A Few Projects Done

The other night, I was spending some time in my studio, having just finished putting some blocks together into a quilt (see elsewhere in the blog) when I looked over and saw the box of goodies that I had re-packed to take to the quilt qroup in January to for show and tell.  I needed to unpack and put away all the goodies and kind of clean things up a bit - I could use the tub for other stuff.   I pulled out the following items:  a pillow cover (partial in the picture), pin cushion and a journal with a cover.  I love all of these items, but the one I am going to talk about today is the journal cover.   I like everything about this cover from the bright colors to the hexies and even the journal itself without the cover - it's bright pink with paisleys all over it!  What is not to love. 

 

 

However, as I was sitting there, I thought it needed something else.  A monogram.  I took the cover off the journal and decided how large I wanted my "N" to be.  There was some bright green fabric laying right in front of me and I only needed a 5" square so I cut that out and drew an N on it.  Looks wonderful, but I really should have put some adhesive on the back - so I did that and then cut it out.  Still looking fabulous.  I positioned it, ironed it on and then thought, how am I going to sew this down with the flap there?  I should have thought of that first, but I knew I could do it.  I simply turned the flap to the outside - it would be really sad if I sewed that down and couldn't put my journal back together.  If I can ever get the picture to download to this site, I will share with you my finished journal.  Now it is perfect and just right for me.  I love it!!

 

 



One other thing I got finished was the quilt top below.  (I even have the back finished!! - that is a minor miracle for me.  LOL)  This was from a jelly roll - can't tell you the name of it because I forgot.  I pieced the blocks awhile back and they were laying around my studio and I decided to put them together.  Then I took the leftover strips and made a piano key border for the top and bottom.  It looked like it needed one more thing so I added a little border of just white all around and I love it!  I am calling it "Boys Blocks" and it will go to one of the boys in my family for graduation.  Sometime in the next 10 years we will have 8 boys graduating and I am going to need a few boys quilts and this one is perfect! 



 

Last, but not least, my second iron caddy.  I just thought I had worked out all the kinks with the first one, but nope, had similar problems putting this one together, too.  I may have to make a third one to see if I can perfect this pattern.  (don't put in your request - I won't be making one anytime soon if I do make one)  This one fits my iron that I use all the time at home and I am hoping it will fit my friend Glenda's iron since this will be going to her house soon. 

 

 

 



New Blocks, Quilt Tops and More

I showed a picture of the first block earlier in the month, but here are my two blocks I made for my KFC Block Exchange group. The blocks are starting to trickle in and I thought I had taken a picture of the other two that Pat had made for me, but unfortunately, I didn't have it on my camera.  (might have taken it with my phone or tablet.  I will have to check and see.)  As soon as I have 6 + blocks, I will post another picture.  I might have to sash this quilt so the blocks stand on their own, but  I will think more about that when I get a few blocks up on the wall. 

 

 

One Friday on a Missouri Star tutorial, Jenny showed how to make little chicken pin cushions.  I have seen these pin cushions all over the place for many years, but have never made one myself.  Until now.  Below is my chicken pin cushion (or will be after I stuff it) without her tail feathers.  I totally forgot about that part of the video.  This one is made with leftover made fabric from the blocks I have made in my KFC Block Exchange group.  When I get to a point where I don't know what I want to work on, or am trying to avoid something that I need to do, I pull out some scraps and make some fabric to use in a project.  I had already used some of this made fabric in another project, but had enough to cut out a couple of squares. Check out the Missouri Star tutorial and make one for yourself.  I will definitely be making a few more of these to give as gifts.



 

 

Speaking of Jenny Doan, early in June, I went to Arkansas to visit with family and got to attend a Jenny Doan trunk show with my mother and take one of her quilt classes with my sister.  Paige and I worked really hard and fast and made many blocks in the short time we were in class.  We had a great system going and were cranking out the blocks.  I didn't realize that Jenny would be leaving at noon from this "full day" bring your own lunch class that I had signed up for.  Apparently everyone in the class knew and some had made plans to stay there the rest of the day and sew and some left at noon to go do other things (some even had to go to work).   Since the teacher was leaving, Paige and I decided to leave pretty soon after she did.  So, I packed everything back into my car and went back to my mother's house.  I left all the blocks I made in a tub until yesterday when I decided to get them out and finish putting them together.  I had already started sewing them into rows during the class and had two rows sewn together and another completed and ready to add when I pulled them out of the tub.  30 blocks!!  Can you believe that we made 30 blocks (31 really) in about 3 hours time?  We did!!  Did I mention we had a system going?  It was fun.  Paige said I was the better sewer and kicked me off the cutting detail at one point  That didn't hurt my feelings - I had previously been kicked off another cutting detail many years ago when my mother, a friend and I made my bulls-eye quilt.  (I can't free cut a circle out of a square of fabric to save my life. They were more a fat football shape)  When I put the remaining blocks together, I only had to make one more "dark" block to make the pattern work.  I have two leftover "light" background blocks and they may have to go on the back somewhere.  This is probably a crib size quilt (about 45 X 52 or so) and I wasn't sure what fabric to use for the outer border.  I auditioned about 10 different fabrics and only two of them made the cut and I wasn't totally sold on either one of them.  I am glad I chose and stuck with this one.  It makes the quilt cheery and fun. 

 

 

The only other thing I am going to type about tonight is the little quilt that is to the right of the exploding block quilt.  That is made from trimmings from a company in Australia, Umbrella Prints.  They have a challenge every March - June and they send you (for a small fee) a packet of fabrics and you have to make something out of it.  I didn't learn of the challenge until late and by the time my fabric arrived it was toward the end of school when I got very busy, so I never put anything together until now.  Here again, like making fabric, I just pulled things out of the packet laid it out on the table and started sewing bits together.  Where I thought I might be going with the fabric and design, doesn't even show up here since I cut that up and sewed it all back in.  It looks like I was making a couple of log cabin pieces, but I only made one.  I was crossing my fingers on the border because I wasn't sure I would have enough fabric to go all the way around.  I am really enjoying this little piece and can't decide how I want to quilt it.  Either by hand with pink pearl cotton or by machine with pink or khaki thread.  Oh, yes, these fabrics are linens or have a rough feel to them so hand quilting may be a bit much, but it might just add some fun if I big stitch.  Until I decide, I will enjoy it on my design wall. 

 

 

Scrappy Trip and Strings

I finally completed my scrappy trip around the world quilt.  I am sorry to include a picture of one of my students in this one, I couldn't get it to crop out.  I guess I don't have the right programs to do that on my laptop.  So, just ignore him and the arm of the other student on the other side.  I don't know what the deal is with the two blocks in the second row.  I think they may have been too light or something, but since I didn't put the blocks up on a design wall, but rather just picked them up and sewed them together, I guess that is what I get.  It's kind of interesting and once you get past that, you can see that a few more blocks stand out also.   This was a lot of fun and the majority of the blocks were made while my students were elsewhere taking their state mandated tests.  I probably made half of the blocks at school.  So, I need to come up with a name for this quilt that reflects it's origins. 

 

I think if I do it again, I will make a concentrated effort to make that diagonal line more pronounced.  Instead, I let it be the fabric I liked the most or that stood out the most in that set of 6 fabrics.  So,  it could be a very pale fabric, a bright fabric or a dark one.  Then, I think I would make the two fabrics on either side be a major contrast to the main diagonal fabric.  That would make it stand out even more.  It was a lot of fun, but this quilt is HUGE!!  about 72 X 96.  Okay, not so huge, but still quite a large quilt.  I love seeing all the greens in there along with the pinks and reds.  Fun, fun, fun.  If you haven't tried making a block I highly suggest you make at least one.  The pattern comes from www.quiltville.com and I blogged about making the block way back here.

 

 

I just finished this pillow cover.  This is made from the scraps I received from Chris.  I am working on samples using strips and in the scrap bag were some wonderful strips already cut in various sizes so I just pulled a few out and started sewing them together.  Once I had them sewn up, I had to determine the shortest length and what size I could cut them into squares.  Then I decided I wanted something else, so I sewed on corner triangles.  Well, I sewed one on the wrong corner so I just made those two blocks have double corners so I could get the middle the way I wanted.  With the leftover sewn strips, I cut them into 1 1/2" strips to use around the outside.  I dug through the bag again and found the black and white print and just had enough to go around the outside of my four squares.  However, I wasn't going to have enough of the strips to go all the way around the block so I dug through the bag again and found a large piece in some of the same colors and VOILA!!  I have an almost 16" square (15 3/4" or so) I added some batting and quilted the top in straight line stitching - don't look too close in the center - that was the last little bit I did and I went too fast and it's not straight, but I am not taking it out.  Then, I dug through some of the fabric I took with me to Quilt Con and found enough to use for the backing to make an envelope opening for this pillow.  I can't wait to put a pillow form in there and see what it looks like all "blown-up".  This was a lot of fun and went together really, really fast with very little thinking on my part.  Which makes it so relaxing, I think.  Anyway, now I have one for two - a project from the scrap bag and a strip project for a class on strips I will be teaching in a few weeks.   Now, I need to post this over on 15 minutes Play blog so everyone can see it. 

 



The New Year Begins and other things

Back at school for two days and already I can tell that it is going to be an "interesting" year.  I am going to hope for the best, but we will have to wait and see what this year holds.  I am looking forward to my classes and what I am teaching, it's just the higher ups that are causing a dislike. 

Last week, being the only week to have completely off for the summer - no outside work - I planned on sewing, sewing, sewing and I got very little done.  I took a nap almost everyday and was a lazy bum for the most part.  I had lots of dog and me appointments - grooming, vets, doctors, etc. and got the majority of them taken care of.  I have a few more on my calendar for this month and I think the dogs are taken care of for a bit.  I really needed to cut my 300 - 6 inch - squares for our exchange tomorrow night and I got 150 light squares cut and ready to go, but I have to cut my darks tonight.  That may or may not happen.  It is thundering outside and I think I have more than the usual one dog afraid of the storm.  I may have to go back downstairs and cuddle with a couple of them to reassure them that the storm is not going to get them. 

A couple of years ago, a major thunder and lightening storm settled over the top of my house.  Being two story it seemed that it may come through the roof at any time.  This was at 2 in the morning and Taegan, Irish and I were fast asleep.  Then BOOM! BOOM!  BOOM!!!!!  Taegan was up and on top of me so fast that I couldn't figure out what was going on.  I thought someone might have broken in and he was protecting me, but no, he wanted my protection from the storm.  He had never been scared of storms before, but that was a scary one for sure.  Ever since then, if it is thundering or there are fireworks or other loud noises going on outside, he comes running for his momma and either climbs in my lap or sits as close as he can get for my protection.  That one storm really scared him.  He was probably fast asleep at the time and it scared him awake.  So, tonight, he has the other dogs stirred up and every time the thunder booms - not very loudly, but still a boom - he starts barking and the others join in with him.   I think Irish is just telling them to be quiet, since he managed to sleep through that storm a couple of years ago. 

Tonight is the final competition night on So You Think You Can Dance and guess what?  Our Fox station is not working!  BOO!!!!  I was looking forward to watching them dance tonight.  I am hoping that I can watch it later tonight on the computer.  I may have to wait until tomorrow night.  : (  That show is one of my favorite shows to watch. 

Well, so much for my rambling on.  I did take a picture of one of the only things I got made last week.  It is part of a new quilt design.  I had originally planned on this being a two color quilt and I wanted to see what it would look like using scraps.  I also want to see if I could make this block without getting technical and writing out all the directions, sizes, etc.  Because if it didn't work, I didn't want to be out all that wasted time when my time last week was spent . . well, you know, you read all the way down to here, now didn't you.  I love a good nap.  I really like the way this turned out.  I can't wait to make the rest of the quilt or at least a baby quilt using scraps.  

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.)

February's Retreat

After at least two posts with no pictures I may totally overwhelm you with the tons of pictures in this post. Way back at the end of February my friend Kathy and I hosted our 7th annual (or maybe it's our 8th?) retreat at the girl scout camp at Mitre Peak. One of the reasons we love to go there year after year is the beauty of the west Texas mountains . . . .

And sunsets - even though this picture is beautiful, I couldn't get my picture to look anything like the sunset that night no matter how many pictures I took. It was really breathtaking. Lot's of purples, pinks. This picture is showing too much blue and there really wasn't much blue like that in the sky. . . .

and wild life that walks by the windows of our workroom. This year it was only turkeys.

There was a family of wild turkeys that came by at least once a day. We counted a minimum (they were always moving and you didn't know if you counted one twice or not) of twenty turkeys. One large tom turkey kept heard on all the others not letting them come close to us even though you could tell that that wanted to, especially after we threw out some bread for them. They didn't get it that day, but it wasn't there the next day so somebody feasted that night. See him in the picture below keeping watch? He really was a large bird.

This year was Kathy's turn to teach and she taught a scrappy, scrappy Jacob's ladder quilt. Below is a picture of my mother's quilt. It was the only one I had on my camera even though I thought I took pictures of more quilts. If you look closely you will notice the lovely blue painter's tape. One of the bad things about this camp is that you can't put up any flannel backed tablecloths so we have learned that you can put up each individual block with painter's tape and if you are really good, like my mom was below, you can see what your quilt might look like all sewn together. I love the color combination in her blocks. It has a warm inviting feel to it.

I didn't work on that quilt this weekend because I wanted to try out a new pattern. Over the last couple of years, this retreat has kind of been my time to work on new patterns. The quilt I am teaching at Ogallala in a couple of weeks was made at our retreat last year. I have just finished writing the pattern for it and can't wait to introduce it to everyone.
This year, I was working on my mess up of a version of a quilt I saw on the blogs. However, I liked my mess up; so I played with it at this retreat. I am not totally satisfied with the way it looks yet so this is not the end of this quilt top. I haven't had a chance to play around with it since I have been home, so stay tuned on this one. It may be something totally different when I am done with it. Below are two settings for the blocks and then a lot of them up on the wall just to see what it will look like.

That fabric, (can't remember the name of it - let me get back to you on that one) has a lot of pattern and it definitely overwhelms these blocks. The may need to be sashed and that is one thing I am going to look at when I get the chance to put them on the wall here at the house.

Okay, I have had a rough time getting my pictures to do what I want them to do - (note to self: next time just download one picture at a time so it will be easier to move them around.) and it has gotten past my bed time so I will leave you with the last of the "wild" life I saw when I was leaving the camp to return home. I just had to stop and take pictures since they were almost close enough to reach out and pet. They were a little annoyed that I stopped my car, rolled down my window and took their picture. However, it was nice of them to all look into the camera and say cheese.



However, he was not really happy that I was disturbing his Sunday lunch and a chat up with the ladies. Look at the frown on his face!

Playing around

I have been working on a couple of quilts and ideas this week along with trying to still fight this "flu/cold" bug. I finally went back to the doctor today and got some more medicine. I am a little afraid to take it with all the warnings on it "may cause diarrhea", "may cause diarrhea up to one month after taking this medicine" (what?) "do not take within 24 hours of taking ....vitamins" Scary!!! I should have taken two doses by now, but since I take a daily vitamin, I haven't taken any. I am tempted to call my doctor back tomorrow and ask for something that doesn't make me sick in a different way than what I am now.

I have had my hair up in a ponytail for the last two days (except to sleep) and when I took it down tonight I shook it all out and felt wild. I wondered what I looked like. So, I picked up the camera that was right in front of me and took a picture . . .

LOL!!! I need some lipstick/lip coloring. They are extremely pale. However, I think it looks like an art picture. I like the eye peeking out. I may change my picture on facebook. My mother hates the picture I have now, I doubt she will like this one any better. Look for her comment below and see what she says.

I have been playing almost everyday for at least 15 minutes and this is what I have been working on since I last blogged. I am still in the middle of the intuition quilt project. I did one quadrant then took time off and stitched together some scrap strips into a rail fence quilt. Since it was all in the same pile on the table, I thought I might use that as one of the quadrants and put the other section back up on the wall. hmmm. Not sure about that yet. They will definitely swap sides if I do use it.

So, I started on another section. Pulling in some of the same fabrics and playing. Here is from two sessions at the sewing machine.

I found some more of those 9 patch blocks and put them on the board all together. I am going to go in there and move them all around here in a minute and break them up. I don't like the entire block, but may leave some of them together.


I put the intuition aside last night while I was watching the BCS game (TCU should have been playing in that game.) Personal comments aside, I started pulling fabric to make the Mon Ami from the le petite challenge for this month. I plan on working on this at our quilt-in starting Thursday. I decided to make it out of solids and I am happy with the choices I have made.


I was so excited that I just had to make one block just to get me started. Only 24 more to go. Now, off the computer and back to the intuition quilt.

Tree top done

here is the top for my le petite tree challenge. I need to lay it out and baste it. I plan on putting some beads on it to decorate it after it is all quilted. Stay tuned and for the final product, hopefully before Christmas.

I am currently working on some placemats. But for now, I need to take a nap so I can cheer on our Idalou Wildcats as they play in the state championship game for the first time ever!! Go Cats!!

Edit: OOPS! I forgot you could see the blocks behind the tree. That block is a cakestand block from our year-long-prepare-for-December-stir-fry-class with Debbie Caffrey. More posted later on that class/quilt

This is so . . . Random!

I am finished making blocks for this quilt, I think. At least I am at a stopping point and am happy with the blocks I have. I have just put them up on the wall as I went along and they are not placed like I want them in the quilt. Now comes the hard part. Making these random blocks fit together in a cohesive and pleasing way to create the top for a quilt. Easier said than done. Very few of these blocks are even close to being the same size. That means I am going to have to figure out how I want to piece them together. I do know that I want a lot of them to touch each other, but due to the sizes I am going to have to put spacer strips above, below, around and these blocks will not look like this anymore. I haven't decided exactly what I want to do, hence I am here blogging about it. Letting my mind get away from it for awhile so I can come up with something totally creative and fun. Speaking of which . . below are some of my owls I have made. They were just sitting in my studio waiting for me to take their picture. I have moved them onto the back of one of my quilts so they could say "cheese" for you.

Last summer I was seeing owls EVERYWHERE! So, after I got back home from conference I decided to make some owls. I know, crazy right? But I couldn't get them out of my head and I figured the only way to do that was to make one or two or 6 or so . . . . Sooooo sitting at the dining table one Sunday reading the newspaper I decided to make some patterns. I pulled the adds over and voila! Owls! I drew the pattern for the body, wings, and the V on the forehead. The rest is just randomly cut every time. (I think I may have later made a pattern for the stomach section and the beak, but I don't know where they are so I just cut them randomly.) I guess that is the word for the day, huh? Random. These guys totally are random. One of them has his wings stuffed and the other doesn't. One has his feet stuffed and the other doesn't. They both have rickety racky hair but like in real life, one has more than the other. I just do whatever I feel like at the time. These were a lot of fun to make and I even sold one at the Thanksgiving boutique at my friends church.