My Ironing Board

I was reading blogs last night and came across Patti's post leading me to Libby's blog. She is challenging us to show our ironing boards, so of course, I'm game. It's been really fun seeing everyone's ironing boards!

Here is what it looked like when I went to take a picture this morning. Can you tell that I had an idea for a new quilt after I finished quilting last night?


And here is what is looks like cleaned off:


Looks like I need to turn it around, or re-cover it.

Terry Twists

I worked on a quilt last night that has 6" squares and the pattern I used is called Terry Twists. The source of this design is Sally Terry and you can even buy templates. I did mine freehand, so they're not perfect, but I'm happy with them.

I can't show you the entire quilt just yet, cause I don't have a signed form from the owner, but here is a peek.

Organizing my Chaos

I like to think of myself as a pretty organized quilter. All my UFO's are in one area, and in zipper bags. All my WHIMM that I have made purchases for are in one area, all bagged up. My FQ's are all in baskets on shelves, and my yardage is sorted by color in wire drawers. My scraps are sorted by color in clear shoeboxes. My strings are sorted a couple different ways..........brights, RW&B, and all the rest. My orphan blocks are in a wire drawer. So, I'm feeling pretty darned organized...............until I go to a guild meeting and one of our members, Sossity, is doing a presentation on organized quilting. I think of myself as a pretty prolific quilter, but this girl is way beyond that. And she has a little child!! I have been using leaders and enders for a very long time and sometimes I even have had a purpose for sewing pieces together. Mostly it was leftover triangles from flying geese blocks or something similar that I might have had a sort-of plan for.

Well, after Sossity's program I got a bit more organized.

One of my in-the-near-future quilts will be one of Bonnie Hunter's, Bricks and Stepping Stones. This pattern needs 112 black and white 4-patches. I was cleaning off my sewing area and putting away some of my leftover scraps when I discovered that I didn't have anymore room in my black AND my white totes. Sossity doesn't buy more totes when hers are full, she puts together a kit using some of her scraps. So, I printed off this pattern and cut 2" black and white squares. They will be my leaders and enders for a while and when they are finished, I will have a great start on that quilt.

Another Non-Quilting Project

My DH purchased another used amp and, of course, it needed to have a cover. I went to Walmart and got the outdoor canvas, for $2.97 a yard, I might add, rather than $6.99 at Joanns. I cut it out and sewed it together in less than an hour last night and ended up with ONE HAPPY HUSBAND!

Indiana Heritage Quilt Show

The Indiana Heritage Quilt Show in Bloomington, Indiana is this Thursday - Saturday. It is a nice show with lots of great vendors and lots of quilts. I am please to say that I will have 2 quilts hanging in the show this year.

The first one is "Checkerboard Flowers" and this was a block of the month and was quilted by my friend Debra Kerns, Red Door Quilts. Her quilting is just spectacular!


The second is "Still Got The Blues," a Round Robin with my online group that I quilted myself shortly after I got my machine. I have sub-titled this one, "Everything I know So Far."

If you are lucky enough to attend the show and happen to see my quilts, let me know. I will be attending on Saturday.

UFOs - Wallet Finished

Our guild had a UFO Retreat on Saturday and what fun it was. I worked on 3 different projects and got none of them finished at the retreat, but did get one of them finished at home that night. It is a quilted wallet that I'm planning to give to one of my co-workers. I made her one last spring as a thank you and she has just about worn it out, so I thought I would make her another one. I started this when I was showing my friends Dottie and Janet how to make one and I didn't have the time to complete mine then.



The other two UFO projects are almost completed tops, thanks to my spending some time in the sewing room on Sunday.
One is a string quilt for Fran's soldiers. I am adding sashing with stars like I saw on Mary's blog. I had to go to Joanns today to get some more of the Navy with stars for the borders. I thought I had more of this, but I guess I don't. Oh well, another 1.25 yards isn't going to hurt that much, especially if I use all of it!

Stashbusting Report - 2/25/08

10 yards this week!!

Fabric Added This Week - 0 yards
Fabric Added Year to Date - 1.875 yards

Fabric Used This Week - 10 yards
Fabric Used Year to Date - 79.625 yards

Net year to date: 77.75 yards used

Oh Happy Day!

Yesterday's mail brought my prize from Jeanne for her contest celebrating her blogs 1 year anniversary. What a lovely fat quarter assortment, a cute-as-can-be card and some yummy chocolates. I think I have found the perfect pattern to use these. It's "Crazy for You" Quilt Pattern by Deborah’s Designs, from the Fat Quarter Shop.

Thank yo so much Jeanne!

Heartstrings Blocks

Oh, I am really liking how these are going together.This will be another one for Fran's soldiers and I might just do the sashing like the one pieced by Sue Franks and quilted by Mary. I have been using them as rather large leaders and enders.

Scrappy Bargello

I got this one quilted and the binding is sewn down on the first side. This will be given to a soldier returning from IRAQ. This pattern is from Bonnie's Bargello Bowl, and I started it on Super bowl Sunday. I am not good at putting things together random or scrappy. I love the look of some of the finished quilts made my other members, but I tend to put too much thought into sewing the strips together. I call mine organized scrappy, as I used the same fabrics and the same order in all 4 panels and I arranged the fabrics in an alternating light/dark arrangement. I did an allover meander and used PermaCore Chambray thread.

A Quick Learner!

When Debbie and Peggy came to do the quilting on Debbie's new granddaughters quilt on Sunday, Febuary 10th, I showed them some of the 4-Patch Stacked Posie quilts, including RoseMary's beautiful quilt. This past Sunday - one week later - Peggy brought her 4PSP for me to see. Without any further instruction and/or seeing them again, she put this top together.

And I thought I was quick!!

Stashbusting Report - 2/18/08

Not a very productive week-stashbusting, but I did seem to get a lot accomplished.

Fabric Added This Week - 1 yard
Fabric Added Year to Date - 1.875 yards

Fabric Used This Week - 5.625 yards
Fabric Used Year to Date - 69.625 yards

Net year to date: 67.75 yards used

No new quilt picts

It was rainy and yucky all day yesterday, except for a brief period and my grandson was here then, so no new picts of RoseMary's quilts. I hope to get that done today.

I did get some great shots of Andrew with his new cloth book. This was my only January fabric purchase and I put it together yesterday morning. I put the rest of his picts in my Webshots Family album.

I think he likes it!!

Double Rose Vine and Lots of Loops

Finished quilting the second one of these two today for my friend Rosemary. Hope she like them. If she doesn't like the cheddar one, Janet would love to have it. I used Permacore - Camel thread on both. I'll take some full shots tomorrow.

Happy Valentine's Day

Not much on the quilting front today, but I hope you're having a wonderful day full of lots of love.


I finished my Valentine placemats just in time last week, so they get to decorate the table for at least a week. The one thing I learned from these placemats is that it takes a LONG TIME to hand sew the binding on 6 of them. I might have birthed them if I had thought about it beforehand.

Blog-Mania and Tag

I can't believe how this whole blog thing has caught on. Now I'm not complaining, mind you, cause I love reading blogs! I started off reading Judy L's, then Bonnie's, then Vicky's, and on and on. I now have 62 on my Bloglines | My Feeds page. Vicky is celebrating 2 years and Jill is celebrating her 200th post and both are having drawings. What generous online friends we have! And what wonderful inspiration these 24/7 quilt shows have become.

Playing Tag
I grew up a couple houses from a "court," you know, a little short street in the shape of a circle. All my friends lived in the "court" and we played dodgeball, softball, red rover, hide & seek, red-light-green-light and of course "Tag." All kinds of Tag - I'm sure this wouldn't be allowed these days, but we actually played cigarette-tag. You had to yell out the brand name of cigarettes when you were tagged, or you were IT. We also played candy-tag and freeze-tag.

Now that I'm all grown-up, I'm playing blog-tag. I've been tagged by Gizmo and here are the rules.

THE RULES:
1. Once you are tagged, link back to the person who tagged you.
2. Post THE RULES on your blog.
3. Post 7 weird or random facts about yourself on your blog.
4. Tag 7 people and link to them.
5. Comment on their blog to let them know they have been tagged.

Seven random things about me:

1. I'm an only child, but could have had older conjoined twin sisters had they survived their birth.
2. I decorated cakes for 25 years, taught Wilton classes at Hobby Lobby and served as the 4-H Cake Decorating Superintendent.
3. I do not like mushrooms!
4. I'm participating in the K-mart "New Day-Your Way" weight loss challenge. -8lbs so far!
5. I really, really, really want to go to MQS this year, but don't think I am going to be able to pull it off.

Update 2/13/08
Gosh, you all probably think I've lost my mind. I only listed 5 things...........
Here's the final 2:

6. My husband Dan plays the guitar in a garage band, in our garage.
7. I have a really hard time saying NO! that could be why I'm so busy all the time.

Seven people I am tagging:
My Scottie friend, Shelly
My Apple friend, Janet (come on Janet, let's get that blog moving)
and ummm, If you would like to be tagged, please leave me a comment and I would be happy to tag you!

The Baby Bunny Quilters

Debbie(on the right) and Peggy spent Sunday afternoon quilting the bunny quilt for Debbie's brand new granddaughter. Debbie isn't a quilter, or at least she wasn't a quilter until Peggy recently assumed my role of long-ago. Debbie is married to my ex-husbands brother and we spent lots of time together when our children were young............camping, sewing, crafts, baking/decorating cakes, clipping coupons, Brownies/Day Camp, standing in line at Zayre's Department Store in the middle of the night to get Cabbage Patch Kids for our daughters.............you get the idea, you name it and I tried it and then got Debbie to try it.

Debbie reminded me of her first attempt at cake decorating and apparently I thought she needed to loosen up and kept the peach schnapps or brandy, I can't remember which, flowing pretty good. She finished that cake long ago, just like she finished quilting these bunnies yesterday (minus the alcohol, although I did offer to make her a drink!).

Peggy is a quilter and helped Debbie put this quilt together. I am SO PROUD of Debbie and this quilt. It will be an heirloom for that darling little baby girl. Neither one of them had done any machine quilting, but before long, Mabel was stitching away. I'm sure there will be many more quilts done at my house for both of them.

Stashbusting Report - 2/11/08

It was a good week for stashbusting here. I didn't purchase any fabric, so my total just keeps climbing.

Fabric Added This Week - 0 yards
Fabric Added Year to Date - .875 yards

Fabric Used This Week - 8.125 yards
Fabric Used Year to Date - 64 yards

Net year to date: 63.125 yards used

"Hunters Star-NOT" is Finished!

I certainly got a lot done this weekend. First and foremost is the Hunters Star-NOT quilt, quilted and bound. It does still need a label, but that much is finished. I started to quilt it with - I think it's called peacock meander, but I didn't like it so it was one of those hours of frogging for 15 minutes of stitching. I decided on a regular meander because this is to be a throw for a sofa, so I wanted it to stay soft. Before my longarm, I did a LOT of meandering, got quite good at it, if I might add. I haven't done much of it lately, but I think this is just about the prettiest large meandor I have ever done.





Bias Binding
I don't usually cut my binding on the bias, but thought this one would look really nice. I am so happy with the way it turned out.

Groovy Garden

That's what I think this quilt should be titled.
Last night I loaded and quilted another quilt for Suzanne. I have one more to do for her and am so amazed at her designs. The fabrics are fruits and veggies and the panto is Feeling Groovy by Michelle Wyman & Terri Watson. The thread is PermaCore Camel 30 Tex. Once again I say that I love the color of this thread. It goes with just about anything.

More photos here.

Stashbusting Report - 2/4/08

Stash Busted this week: 15.5 yards (Carolina Crossroads used lots of fabric!)
Stash Busted this year: 55.875 yards

Fabric Purchased this week: 7/8 yard (panel for soft book for Andrew)
Fabric Purchased this year: 7/8 yard

Bargello Bowl

I know, with that list of UFO's over there ->
and customer tops to quilt, I have no business starting a new project, but.........it's for a good cause.
Fran from the Heartstrings Yahoo Group has a son in Iraq and I know all to well how she feels right now. His unit is scheduled to come home in March and she is organizing an effort to have a quilt on each of the single soldiers bunks when they arrive. The soldiers that are married will go home to be with their families, but the single guys, well, they need some extra comfort. I volunteered to make a quilt since I have lots of fabric in a tub for QOVs. When Bonnie announced the Bargello Bowl I knew what kind of quilt I was going to make. I can't do scrappy very well, random just isn't my thing, so mine is an organized Scrappy Bargello.

This is all that fits on my design wall, but you can get an idea of where I'm going. I didn't get very far because............IT WAS A GREAT GAME!

NEW Lava Thread

I purchased a sample spool of the NEW Lava Thread from Superior Threads a couple months ago and finally decided to use it. It worked like a dream. I had to bypass one of the holes in the thread guide and I used PermaCore in the bobbin.

How do you tell if you have enough thread on a cone to do a quilt. These sample cones come with 300 yards and I had no idea how much it would take to do this quilt. I didn't want to start the quilt and then run out and have to order more or substitute. It seems like I still have quite a bit left on the cone, so I don't know much more than when I started it.

Again, I have more photos in my Webshots Album.

Yikes - Stitch in the Ditch

I have had this customer quilt off the frame for over a week now and have decided that it will be OK. What I learned............. if I'm going to SID, that there can only be one color that I'm stitching on or I'm not going to do it. She didn't say that she wanted SID, but I thought it needed it. I can't remember the thread that I used, will insert that later, but with so many colors in this quilt and my newly acquired skills, I decided that it didn't need SID all over. (Sorry Deb, maybe in a year or two. Thanks for your help though)

I have more photos in my Webshots album.

Carolina Crossroads Quilted

I loaded and quilted my mystery quilt last night. Just used a simple pantograph, Stars & Loops, and PermaCore Lucern Blue for the top and Chambray for the bobbin. I tried to do this one with Signature thread, but I'm just so used to the nice stitches I get with PermaCore that I changed threads after the first pass. I think I will make a scrappy blue binding to finish it off. I have several customer quilts to do next, so my UFOs will be put on hold for a bit.