Shadywood Quilts

Needle Felted Pin Cushions

2011-12-08T21:46:00.000-06:00

I found a cool tutorial on WC Mercantile website for making needle felted pin cushions. Well, I have quite a 'fondness' for pin-cushions (OK, I'm a bit obsessed) and even picked up a couple of containers at the WC Mercantile shop in Navasota to make these little creations. Now, you have to understand. My Thursday Night (Quilt) Bee exchanges 'homemade' gifts each year at our Christmas party. (Yes- Christmas - not Holiday). there are 14 of us, so that means making at least 13 of something.... Not always easy to come up with an ideas of the time to do it. In past years, I've always wooosed out by buying Quilt calenders for everyone. but, if you look at last years gifts Mariet and a couple of others upped the ante on creativeness... So, I've been thinking about making felted pin-cushions since this past summer.

I found pottery type votive containers on eBay, and they have been sitting on my dining room table since July! Finally got them done last week, and can show the pictures now that the party was last Thursday. Oh, I did NOT hand needle felt these like in the tutorial. I have one of those fancy dancy felting machines (Pfaff 350) that I got at Quilt festival a couple of years ago. I used Wool Batting that I kind of shredded for the stuffing and as the base for the needle felting. I used wool roving for the color swirls and machine felted the crud out of it. Then made the pin cushion.

Got lots of cool things from the Bee members. Cherry Salsa, some AWESOME Rum Cake, a knitted Cowl from Michelle, a knitted/felted pin cushion from Mariet (these are COOL), Cup Cozies, Shoe pants, Texas Pin cushions (see a theme going on here..) and several other cool items.

Doing a Little Dyeing

2011-12-06T09:30:00.001-06:00

Yarn drying on the back porch

This summer, a couple of my knitting/quilting friends came over to the house for a day of experimenting with dyeing yarn. Most of the dyeing was in the microwave, but we did some in the crockpot as well ( the brown & turquoise ones). Mariet made a big bucket of Indigo dye, which was really fascinating. It's GREEN when you first look at it, and pull the yarn out of the mix. Then as you watch it magically starts turning blue. A couple of the hanks were pretty bright, so we experimented with over-dyeing in the left-over indigo bath.

These are the ones I dyed.

All skeined up. How cool is that?

New Grandbabies! Yes - that is Plural!

2011-11-18T19:24:00.001-06:00

You all just think I've abandoned this blog, but actually there has been lots going on. The best is that both my daughters were pregnant at the same time. Due dates were just 3 weeks apart. Well, little Julia Kathyrn was born October 13, at a healthy 8 pounds, 10 oz. I spent a couple of weeks in Atlanta, helping out with Chloe and little Julia. What fun spending time with Rachaels family.

Had to miss Quilt Market and Quilt Festival this year, but that's OK, Lindsey had her first child - Olive Elena - and as her father said " A modest 9 ibs, 10 oz" What a big girl! She is also a pretty one - with the Moormann nose! Sorry kiddo. You'll grow into it! :)

Olive Elena Naumann - 2 days

Stashbusting News and Other News Fit to Print!

2011-07-03T21:50:00.001-05:00

First and most important news is that I am going to be a Grandma again. BOTH daughters are pregnant and due later this fall. Bad news is that they did not consult my schedule and older daugher is having hers mid Oct in Atlanta, while youngest daughter is having her first child the first week of November. Guess when Quilt Market and Quilt Festival occur? That's OK, I know my priorities.. Those grandbabies - both are girls by the way - are most important. They have sent pictures of the ultrasounds but I promised not to post them anywhere :(

Have taken 2 workshops since I last posted. Karen Stone and Gyleen Fitzgerald. Both were awesome classes. Karens' workshop was on the New York Beauty block, which I've done several, but the first half of the day was spent working on selecting fabrics. Scrappy fabrics galore. You know what the best part of the workshop was? Permission to mix regular fabrics with Batiks! OMG.. I always thought it should be OK, but many people that I swap with (and shall remain nameless) think that is sacreligious. The supply list said to bring lots of scraps. I brought a bundle of batik fat quarters. (Moda Montego Bay - scrumptuous) , but we spent the morning going through SCRAPS and deciding what plays well together and what doesn't. Sometimes it is starting with a colorful fabric and pulling lots of fabrics in that works with it. I had a serious urge t just go shopping for fat quarters to expand my scrappy selections! Not like I don't have enough fabrics, but including some brighter colors that I might be missing. Great workshop.

The other workshop was with Gyleen. Making pineapple blocks without paper piecing. This workshop was using SCRAPS again (my favorite). Made several pineapple blocks using Christmas strips. I already had 1.5 inch strips cut because I've been wanting to make a Log Cabin quilt using 1.5 inch strips. Was lots of fun. I showed Gyleen my block and mentioned that I wasn't happy with those teensie tiny corners. She very casually replied that with more experience I would become more accurate with my 1/4 inch seam allowance and those corners would be larger. (I've only been quilting since 1978). Again, though, got that "permission" to mix regular fabrics and batiks.

Not sure I'll finish this quilt. That's OK, I still think I would prefer to do the Log Cabin. Nita and I have been collecting/sharing strips for about a year now. We both have plenty to make BOTH quilts! LOL.

Official Stashbusting UFO Top 10 List for 2011 !!!

2011-03-16T16:02:00.000-05:00

Our Thursday Bee has a new challenge this year. FINISH THOSE UFO'S. Mariet suggested we do what one of her other Bees are doing, and then Gail S. sent her version of what the Bernina Material Girls are doing.
Make a detailed list of the 10 top UFO's (or Projects Half Done) that you want to complete during 2011.

Then when you show a completed UFO, you can go into more detail on exactly what you had to do to complete the UFO. Each person participating in the challenge will write on a slip of paper the number of points (1 min.-10 max) they think you deserve for the work you did. I will be the only person to see the points--and an average will be given to you on the chart I will be keeping. That's why it is important for you to go into detail the amount of work needed to complete the project.

When you decide on your 10 projects, you can email them to me. I will have a printed page for each person participating and a chart to write the point average you receive as your projects are completed. We will start our Challenge in February and the first meeting you can earn points will be the March meeting. Remember what you show for points must on on the list you turn in to me. So think about your stack of UFOs and determine which ones you really want to work on during 2011 and put those on your list.

Hope to hear that a lot of you will be participating. Have already heard from Jasmine, Mariet, Nita. We twisted Linda G. arm and she said she will join us. Join the fun and get some of your projects that are languishing at the bottom of the heap on your shelf or closet floor, bring them out and set a goal of completing at least 1 in the coming months. So get moving and let me know that you plan to participate.

Today is a good day to stay in--so look through your UFOs and come up with a list of 10. Happy Hunting!!!!!

"It may just need binding, a final border, or a little quilting. It does not matter how much needs to be completed because it still qualifies for a "Project Half Done."

HERE IS MY LIST:

1. Blue White square in a Square with Pink & white nine patches. Started 2003 Current Status. In process of enlarging top from double to king size. Not a whole top yet.2. Pineapple – red, White & black. Stuck on borders. Started 1999

3. Road to Fairmeadows. King size drunkard’s path variation. Started 1998 (one block has appliqué ‘2009’) Still in blocks, needs appliqué and border, quilting and completion.

4. What’s the point? Patches on point. Needs border and quilting

5. Boston Commons. Top only. Started 1987

6. BRIGHTS churn dash – blocks only. 2010

7. Piece flying geese “Fly Away” swap blocks

8. Lindsey’s wedding quilt wall hanging. Signed pieces of fabric. 2009

9. 2 panel on point lap quilt. Fabric is cut!

10. Dream Quilt. Blocks are mostly done (277 pieces per block). Needs assembly and some idea of what to do for a border.
Who else is up for this? the hardest part was deciding on JUST 10 - LOL

Local TV Star?? Made my TV debut today!

2011-01-14T21:27:00.000-06:00

Had fun this morning talking about my T-Shirt Quilts of Texas business on the local Fox News show this morning.

Turning T-Shirt Memories into Quilts: MyFoxHOUSTON.com

Was invited to talk about how I got started with making t-shirt quilts on the morning news show today. Had lots of fun and I PROMISE to learn the difference between the AGGIES and the LONGHORNS. Let's see, Sharon says "Aggies bleed maroon and Longhorms are orange".

Will load some pictures from the set as soon as I locate the camera!

2011-01-04T20:33:00.000-06:00

Chloe and Gladys (the chicken)

Isn't she cute? Little Chloe is feeding Gladys (the chicken) over the Christmas holiday. She was quite impressed that the chicken would eat out of her hand with what must have looked like a giant beak! Chloe would just giggle after Gladys would peck at her hand. Unfortunately, the next day, one of the visiting dogs, took a bit of a chunk out of Gladys. Gladys is healing nicely, although she lost quite a few feathers. Personally, I think the chicken likes all the extra attention!

Still working on my list of New Years Resolutions. Trying to keep them real and 'doable' and not too vague. Still on my list is to knit a pair of socks. I have been doing lots of knitting, but haven't started on those yet. So much yarn, so little time. I have picked the yarn, I have picked the pattern - just need to make the time. Still like the idea of taking at least 6 workshops - just am not going to limit it to just quilting workshops. Might have to include a knitting one, and maybe a painting one. hmmmm..

A Weeks Vacation Does a Body Good!

2010-12-31T14:27:00.001-06:00

Well, Christmas has passed, and tonight is New years... Managed to get all my Chirstmas customers taken care of, and they seemed quite happy with their quilts. Kids have gone home, Christmas decorations are put away. the house is clean, the STUDIO is clean, and I'm almost caught up on computer stuff. Have to admit that I spent one whole day in my pajamas watching movies on the Hallmark channel. Life is good. Tomorrow, our Thursday Bee is having an all day sew-in at Ann's home. Sounds like there are going to be 16 of there. Ought to be cozy!

Speaking of the Thursday Bee, we had our Christmas party a couple of weeks ago and one of the gals made everyone (13 of us) handknit socks. Here is a sampling of what Mariet created for us! Our Bee is so giving, we also got handknit scarves, handknit washclothes (YES, this is a quilting Bee), pincushions, ornaments, homemade cookies and so on. Such a generous, giving bunch of ladies. When we meet tomorrow, we will decide final instructions for our next block swap which are sets of 2" x 4" Flying Geese - Positive and Negitive in contrasting Batiks.

I have been doing quite a bit of knitting lately. Right now, I'm working on a scarf for my daughter, I think the yarn I chose was a little too lumpy to see the actual pattern - but that might be to the good to cover any mistakes I might be making. Almost done, then needs to be blocked. This is the Cascade Jewel Hand Dyed yarn that I got at The Hen House awhile back.

I see the light - or I'm almost done!

2010-12-21T07:47:00.000-06:00

First of all, many thanks to all of you that have sent in your t-shirts to be turned into a treasured quilt. Now, I'm not complaining, I am thrilled hat I've been so busy with customer orders, but I only 1 T-shirt quilt and 2 custom quilts to finish for Christmas. I'm hoping that for the most part that they will be done today. Going to take a week or so off, then get started on the orders that have already come in for the new year. I am blessed. Here is a collage of some of the quilts finished up in the last week.

A cousin of mine sent some photos of my grandmother (Annie Scarlett) and her quilts. This was taken back in the 70's. My grandmother loved to make quilts, and this is a picture of her standing in front of a quilt that my great-grandmother pieced, then she quilted. This is my favorite quilt. The 1/2" hexagons are all fussy cut so that the flower or image all goes around the center hex. One of my favorite memories was looking at the details when we would go visit as a child. I still enjoy looking for certain blocks. We hung this quilt in our "Old Fashined Quilt Bee" booth at Houston Quilt Festival this year. I think it got more attention than our Raffle quilt! oops!

Well, back to work, really do want to finish those last quilts up for the holidays! Wish I would have had time to work on my stuff!

Back from Houston Quilt Market

2010-11-11T07:38:00.000-06:00

Market actually ended last week, but I had to turn around and go back for Quilt Festival! I love living in Houston, but trying to get to the GRB (George Brown Center) early in the morning is not the easiest thing to do, so we stay at the Holiday Inn Express, just south of the GRB. (Have to say they love having the quilters there and treat us right with cookies and milk and even a free Lasagne dinner on Friday night!).

Senses have in overload, but finally winding down. Not sure about my sister-in-law from Cleveland who was a Festival Newbie this year. She was pretty impressed even though she is more of a seamstress than a quilter. We found plenty of yarn, fibers and 'bright shiny' things to grab her attention. I didn't get much in the way of pictures, because my battery died shortly after we got there.

Sharon Schamberg - Closeup

Sharon Schamber won Best of Show for a third time. Never been done before! Glad it was her- she is a nice gal and does spectacualar work with her attention to detail. Look at those tiny herringbone areas around the trapunto. And using BLACK thread. The edging is three dimensional as well and there were open cutwork areas in the quilt.

One of my other 'favorite' quilts that I saw during Market was this one on the right. It was one of the big winners as well. check out the colors! I don't remember who made it, but it was awesome as well.

I didn't buy much in the way of fabric - what a shock! Really did stick to my assumption that I should finish up some projects before starting more. Of course that does NOT apply to yarn.We went The Hen House ( a local shop) several times as well as many other yarn places. All had lucious fibers. I think Laurie got hooked on the Free Form Knitting concept and had several ideas running through her mind.

To Wash or Not To Wash

2010-10-09T13:45:00.001-05:00

OK, I admit. I NEVER prewash fabrics - Except ... Ok, there are always exceptions, but for the most part - NO, I don't wash them. Now, for those exceptions.

Scraps and fabrics from unknown origins
Cheap Fabric (i.e. from Wally World)
Recycled fabrics from clothing
Smelly fabrics

You have probably read lots of articles that say not to wash your quilt in a washing machine - to lay it in a bathtub and soak it. Right, ain't gonna happen with my back. But, there is a TRICK to washing scraps, ANY sized yardage or a quilt in the washing machine.

It's easy to eliminate nearly all of the strings on yardage. Just clip off a little triangular section from each corner of fabrics before you wash them. Try about 1/2" or a little less. You'll still see a bit of fraying, but not enough to create bunches of knots.
DO NOT AGITATE... DO NOT AGITATE... DO NOT AGITATE
Fill the tub-style washing machine with lukewarm water and a tiny bit of detergent* (2 Tablespoons for a full machine).

Load the machine with scraps and/or yardage

KEEP THE MACHINE LID OPEN, to keep it from **accidentally** agitating.

With your hand, or a large spoon, swish the fabrics around in the tub.

Some dyes do not release right away; so try to leave fabrics in the water for at least 20 minutes. Continue swishing the fabric periodically for the 20 minutes.

Drain/spin.

Refill tub... and KEEP THE MACHINE LID OPEN.

Swish with your hand.

Drain/spin.

No fabric ropes; no fraying.

DO NOT AGITATE... DO NOT AGITATE... DO NOT AGITATE

*Use a very gentle soap like Orvus Soap. Orvus Soap contains so phosphates or chemicals that can damage your quilt. You can find Orvus Soap at your local quilt shop.

Drying the Fabric

I'm sure everyone has thrown raw edge fabric in the dryer and ended up with lots of knots and twisted fabrics. What a mess.

You might try laying the fabric on one of those folding racks - or even outside on the clothesline. (Many days in Houston, I must admit that it might take days to dry with all the humidity!). You can dry smaller scraps by ironing them (turn the steam off).

What I have noticed is that the tighter the weave of the fabric, the better they turn out in the dryer. Homespuns are a very loose weave (compared to batiks) and you can pretty much bet that those are going to shrink up in the dryer.

One time, after I completed arranging inherited squares into 25-patches in an intentional and complicated color-pattern on my design wall, I realized that the pre-cut 2-1/2-inch squares had not been washed; lots of bleeders; darks, reds, turquoises.

I had been making a T-shirt quilt, so I took the plain backs of the T-shirts that would have been thrown away, and transferred the 25-patch blocks to the T-shirt fabric, and pinned them on with basting/safety pins.

I ran these through a **DO NOT AGITATE** wash cycle (see above), and they all came out perfectly... and in their original order.

If you have lots of fat quarters or yardage in the SAME COLOR FAMILIES, safety-pin 3 or 4 fat quarters together in the corners. Wash them as a unit. Really cuts down on the wrinkles and twisting.

For larger cuts of fabric, pin the folded fabric in the corners and along the sides. I've pinned as many as eight layers... It can be difficult to pin through, but don't skimp on the safety pins. The more yardage... the larger the folded-over pieces need to be... maybe as large as a beach towel or bath sheet.

Only pin the eight EDGES to keep the fabric from bunching and wrinkling; the center will remain unpinned so that the water can still freely pass through the fabric to remove dyes and chemicals. Fewer layers are preferred, but 8-yard cuts will require more layers.

The pinning requires more TIME... but they do well in the washer AND dryer. When you un-pin the fabric, just smooth it out by hand, and fold; you just don't get the wrinkles like when opening up the fabric completely.

Pin smaller scraps together. With their combined weight, they will be less likely to get sucked into the washer drain or the dryer screen like individual small pieces could.

Try washing King-size bed sheets by pinning them into quarters; it keeps them from balling up in the dryer.

Quilter's Crossing in Tomball Texas

2010-07-25T10:22:00.000-05:00

Quilter's Crossing had a soft opening last week and will have a grand in August. The shop is in a cute little house, just one block off Hwy 2920. They do not have all their fabric in stock yet, but more is arriving every day. They have a huge classroom in a building behind the shop. It is clean and bright with nice comfy chairs in the classroom.

So if you in the area or even close by it's worth stopping in. And if you have not eaten at the Whistle Stop ... that's great too! Quilt Shop and a tearoom ... sounds like a nice afternoon trip with friends.

It is great to hear about a shop opening instead of closing ... so spread the word.

Their blog http://quilterscrossingtx.blogspot.com/

Buried under quilts!

2010-07-02T22:39:00.000-05:00

Well, that is my excuse and I'm sticking to it! Who would have thought that T-Shirt Quilts could be so popular? This graduation season is finally over, now I'm starting to get orders for Christmas. I love it when people plan ahead!

I did take a little time and worked on one of my quilts this month. I had wanted to try the Baptist Fan. Here is a closeup of the quilting . Apparently, I neglected to take a picture of the whole quilt. duh.

Wow! It has been raining cats and dogs here in Houston. We are on the 'dirty' side of Hurricane Alex. Anyway, that means we're getting anywhere from 10-20 inches in various areas around Houston. Our back yard looks like a giant pond with fish jumping. Shiner (the dog) does not want to go outside to do his business. He finally HAD to this evening and was literally dancing by the back door to get out. How funny. LOL.

Received the new Quilt Festival Catalog in the mail today. Since I did so much volunteer work at the show last year, we got our books a week for anyone else - even those that took classes. Looks like I'm taking a Gail Garber class on Thursday and one from Karen Stone class on Friday. I'm still trying to decide what to take on Saturday. Our Bee has 5 rooms at the Holiday Inn reserved. It's just a block from the George R Brown Center. Time to figure out who all will be there for sure. We usually end up with anywhere from 3 to 7 people piled into a room. Last year we met several ladies in the lobby who were from New York and we all were Knitting. They were showing us 'newbies' different ways. to cast on. Hope we meet them again!

Hubby is planning on hiking the Appalacian Trail for a month next Spring. While we were in Atlanta a couple of weeks ago, Robert and Jon did a day trip on the AT Approach. Apparently it was 8 miles going UP both coming and going (kinda like when our parents walked 5 miles uphill in the snow both ways from school). This picture must have been on the way UP! They sure didn't look that fresh after they got home! LOL.

New Babies!!

2010-03-21T19:45:00.001-05:00

We have new babies! They were born March 1 and have already tripled in size. Meet Gertrude and Gladys - those are the girls on the right. Shiner is the Blue Healer looking at them, trying to decide if they are toys and what the heck are they doing there. Since Houston has been so cold, we have their coop in the house, but they will be moving outside as soon as it is not so cold at night. We do take them outside during the day, and they mostly just run around in circles.

The next picture, 'the girls' are a few days older and feathers are popping out all over. It is amazing how fast they are changing. They say that chicks will bond to 'big' things, and I think they have bonded to hubby. They certainly like to climb all over him when he gets them out of the coop.

Everyone has heard of PLARN, which is yarn made from plastic bags. Not sure what I would ever use anything like that for, but have seen some interesting pictures. However, I ran across an article from the Green Upgrader about handspun recycled newspaper yarn. What a cool concept. I think everyone would have to agree that this would be a dying art as newspapers are going the way of the buggy whip. I know a few peple (mostly older folks) that still get a newspaper delivered, but I find I can get pretty much everything I want to know from the Internet or news channel (Uh, yeah - that would be FoxNews). Anyway, back to making yarn from newspapers. What is interesting here, is that they actually SPIN the paper, making it stronger and into a material that can be knitted (or crocheted).

Free Knit Scarf Pattern for Beginners!

2010-02-25T15:39:00.001-06:00

This is a great scarf for beginning knitters. I have made several of these for gifts, and my friend Nita makes and sells these at craft shows.

SKILL LEVEL: Beginner

SIZE: One Size (About 5 x 66 in.)

MATERIALS: 1 hank Farmhouse Lumpy Bumpy Wool Yarn or similar
Size 15 Single point Needles

GAUGE:
Exact gauge is not essential to this project.

SCARF

Cast on 12 stitches.
Row 1 (RS): Knit across.
Row 2 (WS): Knit across
Repeat Rows 1 and 2 until Scarf measures about 66 in. (167.5 cm) from beginning.
Bind off.

FINISHING
Weave in ends.
Add Fringe if desired

NOTE: Boucle yarns work really well with this type pattern. Combine more than one yarn to create more interest. Use larger needles for a looser weave and more drape.

2010-02-20T18:56:00.000-06:00

Finally unloaded the camera, and found pictures over the last month or so. I really did plan to get pics loaded here, so there will be a variety of subjects today.

First - just a preview of our Donation Quilt for West Houston Quilters Guild (WHQG). We're just finishing the last of the applique in the borders and it will be ready to go to the quilter. Our quilt show is April 2011, so there are lots of details still being worked on. The batiks almost glow against the black background. The colors in the picture don't quite do it justice. What looks red on my screen is actually more of a HOT PINK.

I think I mentioned earlier that I've started knitting. It's about as addictive as quilting. Afterall, it is fiber, and both are Fiber Arts! One of the best ways to learn to knit is to just get in there and do it. Now, you need to get in your rhythm and learn knit and purl stitches, stitching in the round and so on. Well, the BEST thing to do with those first projects is to FELT them. That way, no one sees your mistakes (what mistakes??) Because, when it is felted, all those little goofs just melt away! Gotta love it.

My favorite peice that I finished is a little basket. It's done with 100% wool, then washed in the washing machine with hot water. This is made from Cascade 200 wools. You can't really tell after it felted, but there is a stripe of varigated green/brown where the knobbie things are.

I have also made several of the obligatory Knit Cushion to hold Knit needles, and other tools. I did add a 4th layer to the one shown, and made one in reds for my friend Michelle who is also learning to knit. Nita - you don't get one until you learn to PURL!

And last but not least, I have to show what NOT to use when felting. If something says Super Wash, or is not 100% wool, it's not going to be successful. The dark red is Cascade 200, the pink part is Lion Brand Wool-Ease. It does not felt at all, and I have a beany sort of hat. So, I would suggest the Wool-ease for Afghans or anything you want to throw in the wash. I threw this in twice on HOT.

January UFO Finished

2010-02-03T22:12:00.003-06:00

This little Texas Pine tree star is my first UFO finish for 2010. Just barely in under the wire, and only because I had to turn it in on the 28th for the Tri County Quilt show. Nothing like a deadline to get things done! (That's weird, this new camera I have dates the pictures to the date you download not the date you took it. Probably need to read the book.)

Can you believe it? This is actually HAND QUILTED!! There is a little bit of blanket stitch and the applique is fused. A first for me, as I usually do needle-turn. Oh well, finished is better than perfection. Did most of the hand quilting in the car on various road trips, which is why it fell into the UFO pile. Started it a couple of years ago, and found it on a shelf in the closet.

Been doing a bunch of knitting. Caught that little bug at Quilt Festival of all places! Anyway, finished several 'little' crafty projects, and am working on a felted rug right now. It is a quilt pattern (HST - half square triangles) and will show pictures when it is done. Another of my quilting friends has also started knitting and has already finished a hat and a shrug. Way to go Michelle! I realize now that my ambittion to make socks last year was a bit much, but am confident I can do it this year. Next year I plan to join the sock club at Twisted Yarns in Spring, TX. Guess I'll have to start a UFO KNIT project list as well. .

No new fabric purchased this week, didn't cut any fabric or use any, but did work on several swaps where I cut the fabric last week. Most of the swaps are due later in February. Will show pictures after we swap.
More later.

Stashbusting January 2010

2010-01-25T08:48:00.003-06:00

January has 5 weeks, so ought to be able to use up more fabric this month! Here is my report so far:

Used this Week: 14.5 yards **
Used year to Date: 20 yards
Added this Week: 0 yards
Added Year to Date: 0 yards
Net Used for 2010: 35.5 yards

** Used
5 yards of a beautiful blue batik for the WHQG quilt show donation quilt.
2 yards various yardage for Bricks swap (due Feb 9)
1 yard various prints for Road to Stars swap (due Feb 2) for KR Bee
2.5 yards various prints for Montana Two Step Swap (for Thursday Bee)
1 yard for 9 patches for new grandmas (great-grandmas) for KR Bee.
1 yard scraps for triangles charm quilt (1000 pyramid type)
2 yards (8 fat qtrs) of various Christmas prints cut into 1.5" strips. Sharing with Nita.

UFO Finishes!

2010-01-02T11:31:00.003-06:00

I had bought the fabric for this quilt back in March 2008 when we were headed for our retreat in Gaveston Texas at the quiltshop Quilts By The Bay. (This was before they got wiped out by Hurricane IKE). I had shown Rachael the fabric after I had bought it and told her that I couldn't do it for her first Christmas (Dec 2008), but would do it for her first birthday. Well, her first birthday was in September 09, but we were in Mexico then and I didn't get around to it. So, after I finished up all the customer quilts before Christmas, I got started on this one. This photo is the stock photo, I'll get an actual picture when we get back to home.

The other quilt that I got finished is a Disappearing Nine-Patch done in Greens and Chocolate Browns for daughter Lindsey. This one had been started at beginning of 2009, and since we didn't do Christmas on the 25th, was able to get it completed for when we did exchange gifts after Christmas.

I think these two are a great start for the new year. I didn't get to play with my quilting buddies who had a sew-in at Ann's house yesterday. Looks like I'll be participating in several block swaps in 2010. Hopefully they won't end up on the UFO list.

Things I Wanted To Do in 2009

2010-01-02T10:20:00.003-06:00

At the beginning of 2009, I put together a list of things that I wanted to do or try. These weren't necessarily resolutions, but things that would help me in my journey towards allowing myself to be more creative.

Happy to say I accomplished most everything on the list. Even if I didn't finish it, I at least tried - and maybe decided that wasn't for me. I think I will have to have a 2010 List that will keep me motivated. How about you?

Stashbusting at its Best!

2009-12-23T22:44:00.003-06:00

I have been sooooo good the last couple of weeks. Definitly no fabric shopping (Oh, except for some 50 cent Christmas fabric fat quarters from Hobly Lobly) The big news is that I used over 40 yards of fabric finishing up seven lap quilts (approx 60 x 72). Then, I got started on several swaps that are due the first couple of months in 2010. I figure another 3 yards so far on that. Today, I almost put together a whole top for 1 year old grand-daughter from fabrics that I bought in 2008. I guess I can count that as stashbusting as well as working on a UFO! Hope to get it done before we see the kids for Christmas next week. Need a better way to keep track of what I've used and added.

A friend of mine in Colorado sent me a big ole box of Alpaca roving? It has been cleaned and is super soft. I think I still need to card it it make it more like the roving that I have bought for my needlefelting. I asked Santa to bring me a hand weaving Spindle for Christmas, but I don't think the hints (or the list on the refrigerator) helped at all. I might still be surprized. We'll see. It's killing me not to get started working with the wool that Jan sent. I've been doing a lot of reading on the internet. I've decided that the hand spindle is all that I have room for right now. Hubby would probably shoot me if I asked for another room to start another hobby (spinning wheel). As long as I can keep it in the existing rooms, it shouldn't be a problem. (No picture, because it just looks like a black blob. Going to have to try differnt lighting.)

I found a great website for instruction on hand spinning at Joy of Hand Spinning Learned several new terms and found out a couple of other tools that I will need as well.

Week 49 (wow) Stash Report

2009-12-06T08:27:00.003-06:00

OK, so I lost track of fabric months ago. But, I have really been going through a lot of it lately. Sometimes it is hard to differentiate between fabric I use for my stuff and customer quilts. BUT, if I use fabric for backings that have I have had for more than a year, that should count as stash-busting. In that case, I have been doing awesome.

I joined a new group with some friends of mine that while we only meet once a quarter, we have really been busting the stash. It is strongly encouraged to use only fabrics from our stash. The first exchange was 6 inch 9 patches, and the 2nd swap was HourGlass blocks to go with the 9-patches. I would have to do the math to figure out how much fabric I used to make 100 9-patches and 80 hourglass blocks, but I did not make a dent in the fabric. . The 3rd swap was with Black on White with BRIGHTs making Churn Dash blocks. Think I made 60 of those.

The fabric stash grew when a friend of mine moved to San Antonio and she passed on a bunch of fabric that she did not take with her.

My Thursday Bee is doing another swap that is not due until after the first of the year, but I have already started on the blocks. (Montana Scrappy from Lynn Roddy Browns 2nd Book - a "Texas 2 Step" variation) These blocks consist of smaller Hourglass blocks and 4 patches.

The Katy Rotary Bee (my Monday Bee) is doing two swaps. One is for the quilt that was on the cover of the June 2009 McCalls Quilt magazine. Then we are also doing a Thousand Pyramids triangle quilt and we are all swapping fabrics so that we can go for each triangle a different fabric (500 lights, 500 darks).

Now, I must brag that at Quilt Festival this year That I only bought 4 yards of fabric. 2.5 yards were fat quarters that were .75 cents each and the other was some woven stuff I bought (and have already used) in some Halloween projects.

Well, after looking at this list, guess I better go get to work on some of these projects!

Out of the loop

2009-11-20T20:54:00.004-06:00

Have really been off the radar lately. Youngest daughter is now offically married, the reception is over and everyone is back home and back to work. This is the year that the kids visit the husbands family on Christmas, so we'll be having several celebrations this year. Plans are to go to Atlanta some time during those last two weeks.

Well, grand-daughter Chloe was just barely walking when we saw her the last time. The next week Rachael reports that not only is she walking, but that she is RUNNING! Good grief they grow up fast!

I'm in a lot of new Block swaps. Always sign up for way more than I need to do. Well, I do plan on doing most of them from my stash. My Thursday Bee are all going in together on 7 bolts of of ICE fabrics (that is Ivory, Cream and Ecru). I need to take some pictures of the swap that we just finished from my NO PITA Blockbuilders that meets once a quarter. It was Churndashes done with BRIGHTS and Black on White or White on Blacks. The new swaps all are using the creamy backgrounds and either civil war repros or scrappy fabrics.

Well, I thought I was getting rid of a LOT of fabric. A large container packed and overflowing with fabrics. Donated to the ARTITUDE bunch that is going to make a crazy quilt for a fund raiser for the next quilt show. I ended up coming home with a car packed to the gills with 'stuff' from a friend who is moving to San Antonio. She was having the junk movers come at 4:30, so we were all 'rescueing' good stuff that was just going to get dumped. Still going through things, but I think the neatest thing was the stone tumbler doo-hicky thingee. Can't wait to put some of the Huatulco shells and glass that we brought home in there and see what comes out.

PC or Mac?

Don't you all enjoy those Mac ads where PC is valiantly trying to prove himself as good as Mac? Well, I've been a PC user since the mid 80's and you would think that when I asked for a new computer for my birthday that I might consider a Mac. Well, I didn't, and I got a new Dell. Actually, it has been a pretty painless switch-over from my old pc to the new one. I was also afraid of Vista, but apparently I've got Microsoft 7. I actually kinda like it. Guess I'm that nerdy PC guy.

Quilt Market Houston

2009-10-13T07:51:00.006-05:00

Back from Quilt Market. It was early this year, but I was more than ready. Didn't really see any new 'gadgets' that I couldn't live without. Lots of new fabrics, patterns and books. What I'm noticing is that the patterns really are not 'new', but the same old traditional thing done in current fabrics. Does that consitute a 'new' pattern? Reminds me when I was 'little' and Mom would take me to Cloth World to look at dress patterns. She would remind me to look at the 'lines' of the pattern not the colors that the pattern was presented in. I mean really, a Churn Dash or Hole in the Barn Door is still the same. Do we really need new patterns for them? Now, if the 'artist' is presenting a new technique, that is something else entirely. The same thing when your favorite author (Merced Lackey) releases a book and you get it because it is your favorite author after all, you get it home and you figure out it is a book you read 15 years ago, just has a new cover and a new title. Bummer. OK, off my soapbox, and back to the Market report.

I think I only took one picture, and that was of Edyta Sitar of Laundry Basket Quilts. She has a couple of new books. HOP TO IT and FRIENDSHIP TRIANGLES . Friendship Triangles will be available in November 2009. Edyta was doing a book signing, and these were available to us at Market. She loves doing half square triangles and apparently one shop made about 50,000 of the little squares! I don't think it takes THAT many to make the cover quilt. LOL. I'm already doing the HOP TO IT applilque quilt. Well, lets just say I have the first block cut out. Not sure if I have actually put an applique stitch in yet. BUT, this will be one the of the projects that I'm working on while babysitting the OLD FASHIONED QUILTING BOOTH at Festival. I'll be one of the ones sitting around the quilting frame showing others how to hand quilt. Be sure to stop by and say hello!

Paradise Found!

2009-09-30T19:57:00.007-05:00

What a wonderful week! We just spent the last week in Hautulco Mexico. I bet most of you have never heard of this little piece of paradise. This is an undiscovered area that there are a few resorts in the area, but the has not been highly developed. Only recently, a couple of cruise ships a week stop in there, but otherwise seems untouched by the outside world. One of our shopping trips, we found a textile district. One place had the larger looms where they were weaving cotton blankets. The shop a couple of doors down was a smaller business where they did everything from raising the animals, getting the wool, dyeing, carding, spinning and weaving. They had smaller looms for making intricate wool designs. More on that later.

The main reason for going to Mexico was that our youngest daughter was getting married - on the beach. What a pretty bride! Family and friends attended the ceremony. Most everyone was barefoot! The band that played was a gift from the resort (Dreams Resort & Spa) was a nice touch. NOW, we need to start thinking about next set of grandkids! No pressure!

SHARE THE LOVE - IBOL

2009-09-04T07:12:00.003-05:00

Quilts.Inc sent this info about a wonderful project for quilters, sewers, knitters to SHARE SOME LOVE! It's being organized by an American Soldier in Iraq and it's called IBOL...Iraq Bundle of Love.

First, go to your stash and see what you can spare—fabrics, scissors, thread, thimbles, notions like needles and pins, etc. No books—too heavy. If you're also a knitter, yarn and needles would be great to include. Lots of us have duplicates, even triplicates, and what a great way to lighten your stash, gain storage space, and do good, all at the same time!

Then go to the post office and get one of their large, flat-rate FFO/APO boxes, which are fairly sizable (one quilter sent 9 pounds in one box). At just $11.95 to mail, it's a great tool to use in this project. Package your donations according to Major LaFlamme's directions (this is very important as it will reduce the help needed to unpack and distribute these supplies) and mail it to him in Iraq at his special project address (the post office will ask you to fill out a customs form, too).

For more info, go to: http://ibol.wordpress.com. Be sure you read the FAQ and the section on how to make up your bundle. You have to leave a comment on his blog to get the APO address for sending your box. Pass on the info to your friends, too. You just use a Flat Rate APO box that the Post Office provides for free, pay the $11.95 shipping and the bundle will be passed on.

Life is Good... .( or a Dog's Life)

2009-08-25T07:21:00.010-05:00

How many of you have Plumeria and have been waiting for them to bloom? We brought back several 'stick's of Plumeria several years ago from Hawaii, and have patiently waited for the darn things to bloom. Well, finally after 3 (?) years, my patience has paid off. ONE of the plants is blooming. Can't say much for the other 6. I was thinking that this HOT Texas summer has been heck on all our flowers, I realized that we actually had quite a few blooms coloring our yard.

So, I went around and took pictures of about 10 different plants that were in bloom. Oleanader, Impatiens (poor things wilt in the sun, then perk up again with a bit of water), Altheas, Vinca, several varieties of Jasmine. These little pinks things always blossom after a good rain and pop up in the strangest places. The others I would have to go look up the names, but won't right now.

I've been busy finishing up lots of t-shirt quilts for kids that are headed back to back or off to college for the first time. (I remember those days!!). While it might have seemed that I was buried under t-shirts, I always enjoy looking at the collection of shirts that each person brings. It warms my heart knowing that these quilts will be treasured and bring fond memories to these people. I've really been enjoying several of the quilts that I finished the last couple of weeks because my customers are getting more creative with the fabrics they are choosing. I think the most popular fabric lines have been from the Sorbet Line from Sentimental Studios for Moda Fabrics. No links as this line is pretty much gone from the shelves, but I've included a sample of the fabric from the line. I just love the Peacocks and the colors.

My other favorite line is Urban Couture by Basic Grey for Moda Fabrics Especially the Red Grunge. I've been working on a simple quilt using 3 charm packs and some yardage. Look for pictures soon, as I plan on finishing that top at Retreat next week.

This is Shiner. Need I say it, he is one happy dog. This Blue Heeler is my shadow. Since I work from home, he 'might' be just a bit spoiled... I couldn't resist snapping this shot, as he was groaning in his sleep. I'm sure he is dreaming about catching Frisbies or chasing tennis balls.

Oh, and see that quilt is lounging on? That is HAND QUILTED - back in the days when I still did hand - quilting!!

Road Trip to Moda and P&B Fabrics in Dallas !

2009-08-11T19:51:00.005-05:00

Have always heard about going to the Moda & P&B fabric warehouses, so a couple of my longarm buddies and I went to Dallas last week to check it out. Sharon D. had been there before, so we were armed with colored stickers to mark our bolts of fabric! Of course mine were Red, Barb's were Blue and Sharons were Yellow. Oh, make a note. .. P&B warehouse is NOT air conditioned! So, when it is 100 degrees outside, it is at least 110 in the warehouse! They did have fans going, but I got a little dizzy from the heat - or maybe from the fabric... who knows.

On Thursday we went to Moda. Ahh, sweet air conditioning... You have to understand. At 7:30 in the morning it was already 95 degrees and about 90 percent humidity. Rows and rows of fabric, it was wonderful... What was nice was picking out 'partial' bolts. Instead of getting the usual 15 yard bolts, they had lots of bolts with anywhere from 6 yards up to the 15 yard bolts.

After about 3 hours and a relaxing lunch, we headed over to Cabbage Rose quilt shop in Fort Worth. We were getting a bit frustrated with the condescending lady in the GPS who kept having to recalculate because the stupid signs were AFTER the exit instead of before the exit.

After another break and dinner, we went to the Dallas Guild meeting. Not much to say there, we were a bit under-whelmed with the experience. Then back to the hotel where we bid the GPS lady goodnight. Friday morning we are all ready to head back to Houston, and my car has been broken into! Oh NO! Some jerk has busted the window out of my car. The GPS lady has been kidnapped! THEY LEFT THE FABRIC! whew!

Can't say enough nice stuff about the manager at the hotel. He had my car cleaned and arranged for a glass guy to come fix the car. We were finally on the road a few hours later, getting home AFTER the fabric that Moda shipped for us arrived.

Good To Be Home Again and Again and Again.

2009-07-26T20:25:00.006-05:00

Boy, this summer has been busy! Went to Atlanta over the 4th of July to visit the kids and grand-daughter. The next weekend was a day trip to Temple Texas for a quilt show and visit to quilt shops in Georgetown and Salado Texas. The next weekend was another driving trip up to Tulsa for other daughter who was having a high school reunion and wedding shower. Greater Houston had their quilt show this weekend and our Thursday Bee had a sew-in at Nita's house yesterday. I think I am ready to park my behind at home for a few days and get back on track. Big weather storm just blew through, but only lost power for a short bit, but still had to turn everything off for awhile.

I have lots of pictures to go through. I just downloaded them last night. However, I will start with my July UFO Finish. This is a little table topper that I started for Lindsey several years ago when the 5" charm packs were first coming out from Moda. I forgot the line, but there are maps of Paris, flowers and just 'cute' fabric. The light background is handwriting. I made 4-patches from the 5" squares then cut the background pieces the same size. There wasn't quite enough of the darker reds to make the top, so I did purchase a bit of the red for a couple of the 4-patches and the inner border. I did purchase coordinating fabric for the back at the same time. It's been hanging on a hangar to be quilted for over 4 years! Click on the the other picture to see the quilting.

Ready to Retire?

2009-06-25T20:35:00.005-05:00

We bought our retirement land on an airpark last summer. Check out the street signs that my studio will be located! I've been Shadywood Quilts for so long, but I think I'm going to have to come up with a new name. Actually, the studio will face Lazy Eight Trail and our home will face the other side which if I remember right is Barrel Roll Drive. (The Trail streets are actually grass taxi-ways for the airplanes, and the Drive streets are graveled roads).

We got an email last week that the owner of the lot next to ours was burning brush and it got away from them. So, we drove up to Lake Palestine (outside of Tyler, TX) to check the damage on the lots.

One of the reasons we selected this land was because of the trees - and that it was on an airpark - and on a lake. Fortunatly, (I'm not sure if it was the Berryville or the Frankston Fire Department,) but they did a great job and saved most of the trees. Here is a picture of probably the worst of the burn. We figure that we would have had to remove most of the trees that burned when we cleared to build the house and hangar.

We had thought we would be building our retirement home in the next few years. I love where we live now, after all, Houston is like Quilt Mecca for quilters. I have two quilt shops within 4 miles of my house, belong to 3 guilds, and am fortunate to be in several Bees where I've become friends with many awesome women. The thought of leaving here to go live out in the middle of nowhere is a little daunting, but I imagine that when I'm sitting lakeside, drinking margaritas I might get over it! LOL.

This last picture is looking out at the lake next to the boat dock. Today in Houston was over 100 degrees. I'm sorry, but it is NOT supposed to be that hot here. I don't think we broke 100 the last 2 summers. We will get to cool off Saturday. Company party at Schlitterbahn water park. That will be fun, but wish the kids were still around to go as well.

Speaking of kids, we are going to Atlanta over the 4th. Little Chloe isn't so little any more. She turned 9 months a couple of days ago and is making valiant attempts at standing but not too keen on walking yet. A friend of mine is letting me borrow a booklet of Atlanta area quiltshops from their recent Shophop. This time, I will have my GPS and I know how to use it! Last fall, I got totally lost with all the Peachtree roads, blvds and so on and totally missed visiting a guild meeting that was happening while we were there.

Haven't been getting a lot of quilting done this past week. I've been cleaning and rearranging my studio and have been listing nearly two hundred quilting books on eBay. All books start at .99 cents, no reserve. Think there are about 75 out there right now, and still have a stackanother 25 or 30 sitting here ready to type up and get posted. Just go to my ebay store and click on Books or Auctions. http://stores.shop.ebay.com/Shady-wood

20's Flapper Dress???

2009-06-15T08:24:00.007-05:00

Found the coolest beadest remnants of a beaded dress from an estate (of a quilter no less). I have visions of this woman in her younger days dancing in this dress and quilting as she got older. There are two more pieces besides this front piece. There is not an area tht does not have a bead or sequin on it. Any suggestions what to do with this? If I don't get any good ideas, I'm just going to list it in my eBay store. But, I would rather make 'something' with at least part of it!!!

There was also a little over 11 yards of this sew-ing type of embroidered lace. It is 4 inches wide, but the edges are raw and would be perfect to set in between two fabrics. What in world did this lady need 11 yards of this? Surely not a gathered skirt! That would be a FULL skirt!

Now this is just downright cool. It is the table insert for a toddler play table. The reason I know is that I had a similar table when I was a baby, and we used it as a regular table (card table sized with adjustable height legs). This insert goes in the middle when there is not a baby sitting there. Now this one is probably for a bit older child. Oh, there was also a 'green board' that fit over the entire surface of the table. Mine had the alphabet and some basic animal shapes around the outside edge. Long after the table was gone, we still had the 'green board'.

Still going through the BOX of stuff that I got from this estate. There are some old fabrics that look like feedsacks, but is actually yardage. Wonder what date that puts that fabric? This piece, I can't tell what letter that it is supposed to be. Maybe a P?

I have been quilting for over 30 years, and I have accumulated a LOT of quilting stuff. I have been [forced to] clean my studio, and am listing a LOT of quilting books on eBay. Right now there are over 40 books listed, with more to come. I literally have hundreds of books that need to go. I need the shelf space and hubby is threatening to just go in there and toss them in the trash. Whatever books that don't sell, I will donate to my local quilt guild, but would like to give everyone a chance to get their hands on these classic books. Right now, there are probably 10 books just on Color Wash. Now, did I EVER make a colorwash quilt? NOPE.

If interested, here is a link to my ebay store.

Longarm Meeting in Bacliff Texas

2009-06-14T22:27:00.009-05:00

Our gracious leader Karen O hosted the quarterly meeting of the Bayshore Longarm Quilters. OK, her home is in Bacliff, but most of the members live somewhere else other than Baycliff. There were ladies from as far away as Montgomery and Conroe, and a couple of us from Cypress. Oh, if you have been to Karen's studio (which is wonderful to just sit and drool over the quilts hanging on the wall) Pixxie was there. She was in full entertainment mode! It was rather impressive that whenever someone would hold up a quilt, she would pose in front of it, and then of course, want a treat. Very cute.

The first picture is Karen holding a quilt she just finished quilting. The 2nd one is Karen introducing some required reading to the new quilters that were there. Just look at all the neat stuff on the walls!

When it came time for Christyn to do show and tell, she showed us her Intelliquilter (IQ). I think everyone was impressed with the IQ. Even Barb and I were (and we've had ours for over a year), because she was showing the new features that were in the latest update from Zoltan. Can't wait to get the download and start playing with the new features.

My friend Linda and I went to The Woodlands guild quilt show on Friday. This show was quite different from previous years, as they had always held their show in a fancy hotel/large convention room. This time it was in a church and the quilts were all over the place. Found out we totally missed the Boutique which was probably just as well as I DID find the Vendors! The quilts we did see were nicely done, but I'm not sure if we saw them all or not. The Last Supper quilt was there in the Sanctuary of the church. It was nice to sit in the pews, and just reflect on the amazing detail.

The featured artist was awesome. I don't have her name available (the program is out in the car, and I'm in my jammies and ready for bed) but she had miniatures that were amazing. This is just one of the many she had there, note the finger on the right to give you some idea of the scale of this piece. These are Mariners Compass for crying out loud. We were standing there oohing and aahing, not realizing that the artist was standing there. She was very gracious and allowed us to take lots of pictures.

Old is New Again!

2009-06-08T21:07:00.007-05:00

How is this for old is new? My buddy Michelle purchased a hand crank sewing machine. Now, unlike me, where mine is just looking cool on a shelf, Michelle is set up in a field, pretending to watch her hubby flying model airplanes, and sewing quilts with her hand crank machine! I am so impressed and feel like some sort of challenge is in order. Talk about going green! Another buddy has a hand crank and I know she has already completed a quilt top with hers. I'm waiting to see if she quilts it with her hand-crank. I'm not sure how the logistics work with that. I have to have two hands to guide all those layers around. Not sure how I would do it with one hand on the quilt and the other on the wheel. Maybe we can get a picture??

I'm in a great Bee. We meet once a month, and we can crank out some quilts for Charity. Last Thursday, we hung out about 20 quilts that we have put together for nursing homes and for the Linus project. At the last guild meeting in May, we turned in 38 quilts. In the picture on the right is Michelle, Carolyn, Nancy, Connie, Mariet, Linda and Nita is kneeling in the front. A lot of this fabric is donated (those panels) , but a good deal of it comes from our own stashes. See that Log Cabin in the background? I have Blood, Sweat and Tears in that one - literally. I was cutting strips from scraps and had a major rotary cutter accident. That's the one where my finger was still bleeding the next morning, and Gail tells me to get my butt to the emergency room. Duh!

Back in April, I mentioned the strip workshop that was a lot of fun. The patterns were 'Pole Dancing', 'Street Corner' and so on. This one you can see we were all getting a lot done! NOT. Pictured left to right is Ann, Gail, Linda, Michelle and little old me, again from the Thursday Night Bee - otherwise known as the Sub-Bee! Well, we do have other names, but I can't reveal those!

UFO's, Stashbusting and so on....

2009-06-03T20:18:00.007-05:00

Boy, May zoomed by in a huge flash! Got a lot of things done, just not all of what I wanted to get done. OK, that is the same for most of you probably! Recovering pretty well from my arm surgery the first of May. The stitches have pretty much dis-solved, so I can start lifting my arms without worrying about ripping something.

Did finish up a UFO from early last year. This is one that is very hard to admit to. Here I am, a professional longarm quilter, and the quilt that was supposed to be done when Chloe was born last September didn't get quilted. The top was done, but alas, my humble excuse was HURRICANE IKE. OK, no power for 3 weeks got me off the hook for awhile, but really - 8 months????

Like those Kilgore was here fingers at the top? That is hubby holding the quilt.. He hates doing that. ha ha. This little quilt just screams little girl. It has fussy cut images in the corners and soft pinks and whites with nice loud hot pink polka dots on the back. The fabrics are mostly by Lakehouse.

An old quilting friend of mine from Tulsa has moved to north Houston. She is a quilt teacher and speaker and I'm looking forward to having start with her first class to our Monday Bee. This quilt she calls the Texas 2-Step. It uses Sally Sneiders method where you piece the blocks without using triangles! She has a special tool to do this. Well, so much for not buying fabric. I've been picking up the most fabulous oranges (my new favorite color) in order to do this very scrappy. (Have I mentioned that I love SCRAPPY???) . Anyway, the color are kind of like Halloween, and this one has a few pumpkins in there, but I wouldn't consider it a Halloween quilt.

As far as Stashbusting goes - all I can say is that "I've been bad". Take a peek in this bag for the oranges and blacks. There are more than a few yards of fabric in there! But I always figure you can't have too many blacks, and boy did I find some nice black toned fabrics. And Orange. What more do I need to say? Then I was going through my shirtings for a background or light fabrics in the quilt. Most of them were too 'white' . The fabrics I selected have a more yellow cast to them. My buddy Sharon went through her stash and found a few that I could use as well.

New Toys

2009-05-08T18:40:00.008-05:00

I love anything to do with sewing and quilting. I have quite a few collections of sewing collectibles. It started with thimbles - over 30 years ago. Last year at the Houston Quilt Festival I kept hearing my name being called and I fell in love with my first little vintage sewing machine. Just recently some friends of mine started picking up some hand crank sewing machines, and as they say, the rest is history! This first one is a Soviet Child's Metal Sewing Machine: Made in USSR. Redish orange metal body on wooden base. Working condition, hand crank. Has Running Deer Logo and Floral Decals.

Another little toy is one that I found on eBay. Her name is "Little Bett" and is written on the lower right corner. The little hand crank is a little stiff, but works great! The machine has "Made in England" on the stitch plate. It is plate #2-779 in the Glenda Thomas sewing machine book.

This vintage pretend-play toy is made in the 1960s-70s, Soviet Russia - USSR. It is made of solide metal painted in light blue with floral decorations. The black base stand is made of bakelite. When you turn the side wheel the sewing needle moves up and down. The toy is in very well preserved condition and works perfectly. Bought this one from a gentleman in Bulgaria.

Recycle, Reuse, Panic!

2009-04-29T06:59:00.001-05:00

Anyone who is on the Quiltville yahoo list, knows about recycling men's cotton shirts. Well, I had kinda ignored those posts, thinking, I DON'T need more fabric. So, I didn't pay much attention as to the best methods for chopping these shirts into usuable fabric. Thanks to those that sent me links on the best way to get the most fabric.

Well, one of my customers brought me 140 western style shirts to make 7 quilts. This is what 140 of the puppies look like! That is the 3 overflowing box, and the big box next to it that isn't quite filled to the top! Over the weekend, I did manage to go through two of the paper boxes and have cut those into quite a bit of fabric! I'm surprised how much fabric there is. I did not save the cuffs, collars and yokes. Although after I made my second or third trip to the trash, hubby asks if I am going to save any of those cool snaps to put in the borders! I think not, as those would hard to quilt over and around.
[Note to self: Cut shirts BEFORE vaccuuming the rugs].

I did send her to the quiltville.com website to look at scrappy quilts, but she ended up choosing the "Yellow Brick Road" pattern to make the seven quilts. I want to get the rest of the shirts dis-assembled, then will start laying out color combinations. I will have lots of neat solids, stripes and plaids to work with.

Finished up a couple more T-shirt quilts this week, and got several more in. Graduation is always a busy time!

Tuesday was another day of RAIN! Good grief, we had 10 inches last weekend. Yesterday, we had at least another 10. The creeks around us (Big Cypress and Little Cypress) were over the banks and up to the bottom of the bridges. On Grant, the same creek was actually over the road. Our yard was pretty much under water all day, looked like it did after Hurricane Ike last fall. I drove down to the mailbox since the road was mostly under water. Sure glad I did, because as I was turning back into our driveway, there was a water mocassin swimming across the road. I'm such a woose, even in the big 'ole car I was scared by a 3 foot snake. Maybe because his brother was on our back porch after the last rain. I stayed in the house until hubby got home. Of course he had disappeared by then.

Skyrockets Workshop

2009-04-28T21:06:00.005-05:00

Went to a workshop an all day last week, Sally Schneider taught us about making Skyrockets. This was a pretty good workshop, I even managed to get 5 blocks done. I don't have pictures of MY blocks, they are in the car already so I don't forget to take them to the day guild meeting tomorrow.

However, I did take a picture of the wall where everyone was putting their finished blocks. I love it when the students hang their blocks. With all the different fabric choices, the blocks always seem to look good together. There were batiks, 30's prints, random fabrics and so on. The success of the block is due to paying attention to the placement of the value in the block. Darks, mediums and lights. The Rocket part was supposed to the bold or dark part. Now the picture on the left uses a few different backgrounds to give the light effect in the center.

This is one project that I do plan to finish. Guess I better go add it to my UFO list .

Strip Workshop by Ladies of the Night !

2009-04-19T10:53:00.010-05:00

What fun we had at the strip workshop on Saturday! The Ladies of the Night Bee showed us 8 ways to use our 2.5" strips (jelly rolls). I think there were about 40 of us signed up for the workshop, and the LADIES outdid themselves with snacks, doorprizes and hospitality.

"Barbie" showed us "Street Corners" which was probably the best pattern for utilizing Jelly Rolls. I didn't get a picture of her beautiful Blue, Yellow and Green quilt top, but it just screamed SPRING and turned out nicely.

Benedicte "Frenchie" demoed "Spinning Strippers" and other patterns such as "Pasties", "Pole Dancing", "Red Light District" and"G-strings" were presented by other members.

Everyone in the workshop received printed instructions to go along with the demo. What great ideas to use up some of those scraps we've all been saving. I'm really looking forward to making Gails "Twirling Tassles" aka Double Pinwheels in scrappy reds and off whites.

Nita pointed out, that getting the Tassles to twirl in opposite directions is 'all in the shoulders'! What a hoot!

Knitting, Baskets and Quilting

2009-04-19T09:28:00.006-05:00

I took a SOCKS 101 class Saturday, and am much more confident in my knitting skills. Still a beginner, but much more comfortable! Now I just need to figure out how to make my tension a little looser. My sock was about 3/4 the size of the class sample, and Nancy's was about twice the size! Our quilting buddies in the Patchwork Friends Bee got a big kick out of seeing the two socks together. Mine was about 1/2 the size of hers. All agreed she needs a little more tension, and I need to loosen mine. NO PICTURES - the camera would have broken.... LOL. The class was at Twisted Yarn in Spring, Texas. Ann was a great teacher and very patient my beginner issues! Thanks Ann! Boy, there were some lucsious yarns there. The shop was a very busy shop with lots of ladies that stop in just to knit.

Next door to the yarn shop was a BASKET shop called In The Works. Nancy and I talked to a lady that was unloading many baskets in various stages of completion. Kinda like our quilt UFOs. Danger Danger Will Robinson! They have a Basket Guild that meets at that shop.

Finished Chloes quilt and showed it at the Patchwork Friends Bee. They were the ones that made the 9-patch blocks for the quilt last year. The FMLC were instrumental in getting this one laid out in a pleasing manner. They suggested the diagonal rows of color and I think it turned out great! If you check the closeup, you can see the freehand feather meandering that I did on this one. The background fabric is good 'ole reliable Kona Snow, and I put a 30's print on the back that has the green and purple in it.

The Cobblers' Kids Have No Shoes

2009-04-14T15:01:00.006-05:00

My Friday Bee (Patchwork Friends) made purple and green nine-patches for me las t Fall when I announced that I was going to be a new grandma! I put the blocks together at the Galveston retreat, and am nearly finished quilting it with an overall freehand feather meader. There is a pretty 30's style fabric on the back from the HELLO BETTY, Chloe's Closet line of fabric from Moda. What a coincidence that my grand-daughters name is Chloe!!! She is growing so much, and I haven't seen her since Christmas. Some of my Bee friends say I am flunking "Grandma" because this will be the first quilt poor little Chloe is going to get from her Grandma! Something about the Cobblers' kids have no shoes!

One of the "Things I want to Do/Try in 2009" items was to "Make silver DANGLE earrings". My buddy Linda gave all of us lessons in different jewelry making techniques - at the same time! Bless her heart - she was teaching 3 different techniques and we were all asking questions at the same time about our project. I think we wore her out!

On one side of the room, Sharon was stringing beads making several strands to go with a shell type necklace. Barb was working on a wire bracelet with Swarovski Crystals, and I was working on several pairs of earrings. I think they turned out pretty cool!
After the earrings I saw Linda some of her Peyote stich bracelets. There were so Anthropologie. Anyway, then she showed me how to get started with that, and I completed a couple of inches worth that last evening.

April Showers - At Galveston Beach

2009-04-06T17:46:00.012-05:00

Spent another week on retreat. I am so lucky to live in an area where so many 'quilty' things are happening. I'm also fortunate to have so many friends that are also quilters. The FMLC were on retreat all last week at a beachhouse on Jamaica Beach in Galveston. It is an awesome place if you are in the area. We did have rain & grey skies the whole week. The sun literally came out as we were pulling out of the driveway to leave! We almost decided to stay another day- but I had to get back home since my in-laws were visiting from Tulsa.

We worked on Sharons floor quilt as a group effort. She picked some great pinks and greens. Her sewing cabinet that she bought at Houston Market last fall is that green color! This floorcloth was a whopping 50+inches so it kinda took up the whole floor, so the rest of us decided to practice on hers and do ours at home (well, OK, the rest of us still hadn't decided what fabrics to use for ours!).

We brought lots of projects to work on, not all of them were quilty projects. I managed to get several t-shirt quilt tops pieced and put together a top from 9-patches that were given to me by my Friday bee (Patchwork Friends) made of purples and greens. I also put in some time working on my oldest daughters Double Wedding Ring quilt - the top is nearly complete, but not quite. BUT, I also got some beading lessons from Linda. I (with Linda's help) made a couple of pairs of earrings and started a peyote stitch bracelet. Don't see any pictures of those, so I'll have to take some and post those later.

Oh, I finished up that BAMBOO Quilt and gave it to my nephew and his new wife as a gift on Saturday. So it already has a new home. The wedding was at a Unitarian church and the entire back wall was glass windows overlooking lovely gardens, trees, and bi\rds flying around. It made a lovely backdrop to their special occasion.

Looks like Lindsey managed to get a picture of Jon and me after the wedding.

Another UFO Finished! Bamboo Quilt

2009-03-22T23:12:00.005-05:00

Well, I had such guilt over going into the hole on my Stashbusting efforts, that I decided to kill 2 birds with one stone - as they say. About Festival Time (Houston) in 2007, our Thursday Bee swapped a bunch of Oriental fabrics. From that we made bunches of blocks for the BAMBOO quilt. Well, I've had the top done for some time, and finally got it quilted this weekend. Also used several yards of fabric for the backing & binding, which I will add to my next stash report. I'm just finishing up the binding, so haven't taken a new picture yet. This is the quilt without before I put the borders on it. I quilted it with a gold colored thread (not metallic) but because of all the metallic colors in the quilt, it looks like I used metallic thread.

Did anyone watch Quilting Arts on PBS Saturday? I was glad to see it back on again. Had 3 cool projects, but the last item really got me excited. They used some software (new to me) call Kaleidoscope Kreator. I think this will be fun to play with, as you can take a digital photo or scan some fabric, and then create the kaleidoscope on the screen, then print it out on fabric. No piecing! They have a couple of companion software packages that do other shapes. Definitly think this will be fun to play with.

The other new thing is that I've joined yet ANOTHER Bee. This one is an Art bee, and amazingly there was a huge turnout at the meeting. 17 of us were there with a few more saying they couldn't be there because of Spring Break. We were trying to come up with a name for the group, and from Quilters with an Attitude, Ruth suggested ARTiTude! Next month when we meet, we're going to do some fabric dyeing. Not sure yet what kind, but a couple of the ladies are putting together a program for us and we'll do some hands-on work. At the meeting we talked about doing some resist dyeing, or dyeing with natural elements. Here is a link at Pioneer Thinking that gives all sorts of suggestions of what to use to attain the color you are looking for. Am looking forward to see what we're going to do!

Stashbusting Report - March 2009

2009-03-17T22:03:00.003-05:00

Haven't done a stashbusting report in a while.... Been pretty busy working on customer quilts, and on retreat I worked on Quilts in Process, namely the Smokey Batik Stars quilt and the Double wedding ring quilt. Those were projects that had already been cut, so didn't use anything from my stash. HOWEVER, I plan to get at least one of those tops done soon, and quilted during March to meet that goal.

Fabric added this month: 12 yards (it was the trip to La Grange quilt show & West Houston Quilt Show)
Fabric added year to date: 15 yards
Fabric used this month: 0 yards
Fabric used year to date: 10 yards
Net fabric busted: <4> yards OOPS Went in the hole!!!!

Guess I ought to get started cutting strips for my swap that is due in May. 9-patch blocks for a new Bee that we're forming to swap scrappy blocks. More on that later.

Bought quite a bit of fabric, but that was over a month AND two quilt shows!!!!

I think I am going to have to start doing a stash busting report on my YARN PURCHASES! I have accumulated some beautiful yarns, (even bought an awesome Ghana woven basket at the WHQG quilt show to keep them in). But alas, not finishing up any yarn projects. Knitting socks is one of my goals for this year, but I also wanted to knit a beautiful shawl for my daughters wedding this fall that will be on the beach in Mexico. So, I've been practicing on dishcloths (or maybe baby washcloths!!).

Greek or Knit talk???

2009-03-17T20:17:00.002-05:00

Found this scarf pattern (included on the yarn package) . What a gorgeous scarf. Going to try it, to get the hang of knitting, so that it will feel more comfortable switching back and forth between knit and purl. Actually, did pretty good using the double pointed needles. Can't show you what I did on Nancy's needles.... she pulled it all out. :(

Bought some lucisous yarn at the Yarntopia shop in Katy TX. I think it will make a beautiful scarf for my daughters birthday coming up in April.

Materials:

•2 Skeins of Manos del Uruguay

•US 11 Needles•Darning Needle

Glossary:

•psso-pass slipped stitch over

•P2tog-purl 2 together

Instructions:
•CO 30 stitches
•Row 1: K1, *sl 1, K1, psso but before dropping the slipped stitch from the left needle, knit into the back of it* repeat until there is one stitch left, K1
•Row 2: *P2tog, do not slip stitches off the needle, purl the first stitch again, slip both stitches off needle*
•Repeat rows 1 and 2 until you run out of yarn.

•BO.

•Weave in all ends.

SL=slip. K=Knit. PSSO= Pass slipped stitch over.
Slip stitch from left-hand needle to right-hand one without knitting it.
Knit the next stitch.
Insert tip of left-hand needle into the slipped stitch, pass it over the knitted stitch, and off needle.

Retreat! RETREAT!

2009-03-16T15:12:00.003-05:00

I love going on quilting retreats! Just got back from the first of two that I'll be going on this month. Our Thursday Bee (yes - that is the name, thank you very much) went to Camp Allen in Waller County, Texas. It is a great place, all the amenities, and no hubbies or kids! We are all responsible for preparation of at least one meal, and everyone always brings extra, so there is plenty of food, plenty of snacks, plenty of deserts and best of all, plenty of MUDSLIDES - our official drink on retreats!

There were 10 of us this time. Usually, we have around 8, but we are experts at moving the cabin furniture out of the way (into closets and the larger bedroom), getting our tables set up, knickknacks off of the walls (so we can hang design walls), fireplace hearth cleared (where we set up a cutting table), food put away, ott-lites, irons and sewing machines all running. It is fortunate that we are not charged for electricity, and don't have any problems blowing fuses.

Retreat officially starts on Thursday afternoon, but I didn't go until Friday morning. That's OK, I still got a pile of 9 patches done for a swap that is due in May, my Smokey Mountains UFO quilt top nearly complete (need to figure out the borders), a customer T-Shirt quilt top pieced, and significant progress on the Wedding Ring quilt for my daughter that was married in 2001! Also learned how to knit/purl on 2 pointed needles (Thanks Nancy!). Also found out a new way to cast on stitches, and that I had been Purling wrong (thanks Mariet!). Oh, this was Mariets' first Retreat! A retreat VIRGIN! She did fine, was quiet the first day, trying to figure out WHY the rest of us brought so much STUFF (including our rolling comfy chairs).

Michelle 'thought' she knew what she was doing with her half square triangles, but on Thursday night, everybody started re-arranging her blocks, and 'informed' her that she 'would' be making some changes. After seeing a photo in the camera, Michelle saw the error of her ways and changed the layout. It is going to be an awesome quilt. Then she started on a 'typical Michelle' project - a miniature for the Ami Simms Alzheimer auction. She started working on teensey tiny 9-patches, starting with 1 inch strips! Of course, they were turning out beautifully, and no bulk!
Linda G. was at the end of the table chanting her mantra of "Fat, Fat, Skinny, Skinny" as she was cranking out he teensy tiny blocks for her quilt. Now, how many red strips did you cut? (something like 1100) She did complete over a hundred of the blocks (only 300 to go!), Nita finished pieceing her Stash Box quilt top and got a good start on another quilt. Gail finished some charity quilts and then pulled her BLOW quilt out for all to see. This is her first paper piecing project and she is doing a great job - even if she is left-handed - and doing it the way Michelle showed her to do it! We tease Michelle because when she paper pieces, the fabric is on the same side of the printing instead of the backside! (OK, my first pineapple paper piecing was done that way as well! LOL)

Connie put her 'floating' appliqued rooster on the wall and received lots of input on what else to do with her wallhanging. There is now a tree to one side, leaves, eggs, grass, and chickens peeking in from the side (again, many thanks Mariet!)

Once Sunday morning comes, we lay out all the left-overs, including the deserts, and have the best buffet breakfast! We sew a little more, then start tearing down our sewing areas. By 11 or so, we have restored the cabin to it's original glory, and no one ever knows the transformation that went on!

La Grange Texas Quilt Show

2009-03-06T04:01:00.000-06:00

Several of our Thursday Night Bee members went to the La Grange Quilt show last weekend. It was a beautiful day and a fun road trip from Houston. These are not necessarily the 'best' quilts there, but these were my favorites. Each had something a little different that talked to me.

This first one was made from wool. The attention to detail was awesome and this was my vote for Viewer's Choice. The outside black triangles were appliqued to the red border. Without gushing too much, I liked about everything about this quilt, and did not understand why it did not have a ribbon on it. EVen the mistletoe on the bottom row - check out the detail.

Now the rest of these are in no particular order, but I'll meniton why I liked each one. This is a tradional Snails Trail, but I really liked the way she worked with the values on this one. The isles were too close to get full pictures, so you don't get the full effect.

This blue one had a neat setting. Don't recognise the pattern, but it could be the way she laid out the light and darks. It was a really striking quilt.

This simple little sailboat quilt. So simple and I just loved it. The colors were nice, and she did a great job fussy cutting fabrics for the sails and the body of the boats. Nice job.

This next one was a really fun quilt. Our Bee buddy that couldn't come with us has a scrub top made with these cats. I thought she might appreciate this quilt! Check out the Periodic Table of Elements in the center of the block and all the cats doing their medical things. Gail - this one is for you. Wish you could have come with us instead of having to go to work!

This simple Carpenters Wheel just talked to me. The 30's colors were just different than what you usually see. The quilting was nicely done and I could see this in my house or even in my granddaughters room!

Now, on the way home from the quilt show, we did stop at 'Gerlines Quilt Shoppe' and 'Around The Block' quilt shop, both in Giddings TX. Both are nice shops, and worth a look if you are on 290. Of course we also had to stop at Buc-ees to get Icees and beef jerky to get us the rest of the way home.

Quilt Show Pictures

2009-03-05T22:38:00.006-06:00

This is the other quilt that I won a blue ribbon on. It's a pattern from Bonnies Quiltville website. I call it Waves of Blue because I started it on the Quilting cruise that I went on Jan 2007. I quilted it using the pattern called 'Splash' with blue thread. The red print in the border has little anchors in it.

The other picture is of my buddy Sharon and I with her ribbon winning quilt on the right.

There were some awesome quilts in this show, the Best of Show was a hand quilted applique quilt. IT was beautifully done, and I'm waiting on pictures and will post pictures as soon as I get them back.

This red and green quilt was done by my friend Nita. This was a mystery quilt that she presented at her 70th Birthday party last summer. Several of us made a quilt like this, but I think hers was one of the nicest.

This other quilt was done by Connie B. It is called Nifty Nines, and just about everyone in our Thursday Bee is working on one of these. I think Connie and Nita are the only ones that have actually finished their quilt. Connie, who is relatively new quilter, won a Third place ribbon on this one. It is done in batiks.

Fay School Quilts

2009-03-05T09:50:00.000-06:00

Been busy the last couple of weeks finishing up quilts for the Fay Schools in Houston. This school has a gala each year and moms volunteer to get a quilt made for the auction that goes on at the gala as a fundraiser. This first one, I just quilted the top, the mom will add the pictures over the quilting. Did kind of a free hand flame meander on this one.

This next one was for the 4th graders and it has a western theme. This one used iron-on transfers rather than printing the pictures on fabric. Wouldn't suggest doing that again! Boy, one touch with an iron and 'poof' the color is gone! Had a little mishap with one of the pictures, and had to have that one reprinted. Quilt turned out cute with those smiling faces and brands.

The third one was very creative! It is titled Mrs. Lewis Rock Stars. Those are sequined letters. The crazy quilt background is every kind of fabric that you DREAD sewing on! Lames, fur, plastic and sequins! This one was definitly a challenge, and fortunately my good friend Nita has a LOT more patience than I do. She did all the assembly work on this one. This quilt, the DENIM back and batting were quilted separately from the top. After Nita got the pictures attached, I attached the top more like a comforter. Only 2 of the three layers are quilted! It turned out really cute. The moms did an awesome job with the photos. The kids are all singing or playing an instrument.

I didn't get a picture of the other one for the Fay school. It was Gees Bend inspired, but they used beautiful upholstery fabrics. Only problem was that the mom did not sew, so she GLUED the seams for the center part. The pictures that went around that one were sepia toned. I had my doubts at first, but it turned out pretty nice. The quilting on that one reinforced the 'seams' and I doubt that quilt will ever go in a washing machine, so it should hold up.

My buddy Linda did a Fay school quilt as well. It's called SEA SCAPE and is awesome. Yellow submarine with the kids faces in the windows! Really cute.

My other quilting buddy Sharon also does these quilts, and each one turns out TOTALLY different. The moms have such good imagination, but no clue about selecting fabrics or limitations that WE might have working with their ideas. This is the 2nd year I worked on these, and am always relieved when we're done.

Quilts Show is OVER!

2009-02-23T20:58:00.008-06:00

The Quilt Show wrapped up Saturday afternoon. All in all, I think it was a huge success. Board meeting is Wednesday night and we're supposed to get some numbers for attendance, donation quilt and tin can raffle. I think we outdid previous shows. At least, the vendors were HAPPY, so apparently the economy didn't slow these quilters down!

Our Thursday Night Bee won a combined total of 22 ribbons! That is awesome! Out of those ribbons, I won 2 first place blue ribbons on my quilts, and several of the quilts that I quilted for others also won ribbons. Pictured is the one I won in the Hand Applique - One Person - Professional Category. The other one was for my 4-Patch & Furrows quilt - in the Machine Pieced - One Person - Professional Category. This was a simple pattern that I got from Quiltville.com, but the judge seemed to like the piecing and the way I fussy cut the border. OK, for some reason I don't have a picture of that one. Linda said she would email one to me that she took during the show. Here is a link to when I was asking suggestions from YOU guys on the borders. (I still have blonde hair!)

I'm especially proud of Nita B. who won her FIRST EVER ribbon and it was a BLUE RIBBON as well. Hers was a perfectly pieced Flying Geese Quilt with civil war type fabrics. Her fabric choices were great.

Oh, the ribbons are cool - if I say so myself. I was also on the Ribbons committee with my good buddy Sharon. The FMLC club did most of the work, and then were finished up by the Comfort Bee. Sharon had seen a ribbon attached on a winning quilt online. A little research showed it was from the East Cobb Quilters Guild and they very graciously not only gave us permission to use the ribbon, but sent us detailed instructions on how to make them! What an great bunch. I am definilty going to visit them next time I am visiting my daughter in Atlanta.

Winner for 100th Post Giveaway!

2009-02-22T21:43:00.007-06:00

Almost forgot to do this today. We finished up our quilt show yesterday and am still resting up today and trying to get caught up around the house.

Drum roll please . . .

I went to random.org to select a winner, and it picked number 1, which is Leah S. Leah, please email me and also tell me you favorite color!!!! I enjoyed your post, which sounds like me. I also crochet and am struggling with knitting. One of my goals this year is to knit a pair of socks! My friend Nancy is going to try to help with that, but I don't know if she knows what she is getting herself into! LOL.

Congratulations Leah!

100th Post Giveaway!

2009-02-14T12:23:00.010-06:00

All right, 100 posts and tradition indicates that I should have some sort of giveaway! Not sure how this started, hubby says if 100 posts is so special, that YOU should send something to ME! I laughed and said, I would stick with the plan and send something to one lucky winner!

I'm giving away a new Moda Sweet (by Urban Chiks) Honey Bun. These are 1.5" strips from the Sweet collection.

I'm interested in quilting, wool, applique, candlemaking, soapmaking, beads, knitting, ceramics and too many other things to list.

The rules are pretty simple, just tell me about your favorite craft. (Might be that I start a new hobby!). For extra entries, add my button to your blog and link back to this website.

The giveaway starts today Feb. 14, 2009 and ends next weekend. I will draw a winner on Sunday Feb 22, 2009, winner should be announced on Monday the 23rd and posted on the blog. Please make sure you include a valid email address so I can contact you.

Open to everyone. If you use the graphic to link back to my blog, then you get an extra 3 entries! Have fun!

Boring - and a little more exciting!

2009-02-12T17:22:00.004-06:00

Started this locker hooked rug a year or so ago. Probably just got bored with it. Used up a BUNCH of old brown yardage from the 80's/90's. The light fabric was another 'dog' that I had somehow acquired multiple yards of fabric. This was made with 1 inch strips of fabric. At least this UFO is FINISHED - and I will put it out in my studio where it will get lots of use and appreciation.

Now this next one is the one I started the other night. It does

have a little more 'kick' to it as I am using 1/2" strips of batiks. The colors on this one are awesome! It was hard to cut up the batiks, but I justified it (in my mind) by cutting the strips in 1/2" widths. I'm using a P size wood crochet hook and it is coming out nicely. I had started this to put under my industrial Bobbin winder that gouges the table top that it is on. I think this might be too pretty to cover up, will put this one in front of my shelves of batiks, giving customers a comfy place to stand while perusing their color choices! If there is any interest, I will post tutorial for how to make this rug and the colors used. Will probably finished this one up this evening.

These are the 3.5" rail fence blocks I got back in our BEE exchange on Monday. This is for the (the pattern "Around the Block" by the Rabbit Factory. We start on the houses next, and the due date is in May. I have two retreats before then that I hope to get 10 of HOUSE #2 paper pieced.

Oh, did I mention that I have finished all my quilting for the Quilt show next week? That is great for me. Last time I was still quilting the day before the quilt turn in date.

Tomorrow I am meeting with a new group of ladies- kind of a Beginner Beyond The Borders.... Other like minded wanna be artists that need would like to try new things. It might be fabric dyeing, piecing with selvedges, jewelry making, ceramics or whatever. The whole idea is to help each other with ideas and then it is up to you to do as little or much as you like. We'll see how that goes. I'm really looking forward to meeting with this new group.

Stashbusting Report -

2009-02-08T23:09:00.003-06:00

StashBusting doing pretty good! - Got about 1/2 of that 50 pounds of fabric from last week cut into strips. Then we used a 'bunch' of those strips at our Bee on Thursday making a kind of half log cabin block. (Instead of going all the way around, you just have the darks on one side, and lights on the next side. The 'center' square is in the corner. Clear as mud?

Used a bunch of GREEN yardage to make my 48 5 inch green and off white rail fences that we trade tomorrow at the Katy Rotary Bee for the Around The Block quilt that we are doing as a group. I'll take pictures after the exchange and see what I get back.

Fabric added this week: 0 yards
Fabric added year to date: 3 yards
Fabric used this week: 2 yards
Fabric used year to date: 10 yards
Net fabric busted: 8 yards

Got hooked reading a bunch of other blogs last night. Mostly tutorials. I'm going to have to do some of those, but the problem is sticking with a project long enough to finish it AND to remember to take pictures while doing it! No one can relate to that huh.

I cut out the wool for a journal cover. Started cutting out Poinsettia's then after laying them out, thought maybe I ought to go for a more spring type theme. I do love poinsettia's though. I did get some awesome reds, greens and yellows wool bundles at Houston Festival last November from The Wool Garden . However, I still have a bone to pick with them. They were working on a Poinsettia project, and it wasn't finished, but they had it hanging at both Market and Festival. They put me on the list to get the pattern as soon as they finished it, and I still haven't heard from them or seen it on the website. All those gorgeous bundles just waiting for a project.

Started a couple of other type projects. None of them far enough along yet, but after cutting a bunch of the ugly fabrics into 1 inch strips, I dug out my locker hooking project that I had started last spring, and worked on that some more. I need to finish this piece - it is to go under my bobbin winder that I use to wind those big ole M size bobbins for my longarm. The base to the winder has a tendency to scratch (gouge) the wood cabinet that it sets on. The mat is to protect the finish from being further damaged. That should be enough incentive to get it done.

Then the 1" strips reminded me that I could crochet a rug or something with those sized strips, so I cut some 1/2" BATIK strips and started crocheting a round rag type rug. I'm on round 8 and it is really going to be BRIGHT! The center is red, then a mixed up orange/turquoise/green batik, and I just changed to a rich brown batik. Hmm, forgot to measure that fabric to include in stashbusting...

Only one more quilt to finish for the WHQG Quilt Show in two weeks. The turn in date is this coming Saturday, and the customer still needs to put the binding, sleeve and label on it. I figure I will have it completed by tomorrow afternoon. The quilt show program goes to the printer tomorrow. Had several people proofing it, so hopefully we took care of any glaring mistakes. I got permission from Carla to use one of her cartoons in the program It is so perfect to go with the quilt show and judging.

My First Zentangle !

2009-02-03T13:21:00.005-06:00

My first Zentangle!. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, and looks way better than I expected!

This is a photo rather than a scan, so it is a little blurry, but you get the general idea. You break it down into smaller areas, and it makes it a lot easier to manage. This one took about 5 minutes to do.

Just realized that I have not mentioned our upcoming Quilt Show later this month. I'm on the quilt show committee, putting the program together, worked on the ribbons & awards committee, as well as doing the website. We have over 200 quilt entries this year, nearly 30 vendors in our Merchant Mall, special exhibits and so on. Looks to be a great show. West Houston Quilters Guild puts on a show every other year. And our donation quilt this time is another awesome quilt. The Tin Can Raffle is going to have around 10 BED SIZED quilts this time (I quilted 5 of them). The program is ready to go to the printer and only 3 more quilts to finsih up for the show. Will be glad when this month is over!

Stashbusting Report

2009-02-01T21:22:00.005-06:00

Finished quilting and binding this quilt today. It is a signature quilt for a young man (age 14) who is going through some serious medical procedures. He is having open heart surgery tomorrow morning, and this is for him to take with him and offer comfort while he is in hospital. Your prayers and well wishes would be much appreciated for Jordan.

That is Shiner (blue healer) checking out the quilt, and wondering who is standing behind that quilt holding it up!

Not sure how to count donated fabric... hmmmm. A friend of mine left 2 boxes of 'pretty good' fabric. She knows I love doing scrap quilts and she was cleaning out to make room for new stuff. Since she is down-sizing, and moving to a smaller place her sewing area is going to be a bit more cramped. Most of the fabric is older, and I have already cut it into smaller scrap size pieces

Fabric added this week: 3 yards (plus 2 boxes - about 50 pounds???)
Fabric added year to date: 3 yards
Fabric used this week: 3 yards
Fabric used year to date: 9 yards
Net fabric busted: 6 yards

Any thoughts on how to count fabric that immediately gets cut into 2", 2.5" and 3.5" strips? Do I count it as incoming until it is cut up, and outgoing when I use it? Do you count strips out of the scrap bins???

I'm gonna dream about eBay tonight!!

2009-01-19T21:16:00.007-06:00

Do you ever do that? When you work hard on something all day, then you dream about it at night? Well, I've been tending to my eBay store , adding lots of new stuff that I had been meaning to for ages. I do most items with Best Offer, but I do get a little cranky when someone offers less than half price on one item. I'll be listing a bunch of single items at auction starting at .01. These are all new books, but not the 'latest' books. I've added 2 new lines from MODA. I don't usually get so much fabric, but hey, this was named "HELLO BETTY" by Chloe's Closet. (Chloe is my new granddaughters name). How could I resist??

Also found three vintage pillow covers at an estate sale before Christmas. Going to list those this evening as well. Don't know much about them but hopefully someone will find them and want them. After spending many hours doing updates, and having to re-create every listing due to rule changes that ebay implented about shipping charges. I ended up spending way more time on each entry than usual. Tomorrow, back to work quilting for the quilt show. Have several custom quilts that need some special attention. Today, I just couldn't bring myself to work on those and just quilted easy peasy pantos.

For The Birds !!!

2009-01-18T23:20:00.004-06:00

We had a great Christmas, we are so blessed to have so much and such caring family members. We had agreed ahead of time to make gifts this year, and a few of the great gifts we received from the kids are pictured. Lindsey made the sign in the first picture. She had requested stuff to do 'welding' for her birthday last year. This is what she made. I love it!

The next picture has a cool bird house- see the white one? Robert made that one. It's really cool, a little upscale from our other ones. Some of the black circles are 'blanks' . I'm waiting to see a unsuspecting bird fly into a paint spot. No, they seem to have it figured out that there are fake holes. At least I haven't seen any lying on the ground.

Today was another great day in Houston. Think I heard it made it up into the 70's. The sun was shining, and it was pleasant outside.

Spent a good portion of the day in my studio today. Got a couple more bookshelves to put fabric inventory in. Hubby forbid me to get any more shelves. Had a bit of a problem with the second one last night, and had to ask for his help putting it together. Everytime I would 'almost' have it together, the stupid thing would collapse. But, since he had his nail gun out, I drug the other shelf and let him strengthen it as well. Spent the rest of today cleaning and organizing my studio. Just have one corner that is still 'not organized' (meaning stuff in piles), but since I have Bee meeting there in March, I have a good deadline to get it done. We'll be having an all day sew-in, so I have to clear things anyway to make room for everyone.

Finished up a custom quilt and a t-shirt quilt for another customer this weekend. Don't get to count those as personal finishes. Hopefully, after the quilt show next month, I'll get a chance to work on something of mine.

Stuff I Want to TRY / DO in 2009

2009-01-14T21:52:00.007-06:00

Ideas that have been bouncing around in the back of my head for quite some time. I think putting it writing will get me one step closer to doing it!

These are things that I have always wanted to do, or maybe tried once long long ago and would like to re-visit.

Make silver DANGLE earrings - My friend Linda Minton is going to give us lessons at our retreat in March. I got so excited that I got beads and supplies for SEVERAL projects. See last post for some of the beads that I bought.

Learn to do peyote BEADING - Poor Linda, she dosen't know what she is getting into! I'm counting on her for this one as well! LOL

Carve my own STAMP - We did this in high school art class. I remember I made a closeup of a snail crawling through blades of grass. Made one or two prints, and don't remember whatever happened to it.

Create a ZENTANGLE - Ran across this. How cool! Might buy the kit for someone's birthday in April! Check out their website. http://www.zentangle.com/index.php

KNIT A pair of socks- Started knitting scarves over Christmas. Am working up to SOCKS.

PRINT my own design on fabric - Bought some cool software at Houston Quilt Festival. It is specifically for working with your designs and printing on fabric. Have loaded the software on computer. Next step. . .

Maintain an ART JOURNAL - Got the journal, now just need to get the courage to put MY drawings and ideas on paper. What if someone looks at it??? That is my fear, and what I have to overcome.

Complete a BTB CHALLENGE - First challenge for Beyond the Borders is due in April 2009. Size 20" long by 6 to 12 inches wide. Theme is TREES. Restriction: NO GREEN

Make a fabric FLOOR QUILT- Have all the stuff.... See the book by Ellen Highsmith Silver

Make time for 6 WORKSHOPS - My quilt guild sponsors a workshop nearly every month with nationally known speakers. I learn something from every one that I take.

FINISH one UFO per month - I literally have over a hundred to choose from. Got January done last week!

New Project for 2009

2009-01-11T09:16:00.011-06:00

OK, I know my resolutions were to finish up projects, and 'try' not to start new projects unless I really plan to get them finished. I agreed to join this swap with my Monday morning Bee (The Katy Rotary Club" to do the pattern "Around the Block" by the Rabbit Factory. Cynthia Regone, local talent extraordinaire is organizing the swap in our Bee. This looks like a fun quilt, and most of the Bee members are participating. Cynthia is a good teacher and she will break this down into easily done steps that all of us will be able to get it done.

The first step was to make 18 9-patches that are red and cream. Red on the inside (negative blocks). Those are due tomorrow and I am done with those blocks. Off to a great start!

Now, for the other project(s) that I bought stuff for is BEADING! My artsy friend Linda Minton is going is give us some beading lessons at our retreat in March. After our FML lunch last Monday we stopped at Beadaholic and found lots of cool things. I'm really chomping at the bit to get started on some of these.

The green beads are for a bracelet, not sure how to describe the bracelet, but you use silver wire and little groups of 7 crystals. Stay tuned for pictures when that is done.

On this project, the turquoise will be the focal point, and Linda is going to show how to make some sort of braid with the other beads. I forgot what kind of braid she called it, but sounds cool. The beads are a chocolately brown, turquoise and a muted gold color. None of these beads are shiny, and are all colors that are in the round turqoise piece.

These red beads are for a pair of earrings. I want to do some twirly girly twists with a few of the black beads in the silver, and then wrap some silver wire around the triangles. Hopefully Linda will be able to understand what I'm looking for. I think that this project will be fairly simple - Except - trying to make both earrings look the same!

Favorite Quilts

2009-01-08T21:13:00.008-06:00

How many of you have a favorite quilt? This old lap quilt was the first quilt that I quilted on a longarm. Back in 2000 during an ice storm, I pieced this flannel quilt, did a medium size meander after taking a longarm class at Quilters Nook in Tulsa, OK (shop now closed). Anyway, even though my dog teethed on the corners of this quilt, and chewed a hole through the middle of it, it is still my favorite quilt, and the one that is in my chair (or over my legs) year round.

In 2000, after working on the quilt above, I started another quilt; a calendar type quilt from "Joined at the Hip". Can't find the pattern on their website any longer so am guessing that it is out of print. I really like working on this quilt. I did it all with flannels and each block has a basket, flowers and a star tucked in somewhere. I did a freehand McTavishing/flame kind of filler around the baskets. I'm entering it in the quilt show next month and titled it "Flowers, Baskets and Stars, Oh My" for lack of a better name! I wonder if this will replace my 'old faithful' quilt that I have brought with me to quilting retreats, car trips and snuggled under for the past 7 or 8 years! Finally moving the Baskets quilts from UFO's to FINSHED! Yippee.

I picked up my knitting needles in December while family was visiting. Since I couldn't spend time out in my studio, I had to do something to keep my hands busy. So, I finished two scarves, one pictured that goes with my new leather coat, and the other one I gave to Lindsey. I started a third one, but haven't finished that one. Not as happy with the third one as the color changes look rather funky. I'm thinking about pulling that out and starting over with a different stitch.

The pattern was pretty simple. Use size 17 needles, get your hubby to cast on 10 stitches, then do a knit stitch on every row until it is the length you want. Cast off. Bury the ends. My daughter said to NOT put fringe on it, so that made it even simpler! Oh - you're wondering about hubby casting on for me? That's because I've got a lot more experience with a crochet hook than knitting needles, and he remembers how to do from when he watched him mom do it as a kid. How cool is that?

Stashbusting - 2009

2009-01-06T18:00:00.003-06:00

My New Years Resolutions always include something about STASHBUSTING, some times I do better than others. I think I did much better in 2007 than 2008. So, my goal is to at least do better than 2008!

Fabric added this week: 0 yards (of course I haven't been shopping yet, and it is only the 6th)
Fabric added year to date: 0 yards
Fabric used this week: 6 yards (Backing for a UFO Quilt-yippee)
Fabric used year to date: 6 yards
Net fabric busted: 6 yards

All RIGHT! Off to a great start. The quilt is loaded on the longarm, so will show pictures after finished. Actually going to enter something in the quilt show next month!

New Year, New Goals, New Directions

2009-01-05T15:38:00.000-06:00

Well, 2008 was certainlyl an eventful year. My first granddaughter was born, survived my first hurricane (we evacuated for Rita), bought land for retirement, saw a black man elected president. Hmm, all that was just in the last quarter of 2008. That's not to say nothing happened the rest of the year. Just that those rather over-shadow the first part of the year!

We had the whole family here for Christmas, and Chloe has grown so much, and is such a cutie. This picture she is just over 3 months.

Was nice to have everyone here. Why is it that Lindsey is always in her pajamas when we take a picture? In the background are the palm trees that Jon got me for Christmas. I loved the palm trees at our old house, and these will make a nice screen between us and the new house behind us.

My daughter Lindsey is the artsy one. She designs product packaging for HEB, a regional grocery store in Texas, and this was one of the labels that she put on the homemade goodies that she made for Christmas. Her finance is the 'meat' guy at HEB and Lindseys last name is Baker. Harley made venison jerky and Lindsey made some awesome cornbread and hot pepper jelly.

Beyond The Borders - Adventures in Dyeing Coffee Filters

2008-10-16T18:05:00.005-05:00

Joined a new group yesterday that I have wanted to join for quite some time. I know that there is a lot of creative 'stuff' floating around in my head that I just need to let out. Beyond the Borders (BTB) is a contemporary art quilt group they encourage everyone to "embrace creativity while coloring outside the lines of traditional quilting".

I was especially inspired by the coffee filters that Liz produced and immediatly tried to dye some coffee filters myself! Well, first of all I took the coffee filter out of the coffee pot from this morning, thinking that was a good start. I proceded to dump the grounds out of the filter and rinsed it. Duh, all the dark colors came out. I put the filter in a plastic container, and poured a little bit of the leftover coffee from the pot on the filter. I let that soak over night. Nothing. Same off white color as when I rinsed it.

To make a long story short, after checking the internet, maybe I should be using 'Instant coffee' . The other tip I found was that the dark the roast, the darker the stain. (I'm using HEB San Antonio blend- should that give a red cast?? LOL) .

Today, I went over to Wally world and bought a small jar of instant coffee. Tomorrow, we are going to try the spritzing method. I found this recipe at this Folk Art blog:

mix 5 tablespoons of instant coffee crystals in half a cup of hot water.
Add a few drops of vanilla extract to for a great scent
Using an old sponge, blot the dye on the fabric, adding more until you get the desired look.
She will then put in a 200 degree oven for about 10 minutes to facilitate drying.

eBay is a dangerous thing!

2008-10-01T10:36:00.004-05:00

While we were in Atlanta, sitting out Hurricane Ike and waiting on new grandbaby, I found some great buys on eBay! Always a dangerous thing! I will post some pictures of the quilt tops that I scored! Now I will need to update my list of things to do!

I'm really pleased with this bear claw top. It's old, and hand pieced. I would like to finish this one, just need to find some appropriate fabric for the backing.
I'm showing a couple of the pictures. Probably paid too much for them, but what is it about that little thing that makes you keep bidding once you've found something you like? This blue and yellow one is pretty nice, trying to figure out what kind of quilting it should get.
One of the auctions I won, said it was VINTAGE AMISH BLCOKS. Well, I don't buy that after receiving them. Since they were pieced on foundation paper that had "Shoofly Part A" printed on the backside. Of course she didn't mention that in the description. Well, with any auction you take your chances, and for the most part, I was very pleased with what I got. I only paid $3 for the blocks, and they are nicely pieced, so not a total loss.
Another one that I'm very pleased with is this bouquet flower top. I have always loved this pattern, and have always wanted to make one. I think this makes it so I don't have to piece it, but now just need to finish it. Again, need to find something appropriate for the backing. Think I might go with a nice muslin or colored solid that is representitive of the 30's.

More on Chloe !

2008-09-26T10:26:00.002-05:00

Chloe is still less than a day old, but you can grandma and grandpa Baker are surely proud of her! Those grins stayed on our face for quite some time! The nurses wrapped her up like a little burrito, but she insists on getting her hands free and up by her face.

Not a lot going on in the hospital. We stayed most of every afternoon to keep mommy company, and give dad a chance to run some errands. We got lots of walking in, as the only place to eat was on the other side of the hospital complex. Lots of flowers and well wishes were sent by friends and family.

The hospital staff was great, and didn't try to kick us out. Was kind of surprised at how 'open' visiting hours were.

Welcome Chloe!

2008-09-23T10:05:00.003-05:00

Our first grandbaby was born Sept 20, 2008! Came in at a whopping 8 lb. 6 oz. Of course she is beautiful and has already won our hearts!

Little Chloe Michelle has settled in for the day. She likes to sleep all day and keep mom and dad awake all night!

Both sets of grandparents were there and waited for this first grandchild on both sides of the family. Chloe grabs on to our fingers and gives them a squeeze!

More pictures to come!

Women's Small Business Craft Show

2008-09-05T17:36:00.004-05:00

Last month my neighbor and small business woman Jody T. hosted a craft show for the small business owners in Cypress Texas. Since I was right next door, I used the entrance to my studio as my booth. Since I was promoting my T-Shirt Quilts business, I had several t-shirt quilts hanging prominently, along with some other quilts that I had worked on.

Lots of booths and traffic through the booth. Have gotten several commissions as a result of that day.

Went to the leg doctor today, and got scolded for being 'up' too much. Need to keep that leg up and quit worrying about dishes and housework. ALL RIGHT! Finally, permission to not do dishes. Just wished I had gotten it in writing so that hubby would believe me.

Time Warp

2008-09-03T22:56:00.001-05:00

Apparently I've been in a time warp. No posts since APRIL? Where have I been? All I can say is that life has been busy. Lots of new things coming and will have lots of pictures to post.

Going to join the Grandma Club. That exclusive club that only your kids can help you join. Rachael is due September 23, and we're planning on being in Atlanta in time to see new grand-daughter. Rachael has sent pictures of the ultrasound. Can't believe how detailed they are. You can see the little nose and cupid lips. She is going to be a beauty! Oh, and did I mention BIG? Rachael is a whopping 5'4" (I think) and is on her way to having an 8lb 14oz baby!

My home business has kept me busy. Between professional machine quilting and T-Shirt quilt business (as my buddy Sharon says) "I'm busier than a one-armed paper-hangar"! OK, maybe a one-legged paper hangar since I've had surgery on my leg this week.

Supposed to stay off my feet for 7-10 days, so have been trying to hand sewing projects lined up that I can work on this week and prepared to take with me to Atlanta.

Patchwork Friends Bee

2008-04-26T08:30:00.006-05:00

What a nice day! The Patchwork Friends Bee took a field trip to my studio Friday for a little workshop taught by Nancy V. She showed everyone how to make those cool quilty pillowcases. We had everything from Susan's cabbage roses (which we all decided needed a whole bedroom full of these roses), Helen's Elmo & red pillowcase and all the others.

Apparently, the camera I was taking pictures with was not mine, so I didn't get pictures of everyone with their finished project. I'll try to get those and post later.

I did get pictures of some of the ladies quilting charity quilts on my longarm. I think we got 4 of them quilted that day.

I love the look of concentration! Susan V. is feeling much more confident and getting quite creative. Each quilt had them doing everything from stippling to loop de loops!

Geri is looking over Arlenes shoulder and giving her expert advice. I think it was 'breathe' ! Lisa is looking on from the other side of the machine and ready to take another turn.

There is a cool little tea room down the street from my house, (IdylHours.com) where we all took a break for lunch with wonderful selections. I had the creamy zucchini soup and spinach pie. No room for dessert, so had some to go!

Charity Quilt Challenge

2008-04-06T21:22:00.004-05:00

I'm in several quilt bees, and one of them came up with a 'challenge' where everyone in the bee used a yard of fabric (from the same bolt) and have 4 months to put together a quilt top using at least 4 others fabrics. Well, I tookI took the idea to one of my other bees, (otherwise known as the Thursday Night Bee) and had just gotten in a bolt of some wild fabric.

Rules are simple.

1. Have to recognise the original fabric (in other words you can't cut it up so small that you don't recognise it)

2. Use at least 4 other fabrics from YOUR own stash.

3. Complete it the top in 2 months

4. Have to donate it to the comfort quilt project a the April Guild meeting.

We had bee at my house Thursday, and got 5 of them quilted on the longarm. A couple others were quilted already. Since we are going to let the guild vote on which one they like best, I won't show any pictures until we have the vote. They turned out totally different!

How about you? What a great idea to take back to your guild. Challenge your sewing groups to get their creative juices flowing!

National Quilt Day - Mar 15th

2008-03-13T09:39:00.003-05:00

March 15th is National Quilt Day. Find details at NQA (National Quilting Assoc).

Here are some suggestions of what YOU can do on our special quilt day!

* Finish a UFO (unfiinished project). Let's see some movement of projecs from the UFO list to the Finished or Ready to Quilt Lists!!

*Start a NEW Project! This can be from existing stash or go shopping!

*Teach someone to quilt. Get a group of friends together, your kids or grandkids and introduce them to quilting with some beginning quilting lessons. Think of how much knowledge YOU already have.

*Learn a new technique Look through all those books and patterns that you have already and try something new! Could be applique, needle felting, or even paper peicing!

*Go to a Quilt Show This might not be as easy for some, but here in Texas, you can find a quilt show on almost any weekend. In fact, I think the Dallas show is this weekend!

Me? I'll be puttering around my studio. I'll work on some UFO's, do a little organizing, and get caught up on some quilting!

I've Made Someone's Day!

2008-02-23T21:31:00.002-06:00

What a nice feeling to be told that you have made somone's day! My buddy Linda Minton (and charter member of FMLC) who indicated that I had made her day! Linda is such a free spirit and I'm always ready to run home and start a new project after spending any time with her at all.

So now, I get to pass it on ... to five bloggers who make my day! I have to say that most of my buddies do NOT have blogs. We just email or talk all the time. There are many blogs that I read on a regular basis and feel a connection. I'm just going to mention several people that make my day on a regular basis. Since they don't have blogs, welll... maybe they will start one!

There is Nita. She will be 70 this year and gets more done than anyone I know. She lives her life like she is half that age. She always has a smile and gives of herself to everyone; and I don't think she ever met a stranger.

Sharon D. - WHEN are you going to get a blog? Another charter member of the FMLC! What can I say about you? Mentor, friend and a GREAT SINGER!

Barb K. - What a fun person to be with. Can't wait for retreat next week!

Arlene S. - What an inspiration. You are always so positive, and encouraging to others. You make my day every time I talk to you! (She just got email, so I'm thinking a blog will be coming soon!)

Pass the award on; here are the details:

1. Write a post with links to 5 blogs that make your day.

2. Acknowledge the post of the award giver.

3. Display the You Make My Day Award logo (copy and paste).

4. Tell the award winners that they have won by Commenting on their blogs with the news.

Found ANOTHER UFO!

2008-02-22T14:51:00.007-06:00

As I have moved my studio from the upstairs to the new location, I have been finding things that I had not seen in YEARS (may DECADES). This is a cool quilt (top) that I had even started hand quilting (yes - I used to hand quilt all my quilts) !!! This is the quilt that I had the leftover 1.5" strips that I used in my Bargello Bowl top. I totally laid this one out and designed it myself. No patterns on this one. In fact this was done about the time Rotatry cutters were coming in vogue (how many of you actually remember quilting BEFORE rotary cutters??) . I started to hand quilt this one, and ended up putting it away. Think I started this in the late 1980's or early 90's. Anyway, plan on removing the hand quilting, and am adding it to projects that are to be finished up this year!

Tom Russell Class - Working with Color

2008-02-20T10:46:00.001-06:00

We are so blessed in the Houston area that Tom Russell is a local guy, and has been teaching some classes. ( I took his color class at a retreat a few weeks ago) and another class from him that was also working with colors but a different class at a local quilt shop.

Tom is holding my piece up while talking to the class. All of those circles and leaves are made up of several pieces of fabric. The background kinda blends into his shirt, but it is made up of a bunch of 'dark' squares.

Here the class is hard at work putting the background together.

The center squares are a little lighter, but there is a black flange strip that separated them from the outer darker circles. You just see those peeking out from the flowers on the surface. Lots of funky leaves and circles make up this piece. We learned a lot about porportion, scale, value and all that stuff.

Tom hamming it up with my friend Nita (grey hair) and myself. Tom is a sweetie!

I think most of came home with the top put together. We just need to finish the Quilting, embellishing and then for the finale - adding BEADS. How fun!

Batting Stands

2008-02-16T08:54:00.007-06:00

Lots of discussion on one of my longarm lists about Batting Stands that Checkers Dist. sells. I took pictures of mine, you can probably get someone to make one for you!

You need scraps of 2x4,
a scrap of 2x2,
4 caster wheels,
and a little screw assembly that is inserted to attach the 2x2 to the base.

Check out the pictures, I put a tape measure in there so you can see the sizes. I think the end of the tape measure is covering up the screw part that goes into the base.

That little circle in the center is what the 2x2 screws into. Don't know the technical name for it.

Bargello Bowl progress

2008-02-15T11:07:00.001-06:00

This is a picture of the fabrics that I chose to use in the Bargello. They are 1.5 inch strips, as they were leftover strips from another project. Just had to cut a few more to make enough. I'm doing a little more ordered layout instead of random.

Tom Russell was at our retreat, and since he was doing a class on COLOR, he helped (OK, he did most of it) layout the color order. He was drooling the rich colors! (PS - he was working on his BEAUTIFUL wall hanging that will debut at Houston Market this year in the Timeless Treasures booth featuring his batiks! What an artist!)

I put several sections together, and was a little disallusioned at how 'small' the sections were (well duh - started with 1.5" strips). Anyway this is not going to be a very large piece! LOL
Misplaced my camera for awhile, so still need to take pictures of my progress.

Bargello Bowl

2008-01-28T08:30:00.001-06:00

Of course! Of course I'm joining in on another project ! Bonnie (http://www.quiltville.com/) had to whip up a quilt for a workshop she is doing and has invited everyone to join her to make this quilt instead of watching the superbowl.

Think I am going to do mine in a bunch of Amish solids that I have. hmmmm....

At The Movies! Another UFO Completed!

2008-01-24T20:04:00.000-06:00

This is one of 6 quilts that my friend Linda G and I designed and put together. We found this cool movie fabric at Quakertown Quilt Shop in Friendswood TX last summer. We used that in the center, and there are paper pieced boxes of popcorn in the corners. There are markee lights running around the movie fabric. Cool huh! Didn't get it done in time for Christmas (Although Linda got 4 done). This will be a birthday present for a lucky son-in-law in June!

This is me showing it for Show and Tell at the Greater Houston Quilt Guild meeing in January.

Oh, the gal that was going to buy the whole of pantos backed out. Now I've got to list them again. Bummer....

Quilt for our Buddy!

2008-01-20T18:09:00.000-06:00

One of our close friends has had a super rough year. She was having horrible headaches and went to the doctor in early summer 2007. She just recently heard that the growth had actually shrunk by about 50%, but we as concerned Bee Buddies (otherwise known as 'The Herd') decided that M.M. needed a quilt to cuddle under while going through her many tests and recuperation. We finally presented it to her. This was one of those projects that we 'thought' we could put together in one afternoon, but ended up taking several days. Designed, peieced and quilted with love; by Gail S., Linda G., Ann K. and myself. Here is a picture of Michelle holding her quilt.

Quilt Panto Library for Sale

2008-01-18T18:45:00.000-06:00

Many of you know that I upgraded my Gammill to include the IQ. So, I don't need my entire library of pantos any longer.

There are about 130 of them listed. Nice assortment of Level 1 and Level 2 with some serious Level 3 in there.

This would be a GREAT investment for someone who has a small library of pantos. I would like to sell the whole thing as one purchase, but will be listing them for $8.00 each after getting them typed up. I will give those on the lists first chance then if any are left, they will go on eBay. I will consider offers for the whole shebang before selling individually.

The pantos are in good shape, lots of them only used once or twice- if at all.

Let me know your interest. but please just email me at betty dot baker at usa dot net

Here is the link:

http://www.shadywoodquilts.com/pantographinventory.pdf

More UFO's Bite the Dust!

2008-01-04T21:14:00.000-06:00

There were 6 of us at the sew-in on New Years Day. Everyone brought superbowl type snack food and everyone worked on their own projects. No sports tv or radio broadcasts could be heard; only the sound of the sewing machines and ladies chattering about fabric.

Finished the top of this batik spider web. We officially dubbed it "Piece 'O Pie" because they are more like pieces of pie than of cake! I can move this one from UFO to Ready to Quilt!

This next one I started this one just before Christmas 2006, and didn't get it done in time for gift giving, so it ended up in the UFO pile. Just needed the borders completed. It is all flannels and very scrappy. The pattern is Terry Atkinson's "Cheese and Crackers". It took longer to the borders than the inside of the quilt. The pattern wasn't with the pattern so wasn't real clear on what you were supposed to do in the corners, so I just winged it, and just used all blues (no lights) in the corners. Another one moved from the UFO list to the Ready To Quilt list.

Mini Quilting Retreat at Shadywood Quilts

2008-01-01T08:41:00.000-06:00

Several members of the sub-bee stopped in and sewed over the vacation days after Christmas. It was nice to be able to sew on my own things and not think about customer quilts for awhile. My goal was to complete things that have been on my UFO list for awhile.

First item to mark off of the list is my Fractions Quilt that has been ready to quilt for over a year!! The status is now officially COMPLETE as in quilted and bound! Yippee!

This was a fast and easy quilt, done in batiks and metallics. Most of the fabrics were purchased at Sew Batik at MQS in 2006.

Getting Organized

2007-12-27T21:45:00.000-06:00

Puttered around in the studio today. Yesterday, hubby built a couple more shelves for me to store some of my bolts of fabric. (That's not really a big mess on the table, I had just cut the batting for a customer quilt and layed it down when the phone rang).

I'm still getting the new studio organized. Yesterday, I turned the sewing area around, and then ended up putting it back again. To finish up, just need to hang quilts, curtains and get the remaining fabric that is still in tubs and onto shelves. Having one of my Bees over later in the month, so that will give me a nice deadline to finish it up.

Been working on UFO's. Got the Fractions quilt quilted, and the binding attached. Will sit and finish that up tomorrow evening in front of the tv. Also, worked on my Bamboo and Pinwheels quilt that our 'sub-bee' swapped blocks for in November. It's a cool pattern, and you end up with two quilts when you are done. One is Bamboo and the other is Pinwheels. Picture shown is the Bamboo quilt. Got all the triangle blocks sewn into blocks. The pinwheel blocks (the other half of the triangle) are in a nice stack for later (oops I mean another potential UFO).

Pulled out another UFO. It is a batik spiderweb quilt that I was going full guns on, then got hung up on the corners of the borders. Decided today that it wasn't that big a deal, so will finish that up first thing tomorrow.

Saturday, several of the girls (sub-bee) are coming over for an impromtu sew-in. Going to pick out the fabrics for our class later in January, and then work on UFO's. We're not buying any fabric, but plan to work on something that is in process and hopefully get finished up.

Cool new toy - Pfaff Needle Punch Machine

2007-12-26T21:20:00.001-06:00

Felt so guilty today, as I hardly worked on customer quilts at all! However, I did do some prep work on a t- shirt quilt where the customer wants me to include all the 'stuff' including the entire back of a cheerleading jacket. The back of the jacket is curved at the top, so was debating how to add cotton or whatever to the WOOL of the jacket and make it look right.

It finally dawned on me to use my new toy that I bought at Festival in November. My Needle punch Machine! Here is a closeup of where I needle punched the heck out of the layers, then did a quick zig-sag stitch over it for good measure. The extra stitching probably was not necessary, but figured if it was laundered, that would ensure that it did not come apart.
Anyway, think it turned out pretty nicely, but still have to do some calculations to figure out how to have a 21 x 15 inch center in this quilt!

UFO's and Stashbusting

2007-12-25T18:24:00.001-06:00

OK, it is after Christmas, I have a few days before the new year, and it is time to start considering goals and objectives for next year. I have had a huge list of UFO's and Ready to quilt items listed on the side. How many new projects will I start? How many projects have I comitted to? Oh, and the block exchanges and Mystery quilts !!

Right off the bat, my Monday Bee is doing a Charity Challenge where everyone gets a yard of the same fabric and the challenge is to complete a charity quilt by a certain date, and we all turn them in a future guild meeting. They have also discovered Dear Jane. Mine has been sitting since 2005 (see http://www.shady-wood.com/quilts/dearjane/index.htm for my DJ Journey).

I've joined a BlockBuilders Bee with Greater Houston Guild. They do 4 block exchanges each year. My Thursday Bee (original name huh- we meet on Thursdays!!) will probably do several exchanges and quite a few charity projects, not to mention road trips and retreats!

So, the question really comes down to, do I WANT to finish those UFO's? Do I just need to prioritize the list? Do I just need to cull out that list and just give in to the fact that I may never get them done?

With the new studio, I actually have room to get projects out. The ones that I really want to complete, I will set up a 15 minutes a day type of commitment to work on them. I find that actually works, and it is amazing what you can complete.

Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays

2007-12-20T20:16:00.000-06:00

Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year.

Quilting Studio Update!

2007-12-14T18:45:00.000-06:00

Been working on the new quilt studio. Moved it from the upstairs garage apartment to the floor level full size workshop. I actually moved into the new studio in October, but was so busy with Quilt Festival and holiday customer quilting, that I didn't have much time for posting (and room was in quite a mess).

Here is the 'before' and mostly wasted space and hubbys' storage for motorcycles, camping stuff and airplane overflow parts.

During the process, we cleared everything out, mudded walls, textured ceiling, power cleaned the floor, tiled, painted and so on. Quite a transformation! Since the previous owner of the house used this as a wood workshop, there were already plenty of outlets and lots of overhead lighting, so we didn't have to do any additional work there.

Moved out all the old books, and moved in quilting (& other craft) books and stuff. The Gammill has a new home and Jon even built me a world class portable cutting table. Right now, I mostly leave it under the big window.

Carolina Crossroads Mystery Quilt - Part I

2007-12-07T22:21:00.000-06:00

Well, I got about 50 of my rail fence blocks completed, and my sewing machine blew a gasket or something. The top stitch looks great, but the under side is giant loops of fabric. It's like the tension totally went away. I re-threaded top several times and reloaded the bobbin. No help. Wonder if they will do emergency repairs on the weekend??? Fotunately, I do have a back up machine.

I'm using dark blues and reds. I have lots of reds in my stash and scraps, so am looking forward to using these in this mystery. As soon as I get the backup machine setup, I'll be able to finish up the last of these rail fences and move on to Part II.

What Not to Wear !!!

2007-11-28T22:11:00.000-06:00

We did manage to get Jon and I and the girls in one shot. Taking a breather while deciding which roller coaste to go on next!

Oh, this is the 'new' me, with dark hair! I've been blonde so long that they kept 'losing' me because the hair color/cut changed me so much! Lindsey did a "what not to wear' on me for my birthday. Went through all my clothes, made me try on everything and tossed almost everything except for the new stuff that we bought that weekend.

Went a whole week with no quilting! Usually on vacations I take all sorts of projects to work on in the hotel in the evenings. It's a good thing I didn't. We left early in the mornings, got back late at night and pretty much went straight to bed, got up and did it again (kind of like lather, rinse, repeat!)

Thanksgiving at Disney

2007-11-27T18:41:00.002-06:00

This year we decided that that instead of spending bunches of money on Christmas, that we would spend the money meeting somewhere as a family instead. We chose Disney. What a great choice! Beautiful weather the entire week, lots of roller coasters, great food and MORE rollers coasters! Of course the guys got a little weak kneed on the Tower of Terror, but were thrilled to ride any and all roller coasters over and over.

We all ended up with a 'roller coaster' headache after about 5 consecutive trips on Mount Everest in Animal Kingdom. That was awesome! The first time we rode it was at night, which just made it that much better. Kind of hard to see, I think that lamp light took the focus of the picture, but you see a car going almost straight up the side of the mountain then immediatley coming straight down with screams and so on. Don't want to give anything away, but the Yeti tears up the track and you have to do some backtracking! What a HOOT!

Phil Beaver Workshop

2007-09-22T08:34:00.001-05:00

Those of you that know me, know that I don't 'need' to start any more projects. But OMG, I have found a new calling. I took a 2 day workshop with Phil Beaver through the Greater Houston Quilt Guild last week.

Picture to the left is Phil in front of some of his pieces. He's telling us that WE are going to be able to make these beautiful sunflowers and poinsettias! Yeah right!

Here we are 'watching paint dry' literally! We laid out the class' painted fabric edge to edge, sprinkled rock salt over them, spritzed them with water again, and now waiting for them to dry. We did all of this BEFORE lunch the first day. These were absolutely gorgeous. As they dried, they got better and better.

This orange one is one that I made so I could do pumpkins! I was able to get two sunflowers cut out and laid out before I had to leave to go to the West Houston guild meeting that night.

Phil is looking at Mary Jo's layout. She did sunflowers and several pumpkins. Can'twait to see how these turn out.

A couple of my friends that WEREN'T in the workshop want to try this, so look for more to come!!

San Antonio Visit

2007-09-07T21:49:00.000-05:00

What fun! Daughter Rachael and her husband flew in from Atlanta, and we drove straight to San Antonio to visit other daughter. Can't remember the name of the town, but ended up being pretty close to Fredricksburg, lots of shopping in neat little shops. Nice lunch at a Mexican restaurant, saw turtles swimming and so on. Beautiful day, not too hot, low humidity (OK - low for Texas). Then we went to the Kendall county fair, saw the tail end of the rodeo, fireworks and local bands playing.

Harley (far left) cooked the most tender venison steaks out on the grill along with some chicken. Couldn't remember venison tasting so good!

Will Work For Batiks !

2007-08-25T18:25:00.000-05:00

My budddy Gail just turned 50, and as her best friends we had to do some embarrassing things to help her celebrate! Linda made the hat and provided the jewelry (including the tiara). I photoshopped a picture from her 49th birthday and added the "Will Work For Batiks" across the top, and had it printed as a poster and framed it. She was thrilled with and promised to hang it in an appropriate place in her new studio! We all had fun watching her open her real presents after we had lunch in a nice little tea room in Baytown, TX. Happy Birthday Gail !!

Not Quite 101 Uses for Batting

2007-08-18T07:16:00.000-05:00

Ever wondered what to do with those pieces of leftover batting? Well on several of my Longarm quilting lists have been submitting suggestions and "Karen O. in Texas" has compoled the list and posted it on her website. She is trying to get 101 ideas, and right now, there are over 60 suggestions.

Here is an Excerpt:
27. Use them in the winter to "chink" leaky windows or make draft stoppers.
28. Then there are biscuit quilts, raggy quilts, raggy jackets, etc.
29. Wrap it around the broom and use it to knock down the spider webs. Just throw it away, no messy broom bristles.
30. Wrap it around that casserole you are taking to the potluck. If it leaks, just throw it away! (96" goes around a lot of times!)
31. Cut it a bit smaller than your lamp base and protect your table.
32. I also use them to clean the wheels and tracks. (on a longarm machine)
33. Removing chalk marks on quilt tops.
34. I use small, potholder size scraps to erase the black marker lines off my white board. When the batting gets dirty, I just throw it away.
35. I give it to a friend that uses it for stuffing in teddy bears and animals she makes to sell at bazaars and craft sales.

Click here for the full ( & updated) list. Don't forget to check out the last suggestion of what to do with packaged batting!!! LOL! Thanks Karen!

4 Things About Me !

2007-08-17T16:46:00.000-05:00

OK, been tagged, to list 4 things...

4 things you may not know about me
1. Love to watch movies that make me laugh then cry
2. Have lost 85 pounds in the last year.
3. Been married over 30 years
4. I really am a blonde!!!

4 Jobs I have had:
1. Professional Quilter
2. Computer Programmer
3. Public Relations person
4. Electrician (yep, tool belt and all!)

4 Movies I could watch over and over:
1. Blast From the Past
2. Independence Day
3. Men in Black
4. Armageddon (Bruce Willis)

4 TV Shows I watch:
1. Smallville
2. Criminal Minds
3. NCIS & the Unit
4. Any Star Trek series

4 Hobbies:
1 Quilting!!
2 Genealogy
3 Gardening
4 anything on the web, ebay, surfing etc.

4 Places I have lived
1 Wichita KS
2 Plattsburgh, NY
3 Tulsa, OK
4 Aurora, Colorado.

4 Favorite Foods:
1 Not an issue any more

4 Places I would rather be:
1. I really love being home, that's also where my studio is.
2. back on the beach in Maui
3. on a quilting cruise
4. visiting my kids in either Atlanta or San Antonio

4 Websites I visit daily:
1. Google
2. NetAddress
3. Neal Boortz
4. FoxNews

4 people I tag to play this:
If you want to play, consider yourself tagged. Most of my buds don't have blogs :(

Finished a UFO!

2007-08-15T20:48:00.000-05:00

Oh MY! I finally get to knock one of my UFO's (Actually a Ready to Quilt) off of my list! Just have to finish the binding and get the label on, which I am saving for Monday when I'm stuck at home& quiet after a little surgical procedure. I will post a picture when it is complete.

Meanwhile, I will post a couple of pics of some customer quilts that I did last week. The red and green is a close up of a Santa Redwork quilt for Susan while it is still on the machine. The borders and sashings are holly and spikey vine type feather. The background fill in the redwork areas is a different type of fill that are random "C" shapes.

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The brightly colored one is Michelles and is a custom flame kind of all over meander. It's kind of a giant McTavishing type of quilting where you are doing cartoon hair or flames as the fill. Since the quilt is so geometric, this really softens the look. The varigated thread really pops on the navy background.

New Machine Quilters Resource Website !

2007-07-30T21:44:00.000-05:00

Also Suzanne Earley has set up a very nice site to share and learn www.mqresource.com, Suzanne is also a fabulous longarm quilter who has been featured in several magazines and was one of the award winners at MQS this year. She also has 2 books published!

Be sure to check it out!

Sad Day in Paradise

2007-07-30T21:15:00.000-05:00

Today was a very sad day at this house. Jon sold his airplane, and today the new owner left with the airplane. Jon built this airplane and I think he is going to be kicking himself from now on for selling it. He has been getting sympathy calls from his friends. He plans on building another one, but who knows?

(Picture is of "Beautiful Bette")

Before Jon starts his new project, we have another couple of projects to design and complete. First on the list is turning the barn into his 'workshop'. Right now, it is not weatherproof, and everything that is out there now is rusting. So, need to get it sealed up a little better, insulation, A/C, lighting and a few other things, like the fence and a road back to the barn (I mean 'shop').

THEN, we get to turn the current 'shop' into my new STUDIO! After that, my current studio will turn back into a guest apartment. Then the dining room can revert back to being a dining room and so on! I think I just need to start carving out a corner in the shop for now, but have to work on 'bug proofing' it first! LOL!

Let's see, wonder if I can scoot his Harley over to one side without tipping it over! Boy, would I be in trouble!!! Going to have to get some BEFORE pictures and show the progress!. You'll see that there is a lot of work, and won't happen overnight.

2007-07-19T11:02:00.000-05:00

Festival confirmations are starting to arrive. Received my confiramtion for Market, but haven't gotten mine for Festival yet. Everyone else in my Thursday Bee has been getting theirs in the mail this week. Since I faxed both orders at the same time, you would think they would arrive on the same day!!

I signed up for a Janet Fogg Design class, Accidental Lanscapes, a longarm Maintenance class with Ron Paul. and a Disappearing 9-patch with Nancy Brennan Daniel that turns into stars. Sounds like fun.

Of course Market/Festival is always fun, as my birthday falls during Festival, so hubby gets off the hook for buying something for me, and I just get to go shopping like crazy!

Houston Festival Catalogs have Arrived!

2007-07-01T22:24:00.000-05:00

Received my catalog for Quilt Market and Festival on Friday. Need to get my order form faxed in, which is by far the best way to get signed up. Can't believe it is already time to be thinking about it. Even though we live just Northwest of Houston, we still like to rent a room and several of us stay and split the costs. Also nice to be able to go dump things in the room after a few hours of power shopping.

Last year I couldn't find a class to take, but this year there are too many to make a decision. I did notice that the Longarm classes are all but gone. Linda Taylor, Jamie Wallen, Cathy Franks and someone else each have 2 classes. Oh, and Ron Paul has 2 maintenance classes. Guess I'll pass on those.

Janet Fogg has a design class on Friday. She is one of my favorites. I lover her quilts, they are so creativly peiced as well as quilted. She doesn't sell patterns or books, so I don't plan on missing this one.

If for some reason you DON'T know the link for festival, it is www.quilts.com They have finally updated their website, and looks somewhat professional now.