Shoo Fly quilt

Good news on the quilting front--I've completed quilting and binding this Shoo Fly quilt. I hope to be sending it off for donation this weekend. I free-motion quilted it on my sewing machine. And today I did sew the border on that Hodge Podge quilt. I sewed on 4 inches of a mottled gold fabric. Now I have to dig through my stash (it's in a big storage box at the bottom of my closet) to try to find a backing for it. I've been enjoying my sewing lately. And oh yes, my daughter liked her shortie PJ pants that I sewed for her. The fabric was printed with helicopters and I managed to not have any of them flying upside down.
It seems to me that I ought to be counting my blessings lately--I'm grateful for my wonderful family and friends. I have to be grateful that I live in a nice place and go to bed each night in comfort. And I have to stop complaining so much!
By the way, a message to the East Coast from the folks in California--welcome to earthquake country!

Advancing on the brick quilt

About the changes in my husband's Medicare: My husband's new doctor was very good, and reassuring. My granddaughter came with us in the special taxi to help with the wheelchair. My husband tolerated the trip. He's back safely in the Care Home. So far, so good.

So now I was doing some quilting! I sewed the brick quilt patches together. As you can see, I have the ends extending. I decided not to drive myself crazy figuring out the size and placement of the end patches. I just will trim those extra ends off now and baste the quilt.

And I'm so excited about the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative http://www.alzquilts.org/index.html that I decided to start another quilt for that. I'm making a hand-appliqued and embroidered block. I designed this block in 2005, and I used it in a tea cozy and in a "bird" quilt. I had to make the design in a smaller size to fit into the requirements for these donation quilts. I plan to hand quilt it.

Season's Greetings and Happy New Year!

Teacup quilt top assembled

I have finished sewing the quilt top of the "I love coffee, I love tea" quilt.  It turned out to be a twin size. I don't know if you can see in this photo (taken on a queen-size bed) that I have added a purple paisley border.  I can't make the photo any bigger, it will just appear fuzzy if I do.  Now I must find a backing fabric and do some machine quilting!  I have a big weakness for paisley fabric, and when I found this purple on sale--well you know the rest of the story.  There used to be a TV show called "Simply Quilts" and one day they had a guest who showed how she did the borders. She took the border fabric and tore it length-wise (not cross-wise.) If the fabric will tear easily, you can have equal borders in no time.  That's what I did.  Then a bit of steam pressing, and it was good to go.  Afterwards, I took a rotary cutter and a quilt ruler and squared up the corners.  Meanwhile, I'm still hand quilting the Amish-style quilt.  I've been very busy lately, so I'm not making very much head-way in that department.  But I should have a bit of time the middle of next week, perhaps.  We just never know what life has in store.  So I just try to do my best every day.  A great man once said "the more charity, the more peace."

Martin Luther King Day Community Service

This is my project for my Martin Luther King Day community service. I've started on a quilt for donation to http://www.spinoc.org/home.htm The organization Spinoc helps homeless people to new housing and treatment of their problems. I belong to a lovely group of ladies that make blankets and other items to donate. I'm sewing 6 1/2 inch squares. There are several bloggers that are working on the Martin Luther King Day community service.

My quilt is finished

Here's my quilt, all finished and someone was visiting me who was kind enough to hold it up for it's photo. This quilt was a great way to use up some really old scraps. And as my daughter has told me numerous times, "Mom you can't have too much turquoise."
Speaking of old scraps--Lazy Girl (Tonya) on her blog has challenged folks to make "fungly" quilts, using up some really old, ugly, fabrics, with some very questionable seams. I have been looking through my baskets, and I think I have a real head start on this! I have some of the worst sample blocks and bits of fabric. I guess that other people would have tossed them out long ago. Actually, I did have to toss out two bags of scraps that I have finally pronounced as totally useless--not even good enough for a quilt such as the above.

Time to do a little happy dance--my baby toes plant has bloomed! I don't know why, but the little flower is a big deal to me!

The final photos

These quilts are ready to be shipped to my granddaughters today! And I have made all the blocks for the Courthouse Steps. I don't think that the photo does the butterfly quilt justice.

Tea Cup Quilt

Here are pictures of the Tea Cup Quilt! I'm very proud of this quilt. I hope that my little granddaughters will like their quilts. I just have to label this one. I used a lot of scraps in my stash for this quilt. I made the tea cup handles by making bias with bias bars, and hand appliquing in place.

Quilting supplies, borders

I purchased a new quilter's marking pencil the other day. I thought that I might need it for marking lines on my quilt where I'm embroidering antennae on my butterflies. I'm just freehand marking the the lines. In the book, Jan Mullen quilted them on in a dark color. But I decided to hand embroider them. However, I couldn't see the pencil marks very well. I tested out a couple of my other markers, and they were not very satisfactory. So I'm back to my usual method--I just use a stub of blackboard chalk. I purchased a small battery-operated lamp, and that helps, too. If I were making an ambitious embroidered picture, that required a lot of detail, I wouldn't use the chalk. I have a light table. My light table was a discarded toy that I bought at a yard sale many, many years ago. The box has a picture of Mickey Mouse on it. It was intended for children to use for tracing. A toy like that would never be sold now-a-days. It would be considered hazardous or something, or be recalled, or I don't know what. But what a great buy for me, especially when they were not making light tables for crafts back then.
I sewed on a border on the butterfly quilt yesterday. And I found some flannel on sale that is a blue background and butterflies--what luck. Flannel can shrink a lot, so I wash it before I put it on the back of my quilts. It's in the dryer right now. And they had another flannel with tea cups and tea pots on it, which will be so cute on the teacup quilt. I measured the teacup quilt for borders yesterday, and I have a good piece of yellow gingham in my stash to use on the border. I might applique something on there, I don't know yet. I love to improvise as I go along. I usually use a pieced scrap border on quilts, so I can still change my mind on the teacups yet--

My butterfly quilt under construction

I'm excited about how the blue background looks. You know, I got the idea for the background at my doctor's office. The assistant was wearing one of those colorful nurse's blouses. Her blouse had butterflies against a blue background. It just goes to show--I have to keep my eyes open for new ideas. I've half of the squares joined together now. I have to embroider antennae on the butterflies. I thought that it would be easier, and prevent too much stretching of the fabric if I joined the blocks first. I'm just going to make all the antennae the same color of brown, which is one of my favorites--DMC 918.
I've had a busy weekend because my sister was visiting from out-of-town. And we got together with some family and friends.

Tea cups quilt

My tea cups are all made. I have to join them up, of course. But they did come out gaily colored. And they were such fun to make.

There's some good news about the hummingbird babies. Now we know why the mama bird picked the plum tree--it is starting to blossom today. There'll be lots of nectar for the babies. Can you see the baby bird's beak poking up out of the nest? Now I know why bird-watching can be such a fun hobby.

I finally have gotten back to knitting my white sweater. I started that sweater about 1 1/2 years ago. I had most of the left front done, and I managed to finish that part this week. I had one sleeve started too, so I'm doing that. I've got short arms, so the length of sweater sleeves is always a problem. I think I should sew the shoulders together, and then try to figure out the sleeve length. It's a dropped shoulder style. The sweater is make of sport yarn.

CBS brought back the TV show "Jericho." Did you know that people were so dissappointed when they cancelled the show, that they were sending CBS nuts? That was because the word "Nuts" was prominent in the last episode. CBS received tons of nuts. I can imagine their mail room being overwhelmed by packages and packages. The network relented and will run a few more shows, to at least bring resolution to the story. I was enjoying watching that show because of the interesting premise. I wanted to see how the people could cope with a (fictional) catastrophe.

Google had a notice about all the new innovations that they have made to improve blogs, but my spell checker no longer is working. So, attention all school teachers, please do not use your red pen on my errors!

Busy, busy

I cut out the rest of the fabric for those two quilts yesterday. I had only cut out about half. That's the way I do things--first a sample block, then piece a few blocks, and then I really get going. It's a bit of math--how many squares made and how many to finish. I was hunting through my stash for pieces of suitable bright colors. I don't want any calico flowers for the boy's quilts. I'm planning to order something special for the outside borders.