Happy New Year 2012

Wow! Where has the last month gone? Where has the last year gone? This is the last day of 2011. I wanted to get one more post in before the new year begins.

I have not been sewing very much this last month. The only sewing I have been doing is sewing up some 2 patches to make 4 patches to make Em's 4 patch quilt. She did her quilt as leaders/enders. I don't have the patience to wait that long. When I feel the need to do some mindless sewing, I pull out some more squares and sew up more 2 patches. I have not gotten enough sewn to go to the 4 patch stage just yet, but I am working on it. That is about all the space I have to work with on my sewing table. I did sew up a couple of the final blocks to see what they will look like together. I am using one Kona white for all the light colored 4 patches, but the other patches will be scrappy.

The pictures I have included in this post is of my new purple Singer Featherweight sewing machine, and the newly covered sewing case to go with my new purple machine. My machine is not really "new", but reconstructed. The purple paint is new as well as the cover on the old case. I have been drolling over this machine for some time. We have friends who have a Singer Featherweight sales and repair business. I visit their booth at all the quilt shows we attend. I have looked at this machine and threatened to buy it several times. I kept thinking that if it was still there at the next quilt show, then it was destined to be mine. That is exactly what happened. It is now mine and I love it. It attracts attention whenever I take it to sew-ins or classes. I took it to my last Quilting 101 workshop. A few of the ladies there were quite interested in it. I had to keep my eye on them to make sure my purple cutie went home with me and not with one of them! LOL!

I wish all of you a Happy New Year's eve, and a wonderful 2012 New Year!

Happy Quilting

Block 12 Finally Finished

Yes, this is block number 12 in my Periwinkle Lane series, and it is finally finished! Hip-hip-hooray! Now I must decide how I want to set them.

We had a busy few days. It was my birthday the day before Thanksgiving, then Thanksgiving happened, and today I am trying to recooperate from all the fun and festivities. Actually, I am trying to recooperate from all the cleaning and cooking and cleaning! LOL! It's no fun having a birthday the day before Thanksgiving when you have a house to clean.

All our children made an appearance on Thanksgiving. They were all here at one time for a couple of hours. Number 1 son and girlfriend came early, daughter and friend came a little late, and Number 2 son and family came a little later. It was lots of fun, but I couldn't keep up with the dishes and play with the babies too! Next Thanksgiving we will have two little ones running around! Next year I think I will purchase a precooked meal and just heat it up so I can play, too!

Last Saturday was my Quilting 101 workshop. I received another bag of scraps given to me by thee different quilters so I am sorting through them and cutting them up into usable shapes. I have scraps strewn around my sewing table. Recently I made myself a pledge that when I received scraps I would get them sorted and cut ASAP so that I don't have a collection of scrap bags under my table again. So far it is working pretty well. I have already used some of those scraps in quilt blocks I have made.

I find it so fun to use other quilter's fabrics in my quilting. I feel like I have a part of them in my quilts. I also like the idea that they use my fabrics in their quilts because then there is a part of me in their quilts. The Ying and Yang. I love it!

When I get my table uncovered again I want to cut up some squares and sew together the friendship blocks that I received in our friendship exchange at retreat. It is going to be a cheerful, colorful quilt.

Happy Quilting

Kaleidoscope blocks

The stacked strips in this picture have been sitting on my sewing table waiting to be finished for a while. I finally pulled them down last week to work on them. I have decided to make a 20 (4 x 5) block quilt. The ruler I used to cut my blocks is the one shown in the picture. The blocks are 12 inches finished. I know there are other ways to put these blocks together. I choose this one. The instructions are on the back of the ruler board.

These are easy blocks to make. I have found, though, that I must take much care in sewing an accurate seam allowance, and of course the cutting of the strips must be accurate. I also learned to press the dickens out of these strips when they are sewn into a strata. If I did not, my wedges did not come out even. I needed to stretch a little here, and ease a little there. But all in all, very easy sewing. I was at the beginning of my "turquoise period" when I pulled the fabrics for these blocks! Turquoise and purple is my favorite color combination. It runs a close tie with red, white and blue.

I have felt very creative with this project. After I get these blocks finished and all sewn together, then I must attend to making borders. Any ideas? I have been reading books on borders. I want to be more creative with borders on my quilts, but often I sew on the old standby, two or three strips of different fabrics just so I can get the project finished, quilted, bound and ready to give away.

What are you working on? Christmas gifts? UFOs? New projects? Charity quilts? Whatever projects you are working on.....

Happy Quilting

Veteran's Day on 11-11-11

Today is USA's Veteran's Day. I want to take a moment to honor all the veterans, past and present, who have served to protect our country. Thank you for the sacrifices you, and your families, have made. In addition, today is November 11, 2011 (11-11-11). The year 2012 will be the last year in this decade where the numerology of the month, day, and year will match. I wanted to make a post on this day to historically mark the date in my blog (deep, huh). My goal is to have 11 happy comments on this post. So ladies, please help me out and leave a happy comment on this post so that I may reach my goal. Also included are more photos of our retreat. Note that some of the jelly roll quilts have small squares of a "zinger" fabric between the strips. This adds a nice interest to these quilts, yes? In addition to all this jelly roll maddness is a photo of Jeanne's table runner. Cute isn't it?

Remember to leave a comment. Happy Quilting

More Retreat Photos

Here are some photos of the Jelly Roll Race quilts. A few quilters made two and three quilts. The winner made two race quilts while I had not finished my first!

Retreat Fun

This last weekend I attended a retreat. It was so fun. We sewed and laughed and ate and complained about the drunk baseball dads. Saturday afternoon we had a Jelly Roll Race. In the evening we played Left, Right, Center. I did not win. Sunday we exchanged some friendship blocks. In between all those activities we sewed lots of things. I made four quilt backs (my least favorite quilting activity) and sent them off with our resident machine quilter. One of those quilts I needed to finish the borders, then the back. I am so thrilled to have those four quilts out of my sewing room and on to their machine quilting destination.

The quilt pictures are three of the tops that were finished last weekend, and one quilted (but not bound) quilt. Roberta made the Irish Chain style top, I made the dots baby quilt, and Patti made the Beatles top. The beige piece that is quilted is Jane's quilt. It is a result of two exchanges. First we exchanged the beige star-type blocks (sorry, I don't remember the name of that block). Then Jane brought those blocks to another exchange and those blocks went to Monica to finish into a top. Monica appliqued the center medallion and the Celtic style border. Monica also sewed all the blocks/pieces together into the final top. Jane had it machine quilted. Remember when I showed the quilt top with all the different pumpkins (and one block that represented a slice of pumpkin pie)? That was the quilt I finished for Monica in the swap block exchange, and this is the quilt top Monica finished for Jane. That exchange was lots of fun.

I had planned to sew my quilt backs on Friday, then Saturday I scheduled my kaleidoscope block sewing, and Sunday I was going to sew together my newly acquired friendship exchange blocks. Ha-Ha-Ha! So much for my organization! I finally had my quilt backs finished Saturday evening. Sunday I started working on my kaleidoscope blocks. I only finished four blocks, but that is four more than I had finished when I left home! Since I have not yet decided how many kaleidoscope blocks I want to make, I might actually be done. Who knows! I need to lay them out and really decide how big I want this quilt to be, and then I will know how many more blocks I will want to make.

There were many Jelly Roll Race quilts sewn. I will post pictures of those in my next post.

Happy Quilting

Halloween Blocks

These are photos of two of the Amy Bradley Halloween Blocks our group is exchanging. Since there are fewer quilters in this exchange, we each chose two blocks to make and exchange. I chose Pumpkinhead and Boo Kitty. We might be exchanging the blocks this coming weekend.

We originally had planned to exchange the blocks in the month of September, but not all of us (including me) had them finished. Our goal was to have the blocks done and exchanged in time to put them together for this Halloween. Since Halloween is tomorrow, it is evident we did not meet that goal for this year. But there is always next year. I think Lizzie will appreciate it more next year. I participated in this exchange because (1) the backgrounds were purple, and (2) with the thought that the grandbabies would enjoy this quilt at Halloween time. Lucas is only 5 weeks old, so it might be a couple more Halloweens before he really knows all about Trick or Treating, etc. but Lizzie should get a good idea about that this year.

In this picture of Lizzie she is wearing the outfit I bought for her a couple of weeks ago. I think she is too cute! She wore this all day and did not fuss with the orange tutu skirt.

DH likes to go to Five Guys Burgers. There is one in Fremont (a town near us). Two doors down from the burger place is a Carters store. What an opportunity for me! Every time we go to Five Guys, I always stoll down to Carters. Believe me, there is NEVER a time that I walk in there that I don't find at least five outfits in front of me that I want to buy, and that is barely getting through the doorway. Don't let me get to the back of the store! OMG!!! Now I have Lucas to shop for and that is double the trouble! LOL!

Now that I have all my exchange blocks completed, I can start on my UFOs. I pulled one down from a box after I finished my last Halloween block. I have all the parts cut for this UFO, and a few blocks sewn already. I think it will be quick to get done since all the strips are cut and ready. Elaine, this will be a kaleidoscope quilt. I started it after I saw a couple of yours posted in your blog.

My idea is to sew up at least one UFO before I start a new project. I don't know if I can stick to that plan since I love starting new projects more than I like finishing old ones, but I am going to give it a try. I have too many quilts "in progress", and that isn't taking into account the block sets from exchanges that I want to sew into quilts. If I stop and think about all the UFOs and exchanges that I have, it is overwhelming. So my thought is to take one project at a time and finish it. Hopefully I won't start more projects than I finish. I would like to be in the minus column instead of always in the plus column. I want to diminish my UFOs and hopefully I will not give in to my base desires of starting more new projects. If I don't sign up for anymore new quilt classes I might make it (and I really love taking quilt classes). We shall see.

If you celebrate Halloween, have a happy day tomorrow. When our kids were younger, we knew all the other kids in the neighborhood. At that time, we would have between 150-200 kids knock on our door on Halloween. Last year we had maybe 20-30. We also have adults (grown up kids) with their kids who stop by now. It is fun when I realize the adult is one of the kids who used to Trick or Treat here years ago. This is when I realize I am getting older! LOL!

Happy Halloween Haunting/Quilting

Quilt show

Yesterday my husband and I picked up my aunt and the three of us went to a quilt show near my aunt's home. It is one of my favorite shows. It is held at the county fair grounds in the city near my aunt's house. The guild members there are always very friendly and helpful.

The picture I have posted is a One Block Wonder quilt made by Sally Swalley. I encountered her at the show and she gave me permission to post this picture of her quilt. Of course the first thing that drew me to the quilt was that it was PURPLE, and that it was a One Block Wonder. There were a few quilts with this design that were exhibited. I especially like these quilts. Two people can use the same fabric to make this quilt, but each quilt will be different. I love taking classes like this because everyone's quilt is so diverse even though all participants use the very same pattern. I have a One Block Wonder in progress. Seeing these quilts yesterday, and especially this purple one, makes me want to pull mine out and finish it. BTW, it is on my list of quilts "To Be Done" (aka UFOs).

All the quilts at the show were great. Jill Schumacher was the featured quilter. Several of her quilts were exhibited. Her quilting on these quilts was stunning, to say the least.

After we left the show we went on an adventure. My husband saw a feature on a television program about a diner he wanted to go to in the same town as the quilt show. I pulled up information on the diner from the internet, printed a map provided on the diner website and we set off to find Lumpy's Diner. Well, the small map provided on the website was totally inadequate. My aunt knew the town fairly well, but had not heard of this diner. We continued to drive and drive and drive. At last we found the diner. We parked in front and went in. The place was packed. This was at 2:30 p.m. on a Sunday afternoon, and the place was absolutely packed. Fortunately someone left as we entered so there was one empty table. The diner closed at 3:00 p.m. so we just made it in time.

After viewing the menu we ordered our food. Our meals were okay, but not as good as my husband had expected from the feature he saw on television. The diner looked a lot bigger, and was much quieter on the television. When we sat down and ordered our meal, we could barely hear the waitress when she asked us questions about our orders. It was a fun place, but we decided we would not drive that far again in order to eat their fare.

After we took my aunt home, we drove back to our house, waited for 30 minutes, then we were off again to pick up our daughter, #1 son, and his girlfriend, to take them to dinner at Johnny Garlics in Dublin. It is a new place where Hubby and I wanted to eat, so that is where we took the kids for our son's birthday dinner. It was a much quieter place. The food was good. The garlic fries were great!

All in all, yesterday was a busy day for us! Taking in a quilt show, getting to two new food places, and driving over 200 miles to get all this accomplished made for a whiz bang day. The only thing that would have made it better is if #2 son and his family could have joined us. Since they have a new baby, they are not going out in public just yet.

No sewing done yesterday, but I did think about all the great quilts that I saw at the show which brought to mind the quilts I have that I want to finish, and new ones that I want to start. Every time I attend a quilt show it makes me want to get home and sew a new quilt.

Yesterday I heard one of the guild members say that she had five quilts exhibited in the show. She said they were all UFOs that she had finished since the last show. Our guild is holding a quilt show in 2012. I wonder if I can get five UFOs finished by then? You never know, anything is possible. I'd better get busy sewing!

Happy Quilting

New Grandson

We have a new grandson, Lucas George Thomas, 8 lbs 4 oz, 20 inches long. My son took this picture this morning while I was visiting them at the hospital. I had forgotten already about newborn sounds. Lucas cried, as he had a messy diaper, but his cry was so tiny. He sounded like a little kitten. Then it became a little louder, but still a tiny cry. Mom and Dad decided he must be hungry. It was about time for his next feeding anyway.

Hopefully they will be home tomorrow. Then little sister can see her new brother. Our son may have taken her in this afternoon to meet him. I wonder how she will react? Once they are home with him, and her, I bet the impact will happen that she is not the only little one in the household now. I am sure they will be great friends since they are close in age. They are only 14 months apart! Mom and Dad will have their hands full for a couple of years!

I cannot wait until he gets home tomorrow. We will be taking care of Lissie so I will get to see Lissie and Lucas together.

Happy Babies

Lego Blocks

Tonya is making a quilt which she calls her Lego quilt. I have been watching her progress. I think it is a fun block/quilt. I decided to play along. I started with a couple of blocks since I had a few 1.5 inch strips on my sewing table left over from another project. I started sewing them together and cutting them into 10.5 inch blocks to assemble into a quilt (someday I thought). Well, let me tell you that they are addictive! I cannot stop making them. I am searching through my strip boxes and pulling out everything I can use. I have even cut down some 2.0 inch strips to make them into the 1.5 inch size so that I will have more variety to choose from for my blocks.

I mean it, seriously! I am addicted to these things. I should be working on my exchange blocks, or making backs for the huge pile of tops that I have ready for quilting, or working on a UFO, or organizing stuff. Instead, I am squeezing in (sometimes) minutes to make another block. It seems that I have been sewing forever on these things, and I only have 11 blocks made. I need to get a bin and throw everything into it. I will keep it close so I can pull out some strips when I have a couple of minutes to spare and feel the need to sew a Lego.

I am including a darling pix of our cutie patootie that I took last week. She is getting so big. I know she is still very little, but she has grown so much in these last 15 months. Little brother may be here this weekend. So we will have another smaller cutie patootie to take pictures of and hug and squeeze.

Happy Quilting

Camp Stitches

Last Friday evening and Saturday was our guild's Camp Stitches event. I had such a great time!!! Friday evening was the Mystery Class. Below are two pictures of the teachers' quilts. The first one is the quilt as it was taught. The second one is a variation of the first one. Aren't they both beautiful? The teachers had us make only five blocks at first. I did complete my five before I went home. I want to make a few more and then sew my quilt top together.

Saturday afternoon was our Jelly Roll Race 1600. The next three pictures are of the tops that were completed in our race. I had such a great time running the race. I am so excited that so many racers finished. I told them I would not let them go home until they finished all five laps of the race!

Now that Camp Stitches is over, I can get back to some projects that I need to finish. The last two weeks have been really busy for me with various appointments and the regular things that I do, like baby duty with our precious cutie patootie. Her baby brother is due in a couple of weeks, so we will have two cutie patooties to play with soon. Wow!

Since this is September 11, I want to take a moment to honor the families and friends of the loved ones whose lives were lost 10 years ago today. I cannot adequately describe my feelings, not then and not now. When I put up the flag outside this morning, I said a prayer for them. God bless America.

Purple Pam

And The Winners Are

Thank you all for reading my blog and entering my 200th Post Give Away. Everyone of you are winners in my book. I have stayed up until 12:01 (this morning) September 1 so that the drawing of names could happen before you rise from your comfy beds . The ladies whose names were drawn are:

This and That BOM - Barb

Americana Rose - Anna

Scraps - Linda and Cindy D.

Congratulations ladies. Please email me your mailing addresses and I will send out your prizes within a few days.

Happy Quilting

P.S. I have included of picture of my favorite cutie patootie!

200th Post

Since this is my 200th post, I thought a give away would be in order. While I have been cleaning and reorganizing my sewing space, I have discovered kits, projects, and LOTS of scraps. I have included in this give away one (or two) boxes of scraps, one BOM kit, and one quilt kit that is fabric and pattern (nothing sewn yet). If you are interested in any of these items, please leave a comment, or email me. If you leave me an email, please make sure to leave your name. Also, please do not advertise this give away in any other blogs. This give away is for my loyal readers (all 10 of you!), those who have stuck with me through thick and thin (posts, that is).

This is a BOM that I have not finished. I have some of the blocks sewn. The picture above is the finishing kit with a picture of the finished quilt. The fabrics are from Fig Tree Designs. The colors are beautiful, but not my color palette. I ordered this BOM after I saw a black and white picture of the quilt. I did not know the color palette, but I really liked the quilt design.

In this box/s of scraps there will be strips, strings and some chunks and hunks. Pictured above is just a FEW of the scraps that will be sent out. If you are a scrappy quilter, this is the box for YOU.

Americana Rose is from Shabby Fabrics. I purchased it a couple of years ago. I saw it advertised in a quilt magazine and I thought it was so cheerful and pretty. The fabric and pattern for this quilt is included. It is pictured as a table cover, but I think it would look just as pretty as a wall hanging.

I realize many folks may be on vacation at this time of the year so I will keep this give away open until the end of the month, August 31. Be sure to indicate in your comment or email which item/s you want. Names will be drawn on September 1, 2011, and the winners' names will be posted on that date. Until then.....

Happy Quilting

County Fair Quilt

This is the first quilt that I organized for our quilt guild to be quilted at the Alameda County Fair. This was in 1992 I think. Our quilt guild did exhibit quilting for the county fair every year. We usually were given the first week on the fair schedule and another local guild was given the second week.

I volunteered to chair the committee for the fair quilt for several years. I realized early on that often a committee consisted of a committee of one. For this quilt I found a pattern I liked, shopped for the fabric, sewed the blocks together, and passed around a sign up sheet for members to sign up to volunteer to quilt at the fair. Any member who signed up to work on the quilt was given a free admission ticket, and preferred parking behind the building where we quilted.

The first Friday of the fair schedule we set up our quilt frame and began hand quilting. We used a silk thread that I really liked. I had made a quilt design, and marked the blocks and borders beforehand. It was such a delight to work on the fair quilt. There were so many people who came by and stopped to talk to us. They would share their family quilt stories.

There were many men who would stop by and tell us about sitting under the quilt frame while their grandmothers and their friends would quilt. They would often tell us that their grandmother would set up the quilt frame outside somewhere in the shade and the ladies would quilt all day. Lunch would be served. The men often commented that this was their favorite part of the quilting bee! One man said he would sit under the frame. When his grandmother would push the needle down, he would push it back up. He always got in trouble for that he said!

This quilt is completely hand quilted. When I look on the back, I can see all the beautiful quilting. I remember that the day before I was to take the quilt to the fair, I was putting the rows together. I realized I had sewn 24 blocks incorrectly. So I sat all afternoon and evening unsewing the blocks and sewing them together correctly. I did not get to bed until 5:00 a.m. the next morning. I slept for two hours, got up and headed to the fair with the quilt. I stayed all day. I quilted part of the day, but mostly talked to folks the rest of the day.

For each hour a member helped with the quilt, they were given a ticket. At the end of the fair, we placed all the tickets in a container. At the next guild meeting, someone pulled a ticket from the container. The person whose name was on the ticket won the quilt.

For several years I worked on the fair quilts. I never won a quilt, but I always had a good time trying. It was fun to talk to the folks who came by to watch us quilt. They had lots of questions about quilting, but also lots of wonderful stories to share with us. The stories were the most interesting part of it all for me.

Happy Quilting

More quilts found at the bottom of the pile

Here are pictures of some of the quilts that I unearthed at the bottom of the pile of quilts on my quilt rack. This house quilt I made back in the early 1990s. I remember how much fun I had picking fabrics for each of the houses.

This Carpenter's Square quilt has Laurel Birch Jungle Song fabric in the background, and for the back. I fell in love with that design and bought yards of it. I made two quilts from this fabric. The other quilt was bigger and I gave it away before I took a picture of it. I think this was done during my "lime" period.

This quilt was made in a class at the Laurel Leaf quilt store in San Carlos, CA. This was my first Stack and Whack quilt. I have made a few quilts with this technique. Each one has a different number of blades.

I made this quilt while I was taking classes during the summers at the Adobe Art Center in Castro Valley, CA. Since I was working the school year, I was only able to take the classes during my summer break. The teacher was wonderful. She taught us hand piecing, as well as machine piecing. I had such a great time in these summer classes. This quilt was called Picket Fences.

This last quilt is another Stack and Whack technique. There are more blades in this quilt. The edges/points of each blade is loose, not sewn down. My mother saw me making these blocks and fell in love with them. When I finished this quilt I gave it to her.

I hope you have enjoyed going down Memory Lane with me today. I certainly enjoyed making each of these quilts. They represent different times in my quilting life. The best part of these quilts is that they are "finished". Now if I can just get that pile of tops finished that are under my sewing table! LOL!

Happy Quilting

Snowbound is found

During all this reorganization of my sewing room I have been finding lost/forgotten items. Maybe I should say that these are items have not been seen in a a few years. While I have been visiting old projects, I was thinking about my Snowbound quilt. I have thought about it for a few days, trying to remember where I had seen it last. I have not seen it in a few years. I started wondering where it was, did I still have it, had I given it away? I have gone through all my boxes that were under my table and I know it was not in any of those boxes. I went through them again just in case I might have missed something. No Snowbound. I thought about the closet and knew it was not there either because that was the first place I cleaned out.

There is a quilt stand in the corner of my sewing room. I have several quilts hung, and folded and stacked, on this stand. Truthfully I have wondered how this little stand has supported the weight of all the these quilts for all these years, but it has. I decided to pull all my quilts from this area and see if maybe Snowbound was there. I removed all the folded quilts. Then I pulled up all the quilts that were hung on the rack itself. Lo and behold, at the bottom under two other quilts was my Snowbound quilt. I was so excited. It was like meeting an old friend that I had not seen in a long time. I hugged that quilt, and danced around the living room with it and hollered at my husband, "Eureka"!

Since all the quilts were out of the corner, I put several of them on our bed and looked at them. I tried to remember when I made them. Was it in a class, or at a retreat, with a bee, or just because I liked the pattern? It was like going down Memory Lane. Unfortunately, none of these quilts have labels. I decided right then and there that every quilt I make from now on will have a label.

I have heard for years that we should document our quilts. I had not thought it was such an important thing for me because none of my quilts were going down in history in any eventful way. Well, I was wrong. I wish I could remember when I made each of these treasures. Yes, I said treasures as each and every one of these quilts are a treasure to me at this time of my life.

I remember reading in Teresa's Fabric Therapy blog how she documents her quilts. It would be fun to know when I made the quilt, if it was from a class and if so where, and what was I doing in my life that prompted me to decide that this particular quilt was one that I desired to create. I looked at the fabrics in my Snowbound quilt, and found scraps of most of the pieces in the box that was under the table. I know have made more than one quilt from those fabrics, but when?

I made Snowbound during my "country period". I am now into my purple/brights period. I may not be using the older fabrics anymore, but I love my Snowbound quilt. I want to keep it close to the top of the pile as I have decided to hang it during the month of January. We do not have snow where I live, but when I look at Snowbound, I think of winter. With the Santa block in this quilt, it also reminds me of Christmas. I want to have a quilt to hang each month that depicts the season. My idea for January has been a snowflake quilt. I think that Snowbound could be my version of a snowflake quilt. January is now covered! I can mark a snowflake quilt off my "To Do" list. Whooppee!

Happy Quilting

P.S. Nadine, do you remember what year you taught this class at Going to Pieces?

Slow Progress

When I decided to reorganize my sewing room, I decided it was also time to get all the bags/boxes of scraps out in the open and start working on them. After I made four big blocks (from scrap strips I had in a container) for a workshop I am teaching this month, I pulled out a bag of scraps and sorted them last night. I did get some cutting of pieces last night and this morning. I have a start, at least, on decreasing the number of scrap bags. The next bag to tackle is one of the bigger ones that I am tripping over on my route around the table on the way to my sewing machine.

The second picture is of some of the bags. There are a couple more bags around the corner. Over by the closet door are four boxes, also of scraps, but one box is 5 inch charm squares that quilt friends gave me for my 50th birthday. Each person gave me 50 squares, some of them were duplicates, and some were actually all charm squares, each square from a different fabric. I have been thinking about these squares for years trying to decide what I want to make with them. I haven't hit on that solution yet, but I have played with them several times hoping they would give me an idea.

The third picture is of a baby quilt I put together from a pattern a friend gave me just before the reorg happened. It uses 6 fat quarters, and you use all of each fat quarter. Now I must decide on a border treatment. Any suggestions? I cut fat quarters from each of the fabrics I used, so I have a little of some of the fabrics left. I don't think I have enough of any particular fabric which would be enough to make a border all around the quilt. The blocks are 15 inches square. I think this is big for a baby quilt, but it could be a small bed quilt for a toddler.

I am making progress on my sewing room reorganization, but it is slow. I keep getting distracted when I find little treasures, like a bag of teddy bear blocks in blues and reds. These were made by one of the teachers I worked with. She was giving away all her fabric, and even a Singer Featherweight sewing machine. She had so many projects in the UFO stage. I have finished a couple of them. While opening bags and boxes during my reorg, I found a bag containing five finished blocks, and some additional fabric to make five more blocks. I want to finish these. I think it would be a cute quilt for the new baby (a boy we are told).

The other day I found a bag wedged between the wall and a bookcase full of fabric. This is also where I store my round quilting frames. I pulled the bag out and there were two quilt tops inside the bag. I have no recollection as to where I obtained these two quilts. They are both made with solid fabrics. One is yellow and white, and the other is pink, red and white. I will get pictures of them and post them at a later date.

Tomorrow is the 4th of July. If you celebrate this holiday, have a safe and sane one. I will be spending part of the day at Ardenwood Farms working with other guild members. We do exhibit quilting at the Farm on holiday/festival weekends. We set up frames and tie Community Quilts, sell tickets on our opportunity quilt (which by the way is gorgeous), and offer a childrens' table where the kids can make paper quilts. That is a very happening place. The kids really like making their own quilt. They can take it home with them. Parents tell us on return visits that this is what their children remember most about their trip to the historic farm.

Happy Quilting

I am cleaning, HONEST!

Let me explain this photo.

Yesterday, I took two sewing machines to a friend to have them cleaned and serviced. One machine was my mother's Elnita which has not been used since she passed away over six years ago. It has been hanging out on the shelf in the closet in my sewing room. The other machine was my Pfaff machine that I purchased over five years ago from a quilt shop that was going out of business. It has been sitting in the boy's room (aka my alternate sewing storage room and computer room) unused since its purchase. I also took in another Singer Featherweight machine that was under (and I mean way under) my sewing table.

It was necessary to move lots of stuff away from the closet door in my sewing room so that I could open the door to retrieve the Elnita machine on the shelf. That was accomplished without too much fuss. In order to retrieve the Featherweight under the sewing table, I needed to move all the boxes and bags under the table in front of the machine. I actually had to get down on my hands and knees and crawl under the table to get to the sewing machine cabinet table that extends at the back of the sewing cabinet. I was not able to get totally under the second table. I asked DH if he thought he could get under there and pull out my machine. To my surprise he was able to get down on the floor and reach back into the dark regions of my sewing space and pull out the machine. Of course there was much moaning and groaning on both our parts for this endeavor to be accomplished! He has bad knees and I have a bad hip and back. We are a pair the two of us!

Since the closet door was open and the closet was accessible, I decided to clean it out. I am disposing of much of the contents. Many of the things have not been used in years. I counted four bags of bits and pieces of quilt batting, old Christmas and Halloween decorations and photo albums that have not been filled. There were bags of little baskets that I was going to decorate and gift for Christmas (can't remember which Christmas), Girl Scout clothes, rolls of iron-on interfacing from my Stretch 'n Sew days, and other odds and ends that evidently did not find a home in any other closet!

Also in that closet I found two BOM kits that I forgot I had purchased. One is a darling embroidery BOM that I have decided needs to be made, and two other BOMs with all the fabric included in each month's block kit. Of course, there were many patterns that I will keep, cloth doll and quilt patterns. One thing I did not find was money. Why is it that when I unearth wonderful finds, none of it is ever monetary? Why can't I find some forgotten gold coins or Treasury notes? Although I did find some more Madame Alexander dolls that I did not remember I owned.

In addition to all the things that I dragged out of the closet, then there were all the boxes and bags that I dragged out from under my sewing table. I have already cleaned out one box, and tossed some old fabric. Don't panic, ladies. The fabric was camouflage parachute fabric. I guess I was going to make my son some camo pants some years back. Who knows?

My intention now is to take my time in getting things placed back in the closet and under the table. I want to use this opportunity to evaluate what is there and what I want to keep that I can/will use, and what I can pass on to someone else to use. We have a CARH pickup in a couple of weeks. I am boxing/bagging up things that can go to charity, and other things that I can take to our silent auction at Camp Stitches in September.

It has been two years since I retired, and I am finally getting around to doing things that I had planned on accomplishing that first summer of my retirement. I know I am a bit slow at some things, but I am steady! Steady on and cleaning out! Whoohoo!

Happy cleaning.

P.S. Last week I did manage to finish a baby quilt, block #11 of my Periwinkle Lane series, and some more crumb blocks before my sewing room became Chaos Central.

"Manly" quilt and First Birthday

This quilt was finished a couple of weeks ago, but I had not taken time to get a picture. The wind has been blowing here (as I stated before) since November. At least the sun was shining that day and it was not raining, but still a little windy. DH held up the quilt outside in the back yard. I cropped out the barrel of smashed soda cans, and the weeds. Since there was still a breeze, some of the corners blew backwards. Maybe after it is quilted I can get a better picture. It was very fast and easy to put together. Sometimes I just want something to sew, I want to hear my machine hum, and I don't want to think too much about what I am sewing. This quilt filled that requirement quite nicely.

Also I have included a picture of our grandbaby at her first birthday party eating her first birthday cake. When it was set on the tray in front of her, she looked at it for a while. She looked at all of us watching her looking at the cake. Finally she took one little finger and slowly reached out for the frosting. First she went for the black wings on the little bees. She kept looking at all of us looking at her. I think she was afraid at any moment that someone would shout, "NO". Finally she reached out and swipped a bit of frosting and slowly put it in her mouth. She didn't change expressions, but reached out with her other hand and swipped another bit of frosting and put it in her mouth. She then put both hands on the frosting. We thought she would pick it all up and try to push it in her mouth all at once. Instead, she smeared the frosting a little here, and a little there. At the end, she actually dived into the cake getting frosting everywhere. At that time Mommy took away the cake. Lizzy did not fuss, but just kept eating what she had in her hands. I am sure next birthday she will have the idea of eating cake down to a science!

Happy Quilting and Cake Eating

Another Scrappy Bargello

As promised, I am including a picture of my Scrappy Bargello quilt that I finished recently. It is my favorite Bonnie Hunter pattern. I made this quilt from strips that I won at our last Strip Poker Night at my quilt guild. I added some strips of my own since I did not have enough from my winnings. I am donating it to our Community Quilts program. At our June guild meeting our Community Quilts group will be donating quilts to various charity and non-profit groups. For me, this is a very emotional meeting. Representatives from the various groups receiving quilts will speak about their group and the importance of our quilt donations to them. Just recently our guild received a lovely letter, and a picture, from a mother whose newborn baby received one of our premmie quilts. It is wonderful to receive feedback from recipients of our quilts. It always gives me a warm huggy feeling inside.

Currently I am working on a quilt for a man. When I cruised through my stash, it was difficult to find fabrics that I would consider "manly" to use for this quilt. Blue and black were the colors I was looking for to complete my color selection for this particular quilt. Many of my fabrics are more appropriate to a quilt for a female, or for children. So..... I had to go fabric shopping! Whoopie! Any excuse to buy fabric is a good one for me.

Unfortunately due to the poor economy many quilt stores in our area are closing. I have to travel farther to get to a "quilt" store, not just a fabric store. But I persevered! Now I am sewing strips and squares and am over half way finished. I cannot believe how fast this quilt is going together. When I looked at the picture on the pattern, I thought there were a lot of pieces, and there are lots. But it is still fast piecing. Sometimes it is so fast that I have to stop and fix my "too fast" stitching! I think the piecing is going quickly because I do not have any triangles to match. I don't want to give triangles a bad rap, but it does take more time for me to piece and match triangles than it does to piece squares and rectangles.

Hope you all have a great weekend. For those who will celebrate Memorial Day this weekend thank you so much for honoring our soldiers, our nation's heros. It is so important to let them know how much we appreciate them. This is the time of year I hang a partiotic red, white, and blue quilt. I will keep it displayed through summer.

Happy Quilting

Row Quilt

My row quilt top is finished. We had our meeting to reveal our tops last month. I wish I had taken my camera. All the tops were different. No quilt row was the same in any quilt. They were all wonderful. After the meeting where we exchanged the last row, we took our quilt tops home to finish them. We could then add our own row, or not. I chose to add a border with blocks in the corners instead of adding another row. I thought the quilt top was long enough. If I would have added a row, I would have made my row vertical to add width to the top instead of length. But I decided to add a border all around the quilt top with star blocks in opposite corners.

I took close up pictures of the corners so you could see the detail. It is difficult to see the top and bottom in the quilt top picture. DH was holding up the top, and of course the wind was blowing so the corners were flowing back and forth.

Also I have included a picture of the grandbaby. It was taken yesterday, on Mother's Day. I don't know why I didn't think to get a picture of she and I together. It was a nice day. All the children came over (in shifts). Lizzy was about to fall asleep, but she would not give it up while she was here. Daddy was rocking her in the car seat but she did not want to miss anything (I think) so she stayed awake during their visit.

Happy Quilting