It's Raining Magazines!

How is a person supposed to focus with all the distractions Mr. UPS drops on the doorstep?

I HAVE to make this...

...and I know my Sydney would love one of these.

(Quilts and More Winter 2009)

Houston Part V

As long as you don't mind I will just keep these coming every so often.

This Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt was a sight to behold!
The hexagons are less than an inch in size.  As someone who is working on a GFG quilt and knows how long it takes to sew these by hand, I am in awe.

Made by Noriko Kido, Nagoya, Aichi, Japan
She says about this quilt:
"I love quilts of simple patterns. The hexagon is especially interesting for me. This wonderful world is composed of many colorful pieces, which are cut from only one hexagon template."

The quilt is hand pieced and hand quilted.

Time to get it together

Now that the sickies have left (I hope), it's time to get things under control over here.
The last couple of weeks have been hectic and this house is a mess.
I need to clean and organize because on Monday I'm planning to start Jacquie's Joy in the New Year Challenge and get some projects done.

Right now the entire contents of my pantry is on my kitchen counters, however.  On Monday we had insulation put in the crawlspace and guess where the access is.  Today they're wrapping and sealing the ductwork down there.
Tomorrow I'm hopefully getting a quote to run a gas line to the island so we can get a gas cooktop installed.
I'm also thinking that, while the patry is empty we should put some new flooring in there and paint.
Those kitchen counters may not get cleared for a while...
We have quite a few more fun projects in the works around the house.  I'm excited about it all, except for the draining of the bank account that comes along with the fun.

Enough boring chatter.
Here's a little sneak peek at the collection I told you about yesterday.

Still here

Things are looking up around here.
Except for some serious night time coughing, I think we've dodged the bullet.
Fun from the UPS guy helps, of course.
Spotted Owls by Alexander Henry.
I've already cut myself a huge teenie piece of this because I don't think it's going to last long in the store.

In other exciting news, I recently ordered my first entire collection of fabric. My store is little. This is a big thing for me. Today I received a fat quarter of each one of these fabrics in anticipation of all the bolts coming soon. I feel a giveaway coming so stay tuned.
Happy, happy...

I think there may be...

...H1N1 in our house.  Now I'm going to have to stay home and sew.

And bake.


(Recipe over here.)
Have I mentioned that I hate the new Blogger editor?

And knit.

Just Arrived

Just thought you might want to know...
Yesterday the UPS guy brought this:

It's stuffed with cute projects including the "Plenty of Pockets" bag by Monica, otherwise known as The Happy Zombie.

There's a whole bag section!
How do you like this little owl pillow?

There's also a bunch of table runners and some cute quilts including a quick and easy Christmas quilt.
As always, it's 15% off the list price in the store.

Wild Thing

It's my first twin sized quilt.
A gift.
Pretty wild but I like it.
It's big - 72" x 90".
I'm not sure I have a big enough space to pin this.

Look what Mary did!

She puts me to shame! I'm SO inspired to finish this project. It's on my list of things to do before the new year.

Mary is the first person I know of to actually complete the Geese in the Forest quilt.

I love the border and I'm going to see if I can order some of the dotty fabric for the store.

Not only did Mary complete the quilt, but she hit a little printer bump in the process and made 46 blocks too small.
Look at what she did with them!

If you'd like to congratulate Mary on this wonderful accomplishment, hop on over to her blog and leave a comment.

BTW, Geese in the Forest kits (that's what Mary used) are back in stock in the store after a long wait for white and lime green Bella Solids.

Have your cake...

It was my birthday on Thursday.
It was a fun day of shopping, lunching, dinner-ing...
On Friday more lunching and cupcakes for dessert.
If found this in the cupcake bakery:

My birthday gift to myself.
Don't you just love it when you stumble upon something that just makes you giddy and happy?

Houston Part IV

Are you fed up with this yet?
I'm trying to space these posts but I have a lot of photos...

This quilt was AMAZING!
Everyday Barns & Family Farms
by KAREN HANKEN
of JACKSONVILLE, OREGON

Detail:


Cuteness:
Pup Art
by NANCY BROWN
of OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA

And more cuteness:
Just Sing...Sing a Song
By Tom Russell of Katy, Texas (Thanks nanann)

I must be nuts

I think I may seriously have a mild case of ADD.
I started a new project yesterday.
I've always wanted to make a cathedral window quilt.
Yesterday I saw one online and suddenly HAD to try the technique. I could think of nothing else.
I couldn't find instructions on how to make the blocks using the traditional, hand-sewn method anywhere online.
I had to resort to a book. Gasp!

According to the book, for a twin sized quilt you need 572 background squares and 1100 colored squares.
I may be making a table runner.

Geometrics

I think the mojo is back. Now just to find the time...

This morning I knew I had to make Cathy's block for SC3.
She mentioned that she likes geometrics and I remembered a little puzzle John once sent me when I won a giveaway.

It wasn't exactly conducive to piecing (I don't do inset seams) so I redrafted it in EQ5 with some minor alterations.

Lots of little squares and triangles later:

I'm quite pleased.

Houston Part III

I loved this quilt.


If you know who made it, please let me know.
It seems I was really bad at taking photos of the quilt information this year.

Dutch Treat by Roberta Horton, Berkeley CA
She made this quilt from fabrics she collected during teaching trips to the Netherlands.
It was great to see all the different fabrics.

And just for fun:
Farm Truck - Retired by by Lynne Pillus, Oroville CA

Unconditional by Virginia Greaves, Roswell GA

Fusible and raw edge applique was very popular this year.

Going in a different direction

Other than quilting and sewing, I love doing things around the house - decorating, gardening, trying out new things...

I'd like to keep this blog mostly about sewing (although other things occasionally slip in).
I've decided to start a new blog dedicated to things around the house.
I'll do posts about decorating, gardening, cooking, organization, review products I've tried, recipes I've made, and so on. You get the idea?

Some posts may be repeats from this blog but most will be new.

I'd love it if you'd join me!

Houston Part II

And you thought Civil War era quilts were dull and boring. Some of the quilts I saw were so well preserved and bright that I'm starting to wonder if a bunch of those dull ones hadn't just faded over the years.






There was a "That Quilt" quilt this year!
It's new, not old. Machine pieced and wonderfully quilted.

(Made by Patricia Mayer and Karen Watts)

A new project

After yesterday's cleaning, I cut out the fabric for a new quilt.
I know, I know - I have many, many WIPs but this one is for someone specific and it was really due at the end of September.
It's time to hop to it.
Don't you love these prints?

And then I started sewing and either the pattern cutting instructions are wrong or I'm an idiot.
The jury is still out...

Sit a Bit

Today I cleaned for three hours.
Only forty minutes were actually spent Fall Cleaning.
The rest went to cleaning up after all the neglect this house has suffered in the last three weeks or so.
I'm now going to sit a bit...

...and then I'm sewing!
(The quilt is my Virtual Quilting Bee quilt and the front pillow matches my kitchen table runner.)

Houston Part I

Houston was amazing as always!
There was no way I could take photos of all the quilts - 500 or so - but I tried to capture the ones that drew my attention.

This is my favorite quilt in the whole show.

Even though it looks like raw-edge work, each and every little edge is turned under.

The quilt is at least 6' x 6'.
It was made by Martha Brown from Canada.
Here's some of what she said about the quilt:
"I found an embroidery I had created in my teens - a simple design of the wheel of the zodiac.
In interpreting it as a quilt, the challenges were to create effective imagery for each sign and element, maintain a cohesive design, and stay committed to the project.
It took over 6 months/500 hours and I loved every minute of it."

The center:

Pisces:

Aquarius?

Leo:

Aries, Sagittarius:

Virgo, I think:

I wish I had taken detail photos of all the signs but there were people waiting to see the quilt.

Kudos to you Martha!

Edited to add: Thank you Quiltbug for giving us a link to Martha's site where you can drool over her other creations: http://www.bluemoonfabricarts.com/Index.htm
She now makes absolutely stunning dolls. Be sure to have a look at those.

I made something!

I had to.  I was under pressure.
I have a friend who always has an artists' sale at her home in November. She wanted to get the flyers out but needed a photo of "something".
I had promised to make things for the sale and small items always sell better hence...

At least I know I can whip up one of these in about 20 minutes because that's all I had last night.

I'm back!

I'm back from Houston. It was wonderful as always.
I took a lot of quilt photos and will share them this week, but at the moment I have my hands full catching up around here.
When I went to the mail box yesterday, the new batch of Don't Look Now patterns were waiting for me.

Lilly Pilly:

Love Birds:

And my favorite - Willow:

To celebrate, Kellie is having a wonderful giveaway on her blog so head over there and enter!