Archive for November, 2010

Hit or Miss?

Tuesday, November 30th, 2010

Ok – I’ve mis-calculated and  mis-cut the fabric several times; mis-construed my own directions,  mis-assembled the pieces but all in all, I don’t think it’ll turn out to be a “miss” in the long run. This is just the beginnings of a beautiful quilt! I plan to finish the borders tomorrow providing I don’t miss something else in the translation!

Ah, Thanksgiving…

Monday, November 29th, 2010

Ah, Thanksgiving – this family holiday…

Relatives come in  – how long will they stay?

Laundry and dishes pile up everywhere.

That’s not dirt on the floor, its really dog hair!

Lots of Food and Fun and Laughter we hear

But how the hell did I get left with this souvenir?!

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Wednesday, November 24th, 2010

As we clean and cook and put our quilting on hold for a few days to enjoy time with family and friends, keep this in mind and you’ll never look at turkey the same again! Happy Thanksgiving!

quilted turkey

This delicious turkey was sent to me by a friend on Facebook – Many thanks to International Quilt Festival and the New England Quilt Museum for posting it on their pages and bringing smiles to all the Facebook quilters!

Egad!

Monday, November 22nd, 2010

I cut lots and lots of fabric wrong!!! Putting stripes in a triangle can be a bit confusing and to my dismay, I discovered I had half the stripes running in the wrong direction – hmmm. So after much contemplation, and fabric wrangling, I decided there was only one way to fix this… And off to My Favorite Quilt Shop I went to replenish my just recently purchased fabric. It is really nice to have a quilt shop so close  – although I’m not sure how my checkbook will feel about it if I get too comfortable with this little perk that comes with living in Elkton. Meanwhile, I’m thinking that Didi Salvatierra’s Bodacious Baskets might be just the ticket to use up these directionally challenged stripes!

Prototype in the works!

Thursday, November 18th, 2010

I’ve been wanting to do an Amish Card Trick for a long time and actually have a pattern that says “if it doesn’t fit together, trim it until is does” or something to that effect. Needless to say, mine doesn’t fit together and if you trim it as the pattern recommends “until it does”, none of the seams and points  match…hmmm… So I sat down in the quiet of the morning and did the math, drew it up on EQ6 and viola! OK, the fabrics are a little busy and its not Log-cabin like YET. Its just a prototype! I’m off to try it in stripes then I’ll spend the time piecing the logs. For now, I’m happy it worked. All the seams and points match and I didn’t have to fudge a thing!

40″ x 40″

12 Feathers!

Sunday, November 14th, 2010

Well – I didn’t set out to do this… This is a charity quilt for the Flying Geese Quilt Guild and I was just going to do an all -over on it. However, as I was loading the quilt on my long-arm, I remembered that the rear on-off switch didn’t work (my husband took the rear switch to fix the front switch last week and I haven’t remembered to go to Radio Shack and get another one) so I was not going to be able to work from the back of the machine. OK – I thought. This quilt has lots and lots of white space. I’ll just jazz it up a bit and put feathers in the white blocks.  True to form,  I couldn’t remember the size of the first feather’s circle when I was making the second. Now, I even took a ruler to it but still got it wrong!!! So the second feather has a bigger center and no longer matches the first. I debate. Who will notice?  Its only one circle, right? It could be my humility block! But no, humility is apparently not my forte. I decide that I am going to make it look like I planned it and will do a different feather in each block. I was just finishing up the third when I wondered how many feathers I’ll have to come up with . I count the white blocks – There are 12. Had I thought to count early, I might have just gone back the the humility theme…  Needless to say, I persevered and have 12 different feathered wreaths in this quilt. Hmmm… some are a little catty-whoppas… humility still lives!!

New Quilt in Gallery

Thursday, November 11th, 2010

Just finished the Mason-Dixon Quilt Professional Network Challenge “Two by Two”. The premise was to think about things that come in twos or pairs, etc… We all met today at G-Street Fabrics in Falls Church, VA, and turned in our interpretations of this theme.  Split Hairs, Peaches and Cream, Birds and the Bees and the Flowers and the Trees, Pairs of Pears are just a few of the  titles for the 15 submissions.  Here is my contribution. If you read my blog regularly, you will have noted that I said my long-arm machine went down in the middle of this project on Monday. My loving hubby fixed it right up while I was out canoodling with other quilters that night and I was right back in business  Tuesday morning. The last stitches went into the sleeve and binding at 5 pm on Wednesday and out the door it went first thing this morning – hopefully off to tour at many of the major quilt shows across the USA! Check it out in the gallery for a better view.

Block exchange!

Monday, November 8th, 2010

Got this one ready for the Ladybug guild meeting tonight – had to include the light fabric with the birds on it and use red and green – wish I had more of that bird fabric because I would have done the fabric placement much differently- not sure how many people really like black in their christmas quilts…

Meanwhile, the on-off button just died on my longarm right as I am pushing a deadline for a Challenge quilt… I have confidence though that my handy-dandy loving hubby will fix it while I’m enjoying myself at the guild meeting tonight. If not, this is all I’ve got…

Retreating this weekend!

Friday, November 5th, 2010

So its going to be all about Geese this weekend – I’m off to the Heartland Quilt guild in Denton Maryland  and am looking forward to a fun weekend of quilting and retreating, good food, friends and fabric! We are doing my How Many Ways Can a Goose Fly? Block of the Month. Every one is sure to learn a new technique or trick to add to their quilting skills library. I enjoy this project so much – it is such fun to see the quilt come together in all the different fabric choices. Meanwhile, I wonder if there is enough left-overs in the fridge for my husband while I’m gone…

Sigh….

Thursday, November 4th, 2010

Oh, I wish I were in Houston…