little of this and that

Linda told me the 8 kids quilts for Sis Boom POW!

are in the mail and on their way back to me!

I can hardly wait! I need to cut bindings for them, and be ready for a sew day
here at my place March 6th... If your in the hood, stop by and help! ;-)

I quilted this other baby quilt today so there will be 9 for donations total...
Makes me so happy!

I just had a call from B's school, saying they were closing school tomorrow! I guess I should watch the weather more closely! they are anticipating a lot I guess! right now it's sunny, and blue skies! wont' it be funny if we only get an inch or two... I may be eating my words tomorrow... we'll see what we actually get! exciting! I better go buy some food! zoiks!

Waverunner II ....Bound and out of the wash.... I'm letting this air dry nice and flat...
I had to hang it up to get some light on it to photograph it...
SO NOTE: the top is actually STRAIGHT, but it's still damp and hanging from a pin,
that's why it looks wonky crooked...

Thanks for all the lovely comments yesterday on this quilt. I'm SOOOO happy with it...
But it's nice to hear others like it too... Now I need to decide what to do on the other one... Not sure If I want to do the same quilting on the other waverunner...
I may wait til I know for sure...

oh, and, Yes, I marked the first 16 rows, which gave me a 12" circle... This part wad very slow going.... Lots of quilt to turn round and round....

Then I quilted the rest by sight....

Good question! Thanks for asking!

I had to play with this quilt a bit more today... (Feels like grandma's house)
As I had said, it was inspired by
Lori's cheese and cracker quilts, but mine took a serious left turn...
It started to have a feeling of my grandmothers house, so I took off on the thought...
Now that parts of it are sewn together, the more I look at it, it is starting to resemble her Rocking chair that she sat in every day... so I am leaning toward that feeling...
just following my gut... it will be what it is...

And lastly, after all the crazy amount of sewing I did the last couple days, my machine was making some funny noises.... I always clean it before I start a project,
but I don't always clean the whole underneath....
If your not mechanically inclined, don't remove the bottom of you machine...

If you are, go ahead and give it a quick clean up sweeping out the dusty goo with a paint brush... but don't remove all the thick oil...
save that for when you take it for a thorough professional cleaning...

No more funny noises! yippeee!

more quilting

Finally! Everyone else got their waverunner done, but me!
oh well, I finally decided what I wanted to do to this one...

sometimes I need to wait til it hits me over the head....

I was nervous at first to attempt this... But it went pretty smoothly...
lots of starting and stopping to re-adjust the fabric... but , I think it was worth the effort...
I'm going to bind it tonight, and throw it in the wash...
curious to see what it does once it's washed!

How cool is this?

To highlight this year's Peace Week theme, Beyond the Numbers: The Economics of Peace, my daughters school, worked with artist Derick Melander to create a beautiful textile sculpture from second hand clothing. The purpose of the installation is to highlight just one thread of our waste consciousness: Clothing. * The clothing they collected will be donated to support the Recovery in Haiti. * once the installation comes down... It looks amazing...

*********

I ran to the store this morning and one of the tenement buildings was being gutted for a renovation... this is the floor just inside the door! How cool is that?
Of course that caught my eye... I had to take a picture of it, one of the guys was like,
"What are you taking a picture of?" I said, "the floor...!"
he just gave me a weird look and kept on doing what he was doing...
he he he... new yorkers...

finish

I sure have learned a lot in making this quilt....
One, that I love to applique and just use up my bits,
two, I learned to have slightly more patience with machine quilting...
Boy does it pay off!
and three, The more scrappy the quilt, the more I love it...

I am now starting to do some hand quilting over some of the larger shapes...
Yes, I bound it, and washed it, as I wanted to see just how much some
of the shapes would puff up...
probably the wrong way to do it, but, like I said,
there was a lot of learning going on with this quilt...
I quilted the dog out of it... and I wasn't sure how much more
quilting I would want on it...



I drew out my pattern and feathers in the corners, and really took my time, then I scalloped all around the design...
I love the texture it gave! (completely by luck...) and it made the design stand out so nice...
I used matching threads one everything except the red...
I used red on top and on the back. that would be my big mistake...
(You can really see the errors that way!)
But, Live and learn...
Next time I will use a blending thread on the back...
And thank you Susan for sending me that fabulous piece of green and gold fabric!
It looks so nice on the back of this quilt!


Between this and that Kitchen sink quilt, I can't say which I love more...
The size of this is 61" X 62"

OK, I hope to show you something else this week...
perhaps I'll quilt another of those tops laying around here...
(lord knows I have enough other projects I am working on)
I think I've posted enough about this quilt...
I'm rather pleased with it, can you tell? And anyway, I so often post the process
and never show the final product... so there you have it.
(well, it's nearly done, once I finish a bit of that hand quilting....)

************************************************

I'm racking my brain also for the next donation quilt project...

I've been asked to donate a quilt to a Fabulous local organization for their benefit in Sept.
Which is also stirring ideas in my head for something bigger of ways to help...
click click click, my wheels are spinning.
Perhaps this week I'll give you more info on that...
stay tuned!

random stuff...

It's an itchy finger sewing day...
I also have the binding on the tile quilt. I took some nicer photos but forgot to bring my camera cord to load them into my computer...so it's all iphone pics today...

hmmm, doesn't this skirt have fabulous possibilities?
We saw this at the American Natural History Museum the other day... I may need to play...

I got my couch back this week! I was so excited... our butter yellow, couch is now this!
Bummer thing, is it makes everything else look like it needs to be recovered too!
my darling B, can you tell she is not shy one bit?

It's a soup day, made with whatever is in the house... Everyone seems to be getting snow, and they said, eastern Long island would not get any snow,
but here we are, cold, gray blowy, and now snow!

My geraniums seem to be looking out the window... perhaps in awe? or sticking out their leafy tongue at it... while they blossom in my warm yummy smelling kitchen...

and what's that? I hear a nap calling me...
it's one of thsoe days.

How are you filling you saturday?

inspiration

Things that inspire me today....

(above quilt inspired by thoughts of her)
Feels like Grandma's house quilt

My grandmother,

her quilts
and

Her Bath tub Mary in her yard...

Which has inspired most
of my work as an artist

Virgin Mary's

The town my grandmother lived in

The Mighty Mississippi that runs down the side of Minnesota...
and through her town

And Charlie Pride Singing Roll on Mississippi....

She would have been 92 today.
Happy Birthday Grandma!

What inspires you today?

Amy has a lovely post about what inspires her today... go see..

NYC DAY

The Empire state building from just about every angle...
(love the Pepsi add...)

It's a New York city kind of day...

No school Thursday, Friday, so we are off to the Natural History Museum....
It's also freezing outside! Stay warm!!

HOORAY!

I don't know if you can see anything in this pic, but HORRAY!
I got the tile quilt, quilting done today!
61" X 62"
I can't wait to get the binding on this baby,and throw it in the wash!

I think it will puff up real nice!

But,
my back is killing me, I wonder why...