Fifteen Minutes

is all the time I could find yesterday.  I guess that answered the question whether playing nursemaid would give me more time or less time in the studio ;-)  Most of my day was spent getting caught up on paperwork.  When my daughter was feeling a little better, we watched a tearjerker movie together, and after that I was good for nothing ;-)

I'm not a big Miley Cyrus fan, but I like Greg Kinnear and Kelly Preston.  I usually stay away from Nicholas Sparks books and movies because of the tearjerker aspect, but my daughter picked the movie.  I have to say, it was a sweet movie....I used more tissues than my sick daughter.

OK...back to quilting.  This is only the second time I've worked with selvages.  It is a great project for 15 Minutes of Play, and maybe sometime later today, I will finally link my last two projects there ;-)

I've been saving my selvages for a while, and I am glad to finally see them sewn on blocks.  

You know...it is possible to recycle too much.  I wanted to use old phone book pages for my foundation, but I don't have any.  They've all been recycled, and I guess the phone book people haven't found us at our new house ;-)  We don't subscribe to the newspaper any more which has really reduced the amount of items in our recycling bin.  I ended up using a monthly neighborhood bulletin that happened to arrive at the right time.

At my speed, fifteen minutes only produced nine 4" selvage blocks.  My daughter is still home sick...poor thing.   I may have more selvage blocks to show tomorrow ;-)

Have an amazing day!!!

Last of the Goodies

I think I've received all my birthday goodies for this year...the last items ordered with birthday money/gift cards arrived this weekend.

More solids to add to my growing collection, plus some Kaffe on sale.

I had to have the Supreme Slider and Quilt Halo after reading Anne's product review.

 

This applique book because I just know one day I'll be able to do needle turn applique ;-)

I don't think these are what my friend had in mind when she gave me a gift card to Amazon, but I am hoping she will forgive me that I went for quilting supplies rather than books for my Kindle;-)

My daughter caught her brother's cold so I will probably be playing nurse maid for a couple of days...not sure if this means I will have more time or less time in my studio ;-)

Have an amazing day!!!

OMQG Road Trip

Our guild activities just get better and better!!!
Yesterday, the Orlando Modern Quilt Guild took a road trip to the Quilt Shop of Deland where we were treated like royalty.  There was even a videographer on hand to film us!  Well, he could have been there to film Judy who exchanges phone calls regularly with Mark Lupinski, will be featured soon in Fabric Trends for Quilters  magazine, has a new fabric line coming out soon and is taping a quilting DVD....nah...he was there for us ;-)

Of course my camera died that morning.  Thanks Ansel Adams Michele for the use of your pictures.  Here's our group with Judy posing in front of her fabric display (unfortunately hiding from view her gorgeous Bella Flora fabrics, pattens and quilt projects).

Judy is a hoot!  She gave us the best, and most humorous, free motion quilting demonstration that included tips for quilting with metallic thread.  She also used the Supreme Slider and Quilt Halo products which our group had requested as some of us had received them as birthday gifts (OK, I confess, that was me) and need all the help we can get (OK, that is definitely me!).  

We left with lots of FREE goodies from Judy and her wonderful staff.  Each of us left with a fat quarter and pattern of our choosing from Judy's Bella Flora line, a bag of charm squares, coffee mug and note pad.  As usual, my daughter tried to confiscate the coffee mug and note pad ;-)

I tried to be good...I really did..but I couldn't help myself!  These lovely fabrics somehow made their way into my stack of purchases.  All of them Most of them were on sale.  I really don't need any new fabric and have been trying hard to destash, but I succumbed to the temptation ;-)

Lovely, generous and talented Michele made me this fabulous potholder for my new house and gave me this fun fabric!  Thank you, thank you Michele!!!  

I really feel like I received the fabric under false pretenses.  When I showed my shelves the other day, I guess I didn't make it clear that I still had loads of fabric in my closet waiting to be organized and sorted onto my shelves.  After reading my blog post, Michele felt like I didn't have enough fabric to fill my shelves and helped me out!  Isn't that sweet?!

What makes this gift even better is that I can cross potholders off my list of things to make.  It has been on my list for a while considering the above potholders were given to me as a wedding gift...26 years ago!  I think it's about time they are retired and replaced, don't you?

Here's the back of my potholder.  Love these colorful peppers, and look at those beautiful straight quilting lines!

Today, Michele and her fabulous selvages are featured on Karen's Selvage Blog.  Go here and be inspired!!!!

Have an amazing weekend!!

Wonderful Wednesday!

In case you haven't heard, there are several giveaways of AccuQuilt Go! cutters going on right now in blogland!  If you are like me and don't have one but want one, visit Freckled Whimsy, A La Mode Fabric, Canton Village QuiltWorks,  and Sew Many Ways for a chance to win.  Good luck!

Have an amazing day!!!

Fabric

My IKEA shelves are finally assembled thanks to my handyman friend Jorge!!!

I spent some time yesterday sorting my fabric.  As you can see, I still have a long way to go, but during the process I made some observations:  I have way too much pink fabric; I seem to like purple if it is batik;  I can't seem to cut into my Hope Valley fabric; my fabric inventory confirms that I like blue and green but not orange (again it's a FSU/Gator thing); and that no matter how much space you have, you always need more ;-)

The fabric that was in these bins is now neatly folded, sorted and looking pretty on my shelves.

These two big rubbermaid containers, red bag and box hold fabric that needs to be sorted.

Here's a peek inside the red bag.  OMQG member Beth brought back all these scraps from her week in Kansas City sewing for veterans.  I think I'm going to put these in grab bags for a future guild challenge.

Speaking of which, here is the "ugly" fabric I received for our guild challenge.  In my opinion, it's not ugly at all.  Still, I can't decide what to do with it.  We don't have any rules other than to use this fabric in a project for October's show and tell.  Any suggestions?  

Have an amazing day!!!

Multitasking ..

... or losing focus?  

Over the weekend I seemed to flit from one project to another...

I played around in my basket of selvages and made a couple of blocks...

I sewed some strip sets for two different projects...

Cut one set of strips into 2.5 inch sections...

...and added sashing to my string blocks.

I'd like to believe it's multi tasking at its best, but I'm afraid it's more a case of not being able to focus on one particular thing ;-)

Have an amazing day!!!

Sew & Tell Friday #38

If you stopped by yesterday, you know I pulled out Mrs. Moen's Nothing to Wear pattern. 

Even though it isn't completely finished, I am showing it for Sew and Tell Friday.  The picture is overexposed (took it late last night) and doesn't do the dress fabrics justice.  This is a fun quilt to make.  Following Nina Lise's instructions, I traced the dress pattern onto a non-stick vinyl template sheet, cut the dress template, drew it on the paper side of fusible web, ironed onto fabric scraps and fused onto my quilt sandwich.

I used variegated thread to quilt straight lines across.  The only thing left to do is embroider {gulp} the words "But I Have Nothing to Wear", bind and label...then I can make many, many, many some more!

Oh, and look at this cute backing fabric I happened to have on hand.  At least if you "have nothing to wear", you might as well have plenty of shoes and purses ;-)  Thanks again Nina Lise for this fun pattern!

Have an amazing weekend!!!

New Project

A while back I won this great pattern from Mrs. Moen.  I was thrilled as I had drooled over this particular quilt each and every time it appeared on her blog!

Yesterday, I finally found some time to pull it out and get to work.  Nina Lise's directions were clear, precise and very easy to follow....now if I could only learn to quilt like her ;-)  This quilt is also a great scrap buster project.  I had a good time going through my mountain pile of scraps and picking "dresses" to make.  This one is ready to be quilted.  I can tell right now that I'll be making more of these quilts.  Thank you so much Nina Lise!

Along with the dress quilt ready to be quilted, I have four bigger quilts that need to be basted and then quilted.  With my studio a mess (again), I am not in the mood not able to concentrate on such a big task.

My husband and I learned a long time ago that home improvement projects and we do not mix.  For the sake of our relationship and sanity {grins}, I am waiting for our handyman friend to assemble my bookcases.  However, in the meantime, I was able to hang my magnetic board from Ikea all by myself ;-)  Cool, huh?

I still have a sick child at home...probably will be making another trip to the doctor...poor guy...not the best start of his senior year.

Have an amazing day!!!

Wonderful Wednesday!

In between taking care of my sick child and repair appointments, I plan to spend the rest of the day locked in my studio ;-)

Have an amazing day!!!

Waiting...

...for fabric to dry.

Kathryn gave our quilt guild a demo on a soy milk/watercolor painting technique she learned from Juanita Yeager.

This is not an instant gratification project ;-)  I soaked the soybeans for four hours,

added water, blended and strained multiple times.  Next step...wait two days for fabric to dry.

{waiting}...for someone to help me assemble my bookcases from IKEA.  Hopefully this will help with my overflowing fabric problem situation.

...for inspiration to strike.  These lovely fabrics are courtesy of a good friend who gave me a gift certificate to Fat Quarter Shop.  I love these rooster fabrics....very fun.

More Strings

This weekend I was able to play some more with strings.

One quilt top has already been made with these strings, but I felt the need to keep going.  The above picture shows the one big leftover string block and some smaller blocks randomly placed on the design wall.

I noticed that the more string blocks I made the more strings I had left to make MORE string blocks...they seemed to multiply!

Here are a few more of the blocks I made with the leftover strings...believe it or not, theses are not all of them.  I'm going to post more at 15 Minutes Play...once I get the kids to school;-)

Have an amazing day!!!

String Blocks

I was able to spend quite a bit of time in my studio today.  There was a Dear Jane class I should have attended, but I really wanted a full day (at least while the kids were at school) at home.  It was a lot of fun but not as productive as I had imagined.

String blocks have been on my Want To Do List for some time now.  Cluck Cluck Sew's bag of scraps seemed like a perfect place to start.  I was asked "when you're sewing the strings together - do you use the paper pieing method... or do you just sew strings together?

Well, that's a good question because I spent quite a bit of time reading, researching and deciding this very issue which is why it has taken me so long to start this project;-) The three big squares sent by Allison were made using this method involving copy paper.

I was too lazy for that method, and instead, sewed strips together with a stitch and flip method.  I think this worked pretty well.  The above picture shows my blocks and Allison's.  Can you tell which is which? 

I used the scraps from squaring up the blocks to make these two four inch blocks.

Does anyone have any suggestions for a layout of these string blocks?  I would like to make a 36" square wheelchair quilt.  I appreciate the input.

Have an amazing weekend!