:00

I came in today from work and wanted to get started on sewing for my first Thimbleberries Sew Day. However, I had to feed the grandbaby and watch the Mavs play. I just had to do that, you know! They got their rings tonight and it was a happy night except they lost. My kids went to the game and I watched the baby....So, my sewing was delayed until I put her to bed....I got a late start but was able to finish this little wallhanging. I've had this little Thimbleberries pattern for a few years and I've been wanting to make it forever. I thought it would be fun to finally make it and I was right. It was fun and quick and easy too. I hurried upstairs and pulled some fabric and started cutting. This little pattern went together so quickly. I even learned a new way to put together friendship stars. These little stars are only 3 inches finished but the method the pattern showed was alot easier than using all squares or triangles. That's one thing I like about Thimbleberries patterns, they use quick methods and you get good results with their methods....Anyway, here's my first project for the Thimbleberries Sew Day and I know it won't be my last. I have several books of hers and there are patterns in each book that I want to do, so I should be busy for a few years anyway!!! If you want to join us, we sew the last Wednesday of each month using Thimbleberries patterns or fabric or both. There is no pressure and no quilt police, click on the button on the right hand side of my blog and you'll be directed to Barb's blog and you can sign up there or get more info.
This was a free pattern that was sent out with an advertisement for one of her books. This pattern is called Glory Be.
Ok, it's past my bedtime so I'll say goodnight. Happy sewing!

Hearts and trees

2012-01-24T22:15:00.000-08:00

I didn't go to tatting tonight because the weather was so bad. I decided to come home and just sew a little. While listening to Pat Sloan's podcast I cut some white and off-white squares and put them with my little red hearts. The rows are together now and I'll sew them together once I figure out the sizes for the side setting triangles and corner triangles. I just didn't want to do the math tonight....

I stopped working on the little hearts and decided to do some trees. I hadn't even looked a the pattern until tonight and wasn't sure how big these were. These will finish at 6" X 8" and look pretty big. I thought they were small and I was pretty surprised at their size. I'm in an exchange next month to make a tree quilt. Here's the start of them. I made 6 of these tonight and I only need to make 20 so I'm on my way. There's 10 of us in the exchange, so I have to make 10 of each tree. We're only exchanging 20 trees. The quilt requires alot more....I'll be making the rest on my own so I'll be using scraps after this.

Tomorrow is Thimbleberries Sew Day and I've picked out the pattern I'll be working on. My first Thimbleberrie Sew Day with Barb of Bejeweled Quilts, I'm excited!!! See you tomorrow!

Exciting News: GO! Ahead and Show Some Love Blog Hop

2012-01-23T19:34:00.000-08:00

Coming in February!!!! Save the dates and visit these fun blogs. It's the next Accuquilt blog hop, and the theme is: Go! Ahead and Show Some Love Blog Hop, and there are going to be lots of projects, tutorials, and maybe some giveaways, too! Since it's being done in the sweetest month or I call it the love month, we will all be focusing on red and white. Yes, more red is coming up along with hearts and valentines and of course, chocolate! Yum, yum!

If you'd like to know who will be posting in our hop, click on the graphic in the right-hand sidebar, and you'll be able to see SewCalGal's post and the list of bloggers. Jacque (Lilypad Quilting) created the cute artwork for this blog hop. Thanks, Jacque, this is so cute!!!!

Also, thanks to Paulette (Sweet P Quilting) for twisting our arms, I mean coordinating this upcoming blog hop...

I love using my tools, my friends know that I'm a gadget girl and one of my favorite tools is my AccuQuilt Go. I don't use it to it's full advantage but that's what this is all about, learning, sharing and having fun! I'm very lucky, my day to show what I've got going on is Valentine's Day, February 14th! I do have to share the day with Connie (Quilting by the River), but I don't mind sharing!!!! So, click on the red badge on the side and see who else is playing and mark your calenders to visit each one of us on our special days.

Don't forget to come join the fun in our upcoming GO! Ahead and Show Some Love Blog Hop! I think you'll have fun and find some ideas to create some really sweet projects too.

Red Weekend

2012-01-23T10:53:00.000-08:00

I worked on red scraps all weekend. I just couldn't get them off my mind. I made 5 string blocks and a string placemat and more little hearts, but it just seemed like my red scraps just kept growing! Oh my, I decided I would seperate them to keep them from multiplying and that seemed to do the trick. The pile isn't a big pile anymore, it's a medium size one now! I didn't take pictures of the placemat yet because I didn't bind it yet. I did start putting my hearts together. I think I'll make a few little quilts out of the hearts instead of a big quilt. Some little girls might like these little heart quilts and I'll be working on these this week. I have trouble with diagonal quilts. I'm directionally challenged or something. I have to lay them out and look at them to make sure they are right. I'm putting white and off-white alternating blocks in with the little hearts and I'm liking the red and white. I've had a good time sewing red this weekend and this whole month.

I'm even getting a surprise together for next month. I will be participating in a Blog Hop next month and you can come over and visit me along with a few others for this special Red and White Hop. I'll post more about it later tonight. I'm out of time right now and gotta get busy. Go sew and come back later tonight for the info, please.

Friday night sewing and Happy Scrappy Saturday!

2012-01-21T12:34:00.000-08:00

Last night I went to the church and sewed with my friends. It was so much fun. I saw two new quick things and I'll be doing those sometime this week. As soon as I get everything worked out, I'll show them to you. They are really fun and I know you will like them. So, please check back this week for some quick things to make.
I took my red blocks and my scrap strips and worked on those a little. We visited and ate and sewed too. What a fun time with friends. Today, I made some Disappearing 4 patches. I saw these last week and just had to make them along with some easy hearts. I am still doing the red heart blocks and I'll be making those into a little wallhanging. I'll be making more DP4 patches. I want to make the DP4 with other colors too. This might turn into a rainbow quilt too. Time will tell as I haven't made up my mind. Right now, I'm just trying to use up some scraps. I did two more Fun and Done red strip scrap blocks and that made me think about using my strips to make a little scrappy bag. I'll be working on that this afternoon. Now, I'm going to see about making a red scrappy little bag. I'm loving happy scrappy Saturday...mindless sewing! Ahhh, just fun sewing while I watch kid shows with my grandbaby. I have looked at the crumb tutorials on Quiltville and another Crumb Mile a Minute block tutorial and I'll be doing some of those too, maybe....

Here's some pics. Now back to sewing on red blocks! I hope you enjoy your weekend and get some sewing time in.

Little Red Hearts

Fun and Done blocks. These are quilt as you go and are fun and quick to do.

Disappearing 4 Patch Blocks. These are also easy and quick to do.

Friday Night Sew In with Heidi and Bobbi and my friends

2012-01-18T21:42:00.000-08:00

This Friday is FNSI with Heidi and Bobbi, if you haven't signed up yet, go on over to Bobbi's site and sign up. Here's a link to go there. I plan on sewing Friday night with my friends at the church too. Heidi and Bobbi did this last year and are doing it again this year. Yeahhhh! I always get more done when I sign up, I don't know why but I do. I always enjoy seeing what everyone is working on too.

My first finish this year.

2012-01-15T19:40:00.000-08:00

I listened to some podcasts today of Pat Sloan. I haven't had the chance to listen to these and had 14 to listen to. I didn't get to listen to all of them but I did catch up a little bit while I was quilting on this little charity quilt. I'll be giving this one to my guild this week...These were just little floral blocks that someone in the guild cut out and I put them together. I machine quilted this one with leaves and little flowers. The stitching wasn't great but you gotta practice, right? Anyway, it's finished and ready for gifting....

January is red month...red blocks

2012-01-15T19:30:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I worked on red blocks. I pulled out my red scraps and and made some little 9 patches and one string block.

Today, I made 4 flower blocks. I'm making this flower quilt out of the Easy Quilt magazine. I'll be working on this quilt this year and I'll be using scraps to make it. I did buy the yellow fabric for the center of the flower but I plan to use scraps for all the other flowers.

I was thinking about making some scrap blocks too. What are they called? Oh, yeah, crumbs...Do you use a foundation to make these or just start sewing crumbs together? Can you use paper or should it be fabric? I haven't done any of the crumb blocks yet but I have some crumbs that I want to try. With the cost of fabric now, I think it would be good to use up all the fabric I have.

Here's my pile of red fabrics, it didn't go down at all, so I'll be making a few more blocks out of my reds.

My Present Quilt

2012-01-14T09:47:00.000-08:00

I came in Friday night and worked on my present quilt...here's a picture of it. The last border in the pattern shows just a small 1 1/2" white border. I had several 2" blocks left over and I started putting them together two at a time. My first thought was I would make a little quilt out of the leftovers but then I thought, well, what about a border on the quilt? Look at the top of the quilt and you will see what I'm talking about.

Should I use this as the border or do you think it takes away from the presents in the middle? Let me know what you think, please.

I was hacked and I'm hacked off!

2012-01-12T10:40:00.000-08:00

Ok, I can't send each one of you an email as my contact list and email have been compromised. If you have received email from me in the past, you were probably in my contact list. I hope you didn't get a crazy email from me saying I was in Madrid and got mugged. I have had so many calls and texts letting me know about this. I apologize if you got this, it wasn't me. I hope it's all cleared up now. All my accounts have been changed but like I said, if you continue to get crazy email, please don't hold it against me. Thanks for your understanding.

Row By Row quilt and a little Christmas wallhanging

2012-01-10T00:03:00.000-08:00

I finished my Row by Row quilt this weekend. I think it turned out really cute. We were given a row instruction each month last year and the final instructions were given to us in November. We are to take it back to our January meeting and show how we finished it. For all the ones that finished, there will be a surprise drawing. I think there was only 8 or 10 of us doing this but this was a fun project and I know everyone will be sorry they didn't do it when they see the cute quilt it made. Here's my Row by Row quilt flimsy ready for quilting.

Here's a little wallhanging I finished too.

Free Motion Quilting challenge

2012-01-09T20:35:00.000-08:00

I worked on a few things Saturday. My Free Motion quilting was one of the things I started....

I am participating in SewCalGal's Free Motion Quilting challenge this year. I put a sandwich of fabric together and started working on my homework for this month's challenge. I started out using Robison-Anton thread on top and the bobbin. I then changed to a bobbin thread in the bobbin case. That worked a little better. I slowed my machine down too and that helped also. I went to the quilt shop and purchased some King Tut thread and some top stitching needles. I changed those out and started playing again. I could tell a difference right off. The stitches looked alot better on the front and back. I have bobbin thread in the bobbin case but it's old thread. It kept breaking so I changed back to regular thread in my bobbin. I found some Coat's and Clark bobbin thread Sunday afternoon at Joann's and I'll be trying that out next. I've heard about some bobbin thread called Bottom Line that they say is good but I can't find that locally. I'm going to order some of that and play with it too. Here's my sample of the leaves we are supposed to do this month. It was hard for me to change directions with this but I finally got that down. I'm pleased with the way the different threads made my stitches look and I feel like I have more control now since I slowed my machine speed down a little. I know it's going to just take practice and more practice to get it right. But, here's my start:

Christmas Package Quilt

2012-01-08T20:35:00.000-08:00

I came in Friday afternoon and was going to go sew with my friends. I got off a little early Friday and came home and instead of going up to my sewing room and getting ready. I laid down on the bed and decided to finish a book I had been reading. Well, needless to say, I fell asleep, didn't get to the sewing night with my friends and didn't finish the book either! I woke up and decided it was too late to go sew with my friends but I did go on up to my sewing room. I sat there for awhile trying to decide what I would work on. I have so many projects to finish and was feeling overwhelmed. I decided to just pull out one of my projects and work on it and see how far along I could get. If you don't get started, you can't finish, right? Anyway, I pulled out the Christmas package blocks that I won at my quilt group from our Christmas party. I put them on the design wall and played with the layout and decided I needed to make more blocks. I won 16 blocks but wanted this quilt to be a bit bigger so I made 9 more blocks. Here is the middle part of the quilt put together. I finished sewing it together tonight. Now, I'll be putting a white 2 1/2" strip around the outside, some 2 1/2" blocks sewn into strips for the next round, another white 2 1/2" strip, then a final outer border of a Christmas print. I'm not sure what that will be yet. I think this has turned out pretty cute so far. Here's the middle part to this quilt...

I'll be working on this later in the week to see if I can get it to the flimsy stage. I'll show you my progress later.

soscrappy: Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2012 and SewCalGal Free Motion Challenge

2012-01-02T12:54:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!   I hope your Christmas or holiday was wonderful and you got to spend time with the ones you love.

I don't know about you but I'm ready to get busy again. I decided I didn't want to overwhelm myself right off but I do want to challenge myself to get things done. I know I always do better with deadlines so I decided to take stock and see what I wanted to accomplish this year. One thing I want to do is to use up some of my scrap stash, so I turned my attention to Angela. She had a rainbow scrap challenge last year and is at it again this year.   I've been organizing today and I didn't do too much with my colored scraps last year but I'm willing to try again. I love seeing what everyone does with their scraps and I want to use up alot of mine too. Angela is way more organized with her colors than I am but I can always pull mine out as I go. She's already started the month off and decided on reds. I'm going to incorporate this challenge this month with another. My group is doing a Mug Rug a month. This month is a house mug rug. I'm going to use my red scraps to make some house mug rugs. So, to that end, I'll go pull out my reds and get busy. Here's a link to Angela's Scrap Challenge, go check her out.soscrappy: Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2012

But before I go, I want to tell you about the other challenge I decided to do this year. I'm always trying to finish my own projects. I like to be able to work on my quilts from start to finish. I love to hand quilt and do still hand quilt occasionally but I'm not a fast quilter and I want to see my quilts finished in my life time. I used to work in quilt shops (I worked in three different shops over a ten year period) and I did alot of samples. These samples did not have to be quilted at the time. So, I have several of those hanging around and I have several other tops finished waiting to be quilted. I like to machine quilt but I don't like to quilt big quilts on my sewing machine. I have quilted a king size quilt in the past and did not enjoy it at all. I will quilt up to a full size but I don't like it to be bigger than that. I am an ok machine quilter but want to improve my skills, so to that end, I have decided to participate in the Free Motion Quilting challenge over on SewCalGal's site. She's having 12 different teachers, one each month and she's giving away prizes too. So, I think that's a win-win combination.

There is a link on the sidebar of my blog for more info. Or, you can click here: http://sewcalgal.blogspot.com/p/free-motion-quilt-challenge.html

Ok, I'm getting off now so I can get busy.   Until next time, happy sewing!

2011-12-29T20:20:00.000-08:00

Some Christmas pictures....

I haven't been able to blog lately. I can't blog at work anymore and I have been too busy at night to blog.

Here are my beautiful grandchildren.....We had a great Christmas. I love spending time with my kids and grandkids during the holiday season. They make it so special for me.

Here's some knitted scarves I made and gave away at Christmas.

My oldest granddaughter and my sweet MIL....

I have done very little sewing this month. When I was in the mood, I didn't have the time and when I had the time, I wasn't in the mood. Hopefully, the new year will bring some much needed rest and I'll want to get busy too.

I was going to have some drawings this month and just haven't gotten it together. I will celebrate the new year and have some giveaways in January. Please bear with me while I get my momentum back!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas or holiday season and that you will have a prosperous, healthy and happy new year!

Until next time, happy sewing!

Our anniversary and my husband's birthday.

2011-12-16T20:34:00.000-08:00

Today was our 33rd Wedding Anniversary. Wow, 33 years! Some days it seems like just yesterday and other days, well, we won't go there! I am a very lucky woman and I'm married to my best friend. He loves me and let's me be me....We have grown and changed but we've done it together.

Tomorrow is his birthday and we will continue to celebrate. He's off work tomorrow and we'll be hanging out together. I guess I won't be sewing too much this weekend.

Happy Anniversary and Happy Birthday, honey, I love you!

Christmas with my sewing friends.

2011-12-16T20:18:00.000-08:00

Last night, my quilting group had our Christmas party. It was so good to be with my sewing friends, eat good food and win some quilting blocks too. Yes, that's right, I was one of the lucky winners for the Christmas blocks. I won 16 blocks and three other people won 16 blocks too. I don't know if you've seen or remember the Christmas blocks I've shown but here are some of the blocks....

and here is a quilt made by one of the girls that picked out the Christmas blocks for this year.

This pattern can be found a few places on the web but here's a link to it if you want it....

Christmas boxes

There were 32 of us that ventured out last night in the rain for our party. Here's a few pics of some of the quilts that my little group did to give as gifts this year.

This was Rosemarie's first quilt from years ago. She had put it away. She dug it out and just got it back from being quilted...

This is a gift for one of her daughters.

A gift for another daughter.

Deanna made this one and she worked on this at retreat. It is from Suzanne McNeill's new book, 10 Minute Blocks. It's based on using Layer cakes and looks like a big bow tie block. (She's got a great Youtube video out there, here's a link to it...)

This is the back of the quilt.

Deanna made this one for her grown daughter, it's a sock monkey quilt.

Lois made this one for a customer.

Rita made this one for a customer too. The customer gave her her baby's shirts and clothes to use for the blocks. If you click on the picture you can see photos of the little guy and some of the sayings in the quilt. This turned out so cute!

This one is Martha's redwork Santa quilt.

This is Dee's snowman quilt. There were 10 of us involved in this exchange. Of course, mine is not finished yet...Dee did hers with Log Cabin blocks and this is wonderful.

I gave Dee the boot pattern two months ago and she made this cute Christmas boot quilt...

Here's my wonderful quilting group. You can't see all of the ladies but we were all smiles and wishing you a wonderful Christmas.

Queenie and a few projects.

2011-12-13T18:06:00.000-08:00

I forgot to show you my new friend....

This is the bunny I won from Cathey at the sewing party. I just love her. She sits on my sewing machine and greets me every time I go up there. I have named her "Queenie" as she is the Queen of my sewing room! She even has her own little quilt and is dressed in my favorite color.

This is another bag I made to give as a gift. This one is about 9" x 12" big. It is another Lazy Girl pattern, it is the Perfect Pouch pattern again and is the biggest one. The fabric is prequilted and is double-sided. It was pretty pricey fabric but I've used it for this and another project too. I bought it for an applique pillow, I guess that's what you would call it...It's a big pillow you put in your lap and use as a large pincushion or aid to help you bring your work closer to you and also help your back...

Here's the big lap pillow I made using the same fabric.

I have a little bit left over and I'm going to make a small version of the Perfect pouch.

Christmas Concert 2011

2011-12-12T19:20:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday night, we went over to our church and listened to the Christmas concert. Wonderful music for a wonderful Chistmas season....my two oldest grandkids were in a small part of the program and they were excited to participate. I love that children want to praise God.

Decorating the tree and the grandkids

2011-12-08T18:28:00.000-08:00

Well, so much for pictures. The grandkids came over and between the TV and the computer, they were too interested to decorate the tree. My youngest grandson did help a little but I didn't get any good pictures. I'll show you pics of them later in front of the tree at Christmas. Here's my youngest granddaughter, Carmen, playing with one of the decorations....

Here are the cookies my husband made for dessert. He decorated them himself...He did an A for Alayna, B for Brandon, T for Trent and trees and Merry Christmas too....He actually had fun doing them and the kids loved them.

This is the only picture I got of the other grandkids, as you can tell, they were running around and not decorating the tree! Like I said, I'll have to get them around the tree later...

Here's what they really look like...not at my house but they were still enough to get a picture!

Weekend Happenings but no sewing!

2011-12-05T11:00:00.000-08:00

Friday night, our doctors took us out to celebrate. We were celebrating the office manager's 20th anniversary. We had a wonderful dinner at Ocean Prime. A wonderful seafood restaurant in downtown Dallas. I had planned on coming home afterwards and getting ready for Saturday.. I had a Christmas party to go to early (around 10:00) and I needed to fix my dish to take. Well, that didn't happen! I came home and crashed. I set the alarm and got up early and cooked my food to take with me.

I went to my sewing guild Christmas party. There were fourteen of us that came and we had a great time. Good food and good friends getting together and chatting and celebrating. We played the Mr and Mrs Right game. We brought tea towels to exchange. Well, some of us brought tea towels and some brought white elephant gifts, I brought the knitted dish cloths. Anyway, it was fun to see who knows their right hand from their left. We had to stop a few times to let some catch up!!!
We ate lunch and then we exchanged gifts. We played the Chinese game. One person opens the gift and the next person can take it away or choose another unopened gift. I've been in the group for 4 years and I have tried to win a gift from my friend Cathey. She has been making the same thing for 9 or 10 years because everyone wants it...She makes a stuffed bunny sewing machine cover. Until we all have one, she will keep making them, or at least that's what she says! Anyway, I finally won her gift. I got it and held my breath the whole time during the gift exchange and the bunny came home with me! I was so excited. She is so cute and I'm so pleased she came to live with me and greet me every time I go to my sewing room. I did not take pictures but I will and show you later tonight....

Sunday afternoon, I decorated the house with all my Christmas quilts and we put up the tree. My grandkids are coming over tonight to eat supper with us and decorate the tree. This will be alot of fun tonight and I'll take pictures of my grandbabies and show you how big they now...
I didn't get any sewing done over the weekend but will be able to sew a little this week. I have a Christmas tablerunner to finish so I can put it out this week. I hope I get it done. The tablerunner is done except for putting the leaves all over it....I'll show you that later too. Until next time, happy sewing!

And now for a winner!

2011-12-01T10:47:00.000-08:00

Yes, it's December 1st and time to give away this wonderful book by Jennifer Chiaverini!!! I used the Random number widget to pick my number but I don't know how to get it to display on this post. (It's on the bottom of my blog) I'll figure it out eventually but don't have time to mess with it right now....Mr Random picked number 16 which ended up being Jackie from It's a Wonderful Life. Her blogsite is this: http://quiltytreasures.blogspot.com/... Jackie is a local girl and a Longarm quilter too. I won't even have to put it in the mail to her. (This gives me a chance/excuse to go over to her house and see what she has on the quilting frame!) Congratulations, Jackie! For all the others that didn't win, thanks for participating. I will be having a few more drawings this month of various things, mostly books but maybe some gadgets, patterns, or who knows what?! So, please come back and visit me again and enter the December drawings. Merry Christmas!

Pocket Gift Basket

2011-11-30T22:15:00.000-08:00

I came home and talked my husband into picking up dinner so I could sew. I was excited about making this little gift basket that I had seen on Lillian's blog (see my previous post) as I needed another gift for my sewing Christmas party this weekend....We ate dinner, I knitted for awhile and watched Scrooged with Bill Murray on TV. Once it was over, I headed upstairs and thought I would just work on this basket for a little while and do the finish work tomorrow. I had Lillian's directions in my hands and I picked my fabric and started cutting. I sewed it up and put the binding on and finished it up tonight. It went together very easily with her directions and my gift is finished completely. All in all, it took me about two hours to do this little project. That includes hand sewing down the binding too. I wanted to try the pattern out first before I did more of these. Now that I have, I'll definitely be doing more of these cute little baskets. I used Christmas fabric and I think it turned out really cute.

I'm really pleased and I hope my friend will like it too. I plan on putting a few sewing notions in it and some fat quarters. I think this will be a nice little gift and I didn't spend any money making it as it was all leftover fabric from other projects.

A quick gift...check out the tutorial from Lillian's Cupboard!

2011-11-30T10:51:00.000-08:00

I am going to go home tonight and make one of these....Lillian over at Lillian's Cupboard has written a wonderful tutorial for some quick little Pocket Gift Baskets. I need a gift for a friend and I need it quick so I'm going to make it tonight. I'll post the pictures tomorrow or who knows, maybe later tonight! Anyway, here's a link to her great tutorial. She always shares good tips and great recipes. If you haven't found her yet, please check her out and go over and say hello....

My Christmas Quilts

2011-11-29T20:23:00.000-08:00

I wanted to show you my Christmas quilts. I try to make a quilt or ornaments every year. SewCalGal is having a Christmas quilt show and these are mine for the show. These have all been done in the past few years. I haven't done a Christmas quilt this year but I am working on the snowman quilt...I did do a small banner and Christmas card holder but no full size quilt. I want to make a big Christmas quilt but just haven't taken the time. These are all wallhangings or tabletoppers....I hope you enjoy seeing them.

My Christmas Stars-all the stars are different and the quilt is all hand quilted.

This is called Texas Christmas. My brother in law loves this quilt. I guess I'll have to either give it to him or make him one like it.

I made this several years ago. This is an Eleanor Burns pattern. It was alot of fun. I made 3 of these and gave two as gifts and kept one for myself.

I made this one along with a friend of mine. This is from Country Woman magazine many years ago. I was teaching my friend how to sew and make this little wallhanging at the same time. We had alot of fun together doing it.

I made this one last year. My sewing group all made items using the red work embroidery. I made this little wallhanging. Others made bags,ornaments or little purses. It was fun to see what non-quilters did with their sewing.

I did this one several years ago at the quilt shop I used to work at. We had a lock in at the quilt shop and we brought food and all worked on this little quilt. We all had a quilt by the next morning.

These are little candle mats. I put red or green candles in the middle of these on my coffee table. I'll be decorating with these this week....

You just saw these a few weeks ago but I wanted to put them here too along with all my other Christmas quilts. I finished these the last few months ago...

My little Joy banner.

This one is a Christmas card holder.

Ok, now you can go to SewCalGal's site and look at everybody else's....have fun and enjoy the show.

Click here to go to see everyone else's Christmas quilts. Merry Christmas!

Don't forget about my giveaway. Tomorrow is the last day to enter.

2011-11-29T11:13:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow is the last day to enter the giveaway for the Jennifer Chiaverini book, the Wedding Quilt. Click on the button on my sidebar and it will take to sign up for the giveaway....Don't forget, you don't want to miss out on this fabulous book! Good luck and Happy Holidays!

3 Knitted wash cloths and Lazy Girl Perfect Pouches pattern

2011-11-28T20:55:00.000-08:00

Here are the 3 little wash cloths I knitted...This pattern is called Grandmother's Favorite and is very easy and quick to knit.

One skein of Sugar 'n Cream, a cotton yarn....it will make two wash cloths
Number 10 knitting needles

Cast on 4 stitches.
Row 2: K 2 sts, yo, k to end of row.
Repeat Row 2until ther are 43 stitches.
Next Row: K 1, k 2 tog, yo, k 2 tog, k to end of row. Continue the last row until 4 stitches remain. K 4 stitches and bind off. Hide your threads.
This pattern is from the Workbasket magazine October 1987 issue.

Here's the medium size cosmetic bag I told you about in my earlier post. It is a Lazy Girl pattern called the Perfect Pouches. The pattern gives you dimensions for small, medium and large but she tells you in the pattern how to increase or decrease to any size you want. This is a simple and quick pattern to make. I love doing the zippers the way this pattern says. So easy. All of Lazy Girl's patterns are excellent. They are all well written and easy to follow along for even beginner sewers. If you get a chance, go check out her patterns. Her website is http://www.lazygirldesigns.com/.

Here's the Perfect Pouch I made for a Christmas present. It took me less than 30 minutes to cut it out and sew it up, zipper and all...it's lined too. I put my rotary cutter beside it so you could see the size. I think it's about 7 X 10 inches finished size. I plan on making more of these but will probably make smaller and bigger....I have some decorator fabric that I've used to make bags to give away and it's the perfect weight for these.

Ok, my bed is calling me. Til next time, happy sewing!

SewCalGal is hosting a Christmas Quilt Show and Free Motion Quilting Challenge for next year.

2011-11-28T18:26:00.000-08:00

Darlene over at SewCalGal is hosting her annual Christmas Quilt Show. There's a button on my side bar and you can get there quickly by clicking on it. I will be posting my Christmas quilts tomorrow but I wanted you to know about her quilt show ahead of time so you can go look at everybody else's Christmas quilts too. She is also hosting a Free motion quilting challenge for next year. She will be having guest teachers giving hints about free motion quilting each month. I don't want to start any big projects because I want to quilt the tops I have laying around first. I do want to start some new projects soon but these have been on my mind for awhile and I really want to quilt these myself as much as I can. I enjoy the whole process and I love seeing the finished products. I haven't finished enough this year so I am picking up the challenge and honing my machine quilting skills to finish my quilts...If you want to join in the fun, there is a badge on the sidebar you can click on and sign up on her blog too.

Thanksgiving, Family time and a little sewing and knitting.

2011-11-28T10:56:00.000-08:00

Well, I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We had a great one except my DIL and grandson didn't make it over, my oldest grandson woke up sick and the DIL stayed home with him so he wouldn't spread the illness throughout the family....I fixed the traditional turkey with dressing, giblet gravy, mashed potatoes, broccoli casserole, green bean casserole, pea salad, pumpkin pie, chocolate pie, Cranberry Jello salad, and of course, sweet tea. Yep, very traditional and lots and lots of calories. I did really good though...I don't eat chocolate pie or pumpkin pie, I just fix it for others. I had the real food with very little desserts...Everybody had other family things to go to after they ate and all the kids, grandkids and in-laws were gone by 3:00, so I passed out in the recliner. I didn't even make it to the bed to take a nap. I snored through the Cowboy game while my DH attempted to watch it....All in all, it was a good Thanksgiving with lots of leftovers. I made turkey sandwiches the next day and froze the rest so we wouldn't get tired of it. We went to my sisters on Friday and walked around the square in McKinney for the Dickens Christmas. I took a few pics but not too many. This used to be fun to see people dressed up in clothing from the 1800's but not too much of that now. It's become very commercialized now. I was kind of disappointed. The stores were open and the shopkeepers were dressed up (not all of them) but this was really more like Trades Days instead of a Christmas celebration....I don't plan on going back next year. I had a wonderful visit with my sister and we did make a trip to the quilt shop on Friday but it was a quick one. The guys were outside waiting on us! You know how that is, right? Friday night we were back to the regular Mexican food! No more turkey for us for a while.

I had planned on a Harry Potter marathon and sewing on some bindings. I have two quilts ready for binding but I didn't get the binding ready. Carmen, my sweet granddaughter is now crawling and pulling up. She's going everywhere and I don't have enough hands to watch her and sew or watch TV or do anything else...We are watching Olivia ( girl pig), Ruby and Max ( boy and girl rabbits) and Wonderpets....even my TV watching has changed! I do enjoy these little shows almost as much as Carmen! While Carmen watches these, I have been able to knit some wash cloths and I'm giving those away as gifts. These are 30 minute programs and I get a little bit done while they are on. I've knitted three wash cloths so far. I'm going to a Christmas party this next Saturday and they'll be gone. I want to knit one more. These are quick to knit and the pattern is so simple....it's a favorite of mine. I think the name of it is Grandmother's favorite. I'll give you the pattern this week.

Sunday afternoon, I was able to machine quilt a community service quilt. It's now ready for binding too. so, that's three quilts ready for binding. I hope to get the binding ready and have those done this week. I'll show you pics of those this week. I also made a medium sized bag. The pattern was from Lazy Girl and it was so easy to make. I'll show you that too. This is also a Christmas gift for the party this coming Saturday. I decided to make this bag and put a gift certificate to Joann's in the bag. We always exchange gifts and I don't have time or energy to hunt around this week for a gift so this will have to do....Lazy Girl patterns are so quick and easy to do. I haven't made anything from her that I haven't liked. I was a lazy girl and didn't want to walk down the stairs for my camera to take a picture but I will post one later today along with the knitted wash cloth pattern and pics. I haven't gotten any more sewing done other than this. It's not for lack of wanting to sew, it's just not enough time. How do you handle having time to sew? I am not a morning person and I cannot get up early to sew. I used to sew in the evenings but my little family has taken up more of my time lately. Hopefully, after the holidays, life will settle down and I'll get on a schedule to sew more. Gotta go for now, I'll post pics tonight, til next time, happy sewing!

Ok, for my surprise, I'm having a Jennifer Chiaverini book giveaway!

2011-11-15T14:04:00.000-08:00

Jennifer Chiaverini's new book, The Wedding Quilt is now in bookstores. I have one to giveaway. I was contacted by the publishers and they sent me her new book to giveaway on my blog! How exciting! Of course, I'm gonna read it before you do but I'll be passing it on to one of my lucky readers/followers. I love Jennifer's books and I'm so excited to be able to spread the word about her new book...This is her next installment in the Elm Creek Quilts series and I can't wait to read it....

Here's an excerpt from the book to wet your appetite!

From Chapter One

After they left, Sarah felt fatigue settle over her like the snow blanketing the winding mountain road into the Elm Creek Valley. She didn’t want her book or her music or her quilting. She lay in bed with her eyes closed, relaxing while Gretchen or Sylvia rubbed her back or stroked her hair. She half listened and half dozed as her friends chatted quietly about the upcoming camp season, new classes, the long-arm quilting machine they had recently purchased and set up in the ballroom. From time to time the nurses came in to check her vital signs and the babies’ heart rates, and occasionally the doctor appeared to check her progress. Sarah dilated to seven centimeters, then eight. She had reached nine when her mother dashed into the room, unwinding her scarf and peeling off her gloves, her gray hair sparkling with melting snowflakes. “There’s my girl,” she exclaimed, hurrying to Sarah’s side. Her quick, appraising glance took in Sarah, her chart, and her companions. “I assume Matt’s out getting a sandwich or something?”

“Hmph.” Sylvia glanced up from feeding Sarah ice chips and shook her head. “He’s on his way, we hope.”

“He’s on his way,” said Gretchen firmly, rubbing Sarah’s back. “He’ll be here soon, and even if he doesn’t make it, we’ll be fine.”

Carol draped her coat over the back of an armchair and sat down. “He should have come home days ago.”

“That’s what I’ve been telling him all along,” said Sarah wearily. “If he misses everything, I won’t get any pleasure out of saying, ‘I told you so.’ ”

“He won’t miss everything,” said Sylvia, rubbing her shoulders and stroking her sweaty hair off the back of her neck.

Carol frowned. “He’d better not.”

The epidural had completely worn off by then, but Sarah couldn’t have another dose out of concern that it would risk slowing down the labor. An hour after her mother arrived, the doctorchecked her again, but her brow furrowed slightly when she explained that Sarah had not progressed beyond nine centimeters. “We’ll give you Pitocin to help move things along,” she said, but her reassuring smile had lost its power to comfort.

“Why am I not fully dilated yet?” Sarah fretted wearily.

“I thought you were holding back on purpose to give Matt more time to get here,” remarked Sylvia.

Sarah managed a smile, but it quickly faded as she continued inhaling and exhaling in rhythm. Matt had not called or texted since leaving Uniontown, not that she had expected him to. She wanted his hands on the wheel and his eyes on the road. He should have come home days ago. He never should have agreed to spend the winter away from Elm Creek Manor. “If Matt misses the birth of his children, after I begged him time and time again to come home,” Sarah gasped between contractions, “I’ll kill him.”

“If Matt misses this, you won’t need to,” her mother replied, massaging her feet. “You’re in no condition to kill anyone. I’ll do it.”

“Mother!”

“Don’t look so shocked. It was your idea.”

“I was speaking metaphorically.”

“So was I.”

“You sounded serious.”

“So did you.”

“Well, you sounded like you’d enjoy it a little too much.”

Carol seemed about to reply, but her attention was suddenly drawn to one of the many monitors beeping and blinking around Sarah. “What is it?” asked Sarah. Her mother, a nurse, knew much more about what was going on than she did.

“I’ll be right back,” Carol said, and stepped out of the room.

Moments later, through a haze of fatigue and pain, Sarah was aware of her mother and a nurse holding a quick, hushed conference at the end of the bed. “We’re going to give you some oxygen, dear,” the plump nurse said, and quickly placed a mask over Sarah’s mouth and nose. She could barely hear anything over the steady hiss of rushing air.

Moments later the doctor appeared, examined her, and conferred with the nurse. “I’m afraid you still haven’t progressed beyond nine centimeters,” the doctor told her, barely audible, wearing the same rueful look with which she had announced the delay of Dr. Jamison’s flight. “And one of the twins is starting to experience heart decelerations. We’re going to keep an eye on it, but I want you to consider the possibility of a C-section.”

“What’s a heart deceleration?” Sarah gasped, her voice muffled by the mask. Sweaty bangs clung to her forehead and fell into her eyes, but she felt a sudden chill.

“It’s a transitory decrease in the baby’s heart rate. It may suggest that the baby isn’t receiving enough oxygen to withstand the rigors of labor.”

Sarah propped herself up on her elbows and searched the doctor’s face for clues. “Is…my baby going to be okay?”

“Just try to relax,” her mother said, placing her hands on her shoulders and easing her back against the pillows. “Breathe deeply.”

Sarah obeyed, suddenly terrified. She closed her eyes and took deep breaths, tears trickling down her cheeks. “I think a C-section right now would be a very good idea,” she said shakily, and felt her mother squeeze her hand in reply.

The hiss of the oxygen mask filled her ears, drowning out the words of the doctor and nurses, but she knew from their carefully studied expressions that the matter was serious. Through her pregnancy, she had skimmed the chapters on Caesarian sections with a foolish superstition that if she prepared for such a measure, she would need it. She knew women carrying twins often required Caesarian deliveries even after a smooth labor, but she had dreaded surgery and had prayed she would avoid it. Now all she wanted was to deliver the babies as swiftly and as safely as possible, never mind what happened to her. The thought of the small, steady heartbeat faltering was too much to bear.

Ok, isn't that great? Aren't you excited? I can't wait to get the book!
Here's the scoop! If you want to win the book, you have to be a follower and leave a comment on this post. I will not be drawing a winner until after the Thanksgiving holidays. Hmm, I'm going to close the drawing on November 30th. I will have the drawing on December 1st to celebrate the Christmas season coming in....So, if you like Jennifer(and who doesn't?!), sign up to be a follower if you already aren't one and leave me a comment. That's it, pretty simple huh? I love the holidays and will be having a few more giveaways soon so you don't want to miss out, do you? Sign up, leave me a comment and tell me how much you love Jennifer and want the book, and you are in the drawing....Good luck!

A few things in progress...

2011-11-14T21:55:00.000-08:00

Here's the last two rows of my Row by Row quilt I was telling you about in my last post. This was a mystery for my group but it is on the internet and here's the link to this little BOM quilt....This has been alot of fun and I think this little quilt will be really cute when it's finished. I had just enough background fabric to do this. If we's had one more row, I would have had to use another background fabric. Wow, I was sweating it for awhile. You will see the finished product soon. This Thursday, I go to my small group and we'll get the finishing instructions....

I've also been telling you that I'm working on a little tatted bag but I haven't shown it to you. I'm still not finished with it. I've got 5 more rows to put on it before it's finished but I wanted to show you what it's looking like so far. Yes, I'm still tatting but not as much. There's just not enough time to do everything....anyway, here's what the little bag looks like. I didn't realize the picture was so dark until I posted it. I'll take better pictures when it's finished.

Ok, come back tomorrow and I'll tell you about the surprise giveaway I'll be having soon. I'm so excited and I hope you will be too. til next time.....

Busy, busy, busy...Quilt sales and a surprise!

2011-11-14T13:09:00.000-08:00

Ok, I haven't posted in awhile and it's not because I haven't done anything. I have been hard at it...I just haven't done anything pretty...I've been getting quilt backings together and batting gathered up for my projects.

I have finished the last two rows on my Row By Row quilt but I didn't take a picture. I finished those yesterday. I'll take a pic tonight and show you...This has turned out to be really cute and I have enjoyed doing this little quilt. We will get the final border instructions at our quilt meeting this Thursday.

I have put together 10 backings for quilts. The quilt tops, batting and backing are all ready to be quilted. I didn't even have to go shopping for this. I got all of this together out of my stash! I will be starting to quilt these this week. I still have several ready and am still pulling fabric out of my stash for the backs. I will have to buy batting as I don't have that much batting on hand. I hope to show you some finished quilts soon.

In the past two weeks, I have been very fortunate to go to two different quilting sales. One was sponsored by my Quilt guild and the other was with a friend. The one sponsored by the guild was for a man that his wife died earlier this year. He contacted our guild and asked if we could help him with the disposal of her quilting supplies.
I think she won! She had a very extensive stash. She had all different kinds of fabric not just quilting fabric and she was a knitter too. She even had double knit fabric. One of our members took this and will be using this for backings to small quilts for nursing homes. Our guild had a sale and sold most of her stash. It was open to the guild first for two days and then open to the public. All of the proceeds were given to the husband and the leftover fabric was kept by the guild to make community service projects. The husband was very grateful that we could help him out this way.
I got a pretty good amount of fabric. I bought this fabric and intend to do community service quilts with it too. Nice fabric at reasonable prices.
I also went over to my friend's house. Her sister (Louise) was also my friend. Louise died earlier this year. She lived with Sandy and her husband for the last seven years. She had a stroke and was bed-ridden.

She was a prolific sewer. She mostly did community service projects. She was our Community service person for years in our sewing group. We made quilts for kids, hats for premies, all kinds of things for hospitals and shelters. Louise was a knitter, crocheter and crafter. I met her and her sister about 25 years ago in a sewing class...She and I had the same taste. Sandy is a sewer but not a quilter. She had a crafter's garage sale and I bought a car load (my back seat was full and so was my trunk) of books. Quilt, embroidery, sewing, crochet, knitting...all kinds of books. I have been going through and looking and enjoying these books. Now, you know as well as I do, the more you have the more organized you have to be, (that is if you want to be able to find anything), so I have been moving my sewing room around again and making room for all the new to me stuff I bought. I have several friends and a niece that are taking up quilting so I am getting some stuff together to give to them. I'll be donating some stuff to the guild too. It has been alot of trouble but has been alot of fun too. Sandy gave me a few unfinished projects too. More to add to my list of things to do but I'll be thinking of my friend while I'm doing these. I know she would like to know that her work is being finished.. I might have a few giveaways too from some of this too. That brings me to another subject.
A giveaway....I love to have giveaways. I'll be having a very special giveaway soon.
A new book is coming out by one of my favorite authors....Come back and see my post tomorrow....you will get a preview too of the giveaway!!! Until then, stay tuned for the surprise!!!!

American Sewing Guild Meeting and the Snap Happy Bag

2011-11-01T19:26:00.000-07:00

I went to the monthly ASG meeting tonight and we learned how to make the little Snap Happy Bag. This was so much fun to make and so easy too....

I plan on making alot more of these. I'm hooked on this one. Here's the one I made tonight.

Sunday afternoon sewing

2011-10-31T16:56:00.000-07:00

I got so much done yesterday afternoon. I made backings for 6 things. 2 small quilt backings, 2 tablerunner backings and 2 wall hanging backings. I also made a little Christmas wallhanging. I cut it out, sewed it up, quilted and bound it and it's ready to be hung...It's not big or anything but it's finished. I had alot of fun doing this one too. It was all from scraps. I ran across this pattern last week when I was looking for something else. I made this little wallhanging many years ago and gave it away as a gift. I never made me one until now....It's very simple but it was fun and I know I will enjoy it this year.

I wanted to show you this before and I forgot. I learned a new way to hang small wallhangings (at retreat) and I used this method again on this little Joy wallhanging. You take two squares, fold them in half diagonally and press. I used 4 inch squares for this step. Put them at the top on each corner of the wallhanging. Be sure and place the raw edges against the outside of each corner, the fold will be toward the body of the quilt. When you sew your binding on, you sew these at the same time. Then hand stitch your binding down and your wallhanging has it's little hanging sleeve done at the same time. It's only good for small things and wouldn't hold a big quilt but I love this method for wallhangings. It's so simple to do. I hope you can see it. I put a dark and a light so maybe you can see one of them....

Busy Week and weekend

2011-10-30T07:24:00.000-07:00

This week has been really busy and I haven't sewn on anything. Tuesday was tatting night and I couldn't miss it. I'm working on my tatted bag and I'll show you that soon.

Wednesday evening, I took my grandkids Trick or Treating in their town. The businesses shut down the main street and hand out candy and treats to the kids. It was alot of fun. I took the two oldest grandkids and my youngest in the stroller. Everybody else was busy, so I got to do it this year. It was alot of fun! This little town really does it up right for their residents. This is the second thing I've been to in the last month that they shut down the main street and all the businesses had something going for the residents. I am impressed. I have a few pics:

The Ninja turtle is my oldest grandson, the cheerleader is my oldest granddaughter and the baby is my yougest granddaughter. This was fun!

Up in a firetruck checking out all the bells and whistles.

Crowd pictures.

Loved these costumes, bacon and eggs...too cute.

Playing games for candy.

Lots of candy and prizes and we had a great time and so did they!

Thursday night and Friday night, I was glued to the TV watching the games. Boo hoo, my Rangers lost, but I am so proud of them. What a series! It was so stressful, I had to get up and walk out of the room at times. I did enjoy the game though even though they lost.

I cleaned house yesterday all day until it was time to go over to my son and DIL's for a birthday party for my oldest grandson, Brandon. He turned 8 years old yesterday. Wow, time flies so quickly! I can't believe he is already that old. We had a quick birthday party for him with family and friends...

then headed over to my friends, Ann and Glenn's for their wonderful Halloween party. It was alot of fun, but it scared the bejeebers out of my grandkids. Ann and Glenn decorate their whole house for Halloween like some people do for Christmas. Halloween has always been Ann's favorite holiday and she does it up right every year. Her party's are family oriented and I just knew my grandkids would have fun but...some of the decorations were a little too much for them. They liked the food and the candy but left fairly quickly after they ate. They didn't stick around for the games. My son said that Alayna didn't want to go into her room alone when she got home. So, she ended up sleeping in Brandon's room with him! Oh, I felt bad as I just knew they would have so much fun.

Ann dressed up as the Itsy Bitsy Spider

Glen was a chef, somewhere he lost his mustache....I hope it wasn't in the punch!

Good food and munchies.

This couple was putting on the ritz- Halloween style!

A few scary decorations that talk when you walk by....

Fun party!

I've had a very busy week but plan on getting up to the sewing room this afternoon. I've had so many things calling me to work on....I don't know what I'm going to work on first. I'll show you later. til next time, have a great Sunday.

Some great thrifty finds...

2011-10-23T11:22:00.000-07:00

Friday afternoon, I got off work a little early and decided to go the the little antique gallery/thrift store that I like. I got to stroll through without rushing. I found three things that I really like and just had to share them with you... I found this milk glass chicken. My Grandmother had one just like it and when I saw it, I thought about her. I'm going to put my pins in this one and keep it beside my sewing machine just like she did.

I then found this little ice crusher. I've been looking for one of these for a long time. I had one of these when my husband and I was first married and I loved it. I don't know what happened to it. Over the years and a few moves, I guess it just went missing. This one is in good shape and I'm going to try it out tonight. I hope it works as good as my old one. My refrigerator does crushed ice too but I wanted this one just because. I'm not crazy about the color but it did remind me of the '70's and I know this is older than that.

This Jim Shore figurine was the last thing I found. I love her and was very excited when I saw her. She is fairly big and stands about 12" tall. I have three Jim Shore angels now. I also have a Jim Shore nativity ornament and they are all beautiful. She is also in my sewing room right now but only until I find a good place to display her and the other ones too.

I really enjoyed shopping and plan on going again. I don't always find things I want but I was very lucky this time.

Friday night sewing with friends and FNSI with Heidi and Bobbi

2011-10-22T22:30:00.000-07:00

I went over to the church to sew with some friends. It was alot of fun but I didn't get alot done. I forgot one bag at home and didn't have all the things I needed to work on. That's what happens when you get in a rush to go someplace, at least it does for me! Anyway, I did get a few things done. Two changing pads for the youngest grand baby and a red, white and blue block for another R/W/B quilt I'm working on.

Here's the two changing pads:

Here's the block I made. It was easy and fun and will look good in the red, white and blue quilt I'm doing...

Here's the other blocks I've done for this quilt...One or two of these are left over blocks from Amy's BOM from last year. I've been doing a block here and there to add to it but I really need to get busy on this now. I want to get it done before the end of the year to give as a gift.I think I'll do 20 different blocks with sashing.

Like I said, I didn't get a lot done but I sure had a great time with my friends. I got to see a friend I haven't seen in about three years and she'll be here until Thanksgiving, so I might get to see her again. It was so good to see her and visit with my other buddies too. I was able to walk around and see what everyone was working on and nibble on snacks too. It was pretty relaxed and was just what I needed. I'm looking forward to going back in a few weeks but maybe I'll get more done next time.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month

2011-10-20T10:57:00.000-07:00

Ok, I should have said this at the beginning of the month, but I didn't. October is breast cancer awareness month and please remember to get your mammogram and do your self exams too.

I'm sure you get tired of hearing about breast cancer and breast cancer awareness, but you do need to be aware of this awful disease. It affects 1 in 8 women. 1 in 8! I couldn't believe it... and I was one of the ones...I was lucky as I caught mine fairly early. I had to have surgery and chemo and radiation but I am here and I'm alive and it's been 6 years! So, please take a moment and call to schedule your check up and mammogram and take care of yourself. You have people that love you and want you to be around as long as you can....

On my sidebar, you can click on the pink ribbons and it will take you to the Breast Cancer site to click. It is free and if you click it, it will give someone a free mammogram. Thanks for your support.

Friday Night Sew in with Heidi and Bobby

2011-10-19T18:11:00.000-07:00

Friday night sew in....

This Friday is sewing night with Heidi and Bobby. You have to sign up for this to be eligible for the prizes. Get your jammies on and sew or work on your crafts on Friday night. Tell us what you did or blog about it and show pictures on Saturday, then check back on Bobby's blog on Sunday to see if you win a prize. She and her cousin Heidi host this every month. Bobby will have some great prize drawings on Sunday. Check her blog and see if you win a prize. Here's a link to take you over to her blog to sign up..I try to do this every month. It's fun to sew with friends or work on my projects all the while thinking there are other sewers/crafters out there doing the same thing I am. I usually get up on Saturday morning and check blogs that signed up to see what everybody worked on. Of course, I try to set a timer so I don't sit at the computer forever and lose valuable sewing time!!! I seem to forget myself when I get in front of a keyboard...This is October and Christmas is just right around the corner! Do you believe this year has just flown by like this? Anyway, I have a few Christmas projects to work on and I have to get busy....Now, go sign up and join in the fun. Happy sewing.

A few pictures from retreat.

2011-10-12T21:40:00.000-07:00

One thing I forgot to tell you about was this Christmas card holder/wallhanging. I finished this one completely....This was a really fun project and I can't wait to use it this year....You cant tell it but in the green portion, there are two pockets to hold the Christmas cards.

Here's my beautiful One Block Wonder all together...

I added a few more rows to this little quilt...still more to go. These are small 5" squares and are so easy to make. I love doing these little squares. This is called a floating four patch.

And, this last one is a hidden four patch...this was the fun block I told you about earlier.

I'll tell you how to make this one soon. I'm going to do alot of these to make another scrap quilt. These are fun to make too. So, come back and I'll tell you how to make it. Until next time, happy sewing.

Lots of fun and got lots done too!

2011-10-12T13:41:00.000-07:00

Ok, it's Wednesday and I still haven't written anything down....oh my! I went to retreat last Thursday and just sewed and sewed or should I say, ate and sewed and ate some more and just had the best time! I got so much done and had a great time doing it too. I went to the usual place that I love called Greenbriar Retreat in Eustace, Tx and it is just wonderful to go there. Words just can't describe what a wonderful place this is to go to. The atmosphere is wonderful and the food is divine. I think I gained ten pounds just for the few days I was there. Oh, I was wishing I could stay longer when it was time to go too but I had to face reality and come back home.... I got home and they were asking me to cook. Wow, I got spoiled really quickly! Anyway, I did get lots done and I'll show you my pics tonight when I load them on my computer at home. I used to blog more because I could do it at lunch and post pictures but the work computer no longer likes blogger and it rejects anything I try to post....I'm also having trouble commenting on some blogs but that's another story.

I finished these tops at retreat...
My One Block Wonder is all together and ready to be quilted.
I put together another small scrappy purple quilt.
I put the third top together for Brown Bear. This was the last panel I had and I just put borders around it.
I made backs for all of the quilts above.
I made a quilters pillow. I'm not sure what to call it. It's a big pillow (looks like a big pincushion) and you put it in your lap to work on applique or tatting or hand-work. I love it....
I made another Sock Monkey.
I made several blocks for various projects in progress too. I didn't finish all the blocks but got further along on the projects...
I learned a new, fun block and I'll share that with you later too. Hmm, I don't know if I'm leaving anything out or not but when I post the pictures later, I'll try to remember. Anyway, if you've never been on a retreat, you really need to try to go. It's a lot of fun, fellowship and food. You get to visit with your friends longer and get to know others that you didn't know before. It's like a slumber party for adults and I love to go to these. My mind and my spirit gets refreshed too. I recommend them highly...Well, I will continue this later and show you my projects...til next time, go sew!

Kaleidoscope Blocks finished

2011-10-02T21:50:00.000-07:00

Yay, I'm finished... I stayed at it until I finished these blocks. I ended up with 26 blocks. I wasn't sure how many blocks the fabric I was given would make. She told me to make as many blocks as I could with the fabric....I made two sets to begin with and the two sets made 20 blocks. I had enough fabric to make half a set and it made 6 blocks....Here they are set side by side.

These blocks were fairly easy to do and I was pleasantly surprised. This setting is 5 x 5 with 1 block leftover....I don't have to sew these together for her. She's going to be doing something with them and I'm not sure what but my part is finished.....

The Row By Row Quilt, Some Kaleidoscope blocks and some unexpected visitors!

2011-09-30T07:16:00.000-07:00

I forgot to show you these. I did these Wednesday. I made these two rows of my Row by Row quilt so now I'm ready for the next month. I think she's passing us out the rest of the quilt. We have two rows left and the outside border. This was a little mystery Row by Row that some of the girls in my quilt group did. I say some because everybody didn't do it. I think there might have been ten of us and most of them are different. I used white on white for my background and I really like it. Nearly everybody else used cream or beige so mine is different from everyone elses. This has been fun to do and not too overwhelming. Here are the rows....

A little closeup...September was apples and leaves. October, the pinwheels represented chocolate kisses and candy corn.

Here's what I worked on yesterday. I didn't get these finished. I'll be working on these today and probably over the weekend too. These are not for me, these are for a friend of mine that does quilting for me. I'm late in doing these. That was one of my goals for the week, to get caught up on my obligations. So far, this is the last one and even though I have felt bad, I've accomplished this much at least.

This stack should make18 blocks and I have more fabric to cut out. Her instructions were to make as many as the fabric would allow. I cut out two batches yesterday. Each batch makes 9 blocks and I think I have enough fabric for one more batch so I should get this done by the weekend anyway. I cut 6 strips of each color (4 colors) and sewed together. Pressed toward the dark and used Best Press on the strips. I LOVE this stuff. I don't always use starch or steam on my quilting but this pattern recommended steam. This is just enough to keep my bias edges straight and gives some crispness to the design. It's going together pretty well so far. After I sewed the strips together and pressed them, then I used a 45 degree ruler to cut out my triangles. Then you sew them back together and it creates a spider web or as the pattern called it a Kaleidoscope. Here's what I've got so far:

Last night, I went to bed and my husband stayed up watching TV and playing on the computer. He heard some noises on the front porch and decided to investigate. There were three raccoons trying to get into the house...scratching on the door, playing on the porch, running in the yard and my crazy husband went out and took pictures of them before he shooed them away...No way I would have gone out there! But, here's our night-time visitors. I guess they were hungry or thirsty but I hope they don't come back tonight....

Ok, I gotta get busy and get something done today. Have a great day/weekend and get some sewing done. til next time, happy sewing!

More regular sewing

2011-09-29T07:24:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I had good intentions... I was going to sew all day, but that didn't happen. I've been sick all week and yesterday was the worst. I made the mistake of laying down on the couch and yep, you guessed it, that's what I did most of the day. I slept and slept. My thinking was if I just laid down for a few minutes, I'd get up refreshed or feeling better and then I'd get busy. Not! I got up and had some soup and crackers and laid down again. I didn't become coherent until around 6:00. I got up and cut out a dress and started sewing. My goal for the week was to see both of my sisters, have supper with a friend and get some sewing done. I have done a little sewing and that's it. I haven't been anywhere since I've had this darn bug but I haven't wanted to go anywhere and spread it around either. I still want to visit my sisters but that's going to have to wait. I still have congestion, a sore throat and a runny nose but I'm feeling lots better. Maybe by the weekend I'll be better. I have made at least one item a day this week and yesterday was not exception. I cut out the dress (a very simple dress, no zipper or buttons-it slips over the head) and sewed it up. I'm wearing it now and it's pretty comfortable. I wanted something like this so I could take it to retreat. Some of the women wear their jammies and come back and sew late at night but I can wear this instead and still feel dressed. Anyway, gotta go for now and get busy. I'm behind on my schedule... til next time, happy sewing!

A few fun finishes

2011-09-27T11:46:00.000-07:00

I have been sewing and I've been making fun things. I like to make quick things so I can get that instant gratification of finishing something. Well, here are the things I've worked on over the weekend and got done.

I did finish sewing up my OBW top but haven't trimmed it or put the outside borders on it but I will and when I do, I'll show it to you...Come back later to see that!

I went to the Plano Quilt show earlier in the year and one of the things I came away with was a pattern and kit for this cute little bear. If you read my blog, you will know that I love bears and this one was so sweet, I just had to make him. I still have to put a bow around his neck, but I just haven't stopped long enough to go get any ribbon. This is made out of Minky and he is really soft. He went together really quickly but he sure made a mess going together. This stuff sheds! Wow, this is the first time I've sewn with this and it was messy. I had to get my sticky lint cleaner wand out and clean it off about 4 times before I got rid of all the fuzz. But, I think he's worth it...so cute!

Then, I made him a little friend.....another rag doll. I like her alot. I have to make another one too but I need special fabric for her.

Doesn't she look happy? I think that's what I'll name this one....Say hello to Happy!

This pattern is off of Beth's blog, Love Laugh Quilt....

A few weeks ago, Joann's had a sale on Simplicity patterns and I picked up a pincushion pattern. This is the first one out of this pattern. I think it has about 7 or 8 different little pincushions but this was the one I really wanted to make. I think the owl turned out really cute. He stands about 5 inches tall and is filled with crushed Walnut shells so he feels really stable. Onto the next project.....

After Mr. Owl, I finished up a bag I had in the works. I had sewn this together some time ago but I had put it aside to work on other things. I put the pockets on the lining and made the straps and the closure and finally this project is 99% complete. When I go to get ribbon for my bear, I'll pick up a pretty big Fall button to finish off this cute bag. This is a gift for one of my sisters and I hope she'll like it..... I made this out of placemats.

Yesterday, I was going through my sewing room looking for quick things to make to get out of the way....I ran across a pair of socks and decided to make another stuffed animal. I finished him off this morning. I made one of these for both of my boys when they were little and I made one for my other grandkids, so I just had to make one for my newest grandbaby Carmen. She likes her Mr. Monkey...

Now, I'm working on my Row by Row quilt. I did one row and now onto my next one. I'll show you both of those in my next post. I'll be caught up with this and ready for next month...

I'm hoping to get all of my projects caught up this week. I've taken the week off and I'm sewing like crazy. I was going to my sister's today but I have the crud and don't want to spread it around. That still doesn't stop me from sewing so I'm going to get as much done as I can. Today is my birthday and I'm not going to slow down just because I'm older and sick!!! Ok, got to go so I can stay busy. I'll post more later. Til next time, happy sewing!

What a week!

2011-09-17T23:57:00.000-07:00

This has been a very hectic but fun week. Every night has been busy and I've had things to do or meetings to go to. I went to my small group meeting Thursday night and it was alot of fun. If you want to see what my quilt group is up to, go to my other blog-the Sew What's on the side of my blog, you'll see a link. We are a very productive group and have alot of fun together.

Friday night, I went and sewed with some friends at the church. I worked on my One Block Wonder and got alot of it done. I only had a few rows left to do by the time I headed home....Lots of progress. I got up this morning and finished sewing the last 4 rows into rows. I have worked on it today and am now sewing the rows together. This quilt will be beautiful when it's finished...Here's how it looked this afternoon with all the rows made....

I worked on it a little tonight and am sewing the rows together now to complete the top. I hope to have this one all sewn together by next week.

I stopped and worked on another little quilt this afternoon too. It was my Snowman quilt. I don't know if you remember or not, but I made 20 snowmen. 2 different snowmen but 10 of each....I was participating in a swap with 9 other ladies and they also made 2 different snowmen each and we swapped. One lady couldn't make it to the sew day to swap, so I can't complete the quilt until I get her snowmen blocks. I had been thinking about how I wanted to put the quilt together and just couldn't decide. I thought about it quite a bit. The pattern calls for 8 Tree blocks (I made the tree blocks today) and 28 alternate blocks. Some of the girls have made their other blocks. One made log cabins (that's what the pattern suggested), and two others made a 9 patch variation block. All of these looked good but I was still having trouble deciding, until yesterday.....I went into the new Joann's store and found the solution. Yes, that's right, we have a brand new Joann's store right in my very town! Woo Hoo!!!! I am so excited! Anyway, let me continue....I went to the new Joann's and found the perfect fabric for this little quilt. I was willing to make blocks but I didn't want to take away from the cute snowmen blocks. I found this fabric and I just had to get it. I cut the fabric up and I'm using it for the alternating blocks. I'm not even making anything, just the fabric and I love it. Here it is and here are the cute blocks too....

See??! Didn't I tell you it was cute fabric? I'm leaving it unsewn until I get the last two blocks and then I'll put it back up on the design wall and decide if this is how I want to put it together. Well, that's what I did today. I didn't finish anything but got a lot further along on both projects. Hopefully, these will be done sometime soon. I really enjoyed working on these projects today. I have some other cute things to work on tomorrow after church, so please come back and see me soon. Til next time.....happy sewing.

A Dolly for Carmen

2011-09-14T22:53:00.000-07:00

Last Monday, I cut out a little doll for Carmen. Brittney helped me with it. Brittney doesn't know how to sew but wants to...I explained the steps to her and she embroidered the eyes and mouth onto the doll. She stuffed the doll and I sewed it up. It was alot of fun to work with her and make this little dolly. Our next "lesson" will be to teach her how to use the sewing machine. Here's the dolly that we made. The directions for the Rag Doll came from Beth's blog-Love Laugh Quilt. I want to make some more little dollies too but haven't had the chance to do it this week....Maybe Sunday afternoon, I can sew up some more...

Here's our dolly and Carmen loves her:

A Wonderful Weekend with family and friends

2011-09-12T20:29:00.000-07:00

I had a wonderful weekend with grandkids and sewing friends too. My DH has been out of town and I played all weekend! I went on Saturday and hung out with my buddies. We worked on our One Block Wonder quilts. Four of us were doing this quilt and we met at my friend Sharon's house. She had made some design walls for us and we set about putting up our OBW blocks. I got mine all laid out and then we started moving the blocks around. It took at least a good hour to play with the blocks before I was happy with the setting. My friend, Bev, helped me pin the rows together to take home with me to sew together. Thanks, Bev, for all your great help! You were a lifesaver!
I would show you some pics, but my sweet husband took my camera with him. I took some pics with my cell phone but they aren't very good...very blurry, so when my DH returns, I'll post some pics.

I spent the day with my friends doing my OBW, then helping them do theirs. It was alot of fun. We also did our snowman swap. I got back 16 different snowmen. One girl didn't come and we will get her blocks soon. I have to make 5 tree blocks and 20 or 24 alternating blocks to put the quilt together. I'll show you the snowmen when my camera comes back home.
We went to lunch together at Posada's Mexican restaurant, it was great. An older gentleman brought me and Dee an ice cream dessert and sang happy birthday to us. This is our birthday month and we were given fat quarters, cards and I also got a cute little mug rug. Lots of goodies to celebrate.

I got home and had a package from Amazon. I ordered the Farmer's Wife quilt book and it was there along with a collector Barbie doll I bought too. (These were gifts to myself for my upcoming birthday, or at least that's what I told myself.) I started sewing on my OBW and have sewn together 6 of the 22 rows so far. I'll try to sew more this week.
On Sunday, I went to church with my kids and grandkids, then took the grandkids to lunch so my son and DIL could have a luncheon at their church. Me and the grands ate barbeque and came home and watched The Ghost and Mr. Chicken with Don Knotts. Wow, it brought back memories of when I was a kid! It was a full weekend and I had a great day with friends and family. It took my mind off of missing my DH for awhile. He'll be back Tueday night and I'll miss Tatting with the girls to go pick him up from the airport. He's been gone a week and I'm ready for him to be home. I'll post more tomorrow and tell you about my day today. I want to post pics as soon as I can so please come back and see what I did on Monday! til next time.....

Weekend sewing

2011-09-06T21:49:00.000-07:00

Woo, what a weekend! Shopping and more shopping...

Saturday was supposed to be a sew day for me. I planned on sewing in the afternoon and I wanted to get so much done. Well, I never sewed on Saturday. My DH is going on a trip this week and he wanted to go buy some new clothes and shoes to go on his trip. He told me we would only be gone a few hours...That didn't happen. This man is a shopaholic! He's always loved to shop and he does all of our shopping for us. I don't have to shop unless I want to. We were gone all day Saturday until I told him I wouldn't go any further. My feet hurt and I wasn't going to walk around and look or shop for anything else! I was exhausted! We came home and I didn't even look at my sewing machine!

Sunday afternoon, I was able to do a little bit of my sewing. I got all of my OBW blocks done, now to press and they'll be ready for next Saturday. I haven't counted but I know there are more than 100 blocks! Lots of sewing but it will be worth it!

Yesterday, I worked on some snowmen blocks. I had to do 20 blocks, 10 of 2 different snowmen. My small group(there are 10 of us) is having another exchange. (Our last swap was the cupcake swap.)I've had the snowmen put on fabric for awhile but I had to decide how to decorate or dress them. I got my snowmen dressed. I put their hats and scarves on and did a blanket stitch around them. Now, I'm working on the hand stitching part, putting their eyes, smiles and arms on....these are so cute. I'm still working on this part and will be finished by Wednesday or Thursday night. I did 4 of these while watching TV last night. I enjoy the hand stitching part but it does take time. The exchange is taking place Saturday...We will have 20 different snowmen for our quilt when we exchange. I can't wait to see everyone's snowmen. This quilt will be so cute when it's done! I didn't have time to take pics yesterday but I will take some tonight and I'll take alot Saturday when we have our get together....

I hope everyone got to spend some family time this weekend. We did a little with our kids but both my boy's families had kids running fever so we didn't do much. Nothing too serious with either family but enough to keep the kids quiet and indoors and away from everyone else.

My husband is going to his 40th High School reunion this week up in Seattle, Washington. He is really excited and looking forward to seeing old friends. I could not take off work at this time so I'm staying home and you know what I'll be doing every night???

I know I'll miss him but maybe I can get my sewing room straightened up ,do the dolls that I wanted to and maybe I can get some quilting done too. Time will tell...

My winners....

2011-09-04T00:30:00.000-07:00

Thanks for entering and celebrating my milestone. Here are the lucky ladies from my giveaway. Please send me your addresses and I will forward your prizes to you.

Here's Kelli's prize:

A great book, washable quilt markers, a new Frixion marker (removes with ironing) and a little red value finder.

Here's Winona's prize:

A great book (one of my favorites), quilt markers (these have to be washed out), the new Frixion pen (iron this one out) and some Thimble Its to protect her fingers.

Have a great weekend and I hope you get lots of sewing done.

Friday night sewing with friends, Pick 4 Giveaway, My Giveaway and weekend sewing coming up!

2011-09-03T07:48:00.000-07:00

Last night, I went over to the church and sewed and hung out with my friends. I took along my OBW to work on and got alot farther along on sewing all the blocks. I think I might have twenty blocks left to sew now. I'll be ready for next weekend by this afternoon, I hope.... It was fun to see all my friends and see what they were working on. I try to take something with me that's easy to sew or work on because I just can't concentrate and have fun visiting at the same time. These OBW blocks were just the trick....I'll lay this out on my design wall later for you to have a sneak peek but I won't be putting these together until next weekend when we all get together and play with the layout of the blocks...

Yesterday was also the last day of the Pick tour but you still have time to enter the giveaways on some of the blogs participating in this book review/drawing. Go here (Sue's blog) and you will see a list of all the blogs you can still enter...So far, I haven't won any of the drawings but I've still got my fingers crossed. Believe me, it's been really hard to do things with them crossed too! Anyway, hurry over to the other blogs and comment or follow them to win this great book. Good luck to you....

Before you go though, comment on my blog a few posts back,( here's a link to get you there quicker) I'm having a drawing for my followers. Today is the last day to sign up. I was going to show you what you would win but everyone seems to like a surprise so I'll just keep that to myself until the drawing. I'll show you what you win before I package it up and mail it off. Now, go comment on my blog to win some surprises. Be sure and let me know where you live, I'm just interested to see where everybody is from, no big deal...just curious.

I don't have the grandbaby today but my DH is off today. We are going to go do a little shopping then I'll be back to work on several items this afternoon. I want to finish my OBW blocks, I have some naked snowmen to dress (very sexy, I'll show you those later too!) and I have a very cute stuffed doll to make for two wonderful granddaughters. Beth over at Love Laugh Quilt posted a tutorial of a rag doll she made that I just can't resist making. She just keeps calling my name. I saw her yesterday and dreamed about her last night. Since little Carmen isn't with me today, I'll have time to go to my sewing room and pick some cute fabrics for her a sweet dolly. I can't make just one as I have two sweet granddaughters. Alayna is six , so her dolly will need to be a little bit more sophisticated, I'll have to really work on hers. And, I love dolls too, so I'll be making a third one for me! Oh well, I'm just a big kid at heart. I have big plans for today so I have to get busy, have a good day sewing and being with family. Come back and see what I've done later and I'll be drawing tomorrow morning for my winner so stay tuned for that. Happy Labor Day!

I won The American Patchwork book drawing. Pick 4 and enter my 200+ Drawing!

2011-09-01T10:46:00.000-07:00

I'm so excited. Pauline from Meemaw loves to Quilt emailed me and told me I won her drawing! Woo hoo, what a way to start the day! I posted about this earlier in the week and am so excited about it. Thanks, Pauline!

Don't forget the Pick 4 drawing, this is Day 9. You have today and tomorrow to get in on the drawings...Go check out Trudie over at Happy Daize for today's review.

And, don't forget, I'm having a drawing for my followers too. In my previous post on August 30th, (2 posts away) go leave me a comment that you want in on the drawing to celebrate my 200+ Followers and tell me where you are from. It's that easy. I'll take entries until Saturday and Sunday, I'll pull a winner. Come back Friday, and you'll see what you will be winning! Good luck and go comment, please.

Pick 4 Giveaway and my giveaway.

2011-08-31T11:18:00.000-07:00

Hello, today is another great day to go and visit another great blog and register for Sue's book giveaway. Today, Paulette over at Sweet P Quilting is reviewing the book. Everything I have seen out of the book looks great. Paulette is showing a cute table topper quilt she made from Sue's book. Here's a link for you to go look at it and leave her a comment so you will be in on her drawing. She's giving away one of Sue's autographed books too. I have had so much fun this week looking at all the blogs telling about this book. I think every book published should do this...The authors can advertise their books this way and we get sneak peeks at the book to wet our appetites.. I want to win a book but I plan on purchasing one if I don't win. Go on over and look at Sweet P's blog and comment. She's a hand quilter and does some lovely work.

Before you go, please enter my (right now it's a surprise but won't be for long) drawing. I'm having a giveaway too. Yesterday, I reachedd my 200th follower and I was thrilled. I've been at the 190's for awhile now but Kelli signed up to be #200. She will win a prize as well as some lucky follower too. So, go to my post from yesterday (08-30-2011) and leave a comment to enter my drawing. I'm closing the drawing on Saturday, Sept 3rd and I'll announce the winner on Sunday afternoon....I'll show you what I'll be giving away by Friday. So far, everybody seems excited about a surprise but I know they won't mind me showing what they'll be getting too....so, leave me a comment on yesterday's post and be a follower to enter, also, tell me where you're from...that's it. Have fun.

I'm having a giveaway to celebrate my 200th follower!!!

2011-08-30T14:17:00.000-07:00

Ok, I've told you all week (I know it's just Tuesday, but it feels longer than that!) about giveaways. Well, I just had my 200th follower sign up, and I'm going to send her a surprise for doing that but I'm also going to have a giveaway to my faithful followers too. I haven't decided yet what the surprise will be but I know it will at least be a book and maybe some other goodies too. As soon as I decide what it will be, I'll post it and show you...I'm going to start today to take entries and I will close the deadline out on Saturday night, Sept. 3rd. Please leave a comment on this post and tell me you are interested in winning a surprise. I'm not going to make you do anything special, but this drawing is only open to my followers. When you comment, just tell me where you're from. No particular reason, I just wonder where everybody lives. Ok? So, have fun and sign up to win a prize!

Book Giveaways!

2011-08-30T11:34:00.000-07:00

Hey, I just love blogland! I have been hopping around looking at all the blogs posting about the new book called Pick 4 by Sue Abry. I love the way Sue tells about where the bloggers are from. I have had so much fun reading her blog entry then hopping over to the blogger reviewing her book for the day. It's been fun and educational too. Today's blogger is Lynn over at Sew'n Wild Oaks Quilting Blog. Here's a quick link to go over and visit her and leave a comment. She's having fun with a Beatles theme to her review and I loved it. I'm a big Beatles fan and this was really fun! Go check her out and leave a comment to be in on her drawing for Sue's new book....

Another giveaway I just found out about is on Meemaw's blog. She's giving away this great book:

Here's a link to her blog. Her drawing happens tomorrow so hurry on over there and enter....(Please tell her I sent you.) Happy sewing and hopping!

Pick 4 Blog Hop with Bejeweled Quilts

2011-08-28T06:04:00.000-07:00

I got up early and couldn't wait...I just had to see what Barb over at Bejeweled Quilts had to say about Sue's new book. I love Barb. She always has something fun and different on her blog. She made the cutest quilt out of Sue's new book. Go look and see what Barb has to say and leave a comment to be entered in the drawing for the book. Have fun and happy sewing!

Fun times with friends

2011-08-27T20:05:00.000-07:00

I went today and sewed with some of my buddies. We met at a friend's house and sewed together. My buddy, Sharon, has a great big craft room and we got together to cut out a new project. I didn't take my machine. We met together to cut out a One Block Wonder quilt. This is my first on this quilt. I've done a stack and whack and it's very similar. It was alot of fun to get together and learn the tricks and do the project quicker. There were four of us that came early to work on this project, the others came later during the day. They decided to work on other things besides this project so they brought their sewing machines. Anyway, my friend Martha, has made four of these (OBW quilts) and she was teaching us to do this. It went very quickly with her telling us what to do. I love this...I didn't even have to read the pattern, she just walked us through it....

I had been worried about doing this project as I had not been able to find enough fabric for it. I knew we would be doing this project for about two months and I've looked all over. I found lots of fabric that I liked but there wasn't enough yardage of any of them. I was looking for a blue fabric. I didn't find any blue but I did find a beautiful black fabric and I am so thrilled with the way my blocks are turning out.

I got all of my triangles cut and I'm able to start playing with the triangles to see how I wanted them to be sewn together. Martha called it twist and twirl....anyway, I was sitting and pinning my triangles together to sew at home. I told my buddies I felt like I was having withdrawals from not being able to sew. Sharon had her machine set up already and said, here, sew on mine....ahhh, relief! Anyway, I twirled the blocks around and put several together while I was there. I have about 85 more hexagons to put together. These are so much fun to do. I love seeing how each one is coming together. This is what I call mindless sewing, I'll put a tape on tomorrow and just sew these little jewels together quickly.....We will be getting together again in September to sew the quilt top together. We have to have all of our blocks ready for this and we will play with the arrangements together.

Did I tell you that we eat at these gatherings too? Wow, talk about great food! These ladies can really cook. Sharon made pickles for this and she's going to teach me how to make her pickles and "can" them too. I can't wait! I've wanted to learn how to do this for awhile and she has said she will show me how.

Judy shared her recipe for Pimento chesse with me today too. I love her homemade pimento cheese and now I can make my own...It's so nice to have sweet friends like this. I love getting together with these sweet women. I didn't take any pics today as I had left my camera at home...

Ok, here's the blocks I worked on today. I have them pinned together. These will be sewn together in strips and that's why I have not sewn them together all the way. You leave them in this condition and we'll play with the placement, then we sew the strips all together matching your other hexagon side...I'll show you that later when I do that....

I was also able to put the final border on another quilt today too. I had put this top together a few months ago and really wanted a border on it. The problem was I didn't have enough fabric for a border. I was short about one strip of fabric (I estimated this- I never measured. )I knew one of my buddies had some of this fabric so I begged her for some. I asked her for a 6 1/2" strip and I thought that would be enough. She was generous and gave me two strips. Boy, was I glad she did. It took both strips and I only had a piece of fabric left that was less than 2" wide. Woo, there for a while I thought I was going to have to beg some more! I am so much happier with this quilt now. I liked this quilt but I really wanted a border. I had been thinking about this quilt or maybe I should say fretting about it. I had gone online trying to find more fabric and it was no where to be found. It had really been bothering me not to have the border on that I wanted. I'm so glad I have friends that have the same taste in fabric. Thanks, Judy, I really owe you big time!!! Here's my Crazy 8 quilt with the border on it...Now, I can get it quilted and it will be just like I wanted it.

Ok, don't forget about the Pick 4 Blog Hop. Kim over at Magnolia Bay Quilts is the book reviewer today. Go check out her post about the book and leave her a comment to be entered for the book drawing. This has been alot of fun to see reviews of a new book coming out. What a great way to bring out a book. Click on the link above to go to her blog....Hurry up! Go now and enter and see what Kim is working on!

I hope everyone is taking care of themselves and the people in the path of Hurricane Irene stay safe, our thoughts and prayers are with you!

til next time, happy sewing!

Pick 4 Blog Hop-Day 2 and the Accuquilt Camp Quilt Along

2011-08-25T10:59:00.000-07:00

Here's two chances to win great prizes, go check 'em out and enter to win....

Ok guys, it's day 2 of the Pick 4 blog Hop and Quilt Hollow is showing off her lovely quilt made out of Sue's book. Go check it out and comment to enter for a chance to win her new book. She's signing these for you too...I hope I win but if I don't, I'm planning to buy this new book. The more I see, the more I like and I think it will be a great addition to my quilting library. You will have 7 or 8 more chances to enter and you can visit (maybe a new to you) a different blog each day. I'm enjoying looking around the blogs to see what they are working on. I've even learned some state history about North Carolina I didn't know.

I have an Accuquilt Go Cutter and absolutely love it. I haven't used it as much as I would like as I've had other obligations lately. But, I wanted to let you know that Accuquilt, Fabric.com and Fons and Porter have all teamed up for a wonderful giveaway. It's called Accuquilt Camp Quilt Along and it's over on Facebook. If you go to Facebook and Like each one of these, you will get clues to enter the contest. They are giving away some great prizes and the deadline is coming up quickly. I think it's August 30th...here's a link to the page for you. Once you are on the page, click on each little name and it will take you to their site and you can Like them, and get a code to enter....very easy. Here's the link: http://www.facebook.com/#!/accuquilt?sk=app_10467688569... Good luck!

Pick 4 Blog Hop and the chance to win a great book!

2011-08-24T14:13:00.000-07:00

Pick 4 Blog Hop started today....A new book by Sue Abry, aka: Quilt Sue, and is being reviewed by several different bloggers with a chance to win a copy of the new book. Go meet some of these great bloggers and see what they have to say and what they are working on....

Today is Hazel's turn over at Hazel's Quilts. She's a new quilter. Go on over and say hello, leave a comment and you'll be entered in her drawing for a chance to win this new book....Every day there will be another review with another chance to win. It will be interesting to see what other quilters have to say and what they are working on.

To see who is on this blog hop and will be posting about this book, you can visit Quilt Sue's blog and she will guide you to the next blogger....Here's a link....Quilt Sue.

Generation Q Magazine

2011-08-24T13:27:00.000-07:00

There is a new online magazine that is pretty interesting. It's called Generation Q.
It's a team effort by the editors of Quilter's Home and Megan (the Bitchy Stitcher). They've got some great articles. Go check them out! They've got a great article about irons right now. It shows what our ancestors had to deal with while still making beautiful quilts. We are so lucky to live now and have all the great gadgets and good fabric we have today....

Friday night sewing with Heidi and Bobby

2011-08-20T07:02:00.000-07:00

I was supposed to go sew at the church last night but I put my hip out of place and just couldn't walk on it. It's feeling better but I'll be taking it easy for a few days. I wasn't doing anything special to do this, I just turned wrong and stepped wrong and out it went. Talk about pain to the brain, or hip in this case. It's ok and back in place but still sore. I did still sew last night and got a little top partially together. I got up early this morning and finished putting it together and it is so cute...

I picked this little kit up last weekend at the Plano Quilt Show. It is a kit for Project Linus and it was a combination of crayon blocks, marker blocks, hand embroidery blocks and machine embroidery blocks. This was so much fun to work on. All the while I was sewing this together I could just imagine some little child coloring some of these blocks. Two of the blocks have kids names on them and some of the coloring is so sweet and innocent it just had to be a child that did it. This was fun to put together and I'll quilt this one quickly to get it finished for this worthy charity. The girl I talked to at the booth said she passed out 125 kits at the show!

The Plano Quilt Show was great and I took pictures of some of my favorite quilts. If I get time, I'll post those later. Gotta go for now and work on some other stuff while the grandbaby is still asleep. More to come later, happy sewing!

Some things I worked on this week

2011-08-20T06:42:00.000-07:00

Ok, I have done some things this past week and I haven't showed them. My computer at work doesn't like to upload my pics to blogger anymore so I can't do it at lunch. I've been super busy this week and haven't taken the time to post....here's what I was talking about in my last post. It's my Row by Row quilt and I finished doing the May or 5th row and added it in. I redid the top row and took off the first pinwheel row and replaced it with the new one...I think it looks alot better.

See the blocks I took off. I changed my mind about the background color and went with white so this row of pinwheels just didn't work for me. The pattern calls for a beige or off white background but I found this white fabric I loved and wanted to us it....I'm the only one doing white background and I'm glad I decided to use it. Mine will be just a little different from everyone else's and I like that. Who says we have to follow the rules? Anyway, I like the way it's looking so far and this has been alot of fun. Only 4 more months to go on this little quilt and it will be finished. I can't wait to see how it's gonna look.

I made these two little blocks this week for the leaders of my quilting group. I couldn't show them before now as the blocks were a surprise for them. Everyone in our group made a heart block and gave to them. Our party was Thursday night and it was alot of fun and the heart blocks were great. I didn't take pics of all of the different blocks but I'll show you those when they put their quilts together. Here's my blocks. These were just simple little hearts with a few different stitches from my machine but I added some of my tatting around the blocks. We were asked to do one in pastels and one in brighter colors....

Diane and Judy loved all of their blocks!

I did show the girls at Tatting on Tuesday night and they liked the blocks too. I had done the tatting a while back and didn't have any purpose for it except to put it on something like a pillow or maybe a hankie so this worked out really well. I have a little bit left and I'll make something else with the leftover lace. I guess I could have put more tatting on it too but I ran out of time....

Weekend sewing and cooking

2011-08-08T09:57:00.000-07:00

I sewed yesterday afternoon and worked on my Row by Row quilt. I had made the rows but had not put them together. I started putting them together and found out I was missing a row. I had not done the May flower row...I also didn't like the January row so I took it off and am re-doing that row. I thought I could live with it and decided I didn't want to live with it....it would bother me too much so I un-sewed it. I'll be re-doing that row and put it back on tonight or this week. I'll show you the finished rows later. I still haven't taken pictures of this but will this week. I didn't get finished with the flower row as I had to stop and go to the grocery store. I wanted to try out a new recipe and do something different for supper.

We like the Chipotle restaurant and I decided to try to do a take-off on their burrito bowl....I made spanish rice, Fajita chicken and red beans. I bought hot sauce from Chili's. I cut up tomotoes, lettuce, onions and bell peppers. My family liked it alot and so did I. My DH loved it and said he liked my version better than Chipotle...Hm, easy to fix and he liked it too. Not bad, I think I'll do this again.

I made a recipe from a blog I read...Becoming Betty. She had a recipe for White Chocolate Popcorn. I popped popcorn and made her recipe. Here's a link. I made this and was letting it "set up". (You know what I mean by that, right? It's like Rice Crispie squares, you have to let them harden... I started reading blogs trying to catch up on the people I follow. I turned around to ask my husband if he wanted some and he was already munching down on it. He said it was his third helping...He loved this stuff. This was also very easy to make...I can't wait to share this with my grandkids....
It was fun to cook tonight. Normally, it's a chore for me but I enjoyed making both of these. Now, I'm doing an easy dinner tonight and sewing some more. Hopefully, you will see pictures. I hope you get to sew today, til next time....

Creative Grid Ruler video

2011-08-07T14:27:00.000-07:00

I saw this video on You tube the other day and went out and bought this ruler. I want to make a One Block Wonder quilt and thought this would help. I have a 60 degree ruler but just had to have this one after I saw the video. I've been working on other things yesterday and today and haven't tried it out yet but I'll let you know. Has anyone else used this ruler?

Saturday sewing

2011-08-07T07:10:00.000-07:00

I got the little block from Friday night finished. It's the block on the left with the pink star in the middle and blue around the outside. I finished it differently than the pattern called for because the pattern measurements were wrong and I didn't want to take the time to figure out the correct measurement, I just put the rectangle around it and called it finished. The other two little blocks went together just fine. These are all 6 1/2" blocks. They are alot of fun to do but they take more time to do for me than bigger blocks. I worked on these during the day yesterday while watching the grandbaby and doing a little housework too. The pinwheel and 4 patch on the bottom were leftovers from the blocks and I didn't want to waste them. I'll put them in with all my other orphan blocks and one of these days I'll put together an orphan quilt. That might be coming up pretty soon as I think I have enough blocks now to do it..I'll have to put those on my design wall soon and play some. Here are the little blocks I made:

Doesn't look like much work for a whole day, huh? Oh well, it was fun and I'm this much closer to a finished quilt too. These go in one of my UFO's (the 30's Sampler- Number 1 on my UFO list) and I only have about 12 more blocks to do, so I'm slowly whittling them down.

Friday night sewing with friends

2011-08-06T13:35:00.000-07:00

I go to this group on Friday nights every other week. It is for a few hours and sometimes I get some things done and lately I just can't get anything done here. I visit more than I get done. I think I'm just going to start taking hand sewing with me instead of lugging my machine and my projects with me. This just made me decide to do this the next Friday I go.
Every thing I tried to work on just didn't work. The little block I was working on didn't fit together correctly. There was a mistake in the pattern and it was about 1/4" wrong on the outside edge...I put it aside to finish up later.

I pulled out another project and didn't have the right fabric I needed for the next round. I decided it just wasn't meant for me to finish anything so I just put everything up and sat there and visited. I was getting flustered and that was not how I wanted to feel.

My ASG Meeting and Kumihimo

2011-08-03T14:22:00.000-07:00

Last night was tatting night but I had an ASG(American Sewing Guild) meeting too, so I had to decide which one to go to...I decided I'd go to ASG and skip tatting. I hate to do this but I don't like driving like a mad woman and going to both places. Anyway, our meeting was fun and we did Kumihimo again. We worked on making bracelets with beads. It was alot of fun watching all the other ladies do it. I didn't do it as I didn't bring any beads with me. We had some young visitors to our meeting last night too. Two ladies brought their granddaughters to the meeting and they could do this alot better than us. They had a great time showing up their Grandmas! Lots of fun but nobody finished their bracelet so I have no pictures yet. I will take pics next month and show you what they look like. Crafts are definitely addictive and it was so cool where we were. Joann's had the A/C on and it was very comfortable compared to outside at 108 degrees. I'll be glad when we get some cooler weather! til next time, happy sewing!

Catching up, feeling better and a finished top

2011-08-01T19:28:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted in a few weeks. I haven't felt good and haven't done any sewing. I have had a terrible tooth ache. My dentist fixed this tooth back in January but it didn't work. I finally had to give up and go to the endodontist and they drilled through the crown to do a root canal. After two weeks of tooth and jaw pain, I finally got some relief on Thursday and started feeling lots better. My mouth is still tender but no pain..Woo hoo, you can only imagine the relief! Anyway, I'm not on any more drugs and I finally felt like doing something besides going to bed...

I worked on several things this weekend. I made a quick little quilt top out of some Brown Bear fabric I've had in my stash. I haven't had this in my stash very long, maybe a year or two...anyway, I already did one Brown Bear top a few months ago but I really liked this one when I saw it in another magazine. I fussy cut the animals out and the fabric I have left is really holey...(I hate fussy cutting only because of the waste of the fabric) I'm going to cut up the rest of the animals and use them on my last Brown Bear panel that I have. I'm going to keep the panel all together on this last one and just add borders around it. I'll use the left over animals in the border or maybe on the back of the quilt. Here's the Brown Bear top I made this weekend:

Brown Bear, Brown Bear what do you see?

I finished this little quilt top for community service. This is a little top I started at my small group at our last meeting. I couldn't finish it at the meeting as the kit was short two blue cornerstones and I had to cut those out of my stash. I cut those and finished sewing up the little top. I'll give this back to the group and we have long arm quilters that will do the quilting for us...

Here's a close-up of the blocks, this fabric is all different kinds of mocassins. The fabric was pretty cute and I didn't like the border at first but it grew on me as I was putting it on. I think it turned out ok and I hope some little kid will like it.

I also worked on catching up on my row by row quilt. I made three rows and I'll add these to the other rows I have already done. Now, my little row by row is all caught up.. I didn't take a picture of those but I will and I'll show you later.

I didn't do this over the weekend but I wanted to show you this cute pincushion that I made at my last ASG meeting. It is made out of wool and he turned out so cute. It's a little porcupine.

I planned on working on the Barbara Brackman blocks but didn't get to them . I have fallen behind and need to catch up on these too. I'll try to work on them this week. I did all of my sewing while watching the youngest grandchild and she demanded my time too...so, these were on my list but she took priority. I'll have to catch up on them another time.

A Few Finishes

2011-07-18T18:05:00.000-07:00

I haven't been doing alot of sewing or crafting this month. Grandbabies and family have taken priority this month. My life is slowly getting back to normal or whatever that is....
I have done a little bit of tatting and I have also sewed one little top and finished binding on another quilt so I have gotten a few things done along the way.

Here's the tatting I've done this month:

This cherry pattern came from Nancy Tracy over at Be-stitched. Here's a link to her free pattern. If you sign up for her newsletter, you get a free pattern and a new easy recipe every month. Plus you get to hear about all of the stuff she has in the shop... I love getting her newsletters and seeing her new patterns....Go check her out when you have time.

I made a mistake on this pattern and didn't want to untat it. I just decided to leave it in because you know as well as I do that all cherries aren't always round, right???? Anyway, I decided I could live with it as is... I used Lizbeth size 20 for this. Nancy's pattern was all one color but I like colors....

A friend of mine gave me this bookmark pattern and if I can find a link, I will share it....

This was in the Handy Hands newsletter from December 2010. It's actually about 6 inches across. I saw this on Lace Loving Librarian's (Diane) site first and just had to get the thread and make one for myself...See Diane, I do get a little bit of tatting done. Better late than never, right?

Here's my scrappy doily. I've been working on this off and on for awhile now. I'm still not through with this one either but it's getting there. This one is about 8 inches wide. I found this on the web too. This one has a couple of links to it...I saw it on Martha Ess's website first and she referred to the site she got it from...

This butterfly is a big one. It is about 12" long by 5" wide.It was made with size 10 thread. I didn't make this one though...A friend of mine found this at a garage sale. She bought it and gave it to me. It had a few bad spots in it. I washed it and fixed the threads that were coming loose and blocked it. I'm going to put this one in a frame and I'll show you this again when it's done...

Here's the quilt top I made. I've had this fabric in my stash for awhile and saw it again in an old magazine I was looking through, May/June 2008 Fons and Porter-Love of Quilting and I decided to pull the fabric out and put this together. This was a real quick top to put together since the middle part is a panel. This one's called the Very Hungry Caterpillar and the fabric is still available online. I'll be quilting this one soon. I want to see it finished quickly. I have the book to go with it too.

Here's my finished wallhanging. It turned out beautiful. A friend of mine quilted it for me and I just finished binding it. I wish you could see how beautiful the quilting is on this one. Carolyn did a wonderful job and I love this one. The pattern was in Quilt Sampler magazine last year. This will be going on my wall after I show it this Thursday at my small quilt group.... I'm calling this the Schoolhouse Quilt. I know it's not a very original name but that's what I called it the whole time I was working on it and it stuck....I joined 4 of my friends and we swapped some blocks on this one. You saw it a long time ago but it wasn't quilted. We swapped the small houses, the schoolhouses, the baskets and the pinwheels. The middle part was all done by me. It's funny that even though we made blocks alike, all of our quilts look really different.

I have some items I need to work on but don't want to. I've decided since this is July and more than halfway over, I'll be doing only things I want to work on.

til next time....happy sewing!

Friday night sewing and Saturday sewing

2011-06-19T11:33:00.000-07:00

Well, I didn't do as much as I wanted to Friday night but I enjoyed myself. I went over to the church and visited with my buddies and I worked on binding a quilt. I finished a little over half of it before I put it up and just walked around to see what everybody else was working on. I enjoy seeing what everybody else is doing to see if I want to do it too! One lady was working on the blocks that the Fabshophop was promoting and they were turning out really cute. They call it the Fab Shop Celebration Sampler and you can find it here. They have alot of different blocks and hers was turning out really cute. I pulled out my camera to take some pics and discovered that my battery was dead. Sorry about that...Anyway, I charged it up Saturday morning and took some pics of what I worked on yesterday too. Other ladies were crocheting and working on wool. I guess I'm going to break down and do some wool work too. I just love the way it looks and you don't have to needle turn it either....

Here's the quilt I finished binding Saturday morning. This is called Fiddlesticks and I think it is a Bonnie Blue pattern. A friend of mine quilted it for me and I just love the way she quilted it...if you click on the picture you can see the quilting...

I also worked on putting together my Cupcake quilt. My group had an exchange (I showed you pics previously) and then last Saturday we got together and sewed on the quilt top. I put together some 16 patches and decided I didn't like them with the blocks so I then put together some big Nine Patches and cut them apart (Disappearing Nine Patch style). The alternating blocks are the D9P blocks.

I found the cutest cupcake fabric to use as setting triangles and the border fabric. I had some left over DP9 blocks and between that cupcake fabric and those, I might have enough to do the backing too. Here's the flimsy all put together, ready for quilting...

Friday night sewing with Heidi and Bobby

2011-06-17T15:37:00.000-07:00

Tonight is Friday night sewing with Heidi and Bobby. (If you click on my title of this post, it will take you to Bobby's site to sign up for tonight's FNSI or you can scroll down on the right hand side and click on the badge). I'm already sewing and trying to catch up on some things I've been wanting to do. I'll be joining some of my friends later tonight to sew. I've been missing going to the church to sew for various reasons. Mostly family related and I have sure missed seeing my buddies. It will be good to see all of their smiling faces!

Won't you join in the fun and sew tonight too? I'll post pics later tonight or tomorrow and hopefully, I'll be getting something done. I have a free weekend for sewing and I can't wait! til next time, happy sewing!

Cutting out and getting ready to sew, sew,sew....

2011-05-31T13:39:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm sorry to say, I have nothing to show you. I have been very busy getting ready to sew but I have done very little sewing. I did make one block for a raffle and I made a walker bag to show my group what they looked like. I have done some repairs on clothes too but that's all the "sewing" I've done. However, with that said, I have cut out like crazy. I cut out scraps and exchanged them for a Wheel of Fortune quilt. I cut out and got 46 kits ready for my group to sew walker bags for our local nursing home. Now, I am ready to sew this week and get some things finished. I have four quilts ready to have the binding sewn down. I have 2 quilts ready for their borders and I have three small quilts pinned and ready for machine quilting. So yes, I have been busy.
I have been busy with the new grandbaby too while doing all of this and I'm having fun with her.

My oldest granddaughter graduated from Kindergarten on Friday and they were so cute. Kids grow up so fast so you have to grab all the good times while you can. Anyway, hopefully, I'll have alot to show the next week. Have fun, have a good week sewing and Go Mavs!!!!!

Weekend Sewing and Cupcakes for dessert and a quilt too!

2011-05-23T10:34:00.000-07:00

Ok, I know on my last post I said I would sew and show you what I did. Well, that didn't happen but I guess you can tell that....Anyway, life is still not back to normal or whatever normal is...but it's getting there.

I haven't been sewing hardly at all. I just can't seem to get motivated right now. I have been looking at all my projects and reading books and magazines but when I have the time, I don't have the want to. When I don't have the time, I just keep thinking of all the things I want to be sewing on. This holiday weekend is a long weekend for me so maybe I can get a few things done.

I was able to sew a little on Saturday. I got a little hand sewing done and some tatting too. After that, I got some stuff ready for a sew day on Sunday with my friends.

For the Sunday sewing, we made cupcake blocks and we will be swapping them later...it was so much fun to get together and sew with friends. Of course, we had to have food and cupcakes for dessert. I had a good time being with my buddies and actually got some sewing done too... We all met over at Martha's and we spent the afternoon making our cupcake blocks, playing with her dogs and eating cupcakes.

We had real food too.

Yum, those cupcakes are good!

Dee's first cupcake block...

This is so much fun!

Another one finished!

Aren't these cute? Judy gave us all ceramic cupcake boxes with a piece of chocolate inside!

Here we are with one of our cupcake blocks. We had alot of fun working on these together. It's so much fun to see how everyone's was so different. The instructions were to have a pink background with a cupcake on the diagonal. We all drew up our own pattern and we'll exchange later next month. Some will embellish and some won't. It's left up to the individual but they were all cute! There are 4 other ladies in the swap that couldn't make it. We will have 12 blocks each and we can put it together any way we want. We will be getting together to swap and sew the quilt up next month. More fun times with friends to come for the summer months. We planned 3 other swaps too so please stay tuned! Til next time, happy sewing.

National Day of Prayer

2011-05-05T09:57:00.000-07:00

Today is the National Day of Prayer. Please remember to pray for our servicemen and women, our country and leaders in our country too along with all your personal prayers.

I am thankful for so many things today. I have a new grandbaby that is healthy. A Mother-In-Law that came through major surgery and is doing well. She went home yesterday to her house and is doing great. I have a wonderful family and three other beautiful grandchildren and I'm healthy too. Life is good and I feel truly blessed.

Here's a picture of my newest grandbaby. This is Carmen and she was born on April 26th. She is a beautiful sweet baby.

The only thing I need is more sewing time!!! I have not had any time the last couple of weeks to sew but I'll be playing catch up starting tonight! I hope everyone has a wonderful week and weekend and I'll be updating soon. Hugs,

Family Time

2011-04-24T18:37:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, sorry for the delay in posting. I have been busy with family and still more coming...

I have not been sewing this past week as I've been at the hospital with my MIL. She had to have surgery for a mass. I'm really happy to say that it was not cancer and we are so relieved. She is recooperating at my house and I'm watching over her. She is doing very well but is very weak. She's in her 80's but you wouldn't know it. She gets stronger every day. We did not have the grandkids over for Easter because we needed some rest time. They went over to the other grandparents house to look for Mr. Easter Bunny and I sure missed them.
Tomorrow is the due date for my new grandbaby. The proud parents go back to the doctor tomorrow to see just how far along the little mother is. If there's no changes, the doctor is talking about inducing. Anyway, I will have my hands full this week as my MIL and the new baby and parents will be staying with me too. So, as soon as I know about the baby, I'll post it. You will either hear from me or I'll show new pictures. Anyway, I must dash for now. Have a great week and do some sewing for me. Hugs, Linda

What a great weekend! Sunshine, family time, sewing and tatting too.

2011-04-11T11:07:00.000-07:00

I got to sew, get out in the sun (too much- I have a terrible sun burn!), be with the grandkids, be with family and get some quilting done too!

This weekend was really busy but it was fun too. I spent some of Saturday at the baseball field watching my grandson play baseball. This is his first year to play regular ball. He played T-ball last year but I don't know if you should count that. He mostly played with his friends and played on the ground. This year, he's playing coach pitch baseball. He's a little more focused this year and these kids are so cute to watch. His team won on Saturday but that really doesn't matter. What matters is that they are having so much fun and learning to play as a team. The coaches are so good with these kids. I had such a good time watching them and being with the family. It was noon time and I didn't pay attention to how burnt I was getting. I had a hat on and I'm glad of that, otherwise my face would have gotten burnt too. My arms are slightly pink but my neck and chest are so red, I look like a tomato. I had a V neck T-shirt on and it looks like I still have it on. It's time for the sun block! I'll be more prepared next time! Other than being burnt, I had a great time.

I left there and went over to my friends house for some quilting time. She called me early Saturday morning and said her machine was empty and asked if I wanted to come use it and visit with her. She needed to sew but I could use her Gammill while she sewed. I said you betcha! I went upstairs right then and started pulling out some small quilt tops and started putting the backing and battings together. I pulled out a community service top and one of my UFO's. I had hand quilted my UFO except for the border. I decided I would take this over and see what Jackie and I could do with the border. She didn't get alot of sewing time in but I got the little top quilted and we put my full quilt on the frame and I quilted the border on it. I learned alot about her machine and she said she learned some things too. It was so much fun to visit with her and get some quilting time in too. I finished both of those and they are ready for binding. I'll show you those later when they are bound. I didn't get to bind them yet, but I'll work on those this week. I went home and went out to dinner with the family.

Sunday afternoon, I worked out in the garden and I planted two Knock Out Rose bushes that my MIL brought me. She said one of them was Double Knock out roses...I'm not sure exactly what that means but they are pretty rose bushes. The Knock Out Rose bush is a new rose brought out by Texas A & M and is supposed to be very healthy and like the Texas soil. We'll see how good it does at my house. My roses are doing great this year and I have one bush that has bloomed out and another that is covered with buds and should be blooming any day now. I'll show you pics as soon as it blooms. After Mom left, I was able to go to my sewing room and do a little sewing. I pulled out some purple scraps and some blue scraps and made another purple quilt top and added to the Disappearing Nine Patch quilt top too. Here's a pic of both.

Ok, this is now big enough for a baby quilt. I can add a border and it will be ready for quilting....

Yay! It's purple month over at Angela's -So Scrappy Blog. I have a little bit of purple and can make a few things. Here's the first one...

These scraps are from the purple baby quilt I made. I'm making this one to give away as a community service quilt. I just need to add a border and it will be ready for quilting.

And, last night, I got a little bit of tatting done too. This will eventually look like a hexagon or maybe and octogon, I don't know which....I'm using up little bits of thread still left on my shuttles and am enjoying doing these little flowers. It's called a Grandmother's Flower Garden and I saw this over at Martha's Ess's blog. This just spoke to me when I saw it. As a quilter and a tatter, I knew I wanted to make this. My first thought was to swap little flowers with each other but you can't do that as you build this as you go and have to attach them. You can swap thread and it takes just about 40inches so I might bring this up at my next tatting meeting. Anyway, I'm enjoying this while I watch TV....

Three more blocks and my crowded design wall

2011-04-05T11:13:00.000-07:00

Ok, here's the three little blocks I did this weekend. They will be added to the 30's Sampler quilt I'm working on. This one is a UFO I'm trying to finish and it is up on my design wall waiting to be put together. I'm working on the little blocks that go around the big blocks to finish this up. I'm afraid I'll be working on this for a few more weeks. I still have about 18-20 more small blocks to finish. I plan on taking this to retreat to work on. Maybe I can knock alot of this out before that and put it all together then. I want to work on other stuff at retreat too so I'm going to try really hard to get more done. I take way too much stuff to retreat but I would rather take too much than not enough...

anyway, here's my blocks and my design wall:

Wait until morning to see what you are tatting!

2011-04-05T10:48:00.000-07:00

I've waited to show these because I didn't really want to show my goof ups but for all the new tatters out there, I think we should show them; so, here's one of my mistakes.

I tatted Friday night after I got home from sewing. Afterall, it was International Tatting Day, right?! Anyway, it was late and I should have stopped but I wanted to finish this little motif and I ran out of thread. I searched and searched and thought I found it. I should have just stopped and waited until daylight but no....I actually was completely out of thread but used this thinking it was the same until I got it in the daylight. Boy, what a difference! But, it's done and I don't have anymore of the real thread anyway so it's staying just like it is. It was for fun anyway so it really doesn't matter. I made both motifs using two different methods. The one in bright colors was done with regular split rings and two shuttles. The one with the mistake on it was how the pattern actually said to do it. I made it with one shuttle and with the single shuttle split ring method. I learned this last year but didn't do anything with it and you know what they say...If you don't use it, you lose it. Boy, I don't know who this quote was from but they are definitely right. I had to go on Youtube and see if I could relearn the SSSR. I found several versions out on Youtube and watched them until I could do it. I remember now how to do it and I'm going to keep doing other little things with this technique so I don't forget it. I'm also going to find some little motifs with other things I want to remember and practice those too like the self closing mock ring...

Here's the little motifs I did. I've done these before several months ago and I just love this pattern. I pulled it out again in honor of the recent Mardi Gras holiday and tatting day...This pattern was done by Patty D from Intatters and is called Mardi Gras: Click here for the pattern.

My Garden

2011-04-04T19:08:00.000-07:00

Here's a tour of my garden. It's not much but it keeps me busy watering, pulling weeds and enjoying the soil.

This is my onion patch.

My husband made these sprinklers out of PVC pipe and sprinkler heads. I can move these easily around my garden. They don't weigh alot and are cheap to make. This is our irrigation system! This one just has one head on it.

This one has 3 heads on it. It works great for me. I don't have to stand out and water.

I have two more rows of onions here, 2 rows of potatoes, zuchinni, yellow squash, radishes and tomatoes.

My morning glories are starting to come out here.

My first green onion of the season. Ummm, good.

We had a small fence around this last year. We will be putting it back up this week but with some improvements. We bought PVC pipe and chicken wire and we will have this fence up by next weekend. We have alot of rabbits here and I'm not ready to share my vegetables yet.

I decided to put my tomato plants into my big pots this year. I only have 6 tomato plants this year and I think that will be enough for us. Me and my MIL are the only ones that like tomatoes.

Catching Up

2011-04-04T10:58:00.000-07:00

I have been so busy and just haven't taken the time to post anything.

Friday night, I had a terrible headache. I went to the church to be with my friends and do some sewing but I didn't get much done. I mostly just stayed and visited. I tried sewing a block up and my thread kept breaking. I finished the block and decided I would just walk around and visit to see what everyone else was working on. My thread kept breaking because I had machine quilting thread on the machine from the last quilt I had quilted. Of course, I had cleaned out my supplies and didn't bring any regular thread with me! I did have a wonderful piece of cake there and got the recipe too. So simple and good and I plan on making it this week. See below for the easy recipe.

The weekend was so pretty I just had to get out in the sunshine and enjoy it for a little while on Saturday. I planted 6 tomato plants, some geraniums, some morning glories and I pulled weeds and pulled my first batch of green onions. ( I took pictures of my garden and I'll share those tonight with you when I upload some photos.) I meant to have the onions for dinner on Saturday night but that didn't work out. I kept the grandkids Saturday night and cooked supper for them and they are not onion lovers yet. I cooked their favorites of Mac and cheese, broccoli, Edemame beans (they call these jumping beans) and Eckrich sausage. I rented them a movie too. We watched the movie and popped popcorn. The popcorn was great but the movie was not a good one for small children. It scared my granddaughter and she went and played in her room while it was still on. My grandson wanted to watch it all the way to the end. It was an owl movie called Legend of the Guardians or something like that...lots of violence in this one and it said it was a kids movie. Wow, I was not happy with this one for sure! Anyway, we had a good time anyway and so did the parents. They went out and had some much needed couple time while I had Grandma duty.

Yesterday, after being outside on Saturday, I paid for it with my allergies flairing up. The wind was howling too and stirring up all the pollen and that didn't help either. I stayed inside yesterday and did get 3 tiny blocks made for one of my UFO's but that's all I got done. I didn't even take pics of those. I put the quilt up on the design wall that these go to and planned on taking pics but didn't. I'll do that tonight and show you what this quilt looks like. It is a 30's reproductions and most of it is Aunt Gracies...This is the only one like this I have ever worked on. I like it alot but it's just not me really. I do like the clean look of the blocks and it does look springy but I don't plan on doing anymore of these. This quilt is one of my 10 UFO's on my sidebar. I have enjoyed making this as these are easy blocks and go together fairly quickly but there are alot of them.
I just didn't have any ummph last week to get anything done. My sewing room is a wreck right now and I've rearranged things and just can't seem to focus on anything. I'm going to have to pull out my list and get back on track. I will be sewing more this week and I plan on having alot more done by the end of this week. I've got to really get busy before the new grandbaby gets here. I still have the bumper pads to make for the baby bed...but everything else has been done. Ok, I know you are probably bored with my rambling by now and I don't have any pics to show so I'll quit for now. I will post pics of my garden and my blocks later tonight, so please come back and visit me again. Until next time, happy sewing.

Delicious and Easy Angel Food Cake (Low cal too!)

Betty Crocker Angel Food Cake Mix
1-20 oz. can crushed pineapple (Do not drain-use all the liquid as this is the only liquid you will have for this cake)

Mix all together and follow package directions to bake your cake.

International Tatting Day

2011-04-01T19:08:00.000-07:00

I did learn something today. April 1st is not only April Fools Day, it is also International Tatting Day. So, to all of you happy tatters out there, go play with your threads and shuttles and make something pretty to celebrate.

Here's the mug rug I finished

2011-03-30T13:12:00.000-07:00

This has been a very busy week but not alot of sewing.

We had a great baby shower on Sunday for my new grandbaby. Baby Carmen will definitely be styling when she gets here. She has more clothes than either of her parents put together. I just love baby clothes and she got some very pretty things. She also got lots of practical stuff too like diapers, healthcare stuff, baby bath stuff, you name it, and she got it. We came home Sunday night and had to find a place to put everything. She has her own dresser and closet and they are still putting stuff away. They are still organizing but they'll be ready by the time she gets here, I hope...

I gave my DIL the quilt I made and she really liked it. Her Grandmother made me laugh and I just have to share this because this is how I used to feel too. We went to dinner with her parents and grandmother on Saturday night before the shower on Sunday. I had never met her grandmother before this. We had a great dinner and a wonderful time visiting with each other and getting to know each other. Sunday, I went to the baby shower and it was so comfortable to be around this family. It was like getting together with regular family...Anyway, her Grandmother and I hit it off and we were kidding each other back and forth. When Brittney pulled out the quilt, her Grandmother said it was beautiful and what a lovely gift. It would be a real heirloom someday. This is all the things you want to hear, right??? Anyway, I told her I didn't make it to be an heirloom, I wanted her to really use it and love it. She just looked at me when I said that. I didn't know what that look meant until later.

She came to me at the end of the shower and said she wanted to tell me something and hoped it didn't offend me. She said when Brittney first told her I could knit, crochet, quilt and do all that fabric stuff...she was very intimidated by me. But when she met me, all of the intimidation fell away and she found out I was just another person. She said later that she wants to get back together when she comes back into town for the baby. She was so sweet and we hit it off big time. Isn't it nice to meet and become friends with new people? I just thought she was wonderful and was amazed that she was so open with me. It reminded me of when I first started quilting. I was so intimidated by all the women I was around that could make so many beautiful things. I don't do my crafts to intimidate anyone, I do them because I have to. It's my way of expressing my feelings. I'm compelled to make these quilt or knitted objects or my tatting. I love doing these things and they are what makes me be me...Anyway, I just wanted to share this with all my fellow quilters cuz I thought it was so sweet.

I finished a rug mug to match the quilt...

Tonight, I have nothing to do so maybe I'll get some sewing time in...til next time, happy sewing.

Oh, my stars! My flag is finally finished!

2011-03-26T14:14:00.000-07:00

Ok, I wanted to show you the stars and here they are before and after they were baked.... See how many I made. I know this is alot more than you really wanted to know about, right, but I wanted to show you how many I made. There are two sizes here. Almost no difference in the size but if you look closely you can tell they are a different size. I think I made about 125 stars.

After baking. Here's what I have left. I wanted you to notice the different colors of the stars. Some of them look light brown, beige, dark brown and even bronze. These were the stars on the bottom rack that were too close to the heating element. I really like the colors but won't be using them on this project.

Not bad colors for mistakes, huh?

Out of all of these stars , I only uses a few. I tried to do 50 stars but I just couldn't get them on the blue space. I tried both sizes and finally just gave up. So, I used 13 of the stars and this is my finished flag. I hope you like it. This will stay like this until after the State Fair and then I will put it in a frame with some Pledge of Allegience fabric, but I'll show you that another time....This looks small but it is about 14" long and about 8" wide.

Here's my flag:

Getting ready for baby

2011-03-26T14:00:00.000-07:00

You are probaby aware that we are expecting a new baby in the family. Hopefully, she'll stay put until she's due the last part of April. I have too many things to do before she gets here. I have a quilt retreat to go to in mid April and I really want to go, so, she better be a good little girl and stay put! Priorities, right?!

I worked on a fabric bag last night (the kind to hold diapers, it's not a diaper stacker, but I might make one of those too) and a mug rug. I didn't finish those yet and I'll show those later. Today, I pulled out the bassinet and cleaned it up. I made a sheet for it and a pillowcase for the baby pillow. Two things off the list! I want to make more sheets for this and some sheets for the baby bed too. I'm going to make some receiving blankets to match too. You can't tell by the picture but the sheet and pillowcase are light purple. Wow, that pillow looks big! It's a baby pillow but you sure can't tell it from the picture.

My star buttons and Printed Treasures

2011-03-25T10:29:00.000-07:00

Last night I baked my polymer clay buttons. I borrowed a toaster oven from a friend of mine. She uses this only for her craft projects. Anyway, I learned alot with this first attempt. I had enough buttons to go on two trays which is what this oven came with. I lined the trays with parchment paper and put the buttons into the oven. I cooked them at 275 degrees just like the directions said. The top tray came out perfect. The bottom tray was a little different. I like what happened but it was an accident and probably can't be repeated. The bottom tray was closer to the heating element and some, not all, of the stars came out, shall we say, darker than the others. They kind of look like they were bronzed. I actually like them but only a few of these turned out this way. If these were cookies, I would definitely just toss them in the trash. They looked crispy, I guess that's the word I'm looking for. Anyway, I have enough stars to put on my flag and now I'm not sure I want to do that. They fit but I really don't like them. I'll take some pics and show you this afternoon.

I tried to print on the Printed Treasures paper fabric and it would not go through my printer. I tried several times and it just wouldn't work. So, I was so disgusted about the buttons and the paper, I just turned everything off and went to bed to sulk...

Today, I will go home and look at everything again. Maybe it was just my attitude last night when I took the crispy ones out and looked at them. I'll decide what to do and show you.

Shopping at Joann's

2011-03-24T13:35:00.000-07:00

Last night, I was waiting on my son to get off from work and I had about an hour to kill so what better way to do it than go shopping? I ended up at Joann Fabrics and bought a new ruler and a package of heat transfer paper, PrintedTreasures...Both of these were on sale, so I don't feel too guilty. I wanted some of the transfer paper so I could make my Civil War Block with Lincoln in the middle. I have never used this stuff and I'm hoping it's easy to use. I wanted the new ruler because one of my friends said she loves this 4" X 8" Omnigrid Ruler and uses it all the time. I usually go with what she says as we do alot of things the same way...So, I bought it and I'm going to see why she likes it so much....

I'm going to try out the transfer papers tonight after I go to Weight Watchers. Any words of wisdom, suggestions or things I should watch out for on this stuff? Til next time....Linda

Talking about buttons...

2011-03-23T10:41:00.000-07:00

I don't know what it is lately but everywhere I look I see buttons. Unfortunately, I could not find the ones I needed for my flag so....I made them myself. I have cleaned up my flag by hiding all the threads and looked at different ways to do the stars and finally decided on buttons. I have gone everywhere in town and on the internet and couldn't find the simple stars that I wanted. Tuesday nights are usually tatting night and I did go to tatting but with the help of my friend, Marie, we made buttons from polymer clay. These were fun to make too. I might be hooked on something else! We made over 120 buttons but they need to be baked. I have them at home to bake them and I'm going to borrow an oven from another friend. She uses this for nothing but polymer clay. As soon as I finish them, I'll show them to you. They are nothing special but they are exactly the size and shape of the stars that I wanted so they are special to me. I did not take pictures yet but I will to show you how many we made.

This was my first time to do anything with polymer clay but it was fun. I just might have to do some more of this stuff. After I bake these, I'll decide if I want to make anything else. It was easy and fun to do but I'm kind of nervous about the fumes. I've looked at various sites on the internet and they say to not use any of the pans or kitchen utensils for anything else. Wish me luck!

Button, button, whose got the button? Barb does, that's who.

2011-03-21T10:23:00.000-07:00

Ok, I'm a little late in getting this posted. So sorry, I've been distracted lately with the new baby to get ready for....

Barb, over at Bejeweled quilts has some of the sweetest birdie buttons to give away. Ten lucky people will be the winners of these but you have to hurry as today is the last day to enter. Click here and it will take you to her blog to enter. But please, go over to the website that gave these to her and visit them too. This is to help empower other women, so, please take a moment and check them out.

Purple baby quilt for Carmen

2011-03-20T19:46:00.000-07:00

Here's Carmen's quilt, quilted and bound and with a label too! It took me longer to quilt it than I had planned...I had to fight with my machine. I finally took it off the frame and quilted it with my Pfaff at the kitchen table. I just can't seem to get the hang of the Brother machine. I'm going to sit down with it and have a nice long chat with it. I piddled around with it for about 3 hours and quilted a little bit that I had to take out... Now, I can make a diaper storage and I'm even going to make a mug rug for her. I'm not going to call it a mug rug though...I'm going to call it a bottle rug! I had two flowers left over from the border and these will be just the thing to hold her bottles or for her Mama's tea cup or whatever! Anyway, I'll be working on those this week. The shower is this next Sunday so I'll be ready. I love not having to rush. I want to make some receiving blankets with a little bit of crochet around them before she makes her appearance. I want to make some sheets for her crib and the bumper pad too. I have another month before she's supposed to be here so I'm sure I'll get it done. For now, here's her quilt:

National Quilting Day

2011-03-19T06:55:00.000-07:00

Hey everybody, Happy National Quilting Day!

Fab Shop Hop website has a free quilt pattern to celebrate the event. Here's a link to the pattern.
I'm sure there are alot more freebies out there to celebrate, I just don't have the time to look right now. I gotta get out from in front of this computer and go get in front of my sewing machine and finish that baby quilt. Have a fun day and go sew!

Friday night sewing with Heidi and Bobby

2011-03-19T06:13:00.000-07:00

This week has been busy with my quilt meetings. I had two different meetings this week so I did not get to sew those nights. I haven't done any sewing this week except for last night. I went up to the church and sewed with some of my friends and worked on the purple baby quilt. I decided to do the border a little differently than the picture of the pink quilt. I'm not doing the leaves all going in one direction. I'm doing them going up both sides and out both sides at the top and bottom with 3 flowers at the top and bottom....Since I didn't have a pattern and had to figure out sizes of leaves and filler, this is how I decided was the best way to do it. (I had help from my Friday night friends and help from Freda over at http://imperamagna.blogspot.com/. Freda gave me some help with the size of the leaves. I played around with several different size leaves and finally decided which size to use and it was the size Freda had originally given me....I'll be finishing this up today and I plan to start quilting on it today too...Here's a picture of what it looks like right now and I'll take a picture and show you what it looks like later today.

One thing I did get accomplished this week was to finish tatting my flag. I have not hidden all the threads on it and I haven't blocked it but here it is all tatted up.

I'll hide the threads that need to be hidden, block it and decide how to put stars on it and the next time you see it, it will look a lot different. I'm still trying to decide if I should use button stars or what. I want to play around with some polymer clay and see what comes of that. I haven't been able to find star buttons the size or color that I want. The pattern just says to tat rings and use those but I didn't like those, so now I'm trying to decide what to do about this. I worked on this off and on since last July. It's just ring and chains but each row took about 13 hours to do.

Weekend sewing and the Dallas Quilt Show

2011-03-14T10:28:00.000-07:00

I didn't do alot of sewing this weekend as I had other quilty things to do. I did work on my border for the purple baby quilt. I had made the flower blocks last week except for the white on the edges. I had run out of white fabric and had to get some more before I could continue. I put the white on white on the flowers and they now look like flowers. I made some leaf blocks too but I'm not going to use them...I made them 3 1/4" squares with 1 1/2" squares on the corners and these are way too big for my taste. So, I'm going to try 2 1/2" squares tonight and see if I like them better. I don't want my leaves to over-power my flowers....Now, I have a few leaves to put into some other project and believe me, they won't go to waste.

I tatted on my flag last night too. I finished the last row of white and now I'm on the last rows of red. Only two rows of this red and I'll be completedly finished. I have been trying to decide how I'm going to do the stars and I've about decided on buttons. This will be mine and I was thinking I would do them in thread but the more I've thought about it the more I'm leaning toward the buttons. I've looked online and at various shops for star buttons and haven't found anything I'm interested in, so I guess I'll make them. Some of the girls at tatting do polymer clay and suggested this to me sometime back...so, I'm thinking that's what I'll be doing. I've never done this but there's always a first! I'll be showing you my flag soon, I promise.

The reason I didn't do alot of sewing this weekend was the Dallas Quilt Show. I went Saturday with two of my friends and we oogled and oggled at all the beautiful quilts. In my opinion, this was the best show I've been to in many years. The quilts were all great and it wasn't the same thing, over and over....Everyone is getting so good!!! There was lots of eye candy to look at and I had a hard time deciding on which one I liked best. I had several favorites. Yes, I have pictures and I'll upload those later tonight when I get home. So for now, this post has no pics but come back later and you'll see lots! Have a great day and go get some sewing time in!

Knitting night

2011-03-10T21:09:00.000-08:00

This week has been crazy. I've had something to do each night and haven't sewed all week. Tonight was knitting and it was a fun night. One of my friends brought this cute little bag and showed it tonight. No, I didn't make this but I just have to share it with you....so cute. I want to make it and if I can get the pattern from my friend, I will make it.

Sewing on Sunday

2011-03-06T21:12:00.000-08:00

This afternoon, I got to sew a little bit more. I finished up three more turtles for community service....As it turns out, these are bigger than I first thought. I was just guestimating the size when I told you last. I measured these this afternoon and they are 28" long and 20" wide.

I put together last week's Civil War Block

and I put three more blocks together for one of my UFO's...

This is my purple quilt with some of the almost flower blocks around it. I say almost because I ran out of white fabric and will have to buy some before I can finish these blocks. I'll also be putting the leaves around it too.... this is on my design wall right now waiting for the white fabric to put the finishing touches onto the flower blocks.

Another little quilt on the design wall is my Disappearing 9 patch. I put this one together Friday night. I've decided it needs another row before a border so I have to make 4 more blocks. I'll be doing those this week and finish this one up too.

Anyway, that's all for now, more to come later. Have a great week and happy sewing!

Sewing for the week, Friday night sewing and Saturday sewing

2011-03-05T18:37:00.000-08:00

This week has just flown by. I have been so busy and haven't had the time to post a thing. I have sewn a little bit this week. I haven't finished anything this week except for a few blocks. Block by block, piece by piece, a little at a time, creates a finished project, or at least that's what I tell myself...So, I don't feel too badly when I don't finish something.

Last night I went to sit and sew with some friends at the church. I decided I would cut things out before I went and I got nearly everything sewn together that I took. I felt so good and was so glad I got so much done. I sewed my D9P together and decided to make a few more blocks to make it bigger. I sewed three other blocks together for one of my UFO's, I think it's UFO 2 on my list and I sewed all the flower blocks for my border on the purple baby quilt. Now, I need to make the leaves and vines sections and I'll be able to put the border together. Sorry, I didn't take any pictures of these but I will and I'll post them later...

Today, I went and sewed with my sewing guild friends. We were sewing on our community projects for the year. I made a turtle. Yes, you heard me right. A turtle. It is so cute...I have three more to sew together. My group is one of many of the ASG (American Sewing Guild) and the community service project nationwide is to make turtle pillows for Paul Newman's Hole in the Wall Camp. We got together today and worked on those...Here's a picture of my cute turtle all done and ready for stuffing. We don't have to stuff these ourselves, we make them and send them to our headquarters. They are gathering them up and a sewing guild in California will stuff these and sew them shut and deliver them to the camp. These are alot of fun to make...I have two more to sew up.

I haven't measured these but I'm guessing these are about twenty inches long by about fourteen inches wide. They are pretty big and will take quite a bit of stuffing. I hope the kids like them...