Just Poking Along

Still not much going on around here, but I did manage to get some sewing accomplished.  Yay for me!

My quilt guild was having a workshop on the Falling Charms quilt (which I first saw on Crazy Mom Quilts blog here, and then found out that Missouri Star's Jenny also has a tutorial here), so I decided to play along.  After some consideration, I realized that I didn't have 2 packs of charm squares that weren't already spoken for, so I decided to use my 40 Crumb Blocks that have been languishing for a few years.  At 6 inches, they were an inch bigger than the pattern calls for, but if you know me, you know that I don't do well at following patterns anyway!  So, after some quilt math and a few adjustments, I knew what I was doing and was hard at work getting fabric ready for the workshop!

Here are some of my blocks - just easy peasy!

Needless to say, I didn't complete my project at the workshop ( I just don't sew that fast!), but I kept working when I got home and eventually I completed the top.  I have to say, as easy as the blocks were. it was surprisingly difficult to get the blocks in the right position!  Suzanne, who led the workshop, gave us the tip that the white on the blocks should be "L"'s and "7"s.  That tip saved me some grief!

At that point I started thinking about borders.  I also had some 8 inch Crumb Blocks that I thought I should use up too.  They're not my favorites somehow.  So I considered how best to use them.
   

First I thought of slicing them into rectangles.  Ok, but not what I wanted.

Then I thought of cutting them into smaller squares.  Better, but not quite IT either.  But I like those crumb blocks once they're cut smaller! *grin*

Eventually, after looking at all of this laying on my "design floor" (the living room) for a few days, I got the idea to offset the squares some, just like in the body of the quilt.  That was IT!  More math was involved and I figured out how I wanted to accomplish that effect.  I'm no math whiz but for some reason, I can usually do quilt math!

So I've been sewing.  I went to my sister's and did more sewing there!  No photo yet, but soon!  I'd like to have one border on before my quilt guild meeting this Friday.  And then I can show you my progress. *fingers crossed*

Right now we're having a terrible heatwave and I cannot sew up in my quilt studio as we don't have A/C.  It's just too hot to sew anywhere at the moment! I'm crossing my fingers that the heatwave will break soon, hopefully on Wednesday, and then I can do some more sewing.

Recently my DH traveled to Israel for work.  He brought back some candy bars for us to enjoy.  We've eaten two of them and they were both excellent!  A little different from American candy, more like European candy but not quite the same either.

What was really interesting, to me at least, was the contents labeling on the back.  If the flap is folded one way you can read the Hebrew words.

But if you turn the flap the other way, you can read the label in Arabic.  Very clever!  It's always interesting to see how other countries are just so similar and yet different from Americans.  And bonus!  The candy is yummy!

Long Time Gone

I haven't blogged since February.  Wow, time flies.  I hardly know where to start.

 It's been a very long 6 months.  I mentioned in my last post that our son was ill and had surgery.  Well, his recovery took way longer than we thought.  He finally came out of it by May/June.  During that time, my husband was traveling a lot.  And when he was home, he was sick.  (one of the joys of flying these days)  I got something too, that took me too long to recover from.  Like I said, not a good 6 months.  And I was so busy and/or sick, I couldn't get any sewing in, or blogging or anything to blog about.  So, I was quite frustrated.

However, in May I took the trip of a quilter's lifetime!  I took a trip with my California friends and guess where we went?

Yup, we went to Missouri to visit Missouri Star Quilt Company, and about 6 or 7 other quilt shops, some in Missouri and a few in Kansas.  OMG, that was sooo fun!  Needless to say, I've shot my fabric budget for the year!

This was one of our 1st stops.  Harpers Fabric & Quilt Company, in Overland Park, Kansas.  This was a great shop and we all bought fabric here.  Actually we all bought at least something in every shop we visited!  I love the quilt on the bed.

I think our last stop on Thursday was Angela Walters' shop Quilting Is My Therapy in Liberty, Missouri.  If you've seen The Midnight Quilt Show, you've seen Angela.  We were hoping to get to meet Angela in person, but sadly, she was at Quilt Market at the time.   

This was our group at breakfast on Friday as we were about to go to Missouri Star.  I think you can tell how excited we were!

When you first walk into the main building of MSQC in Hamilton, MO, this is what you see.  A display of the latest weekly tutorial from Jenny, as well as any Daily Deals.

And this was the new display on Saturday.  We were hoping to meet Jenny while we were there, but again, she was at Quilt Market.  Bummer!

This was the stairs up to one of the shops in another of the MSQC buildings.  I thought it was real cute.

By the way, we found out that JC Penney grew up in Hamilton.  His childhood home was just down the street a little ways from MSQC's main building.

We stayed at a hotel in St.Joseph, MO.  We learned that it is the home of the Pony Express.  It ran from St. Joe all the way to Sacramento, Calif.  This is a mural across the street from the museum.  The museum was fun and also educational.  Just down the street from here was Jesse James' childhood home.  We didn't get to see that, as we had to head back to the airport.

If you ever get the chance to go to Missouri Star, I urge you to go!  It was so fun, everyone was so nice and Missouri is a beautiful state!

I know I mentioned in my last blog post that I was doing an on-line swap of wonky stars.  This is just about half of the stars I received.  Aren't these fun?  I haven't yet gotten a photo of all of them together.  I've got two quilts to finish and then I want to start working on this.

I mentioned on my last blog post another swap I was going to do this spring, the 6 inch Churn Dash block swap with Barb of Fun with Barb blog.  

Here are my 4 different fabric runs for the blocks made for the Modern group.  We had to use at least 2 different fabric pairings.  

After lots of cutting and sewing, here are all 54 of my Churn Dash blocks ready to swap!  

If you're interested in making some 6 inch Churn Blocks for yourself, here is the link to Barb's tutorial for them.  Actually, the tutorials for all the blocks for all the swaps are on this page.  The Churn Dash blocks are at the bottom of the page.

Here are all of the blocks I received in the swap, laid out in color order.  Aren't they wonderful?  Rainbow order always makes me happy!  A huge Thank You to my swap buddies!

I plan on being back soon, as I still have more to share with you.  Have a creative week!

10 Years!

Today is my 10 year blogiversary!  Yay!

Count 'em - there's 10 candles on my blog cake!

I can't believe that I've had this blog for 10 years!  That's a lot of blogging.  It has been one of the most fun things I've done.  I'm always thinking of what to put on the blog, and I take way more photos than I ever use.  *grin*  I've met so many wonderful people (even a few in Real Life!) and made a lot of friends.  And I've learned so much from my readers and other bloggers that I read.  Blogging literally changed my life - for the better!

Thank you all for being my readers!  Your comments make my day!  I love to read your thoughts on what I'm blogging about.

I know it's been too long (again) since I blogged.  December got away from me due to the holidays.  Then, the first week in January, poor old Shade, my cat, got Obstipation (Obstructive Constipation).  He got to spend the first week of the year at the vet's - I had to drop him off in the morning and then pick him up in the evening. The vet wasn't sure he was going to make it, and all the vet techs were rooting for him.  They fell in love with him because he's a big cuddle bug and he kept purring while they were working on him.   Poor kitty, that was pretty tough on him since he's almost 15 now.  But he came through it and is thriving now.  He's got prescription foods, and I have to make sure he gets enough liquids and hopefully this won't happen again.  *fingers crossed*

Then on Wednesday that same week we found out our son would be having surgery on Thursday.  Son got through the surgery fine, but that evening we had to take him to the ER.  (We left home at 11 pm and were there in the hospital until 4 am.  I'm not as young as I used to be, and it took me quite awhile to recover from that all-nighter!)  Son was in a lot of pain.  The ER folks were wonderful and he got lots of different tests.  They decided he needed to be admitted and he was there until Saturday.  Son is having a long, difficult recovery and still has 2 more weeks before he can pick up more than 10 pounds.  He's sleeping a lot.  I hope he gets better soon.

Two weeks ago we took a trip to New Orleans, something for DH's work.  He had to work, but I got to have fun.  Some of the wives get together and do stuff. We took a tour of 2 of the sugar cane plantations along the Mississippi River.

One of the Live Oak trees at the Oak Alley Plantation.

I was really impressed with the immense Live Oak trees - note the person on the left of the photo, to give you a sense of how big these trees are!

Laura Plantation, a Creole home.

The tours included lots of history, which always fascinates me.  I learned quite a bit!

DH and I managed to find time to go on a carriage ride around the French Quarter, which actually is the original city of New Orleans.  Here's "our" mule that pulled the carriage (with 7 people in it, no less!).

Lil Liza Jane

She's all decked out for Mardi Gras, which actually lasts 2 weeks in New Orleans!

Here's her sweet face.  And check out her glittery hooves!  She was a sweetie - she really liked getting her pets and scritches!

I joined two Instagram sew-alongs in January.  The first one is the #wonkystar2018 swap run by @bylancer.  I was in a group of 14 swappers, so I got to make 13 star blocks. Here are my first 4.  My favorite one is in the upper right.

Here's a better picture of it.  I found a leftover star I had made for my Liberated Medallion quilt.  It was 3 inches across and worked perfectly in a 9 inch block. 

And all the rest of them!  You can see that some of them were pretty calm and then a couple of them went wild and crazy!  This was probably the most fun swap I've ever done.   @bylancer is probably going to do another swap sometime this spring, and I'm ready to do more!

Now I'm going to do a Wonky demo at the Tacoma Modern Quilt Guild this month, so I have to get busy and make some more examples of Wonky stuff.  It'll be fun!

The other swap I've committed to is the 6" churn dash block in the Modern Group of swappers with Barb of Fun With Barb blog..  #fwb2018blockswap, if you're on Instagram - check it out.  You can also see Barb's tutorial on how she makes the little blocks.  I haven't started my blocks yet, but I'll be ready in the morning.  I hope they won't take me too long - I have to be done and have them ready to mail by the end of the month.

That's all for now!  Happy quilting!

9 Years!

This week is my blogiversary, and I've blabbing on here since 2008 - 9 years!  Hard to believe it's been so long.  I love blogging, even though I've been letting my blog languish for a while.  I love meeting so many people all over the world and all the friends I've made through blogging.  I also love visiting others' blogs to see what they're up to and for eye candy and inspiration.  And I especially love all of you that visit my blog and I love all your comments too.  Thank you!  It means a lot to me.

This was a gift from my Tacoma MQG secret pal, Melissa, back in November.  I'm beyond thrilled with this!  Melissa used the Geometric Sewing Machine pattern from Quiet Play with some yummy Essex linen in the Pouch with a View pattern by Three Owls Handmade.   Roxanne did the wonderful embroidery of my Instagram name.  A huge Thank You to both of them!

This is the flip side of the pouch, with some wonderful fabric in there, and Melissa's cute label.  (Sorry for the glare off the plastic see-thru window)  I'm already using this to take the Block of the Month blocks to the MQG meetings, and it works like a charm.  

I don't think I ever showed you the zip pouch I made for my secret pal.

I used my favorite Open Wide Pouch by Noodlehead for this.  I love how wide the pouch really does open, so you can find all your stuff.  I hope she's enjoying it!

And then I made some snack bags for my granddaughters for their lunch or dance snacks.  I learned about and acquired some PUL fabric while on retreat in California, (I got mine at Joann's) and I thought it was a neat idea.  I just kind of made up my own simple pattern for the bags.  

1 large and 1 small for each girl

The end of January, DH and I went to Las Vegas for his company's Professional Development event, so the wives get to play.  I had a lot of fun, although I didn't really do a lot.  And no, I never win any money.  I don't play the machines much, because I hate losing money.  I'd rather have it to spend on fabric!

I did enjoy seeing the Statue of Liberty at the Hershey's store at New York New York.  This is made completely out of red vines licorice!  And it's about 7 foot tall!

Sunday about 1 pm

We had a snow storm on Super Bowl Sunday.  We didn't think much of it when it started, but it turned into a major event!

The is out the kitchen window, at about 1 pm.  I love the little snow caps the hydrangea gets!

Here's the gargoyle Monday morning.  Hard to see, isn't he? *grin*

And here's my poor hydrangea on Monday morning.

This is out the quilt studio window Sunday night.  That's DH's car.  He had to leave at 4 am Monday morning for a business trip.  He made it!  He actually made it to the airport but then had to wait for the pilots to get there!  Now, he's enjoying the 80 degree weather in Texas.

And this is Monday morning.  Those tracks are from DH trying to get to his car.  We ended up getting about a foot or more of snow.  We've never seen so much snow in 10 years here!  As a matter of fact, that snow was so wet and heavy that our RV cover completely collapsed!  We don't have an RV, we just inherited the cover.  So now we'll have to find some other place to store the lawn mower, etc. - after we dig it out!

Since we don't own a snow shovel, and I don't have snow boots, I'm still house-bound.  Our neighborhood doesn't get plowed, and the street is very treacherous.  I don't need to go anywhere, fortunately, so I'm happy at home.  It's starting to rain today, but the snow isn't disappearing very fast.  I was hoping to get out tomorrow, but I'm not sure that's going to happen either.  It will be an adventure getting the garbage cans out today for pickup tomorrow!

Since I got sick in November, I'm having trouble getting back to normal or getting motivated to sew, other than the odd block here and there.  My quilt studio is pretty much a messy disaster.  So, while trying to put some of the piles of fabric away, and realizing that my shelves were too full to get said fabric in there, I decided that I'd go through my stash and get rid of some fabric that I'm not interested in any more.  So, this is half the fabric that I have in bookcases, all nicely folded and sorted.

And this is the other half.  I wrap my fabric around my 6" by 24" ruler, and it fits very nicely.  The bookcases are Billy from IKEA.  I've got regular quilting cottons, some flannels and some odds and ends in here.  This is not all of my fabric - just the stuff that is 1/2 yard or more.  The smaller cuts and scraps are in bins and some armoires  in the room.  I haven't touched that stuff yet, but I will get to it.  I have too much fabric.  I know!  What a shocking statement!  But I have so much that I can't find what I want or even get to it.  I have stuff stacked all over the room and it's driving me crazy.  So, that is my mission this year.  And it may take me all year to get it done!

 I've gotten rid of about 4 bags (or more?  I lost count) of fabric.  Most of it will be donated to the Comfort Quilts stash for the local guild.  Or some of it I might donate to the guild "store" at the quilt show or sell there myself.  When I'm done with the fabric, I need to go through my books and magazines!  It's been 10 years since we moved into this house, and it's time to pretend that we're moving again, and go through all of the closets, drawers etc. all over the house.  Fun times!  Not.  *grin*  Wish me luck, I'm gonna need it!

I've actually gotten some sewing done the last few days. (Yay for snow days!)  I'll be sure to share with you when there's something to show.

Happy quilting!

February Already?

Whoa!  What happened to January??  I can't believe it's been a whole month since I posted!   Oh, and by the way, my last post was my 300th post!

I went to the mini quilt retreat and had a good time.  I even got some things accomplished.  But I came down with a nasty cold with a vicious cough almost the next day.  And, just when I was getting over that, it turned into a sinus infection.  Ugh.  We were going to be leaving for Florida in a few days when the sinus thing happened, so I quickly took myself to Urgent Care and got some antibiotics and cough medicine.  I finally felt better, right before we got on the plane, and I'm sure all the other passengers were as happy as I was that I was no longer infectious or coughing my lungs out!

We had a great time in Florida and really enjoyed the sunshine.  It wasn't real warm, as FL was getting the side effect of cooler temps during the "winter event" happening in the Northeast U.S.  But it was gloriously sunny, and that was wonderful.  We were in Tampa while DH was having a Professional Development conference with the Co. he works for.  There were 5 other wives there, and we had a grand time seeing the sights.  We went to Clearwater and saw the white sand beaches there (that looked just like powdered sugar!), along with lots of pelicans, and I even got to see wild dolphins playing in the ocean!  Then we went to Tarpon Springs and shopped and ate wonderful Greek food.  (I especially recommend the flaming cheese! Fun to see and yummy!)  Oh yeah, and I finally got some Key Lime Pie.  I had never had the real deal before and it lived up to it's reputation.  Sadly, I never found a fabric shop, but that was OK.  I had fun seeing someplace new, and sunshine in the middle of winter was just what the doctor ordered!

But enough blabbing.  Let's get to the good quilty stuff!

At the mini quilt retreat last month, I managed to make some real progress on my Split Flowers friendship quilt that has been languishing in my project bins for too many years.  I had finally gotten the blocks put together into a top before the retreat and got all the leaves sewn on while I had friends to talk to there.  Now that I've seen the photo, I can see that I need to add just a couple more leaves.

And then it'll be time for the major decision of what to do for the border.  I'm torn between doing some more raw edge applique like the flowers and leaves, probably using a serpentine vine, or doing something pieced.  Any suggestions?  It may come down to what will be faster, as I'd like to have this finished in time for the quilt show in October.

Edited to add: this pattern is from the book Stitch and Split Applique and it's available on Amazon here. 

I didn't make great progress on the Split Decision quilt that I showed in my last post here.  But I got a few blocks made.

Here is an example of what a finished block will look like.  (one block is just folded in half and placed over the other)  I like this!

And that was the end of any sewing that happened in January.  But I have been sewing this past week.

I made some blocks for my guild's raffle quilt.  This year there's no set block size or color theme.  We're just going with the concept of friendship, stars and baskets.

This block finishes at 9 inches and is called "Measure For Measure".  I found the pattern in Judy Martin's book The Block Book.  There are templates you're supposed to use to make these patterns, but I tried to get cute and fake it.  It got ugly.  But I got it done!

This is my second block for the raffle quilt.  It will finish at 12 inches and is called "Crystal Star".  This pattern came from Judy Hopkins' book 501 Rotary Cut Quilt Blocks.  I love that book!  And this block was easy.  I think it took me longer to decide on the fabric than to construct the block!

That's all for now, folks, but I hope to be back soon.  I've got more quilt-y goings-on to blab about.

Have a creative week!

A Winner and Some Other Stuff

My hollyhocks are finally blooming!  The purple flowers in the background are some of the foxgloves that are blooming now - and they're everywhere in my yard!  


As promised, Random Number Generator picked a winner for the giveaway today.

And the winner is Audrey of Quilty Folk blog!  I'll be contacting you for your snail mail address and will get the book in the mail to you as soon as possible, Audrey!

Recently my DH took a business trip to Taiwan.  When he asked me what I'd like him to bring back for me, guess what I answered?  Fabric, of course!  Well, little did I know that it would be a big adventure for him!  Long story short, it involved many stores, finding people that could speak some English (DH doesn't know Chinese), taxis and a lot of trust in strangers!  Here are the directions he received from a shop owner to give to a taxi driver to get to where there was fabric to purchase:

And here is the beautiful fabric that he brought home:

There is a yard of each fabric!

Look at the cool selvage!

And look at the fun, dotty plastic bag it came in:

full

empty

What an awesome gift!  He's definitely a keeper. *grin*

Some other sights around my yard:

Last year's (or possibly farther back than that) hanging basket got put on the side yard, hanging from the fence.  Whatever was in the basket died over the winter, and I hadn't gotten around to tossing the basket yet.  Today I discovered that it's now a fern nursery!  Yay!  I love ferns.  Now I have to find their permanent homes in my yard.

And in the back of the house, on the corner, is a bird's nest.  She's not too happy when we're out on the back deck.  I can't see her well enough to tell what kind of bird she is.  We think perhaps some kind of sparrow.  I have no idea if there are eggs or babies in there.  Time will tell.

the photo is straight, I can't pin things to the design wall straight!

Here's what I'm working on lately.  This is my Witch's Pantry from waaay back, when Lazy Gal Tonya was having the House, Home or Pantry Quilt Together.  You can see my beginning on this here and here.  I think this has "marinated" long enough.  I finally now know what I want to do with this.  I was thinking of what to do, and I had a sudden flash of what it could look like.  I love when that happens!  I want to get it finished, so it'll be ready for the quilt show in early October.  I made some more jars because I thought I needed more variety in the jar shapes/types and also the lids to the jars.  Then I edited the jars to a number that will work for what I want and decided on the layout, so now I'm ready to sew it together.  Photos soon!

Happy quilting!