More quilt show pictures

I was really in love with this appliqued quilt! 

The details are enough to draw you in for a closer look and then keep you staring at it for a very long time; no matter how long you look, you always see something different.  The colors and blocks all say "scrappy!"


The shading in the leaves of this happy little flower block is very pretty; the quilting gives it lots of texture!

I love houses and this one is so cute.  Check out the siding, they look like miniature logs!

I could have stared at this one all day.

How many spools can you see?  Tall, short, fat, vertical, horizontal - they're all in there!

And here's an art quilt I was inspired by...

lots and lots of strips with different fibers woven in...

I've never tried coaching before; this would be a great project to try it on a large scale!

Red sneakers and a blue bird...

interesting quilting on both of them!

Well that's enough for now!  Today I tackle my sewing room again... gotta clear out the mysterious bags under my cutting table.  Have a great Tuesday, sew forth and sew on til later

Mid-Atlantic quilt festival

Is there anything better than a quilt show?   Renea and I had a wonderful time at the Mid-Atlantic Quilt festival Friday and Saturday.  I'll share a few photos with you, but of course I don't have pictures of every quilt we saw - so much to see!

First the challenges - these 3 are from the Hoffman challenge.  This year's fabric was flowered:

Heart and  "page 58" challenge:

The young lady is from a sad article (on page 58 of a news magazine) about villagers being victimized to force them to sell their land.  

Beautiful carousel:

I was blown away by the quilting!

From a garment challenge:

Isn't this beautiful?  Sorry I can't give you details - I need to keep better notes!

Just a couple more pictures, lest your screen not be able to load:

This one portrays a homeless man who declares "I'm not crazy".  He just enjoys his life to the fullest!

To create this piece, the artist used gauze strips on a dark background - beautiful!

That's all for now, I have a few more pics to share with you tomorrow.

Enjoy your day, sew forth and sew on!



Silent Sunday



antique washer, Cracker Barrel restaurant, Hampton VA



sign inside Cracker Barrel restaurant



Faint voices and other mysteries

Three things to be happy about:
(1) going your own way
(2) tickets to a big event
(3) sample size beauty products

I got the mysterious voices on my phone line taken care of, now I don't have to listen to them anymore!  The Verizon tech said it wasn't phone conversations - my phone was picking up an AM radio broadcast! He was trying to explain that my wires couldn't have become crossed because I don't have a "real" dial tone at all, it's really a "virtual" tone because it's Fios. To make a confusing story short, for some mysterious reason the tech who installed my Fios box in the first place (probably because he didn't know what he was doing) connected my phone and pc lines to an old wall jack, rather than straight into the Fios box. Over time the splitter gizmo at the wall degraded, that's why I was hearing the broadcast.

Whatever, just fix it please.

The Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival is going on this week in Hampton, Virginia.  Renea and I are driving down there early early this morning and we'll stay overnight - weather, please be kind to us!  No snow, no ice, please!!!  The weather report for this area today is calling for "spotty slick spots" in the afternoon; it's a 3 hour drive so by then we'll be in Hampton and dealing with whatever their weather is locally.  We hope to hook up with Penny (Livin' Blue Quilter) and Yetunde (Sistah Stitchalot) at some point - probably for a meal.

I'm still working on (evidently, I'm not!) my homespun flying geese that were inspired by an antique quilt Bonnie at Quiltville found.  I told myself several weeks ago that if I could do one strip a day, in six days it would be all done, yes!

There will be six geese strips alternated with 7 narrower solid srips, I think a solid will go better with the homespun.  I was trying out different colors for the solid strips, and I laid the geese out on my design bed to see how they'd look with this green: 

I didn't like it.  Somehow that shade looks too dark for the homespuns, and I couldn't find another solid that was just the right shade. Next I tried this brown, and I think this is the one I'll go with:

The color isn't reading true on screen but it looks great with the homespun!  The geese are six inches wide, the strips between will be three inches.  I want to go ahead and get this finished so I can put those fabrics away, so I'll probably pick it up when I return from Hampton.


I'm looking forward to all the eye candy at the quilt show, but I won't be looking too long and hard at fabric - still on my fabric diet.   Have a great Friday, sew forth and sew on til later!

Instant grats

Grats, as in "gratification!"

Not much time for sewing yesterday what with laundry, the plumber, checking to see who the EMS people picked up down the street, watching the man deliver my neighbor's rain barrel, Verizon....  I've been having problems with hearing voices on my phone line --  nope, they really ARE on the line, not in my head!  Anyway I do have a wire maintenance plan, but before they scheduled someone to come out (after I went through about 10 minutes of voice prompts - hate those things!) a tech had walk me through all kind of changes unplugging my phones and plugging them back in.  Sheesh!

I wanted to continue the little log-cabin-like blocks I was making from scraps gifted to me by Charlene, just to get them off my cutting table.  I have four done so far, I think I'll make two more and call it done. 

I squared up the two on the right-hand side first at 9-1/2", no problem.  But when I finished up the red one (bottom left) I discovered the yellow border was a tat too large... so I used a 12-1/2" ruler.  I'll do something really clever to make them fit together.

On this block I wanted to show you the rust and green fabric that I bought from G Street Fabrics probably about 10 years ago.  They used to have a $1.99 bargain table that they often put "seconds" or overstock fabrics on and sometimes you got really really great stuff ... Patrick Loos, Kaufman, Free Spirit, Jan Mullen, Marcus Brothers - that rust and green is a piece of Alexander Henry fabric called "Keepers of the Tribe" - so gorgeous!  

About a ton of African fabrics went on the table on a Thursday... I found out about it on Saturday, woe is me!  There were very few cuts left, I took the entire piece of this one and had a jacket made.  The jacket is too large now but I won't be donating it, no way - I'll be "repurposing" the fabric in a quilt!

I have almost a yard of the fabric left, I'm still getting over the "it's way too pretty to cut up and if I use it, it'll be gone" syndrome.  I'll have to find something really special to use it on.  The color isn't as drab as it looks on the picture!

This past Monday we had another girls' day out to celebrate Felicia's and Carolyn's birthdays at Golden Corral - it was fun getting together with the ladies!  Here are a few pictures...


From the left seated at the table Linda (me), Sandy (quilts in color), Felicia (the Slow Quilter), Carolyn, Pat, Charlene.

Felicia and Pat playing games...

Carolyn, me, Felicia, Pat outside the restaurant - I didn't realize I look so dooflus in that red hat!  Sandy took the photo, Charlene was already in the car.

We really had a great time laughing, talking, eating, and people watching.  We're thinking of making it a regular movie and lunch outing - sounds like a winner!

That's it for now, have a great Thursday, sew forth and sew on...

Silent Sunday

5-minute block

Making it GO!

Happy Valentine's Day everybody!  I hope you get lots of hearts and flowers on this special day - it must be nice (I wouldn't know).  Today is also a special GO day for the cruisers on the Carnival ghost ship, I understand they'll be getting home today, yaaaay!

I've been wrasslin' just a wee bit too much on this little baby quilt, but now I can say the flimsy is done!  In an attempt to just get on with it, I put this black and white alpha border on...

yuck!

I got some great advice from Sharon at Vroomans Quilts about dividing the center (thanks Sharon!), so I took the borders off, made off-center slashes, and added a dark blue sash. 

After I bordered the whole piece I was thinking I should have bordered the center block, but too late - I was on my way outta there!

I added a green outer border...

this looks like a done deal to me!  I didn't want to make a meal out of this little quilt, lest the recipient have to pack it into his college gear.  Although the center would  have looked better slashed in regular slices.  I must have been in one of my creative moods... whatever.

The family has a dog but I think Nicholas will have fun looking at the playful monkeys, whilygigs,

apple pies, stars, puppy prints, chickens, dots... sew forth and sew on.

I'll be participating in a fun die cut scrap-along sponsored by Ebony at Love Bug Studios.  This is just the thing to use my new GO cutter and it starts April 1, check it out!

Have a great Thursday, be careful on the ice if you have any.  Sew forth and sew on til later!

Log cabin blocks; baby quilt

Three things to be happy about:
(1) waterproof boots
(2) freebies
(3) turkey quesadillas

When I was in Whole Foods one day last week they had a sort of turkey quesadilla casserole on their hot bar; I tried a piece and it was great!

As you all probably know by now I like playing with scraps, and I love playing with other peoples' scraps!  Somehow they seem so much more interesting than my own, I dunno why. 

Charlene gave me a bag of scraps last week, there were a lot of African pieces in there.  I wanted to play with making a log-cabin style block, so I pulled a couple pieces and skewed one edge so that they weren't square, then added borders on the four sides.  I like how these are turning out, I'll add at least two more rounds, then I'll square them back up.  Hmmmm, what will I use them in?

I wanted to get playing with my GO cutter, and the 4" square seemed as good a place to start as any!  I wanted to make a baby quilt (he's just a month old!) and I was inspired by a cute quilt made by Nicole at Bold Goods that looked a lot easier than the one I originally planned. 

I cut a 16x16 piece for my center, then dug in my stash and came up with a few prints but I don't like all of them with that particular center.  There will be another border around the outer blocks, I haven't decided yet what the colors will be. 

Anyway I don't really like how it's turning out; I'll either change out some of the border squares or use a different print for the center.  It would have been really easy to run out to JoAnn's or Hancock's and buy a coordinated fabric package (is it called a honey bun?), but I wanted to use from stash.  I think I can, I think I can!

So that's one "yes" and one "do-over" ... wish me luck, have a great Tuesday, sew forth and sew on

Ready... set... GO!

Three things to be happy about:
(1) mechanical pencils
(2) date bread with cream cheese
(3) mandarin orange jello

Don't you just love opening packages?? Me too!

I had been thinking and thinking about getting an Accuquilt GO! cutter... last week I decided I might as well go ahead and get it, especially after Linda (Sew-n-crazy quilter) in my bee told me about Quilting Warehouse.  I'd never shopped at Quilting Warehouse before and I'm glad she told me about it; they had a great price on the GO! cutter that included a really nice the starter set. 

I got five squares with the starter set  - 2-1/2",  4-1/2", 3-1/2", 4-3/4", and 6-1/2".  I was trying to figure out what was with the 4-3/4" size but I saw on one of the packages that it's really an on-point die.   

There are two half-squares that finish at 2" and 3", those should come in handy enough!  6-1/2" and 4-7/8" triangles; a 3-1/2 x 6-1/2" rectangle; a 3-3/4 x 3-1/2" parallelogram, hmmm.  The three cutting mats that I need for those sizes were also included - 5x10, 6x12, and 10x10.  The dies in the starter set are meant to be mixed and matched - clever!  Each one is designated as A, B, C, etc.   No strips were included, so I ordered the 2" and 2-1/2" dies.  Evidently the 1-1/2" strip is very popular, they were all out of that size; I'll have to get that and the circle die later.  

After unpacking I wanted to cut something!  I used a piece of fabric I got from our last bee meeting to practice cutting 2" strips.  Those of you with GO! cutters, do you press your fabric first?  I think I've seen pictures of cut strips that looked a bit wrinkled and I wondered if it made a difference...  Wanda and Gene, do you always press yours??  

The instructions said to cut an 18" piece but I didn't measure exactly, I just folded a piece twice to get four layers and placed it on the die. The handle wasn't as hard to turn as I thought it would be, it just scooted on through and I cut perfect 2" strips!  I actually had to nip the bottom ends with my scissors but that's not important, it was in the selvedge area anyway.  Note to self:  make sure the fabric is completely on the cutter... but that's what practice is for!


But the strips came out beautifully -  it's so nice to cut fabric and know you won't have that annoying v-shape at the fold area! I only had a little waste, plus an extra piece for my string bin.  Now I'll get a chance to go through my stash and the large scrap bins to see what I can cut into usable pieces. 


Moving right along...

I'm enjoying my new printer, it has a double-sided print capability that will come in handy, that'll save some paper!  Also I like the large window on the control panel, and it even has animated instructions. 

We'll see if I'm still grinning when I go to buy more ink, ouch!

That's all for today, have a great Friday and  be careful on the snow if you're having any.  Sew forth and sew on til later!