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.

snowstorm

Well scratch one retreat. ---the snowstorm kept us from getting there. The highways we would have had to drive were closed because of the drifting snow. Oh well, guess it wasn't meant to be.

These are a couple postcards I made. The pumpkin was thread painted over a pumpkin picture on fabric, then cut out and appliqued on the background fabric. The leaves are a sheer fabric, overlay with dashes of glitter paint on top of them for added glitz. What fun doing these small pieces of art.

Retreat

Supposed to be at the Hancock Fabric retreat today, BUT a rip roaring snow storm took over the eastern part of the state and it was cancelled. We may be able to go tomorrow, if the weather lets up and the roads are cleared. Keep your fingers crossed we get to go. If not, oh well. hopefully they will refund all our $$$$. Forgot to ask that when I signed up.

Went to a workshop on Tuesday and completed the blocks for a folded fabric wall piece. Do not have a photo yet as it is still not sashed. Plan on that next week.

Snow missed us

Yea, the snow missed us, not quite sure how it did, but there was a small area that seemed to be in the eye of the storm all day yesterday. By the weather map we were missed by just a few miles on all sides. All total I would say we had under an inch of snow and little if any ice. Whoopie, no snow to scoop.

Spent the day yesterday designing some celtic applique blocks. I think the count is 24 right now. Most, I think, will work up well with one or two colors of bias plus some fabric inlays on some of the pieces. Now to find time to actually do some of these blocks.

Here are some of my button bracelets. Have done some of these for gifts for friends and of course some for myself. Its a neat way to use up old buttons. Some small beads are added at the tops of some buttons, and some along the edges to fill in if there is a space left by some of the buttons. Just a fun thing to do on a rainy day.

more fun stuff

Norfolk guild has had a progressive quilt project. I paper cut the center design for this and appliqued it on this wild print. The next person had to add the triangles to put the block on point. Next round was using half square triangles in a border, next person put the top and left borders on, and finally the left and bottom borders were added. I recieved mine back at the meeting Monday night, now have to think how to quilt it.

The black and white is from Shirley (my friend in Vegas) challenge fabric. She found this japanese print. I put it together using slices of the fabric with a black on black fabric. I kind of like the way it turned out. Lots of fun doing this. Now its my turn to find fabric for next years challenge.

Weather finally turned warm, most of the snow is gone, however the weather report is for a snow storm again this weekend. UGH!! Oh well spring cannot be to far away as its nearly March.

nursing home quilts

Calico Quilt club is making lap quilts for a local nursing home. We hope to have enough to give everyone a new lap quilt. These are the ones I made so far. Its a fun project and uses up lots of scrap batting as well as fabrics. To start you cut a 2 pieces 6" x 18" for the center panels, plus a 6" x 18" piece of cotton batting. Sandwich all three of these layers with fabrics right side out on both sides of the batting. Stitch around the edge, Next step is to cut 4 more pieces 6" x 18", Plus 2 batting the same size. Lay one fabric right sides together to one side of the piece just stitched around. lay the second fabric right sides together on the back side of the center panel. Lay batting on top of last piece and sew the seam. Unfold layers to enclose batting between the two pieces of fabric. Repeat for second side of center. Then measure across the ends just stitched and make pieces for both sides plus batting and stitch to top and bottom of piece just completed. (sandwich the fabrics as described above.) Repeat at opposite sides until you have 3 rows. Then bind, I still need to add a row of decorative stitches down the center of each 6" piece. Makes wonderful throw size quilts for nursing homes.

One of the ladies made a backing the size needed, put a batting on top and sewed strips, full length to cover the batting. Sew and flip style. This too turned out great. I still have to try one like that.

Retreat

This is a pot of flowers quilt I did as a block of the month design several years ago. Was fun to do and fun to share.

Went to the CPQG quilt retreat this past weekend. Left on Friday AM and returned late on Sunday. Was on the committee so had to be there to help set up. We had 24 people sign up this year so was a nice group. We guess at the beginning of retreat how many items would get completed during the weekend. This includes quilt tops completed as well as items completely finished. The grand total was 43 this year.

We had "Aloha" as the theme, so had lei's, a candle mat, the name tags I showed earlier, and several other small items as favors. We had the stained glass tuplip quilt class, which was really neat. Played a few games and just generally had a grand time with quilting friends.

We try to KISS (keep it simple, stupid) the meals (we have to do our own meal prep.) We had sloppy joes, plus salads and desserts, then soup and sandwiches, Wisconsin Cheese Soup, Cheeseburger Soup, Chicken Noodle, Veggie Beef and Chili. Lots of great desserts and salads. Plus we have a snack table to graze on all weekend.

Had a deliscious dip for chips: 2 pkg cream cheese
2 cups grated cheese (cheddar)
1 envelope dry ranch dressing mix
1/3 cup beer (not lite beer)
Mix all, let set overnight in fridge and serve. Yummy, yummy good stuff.

I marked and cut out 35 kitty patterns which I now need to get fused to base blocks. Then stitched. Have been wanting to do this quilt for a long time, so figured now was the time. Will keep you posted on how its coming in the weeks ahead

CQC cancelled the guild meeting yesterday. Just to cold out. Wind chill was -15 degrees, so didn't want to drag people out in that weather, besides that we had had snow Monday night and I wasn't about to dig out by 10 in the morning. They decided no one would want to come out in the cold, so cancelled.

Have some road trips planned for spring. March 1,2,3 will go to Hancocks Fabrics retreat at Ashland, May 4-5 to Curtis to the Frontier Stitchers retreat, in June to Overland Park for the Machine Quilters convention, July to state meeting, August to Ricky Tims seminar, Oct to Threads and CQC retreat. Think that should hold me for this years adventures.