Taught a class today

Spent the day at quilt club teaching a class on Slice N Dice 4 patch. Lots of pretty tops will come from the days work. Forgot my camera so couldn't take pictures of the projects, perhaps some will bring them to next club meeting and show them.

Beautiful day even though it was windy.

Second Blog

A couple more flower picture to share, The orange is of course, a Poppy and I am not sure what the purple flowers are, can't remember the name, Guess its a Sr Moment!! Enjoy

To all who read this, I have started a new blog for recording the recipes from my grandmothers handwritten cookbook. if you would like to see this go to www.RecipeRiot.blogspot.com/
I hope I got that right, plan to post some recipes almost every day for a while. I have two spiral notebooks with the handwritten recipes. The books are so spotted and fragile thought I had best record the recipes before they all disintegrate, a few will be lost as parts of the pages are gone.

Spring

Ah spring is finally here when the fern patch is growing, the iris and phlox are in bloom. Thought I would share a few flower pictures with you all. These are also inspiration for use in the quilts I do.

The fern patch is all along the north side of my studio. Its about 10 ft wide and 30 foot long. They really are a sight when fully grown later in the season.

Iris are my favorite flowers ---however so many winter killed this season. Not sure I will replant as it gets harder to do the work every year.

The phlox were started from plants across the street before they tore the house down and destroyed all the plants there. They spread a bit more every year. This type grows about 3 foot high. Someone told me they were wild phlox, but do not know if this is true.

Haven't gotten a lot of stitching done lately, but have been sketching in my sketchbooks. Mostly haven't decided what to do with black and white quilts. Think I may do one of each and just name them Negative and Positive. What do you think?

Its been beautiful weather here the last days. into the 80 degree range during the daytime and 50 ish overnight.

The wild mama kitty brought her babies to our garage, when they get a bit older will take the mama to the vet and get her spayed and give the kittens to humane society to find homes. We will take her back and continue to feed and care for her. I finally tamed her enough to pet her, so shouldn't have to much trouble catching her when the time comes to take her in. She has two black/gray kittens and one bright orange kitten. Cute little things and want to get them good homes.

Mothers Day

Exploding Bear Paw #2 This is a plaid version of the exploding bear paw (blue and white) that I have posted earlier. This is such a fun quilt to do, may have to make one more so all my kids get one of these quilts.

Happy Mothers Day to all Mom's --Will be rather quiet around here as yesterdays graduations will serve for Mothers Day visits too.

This is OK with me as I am a bit tired too.

Will be a beautiful day here in central USA. Actually will be a bit to warm as temps are to be in the 90's. To hot for me, but we don't control the weather.

Want to spend a part of today trying to cut something out. Wrist is still giving me problems, but it slowly is getting better.

Graduations

graduations are over--both went well. Went to the 2 o'clock ceremony, did a quick stop at the party after, then off to the second graduation. Got there just as they were getting home from the ceremony, so made the party after. Both grandsons understood that I couldn't be both places at the same time.

Finally accomplished something this week, Did samples of two color ways of blocks I have had in my design book for ages. Found the negative/positive fabrics on a clearance sale, so just had to try them with this design. Had planned to use both in a quilt, but now I think I will do one that is mainly the negative print, and one the positive print.

class

Have been running again this week. My online class starts on Saturday, so will keep me jumping for a while. www.quiltuniversity.com class is Drunkards Flowers. A combination of applique and Drunkards Path pieces.

Accomplished exactly nothing this past week, well did get the club fund raiser quilt blocked and tickets made, so guess that was something.

Two grandsons graduate next weekend. Of course in different places and one hour apart so will have to miss some of both celebrations. Will go to the 2 pm commencement ceremony, then drive to the other where we will get to the party after the ceremony. Thats the way it goes though.

Will try to have something interesting to show soon.

update

Have had a wild week again. Got very little stitching time in. These blocks are an experiment.
I have a box of 6" squares so stitched 4 patches with them. Cut two cuts across the 4 patch vertically. Cut through the squares twice at an angle, then stitched a fan blade shape in the cuts.
Cut the squares twice in the horizontal direction and stitched fan blade shapes into the cuts. Squared the whole up to 12 1/2" and came out with some kind of wonky scrappy patches. May play with this some more to see what I can develop. Idea was sparked by the buggy barn star we did at club a few weeks ago.

Windy here today. Forecast for some possible heavy storms overnight. Hope that doesn't happen. Next week will be busy too so hope to get back to this sometime during the week.

oops again

Site is www.quiltuniversity.com had a typo in the last post.

oops forgot something

This is the Drunkards Flowers quilt that I made. The class for this will be online beginning in May. Go to www.quiltunifersity.com for details on how to join the class. This is the 3" square size in the background and makes a throw size quilt, there are also directions for a wall size version using 2" squares for the background.

If you have never looked into classes at quilt university, do so as there are new classes starting all the time. There is also a sample class you can take that shows you how the site works.

This was a really fun quilt to do. The circles are appliqued by machine, so no tedious piecing etc. Floral is fusible with stitching around to fasten down.

Two table mats completed

Finished two table mats for the silent auction. The sides on these are 8" and 9", the candle mats from yesterday are 6" on each of the 8 sides. These are really fun to make.

Have a class in Cedar Rapids tomorrow, so should be a fun day.
Think the weather is to miss us, will be south of us. Feel for all those in the path of the snow, its late for storms like this.

something accomplished

Accomplished something today. Finished these two candle mats for the silent Auction at CPQG next Monday evening. These are fairly easy to do, just take a bit of time to get them organized.

Quilt club was Tuesday. At applique club we are all working on a wall piece. regular meeting in afternoon had lots of neat show and tell. Seems everyone has been busy the last month.

Rain yesterday with some snow flurries. Supposed to rain and maybe snow again tomorrow. Wish spring would finally get here. Where or where is the global warming when we need it????

Easter

Easter turned out to be a fairly decent day after a week of cold and wind. The sun actually came up and it got above freezing fairly early. No wind meant it warmed a bit too.

Rick had us over for dinner. Nice not to have to cook. I did make an apple pie and a salad though. He had roast with all the fixins. Yummy. Now I need a nap.

This is a red picture post card I made a while back. put black fuzzy yarn around the edges and added some quilting on it.

Its also our 40th anniversary. Goodness do not know where all those years went. H is retired for over 7 years now. Don't know where those 7 went either. Had planned to go out to eat yesterday but it was so cold and ugly out, said I would rather wait till it got nice, so plan to do it soon.

Had computer problems all week so couldn't post anything. Was gone Tues and Wed, then spent several hours on the phone with Dell tech trying to fix the problem, thought it was fixed and next day didn't work again. After another two hours on the phone with Dell I think it is now running OK again. So it goes.

Celtic 1

Yea, finished block #1 of the celtic designs that I drew on St. Patricks day. I have 52 designs on paper, and now have one done. The underlay fabric is one I bought in Paducah a couple years ago and never found a place for. The bias is from a Kona cotton that I found about a week ago. Was looking for something to set off the Paducah fabric.

This took around 7 hours to stitch down after I had basted the underlays in place and basted the bias in place. All total would guess about 10 hours from start to finish.

Productive week

I've been busy this week, The bright star quilt was a workshop we had at our quilt guild on Tuesday. I finished it on Friday (the top that is) The small star is a sample of the quilts the gal who makes the miniatures does. This is about 12" all over size of the quilt, pieces are about 1/2" each. This is the person who will get all the small scraps that we collected from the trash.


My spool top is together also, as is the mat. I want to add some more quilting to the mat and will use it for a silent auction piece for our guild fund raiser. Will be making more of these.

Today I stitched on my celtic block, these will be hand done so will take a lot longer to complete. Will put up the picture as soon as I get the blocks done. I'm guessing about another 3 - 4 hours on the one I am working on.

Now back to stitching.

Another Sunday

What a fun week, spent 3 days at Inwood Iowa at the retreat center. Hancock fabrics had their spring retreat. We had a wonderful time. I finished 100 spool blocks and have them arranged into rows, now just need to sit down and put the rows together. Will put up a picture when I get the top done.

We also did a candle mat, or it could be used as a center piece on a table. Will take a photo of that in the next day or so and put it up so all can see.

If anyone gets a chance to go to one of the retreats, do take advantage of it. We had a wonderful time meeting new people, eating chocolate, sewing, eating chocolate, show and tell, eating chocolate. grin. Guess which activity got top priority?

Didn't get to unload the car until this morning as when I got home it was raining. Our garage is not attached to the house, so just put it in and forgot about it until this morning. Of course my pillow was out there when I wanted to go to bed, so just took one of my spares and made do.

Promise to post pictures as soon as I can.

Lazy Sunday

Its a lazy Sunday around here today. I've been doing a lot of "mind work". Trying to figure out some more celtic designs. Wish my hand would allow me to work them right now, but hopefully soon.

These are some step by step combination stitches from my book. They show the progression from the base stitch plus the embellishers to make a finished stitch combination.

I think everyone can follow the sequence of the stitches by the pictures. Enjoy

spring

Spring was in the air yesterday. It was 80 degrees. Unbelievable!! Today is more like normal, around 45 with clouds. May even snow a bit tomorrow, but hey, spring can't be to far away.


This is a paper cut block I did last fall. Its done by folding tracing paper, like we did when we cut paper snowflakes. Then transfered the design to fusible web, cutting out, fusing to fabric and stitched around with tiny zig zag stitches. Fun technique to do and who knows, maybe someday will actually get something done with the block. Mostly just tried the technique.

Daylight Savings Time

OH- HOW I HATE TIME CHANGE!!!!!!!! I know I am shouting. However I do really hate this time change thing. Ruins at least a week or two of my life every spring. Not so bad in the fall, but getting up an hour early in the spring is the pits.

This is a small quilt that I experimented with crayon work. First I dyed the background fabric, then traced the design with a pigma pen, colored it with crayons, heat set, then used inks on fantasticks, to shade over the the crayon. I think I really like the way this turned out and plan to use it again sometime.

top is done

Yea, the top from Tuesdays workday is finished. All the squares and triangles etc are of folded fabric. Of course I couldn't do the top like the directions said, I omitted the sashing between the blocks as I wanted the pinwheel in the center to really spin. Now to get it layered and quilted before next club meeting. (yeah right!!!)

At least accomplished something.

Good News

Our retreat registration transfered to the next retreat which will be at Inspiration Hills at Inwood, Iowa. Will be the same projects as last weekend and about the same travel distance. So the 22-24 with get to play. Whew. Just hope we aren't jinxing them and that we will NOT have another snow storm then.

The first card (apologize the photo isn't really sharp) was done by grating crayon, then covering with a teflon sheet and pressing to melt the colors together. Kind of line the way it turned out.

The second was for a "fortune cookie" theme. Took 2 circles of fabric and stitched around, made a slit in the one on the inside and turned, then stitched around with satin stitch. Folded like a fortune cookie and took an actual fortune from a fortune cookie and put it inside the "cookie" Then took clear glue and brushed the paper fortune so it was "stuck" to the background fabric and couldn't tear off.