Ouch!

Got a bad dog bite on left hand Sunday, so typing is curtailed and crafting at a full stop. When the swelling goes down, I can sew again and also try some of the new thingss I am reading about in Fibre and Stitch, my new 'zine.

Meanwhile I am catching up on Blog reading.

Baby Quilt coming along nicely

and faster than I expected. Took a shot last night of this much of it. Got the blocks made and laid them on the border and triangles material to see how it would go. I love the colors together, and am pleased that my ability to choose coordinates seems to be improving. I used to always have one color that didn't seem to work. And I wouldn't discover it til after the quilt was mostly made.

I like this one totally and am going to have trouble giving it away. Except the woman receiving it is so worthy of getting my best effort. She has diabetes of the worst kind, she needs needles every day, not like mine that is diet-controlled. She lost a baby already and we have all been praying she would make it all the way with this one. So far, she is doing just fine.

He did good- challenge met!

Here is my five material (minus one which was allowed) postcard done via my husband.It wasn't really that hard, and I am relieved he picked so well. He even told me he actually took down a second box, and he deliberated and put some back and forth til he thought they worked together. I passed on the black with gold dots because I couldn't figure out how to blend with what I had. Adding lots of pink lace and thread made it quite cheery and feminine, I think.

I even addd a row of hearts after I sandwiched it, so the hearts show on the backside


I had to put this together quickly because I got a baby shower invite this morning and I know just what quilt I want to make. Will go shopping for material first thing tomorrow before it gets unbearably hot. I don't know how long it will take to make and I only have about four weeks. That seems like a lot at the moment, but I know how stuff can happen and get in the way of quilting time.

New challenge...

...'cause I don't have enough to do...LOL. My red and black is coming along pretty well so it will be finished by tomorrow. More hand sewing little metal things on it, and then the binding. As I have done before, I expanded the size so was forced into the 'add backing to the backing' thing. It's getting to be a bad habit. But I had those little extra black and white pieces and it just seemed to be a waste to throw them away.

The challenge (from Quiltland Chronicle in the list of bloggers on the right)is to have someone else pick out five materials from your stash and you make a quilt with them. You can add colors and you can take away one of the five chosen for you. It can be any size but small is expected unless you just love the choice and have lots of the material on hand. In my house there is only one other person, dear husband. He headed for the craft room with a big sigh and 'I guess I could do that'. Now here is a partial assortment of colors and amounts available, and ...


...HERE is what he chose!!!

Do you think maybe he could have picked up one more box, if not five...nooooo, he picked up only ONE...and it was BLACK. Now I love black as you can tell from the quilt up at the top. But I am definitely going to have to add a color, probably pink, to keep this from being dreary.

Copper Bling

Yup, that's what I call them...I did a four-postcard abstract and then cut them into the four individual cards.
That is a leather chair seat behind them, so you can hardly tell where they start and stop unless you look really close. It's fun trying to keep each one different and yet have an all-over one-piece look at the same time. I loved the foil and it wasn't any more difficult to sew on. I was afraid it might 'shatter' or something. But it went smoothly. Not so much the copper thread - I did have quite a few breaks. I even remembered to change to a metallic needle and loosen up the top tension, but it still decided to snap every so often. I've had other metallics that have been MUCH worse, so it was frustrating but bearable in comparison.

I recently ordered some MistyFuse and other goodies and they just arrived yesterday. Got some different paints to try. Says you can dye with them and I thought it would be nice to do a mini-dye - like for postcard backgrounds. And I ordered a small rotary cutter thinking it was like my little (OLD) one and this one is even smaller!! GOTTA LEARN TO READ THE DETAILS! This is not the first time I ordered something totally different than what I thought I was getting. And I HATE to return things, so it stays, regardless.



I ran out of my old paper-backed fusible doing this cat and two butterflies for a small lap quilt, and then...


...tested the new stuff on a fun cut idea of black and whites on this neat red batik.

Bookmarks, then that forest green quilt...

Made some neat bookmarks using my DH's laminator. Put eight of them on my ETSY shop. I just fused the pieces, rather than stitching, as the stitches would have made it too bulky.


Then I went back to work on that lime/forest green sampler quilt and finished the last block. All those little squares didn't quite match up the way they were supposed to, but this quilt is one I am keeping, so I am less fussy.

Added a pic of this one I had done a few weeks ago.


Then brought the twelve pieces up to the bedroom rug to see the effect and re-arrange the squares many,many,many times til I decided this might do.

Bookmarks, and back to that green quilt...

Made good use of my DH's laminator and put together some neat bookmarks for my ETSY stash. I fused only, as stitching would make it too lumpy. Had the beads already handy and loads of small pieces of ribbon. (Never throw anything away, right??)




Then I took a break from little things, and did that last big block on my green forest theme sampler quilt. I put all the pieces on the bedroom rug to see if I could get a feel for the order I prefered. Moved them around a whooooole bunch and decided on this.



Now I have to make the insert pieces and sashes and binding, etc, etc. It never ends, thank goodness. Such fun.

How cool is that?

My Stare Eyes quilt made it into a Treasury page on ETSY. That means someone liked it and put it in with a group of favorte pics that has to do with "eyes"


And I finally got my "Purple Fantasy" finished. I added beads at the last, mainly to hold down the angelina fibers. But it did fill in and hold down the rather empty black areas, too. I could have done more quilting there if I had thought it out at the beginning. But sometimes that makes me more inventive at the end. Like that big pearly purple button, thatI hadn't even found when I started. I do find that the ideas usually flow along as it comes together, rather than being completely perfect before I start. That is the fun of it for me, I think, seeing what I can come up with on my own with no pattern. This close-up may show the details a bit better. And it is all PURPLES - not blues. Darn the internet, not being able to read the purples!!! Or is it my camera?
That is a tiny piece of a feather boa in the center and couched yarn squiggling next to double-needle threads, and triple bugle beads with a silver round one at the bottom
The half circles are hand-dyed(that I did about two years ago) and those twisty purple 'arrows' coming out from the half-circles are the foil covered cloth I did a few days ago. I love that stuff, and have to get to work with more of it. Fun!

My ALQS goody arrived...

...and is just lovely.
But you folks can't appreciate the great colors here, as they don't seem to photo well. That is PURPLE in the flower petals, not blue. And the edge matches, and that gingham frame is a really pretty green. It is proudly hanging in my craft room on my yellow wall and picks up the purple on the other wall. Perfect!


Just for fun, I took a shot of the corner of my first use of foiled cloth in a quilt. It is those squiggly things coming off the half circle. Having great fun in making this 'Purple Fantasy" Almost finished, just need the border, and I will show you all the completed project. I was curious if it would look purple, and it does look more so than Annie's quilt flower. Hmmmmm.


And in between trying to decide what to do on the purple thing, I started some business card holders. Found the pattern on About.com and thought I wanted one for myself, and then decided they were a good thing at a lower price for My ETSY Shop so here are some ready for the last part.


And this is MINE, finished and loaded to go.


Here is how it looks closed.

Foiled...for the first time.

I finally had the chance to try my first foiling onto materialIt turned out to be quite easy, once I read the directions about three times to be sure I understood the concept. I tried a bunch of cottons and a couple pieces of velvety material with little sparkles on it that I had cut off the bottom of a dress. Turned out it adhered best to the velvet, who knew? Now I am working with the purple piece to make a study in purples. Got lots of other purple parts thrown on a black background to start. I'll try to get a pic tomorrow.

Just so you know, I don't quilt constantly - sometimes I go down to the sea...
...and spend time with my sisters, and today with some neices I had not seen in quite a while. We three sisters who are here in Ct. get together once a month in what we laughingly call "The Sisters Sewing Sircle" A fourth sis has moved to Georgia to live near a fifth sis who has been down south for quite a few years. They get to join the sircle once a year in Sept when they come up here for a visit.

We take turns at each others house and the hostess is supposed to make the lunch. We are supposed to sew or quilt or knit or something like that...but...
we did fine the first few months, until more interesting things popped up. Like a new shop to visit, or a tea room for lunch, or a quilt show, or a new card game to learn. You get the picture. It turned into a fun get together that seemed to include less sewing and more different fun!!

We didn't see any problem with walking the boardwalk, climbing rocks, and one sis even got in the water. Us other two love the atmosphere but not the cold water. We prefer the shade and breezes and chance to catch up. And the incredible views.
I didn't bring anything to sew 'cause I thought the camera was more needed for this 'Sircle' meeting. What do you think?

Been busy refreshing and finishing

Took out a couple small quilts that have been stored and freshened them up for sale. This kitten one is just the right size for a kid to drag around as his blankie, or to put over a baby in his car seat. So off it goes.



This one speaks for itself, I love Cats!!! I did a zig-zag kind of meandering around the cat material and it made the cats puff out a bit. Better look than before.


And this one is a brand new one that you had peeks of earlier. All done and I don't want to let it go!!!!! I really liked the colors and how it turned out, but I can't keep everything I make, CAN I???Here is a closer look. I added beads for the 'bubbles' of air for the fish, and the cat is machine quilted all around and has pink stitching in the ear and nose. I did wavy swirls in the blue areas, like ocean waves and foam, kinda...

Whooo...Hooo!!!

I did it! Got my first sale at the Etsy shop. What an encouragement that is. So fast and two quilts sold. Really makes me want to continue putting my ideas into fabric form.
Still want to do swaps and love reading everyone's blog for inspiration and actual instructions. But this is such a challenge to my finishing stuff and maybe even getting UFO's turned into CASH. Gotta go and tell my family members!!!

Done...and open for business

So here it is... the finished product, at last. Doesn't look like trouble, does it?



So glad to get this one done.


Who knew the border would take almost as much time as all the detail quilting???


AND IT IS FOR SALE at my new Etsy shop I finally did it, and got all the info in place and put on six little quilts for the public to own.

Please, please, please come by and visit. I know fellow quilters will not likely be interested in spending money there, but you never know what else you will find, at my shop and at the hundreds of other ones. I bought a necklace and the lady made earrings to match with clips for me, as I love sets and don't have pierced ears. (total coward when it comes to any kind of needles, I used to cry for shots, and I'm talking when I was in my forties!!!)

Then I checked out one of the other new shops and couldn't resist buying some of their cookies from NY 'cause I LOVE COOKIES and these were made with interesting additions of spice like rose drop cookies with BLACK PEPPER. And OH yes, they are goooood, as well as the other two types I tried.

The other exciting event was my first grandchild graduating. My goodness was it a noisy time for all., The crowds were trying to out-do each other with applause and hootin' and even horns-in-a-can blasting. What a racket! But our boy made it and we are delighted. Here is a shot of him and his mom(our daughter)

peeks...

Here is a peek of the quilt that has been driving me crazy. Looks simple, doesn't it? It's almost done and ready for a full pic, by tomorrow maybe?
And here is my choice for the cat template in the fish/cat quilt. I even added a bit of flange on the edge to carry the cat color and not make it look so alone. Now for a lot of free-motion to hold the cat in place and give the water some waves. Gotta make sure the cat eye is really clear. The 'life' in the pic will be lost if that eye isn't just right.

Grrrrr...some days are tough!

Working on a small quilt to put on ETSY and have ripped out and finally cut off the edge binding!!! I wanted to put a cord on the edge and then attach the mitered corner border. Can't do BOTH sucessfully. Lots of growling and finally scissors. Then tediously re-making the quilt a little larger and adding the border in a different manner. This involved three layers, of course, patched onto an already layered finished quilt. Well, more ripping ensued as I figured out which was the right way to get it attached without rough edges showing on the back. I am almost there - added the skinny flange without the cord inside, and then a bit wider border. Well darn it, I didnt get the edges ironed quite together, so I sewed one edge on and totally missed the edge I couldn't see underneath. More ripping, except I stopped to take a break and calm my nerves, so I could finish and keep my sanity!

And meanwhile yesterday after the first ripping and cutting I quit on this one and started a whole new one! Had a ton of these blue strips from a bargello quilt I did for my granddaughter and a bit of this fish material from my son's wall quilt. So I put together this simple log cabin block as a starter.

And I haven't figured out which cat template to add, as I want it to be looking at the fish in the block. The eyes will have to be adjusted a bit to be looking directly towards the fish and if they are playing 'stare-eyes'.

Because the block is so basic, I want to add a bit of pizazz to the border pieceing. Still thinking and planning.

Next.....

Working on a new project now that the ALQS is done. Did a quick sewing job making a swag for the sewing room curtains, and then a couple more of the Ann. Quilt squares.

Now I am almost finished with a small wall hanging for sale in Etsy. I want to open a little store there and need to get some inventory ready.

I have some decent scenic ones I am willing to part with that are all original to add to some new ones, like the one I am working on.

Here is a couple of shots of the ones that are already to go...

Wheeew...Finished--Finally

I'm afraid I'm not one of those ladies who works on four or five different projects in one day. I'm doing good if I work on one a week. I might take time out on one to start another that has a quicker deadline, but only focus on that till it is done. I had to totally stop thinking about the Ann. Quilt til I finished this little one. This is a discipline I have to force on myself, or deadlines come and go and I am playing around with the wrong quilt. I'm not saying my BRAIN isn't busy on many, many other ideas. Just my fingers must stick to one job at a time!!!

Soooo... here is the finished project for ALQS...

Here is a close shot of the 3-D flowers...


And my first try at mitered corners...
The view is not the best for the corner, but shows the 3-D butterfly up close.

Tried a lot of lessons recently learned in this project. Those mitered corners, the 'petal play' for 3-D effects, free motion embroidery, scenic layout, machine applique.

Now I've gotta let Kate know it's done, and get it out in the mail to...????