HUGE Thank you's

Happy Saturday!

First of all, A HUGE thank YOU to all of you
who are offering to help with the house blocks.
I am so excited about this project, I get a little emotional!

The project, I hope will grow, as I have bigger plans to help this organization.
But for this moment. We'll start with these lovely house quilts....

Some have asked about
gathering blocks and mailing them all together, Absolutely!
The more the merrier!

Some have asked about
if you gather enough to make a quilt top and send that,
That works for me too.

But don't feel you have too.
Part of the fun for me is putting these all together too.
So I am Very happy with one block or 15 etc..

I am quite happy with one block. thank you for opening up your hearts.

I'll be accepting blocks for a while,
so it will be my summer project getting them together...

Click link at right for the gather for original post and pattern
(or here)
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Other things are happening around here...


The First Waverunner has gone under the needle.
I wanted to try something different on this top.
It's still a work in progress after two days of sewing on it...
I think I may run some hand quilting through it now with some perle cotton...

Some small itchy finger sewing... I did this before I worked on the waverunner to try a few different techniques... It was very helpful to do this, and it turned out really cute!
That was a bonus! This will be in the mail to someone, soon.

Not only is tomorrow Valentines Day!
It's is the start of the Lunar New Year also!
Happy Year of the Tiger!
I'm sure B is anxiously awaiting her Red envelope....


And I actually got B's New Year Blanket done in plenty of time! yippee!

Have a great weekend!

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...

what to do today...

So, I'm digging out other projects that I wanted to try to work on... You all know I've been working on machine quilting... So I got this stones quilt out, and decided to give it a whirl with some swoop flow-y lines... So far, I think it's OK, I'm still working out speed, And actually just picking out the right COLOR of thread... I tried to be neutral on this, not sure if that was the right thing yet... But so far, it's OK... we'll see... (I still prefer letting someone else finish these for me!) I drew out the first few lines just to get it set... that seems to help me best... now just to fill it all in...

A few of you are way ahead of me on the QUILTING part of the waverunners!
I did at least pick out my backings for them... ;-) ( I'm procrastinating)

Millie has hers done! Love all the little squares in there! Looks great!

My dear Friend Monica is back! Remember I was teaching her to quilt?

She got sidetracked with sewing a quilt for her sister, and now is getting back to finishing hers! She healing and mending well from her Breast cancer, and I am so HAPPY to have her back to play with in my studio.
So while she sews, I've been cleaning up my mess. Also, I have not been feeling so hot these days myself, and have done barely anything the last two days... Got a few Dr. apts of my own... So I'm piddling with folding fabric, piecing batting bits into little projects, vacuuming up dust bunnies, all that fun stuff... no sewing for me really except that 10 minutes on the stones quilt above... that wore me out...

So. Just trying to figure out what else I can dig up to finish... Got any dusty blocks in a bin somewhere that you need to dig out and finish? ha! Don't we all!

Using what I have....

Last summer when we were in Rogers Minnesota, B begged me for this piece of fabric that was on clearance to make her a soft snuggley blanket... I put it away for a long while, and she has forgotten about it. Which is perfect, because now I can finish it and give it to her for Christmas!

I'm also using up a bunch of stuff I have around here... leftover Xmas swap blocks for Holiday place mats.... ... they'll make nice gifts for someone!

I'm not so sure about this table runner, also from leftover blocks...I may cut it up into pillows, or make some holiday banners out of them... not sure yet...

***

Carla is about done with her waverunner. Her colors remind me a Fiesta festival! Love it!

Glorious mess

I have one big mess over here again.... Folding, folding, folding...
Glorious...
I'm so tempted to cut in and start another idea... But for today,
I'm getting bindings cut and attached....
Because, Christmas is NOT SO FAR AWAY!!! It's November for crying out loud!
Sheeeesssh!!
Where does the time go!!!

So for today... a couple bindings, and a couple of other projects need to come out of the bins to finally find there way to the finish line....

I'm working on another cookbook, like I did last year for my family and friends... So that has been taking up most of my weekend time... Instead of trying to type everything out this year, I am going to just printout my food blog through BLURB.com

Do you know them? You can have a hard copy printed out of your blog. How cool is that?

It will save me loads of time... Yippeee!

Have you seen this webpage? Fun to find new things... Thanks Julie!

http://www.thequiltcomplex.com/
She has a lovely blog too.


*****

How are the rest of you coming on your Waverunners? Please keep the finished tops pics coming... they have been so fun to see...
I need to get to quilting mine... But I need a few days to get organized around here again...
messy messy messy!

Beth finished her waverunner.

Lovely Detours

I feel like I took a big detour lately, and wanted to get back to other projects I had started before the waverunner...

I had started these applique projects and have gotten so taken in by them. I bought a couple books to figure out how to bead and embroider them a bit...
But now that
i got this batik project off my wall...

(remember the trees that shelly and I made?)
they became this...


I wanted to get back to my Dresden plate quilt...

I started cutting into all that fabulous YELLOW i picked up in Houston,
And then realized I wanted to do the same sort of thing as those little applique projects!
So now...

I have yellow in the main background part and I am blending from yellow to yellow/pink and then finally a pink border...

Once I have that done I will play around with the plates,
but for now I tacked them up to see if I like.
I LIKE!

So I guess the Detour was worth it! It's lead me on a new path... Gotta love that!
Have a great weekend!

Wed. FUN!

(one last pay it forward giftie, sneak peak)

A few fun things today!
B is off school so we plan on doing a little charity work...
Here's a clue.

Don't know it? pictures to follow later...

And we'll maybe sneak off to see the wild things... her second time, my first. ;-)
Let the Wild Rumpus begin!

I know I said I would wait to start another quilt as I have many to finish,
But I already gathered my scrap blocks to make more of these... fast fun, and uses up a lot of scraps! it will go into a quilt to go along with orange and turq one I posted yesterday...
Fun fun fun!
I just need a couple things off my design wall to get this rocking...

Tonya of lazy gal is posting a quilt I put together with the help of many of her Blog pals, when we found out she would be having surgery... We did it very Tonya style, and I have to say, it was SO much fun to put together...

Some Waverunner Finishes...

Cathy finished up her top, with some Kaffe fabrics! And Juanita broke out the batiks!

I'm loving how you all just went and made these all your own. Very inspiring Everyone!
Keep up the great work!

Time for me to go play and have some FUN FUN FUN, on this very rainy day...

love these blocks!

I am having so much fun with this kind of simple block.
I just keep digging through my box of squares cut from scraps, and putting more and more together...
I'm thinking a large quilt is next like this... But I have some others to FINISH first!
sigh. of well, it will wait...

***

Waverunner

I have to say what Fun it has been to see all these quilts come together.
From your fabric selections, to your layouts. I'm impressed by all of you, newbies and sewing enthusiasts for trying something new and taking off with flying colors!

I happy to see that many have taken my start and took off in their own direction!
That had been the greatest joy to watch.

I encourage everyone to break away from patterns and try something new.(once in a while)
Not that there is anything wrong with patterns, mind you.

But I think we all have a few PATTERNS that need to break free from us...
And it's exciting to see, and feel when you've expressed your self 100% from your own creative being.


Rene' has a great start on her Waverunner...
She's got the wavy bug! go see what other waves she's creating...

Jaclyn's colors are floating away! Love the combo!! pure water waverunner!

Beth got Funky with her inspiration fabric! And go see what she sewn it together with!

Michele has her top done. Ready for assembly...

I will continue to post Completed tops once a week from here on out.
I know many of you are only beginning, and that is fine.

Drop me a line when you've got your top done.
no hurry, and have fun!

sick day

Leave it to my girl... She wanted a B wall hanging, and Boy, did she get a B wall hanging!
She decided she wanted it to be for Buddha, so with her help in choosing fabrics and ideas,
She choose, flowers to make it look like Buddha is sitting on a lotus flower, and made sure to include 7 offering bowls... Which we will make into pockets...
"Mom, it also needs to RADIATE!!!.." she says
So she selected the golden-y green beams of light...

The girl knows what she wants, that's for sure...

Not a bad, "stay at home sick day with mom" sort of project!

But I now have APPLIQUE coming out of my ears!

At least it's FUN!

Carolyn W. has some great colors going together on her waverunner!

Siobhan is almost done!

And Mary IS DONE!

I'm thinking perhaps I don't need to do a post about layout...

I'm thinking you guys guys have it all going on! woo hoo!

If you want help with lay out, perhaps email me...
The fun part is laying it all out, filling in,
and adding your personal touches like Mary did on the border...
I love that!

let's see what you can come up with...

Anyone else?
How are the rest of you doing?