9patchnurse

Still not ready for an 'After' picture

2012-02-05T20:34:00.001-05:00

I had things pretty tidy for a short while. Then I decided that I needed to rearrange this shelving unit. Shelves are tricky because they can so easily get all cluttered looking. The next thing I knew I had this...............

big mess on my hands. Phooey!

Well, I will keep working on my space and keep you posted.

I did refold and organize my solids. Once again I'm sorry for the sideways picture. Ugh, when I edit I can't seem to get the rotation to stick. Aren't these pretty?

Check out my design wall! My red doggie has a border. Wheeee! And I quilted it this weekend too. This is going to a friend at work whose baby is due in April. I don't know if she's having a boy or a girl but I think this little 'Clifford' will do.

And remember that I told you my co-workers are in baby mode, I am busy quilting this quilt for another friend who is due in April.

I also made something incredibly cute this weekend but I can't share it yet. My Wild Thread friends are coming over next weekend for a birthday celebration. (it's my birthday!) We are having a birthday swap. I thought long and hard about what to make my swap buddy. I even started something last weekend, then a lightbulb went off. It's perfect and I promise I'll show you next weekend after I give it to her.

Have a great week everybody. I hope I stay productive in the sewing room. Right now I I have lots of ideas and inspiration waiting to keep me busy.

Monday Design wall.

2012-01-30T10:02:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Judy's book I showed in yesterday's post, I have gotten some serious border mojo going. Mr. Brown Doggie got his border yesterday and I am playing with some Red Doggie ideas. I pieced a backing together for this lil dude and hopefully he will be sandwiched and ready for quilting soon.

And now, I feel compelled to make reference to a comment that someone made on my last post.

Really Chris?! Really? Did you have to bring up the stepstool that went missing? The stepstool that practically sent me into a downward spiral questioning my sanity. No ma'am, I did not find it. I didn't look for it. As far as I'm concerned, IT NEVER EXISTED. I was so sure it would appear one day but it hasn't. That's all I have to say, and now I will go back to fighting the urge to peek into all the closets once again.

Enjoy your Monday people!

During!

2012-01-29T17:40:00.000-05:00

It's hard for me to clean and sort through my sewing room. I have trouble resisting the urge to stop and play. I stayed strong for a little while though before giving in to some sewing. Here is a peak at my day spent 'cleaning'.
I wouldn't have to clean up so often but I have a problem with surfaces. I cover them up. I pile, stack, shuffle, move, shove, rearrange and just generally collect stuff on any available surface. This is my Big Board ironing surface. When I began tidying up look what I found buried under some fabric.

My hammer. I used it about 2 weeks ago to help me get some screws out of the Big Board. I used to have it attached to 2 rolling carts with baskets. I really love being able to roll things around to where I need them but the big ironing surface took up so much room and, as you can see, it attracts clutter. I removed it from the carts and now it's propped behind the door where I can easily pull it out and put it across my cutting table when I need it.

Ok, moving on. Next up is my newest quilt book purchase. Judy Laquidara's book on pieced borders. I really wanted to stop and poke around in this book but I forced myself to tuck it away.

I did play (mess around) in this box for a bit. This is a box of thrift store shirts and also some 'closet cleanout' cotton clothing that I thought I might recycle.

I decided to keep these items out for a couple of specific projects that are in the pipeline.

Remember when Laura Ashley dresses were THE thing to have? I love this cotton fabric so I chopped up the dress. I am intrigued by the button bodice and think I may be able to use it. Can't tell you what for though because some people I know read this blog.

A co-worker asked me if I would make a pencil roll for her daughter. She also told me that her daughter's favorite color is lime green. I decided I could used some of this shirt, including the pocket.

Vintage tablecloths. Isn't that red and aqua one on the left just yummy? A few of these have been cut up a little. I made some pillows with them a few years ago. Back into storage these went to be saved for another day.

I got these pachaged of cloth napkins from Wisteria last year on sale. They have questions around the border for dinner table coversation.

One for adults.

Another for kids. I haven't decided what to do with them yet, so they will continue to marinate in the cupboard.

Oooooo goody, more vintage! I snagged this child's apron years ago. Maybe some day I'll have a grandaughter who will bake with me.

Cute little cat faces on the pockets.

I got these hand stitched beauties at a quilt show a few years ago. I'm saving them for just the right project. They have the most unbelievably tiny and perfect stitches.

I checked on the kitties. Chet appears to be guarding Rosie, and keeping her warm too.

Oy! This UFO is beginning to haunt me. Tiny apple cores, all hand stitched. I photographed it with my shoes for scale. It's a charm quilt, no fabric is used more than once, and I have at least 400 pieces. I think it may end up as a table topper in the dining room between meals. Some day.

Getting better don't you think?

Hmm, what's all this in the hallway? Forgive the sideways picture, I am getting used to using Picasa.

I felt that I deserved a reward for making progress so I stopped to whip up the pencil roll. I just happened to have some cute lime green batik.

Instead of just slots for pencils, I included a larger pocket on the right for cards or a notebook and on the left I attached a pocket from the thrift store shirt. It has a nice button placket. I didn't want to deliver the roll empty so I got some cute pencils with a little eraser and sharpener that I can hide in the pocket. And I found some adorable little cards at HomeGoods (my new favorite store).

Connect the dots, how cute is that?

Well, don't go far folks because I actually got some more sewing done this weekend. Every weekend should be a three day weekend don't you think? Of course I had to work 16 hours on Thursday to be off on Friday. bleh
Have a pleasant Sunday evening, I plan to.

BEFORES !

2012-01-27T11:52:00.001-05:00

BEFORE

(sorry this is sideways, I goofed)

BEFORE

I have the speakers hooked up to the computer and Pandora is playing classic rock! I have the day off and I am planning a blitz attack on this sewing room.

I'm gonna try not to disturb my babies who are snuggled together in the next room. Chet is the black and white in the back and Rosie is the tabby. Rosie is a manx cat, no tail. This picture is so deceptive because Chet is such a chubby guy and weighs at least twice as much as Rosie. She's a little feather, but boy can she hunt. Always leaving gifts on the doormat. Gifts from Rosie are carcasses; moles, mice, birds, and once a bunny. Dreadful I know but she is still my precious darling, lol.

Stay tuned for some 'AFTERS'.

btw - if you have never seen 'Tin Men' starring Danny DeVito and Richard Dreyfuss, you really should. If anything, you need to see the scene where the siding salesmen snooker the Baltimore housewife into wanting to be the 'after'. (it's not naughty I promise!) Watch the clip here on youtube. And, omg, the movie is worth it just to hear the exaggerated Baltimore accents (Baltimorese)

Welllll.......................Hey there!!

2012-01-25T21:21:00.001-05:00

Hey there! Hi there! Ho there! Guess what happened? I'll start at the beginning.... I had trouble posting pictures on my blog, I don't like to blog without pictures (Although I secretly think I could possibly maybe perhaps almost be entertaining enough without pictures. If I get enough nerve I'll tell you about the crazy dialogue I had going in my head the other day while lying face down getting accupuncture!), ummmmm where was I? Oh yeah, so not crazy bout posting without pictures, and week after week goes by without a post. I worry that I'll never post again and I slowly stop reading the 2 zillion blogs I follow. It's a downward spiral and the monologue that I have in my head talking to all of you (hahahah ALL of you! oh gosh, rofl, there are so many of you, hee hee hee!) is beginning to fizzle. So, 2012 comes along. I do have some resolutions and one of them is to B L O G. Are you wondering how I solved my terrible, dreadful, most miserable dilemma? I had a spaz attack last weekend and got all fussy with my husband. It goes like this, 'I take care of this, this, this, and this around here and all I really want you to do (besides take out the garbage and run to the store to get milk for my oatmeal and go out of your way on the way home from work to get me Noodles and Co. for dinner) is to handle the computer issues.' So my darling fiddled around, called Comcast, fiddled around some more, and changed the router cable. Tadah! Looks like I can now upload like a fool!

I didn't plan this post around any specific pictures. I was testing the success of the Great Cable Changeout and just snagged a variety of photos out of my library. Now I'm going to try to provide some entertainment to go with them. Even if you read it last year, go read this post. I was so excited to get my little nativity collection out this year. I put them up on the hutch and used some pretty paper as a backdrop to make them stand out. And I never took a picture, :( . I'm so sorry .

Remember my Clifford?

And his friend?

I think they are going to make their way to the finished pile soon. Right after I pop together some jazzy borders for them. Amazon just delivered this book to me. I believe one of my 2012 resolutions involves this book. Stay tuned.

If you remember these blocks I worked on a while ago, you might be interested to know that I finally sewed them together, on point! Oh yeah! I believe I will be using Judy's book to put a border on that one too.

Do you like these scrappy blocks? They are from my quilt cruise with Bonnie Hunter. I put them together too, not on point. The original pattern from Bonnie is one point but I ran out of steam and couldn't bring myself to make any more blocks. Apparently my husband must really like this quilt. He is always complimentary when I say, 'Hey Jon, come look what I made!', but this quilt elicited unsolicited (say that fast a few times) praise. The blocks were on my design wall for a while and every visit to the sewing room, Jon would say, 'Hey that's nice!'. I wonder which one of the 60 borders I'll choose for this one?

And here I am with a happy face! If I look disheveled it's either because I had just traipsed all over Old San Juan, Puerto Rico in 350% humidity or because I had a couple drinks at Senor Frog's. Does it really matter? I had a happy day with my Wild Thread buds.

And there you have it my faithful readers, I think I'm back!

Cruising with Quilters.

2011-12-05T20:52:00.000-05:00

If you have ever considered going on a quilting cruise....... DO IT!! If you are a quilter, then you know how much fun it is to hang around with other quilters, and what better place than on a cruise.

We were lucky that we were sailing out of Baltimore. Just a quick drive to the ship. I think that's the only reason I even considered going at all. I read about the cruise on Pat Sloans blog about a year and a half ago. It sounded like fun so I threw the idea out to my Wild Thread friends. I didn't expect anyone to bite but I tried anyway. I was shocked and thrilled at the responses and before we knew it, we were packing. We booked through Sew Many Places and were able to pay monthly for about 11 months so it was relatively painless. Go check out their trips, there are lots to choose from.

This is the small conference room that Bonnie's classes were in. We had Janome machines all set up and ready for us, including Bobbin Boy who helped with any problems and was always ready to wind a bobbin. See the stack of boxes in the back? The machines were for sale at a very good price. I need another machine like I need a hole in my head but quite a few ladies took machines home.

If you're wondering, we didn't spend too much of our time 'slaving away' at quilting and sewing. It was a 9 day cruise with 4 days at sea (2 days on the way down and 2 on the way back). We only had classes on the days at sea. We had a couple of hours of class in the morning and a couple in the afternoon. Pat and Bonnie each had a project. Pat's was pretty much entirely by hand so her classes were held in a beautiful bar with a beautiful view at the top of the ship.

The rest of our time spent having cruise fun. I have to say that all of the personnel on board were just awesome, so friendly and anxious to be of help. My roomate, Janet, and I had a wonderful suite attendant named Mr. Brown. He told us that if we ever needed anything, just stick our heads out in the hall and call his name. We adored him and I don't know if he ever took a break. We especially loved the fun towel sculptures he left us.

Our first stop was San Juan, Puerto Rico. My friends and I took a walking tour of Old San Juan. It was very nice but happened to be about 5 miles of walking in high humidity. My poor friend, Annette, got a gigantic blister on her foot. GIGANTIC!! Poor gal. After our long hike, we had some dinner and drinks at Senor Frog's restaurant. We had been there for a while before we looked up and saw this display on the ceiling, lol.

Inner tubes with bikini clad bums hanging up.

Another Mr. Brown masterpiece.

Check this out! There was some rough sea on the way home, stirred up by tropical storm Sean. Not only were we warned about it but we had to leave our last port three hours early to aim around the storm. As we left, we kept coming across crewmembers TYING things down! The big coffee urns, potted plants, even the frozen yoghurt machine. It was disconcerting but exciting too, lol. The 25 foot waves didn't pan out though, darn! There was quite a bit of rocking though. As one of my pals said, "It's nice when I go to take a step and the deck comes up to meet me." I was rocked to sleep every night and slept like a baby.

Here we are in the Schooner Bar. We met here before dinner most nights to enjoy the D.O.D. (Drink of the Day). Lots of tasty drinks.

Here we are in the dining room with our waiter, Maxisimo, and his assistant, Crismon. Their service was unbelievable. Wow! And omg the food was so darn delicious. Mmm mmm mmmmm!

And here is the gang at the farewell cocktail party with Bonnie and Pat. From the left is Sandy, Janet, Charlyn, myself, Annette, Diane, Bonnie, Chris, and Pat.

If you go here you can see Pat's photos from the cruise. She took a lot of great pictures and make sure you see the one of me at the ironing table! Go here for one of Bonnie's posts about the cruise. She took a picture of the same potted plant that I did, lol.

I started my Christmas decorating today. I was feeling very unprepared for the holidays this past weekend so last night I spent some time online doing some shopping and we got the decorations out of the basement. Every day this week after work, I plan to work on the decorating. We have some holiday festivities coming up as well as my daughter's birthday this weekend. It's time to get cracking and get my holiday act together. Wish me luck. I have some little gifts I made that I'll show next time. G'nite!

I'm alive!!

2011-12-04T12:40:00.001-05:00

Yup, I am alive, and if I were kicking I would be kicking my laptop, or the wall, or my internet bill or............................! I haven't solved my problem uploading pictures yet. My husband spent some time with my laptop and improved the situation but the process is slooooooooow. I'm sure I should just go visit the Geek Squad at the local Best Buy but I bet they are crazy busy this time of year.

Anyway, enough whining. I want to thank anyone who is still visiting this little blog which hasn't been very active.

I have had a fun Autumn. I went on my first cruise!! And it was with a group of my Wild Thread girlfriends AND Pat Sloan and Bonnie Hunter.

The picture up there is of a table display when we went aboard the ship. Crazy carved fruit. Lemme tell you, I never wanted to go on a cruise and I guess only quilting could get me there. But I think I have been converted. Kinda like when I said I would never live with a cat, and now we have four (and wouldn't want to be without one)! I can't wait to go again, I'm trying to talk my husband into one.

This post was just a test, I really have to go get the holiday decorations out of the basement. I promise a better post later today or tomorrow, and I will show you some of our cruise fun! Ta ta.

Procrastination, indecision and fighting with the server, bleh.

2011-10-21T12:18:00.000-04:00

I managed to get one photo uploaded. This is a little mini (12 by 12) that I made for one of my Wild Thread friends. We had a secret swap for the fall. I love these swaps because I get to play any way I want. I had lots of ideas but nothing stuck until about 2 days before 'swap day'. Yeah, if you're wondering, I did a lot of last minute cramming all through college. Anyway, I saw a little tree design like this in Aimee Ray's book, Doodle Stitching. I combined some hand embroidery with machine applique and voila! Fall folliage for Chris.

Soooo, I have some other last minute projects happening. And, well, I haven't lifted a finger. Nope. Nuthin happnin here except a lot of daydreaming and half baked ponderings. I call my daughter the Queen of Procrastination and now I find myself wondering if I have anything to do with that. No! It can't be! That is a guilty path I can NOT go down. I am going to put that whole thread right out of my mind.

Back to my projects. I have two groups, the Wild Threads and the Modern Quilt Guild, who are beginning modern block swaps. I am not super fond of block swaps (only because I have a basket of blocks from previous swaps that I haven't done anything with). However, I am giving it another go, or two. Today is Friday, on Sunday I meet with the Wild Threads and I am supposed to have two boxes (kits) made up with fabric and directions for my chosen block. But I can't decide on a block. (I also accuse my daughter regularly of extreme indecision. What the hee haw is going on here? maybe she rubbed off on me. Can I blame her? please?) Oy! Oy! I need a block, an awesome fantastic block.

Actually, I need two block designs. The swap with the MQG requires me to pick a block design and then make it in the recipients color choices. Four of those are due in December so I figure I have plenty of time. Tomorrow is another day. Right Scarlet?

I apologize for such shabby posting. When I try to upload photos, it keeps saying 'connection lost to server'. I think it is some kind of issue I am having with blogger but I really don't know. I am going to hit the blogger forums and fish for help there. If you have any tips, feel free to share. Thanks.

I feel like I need to whisper................

2011-10-12T00:16:00.000-04:00

So I went on retreat last weekend. (It was awesome!) While I was gone, my fantastic husband took a look at my computer and messed around with it a bit. I don't know what he did but I finally got the nerve to try to upload some pictures. It worked. Shhhhhh. I really, really hope I am back in business. Meanwhile, I don't have any new pictures tonight so I found some old ones.

I just love going on retreat. It's loads of fun hanging with my quilty buddies. There is always lots of joking and carrying on, not to mention all the goodies we eat. AND, I always come home with a great sense of accomplishment. Packing for retreat is a true art. I get a little better at it every time. It's important not to run out of things to work on. It's also important not to take too much stuff, you don't want to jump around too much. I also like to trap myself into finishing stalled projects, hee hee. That's what I did this time. I had two quilts that were sandwiched and basted weeks ago. I took both of them and forced myself to get cracking on the quilting.

First I got this one done, I kept it simple with a nice meander.

Then I forced myself to work on this quilt. I put this top together at my last retreat. I don't have any specific plans for this quilt so it stalled. I decided to work on my 'feather' quilting. Whew! I ended up quilting feather circles in 21 of these squares, every other one. And, omg, my neck and shoulders were so tight and sore, I needed to take a break. I stopped and made a cute little zipper bag for my new Nook. I then quilted all of the sashing. My plan is to quilt feathers in the outer border and 'something' in the other blocks. I may feather them too, just not sure yet.

I also made 3 luggage tags. I didn't use a pattern, just played around. They aren't great but I learned a few things and might try again. And, Sunday morning I used my Accuquilt Go and whipped up a quick Drunkard's Path baby quilt.

Yay for retreat! We had lots of fun and now I am trying to detox from the chocolate and coffee and catch up on some sleep.

I promise some new pictures by this weekend and I have some news to spill that I will share.

Ta ta friends!

Ack!!! Fail!

2011-09-25T21:02:00.002-04:00

I am still struggling with posting photos. If anyone out there has any insight, please feel free to share. When I try to upload a picture, it takes forever and after a while, it usually says something about losing network connection. I coughed up the five bucks for more storage to no avail, waaah! So discouraging. I did manage to get a few photos loaded while I watched the Ravens win today. It's possible that the potent sangria that I mixed up earlier gave me some patience, heh heh.

Here is a peek of the top I made when I declared war on my stash. It's about twin size. I have the backing picked out but no sandwich made yet. I really hope to get it done soon so I can send it to Basics in New York. The light side of the squares is a funny cat print that I have had for a while. I used it on the back of a quilt for my daughter a long time ago. I think I'm having a new crush on half square triangles.

This is what I have really wanted to show you for a couple weeks now. Say hello to Skippy. I checked this book out of the local library and it had this pattern in it. So doggone cute. The original pattern did not have the drops of water, that was my genius addition. I just felt that all the open space needed something so I used the feather die from my Accuquilt Go and made a bunch of drips. Lots of fun.

This was the pattern from the book. I took it to Staples and had it enlarged, A LOT. Then I made some freezer paper templates. I did cut the fabric pieces with a seam allowance so I could turn the edges under and then I topstitched the pieces into place. It worked very well.

Here is Skippy before he started playing with the water.

I have some fabrics picked out to make a couple more of these. I will have a nice little stash of baby quilts soon. It will be nice to know they are there and not have to put other projects on hold every time someone I know gets preggers. There is already another pregnancy at work, oy!

Yesterday I had a little road trip with some of my Wild Thread friends. We went to two awesome quilt shops in Pennsylvania. OMG! I hope I don't offend anyone when I tell you that we all agreed that we enjoyed 'fabric orgasms' yesterday. Oh dear, I can't believe I wrote that but we had such a good time and came home with so much fantastic fabric. Thanks to my eagle eyed friend, Chris, I now have some of Aneela Hooey's Little Apples fabric. One of the shops just had its building sold so they are having a liquidation sale, 25% off the already good prices. Yee haw! And the other store had

33, 000 bolts. So if you were thinking about doubting the big fabric O., think again. I found out on the way home that I didn't even see the UPSTAIRS of the second store. Probably a good thing. It is so much fun to get together with the girls, boy does the conversation go all over. Failing vision and stray whiskers on our chins were mentioned as well as some brainstorming for handmade holiday gifts. I am putting together a list of ideas for gifts I can make for my friends. If you have any ideas that have been hits with your friends, please let me know. I know it's not even october, but guess what? I was at Walmart today and they had Christmas trees and lights out for sale already. Sheesh!

I hope you had a good weekend and, seriously, if you have any suggestions for my uploading issues, please share. Thank you!

Not quite.

2011-09-18T12:27:00.001-04:00

How do you like my little setup? I got this swing for mother's day and I am loving it. I complained a little bit about missing it when it rained for days. It's wide enough to stretch out completely with a book, AND the back actually folds down flat if anyone is interested in an afternoon snooze. Who could that be?

Anyway, yesterday I finally got my act together and ordered up some more Picasa storage to solve my blogging problem. They said it might take up to 24 hours to go through and they weren't fooling. I brought my computer and some books out to the swing. Got Pandora radio playing, opened blogger and then........... it took 5 minutes, FIVE!, to get that picture to upload. So forgive me for skipping the other pictures I was going to show you. Maybe tomorrow. Today, I give up on my plan for blogging.

Now I'm going to stretch out, put my head on a pillow or two (I made these from vintage tablecloths) and read my book until 1pm when the Ravens play the Titans. If you didn't hear, the Ravens are on fire so far this year. They gave the Steelers such a whuppin last week, I've been grinning for a week. Sorry Steeler's fans. (not really)

Just a quickie post!

2011-09-12T21:53:00.000-04:00

Here are some pics of the two quilts I cut out during the hurricane when I didn't have any power. The pattern is from Boo Davis' book that I linked to in the last post. I don't know why blogger let me upload these two photos but I'm not arguing. Are these doggies cute or what? I just rummaged around in my stash for the fabrics and wow. Who knew I had so many browns? I didn't.

This design is a little addictive. I really want to try different color combinations. I couldn't resist making a red 'Clifford' doggie with a fun aqua background.

I am still working on getting more storage space so I can get back in business with my posts. My latest problem is that I can't seem to get back to the page that I can order the storage space from. Yeesh! It popped up before when I was trying to upload my photos so I keep trying which is very time consuming. And then a couple photos went through! Nutty!

Anyway, thanks to all of you for being patient. I have kept busy in the sewing room and really do have things to show. This past weekend I declared war on my stash. I have a lot of fabrics that just aren't doing it for me anymore and I want to buy newer and brighter fabrics. To make room, I decided to just USE SOME UP. I pulled out a couple piles of fat quarters and ironed them and chopped them up. I cut them into 10 inch squares and then made a bunch of half square triangles. Charity quilts coming up people! I will definitely send one to the Basics Quilt Gather. Victoria and Pat Sloan are trying to get a few hundred quilts together this fall. How's your stash doing? Need to make room for new stuff? Bang out a quick and easy quilt and get a warm fuzzy at the same time by donating to a cause.

G'nite!

What's a gal to do?

2011-09-04T20:04:00.000-04:00

Well!!! I am a bit bugged. I have been trying for days and days to publish a post with some super cute photos but I can't get the photos to upload. First it works very slowly then says 'network connection is lost'. Same thing for days and I have been perilously close to having a potty mouth over it. Today I got a window message that said I have run out of storage space with Picasa. More storage space is available for purchase and is cheap. Has this happened to anyone? Did you buy more storage? Did that fix the problem? How much storage does a blogger need? I have gotten a ton of free enjoyment, entertainment and inspiration from the blogging world so I can't complain about a $5 charge for 20 GB.
    What is a quilter to do without power?  For example when a hurricane blows through and leaves you without power for 3 days. And don't even think about feeling sorry for us because 3 days is a record. We have never gotten power back that fast. And even better, this time we were able, for the first time, to power our water pump with our generator. Woo hoo! Homes with wells need to power their water pumps to get water. I can live without electricity for way longer than I can cope without water. We breezed through  Irene's aftermath. And can I say that there is so much more time in the day without the distraction of the computer or TV. I read 4 books for one thing. And what went on in the sewing room? Well, since I expected to be without power, I spent Saturday finishing two quilt backs. So first off, I got 2 quilts sandwiched and basted and ready for quilting. Then I decided to cut up fabric for some new quilts. I actually made a list of things to do that included 'cut out 3 quilts'. I got two done and as soon as the power was back, I zipped them right together. Lordy, they are cute!!
     When I went to New York recently, my friend and I had a little time to kill and popped into a Borders bookstore that was having a liquidation sale. I found several books that I was interested in. Since we had a bunch of walking around to do and didn't want to have to carry the books around, we decided to come back later on our way to the bus when we were leaving and had our rolling suitcases. Oops, we didn't make it back and of course I REALLY wanted one of the books, a great quilt book by Boo Davis, Dare to be Square Quilting. Well, I could not remember the author or the name of the book but I thought I might recognize the cover. Mostly, I just remembered a specific quilt in the book that I HAD to make. I headed to Amazon and searched under rew release quilting books. Then I scrolled through page after page until, ta dah! I found it. With no power, I picked fabrics and cut out all the pieces for 2 tops in that design I fell in love with. As soon as I solve my photo upload issue, I'll share. And I'll have more to show too because I got the book, Quilts, Baby by Linda Kopp at the library and I am making multiples of one of the designs in that book too. My sewing room was tidy briefly but now there is fabric and freezer paper patterns everywhere.
     I also made some silly things with Mod Podge. It's sad how much trash we generate at the hospital. I started recycling something from work. Completely dopey but vaguely useful and I had fun. Bet you're really itching for those photos aren't you?
     If you have any insight on the photo storage issue, puh leeze share it with me. Thank you!

Storm's a'comin Pa!!

2011-08-27T14:07:00.001-04:00

Warning: this post might be a little whiny in spots. Sorry, sometimes that's just how I roll.

I guess Irene is heading our way. We don't live on the coast thank goodness but we have issues that come up with heavy rainstorms. Our driveway is one. Do you remember learning about erosion in elementary school? Well, if you want, just send your kids over here to see a live demonstration of erosion. This is what our drive looks like now, thanks to just a couple of heavy rains in the last couple weeks. Imagine what will happen if we really get slammed with Irene. I am a lousy photographer because this does not do it justice.

This is the Grand Canyon of Maryland. Btw, did you know there is a 'Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania'? There is and if you take a road trip there, make sure you also check out Clyde Peeling's Reptile Land. Kids love it.

Ok, back on topic. The deepest parts of this crevasse are probably more than a foot deep. Definitely not friendly to tires. And we are a family of a few small cars. It's a challenge to get up this ~~hell~~ hill without bending an axle.

As you can see, there are trees on one side and a fence on the other. Makes it tricky to go around the bad spots.

I have an awesome big brother who very kindly pops over every now and then with his skidloader and pushes all the gravel back where it belongs and we are happy for a couple months before................

This is the drive above the bad part. I think this is part of the problem because of all the runnoff that picks of speed on this straightaway before hitting the hill. Our plan is a couple of speed bumps here to slow the water down and even divert it. Until we get that done, we are going to use some sandbags. My sister-in-law suggested that yesterday and we are ready to give it a try. Mr. 9patch stocked up on some bags of sand yesterday. Cross your fingers for us.

Today while we wait for Irene, I am getting all the laundry done. If there is a widespread power outage around here, we are always the last to get power back on. No power equals no water when you live in the sticks and have a well. In the last 10 years we have twice lost power for days, once for 6 days and once for 4. Honestly folks, I can tolerate just about anything as long as I can have a cup of coffee and a shower in the morning. One time when we lost power, I got in the car and drove 2 miles to a convenience store to find out that they had no power either. So I turned around and went 4 miles the other way to a Burger King - no power there either. Five more miles to a McDonalds where I got to wait in line and listen to city folks complain about not having power for FOUR whole hours. Yes, I confess I was a little bitter.

We have a generator now and we have it set up to plug into the house so we can have the basics like the water pump and a refrigerator and a light or two. We haven't used it that way yet so I sure hope it works. The gas cans are lined up next to the generator, our cell phones, MP3 players, and computers are charged, candles and lighters are at the ready. Bring it on!!

What do you do to get ready for a big storm?

Kitty Cocktails

2011-08-24T00:06:00.000-04:00

There's a little bit of excitement down on the purple couch. Look at them, putting their feet on the furniture and acting silly. Wanna know what has them worked up?

It must have something to do with the fact that I decided to cut into a certain fabric and start a new quilt.

Kitty cocktails! The Purple Couch Cats (and elephant) really like this fabric.

It makes them want to have a party.

When I went to New York recently and bought this fabric at City Quilter, my friend and I were inspired by a quilt they had on the wall. It was the perfect quilt for this fabric and any other that has a large fun print. Here is the process that I used to make a quilt in a similar style.

First, I got out some graph paper and made an outline for the quilt.

Second, I eyeballed it and outlined 3 random large squares. These will be the large blocks from the cocktail fabric.

Check this out! I was feeling artistic.

Next, I just drew lines to make random blocks of different sizes.

I used a pencil so I could make changes until it looked acceptable to me.

Ta dah! I decided this was worth keeping.

Now comes the math. I decided that each square on the graph would equal one and a half inches. Block by block I counted squares and determined the size of the block. Then I added one half inch to the length and width to get the sizes to cut.

I raided my stash for fabrics that coordinated with my focus blocks and I cut the blocks. It was RANDOM!

I pinned my little master pattern up and put it all together on the design wall. I scribbled and scratched all over the pattern as I cut the blocks to make sure I got all of them done.

And here it is. Hmm? Something isn't quite right. Oops, I reviewed the master and found a mistake. The top focus block is supposed to be square, lol. Easy fix.

We had an earthquake here on the east coast today. Craziness! I woke up to glorious weather. I announced to my son and my mother that I am going to move. That's right, as soon as I find a magical land where the weather is like this every single day, I'm out of here! I was in the sewing room putting this top together, the windows were open, the breeze was coming in, and I had music on. Outside I could hear a chainsaw nearby, somebody working. And then............everything started shaking like crazy. At first I thought it was a tree hitting the ground (from the chainsaw), but the shaking got worse so I thought a big tree must have hit the house. But goodness, the floor was rolling back and forth and at the same time it sounded like something gigantic was clamoring across the roof. My son was outside in the gazebo by the pool. He first thought the gazebo was uneven, like a chair with a short leg, because it was rocking. Then he saw the pool and the water was surging back and forth. No aftershocks so far. Let's hope this is the last of the excitement, I am happy to keep it an isolated incident to tell my grandchildren about.

Anyway, I finished sewing this top together while watching CNN and getting the scoop. If you have ever shied away from Y seams, don't. No big deal. See!

I have to confess that I had planned to frame each of the focus blocks with skinny strips of a contrasting fabric but I completely forgot. Oh well.

Don't worry, I have plans to put some borders on to jazz this up a little. As soon as I decide on fabric and design. Ugh, me and borders, a difficult relationship.

Now, since I haven't posted in a while, I want to show you that I did get another quilt done. Another baby quilt with tumbler blocks. I did some straight line quilting in the body of it but free motioned on the border.

Can you see where I stitched Baby Boy? This will probably be for a co-worker. Her shower is next month and she's having a boy. No sooner do I finish one then it's headed out the door. Sigh, so hard to get ahead with the finishes but I'm still going to try.

A finish and fabrics.

2011-08-11T00:26:00.000-04:00

I finally finished the quilt I made for the Modern Quilt Guild Kaufman kona cotton challenge. The Baltimore Modern Quilt Guild set minimal guidelines, we had to use at least some of each charm square and we could only use solids for the projects. I happened to have another charm pack so I used both and I also used my scraps in the border. Let's not revisit the borders ok. I already posted about that mess, bleh.

Since this quilt is baby sized, I didn't want to quilt it too densely, I want it to be soft. I decided to just stitch gentle waves across the top. I just stitched pairs of lines and did it without any plan. And I like it!!

You can see it a little better on the back. I used a multi-colored variegated thread.

Now that I've been home for several days, the Purple Couch Gang were getting impatient to see the fabrics I brought home with me. They were getting downright surly so we held a little photo shoot today. You might think this delicious goldy yellow is dots but look close, they are shaped like little teardrops. Cute!

Something has happened to me and I'm going to blame it on the hoedown fabric. I found myself unable to resist these nutty novelty fabrics. It's partly the words and phrases and partly because every time I look I see something new. Chris and I saw a quilt sample at the City Quilter that's a perfect design for fabrics like this. I'll let you know when I give it a try. This fabric is for 'damsels' on picking a husband.

Here's a nutty Halloween type print called Ghastlies. It's hilarious, you really have to keep looking at every inch of it.

I grew up reading The Adams Family books that my grandmother always had out. Seriously, look at that little girl's face and tell me those eyes don't scream Adam's Family to you.

Kitty cocktails. 'nuff said.

And here is a pile of goodies. There was a silent auction at the Saturday event at FIT and I won a colorful fat quarter stack. Thirty nine FQ's AND two half yard panels!! Yeehaw!

The panels look like this, pictures from fairy tales.

And there are several of this coordinating print with different background colors. Won't these come in handy for another batch of baby quilts.

And check this out - two prints in one FQ. I have 3 of these.

Between 3 and 6 of each of these. A fun ticket print, something that looks like pez, argyle (love that!), and a wild floral.

A more sedate floral, kind of a retro dot, and some shirting prints in a few different colors.

AND......... there's even more to show off. Both of the events we went to had goodie bags for us. Among other fun things, they had a charm pack with 2 coordinating fat quarters packaged up with a pattern. I got the same fabrics both days which thrilled me. THEN, my awesome friend Chris got one with the same fabric and gave it to me. I said, "Oh no, I can't." But she insisted, said it was her thank you for the weekend. So I said, "Ooooooh, okay."

As we sat at FIT waiting for Jay and Marianne to hit the runway, I opened up my charms and started looking through the fabrics. Oh my goodness, check out the pale greens! I was going on about how much I loved those greens and another lady sitting there heard me. She showed me that she got two of the greens for her fat quarters, and asked if I wanted to make a trade. Wellllll yeah!! So I let her pick from my FQ pairs and she gave me these lovelies. The green is a lot better in person. I just couldn't get a good representation. And one of the coolest things is that many of these fabrics have words and letters on them! I'm in heaven.

I hope I didn't make you too jealous. I will now go back to my regular blogging and stop gushing about my adventures. If it makes anyone feel better, I still haven't found that durn stepstool. Grrrrr.

Saturday afternoon at the Fashion Institute of Technology

2011-08-08T22:53:00.000-04:00

The second part of my NYC adventure was the afternoon event at F.I.T. What a great presentation of quilt personalities. We got to hear Mary Fons (daughter of Marianne) talk about how she fought against becoming a quilter until she hit age thirty. She could be a successful stand up comedienne. She now has an online show called Quilty which is on QNN TV, an online network. She is wildly entertaining and I can't wait to check out her show.

We got to enjoy seeing and hearing Mary and Marianne together. A great pair!

Next up was Mark Lipinski. He is a HOOT!! If you ever get a chance to hear him speak, do it.

And Jay McCarroll! You already know I have a case of hero worship when it comes to Jay. Honest, I was rooting for him from the beginning of his season on Project Runway. And when he showed his final clothing line and there was a cool quilted coat with quilt patches on it, I knew he had to win.

Jay was interviewed by Mark for the SOS initiative of the Alliance of American Quilts. A very fun and entertaining interview.

We also got a wonderful sneak peak at Jay's newest clothing line. I really love it, so colorful and patchworky. Those little monochromatic dresses were adorable and just look at the gorgeous skirt in green silks that Victoria has on.

Photography is not my strength but that skirt is so darn beautiful and it really suited Victoria. It was all silky and had great big pockets!

And then.............. I got to have a few minutes with Mark Lipinsky and Jodie Davis! I really didn't have a chance to get nervous, not with that pair. They really put me at ease and the interview was over before I knew it. Right here, Jodie is laughing because Mark asked me if I ever quilt in the nude. I told him that it was more likely that I would be swimming in the nude, lol.

I got a chance to talk about Olivia's summer list and how fun it was to make letters and words.

I was supposed to present a 'touchstone' quilt of mine and hopefully I got that across. I'm not sure but at any rate, we (I) had fun. Afterwards my hands were shaking for about half an hour.

There was a silent auction to benefit the Alliance. Tomorrow I'll show you the fat quarter stack I 'won' and the other goodies that came home with me. My sewing mojo is going to have lots to play with this fall. G'nite!

Starstruck!!

2011-08-07T15:16:00.000-04:00

Wow! I do NOT know where to start. I just had a crazy, fun, whirlwind two days in New York City. Weeks ago I read about some events in New York to benefit the Alliance for American Quilts and I was intrigued. I couldn't resist a chance to spend an evening at Victoria Findlay-Wolfe's loft listening to a panel of famous quilters talk about modern quilting moderated by Jackie Kunkel.

And more fun the next day at the Fashion Institute of Technology. There is almost no end to the name dropping I could do. I originally bought tickets for myself and my daughter because I knew she (not a quilter) would love to see (maybe meet) Jay McCarroll. Sadly, Olivia has been laid low by mononucleosis so I was lucky enough to be joined by a great quilty pal of mine, Chris. We had a blast and this was the view from our hotel room. I can't tell you how beautiful this was at night all lit up.

Friday night we had fun at Victoria's. I was so excited to see her 2009 Kitchen Sink quilt in person. Victoria is beautiful and gracious as well as incredibly creative and talented. She is so sweet and there is no excuse for how tongue-tied I get when I'm around her. Sometimes I just get a little shy (hard to believe, right?). So, let me tell you one of my little adventures with Chris. The night before I left, I carefully wrote down all of the addresses we would need and packed them with my NYC maps. We took the Megabus to the city, dropped our bags at the hotel and then snagged some lunch and trotted over to the City Quilter. (more on that shopping trip later, I have lots of goodies to show). We checked into our room and took a little rest before getting ready for the evening. As we headed for the loft, Chris asked me if I was sure of the time. Uh, yeah, it's 6 to 10pm. Well, I was sure until she asked. So I pulled out my little green notebook with the addresses to check. No times written, bleh. Let me add that Chris and I must be the only girls left on the planet without internet access from our phones. No iPad either and I didn't take my laptop for the trip either. Soooo, I said I was pretty sure but that I hate hate hate being too early or the first person somewhere. Guess where this is going? We found the address, got buzzed into the lobby, and hopped into the elevator. As it headed up we saw a little post-it about the event with the times on it, 7 to 10 pm. SEVEN! Yikes! Then the elevator door opened and we were looking right into the loft. I spazzed out, shrank against the wall desparately pushing the button to go back down, lol. No one saw us (unless there is a camera to let them know who they are buzzing in) and we took off around the corner. We killed time with a few drinks then headed back at a more appropriate time. The drinks gave me the nerve to fess up to Victoria that it was us who 'buzzed, spazzed, and ran'. Thank goodness she is better behaved than the New York Housewives. Can you imagine what the Countess would have had to say to me? 'Dahling, a lady with class simply does NOT spaz.'

I do NOT like to dress up. My idea of a perfect life would be jeans every single day, with a PJ day here and there. Anyway, I didn't know what I was wearing until the last minute and I was a little nervous about it. At the last minute I had thrown this dress into my suitcase. I bought it for my daughter a few years ago but she never wore it, it even still had the tags on. Chris loved it and encouraged me to wear it so I did. Late in the evening, I found myself sitting just a few feet away from Jay McCarroll. Eeeeeee, I was so excited and I worked up my nerve to ask him for a picture. He said sure but I had to get in it too. Well, gee Jay, twist my arm. Chris got this picture for me and as I was going back to me seat, Jay said, 'I like your dress.' I'm not kidding people, I do not lie. Jay McCarroll, winner of the first season of Project Runway, a FASHION design contest full of famous fashion people, liked MY dress. Me, who hates to get dressed up and is insecure when I do, got it right for an evening in the Fashion District in New York City. Please............pinch me. Jay really is a great guy, funny and not full of himself. I wish I had had my wits about me enough to tell him how much I like his fabric lines, all of them. I even had some Habitat fabric and a pigma pen so I could get him to sign it. But, again I spazzed, and I completely forgot. waah. I have some pictures of his newest fashion line, it's awesome. I share tomorrow, promise.

I promise, there is much much more to share about my weekend. Lots more pictures, excitement, and names to drop.

We only took one cab ride, on the way to the loft on Friday evening, I was wearing prissy shoes (which you can see in the above picture that I took off when I got there). Below is what happened when I walked back to the hotel in my prissy shoes.

Poor little tootsie.

Here is a cutie for you!

2011-07-26T15:14:00.000-04:00

I just finished this baby quilt for a friend who is having her second baby. Although I like surprises, it sure is fun to know the sex AND the name of a baby when making a quilt. Yes, this little quilty is quite orange with a dash of red. The outer border is kona cotton in Papaya. I love that color!
And I had some more fun with pieced letters using Tonya Ricucci's book Wordplay.
So much fun putting a name into the quilt!

After I got the letters all pieced together, it looked like it said 'cotton' because the crossbar on the T was touching the L. It was bothering me and some friends that I consulted so I unpicked some center seams and pieced in a tiny white strip. Aaaaah, much better. The applique patterns are from a Don't Look Now pattern called Peak Hour. You must check it out. I mean it, go there now. I'll wait.............

I used the leftovers to piece the back.

My inspiration fabric. A Kokka print I got when I went to New York City to see the Red and White quilt exhibit. It came in a bundle with most of the other fabrics in the quilt.

I spent all day saturday at a sewing marathon with some friends. And thank goodness for that because we are having a mega heat wave here and our air conditioner breathed its last cool breath. No fooling peeps, it was 91 degrees in my sewing room and I'm pretty sure the humidity was 112%!! Thank goodness we are blessed with a swimming pool. I may have perished Friday without it. By the way, if you have never been skinny dipping, you really should put it on your bucket list. You can draw your own conclusions about what made me mention that. All I'm saying is that sometimes it's just too darn hot to drag a suit on, you just have to strip and JUMP. (the closest neighbors we have are family and none of them can see our pool from their houses. In case you were worried.)

So I have a wonderful friend, Chris. A true sweetie, generous and kind to all. Would you just LOOK at what she got me! For no reason at all except that it made her think of me. She was dead on when she thought I would like this cool retro print. It's called 'Hoe down' and I am nuts about it. Right now, I just have it pinned on my design wall like a piece of art. It's a generous 2 yard piece and I am going to have to make something very cool out of it.

I went straight to my stash and pulled out these fat quarters that I knew I had. Aren't they perfect? And I hope you're impressed because I plucked them right off the shelf. I've had them for at least 4 years. Let that be a lesson to anyone who wonders about quilters and their stash. Yessiree, we absolutely DO know what we have. And sometimes we can find it, lol. If you are wondering, I still haven't found the step stool. We've decided the only way to find it is to buy a new one and I just don't know if I want to do that.

Also, a priority mail envelope is stuffed and on its way to Dortha in Alabama. Enjoy!

Can you stomach a final dose of Olivia's quilt?

2011-07-17T21:56:00.001-04:00

I hope so because it is now finished, quilted, bound, and washed and dried. The weather is gorgeous this weekend so I took it outside and dragged it around the yard trying to get a good picture. Not very easy. For this shot I was standing on a very VERY rickety and weathered wooden chair. My husband was inside honking on his saxophone so I rapped on the window and asked for some help.

I got my husband to hold the quilt as high as he could. I really like the side borders I put on it.

And here's the back. I have some tie-dye like panels that I used because my daughter and her friends are INSANE about tie-dying. I like the effect of the sun shining through the borders in this picture. It's hard to see the quilting here. I did all straight line quilting, it took a long time.

I divided the quilt into 4 quadrants, this is the center. Then I quilted one quad at a time.

I know it's hard to see but I just stitched two lines with a 90 degree angle in the center.

So this quilt is going on an exciting field trip! I bought tickets for my daughter and I to go to New York City for Quilters take Manhattan. This weekend of events benefits the Alliance for American Quilts. First we are going to the Friday evening event at Victoria's (of Bumblebeans) loft and then the Saturday afternoon program at the F.I.T with Marianne Fons and Jay McCarroll the Project Runway winner. After I bought the tickets, I got an email from Jodie Davis, co-host of an internet TV show, Quilt out Loud. She said my name had been chosen at random to be interviewed briefly for their show. Was I interested? Oy! How exciting, and scary! I went back and forth over it then thought 'Oh what the heck, DO it!' I said yes and Jodie said to bring a quilt that means something to me. I think this quilt fills the bill. It's an easy and fun story to tell. Now I just have to worry about losing a few pounds and what to wear. Oh gosh, I wish I could get a quick facelift, lol. Check out those links and think about going if you can. I can't wait to see Victoria's loft and I am a HUGE Project Runway fan so meeting Jay is HUGE. I love his fabric lines. I don't have any but maybe I should get some so I can have him sign it.

Looky what I found out front today! I have been waiting for this Clematis to bloom since Mother's day. Finally!

I hope everyone is having weather as nice as ours. G'nite!

My buttons have been PUSHED!!!!!!!

2011-07-15T12:55:00.000-04:00

Want a dose of me 'Keeping it Real'? If you do, read on.

What pushes your buttons? I have to admit that lots of things can irritate me, but one of the biggest is losing something. I really try to keep track of my things. You won't find me running around looking for car keys ~~or my cell phone~~ well, occasionally I have to call my cell to find it. Anyway, I get really irritated when I have to search all over for something. This past week I lost a folding step stool somewhere in the house. That's right, you heard me. I have looked EH VA REE WHERE! How could I lose something that big? Seriously, I can't figure it out. I just got it a month or so ago when the new super duper Walmart opened near us. AND, I remember trying to put it in the broom closet but it wouldn't fit so I put it somewhere else. For days now, every time I walk into a room I spend a few minutes eyeing all the places I may have stashed the step. There are

two closets upstairs that are pretty crowded and I have opened their doors and peaked in all the corners without success. I know I didn't stuff the step stool in the back of one of those closets but honestly it is no where else. I may have to empty them out......ugh! Every day when I get home from work, I ask my husband if he has found it. He hasn't and I don't think he's looking any more either. Meanwhile, I am so irritated about it that I can't STOP looking, even to the point of a couple tears last weekend which made me even more irritated.

And there's more. I finally quilted my daughters quilt (the SSP, the Wordplay quilt with her funny list). I used all straight line quilting in a geometric design (I'll get a good picture this weekend and post it). First, I used blue painter's tape to mark it. That was time consuming and a pain because the quilt is big and the tape kept coming loose when I bunched the quilt. So then I drew chalk lines. That worked fine but was still time consuming. If you remember, I'm lazy so I really wanted a simpler way. Oh yeah! How about using my seam guide? The one that came with my walking foot. Soooooooo, where was it? Again I started looking all over. I could picture the Bernina box it came in. After searching for quite some time, all I found was the seam guide for my Brother sewing machine. Check out these pictures of how I 'jerry rigged' it onto my Bernina. Masking tape was involved.

Can you see how high the seam guide is? Ridiculous! Why didn't I just use the Brother sewing machine? I don't know, I really don't. I was bugged that I couldn't find the right guide, so I decided to go looking again, and I poked around in one of those 'crowded' closets.

Ta-dah!! I found it. In the box I could 'see' in my head the whole time.

With all the parts all neat and tidy inside.

See what I mean about having to organize my sewing room? Since my daughter moved out, I have now put stuff into her closet and I am more unorganized than ever. More is not necessarily better. Such as more space. I have proven my theory that we just 'expand' to fit our space. Move to a bigger house and you accumulate more stuff/junk. And then you can't find things, like a bleeping step stool!

Check out this little mess.

I was reading Marlene's blog and she needed scraps of bright fabrics. I offered her some and I went poking around my scraps. Eeks! I need to get rid of these! Anybody want some? I have another priority mailer that I can stuff full for somebody. I am so sorry but it has to be in the US for the postage to be reasonable. I did find some pre-cuts that I had put into baggies that I think I will use up to make a quick quilt.

Leave a comment if you want some scraps. A lot of them are strips so let me know if you do or don't like strip scraps. I will pick a random number and stuff the envelope for someone on Monday.

Now, I gotta go look for a step stool. Do you think a burglar would steal something like that and leave everything else?

Endless Possibilities.

2011-07-05T10:35:00.000-04:00

Last year on vacation at the beach, my husband and I stumbled across a cool place on Roanoke Island. It's called Endless Possibilities and you can read about it here. Last year I came home with a rug for our powder room. This year I couldn't resist this rainbow wall hanging.

It's woven. From fabric. From torn and cut cast-off clothing from local thrift shops! They have at least a dozen BIG floor size looms in this store!! And guess what? Anyone who walks in can have a little sit down at a loom, get a quicky lesson, and commence to weaving. Every loom has a project started on it and a basket of fabric strips ready to roll. It was a hot day so ol' 9patch here took a load off and spent some time weaving away on a piece that was going to be made into a purse. That's right, they have people who will sew their 'woven fabric' into all kinds of purses and bags AND they had some clogs too.

I think my red kitchen wall is perfect to showcase this very cool fiber art.

And this is what sent me over the moon for weaving! You can embellish as you go. See the buttons? They were sewn to a strip of fabric before weaving. Even more fun is when a whole button placket from a shirt gets plopped right in there.

I like how these buttons are color coordinated, obviously planned on this piece.

Cool beadwork can be added later, and some are woven in too.

I love these shell necklaces that were woven in, especially with the yellow shells.

You can't really tell from this picture but there is a polka dot scarf that was put in and they left the ends hanging out the sides since they were finished. Look at the full size pictures and you will see it.

It's fun to look close and see the fabrics used in this piece, ugly knit pieces turn pretty. And there are also yarns here and there. A bit of fuzzy yarn adds texture. And I saw some that had cheapo mardi gras type beads woven in or old costume jewelry. OMG the Possibilities are Endless! Get it? Endless Possibilities? har har Forgive me but I'm cracking myself up for a minute.

Oh how I am dreaming of a loom. I could really put a dent into my scrap basket. And we have an awesome thrift store nearby. My cousin used to have a big loom, I think it was her grandmother's or great grandmother's. She used it a few times when we were roomates to work on projects when she was studying occupational therapy. I called her to ask about it, thought maybe I could 'borrow' it for a while. They donated it to a local county museum, bummer. The larger looms involve quite a bit of know-how and setting up with the 'warp' and all. I really have to be realistic about my available time. Honestly, the last thing I need is another hobby with all of its associated gadgets and goodies and clutter.

Knitpicks, however, has little looms. Oh dear! I already started dreaming about the cool artsy wallhangings I could make. And 'fabric' for bags and totes!! Sometimes it's best just to table an idea and see what happens.

As my grandmother used to say, 'I'm going to lie down and see if this goes away.'

I hope everybody had a great Fourth of July!

I tried something new!!

2011-07-02T01:44:00.000-04:00

The beach was nice. Lots of relaxation, plenty of reading, enjoying the sun and the ocean breezes. Too bad I came home with a bad cold. I felt tired and droopy so it seemed like a good time to sit and try hand quilting for the first time. I have 4 of these blocks I put together a couple months ago. Postage stamp blocks that I plan to 'quilt as I go'. Each one is put together with batting and backing. I machine quilted each of the applique pieces down and only plan to hand quilt some outlines.

I chose different threads for a scrappy quilted look. Some perl cottons and a few 12 wt variegated Sulky threads. The 12 wt was certainly easier to work with but I also like the way the perl stood out more.

Pulling out my scraps, poking through them and fussy cutting was lots of fun. Messy though. The floor was COVERED with fabric.

It was fun to see how many different fabrics I have that I can fussy cut. I am obviously drawn to fabrics with funny little motifs.

Aren't these little kids cute! They are from a Heidi Grace fabric I got at JoAnn's. Her fabrics are cutey cute cute!

So here are the four blocks. I have never tried the 'quilt as you go' technique but I have a plan. After I get the blocks together, I'm going to add a few more applique 'postage stamps' to fill some gaps. I am giving serious thought to making more blocks.

Especially when I saw little Mike. I know I have lots more little friends like Mike who would like to have a spot on this quilt.

Posting from the Confessional!!

2011-06-27T16:34:00.001-04:00

Forgive me Goddess of Quilting, for I have sinned. It has been 15 days since my last post.

We had a marvelous time at the beach. This was the view from the deck on our rented beach house. Mmmmmmmm, location baby! location, location, location!!!

My daughter (at the end of the table) and her 3 friends (on the right) came straight from the Bonnaroo music festival in Tennessee. It's a yearly festival kinda like Woodstock. They had great fun and spent a few days with us to relax and do laundry. We had a few 'Five Crowns' tournaments.

Five Crowns is a great card game. Oh dear, it looks like Olivia might be losing! And check out Mr. 9patch's face, he won. And he doesn't even like games, yeesh!!

Hmm, somebody must have a good hand.

And somebody thinks she has a good hand, but probably doesn't, ha ha.

This picture is one of my favorites. After camping in the Tennessee heat for four days with no showers, the kids arrived with shower scrubbies in hand and got straight into the ocean, Survivor style.

They drove from Tennessee to Kitty Hawk through the night. I told them to be careful not to fall asleep in the sun. Sadly, there isn't enough sunscreen in the world for Jordan.

Another confession: I cursed at these pelicans. Every day, ALL day, these pelicans flew in a line around in a big loop. Always the same direction. I thought it was cool, until the morning we got crapped on! It was such a nice morning with my coffee, a good book, my feet up on the deck railing, talking with my husband...............and then we were splattered!! ick. I said a naughty word, (it means poop).

They didn't even say 'sorry'.

Confession number 3: I'm not perfect, and I'm lazy. (yup, lazy............ the truth is that I rarely make my bed any more :( )

I have needed to expand my design wall for quite some time so I finally went to the home improvement store and got some more insulation board. I measured, cut, covered with batting, and nailed it up. Yay.

And look, I even make a little window for the electrical outlet. Well done, huh?

Oops, I first put the little window on the wrong side. I couldn't decide what to do so I just made a new window and kept going. I planned to make a little plug/patch but didn't get to it right away, my lazy butt was tired and hot. Then I forgot and all the leftover insulation board went out with the garbage, oh dear!

Oh Goddess! Thank you so much for making the garbage pickup so late allowing me to salvage a little piece. That was a week ago and I haven't done a thing about it yet. Lazy I tell ya!

I belong to the fledgling Baltimore Modern Quilt Guild and we joined the Kaufman Kona Solids Challenge. They sent each of us a charm pack and all we have to do is show our finished projects. We made rules: only use solids and use at least part of each of the charm squares. I finally finished piecing my top. It's about 40 by 48 inches. After I squared up all the squares, I had lots of little pieced strips. I used them in the border despite the fact that they were VERY wonky and measured from 3/4 to 1 inch wide. The finished strips in the border are a half inch wide. Soooo, since I'm not perfect, please sing the following to the tune of Jimmy Crack Corn.

"My seams don't match and I don't care,

My seams don't match and I don't care,

My seams don't match, and I donnnnn't caaaaaaaaaare!!!!!!!!
Just look from far awaaaay!

I believe that after quilting and washing, it will barely show. And please stop looking so close, ok?
I do have a question though, 40 by 48 inches. What should I do with it? Baby quilt? Are these colors ok for a baby? Wall hanging? More borders to be a lap/sofa size? What would you do?
Btw, I have more 'sins' to share. The state of my sewing room is one. If I weren't lazy, I would bite the bullet and organize this room the right way. I need to completely EMPTY the room and start over. But, omg, that is so daunting. Have you ever done that? I have been checking out these posts for inspiration. Feel free to offer me some suggestions or simply shame me into starting. Whatever works.
Ok, I am tired of kneeling in this confessional. I'll be back soon, y'hear?

Ever feel like a dud?

2011-06-12T23:43:00.000-04:00

I started this post last week and never got back to it. Now it's keeping me from posting something new because I kept feeling like I needed to finish it. So I decided to just post it unfinished. We are now at the beach in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Oh yeah!! My hubby, my son and I arrived yesterday and tomorrow my daughter and 3 of her friends are arriving from a long hot weekend at Bonnaroo. I'm looking forward to some fun. I'm planning a Five Crowns game tournament, always crazy fun! Now, you get last week's lousy post:

Ever feel like a dud?
I do. Here are some of my ups and downs, my yays and boos, my positives and negatives, my lol's and waahs:

I'm tired and stressed...........boo.
I'm leaving for the beach on saturday...................yay!

I am eating oatmeal right now............. positive.
Last night after work I scarfed down 4 chocolate chip cookies and some chips................ negative.

I love having my son living at home.................yay.
He's the reason we have cookies and chips in the house......................boo!

The stink bugs are coming in my house.............waah.
When I catch them, I put them in an Altoid tin, I call it Altoid Jail...................lol.

I pieced a back for my daughter's 'Summer List' quilt......................yay.
I don't love the back, it's just ok..........................boo.

I have to leave for work in 15 minutes.....................negative.
Right now I am leaning back in a chair, with my feet propped on a table and my laptop on my knees...........positive!

I have a new pair of capri pants and I love love love them..................yay.
I'm afraid they won't be so perfect after I wash them.........................bleh.

Sorry for no pictures, I'm a dud remember. Have a good day!

HALLELUYAH!!!! and WHOOP WHOOP!!

2011-05-28T12:50:00.000-04:00

She did it. My oldest, my baby girl, my favorite daughter (lol, I only have one girl), my hilarious (I kid you not), beautiful, creative, funloving girl has graduated from college. We are a low key, low maintenance family and don't make a big hoopla very often. By the time we found Olivia after the ceremony she already had her cap and gown off. I made her put it back on, hee hee.

I hope I was more excited about her degree in Fine Arts and Photography than I was that I finally got to show her the SSP. It was close though.

A couple of months ago, I was cleaning out Olivia's room (why on earth would a quilter be eager to clear out her child's room? lol) and I found a little memo book all decorated. She used to paint everything with nail polish. One mother's day I got a rock all painted like an alien because I was such an X-Files fan. It was painted with scented nail polish too, whooo! Ok, just a smidge off topic, back to the memo book. When I opened it up, there was a list. In lovely silver gel pen with a touch of sparkle, she had written a list of things to do one summer. The summer of 1999 actually. It was so cute and funny I saved it to show to her. When I gave it to her, we had such a laugh. The kind of moment that we'll never forget. As she read through the list out loud, we howled and gasped for air and rolled on the floor as tears ran down our faces. I know it won't be as funny to you, but for us it was hilarious. So the SSP? I don't know how or why I got my brainstorm but I'm glad I did. I turned that list into a quilt.

So thank you all for being patient and here it is................unfinished, bleh. This is how far I got when it went into the gift bag. I still needed to put a solid border around it to make it bigger.

She Loved it!!!!

I think this first block had a lot to do with all the laughing. She has NO recollection of wanting rabbit's feet. It's my favorite block I think.

We had two new kittens that summer. We liked to see how much they grew.

Yes, she painted the mailbox that summer, with flowers and a rainbow on the front. Sadly, it's gone now. It's not a good idea to have a good looking mailbox out here. Bored teenagers like to give mailboxes a beat down now and then. For a while it was all dented and twisted and we had it tied to a tree even, lol.

Awww, Claudia was our old lady cat. We miss her.

We have no clue what clock this is and as far as I know, she has never done any embroidery.

This one gave Liv another big laugh.

Oh yes, we had many floss friendship bracelets that summer.

There is really nowhere to ride a bike out here. Our driveway is gravel and the roads have no shoulders. Oh well.

Putting these blocks together was one of my biggest challenges. I put the kona charcoal background up on the design wall and started playing. And staring.

I made a few little filler blocks so I wouldn't have big open spaces. The little gal is from a Don't Look Now pattern. I love Kelly's patterns!! Love love love them.

Back in the decision making stage. I didn't make a firm plan ahead of time, I just started piecing words and then put them together in blocks. Even deciding the word grouping took me lots of thinking time.

And let's not forget the Arithmatic. Lmao! Remember the days before it was mathematics? I ended up with a tall skinny quilt so I needed to make side borders. I am getting braver about piecing borders. I wanted to keep it fairly simple and not distracting.

And of course I wanted it to be complimentary, so I used these purty fabrics.

And then, omg, the quilt still wasn't big enough, so I had to audition fabrics for the outside border.

Hmmm, too much green.

Eh, I don't think so.

Oooo, possibly.

Nope.

Nah.

I love this Denise Schmidt fabric (from the Joann's collection) and I used it for the little dress in the quilt, but it's too busy. Rats.

Bigger auditions. The print on the left is also Denise's and again I chickened out of a print. Liking that red more and more.

Had to try the dots again, tryin to make them work, ha ha.

And just for fun, I also gave Olivia fifty rabbit's feet. I got her to open this first, just to get her thinking about the list. I'll keep you posted if we do anything with these. Under consideration is a garland or maybe a Christmas tree.

Yesterday, I got the borders on. Yup, I went with red. I kinda think of red as a neutral. The quilt now measues 76 by 95 inches. Guess that will do.

My kids. (this was after I made her put her cap and gown back on)

Proud dad.

Proud mom (and dad).

And what does the future hold? No clue but I predict something awesome.

Why, Hello!!

2011-05-22T12:01:00.001-04:00

Shame, shame, shame on me! I'm such a neglectful blogger. I am so sorry. Life is just getting the best of me these days. I have been sewing and creating. Can I show you? Not much. How is the SSP going, you ask? It's getting there. I am very pleased but I have to get a final border on it. Have you ever worked hard on a quilt and thought, wow! This is going to be a great size, and then you measure it? I was starting to think the SSP was going to be a nice bed quilt but, actually, it's barely a twin. Phooey! Anyway, I'll boost it's size a little but it won't be quilted by Wednesday. Wednesday is G Day (graduation day). So stay tuned friends and I promise a nice reveal by the end of the week.

While you wait for a glimpse of my 'masterpiece', I will share some random photos. This is my chubby cat, Chester (Chet for short). He sleeps a lot, lol, and I think it's amazing that he was able to get up onto this. I'm also grateful that he didn't knock my fancy ass Reliable Digital Velocity iron onto the floor. He would have been in BIG trouble.

It's a fact that cats always make themselves at home in an inconvenient spot. This is my ironing surface. I have to keep a sticky roller handy before I can iron anything. Rosie is our smallest cat, she's a manx (no tail). Both of these cats are so darn SWEET. Mellow and friendly to all. Rosie would be perfect if she wasn't a hunter who feels compelled to gift us with her trophies on the doormat. Ick!

Hmmm? Not telling. Sorry.

This is my friend's butt. I was admiring her pants and told her that they really made her butt look good. So I decided to take a picture to show her, lol. I won't mention her name though but, seriously, isn't that a great butt?

My design wall. Yesterday I practiced some SSP avoidance (or burnout). I belong to the fledgling Baltimore Modern Quilt Guild and we are participating in the Robert Kaufman Kona Cotton charm pack challenge. We voted and chose the classic colorway and I already had a charm pack of darks. I combined the two and this is what I have so far. Each of these little blocks is 4 inches. I haven't sewed them together yet. If I want it bigger, I could sash them, but I like the way this looks. Guess I'll have to ponder some border action. I shudder to say this but I might be starting to enjoy borders. Aaack! Ptew! Eeeeeeeks! I need to go take my temperature or lie down or something.....................

This morning I did some more avoidance and played with these triangles.

This is the layout that I had planned for them, but it wasn't doing it for me. I actually have 4 or 5 rows sewn together and I plan on picking them apart. Nutty, huh? As far as I'm concerned, it's better than making a quilt I don't like or creating another UFO. I'm actually sorry that I cut so many of these triangles. Oh well.

So, this is my design wall today. The big project I should be working on is marinating in a bag on the floor and I need to get ready to go to work. Let's hope the operating room is quiet this Sunday evening. One of my girlfriends from work broke her leg this weekend and ended up as a patient in the OR where she works. That's a bummer for sure!! I wish I had a finished quilt for her. Remember those 'just because' quilts I always talk about? THIS IS WHY I NEED THEM!!!! Now I'll just have to take her a potted plant or some other dumb thing to brighten her hospital room.

So what do you do for last minute gifts? Do you keep a stash of quilts handy?

OMG! A close call!!!

2011-05-09T14:01:00.000-04:00

Well, part of my SSP (super secret project) has been exposed, darnit! Last night I was sitting in my sewing room, minding my own business after an afternoon of brainstorming and working on my SSP, when my daughter wandered in after work. She gets off work at 11pm AND she doesn't live at home! I usually know when she's coming. So there I was with the SSP proudly arranged and displayed in all of it's colorful brightness on my design wall. I had a brief moment of 'oh good grief' and 'oh boy! I can finally show her!' but that passed and I shouted FREEZE! She had her back to the design wall so I jumped up hollering 'DON'T MOVE! CLOSE YOUR EYES!' and who knows what else. I was going to pull it all down but I had spent all day arranging and rearranging dogonnit! I spied the flannel backed tablecloth that I use as my portable design wall. It was all folded up with my triangles still in it from my last sewing marathon with my buds. I quickly unfolded it and pinned it right up to cover my precious SSP. So this is all she saw, whew! Some of those triangles are wrong side up from unfolding, lol.

So, the fact that I am making some kind of quilted surprise is out. Waaaaaah! My daughter, Olivia, is graduating from college this month with a fine arts degree in photography. I asked her what she might like for a graduation gift and she said, 'I don't really need anything.' I really love that girl but, honestly, gimme something to work with honey! Well, I truly had a lightbulb moment and the SSP was born. I know she reads my blog but I'm not sure how often so I can't tell all just yet. I'm bummed that she knows I'm making something.

I've decided to show you another little sneaky peek. The SSP wasn't going to have any applique but yesterday as I sat and stared at it, trying to decide how to fill some spots, I had a little aha moment. How cute is this bike? The design is from McKenna Ryan's Beach Walk pattern.

Okay folks, show's over. You (and Olivia) aren't getting any more out of me today. Now go back to your regularly scheduled blogs!! Go on now, shooo!

It's hard for me to keep secrets.

2011-05-04T20:05:00.000-04:00

Don't get me wrong, if a friend asks me to keep a confidence I don't have any trouble. That's honorable. BUT, when I have something I'm excited about, I have such a hard time keeping it to myself. So while I hide my design wall from you, I'll show some other stuff.

Last month, my sister and her family came to visit from California. Here are her two kids, Lucia (Lucy) and William (Buddy) with their 'Auntie Lisa'. It was a lot of fun seeing them as well as Hannah and her husband, John. Before they got here, Hannah let me know that Lucy wanted to learn some hand sewing. Oh boy! Auntie Lisa got excited and poked around some books and got an idea.

I showed Lucy how to trace and cut some simple shapes. Then she learned how to stitch them onto a background. We had fun embellishing with some simple embroidery and buttons. Lucy suggested we make this into a quilt. Great idea but not enough time this visit so I had another idea. I kept this project here while the west coast relatives flew home. And I got busy right away!

I grabbed some batting and backing and quilted up this little mini. I also stitched around the owl, sun, eyes, and tummy to make it a little sturdier.

Ta-dah! A pillow for Lucy! Isn't it great that I've been building my stash of solids? I found just the right aqua for the binding.

AND........ I used my favorite tip for the back! A shirt. I have a little stash of shirts from the thrift shop and this pink check was perfect. It's so easy to whip up a pillow this way. No zipper, no flap, no fancy closure, just measure, cut, and sew it together. Open up the buttons and put the pillow in. Easy peasy! And I always get a kick out of the pocket. Too bad I didn't sew up a little softy for the pocket.

I already have a plan for the next time they visit. I'm going to get everything cut out and ready for a quick and simple quilt. Then I can turn Lucy loose with the machine and see what happens. Sounds fun to me!

Yesterday I really wished I had a tiara!

2011-04-30T11:23:00.000-04:00

Sorrry I haven't posted in a while. I've been at a low ebb. My work/life balance is out of whack. I have felt it for a while. Last saturday I was so tired I slept in until 2pm. Boy was I mad!! I felt like I had wasted so much of my very precious free time. On Sunday we went to New Jersey to see my husband's family and on Monday I worked 16 hours. Ugh. Sorry for whining. This weekend I have 3 days off AND I have asked my boss to meet with me to discuss cutting my hours back. Wish me luck.

So what did I do with my Friday off? First, I got together with my little 'friends on the purple couch' and watched the Royal Wedding. I don't know how I got sucked into this excitement but maybe it's a way to escape my daily grind.

I couldn't find a tiara to wear so I sat in my pyjamas and had a pretend 'English' breakfast. Porridge and 'tea' in my pretty teacup. (it's really coffee, please don't tell.)

How cute are they? I hope the media stays kind to them.

My husband and I had planned to go poke around a few antique stores. I told him I had a wedding to go to but I promised to get ready right after the kiss. I kept my word and we had a lovely time followed by a trip to the library. I love coming home from the library with books of crafty inspiration and some great reads. Now if I could get a little more time to enjoy them.

I have been hard at work on the project that I can't share yet. Here is a sneaky hint. I am using solids and playing with Tonya's book. That's all you get.

Thanks for being patient. Now go and enjoy your weekend!!

Am I suffering from 'Quilter's Block'?

2011-04-19T22:39:00.000-04:00

Welllllllll, sort of. Check out this little fella. I will tell you more about him (or her) soon.

My dilemma is that I found myself piddling around with a few different projects, most of which are just playing with blocks. At a recent sewing marathon, I started chopping up my Lizzy Dish fabric with my Accuquilt Go. Triangles! I started sewing them into rows. Looks ok.

Uh oh, I like this better but it's too late for this fabric. Maybe with some Pips. Sound good?

I had cut some diamonds before the triangles. How cool does this look? I really need to make a quilt with these blocks! So very cool.

Words can't express. These have me speechless. They'll get their own post soon.

I got the fabrics gathered for the back of this quilt but then I stalled. Just not in the mood yet.

I have 43 wonkies. I haven't decided how to set them or how many more to make. I really love them and had so much fun working on them. Then, again, I stalled. Ugh.

I just had a 3 day weekend and I thought I would have plenty of time for sewing. But I just couldn't figure out what direction to go in. So I cleaned out some of the kitchen cabinets. I have a box of mugs and tupperware for the church yard sale packed up. Just when my weekend hit the home stretch, I got a little bit of mojo. Or something like it. What did I do? I started a brand new project. It is SO COOL. I LOVE it. But I can't show you yet. It's a surprise for someone and I'm afraid she might check in with my blog. I will give you a tease though........ I am using a lot of solids and I'm using a technique from a great book that I got this past year. I will give you a few sneak peaks soon.

Meanwhile, how do all of you unblock yourself when you get stuck?

Another New York moment.

2011-04-16T15:22:00.000-04:00

When my friends and I spent the day in New York, we did a lot of walking. After seeing the gorgeous red and white quilts and spending our money in some fun shops, we were HUNGRY and tired. The four of us who were heading home again on the Megabus had time for a nice dinner before hopping on board. We did a little texting research and got a recommendation for an Italian place in SoHo. Perfect, that's where we were! With the address and our maps in hand, we started walking..............and walking................and walking. Duh! We turned on Broadway, not WEST Broadway! Luckily, while we were on our trek, eagle eyed Stephanie spied this.

How cool is this shop window? We crossed the street for a closer look and some pictures.

This is a clothing store call All Saints and guess what? There were walls of shelves full of more sewing machines inside.

A few days after we got home, I saw this. How cool would it be to be the buyer/collector for All Saints in charge of sewing machines!!

So don't worry, we did find the restaurant. We had a lovely dinner and relaxing wine then decided to take a cab ride to the bus stop. Wise decision.

Can I interest you in more 'Red and White'?

2011-04-10T11:48:00.000-04:00

I have loads more pictures from the show in New York so I thought I would have one more post of the quilts. These chairs were in the center of the show.

Don't they make you want to gather all your best friends, some cocoa or tea, snuggle up and just have a giggle fest?

Of course one of the facinating aspects of this show was the variety of quilts in just 2 colors. I was also completely taken with the range in complexity. Some of the quilts obviously took a lot of time and detailed handwork like this one.

Some are simple but still require skill and time. (sry for the dark photo)

This was in the center of the show and , WOW, was it hard to stop looking at the center. And the beautiful corners!

I loved the red and white fabric here. And how funny that if I saw it in a fabric store today, I might refer to it as modern! Forgive me.

I recently stumbled across a topic in blogland about 'dumbing down' quilting. There are different interpretations of what this means and I don't want to get deep into it. I was mostly saddened that it sparked so much negativity and gleeful criticism. I mention this because it was such a treat to see all these quilts, these absolute treasures, together. From the simple tied quilts to the exquisitely appliqued and quilted, they were each a beautiful work of art.

How about this simplicity? This was one of my friends absolute faves. And by the way, the quilting was gorgeous.

And how about the simple designs that have been repeated over and over for hundreds of years? Houses and boats. Anybody for a day on the lake? Nuthin fancy here but isn't it so much fun? Jaunty red boats! This design is great for a baby or toddler but this quilt was full size. Am I copping out by making so many smaller quilts? Hmm, I may need to ponder that.

Talk about a simple block. I find this quilt riveting. One of the blogs I follow is Victoria's and she recently made a completely 'drool worthy' quilt with crosses. Check it out here. I want to make one of these, it's going on my 'list'. I already have some color ideas.

Here's a quilt that I have to stop and examine. Try to figure out how this went together. Are there two different blocks alternated? Where does this start? Or end? Eh! Who cares, I LOVE this quilt.

Well, this one caught me eye. Mostly because I find those critters just plain creepy. I like the roosters, swans, and horses though.

In the back of the show, there was a cafe where we grabbed a quick brunch and hot drink (boy was it chilly that day and I was underdressed because I didn't want to drag a lot of stuff around all day). I couldn't resist these pictures of the quilts from the back.

Even from behind, this exhibit was just stunning. Many, many thanks to the Rose family and New York for a fabulous adventure.

This exhibit may have been once in a lifetime, but if it ever pops up again or hits the road, GO! Sell the house or kids if you have to, but

GO SEE IT!!

My PIPS have SHIPPED !!!!!!!

2011-04-05T21:40:00.001-04:00

That's right people. I got an email saying that some Sherbet Pips that I had pre-ordered are on their merry way to my mailbox. I am SO excited. I feel like I have been waiting forever. This is the first time that I have fallen in love with a fabric collection before it was available. The Pips designed by Aneela Hooey have gotten a ton of buzz. I hope that means that they will be available for a long time. I really don't want to start another eBay frenzy.

Now I want to show you something AWESOME!! My friend, Pat, received a gift from a friend who was in Japan for a while. Look at this book, it's just beautiful. Aside from the title and a smattering of French here and there, the book is entirely Japanese. I can't even read the author's name. I tried all kinds of searches on Amazon but just can't find this book.

Some of the later chapters look like they are about the author and her studio. I so wish I knew what the text says.

There is loads of applique and some embroidery too. Unbelievable detail.

Looks like she covers the four seasons, right?

There are pages where it is clear that the author is showing ways to vary some ideas such as this one with hairstyles and hats.

I like this page because it shows how you can use the same basic shape and make completely different children through the clothing as well as switching between embroidery and applique. She also uses an incredible variety of fabrics and materials. Look at the little hat that looks knitted. I think it was wool or flannel. There were adorable school scenes with little girls wearing little pleated skirts. So darn cute!

There are pages and pages like this one. Look at all the details. Seriously, the curtains, the fabric she used for the view out the window, the laundry basket, hairbrush, lampshade, scattered clothes........ I'm in love!!! How about the little crayons? And that little pillow is 3 dimensional!
Ok now. If anyone knows anything about this book, please let me know. I really really want one. And I think I would turn myself inside out with excitement if found one in English. I'm getting greedy aren't I? Or dreaming. Now I'm going to be really nice to my friend, Pat, so maybe some day I can borrow this book. If I were her I would think twice though because I might forget to give it back. Same on me. Please don't tell her though. Now go look at those pictures again and try not to drool on your keyboards! G'nite!

Two busy weekends!

2011-04-03T23:04:00.000-04:00

Last weekend I went on retreat and then to New York City to see the red and white quilt exhibit. It was a long, full, and busy weekend. This weekend, my sister Hannah and her husband and two kids are in town from the San Francisco Bay area for a week long visit. It is so much fun to see all of them.

I still have lots of pictures from last weekend and I need to take some from this weekend. Look at these giant roses (and bugs!). They are all over Park Avenue in New York. Each block is different.

The exhibit was in the Park Avenue Amory

and we got quite a hike from the subway to the exhibit. The Lexington subway stop was closed because of a downed electrical line or something, so we had to get off and hoof it. At least we had the roses to look at.

Each and every red and white quilt was something to treasure. The redwork, oh my the red work! Beautiful.

And lots and lots of simple yet just stunning designs.

So gorgeous! And with only two colors!

This quilting was stunning.

I can't resist a churn dash! I can't explain it, I just can't.

Do you see it? Huh, do you? This quilt was special.

That's right, what a happy surprise! A little surprise touch of cheddar! I really love this quilt. An extra touch of jazz!

I had so much fun with my niece and nephew this weekend. My niece, Lucy, who is seven wanted to learn some hand sewing. I'll show you some pictures of her special project. Her brother, William (Buddy), is hilarious and reminds me of my son when he was little.

I hope you had as much fun this weekend as I did. Now let's just get through the work week, ok?

Tired, tired, TIRED!!!

2011-03-30T13:45:00.000-04:00

It started last Wednesday when I worked 16 hours so I could get a long weekend off from work. I got up Thursday and started packing. This is MOST of what I took on retreat. My sew-ezi table was already in the car. See the black and white bag on the right? Clothes, toiletries, and a Stieg Larsson book. Everything else is sewing related, lol.

I hauled it all to Camp Hebron in Halifax, PA and had myself set up by 8:30 pm. This year I parked myself in the back of the room so I could take advantage of the bench by my table. It was perfect for hand sewing, relaxing, thinking, sipping coffee, etc. I love Camp Hebron, they have coffee, tea, hot chocolate, and ice water available to us 24/7. I've gone on this retreat 4 or 5 times and this was the second time I forgot to take a travel mug for coffee. See the two white mugs on the table? I got coffees two at a time until I got to a local Rite Aid for a new travel mug.

I invited a friend, Stephanie, on retreat. It was her first retreat and she had it all figured out. She packed all the right stuff and fit right in, making friends and getting busy. I'll show you some pictures of her work in another post. I took lots of pics at this retreat.

I decided this would be a 'finishing' weekend for me. The first thing I did was finish hand sewing the binding on this quilt. Bam!

I really love the back.

Next up, I sandwiched, basted, and started quilting my red and yellow quilt. I really need to give it a better name.

No fooling around, I got this baby DONE! Quilted and bound.

And the back. Love it, love it, love it. Don't love my 'retreat hair'.

But wait, there's more! I also sandwiched, basted, quilted, and bound this little baby quilt. These are the tumbler blocks I cut with my Accuquilt when I first got it.

This is a bright and cheerful quilt for someone I know. I used the last of my red with white dots fabric on the back. I really need more, it's like a staple for me. And I did the binding with bright stripes on the bias. LOVE. IT.

I also finally sewed down these little appliques on some cloth diapers for burp cloths.

AND I put some borders on this pinwheel quilt. If you know me, you know that I consider most borders a big chore. Bleh! So I kept it simple for this, also it's a pretty big quilt already.

The colors are soft and feminine and I think the green is soothing. I'm not sure what I am going to do with this quilt yet. It may go into the 'just in case' closet. I don't have any quilts done right now for unexpected events or gifts.

OK, that's it for now. Time to go to work. I have lots more to show from retreat but this is pretty much all I got done. Phew! I am very satisfied and that's a good feeling.

Seeing Red (and white)

2011-03-30T01:24:00.001-04:00

Red and white! OMG, this quilt exhibit is unbelievable. Look at how these quilts are displayed!

Just floating. Kudos to Thinc Design for the fantastic display. These quilts just captivated me. Yesterday I went to New York City on a day trip with some of my quilting pals and we went to the Park Avenue Armory to see hundreds of red and white quilts from the collection of Joanna Rose. It was fantastic.....beautiful......inspiring......captivating.......etc, etc and blah blah blah. I am exhausted after retreat and a day trip to the Big Apple. I will show you more later.

Right now I need to get some sleep. I had a LONG, productive, and FUN weekend. G'Nite!

Gotta love free Wi-Fi and Panera bagels.

2011-03-24T16:24:00.000-04:00

Hi bloggy friends. Here I sit in Panera so I can use their wi-fi. That's right, no internet or cable at our house. A wicked storm charged through our area last night and some lightning and thunder action and a kaboom......blah blah blah. Thank goodness we have power though. I worked 16 hours yesterday so I could have off today because I am heading out for retreat this evening. I am perturbed that I have to leave without knowing who got voted off Survivor. Oh please tell me it was Philip with the pink underpants. He is koo koo.   Anyway it's just past 4pm and I plan to leave for Halifax, PA at about 5:30 (always good to plan to hit the road at rush hour, right?).
   Have I finished packing? ------ NO
   Do I know what I want to work on? --------NO
   Did I make something tasty for our potluck dinner? -------NO
   Is my house tidy? ------- Not really.

    I did do a load of laundry, tidy the kitchen, and run the dishwasher. I filled my gas tank and bought some chocolate (I have my priorities straight!). I had a nice talk with my son who has a close friend with some serious health problems. (yup, I really do have my priorities in place) I am showered and dressed (thank goodness since I am in Panera!) and my hair is fluffy and sweet smelling! Now I just have to make a decision for my projects and load the car.
    Do you think it's bad that I haven't yet told my retreat roomate that I have been told I snore? I packed lots of earplugs : ) .
     Sorry I don't have any pictures today but I promise to take some at retreat. Let's hope I have internet when I get home on Sunday.
     By the way, here's a tidbit of info. I can wiggle my ears, and so can both of my kids!
Have a great weekend friends, I know I will.

Retreating!!!

2011-03-22T21:40:00.001-04:00

I'm going on retreat. That's right, friends, going on quilt retreat with old friends, a new friend, and guild friends. Through the wonderful and magical world of blogging, I discovered a new quilter friend, a nurse who works five floors below me at Johns Hopkins Hospital. We've talked a couple of times, met once, read each other's blogs, and now we are going to be roomates on retreat. Oh my gosh, I love retreat. I am going up to Camp Hebron in Halifax, PA on Thurs. evening and staying until Sunday afternoon. LOTS of sewing time and I still don't know what I want to work on. Hmmm, something will rise to the surface on my

'want to do' list. I belonged to a guild for a few years before I got myself together enough to commit to a retreat. Once I went on one, I haven't missed. That's right, twice a year I have an awesome weekend full of friends, fabrics, sewing, quilting, laughing, and a bit of chocolate thrown in. Each time I go, I get a little more organized and efficient. There are a few things I wouldn't go without. Have you ever seen one of those portable design walls? They look wonderful and portable and they cost a pretty penny. My secret weapon is this!

Isn't this pretty? A $3.00 flannel backed tablecolth from JoAnn's.

Combine it with these hooks from 3M and you have a very cheap and portable design wall.

I used masking tape to strengthen two corners of the tablecloth and snipped openings.

Pop up the 3M hooks and 'BAM!' instant design wall! The best part is that the Command strips on the hooks will come off the walls without leaving a mark. Perfect for retreat. (one time I forgot to take the hooks down, I looked for them the following year but they were gone, darn!)

The flannel on the tablecloth is great for holding blocks. Check this out. One the left is my design wall in my sewing room. It's covered with batting and works great. To the right is my 'travel design wall'.

Ta dahh! I ran out of room for all of my wonky churndashes so I put up the 'travel wall'. Look how well the blocks stick! No pins at all! By the way, I now have 43 of the wonksters made. I am completely undecided on whether or not to make more. I hope I don't take too long deciding because I really like them.

Have time to check out another retreat tip? Here's a mini ironing surface. I took a TV table, padded it, and used a staple gun to cover it with a piece of old sheet. Easy-peasy!

And it folds flat which makes it so easy to pop in the car for a weekend.

And my latest idea is to pack my individual projects in these boxes. These art bins are a little expensive when full price but JoAnn's often marks them half off. Nifty way to organize projects huh?I tend to WAY overpack for retreats. I just keep tossing in more and more fabric. I am just so worried about getting there and not having something. Yeesh! This time may be different. I think. Maybe. I hope. Well, tomorrow I work 16 hours. That's part of the price I am paying to get a long weekend. I need to hit the hay soon. Thursday, I will sleep in and then force myself to decide what to take to work on.

If I have a few spare minutes tomorrow, I will make a list of stuff to pack. I am so excited about my weekend. And there is a surprise ending on Monday. A daytrip to New York City for a fantastic quilt exhibit. Stay tuned!

Fabric Memories.

2011-03-16T21:45:00.002-04:00

I didn't have any time to sew today. I had to go into work early for a meeting. While I ate some breakfast and drank some coffee, I sat in the sewing room and relaxed. It's nice to look around and think about what I'm working on. I am going on retreat in a week and a half and haven't yet decided what to work on. More on that topic later. As I looked around, I saw this plaid fabric and right away started thinking about my friend from work who is very sick. I used this for the back of his quilt. Do you ever see a fabric in your stash and it makes you think of a certain quilt? I started looking around at other fabrics.

This little fairy fabric always makes me think of one of my oncology patients. Such a shy little sweetie, the first time I met her I called her 'tootsie'. She was so tickled, she looked at her mom with a big smile and said, "She called me tootsie!" In no time she was one of my favorite patients. I made her a quilt using this fabric and she loved it so much. Sadly, she died following a bone marrow transplant for her leukemia. I love thinking about her but sometimes this fabric makes my heart heavy. I have a half yard left and I'm never sure if I should just use it up.

I used this in a quilt I made for one of our surgeons when she left for another job. I miss her. She's an AWESOME pediatric surgeon and I wish she had stayed with us.

This was used in a baby quilt for a friend who is chinese. She loved it.

Some of this Lizzy House fabric went on a little lovey for my nephew.

I started to pull fabrics out that reminded me of people and projects and quickly decided to quit. Almost all of my fabrics could go into this picture. If I haven't used something yet, I can usually remember why I bought it or what I bought it for.

Fabrics in my stash are a little like my oldest jeans or t-shirt. Memories are attached and they are comfortable and comforting. What could be better than putting them into a quilt? I still have lots of bright nursing tops from when I was a nurse on an inpatient unit. I have always planned to put them into a quilt some time. Maybe I should put some of these fabrics into it too. My personal memory quilt.

The Wonksters!!

2011-03-13T17:25:00.000-04:00

I am still playing around with my wonky blocks. I should mention that it takes longer to make a wonky block than a classic block. I didn't expect that. Instead of using speed techniques to makes lots of identical half square triangles, each one gets made individually. Here are the first dozen. (yes, I still hadn't fixed the first one.)

Up to nineteen. I am using my hand-dyed fabrics for some of these.

Twenty-three!! AND, I finally fixed it. I feel much better now, lol.

This picture doesn't do this one justice. I like the pink and aqua together, very cheerful.

SURPRISE !! It came, my Kona color card came! Boy is this going to come in handy for this 'year of the solid'. I plan on using solids to pull together lots of tops using my scraps and my stash. For now, I just want to drink in all the pretty colors. Mmmmmmm.

Good and not so good moments in the old sewing room.

2011-03-08T20:29:00.019-05:00

Last weekend the weather was rainy. Perfect for hanging in the sewing room gittin creative. I pulled out the 4 and a half inch squares I had made from my scraps and started playing around. Hmmm, this isn't right.

Let me introduce you to my leetle friend, Mr. Seam Ripper.

Better. The one on the right was first and I'm not liking it much. The left is more like it.

So I continued on. I really love this block. Fabrics with words are so fun.

Surprize! A tiny pinwheel.

And a star from the Bonnie Hunter workshop.

My first batch and there will be many more to come. I really need to fix that first one, though.

We have four cats. Some day when my son gets his own place, he'll take one with him. (Thank goodness, she's a bully.) Two of the cats like to hang in my sewing room. I've discovered that I need to 'cat proof' this space. Last week I came in to see that a glass dish with some shells had mysteriously fallen to the floor. Hmmm. Today as I sat here reading some blogs, there was a CRASH. This little storage container for my Bernina accessories got knocked to the floor by Daisy. The doors popped completely off and my 'feet' flew everywhere.

I scooped it all up and put it back together. Then I saw this!

Geez! Apparently, the Bernina box hit my ruler on it's trip to the floor. Darn! At least the broken piece stayed kinda in place thanks to the non-skid vinyl on the back.

Who needs duct tape? I fixed it with masking tape. Ta dah! This should hold me for a while. I

Just as I repaired the ruler (after reassembling the Bernina box), I heard a noise and looked around. Now what, Daisy? She was thinking of bedding down in my basket of neutrals until I gave her the evil eye.

"Did I do that?" Yes, Daisy, you did. She got her claw stuck on some of my little blocks and 'flung' them out of the basket. Looks like I need to give this kitty a cozy place in here so she'll stay off my things. Either that or keep cleaning up, lol. Oy!

What do you think of this?

2011-03-05T21:56:00.000-05:00

Well? You like it? Nice quilt huh? Ha!! It's a quilt back for my red and yellow quilt.

Since my fabric diet is over (thank goodness!) I went to my local JoAnn's with coupons in hand. I was looking for fabric to use for the back of my quilt. I found this cute birdcage fabric that had the perfect colors.

I also snagged a yard of this gray with the pink birds. These fabrics are designed by Heidi Grace for JoAnn's. They have really come a long way in fabric quality at JoAnn's. I'm so glad that they finally recognized the popularity of quilting.

While I'm showing off fabric, here are my birthday goodies. Kona solids, yum! See the green on the right? I have already used it up. The green on the bottom left is the one I used on the pinwheel quilt. I am really loving having nice solids to work with. If I could do some whining for a second, I really wish I knew when my kona color chart (the one on backorder) was gonna get delivered. It's really hard to pick colors from a computer screen.

I am going on a weekend quilt retreat in a few weeks. That means I need to start thinking about what to work on. I know for sure that some of these solids are going to be packed up for retreat. Oh boy, I can't wait!! If you ever get a chance to go on retreat, DO IT!

2011-02-28T19:46:00.000-05:00

I did some sewing this weekend. Wanna know why? Last week I finally gave up on the sewing 'studio' arrangement. It was not working and I just couldn't get anything done. So I took an hour one day and broke it down. Guess what? Less is more. I promise some pics soon, hopefully before and after. The new space is much more motivating and I got busy.

I got this put together this weekend. It's a pretty good size. It's 66 by 80 without any borders yet. I think it would have looked beautiful set on point but since I already had the sashings and corner blocks cut, I went with this. I love the green sashing, I think it's called cactus or asparagus. Still waiting for my color card to get here. And isn't that red block jarring? It's not as bad in person but I wish I'd picked it out as one of the blocks for the back.

Then I played with some applique. I got this Don't Look Now pattern called Peak Hour and wanted to play with a few of the designs. These are on cloth diapers for 'spit rags', aka burp cloths. I haven't sewed them down yet but they really make me smile. And I have enough pregnant friends at work to find homes for these.

I saw a tutorial recently that took a 9 patch block and cut it diagonally twice. So I thought I'd try it. I made two 9 patches using charms squares. (I cut some charms into four 2 1/2 inch squares). This is a good example of the impact of seam allowances. It took four and a half 5 inch squares to end up with 2 five and 3/4 inch blocks! I didn't look up the tutorial, I thought I would remember it. However, I don't think this is how they were supposed to go together. Too bad, I like them anyway.

But wait! There's more. Last night I had a little playtime and made some wonky churndash. These were fun and easy. I am not crazy about the 'thick' sides so next time I will avoid that.

PS - my fabric diet is OVER!! Hot diggity dog. Over the weekend I pre-ordered a mess of Sherbet Pips. I love that line and I think it's going to sell out right and left. I also went to the local JoAnn's yesterday and picked out some fabric for a backing for my red and yellow quilt. It is SO cute. I'll show you tomorrow. And I'll show you the kona solids that I got for my birthday too. Buh bye!

Great weekend!

2011-02-27T22:10:00.000-05:00

Watching the Oscars! They already ate all of the popcorn. I had a very productive weekend. I'll show you tomorrow. Right now I gotta hit the hay.

Indecision is a plagueing my sewing room.

2011-02-23T20:52:00.048-05:00

Do you remember these blocks? I made them with some of the fabrics that I bought in NYC on my anniversary weekend in October.

I finished the quilt top last weekend at a sewing marathon with some friends. We auditioned a bunch of different fabrics for the inner and outer borders and came up with this. The inner border is a dark gray kona cotton. I don't know the name of this shade but I will when my kona color card comes. It's on backorder, waaah!

I put together the middle border using all my scraps. I am undecided on the backing. Maybe a solid kona. Maybe something else. I sure do like the red and yellow!!!

When I am stumped on a decision, I just start fiddling and goofing around. Check out this little painted wooden sofa and cat my mom gave me for my birthday. Completely silly and I love it. This little kitty is wondering when the movie will start and she wishes she had a date, lol.

Oh goody! A handsome tomcat.

Whaaat!? Competition? What a flirt.

Hmmmm? Look at this foxy dude.

Boo! Mind if I join you guys?

Boy this elephant takes up a lot of room.

Uh oh, they all moved over and one fell out!!

Oh thank goodness, the movie is starting!

See the pinwheels? They are the other source of supreme indecision. I have 45 of them and they are 9 inches finished. I plan on using a purty green kona (cactus) for sashing with some assorted cornerstones. The problem is, should I put the blocks 5 across and 9 down? I worry that this will make it too long compared to the width, but I could put on wide side borders. Or 6 across and 7 down with a few left for the back? Or some other combo? I could use some opinions, if you don't usually comment please consider weighing in on this. I'd like to quit playing with painted cats and start sewing.

Thank you!!

How long does it take to make a quilt?

2011-02-17T23:02:00.000-05:00

How often do you get asked this question? I never know what to say since it all depends on so many factors. Well, I discovered that I can get one done pretty quick if I want. Last Sunday at dinner I found out that a friend at work had emergency surgery. He's been ill for a short while with a lousy diagnosis. I decided that I really wanted to get going and make him a quilt. And I also decided that I wanted to be able to get it to him while he was in the hospital. Since patients don't get to stay in the hospital all that long, I really had to get moving. But what kind of fabrics do I have for a man? Hmmm. Batiks!! And guess what? I found a stack of batik charms in my stash. Yahoo, a time saver. I started at 9pm on Sunday.

I worked for a couple hours and had these done by the time I went to bed. I decided to keep it simple with some 4 patches and large squares.

This is what I had by the time I had to leave for work Monday at 1pm. No borders for this quilt, I made it about 55 inches by 74.

Tuesday morning I sandwiched the quilt. Rosie decided she likes batting. Why is it that I find it so hard to disturb my kitties? In this house we are ridiculously flattered when any of the cats show us attention. Silly!

But look at her, who wouldn't want to snuggle up on some batting?

I had to get this quilt basted so I cut her adrift, hee hee. Poor gal, once I started with the spray baste, she left.

Thursday evening, it's done! I kept the quilting very simple, just diagonal through the squares. I wanted to do more but really didn't have enough time.

I found a manly backing from the fabrics my mom gave me recently. I added a simple label that co-workers could sign plus my little label (from Etsy which is awesome!).

So there you have it. Started late Sunday evening and finished Thursday evening. And I worked every day too. I will deliver it tomorrow after I get a few more signatures on the label. Goodnight!

Happy Valentine's Day!

2011-02-14T13:26:00.000-05:00

We don't go too crazy about Valentine's day around here. I'm pretty low maintenance. I love my husband and he loves me. I don't want to get too sappy but he's pretty much my Valentine every day.

But I got a little motivated the other day to do a little decorating since I like hearts. I pulled out some pinks and some scraps that I got in a swap and played around.

This was a no-sew project. I just used a heavy fusible and made the hearts two sided. I just folded the fabrics in half and I cut the hearts free hand. I actually used a scalpel from work (they are disposable and I don't like to throw them away if we haven't used them) to put slits in the hearts, then I strung them on ribbon. The end.

Goodness gracious, Big news, BIG!!!

2011-02-13T16:32:00.000-05:00

OMG !
Last night I went to dinner at PF Chang's with my husband and daughter (btw - it was my birthday) and you won't believe my fortune. Check it out.

I'm sorry but you will have to click on the picture to enlarge it so you can read. I need to work on my photo work. I couldn't crop it for some reason. But let's get back to my news....... do you know what this means?   It means that after years of entering to win the HGTV dream house, this is the year. There's no other way to explain moving and I've been entering faithfully since January 1st. It's a pretty cool house this year and I think it would make a great place for quilt retreats and workshops.

Pretty darned exciting huh? Now, to celebrate my birthday, I thought I share some odd tidbits with you.

1. When I walk in the dark I close my eyes. I think it helps me 'see' better.
2. I try to be polite. I always thank the bagger at the grocery store and I make sure to wave a 'thank you' if another car lets me ahead of them.
3. I can also take 'a tone'. My husband calls it 'getting salty'. (i.e. "Don't get salty with me.")
4. Last December when I was xmas shopping one day, I saw a stinkbug crawling across a bathrobe and didn't tell anyone. He looked kinda happy and I didn't want to cause a stampede.
5. When I wake up in the morning, there is at least one cat (sometimes as many as three cats) sleeping on top of me.
6. I've gotten so used to automatic doors that sometimes I just stand there waiting for a door to open when the sign clearly says 'Pull'.
7. I've been on a diet for almost a year and I've lost about 40 pounds. Yay!
8. This coming spring or early summer, I'm going to skydive for the first time. My brother's been doing it for at least 40 years and he's going to take me, 2 of my cousins, and a couple work friends. We might even just do it right here on the farm.
9. I've never been on a cruise and I never wanted to either.
10. In November I'm going on a cruise with Pat Sloan and Bonnie Hunter and about 10 of my quilty pals. Wheeeee!

     So, you wanna know what I got for my birthday besides great news from a fortune cookie?
     Duh! Fabric! Kona solids. This is the year of solid colors. (it's no longer the year of the studio, the new arrangement is NOT working, more on that another time)   I promise to post some pictures this week.
Have a great day, and tonight when it's dark, try navigating with your eyes closed.

Vote for Pedro!!

2011-02-10T08:48:00.000-05:00

The voting has begun over at Gen X for the Love Nest Modern Quilt Contest. There are 41 awesome quilts entered so it's a fun online quilt show. Pop on over and vote for your favorite. Voting continues through Feb 15 and the top six then go to some very cool judges who pick three winners. I had a lot of fun checking out the quilts and I have to be honest, it's tough to pick just one. Anyway, I'll be thrilled just to get some votes. Enjoy the show!

Love Nest Quilt Contest. Check out my entry!

2011-02-06T16:27:00.001-05:00

I stumbled across a contest the other day. The Gen X Quilters are sponsoring the Love Nest Quilt Contest. It's for bed-sized modern quilts. The deadline is Feb. 9th. I first thought of the mod blocks I've been working with but I just can't meet the deadline with that quilt. Then I remembered this sassy bright quilt!

This is one of my favorite quilts. I started it a couple years ago on retreat with my guild. When I packed up for retreat, I didn't have any specific projects in mind to work on. That can be a very bad way to go. I had a couple of new quilt books and a new passion for brights and pink and white. So I started packing.....and packing.....and packing. One thing about retreat is that you don't want to get there and then remember the perfect fabric that you left at home. Well lemme tell you, I surely did not let that happen. I had the Mt. Everest of fabrics on my work table!!!

This Heather Ross fabric is possibly my faborite fabric EVER! If there was a fire and I could only save one fabric, it would be this one. I got it on ebay several years ago (yup, ebay again! just so you know, I no longer allow myself to search for Heather Ross on ebay.) I got a whole yard of this and a yard of the same in blue, both for a very good price. If you can even find it anymore, it goes for a bazillion dollars. I sure wish I had known about HR years ago when I started my stash. Anyway, back to the quilt. It started with the pink VW buses, I started making bright scrappy stars.

I made 25 of the stars and put them up on my design wall (on retreat I take a flannel backed tablecloth to use), and pondered setting ideas. Then I remembered the books I had brought. One of them was Kim Schaefer's Flower Festival. I poked through it and decided to alternate my stars with some applique blocks. I made lots of flowers and could not resist adding some critters too. Hi Ladybug!

I love love love this caterpiller! And can you see my other Heather Ross fabric with the doggies?

I figured with all those flowers, there would certainly be a butterfly. I had some fun with prairie points too. My first experience with prairie points. I wanted to dress up the border a little so I just took fabric squares, folded them twice on the diagonal and tucked them in the seam when I added the outer border. I put little clusters of them at random around the quilt. I didn't tack or quilt them down, I like the sort of 3-d effect from them.

The pink batik that I used for the inner border is so darn sweet that you practically need some insulin to just look at it.

I wish I could have gotten better pictures of my quilting. If you click on this photo and enlarge it, maybe you can see the butterfly. I went through a stack of books of quilt designs and picked out lots of different flowers and this butterfly. I traced the designs on paper (I have a roll of 'examining table' paper like they have in doctor's offices), then I stacked some paper and sewed along my traced lines. This way I duplicated multiples of the designs. Pin the papers around the border, sew right through the paper, tear it off, and voila!! I think this is much easier than marking.

I used light pink thread for the quilting. I am an insecure quilter and my big fear is always that crappy quilting will show up too much.

Hopefully I'll get over that soon.

I guess it's sort of silly to put all that effort into something that will be barely noticeable. Let that be a lesson to me the next time I go to quilt something.

So there you have it! I wanted to use some bright fabrics and I had a new book for inspiration. I started playing and the next thing I knew, I had this fabulous quilt that I just love. If you love it too, head on over here to the Love Nest contest and vote for it. Thank you in advance, lol.

Now I am off to make some tasty treats to eat while watching the Super Bowl.

oh! ps - this quilt won a 3rd place ribbon at the Maryland State Fair!

What makes a collector?

2011-02-06T02:08:00.000-05:00

If you remember a couple of posts ago, I showed you this little vintage nativity scene I have.....and love!

Well, I pondered the idea of checking ebay to see if there was anything like it out there. I guess I must have been bored, who knows. Anyway I did a quick search on ebay and, guess what! I found one. So I popped a quick bid up there. Someone quickly outbid me. Good grief, I thought, this is a 4 inch plastic nativity. AND it's at least 50 years old and made in Hong Kong. So I bid again and put a max bid of about $30.00. Sentimental value you see. I closed down my computer and that was that. A couple days later I received an email that I DID NOT win it!! Whaaaaat? Someone else ended up paying $41.50 for it. I was pissed (and intrigued). So I went back and checked out the bidding on the item. There were two other bidders and ebay will show you what other items people have bid on. Both of them had zillions of bids on Christmas items. Yeesh, collectors! I'm not a collector, I just wanted to get another little plastic nativity like the one that I love so much. The nerve of those........those......'collectors'.......... bidding against my sentimental little quest.

Whoa! Wait a minute! At the bottom of the screen ebay shows other items you might be interested in. And there was another nativity. Oh yeah I thought, I'll show you, you collectors. There goes another bid. And I did a little more searching and discovered that there were plenty more of my precious little nativity scenes. Sooooo, I really don't want to bore you. I just really really wanted to get one. I don't know why the first went for so much but I was nervous so I bid on a few.

Fast forward a couple weeks and guess what?

I think I'm a little bit of a collector. Check this out. I ended up with a few little scenes. (No I did not spend $41 on any of them!) See the three up front? They are 1 and a half to 2 inches tall.

And look at this one! Several different heights in the front for the sheep to stand on. It's about 7 inches tall.

Wowzer!! This is the big daddy of them all. About 8 by 6 inches I think.

That's right people, I bought 8 in all. It appears to be a collection. I lost a few auctions so at one point I got mad and laid down quite a few bids. These things are popular. If you were thinking of making fun of me, then you'd better consider that you just don't know what's cool, lol. I'm looking forward to next Christmas when I can have a little display. And while I wait for next December, I'm staying AWAY from ebay. It doesn't seem to be a good environment for me. I seem to get a little competitive.

Enought of that ok. Here is my sassy and bright mod quilt. I have the basic top done but I'm contemplating an interesting outer border. I decided to give up on my deadline. I really like this quilt and I want to do it justice, with a decent border and nice quilting. That means I need to slow down and not be in a hurry.

When I am in a hurry, I get impatient when it comes to the quilting and that doesn't end well. I get too excited when it gets close to the end and I pick the easiest route. But , fyi, I can actually do a purty decent job when I put the time into it.
So I'll keep you posted as this moves along
Today I played around making some hearts for a Valentine idea. It it turns into something I'll be sure to show you. Enjoy the Super Bowl!

One step closer.

2011-02-01T13:47:00.000-05:00

As you can see, I picked a background fabric. I really wanted to try a gray check but I'm proud that I used my stash instead.

Man it's time consuming to be random. It might have been easier to be wonky. I don't have a lot of this yellow so I'm adding strip by strip and trying not to waste any. I still have more work to do, I just wanted to give you a little peek.

Sadly, I now have to go to work. Bleh. It's cold and icy outside and the weather man says there is some snow coming. Why can't I stay in my jammies? Why why why?

Workshops available at my house.

2011-01-30T15:09:00.000-05:00

I have a personal deadline to get these blocks turned into a quilt. I know exactly what I want to do but just can't find a background fabric I want to use. I've been digging around in my stash and auditioning fabrics. I really wish I had Kona Ash or a grey gingham to try but I don't have them and I'm on a fabric diet AND I don't have time to order something anyway. I got these cool mod fabrics, most are from Birch, when I went to NYC in October.

While I try to make up my mind, I have decided to offer a few classes over here. The following are available:

- 'How to load dirty dishes into the dishwasher'

- 'How to put the sugar back in the pantry'

- 'Directions from the den to the kitchen and how to carry dishes while walking'

- 'The closet floor isn't for clean clothes any more'

- 'How to navigate the Hair Cuttery system and receive a haircut'

- 'How to flatten a cereal box before putting it in the recycle bin'

Is this little scooter cute or what?

The workshops are geared to the college age-group. We will not have 'How to make your bed' this semester as that is a post-graduate level course and there are no applicants at this time who are prepared to tackle such high-level techniques.
'How to keep your car clean' also will not be offered this semester as that is post-doctoral level training requiring a committment to a year long fellowship.

LOVE these mod houses!!! Do Rob and Laura Petry live here? (remember them? Dick van Dyke show? hello? anybody?)

I just love these chairs, especially the detail of the bird.

Ok now, enough frivolity. I need to get back to digging through my stash. I may just resort to white but I don't want to feel that I settled for second choice. Suggestions are welcome!

Snow day!

2011-01-27T18:47:00.000-05:00

We got some snow last night. Yesterday morning I woke up to a surprise couple of inches of snow. All day they were calling for 1 to 5 inches more but first there was rain.

When I got home from work yesterday it was pouring rain. I guess it switched to snow early and we got about 10 inches overnight. Because of the rain, the trees are covered with ice and the snow stuck to it. It's so pretty.

When I look out the back window into the woods, it's all white. And the best part of this is that I didn't have to go to work until 3pm today. That means I had plenty of time to shovel out my car. Actually, Mr. 9patch did. First my brother, the best neighbor in the world, plowed our driveway. Then my husband dug out the cars. I showed up fashionably late ready for work.

That was when I found my son and my husband trying to get my son's car out of the snowbank. It was sideways at the top of our drive. I helped them get it out. (I'm gonna get real for a minute here, ok? I was instrumental in helping them get his car out. I am the brains when it comes to snow. The menfolk? They just spin the tires and push and grunt. So I got bossy: turn the wheels this way, rock the car, put on the brakes, turn the wheels back, easy on the gas etc etc. Bam! The car was out and sonny boy headed down the hill.) The menfolk were going down to shovel out some parking spots at the bottom of the drive and I headed back inside for one last brush of the teeth and packing of my dinner. Fifteen minutes later I drove down and what did I find? Deja vu. A car sideways with two guys pushing and grunting. First we shoveled, then I hopped in, got bossy, and got that car OUT of the way. I sure hope that when I get home at midnight tonight, there will be a clear path for me. I would rather not slip slide my way up the hill in the dark.

I am still working on the binding for the red star quilt. Our house is a little cold so I haven't felt like handwork. Sheesh! That's a weak excuse isn't it? Well, it's the only one I have. Enjoy the view!

Paying it forward for 2011 and all-day fun at a sewing marathon.

2011-01-23T20:19:00.000-05:00

Who wants to pay it forward this year? Think about it. Ipromise to send something handmade to the first 3 people who leave a comment here. To be eligible, you must also post this in your blog, offering the same thing to 3 other people. The rules are that it must be handmade by you and it must be sent to your 3 people in 2011. If you're game, leave a comment and sometime this year, I will surprise you with something handmade.

Sorry about the underlining up there, I can't seem to make it go away. If you read this post, you might remember that I looked high and low last fall for some Christmas fat quarters that I had cut into rectangles for a garland. Well, when I was packing stuff up for a sewing day with friends, I found them. Figures, huh?

And guess what? I do not feel like sewing anything Christmasy right now. Hope I can find these next fall. Actually I have been thinking about designating July as Xmas sewing month. The point would be to take the pressure off in the fall. It's something to think about.

I had a great day yesterday. I got together with my Wild Thread friends AND some new friends from the Baltimore Modern Quilt Guild. We had a marathon sew-in day at a church near me. 12 hours of fun, food, friends, and fabric. Yippee! My friend, Annette, gave us a spontaneous demo of a quick folded fabric block. As soon as I get a link from Annette, I will post the youtube video about it. It was a cool technique and I'd like to try it soon.

We have such a great space to work in at this church. Tons and tons of natural light, plenty of tables, a kitchen we can use. I took my computer and speakers so we could have music.

We also played a fun dice game called Left, Right, Center. Each of us brought 3 FQ's to play with and one person went home with ALL of them. Here is Linda raking in the FQ's.

And wouldn't you know, Linda owns a quilt shop!! But the funniest thing is that she had forgotten to bring her fabric and projects. So she got to work on something after all, lol.

We immediately had our Mug Rug swap so the losers in the dice game could soothe our hurt feeling. We each brought a mug rug in a paper bag and took turns choosing a bag. It was fun to see what everyone had made. Heather got to choose between two. The idea is that one was for lefties and one for righties. She chose the flower.

Jen lucked out with a cute birdhouse with a couple little birdies. You know I felt a little envy over the birdies.

Nichelle got some cool flying geese made by my friend Annette.

Oh that lucky Pat!! Look at the cool fabrics in hers.

Rebecca's rug was rockin some selvages!

And here we are, all showing off our new treasures. We were very amused that so many of us were color coordinated with our rugs, lol.

So what did I get done when I wasn't eating or playing? Well, I finally got this quilt quilted. I gave it away as a Christmas gift when it wasn't finished. I've become so desperate to get it off my plate that I did what I call 'cop-out quilting'. PLEASE don't judge me! I had planned to quilt feathered circles in each of the big squares but I began to think I would never finish. So, instead, I just did some (ok, minimal) straight line quilting in the center then I meandered in the border. As I type, all that I need to do is hand sew the binding. It's for my brother's new girlfriend who is VERY nice. We really like her and she really fit right in with this nutty family. Most important is that she makes him happy. Yay!

After I did that quilting, I put some borders on this quilt. Since I'm on a fabric diet, I had to rummage around the stash for fabrics to match. I had several possibilities but no combos that we all got excited about. Then my friend, Janet, (my awesome friend Janet) pulled out the solid lime green batik that you see for the inner border. Yes!! We have a winner. Thank you Janet, thank you, thank you!

I know just what baby is going to get this quilt and luckily I have plenty of time to find the right backing and finish up. Hopefully I won't be driven to any more 'cop-out quilting' this year.

So a very fun and productive day. We even had some late evening dancing and throwing of scraps into the air like confetti. Kathy brought a bag of scraps to give away and we had some fun with them. I worked a little on my scrappy blocks. I now have a plan for them. I need to do a little fabric shopping in my stash and then hopefully I'll have something to show. Now don't forget to comment if you want to play along with the 'handmade pay it forward'. G'nite all!

Exhaustion: noun, the state of being exhausted, extreme weakness or fatigue.

2011-01-21T13:05:00.000-05:00

This past week, my work schedule was crazier than usual. We had a very high risk case on Wednesday so I worked a 16 hour shift that day. I could have gotten overtime pay but I chose instead to have off today, Friday. Yay! I'm really pooped but I will make good use of my day. First I had to take two cats to the vet. Last night my husband and I went and got 2 new cat carriers. Silly Mrs. Puff thinks this is one fine place to hang out. She even slept in it last night!

Tomorrow is a sewing marathon with my friends in my mini group, The Wild Threads, and I also invited members of the brand new Baltimore Modern Quilt Guild. I plan to pack up my projects, machine, sew-ezi table, coffee makings etc etc and be ready to roll out first thing in the AM. We are doing a Mug Rug swap, I'm ready for that. We are also playing a dice game called Left, Right, Center. Everybody starts with 3 items (fat quarters tomorrow) and one person will go home with ALL of them. Hope it's me!

I'm taking my camera tomorrow and will get lots of photos of everything the happy quilters are working on. And maybe some great shots of raucous behavior involving fat quarters and dice! Well, what do you think, should I just keep this cat carrier out and let Puff use it for a bed?

One step closer.

2011-01-18T13:38:00.000-05:00

Squaring up. It's boring. It takes too long. It reminds me that my piecing wasn't perfect. I'm not a perfectionist so if I have to square up, you know the piecing is rough. Oh well! Here are my 45 pinwheel blocks. I just circled each one using 2 and a half inch strips.

Ignore the pink stuff in the top left. It's some gauzy stuff that was wrapped around some Valentine flowers I got last year. I'm saving it for something artsy. I don't know what, probably a mini quilt, maybe for AAQI.

I started running out of strips so I had to circle some of the pinwheels with a mix.

I don't think it is very noticeable and anyway, it adds interest.

So I have 45 blocks that are 9.25 inches square. I guess I'll set them 5 blocks by 9 blocks unless anyone has a better idea. All suggestions welcome. Gotta go to work now so have a great day!

I just love 3 day weekends!

2011-01-17T18:39:00.000-05:00

Well my bloggy peeps, at the risk of reminding myself of a painful football loss (with Steeler's fans present), I will share with you my sources for some very tasty sangria and dip. The sangria makes quite a batch so I just put it outside instead of in the refrigerator. So far, I haven't had any trouble with raccoons taking the lid off.

These are the basic ingredients. I got my recipe out of the Pioneer Woman's cookbook so I am hesitant to print it here. I will link you to a blog post of hers with a sangria recipe, here. So far, I have always made it with white and red wines but I would like to try some variations with just white. The surprise for me was the rum and vodka, both orange flavored. They add a wonderful 'kick', if you know what I mean.

And now for the easiest and tastiest dip EVER!! I have been making this for quite a few years and I often get requests for it when parties are being planned. I always make sure I have some of this relish from Harry and David in my pantry.

Two bricks of cream cheese and one jar of pepper and onion relish. I toss it all in the 'ol Kitchen aid mixer and it's done. That's it. Embarrassingly easy. It's awesome with chips like Tostitos but also good with crackers and anything else you want. There are also other relish blends to try, all are good and tasty.

How do you like this little cutie? I think she'd be a lot cuter without the Steeler's jersy. This is my cousin Kate's youngest, Sophia. I always wanted to try making one of these little tutu skirts. There are tutorials all over for them. I decided to make one on Saturday for her (and it was a good way to sneak a hint of purple on her, hee hee.

I found this tutorial for half square triangles last week and just had to try it. I pulled out a few charm packs I had and in no time there was a pile of 180 HST's and then 45 pinwheel blocks. Despite my complete distaste for squaring things up, I did do it on all of these blocks today. They really needed it. I don't know about you but I find it difficult to stitch accurately with the charm squares that have 'pinked' edges. I am working on a simple way to set these. I'm sure it will go together quickly and hopefully I can show you this week.

Today, we finally got all of the rest of the xmas stuff put away. My husband helped in spite of my earlier promise to do all of it if he only did the tree. What a sweetie. I had to get a picture of this little creche. It is my favorite of ALL of my Christmas decorations. It's only about 4 inches tall and is light as a feather since it's plastic. As far as I know, it's older than I am because I think we have always had it. I'm not sure if my mom gave it to me or if I just 'confiscated' it one year. I hesitate to ask, what if she asked for it back. I don't know why but I just love this, maybe I'll check out ebay and see if I can find any others like it.

Well, if I leave right now, I can make it to my guild meeting on time. But it's cold outside, waah! Until next time....g'nite!!

Not sure when this happened!

2011-01-15T12:39:00.000-05:00

I'm a football fan. It's a recent transformation for me and it's because Baltimore is so darn cute when the Ravens play and especially when they are doing well. (plus I adore Joe Flacco) If you are not into football or if you are a Steeler's fan, please bear with me. Baltimore gets a little excited about the Ravens. And today is a BIG game. Our longstanding rivalry with the Steeler's combined with an important post-season game has ramped up 'purple frenzy'. Last night at work, on purple Friday, many of us were wearing Ravens scrub hats. We have a big bulletin board at the OR entrance covered with Ravens photos. And guess who came to visit my operating room? A team of surgeons from Pittsburgh!! Boy were we ready for them. We plastered the room with Ravens pictures. We have a huge flatscreen hooked to the computer (for showing scans and xrays) and we put the Ravens logo on it. All in good fun of course. They had Steeler's hats on and there was friendly ribbing back and forth.
So if you don't mind, please cheer for the Ravens today. I'm going next door to my brother's (he has the biggest TV and he is a master chef on the grill). Just to show that it's all in good fun, we invited my cousin, Kate, and her husband, Frank. They are Steeler's fans. My big jug of killer sangria is mixed and marinating outside on a snowy table and I have the makings for my fabulous dip ready to go. It's sinfully easy. How about I post the sangria and dip recipes tomorrow? Have a great day and I promise a quilty post this weekend.

Weekend fun!

2011-01-09T19:35:00.000-05:00

Well I searched and searched and couldn't figure out where I saw this. I am SO sorry that I can't give credit. I know it's a blog I read and love and comment on. Sadly I couldn't find the post. If it was 'you' , please speak up and I will sing your praises!! Anyway, check out my new/old kitchen towels (or tea towels if your prefer). I took vintage tablecloths that I had and cut towel sized portions. Then I just popped some binding on them. Ta dah!

It was fun picking out some nice bright fabrics for the bindings.

If you are worried about me cutting into vintage linens, I had already cut into these to make some pillows a few years ago.

I made four of these because it was so easy.

See the red check that my mom gave me last week?

I cut the bindings for the towels with my Accuuilt Go. I had skinny little fabric strips left over so I started to play with them. I wove them into square patches. I have been wanting to make some mug rugs and I have a swap coming up so I kept on playing. Using one of my new books, Scandinavian Stitches by Kajsa Wikman, I threw on a little applique.

More of the red check from mom.

Birdies!

And I have wanted to make a tiny banner for a while. Just because.

See my weaving? A fun weekend. Now I have to go out in the cold and drop my car off to be serviced tomorrow. Maybe when I get back I'll put on my PJ's and have some hot chocolate. Enjoy your week. I have some thoughts about my studio arrangement that I'll share in the next post. I have some kinks to work out with the arrangement.