Good times

Good food, good shopping, good company!

Mary ( on lake Pulaski) and I did some fabric fondling at grubers
quilt shop, then off for a nice lunch and chat!

It was a great day!! Food and fabric, does it get any better?

Meet up with your sewing pals, it's good for you!!! :-)

Things

Perhaps I should be fishing... Instead I am playing with my camera...
It's hot, gorgeous and windy enough for me to break out the
claritin... And pull my weeds out of the flower beds around my cabin...

That's where I found this little guy... For some reason there are
100's of dragonflies! Everywhere you look they look like little
fairies flying around you...

Magical.

Hop over to my friend shelly's blog.
Http://shellysquilts.blogspot.com

She wrote a post about machine quilting... Go and read it, if you find
you get frustrated or intimidated about quilting your quilts. Her
advice has made my own machine quilting go up about 10 notches!

Best advice? Stitch in the Ditch everything to hold it all in place,
take out the pin basting then do your free motion...

It makes a world of difference...

And doodle doodle doodle on paper to have a plan... Then go for it!!

Tag attatched

This is the tag attached to the puff quilt...

Puff quilt

I have NEVER seen this before! Have you?

Gone fishin'

We are off for a few days!
Have a lovely memorial weekend!!

Happy sewing!!!

scrap swap fun!

This scrap challenge is finally pieced... (I need a name for this!)
It's been nearly done for a week or so,
but today I finally got it off my wall! yippee!
I used all of Bonnie's scraps that she sent me, and I had to add white's and neutrals to square it out,to to fill in the gaps... and to highlight certain areas...
hop over and see what she did with my scraps... I love her color gradation!

I was playing with some vintage blocks yesterday when the final piece of the puzzle fell into place... I felt that orange and purple block needed to live in the top quilt...
I like to throw in a little old, a little new, solids and prints all together...

I played a bit more on it's block, and it is on it's way to Sujata
for a little scrap swap fun!
She will send me something to play with as well.
Can't wait to see what it is!

I'm off for a few days!

Have a lovely long weekend!

I'll be seeing, this lovely person on Sunday!

What fun!

one big party

Birthday's galore around here!

Everyone in our family has a birthday either in MARCH or MAY...
Yesterday, ANDREA came down to visit, and she brought down
a belated birthday gift for me!
Isn't it lovely!

She has me totally pegged...
I am a obsessed with the VIRGIN MARY...
not so much as a
religious vibe, but just an overall fascination,
and a lot of my ARTwork relates to it somehow...

From my Photographs to my Paintings...
So when I opened Andrea's gift, I could have fallen over... It's so fabulous,
I asked her, to be sure she wanted to give it to me!!!

A very Special gift indeed...totally blown away...
Thank you Andrea, I treasure it!

SPEAKING OF BIRTHDAYS!

My hubby just had one,
AND,

My girl turns 10, Saturday~!!

Yesterday, I swear, my sweet girl was one, and now she's ten...

We are heading to the cabin, so we gave her, her gifts early...

Guess which Birthday gift got a "COOL?"
(referring to yesterday's post)

ha ha ha ha!
It wasn't mine!

he he!
She rcvd a battery operated FAN from her BIG brother!
It has LED lights, and you can program
it to make words in the air when it spins!

yes, How COOL is that!

Quilt? what quilt?

Happy Birthday to one COOL girl!
;-)

Hello 80's!

It figures, everything that was HOT when I was a kid,
is now HOT-TER
with my nearly 10 year old!

I had started her portrait after I started mine,
but wanted to try a new direction.. and not do the same process
as I had done with mine..
So I got out my what's left of my PAINT stash..
(as the rest of it got put into storage)

And was going for a Black and white style with her portrait...
She came into my studio this morning and said
Why is my face all GREY!

(oh ye of little faith!)

But I was lacking some direction, until she got dressed this a.m.

She came out in BLACK, t-shirt, black mini skirt,
and her NEON High top Skeecher sneakers...

HELLO 80'S!


Then I new just what to do with this floundering project...
I pulled some bright solids, as close to NEON as possible...
Threw in some Graffiti, her initials, anything NYC and zig zags


And hopefully zap it up with some fun quilting...

It looks a bit rough, as it might be on a brick wall...

Hope I can pull it off...
Living up to a 10 year old expectations can be pretty tough.

I better make it "COOL!"

a few doodads...

a Finish!
Yippee!
You can read more about it at the SAY CHEESE! site
Go see some of the other portraits as well.. fun fun fun!



I am off to see my new pal, John, from BIG RIG QUILTING!
He's offered to quits a few of the BASICS HOUSE QUILTS,

Don't forget if you have one to donate!
we need to hit that 200 so I can give away that lovely sewing machine posted here...

Lots more prizes! we are on our way to 50 quilts where TWO $50
gift certificates will be given away in a drawing to those who donate!

I'm also in Binding heaven.
Getting ready to finish off my Kitchen sink quilt...OH JOY!

A sewing, time out.

I had intentions of working on these this weekend...

the "thought", was as far as I got...
(I really wish I had this quilt done...it's my oldest project)

Taking them out of the bag, and photographing them,
though, seemed enough work...

Hope you are enjoying your weekend!

TOUR NYC BY WATER

South Street Seaport...

Our Vessel for the day!

Brooklyn Bridge

Lower Manhattan, Wall Street area, Battery park, Ferry Terminal

Lady Liberty

Ellis Island

What a view!
What a Field trip! I don't recall having trips like this when I was a kid!
The crew was amazing, the kids learned so much about sailing, and helping and working together...(so did the grown ups!)
The weather was fantastic!
What more can you ask for!
I'm Exhausted... but in the best way possible!

Happy Weekend!

Bloggers Quilt festival

Today (FRIDAY) is the bloggers Quilt festival!
Amy is such a genius for doing this.

I went through a load of my quilts to show you the one that I wanted to highlight...
But that was very difficult to do...
This one above, is a favorite of mine, But I wouldn't say it's VERY ME,
(as my daughter would say)
But it is a part of something I love to do....

Collaborate...
I enjoy this process because it really pushes you to think outside the box...
Try things your not used to, work within certain rules or guidelines,
and it is purely a mystery as to where it will go.

This quilt is rather like a story book to me...
It just Feels like a good story...

Shelly and I made a group of wonky trees, I took 6 and she took six.
And then we'd see what each of us do to them...

This is mine above.
I made it up as I went along. Knowing generally what I wanted to do to it..
I've been staring at it for quite sometime now...
Sometimes I wonder where the ideas come from...Why I go in a direction I do...
Mostly I just try to listen by seeing...



Is it my all time favorite?

mmm,
not sure.

frankly?

My favorite Quilts?

Are the ones that get USED...

or given away.



Got one you can donate?
Go check out the site.
You might win something fabulous!

;-)

Happy Friday people.

Enjoy it!

piddling along

OK, I know that sounds funny...

I feel like I am getting nothing done this week...

I meant to finish the self portrait quilt.
I still have not finished the hand quilting... nor have I gotten the binding on it...

scrap swap challenge:
I had hopes of getting this off my design wall.
I have everything sewn together on it, except the top right corner,
and now,
I keep adding stuff to it...

How are you others doing on your scrap swap challenges?


I got this binding done... woohoo!
And three others on the SIS BOOM POW quilts. WOOHOO!
thank you Helen for coming to help me!

I had a doctor apt this morning for my iron transfusions, and I was very early
so I went and sat in Central Park and stared at the reservoir for a while...
exhale.
sigh.

Then this lady bird came to visit...
(gotta love the polka dots)

The sun is out, it's glorious...

(this might make a neat self portrait quilt!)

OK, so, maybe I had a few ideas pop in my head
and a bunch of SMALL projects done,
so maybe
it's not such a wasted week after all...



Tomorrow, B's class is going on a sailing trip
leaving from the South Street seaport
in lower Manhattan...I get to join them!
maybe that's just what I need.

I should have some lovely pictures of the harbor to show tomorrow!
It is to be in the 80's! I have fingers and toes crossed for that!
I think I need a little Mr. Golden Sun...

Happy Sewing!