Marching Onward

Life is a series of experiences, each one of which makes us bigger, even though sometimes it is hard to realize this. For the world was built to develop character, and we must learn that the setbacks and grieves which we endure help us in our marching onward. 

Henry Ford

I am back home again and have had almost two weeks to get my act back together and get some things done.  Why is it that it takes me as long to get over my vacation as it does to take one.  Yeah, I know I just slow. 

So where have I been?  I was gone for 12 days and I went all by myself!  Needless to say it put a big dent in February.  Well, I drove all the way to TEXAS!  I spent a week at a resort and took most of 3 days to drive out and another 3 to get home for a total of about 2300 miles on the road.  That's a lot of driving!  Thankfully I had some great audio books to keep me company.  I didn't know anyone that would be able to take 2 weeks off to go with me so I decided to do it alone.  It was a good trip except for some rainy and cold days.  I stayed busy, I took my sewing machine and more projects than I could possibly complete.  I did get a lot done.

So why did I go to TEXAS?  Two reasons:  1) We had a week at the resort that we would lose if we didn't use it and 2) I had decided 2 years ago that I wanted to go to QUILT CON so this had been a goal of mine for a while.

Proof I was there!

 I didn't do any classes or lectures, just the show.  The above were the few freebies I got. Below is my one purchase, other than food, from the vendor mall.

I have been looking for this ruler for a while and finally found it.

I have already pulled some fabrics for the Urban Beads pattern.  Looks like I wasn't as done with solids as I thought I was.  LOL  Any of you used this ruler?  There are lots of patterns and if I like it I plan to try a few more.

I did take some picture of the show quilts but I will share them in a later post so this one will not be too long.

Here are some of the things I worked on while I was gone.  Most of these are projects that have been going for a while and I am more than ready to get them done.

This is a Stack and Whack that I started a few years ago.  I had about half the blocks sewn together and the rest were in 1/4 block units.  Now there are 12 completed blocks.

This is how I make the centers of blocks like this lay flat.  I am not a big fan of pressing seams open but I do it occasionally.  Blocks that have 8 or more seams in the center can benefit from just the center being pressed open like this.

This has been a travel project for me for about 4 years.  It has lived in my travel bag for that long at least.  Now all 96 blocks are made and ready to be squared up.  Then they get the design wall treatment.

I got all the 9 inch Churn Dash blocks made that I had cut out.  For some reason that was just 40.  I have cut out 2 more since I got home and then these will be ready to take a turn on the design wall.

The 12 inch Churn Dash blocks came up 2 short too.  There are 18 finished.  It would have been 19 but I found a flaw in one of the fabrics.  The remaining 2 are now cut out although I had to introduce a new fabric into the mix since I had done such a good job at stash busting with this group.  I'll be glad to be saying goodbye to the old calicos in these two sets of blocks.
When I worked at Cloth World the calico remnants were always following  me home.

I have shared this one on the blog a couple of times.  Now there are 182 blocks ready for the design wall.  I even got the new ones pressed yesterday.

I have had this one cut out for a while.  I cut it out at the same time that I cut out another one with these fabrics.  I'll share the link back to it when these are pressed and look nice.  They are from a magazine pattern called Cottage Romance.

So you will doubtless see these babies again.  Hopefully it will be soon.  Now to give my fellow North Americans hope for the future and an end to this long winter.  Here are a couple of nice pictures of what is in my yard now.  These are late.  The last few years they have bloomed in January.

You can see there are still more to bloom.  If you look real close you may see two pink hyacinths blooming in the center.  They got a little nipped by frost this week.  I'm hoping they will bounce back this week but we are to get lots of rain.

This weekend was delightful weather wise with temps in the 60s and 70s.  Just hang in there and quilt away all you snowbound people.  Spring IS coming soon!

Check back soon for pictures from Quilt Con.  I am also feeling the need for a GIVEAWAY. 

Anybody interested?

A Giveaway for My Followers

Develop an attitude of gratitude, and give thanks for everything that happens to you, knowing that every step forward is a step toward achieving something bigger and better than your current situation. 

Brian Tracy

Somehow the last week just flew by and so did this one.  Rather than share what I've been working on I'll just share some of the flowers that are blooming in my yard.  Then I'll show you what I'm putting in my Giveaway.  One of the reasons for this Giveaway is because I passed the 100,000 page views and I have 324 followers through Bloglovin now.  Thank you all very much for being interested in what I have to say and make.

Since I can't send you flowers of thanks I'll just share the pictures of the ones in my yard this week.  After having these come up for 3 years they finally bloomed this year.  There are a couple of new ones that have come up this year.  Apparently they have to grow a year or so before blooming.

We have several crepe myrtle trees and this is the largest one.  It has grown a lot in the last year and has never had so many blooms.  We are debating as to whether or not we need to trim it back so it doesn't overhang the porch roof.

The color is so rich and deep. Each blooming cluster is made up of many smaller blossoms.

The yellow cone flowers came up again this year.  Not as many as the past few years but they are still pretty.  The variations in the amount of brown in the different flowers is interesting.

One of the chrysanthemums we have blooms during the summer.  The others wait to show off in the fall.  They were from my Mother's funeral several years ago.

So the prizes I had selected back before the 4th got buried under some other things when we were cleaning up for the family coming over.  They finally surfaced this week.  I also came up with another one.  I hope you like them.

The Half-Stitched Amish Quilting Club by Wanda E. Brunstetter is a novel about 6 new quilters taking their first quilting class.  It is a heart warming story that gives insight into the divergent personalities that are drawn to quilting.

Northwoods Retreat by Brenda Henning is filled with great patterns using the stained glass applique technique.  I've used this method before and it works well.  Good patterns for men are sometimes hard to find and this one has a great ones.  Brenda is one of my favorite quilt book authors.

Quilt Your Stash is a special edition magazine that surfaced in my studio.  I don't remember how I got it but it is filled with 10 projects that would be suitable for beginners or for quick gifts.  I think they would appeal to many quilters.

How to Win:

There will be 3 Winners selected.  This Giveaway is for Followers of my blog only (new or old)!  To be included in the drawing leave a comment stating how you follow me and tell me what your favorite linky party is and whether you like to link up weekly or monthly.  If you are a no reply blogger be sure to leave your email info.

Drawing will close at midnight EST July 27.  The Winners will be selected and announced Monday, July 28.

Small and New

Everyone knows that by far the happiest and universally enjoyable age of man is the first. What is there about babies which makes us hug and kiss and fondle them, so that even an enemy would give them help at that age? 

Desiderius Erasmus

There is a new little person in my life this week who will be taking away some of my blogging time.  Meet Margaret Rose "Maggie".  She arrived Monday by C-Section and weighed 7.15lbs. and was 20 inches long.  This pictures was made when she was just  a few hours old.  I will get some better ones when she is at home.

Babies need a lot of stuff as well as a lot of attention.  Here are some of the burp clothes I made a few weeks ago.  I split them between my daughter and my niece who had a baby at the end of April.  I found the diapers a Kmart.  They are harder to locate than they used to be and come in packs of 10 instead of 12 these days.

I finally stitched something on my embroidery machine.  I did it on a small piece of white flannel and added that to the diaper like I did the others.  The red ribbon accent set it off just right I think.  Now I need to get some onesies done.

The long cold winter this year had the amaryllis blooming along with the Asian Lilies this time.  They didn't seem as deep in color this time for some reason.

Babies grow up so fast!  This little blue eyed boy turned one a couple of weeks ago and is walking.  Since brown eyes are what both his parents have and what my husband and I and all four of our kids have we have been so happy and surprised at his big blue ones.  I wonder what he will think of his new cousin?

I'm going to delay the Giveaway drawing for a while until I am more available to answer the comments.  I'll be a busy Grandma for a while until Mama is back on her feet again.

Linking with:  Really Random Thursday and Let's Bee Social and Linky Tuesday

Taking Care of the Essentials

The grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.

Joseph Addison

I am enjoying the warmer weather although it has still been cool.  That's fine with me because I don't like hot.  It is to get into the 80s this weekend.  Spring is definitely here because my world is covered in a yellow haze of pollen.  My sinuses can attest to this also.  I know from some of the blogs I read that snow is still around in some of the Northern Hemisphere so I'll share some more flowers to help warm your day or give you Spring envy at least.  My irises have been putting on a great show! 

 This is my smaller patch.  They have been blooming for over a week now.  I was happy to see more purples this year.  When I planted them they were in a single row about 4 feet away from the crepe myrtle.  They will soon surround it if we don't thin them out.

Here is a closer view.  The purple is much deeper than this.  I couldn't get it to show true color even with a little adjusting.

This is the batch in the center island.  They have just started opening.  This picture is several days ago.  Yesterday all those buds you see were open.  I'll try to get more pictures today.  I think a few purple ones should be open in this group today too.

I have one more batch of colored iris that blooms later.  I'm hoping I won't miss them while we are on vacation later this month.

Ready for some more purple?  Here is my Rainbow Scrap Challenge block.  The colors in it are much richer than they show here too.  Some of these look blue but they really are purple.

I have flourescent lights in the studio that just change colors even though they are daylight bulbs.  There is too much pollen to lay it outside.  It would turn yellow I'm sure.  LOL

Here is a peek at what I'm working on at the longarm.  Not too fancy but it is getting
DONE!  Yeah!  

I haven't done the wavy lines this way before.  I'm really liking it!  One day I won't chicken out of doing the ruler work.  Still more skills to master.  I'll get there one day I hope.  This is a good thing - refer to the quote above.  LOL

How's this post for a Happy Trifecta? Flowers, quilts and something for the Grandbaby.  I hope your day is a happy one too!

Linking with:  Really Random Thursday and Let's Bee Social and Linky Tuesday

Spring Crush

Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds 
on the heel that has crushed it. 

Mark Twain 

Spring is on it way so they say.  The calendar says that it is here but the temperatures have not given much credence to that fact.  So to add a bit of hope in that direction I will share some of the flowers that have come and gone in my yard this month.

The crocus are such small delicate little things that they are easily missed.  We only have a few that show up but I love them anyway.

I have been busy at my machine this month and have gotten a bit done.  I have more to share later but I'm off to a shower soon.

I added borders to this top.  At first I wasn't sure I would.  I ran out of fabrics so that I had to make the last one scrappy.  I have just enough fabric left for binding and these will be all gone.  Yeah.  Now to decide on backing.

Remember I said that there was a project that was just demanding that I make it.  Well the top was finished last week and I trimmed the edges and got a picture yesterday.  What do you think?

I don't usually work with solids but I had been looking at this design ever since I bought the Hex-N-More ruler.  I pawed through my solids stash and came up with these.  I would have liked to make it a little longer but I didn't have enough of the light purple on the right.

This is the most modern quilt I've made.  My husband really likes it which is surprising since it has purples in it.

The pansies have recovered from the winter and are much happier now that it's almost time to replace them with something new.

My lack of blogging posts lately may or may not be related to my newest Crush.  Do you have this problem?

I've got to hurry and get ready and leave for the shower.  I'll have details to share later.

Spring News

If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant; if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome. 

Anne Dudley Bradstreet

I have good news!  Spring is coming to the South.  Yesterday and today the temperatures are in the 70s.  Of course tomorrow is to be colder and rainy but the long harsh winter seems to be coming to an end at last.  You may cheer now!

Misty even seems to enjoy the daffodils.

It's nice to see the hyacinths that David planted after they quit blooming last year did make it through the winter and bloom.  The tops of two of them were a little frost bit and they are a little small but that's OK.  You can see how they looked when I bought them last year here.

Definitely not as showy this year.

I know I haven't been blogging a lot lately but I have been on a cutting and sewing jag.  My head is filled with projects that I want to get made.  Of course a good shrink might have a few words to say about why I have been in the mood to attack fabric with my rotary cutter and chop it into bits.  LOL  I also have made a dent in the bin of fabric waiting to be ironed and put away.  Still working on that last step though.

I did get the aqua/teal Soul Searching block made for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  Since purples and teal were my favorite colors for a number of years during the 80s and 90s I had a few to pull from.  I'm hoping purple and yellow will come up soon.

I got the 5 inch black squares cut on the Accuquilt studio too.  This project is now ready to go.  I put it aside for another one that was just screaming for my attention though.  It is going so fast that I should have the whole top done today if I can get back into the studio.  I'll let you keep guessing as to what it may be.  

And are you ready for?  Can you believe it?  I have not one but TWO finished tops!!! I told you I had been busy.  The border issues were resolved and now the question is which one to finish first so I will let you help with the decision.

TOP NUMBER ONE:

This was the original plan.  Star blocks are just two colors, a dotted print and a solid.  Two blocks of each colorway.  The border issue HERE, was resolved by eliminating the solids. It took a while to make up my mind about it though.  Take a closer look at the blocks.

TOP NUMBER TWO:

When I started this project back in June I realized I had enough strip sets for two sets of blocks since I was using so many colors.  As I was working on it the extra blocks just kept nagging me for attention so they got made too.

Again there are two blocks in each colorway.  I wanted the quilt to look a little different too so I went with a piano key border on this one.  Not my favorite border but I made it fit.  They can be a bit of a pain to get to the right size sometimes and don't expect the second side to fit just because the first one did.  Remember I mentioned the crooked jelly roll strips.  Grrrr.....

Here is how it turned out.  Solid cornerstones might would have looked better but then I would have had to decide which of the 8 solids to use.  To simplify matters I went with the dotted white background.

So which of the two do you like best?  Or do you think they are so similar it is a toss up?

By the way this is my 200th post.  Hard to believe isn't it!

Linking with:  Scrap Happy Saturday and Design Wall Monday and Linky Tuesday