Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas 
Wishing you and your loved ones and safe and happy holiday season!

Friday, December 14, 2012

Block Progress

Here's the latest Farmer's Wife blocks.  I was following along a fellow quilter's blog but decided to become a renegade after measurements for a number of blocks were wrong! I hate that. So anyway, I've been going through my quilt books digging up six inch blocks to make.



A few pics of my favorites, I don't think anyone wants to see each block!


This brings my total up to 75, only 25 to go and I can start putting them together.
I found this video on youTube and I found it fascinating. I've always wondered how quilting fabric was made! I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.




Thursday, December 13, 2012

No Strings Attached

I've been asked to review Build Your Best Log Cabin, an ebook available from Fons and Porter's Love of Quilting. Yippee! I think Log Cabin blocks are one of my very favorite blocks, I mean, who doesn't like them! They are so simple to make particularly with regard to fabric selection: just choose a stack of lights and a stack of darks and you are ready to go.

Build Your Best Log Cabin offers plenty of inspiration and clear instructions for the beginner as well as the seasoned quilter. The ebook is illustrated with plenty of photos, projects, and layout ideas. The book offers three styles of blocks to make:  Traditional, Courthouse Steps, or Chevron. And this was my favorite part, measurements for the strips you need for each style block are contained in neat little easy-to-follow charts. Also, the measurements are given to make five different size blocks from 4.5 inches up to 13.5 inches.  I made the mistake once in making a log cabin quilt of not cutting the strips out first, I just lopped off the ends as I sewed the block. Of course, all my blocks ended up being different sizes. That was a hard lesson in preciseness matters in quilting.

Also included are two handy bonuses at the end: How to Add Piping, and Better Binding techniques.

Build Your Best Log Cabin is available for downloading for free here.  It's an excellent ebook, so be sure to take a look at it.

Thanks for stopping by~

Thursday, November 22, 2012



                           Hope you have a wonderful day with family and friends.

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Stuck on You

Not much sewing going on here, I've had problems with vertigo as well as my ongoing back pain, so I thought I needed a bit of cheering up,
and Daniel's just the guy! November 9 is the release date for Skyfall with Adele singing the theme song for the movie. That should be good!
Happy sewing and send good thoughts my way~


Sunday, October 14, 2012

Finish Line

I was hoping to share this top all quilted but with the way my life has been for the past year, that just didn't work out.  This is one of my entries for the In The Bag~Ugly Fabric Quilt Challenge that I joined I can't- remember -when but ends October 15 (?).  You can check out all the others here
I've had the border fabric for years and have always loved it but could never figure out what I wanted to make with it.
That dark green background and the light basket above it are two of the uglies I received.
Two more uglies: the grass green background and the dark purple background below it.

I really tried to use all the uglies in this one quilt per Challenge rules but I could not make them fit. So I ended up making another top! The Baskets top is about 82 by 68 inches. I love how it turned out, so bright and festive. I always say, if you can't cut a fabric you do not like small enough, then distract attention away from it.
This one measures 78 by 95 inches and it all Churn Dashes of four different sizes, four, six,nine, and sixteen-inch blocks. I had a lot of fun making it.
I mentioned in a prior post that I suffered (word chosen for emotional effect) a back injury fall of 2011 and it has just been hanging on with a lot of pain.  I started Physical Therapy two weeks ago and am starting to lead a more normal life again!  I have learned through a tough therapist that muscles heal better through exercise.


Monday, August 6, 2012

Summer Sewing


Cleaning up the prior day I forgot to move this pile of scraps, meowing ensued rather loudly the next morning until I came and moved what was invading "her" space. Amazing how they "train" us!
If you have not visited the various Pets On Quilts participants, I urge you to do so. There are so many cute pets and quilts to enjoy.





This is the quilt Cinabella has claimed and was shown on in the prior post. It's made out of leftovers from a prior project, no pattern just squares put together in an effort to use up a small amount of pink chenille I had leftover.

I just quilted it by meandering.




And bordered it using my favorite fabric. I bought all my LQS had at the time but wish I had more.  It's called Charlotte by Anna Fishkin for Red Rooster Fabrics. I know it's silly but I have an irrational love of it!

Those green ferns on a mottled background and I swoon everytime!  You can see the other fabrics in the line archieved  here. I am glad my LQS had the green ferns as that would have been my choice of the 4 colors offered.

This is the quilt the budgies were on. I call it the Wisdom Teeth quilt. My daughter had her 4 wisdom teeth removed in May 2007 and to keep her company I perused Ebay for the first time. I was the winning bid on a stack of 9-patches thinking I really scored.  They were all made using Joann's fabric and rayon thread! Uh oh! That taught me to read Ebay carefully and ask questions. So, I sat, in between making mashed potatoes for my daughter, and ripped out the thread and re-sewed the 9-patches. This is only half of them, the ones I thought went together. I do love the way it turned out.

Except for the binding. I made a two-colored binding, yellow on front and aqua on back, but you can see the aqua through the yellow binding on the front. Sort of. I don't know if it's worth the effort of re-binding it though.

These are 8-inch blocks I donated to a quilter who is making a Quilts of Valor quilt. I swore I'd not make another Missouri Star block that small again and then Randy posted one at six-inch! I grumbled and complained but did it and it wasn't too bad.

I wish I'd used a darker fabric for the star points.

This is Handweave.

And this is Boxes and Baskets.
Glad you came for a visit~







Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Pets On Quilts

Today's the first day of the Pets On Quilts Show hosted by Lily Pad Quilting!


There's a linky party to add your blog or just visit, and prizes from a variety of sponsors! Woo hoo!
Here's my entry for Cat On A Quilt, the one the only the 18 year-old Platinum Mink Tonkinese, Cinabella!


And in the Other Pet On Quilt category, two Budgies of my daughter's on a visit to my sewing room,

William is the handsome white one, and Penny is the sweet faced green one.
Hop on over to Lily Pad Quilting, to check out the other participants and be sure to leave a comment here and there! No telling what you might win!


Sunday, July 8, 2012

::Sigh::

Where I am...
Where I want to be.
Maybe next year... and then I'd like to go here,
Cinque Terre veduta di Manarola, Italy
Hope you're having an enjoyable Sunday~


Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Happy 4th!

Hello, Happy Fourth of July! I've been sewing up a storm today. First off, I made this Philadelphia Pavement 10-inch block from Nancy Martin's Perpetual Calendar to donate to a fellow blogger who is making a Quilts of Valor quilt.
And I've been making slow but steady progress in my second quilt using the uglies from the In The Bag Challenge.
I ran into a problem with one of the uglies. Of course, I did not notice the hole in the fabric until the block was completed and I had no more fabric. What's a quilter to do? Make do!
The hole was in the center square. I substituted another fabric but then realized all I had to do was reverse the lights and darks (duh!) and then I would have enough. So that's what I ended up doing.
I've changed the way I make HSTs. I found it so much more accurate to make them larger and then trim them down to the correct size. I know some quilters pooh-pooh that as being more work but when your block finishes at 4 inches, it's a necessity!
It worked so well for the 4-inch Churn Dashes, I began using it for the larger sizes as well.
Here's another of the uglies, the veggie print and not the orange! I had to make a second quilt as I misread the original directions for the Challenge. We were to use 90% of the uglies in our project whereas I thought we just had to include a bit of it.
Talk to you later~
 Hope you have a glorious July 4th!

Thursday, June 21, 2012

What I've Been Up To

A bit of sewing...getting caught up with Randy's Sow-A-Long:  Clay's Choice.
Anvil. I think my HSTs got a bit turned from hers. I found a fat eighth of that gold background in my stash from a line called Democracy by Sandy Gervais.  Wish I had more.
And Flock of Geese.  All six-inch blocks.
A bit of sewing for the Ugly Fabric Challenge. That's a sixteen inch Churn Dash block, pencil included for scale, featuring two of the 'uglies' I received. I've already finished one quilt that I have not posted about yet. I wanted to do all my sewing before showing the finished projects. I've never made such a large Churn Dash before, it had me giggling, I confess to being easily amused!
A bit of wildlife watching...The poor deer in our area are loosing their territory to new construction and are showing up backyards panicked.
And a bit of shopping. I am still working on a Christmas gift certificate from a LQS. The Halloween charm pack was so happy I couldn't resist it.
I sure wish pattern designers would stop trying to wield power they do not possess. It drives me nuts when they think they can tell  buyers of their patterns that they cannot sell the products you make. Wrong! The buyer cannot reproduce the paper pattern but the designer cannot control what the buyer does with the end-product. The first sentence is correct, the second is not. Along the same lines, there is a LQS that claims people cannot take pictures of quilts made from patterns sold in her store because the designers will not allow it. Another silly claim. And that's the end of my rant!
Thanks for stopping by~

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Unwanted Guests

Pygmy Rattlesnake
It was bound to happen. We've created the perfect environment a snake could ask for on our lanai: plants, water (pool), and food (lizards) and no predators (birds). The last part being our lanai is fully screened. Now don't get me wrong, we've had snakes before but mostly of the non-venomous bent. So it was alarming to find a twelve-inch Pygmy Rattlesnake right there.  That's not my picture, we were too anxious to get it out of the lanai to think to take one!  What a feisty snake!  It shook its tail, and reared up striking out at anything.  It was no match for the broom, ten-foot pool skimmer, and generous glasses of pool water thrown on it.  Last we saw, it was slithering off towards the woods.
This is a Corn Snake I had to chase out last fall.
Much larger than the one that bit me a few years ago.  When my daughter was still in high school I volunteered at the school's library.  Talking with the librarian one day he told me of a Boy Scout camping trip he took with his son and all the snakes they encountered but which were harmless.  So a few days later when I found a Corn Snake I got the non-so-brilliant idea to capture it and show it to my daughter.  Oy! That little twelve-inch snake reared up and managed to strike my thumb twice right down to the bone.  That necessitated a week's course of antibiotics after catching the same snake and bringing it to the emergency room (not necessary, btw---treatment is based solely on symptoms).  It looks quite fearsome with it's vivid coloring but is non-venomous.
Credit: D. Stevenson
 I've met the Eastern Mudsnake also, though usually when gardening.  We both run in opposite directions!
Credit: Sharing Insight
 The Black Racer is another common snake here in Florida. I found this guy likes to hang out in our Sago palms hunting down the lizards.  They are also easy-going and usually take off rather quickly hence their name.
Back to quilty things next time, thanks for stopping by~