I'd rather be cruising!

Three things to be happy about:
(1) your favorite old quilt
(2) an ample supply
(3) Andy Griffith show reruns

The arctic blast they promised really came through Monday night, like the Orient express!  Water main break at Reagan airport, cracked rail on the Metro system, electrical failure in at least one school, and the list goes on!  Yesterday morning I had frost on my storm windows, first time that's happened as far as I can remember.  I noticed it was only on the wall where I have a space heater though... maybe that triggered it?

Anyway we reached a high of 12 degrees, supposedly the highest temperature in this area.

I'd rather be cruising!!!  The Caribbean would feel mighty fine right now.

I keep telling myself "November and December went by like a flash, surely to goodness January and February will do the same thing," especially since February is a short month!


Yesterday I laid out another "10" block for the anniversary swap ... this one isn't fused down because I need to look at it for a bit longer.

This is my take on a recently released movie which I haven't seen (and don't intend to).

I'm thinking of making the movie "screen" a little taller ... maybe the border could be a wee bit narrower?  No, maybe not...

The family could be moved down a little more if the screen is taller.

The words don't need to be any larger... this block needs something else but I don't know what!  Any suggestions???

That's it for now, gotta dig through some more fabric!  Stay warm, sew forth and sew on til later  :o)

pretty swap blocks

When I'm in a block exchange I always look forward to seeing what the other people did for me.  In this case (for the retreat) we were each given a half yard of focus fabric, and our choice from a group of blocks.  In February I showed you the blocks I made (take a look!), which were paper pieced.  Here are the ones I received in the exchange:

My block is the one at the top.  The bottom block

in the photo shows the blue challenge fabric

being used in the lower left side.

Surprisingly, only one other person

used paper piecing for her blocks, it's

the deep blue one at the top right hand side. 

In this set the you can't see the challenge fabric

in the bottom right-hand block but it's at the edge...

Last four.  Don't ask me the names of the blocks, no way

can I tell you!  I only

know they came from Quilters Cache.

Isn't it interesting which fabrics each person chose as a go-along with their piece of challenge fabric?  As long as we included a little piece in our block, we met the challenge.  Some people hadn't finished their blocks, so theirs weren't included in the exchange; it happens.

The day before I left for the retreat I was getting up from the 'puter when I heard this loud POP! and my chair broke.  I was left squattng, peering beneath my desk with the chair seat caught between the backs of my legs and my thighs, yeowww!  It didn't make a pretty picture, I tell you.  Thank God I wasn't tipped backwards with my feet on the stool, I might have gotten seriously hurt. 

I don't know if you can tell, but the metal bracket part between the seat and the bottom part snapped clean in two!  I went and got another one yesterday, but it's not put together yet; soon as I got home it started raining and I didn't want to wrestle the box out of my trunk. 

Well, today is my bee meeting (Wee Bee Quilters), we're having a bag workshop.  I'm not sure what this particular bag looks like, there have been lots of bags but it'll be the first workshop I've done.  These are the fabrics I'm using:

the ugly piece of Northcott on the right will be the lining... what will the finished bag look like?  Stay tuned!

Sew forth and sew on...

My "crummy" background is coming together!

Four things to be happy about:
(1) drinking coffee from a bowl
(2) everyday heroes
(3) fondue with toasted bread
(4) preparing a special present

First a correction!!  In my last post I showed a lap quilt with this text:

This is a little lap quilt I use sometimes when I'm working at the computer, it gets a bit chilly in the room I work in.  It's a bit frayed around the edges because they've been "loved off."

Does it look sort of familiar??  Just saying! ;o)

Just to be clear, when Madame Samm created my banner, she didn't model it after a quilt I own!  The design for my banner came 100% from the ideas in her head, the kindness of her heart, and the talent in her fingers!  When I showed my quilt it was to reinforce why I'm still in awe when I see my banner.  She had no way of knowing that I even use a lap quilt when I'm working, or the color, or the way I wore my hair ... I tell you it's truly amazing!  :o)

* * * * * *

And now, to the "crummy" part of my post! 

I pieced the blocks I showed earlier into bigger blocks and even bigger blocks to make a large block for the background of my brown bag quilt:

It still doesn't look like much but better days are coming, LOL.  That's all I'll show on this one for awhile, have to wait til it's prettier!

Last year I participated in a shoe block swap, here are a few of the ones I got:

what's not to like about these cute ballet slippers!!?

and this slipper... tres magnifique!

this shoe was made for serious partying!

I did this one; that's netting around the top.

Sew forth and sew on til later!

Project completed

I'm glad so many people liked my mid-week humor about sewing tips -- I definitely fit into the second category!  As I was doing that post, I remembered a scene in a Father Knows Best show where Margaret Anderson was in the middle of painting something, and Jim was about to come through the door from work. Margaret turned to Betty and said something like "Oh!  Your father mustn't see me like this!"  She was dressed in old paint-spattered clothing and had a scarf around her hair.  Betty jumped right in, "Quick, Mother!  I'll distract him while you sneak up the back stairs and change!!"  A few minutes later Margaret re-appeared looking radiant in a clean frock with every hair in place.  Ahhh, the good ole days!

On another subject, they say a watched pot never boils, but it does too, if you watch long enough.  Don't worry about the handle sticking over the side of the stove, I had it under control!  You're probably wondering, "what's she boiling??"  Well, I was cooking a pot of brown rice.


For a time I felt like I was watching a pot that just wouldn't boil, working on my swap blocks!  I was starting to see wavy stripes every time I went near my sewing machine!  But I kept watching that pot til it was done, 17 paper-pieced "Wavy Navy" blocks from the Quilter's Cache.  We'll exchange the blocks at our Scrapbagger's retreat in April - 17 different designs. 

Now I can move on to another project!

Weather-wise, we missed the bullet in my immediate area Tuesday and yesterday... we did get some icy conditions  but it wasn't as bad as they thought it would be, and yesterday we got a lot of rain.  Glorious snow-melting rain!  We had 50-degree temperatures - a heat wave!!   By the time I got home from work around 6 pm, it was really windy, though.  Temperatures are expected to dip again with a bit of snow on Saturday ... I guess you can't have it all.

My fun-filled Bee meeting

Last Saturday at my bee, we had a blast!  I mentioned before that we have some very talented ladies in my guild (Uhuru Quilters Guild) ... well, the same thing can be said about my bee, Wee Bee Quilters.  It was a fun-filled meeting with lots of show and tell:

Look at this - Yetunde finished her Prince!

Jackie made a lovely bag and exchange block - she will show us how to make the bag!

Carolyn made three quilts for the Beautiful African Ladies challenge!

Why stop at one when you can make 2 more!

Some of the blocks from the crazy patch swap - 13 people swapped, and the blocks were all unique and gorgeous!

We had a great time as usual; I'm looking forward to next month's meeting.  After I got home I sewed on retreat projects for about an hour, every little bit counts.

Getting in the mood

Do you like my singing reindeer?  I think the music helps make this time of year especially special!  I won't annoy you with a music gizmo though ... sometimes I think if I hear the Christmas Shoes again I'll take mine off and throw it.  To each his own, though.  :O)

At the 2009 Scrapbagger's retreat (they're held every 2 years), one of the assignments Carolyn gave us was to create "ribbons" to swap with each other.  We were given a specific size range - width and length - of the ribbons, along with 3 pieces of fabric to include in each ribbon as we desired.  For example, the ribbon could be 24x4, 18x6, 20x3, 20x6... you get the picture. 

When I pulled these out yesterday I couldn't believe I've had them for almost 2 years(?!), and I haven't "found the time" to put them together into a quilt.  The way I laid them out, you can't see many details but they are all too pretty to not use.  It's generally understood that at the current retreat, you will have completed a quilt made from the block exchange of the previous retreat.  Time flies whether you're having fun or not!

Maybe after I see what the other ladies have done with their collections...?  yeah, right

Yesterday I got a navigation system installed in my car, which came with a blue tooth - I think it's way kewl!  I've never had a nav system before, so I had to test it out to see if I could trust it.  There was only one street it took me down that I rarely take (Georgia Avenue through Silver Spring) because it's so congested along that stretch, but I was game and went along for the ride.  I had to laugh earlier as I was tooling down 270 and I heard this voice (her name is Amy) say "you are exceeding the speed limit."  I said "everybody else is, too!"  Shoot, I was only going 5-6 miles over the limit, and people were whizzing past me like they were going to a fabric sale!

The blue tooth is way kewl!  If you get a call, the nav screen changes to show you (among other things) little phone icons - green for answering and red for ending the call.  It didn't like my phone being too close, so I put it in my purse to avoid that funny "byeeemp" sound.  I also got a lo-jack that I had to register when I got home, so I'm all set!

New car, new nav toy, "new" exchange blocks to play with ... I can feel the mood!

Linda