All kinds of HAPPY

Little did I know when my son set up a "blog" what I was in for other than simply letting my kids see what I had made. At that time, he pulled up a couple of quilt blogs already in existence and posted them along the side of my page. Where did he get those names? Was it only an accident or does God really work that way in our lives.

Some were like shops promoting themselves or long arm quilters looking for work but the first ones I read were Taniwa and Stitchin By The Lake. It was some time later I figured out what it meant to become a "follower". That may sound dumb to you but most of my friends my age don't even have a computer.

Now I am part of a virtual quilting group and that makes me happy but if you have not read either of these blogs, I will attempt at the end to add a link because you must see that they are about much more than quilting and have connected up those loose ends that seem to fill our lives. The first picture brings the happiness off those friendships. The Lovely pile of goodies sitting by my plant and coffee cup were sent by Marlene. The cozy hot pad she made with her own hands and is almost too dear to use. The other mini quilt on the table was made by Tanya. It has the kanji (characters) for my name. Fuku brings fortune and happiness and Ta or Da is a paddy field. She then selected a Psalm to print around the words. And such a perfect one it is! I am still blown away by the friendship of these two women who went to such lengths to make me happy.

Next you will see that the Psalm banner is DONE. I finished yesterday but it was much too windy to take a picture. Don't zoom in to closely because you will see a lot of threads and dog hair but when I returned from school today the weather was just fine for getting that picture and I grabbed the ladder, the banner, and the dog and raced to the park. As I was hanging it I saw the generous amount of dog hair covering every area.

Lest you think the dog must be bald by now ... here is my assistant, Nikko, guarding the work from the little kids with the frisbee. (Or maybe thinking she'd like to play with the frisbee too.)

And here is one more reason to rejoice. Today the little kimono blocks were complete and we began to arrange them on the floor. The dark blue blocks in between will be quilted with family crests. Today we copied them to the blue and then arranged everything into rows for assembling.

These last pictures are arranging and pinning.

Since there were only a few left to mark, we decided to get that part of the process done so we can get it all together and start on the quilting.
To mark the crests on the dark fabric, we centered the paper copies where they were to go. Then we went over the lines in the paper with a ballpoint pen. After picking up the paper, there was a line depression where the pen had drawn and we went over it a second time with a white chalk pencil. The Japanese sewers often mark fabric with a "hera"which is similar in that it leaves a light line in the fabric. This is quite useful but requires good lighting and may be difficult to see on figured fabric.

We had a good turnout for the work and you can see the happiness on the faces of the remaining three that we were able to get this much done.

So, now you see the blessings the day has brought. Thank you for being my virtual quilt group. Thank you to Marlene http://stitchinbythelake.blogspot.com/

and Tanya http://tttl1998.blogspot.com/ (check them out now, if you haven't already) And smile for the joy that quilting brings and the friendships that blogging brings too.

Not-too-slow progress

This is the progress so far on the banner. The outer border was pieced from scraps today and sewed in place.
The total size is 90 x 46 inches so next I will have to find something I can piece for the backing. I already know I have nothing that size and I have no money to spend on such.

I am hoping to get that and the basting done tomorrow. I have half a day of Scout activities but a long train ride there and back that I might use to piece the back. Since it is a national holiday the trains will not be as crowded as usual and maybe I can sit. An hour or so each way might get a lot done. Finding room to baste might be more of a problem.


I have posted more details on the Slow Poke Quilters blog site. I think you can get there by clicking the logo on my blog. I wish I had just a bit more computer skill but that is coming along slower than my quilting.

Thanks to everyone for the feedback.
I think once I get this together with the black embroidery and quilting it will work not only for the Conference but as a companion to last year's banner.

Plan "C" or "D" or ?

The sheep continue to gather at David's feet and some are heading for the hillside. (Thank you Marlene, they were right where you sent me.)

Now, for the border blocks... It was very difficult to draft a 12 inch block using the printed Psalm fabric. It seems I will have to set the print at an angle to the left and right of the picture.

These will be separated by a two-inch black sashing. My thinking is to use scraps of the fabric used in the picture. (Greens, brown, rust, gold, blue and light color of sheep)

In the first two blocks I put the light colors forming a cross but now I am thinking this is a very strong shape. I do not plan to take these two out and do them over but am wondering if the other blocks might look better with darker colors above and below the print blocks. I was hoping to get more of a star effect but this is as close as I could come.

I could introduce other colors just to be used in the border or pull some left-overs from the companion banner. This is not a commisioned job and I do not want to spend any money, my time is enough, but I would like to make it worthy of display at the retreat.

Do I sound like I am asking for advice AGAIN? Well, yes, it is true my virtual quilt circle!

Lost sheep

Anyone seen some sheep? David is now on duty with nothing to do. The strings on the harp will get put in during quilting.

I looked at Google images for pictures of sheep but none I could find were in positions I wanted. Some need to be gathered at his feet and some will be milling around on the hillside behind. This is very much make-it-up-as-you-go.

I can't help thinking how much easier this might be if I had some kind of fusable web and could just arrange and iron it all together and then take out a machine and stitch some fancy stitches at all the joinings.

As it is, I want to make it a bit of stained glass but I think sewing bias over all these seems might be a little too much. Another Idea I have is to embroider around the patches with black thread. Any ideas out there?

Help on a new project

Last year I made a banner for the Womens' Conference at Amagi Sanso. The theme was "stories" so I made a hanging banner using Bible blocks with a stained glass picture in the center. The title of each block is quilted into the sashing below the block and the reverse side of each block has the quote from the Bible to go with it. It brings to mind a favorite hymn from my childhood, "I love to tell the story."

This coming year's theme is "Healing".

One of the people attending from year to year is a woman who plays her harp for hospice patients and for the past few years she has asked me to make a hanging of David and his harp.

With that in mind, I pulled out some fabric of the Psalms that I had
aquired many years ago and a plan is beginning to form. I think it would be nice to make this banner as a pair to the last one. I want to put a picture of David and his harp surrounded by sheep in the center pannel. Then I want to include the print fabric in some kind of a block around the inner border.

Now I am looking for ideas. The fabric text is a strip 3x9 inches. There are ten of these so I will need ten 12 inch blocks. The label is 2x18 inches so I would make a 26x12 block for that and a matching block for the top section. I'm thinking some kind of star might be nice. Since I do everything by hand, I want something that isn't too fussy. I have a little over six weeks for this project. At this point, I am open for ideas. The script can be either straight across or at an angle .

There has got to be a block pattern out there somewhere. that would meet the need.

2010 - 2011 Stewardship Banner

August 26th Paul asked if I could make something to hang in the church entry where a large paper heart had been the year before. He wanted it done by that Saturday, the 29th or by the latest the 30th.
I told him no way could I get anything decent done in that length of time so he said I might take until the 5th as long as it was hanging by Rally Day. Thus I agreed to give it a shot and began on the 27th.

I was stuck with the logo that had been decided by the committee and their choice of colors but hanging a white banner in the entry for a whole year didn't seem practical so I reversed the colors putting white and yellow on blue rather than yellow and blue on white. Since time was short for applique letters, I went out to the local button store and bought yellow and white felt. Ignoring the demands to match the "font" I used stencils to mark the letters. I was pretty well stuck with what I had on hand.

To give the banner better proportions, I added an upper and lower border pieced of assorted yellow fabrics and the background blue. "Yes" and yellow beginning with "Y"...to me they represent the variety of ways one answers "yes".

I lined the hanging with fabric left over from Jon's tablecloth. I had planned to turn it to the front along the edge but instead added a narrow purchased binding.
Sleeve added to the top and bottom and hanging was finished on September 1. Delivered to the church September 2. Size is about 28inches by 38 inches.

Come Holy Spirit 2006

Noah's Ark 2003

Sayonara Quilt 1998

God's garden path 1997