It's fungly

OK, what's the best cliche? "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth," "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade," "Ugly as sin." We could go on and on. However--since someone gave me these fabrics--thanks. A good quilter should never let loud fabric go to waste. I know, you might think I ought to sew these fabrics on the back of the quilt. But I didn't. I look at it this way--this quilt is sure going to be cheerful! And you could always throw an afghan over on top of it, if need be. It's not a bedspread after all--it's a lap size. And it cheered me up no end to sew this quilt top, as I've been a bit under the weather. I'm getting tired of doctors, no matter how kind and understanding they are. And that from a person who has another appointment with another doctor next week. What a complainer I am! As my mother used to say "Oy, I'm sick in bed with the doctor!" At least all these problems are improving, I plan to be a lot better tomorrow. And to get to pin basting that other quilt top--the one that came out to be prettier than this one.

The Winners and my "art" quilt

I got out my sun hat and put in all the names for the etui drawing and the winners are Clare, Nanci and Debbie! So I'll be mailing out the etuis pretty soon.
Meanwhile, I thought that I was making a gift utility quilt for an as-yet-unknown sick person. I'll have to try to make a utility quilt again. I don't want to give this quilt away! Clare warned me in her comment on the quilt-in-progress photo, and she was right. How she could tell from that little photo of a few quilt blocks, I'll never know. I made twenty-four 6 1/2 inch free-pieced blocks using solid colors and added 2 1/2 inch strips of solid on two sides of the block, as seen in the second photo. I was inspired by Karla Alexander's book New Cuts for New Quilts--more ways to stack the deck. She made a quilt called "Orderly Chaos". However, I didn't follow her directions at all--just the way that she put the blocks together. After making the blocks, they are arranged every which way. I didn't follow her directions for that either, I put the blocks together without paying attention to the arrangement. And I used a different border than the one in the book. The dark color might look like black in the photo, but it's actually dark chocolate brown. I know that I'll have fun quilting this one!

500th Post--Etui Give-Away

I have made three etuis to give as prizes in celebration of my 500th Blog Post. As I've reached the 500th Post, I guess that I've been doing a lot of blogging! It's fun and I've met some wonderful people in the world of Internet Blogging.

OK--what's an etui? Is that a word in the dictionary? It's not even in my pocket dictionary, but is in my Scrabble Dictionary. As you will notice in the second photo, in this instance it's a little needle book. (Pins and needles are not included in the give-away.) I made my own etui many moons ago, and it's been in active use ever since. As it is a bit of an unusual sewing accessory, I thought that I would sew these as a sort of party-favor kind of gift. I will be drawing for the winners.

How to win an etui:

1. Bloggers, make a comment on this blog post before midnight Sunday--that would be Pacific Daylight Savings Time. (you figure that out)


2. Be sure that you have your blog set so that your email address will be visible (so that I can find you to notify you.) If necessary --edit your profile to show your email address.
   

Free piecing

So I finished and sent on its way that four patch quilt and of course I'm making another kind of quilt. Because I have given away the quilt I made for a male-type sick person, I decided to make another quilt to have on hand in case there's a need for it. I think that solid fabrics might be more suitable than flowered or printed fabric. This quilt is going to be made with all solid scraps. And since my scrap baskets are overflowing with printed stuff--there's no question what I'll be using next. I'm feeling all energetic lately! Life sure has it's ups and downs. I even made it to the swimming pool today--wearing my new bathing suit. I'm so glad that they are still making modest grandma-type suits. I guess that it's been 50 years since I wore a two-piece type suit. This is my 499th post, so the next post will have a little bit of a surprise.

Four Patch donation quilt

Here's a photo of my completed four patch quilt. I took it to my knitting group today. My friend Ria held it up for the picture to be taken. And my friend Judy will be taking it in to the charity to be donated this week. I hope that it will keep someone warm this winter. Even now, in July we have some cool nights. I have two quilts on my bed all summer.

This is my 498th post on this blog. I want to plan something a little bit different for my 500th.

Wrist warmers

Do you think that I made enough wrist warmers? Well, I'm blessed with four granddaughters! What, do they need wrist warmers in July? No. But they might in the future--it can't stay hot forever. Meanwhile, I've completed that four patch donation quilt and I hope to get a nice photo to post later today.
And I'm rounding up some scraps of solid colors for another quilt. No problem here--I seem to have accumulated a mountain of scraps. And I confess I did purchase some really loud orange fabric to throw into the mix.
I've been having a lot of problems with food allergies. I'm allergic to soy. I have hives. And you wouldn't believe how the soy bean has taken over the world--there's soy oil or some other form of soy in a whole lot of stuff (breads, crackers, cereal, hot dogs, soup powder, mayonnaise, herb tea, canned tuna, etc). But after donating a bunch of food to the food bank and sharing some of the rest around--I have managed to become soy-free. I found that a store that has some really nice things that I can eat. And I'm feeling a lot better. If anyone else out there has an allergy to soy, I'd appreciate hearing from you.

Wordless Wednesday

Jacob's quilt--Liberated Churn Dash

I'm so proud of this quilt. And I had a ton of fun making it. I got the idea for the churn dash pattern from Gwen Marston's book Liberated Quiltmaking II. And of course the lettering is from Tonya Ricucci's book Word Play Quilts. I wanted to make a color scheme suitable for a college man. So I used basically blue and yellow. The borders are a tan color, sort of a tea-dyed shade. The very top and bottom border fabrics are printed with the Hebrew alphabet. And in the bottom photo, my family helps me out with taking the photos.