Quilter's Fall Festival 2011

It is time for the Quilter's Fall Festival again.  Yippie!  It's always a joy participate.  Today I'm going to show you the first Wall Hanging I ever made.  I made it to give my husband for our 5 year wedding anniversary.  You're supposed to give wood for the five year mark so this was my take on that.  Now I know you only have a minute so I'll stop chatting right now and say come on back anytime you want to read about quilts, cats, or my six year old daughter as I'm prone to talk about all of those things.

Good thing for the two of us that love is still growing after all this time!

Happy Halloween From A Fairy Princess!

Happy Halloween!  As a child my mother was never one for Halloween, though in her defense when she was a child, kids in her community died from razor blades in the candy which is a pure and real horror, so growing up Halloween was more a holiday to advance you closer to Christmas than anything else.

That aside DD loves Halloween.  I have no idea how it happened but it is her favorite holiday.  DD loves Halloween even more than Christmas.   She isn't into the super scary and in fact there is a commercial about some Halloween candy maker that always has her hollering "We don't have to buy that!!!!"  Instead she has more of a Happy Witches in black and purple cheer.

In response, I've be able to enjoy a bit of Halloween Magic myself lately.  Did you know I have a great daughter? No kidding.  When I asked her earlier this month what she wanted to be for Halloween, she told me she wanted to be a fairy princess and she proceeded to tell me she had the wings (poor ripped and torn cheap green Nylon ones from Walmart from last year) and then she showed me the dress she would wear with it.  One of her pretty yet faded dresses.

My mind started running a mile a minute but I wisely said nothing.  Instead I went about compiling items for her to be a fairy princess.  I shopped for a crown when she wasn't with me.  I went online back to the shop I'd purchased the faded gown from (before it was faded of course) looking at numerous dresses and I began to shop for wings.  I didn't want any more cheap-wish-I'd-just-flushed-$10-down-the-toilet-Wally-World-wings again. So I hunted and I hunted.  I looked for DIY wings, and How To's as well as anything I could think of.  After a few days I stumbled upon a "way to big" dance costume.  The wings anchored on the dancers back and pretty elastic attached the wings to the dancer's wrists like bracelets, that was when I knew I was on to something.

First I found the perfect dress, then I bought the crown shopped for tulle, and eventually found the shoes on clearance.  With a minute at the sewing machine the wings were ready.  We already had hair ties, makeup and glitter. The glitter tulle came from Joann's as well as the pretty elastic.  Together with the dress and the crown I think I paid about $25.50 all totaled. The sheer joy and wonderful happiness my daughter has been radiating since her dress arrived on Friday has truly been like Christmas morning for me.  I love that I took my time and efforts and made everything as wonderful as I could for her.

Earth Turtles Flimsy Finished!

Now lookie here.  My Brown turtles in the green grass.  Also known as my Art for Your Bed quilt top is finished.  I finished up the applique and sewed the center strip yesterday.  What a difference from the quilts I normally work on wouldn't you say?  

This quilt is destined to be for a twin / twin extra long bed.  It measures 57" x 99.5".

For the Serendipitous Leaf in the very center of the quilt I hand stitched that and then looped a connecting stitch back through all of my stitches to link them.  

I took this picture of Tiny as she looked so cute and ready to help with my next project, Peppermint Burst.  I'd say if you ask her it's sure to be a good one!  Does anyone want to come cut the fabric for me?

Peppermint Burst Quilt Fabric Arrival

The fabric for my Peppermint Quilt is here.  Yippie!    My postman delivered it today, and goodness that was a heavy box!  All four fabrics to the left of the Peppermint Twist will be on the front as shown in the EQ file shown below.  The blue on the far right will be the backing.  I went with the 66" lap quilt because I love the way I envision it looking on the couch at Christmas Time.

I'll be starting this quilt after I finish my Turtles in the Grass top.

Foto Finish

This week's theme for Foto Finish is Spooky.  I had a really hard time finding a picture and in fact I wondered why I used up my Harvest Moon on you the other week.  Yet, in due digging I found this one.  This is a carving that my DH spotted back in the days before we were married, before the Housing Bubble burst when he was a Surveyor.

There where actually two of these, one a bony finger pointing the way and this one.  I would have posted them both for you but I only found this photo.  I think it is plenty Spooky.  Cat Patches is always talking about something interesting (though my pie didn't turn out as pretty as hers) so why not join us this Saturday, by finding a bit of Spooky in your life?

A Serendipitous Leaf

The current state of my Sewing Table

I've been working on my Brown Turtles in the Green Grass.  My friend Vicki called it my Earth Turtles and I thought that sounded good.  So far I have two of the three vertical rows appliqued to, and stitched on.  The quilt is 99.5" long at this point so needless to say I'm not adding any horizontal rows.  Here's what it looks like when I clean up before leaving a project for the day (something I rarely bother to do).

What do you think of that leaf?  Personally I love it.  It will be at the centermost point of the quilt, the one and only.  It was taken from this last scrap of fabric.  In a moment of pure serendipity,  I saw the leaf was in that bit of scrap waiting to get out.  After digging through pictures I found the perfect model a Red Oak leaf.  The veins of the model were yellow and I just happen to have a lovely buttercream yellow which I will use for the detailing.

Can you see the leaf?

DD is off for a nice long three day weekend so I don't know when I will get back to this quilt but hopefully it will be soon as over the past couple of days working on it has been a real treat.

I won: The Devils Puzzle

How about that for a blog post title?  Sure enough it's true.  Just the other day going through my regular favorite blogs and I discovered that Caren over on As the Thread Breaks was having a book giveaway.  But not just any book.  This is a brand new novel from the "A Someday Quilts Mystery Series".  Now I don't know about you but I like a good mystery novel every once in a while and I can't seem to resist a book with quilts thrown in so this should make for a wonderful read.  If you'd like I'll even review it here on my blog when I'm done.

As for other matters, would you believe DD lost her first tooth?  Yes, it happened right here in my sewing room.  I convinced her to allow me to tie dental floss to it and after a few minutes of her gently tugging she gave it one great pull (I have no idea why) and the tooth flew across the room!  I heard it tink against something, but alas I've cleaned the room twice looking and DH even came through looking and we can't find it.  The tooth fairy acknowledged DD's picture saying "I lost my tooth" complete with a hand drawn little girl with a big gap in her smile, by writing that it was okay and leaving the token of $1 anyway.  I know $1 whole dollar.  I guess that's the going rate.  I recall getting pocket change from the tooth fairy but she much be getting rich on those teeth.

Tropical Waves is Finished!

Tropical Waves Quilt 

Tropical Waves Quilt on Reverse

Yesterday I spent the entire day sewing.  Trust me things slipped through the cracks that made me a little frantic by the end of the afternoon, but look what I have to show for my diligence!  Tropical Waves is all finished!  

This quilt reminds me of the ocean both above and below so I quilted it like many of us view the ocean, complete with a sprinkling of surfers.  A steady watery quilt meander moves throughout the quilt so that it looks like the rises and falls of the ocean and a border of waves and dolphins swim over all of the borders.  DH asked if they were all boy surfers or if some were girls, so clearly I told her the ones that were female surfers were which ever ones she wanted them to be.  

Like many of my other quilts this one is fully reversible.  Originally this pattern was called Country Lanes, but the colors seemed to take it so far from Country Lanes, that I named this quilt Tropical Waves.  I started the back with an orphan block and some extra pieces and worked from there.  Before long a Tiffany look had come over the back and it grew from there.

Dolphin Border on Tropical Waves Quilt

Quilted Surfer on Tropical Waves

Now all the threads are tucked into the quilt and the binding is on.  The quilt finished up at 54"x85" which is a nice twin bed size.  Even Sunny thinks this quilt is top notch.  Okay well this is the best you get for a Sunny picture because he wasn't thrilled I made him stop grooming and look up.  I think it's a little funny that this is the best "why are you bothering me" face that he can manage.

Have you heard of this Christmas for Quilters?  Well they are having big quilty giveaways over there and this week is multiple collections of Aurifil thread.  It's open Internationally so everyone can join in.  Why don't you go check it out?

Mr. No Quilt

Sunny never seems to care one way or the other about my sewing and quilting.  He could sleep on a soft surface but a hard one is fine as well.  He loves to sleep half in and half out of the sewing room as many of you know.  So today when I was tucking in thread ends I was surprised to see his face light up with his "let's cuddle!" expression.  Not one to turn down a bit of Sunny lovins, I called him up to me and his face lit up even brighter with his "I'm so glad I get to jump to you!" face.  After petting him for a time I went back to tucking in the thread ends of my Tropical Waves Quilt, and Sunny settled into my lap.  I was surprised that he was so content so I called for the resident camera man and this photo was taken just for you.

Hooray Tropical Waves is all quilted and off the frame, it seems like the thread tucking wont be to bad, so that is good as well.

Tiny the Quilt Model

I'm almost done with Tropical Waves, I was working on it yesterday and had high hopes to finish it, but I was fighting a headache and DH claimed the headache won when I ended up having to unpick a section of quilting, I was inclined to agree as nausea was setting in and it was clearly not a mere headache.  I'm feeling all better, though I still have a little bit of unpicking to do which shouldn't take to long and then I'll be off and quilting the very last border of this quilt, wont it be wonderful to see it off the frame?

While passing through the house I caught sight of my quilt model and just had to share.  She let me take one picture but when I started fussing with things and how it looked she said she was done it wasn't worth all that trouble.  Good thing her demands are simple; good cat food, a clean litter box, and her BFF aka DH.  Though if you are up for fulfilling wishes, Tiny would tell you that thunderstorms should be a thing of the past with only light drizzles to bring us rain, she also wishes to never be alone, and it would be nice if dirt disappeared forever.  Hey what can I say she's a cat after my own heart.

'Tis the Season for PUMPKINS!

As I mentioned we went to decorate pumpkins.  I was surprised how many mothers are very bossy when it comes to their children's artwork.  I tried to take my cues from them as what not to do and instead just tried to help DD make her pumpkin how she saw fit.  Many of the girls made girlie pumpkins which I found surprising, even DD with her love of Halloween.  No matter this is our pumpkin this year.  Isn't she a delightful Jill-O-Lantern?

Foto Finish - Spider Lilies in the Moonlight

Today's theme at Cat Patches is Old, and while I was sorely tempted to post a picture of my mother-in-law...  I lamented why couldn't the theme be new or young, I could have really had fun with that.  Oh well.  My Image of the Day is a picture DH took that I call Spider Lilies in the Moonlight (aren't you glad I didn't name you?).  Why are blooming Spider Lilies old?  You see when we bought our house in back when this century was young, the house came furnished.  We kept somethings, donated others and to this day some compliments will yield "it came with the house" around here.  Well now, these Spider Lilies came with the house.  I'm certain they must have been planted by the original owners wife who had passed away long before he found a new lady friend and decided to sell our home to us, and thereby they count as old.  And if that's not good enough reason that awful Cactus grew taller than the house and was chopped down and out by DH this past summer.

Southern Giant Darner Dragonfly

Today when we were just about ready to call it a day this Southern Giant Darner Dragonfly alighted my neighbor's leg and was inclined to stay there for a bit of a rest.  She's not one for bugs so I saved this one from the wrath of a tissue and convinced him to alight to my finger and then eventually onto our Hibiscus bush.  Then I came inside and went digging for what in the world was this huge dragonfly, which was clearly bigger than my hand.  So here's what I can tell you.  Southern Giant Darner Dragonflies can be as large as 5" from wingtip tip to wing tip and this one was bigger than my hand!  They fly fast, nearly 60 miles an hour so it is very difficult to capture a picture of them, but it is very windy here today and this one clearly needed a rest.  When I went back outside, after reading how hard they are to photograph, I went back to the exact spot and sure enough he was still there.  Quite a bit better off for the rest too, because he took off across the street as soon as I came around the corner of my house.  Good thing for a zoom or else I'm sure I wouldn't have been able to get close enough.  Ironic as I couldn't get him off my hand to unload the car not to long before!

I nearly forgot to add these Darner Dragonflies are called thus because of their resemblance to a darning needle.  I don't see it do you?

Christmas Quilt-a-long October Lunch

Here is my first pincushion, the white is turned pieces that I did the other day and then hand appliqued to the to of the red circle, though it could easily be machine appliqued.  I liked the peppermint and wondered if it would be a squeeze to get it's 5" to fit between the handles on the quilt frame.  Clearly it wasn't a problem.  I'm glad to say that I now have two pincushions.  One for the midarm quilting frame in the living room and my little chicken pincushion to live in the sewing room.  I think that means I need more pins.

On the bottom of this particular pincushion I attached the hook and loop side of a piece of Velcro and then I put the soft side strip of Velcro between the handles on the quilt frame that way it can't scratch me when I work if I decide to take off the pincushion..  This will keep the pincushion from falling down off of it's perch while I sew and allow me to remove it completely it it interferes with my view, and of course this way I can change it to a different theme if I decide to make another in the future.  

The free pattern can be found here if you're interested.  As for me, now I have to run DD and I are off to decorate pumpkins!

Christmas Quilt-a-long October Morning

Wow you can really feel the Autumn breezes in the air can't you?  It's just before 10 am here, and I have about an hour of sewing that I can do before my less quilted life interferes.  This is what Sunny looks like this morning, he's here but not ready to go.  I myself have everything for my peppermint pincushion laid out.  Of course I forgot to make myself a bit of tea to keep nearby so I'll have to get to that in a minute.

I planned to work on the quilt I've been calling Brown Turtles in the grass, but slept longer than I thought I would.  Waking up at 1 am something with your 6 year old in your arms, unable to move between DH and DD and wondering how it all came to be, will do that to you.  I went to the couch for about 2 hours, waking up every hour until DD came to find me and then tucked her in her own bed and I went happily back to bed as well.

Now some of you amazingly strong women are thinking why didn't you just scoop her up and carry her back to her own bed?  No way.  Even at her mere 40 pounds I would never carry her asleep though the dark.  She's to heavy and my walk isn't good enough after all what if I fell and dropped her?

I hope everyone has a productive day sewing today and I'll check back in after the chaos dies down.

The Great American Teach In Fabric Strips

Look at this wonderful rainbow of fabrics.  Aren’t these strips amazing?  As I mentioned the other day my friend Vicki sent me fabrics from her stash for the Great American Teach-In which is coming up this November; between her package, my stash, and a bit of shopping I came up with these 44 beautiful strips.  I think that’s a nice number for 20 children to pick their favorite from what about you?  My goal is to sew the strips the children select as representing themselves together and make a crayon quilt. Then I will quilt each child’s name onto their strip much like a Crayon label.   

So now I ask you, do you see any colors that are missing?  I’m showing you the fabrics two ways so you can see for yourself.  Does anything stand out in your mind as a color that isn’t visible as a choice?  I would hate to think of a child looking at the range of fabrics and not finding a particular color that came into their mind when I say art.

Now mind you that black fabric that is by the fabrics will be joining the strips too, but it’s an extra wide fabric and I want to wait to cut the strip until after I take what I need from the yardage for the Christmas Quilt-a-long tomorrow.

Peppermint Quilt Mock Ups 2

Oh my dear detail oriented followers!  I sure put you all in a tizzy over those last mockups I posted didn't I?  I'm sorry about that.  Last night I was reading Sue's book and I saw that the quilt block I'd selected in EQ5 because it looked like Sue's block (sort of) really didn't show the true block well at all, not to mention that block did not allow me to fully explore my fabric options the way I wanted to.  So let's try this again shall we?  This is the real Starstruck Block and I have amended both quilts to show the candy cane border everyone liked.  The first quilt showcases a change in the block and the addition of green.  I have also used a different blue in order to create a flow in the fabric print scale variation.

Queen Full Peppermint Quilt With Green

The second quilt sticks to Sue's three color block and keeps the original blue, but this time I have used a different pink print.  It is the same tones of pink, but it has big polka dots on it.  This was the pink I'd selected first but I thought the scale might be a bit big.  In retrospect it sure does look nice in the candy cane border doesn't it?  So tell me what do you like, what do you not like?  Note there is something going on with the scale of the blue snowflakes and the focus Peppermint fabric so those two details aren't showing as well as they should.

Peppermint Lap Quilt in Blue

No worries as any aspect can be matched to whatever my final quilt size decision is.  So after writing this post, I started to wonder what the green would look like with the large polka dot, so here is that for you to see as well.

Peppermint Lap Quilt with Green

Peppermint Quilt Mockups

Lap Quilt - 66" Square

Now as I mentioned the other day I already had the fabric in mind for my first quilt out of Sue's book.  That is to use a delightful peppermint fabric, which is complete with a candy house, little silhouettes, and candy flowers.  At this point I think I'll be using Sue's Starstruck pinwheel blocks, though I gulp over seeing how many flying geese she is calling for.  Flying Geese and I have never been good friends, so maybe Sue's method will beat out those "you have to have a plastic template flying geese madness".

Queen/Full - 88"Square

Here are my two favorites out of what I've started so far.  The first one is a lap quilt which would clearly cost less to make, and then just to see is a full/queen for my bed.  I have these Pine Cone flannel sheets that would match perfectly...  I didn't take the time to draft Sue's star blocks, that seemed like way to much work so I selected these paper pieced monstrosities as they convey a similar movement as Sue's blocks.  Also note I would not go to all of that effort over my candy cane borders, instead I would use 2.5" strips at 45 degree angles or something around there, but this was the easiest way to depict diagonal stripes with EQ5.

What do you think?  Any thoughts and or suggestions?

There's a Surprise on the Table...

Today I had a leisurely chat with a neighbor and when I came home my DH said "There's a Surprise for you on the table".  We chatted for a bit more and as I started to head inside, I asked if it was a package from my friend Vicki because she's sending me some fabrics for me to use with DD's class for the Great American Teach-In, though I hadn't started looking for that yet.  To which DH replies "you'll see".  As my eyes land on the package on the table I catch Sue's Blog Header on the outside of the package and then it all came rushing back.  When I didn't win of the the autographed copies I knew I'd be beating an online path to amazon before to long, but low and behold Sue had extra copies and was willing to sell them so I bought one of hers.  And now it's here!!   Yippee and Hooray!

Now I've been waiting on this book, of course but right after offering up the books for sale Sue hurt her back, so my "patience is a virtue" kicked in and I was sailing on that.  I have already selected the fabric I think will be my main headliner, and from the quilt previews on the publishers website I thought I'd picked the quilt too.  But of course now the book is here and just simply flipping through it tells me there are many others so we'll just have to see.  Okay you're right, I'll have to hurry up and figure it out because many of my compliment fabrics are on clearance right now so I need to get my butt in gear.

I have to say Sue's quilting and quilts are even prettier in this book than in the blog pictures I've seen. Sheesh, it's lovely!

Also on my plate is the knowledge that Jessica will need a Halloween costume, her school allows all of the children to dress up - within reason and nothing scary.  She told me she would like to be a fairy princess, which means a beautiful dress and wings, so we shall see what I can dig up in the way of patterns.

The Miracles After The Fact

DD loves her new pj's, they are simply huge on her but she's happily worn them three nights running.  Oh yes and before I forget for all of you hardcore stick to the rules people - children shouldn't wear 100% cotton pj's unless they are form fitting.  Ah well, is what I have to say to that, at least she's happy and comfortable. Which is good because we're entering a little cold spell.  Yippie!  I got to wear long pants today!

You see Florida residents are a little crazy when it comes to the cold.  Winter sweaters, long pants, leather jackets and so forth, see very little time outside of the closet so as soon as the first cold breeze blows we all run to our closets to pull out our favorite warm things.  Granted by the end of winter I, like you really want to have a burst of warm days in order to get my shorts and put the on again.

After tucking DD into bed two nights ago this is the face that greeted me, I saw her tucked in the shadows.  Tiny has discovered how to cuddle with the quilts in progress even when they are on the frame, and of course I had to take a picture or two and show them to you.  Yes the lighting is bad, but it was bedtime and that's my excuse.  For the record Tiny is watching DD in the kitchen who snuck out of bed for a drink of water while I was taking this picture.

Do you recall those plants DD and DH planted?  Well this is the one little cucumber that survived through the slight neglect of us forgetting the seedlings were there.  Now that it's in a nice big pot with the trellis I'm starting to wonder if we might actually get to experience fresh cucumbers in December.  Yes I know the flowers will have to be self pollinated by humans who care or else it's doubtful we'll see much of anything.  I have grown veggies before you know.

Foto Finish: Feet

I nearly forgot about Cat Patches Foto Finish, yesterday's theme was feet.  So after going back to my old pictures, I found this one that I'm certain I've never shared. These were my daughter's shoes before before the days that she could walk.  My momma always told me that if children can't walk there is no sense trying to keep shoes on their feet so don't even bother buying them.  She always felt it was better to invest in quality baby socks that stayed on instead of being worried over loosing shoes and I saw the logic in that. So I didn't buy any of these shoes. Instead they came to me as hand me downs from friends and family.  As you can see most of them have never been worn and many still had stickers on them.  When DD outgrew the possibility of wearing them I happily donated them all to Hospice and sent them all paired together off for frugal Grandma's to pick through and gush over.