Ideas

Working on my friend's heirloom quilt has inspired me to make one of my own.  I don't want it to be elaborate or beyond my skill set.  Just a bed topper that says "SANDY".  Something my son (and possibly his future family) will be able to look at it and know what I was all about.   Maybe some photographs printed on fabrics of my first car, high school graduation, pets, etc.... Some of the items can be pieced blocks or applique blocks.  I'll use my favourite colors and motifs in the quilting.  These are my ideas, anyway, and I will have to get them down in my sketchbook before they leave my brain all together.  When I made this quilt for my mother, I had her favourite color and family photos in mind. 

So, I don't want it to look too much like this.  Some of the elements I really like about it, like the frames around each picture and the way they are placed and not quite centered or straight.  

Today I will be starting work on a label for my friend's quilt.  When it's finished, I will post some pictures.

 

Giving Thanks

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! 

Later when the turkey is reduced to a bare carcuss and all that's left in the pie pans are crumbs, I will be getting back to working on my friend's heirloom quilt.  I'm hoping to surprise him with it's completion by December 2nd. 

The holidays are upon us and Santa's warming up his sleigh.  Every year for the last 18, I have been writing a letter with our Christmas cards.  This year, however, I am thinking about skipping it.  Do you read your relatives and friends Christmas letters?  How interested are you in their pursuits over the year?  I've tried different formats, from one line sentences, mostly pictures and comic book style, third person perspective, poem styles, regular letter formats, etc.....just trying to make it different and interesting every year.  It's hard to begin with simply because you don't want to bore the readers with your accomplishments or seek their sympathies for all your failures.  What is a happy medium?  Just a simple "Merry Christmas" in my opinion. 

Books and more

I wanted a couple pictures for my post, so I dug through some oldies but goodies for today.

This picture was taken 2 years ago at the Henry Ford museum in Detroit Michigan. On display were the "Stars cars and gitars", it was a memorable show.

There is something so wonderful about buying a new book. Is it the smell of the freshly printed pages, or opening the book for the first time and hearing the faint crack of the spine? Whenever I buy a new book I just have to look through all the pages, not necessarily reading anything, but visually "getting an eyeful" of all the colors, graphs, tables, charts, patterns and finished pictures of the project I could make in the future. I do the same thing with my magazine subscriptions, however, it is a little different. The advertising for drugs between almost ever page or so is extremely distracting and I find it a bit intrusive. Trying to sell me something completely unrelated to the how-to article I am reading about prairie points or how to make the perfect apple pie is just rude. I am convinced that people with emotional problems, insomnia, ED sufferers, and diabetics read Better Homes and Gardens, Redbook and Women's Day. I usually end up ripping these pages from the magazine in disgust. Sometimes my DH will enter the room and see pages strewn all over the floor and wonder if the cat has gotten to my magazines.

Anyway, back to my brand new books!
"Inspired to Quilt"......yes I have high hopes for this one to help me with my stalled creativity at the moment.
"Paper, Metal & Stitch"......this one should be a good one with the multimedia work I want to do.
"1000 Artist Trading Cards"......love the idea of this one. It's like a shot of espresso, isn't it? You get a creative fix from making just one tiny card. These titles and so much more can be found here.

November already?

I have taken quite a few fall walks, enjoying the beautiful color show.

Believe it or not, I had 5 big beautiful sunflowers in my garden this year. Three weeks ago, high

winds came through and ripped every petal from them and they hung close to the ground before

DH chopped them down.

The heather in August was just glorious!

So, what have I been doing for the last 3 months? Is it just me, or does anyone else think that time has sped up over the last couple years. I can't believe it's nearly the middle of November already. If I look back at the year as a whole, I feel very inadequate as far as quilting goes. What do I have to show for it? Last year about this time, I joined a challenge to finish my projects before the New Year began. That didn't happen. I finished 2 of the 6 items I had in my basket. However, I can safely say that I haven't added to the pile. DH's pants were hemmed, 4 sets of shoe fresheners were crafted and given as presents, 1 table runner was completed and gifted, 1 large quilt top was gifted to a charity, a cheater quilt was completed, and blocks were sewn. A pretty meager count, I may be forgetting the odd thing or two, but close enough to all that I did this year. I am hoping to do much better in the next year. There's always room to improve! ;o)

Bonnie Scotland

We had a fabulous holiday in Scotland. The weather was better than we expected, dry for the most part and partly cloudy most days. The Military Tattoo in Edinburgh was the absolute highlight of our holiday and it was the perfect day for it. Even the sun setting behind the Castle was spectacular.

As far as quilting interest goes, there is a lot going on this fall in the UK and Europe. Purchasing tickets beforehand will save you a couple quid. Go here to find out more.

Juliet sent me some wonderful fabrics for my birthday, thank you so much. Now I must find time to sew and quilt this fall.
My Schoolhouse block is still on hold. To solve my problem with the block it would involve a lot of ripping out or setting these aside and re-piecing the same block in a different layout of colors. I hate to rip out seams so now I am thinking about scrapping the entire block and choosing a different one. Possibly an applique block. I love the thistle picture at the top of this posting, so maybe I will play with that image a bit and see if it's something worth doing. I can't help thinking that I am turning this row quilt into a complicated nightmare and it has stopped me from sewing anything else. Have a good week everyone :o)

Cheater quilts....... Who's cheating?

Love this 50's painting scene, so I just had to start my blog today with it.

I don't take credit on making any cheater quilts I've ever bought. I only praise their beauty and functional qualities. About 11 years ago, I decided to buy one for our bed. It was gorgeous and lasted about 9 years and went through at least that many washes in my home machine. Recently, I saw one in the store and thought how nice it would be to have one again. I bought the king size (yes, we are one of the few couples who still sleep on a full size bed) since my DH and I usually fight over the covers at night. This one goes to the floor and is like a coverlet so that when I make the bed, the pillows get tucked in at the head of the bed. I also bought the shams for our extra pillows. It is just wonderful and there is no way I could've made one so cheap. The quilting is very elaborate with hearts and vines and swirls all over it. The blue and white colors look great next to my dark furniture. I am very proud of my find and I am hoping it will last for another 9 or 10 or maybe more years! Have you ever bought a cheater quilt or wish you had?

Ok, remember my last post I talked about working on my row quilt. Here it is. I did in fact get some houses done. After sewing the first one, I made an adjustment to the pattern that I found for free on-line. The next picture shows it better, but I combined a step and took out one of the 90 degree triangles. This was an easy paper pieced block. Before I go any further with this row, I would like some opinions about what you think about the layout of this pattern. Maybe the white strip at the top of the windows doesn't look right?

So the yellow one on the left shows the triangle on the roof and the purple one on the right shows the triangle taken away with the front roof being one odd shape piece. However, the more I look at these blocks, the more I am unsure of the white strip above the windows. Maybe I should remove that as well?

Well, it's been overcast all day and it has finally decided to rain. And I mean raining buckets. Before we get any thunder and lightening, I think I will post this and power down my computer.

Perfect Day

Today was, in fact, the perfect day. My DH hurried and got his work done, came home around noon and we skipped off to take pictures of the countryside and have a picnic. We have to cherish our summer days as we don't get very many of them. We couldn't travel too far from home as DH had to go back into work and meet with some people. But, I will take any time my hubby will spend with me. I don't have any pictures to share at this time. The camera I used today was a Canon Rebel II and it's old.....I think 18 years old. So it uses 35mm print film. Now the challenge will be to find somewhere that will print not only the color film, but I also have black and white film to be developed. It's a good little camera, but I am thinking of selling it. I have a 3 year old Canon digital that I absolutely love, so there's no need to keep the old one.

I couldn't end this post without a flower picture, so I chose this beautiful poppy. These flowers are so delicate and the petals look like crepe paper to me. Tomorrow I plan on staying home for a change and working on my row quilt. No, I mean it this time. Definitely. It's a done deal. For sure. No, really. REALLY!..........really.