Intermediate Quilts with Scalloped Border

Ok, here it is...The borders are finished but I have not finished quilting it as much as I want. That's why the pins are still in it. I did want to get a picture posted though so you could see that I was able to sew Friday night like I wanted. I got my hair cut then came home and started sewing. I sewed the binding on the machine, watched some TV and started the hand work of sewing the binding down. I thoroughly enjoyed doing this binding. It went together so easily and I definitely recommend the Easy Scallop Border tool by Darlene Zimmerman. It really is one of the easiest things to use and made the scallops perfectly. (I hate to use that word cause nothing is perfect but this was great!) You have got to try it for a scalloped border. I am no longer hesitant about doing scalloped borders. As soon as I finish quilting this quilt, I plan on working on the Red and White Quilt top I did some time ago. It also has a scalloped border. I want to finish this one so I can reinforce what I learned...









Yesterday, I went with some of my friends to our annual ASG (American Sewing Guild) luncheon... I had a great time visiting with all my sewing friends. We got there and had two sewing projects to do. One was to make fabric flowers and the other was to make a fabric rose to wear. Here's the pictures of those. Fun projects. No thinking, just doing. These were easy make it and take it projects. I finished mine at home as we didn't have enough time to finish at the luncheon. On the way home - I hate not having anything to do with my hands. Kathy had a Linus blanket in the console she was finishing up by putting crochet around the outside. I crocheted while she drove and finished up her blanket....She said that was great as now she can move onto something else. It was a fun time with good friends, food and sewing. What more could you ask for? (Except maybe some money thrown in!)
Here's the fabric Flower





Here's the Fabric Rose Pin




Last night, hubby and I went to another quilt friend's annual Halloween party. Another fun time. Good food and fun with friends. Thanks, Ann and Glen for the party. I had a great time....looking forward to next year.


I forgot to show you last week what a friend of mine made for me. Shirley knows I love pincushions and that I had been looking for the directions to this pincushion...she made me one some time ago too but she made these three sewing items for me and gave them to me for my birthday...The top one is the pincushion, the other item is a pin and needle caddy with Wool in the middle for your pins. Most people make it with felt but Shirley said I was special, so I got wool....

and the other sewing caddy is just a bigger version with some machine embroidery stitches and other fabric besides cotton. Also wool in the middle for the needles. She said I could put one in my sewing and one in my embroidery box...Isn't Shirley sweet for thinking of me. I have some of the nicest friends and I've met most of them through quilting. Thanks Shirley, love ya girl.






Today, I get to vege out and watch the Cowboys, hopefully they'll win today. We'll see. Til next time....

Busy Week too many fun things to do and no time to sew

This week ended up being very busy. I was going to work on my quilt and have it done by Wednesday...well, here it is Friday and I might get to work on it tonight! I have had fun this week but no sewing time. Tuesday night, I went to the Mesquite Guild meeting. My friend, Marianne was supposed to be the guest speaker but last week she passed away in her sleep. I bet she's having a good laugh on me. I tried over the last two years to get her to the guild and every time something has happened....I booked her three different times and never got her there. I guess she just wanted to keep us wanting to see her quilts! I will miss you, friend....

We had a substitute speaker for the meeting and she did a wonderful job. She even said she had taken a class from Marianne the week before! She talked to us about making quilted sweatshirt jackets. She had about 10-15 jackets with her. Nice presentation and very informative. It even made me want to make one, kinda....

When I got home, I made my binding and marked my scallops on my border. It was late when I did this and I thought I would come in Wednesday night and work on it. I didn't get to sew then either.

Wednesday night, I had to go shopping for a surprise Baby shower for my D-I-L. I bought several things on her register and I even did some birthday shopping for my grandson. I had a great time shopping for them. I feel so prepared now for the birthday and don't have to rush around for that. That's one thing off my guilt list....Babys R Us even has free gift wrapping. I didn't know that until I bought my gifts there. There were two ladies wrapping their stuff over there and I thought they worked there. I walked over there as they were walking away. I stopped them and asked them if they could help me....They looked at me kind of funny and started laughing. I didn't get the joke until they told me they didn't work there! They said it was free gift wrapping but you have to do it yourself. I felt like a complete idiot by this time but they kept laughing and said they had gotten pretty good at wrapping by this point and would wrap my stuff for me if I wanted them to. I told them I appreciated it but that I could handle it. We all had a good laugh over my stupidity. I think it made their day though so I was happy about that.

Last night, (Thursday), the fun didn't stop. My MIL and I went over to the girl's house that was giving my DIL the surprise shower. I parked in the back driveway of this house. There were two little girls in the back yard on a trampoline looking at us when we got out of the car. One of the girls stopped and I asked her if this was Emily's house and she said no. After quizzing her a little further, I determined that we were at the wrong house and she didn't know who we were talking about. My MIL looked at me and said, what are we going to do? I told her the first thing was to get back in the car and get out of here- I called Emily and she gave me her correct address. (I got Emily's address from my son....it just goes to show, you can't trust a man to give you directions, let alone an address to go with those directions.) We went over to Emily's on the next street and parked. We were early and helped her get ready for the party.
My DIL came in and she was totally surprised. When she came in, she saw me and didn't know why we yelled surprise at her. She knew she was coming for a scrapbooking party- she didn't know it was a party/shower for her. My granddaughter (she's 3) saw my car outside and said, there's Grammy's car. My DIL didn't think it was my car. She just thought it was someone else's and didn't put 2 and 2 together. She said from now on, she will believe Alayna about the cars. (Alayna is just like a little boy when it comes to cars....she knows cars and loves them. Both of my boys were car crazy from an early age and they knew all kinds of cars. They could tell you what a car was before an adult could. I think she must have the car gene too!) Anyway, it was a fun night and Carrie got alot of nice things and was pleasantly surprised with the shower/scrapbooking party. All the pages we made were for her and the hostess gave her a scrap book for the new baby...

Tonight, I'm going to get my hair cut and get home and sew. I have got to sew...I'm having withdrawals now from not sewing this week. Til next time....

Fall Into Fall Giveaway

I entered the Fall Into Fall Giveaway that several bloggers were participating in. I was a lucky winner. I won this cute Pumpkin Table Topper given away from Carol at
Carol's Craft Closet...Her blog showed a picture of the quilt but it did not do any justice to the cuteness of this little quilt. I love it...Here's a picture I took. It is so cute. I love pumpkins and I was so blown away about winning this. Carol sent me this and a fat quarter...thank you so much Carol, I love it....

Tatting at the Richardson Senior Center

Last week I did go to a meeting on Tuesday night at the Senior Recreation Center. No, I'm not a senior yet, that's just where they hold the meetings. I was very impressed with the center. I went there for a tatting group. I used to tat years ago and tried to pick it up again and couldn't remember how to do it. It's one of those things, if you don't use it you lose it....Anyway, I went and met with a few other ladies (there were 8 of us in all) and they got me back on the road to Tatting. I worked on it a little this week while I was feeling sickly. I watched a little TV and did this at the same time. It's like riding a bicycle. You pick it up pretty quickly once you can remember how it's done. The ladies meet every week but it's not a guild. It's just a group of ladies that want to keep the art of tatting alive for the next generation. Two ladies started this little group in April of this year and have added to the group and shown other women how to tat. The main two ladies know how to tat, one is a Certified Tatter and the other is not certified but sure knows her stuff...They meet and teach tatting to anyone that is interested, no charge. Just show up and learn...I had a great time and plan on going back and visiting with this little group of women again.
The Recreation Center is wonderful. On Tuesday night, they had a quilting group there and a square dance group... The quilting group is a beginner group and they have a good group of ladies that meets there too. They meet on Mondays and Tuesdays. Very small charge to have quilting classes. There were about 90 people dancing Tuesday night when I was there. I didn't know what kind of dancing it was but it was considered Square Dancing....It wasn't like with the flouncy dresses or quick sashaying but it was definitly square dancing and it wasn't just seniors either. It was all ages and it was so fun to watch. I had a great time watching everybody else have a good time. I'm definitely going back to watch!

Loss of a Dear, Sweet Friend

I lost a very dear friend Friday. Very unexpectedly. Marianne Gildea was a very sweet and dear friend to me and alot of quilters. I worked with her at the quilt shop as well as my other job with the doctor's office. She was alot of fun to be around. She was a great quilter. She loved her cats and her friends and family. She will be sorely missed. Goodbye, my friend.

Quilting on my quilt and being sick

I am still working on my quilt. It's taken me longer cause I put a hold on it, I was sick. I guess it was a virus but I missed work and a quilt meeting so you know I was really sick! I finally started feeling better yesterday afternoon. I finished quilting the borders with the Borders Made Easy. Now all I have to do is put the binding on the scallops and you will be able to see the finished product. i should be ready for pictures by Wednesday if nothing else happens. Til next time...

Scalloped Borders and "Borders Made Easy"

Last night was the final class of this quilt. I have been machine quilting the quilt all week and was not finished with it but it was finished enought that I could work on my borders. We used a product called Borders Made Easy. This is like paper piecing. You take this roll of printed paper with a design on it and attach it to your border and just sew on the lines. Easy peasy! Great product. I will use it again soon. Once we had one side of our borders quilted we then learned how to use a tool put out by EZ Quilting and Darlene Zimmerman called the Easy Scallop. This tool allows you to mark scallops from 4" to 12". If I knew it was this easy to do scalloped borders I would have done it 2 years ago when I made that quilt...I've been waiting that long to finish that quilt. I haven't finished this quilt yet but will be working on it this week and showing you pictures soon. I don't know how our dear departed ancestors did their quilting without all these wonderful tools and gadgets we have nowadays- they must have been alot more resourceful than us!

I have a sewing guild meeting tonight and won't get to work on my quilt. I am so excited about this quilt I can't wait to get home and sew. That is such a good feeling to have again. Gotta go for now, til next time....

Quilting my quilt and Brandon

My friend, Judy, called me this morning and asked me why I hadn't blogged lately. I told her I didn't have anything new to show. I've been working on quilting my intermediate quilt and that's all. I'm not finished with it and am not showing it until it's finished. She said that doesn't matter. Your friends like to keep up with you and this is one of the ways they do that. So, friends out there, I'm sorry. I have been lack in blogging and will not do that anymore. I am still quilting that quilt and almost through with it. We will be working on the scalloped borders on Monday night and I am very excited about that. I have another quilt top already done and ready to quilt. I am putting a scalloped border on it and I have waited to do it for more instructions. I will be able to finish that quilt too....It was an Alex Anderson free pattern and it is Alex Anderson's fabric line too. I will start quilting it and have it ready to finish in a few days so hopefully, I will have two quilts to show you. I have so enjoyed this class, it has given me the ummmph to get other things finished. You know how you get kind of burned out or uninspired....that's how I was but since I've taken these classes it has helped me get my enthusiasm back. This has been a fun quilt to try new things....More to follow later.

Brandon, my grandson, lost his first tooth last week. He is 4 but will be 5 at the end of October. I thought it was kind of early to start losing teeth but my DIL checked it out and it isn't....He is so cute. Here is a picture of him without that tooth. Isn't this a cute picture. Gotta love him!