Hawaiian Ocean Applique Progresses

One of 12 of my Turtle Blocks

I've been working on the applique turtles, currently I have five completed blocks and three blocks that are just appliqued turtle bodies awaiting their shell pieces.  It seems silly to me to take photos of what I have already showed you, so today I'm going to dream about another similar quilt with you that while I had it in the back of my mind for quite a while this change of color and place came roaring out at me the other day.

Approximation of Reverse Image

I call it the Reverse Applique Turtle Quilt.  I'm planning on using all of the leftover cut out pieces from the Hawaiian Ocean Applique Quilt and putting them into this second quilt.  As the back of my green fabric is covered entirely in Wonder Under and my husband and I planned it this way; all of the leftover pieces will be usable in this second quilt.  No waste not even one small scrap.  Off to the left you can see how it will work.  In case you are wondering the pattern was redrafted from a needle turn applique method to allow us to do this.

The background of this layout is white on white, but for the second quilt I plan on selecting a tan/sand batik for the turtle bodies.  I think using the sand color for the turtle bodies will give them an on land appearance instead of the swimming in the water look.

Neatly saved but never zipped in

Yes, Yes, I'm saving everything and in case anyone is worried the bags are merely for keeping everything together.  Here in Florida I wouldn't dare zip them up, locking in all that humidity?  Eek!  Or perhaps Eeww is a better word.  I promise there are no Ewws or ewes here for that matter (wool allergy).

Now I just have to keep my eyes pealed for the perfect fabric.  Whoa darn fabric shopping. LOL.  I hope everyone found what they were looking for on Black Friday and Cyber Monday.  Or perhaps you simply found a lot of what you weren't looking for?  I my case I did all of my shopping at the computer. Because no matter how fast I make that scooter go, you'd all still beat me to the sale.  That's why DD and I say "Wheee, and Zoom," as we shop with the scooter.  It helps to give the illusion of speed!  Now why not drop me a note and tell me how your shopping or lack there of went and why, I'd love to hear about it.

I just wrote a letter to Santa!

I just wrote a letter to Santa!
What do you tell the man in the red suit? What do you say when your daughter wants you to write a letter too?
Just like last year Macy's is giving away $1 to the Make a Wish Foundation for each letter recieved and they are only about a quarter of the way now, so no matter what you write why not drop a note? Don't forget they need a stamp.


For every letter received, Macy's will donate $1 to the Make-A-Wish Foundation, up to $1,000,000. Help make wishes come true by writing your own letter to Santa!

Christmas Quilt-a-long Wrap Up

Sue's Christmas Quilt-a-long ended on the 13th which was a little sad, but what you don't know is that I won something!  Sharon at Daisy Cottage Quilting Donated a Lollipop Oopsie Daisy Kit and she is the sponsor of my win.  How wonderful is that?  Beautiful Moda Fabrics make up this charming little quilt.

I'm not all together certain why the pattern picture of this quilt don't like to be photographed.  I noticed the same trouble when I looked at the kit online, but as you can see below the colors are quilt bright.  While it is a lollipop theme the reds and greens remind me of Christmas.

Yes I already made the little buttons that are the flower centers.  I couldn't resist, aren't they they cutest little things?  Warm Thanks to Sue and Sharon and while I will miss the Christmas Quilt-a-long I heard through the grapevine Sue might be doing something after the first of the year.  Perhaps a Mystery Quilt or another quilt-a-long?  Only time will tell!

Sweet Lemonade

Last March I started something I called my Hawaiian Ocean Applique Quilt  through my practice with that I was able to make and donate my Turtle Applique Quilt.  I made these using Wonder Under a heat activated adhesive product and then blanket stitching over the raw edge.  Right in the middle of making these blocks my fancy sewing machine lost all will to sew after coaxing and numerous trips to the repair place I now have an oversized paperweight that is begging for the day I will trade it in for something else.

Luckily I have the Little Elna sewing machine which I had forgotten how much I love to sew on it.  So now that you're up to date, I want to say that yesterday I figured out how to make one of the 18 stitches that the Elna can do look like the blanket stitch the Brother was making and because it is a compressed hem stitch it sews out nice and quick and I don't have to be so careful about counting the stitches for making my turns.  Bottom line: Yesterday I had 2 completed blocks and 3 blocks with no shell pieces on the turtles.  I now have five completed blocks for this quilt (I will need 12 plus my dolphin center) of course I also have the one I'm detailing to be a matching pillow as well.  I think it will end up making a nice euro sham.

Turtle Applique Blocks awaiting thread trimming

I have now prepped three more fabric blocks so they are ready to be cut out with the rather detailed cuts of the turtles and their shells.  I am looking forward to making more progress on this quilt.

All Stitched Up With Somewhere to Go!

Yesterday I did all of the hand work labeling on the block for Myra and today I dug out the cutting mat and trimmed it up to 6.5".  So very soon now I'll be sending it off.  It's only a 6.5" block so even International I'm certain it will be no big deal to mail.

 On a different note I started cutting the pieced for the back of the Snake quilt and would you believe I don't have enough fabric?  I had enough fabric if I just sewed it together but because I just had to piece it.  Oh yeah, so I'm going to be sorting that out over the next couple of days.  Really makes me question what the quilt is asking of me!

My five year old hasn't been feeling well the past two days so while I'm always happy to take her picture her request that I take this one pulled at my heart strings.

Cherry on Top Blog Award

My friend Heather, whom I've known since my marriage and ideals were young has given me a blog award.

Here are the rules to this blog award…

1. Thank the person who gave it to you.

2. Put the award on your blog.

3. Share three things about yourself that you enjoy doing.

4. Pass the award onto five people.

Heather is a dear friend to me and she is a truly amazing scrap-booker.  When ever I mention her to others their eyes bug a little bit and their mouths drop open slightly in amazement.   She might not believe me when she reads that but it's true and she should take it to heart, because she truly is wonderful.  Thanks for the award!

Three things about myself that I enjoy;  shesh that one seems like it should be easy, but the easy stuff you already know anyway.

1.  I love to curl up with a good book.  Books I've read before are like old friends waiting for me to return to them.  My favorite books I have read so many times I can pick them up and open the book at any point read a sentence or two and know exactly what is going on.  I so love rereading books that I made my DH buy me a box of old Anne McCaffery Books that I had already read at least 80% of.

2.  I thrive on spending time with my DH, even if he's sitting in the next room watching tv and I'm doing something on the computer and we're not even bothering to talk - it's like the house is filled with good vibes.

3.  I'm not certain this last one counts, but it's my blog so I'm going with it.  I love compliments.  It's like I'm a cat being petted.  It is so wonderful to hear when I've done something good or helped someone.  That's the good stuff.  It goes straight to your heart and warms you from the inside out.

Now I read a great group of really awesome blogs and I'd hate to single out five, not to mention what of the others that I momentarily forgot?  I'd wake up in the night worried someone felt slighted so I think your all great and that's that.

A block for Myra

Have you heard about Myra?  She is a quilter in New Zealand who is currently fighting her own battle with cancer.  Now the way I read it her friend Karen also went through the same thing a couple of years ago and all of their quilting buddies collected and made an applique heart quilt to for her.  So now Karen is putting it all together to make one for Myra as well.

Are you in?  If so all the details are here at Selvage Blog it is requested that all blocks be applique hearts.  Any form of applique and any embellishments you want are fine.  It's only a 6.5" block on white on white or cream on cream so even if you do hand work it sews together in a jiff.  Hearts can be pastels of pink, purple, or blue.

Heart for Myra

So here's mine.  I started with a scrap of paper as I really wanted it to reflect who I am.  First I thought perhaps I could do something with water and a palm tree within the heart, but then when I stumbled upon the idea of a Bandaid I had to do it.

My heart is white on white with a blue heart that has a little Bandaid on it.  The Bandaid is a tube of floral fabric that I managed to find a spot of plain print just big enough to make the Bandaid and then I hand stitched the little dots over the padded area.  For the applique I took two pieces of the same fabric sewed them together cut one side open turned it and then carefully stitched the hear down so that my stitches only show on the back.  If you know what method that is tell me and then we'll both know.

I still need to add my name and location and then true the entire block to 6.5" but after I do it will be off to Karen in New Zealand for Myra.

Red Star Quilt Extension Update 1

The Red Christmas Star Quilt is such a heavy quilt!  I made it with Warm and White originally and it makes my muscles protest every time I move it around the machine, a big round of applause to people who make quilts this size on a regular basis!  So far I have attached all of my extension strips both to the front and to the back on all sides of the quilt.  I have also quilted two of the sides leaving me half done with the quilting.  Here's how it's looking (full of pins and only close-ups for now)

Before Quilting

After Quilting

 I was inspired by Sue's Swirls so much I tried to apply it to the red quilt.  I knew before I started the quilting would be demanding but I felt it would be worth the efforts.  Somewhere along the way I lost a bit of the wind look to my quilting as I thought more about my mother and her likes and dislikes.  She has never done well in cold climates so my swirls look a bit more like crashing waves.  To move over the quilt I found sometimes I had gaps in my quilting - tiny ones to small for a swirl but a little bit bigger than I'd like to leave empty so I started filling those with a bit of flame work, nothing complicated and perhaps nothing very noticeable but to me it created a fire and ice theme.

At this point the quilt has many pins.  I remove the pins as I quilt but there are always stray ones that stay in, so I try really hard to place a pin cushion like this away from cats, children, and grownups alike.  That has always worked out well in the past as I seem to be the only one that gets poked by the pins.  This is the biggest quilt that has ever been in my house and of course it's willfully working on being even bigger so it's harder to keep out of the way.  As you can see my efforts to keep family members (or meowbers in this case) from harm haven't worked out so well.

Perhaps Tiny thinks she knows best!

SewCal I can Do it! Christmas Quilt Show

LOL!  When SewCal did her pets on quilts I was so fussy over my photos that I couldn't just settle and enter already.  Well she's doing it again.  This time is a Christmas Quilt Show and that I can do.  Sheesh how many Christmas Quilts have I made!?!?  Wish I'd been keeping track after almost 3 years of quilting I can't even tell you how many I've made.  Opps!  I'm bird walking aren't I?

I highly recommend you visit her blog and check this contest out because the sponsors she rounded up!  WOW!

Row Robin Front

Now on to my entry!  This is the Christmas Row Robin Quilt.  I hosted Jan. 2009-July 2009.  The theory was that would allow more than enough time to get it quilted in time for Christmas.  Well I the hostess missed it and my quilt wasn't ready for Christmas 2009.  That fact must have put a bee in my rear because I did finish it for this Christmas.

Quilting Detail

This is freemotion quilted with Hearts and Loops in blue thread.  I should have gone with white or at least a thinner thread but I didn't so look out 40wt blue because it showed all of my flaws, but I think that's okay.  I loved putting it away with the other Christmas things this past summer and am looking forward to putting it back on my wall shortly.

Back Before Quilting

I never took a picture of the back once it was quilted so here it is not quilted.  It is a reversible quilt and the missing picture surely must mean I was embarrassed by the quilting. Silly me.  Oh yes and that line of teal in the bottom row I fixed that before I basted it together and matched the seam because I knew I couldn't live with the strange miss-alignment there.

Reguardless of what my memories tell me about the quilting I am really looking forward to getting this quilt out along with all of my other Christmas items.  I decorate nearly every room in my home so I have at least two or three things that go in each room, I can hardly wait to see what this quilt looks like all decked out in the living room.

As a Lover of Christmas I joined in Sue's Christmas Quilt-a-long this year as well; I think I only missed one month and that was due to the crazy kind of headache that messes with your equilibrium.

Thanks for stopping by and enjoy the Show.

Christmas Quilt-a-long Session 4

Yesterday was Sue's Quilt-a-long and even though I sort of knew that fact early last week I spaced it until about 11 am yesterday.  I had fully planned to make Christmas gifts - I even knew what I planned to make but a bag of fabric waiting by my sewing machine distracted me and I ended up making this Christmas dress for Jessica, I used bits and pieces of different patterns in order to achieve the look I was going for.  The back has two little horizontal strips which I think are just adorable.  Of course to see them DD would have to wear her hair up which she never does but that's okay.

I also made this little pencil skirt as far as kids go something like this is a huge piece of cake.  I looked at the fabric and it looked about right so I sewed it together made a self casing for the elastic right from the top of the fabric and then hemmed it.  I have to say I'm a little jealous over it.  Would have loved enough fabric to make this for me but alas not enough fabric and to many curves.  LOL!  Something for me would have surely needed darts or some other horrors so I got off easy making this for my five year old.  Both items are stretch fabric so I think I'm one step closer to getting over my issues with knits.  Sheesh that's a lot of cat hair.  Oh well truth be told she liked both items so much she wore them from the minute they were finished until she woke up this morning.  She wanted to wear them to bed to and I figured why not?

Golly look at the hem on my pencil skirt.  You'd never have guessed how much fuss I had to go through over these two items!

I hope everyone had a Happy Christmas Quilt-a-long Day I know my daughter and I did.  For dinner I took out leftover Chili and made Chili Mac out of it, I was actually quite happy with how yummy it came out!

Boot Straps

I guess I've been in a bit of a quilting funk lately.  The Red quilt is coming along just as I'd hoped and I'm in the process of quilting it, the tutorial will follow it's completion.  The weather has turned colder here and that has me in the mood for Christmas shopping. 

Do you know how hard it is to Christmas shop only to come up against a shipping cost total to put your entire purchase on hold?  I know it seems so strange but it's okay to pay $30 something but it's not okay to pay $40 something for the same items.  My family comes from all walks of life so not even Amazon or ebay or Kmart can be my one stop shop.

So I gave up on looking for a while to dwell.  When I dwell I clean.  It's a nasty trait I picked up from my mother during my childhood.  I remember the days of look out mom's cleaning - oh so very well.  Lucky for my family I was home alone at the time.

Because of my disability I clean while sitting on the floor.  I start by cleaning a patch to sit and then sitting there while I clean outward from that spot (and you wonder why my DH doesn't like me to clean?) it works for me but when I'm already a bit sad about what I can and can't do being on the floor makes the perfect place to get down in the dumps and really start feeling sorry for myself.  The "I hates" started in my head started when I was nearly done in the kitchen.  I then made my unhappy way with the vac down the hallway and by the time I got to the bathroom door I'd pulled myself out of my funk.  Thankfully!  It's easy when you come to the end of a lintany and say to yourself  "So what are you going to do about it?" and that's when I decided. 

Oh now I'm nearly teary to admit what I did.  I listed all of my quilts that are finished that don't have owners on Ebay!  I know!  It's sad, but isn't living hidden away in a box sad too?  Isn't it sad that four quilts selling at $25 could help my Christmas?  I listed them and I stand by my listings. 

In case you're wondering my ebay name is jcelestesewingmom; that's "J Celeste Sewing Mom" all smushed together.  The quilts I listed are Christmas Hodgepodge, Patchwork Swirl, Feathered Star and Buckeye Beauty.  I hope they sell well for I'm going to use every last penny earned on our Christmas.  LOL, sort of makes me wish they were bigger! 

The First Act: The Pain

This is the quilt I was working on for the "What would you look like if you were a quilt?"  Yes, clearly I missed the deadline.  But somewhere along the lines this challenge became more than a challenge and thereby more than fabric, thread, and a deadline.  After all it's the quilt of me and thereby no matter how deep the river once you start to swim you must continue.

The Red of this quilt is my chronic pain.  As you can see it infiltrates through everything I say do and touch.  But while a part of me it is not me and thereby the red and the blues never blend only intertwine.

The Dark blues are my core the deepest part of me and yes I feel pain there too, but just like an ocean current I move through it living with it as it ebbs and flows.

That's all for now future acts will include The Snake, and The Meerkat.  Did you think maybe for a second my pain was over this border?!?!  Oh yes!  I counted all of the pieces before starting (hundreds) and my husband color coated the "segments" so I could make them "block style", man oh man flannel is not seam ripper friendly!  Thankfully I put the sides together first and then moved on to the more complicated top and bottom, can't imagine if I'd started there.

If anyone is looking for updates on the Red Star Extension I'm waiting on the fabric and plan to be starting that within the week.