Summertime...and the living is easy

Oh my gosh, it's hot and humid in the South! I sure hope that isn't a taste of what we have in store for us all summer.
Let's see, what's been happening lately? Just finished working till school starts again in August. I love working for a school district! Been trying to get my dad's house ready to sell and settle all the other details of his estate so that we can finalize all that. It was going along pretty well until all that came to a screeching halt about 2 weeks ago when my healthy, athletic, physically fit, rarely sick husband had a "warning episode" on the tennis court. The result of one heart cath, several EKG's and blood tests: triple bypass open heart surgery! Anyone who knows my husband has been in total shock over this as he is usually thought of as the healthiest person our friends and family know. That just goes to show you how hidden problems with our health can be. Fortunately, the surgery was very successful and he is recuperating nicely at home taken care of by ME! The timing couldn't have been better since school had just gotten out for the summer so I'm free to do what is most important right now. It has been a blessing to be able to sit and talk about anything we want to, read books, take naps, and now walks without having to hurry to finish because we have to be someplace. We'll be celebrating our 27th wedding anniversary Friday quietly here at home, which is what we usually do anyway, but it will have a special meaning to us this year as we are so thankful to have the opportunity to have many more anniversaries.

Vintage sheets...who would have thought?

I don't know if you'd call it a craze, but there's been an interest lately in using vintage sheets to make quilts. Michelle made a darling one using the Stacked Coins pattern, Sarah used plain (but very pretty) 10" square blocks, and Elizabeth designed hers using nine-patch blocks. I love the look of all of them but my daughter chose the one made by Elizabeth for me to use to make a duvet cover for her new house in California. Elizabeth has a very good tutorial on her blog (Oh, Fransson) that I followed to piece the top just as if I was making a quilt like hers. However, instead of using batting and quilting it, I added a vintage flat sheet for the back, added buttons and buttonholes across the top to close the cover, and made 2 pillow shams. I absolutely love the look and how it turned out. I can't wait for my daughter to get it sometime next week. She loves all things vintage, so this should please her very much.


Since I didn't have much in the way of vintage sheets in my stash, I found that I could order sets of assorted fat quarters on ETSY. I used Kona Cotton in White for the sashings and think that it was a good choice as it's sturdy and a good fabric to anchor all the mixtures of sheet fabrics used. I read on Elizabeth's blog that she hosted a vintage sheet fat quarter swap with 72 swappers...how I wish I had been reading her blog in 2008 so that I could have joined in on that!

Back to Blogging

I see that April 13, 2009 was the date of my last blogging effort. 10 months ago, actually. I could have gone through an entire pregnancy and birth in that time if I had been so inclined and physically able. Thankfully, I was neither.

We did have a wedding to celebrate in May. My son married a beautiful young woman last May. My youngest son was a groomsman, my daughter a bridesmaid, my oldest son was the violin soloist throughout the ceremony, and my grandson was the ring bearer for his dad. It was a beautiful wedding, despite the rain and tornado warning an hour before the ceremony was to begin. This is the One Block Wonder that I made for their wedding present:



The picture was taken at my guild's quilt show in October and my grandson is standing in front of the quilt. There's someone else's quilt hanging on the other side and the back of it is showing below my quilt. It had a heat shaped label on it and the colors were similar so it kind of looks like it was part of my quilt but it wasn't.

The main reason, though, that I took a break was to help care for my father whose health was declining due to lung cancer and other health problems. My sisters and I were able to take care of him at his home as his illness made him progressively weaker. He died at his home in November at the age of 79. He was a proud father of 7 children, grandfather to 18, and great-grandfather to 4. We all have memories of him and my mother that we will cherish forever.

Taking a hiatus from posting on my blog certainly doesn't mean that I haven't been following what others have been up to and reading about so many great projects people have been doing all over the world. There are so many ideas that I want to try. Most will have to wait because I'm dedicating this year to finishing up what I already have started. So, I have my list of UFOs that I will be diligently working on. I'll update my list on the sidebar soon although it won't look much differently than what I've had on there for a long time!

Belly Dancers Unveiled

I turned in the costumes and what a great feeling that was! I completed all 5 with the exception of the beaded trims and some of the moms helping out are going to sew the trims on. Since the girls tried them on while I was there at the school during rehearsal, I was able to take pictures of them in their costumes for the first time. Since the skirts are so sheer, there was much discussion about the appropriate undergarments to wear which will cover the girls yet keep the exotic look. So, opening night will not have panties showing through the skirts or bras peeking out of the tops. Keep in mind that they will look much more elaborate once the trim is on.










I wasn't able to show you the lovely faces of the girls because I hadn't asked for their permission to post the pictures here; however, I did include their lovely, happy smiles.

On to the next urgent project!

My "new" chair

Here it is the end of the month again. Why does time have to fly by so quickly?

I don't have any sewing projects finished yet. I've finished 73 blocks for the wedding quilt and have about that many again to make. I have 2 tops and a skirt finished of the 5 for the belly dancing costumes I'm making for the school musical. I still have to hem and alter 2 bridesmaid dresses. I haven't shopped for a dress for me to wear to my son's wedding. I guess that I'd better make a schedule of things to get done so I'm not out shopping the day before the wedding. Yikes! That's a dreadful thought!

Since I don't have anything finished to show pictures of, I thought that I'd show pictures of the chair I recovered right before Christmas and I do mean right before Christmas. In fact, I was finishing it Christmas Eve afternoon as my husband was picking up my daughter and her boyfriend from the airport. I had done most of it about a month before but had trouble finding the right trim in the right color. Hancock's had it online so I ended up ordering it. I really wanted the chair to be finished for Christmas company and it was...by about 15 minutes!



I didn't do any sewing on this covering but just used my trusty hot glue gun. I'm pleased with the results and people have been surprised that I did it with a hot glue gun. I only paid $5.00 for the remnant of fabric and got the trim on sale so the whole thing cost about $15.00.

Busy, busy, busy!

Spring break has arrived and I'm loving every minute of it so far. Even doing the laundry and cleaning the house isn't so bad since I know that I don't have to go to work for a week!

This is the time of year that I sew costumes for the high school that my daughter and son attended. It's a magnet school for, among other areas, Performing Arts. My daughter was in the Vocal Magnet and Drama Magnet programs and my son was in the Tech Theater program. Since I can sew, I helped all the years they attended and since then get a call every spring asking if I'll help them out. This year, they're doing "Aida, the Musical". I'm making 5 belly dancer costumes. Saturday I met with the costume mistress and got the fabric, trims, and patterns and have cut out some of the pieces. This is the first time in a few years that I'm happy with what I have to sew because I have a pattern to work from. Most of the time, it seems that they give me something to take apart or remake into a new costume. Last year I had to take apart tuxedos to use them a patterns to make the jackets shown here.

So, when I get a regular pattern to follow, I'm thrilled. I hope to have a good start on them by the end of the week.

My daughter asked if I'd make a duvet cover for her before I got busy with the costumes so I made that today. I've had the fabric since she was home for Christmas but haven't felt like sewing it up. It only took a couple of hours once I got started and now all I have to do is sew the buttons on tonight while I watch TV with my husband.

I'm very behind in making a quilt for my son and his bride-to-be. They're getting married May 2 and I've been procrastinating like crazy. Now I'm down to the wire which is typical for me. I've decided to make a One Bock Wonder and will go tomorrow to buy the fabric. I made one about a year and a half ago and had a lot of fun with that technique which is basically a Stack and Whack block. I'll post my progress as I go along. I'll have this one professionally quilted on a long arm by someone I know that does beautiful work.

Better late than never

I did finish a UFO in February but am just now posting about it. This is another one that my mom had started and I finished for her. My mom had collected Mary Englebreit fabrics for a long time, in fact, she had some of ME's first fabric from Daisy Kingdom in light blue with pink flowers. It sure has a different look from the black, red, and yellow that we see now. So, when my mom saw a ME crazy quilt in a quilting magazine about 5-6 years ago, she went to town using all her fabrics and decorative stitches on her new sewing machine to make it. She finished piecing the blocks and sewing them together and asked if I'd choose fabric and put borders on for her. I did and sandwiched the quilt with flannel and that's as far as she got before her health starting quickly failing. So, 4 years after she died I finished it and it's going to be given to one of my sisters. I think that it's adorable.

I started Bonnie Hunter's (www.quiltville.com) New Year's Eve Mystery "Double Delight" last month and have been busy cutting a gazillion pieces and sewing little nine patches. All I bought were 5 or 6 fat quarters in blues and the rest is coming from my stash. Yay! Spring break is in another week so I hope to be able to finish putting the top together then. I think that I'm going to love this one.

I think that I see a pattern emerging here of posting once a month. Need to try to do better about that.

A question answered

Michelle sent me an email yesterday asking if I was ever going to blog again. It made me think about how much I enjoy reading what others have to say and what they've been doing and how I'd miss certain ones if the blogger stopped posting. I just never really thought that anyone would think the same thing about my blog so it was a surprise when Michelle brought it up. I have made "friends" through blogging and would miss them very much if they didn't post about what's happening in their lives any longer. It's nice to know that someone feels the same way about me so I'll try to be better about it. Thanks for your friendship, Michelle!

I've almost finished another quilt of my mom's that she started before she died. All I need to do is put on the binding and I'll post a picture.

I finished something!

Edit***Kris was kind enough to tell me that all my finishes this month count in the challenge for the drawing she and May Britt are having. Thanks, Kris!

I signed up for the One Project a Month Challenge hosted by May Britt and Kris and am happy to report that I have finished a UFO this month. I also started and finished a bag and a baby quilt top as well but those don't count for the challenge because they weren't UFO's when 2009 began. Here's my wallhanging:




There's a story about this little quilt. Back in 1997, my parents, who lived in California, came to Alabama to visit my family. My husband, two youngest children, and I had moved here 3 years before. I had been making quilts for a few years and although my mom had sewn since whe was a teenager, she had never pieced a quilt. The local quilt shop here was offering a class for a nine-patch wallhanging inspired by a line of fabric called,"Tis a Gift" as in the tune, "Tis a gift to be simple, tis a gift to be free". I thought that it would be fun to take the class with my mom and each make the wallhanging. We did but neither of us finished ours before my parents left to go back home. My mom had finished setting her nine-patches on point but hadn't had time to make the mitered border. She took hers home along with the border fabric to finish it. I completed mine and gave it to a good friend as a gift.

My mother died 4 years ago and my sisters and I have gone through a lot of her things since then but keep finding boxes of fabric and sewing notions. Right after Christmas, I found a big envelope with my name on it and inside was her top, the fabric for the border, and the backing that she had never finished. So, I finished putting on the border and quilted it. I'm so happy that I have this little quilt as a sweet remembrance of the time my mom and I spent sewing together.

Something old, something new

I see that it's been 4 weeks since I last posted. It's so hard to believe how quickly time passes. I've been busy working but also have done some sewing. Unfortunately, my camera has been run over by at least one vehicle because I stupidly left it on the roof of the car before driving off. I found the poor thing but it was beyond help. So, I've no pictures to show of the baby quilt that I made for a friend at work. Take my word for it, it was very cute in blue puppy dog fabric with accents of red and yellow. I hope to get a new camera in time for Christmas celebrations.

So, I thought that I'd show pictures of my sewing machine cabinet that I've been meaning to do for a long time. A dear friend gave me her husband's grandmother's old sewing machine in it's cabinet dated 1926. I loved the oval shape of the cabinet and the way that it opened to the back rather than to the side which is more typical. I'd been wanting a table to put my Janome 6500 in for a long time and was just about ready to buy the plastic one that is made for it when I wondered if my machine would fit in the antique cabinet. The hole for the machine had to be made larger and a brace made for underneath to hold the machine but another friend's husband did that for me. He even cleaned it up, fixed some water stains from an aquarium that had once sat on it, and put a protective finish on it. It's now a beautiful cabinet that is a joy to sit at and sew. Here's a picture of the cabinet without the machine in it and closed up:

The doors open for you to sit at the machine.

Here it is from the back with the machine in it:



I just love the idea of a modern electronic sewing machine in a nearly antique cabinet.

Orange Crush, at last

Bonnie at Quiltville had a mystery quilt this past summer and she called it Orange Crush since she used a LOT of orange in hers. I used a fraction of what she did and that's plenty for me. I wanted a reproduction look to mine so used a pink, green, and teal blue for the main colors throughout and the rest was very scrappy. If you've ever been to Bonnie's site, then you know that scrappy quilts are her thing. I'm partial to them, as well, so this was a fun mystery for me.



I can't decide if I want to put a border on it. It's only a lap size if I don't but that's okay. It's so busy that I wonder if it really needs any more going on!

Invisible Machine Applique

Learning how to do invisible machine applique has been a goal of mine for a long time. I made a really pretty quilt once using the raw edge applique with fusible web and never really liked the look of the raw edge after doing all that work. When I read about Beth Ferrier's (from Applewood Farms) method, I bought her book and decided that this was the technique for me. I recently bought an issue of Australian Patchwork and Quilting (I love that magazine!) and saw a quilt that I knew would be a perfect project to try Beth's technique. I wanted to make it similar to the one in the magazine and remembered that I had won a kit for a quilt last year at our guild's quilt show that I knew would work. So, I used the fabrics with the magazine's pattern and this is what I got:




It was a great pattern to learn the technique because the applique pieces were fairly large and simple shapes. Beth's book, "Hand Applique by Machine", was easy to follow. I used invisible thread in the top and cotton in the bobbin. She teaches you to use a glue stick and freezer paper and applique as many pieces together as you can before attaching them to the background. It's pretty amazing how it really does look a lot like hand applique.


Here's a close up of the applique:





It will hang in my dining room as soon as I machine quilt it. I want to get it done in time for Thanksgiving, so that's next on my list of things to do.

To quit or not to quit?

That is the question. I've been given some thought to retiring my blog. I haven't been posting much, that's for sure. It's not that I don't enjoy reading blogs because I do and there's so much that I've learned from seeing what others are doing. I just don't seem to have much to offer. So, I thought that I'd wait a bit and see what I decide.

Meanwhile, I do have a picture to share. I went on a retreat a few weeks ago and finished this top. I had started it in a class taught by Darlene Zimmerman about 18 months ago. She calls it "Stardance" and it's a free pattern here. Of course, pretty much anything made by Darlene is with 30's fabrics and I just happen to have a bunch. Piano key borders are a favorite of mine. I think that this will be a baby quilt for someone special sometime.

Jerry loves the bag and so do I!

Yesterday was a great day! It didn't start off so great because I forgot my lunch sitting on the kitchen counter. I was almost to work when I realized it and called my husband to tell him to put it in the frig and I'd try to get home to pick it up later. Later didn't look so good as I was so busy but then I got a call from husband. He wanted to know if I was coming after my lunch because there was a package waiting for me from Australia. Well, I knew immediately that it must be from my bag swap partner so I rushed home. I can't say enough how happy I am with my bag that Tatania made me. She wrote in her card that she knew from reading my blog that I love Civil War fabrics so she used Lecien fabrics which I absolutely adore! The stitchery is precious, too. You can see that my cat, Jerry, approves!

I love the stitchery and fabric!

Tatania also made a zippered pouch to match and included some Australian chocolate malted milk balls. Yum!

Seeing all the beautiful stitchery on the bags people have been making and receiving for this swap has inspired me to do some. I actually have a Natalie Lymer pattern from Australia so I think that I'll attempt that one in honor of Tatania. Thanks for everything! You're terrific!

It's In The Bag

( The arm and hand you think you see is a figment of your imagination.)

I joined a stitching/sewing/project bag swap hosted by Linda a while back and the bag that I made for my swap partner is on it's way....a very long way. I can't say who gets it yet but in a few days I can. The pattern is from the pattern " Sweet Briar Project Bag" in the "Flowerbed" book by Bronwyn Hayes. This is the first time that I've made anything by her. I didn't do any of the lovely stitchery on it that she does on hers but I still like it. Now, let's just hope that a certain someone does, too.

(What hand? I don't see any hand!)

2 Scoops of Neopolitan

Kristie is making a pink and brown quilt so I thought that I'd share the one that I made several years ago. A friend and I did a block swap using pink and brown reproduction fabrics. The block, Mosaic Pinwheel, was great for a scrappy look. Since we both love the 1800's look, we settled on using a pink, brown, and a shirting in each block. We made 2 identical ones and gave one to the other person. That went on for quite a while as I think we made 2 different ones each every month. We chose our own fabrics for the borders but wouldn't you know, we each chose similar ones without realizing it. It really wasn't a surprise since we have such similar taste. My friend went on to have hers published in a quilting magazine!

Here's my cat, Jerry, checking out the quilt:

Someday I'd like to make a scrappy blue and brown quilt. I'll wait till someone wants to join me and we can share blocks since that's a such a good way to get all the variety in fabrics that makes a scrap quilt shine

I had collected so many fabrics for that swap and had so much left over so I sent some to Kristie to use for her quilt. I'll never use all the fabrics I have so why let them just sit in a box when someone else can use them? Besides, it's fun to see pictures of her blocks with some of my fabrics.

Do unto others....

I've noticed a lot of posts about what great people bloggers are and I have to agree. People take the time to make comments on my blog and respond to comments that I leave on theirs. People help others make a pretty blog page. I've been involved in a group that has made blocks to eventually become a quilt for someone who may be going through a hard time or celebrating a special event in their lives. There are swaps of all kinds to send something you've made to bloggers all over the world. It's really amazing to me that this is all done with people who you've never met and chances are never will. Isn't that great?

SO, that being said, I have been the recipient lately of beautiful gifts from 2 such bloggers. I actually know one of them because she's in my stitch group. We didn't know that each other had a blog, though, until I happened to run on to hers from a link on someone else's blog. The other day, Traci gave me a surprise gift of these beautiful fabrics tucked into the lovely box:




That was just the first gift I received this week. Kristie and I have discovered that we share a love for Civil War era fabrics and have developed a friendship through blogging. We had our own pincushion swap and she sent me the cutest one with yo-yos all around it! The colors are perfect for me and she also sent 5 yards of a great dark green that's perfect for a backing. Now, how nice is that?

With a little help from my friend!

A blogger friend, Michelle, has a new look on her blog! When I commented on how much I like it and how inept I am at doing that kind of thing, she graciously volunteered to help me and now I have a new look, too. Isn't it pretty? Thank you so much, Michelle. I hope to meet you in person some day!