Nightly Play has Come to an End

I left off the story last time with two borders on my nightly play. Even though I like things off kilter and two borders, I knew it needed something else, but didn't know what. I was also quickly using up the two pieces of fabric I had made and was limited on the burgundy fabric. I cut long pieces for the sides and thought about doing some more sawtooth borders, so I used some of the left over pieces and made a bunch of little sawteeth. That means that that border is not quite as wide as the other two, but I like it. It balances. So, what if I don't add anything to the bottom piece. Just leave it alone?



I think I am going to like that. I just need to make sure I have enough fabric to add in the corners and it's looking good.

Now, if I have enough burgundy left to border around the outside and it is finished. Well, the top is, it's not quilted yet. I am not sure how I want to quilt this one. So I may leave it for later this weekend.

Design Wall Monday 4/25/11

First off let me start with what is on my design wall for Design wall Monday over at Judy's blog. Go see what everyone else is doing. Come back and see what else I am going to blog about.

The Wallow out my Window

I showed pictures of the "lake" behind my house all frozen over earlier this year. Well, here is the url to see what the lake has looked like for the past month or so taken by our local newspaper. http://www.oaoa.com/sections/article/gallery/?pic=2&id=63848 It has been very, very dry here. Today, the water level is coming back up since the city turned on the water pump. It has even come up some since I have been home this afternoon. I wish I had taken a picture like I had planned a couple of days ago to show how really sad and dry it is out here. I don't know where the city is pumping water from and I don't really care at this point. There aren't any buffalo to wallow in this old stomping ground, but the ducks are wallowing in their newly filled lake tonight.

Playing a Little Each Night

I played last week! Almost every night last week I came home and played on the sewing machine. I got the quilt from the Ogallala class, Dashes and Patches, center part pieced together. Now it only needs the two borders and it will be a completed top. I thought I took a picture of it on my bed, but I guess I didn't. I will take one as soon as I put the borders on it.





I also pulled out a bag of batik scraps and started playing. A couple of nights I just made fabric. I got two fairly large pieces (over 12 inches square) and thought about cutting them down and using them for a new 12 x 12.



Then the next night I cut them up and made saw tooth borders. FUN! That was all for that night.

Now I need to decide about a center. What do I want for that? How about a star? TaDa! A star is born! That was all for that night. There is more to come.

yucky asthma

Back in February at our retreat, my friend, Kathy, had such problems with her asthma and had to take breathing treatment after breathing treatment. At the time, all I could think about was how long it had been since I had to take one. Sometimes I forget that I even have asthma. Everyday I take my Advair and Accolate and Zyrtec and that totally keeps my asthma under control. Well, this week has been a little hard for me to breathe. I don't know if all the smoke in the air from the surrounding fires has taken it's tole on my lungs or what, but last night I had to break out the breathing machine and take a treatment. Wow. What a difference. I was still coughing a bit, but it was different. I wasn't coughing up my lungs. However, I forget how that medicine can knock me for a loop. Not having had any for 6 or 8 months that first dose kind of zones me out. It makes me a little bit jittery and really sleepy. That can be a good thing if you are home and don't have to go anywhere which I didn't except to bed. I got up again at 5 this morning and took another treatment. My lungs are screaming at me. Maybe if I had broken down earlier this week and taken care of my lungs a little bit better and not tried to solely rely on my little rescue inhalers I wouldn't be so bad now. Do any of you do that? Put off taking medicine, going to the doctor, taking care of yourself until you are really, really sick and your body then starts to shut itself down so it can heal? I was so busy this past week that I knew I couldn't be sick so I pushed myself and now, this weekend, my body has taken over and is telling me I have to take time for myself. To let my lungs heal and my body and the meds to do their magic. So, since I need to slow it down, I am going to work on making another 12 x 12 for the 15 minute play challenge and just see what I can come up with. I have pieced some fabric together the last couple of nights and now I am going to cut it up and play - quietly and peacefully while drinking my coffee. (it also helps with the asthma)

My First 12 X 12 Play Quilt

It's finished - well, almost - the only thing it still needs is a label. No, the picture isn't crooked, the house is. I did it that way on purpose. This is my 12 x12 for 15 minutes play. However, I think I made it 12 1/2" all the way around instead of 12". Oh, well, I don't think anyone will return it just because it's a little bit bigger. I had so much fun making this one that I may make another and then decide which one I send to my secret (from you and her/him) until it is time for all of us to mail our treasures. THEN, we get to see what our secret person made for us. I started this one before I got my person's name and can't decide if they will like it or not. That is why I may make another one and then at the last minute put one in the mail. I am lurking around his/her blog and think that this one may fit in with their house.

Believe it or not, I don't have any quilts on the wall. WHAT!! I know! Crazy, huh? I take that back. I do have a quilt hanging in my front entryway from a wall mounted quilt rack. So, I guess I can't say I don't have any quilts hanging on my walls. You would think that I would have lots of quilts everywhere, but I really don't. I don't even have one of my quilts on my bed. I have a quilt that I picked up in a store (I really, really love it). It was on sale and I couldn't have purchased the backing fabric for what I paid for the entire queen size quilt. It was crazy inexpensive and I really, really do love this quilt. {I have to tell this story on myself - every year at our Ogallala retreat we put out a quilt on our bed and Saturday afternoon, we have a quilt show and everyone walks around all the rooms and views the quilts. Well, I had purchased this one on the way to retreat one year and when I started making up my bed, I realized that I had left the quilt I planned to put on my bed at home. What luck! I just opened up the package, took off all the tags and voila! My bed quilt. Everyone loved it and thought I had made it. I couldn't lie and told everyone that commented about the quilt, the truth.}

I would still take that quilt with me to retreat if I didn't feel so guilty about not making this perfect quilt. Here's the part where I should go in there and take a picture of it to post here, but I am tired and don't really feel like it right now. (Not really. Okay, yes, I am tired, but in truth the dogs sleep on top of that quilt every night and it needs to be laundered this weekend. So, maybe I will one day post a picture of the "great" quilt.)

Ogallala classes

I just posted this on 15 minutes play. This is only part of what I have been working on this week. It is made mostly from scraps leftover from the following quilt.

This is part of the quilt class that I took from Yvonna Hays at the Ogallala Quilt Festival this past weekend. The pattern is called Dashes and Patches and consists of 12, 9 and 6 inch churn dash blocks and 6 and 3 inch 9 patch blocks along with plain fabric fillers. I saw a quilt made from this pattern last year and knew I wanted that pattern. When I saw that it was offered as a class at festival, I signed right up for it. I now have the first three rows up on my design wall - minus the last block since I can't stretch over my cutting table to put it up. I plan on sewing those rows together tonight unless I am totally distracted by piecing my own fabric out of scraps. (15 minute play) Here are samples of my students work in the class I taught, Divide and Conquer. They all did a great job. I can't wait to see what their finished quilts look like.

Spring Break

Mom and I went to Nebraska over spring break and took a couple of classes from Gwen Marston. Where we met some wonderful people that welcomed us into their quilting world for the week. We liberated ourselves, our baskets and our log cabins. (sorry, no picture of my baskets) We got to watch a row quilt next to us add on some liberated baskets and admire the people she had made and incorporated into this quilt.

We had a great time and even though people thought we were crazy for driving to Nebraska (only the people in Nebraska thought we were crazy - Texans know that driving for 14 hours in two days is nothing! We drive 3 hours one way every Friday for a football game - what's 14 hours for a quilt class?)