Saturday, December 25, 2010

Merry Christmas!


Hope everyone has a wonderful and joyful
Christmas with their families and friends!

Monday, December 6, 2010

Christmas decorations

Today we got a lot of snow, at least 6-8 inches. 
Joe had to snow blow the driveway twice today, 
after shoveling snow all day at work!
I went out to shop a little this morning and 
really enjoyed it since there were very few people
in the stores. LOL!!
I finished up the tree this morning and rearranged the 
furniture a little. It'll do for the Christmas season, I don't 
think we could live with it this way for too long.
The last few years I have been using red and white as the 
colors for the tree. Lots of red balls, white snowflakes, clear glass birds,
white birds and a couple of silver balls. I bought a couple of 
Hallmark ornaments last year and added a few this year. I'm planning
to add a few each year from now on. I love their ornaments but
they are expensive, so a few a year are all I'm going to do.
Skittles thinks I've made him a bed under the tree.
I guess that is his Christmas present.......

Friday, December 3, 2010

Snow

First snowfall in December, and thank goodness the weather
man says we won't be getting too much. 
I'm trying to put up the Christmas decorations but I'm not in the mood yet
and I feel like I'm coming down with a cold or something. I think I'll curl up with Skittles and read some blogs or read a book. In between naps of course! :)

Thursday, November 25, 2010

Thanksgiving

What a day!
First we (or Joe did) got up early to get the bird in the oven by 7am.
Then we went out to breakfast with friends.
Came home and finished up dinner preparations to serve dinner at 12:30.

Joe kept checking the turkey.
He made Liz's favorite.
The table was set.
We even used the salt cellars that my mom gave me.
Turkey was checked again.
Yeah! It's done!

Candles were lit.
Shrimp was served.
Liz was happy.
Anthony was happy.
Waving hi to family not with us today.
Hi, everyone! :)
Sorry Joe, you got cut out in editing!!!!
Pies were served...
on new dishes.
Skittles even got into the Thanksgiving mode.
He ate some turkey and then took a nap.
Anthony and Liz had to leave early to go to another
Thanksgiving gathering.
So we (Joe) finished up the cleaning and then we ( I ) dozed in the chair.
I have the best husband!
Thanks, Joe!

Hope everyone had as good a day as I had!
:)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Friday, November 5, 2010

I'm still learning to make cards

I have been spending a lot of time on the computer looking at some of the cards that are being made. 
So many of them are way beyond my abilities! 
I'm starting to think that next year I may get myself a 
Cricket Expressions machine but for now I'm just going to plug along with what I have. 
I needed a birthday card for someone near and dear and I heard she loves all the bird designs that are so popular now. 
I must admit that I love the bird designs also! :) 
I bought a bird on a branch lamp for my new dresser and today I bought a straw owl. 
He's so cute!!
I found a card I liked in a gallery and was trying to figure out how I could emulate the artists design and style. 
So I dug out a few supplies that I had and set to work. 
I had the bird stamp and went from there. 
I didn't want the rest of the stamped images I used to stand out too much so I used one of the distress stamp pads I have, by Tim Holtz.
 I don't remember what color offhand. 
Then I had to use the edger punch and messed up the first one I punched out.
 Talk about complicated figuring out how to get the punched scroll edge just the right distance from the edge of the music! LOL! 
Finally I got it the way I wanted it. 
Then I had to find paper to use for the background with the flowers I had, which is not too many. Choices were limited but I was quite happy with this ugly peach color flower. 
It goes great with the color on the music page and the card stock background I chose from my stash. Now it is no longer ugly.
 I did rip out the center bead that they used and added one of the many buttons I got from my mom. 
Thanks, mom! :)
 I happened to have a small amount of the yarn/string which was a perfect fit for this card!
 After I put the card together I decided that it needed one more element, the brads in the upper corner. 
So I had to carefully pry up the edge and measure out where I wanted to put the brads.

 Finally, done! 

And I love it.
 In fact, I love it so much I'm going to try to make one for me and put it in a frame! 
But the funny thing is that it really doesn't look like the card I was using as inspiration!
 It has a bird, music and a flower but that is about it.
 So I guess this is my own. 
:) 

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Candy bowl

Sunday, October 24, 2010

I bought myself a present!

I've been saving a long time for a new dresser and I finally decided on the one I like.
I searched everywhere for a style and color I liked. 
I just love the color, chestnut. I even love the name.
The glowing thing in the center of the dresser is a reflection from the lamplight on
the mirror tray. The reflection looks like something ghostly is hovering over the dresser! :) 
I do want to eventually get a new TV, one that doesn't take up so much room, but for now 
that is something I can do without.
Anyway, this dresser is just what I've been waiting for and I even got it on sale! Yeah!!!
.....
I'm still working on making a few cards. This is one of my newest.

And this is the inside of the card.
Tomorrow I'm off to buy new curtains and maybe start a search for a new bedspread.
I'm pretty picky so it may take me a while to decide on a style and color that I can live with.
:)

Saturday, October 9, 2010

I got side tracked!

I decided to make a few Halloween cards and POOF! a mess appeared on my desk. 
You would think that with stuff covering two desks, an ironing board and part of the floor that I would have more to show for it.
I have made three cards. Three! 
With all the supplies I've bought down through the years, they probably cost me $1,000 each! :)

Monday, October 4, 2010

What can I say...

I guess it takes me awhile to finish things.


After finishing the last quilt I started to clean up my sewing room and found this in a basket.
This poor quilt had been moved from spot to spot for years waiting for someone :) to put a binding on it. So I took pity on it and decided to finally do it.
 The problem was deciding what fabric to use to blend with all the different fabrics in the quilt.
I had been looking for something to grab me at the stores every once in a while down through the years. Sometimes I'd bring a fabric home to use but when I put it by the quilt it didn't seem right for some reason.

 Or I would accidentally use it in another project.

Well, I finally just dug through the fabrics I had and found this cream and blue print. This is a fabric I used in some of the first quilts I ever made in the 80's. I bet I can find this print in all my scrap quilts I've ever made!
I'm sure it will feel real good to finally finish this up!
:)

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Finished the Make Life quilt!

I finished quilting the Make Life quilt and got the binding on last night.
Today I washed it to give it the nice crinklyness
 ( a new word I invented!) :)
I'm not real sure I love this design, I love the fabric and I like the quilting I did on the sides but I'm not sure this will be a design I'll do again. Though I do have enough fabric from the charm squares ready to make another one, this one in more blues and browns. I have to make it since I already have the fabric, I don't want to waste the money. I'm a little afraid the backing will show through to the front.
I took this photo in my basement, at night so forgive the shadows. In this pic you can see the quilting I did. I used the shape of the flowers from the backing and just added squiggly lines between them. When I was finished I added more squiggly lines to fill the space. I like the effect, gives it a "girly" look.
I love the fabric with the words on it, I tried to get some more of the print with the words in multi colors but haven't been able to find it. I guess I have to be more on the ball for next time.
Haven't decided what I'm going to make next. I have to finish one of the pink quilts but have several projects I want to make for 
ME! 
:)

Friday, September 24, 2010

Hand quilting again


I started hand quilting the Make Life baby quilt
the other day and it is going pretty well. I'm quilting in the ditch 
around the squares. I love the feel of this fabric, I wish all my fabric felt
so smooth and soft!
This is not my normal style but I'm loving the modern feel, I hope the
mama I'm giving this quilt to enjoys the modern design as much as I do!

Friday, September 17, 2010

One top finished and one pinned together



I pinned a quilt top for quilting today and now I will have it ready to go when I get the urge to hand quilt. I taped it to the table top and pinned it half at a time, much easier than crawling on the floor!

Also today I was able to finish a top I started a few weeks ago.
 I fell in love with the Pure Baby Boy quilt that the
posted about in July. 
I used the Make Life fabric line to make mine.
 I didn't follow their directions too well. :)
 I used 8- 21/2 inch squares for my top (they used 6)  with that being bordered by another 2 1/2 inch strip(they used 1 1/2 inch).
 I had fun trying to get the fabrics all in a "random" order! :) 
Then I added about 15" of off white fabric for the sides.
 I might cut that down as I'm not too happy with it as it is now.
 But I marked it today for the quilting I will be doing.
Moda Bake Shop just used straight line quilting, 
I will be using a curvy line with flowers inserted about every 12 inches. 
The flowers will mimic the backing fabric I will be using.


I can't wait to get this quilt pinned up so I can start to quilt it. 
The baby this is for is due in October, so I better get cracking!
:)

Paper piecing a scrap quilt


I have a huge tub of scrap pieces of fabric that I've been saving for awhile. I even save some
pieces as big as 1 inch square! I decided that since I was tired of
 pink (from making all the pink baby quilt tops) that I needed to work with all different colors. So I pulled out the tub, put it by the sewing table and cut some paper into strips. I used varying widths but cut them 8 inches long. Then I used the sew and flip method of stitching the fabric to the paper.
I paper pieced three strips of scraps, then stitched them together and cut to 8 1/2 inch square.


I used some fabric from my mom, my daughter and both my grandmothers.
The red and blue flower print in the center strip above is from my mom.
I'm pretty sure the green and gray flower print in the bottom of this
 block is from my Grandma Cox.
The pink flower print in this photo is my daughters
graduation dress that I made for her.

The orange blue green check in this block is from one of my Grandma Becker's
house dresses she always wore, 
I stitched them  in rows with 2 1/2 inch strips of black with white pin dots.

Tomorrow I will stitch the rest of the sashing to the blocks. I like the
 way the black pin dot makes the blocks appear to "float". Right now I'm planning to add 5 inch borders to make this a quilt long enough to snuggle with in my chair.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Dinner!

We had to have the oven serviced on Monday, the broiler wasn't working and I finally ran out of recipes that didn't call for the use of either a broiler or the oven. I even made tuna casserole on the stovetop one day. So I called John to come and fix the oven. He discovered the heating element thingy on both the broiler and the oven were in need of replacing. 
So this is my $170 quiche.
I'm sure we will enjoy every bite! :)

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Still playing with pink

I'm still playing with my basket of pink fabric.


These are my favorites of the lot.



I cut up some 2 1/2 inch squares and came up with this simple design.
43"x 47"

Then I saw this border on a quilt somewhere and decided to see how it
would work. I like it.
45" x 53"

 I found this idea
in one of the many magazines I have, can't remember which one right now.
I already had the 2 1/2 inch squares cut and just had to make the
half square triangles.  I decided to make the corner squares to extend into
the border. 
Boy, it needs an ironing doesn't it!
I'm going to bind this one in pink polka dots.
40" x 56"

This is a quilt top I made some time ago, and am still using some of these fabrics
in the new quilt tops. 
I especially love the butterflies.
I've got to finish this one!



I still have lots of pink fabric left, so I decided to try 
this pattern that I saw in a catalog. I drew it out on graph paper
since the size I wanted was smaller than the one they were showing.
I hope I have enough to finish this top as I'm not sure how much I
will need for the bottom of the blocks.
Sorry for the bad photo, not sure why the fabric appears yellow
at the top of the picture. Might be the Ott light I have on my cutting table.


Next I'm going to do the
Pure Baby Boy pattern shown on the Moda Bake shop blog.
I figure I have enough pink 2 1/2 inch squares to make it, maybe two of them
if I like it enough. 
You can find the "recipe" here.

I do so love the Moda Bake Shop blog, they have a pinwheel baby quilt that I want
to make also. Check out their website.
 I expect I'll be totally sick of pink pretty soon. Then I'll have to figure out what to do next. 
I do have another laundry basket full of yellows....................