A little sample of some of my past projects

I've been working my fulltime job so much, and training for the walking 1/2 marathon, that I haven't had time to do much of anything else. This morning we walked 6 miles in 1 hr 28 minutes.  That's under 4 miles / hr., so we were walking pretty fast.  I'm getting better, but Gilda can outwalk me any day of the week so far.  I call her a little speed demon. :-) 

Here are some pictures of some quilts I've finished recently,

This is Mary's double wedding ring quilt.  She said she's already made three of these.  The colors don't show as well as I'd like, but it has kind of an island feel to it.  Very pretty.

A close up of the free hand quilting I did.

This is a quilt I made for a friend as a going away gift.  She has worked with me for 9 years, and just recently moved back to her home in California.  I'm really going to miss working with her.  She used to always send me these "Maxine" jokes in my email, so when I saw this fabric, I knew it had to go to her.  I just need to get it bound and in the mail.

A close up.

from the back side.

This is a wall hanging I did for Pat.  She made it as a gift.

A close up

the back side.  You can't really tell, but it's supposed to look like a windmill,, as that is the theme of the fabric panel.

Now, I have to end with some pictures of a few of my beautiful grandbabies.  It was a hot day, and they were chasing bubbles.  You can tell how much fun they were having by the joy in there smiles:

Here's wishing you all the joy of a child in the summer time!

Where does the time go?

I finally finished the custom Christmas quilt I was working on.  Took me about 6 days.  Not constant work, but that's because my back couldn't take it.  No pictures yet, because she wanted to bind it first, so....you'll have to come back to see it.:-)

So, I went and started a walking program with a friend of mine.  Our goal is to do a walking half marathon.  We walk 4 days out of 7 days.  3-8 miles/day depending on the schedule.  Then we are supposed to do an alternate type of cross training work out on 2 days, and rest on Sunday.  I've done pretty well on the walking days.  Not so well on the cross training days.  And great on the day of rest:)  Haven't lost any weight yet, but surely that'll come!  Right?  My friend says she feels soooo much better, and has a burst of energy now.  I'm still waiting for that to hit as well.  Hopefully, soon.  Anyway, we've completed 2 weeks of the training program so far.  The farthest we've walked is 7 miles.  It was supposed to be 6 miles, but we were a mile from the house when we hit the 6 mile mark, so had to go the rest of the way.  (HaHa.)  The half marathon will be 13 miles total, and we still have 2 1/2 months to train for it, so hopefully I'll get there.  Wish me luck!

Until next time!

Liebster Award

I would like to thank Edith at inchbyinchquilting.blogspot.com for nominating me for the Liebster Award.  I am so new to this whole blog thing, I didn't know what it was, and had to do some research:),  now if I could just figure out how to get the button for it on my blog:-)
Please go and check out Edith's blog.  She is another very talented quilter, and I'm sure you'll be blessed by visiting her site. 
So, as a recipient of this award, I am supposed to pass it on to 5 other bloggers with a following of 200 or less. " The Liebster Award encourages the recipient to thank the person who nominated you and link back to them.  With those that you would like to nominate for this award, leave a post on their blog, letting them know they have been nominated for it."
So, here are 5 of my fav bloggers I've been following and enjoying:

Dory at: http://www.crazyhorsequilting.blogspot.com/
Janette at:  www.j-quilts.co.uk/blog.html
Ann at:  bunkhousequilts.blogspot.com/
Kath at:  kathsquiltingdiary.blogspot.co.uk/
Bonnie at:  http://www.bloomingquilts.com/

Busy...Busy...Busy

I don't know what the deal is, but the more I try to get caught up, the further behind I get!  I have been so busy, and I still have so many quilts waiting to be quilted.  I have pictures of several I have finished, but have not downloaded them all to the computer yet, so I'll just put a couple of teasers on here for now. 

I decided to make a quilted tablecloth.  I found the pattern in one of the many magazines I subscribe to, but the pattern was only as big as the black part.  Not big enough for my table.  So, I added to it. 



Here's another shot of the table cloth.  It ended up barely fitting on the long arm, and at it's largest point, was bigger than a king size quilt!



Here it is still June, and I've already received my first Christmas quilt from a customer.  I'm not showing the whole quilt, because I don't know what her plans are, but it's really cute, and all applique.

Another block from the Christmas quilt.

So, that is all the photos I have for now.  I'll post more later.

As for the rest of my busy schedule, I just got back from taking a class on furniture painting with this great paint called, Annie Sloane's Chalk Paint.  I had a blast and really got some good ideas for technique.  I'm going to attempt painting my island in the kitchen.  I'm leaning toward a red, but bought some other colors just in case.

I also went to an APQS course on maintaining the long arm.  It was in Carroll, Iowa.  I drove up from Lubbock ( by the way, that's a longgggg....drive).  I met another longarmer from the forum, Connie, at the Omaha, Nebraska airport, and we roomed together.  It was a very educational class, and I learned a lot.  Now I just hope to able to apply everything I learned when it comes up.  Not stuff you do on a daily basis.  They gave us a great manual to help with the memory, though, and Amy the instructor did an awesome job of teaching it. 

Amazingly, they had just hired a new woman for teaching, and she had lived in my hometown Lubbock, TX for 5 years!  That was fun, as I usually don't even meet people that know where Lubbock is, much less have been there :) 

Well, now I'm back to work, so the quilts will have to wait for another day.

Ya'll have a blessed day!

Fabric Dyeing

Blue gradation

Well, I've decided to attempt fabric dyeing.  These are a few photos of my first attempt.  I only bought the three primary colors, and tried to blend them myself.  They look pretty good for a first attempt, but I did decide to buy more colors.  Who knew that the primary colors for fabric dye are, fushia instead of red, turquoise instead of blue, and then yellow?  It was an experience, but I think I got a pretty good color gradation, but the second and third from the bottom were very close in color, but there is a slight difference, which should be enough for what I plan to do.  This was supposed to be a blue / green gradation.  Next I guess I'll try a Red / orange.  Then, I would like to try my hand at batik or something with more than one color.

This is when the fabric was still wet.  There was a little more difference in the colors before they dried.

Here they are in the "dye vats".  I used easter buckets.  LOL

Happy Belated Mother's day!

I can't believe it's been almost a month since I last posted!  I get so caught up in business it's crazy. 

First of all I hope everyone had a great Mother's day.  I got to talk to all my kids, and my little Hannah made me a gift with the help of her mommy.  It's really a cute idea.  

Her Mommy spelled the words out with tape, then Hannah painted it using her hands. I just love it don't you?

  

Here are some recent customer quilts I've finished. 

This is one of Pat's quilts.  It's the same block of the month that I recently finished for myself.  Jamestown BOM.  She did a great job.  It's quilted with edge to edge in the center, with a little custom on the borders. 

 Here is a close up of the borders on Pat's quilt.  You can't really see it well.  It's got a curling scroll in the blue border, and large feathers in the red and white border.

A T-shirt quilt I did for a friend LaTisha.  It's from her sorority days.

A close up.  They had strawberrys as a theme, so I found a strawberry pantograph to quilt it with.  She loved it.

Well, that's all for today.  I'll be back soon.  Ya'll have a blessed day!

Urban Deco block

If you look back a few posts, you will see a post about a curved ruler I found.  You can find the ruler on Sewkindofwonderful.blogspot.com by Jenny Pedigo.  So, this weekend I decided to play with it a bit.  I think I should have used a solid fabric in it to keep it from being so busy, but I just wanted to play, and had just bought these fabrics, so play I did. 

The block is about 17 inches square, and she has a tutorial on her blog for how to do it.  She also has a tutorial for her " Urban nine patch" using the same ruler.  The Urban nine patch is the center block of this block. 

Anyway, just thought you might like to see it finished, and you can always go to her blog to check out all the patterns she has come up with using her ruler.

Blessed day to all!

Crazy Girls Weekend retreat

This past weekend I spent with a bunch of "Crazy Girls" at a weekend retreat.  We had a blast!  The retreat was at a ranch about 8 miles south ( hopefully!  I am a little bit directionally challenged:) of Snyder, Tx.  It is rustic, but not too rustic if you know what I mean.  I would call it roughing it, but with all the amenities you need including indoor plumbing.  My husband would call it staying in a motel.  LOL

Here are a few pictures of the amenities:

The cabin we stayed in.  It's a tent, but has a wood frame and metal roof. 

This is the toilet!  I've never seen one like it.  You place a paper "catcher" in it, and after use, when you flush it, it burns it.  Quite efficient if you ask me, but a little frightening at first.  I mean what if you do something wrong, and start the fire too soon?  Ha Ha.

The bathroom sink.  It's really cute.  Sorry the color is so bad.  I didn't get a picture of the shower for some reason, but if you ever watched MASH, it was similar to theirs.

The tent was great, but the last night we stayed there, we had a pretty big storm with wind and rain.  The tent sides popped and the floor move, but we all survived, and even slept through some of the storm.

Then we actually quilted and ate at the "big house"  It's a big open room with windows on all sides, and a kitchen attached to one side.  We had a 'chef" that did all the cooking for us, and the meals were great!  So, all we had to do, was sew, and stop long enough to eat.  Occasionally, Hope would have a give away, or we would play a game.  I won one of the giveaways, and I won one of the games!  I walked away with a bag full of fat quarters with dots, and a bag with 2 fat quarters and a gift certificate to Hope's store "Nana Bears"  By the way if I didn't mention it before, it is an awesome fabric store right in the middle of Snyder, TX.  Of course, then I had to get Hope to open up on Sunday afternoon so I could spend the gift certificate.  'Cause I hadn't already bought her out:) on Saturday.  I got some beautiful fabric there.  I'll post some photos of it on a separate post. 

Anyway, here are some pictures of some of the finished or almost finished projects we did:

This is Jennifer's quilt.  It's from the same book that I am working on, Sylvia's Bridal Sampler by Jennifer Chiaverini.  The blocks are all 6 inch finished, and there are 140 blocks.  She really got after it. 

This is Jennifer, still working on Sunday morning, when all the rest of us were packed up and done!

This is a T-shirt quilt Rhonda was working on for the senior daughter of a friend.

This is Gilda's Jamestown BOM she was almost finished with, but needed to add the borders to.  It turned out great!  Of course "I helped"!  HaHa, I agreed with her choices of fabrics if you can call that helping.

Then Gilda went on to complete another quilt she's been working on with her grandson.  He colored in the blocks, and she put them all together.  It's a present for his Mom when it's done.  It's turning out really cute. 

This is Lisa's quilt.  It's a beauty made out of batiks.  I just love batik.  Doesn't it just look like it's glowing?

And here is Lisa's second quilt finish.  She made it from layer cakes. 

This is Hope.  It's amazing she was able to get anything done, as many times as we had her drive into town to open up the store.  She's machine quilting this one on her domestic machine.  More patience than I have!  It's turning out really pretty.

This is Lydia's quilt she's making for a grandchild!  It's adorable.

Isn't this one pretty! Valerie put this one together all from one fabric line.   I don't remember the name of the fabric line, but it is so cute all sewn up together. 

This is Kim's quilt.  It's a friendship quilt.  You can't see it here, but there are signatures under the baskets.  Kim is Jennifer's aunt.  They both worked on their projects non-stop!  Kim is also doing the Sylvia's bridal sampler, but I didn't get pictures of her blocks.

And here is Keitha.  This is what she did most of the weekend!  :)  She made, I think, 23 of these embroideried blocks that will eventually be pillows she is making as hostess gifts for a shower.  We teased her that all she did was sit and watch us all work.  She has the patience of Job. 

This is my quilt top.  I worked on three all together, but this is the last one and the only one I took a photo of.  It still needs borders, but it's for my precious Hannah.  Hannah is getting too big for her baby bed, so she needs a "grownup blankie"

This is Teddy's quilt top.  She just started sewing recently, so she is going to be an awesome quilter!  My first quilts looked nothing like this.  She worked on another one after this that had pinwheels in it.  Can't wait too see what she does with it.

There were other's there, but I didn't get photos of all of them.  Hope is going to send me some, so I'll post again when I get them.

You all have a blessed day, and I'll post again later.

Easter Sunday

Hi everyone.  I just wanted to say belated Happy Easter, and of course I have to post some pictures of my beautiful grandchildren! 

Just arriving to Gammy and Big Pop's house

Filling the Easter basket!  Can't wait to open the eggs:)

Here Big Pop!  I need help opening this egg.

My Grandsons don't live here, so I just get one photo of them.  Aren't they cute!  And then there is their baby brother pictured by himself.   

The baby.  He's almost 1!  My little cutey pie:)

And look Gammy!  Here's what is in this egg.  Let's go through each egg.

Important story unfolding here.

Aha!  Tricked Daddy into opening another one.:)

Mommy just loves the look on my face here.