Sue and a bonus

Three things to be happy about:
(1) icing swirled on a Danish
(2) Deer Park spring water
(3) jogging over a snowy path

A couple days ago a lady was jogging along over fresh fallen snow; sure enough she fell.  She didn't just fall, she fell over an embankment and had to be rescued by the Park service and taken to the hospital.  But hey -  if it made her happy to jog over snowy ground, I say "go for it!"

Regina asked about this print... those are angels!  I got this fabric during my Lancaster trip last year.  Unfortunately there's no manufacturer on the selvedge and at this point I can't remember whether I bought it at Zook's in Intercourse or The Goode's Store down the hill from Shady Maple.  It caught my eye and I wish I'd gotten more of it!

I finished the border on Little Miss Sue, it looks great!  The photo doesn't do it justice, as usual.

I put 3" borders on the sides, a 4" top border and a 6" border at the bottom.  I thought of putting my great niece's name on the bottom (her name is Jaelyn) but rejected that idea!  Her twin brother (Jamiyl) won't have his name, neither will her older sister (Elyse).  Don't want to start a sibling rivalry war, no indeed!

And now for my bonus - I was plundering around on a shelf and I found a quilt I can finish for Elyse!

I thought I'd have to start one from scratch but I don't have to - this will do just fine!

I made this by appliqueing bright circles onto a square; then I cut the square twice (into 4 pieces), shuffled the pieces around and sewed them back together.  This will give you four squares that are exactly alike but you can mix em up.

I think I started quilting this top about two years ago, then for some reason I put it aside...  I think I remember quilting myself into a corner and didn't know how to hook back up to the main flow, if you know what I mean. 

But now I'm determined to figure out a way to get it going again so I can finish it and make Elyse a happy little quilt owner!

That's it for now, have a great day, do something clever, sew forth and sew on...

Here we go again...

Three things to be happy about:
(1) good movies
(2) footsteps in the snow
(3) a snowy roofline

Here we go again!!



We're getting snow as I write this, the weatherman is calling for up to an inch accumulation.

It's been snowing a few hours, just light fluffy flakes that have already slowed down.  This is the type of snow that accumulates on cars and yards, but doesn't stick to the streets...

I don't mind too much, I won't even bother cleaning off my car.  

I think it'll melt before the day is over.

Definitely a good day to sew!

Hope your day is a good one  - sew forth and sew on til later!

Border decisions

Three things to be happy about:
(1) complete agreement
(2) feeling groovy
(3) going through your pocket book

Sometimes my grandmother would be going through her pocketbook, digging and digging, and I'd say "what are you looking for, Mama Brown?"  and she'd say, "Nothin, just going through my pocketbook."  So now I know it probably made her happy!

I was making border decisions for the Sue's Seeing Stars quilt and took LizA's advice over at Lizquilt - Scrap Basket and looked at my reds.  Yellows just weren't coming together for that quilt!

I remembered this piece of Alexander Henry I bought years ago from G Street Fabrics in Rockville, Maryland.  It's a cute piece and I think it cost something like $1.98 a yard.  (I wonder how many yards of fabric are in that bin??)

That store used to have a GREAT quilting fabric section, and there was this GREAT remnant table where you could find awesome deals.  I worked about a half mile from the store, so they'd see a lot of me on my lunch break.

Somehow I didn't like the way it looked with the quilt so I rejected it.  It's directional anyway, who wants to fool with that.

Selfie - I need to learn how to hold the camera!

This piece would have been perfect but I didn't have enough of it, darn!  I bought it on my Lancaster trip last October, and because I've been on a fabric buying diet I only bought a small amount -  it was just "this" much too small, shoot!

This next piece was downright yucky, there's no other word for it!

Here's the piece I decided on:

Looks pretty good I think - I'm a pokey-dot nut anyway!  I'll have just enough to make 3" borders for the sides and 6" for top and bottom.  The quilt is square right now, I want to make it oblong and  borders are the perfect place to make that happen.

Well, I'm not feeling 100% today I may just laze around for a bit before I get back to the quilt.  I think I ate too much salty stuff the last couple days and it's telling on me, whoa!  Have a great day, do something creative, enjoy the great weather - sew forth and sew on!

Wee Bee fun!

Yesterday we had a wonderful time at Wee Bee, the atmosphere was so upbeat!

I think partly it was the fact that we were tired of cabin fever, the snow was gone and we were all ready to have some fun with each other!

Felicia the Slow Quilter showed us her caricature (did I spell that right?) that Sandra (SistahStitchalot) did for her.  Of course, she used her own personal design wall to show it off!

The main event at the meeting was a workshop taught by Sandy Hassan to make this beautiful quilt.

It is a crescent moon design that she makes look so easy to do!

tools of the trade

Sandy showed us her secret to sewing the circle to the background without using pins ... just hold it flat with the palm of your hand!

cutting away the background to use for the smaller circle

me, looking all busy and stuff!

It was a wonderful workshop, I can't wait to make my first quilt with this pattern!  I did complete a block during the workshop (I cheated and used a circle Sandy had already prepped though!)

Doesn't look as perfect as Sandy's but it's a start!

That bee it for today, sew forth and sew on til later!

Stars in her eyes... is that a good name??

Three things to be happy about:
(1) clocks with pendulums
(2) coffee cups with a logo
(3) Olympic winners... U-S-A!  U-S-A!!

I haven't watched every event but I don't think we're doing too bad, the ballroom skaters were simply beautiful!

So here's the completed Sue and stars top, minus one more border:

I used more of the crumb blocks to cut  the 2-1/2" cornerstones, alternated with some pretty blue and gold fabric from my stash.

The blue fabric is called Cherry Jubilee by Mary Lou Weidman (Bernartex).  I don't know how long I've had it or if it's still available, but I think it's perfect for the inner border.  Those pieces are all I had left after cutting the strips -  I can get a few 2-1/2" squares, then that fabric is history!

Selfie!!

The cornerstones look pretty good!  Doesn't it feel great when you can make a quilt not only from stash, but a lot of it is scraps?  The only yardage was the blue border fabric.  

Now I have to decide what to do for the outer border, probably something in a dark gold, I'll shake my stash to see what falls out!

If you head on over to see Felicia at The Slow Quilter, she's having a birthday giveaway!  Everybody can use a jelly roll, you just might be the lucky winner.

Have a great day, do something creative and fun... sew forth and sew on til later!

Progress on Sue and stars

Three things to be happy about:
(1) new eyeglasses
(2) being ready for a power outage
(3) Burt's Bees lip balm

Before I get into Miss Sue, let me show you my neat new thread holder!

I've been intending to get myself one of these coneflower thread holders for a long time, they're made from metal and so pretty.  My friend Renea had a birthday coming up so I got us each one - this design is called "Sara" and I got it from Connecting Threads.

I stitched down all the Sue blocks I made, didn't take too long because there were only six blocks!

I wanted to use stars as alternate blocks for the Sunbonnet Sues, so I went to my supply of crumb blocks to use for the centers, and grabbed some precut 3-1/2" squares for the scrappy background and star points.


.

Not bad for a combination!

I made a booboo on the Sues though - I wanted them to be slightly askew so I cut the blocks down with the ruler twisted.

Unfortunately I didn't have enough wiggle room, so the blocks came out looking as if I didn't set the Sues straight, grrrr!

Do you suppose a 4 year old will notice???  I think the stars will distract her, hah!


That's it for now, still making those stars!  We had about an inch of snow overnight, my car wasn't hard to clean off, just swept it right away.   Have a great day in your part of the world, do something fun today, sew forth and sew on!

Need a little sunshine

Three things to be happy about:
(1) sealing a letter with a kiss
(2) twilight time
(3) You Tube

You've probably seen it by now but I think this YouTube video says it all!

I went through my scraps and made a few more of the Sunbonnet Sue blocks for my sister's youngest granddaughter, using my Accuquit GO die.

Here's a tip:  If you use this particular die, look at it carefully.  The shoes may be turned backwards and you'll need to place the fabric opposite of the other pieces.  In other words, if you place the main pieces fabric side up, place the paper side up for the shoes.

I'm making 9 blocks for the quilt; since I only have enough of this particular background fabric for six blocks - even though it doesn't really matter - I'll do six Sues and alternate them with star blocks.

I almost got distracted in the details of matching the scraps but you know, it's really not a big deal!

By the time I get the stars in place it'll be a cute little quilt for a 4 year old!


I showed you two blocks way back last year; all I need to do is stitch these down and make the stars.  9" blocks will do nicely!

Today I have guild meeting, in our workshop we're supposed to start working on blocks from Tula Pink's City Sampler - 100 Modern Quilt Blocks.  I don't have the book yet and I haven't decided if I'll do this series or not, some of the blocks look interesting though.  Someone was doing it as a sew-along, I can't remember who it was or I would give her a shout-out.

Well, that's it for now, let's hope I can make guild meeting!  Sew forth and sew on til later

This and that

Three things to be happy about:
(1) cobblestone streets
(2) fleece-lined anything
(3) haiku

Long story short, a haiku is a 3-line poem or couplet or little ditty that has 5 syllables in the first line, 7 in the second line, and 5 in the last line.  Here's mine for today:

Holy smoke on toast!
Today is Valentine's day
Did you get a heart?

Can you make one?  Aw c'mon, it's easy!

I don't have anything earthshaking to say, just wanted to keep in the habit so I don't drop off again!

Do you want a good fat-free non-greasy snack that tastes okay and isn't bad for you?  One day in Costco they had samples of this apple snack that I thought was tasty, so I bought a bag of em next time I dropped in..

They're apple chips by Bare Fruit, kinda pricey but I thought they were tasty.

The actual chips look like ... dried apple chips.

They're good to have when you want something to crunch on but don't want a lot of fat and sodium; 1/2 cup is about equivalent to an apple.


Remember this block I made for my bee's 10-year anniversary swap?

Thanks to great feedback, I made a few changes that I think make the block look a bit more realistic.  I wanted to keep it simple and not put a lot of work into it:

All I did was make the "movie screen" larger and move the family closer to it - makes a bit of a difference, eh?  It's a cute block but I won't be doing another one like it.  I have more that I'll share with you in another post.

I went out earlier and dug my car out, so I can go to guild meeting tomorrow.  As I'm typing this I have a chicken and rice casserole in the oven that smells mighty fine, I think it's just about done!  Enjoy the rest of your day, I'm setting the table for lunch!

Sew forth and sew on

Wonderland cometh - again

Wonderland, as in "I wonder where Linda's been so long??"  More on that later!

Meanwhile we got 11 inches of snow between 8 o'clock or so last night and 6 am this morning, whoa!  This picture is just the accumulation on the flower pot on my covered porch.

Look how high it comes up on my tires, but it's a soft snow so it should come off with no scraping if I do it before the other snow falls.

When I got up around 8:30 this morning someone had kindly shoveled my steps and the sidewalk in front of my house, what a blessing!

snow to the left of me!

snow to the right of me!!

Now, as to where have I been??  Shortly after my last post my PC crashed, oy vey!  The good news is, it wasn't a virus that took me down, it was a hardware failure.  My PC was pretty old (a Gateway, you probably know how long they've been out of business!) and (so I was told) something called a heat capacitor died and couldn't be replaced because parts are no longer available.  I went ahead and bought a new PC - the other good news is they were able to transfer all my data files.

Now for the bad news - data files can be transferred, but not program files, so I had to buy new stuff.  The kicker is I had a backup disc for my MS Word Suite but I couldn't find the key, so it was no good.  I lost the fully loaded professional version of Photoshop that I was using to edit my pictures (which I got for nada when I was working); it's not even on the market any more.  I had to purchase Photoshop Elements which I don't like half as much and I'm still getting used to it.  Likewise I lost the full version of Acrobat - I want to be able to create pdf's, not just read them.

All together now - "whoa is me!"

I was happy as a clam with Windows XP, which is no longer available on a new PC - so now I'm using Windows 8 which I don't like as much and I'm trying to get used to it.  Looking for my files is like going on a hunt in my sewing room.  Whoa is me!

Okay, it hasn't taken me THIS long to get back up and running, but every time I sat at the PC I realized something else needed loading... EQ, Kindle reader, having to retransfer all my Audible books, for some reason I can't access the backup file that's supposed to be there - the audible program itself... I was pretty frustrated for awhile.  PLUS having to deal the Microsoft and Apple and Audible and Adobe and the Geek Squad and Verizon... 

I think I'm pretty well set up now, so on with the rest of my life!  This was a pretty long post but I think if you got bored you're not reading this, LOL.  For the rest of you, enjoy your day, get that snow shoveled!  Sew forth and sew on til later...