Can you do it!?? in only ONE WORD

Saw this on Dawn's blog and thought it was fun to pass along. Remember one word only!!!

One Word for -1. Yourself: smart
2. Your partner: cute
3. Your hair: brown
4. Your Mother: sweet
5. Your Father: disciplinarian
6. Your favorite item: quilts
7. Your dream last night: weird
8. Your favorite drink: coffee
9. Your dream home: florida
10. The room you are in: office
11. Your pleasure: quilting
12. Your fear: heights
13. Where you want to be in ten years: retired
14. Who you hung out with last night: hubby
15. What you're not: thin
16. Your best friends: quilters
17. One of your wish list items: maid
18. Your gender: female
19. The last thing you did: drove
20. What you are wearing: skirt
21. Your favorite weather: sunny
22. Your favorite book: fiction
23. Last thing you ate: muffin
24. Your life: chaotic
25. Your mood: good
26. The last person you talked to on the phone: client
27. Who you are thinking about right now: dinner

It's harder to do than you think!!! Thanks, Dawn...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MEMA!!!!

My good friend, Diane, has done something that most of us only dream of. She opened a quilt shop, Clover Hill Quilts, in Kensington, CT. Diane's mom, Peggy, a.k.a. Mema, has been helping out in the shop since the opening. Mema was always a sewer but never a quilter. Of course, spending so much time around quilters she has been infected with the quilting bug.

On Friday mornings, a group of us meet at Clover Hill and sew, drink coffee, gab, wait for the UPS man to bring new fabric and of course, buy more fabric. This past Friday, we celebrated Mema's 70th birthday. (She doesn't look a day over 30!!!!) This is a picture of the Birthday Girl and the Redwork pillow I made for her to celebrate her special day and her dive into the quilting pool. (And I do mean dive, Mema is working on her third quilt. She has only been quilting for a couple of months!!!) I found this "Quilter's Blessing" on Bonnie's website and thought it was appropriate for our newest member.

Happy Birthday Mema!!  

Fabric Painting with Michele Scott, The Pieceful Quilter

Our guild, Apple Valley Quilters, had Michele Scott, www.Thepiecefulquilter.com come to Connecticut for a fabric painting workshop. Our Prez, Debbie, was kind enough and crazy enough to let us set up in her backyard and paint. These are some pictures of what I did that day. The first is an example of sunpainting which was easy!! Once I painted the prepared fabric, (PFD fabric) I placed leaves, ferns or whatever on the fabric and let it dry... That was it. Michele had a quilt made with 8 inch blocks with ferns in each one. It was fabulous.

My second picture is an example of painting the fabric and folding it so it drys with creases. The third picture is a landscape which Michele painted and gave to me. She didn't think it came out well!?! We spent the first part of the morning learning different techniques for painting fabric and then the afternoon, Michele focused on painting landscapes. The last picture is a half yard that I painted using the pearlescent paints. This picture doesn't show it well but the colors are fabulous and has a sheen to it.

This is not the same as dyed fabric. With painted fabric, the paint is heat set and is basically on the surface. You wouldn't want to use this for quilts that will get a lot of washing or clothing for kids. The friction from wearing and the washer and dryer will eventually wear the paint down. But Michele has washed her quilts on a delicate cycle and line dried. I like her philosophy that quilts are to be used and will eventually wear out. But this fabric is perfect for wall hangings and is easy to do.

I am sewww happy I have finally figured out how to get my pictures loaded. I have more to show next week of my redwork pillow which is finished. I am also happy to report that my HSTs are now blocks. Unfortunately, I am not the most accurate quilter so my 2 1/2 inch blocks needed to be trimmed a bit more to make them all square... Oh, well, the mini quilt will just be a Micro mini quilt!!

I was happy to see that my blog gals had checked in on me. I am still here!! I am headed for the beach today with DH. This will be the first wearing of the dreaded swimsuit since last year. EEEEKK!!

Tomorrow I am headed to a local quilt show with my friend, Debbie. I will take pics and post so you can see some of our local talent. I will try not to spend too much $$$. But as I told one of my blog gals, I had already made a date to "fall off the wagon"...

Hope everyone has a great weekend.! Keep cool!!! It's supposed to be in the 90's here this weekend...
 

ODE TO STRING!!! for the scrappy gals

At last!!!!, here are the pictures of my challenge quilt which I called Dizzy Diamonds. Our guild does a challenge every year and this year the challenge was to make a quilt using "strings". In addition, the quilt had to include ORANGE and use of your stash was encouraged. My quilt was entirely from my stash except for the navy blue borders which are hard to see and the backing. I made this quilt for my DS's bed and he actually likes it!!  

Long time, No Blog

Well gals,

I know it has been a few days since I last posted. I have been up to my eyeballs with work at work. I did take some pictures of my Ode to String challenge quilt and the fabric I painted in my workshop last week but I am having problems posting them!@!!

SEW>>> tonight after everyone is settled in, I will try to post photos....
I have been checking on everyone all week and see that some of you have been super productive.. Keep up the good work!!

Til tonight... Quilt til you Wilt!!!!!

THE WILD GARDEN

I spent two hours last night out in the yard, weedin' the Garden of Eden. Several years ago, my DH and I decided to take all of the grass out of the backyard (which we both hated to mow) and put in a pond and gardens. The idea was that after all the plantings were done there would be little work to do!! LOL!! WHAT WAS I THINKING???? Although I now love the yard, I still spend a great deal of time out there. I do love to garden as does DH but things have gotten a little wild and crazy out there. DH loves orphan plants. He digs things up and brings them home and sometimes we are not sure what it is. For instance, the butterfly bush that he thought was lavender. So I find that I am now reevaluating the layout and needing to move plants that have outgrown their space. Of course, they can't be moved NOW so I have been attempting to tame the wild garden. I bring this up because the time I thought I would spend trimming HSTs yesterday was spent in the garden. Oh, well!!! In the spirit of gardening, I am posting a picture of a little quilt I made for a dear friend a few years ago. She is the ultimate gardener and at the time I made this for her, she was dealing with elderly parents and wild teenagers and had little time to garden. So, I made her garden that she could look at and not have to weed!!!

As for the HSTs for my little civil war quilt, they are trimmed and pressed and ready to be put together. Hopefully, I will have the top done by the end of the weekend.

Bridie's Batik jacket

Here is a picture of my niece and fairy goddaughter, Brigid. We call her Bridie. She is wearing her "Auntie Ann Jacket" which I recently made for her 3rd birthday. My SIL sent me this picture last week. Don't let that smile fool you!!! She is a little demon. Her brother and two sisters are TRIPLETS!!. After three babies at once, my SIL must have been possessed to have another!! She is spoiled rotten by all in our family !!!

I was inspired by Finn (http://finnleah.blogspot.com ) to pull out an old UFO kit that I started last winter after she showed off her new civil war fabric purchases. I want to report that I am making good progress on the HSTs that make up this project. Now, I know why I put it away!! I hate HSTs!!! This quilt is approximately 16 x 20 and totally made up of HSTs in 1.5 and 3.5 inches. As I was sewing and the little devils were being sucked periodically into my machine, I muttered on more than one occasion "Finn!!!" However, finally light dawned and I remembered that I had forgotten to change out the plate to a single hole on the machine. Once that was done, I moved along quickly. I can report that I have a large pile of HSTs waiting to be pressed and trimmed. I hope to have them done by week's end and can start putting the rows together and post pics of my progress..

TGIF - My day off

Well, we made it to the weekend!!! Actually, my weekend starts on Thursday night since I have Fridays off. I work 36 hours in 4 days. It's worth it to have an extra day to do the mundane things, like food shopping, laundry etc. I thought before I headed out I would check in on my blog buddies and I spent some time with Lucy in the Netherlands.http://lucyquilting.blogspot.com I found a great posting she did about her little daughter discovering quilting. It almost made me cry!!! SEW, since I am new at this blogging thing, I thought I would share a couple of pictures of my family. The first one is of my DH, Bob. We have been on the rollercoaster ride of marriage for 24 years. I love him dearly and can't imagine there is another man on earth who would put up with me. The second pic is of my son, Alex, and me in Vermont last spring. He is our one and only (for many reasons)!!! He turns 20 in August and is studying Ski Resort Management at Lyndon State College in Vermont. He put on a snowboard at age 12 and never looked back. It makes me laugh that I am spending $$$$ for him to learn how to make snow!!! Especially since I detest the winter. Well I am off to the quilt shop!!! Hope everyone has a Happy Weekend!!! BTW, I have been inspired by Finn to finish a little civil war repro quilt I started ages ago. Will show you the progress later!! I might even hand quilt it!

My First Finished Quilt

After roaming through Blogland yesterday to several quilters' blogs, I was inspired to pull out some photos of quilts I had completed. This one is the first quilt I ever finished. (I say that because the first quilt I ever started is still in my closet and also has the honor of being my first UFO, more about that one later.)

This quilt was made for my sister in Florida. She and her husband have a zillion cats, not really, but she has at least 4. (Sorry the picture is so small) My sister, Kathy, was actually the one who infected me with the QUILTING VIRUS . I, however, have surpassed her in a few short years. I have a bigger stash, 2 more machines than she has, and tons more gadgets!!! (so there!! you can't see me right now but I am sticking out my tongue at her!!!) Actually, she is my best friend in the world and I bless her daily for introducing me to quilting. I have made so many friends through fabric.

OK, new subject! I am not a hand quilter. I don't mind doing little quilts but the thought of doing a full size by hand is daunting and machine quilting something that big is not much fun either. You know, shoving all that fabric through the little opening on the machine. SEW, For Christmas, my DH, with my assistance, bought me a Gracie II machine quilting frame. He put it together in my sewing room and there it sat for a while. I finally put my Janome on it and realized that the opening was going to be too small for machine quilting. SEW, for Mother's Day, my DH, again with my assistance, bought me a Janome 1660P with a speed control. This machine is a workhorse and does 1600 stitches per minute. Well, this sat in my sewing room for some time because of previous quilting commitments. ANY WHO, last night, DH and DS were out and about, so I set the machine up on the frame and after an hour, I had the machine threaded, the bobbin wound, and some practice fabric on the frame and off I went.

WOW!!!! This is going to be some fun!! By this time, it was about 10pm so I headed to bed with visions of quilting designs dancing in my head. I will try to get some pics of my frame and my practice work next week.

My Oriental Jacket

This is a jacket that I made in a class about a month ago. The pattern is called Mismatched Jacket. I love oriental style fabrics and have been collecting it for a while. When I saw this jacket, my orientals called to me. The original jacket has a typical quilters' binding on the collar but I when Istarted to put my binding on the japanese writing ran right down the front and around the collar and I knew I couldn't turn that to the inside. SEW.. I fiddled with it so that the collar stands up like a Mandarin Collar and the Japanese writing can be seen runnning down the front facing. I don't know what it says but I hope it says "FINALLY FINISHED A PROJECT IN LESS THAN 6 MONTHS" :)!!!

The pics are not close and I will try to add others showing more detail. I have done some beading on it but the consensus is that it is not enuf ( is it ever enuf???!!) So I will take a few more pictures when I am done.

This little jacket is perfect for the office during the summer with the AIR CONDITIONING BATTLE between myself and the BIG BOSS. He is Lebanese and always HOT, I am Irish and always FREEZING unless it is is 80 or above. I was pleased with the result and will probably make a couple more. The jacket, once cut only takes about an hour or so to make.

fabric weaving

Last night at our guild meeting of the Apple Valley Quilters, I demonstrated a technique I had seen on "Simply Quilts" some time ago on fabric weaving. Strips of fabric are fused to fusible interfacing and then can be cut to any shape or size. In the SQ demo, the quilter was making a wall hanging and had woven the fabric in monochromatic colors to represent the ground, the sky and had cut a piece to resemble a tree. I thought this technique would be fun to incorporate in other projects. In my sample, I used batiks and 1 inch strips. Our guild ladies are all currently into making jackets, tote bags, purses, etc. I am going to incorporate my woven fabric as panels for a jacket.

I've posted some pictures of the different results we got. Some quilters cut different size strips from 1/2 inch to 1 1/2 inches which gave a different look. Mickey, with the green shirt, cut her base fabric curvy which looks really neat.

Our guild meets once a month. The summer meetings are more for fun since kids are out of school and everyone is here, there,and everywhere on vacation. We have a pretty creative group and do several different challenges throughout the year as well as workshops. Our next workshop is two weeks away. Michelle Scott is coming to do a fabric painting workshop. The fabric for my art quilt in my previous post was done in one of her workshops. She is a lot of fun!!! My next post will be pictures of a jacket I made in a class using Oriental fabrics. I still have some beading to do in it.

I am a daffodil

I am a Daffodil What Flower Are You?

Found this on a quilter's blog- Pieces from my Scrapbag http://finnleah.blogspot.com and thought it was fun!! The Quilt Mavericks are out there with a blog ring and I am determined to become a member. Now it's just a matter of finding time to keep my blog current and add some pictures. I have added this to my endless "to do" list. Hope I can get it done!!!