A look back at October....

It is good to take a moment and take stock of what you have accomplished in the last month.  I often move ahead without taking the time to appreciate what has been done, and end up feeling as if I have done nothing. 

This month I quilted 10 quilts for customers....

 

 

And made several pincushions, mini quilts, and blocks for swapping....

 



 

 

 

and finished my happy, Pezzy, Viva la Fiesta! quilt...

 



 

 

Not bad....I have to remember that the next time the ugly voice in my head tells me that I don't do anything. 

 

Time to look at November and see what is on my plate tomorrow.

 

What have you been up to?

 

Linking up with Lilly's Quilts Fresh Sewing Day.  Go see what others have been up to too.

 

 



Bloggers Quilt Festival

Hello and welcome to my entry to the Blogger's Quilt Festival!  I am entry #456.

 

I've spent several days contemplating which quilt to enter.  I was flummoxed because it was beginning to feel like work.  Then I remembered how much fun I had making this quilt and decided to share it here.  From start to finish, I loved making this quilt.



It started when my dear husband decided that we need to replace our shabby dishes with a new set and chose Fiesta Ware.   I swear they are the first dishes I have ever owned that make me happy even when they are sitting dirty in the dishwasher.  I love, love, love seeing all of the colors together.

 

Then I saw this quilt being used in an advertisement as a table cloth under Fiesta Ware and showed it to my beloved.

 

 

We could have purchased a kit to make it...complete with instructions....but my husband is an computer engineer and wanted to figure it out himself.  So he made the pattern and I made the quilt.

 

The circles are all hand appliqued and the nine patches are pieced.

 

It took me about a month of steady work to get it finished...but in the end it was worth it.

 It makes me smile just as much as the dirty dishes do!

 

Blogger’s Quilt Festival Stats

Viva la Fiesta!

Finished quilt measures : 62″x 62″

Special techniques used : applique

Quilted by : Cindy @ Tops to Treasures

Best Category : Applique Quilt, Professionally Quilted, Throw, ROYGBIV

 

 

Good morning.

Hello all,

I hope you had a great weekend.  It was beautiful, if not a bit chilly, here in North Texas. 

I went to a balloon festival, which was fun....except there were no balloons.  It was nice to get out of the house and walk in the fresh air with my husband and youngest son.  We ate far too much junk and watched some beautiful kites dance in the breeze.  I didn't take a single picture.  Sorry, my hands were full of funnel cake and kettle corn.

I also got to spend some time sewing.  I finally finished these...



I made two pillows out of my tiny hsts from the quilt.  It was incredibly satisfying to use up every last scrap of the material I purchased to make the quilt.  The backing is left over from my Donkey Quilt...very soft grey flannel.  The bindings are scrappy.  I am very pleased with this project.



I also got to do some knitting.  I doubt that it will ever be used, but it was still fun to make this Dr. Who themed wash cloth for my son.  You can find this and similar free patterns here.

More pincushions?!

Hello,

It has been a while since I last posted....more than a week.

I have no idea what I've been up to.

Making pincushions perhaps....

 

This one is kind of large....but that was the size of the motif in the fabric.    I also made a little thimble case (the yellow bit with the bird) from ribbon to send to my FLiPS partner.

I think this one is my favorite.

 

 

I had caught up on my customer quilts.  I was down to two in the basket of things to be done.  Pending was empty, as was next month. 

 

The past couple of days has changed that.  I now have 9 quilts in the queue.  Not a bad problem to have.

 

I went to guild last night.  We heard from Diane Durand author of "Quilts, Tattoos, and Tacos".  She like an Ever Ready Bunny.  I can't imagine doing all that she told us about.  It was nice to visit her world, but it was nicer to get back to my own.

 

 

I participated in a tiny pincushion swap at guild.  The idea was to try a container pincushion (all of the round ones I've been showing you were made this way.)  I was the lucky recipient of this cute little lady bug and needle case.  It is very tiny....Helga could almost use it as a cushion for her feet,

 

 



but it isn't quite big enough.

Pin, pin, pin

You know my penchant for on line swapping....

well, now I am participating in the Fab Little Pincushion Swap....FLiPS.

And I can't quite get in the groove.

What do you think of these offerings

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Happy Birthday Dad!

 

 

Isn't he handsome?!  He reminds me a little of Sean Connery.  This is my daddy.  He was a sweet, sweet man who loved the out of doors.  He designed camps for a living, first for the Girl Scouts, then for the Boy Scouts.  I dont' think there is a lovely spot in North America that he didn't know about and enjoy visiting either in person or in memory.  That made him an instant friend to just about everyone.  He knew your favorite vacation spot...intimately. 

 

 

Every little girl loves her daddy....I'm no exception.  I loved mine dearly, still do.  He also happened to be my friend.  I liked mine immensely and look forward to the day when we will be reunited.  I'm sure he is scoping out heaven at this very moment....sitting on the edge of the Chrystal Sea swapping fish stories with the 12, and loving his Lord.

 

Today he would have been 78.  Happy Birthday Dad!  Love you.

 

 





 

 

Birthdays call for presents!  This tiny stack of Cuzco is up for gifting.....  I had 51 comments.

 

With the help of Mrs. Glosser's Math Goodies  the winner has been selected. 

Enter a lower limit:
Enter an upper limit:
Random Number:

Deb@asimplelifequiltsOctober 4, 2012 7:52 AM

I love your new pattern and how the little squares shine against the grey background. I probably would make a table runner out of 9 patches. Thanks for offering such beautiful charms~!

 

Congratulations Deb, your goodies will be sent to you as soon as I have an address to send them to.

 

 

 

 

Rainy Wednesday

I wasn't going to play along. I thought it would use up all of the scraps I was saving for other projects. But, I am inbetween projects at the moment, waiting for fabric to arrive, and thought what the heck, I'll try a block or two...

13 blocks later, there isn't a significant dent in the scrap bins, AND it was a very pleasent way to while away a cloudy afternoon. Perhaps I should keep going. 17 more and I can join the give away over at Ellison Lane.

On another note.....I finally sewed together a pile of tiny hsts I'd been hording.

They were left over from my "'nough Said" quilt. Each square is about 15" x 15". What do you think...matching pillows for the quilt, or a mini and a pillow, or two minis,....what should I do with them?

 

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Ta-done! & To-do

Yup, I got it done over the weekend.

I even got the label done. Wa-hoo!

And I got a special request to make a baseball themed baby quilt. If it wasn't my son doing the asking I don't know that I would do it....but here is what I am thinking.

It started with this image that I found on pintrest

Oh, did I mention the intended recipient is a wee baby girl......

What ya think?

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Happy Thanksgiving

We don't celebrate Thanksgiving until the end of November....but our neighbors to the far north celebrate today.

Dear Canadians! May your day be blessed.

 

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Oh happy day

It is a cold, yes cold, and rainy saturday in my neck of the woods. This doesn't happen very often. I have on my very favorite clothes (read, jeans and a hoodie). My family, those that are home, are all happily pursuing their own interests. The kitties are all in one nice warm purry pile. The dogs are snoozing on the old couch. Life is good.

Remember my stack of circles?

They turned into a stack of blocks.

That got sewn into a nice top.

That is now being quilted.

In a really cool custom pattern, even though this customer is typically a bad payer!

I tried to get a photo of the quilting in the nine-patch blocks, but it doesn't show up very well. This is a photo of the design as it looks on my computer....I can only work two rows at a time due to the size of the blocks.

With luck this will be ready to bind by the time Dr. Who comes on tonight....although I think that is a rerun...hmmmm....maybe a movie then.

Hope you are having a great weekend. God's blessings on you and yours.....especially my friends in Canada as they are celebrating Thanksgiving with their friends and families.

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Elementary

Do you use pins when you sew?

Really, I want to know.

A few months back when I reorganized my work room I was amazed at the number and variety of pins I have.  Truthfully, I was shocked.

I don't mean decorative ones either....and I do have those.

I mean the kind that you use to hold things together or in place.  The kind that requires me to have a box of band-aides in my sewing kit, and my children to rue the day they decided to walk barefoot through my space.

I have flat headed, and glass headed.  I have long pins, and short pins; skinny pins and fat, pig sticker pins.  (You know the ones.  They come in dress shirts and could probably be used to hang pictures.)  I have safety pins, basting pins, corsage pins, and applique pins.   I even have funky double pointed pins that look like tiny elongated horse shoes.  They all live in their own little boxes or cushions....except when they escape and poke said family...but hey I've stepped on their Legos so I think we are even.)

Funny thing is, aside from the fact that they are never handy when I need them, and that they multiply when left in dark places, I don't use them when I sew.  Really.  I hate pinning...unless we're talking Pintrest or mini quilts.

I've been thinking a lot about that lately.  (I am that exciting.)  I've decided that it is Euclid's fault.  You read that right, Euclid as in the father of modern geometry, it is definitely his fault that I don't use pins.

I don't talk about it much.  It is a period of my life that I can't quite get my head around, both fantastic and terrifying.  I am both tickled and appalled that my parents not only consented to my participation in it but footed the bill.  Really....to the tune of $40,000....that is no small chunk of change, even now.  In 1985 it was a fortune.

I am a graduate of a very small liberal arts college.  In quilty terms, we're talking smaller than one charm from a Candy Charm pack when compared to all of the fabric that is produced in any given line.  I think there were 70 people in my graduating class...maybe.  In said college we studied something called "The Great Books"... and one of them, perhaps my favorite, was Euclid's "The Elements."  It isn't a very big book, nor is it a literary masterpiece.  It most certainly is NOT a New York Times best seller....NOT a best seller on anyone's list for that matter.  It appealed to the way I think, and has become the standard upon which I base directions.  Consequently, I became a believer in modern geometry, in spite of the misery that was my high school geometry class.

Geometry tells me that things that are square, stay square unless some outside force acts upon it.  When I sew two squares of fabric together I get a rectangle as long as I don't manhandle them in the process.  When I piece I look for seams to snuggle.  I feel them nestled together with my fingers before I let them move through my machine.  In short, I trust my fingers...not the pins.

So tell me....why do I have so many pins?