A little holiday update.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas.  Our Christmas was great. My kids and grandkids all came over and everyone was well and healthy.  We had a good lunch and then the craziness of opening gifts started happening.  The grandkids liked all of their gifts except for my youngest granddaughter Carmen.  I gave her the Minnie Mouse quilt and she liked that but I also gave her a Cabbage Patch doll and she wouldn't open it because it scared her...She took off the wrapping and screamed...Her Mom said her other toy that she was playing with earlier did the same thing to her for awhile so I'm sure she'll eventually like the doll I got her.  She's 3 and things scare her easily right now but everything else went over really good.  I gave her Mom the Marilyn Monroe wall-hanging and she loved it.  I gave my youngest grandson a quilt for his bed and he liked that too.  I already showed all of these quilts in the past so I won't bore you with pics of them now.  I've got to get off now and cut up some fabric for a class I'll be taking in January with Bonnie Hunter...I'm going to be doing Orca Bay with her. I bought the book awhile back but I just printed off the supply list so now I can start preparations.  I'm also doing her mystery but I'm behind on it with all the Christmas stuff I had to finish. So, for now, take care and happy stitching.

A few Christmas quilts

I've been trying to finish some Christmas gifts and haven't had time to post anything. Here are two little quilts I've done for family members.  The first one is just a panel of Minnie Mouse. I didn't add to it or anything. I just quilted it like it was.  Very simple and easy for my youngest granddaughter. She loves Minnie Mouse and this will just be a little snuggle quilt for her. 

 

 

This next one is for her sweet mother.  She is a Marilyn Monroe big time fan. I found a panel earlier in September when I went on the Quilt Across Texas shop hop.  The panel was horizontal and I wanted it to hang vertical. So, I cut the panel apart and used some black and white fabric to sash it with and I am very pleased with the results.  I hope she likes it and if she doesn't my husband said we can keep it because he loves it just like it is....

 

Well, that's it for now.  Gotta get off and bind another quilt.  Christmas is almost here and I'm still a long way from finishing some projects.  I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and I'll try to post again soon. Merry Christmas to all and happy stitching.

A Quilt for a child.

 

Hello, I am still learning my new computer and it is not easy for me.  I have Windows 8 now and it is not easy or user friendly for me.  I have a lot of trouble adding pictures, I was going to show you this last week and I couldn't get it uploaded....Anyway, I finally did and here it is.   I finished this one last

 week to give to the quilts for kids charity.   This was made with 2 1/2" strips.  There were 22 strips, 11 light and 11 dark.  Anyway, it was an easy quilt to do. This was not my fabric, it was a kit made up by my guild.  I didn't like all of the fabric but I think it came together with the border.  I hope a child likes it. 

 

 

 

I hope each of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday and get to spend some great quality time with your families.  Have a great turkey day. Til next time, happy stitching.

 

 

Good times with friends and some finishes to show.

Hello, I hope you had a great weekend.  My weekend was wonderful. I got to sew with friends on Saturday all day with my small group and we had a wonderful day.  This was our last sew day this year since we are going into the holidays so we had a pot luck lunch too.  It's so much fun to get together with friends and share good times, sewing and good food too.  Can't beat that!

 I worked on a new project while I was there. I have a lot of projects going on that need to be finished but I have to work on easy things when I go to a sit and sew. I just can't concentrate when I'm with all my friends.   I like to visit and chat too much to concentrate on hard things!  Anyway, I got a few blocks sewn together for the new project and had fun chatting too. I'll show you those pics later when I get more of the quilt done.... 

This past week I worked on an easy strip quilt for one of our groups charities.  I quilted it yesterday and I'll bind it this week. I was going to bind it tonight but I have to go to a visitation tonight.  I'll show you the charity quilts later when I finish this last one. 

So, I wanted to show you some of the things I have finished since I haven't been blogging.  I have more things to show but here are a few quilts that I recently finished. Three of these are old projects or UFO's but the last one is fairly new.  This one I'm calling Green Brick Road. I used Thimbleberries fabric and the Yellow Brick Road pattern for this one.  These three have been hanging in my closet to be quilted for many years and they just got finished....this one is probably 10 years old or older.

 

This one I'm calling Happy 14 because the top was a shop challenge done in 2000. It has a white backing fabric on it from the year 2000 also.  I put that fabric with it then to quilt and just never followed through. That's how I know I did it in the year 2000.

 

This one was a class for beginners I used to teach and this one was for  a teenage class I taught back then probably in 2000 or 2001...I haven't named this one, I just called it a Teen Sampler.

 

This last one is my One Block Wonder quilt and I named it "The Empress". I worked on this one last year and I just quilted it so it's not very old and hasn't aged like the others!  This was a lot of fun to do and I really liked putting the blocks together on this  and how differently they turned out too. I love the fabric on this one too.  The picture does not do it justice. It is a beautiful quilt and is one of my all time favorites.

 

I am working on UFO's and still trying to finish as much as I can. I am really enjoying pulling out old projects and finishing them up.  I hope you have a good week and get some sewing time in this week.  Until next time, happy stitching.

 

I'm back and have a few things to show.

Well hello everyone. I haven't fallen off the face of the earth.  My computer died. I had to buy a new one and I have not had any fun learning it!  It is totally different and not user friendly and it has taken me forever to figure out what to do....But, hopefully, I can get back to blogging and share some things I've been busy with.  I have so much to say and show you and I can't do it all at once so I'll spread it out over the new couple of days...please bare with me...

I made this cute mitten block this week. It is for my small group's Christmas block raffle.  Each year at Christmas, we make blocks and some lucky person or persons  win the blocks for a complete quilt.  This will be a really cute quilt I think. 

 

I also finished this block for the church quilt.  Each year my small group make a quilt and give it to the church we meet at as a thank you for letting us meet there.  The church uses the quilt to raise funds for things they need. We are grateful to have a lovely place to meet and they enjoy the quilts too.

 

Here's a top I finished putting together Monday.   I bought this kit when I was on vacation in September. My husband and I went to Fredericksburg, Texas for a few days and then we went and visited 19 quilt shops for the Quilt Across Texas shop hop.  We had a good time and met some lovely people along the way. I'll tell you more about that later.  I got this kit from a shop in Savoy, Tx.  called the Savvy Quilter.  Great shop and great people.  I don't usually make square quilts but this one spoke to me when I was in the shop and I just had to get it...My husband loves it. I hope to get it quilted soon. The pattern is called Samsara and is a free pattern from Blank quilting.  

 

 

I finished this charity quilt this week too. It was just a real quick strip quilt and we are having a guest speaker come to our group on Thursday, it will be going to her then.  I'm doing another strip quilt today to give to her too so I need to get off and get busy.

 

 

I have a lot more to share and will try to post more in a few days.  Please come back and visit and I hope to catch up with all my blog buddies now that I'm back online.  Have a great day and happy stitching.

TAQG Rally Day yesterday with Pat Speth

Ok, I know I haven't posted in a while.  I have been busy but haven't taken the time to post. I will be posting more now so please come back and see me when you can. 

I went to the annual TAQG Rally Day yesterday and it was wonderful.  For those of you not from Texas, TAQG stands for Texas Association of Quilt Guilds. Each year they have a rally day, usually in July, and the guilds come together for one day and have a great speaker.  There were over 500 quilters at Rally Day yesterday.  I know there were more than 500 because the guilds make something each year to donate for goodie bags and we have to make 500 of whatever we do.  The chairman of the TAQG announced that they had run out of goodie bags around 10:00 and people were still coming in.  It was an amazing day and fun to be with fellow quilters too.

 This year the speaker was my favorite, Pat Speth. She is the author of Nickel Quilts, More Nickel Quilts, Amazing Nickel Quilts, and Nickel Quilts and Borders.  I have had Nickel Quilts and More Nickel Quilts since the 90's and I guess she was one of the first people to write about using 5" squares to make quilts.  I have made several quilts from her books in the past but I now plan to make all of them.  I now have all 4 of her books, the last one was a border book and it's great.  I also bought a new pattern from her too.  I've got to get busy and start sewing my 5" squares now....Anyway, she was funny and very informative too.  I had a wonderful day with my quilt buddies listening to her and seeing her great quilts made from 5" squares.  If you don't have any of her books, I definitely recommend you buy them or borrow them from your guild and see what she has to say....She's great and her patterns are alot of fun. 
Here's just three of her quilts she showed yesterday. I lost count of how many she showed but these were onstage the first part of her lecture. 

 

I have finished a few quilts since I last posted but I haven't taken any pictures. I will take some and post to show you what I've been working on.  I hope you've had a good weekend and have gotten to get some sewing time in too.  Til next time, happy stitching.

I lost my sweet sister in May.

  The month of May ended up being a sad month for me.  I lost my best friend, my sister, the end of the month. . She had been ill for over a year. She could not walk and had been doing rehab of all kinds.  She wasn't getting any better. She had fallen over a year ago and had to have surgery on her foot. I guess that's what really started it.  Well, to make a very long story short.  She ended up being diagnosed with ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease. She had been misdiagnosed all year and they finally decided this was what was wrong.    This disease is horrible.  She was put on hospice early in the month of May and she went down very quickly..  She lost the fight with this terrible disease on May 27th.  All I can say is that she is not suffering anymore and will be sorely missed by her family, friends and anyone that had the privilege to know her.

While she was still able to talk, she told her husband and her kids, that she wanted me to have all of her sewing stuff. .She and I always sewed together, quilted together and did all kinds of crafts too. She was like me, she liked quilting the most. She has 3 girls and none of them sew so she had always told me she wanted me to have her sewing stuff.   I got all of her sewing room, machines and all.  I told the family I would be making quilts for them out of her fabric. I'm going to be really busy for the next couple of months/years making these but I know I will be thinking of her the whole time. She had 4 children, 11 grandchildren and 16 great grandchildren.  I plan on making quilts for the children and grandchildren but not sure about the great grandchildren....

It was a  sad month but on the last weekend it ended up on a brighter note. It was so hard to go ahead with this but we all knew she would have wanted it to go forward. One of her granddaughters got married and it was a beautiful wedding. She wore  a blue sapphire necklace that belonged to my sister in her honor. Judy would have loved this wedding. She wanted to be up and walking for this but it just wasn't meant to be. 

RIP, my sweet sister. I miss you and love you.

May For Me

May Day, May Day!  It's May 1st and it's a beautiful day.  I wish I was off work today so I could just sit on my back porch and enjoy the sunshine and birds.  I hope it's a great day wherever you are and you take some time for yourself today and the rest of the month and all year too!

Last year, I was lucky enough to find Marcia from http://marciascraftysewing.blogspot.com/
and she is one of the hostesses of the May for Me celebration.  On the sidebar to the right, you can click on the May for Me button and it will take you to her site and you can enjoy seeing her great blog too.  She is having a giveaway to celebrate starting off May for Me. 

Now, take some time today and do something for yourself.  We have to take care of ourselves so we can stay healthy and happy.  I plan on working on another UFO when I get home. I'm looking at different quilting designs on line to see if I can find something I like.  I've already got in mind what I want but I'm still looking to see if I can find something I like better. So, I'll show you some projects tomorrow of some things I've worked on this week and I'll try to show you what I'm currently working on too.  Now, go to Marcia's site and visit with her and have a wonderful relaxing day....Happy stitching!

Easy Projects and some more finishes!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter holiday.  Mine was great. I got to see my kids and grandkids,  color and hunt for Easter eggs, eat and sew  too.  It was a very fun weekend.  We went to church on Saturday night and this allowed us more time on Sunday to be with the family.  This is the first time I've ever gone on a Saturday night for Easter services.  It was strange but good too. 
I went and sewed with friends on Friday night at the church and on Saturday at one of the girl's homes.  I had some quality sewing time this weekend. I didn't take a machine with me Friday night, I just took the cupcake quilt and Lighthouse quilt to sew down the bindings.  I only worked on one but got it almost finished before I left.  I did finish it up Saturday after church and the other one I finished up Sunday night after everyone went home from the Easter egg hunt...

Saturday at my small group, we worked on two things.  We worked on a project board to safely carry our projects with us and a machine skirt to hold our tools.  I don't have a picture of the project board but I will have one later  this week  and I will also share how to make your own.  It is very simple but will come in vey handy too.  Here's a picture of the tool machine skirt we made.  This one isn't mine. It was someone else's and I just took a picture. I will also share with you later about how to make one of these for yourself. These are easy to put together too. I finished mine but I'm going to make another for my MIL and I'll share the instructions at that time.

I was able to quilt 3 quilts over the long weekend.  I finished up a quilt for my MIL and two quilts for me.  I finished binding the last one last night while watching TV and listening to the rain.  It was storming so badly I did not want to turn on any of my machines....We needed the rain but my dogs sure didn't like the storm!  This is the butterfly quilt I finished for my MIL.   I didn't have anyone around to hold it up for me so I just laid it over the rocking chair....

 

Here's a close-up of some of the butterflies.  This took me quite a while to quilt. I just did a simple meander stitch on these blocks  and swirls on the sashings and borders...This was a fun quilt to work on and my MIL loves it.

I finished my little cupcake quilt. This was a block exchange last year with 11 other ladies.  We each did our own cupcake blocks and then traded them. These were easy to do as they are all ragged edge blocks.  Sorry, I can't think of the proper term but they were not traditional applique, we just sewed them down and didn't turn under the fabrics.  Easy, quick and fun, my three favorite words....

 

I won this kit several years ago at a quilt show and put it together  but I never quilted it. It's been hanging in the closet forever and I just decided it was time to make it not be a UFO.  Very simple quilting on this one.  I have wavy fabric on the back of the quilt (like water)  so I decided to do wavy line quilting on the blocks.  Another quick and easy quilt to finish. 

 

Another Flimsy finish, a tablerunner and some fun times.

I have had a busy week working on finishing up some things.  I did put another border on one of my old UFO's and it is now ready to be quilted.  That's number four for March and April since I started doing this...I'm now pulling fabric for the backings so I can quilt these finished flimsies...
Here's my quilt top, this was a pattern by Bonnie Hunter, it is called Orange Crush.  This is the second one I've done.  The first one was finished and given away a long time ago...

 

I finished quilting this tablerunner too.  This was a lot of fun to do. This is an old pattern from 1999.  I have enough fabric left over to make what the pattern calls a bread warmer!  I thought that was pretty funny.  I hand appliqed this but machine quilted it...

 

This last picture is something I've been wanting to do for along time.  I went Saturday to a workshop that my guild had.  There were 4 different classes or workshops going on.  Two were small quilts and one was for double wedding ring. The one I took was a workshop on using orphan blocks to make a quilt.  I put about half of this together at the workshop and continued working on it Sunday afternoon.  I still have about 40 or 50 more blocks and will be making a few more orphan quilts.  This was actually a lot of fun.  This includes the first block I ever made as a quilter and blocks I didn't use for my two sister's quilts.  I'm thinking I will call this one finished without a border but I'm still looking at it...I'm calling this Alexander's Orphanage. 

I had intentions of working on my blocks for my Rainbow scrap challenge but that didn't happen. I'm going to try to do that this week.  Plus, I started quilting another quilt last night and hope to have it finished tonight or tomorrow...This is going to be a busy week.  I hope you have a fun and productive week. Happy stitching!

3 Quilt Tops ready for quilting!

Well, I didn't get to do my teal blocks Saturday or during the week last week like I intended but I did sew all week.  Friday night, I finished putting together my Friendship Star quilt and I must say that I am so pleased with it.  I have never used black to sash anything with and I really like how it looks. The quilt is made up of big friendship star block (12 inch finished) and the borders are 6 1/2" borders with 6 1/2" friendship stars on the corners.  Some of the 12 inch blocks were birthday blocks from many years ago that I received from my quilting group.  I made a lot of them myself to make the quilt as big as I wanted.  

 

 

I found out something lately that took me by surprise.  I finally realized that the thing I like least about quilting is putting borders on.  I like making blocks and putting sashing on. I like binding and quilting but I never realized that the biggest thing that bothers me or stops me from finishing is the borders.  I can be almost finished with a project and I'll put it up for awhile and not finish it. When I look at my project lists, a lot of the unfinished projects just need a final border to be finished.  Hmm, I made up my mind when I realized this that I'm going to stop procrastinating and get over this obstacle.  I pulled two more projects out Saturday and started pulling fabric for them.  I was going to work on them Saturday but didn't get a chance.  I went to sew with a few friends at the church and we worked on charity quilts.  So, when I finally got home, I cut the borders for two of the quilts that were almost finished and started putting the borders on them.  I finished these two quilt tops up Sunday afternoon and they are both now ready for quilting.....I was so pleased with myself and so glad I was able to sew and get these together over the weekend.  So, for the weekend I finished three quilt tops!  Woo hoo, I love it. It was good to get these done.   Do you have a hang up or something that stops you from completing your projects, or is it just me?    Now that it's finally dawned on me that this is one of the things I don't like, I'm going to make sure this doesn't cause me anymore problems.  After all, it's just another step in the process and shouldn't be a stumbling block and I'm going to really work on not letting it affect the process.


   

Time for family, butterfly blocks and friendship stars.....

I took off yesterday to be with my daughter in law and youngest grandson. He had to have nose surgery. He broke his nose over the weekend on the trampoline. Ouch!  He did great yesterday but has to stay calm and not run around all week.  He's 5 years old.  That is going to be really hard to make him be calm all week!  I really feel for my DIL and son. They will have their hands full this week. I'm so happy everything went good.

After we brought him home, I got him some bubblegum ice cream and a big Lego Farm set to put together. My DIL, grandson and I sat at the kitchen table and put the set together.  I should say my DIL put it together. I sat and talked to the grandson while she did it....We watched some movies after that.  It was a stressful time but ended up being a pleasant day too. 

I left their house when it was time for him to take a nap and went shopping.  I shopped for shoes and a new purse and of course, went to a quilt store. I just gotta go to a quilt shop when I'm off work, right???  I had skipped breakfast and lunch and was starving. I stopped and ate then went to tatting.  A friend of mine and I are showing some ladies from our quilt group how to tat and they are doing really well.  There were about 6 ladies Saturday that we were teaching and all of them have learned to flip so far!  That's the hardest part to learn.  They are all working on chains right now and doing well.  One of the ladies came to be with us last night for tatting and she's got the chain stitch down, so we talked to her about picots and she started doing those. Next lesson will be rings and then we move onto patterns from there.  So excited to show this craft to some ladies that really want to learn....

After tatting, I got home in time to make the last two Butterfly blocks and I also made  5 friendship star blocks.  Four of these are for my Friendship Star quilt. They are 6 1/2" blocks and will be cornerstones for the outside border.  The rest of the quilt is made up of big friendship stars that are 12 1/2" blocks. I finally made up my mind to do the little stars on the corners with a 6 1/2" border.  I'll do that tonight.  The other star will be for my Rainbow Scrap quilt that I'm working on...

Here's the last two butterfly blocks I'll be making.

 

 

Here are the little friendship star blocks.  4 of these are cornerstones for my big Friendship star quilt and the other one is for my Rainbow scrap challenge. 

 

 

I'm still working on getting caught up on the Rainbow scrap challenge but now I'm closer.  til next time, happy stitching!

 

Happy St Patrick's Day!

 Happy St Patrick's Day!  I hope you have the luck of the Irish and get lots of sewing and quilting done this week!

Butterfly Rainbow block and some tatting. Happy Late National Quilting Day!

I hope you had a great National Quilting Day yesterday. I was lucky enough to spend it with a new friendship group. There were fourteen of us in all and we had coffee at a local coffee shop first then went to Shirley's house, the leader of the group. We unloaded our machines and other things we would be working on and visited for a little while. We then headed to a restaurant and had lunch to celebrate the first quarter birthdays.  Yum, food, fun and friends.  Can't beat it....We went back to Shirley's house and my friend Cheryl and I started teaching  a few of the ladies how to tat.  Lots of laughter and fun along the way.  We had a few quick learners and get the "flip" right off but we will be continuing to instruct everyone and hopefully everyone will understand and get to know how to do this great artform.  I didn't sew at all even though I dragged my machine and some projects with me but I had a great time with some new and old friends....

  I got home and the grandbaby was there and we got to spend the rest of the evening with her and the great-much needed rain. 
  Today, I got up and fed the grandbaby. We then headed into my half sewing room/half baby room and while she played with her doll house, I cut and sewed this great block. I used teal for the butterfly so I could count it as my Rainbow scrap block!    I have two more of these cute butterfly blocks to make but they will be made in different colors. These are our summer blocks for my friendship group.  I'll turn them in for a chance to win more blocks.  For every block turned in, your name goes into a drawing for all the blocks.  I hope I win as I love this block.

 

I finished up some tatting this week and wanted to show you what I ahd been working on.  I haven't shown you any of my tatting in a while so I thought it was time to share.

 

I finished this blue cross Monday night.  The other little bookmark started out as a cross but I didn't have enough thread so I made what I could out of it.  I finished this one Wednesday night.

 

Last but not least, I've been working on this necklace for a few weeks and finally finished it. I will be making a bracelet to go with it too.  I'll be giving this one to my sister as these are her colors.   I made a blue and white one for myself but my niece saw them and loved them so I gifted them to her. Now, I'll be making me another blue one.  I love this easy pattern. It's not fast but it's easy to remember and fun to make....

 

Now, it's time to go to lunch witht he kids and hopefully, we'll get back in time for me to do more sewing. I haven't had my fill yet this whole week and I really want ot catch up on my Rainbow scrap blocks.  Til next time, have a great week and happy stitching.