Vegas Nine Patches

After receiving further instructions from Melinda,  I have completed four blocks and you can begin to see the weaving. 

By golly, I think it’s going to work.  I just love these colors.  The tricky part is pressing all the seams so that they will nestle together when the time comes to sew all the blocks into a top. 

Melinda and I grew up with a Mother that painted the outside of the kitchen cabinets YELLOW and the inside of the cabinets RED.  Who knew?  She was ahead of her time . 

I need to make 20 blocks in total so I still have 16 to go.  I’m planning on making more today (in between doing laundry ). 

Enjoy,

Making Nine Patches

Last summer I taught a class at a Las Vegas Retreat that my sister and I have been going to for many years.  This year I’ll be teaching again and my sister will also be teaching.  Her project involves doing fun and interesting things with nine patches made out of charm packs or 5” squares. 

She’s making her sample out of black and white blocks (you can see her blocks here).  I told her I would also make a sample but wanted to use something entirely different.  So here’s what I came up with. 

It’s Rise ‘N Shine by Glenna Hailey and Maywood Studio.  I’ve been wanting to make something out of what I call “40’s” or maybe “50” fabrics.  They remind me of my Mother’s kitchen when I was growing up.  It’s now all cut up in 5” squares and ready to go.

We’re going to be cutting up the nine patches, sewing them back together (I’m waiting for my instructions) and then sashing the blocks with 4 colors that should will weave across the quilt.  Here’s my sashing fabrics.

I used the polka dot fabric to match the colors.  Pretty cool don’t you think?

I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to show you along the way but I’ll be able to post the completed quilt after July and our trip to Las Vegas. 

Enjoy,

Another Letty’s Bag Sighting

As many of you know there have been Letty’s Bag sightings in various places around the country.  As a matter of fact the pattern made it to Paducah last week via my friend Jane from 1/4” Publishing and as I understand it, sold out the second day (YEA Jane!).  But wait until you see this.

Can you tell?  It’s the Great Wall of China!  Can you believe it, China, my Letty’s Bag made it to China.  A huge thank you to my friend Kathy Cina of All About Charlie Cina.  Kathy has made a gazillion Letty’s Bag’s and she made this one.  She gave it to a friend who then took it with her to visit the Great Wall of China.  Here is a link to Kathy’s Blog with more pictures.

If you have a Letty’s Bag sighting you’d like to share, please let me know.  I’d love to see it and share it. 

If you’d like to make your own “Letty’s Bag” just click here. 

Enjoy,

Design Wall Monday – 4/26/10

Well I’ve made a little progress since last week.  I managed to get my tumbler block, flag quilt sewn together. 

I even went as far as going to M & L and buying backing fabric.

I’m hoping to get it quilted this week and be able to post the finished quilt.

I’m behind on my Blogging but will try to get caught up this week.  In the mean time…….

Enjoy,

Design Wall Monday – 4/19/10

Yesterday I had fun cutting out a tumbler block quilt with my Accuquilt GO.  This was a design that was posted on one of my list so it’s certainly not original. 

After taking this picture, I started sewing it together.  It’s amazing how well it goes together.  With any luck at all, I’ll finish the top sometime today. 

To see what others have on their design wall head on over to Judy’s Patchwork Times Blog. 

Enjoy,

And the winner is. . . . .

It’s been one whole week since my Birthday and I’ve been celebrating all week long.  I started with a family dinner, then had lunch with my really good friend Rob and yesterday spent the day with my BFF Marilyn.  Marilyn treated me to a walking/food tasting tour in Old Town Pasadena, CA (home of the Rose Bowl/Parade) .  I can’t begin to tell you how fun it was but I’ll give it a try in a future post.

So back to my Birthday celebration.  I decided it was better to give then receive so this was the give-away I announced last Sunday.

Twenty fun fat quarters along with my newest pattern, Five, Ten, Twenty.

This has been so much fun.  I’ve received comments from around the world.  I wish I had enough fat quarters for everyone. 

I just finished using a number generator to pick the winner.  There were a total of 86 entries.

And the winner is . . . .

Congratulations to Ashley of Always a Piece of Me.   Congratulations Ashley, please email me your complete mailing address (including what country) so that I can mail your prize to you.

Thank you everyone for participating, I’m sorry you couldn’t each win.  But we’ll do it again in the near future. 

Enjoy,

While My Husband’s Away – A Table Runner is Made

For those of you that know me, you know that when my Husband’s away on a golf outing, I use the time to clean my sewing room.  Why do I wait until he’s gone?  Well, first of all my room is usually a big mess and in order to clean it I end up with stuff spread all over the place.  John is very tolerant but not when it comes to me spreading my junk everywhere.  Plus, it gives me a definite timeline so that once I start I have to be finished before he returns.  It’s great motivation.

So, he left Wednesday morning and so I started.  I had piles everywhere.  A file of fabric to donate to my guild, a pile of batting pieces, a pile for the Goodwill, you get the idea, lots of piles everywhere.  By Friday morning (he was coming home Friday afternoon) I had all my piles disposed of, I could see the top of my cutting table, my sewing machine table was de-cluttered and I could even see the floor.  What to do? 

Well in the process of clearing off the top of a cabinet I realized it was a perfect place for my Accuquilt Go.  I had recently ordered the drunkards path die so I might as well cut something out.  I had some left over fabric from a Letty’s Bag I made so I decided to use it.  You can’t believe  how fast it was to cut out the blocks and because of the accuracy they were super easy to sew together.  Next thing I knew I had a table runner top made. 

Since my sewing area was clear (and I was on a roll) I decided to continue on by quilting it and Wa-La!, I have a new table runner for my dining room table.

It’s about 14” x 56” and the points are pretty darn close to perfect (giving proper credit to the “Go”).  All I have to do is finish sewing the binding down on the back and it’s ready for the table. 

BTW……

Here’s the setup for my “Go” cutter.

I’m planning on using the Tumbler Block die to make a U.S. flag quilt sometime in the near future. 

P. S.  One more day for the Birthday Gift give-away.  Visit my “Happy Birthday to Me” Blog entry to enter.

Birthday Celebration Continues

My Birthday may have been last Sunday, but I’m celebrating all week.  Yesterday my friend Rob took me out for a Birthday lunch and Saturday Marilyn is taking me for a surprise Birthday outing. 

Today in the mail, I received a Birthday present from my sister, Melinda.

Everything was wrapped up in this beautiful batik fabric.

Inside was this gorgeous rayon batik shawl.

And last but certainly not least, this set of Sewline fabric tools.  There’s a Fabric Glue Pen that dries clear and is water soluble.  A Sewline Trio which you simply turn to click out a black, white or tracer point.  A fabric pencil that looks like it comes with white lead but I also got graphite lead refills and a fabric eraser.  Everything came tucked inside a plastic box.  I’ve never seen these before, they must be new but what a great set it is. 

Thank you Melinda, I love it all! 

There’s still time for you to celebrate along with me.  I’m giving away a “Happy Birthday to Me” gift.  Just click here to read about it and how to enter.

Enjoy,

Maureen’s “Five”

I have the best daughter-in-law anyone could possible have.  She’s a great wife, mother and . . . . she’s a quilter.  What more could a mother-in-law ask for?  Whenever I have a new pattern, I send it to her and although she’s very busy with work and family, she always finds time to make it. 

I recently sent her my “Five, Ten, Twenty” pattern.  This last weekend she was at a retreat and made  one using five yards of fabric. 

I love the stripe, it adds a lot of interest and keeps your eye moving.  I can hardly wait to see it quilted and finished. 

Great job, Maureen.  I’m very blessed to have you as my daughter-in-law.

Enjoy,

P.S.  Don’t forget the give-away ends on the 18th.  It’s not to late to enter.  For all the details see my Blog entry here.

Happy Birthday to Me!!!!

Today’s my birthday so I thought what better way to celebrate than to give one of my readers a reverse Birthday present. 

Here’s what I came up with.

My newest pattern “Five, Ten, Twenty” and 20 fat quarters than can be used to make the “Twenty”.  The fabrics are similar to the fabrics used to make the cover quilt.

These are all Windham fabrics and are part of the original fat quarter tower I bought last year at Spring Market.

And, here’s the hot off the press pattern.

So what do you have to do to win?  Leave me a message (Happy Birthday would be nice) asking to be entered in the drawing.  Let me know you’re a follower or become a follower for a second chance.  And if you’d like one more chance, post a link on your Blog and let me know and I’ll enter you a third time.  Everyone is welcome to participate, US and International.

Remember, I need a way to contact you if you when.  If you are set to no-reply you’ll need to leave me an email address in order to contact you.

I’ll use a random number generator to select a winner…….when???? How about a week from today, April 18th.

Let’s all sing along

Happy Birthday to me,

Happy Birthday to me,

Happy Birthday dear Robin,

Happy Birthday to me.

Enjoy,

Non-Quilt Related – But still fun!

Have you seen this?

You gotta love the hair “Do”, but the guy can really belt it out.

Enjoy,

Early Birthday Present

Yesterday I received an early birthday present from my wonderful husband, John.  It arrived ahead of schedule but he let me open it anyway.  It wasn’t exactly a surprise since it was something I had asked for.  He’s a very smart man, he got me exactly what I asked for.

So the first thing I had to do is make a cover for it.

Here’s the front	And here’s the back

So what is it you ask? 

A Kindle!  Yea!!!!

I’ve wanted one for a long time but first I needed to talk to various people that own one and and get their input and then I needed to wait until after the IPad was announced.  At one point I thought I’d get the IPad but after the announcement I realized that the Kindle was still my first choice. 

I really wanted an ebook reader just for reading.  I already have an IPhone  (that I love) and I have a netbook for when I travel.  I was hoping the IPad would be a bit smaller so that I could lay in bed and read with it but it turns out it’s just too big for what I wanted it for. 

The Kindle is the perfect size for me and does exactly what I wanted it for and that is to read a good book. 

Here’s the inside	And here it is standing up

The website with a lot of fun stuff to make is  http://www.chicaandjo.com and the link to the Kindle cover pattern it here.  It was fairly simple to make and their directions easy to follow. 

I still think I may make a padded zipper case for when I take it with me but for the most part it will live at home on my nightstand. 

Thank you, Hon!  I love my birthday present.

Enjoy,

A New Way to Iron

I saw this over on the Piece O’cake blog and couldn’t resist sharing it with you. 

Enjoy,

Happy Easter

Have a great day!

Enjoy,

Fruits and Vegetables - A long time from start to finish!

I started this quilt two years ago this July.  I actually finished the top the same year and showed a picture of it in an August 2008 Blog post.  I quilted it shortly thereafter and even added a flange when I sewed the binding on.  And then, there it sat. 

For the majority of my quilts I sew the binding to the back of the quilt by machine using monopoly thread and a blind hem stitch.  It works wonderfully for most quilts but because this one had the flange I needed to sew it by hand.  I have no idea why it took me so long but it did and now it is finally done.

I love this quilt.  The story behind it is my sister describe to me a quilt she had seen using 10” squares.  We were getting together at out annual Vegas quilting retreat so we decided to make it using fat quarters that I had purchased for both of us at Spring Market 2008. We each made all the blocks and put them together as a straight set.  I later used my magical slice and dice method to turn it on point.

Now keep in mind I had never seen this quilt but she did a good job describing it.  As it turns out there is a book out (can’t remember the name or the author) that has a quilt that looks very much like this but is made completely different than this one. 

Now that this one is finished and hanging on my quilt ladder. 

OK so I now realize it’s not actually on the ladder yet, but it will be shortly and if I waited Lucy would have run away (she’s shy) and wouldn’t have made it into the picture.

As soon as I finished my “Forty” quilt I’m planning on making another one of these using these fabrics.

These are 10” sqaures (Moda’s Boutique by Chez Moi) I picked up a few weeks ago when I went on a mini quilt shop hop in the San Diego area.  I purchased them at Cozy Quilt Shop.  I think the quilt will look very different (but the same) as the fruit and vegetable quilt. 

I’m considering writing a pattern for this one since it’s made so very, very different than the one Melinda described to me two years ago. 

Enjoy,

Easter Egg Table Runner

Once again it’s time to post a picture of my Easter Egg Table Runner.

I know, I post this every year (in fact here’s the link to last year), but I really enjoy getting it out and putting in on my dining room table. 

This was made several years ago while visiting my niece Christina in San Francisco.  My sister was there for a visit and we always like to craft when we get together.  We each made a table runner and although they were similar they we’re each just a little bit different.  

On one of the blogs I follow, and I’ll be darned if I can remember which one, she made something similar but placemat size.  It was really cute and if anyone knows who’s blog it is please let me know so I can give her credit for the idea.  I’m not sure I’ll have time to make a few this year but I’m going to save the idea and do it at some point.  In the mean time . . . .

Enjoy,