Quilt Tour

I dug deep for this quilt:




It's one of my earlier quilts. The pattern was designed by my friend. She did a great job, didn't she? Black, white, and red will always be one of my favorite combinations.


This was the first time I tried a swirly free-hand pattern:



I do it much differently now, but I learned a lot from this one.


It was also the first time I attempted a little "back art":




This quilt used to be my nap quilt. It's replacement is very different, but makes me just as happy. I still love this old quilt, but I don't love the old batting that I used. It's bearding -- ick.


Please notice that the laundry lines are empty in this series of photos. I hang laundry every morning, but snapped a quick picture before it included all the clothes we sweated through yesterday. Did I mention that it's been horrifically hot? And that I don't have air conditioning? Please feel bad for me.

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A quick list of things I dislike:


1. Ants in my kitchen
2. Ants in my kitchen
3. Ants in my kitchen
4. Ants in my kitchen


and.......


5. Ants in my kitchen.


YUK!

Quilt Tour

I love this quilt:

It lives on my sofa.

I love the pattern. It's from Thimbleberries, in Beginner's Luck, one of the best quilt books ever. I've made quilts from this pattern several times, and it's great for working down your stash. I think it uses 5-one yard cuts of fabric for the quilt. Binding and backing not included.

I would love to tell you that all the fabrics were from my stash, but alas, no. They actually came from the $5 rack at the local quilt shop. Didn't they work together well?

please ignore my laundry hanging in the photo. thank you.

Quilt Tour

I grabbed another wallhanging off the wall:



It's another old Thimbleberries Club Quilt from 2003. I have all four of these quilts pieced, quilted, and bound, so the rest will show up on the Quilt Tour eventually.

Finished by Friday

Yet another scrap quilt, this time with 1-inch 9-patches:

Size: 60x72 inches
Batting: Mountain Mist White Rose (I have a huge roll, so I'm using it up)
Thread: PermaCore Natural 32187
Quilting Pattern(s): Mouse Maze in the 9-patches, meandering in the blocks, leaves in the border

Mouse Maze:

And the back:

HT to Bonnie for the pieced back suggestion.

Rubbing elbows

Rubbing elbows with famous people is always exciting.

Some of my favorite quilters are featured on Carol Doak's blog. Check them out. They are famous (and smart and pretty and talented, too!).

Problem solving 101

Problem: I have an old mattress that needs to be discarded and I do not have a vehicle large enough to do the job



Solution, part 1: Let the youth pastor pick it up



Solution, part 2: Let the students disassemble it while playing a game of 'Capture the Bacon'



I have tons of pictures of how the mattress was destroyed, but I won't post them since students are involved. Trust me when I say that watching 76 high school students compete against each other to drag a mattress across team lines was Hi-larious.

Traveling Tuesday

I recently traveled to Yonkers, New York (pronounced Yon-kahs, Noo Yawk) to visit a friend of mine. We checked out a local eatery:

and watched our ice cream burn:

can you see the flames?

I also discovered why one should always take a camera to the restroom:

If a few beads are good, aren't more better?:

When we were done eating, I met my friend's new neighbor:

Isn't he cute??? I think I'll name him Bob.

Who's on first?

If you were listening in on a recent phone conversation, this is what you would have heard:

Me: Do you have the car on the lot?

Saleslady: Yes

Me: Before I drive there, can you confirm that it's automatic and has cruise control?

Saleslady: Yes, it's standard.

Me: It has cruise control?

Saleslady: Yes

Me: And it's automatic?

Saleslady: It's standard.

Me: But it's an automatic transmission?

Saleslady: Yes, it's standard.

(insert long, confused pause)

Me: Are you saying that the automatic transmission comes standard on the car?

Saleslady: Yes.

Me: So you weren't saying that it had a standard transmission.

Saleslady: Right. Automatic is standard.

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Third base!

Quilt Tour

The most-used entrance to our house is the garage. Coming up the basement stairs, we are met with this quilt:

I made this at a Guild Retreat back in the 1990s. I think this retreat is where I met my favorite lawyer (hi P!). We all worked on our own projects separately but were each given this quilt kit. I learned how to do French knots, something my hand-embroidery mother could never get me to do correctly, much to her chagrin. We fused the fabrics to make them stiff. This quilt also gave me my first experience with needle turn applique.

I finished the entire quilt that weekend, which means it was quilted on my domestic machine which means it is very badly quilted. Aside from lousy quilting, I really like this little quilt and it makes me happy every time I walk up the basement stairs. I hope you enjoyed it as well.

Quilt Tour

I have a confession: I'm absolutely worthless when it comes to decorating my house. There, I've said it. Fortunately there's help.

When we bought our living room furniture 3 years ago, it looked like someone just unloaded it in the room. I was hoping for that cozy and warm look. It didn't happen. Then I met Marcy.

She came in and arranged my furniture. I let her look through every room and closet in the house (gasp!) so she could decorate using what I already own. When she found this:

she went nuts. She literally grabbed it off the hallway wall and it is featured in the living room now. It is an old Thimbleberries Club quilt.

For the rest of the room, Marcy found some lamps, bunches of candles, a floor lamp, another quilt, a Redoute print, a Gunthart print, some baskets, framed photos, and some candle sconces. She pulled things together quite nicely and then suggested I get some tables. I've added a few other things since then, but it was much easier when I knew where I was headed instead of "here's some furniture in a big empty room ..... go and decorate it".

I've enjoyed my living room for the last three years, but my husband is now making noise about changing things around. You see, we have a Wii and he thinks we could have more room to jump around if the furniture were arranged differently. I'll let him give it a shot, but I'm looking up Marcy's number just in case we need a little help.

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For the curious, I think I paid Marcy $100 for her services. She arranged my living room and another room for that price. It was a Christmas present to myself.

Finished by Friday

We're debating the name of this quilt.

Un-calmness. Zany. That Quilt With The Veggie Tales Fabric.

It's finished, whatever it's name is:

And close-ups of the quilting:

I've never done a straight-line meander before and it was really fun. The quilt is kind of stiff, though. The thread was 30-weight and thick, and I used a lot of it! I'm sure I'll use this quilting pattern again, but probably not for a baby quilt. I like them to be more drape-y.

For the rest of the details:

size: 60 x 60 inches

fabric: ALL FROM STASH!!! 144 5-inch squares from my scrap box

batting: Mountain Mist White Rose
thread: Perfect Quilter 085 (sunrays) in top; Perma-Core 43402 (sunlight) in bobbin

And it was finished by Friday!

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My dear nurse friend had a 30th birthday a while ago. I finally finished her present:

I used the Ashley bag pattern again. The pattern calls for 2-inch strips, but I took some wonderful black Asian-print fabric and put it on the Pro-Stitcher with some Glitter thread and this is what happened:

The flash washed the color out a bit. The fabric is truly black, and the thread is black with gray/blue tones. The quilting pattern is called Pipeline, I think.

I am completely thrilled with this bag and might have to make another one for myself someday.

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My son is a music student at college. Since he's going into his senior year, it's well past time he had some themed pillow cases:

This is the first of several. It's amazing the fabric you find when you clean out the dining sewing room.

Off to sew and see what I can finish by next Friday!!!!

What's missing?

Apparently my car has a new happy place:

grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Does anyone know if a late-night car drop-off considered a date? If it is, my husband and I have been going on dates regularly for quite some time now.

Quilt Tour

I am blessed with some amazing friends, the kind that make you wonder how women without close friends make it through life. I'm not sure how I got so lucky, but I'm very grateful. One of them is a wonderful quilty friend. She's very, very wise and pretty much who I want to be when I grow up. She made me a quilt for Christmas:

She added in my business name:

And some really cute primitive applique:

And some darling buttons:

I love this quilt. It hangs in the hallway between my kitchen and studio. I get to see it every day and think of my dear friend. And then I call her and talk her ear off. Just ask her. And then ask her why the quilt is blue and yellow. They might be her favorite colors.

If the pictures seem a little dark, I took them after dinner. I live in the woods and there's not much sun. What little light we have is best on the back porch so I take most of my pictures out there. Need proof?

My son holds my quilts for me. He's such a good boy! He was bending to keep as much of himself out of the photo as possible (it didn't work). I posted this picture because he wouldn't let me post the ones of his nose poking over the top of the quilt. Maybe another day.

And someone should probably refill that gas tank.

Traveling Tuesday

Recently, I got to play with my work friend!

Another Handi Quilter Educator, Harriet, was visiting her family in New York this week. I found out and stole her away and dragged her to the toy store with me.

I forced her to sew:



and hang out with a bunch of quilters.

We were making a mystery quilt. We each completed the first block and had to show them off:



That handsome fellow in the middle is Bob, shop co-owner and our teacher for the day. Jim was taking our picture, but I wish he could have been in the photo, as well.

If you look closely at the blocks Harriet and I are holding, they are not the same. That would mean that mine is wrong. I hurriedly put one block together without reading all the directions. Note to self: don't do that again. I did fix it as soon as I got home.

I had a wonderful time with my friend Harriet and with all the quilters in Woodstock, NY. Hopefully Harriet will have to visit her family at least once a month and we'll get to take many more visits to the toy store!

A Monday Miracle

After car shopping and crunching numbers, we got to experience a car-miracle.

We've been having electrical problems in the car for a while now. We replaced the alternator in January and that didn't fix the problem. We replaced the battery in March and that didn't fix the problem. We were certain that whatever it was would be expensive and could cause us to sell the car and buy a new one.

It was the alternator. Apparently, the one they put in back in January was faulty. My new favorite word is warrantee.

Since my car isn't getting any younger, we are still car shopping. With a working car, though, it's more like research. We can handle that.

My LEAST Favorite Things

1. Heat

2. Humidity

3. Bad Hair Days

4. Ants in my house

5. Mosquito bites

6. Not having air conditioning in my house (we have central air, but we need to replace it with one that works)

7. Not having air conditioning in my car (again, I have it but it does not work, along with the rest of my car)

8. Sweating

So basically, I don't like summer. At all. Never have. Still don't. And I don't complain about the cold weather so I plan to complain until autumn arrives. Then I'll be happy again.

Oh, and one more thing I dislike:

9. Car shopping

When to jump ship?

Remember back in March when there were gremlins in my car? Well, they're back. I'm not happy.

I had some earrands to run on this hot and humid day. My car's air conditioner hasn't worked all season. I planned to get that checked out as soon as was convenient (for me, not them). As I was driving on a sticky, sticky afternoon, my battery light came on. I called my husband from the road to put him on alert. I cut my errands short and tried to make it home. My car had other ideas.

My car got stuck in first gear and the tach was showing 5000-6000 (and that's not good). I tried to manually shift to third, but the car was having none of it. I pulled into a grocery store parking lot, shutting my car off and hoping that restarting would help. Hey, it sometimes works with my computer so what do I have to lose? I now know the answer to that question was 'my mind.' I did just that.

My could wouldn't start so I called my husband to jump my car and follow me to the mechanic. I had parked at the empty end of the lot to give a tow truck plenty of room to work, just in case. I don't enjoy hot weather and the parking lot gave off this wonderfully toasty heat. It was very fun waiting there. I watched a police car drive through the lot checking on the cars and the businesses in the plaza. Do you think he came over to check on the distraught woman parked with her hood up? You guessed it, nope. Chivalry is indeed dead.

Mr. Man arrived and went to work on my car. After 20 minutes or so, my car finally started. My husband followed me as I headed for the mechanic's shop. I made it about 4 miles when the car got stuck in first gear again. The traction control kept blinking, and then the brakes got scary. I decided to try and take the car home (closer than the shop) and wait there for a tow truck. During the 5 mile drive home from there my dashboard stopped working. The car shifted gears at random and then the fuel injectors stopped injecting. When that happens, the car 'putt-putts' a few times and then DIES. So my car died. My husband and I pushed it off the road and I called the towing company again.

My American-made baby car with over 100,000 miles on it is in the shop again and we're thinking it may be cheaper to replace the darn thing that it would be to keep repairing it.

I dislike decisions like this. I'm always certain I'll choose wrong. Grrr.

Do you know what would help me with this? Diet Dr. Pepper.

These are some favorite things:

One of my most favorite quilt shops: Quilt Basket

My most favorite lawyer with her favorite quilt evah:



Close-up of her most favorite quilt (at her insistence 'cuz she loves it that much):



The sample from my favorite Strips and Stones Club:



My favorite type of traffic jam (hurriedly taken from the car, so it's blurry and I only caught the last 2):



One of my favorite roadside attractions:

How many can you count? Good gravy, I think there must be 25-30 of them. Get it? Gravy? Turkey? Ahem. I think they just walk across our road all day long because we see them nearly every day.

My favorite nectar of the gods:

Caffeine-Free Diet Dr. Pepper. It's too bad they don't sell it anywhere near where I live. Boo.

Finished by Friday

Look at what leftover Joel Dewberry fabrics can make:

The quilt is 36x40, because that's how much fabric I had. I used Mountain Mist White Rose batting. It's a lot thinner than I expected, but it's super soft. This quilt has an incredible amount of drape. Once it's done serving time as a class sample, some baby will love it. Confession, I did buy .5 yards of new fabric for the binding. I didn't have enough scraps to do even a strippy binding.

I teach longarm quilting and rotate my trunk of samples regularly. This one is going into the trunk as a sample of meandering:

My trunk is full of scrap quilts and quilts from kits I've picked up over time. Making myself change out the quilts every 3-6 months is a great motivation for me. When a feathered quilt has to retire, I look through the sewing room for a quilt that would look good with feathers on it. Then I take the time to piece and quilt it. When quilts retire, they are usually given away. I figure in about 150 years, I'll make a dent in the fabric that is already in the sewing room. How did it all get in here?

So this is the dining room?

My husband bought me patio table for my birthday. My birthday is before Mother's Day. After endless days of too hot, too rainy, too humid..... we finally got to eat outside. It was delightful.




My I'd-much-prefer-to-be-inside-thankyouverymuch cats were locked outside with us. After a half hour of cringing in the corners, they almost relaxed for a minute.



Looking at these photos makes me realize just how far from magazine perfect my house and yard are. I live in the woods, so my house is much closer to 'Outdoor Life' than it is to 'Better Homes and Gardens'. I know that, but sometimes I want the 'House Beautiful' version. Bathrooms that aren't Harvest Gold, Avocado, or Robin's Egg Blue. Windows that don't fall down and smash your hand (that would be my hand and yes, it hurts). A perfectly manicured lawn that someone else takes care of. And much, much more.

Sigh.

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Quilting Progress: I finished piecing the blocks for TQTSNBP #4. I also cut up scrap fabric for an hour. Barely made a dent.

I'm not cool

I was trying to be cool like, "Yeah, so I have a quilt in a magazine. Yawn", but that doesn't work for me. A quilt that I quilted is in a magazine and I'm rather excited.

Check it out. (scroll down to Summer Breeze)

Or, buy The Quilter Magazine September issue and turn to page 32.

Funny-looking birds

I looked out my front door this morning and found a funny-looking bird in my tree:

After six years in this house, we're finally getting rid of the scariest of our trees. Scary as in "will fall on the house and destroy all within," not "spooky" scary like this:



(but this tree is gone now, too). See?:

Being the proud owner of a 21-year-old and a 17-year-old, I've deluded myself into thinking that my industrious children will turn this (and all the other downed trees) into firewood:

We'll see how that goes.

In case you were wondering, these make a lot of noise:

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Quilt Progress: I pieced the blocks for a third TQTSNBP. I also cut through some of my scrap basket fabric. I think someone sneaks in my house at night and adds scrap fabric to the pile. Does this happen to anyone else?

Not a big fan of change

My son is home from college which means our family milk consumption has increased by a factor of 10. I bought milk 3 days ago. It looked just like this:



Today I bought milk again, but it looked like this:



Was the change necessary? Did all milk jugs change, or just the ones at SAMs? Does it remind anyone else of an elementary school-sized bottle of Elmer's Glue?
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Caffeine withdrawal update: Better, but I'd still run most people down for a Diet Dr. Pepper. Maybe tomorrow will be better? My family truly hopes so.
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Quilting progress: I quilted a simple sample to add to my teaching kit. I will post pictures after it's been bound.