A Little Bit of This....and a Little Bit of That

That pretty much sums up what I have been doing lately.  And it's been very peaceful and enjoyable.  I'm tying up loose ends and totally loving it.  But before I get too far into that, let me show you the first of several Mothers Day gifts that I received.

Ondie Delivered My Balloon!

I usually rise before anyone else, and when Jerry and Ondie get up, Jerry gives Ondie the command, "Find Mom!"  On Sunday morning, Ondie arrived in my sewing room with a Mothers Day balloon attached to his collar.  Aaawww!   I had to record this with my camera.  Here is another picture of Ondie:

My Perky Ondie

Ondie just turned one year old and he is the delight of my day, everyday.  He has done well in his first beginning odedience class and we will start another set of classes at the park in a few weeks.  He is sharp and knows so may words we have lost count, so don't say anything in front of him unless you want him to know about it!  He started out being Mom's boy, but now he is an adolescent, he seems to be equally devoted to both of us.  Jerry takes him to Lowe's and Home Depot several times a week and he loves going to those places.  He gets petted by adults and children alike and gets doggy treats from his favorite checker.

I put a quilt on the frame this week to be quilted by Emma and Electra.  It is a gorgeously colorful little thing that I am quilting for a customer.  Right now I'm trying to decide on the quilting design.  I picked out a lovely tangerine quilting thread for it.

Don't These Colors Just Pop!

I did get my thrift shop fabrics washed, ironed, and trimmed into strips.

The biggest project that I'm working on is the backing for Lemaster's Old Tobacco Road.  I posted a pic of this back in January that was taken in Bonnie Hunter's class that I took.  I brought the top for Show & Tell.

  If I'm EVER to get it quilted, the first thing it needs is a backing!   So I gathered up lots of strips and pieces of a yard or less to make random rows, punctuated by orphan blocks and leftovers.

An insertion leftover from the top's border

Since the color story of the top is brown, green, yellow and orange, that's what I used on the back.

 

 
Some of these orphan blocks have been in a drawer since the 80's!

Personalized

 

 

 

 

Some of the horizontal strips before being sewn together.

Well, that's been my fun and games.  I think I'll get back to it.

See ya,

It's a Starry, Starry Morning!!!

I am feeling so extra cheerful today because I finished my quilt top, called The Stars will Shine Tonight.

144 Stars (My Math Skills are Feeling Somewhat Better Now after Being Under the Weather)

This is the border that I hinted about.  The border stars are all red, ranging from orangey red to bluish red plus pinks and neutrals.  I had so much fun making this quilt and I have to say, I just love way the border resonates with the multicolored center.

Here is Another Shot of the Quilt Top

A Close up of the Red Border

This baby is HUGE, 99" square to be precise!  It will fit nicely on my king size bed.  This is going to take quite a bit of time on the quilting machine, but I have a backlog of other projects to quilt first, for others and of my own projects.  I may switch gears now and knock out some of these neglected tops in need of quilting.
One is a small charity quilt for my guild....I may work on it first.  Get 'er done, as my DH loves to say.

Little Treasures

Here are some scraps of fabric I found at a thrift store last week.  I didn't even have to use any of these reds for my red stars border!  Today I plan to wash, press and cut these into strips for the strip bins.

Who knows what all I'll do today?  Now that reminds me of the Doctor (Doctor Who, of course).  I watched the first installment of the new season Saturday night.  It was everything and more of what I have come to expect and love about this show.  Let's just say that if this were the only TV show in the universe, I would be fine with that because the Doctor can go ANYWHERE or ANYWHEN (my spell-checker thinks that is not a word.  It is.  I just made it up.)  The guest characters can be ANYBODY.  In one episode last season Winston Churchill made a guest appearance (Oh, I know, he was really an actor, but what fun!).
If you haven't seen Doctor Who, you are missing a treat of British clever wit and quirky humor.

I'm So Embarrassed!!!

Sometimes you have to admit to a mistake that even a rookie quilter should never have fallen for.

You may know that I am working on Bonnie Hunter's Star Struck pattern that I started in her class at Road to California.  I chose to make the quilt body 10 blocks square, requiring 100 star blocks.  I finished that part, before Easter and now I am getting back to work on finishing it.

I am planning a border of 8" blocks, the same size as the quilt body blocks.

Here's where it got tricky for me.  I figured if I made my quilt 11 blocks by 11 blocks that would include the border, right?  11 X 11= 121 blocks.....10 X 10 = 100.....121 - 100 = 21 border blocks. Wrong, so very wrong.

Yesterday I got out my 21 border blocks and wondered why they did not go all the way around the quilt!

First, I thought, where are the rest of the blocks?  Are they hidden under a bolt of fabric in my sewing room?

Then I remembered, 21 is the number that I made.  What went wrong? 

Of course, all you quilters out there are going LOL and ROTF.  You all know that to surround all four sides of a 10 block X 10 block quilt, you have to make the quilt 12 blocks X 12 blocks!  But it's all OK because I get the fun of making 23 more blocks.  And that's my project for today.

My face is so red you would think I had a sunburn!

Hope Your Easter Was Full of Beauty and Blessings!

Yes, I hope your Easter holiday was full of all the Blessings that life can offer!

As for me, it was one of the very best ever.  I had the boys and their families, an out-of-towner (my brother who showed up on Saturday), my Mother and mountains of good food, some of which I actually did not have to prepare myself!

I gave Jonah, 4, some sidewalk chalk and we went outside to write and draw with it.

"Grandma, will you write my name?....Grandma, now will you write my middle name?  Grandma, will you write my last name like yours?

Then we (I) wrote my first, middle and last names.  My heart was touched.

Jonah and I are joined forever by our last names and much, much more.

 

**WOW** I Found It at a Garage Sale!!

Hi y'all,

I was browsing at a garage sale in my neighborhood the other day when I stumbled on a very nice find, a quilters cutting table that folds up.

HUGE cutting area

Of course I already have a cutting table, but I wanted to try this one because its height, elevated to be perfect for standing and cutting.  The height makes it easier on my back and I am enjoying it a lot.

I paid $20 for this perfectly good table which I found on the internet for $189.99.  I think I got a deal!

I am starting to sew my Stars quilt into columns.  I am trying out names for this quilt and so far "The Stars Will Shine Tonight"  is my favorite. This is a variation on the song "Three Stars Will Shine Tonight."  This unabashedly sentimental song was the theme for the 60's TV series, Doctor Kildare.  I adored Doctor Kildare and always tuned in when it was playing.  I didn't watch much TV in those days when homework filled most of my evenings, but I made an exception for this show.

Now for My Other Ongoing Project...

Hello!

Besides Cheddar, my other project started in Bonnie's class, Star Struck, is really coming along.  I gave my scrappy proclivities full rein...no holding back .  But for a long time, it didn't seem like I was making much  progress at all!

Star Struck Blocks on My Design Wall

I was just making unit after unit, and block after block.  I need 121 8" blocks.  That is a lot.  For example, with Cheddar, I only needed 30 blocks.  They were bigger and set with sashing, but sheesh, still 121 is still a far cry from 30.  I guess it all comes down to attitude.  Those blocks were just getting a little boring.

I can't believe I just wrote that.  After all, non-quilters are always pointing out that quilts take so long to make and they lack the patience.  And we quilters argue back that it is the process that inspires us so the time spent quilting passes so quickly that we don't even notice.

I do get a little bogged down at times, I must admit.  But my favorite part of making the quilt is composing and assembling the big picture.  I can tell you that when that quilt starts to come together, and I can see the dynamics of shape, color and pattern creating sparks that bounce back and forth, that is when I feel so creative, so inspired, that I know that all the little knit-picky parts of making the quilt was worth it.

The journey is what we love, and we can love some parts of it more than others!

Just to make those sparks fly, I am planning a special border treatment that I am hoping will add a little pizzazz to this quilt, as if it really needed it.  I'll be revealing the pretty little pieced border in a future post.

I guess I'd better be back to piecing!

Never Too Much Cheddar Is Done!

Hello all--

Never Too Much Cheddar!

Yes, that's what I'm calling it, even though my Mother thought that it was **waaaay** too much cheddar.
However she saw the body of the quilt before I added the blue borders.  And, you know, when it comes to my Mom, she has never had a stray thought (of the opinion variety) that she did not immediately present to the world as cold, hard fact.

I did add the blue borders not only to placate her, but I wanted to balance the red and yellow by adding the third member of the color wheel to create a color harmony.  Even Mother said that she liked it better, even though she still doesn't like yellow.  I, however, have never met a color that I did not fall in love with immediately.  That's why I am a quilter and she is not.

Measuring Border Strips

HOT TIP #1

Here is a picture showing how to measure and cut your border strips so that your quilt will be perfectly squared.  Cut your border strips the length of the CENTER of the quilt, not the edges.  Just press the quilt, place on a table or floor with your border strips going down the center, pat everything nice and flat, and there you go.  You can see just exactly how long those borders need to be.  This is a tip I learned from Bonnie Hunter, Queen of Quiltville.

This brings me to HOT TIP #2:  Whenever possible, cut sashing strips and border strips on the lengthwise grain of the fabric, not crosswise.  Lengthwise grain is more stable....less stretchy.  This keeps your quilt nice and flat, not ripply.  The only time that I prefer crosscut strips is for binding.  I started doing this years ago after some trial and error of my own.

Oh, by the way, those borders have a lot of recycled men's shirts in them.  And instead of concealing the fact that they are recycled, I am FLAUNTING it, as you can see in the next picture:

Border Section Cut from Shirt Yoke with Label

 

Why not?