Missing Blogger Found Alive!

Wow, that was a much longer bloggy break than I had planned on.  After such a long time,  I'm feeling a little out of practice with blogging.  So, I'll just jump in and get past that awkward feeling!

I did get my Quilt of Valor finished in time for the Quilt Show.

I started with this panel, way back in June.  Then I stalled and stalled, until I found out it needed to be a finished quilt, not just a top, for the quilt show.  I pretty much panicked at that point.

Okay, in the interest of not boring you, Dear Reader, nor myself, I'm giving you the condensed version.

First try at the star - I didn't like the way the white "bled" into the border.

I added an inner border to contain those fierce birds, then starting adding the blocks I received from Magpie Sue over at The Magpie's Nest blog.  I made a false start when it came to the stars in the corners, but eventually got them right.

Final star - used some older fabric and it looks great.

I went to a quilt show and found a Q.O.V. fabric that was perfect for the outer borders and binding.  I talked to Bridget at my LQS, who has a long-arm machine.  I knew I couldn't do a decent job on this (as it would be my first try on a long arm), so Bridget volunteered to donate her time and talent to quilt this for me (Thank you, Bridget!!).

Finished!

I got it back from her on Tuesday at 9 p.m. and had until Thursday at 10 a.m. to get the binding done.  And I got it done in time!  Yay!  I think our collaboration worked really well, Sue - Thanks!

When I went to the quilt show I mentioned above (where I found the Q.O.V. border fabric), I also bought myself a new wallet.  Isn't it cute??

The creator's card is visible in this shot.

Lots of storage room in here!

And look at all these cute selvages!  I haven't had a new wallet in years, and I'm loving this one!

I participated in a block exchange with my friends in California.  They were doing blocks for The Future's So Bright quilt that Crazy Mom Quilts did.  Here are my blocks.  We made 8 each of Block A (the double 4 patch) in two color schemes, and ditto for the Block B blocks.  Using brights, of course!  I missed the exchange date (didn't read the calendar correctly . . . too focused on the quilt show), but they should be there by now.  And the blocks I'll receive will be here soon.  This is gonna be a fun quilt to do. I should get busy making more blocks for the quilt, as I certainly have lots of bright fabrics to play with.  But I want to play with some other things for awhile first. 

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!

Did you miss me?

Long time, no see!  I can't believe it's been 5 weeks since I posted last.  I've missed blogging, but I have been keeping up with everyone's blogs. 

I've been struggling with some health issues the last few months.  I'll skip the gory details.  So, I haven't been up to blogging, and hardly any sewing has occured, which meant there was nothing to blog about either.  I hope I'm on the mend now, and hopefully can post a little more regularly.  *fingers crossed*

This placemat was a birthday gift I made for my friend K in California.  She sent me all these 30's repro selvages, so I thought she might like them back.  *wink*  I had fun making this one.

The back.

And a stretchy bead bracelet that I made for her. She loves lime green and purple, can you tell?

I showed you this charity quilt in-process a while ago.  (These were Block Lotto blocks back in January of this year.)  The top's all done now and passed on to someone else in the guild to do the quilting.  I thought this came out pretty cute, and I hope some child enjoys it.

I've been making slow progress on my Halloween blocks.  I'm not pushing on this . . . just doing one here and there.  No deadline on this one.  Somehow, I keep finding/buying more Halloween fabric that HAS to be in here!  Do you do that too?  You know, keep shopping for fabric for a specific quilt even though you have more than enough fabric for it? 

I thought I would show you some of the flowers around my yard. 

I've been busy with being on the Quilt Show Committee.  The show is in two weeks, so we're coming down to the wire now.  My quilts are all done, except for sewing on some labels.  That's a relief.  That should leave me enough time to do the committee work, hopefully.

My quilt studio is a total disaster.  I can't seem to get in there to sew, but I've done really well at making a mess in there.  I was ready to put the D9P/I Spy blocks that I'm making for my DGD up on the design wall, but now I can't find them!  So, I really have to get in there and get things picked up and put away.  Ugh.

I'll have pictures of one of the finished Sneak Peeks from last post next time I'm here.  It's all done, I just haven't done photos yet.

Have a great week!

Putzing Along

I'm still here, just putzing along. I've been too busy to have much time in the quilt studio. Last week was full of social things, which were fun, and errands, which weren't as much fun.  But I finally made it to the sewing machine and got a few things accomplished.

This is a mug rug that I made for my sister.  I thought she might like it personalized with her initial.  I had trouble getting the letter as small as I wanted, and finally settled on this one, which was actually the first one I did.   

I started piecing together some batik strips for the back of the mug rug, but when I got them done, I decided that they were way too cute to just go on the back. Then I talked myself out of making a 2nd mug rug. So I sliced and diced, sewed on a little border and came up with this.

But I was thinking this was way too static a design.  Cute enough but not really what I wanted.

It needed more "wonk".  So I started piecing some little 4-patches together.  No rotary cutter, just scissors.  So, here's where I'm at now.  I'm still not sure this is quite what I wanted, but I think I'm stopping now.  It could be wonkier, but I'm done.  What's funny is there's wonky where I wasn't trying for wonky.  I've never needed to intentionally add a "humility block", it just comes naturally!  *grin*

I'm on the quilt show committee this year, and our Fearless Leader has decided we all need to make potholders to sell.  We had a workshop last Friday on potholders.  I had pieced together the selvage one before then, and also had the flowered one together, but not quilted.  Well, I forgot my new walking foot (oops), so when I quilted these, they got a little skewed.  So I had to trim the flowered one down some, to make it square again.  Then I was trying the binding method that one guild member was teaching, and I didn't have enough binding.  So I trimmed that potholder down some more!  Then I applied the binding to the wrong side.  That means the pretty stuff on the binding is on the wrong side of the potholder.  Oh well, it will still work, it's just not "purty".  Like DH says, we can set this one on fire and no one will care!

I've gotten the name banner for DGD#2 at the flimsy stage and need to get it ready to quilt it.  I'm kind of stockpiling little projects that need to be quilted and will make a day or two of it and get them all quilted at once.  And I'm still working up to making kitty names.  I'm not *stalling* exactly, as I needed to get some other things done first, but it's starting to feel a bit like stalling now.

We've had maybe 2 or 3 inches of snow today.  But it's all been snow flurries, with some great, huge snow flakes.  It'll stick for a little bit, then melt away.  Then an hour later, it will do it again.  So, there's been no accumulation.  It's just teasing us.  I was hoping for an "official" snow day.  But then, I could actually declare just about any day a "snow day".  I know all you folks in the East are laughing at me - but I'll take snow over all the rain and gloom we've been having.  At least the sun shines once in a while!

It's snowing again!  Time to go sew!  

Happy November!

Wow, fall has come to the Northwest. Matter of fact, it's almost over. I feel kinda like I missed most of it this year, being in the house so much of late. So, I got out and took some photos around the yard to document the end of October yesterday. You can see from this photo that we were having rain. Most of the Trick-or-Treaters were using umbrellas! It was pouring at times last night. You can also see lots of fir tree needles. We've had lots of wind the past week, and we've got fir needles everywhere. They're even sneaking into the house.

I've been quite absent from my blog, and the computer in general, as my sister was taking her vacation at our house this last week. She was here for 4 days, and we had a lot of fun. Spent only one day out (going to the pottery & glass supply place, a gallery for a pottery show, and out to Italian for dinner), and then the rest of the time we played. I'll show you what we did in a few days.



I brought out my autumn placemats yesterday, and then thought I would show them here. I made these with a charm pack about 2 years ago, which means this fabric probably isn't available any more. I had enough for 3 placemats, and used about 1/4 yard of fabric for the borders. So, with 2 charm packs and 1/2 yard or less of fabric, you could have 6 placemats.

I may make some more of these with another charm pack. They were a lot of fun to do and didn't take much time OR fabric. I have kind of a weakness for those darn charm packs. I don't usually have much of an idea of how I want to use them, but they're so cute (and such a cute idea) that I have trouble resisting the things. (pssst. . . . I think that's Moda's general plan with these pre-cuts!)

My sweet friends in California sent me some selvages this week! Thanks, guys!! There are a lot here. Now I need a plan of what to do with selvages!

Japanese Maple in foreground, neighbors' maple in background

I'll share some more photos of my yard while I ramble a bit here.

I'm feeling pretty good most of the time. I've been sewing some crumb blocks (more on those later). DH moved my machine to a lower table level and it's easier to reach the machine now. Still no rotary cutting. I'm going to have a cut-fest once the arm is better. *grin*

Japanese Maple in the front yard

That's the way it's going lately. I'm able to do more, and go longer between doses of Tylenol. Every once in a while I have a bad day or just overdo, but I figure I'm getting better. There's still lots I can't do by myself yet, like shower and dress, but it's getting better. Poor DH is still doing all the cooking and cleaning. I just can't reach the sink very well yet, nor lift anything. I'm not too effective at the whole housework thing yet, but I'm not complaining! *grin*

Hydrangea bloom

Isn't this a gorgeous color bloom?? This is the first year I've seen the hydrangea turn like this, and I love it!

I haven't tried driving yet. Just riding in the car is rather uncomfortable, and I have to wear the sling for comfort. I don't feel confident in my ability to steer the car well yet. So, it'll be awhile, I think. DH is really getting tired of going to the grocery store. . . . even if I go with him.

Here's the Japanese Maple in the backyard. It's usually a beautiful deep burgundy that you can still see in some places, but now the majority of the tree has turned a lighter red. It's even prettier when the sun is shining.

I'm still sleeping in the recliner in the family room. Sleeping in the bed is still too uncomfortable/painful on the arm. And I have to wear the sling to sleep, to support my arm. (I wear the sling whenever I'm sitting in a chair with no arm rest or support for any length of time.) The kitties are very happy to sleep on top of me and keep me warm. Fortunately, I usually only get one cat at a time!

Here's the grumpy gargoyle that lives in our back yard. He's not looking forward to winter, because he spent so much of it buried in snow last year. Of course, he usually looks unhappy, so I've learned to ignore him!