A photo of the crazy 9 patch class we did at quilt club on Tuesday. It turned out a lot better than I thought it would. Used leftover black/white plus some green squares to start.
To do this you cut 9 squares of fabric, all different if possible, Stack them and cut through vertically at an angle through all the layers. Keep the edge of the cut at least 1 1/2 inches from any edge. Take the top piece from the smallest section and put it on the bottom of the pile. Sew them all together. Keeping them in order, press the seam open and restack in the exact order you sewed them in the first time. Make a second vertical cut through all the piles, move two of the pieces from the smallest section, to the bottom of the stack. Sew again. Press, restack, cut across horizontally, move 3 layers to the bottom of the smallest section. Sew them all together, keep them in order. Press, make the 4th cut horizontally, this time move 6 pieces of the smaller section to the bottom of the stack. Sew again. Press then square up all the blocks to your smallest block. Repeat this with 3 more stacks of 9 fabrics. This will give you 36 blocks, This is set 6 x 6 blocks with a 3" border around. Really good way to use up fabrics. I started with a 9 1/2" square to start and ended up with 8" blocks. You can use any size starting square. One in the class used 18" squares to start, one did 12 1/2" squares to start. So you can figure about 1 1/2" to 2" smaller square in the finished block that the square you started with. If you want larger quilt, keep making stacks of 9 until you have enough to make a quilt the size you want.Have fun with this.

challenges

Finally getting something posted. The flower is for February Take it further challenge. I remember the beautiful peony's that my Mom always had blooming in the summers. Had to locate a photo and get it on the computer, then printed the actual photo on the fabric. What fun.
March is little things. There have been many little things this month, but mostly they have been not so good, so will not bore people with them. My piece for March is of my former neighbors kitty. I put it in a kaleidoscope program and then quilted it. Angel kitty was rescued last winter while almost frozen solid. She did earn a place in the house though, so maybe being frozen was worth it.
The last piece is of my poppies, also put into the kaleidoscope program.

progress

Stitching on block #9, then 3 more to stitch down and I am ready to trim and put together.
Was -2 degrees this morning with a wind that made the wind chill minus 22 degrees. brrrr. Good day to stay indoors and sew.
TIF--small thing today was watching the temperature get all the way to the teens. Ah for some of that global warming they are always preaching about!!!!!

Geese flying

Went out early this morning and the geese are flying North. Beautiful.

still stitching

Still stitching the appliques down on the blocks. Working on #5. decided to do colors for the applique instead of invisible thread, so its taking longer to switch colors all the time.
New take it further challenge is "small things". My first small thing observed was the crocus poking up through the snow bank. Also saw the first string of Canadian geese migrating. The first morning I heard the cardinals singing too. Lots of small things in the spring of the year. Now to figure out something for a small quilt.

Block 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12

Ok --would you believe they are all up on the wall? They all have seams turned and now are liquid stitched to the backgrounds and ready for the actual machine applique to be done. I couldn't stop until I had them all in place and ready to stitch.
Next step the stitching, then deciding how to put the blocks together and if they need border. I am thinking they will need borders, but will see once all the stitching is done. Now off to bed. I deserve a good nights sleep.

Las Vegas challenge

Hi Shirley, here it is the fabric challenge. I just love the through the window look and thought this fabric was ideal for that. Anyway, looking forward to the challenge for next year.
FYI Shirley and I have done a challenge every year since she moved to Vegas. One year I buy fabric and send to her and the next she buys fabric and sends to me. Then we each make a wall piece using the fabric. What fun way to keep in touch with a dear friend.

block7

Block 7 is up on the wall. All those little pieces!!! Kept me working lots longer than I anticipated. But its up on the wall and Block 8 is ready to work on.

block 5 and 6

Block 5 and 6 are on the wall. Sorry the 6 block is a little off, but it was late when I completed it. Will work on 7 later today. What fun seeing it come together on the wall.

block #4

Yea, block 4 is up. Now to work on Block 5 while the weather is so crumby. 16 degrees and dropping plus strong wind and snow flurries. Where the heck is all that global warming the news media is always hollering about? Humm don't hear much about it these days when we are freezing our tails off--wonder why? Anyway off to work on block 5

block #3

Block #3 is up on the wall --I think I am liking this quilt already. 9 more blocks to go. The flower pot is one of my hand dyes. I really need to make some more hand dyes as my supply is running low, however I do not like mixing dyes in the house, so will have to do that when the weather warms and I can do it out on the porch.
Stay tuned for block #4 coming soon.

home again

Block #1 and #2 are done. Yea. Started an applique quilt a few days ago, Have all 12 blocks cut out and the pieces ready to glue to fabric. I'm using Stable Stuff for the inside of the blocks and liquid stitch to position the pieces onto the backgrounds. Its working great so now hope to get the rest done in the next month or so. Some blocks have 70 plus small pieces to work, so will take a while. I'm working on #3 and will put it up when I have it finished. This is really fun.
Norfolk retreat was this weekend. What fun. We had to have it at a different venue this year as the place we usually go was being remodeled. So it goes. We were at Divots Golf Course. Nice place but not quite as handy as before. Completely spaced off taking my camera so I didn't get any pictures of the neat stuff people were doing. We had two working on Dear Jane blocks. Oh my goodness, I am glad I didn't start that one. Would take me a lifetime to do all those tiny blocks. The blocks were really neat though and I give them credit for having the nerve to do this quilt. Lots of bright colors this year. and lots of projects completed.
Had best go start unpacking. Will post pictures as I get blocks done.

door decoration

Yea, door decoration for retreat is done. The theme is "
Wine, Women and Song. So, I found this fabric that has ladies going in all directions. Made a wine glass from two layers of fine net and some red fabric for the wine, fused it in place. Wrote Wine women and Song and my name in purple letters, fused in place then added a CD which I painted bronze, then wrote the theme on it with permanent marker and fastened it to the bottom corner of the piece. So am ready for retreat.
Still have to pack my suitcase, but have all my project stuff ready to go. Plan to work on an applique piece at retreat. We will be at the golf course this year, so will be different venue. Usually we are at a Monastery . Will be quite a change. ha. They probably have the wine and song!!
Turned nice today after yesterdays blizzard. Will take the blizzard though as the other side of the front had devastating tornado's. Scary . Heard from the people I know in the storm area and they were ok.

February challenge

The Feb challenge is up. color swatches are a deep colonial blue/ gold/ cream and two shades of egg carton blue. (OK a light and med light blue-but to me its egg carton blue) The theme is What do you remember? A light bulb went off when I read that and now have to figure a way to use the idea in a small piece. I'm thinking maybe trying to do something with photo transfer, but we will see if I can come up with anything.
Next week will be quilt retreat, so will not get anything worked out beyond a sketch or two. Have some more stable stuff appliqué planned for retreat. Wish me luck and that we do not get a snow storm and have to stay home. (That happened last year)

New piece

This is the new piece using the stable stuff inside the pattern pieces. I do not have this quilted yet, but haven't decided if I will do thread work over some of the pieces, or just quilt around each piece. The flower is done with the reverse side of the border fabric. I really liked the subtle coloration on the back of this fabric. The gold running through the front side, I thought, detracted from the fabric when used as flower pieces, so used it as border. Now I need to decide what to do to quilt it. What fun playing with fabric.

The rose pattern came from a class by Kandi Paige Gallup.

new project

Yea, it works great. I tried the stable stuff by Ricky Tims in this applique. It really works great. Keeps the applique pieces fairly stiff while doing the applique and dissolves when washed. I can see many uses for this --You can see some of the quilting in the closeup. Finishes about 24" square.
It was -15F this morning. brrrr Its now 10:30 AM and is still -8F. Unbelievable that they are saying 45F+ in a few days. But its Nebraska, wait 5 minutes and the weather will change.

Take it Further January

Spent the day finishing the January "Take it Further" challenge". Looked at my calendar and decided if it were to get done, I had best do it this weekend. The closeup shows the thread painting I put over the paint/ink in the design. (see yesterdays post) Decided the paint/ink just didn't do what I wanted, so thread painted it all. Added the "lightning" border fabric because it matched the dark purple color in the flowers. Quilted with a pale yellow thread in the body of the piece and purple in the borders. Am pleased with the experiment using the threads on top of the paint/ink ----

Take it Further

OK, worked a bit with the color swatch for the challenge. Sketched out some little fantasy flowers and colored them in with color pencil and some inks.

I did take the print out to the local hardware/paint store and picked up some paint swatches that were close to the color bar given.

So they aren't exact,but close enough. Added some yellow paint wash behind them (doesn't show to good on the picture) Now I think I will try to quilt it and see what happens.
This is really a fun challenge.

Finished my demo cards this morning. The first shows the steps needed to make the flying geese.

The rest shows the different sizes from 1" to 6" at 1/2" increments.

Fun project.

Small quilt

Did this small quilt top yesterday afternoon. Heard about a one seam flying geese, so had to try it out. This is done with two 3" squares of background and 1 -3" x 5- 1/2" rectangle. Fold the rectangle (right side out) and press. Lay the first square (right side up) line raw edge of folded rectangle with raw edge of square. Lay second square (right side down) on top of the folded rectangle. There should be about a 1/4" space between the fold and the edge of the block. Sew down one side of the stack Be sure it is on a side that the fold will be stitched into the seam.
Unfold and take the folded piece and pull the edges down to make the flying geese. The corners should pull down to the edge of the squares. Press in place. You should now have a dimensional flying geese block. Hope that made sense. Just be sure to sew along one edge of the folded rectangle so that it catches the fold and one long edge in that seam.

Now want to figure out if I can make other sizes.

2008

2008--oh my goodness how did it get to be 2008 already. Seems like a couple months ago we were worrying about Y2K.

I did get the sunset fabric picture finished. Shirley H sent me the fabric from Nevada. For Christmas--and along with this some out of this world chocolates. They have the factory near them, so always look hopefully forward to getting a box from her. grin. Love the sunset on the desert fabric. Knew when I opened the box thats what I wanted to do with it. thank you Shirley!!!!

The mask quilt is for the Chooseday Challenge List on Yahoo. Each month we will get a word to make something that represents that word to us. When I read Mask, I immediately thought of Mardi Gras. DS#2 had gone a few years ago and was telling me about some of the masks that people wore in the parades. So I knew thats what I wanted to do. May still add a few more beads, but didn't have the right size on hand so will have to wait for that till I go shopping again.

More frost pictures

The large evergreen is across the street.
The wire roll is across our back lot line.






Looking up into the trees in our front yard.






Tree in our front yard. The thickness of the frost was just amazing. Looked like it was snowing when it came off later in the day.

frosty morining

This is the frost on the small tree by the post office across the street. The frost is at least an inch thick on all the branches. The whole town looked like this. You can see the tree in the background is totally frost covered too.
Sure was a frosty, picture postcard scene. Went out to take some pictures and about froze. It was still quite foggy, cold and penetrated. My fingers were numb when I came in. Will try to put some more pictures up later.

Frosty Morning

A beautiful frosty morning outdoors. All the trees and bushes were about an inch thick with frost. It was foggy all night so the buildup on the trees was spectacular. Took some pictures but can't seem to get them to transfer over to the blog. Will have to work on that some.

Merry Christmas

Its snowing!!! I think there was some icing before it started to snow so will probably be very slick tomorrow morning.
Had dinner with Cindy and family, a nice visit and then home again. Ham, potato casserole, sweet potatoes, fruit plate, and of course Christmas cookies and cherry cheesecake. Oh my, how good. Of course there was a plate sent home, so will have leftovers tomorrow.
Yumm yummm

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve, ah yes, Christmas. Tomorrow we will go to DD's for gathering. Looking forward to a nice day. Weather people are saying maybe snow flurries, but not to be a lot of snow. YEA. We were lucky and missed the last weekends snow storm. Not by much, but it missed us. Not crying as we must have around 6" of the white stuff on the ground already.

My chooseday challenge is done for December. We were to make something with the theme "opposite". I had a lot of ideas, but ended up going with black/white. Mainly because the one I was trying out didn't work. that was clear/fog. Oh well will work on that a bit more in the new year and see if I can make it work out. some other themes I thought about were, thick/thin, visible/invisible, in/out, back/forth, wet/dry, dark/light, expand/contract, hot/cold, big/little, happy/sad, laugh/cry, sunshine/shadow/ winter/summer, spring/fall. All seemed like viable subjects and I will keep them all on file for future projects.
this piece was done by free cutting the shapes for the pieces. Hand appliqueing the black fabric onto the print, then hand putting the beads in place. The quilting is on the black and approximately 1/4" apart. I finished by sitching around, making a slit in the backing and turning, then fusing a piece of fabric over the slit. Quilted 1/4" from edge to make it look like a binding. I really like that way of finishing small pieces.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Holiday

Christmas is getting closer. Finished the cookies yesterday and today need to make fudge, then all is ready. Well as ready as it will ever get. Haven't had time to stitch as its been to busy. However have several things that will be done by the new year. The chooseday challenge is on the drawing board and fabric is pulled. Will not take overly long to complete, but just need to do it.
New computer came to live at my house. Now it is getting used to it. Will take a bit to accomplish that. Large flat screen isn't hard to get used to.
Merry Christmas to any and all who read this.

thinking

Now there is something new. ME thinking???? oh well, have been trying to come up with something for the new word of the month. "opposite" now how am I going to portray that one? black/white, thick/thin, visible/invisible, male/female, in/out, up/down, back/forth, dry/wet, dark/light, oh my so many ideas.
Have a couple preliminary sketches made up, and now will have to really think about trying to do one. Stay tuned to see what happens.

We missed the ice this weekend. Did add a bit of snow again, but all in all not bad. Melted a little today, off the streets that is. Supposed to get colder again tomorrow, but hey, we all cannot have the "global warming" ----Actually its been colder here this year than in probably 10 + years.
So it goes.
More on this later.

let it snow

Its snowing again today. supposed to do the same tomorrow, Monday and Tuesday. yuck. Oh well, good to be able to stay in the house.

This is a small kokopelli I did for a challenge list. the word we had to work with was "connected", so I "connected" the segments of this small hanging with thread. The outline of kokopelli was done with glue and gloss powder, I think it makes him look like he is floating above the landscape.

This months word is "opposite" so I have several sketches and now have to decide what to do with it.

Ice Storm

We had a nice little ice storm over the weekend. The picture is the tree by our back door. The ice was Saturday and I took the picture on Monday morning. Brrrrr. The scene is made from a kit that I bought at Curtis last spring while we were there for the spring fling. Was fun to do and now wish I had done it sooner. I painted the windows and street lights with glue and then put gold powder over it so the windows really look like they have lights in them.

still alive and kickin"

The last 6 weeks have been the pits. In a good way and a bad way. In August went to the Ricky Tims seminar in Omaha, now that was really a fun couple days. Lots of new ideas to play with, but not the time to actually do it.
Next was CQC retreat, this year it was at Camp Moses Merrill by Schuyler. Way out in the country on the bluffs, what a great place that is to have a retreat. Motel type rooms and a huge work area that was well lit and food, oh my, the food was great. We even got a few of the recipes for some of the dishes served.
Next was Threads across Nebraska. What a wonderful 2 days that was. Helped at the silent auction table all day on Saturday and helped sell tickets on our opportunity quilt on Friday. Sara Dillow had a showing of some of her antique quilts. Past presidents quilts were shown and lots of vendors. Ah yes, the vendors, good place to leave your $$$. Although I was good only buying some fat quarters.
Now am rounding up supplies for the Hancock Fabrics retreat at Ashland on Thursday.

H finally is finished with the physical therapy that has been going on since last March, has new glasses to correct the double vision caused by the fall in July. Got the new water heater installed, fixed the hoses on the Mercury, brake line on the Chrysler and I don't know what else that has fallen apart the last while. grin. But now think most is repaired and do not forsee much else going wrong for a while.

Have made a couple purses using the rope technique and will try to get some pictures up soon.
So if anyone does read this, I am still alive and kickin' and will try to get some photos taken soon.

another week gone by

Another week gone. Went to a class on Tuesday for the fabric bowls. Wrap a bias strip around a cord and then sew into a bowl. I didn't get to far, but did learn the technique, so that is a plus. Thursday went to state fair all day. White gloved the show from 2 - 6, then went out and found something to eat. Peach on a stick---Actually was good. A peach is skewered with a wooden skewer, then rolled in a batter and deep fried. Cinnamon and sugar or powder sugar or both sprinkled on when done. It was sort of like peach cobbler. Then went and looked through some of the booths. Even passed up the cookbooks from the Morris Press Booth. $1, $2, $3, and$4, which really is a bargain, but didn't buy any.
Got home around 11 so was tired on Friday. Today is first Nebraska football game. It's on but I am doing laundry. Will watch the last 5 minutes and watch the clips this evening. that way see the whole game in a few minutes.
Hope to have something to post soon. Haven't had time to sew. Its actually been cool and less humid, so should get some energy back soon.

Hanging

OK not a real hanging, but hanging the quilts at state fair. There are over 450 this year. What a selection. I entered the raffle quilt in the two person catagory. Gloria and I did it, we got a yellow ribbon. Pretty good with all the competition there is at the fair. I didn't see if anything else got anything as all was not up when we had to leave. It was down to where there were to many hands and not enough space to work, so Sandi K and I left to get something to eat and head out for home. Sold another half dozen of the tee shirts.
Will go down on Thursday to see them all hung and tell who won the big prizes. My guess is Sandi McMillan will get one of the biggies. Her stuff is always so neat.
Stopped in Seward at the quilt shop. Sandi K needed sewing machine needles. I didn't get anything. What I wanted they didn't have.
Finally cooled off and stopped raining.
Sorry no pictures. If anyone can, take a trip to the fair, the quilt show is great.

still kickin'

Ok, I know I haven't gotten anything written in two weeks again!!!! This summer is still the pits, however, have been busy with lots of Non-Quilting Stuff!!!
Did get to the Tims Seminar last week though. What an eye opening experience. Learned a lot from the presentations by Ricky, Alex and Libby. Now to find time to actually put some of those new ideas into practice. So keep watching and hopefully will have something new up soon.

I have two projects from State Meeting to finish. They are close to done, but still haven't strung enough time together to accomplish this. Soon I hope.

went to Norfolk meeting last night. Oh my it rained, wind and some hail. Thought we might have to swim home. The wet pavement quit about 2 or 3 miles out of town, so wasn't a big deal to get home. Not one drop here. Thats OK though as we didn't need a storm. seems the front split and some went south and some north.

Need to go cook something.

poor neglected blog!!!

Ah finally I am back. This summer has been the pits. Its so humid it just drains a person to even go outdoors. SO I did manage to get these two wall pieces finished. I just took a printed scene and added the 1/2" black cross sections to make it look like I am looking out a window and seeing wildlife. I think they turned out kind of neat.

Have some other things in progress, but the heat has really sapped my energy.

Went across the street to the auction on Saturday. Ended up buying Aggies car. Its a low mileage Oldsmobile that we know was taken care of, so bought it. Will sell the old Chrysler. Its still a good car even though it is pretty old. Starts and runs like a top and has a heater that will drive you out of the car.

House sold also, to a local young family, so will have good neighbors. Its always a gamble when they auction a home.
State convention was last week, so spent from Wed. through Sunday in Omaha. Had the CQC quilt show this past weekend, got state fair entries sent in and next big event will be the Ricky Tims seminar in Omaha on the 17th. Then state fair. So will be busy until end of the month. Will white glove at the state fair on the 30th, should be fun.

Enjoy the pictures.

still here

Haven't had time to tend this for a while. Have had more pressing things. Do have a couple things that I will be ready to photograph soon.
Have been getting my things ready for state meeting plus, running the raffle quilt to different places, plus taking H to physical therapy and eye Dr, etc. So cuts into time. Garden needs tending and the heat and humidity do not help matters.

Oh well, next week will be State Meeting so will be having fun for a few days. always good to take some classes and see people I haven't seen for a year.

Hope to get more stuff up soon so don't give up on me.

The Flapper

This is called The Flapper. I found this design on an iron railing down in Oklahoma. Took a picture and then worked this design up using that as inspiration. It traveled in the Hoffman Challenge show for a year.

Haven't gotten time to write anything here for a while. Last week was busy, had to check out Country Traditions new shop in Fremont. Its nice, large and will have nice classrooms when they get finished.

Aurora quilt show was good, as usual. We went down on Saturday to see the quilts. Bought a few tickets on their small raffle items and won a kitty kit. So made that trip even nicer because I will have a memory quilt. Checked out the Picket Fence quilt shop in Aurora. Then on to York to the quilt shop and had lunch at Chances R. Thats always good.

Shirley is back from Nevada for a visit. Monday we had a visit day, Tuesday was quilt guild workday and today Shirley and I went to see Material Girls new shop. WOW, I love it. If you haven't gotten to see it yet, be sure to make the trip. Lots of samples that are well lit, lots of space to browse the fabrics, books, patterns , etc. etc. They are hanging our raffle quilt for a couple weeks.

So did not have much time to devote to the blog. Hopefully will find a bit more time this coming week.

Something accomplished again

Finally something accomplished. I got the idea for these silhouettes from a Dover book I purchased at the IMQA quilt show in Kansas.

If anyone doesn't know about Dover books, they are copyright free books that you can purchase for use in crafts and arts projects. Some have a maximum of the designs you can use free in one project or publication. so read the notice in front page of each book, as the number varies from book to book.

I'm thinking of working up a class to offer at next years state convention. Any suggestions or comments would be appreciated on this.

The silhouette is cut from Kona cotton that has fusible web (the pattern is drawn on the paper side of the web) pressed to it. Then cut, peeled and fused to background, then a layer of black toule (spelling?) is put over the top, the piping sewn on and border added. If any of the cut areas on the design fray a bit, use fray check on a toothpick and smooth the cut area.

I may use this as my auction piece instead of the flowers I did earlier. I think I like this better.

Light color batiks make wonderful backgrounds. Next I want to try them on some hand dyes. Have a feeling this could become addicting.

IMQA show

Thought this might give other groups an idea. When our club lost its first member, we decided to have a quilt that would be a memorial to all current members. The names are inscribed when a member passes away. It hangs at out quilt shows each year.

Went to the IMQA show in Overland Park, KS this past week, what a wonderful experience. Lots of quilts to see and lectures to listen to, vendors to shop and just an all around good time.

Had a great visit with Sue and Cathy, so good to see them again. We usually only get together at Quilt Nebraska each summer. This year will get to visit at least 3 times. QNE and then the Tims seminar.

Omaha Show

Found one quilt at the show with exquisite quilting. The varigated threads were just great, Unfortunately lost my note with the name of the quilter. You will get an idea of what was done from the pictures. Saw lots of neat quilts, vendors were great and had a visit with June (Vogies) who I haven't seen in ages and ages. Was good to visit again.

Will leave tomorrow for Overland Park KS for the Machine quilters convention. Should come home with lots of new ideas. Its a huge gathering of all machine quilters. Will stay with Sue again, she so graciously opens her home to us "quilters from the North". Always so good to visit with Sue, Cathy and all our other new friends from Kansas.

Will get home late on Saturday, so hope to have loads of new ideas and "toys" to play with.