My Life in Quilts...

Swoon-a-Long Block 2

2012-01-28T09:01:00.000-05:00

Second block completed! These blocks are so satisfying to make. I guess because they are so big. These are the fabrics I chose..

From the stack...

And, ta-da! Here it is...

And I only had to rip out one section that I had sewed backward. That's an improvement!

This block was similar to my first in its color scheme. Next block, I'm picking totally different colors - got to mix it up a bit!

Breaking News! ... I'm going to MQX!!

2012-01-22T15:44:00.001-05:00

I'm just about to bust. After months of waffling, I bit the bullet and made my reservations to attend the Machine Quilter's Exposition in Providence, RI, in April. Hubby convinced me I really should do it (and since there's a B.I.G. birthday coming up soon, it will be a b-day present).

I went to MQX a few years ago when it was still in New Hampshire and had the best time. The classes were wonderful, I loved being immersed in the whole atmosphere of the show and I met friends there, new and old! To cap it all off, after I got home I found out I won the prize Shopper's Basket. I was overwhelmed at the box of goodies that came in the mail. In fact, I saved founder, Janet-Lee Santeusanio's voice mail telling me I'd won (because I'm a real nerd like that).

[photos of the 2009 banquet]

[these ladies were sweet enough to let me join their dinner table - you're never a stranger with quilters!]

Since I waited so long to make up my mind, the class I really wanted to take (Mastering the Art of McTavishing) was already full, but I'm wait listed and I've signed up for a pantograph class and a "what do I quilt on that" class by Karen McT. I'm also going to the banquet again. So, I'm sure I'll have a blast and I'll have to pack an empty bag for the goodies I'm sure I'll find!

Back to reality...
Last weekend (love those long weekends!), besides working on my quilt-a-longs, I managed to finish my Hope Valley string quilt top...

Still have to decide how to quilt this one. And, there's a ton of paper to rip off the back!

Christmas Pillows (forgot to post this!)

2012-01-21T08:45:00.000-05:00

(Found this post I wrote last month and obviously forgot to publish, but I'm so darn proud of these pillows - I'm always amazed when something I make other than a quilt comes out well - I wanted to show them off!)

A couple of my girlfriends at work and I get together for a Christmas lunch at a local restaurant every year and exchange holiday-themed gifts. We have a cafeteria at work, so we don't often go out to lunch, so it's something we really look forward to.

I love to take the opportunity to make them something every year and they seem to love my creations.

As soon as I saw the pillows in Camille Roskelly's Simplify (one of my favorites - I want to make just about everything in it and I have poured over this book repeatedly), I knew I wanted to make Christmas pillows for Sandy and Chris.

The fabrics were all from stash. Including the pillow forms and backing. I had this fun Merry Christmas fabric...

I don't have a lot of experience making pillows, and I should have cut the backing pieces a bit bigger so there would be more overlap. I'll know for next time.

After I finished the tops, I put a piece of batting on the back and quilted straight lines in white thread - I think they look really nice.

I'll definitely be making more of these!

Scrappy Dresden Plate Quilt-A-Long Week One

2012-01-19T09:25:00.001-05:00

After getting started on my Dresden Plate for Anne Sutton's quilt-a-along, I'm not sure I can say I'm doing a "scrappy" Dresden Plate. I'm only using 8 fabrics for the plates. But I've had my EZ Dresden Ruler...

And my yummy Flower Sugar fabrics by Lecien for a while now...

Here are my plates pieces all cut and ready to go...

And the pieces stitched at the top to make the "spokes" (I guess that's what you call them)...

I was surprised at how quickly my plate went together...

This is what I'm using for the background and the center will be the red fabric shown at the top of the stack in the first photo.

I'm still deciding whether to hand or machine applique these down. I'm leaning towards hand applique right now, but I'll probably do half of one and change my mind - LOL! Besides, I've just gotten myself involved in a huge embroidery project, so that's probably enough hand work for a while. More to come on that!

Pincushion Parade!

2012-01-16T17:50:00.000-05:00

I saw that Beth at Love Laugh Quilt was hosting a Pincushion Parade and thought I'd join in.

I don't too many fancy pincushions. I have my super old tomato which is just about falling apart (if you take the pins out of the top, the green part falls off - maybe it's better to retire this one) and it's baby...

Since the old red tomato had seen better days, I went wild and got a purple tomato a couple of months ago...

I know I didn't make this one, I must have gotten it as a gift or swap of some sort...it's been around awhile...it actually just sits on my shelf looking pretty. I don't think it's ever seen a pin...

I think this cute little basket pin cushion came as a favor at a quilt banquet many years ago...

This ceramic shoe pin cushion was a gift from my aunt back when I first started quilting. I put the fancy pins in this one!

This cute silver Scottish sewing "kit" was a Christmas gift from my husband a couple of years ago. The cushion is more of a needle holder I think.. I love the kilt and the bagpipes on it...

And, this has to be my favorite - one of my Quilting Angel gifts this past Christmas from my guild friend Tamsin. It is awesome and makes me smile every time I see it!

That's it. That's all I've got. I guess I haven't been bitten by the pin cushion collecting bug. (At least not yet.)

Check out Beth's blog to see the rest of the Pincushion Parade!

Swoon-a-Long Week 1

2012-01-15T08:40:00.000-05:00

I've had the Swoon pattern and these mostly-Meadowsweet fabrics for it for about six months now. The Swoon-a-Long hosted by Katy kicked me into gear to make my version.

These are the two FQs I chose for my first block.

And here it is...and I only had to rip out 2 or 3 times. I'm on a mission to have no rip outs on my next block!

I looked at my post about the pattern and fabrics from back in July and noticed I was planning on using Moda Bella Gray for the background. Oops, guess I forgot, because I'm using Kona snow. I really need to put notes on my patterns! Guess I'll have to use the Moda Bella Gray for something else.

If you are using FQs, you really need to be careful in your cutting as Camille suggests in the pattern. There isn't a whole lot of room for error. Some of my green geese rectangles I had to fudge because they were a little shy of the 6.5" rectangle needed - and I thought I was very careful in my cutting! It all worked in the end though.

This Swoon-A-Long thing is on fire! Last time I looked, the Flickr group had 428 members. I'm in good company!

Next up in the quilt-a-long marathon - my first Dresden plate!

Bargello Quilt-A-Long Week 1

2012-01-13T13:32:00.001-05:00

I've been toying with the idea of making a bargello quilt for years. Then when I saw Andrew's amazing bargello quilt last year (I think it was something like his 3rd or 4th quilt, which makes it even more amazing), I was even more anxious to make one. When I saw that Katie was hosting the Bargello Place Mat/Tablerunner quilt-a-long I knew it was time to get my feet wet. If I decide it's not too hard, I'll go for a larger quilt.

So, here we go.

First - choosing the fabrics. The placemat calls for 1/4 yard of of 6 fabrics. I pulled out this bundle I bought years ago and chose my 6 from it...

First, I sorted them this way...

Then, I pulled out my ruby beholder to check that the order went from lightest to darkest...

I found the orange actually read lighter than the yellow and gold...

Then, I decided I didn't like the orange in there at all and swapped it out for a brown fabric instead

I sewed them all together in order and then sewed the long ends together to make the tube...

And there we are, all caught up on week 1.

Next up, my first Swoon block is done!

I Caved Too....or How Many Quilt-a-Longs Have I Joined Already This Year?!

2012-01-08T17:17:00.000-05:00

I think I have join-itis. It's only what, January 8th, and I've already joined no less than FOUR quilt-a-longs. I laughed out loud when I read Diane's "I Caved" post. I had already decided to do the same two she did, plus I'm two up on her.

But, wait! I can justify this! All four a) are quilts I've wanted to make and b) I have the fabric for.

So, it's actually a good thing, right? I'm getting stuff done that I actually planned on making!

Here's my list...drum roll please.....

Katie's Quilting Corner's Bargello Placemat Quilt-A-Long (but I'm making the table runner)

Anne Sutton of Bunny Hill's Scrappy Plate Quilt-A-Long

Katy at I'm a Ginger Monkey's Swoon-A-Long

And, I'm going to attempt Another Year of Schnibbles with Sinta and Sherri...(I did A Year of Schnibbles in 2010, but I joined late)...

I've already started on a couple of these - details on all to follow!

Hot Tamale!

2012-01-08T11:06:00.000-05:00

For a few years now I've been wanting to make tamales. Ever since I read about tamale-making on Kim's blog. I love trying new culinary techniques and I've not met many foods I don't like, so I was all over this tamale thing. In fact, earlier this year I bought a tamale-making kit from MexGrocer.com. Then, earlier this fall I bought a huge pork shoulder. Luckily I froze it because I never got around to making the tamales.

On my long New Year's weekend I finally got around to it. And it was a success!

On Saturday, I simmered the pork shoulder with an onion, some garlic and salt for a few hours until it was falling off the bone. I let it cool and shredded the meat and put it in the frig. Whew, that was enough of that for one day - back to quilting!

On Sunday, I got the meat out and simmered it for about an hour with a jar of green tamale sauce, some cumin and garlic powder - and I probably threw some other stuff in there. Back into the frig and I was back to quilting.

Then, on Monday - tamale-making day - I gathered all of the tamale-making paraphernalia below:

First up - soaking the corn husks:

while I was making the Masa:

I mixed the Masa Harina with some paprika, cumin, chili and garlic powders. I basically followed these instructions.

Then it was time to actually put the tamales together and I got nervous. I Googled all sorts of tamale-making videos to make sure I was doing it right. First, you shake the water off the corn husks and spread some of the masa mixture on the husk. Tip - don't make it too thick! Then, spread your filling on top and roll them up. Repeat 50 times. (This is a very time consuming process - good thing they taste so darn good!)

Here they are in all their glory!

I guess I stopped taking pictures after that, but on Monday, I put them in the steamer pot around 4pm. The kids were supposed to be coming for dinner around 5 pm. Good thing they were late, because the first recipe I read said to steam them for 40 minutes. The other 5 or 6 recipes I checked (unfortunately, too late) said to steam them at LEAST 2 hours!! Yikes! But, they didn't come until 6pm and we had to have margaritas and guacamole and chips first so it all worked out (but I was ready to send someone to Taco Bell just in case!)

I served the tamales with my coconut rice (I cook my rice with a mixture of a can of coconut milk and water. I also put in some chopped red pepper and a bit of salt). The dinner was a hit and I've been eating tamales all week!

To cap off my Mexican theme of the last week, I made huevos rancheros for breakfast this morning. Well, my version of it anyway. Yum!

(I'm sure the bacon is SO wrong with this meal!)

Tonight, we're going Italian. I've got sauce on for a lasagna tonight! Now, I have to go quilt. o:)

Ringing in 2012!

2012-01-02T17:23:00.001-05:00

I started 2012 by getting back to some projects I had to put aside in the Christmas rush.

I've been having a ball making more Hope Valley string blocks yesterday and today. I'm loving this quilt!

I also started quilting Countdown to Christmas. I'll be all ready for next year!

I'm using my snowflake [edited - I was wrong about the type of boards I was using] ~~Quilt-EZ~~ Handi-Quilter sew boards. Idiot-proof quilting at its finest - LOL!

Next up is going to have to be a wedding quilt (one of at least two I have to make this year). I just found out (thank goodness for Facebook) that the first wedding we have to go to is in March. Yikes! I really want to get Hope Valley pieced first though.

I also wanted to show some fabric goodness Santa brought! My husband went on a charm pack hunt on eBay for Christmas. He thought, bless him, that he was getting such great deals with the "42-piece sets" of fabric he was buying. He was SO disappointed when he started getting these little charm packs in the mail. I couldn't stop laughing when he was telling me on Christmas morning as I was opening them. He knew the names Amy Butler and Moda, so told me he chose some of those (and I was still laughing), but he did good...

He also got a 4-charm-pack of Thimbleberries that he loved (guess who will be getting a quilt from them!) I told him these charm packs are perfect to use with the new Another Bite of Schnibbles book Santa also brought me. Ho Ho Ho!

One Last Finish for 2011

2011-12-31T10:46:00.000-05:00

I was able to squeeze in one last finish for 2011! I just put the last stitch in the binding on Lilly's Max & Whiskers quilt.

Now she'll be able to snuggle on the couch with it on those cold days.

On my day off last Monday, I decided I needed to start something new - and something that had nothing to do with Christmas! I pulled out the FQ roll I got at Generations Quilt Shop during the shop hop this past fall and finished this hour glass quilt. All in one day. That felt good!

I was going to put it on the frame today and get it quilted but decided I didn't have the right backing fabric. So, a couple of yards of this is on order....

French Hat Box by Tanya Whelan for Westminster/Free Spirit. Ooo La La!

On this last day of 2011, I'm going to quilt a little and start making the filling for my tamales (we're doing Mexican day on Monday with the kids). Tonight, we're having a quiet celebration - going to an early dinner at our favorite local Italian BYOB, then come home to a movie and trying to stay up for champagne to ring in the new year at midnight. I'm not taking any bets that either one of us will actually stay up until midnight (probably due to the bottle of wine we'll have at dinner - LOL). I'm hoping we at least wake up long enough to see the ball drop!

A happy and safe New Year's Eve to everyone! And Happy New Year to my Australian friends!

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-24T19:42:00.000-05:00

The presents are wrapped. The tree is trimmed.

The table is set.

And Lilly is waiting for Santa to arrive.

I wish everyone the Merriest of Christmases and peace and joy in the New Year!

Merry Christmas to Me!

2011-12-23T20:46:00.001-05:00

Wow, what a Christmas I've had already and Santa hasn't even come yet!

First, I was a winner in Kelly's (from Charming Chatter - a favorite blog) Christmas giveaway. Kelly was giving away A LOT of of wonderful fabric. I would have been happy to win anything in the giveaway. The box came in the mail early this week - I swear it weighed 10 pounds. I won this wonderful assortment of Buttercream & Figs by Fig Tree. This is the only Fig Tree line I had none of. I'm still in shock at the amount of fabric Kelly sent to me...

The bag included scraps, FQs and yardage. Believe me, it was mostly FQs and yardage. Kelly, thanks again for this very generous gift. I am truly grateful. I've said it many times -- quilters are just the nicest people.

Then, on Tuesday, we had our PMQG "Holiday Quilting Angel" pollyanna. In October, we all filled out a sheet with a few ideas of what we might like and everyone picked one. Knowing who we were making our gifts for and having an idea of what colors/designers/items they might like really helped. I had a ball making my gifts for my friend Monica.

On her list was a zipper pouch and a pincushion. My blog friend Lynn from Alamosa Quilter had mentioned a pouch made from the Cash and Carry pattern by Atkinson Designs. I hopped right on over to eBay where I found a pattern with free shipping. Score! What intrigued me was when Lynn said the instructions for putting in zippers in this pattern is super simple. I am almost embarrassed to say this but I've never put in a zipper before and I will admit I was scared. Not any more! She was right, this method is easy peasy! I was so proud of my little pouch...

I used my Joel Dewberry Aviary left overs. I'll be making more of these pouches!

Then Cluck Cluck Sew had a tutorial for this cute pincushion. I'll be making more of these too! I cut into my Prince Charming collection for this...

I also included a few other fun items for Monica, I think she liked them!

When I opened my bag from Tamsin, well, I got a little choked up. First, I opened this very cute thread/scrap catcher for my sewing table (with that cute little magnet inside)...

And, this looks familiar doesn't it?

I laughed when I opened it because Tamsin must have seen the same tutorial I did! I love, love, love mine. It coordinates with the thread catcher, and the Circa 1934 fabrics is one of my current favorite fabric lines! And, I previously had no cute pin cushions - just a couple of those standard tomatoes. Now, I'm very fashionable!

If that wasn't enough (and it was!), I opened these three amazing hot pads....would you look at these...

These photos do not do them justice. First of all, the Christmas tree is too cute. And the brown hot pads, well, they are just stunning (and they include my other current favorite fabric line, Hope Valley). I'm still trying to figure out how she made these. Tamsin, you made my day. I will cherish all of these beautiful gifts!

Gifts for a Set of Twins

2011-12-20T08:00:00.000-05:00

I fell in love with Julie of Jaybird Quilts' Dot Party pattern this summer. I took a class with her to make the quilt this past summer at The Village Quilter and I found making this quilt to be too much fun! I've made four of them already.

I also fell in love with Ann Kelle's Urban Zoologie fabrics. First I made a pink one...

Then, I bought the line in blue and made a "boy" version...

I used quilter's linen for the backgrounds on both, I really like the look of the QL.

The backs are so cute too. Ladybugs for the girl...

And airplanes for the boy...

Now, what to do with these little quilts? Then, I remembered a family friend whom my Mom sees all a lot has boy and girl twins, 5 years old. So, I offered her the quilts to give to them for Christmas. Perfect. I got the fun of working with these great fabrics and making the quilts and the kids will get to snuggle with them! I hope they love them as much as I loved making them.

Countdown to Christmas!

2011-12-16T18:48:00.002-05:00

No, I have not fallen off the face of the blogosphere! I've had posts in my head for weeks, I just couldn't get the photos uploaded and the posts written! Besides trying to get everything done for Christmas, which is barreling towards me like a freight train, to say work has been crazy is an understatement!

But, I can take a breath right now. It's my husband's birthday today (Happy Birthday, Ken!), and he wanted to go to the beach for the weekend. It just so happens that my very nice boss has a very nice beach house that he never uses - but we do o:). All the fun, none of the hassle! So, I left him to hold down the fort at work at took today off to come to the shore for a long weekend. (Yes, I feel a little guilty, but I'm sure I'll get over it - I've been working early, through lunch and late for a while). So, here we are:

Lilly is having a ball...

Funny, I couldn't get her to sit still and pose for me on the beach! Dogs, they're funny like that.

I haven't been in my sewing room in over a week (which tends to make me cranky), and I had hoped to get my Countdown to Christmas quilt quilted before the big day. Not happening, but here is its progress to date.

As soon as I saw this line, I bought a layer cake, knowing I wanted to use my Big Twister Ruler to make a Twister quilt.

Here are all the squares sewn together...

And here is the end result. If I were to do it again, I wouldn't have added the additional red border and I would have made the white border wider. But, all in all, I am very smitten with this quilt!

Oh, and we had some very exciting news in our family earlier this month. My brother asked his girlfriend to marry him! Now, my brother is 48 years old and has never been married (I hope he doesn't read my blog - I'm sure he'd be thrilled that I announced these facts), so this is a Really. Big. Deal. We are all over the moon, especially the bride-to-be. Whom we all adore. I think I'm as excited as they are. They announced it at my step-dad's 75th birthday dinner. What a celebration we had that night! Here are the happy couple.

I smell wedding quilt!!

So, next up I'll have some photos of some other Christmas sewing I finished before the big work crunch! Stay tuned!

Stockings for Kids 2011

2011-12-01T19:02:00.000-05:00

Lyanna over at Purple Panda Quilts is hosting Stockings for Kids - a stocking drive to benefit the foster children of Central Virginia.

I had hoped to make more, but I did get one stocking done and off to Lyanna yesterday...

I'll have to try to do better next year! You can see all of the great stocking donations at Lyanna's blog

In other news, we had another Philly Modern Quilt Guild sewing night at Sew Smart in Doylestown two Friday's ago. We had a huge turnout! About 10 people (I'm sure the restaurant we all got takeout from loved all of us trooping over there at one time and milling about waiting for our food - LOL). We had a great night, and I spent the whole time working on the 20 placements I'm making as Christmas gifts...

These are made with Le Poulet fabrics by Windham. I made a set for myself and lots of folks loved them....so guess what they're getting for Christmas! These make up really quickly and just a little straight line quilting does the trick.

And, a product review for you...I read great things about the titanium rotary blades on someone's blog and as I love a nice sharp blade, thought I'd give them a try. I got the 45mm and 60mm...

Wowser! That's a sharp blade. I love them! But, of course I just started using them, so we'll see how long they keep their sharp, but so far, so good. I'll give an update when I've used the blade for awhile. I got them from Crafters Gallery.

I'm in the midst of Christmas sewing, but I made a quick Christmas quilt for myself over the long weekend - which I'll show soon!

2011 Christmas Quilt Show

2011-11-28T13:33:00.000-05:00

It's that time again - Darlene of Insights From SewCalGal is again hosting the 2011 Christmas Quilt Show.

My Mom installed a small quilt hanger in her dining room aftter I made her a wall hanging when I first started quilting. I'm slowly adding to her collection of wall quilts. It's a great gift idea for the woman who has everything - LOL!

A few years ago I decided she needed a Christmas wall hanging. I decided to use a poinsettia fabric I had to do a little broderie perse applique.

I used a black satin stitch around the edges and some rich gold-flecked fabrics. All of this was from stash as I recall.

Even the "Christmas paisley" has gold in it. I love visting this quilt every year!

Stop in at SewCalGal's site to see the rest of the Christmas Quilt Show!

Adventures in Shop Hopping

2011-11-20T20:55:00.001-05:00

A couple of weekends ago I went with three fellow-Philly Modern Quilt Guild members on my first ever shop hop - the 2011 Fall Fabric Frenzy. We had a blast. We hit seven stores on Saturday. Whew! We left at 9:30 am and returned at 6:30 pm, with two short pit stops for food. For me, the time just flew. Shop hopping with friends is the way to go! Near the end, we didn't even know what town we were in. Andrew (who was kind enough to chauffeur us three ladies around) just put all the addresses in his GPS and off we went. We hit the last shop with just moments to spare, as all the stores closed at 5pm on Saturday.

I didn't go overboard, but did get some things I had been wanting. There was only one store where none of us bought anything.

I have been itching to try the Fit to Be Geese ruler and found it at one of the later shops, along with some citrus Best Press that I couldn't pass up. Since I love my Angler, which is the original plastic that you have to tape on your machine bed, I picked up the new cling version - Clearly Perfect Angles....

I had been eyeing the 60 degree Double Strip ruler to make some cool hexagon quilts for a while so picked that up...

I didn't think I'd find the new Quilts and More, since it wasn't scheduled to come out until later in the week, but I did!

In one shop, nothing much was doing it for me, but they did have a nice charm pack selection so I picked up a couple of Sugar Pop charm packs...

I picked up these Fig Tree FQs to add to my collection at another stop...

At Generations Quilt Shop (hands down my favorite of the day), there was so much I wanted I didn't know what to get, so settled for this FQ bundle and stripe for the binding. A cute quilt made of this was on the wall and I decided I'd love to make it...

This little kit is for some pretty Christmas placements that I thought would look great on my dining room table...

That was the haul from Saturday. I still had two more shops to hit though, so on Sunday I went to the Byrne Sewing Connection, which is near my house, and got fellow-guild member Jessica Levitt's new book Modern Mix - there are a slew of projects I want to make from this book!

Then on Monday, I hit my last stop - Granny's Sewing Den, which is near my office. I think I was shopped out by then. I only got some snaps. Not even worth showing a photo of - LOL.

So, my first shop hop was a success. Will I do it again? I'm not sure - definitely not by myself. For me the day more about hanging out with quilting buddies all day than shopping - and that was worth every mile traveled!

Mini Quilt Party!

2011-11-13T10:44:00.000-05:00

Amylouwho is hosting a Mini Quilt Party! I just happened to have made a mini quilt a while back ....

This hangs in my sewing room. A few years ago (well, probably more than a few), my LQS offered a mini-quilt-of-the-month. I think I picked up at least four. So far, I've made this one (don't even ask how many BOMs I've got hanging around that aren't even started). This one is from Jo Morton's book Small Quilts for Framing.

It measures 13" x 13". Here's a quarter next to one of the inner HSTs for scale.

I recall I really enjoyed making this - I should pull out the others and give them a go!

You can see the links for all the Small Quilts over at Amylouwho's place!

Lilly Would Like to Thank the Academy...

2011-11-10T10:30:00.000-05:00

Lilly and I were so excited when we found out that she won a Viewer's Choice award in the 2011 Pets on Quilts Show hosted by Sew Cal Gal! This was her entry...

Lilly and her Max & Whiskers quilt...

I was also very thrilled to have won a prize in the contest from Sew Cal Gal herself! My 2012 Pets on Quilts calendar just arrived (put together by Ms. Sew Cal Gal Darlene herself!!) I know I will enjoy looking at all the pets and quilts next year! Thanks again Darlene!!

A post about my Shop Hop spoils is coming. A fabulous time was had by all!

PMQG Charity Sewing Day

2011-11-03T19:04:00.000-04:00

One Saturday in September, some members of the Philly Modern Quilt Guild got together to make quilts from the Jay McCaroll Habitat Challenge blocks guild members had made earlier in the summer. We had a fun day and got a lot done!

Amanda captured our day in photographs (thanks Amanda for letting me "borrow" some of the photos)...

Laying out the blocks on the pool table...

Me making some sort of funny face while cutting (I am notorious for the funny face photos at guild meetings for some reason!)

Look - Monica's nails match the blue in the blocks - LOL

Some of what we accomplished by the end of the day...

Left to right - Monica, Andrew, Candi, me

I took one of the tops home to quilt...I was going to just do a meander, but saw the Curlz pantograph still on the table from the last quilt and thought it would look good so did that instead. I think it worked out just fine!

Here's the back...

The rest of the quilt top were given out to members at our last meeting to finish up the quilting and then they will all be donated. It was a lot of fun to see and work with all of the blocks and see the creativity of our members - everyone did a great job!

This weekend is the Fall Frenzy Shop Hop 2011 in our area. I can't believe that I've never done a shop hop in all of my years of quilting, but this will be my first one! A few of us from PMQG are car-pooling on Saturday and the plan is to hit about 6 of the shops that day. I'll do the others that are near me on my own on Sunday and Monday. That's a lot of shopping!!

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-31T19:03:00.005-04:00

Happy Halloween everyone! While I'm sitting here waiting for the (maybe) three trick-or-treaters we usually get I thought I'd show this pumpkin wallhanging I recently made...

I actually made two. One for me and one for my daughter-in-law's office (she says she's been getting compliments all week on it at work!) I forgot to take a picture of hers, but her borders all match.

Edited to add a photo of Raqhel's quilt (with the matching borders) that she kindly sent to me...

How lazy was I when I realized I didn't have enough to finish the top and bottom border for the second one and instead of taking off the two sides and going with a different fabric all around, I just used a different print on the top and bottom. Oh well, it's going in the window and you won't be able to see it from the street (you know, that "galloping horse" thing - I use it alot)

I did a buttonhole stitch in black around the applique and a meander in the background. I think they came out really cute!

I found this fabric to back them with. Must have been a Kenny's Flea Market Find, because I know I didn't buy this!

I didn't get a chance to finish this guy before Halloween though...

He still needs to have the applique stitched and his borders put on.

I saw these cute patterns when I was desperately looking for the backing fabric for the red & white wedding quilt. I couldn't resist buying it. The pattern is from a line called "Seasonal Skinnies" from Ribbon Candy Quilt Company.

Not only were they quick and easy to make, but I made them all from stash! I love that!

And, exciting news - Lilly won the prize for the "prettiest costume" at her camp Halloween party today. She was Minnie Mouse ....this is from another Halloween, but it's the same costume and she doesn't really change much from year to year - LOLOL!

Don't eat too much candy!!

ALSO EDITED to add that we got NO trick-or-treaters this Halloween (guess who will be eating too much candy)!!

October?

2011-10-29T16:44:00.000-04:00

Ha ha ha , very funny. You can stop now...

Good thing it's not Halloween tonight! There's at least two inches of slushy snow out there and it's still going strong! Unbelievable. Hopefully, this is not an indication of how the rest of winter is going to be.

Luckily, I had nowhere to go today and have been sewing for most of it. I thought I'd be able to get The Ghastlies top finished. It's not to be. This is as far as I got...

As has been par for the course for me lately, I ran out of fbric. This is all I could eke out of the bramble fabric to surround the four cornerstone blocks ...

So, the two remaining borders will have to wait. Luckily, I was able to find some more online (it's becoming a little hard to find, so good thing I found out I need more now!)

And, just for the record (and maybe this will make it feel a little bit warmer), here's Going Beachin' all finished...

Going Beachin'

62"x74"

Started: 8/28/2011 Finished: 9/28/2011

Fabric: "Going Coastal" by Emily Herrick; Pattern: "Beachin'" by Crazy Old Ladies

Now, I'm off to make some Brunswick Stew for dinner this cold, snowy October night!

Blogger's Quilt Festival

2011-10-28T08:34:00.000-04:00

For this Blogger's Quilt Festival (hosted by Amy's Creative Side - thanks Amy!), may I present...

Gray Rosegarden

This is one my favorite quilts, made back in 2007. I was whizzing past some booths at the NJ Quilt Festival that year and saw these fabrics and did a double take and turned back. Then I saw the quilt that went with the fabric - the man who ran the booth with his wife had designed the quilt (I was very impressed with him!). (Unfortunately, I don't remember now what the name of their business is) But, I scooped up the fabric and pattern immediately.

So simple - just alternating snowball blocks and nine patches and two different fabrics, but in person the quilt almost glows. I display this quilt in my living room during the winter months.

When it came to quilting it, I didn't want to ruin the effect of the fabrics by choosing the wrong color thread, so decided to go with a monofilment in smoke for the front and gray cotton for the back. Good thing you can see the quilting on the back because you certainly can't see it from the front! After all the custom work I did on this it doesn't even look like it's quilted until you turn it over!

As you can see, I did some feather medallions with a stipple in the middle and for the smaller medallions, I used a flower ruler to stitch around and then filled it with more stippling.

For the borders, I just did this scroll-type quilting.

It's almost time to put this one out again!

There are lots of links to some greats quilts in the Blogger's Quilt Festival over at Amy's place - click here!

Kenny's Flea Market Finds

2011-10-22T17:33:00.000-04:00

Ken was on the hunt for Halloweeny-things last weekend and found this spooky fabric at one of the yard sales he stopped at - skulls, googly eyeballs and skeletons - our daughter loves it! (When do they grow out of that - she's 22???)

He also found these 70s-inspired fabrics....

Just adding these to the stash - have absolutely no clue what to do with them. Although the blue and pink tiny medallion fabric is kind of cute.

Today, I'm furiously trying to finish up a couple of pumpkin wall hangings - one for me and one for my daughter-in-law. I'd like to give it to her tomorrow so she has a week or so to enjoy it!

I'm also in the midst of making a butternut squash and apple soup. I've never had butternut squash soup, but people rave over it and I found a recipe for it last week so thought I'd give it a try. If it's a hit, I'll share!

PMQG Sewing Night

2011-10-15T20:43:00.001-04:00

I missed our Philly Modern Quilt Guild kick-off meeting for this season because we were on vacation. I was bummed to have missed member Jessica Levitt's trunk show showcasing the quilts from her new book, Modern Mix (and her new fabric line, Kingdom, is awesome)!

But, I was glad to attend the guild's sew night the Friday after we got back. It was held at Sew Smart in Doylestown. I hadn't been to Sew Smart since the new owner took over. Wow, wow, wow! She's got great stuff coming in!

What a fun night we had. Of course, I had to do some shopping (after all, Kathleen was kind enough to keep the shop open just for us on a Friday night!)

It was hard to choose without going overboard and I tried to be good.

Because I had gotten some Circa 1934 charm packs earlier, I figured getting some yardage was a good move. I love this typewriter key fabric - will make a great quilt back (and besides I type like 120 WPM! It's one of my "gifts" LOLOLOL) And I thought the other fabric would make a nice border. Now, to figure out what quilt to make with it all!

And these Halloween fabrics screamed "take me home" as soon as I walked in the shop...

This was a splurge. I saw a quilt, called Baby Log Cabin, hanging up and fell in love. I asked about it and Kathleen said there was a class. So, of course, I signed up for the class and bought the fabric right away. I don't think this stuff is going to be around for long. The bird print is Joel Dewberry.

Then, after all the shopping (and giving Becky my two cents when she was shopping too - LOLOL), we decided we were hungry and all trooped out to the local pizza shop to get some food. We all got soaked bringing our pizza back to shop when it decided to rain on our parade! Between shopping, chatting and eating, this was all the sewing I got done...

Really, that was all I had to show for 3 hours! But, it was all good. It was more about hanging out with quilting friends than how much sewing I got done. I had a great time and can't wait until we do it again!

Back to reality!

2011-10-08T21:39:00.001-04:00

Vacation's over...it's just a distant memory now. It's amazing how quickly you get right back into the swing of things. It was a great trip, but we were gone 12 days and I was ready to come home (it was too hot and my feet hurt - LOL!)

But, it was a GREAT trip. Vacation's always fun, but we said this was one of the best. Everything went very smoothly and there were definitely "magical" moments (how can there not be at Disney!). Even when we presented ourselves at the Philly airport hotel the night before our flight and were told they didn't have a reservation for us, but were able to find us a room anyway even though there was a convention in town and every hotel was "full" (I'm still not sure whose fault that was - mine or the hotels') Or, when we got to Disney World and I realized I'd forgotten to bring the park tickets I bought earlier in the summer. Everything was taken care of with no problem. Whew! We also met some great folks!

We started off on a cruise...on the new Disney ship, the Dream....

A bit bigger than the other two Disney ship, but just as lovely. Our first afternoon on board we spotted a young lady - must have been in her early 20s - she had a short, dark bob and was wearing a very early 1900s looking dress. Like something you would have seen lady passengers on the Titanic wearing. Then I looked down at her shoes - same thing and I realized she was GOING for that look. It was so neat. We saw her a couple other times on the cruise and she was similarly costumed. I was dying to ask her about it, but, of course, didn't. One of my favorite nights on cruises is formal night. I love to see everyone milling around in their finery.

The main lobby

We had a couple of stops at one of my favorite places....Castaway Cay. A true island paradise. Every time we're there, I really know I'm on vacation!

We then spent 5 days in the World. But I didn't take any photos because they would look the same as the photos from the last umpteen trips.. Although I could have scanned the photo of my husband in a tu-tu when he was picked to the "the star" at the Hoop de Doo Revue, but that wouldn't be nice - he he he he. (He saw me writing this and said if there was enough demand, he'd consider letting me post it - LOLOL! He is such a ham - that's how he got in that predicament in the first place!)

But alas, all good things must come to an end (and besides, I was having withdrawal and couldn't wait to get back to my sewing machine - really!)

So, since we've been back, I've been frantically working on the Ghastlies...

Got the star blocks mostly done. Of course, I ran out of the Tree fabric before I got the last borders on and had to order more today. That's been par for the course with this quilt. It's the 3rd time I've had to order fabric.

The scene blocks are all done...here are a few...

And I expect to have the quilting on Going Beachin' done this weekend. I'm just doing a meander in white, but I think it suits the quilt. Sometimes simple is best!

It's so good to be sewing again!

A Blast from the Past - The Bridges of Madison County Quilt

2011-09-27T13:33:00.001-04:00

Since I'm on vacation and am probably not sewing anything, I thought I'd schedule a post and show a quilt I made (actually, it's still in progress - LOL!) in my very early quilting days. It's quite different than the quilts I do today.

Presenting the the Bridges of Madison County Quilt. "Bridges" is one of my favorite movies. I remember being so excited to find a pattern based on the book/movie. It's a nice sampler with a little piecing, a little applique - and some very little pieces which I noticed when I pulled it out of the box and looked at it again..

This quilt has some really fun blocks. See the "corn cobs" and the snake? I love the corn & beans blocks up top too.

Here are closeups of some of the blocks...

I see I started hand quilting it. Since I just took that hand quilting class, I guess it would be a good thing if I finished this!

Look at this backing - it a Hummel fabric! Now where in the heck did I find that? I know I picked it up because my grandmother collected Hummels and I thought it was cool. That was a long time ago - LOLOL!
It might not be cool, but it is sentimental.

Hope you enjoyed this "blast from the past"!

YUM - I - NESS!

2011-09-20T08:12:00.003-04:00

Terrain

by Kate Spain

I've been waiting for this for many months - and I scored this FQ bundle for an awesome price. I breathe a little easier now that I have this in my possession (very weird, I know - a little fabric-obsessed maybe??)

But just look at this yumminess ...

Now I can't wait for the yardage to come out. I'm not quite sure what I going to make with the FQ bundle, but the first Terrain quilt on the list will be to make Julie's Taffy quilt when the yardage is available...

I plan to use mostly the orangey fabrics with some of the purple for this one.

Kate's hit it out of the park again!!

Last week...

2011-09-15T15:29:00.000-04:00

The red and white quilt got finished on time! Here it is in all its glory on my kitchen floor...

Even my 13-year-old grandson saw it and proclaimed it "Awesome!" (Gotta love that kid he likes quilts!)

Here's the label...

Not sure if you can see the quilting or not in these photos...

Sure hope the bride & groom like it!

Last week I also took a hand-quilting class at The Village Quilter with Didi Salvatierra. It was an all-day class and a lot of fun (I always have fun at a quilt class). What I found out was I'm not as bad at hand quilting as I thought I was! The class covered everything from marking, layering, to the quilting. Didi's a lot of fun too. There was actually a student in the class who had gone to High School with Didi and it was the first time they'd seen each other in something like 42 years!

Here's what I got done that day...

Of course, you know you can't go to a quilt shop and not some home with something....

And they had some of these pot holders made up and I couldn't resist buying the pattern. Guess what people are getting for Christmas this year?? LOL!

Now, we're off to vacation!

Going Beachin'!

2011-09-09T13:33:00.001-04:00

What do you get the you combine the Going Coastal collection by Emily Herrick....

With Crazy Old Ladies' Beachin' Pattern?

Going Beachin'!

That's what I'm calling my quilt. I didn't get to go to the shore this summer and when I saw this line I knew I had to have some of it in my life. I thought the Beachin' pattern showed off these fun fabrics perfectly.

I just love this bottle cap fabric....I also bought enough for the backing...

Here were my first few rounds...

And I would have had it done last weekend, but only got this far...

Because I didn't have enough Blue Crabs!!! How annoying, but more crabs are crawling my way as we speak and I should be able to to finish up this quilt before we leave for vacation next week!

I can't wait to cuddle up and pretend I'm at the beach (okay, I know you don't generally cuddle up in a quilt when you're at the beach, but you know what I mean - LOL!)!

It's Like Pulling Teeth...

2011-09-03T21:06:00.000-04:00

So, this great fabric I found for the back of the red & white quilt arrived on Thursday...

It was very beautiful, but it was also .... cotton duck!! Waaaayyy too heavy for a quilt back. Guess I didn't read the description of the fabric very well when I ordered it. My super-detailed paralegal skills were not engaged when buying this fabric. With no time to order anything else, I had to find something that would work from an LQS. (and of course I found an even better fabric from Thousands of Bolts this morning, which I had not checked earlier, which was cheap, cheap, cheap but could not spare the time it would take to arrive and I'm still kicking myself - why, oh why, didn't I check there first???). So since we got out of work a half a day early on Friday because of the holiday, I scooted on up to a nearby quilt shop and found this....

Not quite what I had in mind, but it was the best they had and it would work. It is kind of cool - a Monaluna print by Robert Kaufman. Unfortunately, traffic was T.E.R.R.I.B.L.E. on Friday afternoon and it took forever to get to the shop. But I got my three yards and starting cutting and piecing it for the back when I got home. Seems my math skills were lacking also. I needed another 2.5 yards. Where in the heck was MY head when I was figuring yardage for the back of a 72" x 72" quilt? I was so annoyed with myself (more so because of another fabric issue I had this week, which is the subject of my next post). So, instead of spending the entire day quilting this quilt, I had to make another trip to the LQS this morning to get another 2.5 yards (where a really cute pattern for fall wallhangings jumped in my cart - show you later!).

I finally got the back ready and on the frame by 3pm this afternoon and got about 6 rows of quilting done (this quilt must be done by next Saturday remember - quilted and bound!)

I'm using the Curlz pantograph with white thread. It's looking good!

Now, I'm wondering if I bind this in the leftover Monaluna or a solid red????

This week, getting enough fabric for finishing projects has been like pulling teeth!

The Hurricane Report

2011-08-28T17:17:00.000-04:00

Well, we made it through Hurricane Irene unscathed thank goodness! I am so grateful. It was like we were in a bubble on our street. Venturing out this morning my husband saw that there was lots of flooding, downed trees, etc. not far from us. It's mostly stopped raining here, but the winds are still really kicking up.

Last night we had a "hurricane dinner". We made Lobster rolls and baked beans (boy were they good!) ...

And drank Hurricanes in pineapples (I think they were category 5's - yikes they were strong!)...

Luckily, we did not lose power. So, I was able to finish the red & white quilt top. YAY!!!! I'm so glad, because I'm itching to start working on other things!

Here it is, courtesy of the quilt-holder-husband...

It's 72"x72" - all from stash! I did have to buy the backing fabric. I just ordered this today...

I may use it for the binding too, we'll have to see how that would look once I get it. I've got two weeks to get it quilted and bound!

Another finish!

2011-08-24T16:59:00.001-04:00

I got an email from my Mom last Monday to let me know that our cousin's baby shower would be in September when we are on vacation (I'm bummed, because I would love to go.) Since I can't be there my Mom offered to take my gift. But the only time I was going to see my Mom before then was this past Sunday. Luckily, the quilt top was done, but I needed to quilt and bind it pronto! So, Saturday night at 10pm I put the last stitches in the binding. Whew!

And then Sunday we had more of those horrendous storms we've been having all week, so our swim day at my aunt's was cancelled and I'm not seeing my Mom until next weekend now (yes, when we're supposed to be getting a hurriance, which is after yesterday's earthquake. Good times around here! So who knows if I'll see her then either) So the rush was for naught, but that's okay - it's done!

I just did a large meander (I was in a hurry, remember?!) on every star except the orange.

I love this ABC fabric so much...

In the orange I did tight loops. Not quite "pebbling" but it gives nice texture.

Here's the back...

And, I'm making progress on the red & white quilt. That's the next rush job. The wedding is on September 17th and I have to get it to my daughter the weekend before. I'm trying not to work on anything else until this is done (and that's really hard!)

I think I really like this one!

Boo! It's the Ghastlies....

2011-08-21T17:03:00.000-04:00

When I saw Kim's quilt with the Ghastlies fabric I thought it was adorable. I was so excited when she started posting tutorials for the quilt (thanks Kim!) and I couldn't wait to get my hands on some. Here is the border fabric.

Here are some of the other fabrics for sashings....

And here are my fussy cut scenes for the blocks:

There are some other fabrics I'm using, including a pink, that I'll pull from my stash. The plan is to have it done for Halloween (yes, this Halloween!) - that may be pushing it but I'm going to give it a shot.

My hubby says the prints looks like Aubrey Beardsley illustrations. I think they look like the Haunted Mansion in Disney!

And, speaking of Disney, it's always a happy day in my house when this comes in the mail....

Countdown to Vacation is on!

Pets on Quilts 2011

2011-08-15T10:37:00.004-04:00

I'm thrilled to post my Pets on Quilts Show entry for 2011. Thanks SewCalGal for hosting this great event! I participated last year for the first time. This year, I made a quilt especially for this contest.

When I saw the Max & Whiskers fabrics at The Village Quilter, I just fell in love with it and decided my Lilly....

needed a quilt of her very own. And I thought it would be perfect to enter in this year's contest. So, may I present...

Lilly and her quilt

She says it's very snuggly.

And that she likes having a quilt of her very own!

Check out all the other entries over at SewCalGal's blog here!

Quilted and Bound!

2011-08-14T20:00:00.000-04:00

I love when I put the last stitches on the binding of a quilt. I feel very productive, and since I've finished three in the last week or so, I'm feeling super-productive!

Jaybird Quilts' Dot Party in Spring Urban Zoologie..

I quilted spirals in the circles and just meandered around each circle.

I used the very cute ladybugs for the backing.

I'll be making another one of these in "boy print" Urban Zoologie fabrics with a blue Quilter's Linen (remember all that blue Quilter's Linen I've acquired!). These will go to a set of sister/brother twins for the holidays.

My beloved Postage Stamp quilt is also quilted, bound and washed. I learned a lesson - if you want to show off the quilting in photos, take the picture before you wash it! The design kind of got lost in the crinkles....

And this one, the Carnival (another Jaybird Quilts design) wallhanging did not get washed, because it's just going to be a wall quilt which is getting hung up in my office tomorrow...

Both the Postage Stamp quilt and the Carnival wallinghanging were quilted with the Daisy Swirl pantograph. As much as I apparently love this design, I think I need to give it a rest. I think I've used it on 4 or 5 quilts already this year. It's time to move on to something else!

Hope Valley String Quilt

2011-08-07T19:30:00.000-04:00

I've been seeing string quilts around blog land recently and I really wanted to make one. When I fell in love with one a fellow guild member was working on one featuring Hope Valley fabrics at our PMQG sew day a while back I knew I had to do it. So I hunted around the internet until I found some Hope Valley and was able to get myself some (and on sale!) That's one great thing about trying to find older fabric. If you do manage to find it, it's usually on sale, so I got a great deal! I ordered from Hawthorne Threads, one of my new on-line favorites.

I was able to get all the colorways....

I wasn't sure exactly what I was doing, but after a few false starts I wound up cutting my foundation papers at 9 3/4". I knew I wanted my "middle" string (I'm using gray Quilter's Linen), to be thinner than the Hope Valley strings. I wanted them to finish big enough that you could really see the prints. I wound up cutting the middle strings at 1-1/2 to finish at 1" and the Hope Valle strings at 2" to finish at 1-1/2". I know a lot of string quilts use varying sized strings, but I'm a very symmetric girl so wanted them all the same or I'm afraid it would make me twitch.

So, here I go...some strings cut...

I first thought I'd use some "applique paper" that I found at a quilt show about 10 years ago that I absolutely had to have and have never used. So, I cut some up to use as my foundations. Didn't work too well. I didn't like the way it went through the machine, it seemed to "pull" as I was sewing. It just didn't feel right. It's shiny on one side (kind of like freezer paper - heck, it probably is just freezer paper that I over paid for). So, I spied some packing paper from a fabric order I had laying around that seemed like the perfect weight for my foundations (and plus it was free!). So I cut it down and it worked like a charm. But I only had enough for about 10 blocks. So I asked hubby if he had any packing paper at work I could use and he did! Awesome! And it's still free!

Here are the first two blocks...

You really have to "design as you go" with this one. It's kind of like putting a puzzle together, which made my stomach churn at first, but now I'm getting the hang of it and it's fun. I also found out it's better to stitch these using my walking foot. I'm really enjoying making these blocks.

Here's what I've gotten done so far. I had to interrupt my progress for the time being to work on the red & white wedding quilt.

I can't wait to get back to Hope Valley!

Where I Sew

2011-07-30T22:04:00.002-04:00

Pink Chalk Studio is hosting "Where I Sew" month on the blog. I know I love seeing others' sewing spaces and thought I'd join in the fun. Mine isn't fancy (or even very neat right now), but it works for me. It's in the smallest bedroom (we always called it the "little room", now it's just called my sewing room). I've got a lot packed in there and thought I'd move into my daughter's former bedroom when I moved the longarm in there because it's bigger, but I like this room for a lot of reasons (and not just laziness at not wanting to move everything!) This room is right off the top of the stairs (I live in a split level) and I can hear whatever's going on downstairs easily and just peek my head around the door to see what's going on. I don't feel like I'm tucked away in this room.

From the doorway you look straight to my sewing table which houses my beloved Bernina with a small cutting mat to my left, a couple of baskets for this and that in the back and a selection of threads...

Thread, up close...

To my right is my "big board" ironing board and the big design wall. Which is a kind of a pain to use because of the big board being in the way, but I deal with it.

When you come in to the room to the left of the door are a set of plastic drawers that house catalogs, patterns, notebooks, rulers, gadgets, fusibles, freezer paper and what not. The tray on top holds the rulers I use most....

There's a smaller design wall (piece of flannel tacked to the wall) on that wall. Then on the side wall are 3 bookshelves that hold books. magazines, some stash, WIPS, threads, and a myriad of stuff...it looks messy but I know what's there...

In front of the bookcases is my cutting table. Then tucked in the corner is a glass front cabinet holding yet more stash with my tv on top...I love catching up on all of my DVR'd (is that a word?) shows while I'm sewing (in fact, I use *TV Ears* so I can hear over the sewing machine!)...

(What the heck was I watching???)

So, this is where I sew. And I love my space.

Busting Some Stash!

2011-07-27T16:37:00.001-04:00

Red and White stash that is!

My daughter was invited to a friend's wedding in September and, of course, I offered to make a quilt for her to give as a gift (because ~~I'm always looking for an excuse to make another quilt, like I don't already have enough quilts in the queue~~ I'm nice like that).

So I quiz her about style, colors, etc. and we determined modern and red & white. So, just like for the Green quilt, I pull all of the red and white stash off the shelves and lo and behold, I believe I have enough - LOL!

We (and by we, I mean me) decided a half-square triangle quilt in an off-set barn raising pattern would be just the ticket! I figured a size of around 64" x 72" would be good. I'm making the HST's 4" finished. Using my mad math skillz (not!), I figure I'll need about 288. So, I'm busy, busy, busy making HSTs....here's a few...

With a cool quilting design, I think it will be crisp and modern! And I'll get to say that I've finally made my own red and white quilt which is all the rage right now. Plus, those piles really are going down!

This is why you should keep notes....

2011-07-24T19:40:00.000-04:00

Or....How many yards of fabric do you have to buy before you get the right shade? Answer - 9-1/2.

I decided I wanted to make a pieced back for this quilt to use up the rest of my Kumari Garden fabrics.

So I came up with this for this middle of the backing...

When I realized I didn't have enough of the leftover blue Quilter's Linen for the rest of the back, I got the number from the selvedge and proceeded to order another 3 yards. I like this fabric alot and wanted to be able to use it in another quilt so I figured I'd get a bunch.

So, I order it and this is what came....

Looks right, doesn't it? Nope, not so much. In fact not even close! Although the first 4 digits of the fabric number was right, apparently all of the Quilter's Linen blues have the same first 4 digits, but there is a 2 digit code after that is not on the selvedge. I thought about sending it back, but it's a pretty nice blue so I'm sure I'll use so I decided to keep it.

So, back I go to the internet to search for the blue I need. Ah, there's another blue, so I order 3 yards of it figuring it has to be right.

Waaaaay off. Really? I can't believe this! I finally figured out that I must have originally ordered Aqua, not blue (because there were no other blues). So, I nervously ordered a half yard of Aqua...

Bingo! That was it! But I only ordered 1/2 yard and it wasn't near enough to finish the whole back. Luckily, this time I kept the receipt and just went and ordered 3 more yards. And now I'm done. And I have enough blue Quilter's Linen to last me for awhile.

Swoon...

2011-07-20T16:29:00.002-04:00

While perusing some quilty blogs, I came across Swoon from Thimble Blossoms....

I love these large blocks (I think they are 24" or something like that). I found some great FQ bundles and this Meadowsweet floral/plaid for the binding from a new-to-me shop called Sew Fabulous Quilt Shop. I'm using Moda Bella Gray for the background...

I love when fabric comes tied up in pretty ribbons (and you bet I'll be reusing them!)...

The bundles were made up of some Meadowsweet, some Lila Tueller, Lakehouse Drygoods, Sandi Henderson and more....

Sweet! (And I stacked them back up and retied the ribbons after I took these shots o:) )

Kenny's Flea Market Finds

2011-07-16T21:45:00.003-04:00

It's summer and my hubby is back to his Saturday yard-sales buying ~~junk~~ stuff he plans to re-sell (but that doesn't happen much yet). He did get some great bargains today though. For $2 each he got...

4 yards of this Alexander Henry print...look at this explosion of color! It will make a great quilt back...

This one I love - there are 2 yards of this gorgeous seashell print...I'm definitely making a quilt with this as a focus fabric...

And this has to be one of the greatest bargains of all time...8 yards of this fabulous neutral...

Thanks Hon!

Back in Central Park

2011-07-06T13:26:00.000-04:00

I had to interrupt my Central Park marathon to do a few other quilty things, but now I'm back to it in earnest. I am just itching to get my Postage Stamp quilt quilted, washed & crinkled and put to use! I started quilting on Sunday - using the Daisy Swirl panto (I know I use this one a lot, but it's just so summery!)...

And since I can only stand at the longarm for so much time before my back starts to hurt (or maybe I like piecing better than quilting???), I'm also working on the "big" Carnival. Here are the "right face" blocks all done...

And here are the pieces for the "left face" blocks cut out and ready to sew...

That was Monday. Tonight, those blocks will be finished and I hope I can have this one all put together by the end of the weekend. I'm also hoping to get the quilting and binding finished on Postage Stamp by the end of the weekend too and I can start next week with something fresh. (I just love starting a new quilt!)

A Dot Party Party!

2011-07-03T10:14:00.001-04:00

Last Saturday I spent the afternoon at The Village Quilter taking Julie's Dot Party class.

Such a fun afternoon and I got the whole quilt top finished!! These blocks are addicting (as you'll see).

There were six of us in the class and I had a bad case of fabric envy. Not that I didn't like my own fabrics - I think the Kumari Garden and blue quilter's linen looks great, but everyone else's looked great too. This quilt looks good in anything! There was a beautiful batik version and someone was using Pick a Bunch. Julie may have helped convince me I needed to do a Pick a Bunch version and Village Quilter just happened to have layer cakes of P-a-B and the Kona Snow solids just ready and waiting for me (so, yeah, I needed a lot of convincing - LOL).

The class was great - the other ladies were lovely and Julie is always fun. And, I love the atmosphere in The Village Quilter (I really wished I lived closer - maybe it's a good thing I don't - LOL!) And, I figured out the trick to that ruler...

It was my left-handedness that was messing me up! I realized I had to cut *backwards*, i.e., going from right to left - the way you'd naturally do it if you are right handed but just a tad awkward if you're left handed. But it didn't take long to get the hang of it and my cuts came out perfectly!

Besides Kumari Garden and Pick a Bunch, there's at least one more Dot Party in the works. This just came in...

Ann Kelle's Spring Urban Zoologie - I've been waiting for this for months!! I am just enjoying looking at it. I'm pairing it with the pink quilter's linen. Some little girl is going to be very happy. o:)

A Night with Jay McCarroll

2011-07-01T20:03:00.001-04:00

I want to report on our night with Jay McCarroll at our last Philly Modern Quilt Guild meeting. What a fun night and what a nice guy Jay is!

Jay brought his new fabric line, Habitat, and showed off some quilts and other items made from the line. He talked about his background, his time on Project Runway and his design process for each of the fabrics in his new line. It was fascinating to me to hear not only what inspired each piece, but how he physically did them. Learning about the fabrics really brought the line "alive" for me and I have a greater appreciation for each of the pieces. There's a great interview with Jay (part one part two) at True Up where he goes into some of the detail. Jay was really funny too and was kind enough to take photos with all who wanted one.

Besides a few quilts made with his new line, Jay also showed these pillows made with each of the three colorways. I love these pillows...

He also showed these chairs he recovered with his fabrics. Are they cool or what?!

You know what, my photos stink. Go to Andrew's blog to see some great photos of the night (Andrew's our designated guild photog - for a reason).

Jay also kicked off a new Modern Quilt Guild challenge at our meeting. All participants were given a bag with each fabric in the line in one colorway plus two solids (you didn't know what you were getting, but I got the colorway I wanted - YAY!) We have to make a 12" block to submit and Jay will pick three winners. More blocks will be made in all the Modern Guilds and they ultimately will be made into quilts for charity. I'm looking forward to helping put the charity quilts together. I finished my block last night and sent it off. I was pretty happy with how it turned out. These were the fabrics I had to use. In fact, I liked it so much, I'm thinking of snagging some more of this line to make a whole quilt!

[okay, why did I even show this - it looks like black and white. The top fabric is an olive tone and the bottom is a light blue]

As soon as the contest is over, I'll show you my block. Working with this line was fun, fun, fun!

How Fast Was That!

2011-06-23T12:42:00.002-04:00

Started Sunday, 6/19/2011. Top Finished Monday, 6/20/2011.

Seriously, I started this last Sunday evening and finished up Monday night after work. I'm keeping this pattern in mind when I need something super quick!

I got the heads' up that a new little one is expected in our extended family so I thought I'd get a jump and start on a baby quilt. I pulled out this fabric that I bought about six months ago and thought it would be perfect for this pattern and it came out really cute.

I love the "alphabet" fabric...

I don't yet know if my cousin is expecting a boy or a girl. I know this would be fine for a girl, not sure about a boy with that floral center. What do you think????

A Graduation Gift

2011-06-18T14:16:00.001-04:00

We are invited to a friend's daughter's high school graduation party today. It's our only one this year and, of course, I'm giving her a quilt. This young lady chose to make a quilt for her senior project and I was so proud of her! I think she got bitten by the bug a bit after making that first one, because I hear she wants to make quilts for some of her neices and nephews!

As soon as we got the invitation to the party, I knew I had the perfect quilt for her. I had the fabric for this one laying around for about a year (so that makes it a free gift, right????). I used Heather Mulder Peterson's pattern from her Livin' Large book called "From the Heart".

I used Heather's Cottage Charm line for the front and a print from her Rebel Roses line for the back (I love that fabric!)

[oops, don't mind my foot - at least I'm manicured!]

I just did some quick freehand quilting - a large meander on most of the quilt, some loops in a flower motif in the quarter-square triangles and swirly loops in the applique portion. Lazy way out I know, but I was in a hurry - LOL! Besides, it looks pretty good.

I hope she likes it!!

Jay McCarroll speaking at PMQG!

2011-06-17T12:11:00.000-04:00

If you're in the Philadelphia area on Tuesday evening, 6/21, and you'd like to come see Project Runway winner Jay McCarroll, he's presenting at our Philly Modern Quilt Guild meeting that night!

Jay has a new fabric line with FreeSpirit called Habitat, which he'll be showing and will talk about his design process. Also at our meeting, he's launching a nationwide Modern Quilt Guild Challenge sponsored by FreeSpirit focused on his new fabric. How exciting for PMQG!!

You can see the gallery of each fabric here.

Details:
Date: Tuesday, 6/21/2011
Time: 7:00pm - prompt!
Location: Huntingdon Valley, PA
Cost: Free for paid members; $5.00 for non-members
For exact location and to sign up email phillymodernquiltguild@gmail.com.

Catching Up...

2011-06-07T19:38:00.002-04:00

I wanted to catch up on posting about some recent finishes and some more winnings!

Here is my finished, quilted and bound Brocante Schibbles. Pom Pom de Paris for the top...

Quilted with the Not Quite Paisley pantograph from Willow Leaf Studio. This was a great panto for this quilt, but boy is it dense! I was really glad I chose to use it on something small - LOL!

And, not only do I get this cute little quilt out of the deal, but I won this for entering it in Sinta and Sherri's April Le Petite!

I also won a Lapel Stick from Jo from Jo's Country Junction! I've been wanting to try the Lapel Stick for a while now. I heard about it a year or so ago on someone's blog and was all ready to order. But at the time the only place you could get it was Canada. Shipping was like $15.00 - waaaaaay more than the 3 sticks I was ordering. I was bummed. So I was thrilled when I won this (thanks Jo!). Lapel Stick is labeled as a temporary non-staining adhesive - you can use it for collars or lapels (duh!) that stick up, temporary hems, etc. And, of course, applique!! So I tried it out on the table runner I just made (last post). I used it to temporarily secure the bias strips so I could sew them down. Worked great and didn't gum up the needle at all! I'll be using this to prep my clamshells too (that is ~~if I ever make anymore~~ when I get back to that project) .

This totally floored me when I got this envelope in the mail. The return address said "Moda" and it was squishy. Moda - sending something to me???? Whatever could it be? I was giddy with excitement. They sent me this cute little 2.5" charm pack of Lilac Hill as a thank you for the Just One Star blocks I had sent. I had completely forgotten about those and certainly wasn't expecting anything in return. Wow! Thanks Moda! I put the thank you note on my sewing room bulletin board and the little charm pack with it's bigger twin on my shelf.

Last month at our Philly Modern Quilt Guild meeting, we revealed our Kona Solids Charm Challenges. I used the Lil Twister ruler for the first time. Our challenge was that we couldn't use any additional solids, just prints. I promise that white is NOT a solid, but a tone-on-tone dot (it still felt like cheating though - LOL!). Once I finished cutting out the Lil Twister blocks, I was left with what resembled swiss cheese. After some careful trimming, I was able to use the leftovers on the border. I really liked using the ruler and the blocks went together easily. I'd like to try the larger one next. What would that be, the "Big Twister"???? I was really intrigued to see what my fellow guild members would do with this challenge and I was not disappointed! The creativity in this group astounds me. You can go here to see the rest of the Challenge quilts.

We're having a really exciting guest at our next meeting, so I'll be sure to report!

A Happy (?) Accident

2011-06-01T09:41:00.001-04:00

I have a couple of beautiful tablecloths that I use on my dining room table. One for winter, one for summer. They are huge and I need to do careful folding to make them the right size to fit my table without the extension leaves (which is usually how we have it). I am very careful to put another cloth over the table when we have Sunday dinner so I don't have to wash the good ones all the time. Well, on Memorial Day I didn't. Just left my pretty "summer cloth" on and figured since we weren't having anything too messy, it would be fine.

No sooner did we sit down and my husband promptly knocked over his full, very tall, glass of Orange smoothie. Thanks, hon! What a mess.

So, off came the cloth and the pads and into the laundry room it all went. So, I was looking at the bare wood of the table and had a thought. I've got all these Schnibbles that I've made over the past year (six at last count I think) and don't really have too many places to put them. I pulled out my new Brocante Schnibble and decided to give it a try on the table. Looks pretty nice!

I just may leave it there for awhile (at least until my klutzy husband sits down to eat at the table again - LOL!)

Central Park: A Love Story

2011-05-29T10:05:00.000-04:00

I've come to the realization that I have a "thing"for Kate Spain's Central Park line. I've got no less than 6 quilts (some larger, some smaller) already made, in progress, or in my head to make with Central Park. Here's my stash: Jelly roll, layer cake, 5 charm packs and yardage - oh my!

First up was Julie's Carnival pattern - made into a wall hanging for my Mom. Of course that wasn't enough and I'm making the larger version for myself.

Then, at our PMQG sewing day, I saw Becky's Postage Stamp Quilt (from Rachel Griffith at P.S. I Quilt's quilt-a-along a while back), and I had to make one of my own. I loved how Becky did hers in "stripes" and ~~copied hers shamelessly~~ did mine the same way! However, I just couldn't quite wrap my brain around the method Rachel used in the quilt-a-long for a scrappy look, so had to figure out another way to get my striped look. This quilt was a lot of fun and came together beautifully. I got the top done in less than two weeks - I was a speed demon on this one!

Today, I'm going to finish up this table runner that my Mom requested to go with her wallhanging. Then I'll work on MY Carnival and one other full-size quilt I have in mind for Central Park.

That will leave me with all of the "animal" and "tree" prints that I've been pulling out of the charm packs/layer cake. I see a little boy's quilt from these leftovers!

After that I think my Central Park obsession should finally be over. But that's okay because I think my Summer Love will be replaced by this in the Fall:

Quilt Classes!

2011-05-25T19:47:00.001-04:00

I used to take quilt classes all the time. Not so much any more. Not that I know everything, but I've been at this for awhile. But, still, it's fun to take a class now and then. For the camaraderie if nothing else. And, I find I always learn something.

So, when I found out that Julie of Jaybird Quilts fame was teaching Dot Party at my new favorite shop, The Village Quilter, I signed up immediately!

I already had the pattern and bought the fancy circle ruler and really teeny 18mm rotary cutter like the pattern suggests. I'm always looking for a better way to cut out a circle, so was intrigued by the ruler. As soon as I got it I thought I'd try it out. Didn't go so well. There's got to be a trick, and I know Julie's going to show us what it is! So, this class is not only going to a blast I'm sure, but I'll learn something too.

I decided the fabric that I won from Sarah's Swell Cloth shop, Kumari Garden, would be perfect for this quilt. I'm pairing it with some light blue Robert Kaufman Quilter's Linen...

By the way, I've been haunting places that sell the Quilter's Linen and scooping it up. It's not all that easy to find. This is my stash so far:

If you click on the photo to make it larger, you can see the "linen look" - just adds a little something.

I'm signed up for one more class. On my first trip to The Village Quilter last Fall, I heard they were having a class on hand quilting with Didi Salvatierra. I've been wanting to take a hand quilting class for forever and just never got the chance. I was bummed that the class was the next week (and I think it was full anyway), but owner Susan promised Didi would be back. So, when she said Didi was coming back in the Fall, I couldn't wait to sign up (I may have been a bit of a pest about it too. Every time I saw Susan I'd bug her about when sign ups would be open - LOL!) I've done some hand quilting in the past, I just have never been very happy with my stitches. And, not that I'm going to be hand quilting much by any stretch, but I'd love to have a hand quilting project to work on from time to time. And, this is going to be it (and, yes, it may take
me the rest of my life, I realize that):

[of course, Lilly has to plunk her little self in the middle of every quilt I put on the floor - and sorry about the wrinkles]

This applique quilt was a block-of-the-month from the now defunct Country Quilt Shop, started in the late 90s. I finished the quilt at the end of last year. (No, I don't want to add up how many years that's been). It's called Pennsylvania Folk Art and it is just beautiful. I really think hand quilting would be worth it on this quilt.

Blogger's Spring Quilt Festival

2011-05-13T16:53:00.000-04:00

It's time for Amy's Creative Side's Blogger's Spring Quilt Festival ! This is my third festival and I was tickled to be a "featured festival blogger" on Amy's blog the other day. You can see my feature here.

Here is my entry for the Spring Festival....

I blogged about this special quilt last year. Very good friends of my son & daughter-in-law were getting married and we were invited (which I thought was very nice of them!). So, of course, I had to make them a quilt. And, of course, I had not the first clue about their decorating style, color likes or dislikes - nada! So I asked son Bill to do some sleuthing and see what they might like. And he says "green, they like green". I asked him if he was very, very sure, because, they really might hate a green quilt if you are wrong! I have nothing against green, but I realized that it probably isn't my favorite color. I also had a feeling they weren't very traditional. That was confirmed when I was told the bride had a penchant for wearing wild, different colored socks.

So, I pulled out every green fabric I had in my stash. Found a great background - also stash and set out to make a square-in-a-square pattern. But, with all those greens, it turned out absolutely stunning.

To honor the bride, I made this label...

And the back - still green, all green!

By the time it was finished, I really liked the quilt, but I still wasn't sure about all this green! So, I can't tell you how relieved I was to walk into their wedding venue and everything was green! A green cake, green accessories - the bride even had a green sash on her dress - whew!

And, the thank-you note I got from them brought tears to my eyes. They got it - totally!

So, go check out all the other great Festival entries! Thanks again, Amy, for hosting this great on-line event!

Uh Oh!

2011-05-01T16:58:00.000-04:00

Looks likes a little plastic surgery is in order here....

The culprit:

Bad dog, Leonard! That's my granddog. Good thing he's so stinkin' cute! His mom was NOT amused!

Now for the hunt for the scraps that I know are around here somewhere.

Le Petite and Pillow Talk

2011-04-30T13:50:00.000-04:00

It's the last day of the month and I almost forgot to post my Le Petite project. This is the first time I've been able to participate in Le Petite. Since I had the charm packs and the pattern already, when I read on Sinta and Sherri's blogs that April's Le Petite was Brocante, I was in! I had hoped to get it quilted by the end of April, but at least the top is done...

It was pretty easy to put together, except for having to do the flying geese around the border the "old fashioned" way. Ugh. I really, really like my Quilt-in-a-Day flying geese rulers and I wish they worked for every size. But these geese were a really weird size, plus I was using charm packs, so it just wasn't going to happen.

Our Philly Modern Quilt Guild challenge for April was a pillow swap. I found a photo of a great pillow design somewhere on the internet and decided to recreate it. This was my offering:

[thanks for the photo Andrew!]

At the meeting we had a show and tell of the pillows (see them all here). Honestly, they were all fabulous, some with zippers and fancy piping and ruffles - I would have loved to have "won" any one of them (and I felt very "amateur" after seeing them - LOL!). I won this beauty from Candi (the photo does not do it justice):

Our next swap (for June) is pincushions - and I've already got something in mind!

Another recipe - we had this for dinner last night and it was so good I just have to share. I wanted to keep the British theme going through dinner and since we had steak the night before I didn't want to do red meat. So I hunted around for some British chicken recipes and came across this Chicken with Tarragon Mayonnaise. I didn't have high hopes when I started out - the recipe it looked like it was going to basically be boiled chicken. I was skeptical, but I was very pleasantly surprised. I think they might have meant it to be served cold, but I didn't. I just took the chicken from the saute pan when it was done, reduced the marinade and mixed it into the mayo mixture and poured it all over the chicken. I served it with buttered rice and brussels sprouts. I'll be making this again soon!

Recipe courtesy of All British Food website

Chicken With Tarragon Mayonnaise

It is important to use fresh tarragon in this dish: dried tarragon is a poor substitute.

SERVES 6

6 chicken breast fillets, skinned

2 celery sticks, trimmed and sliced

200 ml (7 fl oz) dry white wine

30 ml (2 tbsp) chopped fresh tarragon

salt and pepper

300 ml (1/2 pint) lemon mayonnaise

fresh tarragon sprigs, to garnish

1. Put the chicken breasts in a large frying pan. Add the celery, wine, tarragon, salt and pepper. Cover and simmer for 20 - 30 minutes until tender. Leave to cool.

2. When cool, strain the juices into a pan and boil rapidly until reduced to 90 ml (6 tbsp) . Leave to cool.

3. Arrange the chicken on a serving plate. Stir the reduced marinade into the mayonnaise and spoon over the chicken.

4. Serve, garnished with tarragon.

A Royal Sewing Day

2011-04-29T13:37:00.002-04:00

Is someone getting married today?????

I'll admit to being an Anglophile from an early age (hey, I even married a Brit - no, that's not why I married him but it didn't hurt - LOL!) So of course, I was front and center (in front of my TV that is) this morning for the Royal Wedding. What fun! Although I did timeshift my viewing with my DVR by a couple of hours!

I've watched all the royals weddings televised during my lifetime, I sadly watched Princess Diana's funeral and we happened to be in London for the Queen Mother's funeral. It was so nice to see such a happy occasion for a few hours this morning.

I spent last night preparing....

Of course, I needed some tea sandwiches - cucumber and egg salad...

And my favorite scones....

Of course, I'm using this day off to sew while I watch....
I'm working on this, but it's still kind of a secret so this is all I'll show for now...

And if I don't start on this it won't be ready for Mother's Day....

So, this has been a lovely day off so far...

[yes, I have a tiara - long story]

Long life and happiness to the Newlyweds! Maybe I should have made them a quilt?!

-----------------------
My very favorite and very easy scone recipe:
2 cups flour
1 tbls baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup dried fruit or chocolate chips (optional)
1-1/4 cup heavy cream

Glaze - melted butter, 2 tbsp sugar

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Use ungreased baking sheet. Combined first four ingredients and stir until mixed well. Stir in dried fruit or chips if using. Stir in heavy cream and mix until dough holds together in a rough mass. Transfer dough to a lightly floured surface. Knead 8-9 times (or do it in a stand mixer on slow speed). Pat into 10" circle - cut into wedges or roll dough and cut into circle. Brush melted butter on top of scones and sprinkle with some sugar. Bake 12-15 minutes until brown. Yummy!

PMQG Sew Day

2011-04-17T17:57:00.002-04:00

On Saturday, I was able to attend my first Sew Day hosted by the Philly Modern Quilt Guild. I had such a good time and got a lot done to boot! Those girls and guys are a lot of fun. There was a lot of laughter, inspiration and fabric and quilt envy (on my part - LOL). I am so inspired when I see what these folks are doing and I'm so very glad I joined the guild.

I know I have a list a mile long of things I "have to get done", but I wanted something semi-mindless to sew. I knew I would probably be doing more chatting than sewing, but I managed to get all of my blocks for my Max & Whiskers quilt finished. They are all ready to put together, but I have to get back on the ball and finished the deadline quilts.

This line is so cute - the puppies just make me smile.

Today has been pretty productive too. I started and finished quilting my daughter-in-law's wallhanging (I want to give it to her at Easter). You can't see the quilting too well in this photos, I just did some free-hand flowers and loops in the borders, straight line Vs in the small border and framed each "photo" with straight lines and stippled in the white area. It looks pretty good. I know Raqhel will enjoy hanging it in her office.

I added something else to the "must do" list. Since this month's Le Petite project is the Brocante Schnibbles and I had the pattern and my charm packs all ready to go I thought I'd join in. All the blocks are done and it's starting to come together.

Wish I had some more weekend, but at least it's only a four-day work week!

The Week in Review

2011-04-09T21:02:00.002-04:00

I spent my quilting time this week trying to get some things finished up so I could devote the weekend to the Carnival wallhanging. Well, that didn't happen today (due to a flood in our downstairs having something to do with a new washing machine - I'm still traumatized from all the cleanup today, so I don't want to talk about it anymore! Linda, if you're reading this - yes, again!!)

Some of the this and that I got done this week....

First of all, I got the middle of my Seaside Cotillion finished (thank goodness!). While very pretty, this is quite the tedious quilt...

But, at least the middle is done. There is some applique on the border, but it doesn't look too difficult. But, for now, it's back in the box, while I finish some deadline pieces.

I also got the top of my daughter-in-law's Spring wallhanging done. I was going to do a large one-block Dresden plate. I pulled out a bag of Spring-y scraps to find fabrics for the Dresden and found a beautiful panel of butterflies and a pansy. Just enough, with some coordinating scraps, to do this...

Very sweet, and I used up some scraps!

I found a my stash of batik blocks of the month that have been sitting in a basket for a few years that I completely forgot about. I promised myself to do one pack a week and I've stuck to it. I think I've got 5 "months" done now...here's a sampling...

Each set of three blocks takes about two hours to complete - from cutting to finishing.

I also am apparently still on my "winning streak". Last week I won Sarah's (of Stash Resolution - a wonderful podcast and blog) giveaway of a 6 fat quarter set of the new Kumari Garden...

Lovely! I think I'll have to buy some yardage from Sarah's on-line shop, Swell Cloth, to go with this set. Thanks Sarah!

Last night was the Cherri House lecture sponsored by the Philly Modern Quilt Guild. Of course I picked up my very own signed copy of Cherri's book, City Quilts. What a wonderful lecture. Cherri was funny and moving and informative. The photos of the quilts are great, but nothing like seeing them in person and hearing the stories behind them. I don't use solids much, but I learned some great tips for working with them from Cherri and I'm intrigued. We had a great turnout and I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

So, that was my week. Hopefully, I can devote most of tomorrow to working on Carnival...I'm itching to start this quilt!

On Track!

2011-04-02T09:43:00.000-04:00

When I got this little stack of fabrics from my husband for my birthday a couple of weeks ago

and my daughter fell in love with it, I knew I wanted to make her a quilt for her upcoming birthday. Since it's coming up very quickly, the pattern had to be easy and I really wanted to show of these fabrics

I knew immediately I wanted to use the Take 5 pattern.

I've used this pattern a few times. The first was when I wanted to make myself a "winter" quilt a few years ago - using frosty blues and whites. I love this quilt. You can't tell in this picture but the fabrics are "glittery".

Since that one little pack of fabrics wasn't going to do it I collected AC Moore coupons and stopped everday for 3 days to pick up two more fabric packs and a couple of half yards (because you can only use one coupon per day you know!). I started the quilt on a Tuesday night. Got all the blocks made by Thursday. This has got to be one of the fastest quilts in the world!

Then by Saturday I was arranging and rearranging the blocks on the design wall....

I had the top all put together on Saturday and put the black inner border on. Since AC Moore doesn't sell yardage I couldn't just use one fabric for the border, so I decided to use 4-1/2 by 6-1/2 blocks. I had planned to get the quilt on the frame on Saturday but ran out of fabrics! I really didn't feel like going back to the store and was going to send my hubby out on Sunday to get me another pack of fabrics. Meantime, I was looking at the leftovers and decided to do what our quilting foremothers (is that a word?) did and piece my leftovers and lo and behold, I had enough to finish the border! I finished the top on Sunday and got it on the frame in the afternoon and have been quilting on it all week. It will be done today (has to be because daughter is coming for dinner tomorrow night and I don't want her to see it!)

I'm using my new pantograph Effervesence. I'm using a pale lavender thread and will bind it in the Kona black that I used for the inner border. I was going to use the black/silver fabric you see here, but hubby and I both decided the plain black was better.

I found this great fabric for the back. Gotta love Fabric.com. Not only was it on sale, but I got free shipping and I usually have a coupon code for 15% off!

It matches the purply shades in the quilt top perfectly.

And, with my little bit of scraps leftover, I made three Schnibbles Tuffets!

The back:

I just need to get "stuffing" for these. I'm going to get some lavender buds and will make them into sachets. I'll keep one and give one each to the girls. Ariel will get one with her birthday quilt and daughter-in-law Raqhel will get one too.

So, once the is off the frame, it's on to my Mom's wallhanging which I'm doing with the Lazy Angle ruler! I'll do a review of that next.

Philly Modern Quilt Guild - Cherri House Event !

2011-03-31T13:32:00.000-04:00

I am very excited to attend Cherri House's (of Cherry House Quilts) upcoming lecture hosted by the Philly Modern Quilt Guild!

Cherri is the author of City Quilts:

Besides showing her awesome qults she'll also be talking about her use of solids in quilts. Since I don't use solids too much (except for backgrounds sometimes), I'm interested in hearing what she has to say. She'll also have her City Quilts book and other patterns for sale. I've been wanting this book for awhile and I'll be able to get her to autograph it!

The lecture is open to all, so if anyone is in the Huntingdon Valley, PA area on Friday, April 8th, at 7:30pm, and you are interested - feel free to sign up. We'd love to have a crowd (and we'd love to have some new members too!) Event is free for guild members/$5 for non-members. Email phillymodernquiltguild@gmail.com to sign up and for exact location.

I'm sure this will be a great event!

Ugh....Or, Boy am I Glad THIS One's Done!

2011-03-26T12:08:00.001-04:00

I saw this quilt at a quilt show a couple of years ago and thought it would make a great hanging for my office wall. Looked fairly simple and the batiks were beautiful. I bought the kit (which included binding AND backing - how cool!) and, of course, it just sat there. I didn't forget about it, other quilts just seemed more pressing. I finally decided that I really needed a new quilt for the wall, my usual rotation was boring me. So, I pulled it out and thought I'll whip this out in no time. I opened the pattern and saw...paper templates. What? Paper Templates? What, are we back in the 80s???? I don't do paper templates, there's got to be another way. After perusing all the various rulers I have for making diamonds and angles I determined that, nope, templates it's got to be. So, okay, I unearthed the little bit of template plastic I had and went to town. Probably not very accurately. So, I cut out all my pieces using the templates and a ruler, taking a smidge off the templates from time to time as I was cutting. Oh boy, that was tedious! Then, I got to the large diamonds, cutting carefully and I could not get the last diamonds out of the fabric! Just wasn't going to work, there just wasn't enough. Really??? Now what am I going to do - this kit is years old at this point, where am I going to get another piece of this batik. Plus, I just wanted this done! I wound up piecing the leftovers and was able to eke that last diamond out - and you really can't tell it's pieced. Whew!

Now, to put it together. All the bits and pieces seemed to go together pretty easily until I got to the rows. Can you say "bias edges"?! I think I held my breath through every row. Between the bias and my maybe-not-so-accurate cutting, it was a challenge. But it's D.O.N.E.! And, I'm not making this one again - LOL!

My original plan was to get this one on the quilt frame ASAP so I could get it done and up on my wall. But, my priorities changed, so it's going to have to wait (besides, I want to quilt some wonky feathers in the black diamonds and I need to brush up on that technique - after all the trouble, I don't want to mess it up!).

These are the items on my list now:

1. Quilt for my daughter for her birthday (on April 22nd) from these great fabrics I got for my b-day:

2. A wallhanging for my Mom for Mother's day from Julie Herman's, of Jaybird Quilts, Carnival pattern. My Mom loved this quilt when we saw it at Julie's trunk show a couple of weeks ago. She said it looked just like Summer and I knew I wanted to make it for her.

This is one of the quilts using that cool Lazy Angle ruler, so I'll give a little review and blog about my process putting this quilt together.

3. 6 of these placemats for my girlfriend Mary for her birthday in May:

4. An Easter wallhanging for my lovely daughter-in-law, Raqhel, for her office wall. Pattern to-be-determined. She mentioned a couple of weeks ago that for any gift-giving occasion I could give her something quilty for her home or office. Now, I don't have to give her a gift for Easter, but what more of an excuse do I need?! She will be covered in quilty-goodness for every holiday I can think of - LOL!

I'm off to a good start. My daughter's quilt it almost finished. I should have the top done today and hope to get it on the frame by tomorrow. I took lots of photos along the way, so I'll blog about the construction of this quilt. It's one I've done before and it is quick and great for showing off fabrics.

I'm moving just a bit slow this morning...son Bill and I went to the Elton John concert last night in Philly and didn't get home until midnight - WAY after my bedtime. We had a blast - the concert was fantastic! Elton sounds better than ever. Think I'll listen to some EJ while I'm quilting today!

Now I'm off to make some homemade meatballs and potato salad for our "movie night" tonight!

It's all in the Presentation!

2011-03-24T13:52:00.005-04:00

I'm on another winning streak!. A few weeks ago I got an email from Thelma from Cupcakes & Daisies that I won her giveaway of a Pom Pom de Paris Charm Pack from the Fat Quarter Shop. Yipee!! I knew exactly what I wanted to make with it - the new Brocante Schnibbles pattern (which I also got from FQS - it's very sweet) so I quickly ordered myself the pattern and another charm pack.

So, when my first box came from FQS, I was a little stunned. I should have put something next to it for size so you could see exactly how HUGE this box was. I knew it contained just my little charm pack.

Once I opened it I was astonished to find this beautifully wrapped package...again I should have put something next to it so you see how big it really is. I just let it sit on my cutting table for at least a week to admire it! I showed everyone who came by the house - I was thrilled with my beauitful gift. FQS - you folks really know how to send a package!

I finally opened it and am now admiring this beautiful Frenchness (I'm loving the pink - and I think I spy a bird in there - continuing my apparent current theme of bird fabrics (see earlier post) ....

Next, on my birthday no less, I found out I won these lovely fat quarters from Hip-to-be-Square blogger/podcaster Pam. Thanks Pam! I know I have fabrics in my stash to go with these...

I didn't "win" these next fabrics but I have to show them off. My quilt buddy at work, Lindsay, was visiting a daughter at college and of course stopped by a local quilt shop. She called me to say they had all of their Amy Butler fabric for 25% and did I want anything. Of course, I had no idea what I wanted and, also of course, I couldn't tell her "No, I don't need anything" (after all, she took the trouble to call me, right?). So I told her to pick me out two yards of something that went together and she chose these...

I love them!! Couldn't have picked better myself. And, when I asked her how much I owed her, she said "Nothing, consider it a small payment for all of your quilt mentoring." Wasn't that sweet? These are earmarked for a clutch bag I saw in the booth when I was working the quilt show a few weeks ago. I'm not much of a bag maker, but I'm going to give this one a shot because it will look fabulous in these fabrics.

And, just because I finished quilting this recently, I'll show you my Plan C. I used Prayer Flag (love that line!) ...

and the Fay Feathers panto to quilt it

I would have liked to show you my Beachside Cottage all quilted up...

...which should have been finished last Sunday, but I learned a big lesson .... always make sure you put the backing fabric on the right way so you don't run out of it and quilt your quilt to the leaders...I'll never make that mistake again (I hope!).

Birthday goodies and Charity Quilting

2011-03-20T19:56:00.002-04:00

I love that my birthday always falls on or near National Quilting Day - this year it was the day after and I took full advantage (all weekend as a matter of fact - LOL!)

I managed to do some charity quilting....

Here are two blocks I made for quilts for Japan that Beth from Love Laugh Quilt is coordinating in connection with the Quilters Newsletter Magazine quilt drive...

And I made these four blocks to send to Moda for their Just One Star block drive...

I also got some quilty goodness for my birthday....hubby gave me this FQ pack of purply fabrics that my daughter took one look at and said "Mom, I want a quilt from those!"...

And he also gave me this adorable dog fabric....

I'll have to make something for Lilly from this. It happens to go perfectly with a stack of doggy fabric I bought a few years ago at a quilt show. It's probably time to do something with it all.

I also finished the third Birdie Stitches BOM..these blocks are so cute! The birdie looks a bit washed out in the photo, but he's really there (that's my picture taking skills again)...

I also finished a wall hanging that I'll blog about later - let's just say I'm glad it's done.

Oh well, birthday's finished for another year...I managed to drag it out from Wednesday night through today - not bad.

A Quilt Show and a Quilt Shop

2011-03-13T19:46:00.000-04:00

I had a couple of fun quilty weekends lately...last weekend (well, actually it was Thursday and Friday), I spent at the Quilt Fest of New Jersey. I had a ball as usual. I did the show most of Thursday, but then I had the great pleasure of helping out in Gina Halladay's Cranberry Quiltworks booth! She needed an extra pair of hands and I was more than happy to help out. Most unexpected, but I enjoyed myself thoroughly. Here's where I spent a few hours Thursday afternoon and most of Friday....

The only snafu in the whole thing was that, being GPS-less and direction-challenged, I totally missed the exit to Pennsylvania from New Jersey on the way home Thursday night and didn't realize it until I was a good 20 miles out of my way - in rush hour traffic! Since it's almost a 2 hour drive to the show from my house in no traffic, needless to say, I was quite rattled by the time I got home. A glass of wine, a good dinner and good night's sleep and I was ready to tackle the drive back the next morning. I did make it home on Friday without incident. I don't think I'll make that mistake again!

Then, this past Friday I found out that Julie Herman of Jaybird Quilts (and fellow guild member and founder of the Philly Modern Quilt Guild), was doing a trunk show of her latest quilts on Saturday morning at my new favorite shop, The Village Quilter, in Mt. Holly, NJ. I immediately dialed my Mom who lives quite close to the shop (and who I drug along on my quilt shop hop a few weeks ago) and invited her to drive me there - LOLOL! She was more than happy to go with me and we had a blast seeing the demos and Julie's new quilts using this great new Lazy Angle ruler from Creative Grids. Unfortunately, Julie's patterns hadn't come in yet, but I'm definitely going to get one or two...she's been featuring them on her blog lately if you want to check them out. Julie handed me her very large, fancy SLR camera and asked if I'd take a few photos. I sure hope she got one or two that turned out okay - a photographer I am not-LOL!

I also couldn't resist a layer cake of the super cute Max & Whiskers by Basic Grey...the puppies just won me over....

Well, I going to go try and eke out a bit more time in my sewing room tonight before bed - I'm still really missing that hour we lost!!!

The Hunt for the Perfect Iron

2011-02-25T13:57:00.000-05:00

Ever since my old General Electric iron died many years ago (you know they don't make irons like they used to!), I 've been on the hunt for the perfect iron. I've bought expensive irons and I've bought cheap irons. I'm still looking, and I just got another one. I'll give you the run down on my current iron collection.

A few years ago I saw the new Digital Velocity steam iron by Reliable Corp. I saw it on the internet and heard wonderful things about. I love steam and boy, does this baby give you steam. It was very expensive (to me anyway) at about $130 but I also figured I could use it to steam my clothes since it does vertical steaming, so it would be a good deal. My husband gave me some gift points from a credit card he had accumulated and I purchased one. I was so excited when it arrived. It IS a great iron, but I discovered a few things...I discovered that for pressing while I'm piecing I like a small, light iron. This iron is so heavy and bulky that I was afraid my wrist would give out! I also discovered I don't like the auto-shut off. It shuts off way too soon and takes a long time to heat back up (and to heat up initially), not practical for my sew-a-little, press-a-little piecing. But this iron was expensive - - and DH knows it - LOL -- but I really couldn't use this iron for everyday piecing. For ironing yardage however, it is da bomb (and probably also for ironing clothes, but I don't do that very often).

So, on the sly, I was on the hunt for a smaller iron. I then happened upon the Rowenta craft steam iron. Great! It was small, light and had great steam. And, it didn't shut off on me! I also loved the vertical slide to turn it on and off. And with my 50% off coupon from Joanns, it was very reasonable. I now had the best of both worlds! For a while. Then it broke (I forget if it just died or leaked or what happened to it). Oh well, it wasn't that expensive, I'll just get another one. Except they don't make that model any more. The new model has a dial inside of a slider. I really, really liked that slider. But, it will do. Then, I noticed a couple of months ago my new baby Rowenta wasn't putting out any steam unless I hit the steam button. Bummer.

Then I started reading about these Oliso irons. They didn't appear to be anywhere near as heavy as the Reliable and although they have an auto-shut off, it doesn't shut off for 8 minutes. I can live with that. It also has that cool auto lift. You leave the iron in the horizontal position and as soon as you touch the handle, it goes down. As soon as you move your hand, it goes back up. I thought that was cool until I used it - drives you crazy (particularly the noise it makes)!!! Up, down, up, down, up down. There is very definitely a knack to it so it isn't always going up and down, which I'm slowing getting the hang of. Also, try to not automatically put your iron back in a vertical position after doing it for how many years -very hard to get used to! Also, it's not quite as light as I thought it would be. It also doesn't steam enough for me. Do I like it? Yes. But I still want my small craft Rowenta.

So, I am actually using all three irons. The Reliable for heaving duty yardage ironing and steaming. The Oliso for ironing smaller pieces of fabric before I cut and the Rowenta for pressing seams. I really wish I could put my favorite features of all of these into one perfect iron. Why can't I have it all??????

Second Time's a Charm!

2011-02-21T18:18:00.000-05:00

We had our mug rug swap at the Philly Modern Quilt Guild meeting last Tuesday. As soon as I heard we were doing a mug rug swap and as a challenge we were to incorporate something we hadn't tried before. I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I'd been want to try out my EZ Dresden ruler and I thought a little dresden plate on the mug rug would be cute. I'm not very good at spatial relations...even a very small dresden wasn't going to fit on the mug rug. I got 5 wedges cut and pieced before I realized THAT'S not going to work - LOL! But, I enjoyed the process so I know I'll have fun using the ruler for a real project.

So, what to do? I'd also been wanting to try English paper piecing and I had some small template papers. This worked! And it was fun - I can see how these hexies can be addicting.

Just the one hexagon flower looked a little lonely on the rug, so I added some strips on the right. I cheated and instead of hand appliqueing these down, I used monofilament and a blind hem stitch. I think it turned out cute. I hope the winner liked it.

You can see all the mug rugs made by the guild members here. I won this lovely below...very elegant. Thanks Susan!

Our next swap is a pillow. I've already got some ideas brewing.

Shop Hop Success!

2011-02-19T10:54:00.001-05:00

Well, the weather cooperated and the shop hop with my mom finally happened! What a fun day we had. We hit two of the three shops (we're saving The Little Shop for another outing) and had a wonderful lunch over looking the river (and the snow-LOL). We first hit The Village Quilter. Susan, the owner, is in my guild, the Philly Modern Quilt Guild, (and who was so kind to hand deliver to me at our meeting on Tuesday the kit I DIDN'T buy at the shop and called two days later and ordered over the phone). This was the first time I visited her shop. If I was closer, I'd practically be living there - her shop is that awesome! I told her that at our Tuesday meeting and said you'd get sick of me I'd be there so much - or I'd have to get a part-time job there - LOL! Anyway, I picked up two of these Central Park charm squares just because the colors were so happy. I've already got something in my for them.

My mom and I both went nuts over these placements when we walked in....I bought enough fabric to make four and made them all up within days - they were that quick and fun. I've already ordered 3 more yards of each of the two fabrics - folks are getting these for Christmas!

I love the mitered borders on them...

I also got the Sewline mechanical fabric pencil (forgot to take a photo). I'm always on the hunt for a good marking pencil that comes out easily. I've heard about these and when we were at the shop I was pondering them, another customer saw me looking at them and said they really worked so I bought one. She was right. They are great! The marks come right out with either the provided eraser or with a damp cloth. I just bought the single pen, but they come in a multi where you can have 3 colors of lead. Of course, I should have spent the few extra $$$ and bought that one, but I may just pick it up if I see it at the next quilt show. That way I can use all 4 colors. They have leads in black, white, teal, and pink - a color for every fabric!

We also went to Olde City Quilts - a much bigger shop - they actually had three or four long-arms on the floor! Wow. I think I only bought fabric for a baby quilt there but didn't take a photo. My mom was sitting in their machine area waiting for me and of course shop staff would come up to her and ask if they could help her with something and she would keep saying "no, I don't do this..I'm just waiting for my daughter". It was so funny - she is so NOT crafty, but she cleans a mean house! She does appreicate the fruits of my labors though and we do have fun on our outings. She's been to quilt shows with me too and is more than happy to tag along. Who wouldn't like looking at beautiful fabrics and quilts!

The next day I went to my quilting buddy from work's house to get her going on her new HQ Avante (boy is that a nice machine!). What a fun day we had too. She's about an hour away from me, and it was raining/sleeting but she really needed to get her quilt done to take to her daughter this weekend, so I ventured out and made it safely. I wish I took some photos of us working at the machine - some of them would have been really comical - like the two of us on the floor under the machine with a flashlight to check out the stitch tension! She made a wonderful quiche lunch with some Early Grey Lavender tea (was that ever delicious!). And, of course, we had to make the trek to her local quilt shop, Cloth and Bobbin. A very nice shop - not very big, but certainly well stocked. Johanna, the owner, stocks a lot of modern designers' fabrics (Amy Butler, Kaffe Fasset, etc.), as well as lots of other stuff, but I did find her shop to be on the modern side. Very colorful and fun. I bought the sets of fabrics below. It was funny because my friend Lindsay told me later that she had gone back to the shop on Sunday and while they were discussing our Saturday visit, Johanna mentioned to her that she noticed I chose very traditional fabrics. I thought that was an interesting comment. She was right. Out of all that mod stuff (which I do like), I guess I know where my heart lies....

Another thing I didn't realize, until I looked at the photos - there's a theme going on here. Both of these groupings include birds! Didn't notice that when I bought them though. Funny.

So, I hit three new shops all together during my shop hop weekend and I must say each was different. They each stocked different styles of fabrics and notions, etc. I thought that was nice - it wasn't just same old, same old. I did notice they all had those new Cotton Laminates. They really are nice. I'm sure I'll cave and get some at some point!

I'm hoping to have a very productive quilty weekend again this nice long 3-day weekend! But for now, I'm going to start our dinner for tonight - a smoky pulled pork dish with pappardelle. Yum! I've never made it before, but the ingredients are intriguing - they include honey, a Granny Smith apple, white wine, garlic, Champagne vinegar. tomato paste, thyme, parlsey. Like my husband said, "There's nothing in there I don't like!". It also calls for Smoked Sea Salt. I sure hope we like it, because I went to our local Italian Market to buy it and the container cost me $5.99 (choke!). Maybe I could have done without the smoke. We'll see.

725 pm - Dinner's over. The Smoked Sea Salt was worth it! This meal was excellent. Hubby and I declared it a keeper and will go in the Wallace Family cookbook (when I get around to compiling it). If you're interested, you can find the recipe here. I served it with green beans and a bottle of Conundrum white was the perfect complement!

A Very Productive Weekend!

2011-02-13T20:00:00.000-05:00

It's Sunday night and I've had a very productive weekend! I love weekends like this - when I don't have to stick my nose out the door (well, except to take Lilly out), and can quilt to my heart's content. I got a lot done, granted some were little things...finishing up my mug rug for the swap at the Philly Modern Quilt Guild meeting on Tuesday night (which I'll show - and tell the story, because there's usually always a story - LOL!) after the meeting. Finished up the four placements with the fabric bought with my Mom during last Friday's shop hop (which I'll also blog about later), finished the borders on all of my Birdies Stitches BOM blocks and caught up by finishing block two...here's my progress so far...

Block two...

Block one...

When I first started this quilt, I thought I'd use my great find from a couple of years ago. I hate tracing the embroidery motifs onto the fabric and when I saw this Transfer-Eze at a quilt show, I thought my biggest embroidery problem was solved. And it pretty much was. I used it for the remaining Winter Wonderland (by Crabapple Hill) blocks and it worked great. With the Transfer -Eze, all you do is put an 8-1/2 x 11" piece in your copy machine and copy your embroidery motif onto it. Then you peel off the water soluble film with the embroidery motif and stick it to your fabric, stitch and immerse it in water when done and it just dissolves. Easy peasy and works great!! I used it for the first Birdie Stitches block and found the lines were a bit too thick and I could still see some dark marks after I was done. I guess it didn't dissolve enough under the thread or something. So, I decided to do the second block the old fashioned way and traced it. The blocks are small so I think I'll continue this way, but will still continue to use Transfer-Eze for other projects where the lines are smaller - it really does work! I'm using a DMC cotton perle floss #5. It's a little thick for these small blocks. If I was starting over I'd just use the regular DMC embroidery floss, but since I've already purchased all of the floss I need, I'll just work with it. It is looking cute!

And, I finished the quilting and made and put on the binding on the now very overdue (because the baby was NOT overdue!) Night Night Will quilt...

I quilted loops in the inner border...

Cross Hatching in the borders...

And stippled around the appliques...

I love the way this came out. It's going to be hard to part with - I'm so glad I bought enough fabric to make another one.

Well THAT Resolution didn't last long...

2011-02-02T15:52:00.001-05:00

So, after last year's buying spree, I really was going on 'no-buy' in 2011. Or at least no buy unless it was required to finish a quilt or for a backing. And, another resolution was not getting involved in new things - i.e., BoMs, quilt-alongs, etc., until I got some stuff D.O.N.E.!!!

Yeah, well neither lasted too long...as soon as I saw Little Miss Shabby's Birdie Stitches BoM, I was hooked. Those little birdies did me in.

And, of course, I had to do it in the new Sunkissed line by Moda, just like Little Miss Shabby, hence my first purchase of 2011:

But, isn't it scrumptious?? It Spring-y and fun and I need that right about now in the Great Northern Tundra (I mean, Philadelphia).

Then, Anne Sutton of Bunny Hill Designs decided she didn't want to cut fabric anymore and blogged that she was selling all her yardage for half price. HALF PRICE you say??? For Lilly & Will, my favoriate baby fabric of all time??? Well, of course I have to help take some off your hands Anne...

And, know what you get besides your fabric wrapped up in a pretty little package with a little pink bow? You get get this cute little package of taffy...Awesome.

I've already got all the blocks prepped for the Birdie Stitches and I'm finished stitching the first month's block, so it will not languish in UFO land! And, I know exactly what I'm going to do with that pink Lily & Will. I found a great, simple nine-patch with lattice pattern on the internet and it will show off these fabric really nicely. I'll have a few baby quilts all ready to go when needed!

My New Jersey Quilt Shop Hop with my Mom got postponed last Friday. With the blizzard of last week keeping me home from work for two days, I figured I'd better go to work instead of gallivanting around. So, we're shooting for this Friday. We should be okay since we've already had our storm for this week (ice this time instead snow - loads of fun!) out of the way and should be clear on Friday. I'm also supposed to go to my quilting buddy from work's house on Saturday to help her with her new longarm, but we're supposed to get another round of snow then too, so we may have to postpone that. I've seriously had enough of this weather!

A Snow Day, a Finish and I Found the HAT!!!

2011-01-26T09:35:00.001-05:00

I waffled back and forth for about an hour this morning deciding whether to make the 45 minute commute to work. SO glad I decided to be smart and just stay home! The snow's worse now than it was at 6:30 this morning - and this is the "pre storm" apparently! Yikes! And, I just saw on Facebook my daughter-in-law crashed her jeep on the way to work this morning. Thank God she's alright - the jeep, not so much (luckily she's married to the best mechanic in town o:) ). Thank goodness for Facebook also - it's the only way I know what's going on with my kids sometimes - LOL!

I actually have a finish for 2011 already! My son & DIL's friends are having a little one and the shower's this weekend - and this one I am prepared for! Here's the Baby Dino quilt - it's simple but I think it turned out cute...I quilted with freehand loopies so it was quick and easy...

To jazz up the pinwheels a bit (and just maybe to cover up my non-matching points - LOL), I appliqued double circles in all the blocks, alternating between the plain green and fussy cut dinos in the middle. It just adds a little something ...

I've also gotten all the blocks appliqued for the Nighty-Nite Will quilt. These blocks are so stinkin' cute I can hardly stand it. This quilt has been nothing but fun. Glad I have enough of this fabric to make another one! I think Baby Shane, who is now one month old, won't have minded the wait when he sees the quilt (I think his Mommy will think the same thing). I plan to quilt diamonds in the borders, outline the appliques and do some loops in the backgrounds of the blocks. I may be able to finish up the top today and get it on the frame with this surprise snow day!

My favorite fusible for applique is Lite Steam-A-Seam 2, generally purchased with my 50% off coupon at Jo-Anns. I was out of yardage of it when I started this quilt so made a run to Jo-Anns to get some more. And am told "Sorry, we don't have any - that goes really fast when we get it in". Great. I'm already behind on this quilt! So, I bought the package of 8-1/2 by 12" sheets, but some of these applique pieces were really big, so yardage would have worked better. I got by, but ultimately bit the bullet and ordered a whole box of it on-line. 25 yards. Luckily, I got free shipping and it was on sale, but I think I'm set for awhile...

And, GREAT NEWS! I found the hat (see this post)! I couldn't believe it. I tore my sewing room apart looking for this hat before Christmas. I thought for sure our Lilly made off with it and it got hidden somewhere (although she usually doesn't chew on things that aren't hers). Anyway, I moved my cutting table (which I did multiple times while on the hunt for the hat before Christmas) last week and, lo and behold, there it was sitting on a file folder on the bottom of the shelves behind the cutting table. I swear I looked there five times before. Anyway, I can now give my Mom the remaining doll to complete her set of my grandmother's crocheted Christmas Carolers on Friday.

I am taking her on a Quilt Shop Hop for her birthday (no, she doesn't quilt, but she loves me and is quite happy to accompany me to the three great shops near her house - then I'll take her to lunch - LOL o:) ) We're hitting The Little Shop, the Village Quilter, and Olde City Quilts - all in New Jersey. Fun, fun fun! I'll be sure to report on our trip!

For now, Lilly and I are going to go quilt!

The Long Cold Road to Florida

2011-01-24T16:13:00.000-05:00

Yes, we made it back from Florida and, no, I didn't fall off the face of the earth. 2011 seemed to hit me like a ton of bricks! I'm just now feeling like I'm caught up at work and at home and realized I haven't blogged since before Christmas! Yikes, time flies sometimes!

When I last left you we were super-excited about our after-Christmas trip to Disney World. We were supposed to leave on Monday, 12/27, on an early flight. When we have early flights, we usually leave the day before and stay at an airport hotel. Well, on that day, 12/26, this is what it looked like as we made our way to the Philadelphia airport....

So, while we're very carefully trying to drive in the snow making the 1-hour trek to our hotel, I get a text that our morning flight is cancelled! So after a 1/2 hour wait on hold with the airline, I'm told they'd be happy to rebook our flight - for THURSDAY ?!?#$!! So, what do we do? Do we cancel? Do we try to go to the airport anyway and standby? Do we just drive to Florida? We certainly weren't going to turn around on the treacherous roads and try to make it home as we were almost at the airport hotel, so we figured we'd just keep going and see what happened. The view we woke up to...

Well, this certainly isn't Florida....

And, hey, neither is this!....

Yes, folks, we went to Florida by way of Baltimore, then North Carolina until finally - a day and a half late - we saw this....

Finally, Mickey and Minnie! Luckily, we were able to get what I swear were the last two seats out of Baltimore to Orlando - on Tuesday at noon with a three hour layover in Charlotte (they have a great Sushi bar in the middle of the Charlotte airport by the way). I was in EPCOT in Mexico at the Tequila Bar by 7:30pm that night! Luckily, we also were able to extend our trip by one day to come on Jan 2 instead of New Year's Day and fly back into Baltimore instead of Philly. Whew! We wound up having a great time, and spending New Year's Eve in Disney World was a blast. But, since we were told at 9:30am on NYE that the Magic Kingdom was C.L.O.S.E.D. already due to crowds, I'd definitely think twice about doing Disney World between Christmas and New Year's again!

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-24T22:21:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas Everyone! I can't believe it's Christmas Eve already. I'm as ready as I'm going to be. Most of the food is pre-cooked for tomorrow, we had some of the family over for Christmas Eve Chinese earlier tonight, we drove around the neighborhood looking at the lights and luminarias, and the present are wrapped, well mostly...

My grandmother was a crocheter. She made us all afghans, baby outfits, hats, gloves, etc. etc. She also made ornamental items (we all got bathroom skunks - to hold toilet paper - really, I'm not kidding-LOL!). One year she made a couple of sets of carolers. One set she didn't quite finish. The "faces" weren't done. My gram passed away in 2006 and my mom has been asking for a set ever since. It required me actually finishing them. I was determined she was going to get them this year. I pulled them out of the attic, did my best at making "faces" (I quilt, I don't crochet and I was kind of stumped as to how to do it). Monday night I stitched little mouths and had them all set out and put their hats on. All 4 figures. They were sitting on my cutting table, all ready for their "eyes". I went to the craft shop on Tuesday and got "eyes". Got my glue gun out and began finishing them up. I got to the last one and couldn't find the hat. It was there Monday night, I swear!! I've been looking for that hat all week. It's now 10:15 on Christmas Eve. I give up. So, mom's getting the set like this...

This poor little girl is still hatlesss....

If the hat mysteriously turns up, mom will get her next year. It's still baffling me and irritating me that I can't find it! Gram, however, will be pleased that I finished them off. I miss her more every year. o)

My machine has certainly been neglected these past couple of weeks, so I thought I'd make her feel better by dressing her up...

It's going to be another week before I can spend quality time with her...we're leaving for Disney World day after Christmas. I'm looking forward to seeing Santa Mickey and all the holiday decorations. I'm not sure it's too much warmer in Florida than it is here though - LOLOL!

Merry, Merry Christmas to you all!!

I'm off now to finish my eggnog and dream of sugar plums and Santa!

Philly Modern Quilt Guild Challenge

2010-12-19T08:52:00.000-05:00

We had our challenge reveals at the Philly Modern Quilt Guild Meeting last Tuesday. What fun. We were given 4 fat quarters of Kona Solids (ruby, chocolate, snow and holly) and allowed to add 1 yard of fabric (the same or different adding up to 1 yard).

It is amazing what people come up with - so creative. Some were "modern" some more traditional - all were fabulous! I, not being terribly creative, went with the Christmas theme. As soon as we got the fabrics, I pretty much knew what I was going to do and I was happy with the result....a really large table runner. What am I going to do with it? No idea.

I chose 1 yard of a paisley Christmas fabric from my stash that incorporated all the other colors. I pieced together the red, brown and green "zig zags" first and my thought was to do all four fabrics that way - including the white. Then I thought, I'd never put white in this quilt. That was the challenge for me! So, not wanting to take the easy way out and just do a white zig zag to get it done, I gave it some thought and decided to use it in the border. Then, I thought I'd quilt the heck out of the white to give it some texture. I really like the way it came out. My first thought was pebbling. I don't have microhandles on my HQ16 and I got about 1/4 of the way done on one triangle and my hands were a-hurtin'! I quickly changed to very close loops and swirls and that was a bit better, but I was glad when it was done. I then just did some straight lines in the solid zig zags.

You can see the fabric I chose better in this photo. You'll see it has gold in it. So, when I got to the binding I was stumped again. I didn't just want to use one of the solids (besides, I didn't have enough). Black didn't work either, so I rummaged and pulled out a great gold I had in my stash and it worked great!

The second half of our meeting was an applique workshop with the wonderful Liz Hawkins of the Lizzie B Creative girls. I was so looking forward to the workshop and got about 1/2 hour in and the headache that had been plaguing me all day reared itself again and I started feeling pretty bad so had to leave. Up til then I was having a ball! I'm looking forward to next month's meeting. Our challenge is to come up with a challenge! At first I thought, I could never think of something. But something came to me a couple of days later. I'll reveal that next month!

So, this weekend we had another Santa's bakeshop in my house. Yesterday, I made more shortbread (I'm a little sick of shortbread about now), pizzelles, toffee, and got a start on the Hot Tarragon Mustard (from Robin Sue's Big Red Kitchen blog - she's doing an Advent recipe-a-day which has been fabulous - so many great holiday food items) that I'll finish up today. That's a new one on my Christmas food-gift list.

Oh another easy recipe for a fun food gift item is the recipe for Caramel Corn with Salted Peanuts I found last year on Molly Wizenberg's Orangette blog (well, easy if you can pop popcorn in the microwave properly - it's a long story, and many bags of popcorn were harmed in the making of the Caramel Corn this year. But, I wanted to bring it to the guild meeting last week so I perservered). This stuff is divine, I'm telling ya!

I can't believe this time next week "it will all be over" as we say in our house!

Challenge - Completed!

2010-12-12T18:06:00.002-05:00

There was absolutely no sewing going on in my house this weekend. A VERY rare occurrence in this household (and my fingers are itchy!!). Instead this was going on all day yesterday...

It was Santa's bakeshop yesterday - all day long. I made 16 pans of shortbread, and a batch each of peanut butter cookies, Toll House Cookies, and Russian Tea Cakes. I was exhausted by the end of it! I'm not used to standing for 8 hours at a clip!! Today, we went to see the new Harry Potter and I made my Easy Refrigerator Pickles. People L.O.V.E. these things. They are a bit sweet and a bit spicy and super easy to make. Hint though if you make them - I make a double batch and then make 4x the amount of liquid.

Luckily, by Thursday, I had already completed Sandy's (Quilting for the Rest of Us Podcast) Holiday Challenge to complete 3 gifts by the 15th of December! Here we go...

Chris's quilt...

I used a feather pantograph and quilted in light lavender which worked really well...

Sandy's quilt...

I quilted in white and used a daisy pantograph....

Cathy's quilt...

This is quilted with the Happy Times pantograph in goldish thread...

It's nice to know I won't have to be sewing late on Christmas eve - unless I want to! Now, I have to go wrap more presents!

Christmas Decorating

2010-12-05T16:27:00.000-05:00

I wanted to hang this on the door in my kitchen this holiday season....

Unfortunately, it still looks like this...

So instead I hung the usual....

I was on a roll making these cute little advent wall hangings a number of years ago. I don't remember how many I made and gave as gifts. It was fun buying little tiny ornaments to put in each of the pockets around the border...

I just have to remember to hang an ornament each day ...

Now that it's back up again, I realize how much I like it. I think when the other wallhanging is done (next Christmas at this point), I'll hang it on the living room closet door. This one's kind of sentimental. o:)

Holiday Recipe Party!

2010-11-30T19:32:00.007-05:00

Karen from the Sew Many Ways blog is hosting a Holiday Recipe Party! How fun. I love cooking almost as much as I love quilting (well, maybe it's the eating I love). I am in the process of developing a family cookbook encompassing all of our families favorites and this recipe will be one at the top!

The recipe doesn't just taste great, it also has a story which is why it's special to us. It's a dish my husband remembers eating as a child in Scotland. It was a very close family friend's recipe.

My husband's family moved to the States from the U.K. when he was 11. My father-in-law, after a long career here, moved back to his homeland of Scotland after he retired in 1989. We loved to visit as much as we could (sadly, he passed away three years ago). He moved to about-the-middle-of-nowhere in Aberdeenshire, Strathdon (northeast of Scotland). Back in 1997, the local hall, the Lonach Hall, put out a "cookery book" to raise funds for its refurbishment. I fondly recall attending many a raucous Ceilidh at the Hall and was thrilled when my father-in-law sent us a few copies of the Lonach Cookery Book...

Since he gave us only three copies - and you can't get anymore - you must be really special for us to bestow one upon you - so far we've given one to our son - THE (current, anyway) William Wallace (LOLOL!). And we're still hanging on to the remaining copy for now.

Besides the book being from an area we love, the illustrations are all done by family friend George Hardie, a wonderful artist who lives in the area. As my husband was paging through the book he happened upon the recipe from his childhood! He remembered friends Vi and Sandy (I think almost all men in Scotland are called Sandy regardless of their first names - as was my father-in-law - LOL) He was so excited and we made the dish straight-away and it was fantastic and now it's one of our family's favorites. We've updated it a bit (using Panko crumbs instead of breads crumbs, using thin pork cutlets, and using lots more cream than called for because the sauce is so so good), but I'll give you the recipe as written ....

Pan Fried Pork Fillet with Mushroom Sauce
from The Lonach Cookery Book contributed by Sandy & Vi Ponting

1-1/2 lb pork tenderloin fillet
3 slices bread made into crumbs (we use Panko)
1 tbsp chopped parsley
1 beaten egg
oil for frying

For the Sauce:
6 oz button mushrooms (I use Baby Bellas)
1 red onion, chopped
2 oz unsalted butter
1/4 pt double cream (I use a cup or more - and that's heavy or whipping cream for us in the US!)

Trim thin skin, membranes and fat from the fillets. Cut the meat cross-wise into 2 inch slices. Turn the slices out onto the cut end and beat out flat between two sheets of greaseproof paper (or just buy the really thin pork cutlets!). Mix chopped parsley with the breadcrumbs (or Panko). Dip pork slices in beaten egg then in the crumb mixture. Set aside while you make the sauce.

Melt butter and a little oil in a frying pan. Gently fry onion until soft but not brown. Add mushrooms and fry for a few more minutes. Season with salt and paper. Stir in cream and keep warm.

Fry the pork fillet in butter and oil for a few minutes each side until cooked and brown. Allow 2 pieces per serving. Spoon sauce over. (I actually do it the opposite, I fry the pork fillet and keep them in a warm oven and then made the sauce).

I serve with buttered noodles (to pour all that great sauce over) and green beans with garlic. Yummy!!

Enjoy! There are many other great recipes at the Party, so hop on over to Sew Many Ways to whet your appetite!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2010-11-25T13:13:00.000-05:00

clip art courtesy of http://hubpages.com

Happy Turkey Day everyone! We'll be off soon (well, as soon as my husband gets up from his (second) nap!! He was up at 4:30am this morning. At the supermarket to get breakfast fixings by 5:30am and back to his first nap by 7am - LOLOL!!

Anyway, we're over the river (literally) and through the woods to grandmother's house (my mom's) for Thanksgiving dinner. We're sad that our son, DIL and grandson won't be able to join us though, grandson Rick's been up sick all night, so they're doing a small dinner for 3 at home. We will miss them.

Since I didn't have to cook, I got a bit of quilting in this morning. This weekend will be spent decorating - and hopefully some more quilting! I got most of my Christmas shopping done yesterday, believe it or not! Did a Target run and did the rest of it online! I've only got two more stores to hit (not THIS weekend) and I'm done. Excellent!

I wish you all a peaceful and blessed Thanksgiving. I'll leave you with this bit of Fall-ish quilty goodness...

I couldn't resist...

2010-11-24T08:19:00.002-05:00

Have you seen the December issue of Quilter's World?

This is not a magazine I usually buy, but since one of my very favorite blogger/designers Wendy Sheppard of Ivory Spring designs for the magazine (among others), I may just have to subscribe. Particularly since when I picked up this issue because Wendy's Peppermint Parcels (made with the too cute Hip Holidays fabrics from Henry Glass which I've had since the summer in anticipation of making this quilt that Wendy gave us sneak peeks of on her blog) pattern was in there, I found two other patterns in there that I must make. In fact, one I couldn't resist doing immediately!

This table runner is made of pretty large tumbler blocks. Of course, if you have an Accuquilt Go! Cutter, you can certainly use that, but I cut out the template from freezer paper and glued it onto heavy cardboard and used my rotary cutter to cut the pieces out. Super easy - I finished this (including making the template) in just a couple of hours! This will be a Christmas gift for my Mom. I know I will make more of these! It was just too much fun.

The third pattern in the magazine I want to make is a paper pieced Christmas pineapple runner. This issue is a winner for sure!