What I See

Yippie! I've basted the Buckeye Beauty flimsy front to the Windmill flimsy back and now it's time to quilt! Yet I'm not as excited as all that sounds. I started quilting completely free motion and hated it. Ripped it all out and started over free motion quilting over a paper template. The results are what you see below. As I sit here and try not to look it I think it looks pretty good. The real trouble is that as I remove the paper template from my quilting it is also breaking the threads - which is ripping some of the stitches out. Time for more of the seam ripper and a stronger thread… I know, I know, I just really liked that color as it matches beautifully both to the front and to the reverse

We're still sick here; at this point the grownups are more down than Jessica who is hindered by only a terrible cough. Personally I'm hoping I'll have my voice back tomorrow.  At least now I'll have something to do in bed, aka pick out my quilting. 

Reversible Buckeye Beauty

This quilt top is destined to be the back of the Buckeye Beauty Quilt.  It will need just one more border all around to bring it up to size.  I haven't decided should I border it in these fabrics or the ones from the front?  The entire quilt will be bound in the black from the front.  I'm really looking forward to that because I believe the black will give it a nice finished look.

Everyone here is sick in some way or another.  The doctor said it's virual so we just have to deal with it until we're better.  Lots of water and rest.

Cat Trouble

This is a typical Sunny face. See the vacant expression? Now here's what happened: Sunny went to the water bowl to get a drink and stepped into this bag. When he tried to walk away the bag went with him. Quickly so not to alert the bag he played it right off his foot. As the bag sat there doing nothing Sunny had to investigate the bag further as though to attempt to learn how he got stuck in the first place. After a time it becomes clear he cannot discover the bag's secrets so he tracks down his super smart sister. Can't you just hear Tiny mumbling, "I don't see anything?"

Of course once I snapped the photo Tiny took off like a girl afraid of the world knowing she likes her brother and was last seen trying to smack him.

2009 Spring Sampler finished!

As I have no idea which photograph is better I'm posing both for all to see.  This is my 2009 Spring Sampler.  The corner blocks are embroidered butterflies.  The beautiful stitches look hand done, but my hand will be happy to attest to not making them.  The blocks were picked here and there by me.  Final quilt size is a twin seen here on my full sized bed.  It is two sided but as the black is merely three long rows of fabric I didn't bother to photograph them.  No destiny on this one but of course Jessica has attempted to claim it as her own. 

Now I broke all the rules with this one and instead of using batting I used a huge piece ugly polyester fabric.  The results where not good so instead of quilting it, as is my preference, I machine tack stitched aka tied it.  Because of this the quilt is quite heavy.

Godet skirt all Finished!

The fabric for this skirt was given to me and as soon as I held it in my hands I knew it would be a great skirt. It took a while to acquire the 9-10 YARDS of ribbon, and in fact I even made 11 yards of black biased tape before Christmas, which I promptly forgot I made in the hustle and bustle of Christmas. I found that the same day I broke down and bought the ribbon.

This skirt was actually fun to make. There are only four shapes to cut out so I stacked the fabric with the pattern onionskin and used the rotary cutter to cut everything except the curves. It was remarkably easy considering this project had me rather concerned at to it's difficultly level.

For anyone wanting to make it this is Simplicity Pattern 4188 I made skirt D, but the pattern called for a zipper and to sit 1" below the waist.  I added a casing made from 3" of fabric and no roll 1" elastic, which got me out of using interfacing on the yoke.  I think it still sits 1" below my waist.

For the hem I used an overcastting stitch and then folded it inside one. I was worried because this is a circle skirt but the hem looks great and doesn't mess up the way the godets ripple and didn't weigh down skirt as I had feared would happen when using a bottom weight fabric.

As I still have that biased tape as well as a slew of pink fabric I might very well make another of these. I just love the "dressed up" feel a Godet skirt gives.

Pink 'n Scrappy Denim Purse

This was supposed to be a quick denim rag quilt, but a shortage of denim found me making a purse instead and there was nothing quick about it.  I think I spent as much time looking for the correctly sized slider buckle as I did making it.  This is a fully lined purse complete with four pockets and and adjustable strap.