Flowers

Last Sunday I started out the day going to Lowe's to get cord for the weed-eater and ended up in the yard almost the entire day.

Not only did I trim the entire yard, and there's a bunch because there are rock-edged flower beds around the entire house, but then I pulled some weeds and planted 2 flats of flowers. These are Vincas, which I haven't planted here before, along with some marigolds coming up from the seeds of last years plants.

Here's some shots of some of the blooms around the yard.












Dan is the official hedge trimmer around here and he does such a great job. I am always amazed when he's finished at how smooth they look. That's part of the reason that I wanted to trim last Sunday, so that the rest of the yard looked as good as the hedge.

Orange Crush Step 5

Oh, now that's orange!

I think I really like them thought especially with the lime green from Step 4.

 

Memorial Weekend Quilting

Saturday was the quilting day of the weekend and I finished Carole's Kaffe Diamonds using the Damask Rose pantograph by Keryn Emmerson, Permacore L. Strawberry and Warm & Natural batting. It turned out really nice, but I just realized that don't have a shot of the entire quilt.





The next one was a guild mystery quilt and I used Spiral Square pantograph This was one of my prizes from Judy's blog contest. I'm so glad I entered and won, because I love how this turned out. I used Permacore White and Warm & Natural batting. The backing is white flannel, which should make it a snuggly little baby quilt.





Then I quilted the happy squares quilt with Terry Twists in the blocks and a simple meander in the border. Permacore White and a Warm & Natural batting scrap. So I'm not only using up my fabric stash, but my batting stash as well.




And last but certainly not least, I loaded and started quilting my March challenge quilt. I used another new pantograph, Jacobean, Permacore black thread and Hobbs 80/20 batting. I am so glad that I went with a panto for this one. I thought about doing some custom and actually started to do some freehand feathers it the first border, but ripped them out and went with the panto. I finished this one on Sunday.

Stashbusting Report - 5/25/08

Fabric Added This Week - 0 yards
Fabric Added Year to Date - 22.75 yards

Fabric Used This Week - 5.75 yards(2.75 yards of this was 108" backing!!)
Fabric Used Year to Date - 170.875 yards

Net year to date: 148.125 yards used!

Saved by the weekend this week. I quilted 2 baby quilts and started quilting a queen size yesterday, so all the stash I used was for backings.

I have to get a running start here because I am going to a 4-day retreat in 3 weeks and I'm sure we will shop-hop while driving there and back. Not to mention The Quilted Fox, which is close by the retreat center.

High School Graduations

They are happening all across the country in big cities and little towns. You may be attending one, or several this year. It has been a few years since I went to one, but I attended my grandson's graduation at Cascade High School on Friday evening. The ceremony was wonderful and I actually got goosebumps when the band started playing "Pomp and Circumstance."

The only thing prouder than a mom watching her child walk across that stage to accept their diploma is................ watching her daughter watch her child walk across that stage.



I am so proud of Tony, who will be attending Indiana State University in the Fall after working this summer at the National Group.
GREAT JOB Julie & Jim!

"Follows Directions"

Last night I put together my block of the month from Rossville Quilts for next Wednesday. If I were still in school, my report card would look something like this:




Here is my finished block..........looks pretty good wouldn't you say? It is exactly the same layout as the sample photo in the instructions.



These little white lines below show how the block should have been assembled, a 16-patch, with half- and quarter-square triangles.
But, my graphic designer mind said, "Ruthie, you can put that same image together much easier than making all those quarter-square triangles."

So I drew the block in Adobe Illustrator and used those measurements to make my block.

Jeff Skydiving

WOW - My son Jeff went skydiving on Wednesday and when I watched the video, I must admit that I held my breath. Since I have never done this myself, I have nothing to base my opinions on, but I think he did an awesome job. Waytago, Jeff!

Show and Tell

Quilt guild last night was so inspiring. The talent among us is amazing and I always go home after show and tell feeling rejuvenated and ready to start yet another project.

I took this finished quilt to Carol and I felt so proud when she showed it for show and tell. The pantograph is Feather Me, the thread is Permacore Eggshell and the batting is Hobbs 80/20. I didn't get a shot of the back, but it looked great.

Class Signature Quilt Delivered

I took the 5th grade class signature quilt to Jessica's art class today and they presented it to their teacher. She was so surprised..........it brought tears to her eyes. I'm so happy that Sue G. talked me into doing this project with Jessica. What fun it was!!

Stashbusting Report - 5/19/08

Fabric Added This Week - 3 yards
Fabric Added Year to Date - 22.75 yards

Fabric Used This Week - 6.875 yards
Fabric Used Year to Date - 165.125 yards

Net year to date: 142.375 yards used!


Once again, I used what I purchased this week.

Photo Quilt

I loaded the photo quilt on Saturday after much debate with myself on how I would quilt it. I decided to do beadboard on the borders and Stitch-In-the-Ditch around the photos and the blocks. It really didn't take me as long as I thought it would, although it took longer than a pantograph, of course. I worked for about 2-3 hours on Saturday evening and on Sunday I started at 9am and was finished with it a little before noon. I didn't attach my extended plate and use a ruler, but rather guided the hopping foot with my left index finger. That seems to be the easiest way for me to SID. Another new-to-me thing was using Monopoly thread - Smoke from Superior Threads on the top and PermaCore Camel on the back. I didn't have to fuss with it too much to get a good stitch, although some of my corners wanted to take shortcuts on the back. I did work for about 3 hours last night knotting and burying the threads while watching some TV.

Bumper Pads, Pillow and Scrapbag Challenge

My friend Susan came over last night to make bumper pads for her soon-to-be grandson. She made the comforter a few months ago and had to order the padding set for the bumpers. Her son wants a masculine theme for his new son and chose the fabrics himself. The comforter and the bumper pads are reversible.


On a whim, Susan embroidered the baby's name on a piece of the navy fabric and made a pillow cover. It turned out SO CUTE!


Even with a run to Joanns to get more ribbon, we were finished before 9pm

Scrapbag Challenge
Yesterday while reading blogs, I saw that Linda is almost finished with her guild Scrapbag Challenge that isn't due until December. I must admit that until last night, all I had done is glance at my fabrics. Well, I figured I better get busy so I got them out and here is what I received, courtesy of Rosanna. We must use at least a 1 inch square of each fabric in our quilt.

Teacher Quilt

On Tuesday, I took the pink quilt blocks to Jessica's school during their art period and they each picked one to sign/decorate. Last night we kept Jessica and Courtney and we sewed together the quilt blocks designed by all her classmates. The sewing went very quickly with both of us working on them. I added the borders and now it's ready to be quilted.



When the sewing was finished she joined Courtney painting paper doll and animal wooden figures.

Geocaching

Dan has a new hobby and here is a brief explanation of it from wazoogle.
Geocaching is an entertaining adventure game for GPS users. Participating in a cache hunt is a good way to take advantage of the wonderful features and capabilities of a GPS (Global Positioning System) . The basic idea is to have individuals and organizations set up caches all over the world and share the locations of these caches on the internet. GPS users can then use the location coordinates to find the caches. Once found, a cache may provide the visitor with a wide variety of rewards. All the visitor is asked to do is; if they take something from the cache, they should try to leave something for the cache. There is usually a log book in the cache to fill out with your name and date of the find. The cache itself could be as large as a Tupperware container or as small as a matchbox.

Dan asked me for a quilt block to leave in the box, so I wrote "Ruthie's Quilting, Lafayette, IN" on a piece of ribbon and stitched it on the back of this block.

As long as I'm talking about caches.
A week or so ago I got a new block to test from Marcia at quilterscache.com
I have been pretty busy in the past few months and have taken a bit longer than I wanted to getting my test blocks done. There were 2 different sizes this time and I was on a roll and stayed up past midnight sewing. I took a picture of them the next morning and whoops, I guess it doesn't pay to sew after midnight.



Yep, I had to do some frogging.........Cute blocks, but here is what they are supposed to look like.

Hmm...........Geocache / Quilterscache, I wonder if there are any quilters out there playing the geocache game?

Orange Crush Step 4

I Worked on my Orange Crush mystery quilt this weekend and had to decide on the yardage to use. I knew which orange fabric, but was undecided on the other 3.
Well, after much back and forth, I picked the lime green butterflies and the pinkish, mauve floral with tiny stripes.

How's this for a lime-ade star to go in my Orange Crush!

A Signature Quilt, A Photo Quilt & A Secret

My granddaughter Jessica loves to quilt!! We are planning to make a signature quilt for her teacher. This is the teacher's first year teaching and the students last year at this school, as they will be moving next door to the Middle School. I can't believe these kids are growing up so fast. My oldest grandson is graduating from high school this year!

I sewed the strips together yesterday and will take them to the school tomorrow for her classmates to sign. Jessica says we need to find some monkey fabric for the back because the teacher really likes monkeys.

The Photo Quilt
You may remember this from a couple months ago. I received the extra photos some time ago and just haven't made the time to print them out until last week. I got the sashing added and still would like to add a border with one of the more solid looking fabrics. Of course that means shopping for fabric.........yikes!!
If all goes as planned, I should have this one finished this week.




I also quilted this one on Saturday, but you can only see a wee bit of it. SHHHHH, it's a secret!

QOV

I quilted this QOV on Saturday afternoon for Kathy F. The top is homespuns and brushed cotton. This one will be a really cozy quilt for it's recipient. The panto is called Erin from Golden Threads and I used PermaCore Mother Nature thread and Hobbs 80/20 batting. It's the first time I have used this one and it quilted up nicely.

Stashbusting Report - 5/12/08

Fabric Added This Week - 1 yards
Fabric Added Year to Date - 19.75 yards

Fabric Used This Week - 6.5 yards
Fabric Used Year to Date - 158.25 yards

Net year to date: 138.5 yards used!

I did use all but a tiny piece of the 1 yard piece of black Kona that I bought on Saturday. Notice the asterisks before and after the black solid in my spreadsheet. I'm going to start doing that when I buy and use the fabric in the same week.

UFO Finished

The cola quilt is finally finished and has been given to it's new owner. Whew, that one has been a UFO for a long time!
We bought the fabric on ebay and I still have some left, even after piecing the back.



Here is a shot of the sunflower quilt......well, at least that's what I've been calling it. Looking at the whole quilt it looks like butterflies to me, surrounded by sunflowers. You can't see the quilting, but can see the entire thing.


Last night Judy came over to try her hand at quilting. She has a big quilt and is doing a panto on it. Tomorrow morning she will be over to finish up, so that means since Mabel is occupied, that I get to do some piecing tonight. I will probably work on my Orange Crush step 4.

Sunflower Quilt

I finished this one for my friend Kathy in Pennsylvania a couple days ago, but have been waiting to get a photo of the entire quilt. Seems easy enought, right? Well it's pretty big and I haven't gotten the photo taken yet, so here are some partial shots. I used the Feather Me pantograph by Golden Threads, PermaCore Eggshell thread and Hobbs 80/20 batting. The backing is muslin and looks really nice.

Pantograph Adjustment

I had just enough backing on this quilt with about 1/2 inch to spare.



This wouldn't be a problem if I was quilting from the front of the machine, but I was doing a panto from the back. I usually mark the edge of the quilt on the table with masking tape so that I know about how far to quilt and I actually stitch off the top just a bit and then back on, like this.



I knew that there wasn't any room to do that on this one, so I marked the table with masking tape and then re-drew some of the lines with a dry-erase marker so that I wouldn't be going off the quilt. This is something I do frequently at the edge of a quilt so that the design doesn't seem too fragmented but I had never done it to this extent. A word of caution here - make sure you wipe the marks off your table before you unload your quilt.



Here is the last row of the design and I really like the looks of it. I may be doing this more often.

Miles of Smiles

We had the pleasure of watching Andrew this weekend and what a joy he is! But what a handful, too. I cannot believe how much time it takes to watch a one year old. I loaded a quilt on Saturday morning thinking I could quilt while he was napping, or even playing quietly next to me. Nope, it wasn't gonna happen. For one thing, by the time he went down for a nap, I was ready for one also. But sometimes there were more important things to do, like do the dishes, or even go to the bathroom. I don't know how Julie gets anything done at home. She just started a blog, so I hope she posts lots of photos.



He enjoyed playing the guitar with his Grandpa Dan. I'm so sorry that I didn't get a photo of that.

A year ago we watched him overnight and took him to Target to get his first pictures taken at two weeks old. Since he just had his birthday I thought pictures were in order, so we went back to Target and got some really cute shots. I am so surprised that Target still uses film for their photos and that you have to wait 2 weeks for them. Seems like they would be able to do them while-you-wait. Well, that probably wouldn't be a good thing either as it seemed to take a very long time with a one-year-old..... over an hour! Then it was off to Chuck E Cheese with Jason and granddaughters, Jessica and Courtney. You would think that the little guy would be worn out by then, but he took a power nap in the car on the 5 minute drive home, so was bright-eyed and ready to play when we pulled into the driveway.

UFOs - Bow Ties and Leftover Colorful Blocks

I did work on these two UFO this week. The bow tie blocks were sent to me by the president of the Blue Star Mothers Indianapolis group. She knows that I'm a quilter and picked them up at a yard sale and mailed the to me. I have them listed as a UFO and didn't know what to do with them. They were hand pieced and not at all the same size. I squared them up, and yes, cut off some of the points! I'm not sure if I will add a border or not.........



Any ideas on when these might have been pieced?



These blocks are left over from an online swap. I added borders to the blocks and striped sashing. I will add an outer border with the black print and this one will be a charity quilt.