UFO Count

Hi, my name is Ruthie and I'm addicted.
At this time you would all say "Hello Ruthie," and nod your heads because you've been where I'm going.

I got out all my UFOs this afternoon, took their pictures and listed them in a spreadsheet........all 34 of them!
Do you see that short list to the right? I guess I need to update it.

I can remember a time (about 8 years ago) when I was working on, maybe, 3 projects at one time.....piecing one, quilting one and sewing the binding on one. I did that so I would not get bored and now look what's happened.

Of those 34,
4 simply need binding and labels
10 need to be quilted
13 have all the blocks made and need to be assembled into a quilt top
3 have at least some of the blocks made
4 have only been cut

Guess I better go get busy......

Stashbusting Hunters Star

I made a signature quilt for my daughter and her husband the first Christmas after they got married. I scanned their guest book for the signatures and printed them on fabric sheets and then cut out the trapezoid shapes to fit into the Hunters Star blocks. My niece has a friend that saw the quilt and wants one just like it- minus the signatures, of course, and in browns, tans, earth colors.

Well, I made the original one looking at a pattern in a magazine, but didn't use their pattern. Instead I drew the blocks out in Illustrator and printed out the sheets to paper piece the blocks. I don't know if I saved the file or not, but decided to go ahead and draw another one. Of course, I knew the shapes. I assembled all the fabrics from my stash and rough cut all of them. I started sewing the paper pieced blocks and didn't put them on the design wall until I had half of the blocks stitched, trimmed and had the paper removed. OMG, imagine my surprise when I figured out that I had not created a Hunters Star block!! I'm not sure of the name of this blocks, but I like the scrappy look of it. With a small border, it will make a nice QOV, and I have enough rough cut pieces that I can make another one just like it.



Back to the computer to draw the correct block. I printed out 48 sheets of the block, stitched them, trimmed them, removed the paper and sewed the blocks together this weekend. I loaded it on Sunday afternoon, quilted it with the Peacock Meander panto by Linda Taylor using Camel PermaCore thread and now all it needs is the binding.

Inkjet Fabric Sheets

In the past few weeks I have made several quilts using photos printed on fabric. I haven't had much luck with preparing my own fabric and ironing it onto freezer paper and then running it through my inkjet printer. Seems to always hang up a bit at the beginning, making a big mess.

I have used Printed Treasures quite a bit and have been happy with them. It seems that the images are not quite as bright as they appear on my screen or even printed on paper. But I have been satisfied with them.

While visiting Rossville Quilts they recommended and I purchased a package of EQ Printable Fabric Sheets.

The Camaro quilt photos were printed on both Printed Treasures and EQ fabric. The difference in quality is plain to see and I will be using the EQ sheets for future photo quilts. Can you tell which one is which?

Another Car Quilt

You may remember the wall hanging that started it all. It was for my son, Jeff, who owns a Dakota RT truck and was given to him as a house-warming gift after he bought a new house.


Well, a friend of his wanted a twin size throw with photos of his truck and then a co-worker asked for a wall hanging for her husband featuring photos of his prized Camaro. I finished it on Christmas Day and she was able to present it to him the day after Christmas.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas one and all!

We are enjoying a quiet Christmas Day here. Our celebration with our children was on Saturday afternoon. When trying to schedule 5 different households into one time frame, you never know when you might have Christmas.

Far-away Christmas greetings!!
My son in the US Army, Jeff, didn't make it home thanks to the airlines. He drove to Raleigh, NC and flew to Washington DC. His flight to Indy was overbooked and all subsequent flights were also, so he rented a car and drove the 4-5 hours back home. He certainly was missed this year! We love you Jeff!!

My stepson, Cory didn't make it to Indiana this year either. He and his girlfriend, Mandy, are enjoying christmas in Lafayette, Colorado, without a crockpot I might add. We ordered one from Amazon.com on December 11th and it was supposedly shipped on the 13th, or so says Amazon. UPS has no record of if being picked up. So we will be crockpot shopping tomorrow.

I received a mulling spicebag to put into a crockpot with a bottle of red wine from my daughter and today I'm enjoying my second bottle of wine using it. It sure is making my back feel better. I pulled something in my back on Monday morning at work. My company just moved to a new building and I have been really careful about lifting too much, but tweeked it really good this time.

Chocolate Covered Cherries

No quilting for me last night. It was the annual chocolate covered cherry night.


I have been making candy for the holidays for years and I usually make peanut butter cups, turtles, chocolate covered pretzels, and coookies, lots of cookies. I just didn't feel like making all of them this year, but friends and family kept talking about the cherries, so here they are.

I first made cherries in about 1998, and the second time I followed a recipe where you soaked them in rum or some other alcohol for about 2 hours. They were really a hit. So, the next time I made them we soaked them in 151 Rum for about 2 weeks. Those babies were like drinking a shot............. a little too strong. So, I know that somewhere between 2 hours and 2 weeks is just right.

The cherries with the white chocolate drizzle were soaked in Everclear for 2 days and then dried for 2 days. The ones without the drizzle are just regular yummy chocolate covered cherries. I used a new ingredient this year called Intervase, which is supposed to speed up the process of turning the fondant into a liquid. We'll see how well that works, as you should normally wait 2 weeks for them to liquify.

Snowflake Quilt Finished

I presented the snowflake quilt to the mother of the bride this morning and she is very excited and said it is an heirloom. That sure made me feel good. I printed their wedding invitation, adding my information as the label. The really neat part of this quilt is that the wedding decorations were snowflakes and the wedding was held last Saturday, December 15th and we had a huge snowstorm, almost a blizzard!

Now, just one more quilt to finish before Christmas....

Courtney's Christmas Quilt from Stash

A little history...
My granddaughter Courtney says to me about 2 weeks ago, "Grandma, I want you to make me a quilt for Christmas." I said "Sure honey," thinking to myself, HOW AM I GOING TO DO THIS!

Well, I busted some stash and quilted these two 2-yard pieces last night using the Popcorn panto. I love this panto and can't believe how quick I can do one of these. I'll put a quick binding on it and at our Christmas celebration on Saturday I'm sure she will love it.

Linda's 1930s Quilt and Vicki's Label

Last night was spent quilting this little wall hanging. I did a meander in the white background areas and a freehand daisy/leaf design in the half square triangles and the outer border. The inner border is swirls. I used Bottom Line thread and had a bit of an issue with "eyelashes" until I got everything adjusted just right.





I also made a label for Vicki's quilt that she is giving to her mom.

Snow, Snow and 2 Quilts Finished

We woke up to a Winter Wonderland today.


I designed these 2 quilts, did the stitching the past week or so and did the quilting yesterday. This morning I finished the binding, so they are ready to go. I just did a simple meander, but there were lots of stops and starts, which meant lots of burying threads to do last night.



I got a chance to tidy up the sewing room this morning while DH was out clearing the walks. It always makes me feel good to have large projects finished and a clean sewing room.

Now, on to Christmas.......

Whiskey Quilt & Crunched Fender

My friend Janet came over last night and embroidered 2 labels for the Visions of Hope purple quilts while I worked on machine applique. Here's an updated photo of the whiskey quilt. The words at the top and the top swirly thing are all stitched down. the rest is just fused down. I think it's coming along rather well.


My car got hit yesterday by a driver-less fork truck in our company parking area. Went to get estimates today and hopefully will get it fixed in the next couple of days.


I got this photo today from my daughter of my grandson Andrew enjoying a bath in the kitchen sink. I think he likes it!! Makes me long for some smooches and hugs.

Stashbusting & Mug Rugs

I belong to the Blue Star Mothers organization. We support the parents of military personnel, deployed or not. Our holiday dinner is tomorrow and I wanted to make a little something for our members.

I used a bit of my patriotic / QOV stash - doesn't take much to make these - for these mug rugs. They still need to have the corners poked out a bit and I might want to edge stitch them, but it took me less than an hour last night to do all 10.



Then I started on the whiskey quilt. All the lettering & pieces have been cut out and this part of the logo is fused onto the background. Hopefully, I can get this one finished by the weekend.

What a Weekend!

Whew, that was one busy weekend. It started with Dan's Christmas Party at Judi's Catering - a yummy dinner and lots of fun. When we got home, I loaded another charity quilt on Mabel and quilted for a couple hours using a new panto called Tulip Festival by Hermione Agee from Willowleaf Studio. This was a great choice for this quilt.




Saturday morning I visited a new quilt shop, Rossville Quilts, what a nice shop!
Then it was back home to finish up the charity quilt.

Saturday afternoon we left at 4pm for my company Christmas party at The Spaghetti Factory in Indy and then on to Crackers Comedy Club, where we were entertained by Chris Porter, one of the 3 finalists on Last Comic Standing. It was around 11pm when we arrived home, so no quilting for me.

Sunday morning the snowflake quilt was loaded and the quilting is finished!! Just have to get the binding sewn down before the wedding on Saturday.

Snowflakes & Charity Quilts

We got a few inches of snow here in Indiana and I just love the first snow of the year.



I've been working on snow in my sewing room also, well snowflakes anyway. I just joined the Stashbusters Yahoo Group and am happy to report that I used my stash for the background of this quilt. Not to waste anything, I used the cutouts from the snowflakes to make more snowflakes.





Last night I quilted this charity quilt for one of my guild members. A local church is opening the Vision of Hope Center for unwed mothers and they have asked for purple quilts. Our guild members have stepped up and made many purple quilts. I made one myself and this one is the second I have quilted. The top is all batiks and this is the first time I have tried to quilt batiks on Mabel. The back is flannel and super soft. I have used the pantograph Popcorn on several quilts, but this is by far the nicest looking of them all.

Vicki's Mystery Quilt

A co-worker came over on Sunday and quilted her first quilt on Mabel. She did a wonderful job and I'm sure this is only the first of many quilts for her.

My First Post

Here I am in blog-land finally.
It seems to me that it will be much easier to post to a blog than to update my website, so here goes....