February is winding down. The weather has been a roller coaster of cold, snow, some rain and some glorious sunny days!
The Horror story quilt is in the reworking process. A bit difficult since the quilt room is now the bed room of a 14 year old boy. One daughter and her son have moved in with us for a while, which makes space a premium and puts quilting on a back burner.
At least material is in hand and slowly moving along.
I have been doing more crocheting and knitting, since those crafts can be done in the living room and at the kitchen table.
For now that is how it is, daughter and grandboy are purchasing a trailer to move next door to us. It will be a few weeks yet and then I will be back in my 'office', with the sewing machines running.

A bright and beautiful wintry morning! Oh yes, it is a heat wave, 20 degrees at 11:30 this morning.
Getting ready for foreast of snow, SNOW! Hope there will be enough for Great grandma's Snow Ice Cream and then it can go away.
For those of a 'quilty' bent, check out Pat Sloan's nice and very creative blog for a beautiful new quilt kit.

OOOHHH NOOOO!

Facing the fact that this blog is long overdue for updating, I made a resolution to work on it at least once a week this year.
Now for my SAD SAD story. the last quilt I made in 2009, for a friends son turned into a disaster. After weeks of work, it looked great.
Friend washed it before gifting to her son, and several seams came apart! It was a tied quilt and I have it back, trying to repair the damage. One of the fabrics she chose for the quilt has raveled out badly. I am afraid that it will require re-making, rather than 'fixing'. Not a happy thought.
Note to self: It doesn't matter how much you paid for the fabric, if it is not quality made, it will not do the job!

Quilting for Victory Juntion Camp

this is one of the quilts I am working on for donation to the Victory Junction Camp for children.
Each child gets to take home their quilt. There is a link at the side bar for anyone interested in information about the camp or donating.

Dancing log cabin - my 2-step variation

I found the idea for this block on the net, through a group I belong to. It was one of those "I just have to make one to see it " kind of blocks. The original block was a bit different so I call mine the 2-step.

Using up some scraps, I made 4 blocks for a medallion center for a small quilt. This would be the 'beaches and boats' 2-step.

I think I will machine embroider some seashells around the border to help carry out the nautical theme of the blocks.

A few moments of fame

I entered a block in the 'I'm Dreaming of a Quilt ' contest, sponsored by Quilt in a Day (among others).
It was on the net for a few days before the judges narrowed the blocks to the final twelve that will be the winners.
Have to admit I was pretty proud just to get that far!
The final12 blocks are lovely

Adam's quilt

The star quilt for Adam's wife is back from the Quilter's.
It really looks nice, now it is ready for binding. I was gifted with some star blocks that his great grandmother had pieced and want to hand applique them on the back. I will have to get busy, so it will be done by Feb. 18.

New year challenge

Our guild received a challenge from the local Relay for Life to make blocks for a Survivor quilt to be given at the Relay event this year.
Needless to say, this was met with a great deal of enthusiasm. Not only guild members, but friendsand family expressed interest in participating in this project. It should be easy to get enough for more than one quilt. Maybe there will even be enough for a raffle quilt for this good cause.
Now the challenge is to find the 'perfect' block and get it done.
I hope to have some pictures to put up soon of these blocks as they are constructed and the finished quilt(s).

winter weather

Freezing rain and snow on top! What a lovely day! I am enjoying staying inside and catching up some on the blog. The picture is from last years ice storm, but it looks pretty much the same today. I haven't gotten out to take any yet.

Comfort food, homemade soup, and chocolate chip cookies seemed like a good idea to fill in time, between finishing up the apple quilt, binding a baby quilt, doing some embriodery for Heather and working on a crochet project too. Nice and warm and get good warm fuzzies, feeling like I am accomplishing something too.

DD2 called from San Diego to say she had finished her quilt top today too. Can't wait to see it!

*Cheering all of you on with your projects*

BOM-ba-dom-dom

My turn to do the BOM for our guild. Our meeting was cancelled because of weather, but I posted the instructions on our guild site.

The purple, green and yellow one it the actual BOM.

I REALLY liked the block andhad a fat eighth of a fabric that just said I needed to do something with it so. . . . of course, I got utterly carried away, made the pattern smaller and now have 5 that I amde with the fat eighth in them and 5 more that sort of co-ordinate.

Now, I have to figure out what to do with them.

The apple quilt top is done!

The apple quilt is set! Thanks to all of you who helped make the blocks! I am VERY pleased with the outcome.

-The border was a challenge, I was about out of the apple print and the red dots, Walmart didn't have anymore of the dots either. When I finished it up I had just a handfull of scraps.

Anyway it is done now and can sit in the shelves until I can get around to getting it to the quilters. I have a chance to make a trade for some work for a small hand quilting frame. . . maybe I will get real carried away and quilt it myself.

Christmas Thoughts

This is the quilt for grand daughter for Christmas. She is the only grandchild I hadn't made a Christmas quilt for. Just got it back from quilter this week and will work on binding it today.

The 'rest' of Christmas this year is mainly 'gifts in a jar', copies ofthe family cookbook we made and little things for the rest of the grands and greats.

This year things got slowed down a bit - I volunteered to make reindeer costumes for the preschool class, and do embroidery name tags for gloves and hats for them. It was a lot of fun! My neice, Heather, who did not sew is the mom of one of the students. She helped cut, sew and them do embroidery. Now she wants a sewing machine too.

Seems the habit just keeps growing, doesn't it?

Quilting tools, sort of. . .

I was thinking about some of my quilting 'tools'. Well, to help keep my tools together at least.
I have a nice fishing tackle box that I use for thread, tape measure, pins, rotary cutter, pencil, etc. My DH, who loves to fish thought maybe I was going to take up fishing with him when I picked it out. Sorry dear!
I have a model car box (like for storing Hot Wheels) that houses my embroidery machine thread collection
A hook on the wall is handy for the hoop I use when hand quilting and I have a Liquid Tide Detergent lid with a lid on it that holds a spool of thread, needles, extra pins and folding scissors to take along when I am working on a hand quiltihng project.
I recently purchased a new cutting mat, and in the tradition of quilters, passed along the old one, an assortment of 'extras' and some fabric that I owned to my DD3 for her adventures in quilting.
In that same tradition, a friend of mine was gifted with a sewing machine and passed one of hers on to this same DD. Now she is set up to begin work on her own!
Quilters are special people, willing to share and pass along their expertise, knowledge, equipment, and friendship.

It isn't only quilting

These are two of the grand boys, DD#3's oldest 2, wearing their Indian costumes.
We made them for Halloween.
The boys had different ideas but when they saw the Indian costume I had made a couple of years ago for another grand boy, that was the choice.
We made them last night and today. The boys seem to be pretty pleased with the results. The little one looks ready to spring into a dance in the picture
I managed to use up quite a bit of 'scrappage', and we made matching 'treat bags' to go with them.

It was a busy day!

More musings

It occurred to me this morning that I do not have enough time! NO! I have too many things I want to do!

I have been working on a 'Lonestar' top for my nephew to give his wife, a mystery quilt that our guild is doing, trying to improve my 'stained glass' technique, and trying to get all the 'apple ' blocks that the family group made together so I can make that quilt for myself.

This morning I was able to finish the star, now have to get it set and bordered, then to the quilters, along with 2 other tops that are done but need to be quilted so they too can be finished.

At quilt guild we swapped out some blocks, and strips of fabric to add some spice to the mystery. I have never done a mystery quilt before, and am having a good time following the clues and trying to figure it out.

I have 2 hand quilted wall hangings on display at an exhibit in a nearby town. It is the second annual Quilting in the Ozarks display at the Ozark Natural and Cultural Resoure Center in Salem, MO.

Our guild meeting was held there this month so we got to see the quilts hanging before the actual display opened on Oct. 9.

There are certainly some very talented quiltmakers in our area and beautiful work, both modern and heirlooms in the exhibit.

OK quilter - Margaret

This quilt was made by my Neice, Margaret from OK.

It was made for one of her family members.

I was very impressed with her choice of colors.

My friends quilt too

This quilt was made by the Family that does my long arm quilting.

It was exhibited at a local quilt show and won first place.

The family recently exhibited some of their work at another show and came home with 5 firsts in 5 differeent categories.

Each one has her own favorite method or technique and all are certainly very talented!

They are very talented women and I am proud to be their friend, colleague and customer.

Wizards and Dragons - Carla's quilt

Alas, I have no picture of this quilt finished.

A co-worker, Carla, hand embroidered the blocks with wizards and dragons for her son.

She asked me to put it together and have it quilted. These are pictures of the construction.

The back is a fire breathing Chinese dragon print. Her son and

his girlfriend loved it

Beginner Link - great information

I received permission from Gloria Massard to post a link to her site for quilting for beginners. She has great information there, for supplies, making a quilt and picking/matching colors.

I recommend it, not just for beginners, but for those of us who have been quilting for awhile and still have our quandries.

Her information is to the point, clear and her instructions were great. Check it out!
http://www.sewaquilt.com/index.html

Labor Day Weekend with the 'Quilting Family'

Labor Day weekend activities included a wonderful visit with family from Oklahoma, among them two neices who also quilt.
The quilting nieces and I got together in the sewing room at different times over the weekend and 'played'. One of them wanted to learn to make the 'lone star', so we went through the stash cabinet and picked out fabric, cut, pieced and made one point of the star. Of course, I sent the rest of the fabric home with her so she can work on the 'practice piece', before starting her final project.
The other neice wanted to play with the embroidery machine. She made a small picture for a family friend, then embroidered her grandsons names on fabric to use in a project that she is planning after she goes home.
We made a trip to the home of the family who does long arm quilting for me, to see their work. They had several quilts that will be in a local quilt show for us to look at. It is always a treat to go there! There are 5 quilters in that family, and they do lovely work with patchwork and machine embroidery besides their business of long arm quilting.
DD3 came Monday evening and worked on her 'patriotic block' for the guild meeting.