Welcome 2012!!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

 

2011 Choices

Remember back to my posts at the beginning of the year when I mentioned that instead of making a New Year’s Resolution, I was going to pick a “Word for the year”.   And, my word was “Choices”.

I had visions that this would mean choosing to spend time in the studio,  happily creating and blogging afterwards…..but life had a different idea in mind!!!

I have found this year that my choices had to be different.  They tended more to taking care of family, helping clients that were in need, working in the yard, and on and on.  Instead of trying to do everything, I chose to miss certain events in order to participate in others. 

The biggest and most important choice was to not get angry because I wasn’t getting into the studio, but instead to enjoy what life was bringing along, even if it wasn’t what I had planned!!

One of the many perks of these new choices was that I have been so very relaxed during the holidays, organized early and actually able to have a nap on Christmas Eve afternoon…..something that has NEVER happened before.

Now don’t get me wrong, I hope to spend many wonderful creative hours in the new year, but it is so relaxing to take that out of the “must” column and put it into the “choose” column.

A friend shared this quote on Facebook and I think that it fits here……

 

I am looking forward to a new year of choices, chances and changes!!!!

Keeping Mom Busy – part 3

My Mom quickly returned the blocks that I had sent her.  They look great with her wonderful blanket stitching around the edges.

Now it was time to finish up the designs so I spent a fun day working in my studio, once again pulling out every piece of fabric that I owned!!!!  Here are the resulting blocks…..

     I changed the last block some and had to add a few blossoms and leaves to make it fit the double size block, but I  think it worked ok…..

 

I laid all of the blocks out just to see if the colors would work…..

…..and then wrapped it up in Christmas paper and sent it to Mom as yet another present for her to open!!!

My task in the next month will be to decide how to set the quilt together and what kind of border to put on it.   I have been thinking about doing a flower vine around the edge with lots of the different flowers on it, but I will need to see how Mom feels about sewing  MORE flowers!!!

Merry Christmas

 

From me and my family to you and yours…………

MERRY

CHRISTMAS!!!!

 

Another Ducky…..

 

I showed the first of my “Rubber Ducky” quilts a couple of weeks ago (check HERE for the post).  

The day before I was due to return to the Charity Bee I had an extra hour and thought “why not make another one”!!!

This time I took some of the leftover squares and rectangles of Ducky fabric,  added squares and rectangles of a coordinating fabric, sewed on a border and voila……

Another top to be quilted and given to a needy child!!!!

A Stocking for Amber

Eighteen months ago our son Brian married Amber, a wonderful young woman!!!  It dawned on me this year that I had not made her a Christmas stocking so I set out to rectify that.

The first step was to come up with a design to use.  Our family stockings were made when we were living in Australia and reflected that time of our life…..

 

I knew that I wanted something that would fit  Amber  but also wanted to keep the same design of the previous stockings.

Since Brian and Amber are recent cat owners, I started looking for a Christmas kitten pattern that would work.   The first that I came across was this needlepoint design…..

I covered it with a transparency and traced the general outline…..

  I realized that he needed to face the other direction to best fit on the stocking so I simply turned the paper over, being sure to mark which was the front.

I then placed the transparency on the light box, placed a Teflon pressing sheet on top of the transparency and began to build the design.  It was very easy to see where the pieces were to be placed….

After I ironed the design onto the Teflon sheet, I peeled the entire picture off in one piece and placed it onto the stocking….. 

The final step was to outline all of the pieces, quilting at the same time…..

The final embellishment was to add a bell for the kitten to be pawing at. 

I am looking forward to filling this new stocking with goodies on Christmas morning!!!!

Happy Blog-i-versary!!

As of yesterday, I have been writing a blog for 3 whole years.   When I started I didn’t know if it would endure, but I have truly enjoyed my time of communicating with friends, old and new, and from all around the world.

There hasn’t been much quilting going on in my life as my DD had major shoulder surgery this past Tuesday and spent three days in the hospital.  She is now at home and functioning mostly by herself, but my husband and I are still on call at any time, day or night.

The upside of this event is that, knowing this was coming up, I am the most prepared for Christmas that I have EVER been.  It is a wonderful feeling to be a week out and know that everything is in order.

At our last Fiber Frenzy meeting, Shirley brought out gifts for all of us….she always comes up with something fun!!  This year it is a “Just Do It” hanger for our studios.  She said that the first stitch or cut is the hardest to make in each project so this is our reminder to…..

Maybe I will get the hint!!!!

Keeping Mom Busy --- part 2

Since Mom finished up the House blocks so quickly, I immediately began looking for another project to get her started on.

I suggested that we start making a quilt  together.  The plan is that I will put the fusible applique’s together and she will do the blanket stitch around the shapes.  The blocks will return to me and I will put them together into a quilt top.  Then we will discuss whether she will hand quilt it or whether I will machine quilt it.

When it is finished we will decide exactly what we want to do with it.  It may be a donation to the West Texas Rehabilitation Center or it may be a gift for someone, or WHO KNOWS…….

SO, I started looking thru patterns and remembered this one from “Piece O’ Cake Designs”…..

As I  started pulling out fabrics and trying to decide what color way to use, I came across this wonderful piece of fabric……

 

…..and decided to make it the basis for my quilt, and to cut each of the pots out of this fabric.

Here are the first four blocks that I put together and sent off to Mom…..

 

Hopefully before Christmas I can get the next 8 blocks ready to go to her and also spend some time thinking about how I am going to set this together into a Queen Size Quilt.

Incidentally, I am always amazed at just how messy things can get when I am in the planning stage of a quilt…..

Keeping Mom busy –part 1…

As I have mentioned before, my Mom is 87 years old and has been quilting since she was 13!!  She still enjoys doing hand work, but finds the planning and piecing a bit hard to do.

When I was visiting back in October, I found a “block of the month” quilt that she had started a long time ago.  She had appliqued three cute blocks but then had lost interest.   I told her how cute I thought they were and encouraged her to finish them up.  Well, a month later I received a package containing the following…..

So now I have yet another UFO!!!!   I will start trying to come up with a quick, but effective method of turning these into a cute quilt!!!!

Sewing again….finally

Well, it has been quite a while since I have either had time to quilt or had the desire to quilt!!!   I have definitely been in the doldrums when it comes to being creative!!

As a result, I have a large stack of partially finished projects that I should really be working on…..

So when I finally found that the mood was on me, what did I do……started another project!!!

I had visited with our guild Charity Bee this past Wednesday and was handed some scraps of a cute “Rubber Ducky” fabric, and it got my creative juices to working.

I first picked out a few coordinating fabrics….

 

And then set out to add strips to each of the rectangles to form a large block….

….the next step was to cut out the blocks, setting each at a slight angle.  In order to get them all the same, I cut the first one and then put masking tape on top of the ruler…..

 

When I had the top together I showed it to my husband, telling him that I needed to figure out a way to make it larger…….

  

His first words were  “why don’t you put it at an angle”.    A PERFECT idea.   I first added a small border and then found the perfect green fabric to make the border from.  Fortunately, there was JUST enough to cut two wide strips and then cut the angled pieces….

The final top is so cute and was just what I needed for a quick Saturday afternoon project…..

  
The top will now be given to the charity group to be quilted and given to a needy child!!!

Maybe this will be the piece that primes the pump…..we will see!!!!