Theri's Treasures

Starting off like the Tortise

2012-01-16T14:08:00.000-08:00

Well, I guess it is time to show all of you just how dumb I can really be....

In December one of my favorite little fabric stores, Suzy's Quilt Shop, closed down. This has much traumatized me and I went back several times while they were having their going out of business clearance. Suzy's had a wonderful selection of civil war fabrics and patterns. As I have just discovered I like these in the last year or so, you know I just HAD to stock up.

One of the things that I bought was the Ladies of the Sea applique pattern.

Beautiful, right?

Now, I also gave Mom a quilt kit for Christmas and the "deal" I made with her was that we would both work on our "block of the month" together. I also mouthed off to my brother and told him that I would be doing one pastel project a month- we are taking a class by Albert Handell (View his artwork here) in March and I need to get some practice in.

Mom and Dad sprung for the fabric for my quilt as a Christmas gift, so I pulled out my first month's block and got started while I was still on vacation. Right off the bat, I noticed that my first "block of the month" is really two blocks..... Hmm... Not to worry, I am much faster quilting than Mom (she is very PRECISE) and should be able to get both done by the time she gets her block done, right?

I would like to point out that the block I am working on is the pirate ship- that other one has me a little worried with all the points in it... So here it is, halfway through the month- you'd think I'd have either a block (at least one) or a pastel project done by now, wouldn't you?

I think I may have to re-evaluate my goals...

Beginning of the Year Ambitions

2012-01-04T17:10:00.000-08:00

It seemed to me that I could live to be 100 years old. After all, both George Burns and Bob Hope lived to be 100– how hard could it be?

Well I’ve got to tell you, folks– this might be a little harder to accomplish than I originally thought. After 40, things seem to creak and wobble a bit. Right at the moment, I am typing one-handed– it seems that I have somehow managed to pinch a nerve in my left hand and I have been gimping along for almost a month now. I’m getting antsy as it’s hard to do any artwork without the use of your hands…. In the next day or two I will be out of pills, so I guess I will be going to see that specialist pretty soon...

In the grand scheme of things, this wouldn’t seem all that bad. I can suck it up and deal if I have to– what’s the point of having that hereditary stubborn streak if you can’t put it to work for you? Trouble is, I am starting to see what I am headed for down the road in another 20 years– seems like everyone I know has had issues this past year. At the first of the year we received the abrupt and distressing news that Aunt Sharon had passed. We lost Uncle Gary just the year before and sometimes I think she just couldn’t bear to be without him. Dad had been ill over the winter and never seemed to get quite well. In April, he gave us all a good scare and ended up in the hospital with blood clots. The weather was uncooperative and I took a whole series of flights across the country to get home. While I was busy finding out what was up with Dad, Dave called and announced that someone had just clobbered him in a hit-and-run accident. Some days you just can’t win. Then again, I spent all day Easter Sunday stranded in an airport in the pouring rain trying to get home to Dallas and thanking the Lord that Dad was OK. So maybe you do win, on occasion.

Other assorted friends and family have been having issues, too…. Mom seems to be doing OK but needs to keep eating– it looks as if a good strong wind could blow her away. Martha and Dave have been in & out of the hospital for their assorted problems and Molly’s Dad Rich has been dealing with some complications from surgery for quite a while this year. I guess there’s quite a few of you that I keep track of through Mom & Dad– I hope that you are all doing better and my prayers are with you.

In retrospect, it seems like this has been a rough sort of year, but I guess I find it encouraging that everybody is still struggling along. Bad as things may be, I’ve been noticing lately that there are people around that are seriously worse off. When it comes right down to it, I am living a remarkably blessed life and am spending a lot of time this year being especially thankful for it.

Okay, it's been way too long since I was out here....

I got to the end of 2011 and realized that I had not blogged or worked on a quilt since March. This is just no good at all.

I spent most of the year working my tail off and did very little for my own enjoyment. Well, it just needs to stop.

My new plan is to work on one quilt project and one pastel project a month. I am only 4 days into the year, but already I can tell this is a little ambitious... I'll let you know my progress soon, but I thought I would post my Christmas newsletter out here to get all my long-lost friends up to speed on what has been going on in the last year or so...

Age is a privilege

Once upon a time, I had a marvelous plan...

It seemed to me that I could live to be 100 years old. After all, both George Burns and Bob Hope lived to be 100– how hard could it be?

European Vacation

Okay, so the really, really exciting thing I did this year was travel to Europe!

I’ve never left the country before, but Dave had done some overseas traveling in his younger days and we have been talking about going someplace for years and years. This year we decided it was time to go. We finagled an invitation on the trip that our friends Barb & Gary were already planning early in the spring. (Are they great friends, or what?) I was completely stressed out by the time we left in September– it was an incredible amount of planning to get everything situated at work so that I could leave. Barb did a fantastic job finding places for us to stay that were centered right in the middle of all the sights and incredibly reasonably priced.

Dave and I arrived in Buda exhausted, located Barb and Gary and immediately took a nap. After some recovery time, we all went out with and found a café to have dinner. Later we roamed the Liberty Bridge on the Danube River and saw the Great Market Hall all lit up at night.

Day 2 we toured St. Stephen’s Basilica– it has the most incredible ceiling in the main church and the stained glass in the chapel is incredible. The guys wanted to climb to the top of the church and look out over the city, so we hiked up stone steps and metal ladders and more stairs. And then more stairs… Dave and Gary left us girls in the dust (no surprise). I was panting away by the time Barb and I got to another platform where you could see up the inside of the dome. There were about 50 more stairs up there and some old guy told us we were “halfway” to the top. (Really it was 10 feet over our heads.) By that point I was picturing Dave and Gary dangling from the spire. After lunch, Dave and I went off by ourselves to roam the Buda Castle District. The castle was occupied with a festival, so we roamed in the other direction down to Fisherman’s Bastion. It was down in this area that we found some beautiful crystal. I spent a lot of time trying to decide if I wanted to risk carrying it for the rest of the trip, but finally caved and bought two beautiful vases. Dave (who is the ultimate researcher of finding the best deal) later determined that I had gotten an exceptional price, so I am very glad I did it even if I did have to lug it all over the country.

Day 3 was one of my choices– I persuaded everyone to take a ferry trip up the river to the tourist town of Szentendre. This is a beautiful little scenic village where there a lot of crafty items available. This is also where the blue-dyeing Kovacs family run their shop. (Yes, I will travel halfway around the world to buy fabric!) But the process is very interesting and we got to see all the templates that they use to stamp the fabric with. I am so lucky to have friends that put up with me!

Day 4 Dave and I took the train to Vienna and toured around a little. Day 5 we saw the Vienna Opera House and the Albertina Museum. We wandered by the National Library and toured the Imperial Apartments (mostly china and dishes, who would have guessed?)

Day 6 we took a train off to see the summer residence- Schonbrunn Palace. The palace is incredible and I swear they think that Sisi was a Disney princess. We toured the coach museum and the gardens. The Neptune Fountain at the opposite end of the garden must be as long as the castle. We missed the apple strudel making demonstration, but ate some in the café at lunch– it was incredible. In the afternoon, we went off to the

Lichtenstein Museum and got to see a concert performance they were having in one of the galleries. Afterwards, Dave wanted to go off on his own little adventure. I headed back to the hotel on the trolley, but wandered off to the BurgGarten where the local harvest festival Erntedankfest was being attended by the locals. There was some great music being performed and I got to browse the sausage tents and see the chainsaw competition. Did you know that Husqvarna Viking not only makes sewing machines– they make chainsaws too! Who knew? Dave was a little surprised to find me tipsy when I met him back at the hotel for dinner after a giant stein of beer and a pretzel! I don’t normally like beer, but a harvest brew is a whole different experience.

Day 7 was another travel day to get to Prague to meet up with Barb and Gary once again. Meet up for dinner and tour the beautiful Charles Bridge at night when the moon was full.

Day 8 we got to see the bridge in the light of day. We took the funicular up the hill to the Ruzovy Sad Rose Garden and hiked around the hill to get to Prague Castle and St. Vitus. If St. Stephen’s is stunning, then St. Vitus is overwhelming. All the windows are made out of glass pieces the size of the end of your thumb and the architecture is stunning. After touring the cathedral and castle we walked down the hill on the back side and through the vineyard. I had mentioned that one of the places to look for was the Wallenstein Gardens and when we got to the bottom of the hill, Gary found the gardens tucked back in a corner. How clever is he?

Day 9 we moved to the other side of the river and went to see the Astronomical Clock in Old Town Square. We went to the top of the clock (which was packed like sardines, by the way) and in back of us was a couple from Rhode Island who lived not too far from where Dad grew up. The world is smaller than you think, I guess. It was very claustrophobic at the top of the clock, so we didn’t stay too long. Excellent bratwursts in the Square, too! (Have you noticed a pattern yet? Walk, walk, walk… sit down and have a bite and a giant stein of beer. Walk, walk... walk… sit down, eat some more and have another giant stein of beer.) We hiked down to St. Vanice Island and by the time we were close to getting back to the apartment I was really dragging. After resting, we did manage to get out and get some more night photos of the bridge, though.

Day 10 we had to leave, but Dave and I did manage a short hike upstream where I got a couple of great shots of the Charles Bridge with Prague Castle in the background. And then another interminable flight home.

So, aside from the travel– most amazing trip ever. Dad had set me up with this most wonderful little Canon SX230 and it took every picture imaginable. I think I took almost 1,000 pictures in ten days. Close ups, night shots you name it. It also has a SD card that will automatically load to your computer and you can set it to load to your website, too. Had some technical difficulties with overseas WIFI– thank goodness for Barb who brought her computer and allowed me to load up my pictures nightly! There were a lot of people here at home following along with our trip and waiting for pictures each day...

Here is a link to the photos: https://picasaweb.google.com/118396955874695358047/EpicVacation2011

Quilts

Now, normally I would have a lot to say about all my quilting over the course of the year. Usually I am trying to get at least one project a month completed. But just recently I have been tallying up my artistic accomplishments and realized that I have gotten almost nothing done this year. I’m going to have to work on that– my life/ work balance is definitely out of kilter.

Birds are still definitely on the agenda– the two things I did manage to get done were a cell phone cover for myself and an Ipad cover that Dad had requested. This little guy spent the winter scavenging seeds from their bird feeder. I guess bugs are kind of hard to find in all that snow.

The Long Road Home is still not quite done– I need to cut down the edges and bind it. Hopefully I will get my hand straightened out soon or I may get impatient enough to go ahead and sew it up on the machine.

I should be ready to start some new projects after the new year– a local quilt shop is going out of business so there are some deals to be had for those of us who don’t have enough fabric yet!

Time to Spare

Now that I’ve been griping about all the sewing I didn’t get done, it’s time to confess. I think that I have been sucked in to another new hobby….

Dave has started drawing with pastels. I apparently just can’t stand to be left out of anything because here I am, neck and neck in a smear competition with him. Although at this point we have both only done a couple of pictures… (maybe this is a pastel color collecting hobby?) We have been taking progress shots with the camera as we go along- the other day I thought he was taking a photo of the picture I was working on but after he left I realized that he had taken a picture of all my pastels!

Do you think he is counting up all my colors?

Long Road Home

2011-03-27T11:27:00.000-07:00

Okay, so mostly what I am doing these days is working. But today, instead of cleaning up and doing all the stuff I should be catching up on, I have sewed a couple of seams.
You know, of course, that I am working on that new kit I got at the quilt show. (It being the shiniest new toy in my UFO sandbox!) So here are a couple of shots of the blocks in progress:

This was not (by the way) all done today!

When exciting stuff comes in the mail...

2011-03-26T15:40:00.000-07:00

I had thought that my days of being excited about getting mail had ended about the time the bills all started coming in my name. Guess not!

Today I got a envelope from the Quilter's Guild of Dallas. I thought that maybe it was my ribbon for the block challenge- I couldn't find where to pick it up at the show. I had been contacted about picking it up at the next meeting, but figured maybe the gal had just dropped it in the mail to me. Boy, did I get a big surprise!

That is my very first cash prize for a quilt!

How cool is that?

Now for the tough question- which quilt store to I head for?

Swap Blocks

2011-03-21T17:21:00.000-07:00

So, maybe you have noticed that I have fallen of the blog....

I am attempting to keep up with this again- hopefully things will chill with the job and I can go back to having fun.... I noticed that Beth put her swap blocks out today, so I will follow suit.

I got this done a couple of weeks ago- now it is sitting in the spare room waiting to get quilted. Turns out I need to give my long-arm quilter more of a heads up- she has me on the schedule for JUNE! So much for my planning skills...

I have been trying to make some bigger quilts that hang down and don't let a draft in... I would have thought I had plenty of spare blocks, but you don't want to know how many extras I had to put together.
I like the way this pattern turned out, but I think next time I would leave off the two triangles that go into the blue border. If they were the same blue as the border, then you would just have that nice black undulating edge in there.

2011-03-19T16:45:00.000-07:00

I have saved pictures of all of the treasures I obtained at the quilt show and thought that I would put them out here today in celebration. (Mind you, I did not quilt today but spent it outdoors at the Arboretum as it was sunny and 80 degrees.) Here are some new guides I thought I would try, and a nice little double template for edging designs:
Here is the fabric to add to the stash. Some of this is purchased and some I received for my volunteer hours this year. You might notice that I patronize Cynthia England's booth quite a bit...Every year I seem to hit the Bonnie Blue booth and buy a pattern. I have three or four of them now. All sitting in a bin of patterns I have never made. This year I went overboard and purchase a whole kit which I immediately came home and started. Don't you know, I just HAD to have another UFO...

And after months of debate about thread storage I decided that I would purchase a thread rack and attach it to my (somewhat) new cabinets. My threads were kept in plastic boxes and every time I wanted to embroider something I had to paw through all of the boxes to find the thread I wanted. But I wasn't sure I wanted to attach a thread rack to a wall or to my cabinets. I picked this up on Friday and got it home and set up. Ends up that it fits in that space really well. But I got all the Sulky thread up and still had 6 more boxes of RA thread! (Thanks, Mom!) So Sunday when I went back to the show I got a second rack- all the RA thread is set up on the opposite side.
Notice the civil war quilt pieces on the ironing table?

Hope you all had a wonderful Quilting Day!

Dallas Quilt Show 2011

2011-03-16T17:38:00.000-07:00

Okay, here it is Wednesday already and I still haven't downloaded my photos...

It has been a really exciting week- last Wednesday was the show set up, Friday I took off half a day and went to see the show (got to get that shopping in early before all the good stuff is gone!) and got to visit with Love for a little bit (wasn't that great fun?!!), Saturday night my fence got vandalized by some hoodlums, Sunday was back to the show and this week I am back to work and trying to catch up from all the time working the show! Whew, am I tired!

But I thought I would at least post some of these beautiful quilts for you to see! As usual, I have no idea how judges pick the winners. I look at some of the winners and wonder why they won, and I look at some fantastic quilts that don't get a thing. Guess I still have a lot to learn....

Anyway, here are the winners in some of the categories.
First, Best in Show:

Master Pieced- any quilt which is primarily patchwork, either hand or machine quilted

Master Applique- primarily applique; either hand or machine quilted
I love this quilt. I am going to include a detail shot so you can see the incredible quilting!
Master Wall Quilt- any quilt made to display on a wall with not side > 72". Pieced or appliqued, hand or machine quilted.
I really like this one, too!
Artisan Wall Quilt- any quilt made to display on a wall, with no side > 72". Pieced or appliqued, hand or machine quilted.
(This is my category.)

I will include Miki, for obvious reasons:
Artisan: Two-person Wall quilts- a quilt made by two persons specifically for display on a wall. No side > 72" and may be pieced or applique; hand or machine quilted
I am NOT a pink person, but this is a lovely little quilt. Notice the mirroring of that scalloped design in the quilting.

That is not all the categories, of course, but I did not take pictures of everything either. And you are probably overwhelmed with quilts by now. One last one though, that should just do you in. Every time I see a quilt by this woman, I feel like I am completely unable to make quilts. I'm sure you will recognize this from her previous quilts!

Quilt Show

2011-03-10T18:26:00.000-08:00

Miki will be in the quilt show, as well as my entry for the block challenge.

On an interesting note, the gal that was directing us in the quilt hanging remembered me from seeing when I brought my goldfinch in to one of the quilt shops. I was thrilled she remembered the quilt and amazed that she recognized me (as belonging to it). Who knew?

Working on the Quilt Show

2011-03-09T16:20:00.000-08:00

Just a reminder..... if you are anywhere near Dallas, the Quilt show is this weekend! I took the morning off and went down to turn in my quilt. Then I volunteered and hung quilts all morning.

If you are in the area, there are plenty of beautiful quilts to see and lots of stuff to buy!

http://www.quiltersguildofdallas.org/quiltcelebration2011

I will be there Friday afternoon and Sunday- hope to see you there!

2011-01-27T14:26:00.001-08:00

This past summer I posted some stuff about Mom & Dad having bluebirds nest in the backyard. When I went home, the tripod was set up in the window and both of them were spending a lot of time waiting for a head to peek out of the birdhouse so they could snap a shot. Here is one of my favorite pictures that they took:
So, of course, it is my next songbird quilt:
I'm thinking that the blues are too variegated- maybe they should have been more even-toned. But I am getting braver about cutting up my hand dyes and using them in my quilts!

Quilt Labels

2011-01-17T12:21:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time when I knew nothing about quilts, I did not know that they needed labels. I am lucky if I even have a picture of some of those first experimental quilts, much less have them identified. Since then, I have certainly learned a lot about quilts and I have been persuaded that every quilt (even the bad ones that I just throw together out of scraps) should have a label.

That being said, I hate every moment of making them.

I have no idea why it takes three times as long as I think it ought to, to make a label. You'd think you could just write down the information and be done with it, wouldn't you? But I procrastinate as long as I can (usually right up until it is entered in a show) to make the label and sew the tube on the back. I hate every moment of it.

Friday I finally broke down and started on the labels for the couple of bird quilts that are done- here are the results:

2011-01-08T12:52:00.000-08:00

Wow, it has been a long time since I have been out here. My life seems to be getting in the way of my blogging. Trouble is, it is also getting in the way of my quilting....

I started off the year with a bout of the flu, but instead of getting the tree down and packed up or doing any of the housework that has piled up, I am in the sewing room working away. I think I am having withdrawal symptoms... the last time I managed to get any time in quilting was November, I think.

I think I am finally done embellishing the Goldfinch. (If it will just decide to be finished and stop giving me "one more idea" to add to it)

Here was the original photo:

The part that I impress myself with is that little leg- it is the smallest piece I have been able to applique, so far. If I tell you that the whole quilt is 12" square, that should give you some idea of how small it is....
Now all it needs are a label and a sleeve...

Mississippi Kite

2010-11-03T10:04:00.000-07:00

I have been just too, too busy!

Work has been overwhelming for the last little while and Mom and Dad came to visit for a couple of weeks. I haven't been able to quilt, much less blog....

I have been having major quilting withdrawal and spent Sunday under lockdown in the studio. So Miki got finished! Isn't she a stunning girl? That Caryl Bryer Fallert background just really makes her pop!

2010-10-10T16:38:00.000-07:00

I have been very busy and haven't had time to write, but am catching up on my reading today. Love's post has given me a fit of the giggles....

When Caleb was young he ate several quilts, six feet of carpet, rocks and numerous other things that I would not have considered digestible. He also destructed one of my down pillows- I thought I would post the picture to give you a laugh, too.
I vacuumed for days...

Lazy Sunday

2010-09-26T10:59:00.000-07:00

We are not getting much done today. Mostly I am sitting around staring at half-completed projects and wondering what to do.

It was very wet here this morning (although it doesn't seem to be raining). I saw my humming girl out in the birch tree this morning. The rain yesterday means a lot of the blossoms have fallen off the plants. I have neglected my hummingbird feeder for the last couple of weeks because they (I have two!) have been hitting the plants all the time, but with the flowers gone I fixed it up this morning.

Man, they have been feeding away!

A Patriotic Rainy Day

2010-09-25T07:49:00.000-07:00

I AM going to get these projects done. Who says you can't put a stubborn, hard-headed family trait to work?

Brother mine wanted to go south of Fort Worth today to go pick out a couple of Japanese Maple trees. Apparently there is a nursery down there that has a hybrid that will survive the Texas heat. We were also going to stop by the Botanic Garden and see the Asian gardens. He is trying to work out what he is going to do with his petite backyard- he sent me some pictures from the gardens that are wonderful.

When I got up in the dark this morning to let the dog out it started thundering, so when I finally got up I checked the radar. It looked like a monsoon is blowing through. So I guess no outdoor visits to the gardens today.

So I guess it is a quilt day!

Here is at least one more project done- I put a machine binding on it, which I do not like at all. Mom tells me she pins hers to death and they turn out fine. Maybe I will have to try that. Or maybe I should just sew them all by hand....
I had originally intended to quilt this so I looked like the flag was waving but it just didn't work out at all. I ripped it out and started over... I do like how the field of stars turned out.

Stay-cation Update

2010-09-20T17:03:00.000-07:00

I had great plans for getting a whole bunch of projects done while I was home.

Guess this wasn't a great success.

The first thing I worked on was my Goldfinch. I'm not sure I'm done embellishing, but the quilting is all done. I think it needs some more couching on the tail.
In between all the free-motion quilting, I had to do something else. So I worked on my swap blocks. As I want this quilt to be about 100" square, it is about half done.
The Kite is the next project I started on, sewed and sewed on this but detailing all these feathers just takes up so much time....
Here's the back so you can see the quilting:
On Wednesday, I had a run in with some fire ants. I got bit on my left wrist, my right ring finger and both my feet. Needless to say, I wasn't really interested in quilting by that point. Just killing ants. But by Friday I was fretting getting things done again and figured I could get my flag quilt finished. Didn't quite manage that... but almost.
So maybe I should aim for getting all these done by the end of the month... that gives me a couple more weeks to fudge.

Did I mention that Sunday I went to the Trinity Valley Show? I won't even mention what I bought because I am NOT starting anything new yet. (Even though I caved and bought stuff!)

Hmm..

2010-09-17T13:15:00.000-07:00

Why is quilting always so much slower than I expect it to be?

2010-09-14T17:00:00.000-07:00

I have been madly free-motioning in the morning, and working on my blocks in the afternoon. This is what I got done yesterday:
Pretty cool, huh? I haven't yet decided if I want the signed blocks in the middle or on the outside edge. I think I have 5 more blocks to finish, then I start pulling from my collection. Silly me, I didn't sew blue around any of mine..

Today my arms hurt so bad after working on the kite that I skipped sewing this afternoon and went to the quilt store. Big mistake. So now I have some "extra" civil war fabric. Did I mention that some of my UFO's are unstarted kits? Do they qualify as UFO's? I guess this one does now.. Also got background fabric for my flag quilt which is in the washer now. So I should be able to get maybe two or three quilts completed this week. I hope.

Stay-cation begun!

2010-09-12T18:43:00.000-07:00

So far, I have spent a little time quilting on my goldfinch and today I finally sucked it up and started on the kite. I have to switch to something else in between- I can only free-motion for a couple of hours before my shoulders start to cramp up. Also, by about 2 pm I lose the light. I seem to need really good sunlight to be able to do free-motion, too.

So I started thinking about what I was going to do with my swap blocks. Several of you have put your tops out there and they look great. But I have been wracking my brain to figure out how to use my blocks to make a quilt that doesn't look the same as everybody else. So what to do?

I started with the idea that I would make something like a square in a square. I really like black in a scrap quilt (having seen several really cool ones lately) and decided to edge everybody's blocks in black. That seemed a little harsh, so I added a HST in the middle. Now it looks like there is a square behind the block. The remaining triangle I was stuck on for a while- I dug out my book of 101 quilt squares. Amazingly, after going through all of those I ended up using two triangles (which will form ANOTHER pinwheel!) Here is an unfocused sample of the triangle I will sew on to all four sides of the blocks:

Well, I was really excited when all of my blocks came but I didn't really pay attention to what exactly I received. Right off the bat, I started sorting by color and pinwheel direction. As it turns out, everyone but one person sent me one block trimmed in blue and one block block of a different color. But Joanne sent two blue blocks so I have a matched number of blue blocks and other colors. Cool. Then I checked the direction the pinwheels were turning and the blue blocks had half of each direction and the colored blocks had half in either direction. Eureka! Are you guys amazing, or what??

Now, typically I figure out most of what goes on in a quilt in my head. I've been doing this for a long time, so most of what I do is either in my head or I am making it up as I go along. But between the switching of the direction of the pinwheel and every other block being blue, I decided I need to graph this out.

Good thing I drew it out- it got awfully complicated trying to piece the corners. Note the opposite sides have the HST's sewn together differently. My first blocks were all out of kilter- it took me awhile to figure out that the pinwheels do not all turn the same direction!

So if I do this right, every other horizontal row will have pinwheels turning the same direction. At the same time, every block on the diagonal will be either blue or mixed colors. I told you this was complicated!

2010-09-06T10:16:00.000-07:00

Okay, with this long weekend and my stay-cation coming up next week I have every intention of COMPLETING a couple of projects. That is the plan, anyway.

However....

Saturday was Blackland Prairie Raptor Center's "First Saturday" where you can go out and see the birds. Since I haven't been out there since January (when it was something like 10 below zero) I thought I would go take some more pictures. A friend went with me for the first presentation, but the weather turned out so beautiful that I got a recharged battery for the camera and went back for the second and third sessions. Not to mention that they were going to bring out birds that I don't have any pictures of. I suspect that may even be for my benefit, as the last session started a little late- they had to go fetch different birds...

I had taken the finished quilt of Hunter and the not-yet-quilted Miki, as well as the little goldfinch that I am working on now. Everyone was very enthusiastic and impressed, which might explain their willingness to show off all their birds...

This is a Red-Shouldered Hawk:
And the female Kestrel:
And this is the male. He is 19 years old and is the oldest captive Kestrel in the U.S. In the wild, they only survive 5-6 years. The female is much stripier in the front and the male has more blue on his wings.
This is a Screech Owl in the Gray Phase. The one I got pictures of in January was the Red Phase.
In between sessions, I went for a walk. Brockwood Park is undisturbed Blackland Prairie and the are building a hiking path and restoring the natural plants in the park.

Here is my buddy, Miki the Mississippi Kite. See how much her colors have changed? She only has a little bit of brown left under her wings. In a little while, her eyes will start turning red. And yes, for some reason she has no tail. They are hoping that will grow back eventually.

This is the male Redtail:
and here is the female. See the difference in the coloration? The female is from the North Western U.S. The male is a Southern bird and is much lighter than she is- the colors of Redtails vary regionally.
These two were showing off quite a bit, so I got a lot of shots I like.

This is one of the new acquisitions. He is a Barred Owl. Since he is just starting to be used as an education bird, he is not too keen on all the people around. See how puffy he is? He is trying to look bigger because he is still a little worried about having people around.
And this guy is a Barn Owl. The person that took him out of the wild fed him on a diet of cat food so he never got the proper nutrition for his bones to grow. When he tried to fly, his right wing was broken and never healed properly. We were sitting in a covered picnic area and he kept trying to get up into the rafters. We were told that Barn Owls can hear your heart from 20 feet away, so by the time you get to them they are already flying away. I guess there's no use trying to sneak up on them...
Man, I just love birds!

and Feet.....

2010-08-26T05:00:00.001-07:00

Just Call Me Ms. Frankenstein....

2010-08-23T16:26:00.000-07:00

How to sew the body parts together:

1. Sew the base to the tail feathers.
2. Sew the rest of the tail feathers.
3. Sew the body to the tail.
4. Sew on the right wing.
5. Sew on the left wing.
6. Take a break.
7. Be impressed with yourself.
8. Tape the bird to the background.
9. Sew all the way around. Change colors often and don't forget those tiny little pieces where the background shows between the body and the wing.
10. Trim. (From the back.)
11. Be impressed with yourself again. (Don't break your arm patting yourself on the back.)
12. Maybe he needs some feet?
13. Start building courage to actually quilt this thing....

Texas Star

2010-08-18T14:04:00.000-07:00

I am completely scatter-brained.
No, really.

Last week I went to the Dallas Guild meeting and in the pre-meeting roaming around to see what is going on I discovered another Challenge. Now, you've all seen my list of things to do- do you think I need another project?
Not hardly.

The show is in the spring and there is a block challenge to be entered in the show. When the show is over, they will quilt the squares into a raffle quilt. The theme of the show is "Stars".

So I get home and open my little bag of instructions and scraps of fabric and start reading the rules. Right off the bat, this has to be a PIECED block, not applique. It has to have stars on it (obviously). The background has to be the beige fabric and the blue and burgundy have to be used. There are squares of yellow, brown and green which are optional and you can use your own fabrics if the coordinate (huh, like quilters are going to use fabrics that don't match?) The finished size is 12" X 12", so unfinished it is 12 1/2" X 12 1/2".

Now, I am immediately puzzled about how I am going to piece in this mandatory beige background. (I'm thinking that it is going to be the size of the block, right? So where do the seam allowances come from?) No such luck. The beige fabric is 10 1/4" X 11" maybe, and someone has ironed it so off-kilter that it looks like a trapezoid. So, thoroughly peeved I call mom and start ranting.

Mom is laughing so hard I can't even understand what she is saying. No help there.

Let's table that problem for later.

So what kind of star to make? My original thought was to make a really small version of an eight-pointed star. I've probably made 50 of them by now, so I should be able to make a really small version, maybe 1/2" pieces? But after thinking about it for a bit, I decided that if it is going to go with a bunch of other blocks in a raffle quilt maybe it should be a Texas star. Hmmm. 5 points around one of those- what am I going to do about that?

So there is a great website which you can find here:
http://incompetech.com/graphpaper/
It allows you to design your own graph paper, which gives me a way to make polar (circular) graph paper with 5 main spokes and 10 secondary spokes. So I have a template to start with. I drew the first star (well, I drew a lot of them but only put a couple of them on here) and decided that while I really liked those cascading pieces in the center star, there would just be way too much bulk to be able to handle.

The second picture is the design I ended up with, and the bottom one is all of them placed together. I did have to modify the blue pieces a bit- another bulk problem that got modified on the fly...

So here is the finished block, ready to be submitted. Notice the star is interwoven with that burgundy pentagon?

Karen was here on Sunday sewing with me and she suggested the border to deal with size and stabilization issues. I really like the way this came out. Guess I may end up making one like this in a full size quilt.

ps: OK, Liri- Let's see if this works. Here is a copy of the template. Try saving this and then blowing it up to letter size when you print it. If that doesn't work, I'll send the file to your email.

2010-08-08T15:03:00.000-07:00

So I worked all week on getting some more of my goldfinch completed. I only managed to get as much done all week as I can do in one day on the weekend. Isn't that a bummer? It just really makes me resent having to go to work. Don't know why. Guess I'll spring for another lottery ticket this week...

I did finally get the front wing finished, so I moved on to the tail today. Here is the pattern and a couple of pieces of the tail traced on freezer paper.

And here is what I got done by the end of the day. Not too much progress this weekend as I spent yesterday at the circus (whoo hoo Barnum & Bailey!) and the rest of the afternoon at the shop with my car for some maintenance. But still, he is coming along...

2010-08-03T14:48:00.000-07:00

Okay, the one thing I do miss about the old site is the ability to respond back to comments.

1. Yes, those are goldfinches. You probably wouldn't have noticed them, Love, because by the time they get down here in the winter their colors are all washed out. They are a kind of yellowy brown color in the winter. The gold is their breeding plumage. They eat at thistle feeders.

2. Very cool Osprey pictures. I think I just killed 10 minutes watching them. I wonder how I could get a really good non-copyright shot of them?

3. One of my small group members wanted to take an applique class and I joined her. Of course, when you have time to kill in a quilt shop, you can get into all kinds of trouble. I bought these Masterpiece Superior Threads as a set and have used them for all my hand applique. You can find them here: http://www.softexpressions.com/software/threads/SUbobs2.php#don

4. It's not hard to get a lot done when you don't even get out of your pajamas all weekend because you are quilting away! Right now I am griping to mom because all I can get done during the weeknights is 3 feathers. Humbug!

5. I got home and mom's package was on the doorstep. Ann's came yesterday and I think I still have pictures to post for Beth's blocks. There was chocolate in both of the packages from mom and Ann. Did I mention that it was 106 degrees here today? (which is 41 degrees Celsius) I think it sounds much better in Celsius! Chocolate is in the fridge setting up. It probably won't be pretty, but I guess it will taste just fine! I think I will skip the lawn mowing today and curl up with my magazines and chocolate...

The Latest Bird Quilt

2010-08-02T18:20:00.000-07:00

You guys know me too well. :)

Dad took this picture the day after I left. He was trying to get a picture of mama sticking here head out the window. These raiders are headed for the hummingbird feeder to drink out of the well to catch the bugs. I had him send me the full- size file and blew it way up. This is only 12" square.

Time for Some Bird Photograpy

2010-08-01T19:13:00.000-07:00

I swear, when summer comes there is just not enough time to do everything. Especially quilt.

But I got to spend some time in mom's backyard after our trip and played with dad's camera. (Whooo, it's a nice one!) Their little buddy was nestled up in the willow tree and I managed to take a bunch of back lit photos. So I have him really good in silhouette.

As it turns out, most of my bluebird pictures are actually of hummingbirds. Which is quite a surprise. Because it was a complete fluke that they turned out and are in focus.

As dad says- "I'd rather be lucky than good, any day!"

That's mama bluebird. We're guessing she has eggs.

Dad likes this perch in the willow tree. This time of day it is too shady.

I think this is mama again. Mom says she is usually the skittish one but I had no luck with daddy.

Bored and waiting on bluebirds, serendipity struck. (That's when you dig for worms and strike gold.)

I believe these are all the female ruby-throat. There were some great acrobatics with two of them chasing in circles around the bush, but my photography skills are just not up to that...

2010-07-28T16:01:00.000-07:00

We've been out of pocket for the last little while- we lost Mom's brother last week and made a trip back east for the service. I'm not prepared to talk about what an exhausting and emotion-laden event that was, so I am going to skip right over it to the good parts.

Due to certain things that occurred, we decided that maybe this wasn't the year for us to be traipsing off to Houston for the quilt show. As a result, we thought that we maybe deserved another trip to Mary Jo's Cloth Store. (Yea!)

You can order online from her here: http://maryjos.com/

I will just have to say that it is a good thing that I live nowhere near Charlotte, NC. I'd have to move in to Mary Jo's and sleep under one of the cutting tables. So this is the pared down stack of fabrics that I managed to stuff in my suitcase and get home. (Minus the couple that I got to go in the quilt Mom is making me.) I did have to get a little help getting it up into that overhead bin! Maybe "pared down" is a slight exaggeration...

Sky and textures for bird quilts!

These were in the scrap bin. The bottom fabrics I picked to use for my nickel swaps this month. (No peeking, Karen!)

Marsha's blocks came before we left, but I hadn't time to take pictures and post. Liri's blocks were here when I got home. There were a bunch of goodies in there too! I am really happy the chocolate didn't melt- I ate them all as soon as I got home!

And here is my lovely Texas block! I am guessing this is a bluebonnet, but I have never seen one close enough to tell that the flowers look like this... What a beautiful block!

Since I had most of a day back at mom's house before I flew back to Texas, I also got to see the bluebirds. I spent some time decompressing out in the yard taking pictures, but I will save those for another post. Tune in later!

How to Make a Quilter Feel Good

2010-07-20T13:22:00.000-07:00

Okay, I have decided to update my UFO list.

That is, I am going to write it all down on paper. For those of you that are faint-hearted... be forewarned. This could get ugly.

In no particular order:

UFO list

APQ 2010 Block Swap
Rose Red
2008 Binding Friends Swap Blocks (I'm off to a bad start already, if I am including the year in the name of the quilt)
Oyster Cracker Quilt
Unblue Too
American Sheepherders Quilt
Blue 5" Squares (isn't that a memorable name)
Twist and Shout
Fleeing Caleb
The Beachcombers
Wheel of Fortune
Blue Streak
2007 Block of the Month- March- Plano Guild
2007 Block of the Month- February- Plano Guild
Mississippi Kite
Dyed Quilt (yet another memorable name- guess I have to work on this!)
Oh America How I Love Thee
Leah's Quilt (she's probably walking by now)
Adornment Quilt
Sol III
Sol IV
Fishpurse X
Fishpurse Y
Schwe Schwe quilt (this is a type of fabric that comes from Africa, so I guess this quilt needs a real name, too)
Applique blocks- mustard
Charles Morgan
Snowflake Quilt
Jacobean Applique
Storm at Sea
Merhorse
McTavish wholecloth quilt
Yellow Ribbon

In addition, here are the kits I have pending:

Thanksgiving
Halloween Friends
Shades of the Desert
Poinsetta Passion
Be Attitudes
Sherman's March
Shiloh
Cool Guys (I picked this up at the Dallas show this year- how likely do you think it is that I am going to embroider all those snowmen?)

Anybody feel better about their own list?

Quilting Rut

2010-07-19T15:57:00.000-07:00

Yes, I am in one.... Did you ever get so scattered you just can't decide what to work on? Yesterday was like that. I was sitting at the table trying for about the fifth time to decide what to work on and my little hummer girl flew up and sat down outside the window. The camera was right behind me (which NEVER happens!) and I managed to snag it and get some photos:

Here is the best of them... I didn't discover until I moved to Texas that birds pant (here they pant all the time) and it looks like hummingbirds do, too. In the sunshine she is iridescent green. I think she is probably a ruby-throat, or maybe a black-chinned. That is the Rose of Sharon she is sitting in- right behind her is the cigar bush that she is frequently visiting.

2010-07-14T15:29:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Ruth's blocks came in the mail but it was too late to photograph them. Today I got Christine's too! So here are the latest blocks and some additional goodies. I've never mailed a block swap before and I didn't think about putting a notecard in my packages (I'm sure you are all impressed with my post-it notes), so I will have to do that next time.

Isn't that a beautiful little quilt block on Ruth's note? And you wonder why I have such a long UFO list...

How'd you do that?

2010-07-13T18:17:00.000-07:00

Okay, Love- I have only seen two white winged dove all summer. You put out a photo of a dove on display and suddenly the backyard is full of them. What did you do, put out a call for entries?

I got home this afternoon and there were ten or twelve of these guys in the backyard. There is a telephone wire that runs down the road in back- there are a bunch up there on the wire above the feeder, but the camera can't get them close enough to photograph.

Here are the couple that are leading the charge to the food below.

And this is when everyone decided to eat:

In case I haven't mentioned it- the backyard is full of plants for the hummingbirds, butterflies and bees. There are hummingbird bushes, salvia, obedient plant, coreopsis, passionflower vine, a huge butterfly bush, rudebeckia, mums, daisies, foxglove, blacksnake, three red rocket crepe myrtles across the end of the yard and a huge rose of sharon planted next to the pond. Maybe I've gotten carried away with the flowering plants? It sure is pretty to look at, though.

Also, (just in case anyone is still hungry) there are four birdfeeders- the hummingbird feeder, the thistle feeder, one with seed and sunflower and one with suet peanuts. I also put out shell peanuts and raisins. So you can see why the animals come to visit, even it it does include the peril of fleeing for your life....

Not sure if I will get to the Midlothian show this weekend- if I can find someone to go, then I will probably show up. I I quizzed my small group last night to find out if anyone is interested in going with me, but I don't have any responses yet... if you can contact my email, I will send you my phone number.

2010-07-11T15:21:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I thought this was going to be a lot easier project than it has turned out to be. Anybody notice all those points on that quilt? Try not to look too close. Apparently I was oblivious to what all those HST's actually meant.... Nothing in this quilt lines up.

I think the circle I drew to line up all those stars ended up a little big, too. Maybe they end up a little too close to the edge? And I didn't manage to get 13 stars in there, either. Ah well, clearly I still have a lot to learn...

On to the quilting...

And just because I was telling mom about it, here is the flower I planted last week. (And replanted in front of the window when I decided it was getting too much sun). I had this great plan that it would be a favorite of the hummingbird (who I only see in the evening). But this plant flowers in the morning and by the afternoon the breeze blows all the delicate flowers off. Didn't see that one coming...

This purslane was in a hanging basket on clearance at the nursery across from my dentist. (Yes, I deserve a reward after the brrr... brrr... of the drill.) I took the hook off and placed it on an upside down plastic pot (inside the one you can see). The bees just love this. Now if Caleb would just stop snapping at them....

2010-07-07T04:57:00.000-07:00

Oh boy! Looks like there are three of us who get to look forward to something other than bills in the mail this month!

Mom reminded me to get the mail last night, although I was sure it was too early in the month to get anything yet. The true thoughts of a real procrastinator, can you tell? (I sometimes forget that she is reading blogs while I am at work.) But amazingly enough there was mail (from left to right) from Katie, Joanne and Kathleen... Aren't those lovely? I especially like Joanne's pansy fabric around that bottom block. Not that I am partial to blue, or anything!

And here are the other treasures the girls added to my packages- isn't that sweet? I swear, that Katie remembers every little thing you ever mention in a blog....

Also yesterday, my friend Dee gave me a book she found on clearance over the weekend. There are some beautiful detailed photographs in there. I suspect I will be able to put it to good use- what do you think?

2010-07-05T17:35:00.001-07:00

Whew!

I didn't get any comments about it, so maybe nobody noticed that the top two blocks of that flag quilt were backwards.... guess I can fix that before anybody notices the stripes don't line up.

With all the rain funneling up through here for the last week or so, the garden is an exceedingly happy place right now. Usually this time of year, the soil is like a clay brick. Due to the amazing amount of rain (yes, three inches is amazing here) it is quite easy to pull the weeds out. So I have spent most of my long weekend mucking in the garden.

I don't know about the rest of you, but where I grew up grass grew straight up. In Texas, we have this stuff which vines along the ground and invades everything. It is horrible stuff to keep out of the flower beds. Around the side of the house, where the shed is located I had a whole patch (think 6' square) of the stuff in a giant ugly clump. Since Peter Rabbit and his siblings have been hanging out in my garden, I decided that it should be cleaned up. So the grass has been dug out and mulch has been put down and I am probably NOT going to be crippled for life. Maybe.

In recovery mode, I noticed that the birds are having a good old time. Between the bird food, thistle seed, raisins, bird bath and pond- why would they not? My buddy is here fairly frequently- I think I have decided that he is going to be a male. See the red coming through on his chest? All the food must be doing him good- he is not nearly as scrawny as he was..

And since I have been digging like crazy, the weeds are mostly under control- here are the flowers outside my sewing windows. That big salvia bush in the background is right in front of the pond.

This birch tree is my baby- it is planted right in the middle of the yard. In another ten years or so I will probably have some decent shade. In the back is the hummingbird bush (full of spiders) and the white gaura which is blooming profusely since the rain...

I'm not posting a picture of the far side of the yard- Attila the Squirrel Hunter has run over all the plants and the bush that I had out there. I had to pull out the skeleton of the bush, since I am getting tired of cleaning all the war wounds that someone has on his legs and feet....

2010-07-04T15:35:00.001-07:00

Okay, I decided.

Nobody gets to post any more cute quilts until I get my UFO list done.

Seems like every time someone posts a photo, my list is increasing. (Can you say "No Self Control")? Last week I got stuck in traffic over by Southfork Ranch (from the old show "Dallas") and I decided I just had to make Ruth's friend's quilt. So I am sewing away this weekend on my flag quilt:

I'm not sure that I want to applique any stars on the field, so I may just use that Carpenter's Wheel I have been working on lately.

Having spent a great deal of time working on Mom to get her to start quilting (well, quilting REGULARLY) I am very pleased that she is happily quilting and blogging away. However....

I have noticed that for all the hard time she has given me over the years, that the number of projects that she has going seems to be multiplying. Suddenly she won't tell me how many projects she has in process (believe me, I know from experience that is a bad sign.)

Up until last year, our small group was tracking how many UFOs we got done. So I decided that I need to update my list.

Um. Maybe I shouldn't be giving her a hard time.

I suddenly seem to have different "categories" of UFO.

Not good.

So far I seem to have:

Just an Idea
In Process
Kits
Maybe Someday I Will Make This
Never Gonna Finish
Wow, is that cool! Add to the list....

And if I shuffle things around on my shelves, I keep finding projects I have forgotten. This is going to be really ugly, I guess, but I am going to update my list.

Maybe I should just give up blogging until I get them all done?

Bug Stories

2010-06-26T07:52:00.000-07:00

Well, doesn't everybody just have SOMETHING to say about bugs! And here, I thought that no one would comment on my yucky old post.

So several thoughts popped into my head when I read all your comments:

Lisa- My dad has almost the same reaction as you when he sees a spider. (Maybe minus the girly scream.) The day I posted the spiders, Mom said that Dad had come in to the room and sat on the floor. When she told him she had seen a spider (hours before) he hopped right up and left the room. So Mom is in charge of all bug disposal...

Love- Here's another great spider story for you- When I worked in Alabama, I had a customer that was in Tennessee that I frequently got to talk to. She had a 5 year old son- they were making a costume for Halloween for him. I made a passing comment about my age and not having any kids and she laughed and proceeded to tell me that she was considerably older than me. Apparently she and her husband had tried to have kids for years and had finally given up. One summer in the garden, she was bit by a Black Widow Spider. It made her very ill for months- she also had bad reactions to some of the medications they gave her and she ended up on steroids for an extended period of time. As it turns out, whatever she was on subdued her system and she ended up pregnant! How's that for a silver lining?

Katie- No, I don't think there will be any spider quilts. However, I have a really cool picture of a grasshopper, lots of butterflies and a couple of dragonflies. You never know what might turn up next! The flowers are on my hummingbird bush (and I actually have one!) She is a female. Not sure what kind, but she is iridescent green in the sunlight so I am guessing a Ruby Throat. Hope to have some males in the near future.

Fer- I once went to a conference in Arizona and one of the ladies there was from the New England area of the U.S. (Maybe Massachusetts?) She told me she had found a lobster in her bathtub. When I finally stopped laughing, I told her it was a scorpion....

Beth- I lived in Florida for a couple of months. When I first got there, Jack and I went for a walk in the evening and he found a black snake. I went in to the office the next day and asked about poisonous snakes in the area. When I told them it was black, someone asked me what color it was underneath. Really? You think I am going to go turn it over to find out if it is a dangerous snake? Sometimes people really worry me...

This morning I finished a little project- Dave loaned me his Kindle this past week to read a couple of books on it. So I made him a cover for it as a thank you. It's not a very big deal, but I put a picture of it up in the finished UFO link.

Texas sized bugs

2010-06-24T17:28:00.000-07:00

Okay, I have a confession- I really like bugs.

Well, not in the house or flying around or anywhere near me, I guess. I like them in the "Wow, that is interesting-looking and kind of creepy" way. So while I was out feeding the birds I ran across this new resident in the garden.

I have a pretty good zoom on the camera so I am not nearly as close as you might think. She's about two inches across. The bugs have been pretty bad this year- (maybe due to the extra long winter?) so I have been leaving spiders alone when I might normally chase them off. But then I was standing around watering the plants when I realized that she has a shadow...

Can you see him up there? I was having trouble getting them both in focus. Now, I am assuming that this is probably a male, given that he is significantly smaller than she is. I'm pretty sure the Discovery Channel would tell me that she is likely to devour him, but I am not so sure I am too happy about having a garden full of these guys.

Ready for Quilting!

2010-06-22T16:17:00.000-07:00

2010-06-20T16:12:00.000-07:00

Finished my Kite this morning- now I am sewing it to the background and should have a photo in the next day or two. I spent the morning giggling over my dog... I would say he is as dumb as a box of rocks, but that is not really true anymore. He is learning....

I have been pretty much ignored for the past two weeks. My dog has been on high alert. There are some of those fuzzy tailed guys (S-Q-U-I-R-R-E-L-S) raiding the bird feeder. Apparently, this is a SERIOUS problem. And he may not be very smart but he is incredibly patient.

So I was sewing away when Caleb suddenly jumped up and raced out of the room. I expected him to slam out the back door to chase the raiders off, but this is what happened:

You can't see out the other window, but every time the squirrel puts his head down Caleb moves sneaks a foot movement. Guess I expect to come home to a massacre at some point.

Later in the day, when he finally zonked out for a nap this friend showed up:

Isn't he adorable? I think I have baby rabbits under the front bushes. I have seen 3-4 of them pretty steady the last week or so. Mom must be gone, they seem to be on their own now...

2010-06-19T18:47:00.000-07:00

Here's the latest test blocks- I am still plugging away at it...

The Carpenter's Wheel has a green star in the middle- I have taped a fussy cut square of a rose from my striped fabric over it. I think that may "blend" the two blocks together a little better. The color is not very good in this picture- the sun has gone by so the colors are a little off. The backgrounds are gold and yellow. The two sashings are navy and a sort of purple/burgundy color. I can't decide if I like it this way, or if the colors should be switched.

Then there's the issue of that little in between square. I think I like the fussy cut one better, but this is getting a little tedious maybe.

Maybe I'll be able to make a decision tomorrow. Today I can't make up my mind...

2010-06-14T16:24:00.000-07:00

It's Monday, which is always a struggle. No quilting today, but I did have a new friend show up...

I have had a pair of cardinals at my feeder for 3-4 years now. Usually they will stay until dusk, long after all of the other birds are gone for the night. As it gets dark, I can typically spot the female by her bright orange beak and the male is hard to miss for obvious reasons. This weekend I spotted what I thought was a female, but she had a black face and beak. I didn't get a good look and wondered if it was maybe a waxwing...

But look who was checking out the pond tonight:

Does that look like a scrawny adolescent, or what?

2010-06-13T18:21:00.000-07:00

Mom sent me a care package a week or two ago, there was a bunch of stuff in there but in the bottom I found a pad of graph paper and this:

So I went leafing through it that evening and ran into this article:

Yep, I really NEEDED a new project. Sure.

Don't know how well you can see it, but I LOVE that quilt in the top corner. And it just so happens that I have collected a couple of striped fabrics that might lend themselves to making a quilt like this. (Most recently I picked up a gray stripe at Mary Jo's in Charlotte, NC.) Also, the theme for the quilt show next year is about stars. That quilt there is made up of a Carpenter's Wheel and a Hidden Star block. I'll bet you can see where this is going, right?

So I started fooling around with designs. I started out with what I had in my stash and came up with this:

Didn't really like the thick gray sashing in there, so I went to the fabric store and tried again:

Those stripes are all from the same fabric, but I thought the flowers looked kind of overwhelmingly busy. Maybe I should switch subjects... Do you know how hard a Carpenter's block is? The pattern I have shows it made with all these set in seams- like I want to make twenty or so of those puppies... So I drafted a pattern using triangles (and that handy graph paper out of my box!)

Here's the wheel:

I really like that, even though it is all kinds of brown. It's just that star that bothers me.... I thought maybe the sashing was too thick, so I switched the stripes:

I guess this is pretty good, but it really doesn't seem to be "striking" enough for a show quilt to me. Guess I will do like Da Vinci said and go away for a while to refresh myself...

2010-06-02T16:42:00.000-07:00

Okay, packages mailed.

I even posted Christine's blocks, too, as they were already made. I noticed that she hasn't been out here for awhile- hopefully she is just tired out and we will hear from her soon. (And YES! I remembered to sign them!)

I went to pick out some blocks for mom to send too, but ran into a problem. I have occasionally made a couple of "extra" blocks and thrown them in a drawer for me and mom. (Figured I would send her a couple extra, you know, as she's my mom.)

So I pulled the extra blocks out of the drawer.

Um.

Maybe I have gotten a little carried away?

There are 22 of them in there. Do you suppose they are multiplying like the scraps? I am either going to have a gigantic quilt or maybe two smaller ones I guess. Maybe I could make one reversible? One side with everybody's blocks and the other with my ADD results? Although I am not sure I want to see if I can line up the two sides... that might be problematic...

So which ones should I send to Mom?

2010-06-01T04:59:00.000-07:00

Okay, I'm an idiot.

This weekend was a challenge- among other things, I managed to poison myself with some expired medication, but I did manage to get my blocks done. Yesterday. How last minute is that? I'm not sure what happened this past month- and I'm not sure how June got here so fast. (Sigh.)

So today I went off to the post office, as I am pretty sure I have to fill out some kind of paperwork to send mail out of the country. While I was standing in line, I realized that I had not signed any of my blocks. Do you suppose I had any kind of permanent pen with me? No. So I came home to sign the blocks and put Texas on them. Guess they're getting mailed tomorrow.
Sorry about that guys- that is a giant "Whoops!"

But just for the record, whoever gets blocks for June- I have them done already!

Here are the May blocks- you can tell because they have no writing on them!

2010-05-26T18:01:00.000-07:00

I don't know if any of you have had this experience, but did you ever notice that everything in your life happens all at once? What is up with that? I really wish the angel of good fortune would show up and start sprinkling everyone with fairy dust...

And I really love the new job I got in January, but I have to tell you it is kicking my butt. I go from one meeting to another answering questions and finding more tasks that I need to do. With all the mortgage trauma, I mostly sat around for the last couple of years in my old job. Since my niche is development and operational excellence, there was really nothing going on. Now my job is challenging (and I love it!) but I come home completely exhausted. Mostly I sit on the porch with a drink and watch the birds in the evenings.

So there's not a lot of brainpower in the evenings just lately. Even for quilting. My main project is the kite and there is no way my poor tired brain is up to dealing with him on a daily basis. There are a couple of more or less mindless projects I have picked up just to keep my hands busy while my brain idles. I tried the log cabin version of the blocks like the one in my uncle's scrap quilt and have put a couple of those together:

And I am working on another one of the Good Housekeeping Heirloom Stockings:

Also, I just realized tonight that my pinwheel blocks are still sitting on the table (minus the borders!) and it is almost the end of the month. Guess it's a good thing this long weekend is coming up so I can get them done and into the mail!

Hope you all have a long quilting weekend planned!

Another Wing...

2010-05-14T04:44:00.000-07:00

Coming along.... not sure if I like that center section. I may have to tear it apart and change a couple of the grays in there....

Kite update

2010-05-09T17:51:00.000-07:00

Nothing to say today except that my arm is one giant cramp...

A Lazy Day

2010-05-08T14:26:00.000-07:00

I've been a complete slug today. I guess I must be really worn out- I got up by 7 (which would be late for me) and sat down in front of the window. I had a drink and watched the birds for about an hour, then decided to go back to bed. And slept a couple more hours.

I finally got up and went to work- I stuffed all the scraps back in the laundry basket and re-arranged all the fabrics to work on my bird. It is beautiful here today- my table where I hand sew is right in front of the window. All of the first round of baby birds are learning to get around now. It is really funny to watch them follow their momma bird around and flop around like they are starving. They are being taught how to get a drink out of my pond- I feel like a lifeguard just waiting for someone to fall in the water. Caleb sits with his chin in the window, but eventually they flop around so much that he has to jump up and go outside to check them. Even the slowest baby bird can get away, the distance is just too far from the door for him to reach. But he goes out and sniffs all the places that the birds were. There have been at least 3 window collisions today, hopefully no one will break their neck. Sure hope these little guys learn to steer soon.

It is sunny and 75 degrees here today. I have to say, this is the longest "Spring" that we have had in Texas since I moved here. It's almost like being back home. I guess any day now we will jump up to about 90 and stay that way for the summer. When I got home, the new flowers I put in are all in bloom. Caleb ran over the white foxglove I put in but here is a shot of the one that is survived the Moose Express:

2010-05-05T16:08:00.001-07:00

Well, Mom and I have been MIA for a while.... We got some really bad news last week. Mom's only brother was diagnosed with cancer. As it turns out it is the really aggressive Non-Small Cell kind. And he has already had Emphysema for a while now. So the family decided to go visit him right away and went to North Carolina this past weekend. Mom and Dad drove down from Indianapolis and picked brother and I up from the airport on the way.

Turns out that when I get stressed out I REALLY need something to do. The first couple of days that I found out I spent digging in the garden. Which is a great way to exhaust yourself but is also quite painful. Then I suddenly decided that my Uncle Gary needed a quilt. He was still in the hospital at that time and I thought I would give him something cheerful and comforting all at the same time. So for three or four days last week, I spent all hours getting my scrap quilt put together. My great friend Karen managed to quilt it for me on her long-arm with no time and no notice. (Bless her!) Mom kept telling me I didn't need to do it (she knew I was staying up all night!) but I was determined. I picked up the quilt from Karen on Thursday after work and bound it with a zigzag stitch that night. So it was packed for my flight Friday morning.

Saturday we went to visit, but I still had a couple of little things to finish on the quilt so it stayed behind. Oh, and he was home by now- they have a hospital bed set up in the middle of the living room. The couches are on either side of the bed so it is set up in a circle for everyone to talk. Due to his radiation treatments, the house temp was about 65 degrees. Brrr. Due to the meds he was on, he would wake every hour or two all night so everyone was very tired when we got there. This had been going on for a couple of days, I guess.

Mom and her brother are Navy brats so there was a lot of talk about all the places that they had lived when they were young. Just for the record, you can learn a lot sitting around listening to the "adults" talk about the "good old days". First of all, you have to understand that this side of the family is full of pranksters and "tall tales" are a completely common event. You have to be skeptical when any of the relatives start telling stories- 9 times out of 10 they are trying to hook you into some far-fetched tale. So one of the stories I heard this weekend was that Mom's grandfather, Garrett Cruzan, apparently held the record for the biggest bass fish from Lake Jacksonville, IL for many years.... it was a family joke for a long, long time. If I told you that this fish was related to the frog in Mark Twain's "The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" would you get the joke? The fish was loaded down with buckshot....

So Sunday we went back and the conversation started up again. Mom started talking about all sorts of stuff and got around to mentioning quilting and the blogs. (Nice segue way, Mom!) So at a lull in the conversation, I pulled out my quilt and gave it to him. I told him that it was made up of all scraps of my other quilts and told him about some of the different pieces that were in it. He had been laying on the bed with no covers, but as soon as he got that quilt he pulled it right up under his chin. I think he was so overwhelmed by the gift he could hardly tell me thank you enough. But for the rest of our visit he was completely wrapped up in that quilt...

So I got my scrap quilt done a little earlier than planned. I'm still sad about the circumstances, but it also makes me feel good that I was able to give him a little comfort and let him know how much I love him.

Sunday Morning

2010-04-25T07:13:00.000-07:00

Usually, Sundays are for quilting (I quilt in my pj's!)

Today I put on a pair of pants.

By the time I headed for my shoes, someone was waiting for me:

Do you think he knows we are going somewhere?

It is cool this morning so Caleb could come with me to the post office to mail my April blocks.

I'd film Caleb bouncing off the walls (literally!) and racing for the car, but he plowed me over on the way...

Here are the blocks:

This was a very exciting and early morning- I may need a nap this afternoon!

2010-04-22T18:26:00.000-07:00

I was going thru all the posts and saw that Karen had posted the picture of the flowers that she was looking to plant. I figured that being down south, we are probably blooming a little earlier than most of you so here are some of my flowers that are already out:

Yellow Columbine and Coral Bells

Coral Bells- I love the color of this!

Heron's Bill (planted next to the pond, of course)

and XXXXXX XXXXXXX. (I mean PAINTED daisies, oops!)

And as if I didn't have enough to do, I pulled out this old paper pieced quilt and started working on it again. It is made up of 1/2" hexagons and is about 30" x 40" now.

Here it is folded in half so I can figure out where to put the pieces on the other side to make it symmetric. I need to go back and start pulling the papers out of those internal pieces....

Scraps, Scraps and more Scraps

2010-04-18T16:35:00.000-07:00

Definitely, it is Katie's fault....

I'm not sure what I am doing wrong. I sew and sew and sew... this scrap pile is NOT getting any smaller. I am almost sure I have more than when I started. And how the heck did she make a scrap quilt out of fabrics that are all the same color? I am pretty sure that there are fabrics in here that I have never even SEEN before, much less used in a quilt...

My sewing room is in a sad state. There used to be a project at this end of the table and scraps on the other end. (Usually I am working on more than one project at a time.) Clearly, the scraps have taken over. They have migrated out of the scrap basket, all across the front table and have taken over that back table, too. There's also a pile of them on the ironing table that you cannot see...

My progress so far... These are the 6" blocks I am making with the embroidery disk I talked about in an earlier post. For some reason, I decided to dress it up and put all these skinny little sashing strips in here too. Sure wish I had decided to make that in between block a bigger piece, instead of all those little 1" squares right about now. Oh well. These are sewn together in blocks of four, alternating a plain block with one that is not. Here it is taped up on the wall-

Not a great photo, as it is rainy and dark here today but you are sure to see it again. Also not sure how big this will get- it is about 45" right now. I guess from the state of my scraps I should plan on a couple of king-size, but I'm not sure I can get all that done before my lobotomy is scheduled...

2010-04-10T15:37:00.000-07:00

I am a slug.

It has been a long time since I have been out here- so sorry, guys!

Dave had surgery so I got to take care of him for awhile. I am pretty sure he is sick of me calling to check on how he is by now. The job has ramped up and has been kicking my tail again. We are supposed to have everything up and running by next month but we keep running into glitches. So I have been a crabby little brat. And being of the opinion that you all don't want to listen to me whine I have been absent. Enough of that.

This morning I went off to the quilt room and vacillated over what to do (can you say spastic?) Unable to choose a project to work on, I finally moved all the furniture back where it was originally (so the drafting table is back by the window). After that I gave myself a stern talking to and sat down to put the four pieces of the Mississippi Kite together. So here are all of the assembled pieces so far...

Oh, and here's the original photo:

Dyeing for the Weekend

2010-03-28T09:06:00.000-07:00

It has finally warmed up (and it didn't snow!) so my friend Karen came over yesterday to dye with me. My chemicals from Dharma Trading showed up Friday night, so I spent the evening washing my fabric in Syntrapol. (Got some new Procion dye colors, too.) Saturday I woke up at 4:00 in the morning with a splitting headache. I almost called it off, but I have been so looking forward to this that I decided to tough it out.

I had decided on two projects- one being a gradation project of 30 fabrics. From Palomino Gold to Chinese Red, Chinese Red to Forest Green, and Forest Green to Palomino Gold. The second project was different in that I sprinkled rock salt in the fabric. For these I used Camel, Blue Gray, Pewter and Dusty Rose. There were a couple of extra pieces of fabric at the end, and we experimented with sprinkling powdered dye directly on the fabric.

Didn't plan on these results, but boy did these turn out cool! I have no idea what I can use these for, but we will see what percolates up. I dyed almost 20 yards of fabric so I can't show them all to you but here are a few of my favorites:

Embroidery Quilting- (or How to Fake a Quilt Block!)

2010-03-25T15:44:00.000-07:00

So the reason I was so excited about the Scraps Happen disk is that the woman who sold it to me figured out a way to make an embroidery machine walk you through the steps of making a quilt block. I thought I would show you how this works (and how cool it is!).

I have to say that most of what I am learning is a whole new respect for people who put together instructional videos. This is my really sad attempt to put this process on film for you. Please note there is no effort at all to stay out of the way of the camera lens while I am filming this. I only have my little digital camera which films for 3 minutes so this will cut off pretty abruptly. I have also discovered that I cannot coordinate filming, sewing a block and talking at the same time. I am thankful that the speakers on my computer do not work, otherwise I would probably scrap this whole process. I am sure I am stumbling all over myself talking and trying to add the next piece of fabric...

This is my Viking Designer I machine. That box attached to the sewing machine is the embroidery unit. The "hoop" clips into place and the embroidery is stitched in the hoop. If you look closely, you can see the image of the quilt block I have selected on the computer screen on the right of the machine.

The way the block stitches out is that first the outside of the block is stitched in place. The particular size that I chose is 6". (The disk includes sizes for 4", 5", 6" and 8" so I will have to experiment with some of those later.) When the outer edge is complete, I move the needle to where the center block starts to stitch first. Then I know where to place my first scrap. After the first block is sewn in place, I slide the hoop out so I can trim the edges of my scrap off. The machine will then stitch a line in place- that will tell me where to line up the edge of my next (blue) scrap. This continues for each piece, working out to the outer edge of the block.

So here are some pictures of the rest of the steps:

Starting the outer row of dark blue scraps:

Taken out of the embroidery hoop and ironed. I am using fusible web as the base, so I have to be careful not to stick the iron on it...

Then trimmed up and ready to sew into a quilt top!

Now is that a cool way to use up scraps, or what!

Quilting Update

2010-03-23T15:17:00.000-07:00

Do I live in a strange place or what?

Saturday I woke up and it was raining like mad- the perfect day to sleep in. After lunch sometime the rain stopped, but the wind was blowing like mad. At one point, I walked by the window and thought it was snowing. Snowing? But the temperature was 40 degrees...turns out it was blowing so hard that the flowers from the Bradford Pear trees were getting ripped off and blown around. The high temp for the day was about 67 degrees.

Sunday I got up and it looked like this:

Eeeekkk!

And Monday it was back in the mid-7o's again... What is up with this weather?

Needless to say, I spent a lot of time holed up quilting. I decided that the colors in my bird were wrong and started off by re-making his beak and eye. I think if it were a younger bird (and still in the brown phase) the colors would have been ok, but this looks much more like my photo.

Nice lamp glare, huh?

Anyway, I have to switch back and forth projects when I am working on one of these. Otherwise I just end up crippled from being hunched over the desk. So I worked on my scrap blocks too. I picked a different (and simpler!) block to alternate with that Monkey's Wrench block I started out with. (I also had a light bulb moment when I figured out that the first square in the middle could be scraps that you had already sewn together!) You may notice one or two that have the pinwheels I messed up when I started my APQ blocks...

And just to show you I am not completely anal, here is a picture of my sewing room when it is being used. This is all of my scraps dumped out on the table so I can paw through them and make the perfect selection. What a complete mess!

PS: These particular blocks are 6". They are made on my embroidery machine using the new disk I got from Piece in the Hoop Embroidery Designs. The disk is called Scraps Happen. So far I have made the blocks in the top two corners. Here is a scan of the back of the disk so you can see the designs in it.

National Quilt Day

2010-03-20T14:33:00.000-07:00

Happy National Quilt Day! Bet you didn't know this was a holiday! (I didn't either- Mom told me. I have no idea how she knows all this stuff....) Hope you celebrated today!

The National Quilt Association has a free pattern available- it is a "Tie a Yellow Ribbon" quilt. If any of you are making quilts for the troops, you may be interested in this. The link is: http://nqaquilts.org/nqday/pdf/2010NQDayProject.pdf And it takes SCRAPS, too!

Anyway, it is rainy and yuck here (at least it hasn't snowed yet!) and I have been working madly away. Started the kite and here is the progress so far...

Clockwise from the top right:
The traced image
The blown up to 15' X 20" and printed photo
The original photo
4" of face in progress

It doesn't look like much yet, but I think I need a nap!

Sidetracked

2010-03-15T16:34:00.000-07:00

I had every intention of going in and starting the next bird quilt yesterday, but there was all this STUFF just sitting there on the table. So I picked up the disk, and loaded the designs for use on my embroidery machine. I picked the "Monkey Wrench" block, and went to town... If I were to just use the next piece of fabric at hand, each of these blocks would take about 30+ minutes to complete. I don't seem to be able to do that, though. I have dumped the scraps out all over the floor and am digging for the next piece of fabric that "matches". Caleb is shoving his ball in the pile and then rooting around in there to find it again. Do you think he feels like he is helping?

2010-03-14T07:53:00.001-07:00

It is a beautiful sunny Sunday morning and I am here drinking tea- usually I sit here and watch the birds and have a nice peaceful morning, but I am too excited. Today I am going through my loot!

I don't normally buy much in the way of whimsical patterns like this- I think it was the jacket. Or maybe all the Chicken Quilt discussions... maybe I have been working on too many "serious" projects...

The Scraps Happen disk is by Larisa Bland who you can find at www.pieceinthehoop.com . This is a pretty cool idea. These little designs are made on an embroidery machine in the hoop! They are sewn on to a piece of web interface which does not have to be removed. There are 9 designs including log cabin, snail's trail, pineapple and square in a square among others and they can be sewn in 4 different sizes up to 8". Some of you have been showing your little piles of scraps- I guess I've got you beat. I have a kitchen garbage bag full of scraps and a shoe box overflowing with strips. And I recently gave away a garbage bag of scraps to one of my friends. She took it to visit with her sister-in-law and at least 3 of them made strip quilts from it. So this is my attempt to find a way to use more scraps.

I picked up some variegated threads in neutral colors for my birds and for the beach quilt that is in process.

And the fun part! I washed my fabrics last night and here they are:

I am in "bird mode". The fabrics on the left are for backgrounds. The other two rows are for the birds! Since I am planning on working on the Mississippi Kite and then maybe the Screech Owl, I have picked grays and rusty browns. Most of these are batiks, but there are a couple of Caryl Bryer Fallert http://www.bryerpatch.com/ fabrics from Benartex. Also, I noticed this year that there are several vendors that I ALWAYS buy from. One of these is Sew Batik. http://www.sewbatik.com . These are the most tremendously helpful people I have ever run across. They have fantastic fabrics, including 108" batiks to back your quilt. There are about 4 quilt kits that I stood and stared at for half an hour. There was one queen size left of my favorite, but I didn't buy it at the show. By the time I got home I had decided to order it, but don't you know they are all out of stock. Guess I didn't need another project, anyway.

But I have lots to do, so I will go get quilting!

2010-03-13T14:15:00.000-08:00

Yes, Love, the quilt show was wonderful... the best in show was the same quilt at the Plano show last year! That woman must have nothing to do but sew little 1/4" circles on a quilt!

A lot of people stopped to talk to me and compliment me on my quilt jacket. (Yeah!)

Anyway, I thought I would show you some pictures of these marvelous quilts.... Mostly I just take the ones that catch my eye or have something that I want to remember about them. There are way to many to show, but later the guild will probably put the winners up on their website.

This is a Karen Stone quilt, and the detail is below. I have one of her books.

I have the book with these designs too. I have started the third block down on the left side, but I have only stitched the stick and a leaf so far...

I think that this last one is my favorite- it was in the mini-quilt division. This gal made one of these last year, too. This quilt is all of 12" X12" maybe, and yes it is pieced! Most of these slivers are smaller than the strips I cut off our blocks to square them up!

Lacking Color

2010-03-12T16:51:00.000-08:00

I have been busy all week and haven't had much of a chance to read up on blogs so I am sitting here catching up.

A little bird told me that Katie has almost no purple in her stash....

I hear she really likes purple....

Aha!

(Lightbulb moment!)

What if I send her a purple?

This one looks good...

So does this one...

Hey, these two go together....

Uh oh.

Katie is NOT going to like it if I send her six purples. I'm pretty sure they are not going to fit in the box.

Hmm...

What about this?

(So, Lisa, how do you feel about purple?)

How to Make a Sweatshirt Jacket

2010-03-07T11:26:00.000-08:00

I "learned" how to make a sweatshirt jacket verbally from one of the gals in the Plano guild. She always wears a cute jacket to our meetings, most of them are fabric pieces sewn on to the sweatshirt with the raw edges loose so they have all frayed edges. I wanted something a little more finished, so here is what I did. (Please note there is a lot of "winging it" in this process.)

1. Use a slightly large sweatshirt. You are going to cut off the seams and then sew all the pieces back together, so you need to allow enough fabric to do that. I picked up a cheap one at Academy.

2. Cut off the ribbing on the neck, cuffs and waist. Cut as close to the seam as you can.

3. Turn the sweatshirt inside out. Cut the the seam that runs up the side, all the way down the sleeve.

4. Cut the sleeves off the jacket. Be sure to mark which sleeve is right and which is left. (I didn't and I had a heck of a time figuring out which was which after they were quilted.)

5. Cut the front of the sweatshirt down the center. To figure out where the center was, I folded the front in half down the center and cut the resulting fold line off with my rotary cutter.

6. Now comes the fun part! Piece together whatever type of quilt blocks you want on your jacket. For mine, I sewed all my fabrics together in a square like a quilt top, used spray adhesive to attach it to the jacket and then cut the quilt fabric out using the sweatshirt as a "pattern". Alternatively, you could use a "quilt-as-you-go" method. Sew a piece of fabric to the sweatshirt, fold it over and press it, then sew the next piece of fabric on. Here is a picture of the inside and outside of the jacket "core" after I quilted my fabric on it:

On the top where the blocks are, I quilted a "grid" on the diagonals so there is an "X" sewn through each block. On the bottom where the kids are, I quilted around each kid, then did some free-motion on the black background.

7. Then I did the same thing with my sleeves. I had planned to put some more of the patches along the cuffs of the sleeves, but Mom pointed out that it would be too busy. After looking at it for a while, I decided she was right. So my sleeve is just one piece of fabric, quilted in a 1 1/4" grid.

8. Once all the pieces are made, it is time to sew the thing back together again. This is a bit tricky, as now there is not as much "stretch" to your sweatshirt. Sew the sleeves to the core, then sew the seam up the side and across the bottom of the sleeve. I used a walking foot to sew the initial seam. After I sewed the seam, I went back and zigzagged the edges. (Or you could serge them.)

9. When the jacket is back together, bind the edges. It probably would have worked better if I had cut my binding on the bias, but I only had a little bit of the red fabric I chose and it completely slipped my mind until after I had cut the strips. My binding was 2" wide. I sewed several lengths together to make a long piece then ironed it in half lengthwise. I sewed my binding on the right side of the quilt, folded it under and sewed along the binding edge on the outside (catching the bottom in the seam).

Here is the jacket, almost done. I need to finish the cuffs, but I think I will use some scrap batting to make these sleeves a little longer. Got to get this done to wear to the quilt show!

Sweatshirt Jacket

2010-03-01T15:43:00.000-08:00

Here's the OTHER other project- don't 'cha know I've got to have at least a couple in process so that I can rotate. I got the front and the back pieced and the top parts quilted- haven't quite decided how to quilt the bottoms yet. I am leaning toward outlining the kids and running a big meander around the background dots, but you never know... I had originally thought to piece around the bottom of the sleeves, but after seeing it I think it would be too busy. (Isn't Mom ALWAYS right?) So here are the almost quilted pieces ready for assembly-

This is the back of the jacket, the polka dot sleeve and the bottom sleeve is of the sweatshirt (inside) of the sleeve.

First APQ Buddies Blocks

2010-02-28T16:45:00.001-08:00

Okay, made a few of these backwards today but here are the completed blocks for the first month:

Now, who do you think the lucky winners will be?!

Great Horned Owl- "Hunter"

2010-02-27T06:09:00.000-08:00

Yeah! The sun is finally out today so I can post the completed pictures of my owl!

Original Photo:

Finished 15" X 20" quilt:

Here's the back:

On to the next project!

2010-02-26T18:01:00.000-08:00

By now you all know that we have this "family story" about chickens. So as a diversion from quilting, I thought I would tell you about my new mugs. My dinnerware is the Italian Countryside from Mikasa, which I love. I can mix and match it with everything. But I have always hated the coffee cups. My finger always gets hung up in the little handle and I am sure that if a man tried to use it that his finger wouldn't even fit in there...

So I have been looking for some mugs to use when I have a tea break. I was at Hobby Lobby the other day looking for a paint pen to use on one of my quilts when I ran across these mugs. Needless to say, I brought home more than the pen.

The Home Stretch....

2010-02-20T15:46:00.001-08:00

Well, I just looked at the clock and I have been quilting almost 12 hours today... guess it is time to give it up. But I can see the end is near and I just can't wait to get this done...

When I was in college, there were a couple of Great Horned Owls that nested in the oasis of pine trees in the middle of campus. My school was located in the middle of farm country (for us that meant corn and beans) and there were thousands of black birds that must have come for miles to mob those poor parents. There were birds everywhere for weeks. So when I was considering what to put in the background of my owl, remembering that experience put me in mind of pine cones. The resulting background doesn't look anything like pine cones, as it turns out, but I guess it will have to do.

It is time for me to go soak my spasming muscles in the tub, I think. Here is the almost completed owl:

Dave's Owl

2010-02-18T17:20:00.000-08:00

I'm tired tonight, so no long post but I thought I would brag on my brother. I told my brother Dave last summer that what I wanted for Christmas from him was a piece of his art work. I know he stayed up late Christmas Eve (you know procrastination runs in the family) to get it finished, but here is the colored pencil drawing he made for me:

By the way, it did not escape my notice that my mom did not blog today and has made no mention of the fact that it is her birthday today. Happy Birthday, Mom!

Valentine's Distraction

2010-02-14T15:37:00.000-08:00

Update on quilting: I marked in the shape around the compass with an actual compass and a white Clover pen. Then I "echo" quilted around the shape. The border is marked in from a stencil, which I modified the corners on. The entire thing is quilted with a walking foot, which I think is worth its' weight in gold.

The Floral Compass was completed today. I finished the binding while watching Sunday Morning, lingered into Face the Nation and then partway through a movie to get done.... of course I was a little stiff and sore by then and took a break for lunch. I love the way the quilting turned out on this, now I'll spend the next couple of weeks convincing myself that I really want to donate it.

Here's the back:

And my supervisor was hard at work, you should be able to play the video:

Notice the ears in the bottom corner of the film? Caleb's still waiting for that squirrel to come back...

After lunch, I started back on my owl. The day has been so gloomy that the light was really bad so I decided I had to put it away. Always a good idea when you find yourself staring off into space.

Last Monday when I met with the Binding Friends, Maureen's show-n-tell was that she had won a raffle of a quilted jacket that was really cute:

I've been meaning to make one of those sweatshirt jackets for myself for some time and I really liked this. I don't have any of the printed quilter's fabric or any of the little sayings but it occurred to me that there had been some cute fabric I had received in a donation give away quite a while ago that might do the trick. So I declared Valentine's Day a play day and got to work-

Hopefully I'll get this done in time to wear to the quilt show!

2010-02-13T09:02:00.000-08:00

It seems like forever since I have been out here- I had to switch the internet to my laptop from work and don't you know it's a difficult process to switch computers back and forth. The cable company tells me I need a different box if I want to run more than one computer... add another chore to the list. Hopefully all of you that are snowbound are quilting away!

Lots of snow this week for Texas- not compared to where I grew up in Illinois but definitely enough to get all of the Chicken Little's (The Sky is Falling!) out in traffic. Thursday there were four cars in the ditch by the time I got to the end of the road. Hmm. Guess they don't get snow enough to know that you don't want to slam on the brakes when it is icy...

I'm sure that you would all prefer some nice spring flowers, but here are my snow pics:

Not sure that you can see it, but the birdfeeder is out at the fenceline beyond the birch tree. Caleb has been in the house with his chin on the windowsill for our furry-tailed friend to come by for some food. I had to go out and rescue him yesterday- the snow-laden bushes were blocking his escape route. Caleb is now patiently waiting for him to come back...

Floral Compass

2010-02-07T19:04:00.000-08:00

I have this rule about quilting after dark- I'm just not allowed to do it. The thing is, if I work on a project after the sun goes down I usually mess it up and end up spending the next night ripping it all out. So, no working on the owl in the evening.
The Dallas Quilt show is next month (anybody going on the weekend?) and I just found out this week that they are still looking for items for the mini-quilt auction. And Joanne's blog about getting her UFO's done just added to my decision... can't have all this stuff piling up now, right? (Yeah, right!)
I usually have some "test" blocks sitting around- typically I might make a sample before starting a whole project. So I pulled this out and decided I should quilt it and donate it. I should have taken the picture in daylight but hopefully you can see the start I have made on the quilting. After I got it started I remembered that there is some requirement about the size of the thing- guess I will have to track down the maximum size it is supposed to be. I might just be too big- I think it might have to be trimmed down an inch or two to meet the requirements. Guess I need to figure that out before I get to quilting the edges.

Nothing Else To Do

2010-02-02T16:42:00.001-08:00

Yeah, right.... there's no quilting to be done here...

I got my last cabinet this past weekend and of course since I was organizing anyway I had to move all of the furniture around. So here are the final pics of the studio...

2010-01-30T12:13:00.000-08:00

I am busy quilting my owl today, but just wanted to give you guys some more to look at. I was thinking about what to do for my background and remembered that Mom had told me about a gal that was making 365-days worth of filler patterns. (I told you she has time on her hands!) I called Mom up to get the info and added myself to Leah Day's blog. She also has a site which will show you all of these patterns:

http://www.daystyledesigns.com/365project.htm

Isn't she creative?! What wonderful ideas she has...

Now to go pick out a background filler...

4:05 pm- Here is the owl progress for today. Maybe I was a little ambitious in thinking I was going to get to the background...

2010-01-28T17:24:00.000-08:00

Since we've wandered off on quilts that we made when we started, I will show you this one. This is the first quilt I actually quilted on the machine. This was made in pieces, quilted and then all the pieces were sewn together. I made the center medallion, the second inside square, two sides, the two longer sides and then the outside row of flowers and the border. (I had no idea that you could manage to cram the whole quilt top under the arm of your sewing machine.) I was SO proud of this quilt.
Right after I got this done, Mom and I went off to Paducah, KY to see our first quilt show. There were hundreds of little old blue-haired ladies there (I was maybe in college at the time?) and there were the most stunning quilts I had ever seen. I was so embarrassed that this quilt was not as good as I thought it was....
(But I still have it on the daybed in the guest room!)

Sigh

2010-01-25T16:28:00.000-08:00

Well, now I am feeling bad...

Just for the record, it has taken a LONG time to get to this point. You are all very much ahead of where I started out- I have been quilting for probably 20 years and was an art major to boot. But I will embarrass myself to make you all feel better and pull out a picture of one of the first quilts I made...

Back when I lived in Chicago in high school was probably when I started quilting. I knew NOTHING about quilts and as far as I knew, there was no one to ask about them. (And I worked in a fabric store!) I didn't discover quilt groups or guilds until I moved to Texas. So, yes, my first quilts had 5/8" seams and were tied together with yarn on the corners through 2 inches of poly-batt. This one was made for a friend of mine and was made of wool, satin coat lining, corduroy and twill. Try sticking a needle through that! Not an easy task, but I do have to say it was really warm in the Northern winters!

Today's Progress

2010-01-23T13:06:00.000-08:00

Some days I can't do anything right and some days I am really impressed with myself...

How to Assemble an Owl

2010-01-21T15:44:00.000-08:00

Hmm... well this is really not all that hard to do. This is all "applique", but really the only parts that I sewed so far are the eyes and the beak. Mostly this is all ironed together.... As a couple of you may be interested, here is a shot at some instructions for this process. (Just keep in mind that your first project should be considerably less complicated.)
So the first thing I do is pick a photo and blow it up to the size I want. This happens to be 15 x 20", but my first project doing this was 8.5 x 11" (letter size paper). You can either print it on your home printer and tape all the resulting pages together or you can run up to a copy center and get them to do it. My FedEx/Kinko's up the street will print black and white poster size for $.75 per square foot.

I traced all the shapes that I will cut out for pieces on the pattern with a fine Sharpie marker. A lightbox works really good for this or you can do like I do and tape it up in the window. You might have to take a break if your arms get tired, though. I don't know if you can see the lines on the pattern well enough, so I took the center shape in the owl's forehead and traced it with white pencil so you can see it.

Using a piece of Wonder Under or similar product, I trace the shape to be cut out of fabric. Keep in mind that you have to draw on the exposed glue side (not the paper side), otherwise you will get a reverse image. Now comes the trick part. You have to remember to leave fabric underneath the edges that will overlap! This is the piece on the owl's chest- the bottom edge is drawn so that all those raggedy feathers will be cut out. The top edge has been drawn 1/4-3/8" extra. The piece above this one is cut the same way, so the bottom edge of the upper piece will be on top of this piece. After I have this traced, I usually rough cut it out- NOT on the lines that I have just traced. I iron it to my fabric and then cut on the lines so that I cut the paper and the fabric at the same time.
Here are some of my fabric choices. I usually have these all spread out on a table so I can see them at the same time and pick the best one for the piece I am cutting out. As I want the owl to look real, these are all sort of "natural" textures. Batiks tend to work pretty well also.
I don't iron these together until I get a bunch of them cut out. It is a real problem if you have been fastening them down one at a time and discover that you messed up and forgot to leave that overlapping edge where you should have. Not sure you can tell in the photo on the previous blog, but I did that with the brow piece over his eye and now will have to figure out how to go back and fix that.
Hope that provides enough information for any of you that want to try this. If you think a photograph is too complicated to start with, you might snag a picture from your child's coloring book just to try the technique!

Owl Quilt

2010-01-20T17:07:00.000-08:00

Wow am I tired! It is Day 2 of the new job and I am sitting here thinking it is only 7:30 but I would really, really like to go to bed. Guess it is probably a little early if I don't want to be up at 3:00 am.... Work is going good but I have been thrown into the deep end of the pool- I have been scheduled for meetings and training every day this week.

I am definitely too tired to quilt but I had started my owl last weekend and I thought I would post a picture to show you how he is coming along. This is going to be 15 x 20". Mostly he is just ironed together with Wonder Under at this point so he is sort of fragile, but I still have some adjustments to make for the missing pieces. Not sure if I am going to leave him on that dark background or not, but right now he shows up really well on it. I still need to cut the pieces above the right eye and all of the variegated feathers on his chest.

And then he should be quilted, of course...

Quilt Room Photos

2010-01-18T08:45:00.000-08:00

Today is my last day of vacation- I start my new job tomorrow. Instead of resting up, I have madly been trying to get all my projects completed. After mangling it the first time yesterday, I finally got the ironing surface completed last night. So this morning when I got up I raced into the studio (yes, it's starting to actually look like one) and finished up re-folding all the fabric to put away in the new cabinets. So here I am just terribly pleased with myself...

These are my new cabinets! They were purchased at IKEA. The 4-drawer dressers run about $80 which is not too bad for all the storage they give you. When I went home for Christmas, Mom had fabric strips all folded up in the hutch in the dining room where she sews. I gave her a hard time about it but after a while I decided it was a really cool idea. So I have re-folded all my stash and put it in the drawers. That took a really long time. I took some 1x2 wood and built a frame to fit around the top of the two dressers, screwed a 1/4" piece of plywood to the top and padded it with foam, batting and some cotton duck. Now that nice square ironing surface is about 65x20". Guess my quilt tops won't be dragging off the skinny end of the ironing board any more!

Guess it will be pretty easy to find any fabric that I need! The fat quarters are all folded into squares; any piece over 1/2 yd was folded into quarters (selvage to selvage) and then wrapped around my 6" ruler.
This is the sewing table that Caleb sleeps under. Yes, he has his own quilt down there. The brown fabrics on the table are for the owl that I am currently working on. I am alternating between that and the Beachcombers quilt on the wall that is of my niece and nephew. Not sure how that will turn out, as I just took my first applique class but we will see if it looks any better when it gets quilted. I will replace that utility cabinet with another tall IKEA cabinet maybe in another month or so. Please note I am still using the masking tape to secure my current projects to the wall.
Here is the other sewing table set up on the opposite side of the room. Just for the record, my workspace is never this clean. This is cleaned up for photo purposes only... soon it will be back to normal!

Molly's Dad sent this architect's table down to me and this is my favorite place to work in the whole room. I do all my embellishing and needlework over here. Got Dave's chair mended this week so I no longer tip over to one side. You can see the owl I have started from the photos last week. All of my beads and threads are in that little cabinet. Everything I need is right at my fingertips....

The only problem with that table is that I put it right next to the window where the pond is located. Sometimes I get distracted by the birds coming in to get a drink or the fish swimming on the surface of the pond. Sometimes I just stare off into the garden and daydream...

And this is how I decided I am going to try and keep track of the projects I am working on this year. The quilts on the left of the cork board are in various stages of construction. The quilts on the right side are being quilted and are almost completed. Notice Mr. Nosy Butt has followed me around the room! Guess we will go get something to eat and then get back to work!

How to Fix Up a Quilt Room- Studio 101

2010-01-16T10:25:00.000-08:00

I swear that it's my mom's fault. Really. If she was not retired and spending so much time surfing around on the web then I wouldn't have this list of projects to be working on... although there are some really great ideas in there that I would never have come up with on my own.

I've been off this week (I start a new job on Tuesday) and so I have been working on fixing up the sewing room. Mom has been sending me pictures of people's sewing spaces and great ideas to organize things so I have been improving my space. She also turned me on to the Cloth, Paper, Scissors Studios Magazine. I started a while ago with some IKEA boxes and some storage containers. This week I splurged on a cabinet and a couple of IKEA dressers for fabric storage. I figure I can build an ironing surface on
the dressers and have a wonderful large (and SQUARE!) surface to iron on. I have also been in process of pulling out all my fabrics from the boxes they were stored in and folding them into standard sizes that fit in the dresser drawers. Just for the record, if you are really interested in knowing what exactly is in your stash this is a great way to do it.
Got a couple of quilts that I am working on right at the moment but the
one of most excitement is a mini quilt of a Great Horned Owl. I found out a couple of months ago that they are working on building a raptor center just down the street from me... I finally managed to get there last
weekend (it was about 15 degrees in Texas that day) and got some
wonderful shots of their birds. Think I may end up with a series of these,
but we will see how much I can stick with it... the quilt size is 15 x 20. The
Great Horned Owl which I started with is the last of these pictures on the
left. The first picture is a Mississippi Kite that is just coming into her adult plummage, a Screech Owl (rust version) and a Kestral. Aren't they incredible?

If you're interested, here is their link:
http://www.bpraptorcenter.org

New Beginnings

2010-01-13T07:59:00.000-08:00

Okay, so last year sucked. Not that I am going
to get into all the gory details, but most of the year was pretty miserable...

Things started looking up just as the holidays arrived- Dave and I went home to Indianapolis and had Christmas the first weekend of December with all the family. I was really looking forward to going home and kept commenting on how excited I was that there was the possibility of snow... I guess I should have mentioned that I didn't mean it should snow on the day we flew... Haven't managed to get the whole family together for Christmas in 4-5 years I guess and it was wonderful. Everybody was cheerful and we really had a great time together.

I decided I need to spend more time visiting with friends and have been having people over to the house more often. I have really been enjoying it and am going to make an effort to keep it up for the next little while... I've been having a great time just hanging out and chatting with friends.

Got a new job that I am starting just next week- I was sad to leave the crew behind as I have been with them for 7 years now but it is definitely time for a change. I'm going to a new company to work in a startup operation again and will be doing a different kind of job. I'm really looking forward to it.

So I had thought that things were settling down enough to get back to quilting and blogging. Much to my surprise, I only got 5 or 6 projects done last year. I had thought I was getting a jump on getting things done this year. I went over to my friend Karen's house yesterday and she gave me a crash course in how to use her longarm machine. She showed me how to quilt one of my tops that has been sitting on the shelf for a while. It was a fantastic day and I really learned a lot. Amazingly enough, I thought that this was only going to take a couple of hours but we spent all day working on it. Sometimes I don't know what is wrong with me...

Anyway, I took some pictures of it this morning and went to post them and found out that the site is being shut down. Bummer. Guess this is certainly my year for all kinds of change.

Anyway, hopefully some of you will find me here... and if I can find you guys then I will still be able to snag any great ideas you might have! Anybody recognize this quilt top?