more quilts to share

These were a few more of the quilts that the Bama Belles had for "Show and Tell" at the Christmas party last week.


First up--Lois' Scrappy Trip Around the World" from quiltville.com. I think Lois might be the queen of scraps around here!


Lois' Butterfly---do not know the pattern source though it is a little like the Marsha McCloskey version in Quilts for Katie Rose. She has some machine embroidered butterflies in the mix as well.


Linda C Scrappy Courthouse Steps is what I called it for the document---I quilted it for her.



Aline's version of our "Non- Mystery" Mystery quilt AKA Trudie Hughes' Jacob's Elevator from Crib Quilts. I made some adaptations in the pattern and passed it out in several steps this past year. She did hers in two colors.

Next, another of Linda C's scrappy quilts using the leftover fabrics from another project. Stashbusting!


This next one was pieced by Lois but the fabric is some that had once belonged to Linda C. I like the light green with the browns in this one. Linda didn't see the possibilities for this mix but looks like Lois found a use for them.



Marilyn is shown with one of two Christmas samplers. Most of the blocks were made in a Christmas block exchange for the JOY Quilt Guild in Jacksonville (AL) They have done this exchange for a couple of years.


Linda C's version of Twin Sisters from Eleanor Burns' book Quilts Through the Seasons. Lois had one as well and I quilted both of them recently. Linda is making a larger bedsized version now. This is one that I would like to make too.


And that concludes the showing of the quilts.

On a personal note I got the Christmas decorations put up Saturday afternoon. The nativity set is up, the Santas and angels are up as are the holiday wall hangings and such. I put the snow village up as well. The whole shooting match. The VCR is gone so I appropriated the space atop the entertainment center this year that I would ordinarily not have. My friend Judy had gifted me with an etched holiday plate the other day and that led to a hunt for a plate stand I knew was somewhere----bathroom cabinet or kitchen buffet?? "Chain reaction cleaning " ( to borrow a phrase from Pam) ensued till I laid hands on it, LOL. (Buffet drawer, under the pile of placemats)

DJ was sitting at the table eating breakfast and I was seated on the couch looking at a recipe book when we heard something crash to the floor. "What was that?" he says and Skyler goes running out the kitchen. I replied that my guess would be one of the sheep in the nativity set. Sure enough, one is missing. I have hunted and I cannot find that thing anywhere. The shepherd is being no help in the herding either. I don't know if Skyler hauled it off when he ran and dropped it I don't know where or if it has skittered somewhere on that laminate floor. I've been down on my belly twice today with the flashlight and only came up with a ribbon thing I pinned together for him, two rubber bands and a candy wrapper.

We decided to put up the tree as well and just use some red velvet bows and white lights----both strands are not working so that's at a standstill. Skyler seemed fascinated with the bow on the tree skirt but has since gone on to napping. Come to think of it, so has DJ, LOL. Me? Grocery errands have been run and I am getting ready to pack up some of those quilts I just showed you. The snow village is up atop the armoire in my bedroom so no stashing quilts up there till after Christmas! I wonder how long it will be before a little black and white tuxedo kitty decides to hop up there and run off with a tree or little porcelain people?

Have a happy day in whatever you chose to do--------

Habitat Challenge quilts

For any of my new readers, the last four years the quilt group has done a challenge quilt and the resultant quilts have been donated to Wrap Them In Love. The goal is to have a top or a completed quilt for "show and tell" at the Christmas party. This year was no different and I'll share those pics with you in a minute---as many as blogger will let me upload in one post and overflow if I have in another post, okay?

In 2005 I found a primary colored paint spill print at Hancock Fabrics. If you are really bored and want to troop through the later pages of the "Belles 05 album" you can spot them in the later numbers of my webshot album HERE. On page 10 for example 1389-05 uses some of that fabric choice.

In 2006 Cher and her Portland Piecers shared a lovely butterfly print. You can see our quilts on the link I just gave you. Her group was to make quilts from the same fabric and I suppose you can spot them on the WTIL gallery pages for that year.

When I mentioned on the WTIL group list that I was looking for about 5-6 yards of something our pal Kitty in KY came to the rescue and sent me enough yardage to use for several years to come. In 2007 we used the Michael Miller Merkitty fabric. Those quilts can be see in two posts HERE and HERE.

So here we are in 08 and working with a stylized Habitat fabric in green. Kitty had sent two fabrics from the same line so a couple of the girls had a slightly different piece. I don't think that they were quite as thrilled with this one but they rose to the occasion, I have to say. Maybe that was the real challenge this time since the colors were a little hard to match? I DO believe that we have some fun doing this project as they are already asking when I will be giving out the fabric for the next one. 2009 will be red lunch pails so they have a hint anyway. I'll pull that one out when I look for backing fabric for the 4 tops that were just turned in.

A couple tops will be delayed as fabric was misplaced or life just plain intervened. That happens--no pressure from me. The first quilt I will be showing was one of those delayed quilts. Pat M has been building a new home for the last 18 months or so---how she got any sewing done with all that going on, I'll never know! Liz in SC offered to quilt a top for us on her Handiquilter set up and it was just turned in after binding completion. I wish I had taken the picture when Pat had it draped over her! Thanks again, Liz. Pat was thrilled with how it came out.


The next two tops are from Linda S. She got a "bonus" top out of the deal. She made this log cabin top 2nd with the Habitat fabric used in the narrow border. The print she used was from a piece of clothing she found at a local thrift store. Recycling! The other one, below, she did a log cabin variation with the beginning square the challenge fabric.





Next up is Lois' Puss in the Corner quilt. She has some lovely machine embroidered squares alternating with the Puss blocks. The plaid in the quilt I believe she said was an old Dan River print that at one time had belonged to her MIL? I showed the top earlier this summer but here it is with some lovely curved quilting.

This one belongs to Linda C--the rust fabric seemed to be a good choice with this fabric plus she picked up the other greens and gold colors. I quilted it for her a month or so back.


Here is Beverly with her version. I think she used one of the Wicked Easy patterns or something similar?? I had sent them an online link for them to check out and she tried it out here. Again the golds and oranges seemed to contrast nicely with the Habitat fabric.


Marilyn said her version was "hot off the press" and she had leftovers so I see some of this fabric turning up in another quilt since she gave it back to me. She framed the cut squares with 3 inch strips all around in two colors and then used about a 10 inch to cut them at an angle in a wonky manner.


These last two are mine---I had posted my version of the Jungle Nine patch on here before. If I had not cut out a bonus quilt I would have worked in one more square at the bottom of the quilt. I added one more nine patch row to mine and skipped the borders. I used the leftover peach fabrics as well as the light green pin dot from the J9P for the Puss in the Corner below --the peach toile is the background and the pin dot, the binding which still needs to be stitched down. I think Nancy volunteered for that detail and one of the others we held up. Oh, the plaid in the J9P is also the backing on the PIC. Stash busting or working in series??





I have more pictures to share as there were others that were completed. I'll save those for another post. Once I started yakking, you can't get me to shut up, LOL. Stay tuned!

unofficial blogging break?

Time flies. I'm not going to say that I can't believe it has been two weeks since I last posted as that is almost a cliche. Nothing much to say lately. Don't you need some pictures to go on these things? Well, I STILL have not completed those darned appliance covers which is the main thing I have been supposedly sewing recently. Just don't feel like sewing. It is hard to talk about busting stash or sewing when you aren't doing either of those things. What's more, I am not even thinking about the next pattern I would like to try. That is unusual for me.

It is not that I have been busy with holiday preparations either. DJ and I have little shopping to do though I did run a few errands mid week. I have not been busy decorating the house for Christmas either. It rained for several days this week. DJ said we had about 4 inches of rain, all told, so we have/had a muddy mess in the yard and water collection on the car port. I did not want to get of that mess in the house just to haul the decorations in from the shed. It could wait a few days. We have almost ruled out the idea of putting up the tree anyway since a little black and white boy kitty will surely be too nosy about that whole deal! He'll string up some lights on the cedar tree outside at some point. At the very least I'll put up the Nativity set and a few of the Christmas themed wall hangings.

I DID print up address labels for both of us---his cards are out while mine still sit but in my defense I had a bulk mailing to do earlier in the week for the Belles' Christmas party. (The date kept changing so it was a bit like mailing Jell-O to the wall, LOL) I was working off an old data file and had to update my lists. Something that I had not done with the switchover/upgrade earlier this year till I had to. I need to type up the note to go with my cards---that's the hang up there. Maybe this afternoon..........

I have been a little more involved with cooking lately. I find myself scanning the recipe files to find new ways to fix some of the old ingredients. I have 6 lbs of apples to use up from a buy one, get one sale so the pecan pie bars I planned to make for the Christmas party turned into Apple Pecan Cake, my sister-in-law's recipe. DJ thought I made it just for us though. He was not listening when I told him it was for the potluck. He was all set for dessert on Thursday night. I decided we would keep the Jemison Inn Holiday Eggnog Pie that I had also made (while he was napping) as I figured it would be harder to keep frozen at the party. Funny though, I thought I had some nog leftover last time I made this and we had a couple egg nog lattes?

I made my own pizza crust the other day and found out I need some help in the yeast and bread making area. My troubles might have been because I don't think I put the dough hooks in the mixer the right direction and then had the wrong size mixing bowl. Did the dough even raise properly??? I had to get the mixer manual out to read up but did that after the fact. It tasted fine, even used the stone to cook it, but it sure was not a thing of beauty on the edge of it. In fact, DJ said much the same thing---"it didn't look that hot but it sure tasted good" LOL, I should have had him roll it out as he worked in a pizza shop years ago as a moonlight job. Heck, he can probably even hand toss the dough with a little practice. I find myself yearning for a taste of fresh baked cinnamon rolls and not sure just how to go about making that happen. I think it is Judy L and Libby's "fault" as well as some other cooking blogs I have linked to lately. I want to be a better cook, try some new tricks and enjoy the process rather than rush through the deal and fix the same old, same old just to get the job done. I can "do" egg whites now without freezing up about it, so I think pie crusts and breads should be next.

Also on my mind--a few of the quilting goals I would like to set for myself this year, besides learning how to make bread. I know I have another t-shirt quilt to do after the first of the year. A WTIL challenge quilt top with "that fabric" should be done by the end of January. A FAB challenge will need to be in the mail by Feb. 1st too. Two of the Belles just turned in a total of 4 tops for me to quilt at some point but no deadline there. A UFO a month would be a good goal---those half started tops or kits are not doing any good in storage but I think I need to keep it simple. A redwork Santa from Birdbrain and a Bee-attitudes block each month maybe? That would be fun for me! Food for thought anyway.

The Belles and I did have our Christmas party yesterday. Linda C hosted it this year with help from her husband in setting up the tables. Because it was later in the week than we usually have it I think we were missing just two of the girls. Delish meal. Good company. Betsy had made up quilter's bingo "cards" using a pattern from an article in the Fons and Porter magazine so some of us played Bingo before we headed home--that was a lot of fun! I can see I need to make my own card up for next year after I track down the article, that is. We thought a couple of the cards were "duds", LOL but I think we played long enough to have most everyone win that wanted to. Thanks, Betsy for sending the prize box along.

Pictured above, me with Aline and Judy. Not sure why I looked so serious but I was telling the girls about a memorial donation we had received on Theramae's behalf about then. Her daughter-in- law's Priscilla's brother and his wife had sent a generous check recently. Priscilla told me that the wife was one of the author's of the play "The Quilters" I had seen a production of the play at the junior college in Paducah during the AQS show years ago and loved it. Since Theramae was such an avid quilter, I loved the connection in the story. So what am I doing in this picture? Those wonderful Belles surprised me with a money tree with strict orders to spend that on ME. not the donation projects. Since I am planning to go to Oregon in August 09 for a FABS retreat, I told them I would apply it to my trip monies as I know we will be heading to Fabric Depot if Pam has any say in the matter. And she does.........

It is sort of a tradition for us to show our donation challenge quilts/ tops when we gather for the Christmas party. We did a "show and tell" with the other projects and quilts that had the bindings done . I came home with a pile of quilts that will headed off to WTIL headquarters as soon as I get a box for them and log them in on the quilt documentation. I'll post some of those pics in a separate email as this posting is sorta all over the place.

Stay tuned................

wrapping up the month

It is hard to believe that November is almost gone with one more month to go til 2009.

Pictured at left is Mr. Skyler a few days ago hopping in the underwear drawer on laundry day. He does this quite a bit in my dresser but likes to dig his way through to the back and gets on the stuff on the drawer below. No such luck with Kitty Daddy's. Tonight he is napping in his little cube I got him. In the day time it serves as a play thing (a tunnel) but lately he has settled in for his evening cat nap. Later in the evening DJ's lap or chunk of the recliner willprove to be more inviting.

I have gotten the last of the kitchen appliance sections done as of Sunday evening. I had fused all the applique and buttonhole stitched on the 3 pieces. I shifted gears a bit on this one as I thought it would be a bit tricky on the tight curves on the circular piece. Instead of making them a solid shape, I drug out some templar and made a modified yo-yo for the "bowl" of the spoon. The spoon handle has a slightly rounded end on it so I used templar there as well. I just drew up some basting threads over the distal 1/3 of the handle and used spray starch to set it. I am pleased with how it looks as it gives it a raised appearance. I was supposed to embroidery the ring and and make a french knot to look like the ring hole but just broke out the pigma pen instead. So I am closer to done but not quite there yet as I still need to spray baste and quilt both front and back panels and assemble and bind all three.

I had a Doctor's appointment just before lunch and in between time I have been cleaning house. His golfing pal is expected late Thursday though DJ has tried to reach him to head him off at the pass. DJ had sick with some sort of intestinal bug during the night and has not had a good day either, poor guy. If it is contagious, and even if it is not, he thought it best to inform his friend what he might be walking into. I feel fine so I don't think it was a food related illness. I'm crossing my fingers though as he was sicker than a dog. Anyway, I let him rest while I took care of the dusting and vacuuming. He hates to dust and I hate to vacuum so normally we swap those duties. I left the bathrooms and kitchen for tomorrow.

Monday afternoon I was in a cooking mood. Hot cocoa mix--we are about 20 degrees cooler than we should be lately so the weather is perfect for it. Made a streusel cake--tastes good but that darned Bundt pan stuck and I had to sorta stick it all back together in some semblance of order. Pan of corn muffins for our evening meal along with some candied sweet potatoes (to go with the ham slice and peas) Lastly, I made some pumpkin butter using a recipe Pam had shared with me. You put the stuff in the oven and bake it once it has come to a boil, stirring every fifteen minutes, up to two hours of time. Yummy!! I put most of it in the freezer since I don't have the stuff to can it but the bit I saved out was delish on an English muffin this morning.

I had not planned for us to have a traditional Thankgiving meal---there was a possibility that we would be joining a friend and her family for dinner but that is not going to happen. I had fixed a turkey breast not all the long ago, we had ham recently. We are having steak instead--part of the meat package we got last year and we are down to 1 porterhouse and 1 t-bone left that I was sorta saving for a special meal. What better time than now? Of course, this will all depend on how DJ is feeling by then. Play it by ear, I guess.

Hope you have a wonderful holiday in whatever you plan to do----------

some progress

I have made some progress on the long postponed appliance covers though I still need to join the three sections together and bind the bottom edge. I am thinking that a serged seam would work well to do that and I no longer have mine but a girlfriend does! Just the blender cover to go. I have made the pattern on both sides rather than one plain side so they would be reversible.

Some of this fabric has been around for about 11 years but I added a few bits from Theramae. The green check is leftover from my kitchen curtains. The quilty looking piece is old too and I am making a dent in the yardage by using it for the lining. Some is new yardage but I'll have a lot leftover for other things. Wish I had more of that green plaid piece--old favorite.

The food processor covers were re-sized to fit my appliance better and the picture was taken before I rounded off the corners.

This obviously is the toaster cover---the bread and jam was a dead giveaway, right? The green strip in the back is the gusset fabric.

I was using an old almost empty can of 505 temporary basting spray which I seldom ever use unless it is small project. The stuff was making sticky strings of goo on my hand. I don't remember it doing that before. After picking the adhesive, the batting fuzz and loose strings off, I ditched whatever remained and tried some Sulky that I had on my carry around sewing tray. I'll have enough to finish this job but I am not so sure that I want use 505 again if that is what it does. Reminds me a spray rubber cement----maybe it is. Not crazy about that rippled area about the bowl on the one of the left but I am not going to put more quilting on it either. What do you use or do just pin these smallish things??

Not much else going on here--errands, household duties, nothing new.

you know it has been a while...............

when you get a call from your family asking if you are okay since you haven't updated your blog in a week, LOL. I have been having "up and down" days both physically and to honest mentally. The tests I have had done so far have only shown what is ISN'T versus what is causing it. While I rejoice that the worst case scenarios are ruled out, I am still frustrated about the symptoms that are still present several months later. Enough about that..............

Part of the reason for not posting is I got "nuthin'" to show you though I have been doing a little hand quilting. That's a slow process with little to show for the time involvement---oh, but I love it! No sewing going on here unless you want to count re-doing the the velcro on something of DJ's and reinforcing the seam on a pair of jeans. Just not in the mood.

No cutting either or I would have those darned appliance covers started and/or a firm decision of what to do with the FABS challenge fabric. Haven't found a pattern that excites me enough to head to the stash. I need Norma to point out something SHE is excited about as that usually does it, LOL. Truth me told one of her recent quilt show pictures sent me on a hunt for the pattern source--that card trick looking one? Two of a Kind from the April 08 issue of American Patchwork and Quilting. I could see trying that one.

My stash just got augmented a bit though I do not plan to keep it all here--just some of it, for now. I found just enough places to stick the additions. Homespuns, greens (that kitchen project) and reds, neutrals for heart quilts. Another stack that would make a lovely fall themed quilt for donation to work on later. The leftovers will be cut into strips for bowtie blocks, triple rail fence blocks, faux log cabins and so forth. The Belles need to take what they want to work with too. You see, a few days after Theramae's memorial service her family called and asked if I could come pick up her sewing supplies and such. While they had extra hands on deck, they were clearing out what they could so it did not all fall to the family member who lives locally. I came home with the back end of my car loaded down.

She had left little undone--I know I couldn't begin to say that! I found a few odds and end blocks that we both were making. There are also leftovers from a previous project that can be worked up into another quilt. Strips, strings and squares to make more scrappy quilts. In fact, I think she almost had enough blocks for a small string quilt with more foundation papers cut out. I sorted through the magazines and put the most interesting of them in a notebook. That and the books went to our meeting place this week. I sorted through some fabrics over the weekend--washed and pressed 4 loads of fabrics. By Monday Lois and Nancy joined me to finish up--with some of it passed on for them to do the honors.

The quilt group met this week on Veteran's Day. I think we had 11 or 12 of us there. The power button on my camera quit working before I got all the pictures of the turned in quilts taken. Linda C let me borrow hers to finish the job and will burn me a CD for our records. Two days later I replaced the camera with one by the same manufacturer so the memory stick was still viable. The strippie quilt shown is one that Aline made from her batik scraps which I quilted for her. It probably does not show up well but I did just a zigzag through the pieced bands and SID in the plain ones.

While at the meeting some were sewing, some were pinning. I had brought the red and white fabrics from Theramae's stash and asked the girl's to make some heart blocks for her quilt. This is a tradition that we started in honor of the members we have lost or a member's immediate family.

Me personally? I found room for the fabrics from Theramae, marked a quilt top to be pinned, put the books up, sewed enough batting scraps together for two tops. I also talked to the church secretary about a tshirt quilt she would like me to make after the first of the year. That and the usual consultations about this and that quilting related or not plus a lot of visiting and catching up. What to do for the Christmas party, etc. Most of us went out to Quizno's for a quick lunch. Next thing I knew it was 3 p.m. and time to go home.

Here is Linda C with a quilt she had just picked up from the long arm quilter. Pretty. huh? And big!!

Theramae had a huge stack of pictures of her quilts that her family passed onto me with her things. Her family said she would always share the latest photos with them when they came to visit and I would suppose the quilts she was working on at the time. They pulled out some of them but it represents a pretty big body of work but it wasn't all of them. Joy and I took digital pictures early on but just posted them on our yahoo group. Later it became my job to take the pics and since that time, I always get double prints made. One goes in our albums and the other to the maker. (We are on our 4th album.). We looked through the pictures and shared some memories. These should probably go in their own "Theramae" album or scrap booked in some manner.

I had fallen down on the job with quilt documention this year---not sure why but maybe because there was no big push to get 50 or 60 of them for one specific location so I had to know how close to goal we were? We mailed out a bunch to WTIL earlier in the year and a pile of them to Pam for her M2M project after that. I had those entered on my document but not the ones that had were in my closet or on the armoire. The pile I had quilted through last month is starting to come in after binding with a few more out there to be finished. Well, yesterday I quit procrastinating. I pulled all the quilts on hand out and piled them up in the sewing/computer room and took care of that documentation. I made sure that we had pictures taken of each one and cleaned out the monthly files a bit but had DJ standing by to be quilt holder. I uploaded a pile of pictures so we can get prints made for the albums I previously mentioned. I ran to Walmart for some packing boxes--17 packed up and headed to WTIL headquarter. DJ helped me get those to the post office a bit ago.

Other than that, a quiet day. Laundry is done for the week and dishwasher has been run. A few hours till supper preparation. DJ is out working on the stump from the apple tree he cut down, mild overcast day. Skyler is napping on his bedroom perch with an eye out for any birds up on the roof and gutters. Word from DJ's son is that he ran into DJ's golfing friend from IL recently who told him he plans to be here "around Thanksgiving" but so far, said friend hasn't told US that. I can only speculate if that means the wife too or just him. Enjoy the quiet while I can, I guess.

Hope you all have a good weekend in whatever you plan to do---------

On Election Day

This song from "Hairspray" the musical is so uplifting and well sung by Queen Latifah. I thought it was appropriate as it reminds me of just why it is so important for us as citizen's to go vote and let our voice be heard. Age, sex, race and gender--we all have struggles but there is hope for the future. I have to believe that..........


MOTORMOUTH
There's a light
In the darkness
Though the night
Is black as my skin
There's a light
Burning bright
Showing me the way
But I know where I've been

There's a cry
In the distance
It's a voice
That comes from deep within
There's a cry
Asking why
I pray the answer's up ahead
'Cause I know where I've been

There's a road
We've been travelin'
Lost so many on the way
But the riches
Will be plenty
Worth the price we
Had to pay

There's a dream
In the future
There's a struggle
We have yet to win
And there's pride
In my heart
'Cause I know
Where I'm going
And i know where I've been

MOTORMOUTH & ENSEMBLE
There's a road
We must travel
There's a promise
We must make
'Cause the riches
Will be plenty
Worth the risk
And chances that we take
There's a dream
In the future
There's a struggle

We have yet to win
Use that pride
In our hearts
To lift us up
To tomorrow

'Cause just to sit still
Would be a sin

ENSEMBLE
I know it, I know it
I know where I'm going

MOTORMOUTH
And lord knows I know..
Where I've been

MOTORMOUTH & ENSEMBLE
Oh! When we win,
I'll give thanks to my god
'Cause I know where I've been.


Lyrics: found HERE (listen through your favorite music download spot)