Blogger's Quilt Festival

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

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

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!

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

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!

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...

 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!