Elizabeth's QOV

Elizabeth from Houston sent me this lovely top to finish for a Wounded Warrior. I quilted, bound and labeled it today and have to make the presentation case tomorrow.

I don't know the name of the pattern and I must remember to ask Elizabeth. I think it looks a little scrappy, there are no two blocks the same-I find this style of quilt so charming and old fashioned and very satisfying to make because we can often use up small pieces left over from other projects.
From the back you can see the quilting, a Stars and Stripes flag design. It has been washed and dried and has acquired the traditional wrinkly look of a quilt. Here is what Liz said about her quilt:

"I think I shall call it Pair It Up Block of the Month.

It was my Block of the Month designed for Great Expectations Quilt Store in Houston, Tx.
Each set of fabrics made a pair of blocks with the same fabrics. One had a dark focus and the other had a light focus."

So there you have it!

The tidy label made on my little Brother embroidery machine, I am very pleased with this machine. Now if I just had time to study the tutorials I could do all sorts of wonderful things with it.

I had no idea when I acquired it where or how I would store it to be handy but not too intrusive, my studio is a very small space with a lot of very important "stuff" in it!
I was able to re-purpose a sturdy rolling cart to hold the machine and some accessories [said cart used to hold my printer in the office and was replaced by something more practical and aesthetically pleasing] and the drawers are really handy for extra storage in the studio. Any artist or crafter will tell you there is never enough storage space in their work/design area.

More Selvedge Madness!

Saturday was the monthly "Craft And Chat" at church, I hadn't been since last winter I think so I packed up some stuff to work on and headed down to the church. There were only a few of us this time but we had a nice visit and I finished the last three of my SITP blocks for the week.

I took along some mindless sewing, my bag of selvedges, scrap batting and Insulbrite, a heat reflective batting that protects hands from hot pots and pans. It's available at Joann's [use a coupon!] Hobby Lobby and other fabric stores.

I now have another seven of these cute pot-holders, even the binding is selvedge. My favorite is the red,white and black, the rest are very much an eclectic mix of color and designs.

I used the "stitch and flip" method utilizing scrap batting for the foundation on either side then enclosing a square of Insulbrite in the middle. At the end of the binding I make a loop and fold it back on itself and secure it to the edge with a couple of rows of stitches. As I said, mindless sewing, they go together very fast and you can chat and not pay attention to what you are doing!

This method works well for any leftover strips of fabric too narrow for other uses, as small as one inch-less than that is not worth sewing. Try a couple they are addictive, they make charming hostess gifts especially around the holidays along with a plate of cookies anyone can use another pot-holder!

Finished For Friday, Another UFO

I had three quilt finishes this week but I have already blogged about two of them- here is the third, a UFO that I really disliked..... that's why it was a UFO, LOL! It's called a One Block Wonder and I am now permanently immune to this design! Well, allergic might be a better word.

I slogged through the piecing and then added two bright borders from stash and a Mardi Gras backing- also from stash. The borders are so bright that they distract from the awfulness of the body of the quilt so I don't even hate it anymore! Don't love it mind you but don't despise it either and it's a nice size for a kid's quilt. Amazing what a couple of eye popping borders & some quilting can do, right?

It's quilted with orange thread in zig-zag lines in the body of the quilt and curls in the borders. It went fairly fast and I am so happy and proud that I did not let this quilt get the better of me!
I had bright fabric for backing [left over from a Mardi Gras quilt years ago] that would never blend with anything else I made and I'm happy to have used up most of it now.

Yeah, it's done and I have only two more UFO's both small watercolor quilts and I'm hopeful I can get those finished too in the next month. More on that later.

Vintage Thingies Thursday

If you visit Colorado Lady's blog you will find a list of many other vintage lovers blogging about their treasures-don't miss it!

Today I want to show off one of my favorite pieces. It's another of this $27.50 bargains I bought at auction in San Angelo TX in the early '80's. The auctioneer would get to the magic amount of $25 and something in me would cry out "$27.50" and the auctioneer would yell "sold". It happened so many times I think they saw me coming! On this particular occasion I remember thinking "$25, I can use it for something for that price", mentally picturing storage of items otherwise stuffed in overflowing cupboards. When I got home I realized it blended well with the eighteenth century oak dining furniture and has functioned as a sideboard ever since.

There were no keys for it and I seem to remember that the doors were locked so I drove by the locksmith's house on the way home and he made keys for a few dollars.

Here are two views, the actual color is darker like the first picture...

the flash washed out the color in this pic. I think the wood is walnut-the piece came from England, the importer who brought it to the USA would roam around England buying up furniture from estate sales and ship it all to the USA in containers. One week there was an old player piano but I missed out on it, had to take DH to the airport or I may have had another $27.50 bargain! I always wanted a player piano because I learned to play on one at my Granny's house when I was taking lessons at the Conservatorium of Music in Sydney.

The sideboard has nice carving on the doors and knobs ....

and along the back ledge......

And heavy octagonal legs with flat bars between them and from one side to the other.

I keep antique linens and other everyday linens in the drawers ........

a few Jagermeister and shot glasses from Germany above.....

and it's a handy place for glassware etc., the colored wine glasses all came from Germany in the '70's.

Now head on over to Colorado Lady's blog.......don't miss the fun!

Veteran's Day

Today I cannot ignore the significance of the date and especially in light of the recent horrifying attacks on our valiant service members both at home and in foreign lands.

To all of these heroes I say a" thank you" that cannot possibly convey the debt we owe to our warriors and their families. We too are a military family and I know of some of the sacrifices required to keep our nation free.

The United States of America is the home of the free because of the brave.

"At the going down of the sun, and in the morning,

We will remember them"

Wednesday, Not Wordless!

I am catching up from a blogging absence, a few days when I was distracted by life!

Sunday afternoon I spent four hours working in the backyard-it is a small urban yard but the Brazilian Pepper tree was out of control and I cut and sawed and cut and sawed some more! DH helped after his nap, LOL, by then the tree massacre was over, the tree has better shape and at least we can walk around it without getting smacked in the face by the branches.

I wanted four bushes removed and four rose bushes and a hibiscus planted, DH does a fine job of digging. Whew, it was a lot of work and the clean up takes nearly as long as the trimming and planting.

While I was at it I pruned the rose bushes back and cut off the last six yellow blooms. As mild as our winters are the roses could continue to bloom so I may get more. The four rose bushes we planted were rescued from another house where they were not wanted and I don't have any idea what kind they are, color etc, it will all be a big surprise!

Yesterday I finished a large quilt, a vintage top I had purchased from eBay-it's drying now so I will get a photo tomorrow.

Today I began work on one of the last three of my 22 UFO's. It is a much unloved One Block Wonder - I had started two on different occasions, the other is in Houston to be finished by another quilter and donated to a charity there.

I decided to tackle this one just to be able to say I had at least completed one of these dratted things, I wasn't going to let it beat me so I sewed all those hexagons into rows. I sort of threw it together not really caring which blocks went where or making any attempt at a design I simply want it done. Perhaps that's why it's so awful, it's been treated rather shabbily!

I really just don't care for these OBW's, don't enjoy the construction of the hexagons or the finished look, the final designs always seem either chaotic or mushy to me. It's one of those "why did I buy this book/what made me think I wanted to make this quilt?" Ever have those moments?

The more I look at it the worse it gets in my eyes, perhaps I will name it "My Very Ugliest Quilt-Ever"! A good reason to get it completed and given away, perhaps a child would not be so critical?

I have a good green and an orange in stash that will make nice borders so that's my plan for tomorrow-after we get back from Mayo Hospital, where DH has day surgery.

This will be OK for a child's quilt I think with the cute VW bugs?

The Turtle Quilt UFO

Another UFO off the list.

Two Baby Quilts

Just today I finished the two baby quilts that I need for the week ahead.

The blue and yellow is for a Saturday baby shower, young couple at church expecting their first baby in a couple of weeks.

It's the fast and easy D9P again, mostly left-overs from other projects. This one is much prettier in person I'm not sure why it's so blah looking in the photo.

The backing came from stash too, and you can see I quilted that speedy geometric echoed square. The label of course made on my embroidery machine- I haven't had time to learn the new software yet so it isn't anything fancy, I need to take time to sit down and go through the tutorials.

The baby girl quilt goes to Mexico to a young woman expecting very soon. It too was made almost entirely from leftovers, even border and binding all came from stash as well as the backing.

Quilting is those freehand feathery leafy thingies!

I need to be using stash, Bernina Connection has a big sale Saturday and their clearance is 75% off, it's a sale that is very hard to pass up!

I always use this wonderfully soft flame retardant Dream Angel batting for baby quilts.

It's nice and light and very drapable and I love that it is both flame retardant and chemical free.

My final finish for today was the binding on the "Future's So Bright" quilt that had been awaiting this attention for a couple of months.

It is a large quilt so binding , even by machine, takes a considerable time. I am now tired of binding-three quilts today, and tomorrow it's back to the LA machine.

Vintage Thingies Thursday

It's here again, that wonderful day of the week so waste no time after visiting me in going over to Colorado Lady's blog to see what else is showing today!

I had almost forgotten about the two treasures below, they were stashed in the back of my walk-in closet.

They were given to me by my grandparents [Dad's parents] for my 21st birthday in '60's-I guess that makes me older than dirt!

Back then, a nice set of luggage was essential for the well- set up young lady and Grandma and Grandad wanted to be sure I was appropriately equipped- there was no way I was going to be allowed to take any journeys with mismatched luggage!

These are made by Regal luggage and originally I had three pieces, the third was a large suitcase that I discarded along the way, somewhat damaged by travel trauma! In hindsight, I would probably now not let it go, but we were moving around the globe with four children and anything not essential got left behind!

This first piece is a make-up case, very sturdy and fairly heavy even empty! It was popular back before we had to worry about what our luggage weighed, right? No one those days was paying $50 for an overweight bag!

It too is a little the worse for a great deal of wear and tear, it has travelled many, many miles. My make-up necessities were very safe in such a well made item.

This is a real blast from the past, a hat case! It still has a few of the travel stickers and it's quite huge to hold the largest of hats. Those days no proper lady went anywhere much without a hat- obviously I come from a very traditional family, never went "to town"[in my case the city of Sydney] to church or any other function without a hat. I loved hats, my favorite hat store was in the Imperial Arcade in Sydney, owned by a Hungarian lady. I would save up and pay fifteen pounds, a great deal of money for a student, three weeks plus living allowance in college, for a delectable ornament for my head!

If I was in dire straits and needed a new hat I could always go to the June Millinery I think it was also in the Imperial Arcade, and purchase the necessary to design my own hat and I often did just that!

The hats here haven't been worn for years- perhaps I need to give them away...... but then what would I keep in this wonderful hat case?

Shakespeare In The Park

Hereafter referred to in quilter's lingo as SITP!

Yesterday I had the adorable baby Matthew, but I managed to get in a little stitching while he napped.

I was working on the snail blocks and as I began to add another row of triangles I laid out the first two and found that "one of these things is not like the other"! Aaargggghhh, an error!

Here is how it should look.........

And here is how the "other" block looks! See what I mean? At first I was nearly panicked that maybe I had messed up all the rest but when I checked I discovered this was the only one, praise the Lord!

Rather than unpick all the stitching I chose to make one more snail block to replace this odd one.

In the process I realized that I lack sufficient of this white background fabric to complete the snail blocks so I had to go online and order more!


Fortunately I remembered where I purchased it- Fabric.com- and I had saved the selvedge so I knew what to order. It was still on sale-half off- I ordered two yards just in case! And while there I ordered a yard each of the coordinates in the same pattern one red back ground the other black. I think I am running a little low on black backgrounds for the rest of the quilt and I bought more to be safe. I am short on the white for two of the blocks so they are as far along as possible until my order arrives, probably not before the weekend.

Meantime I have started one of two baby quilts I need ASAP, a D9P for a baby boy, last night I cut and sewed all the nine patches then re-cut them ready to re-sew later today as soon as Button and I get back from our walk!

My Halloween Horror

My post today is appropriate for Halloween in part about costumes. To read about the history and origins of this holiday you can see some of the facts here.

My horror as a quilter, is clothing alterations and this week I had two such tasks! JW's best friend for over two decades is a hockey player, goalie I believe-but what do I know about ice hockey, I played field hockey. He said that his uniform shirts were too narrow in the sleeves for all the padding the goalies wear so he asked me to enlarge the sleeves.

Any one of you who has worked with clothing construction will understand immediately my dilemma in enlarging the sleeves and not the body part of the garment so I had been procrastinating only partly because I couldn't find any of that "holey" sports fabric. I finally located some on the far side of town at Sally's fabrics and proceeded to make the necessary adjustments adding a 5" strip of fabric to each of the sleeves at the underarms from the wrist to the side seam and grumbling all the time to myself!

Hours later [more like an entire day later] they were done, then onto the next request this one from oldest DS.

He has been a "Trekkie" since his youth [he will be 43 in December] and a couple of years ago his wife bought him this very realistic-looking Darth Vader costume.

Looks like the real thing doesn't he? His friend, a photographer did the special effects in this photo. The costume is a thick, padded, channel-stitched, leather-like material and very hot to wear so DS undid the side seams under the arms for some fresh air and asked me to insert " zippers or something". Now there's another horror, sewing zippers into an already constructed garment, so I chose the "or something" and sewed velcro into the seams.

Every time I am tasked with a non-quilting sewing project I mutter to myself "never again", this time I really mean it! Why is it just because I have a sewing machine-or two or three or more- is it expected that I am an expert in all things sewn!

With a huge sigh of relief I returned to what I know best, quilting, specifically the Shakespeare quilt.

I had a lot of seams to match in this step and the job is made simpler using these little "fork" pins.

They fit nicely either side of the seams so the fabric cannot shift as you sew.........

and they are very fine pins so you can sew....slowly and carefully....... over them.

See how perfectly the seams match? Love these pins, I swear by them for piecing accuracy on multiple intersections but they are rather hard to find and a bit on the pricey side. I got mine from Connecting Threads, but your local quilt shop may stock them .

Although I am still a couple of weeks behind, last night I did complete the third week's assignment-so now I am only, what, three weeks behind?! Yikes!

Vintage Thingies Thursday

It's VTT and I don't want to miss out again this week! Don't you miss out on all the other Vintage lovelies, connect with them at Colorado Lady's blog.

Just two photos to show today, the only copies I have of my parent's wedding day pictures, though I know that there are more of the whole wedding party.

Mum was the middle child of nine and the youngest girl-there were five girls in a row then four boys.

She was a very accomplished seamstress even at 24, and made her own wedding gown and veil on a treadle machine.

My grandparents lived just two doors from the family church, there was gasoline rationing and anyway it made no sense to take the car out for a hundred yard drive so the entire wedding party paraded along the road to the little wooden church on the corner, St John the Baptist Anglican Church.

My Dad was in the RAAF [Royal Australian Air Force] and did not know for sure until the last day if he would be able to get leave and then find transportation the thousand miles plus from his base in Queensland to the Sydney suburbs for the wedding ceremony.

When Mum arrived at the altar on my Grandfather's arm my Dad winked at her and said "G'day Toots"!

I asked him why he did that and he said to make her feel better in case she was nervous! He told me that he knew she was the one for him the first moment he saw "that dear little face with the cap of curls"! Obviously I do not much resemble my Mum but have always been told I look just like my Dad!

After the ceremony the entire assemblage walked back around the corner to my grandparents rambling home for the wedding meal. I am sure they managed to provide a delicious spread in spite of war time deprivations, though I am unable to testify to that, I wasn't there and didn't make my debut in the family for another year!

After 60 years of devoted marriage, one month after 9/11, Mum went to be with her Lord whom she loved and served her entire life, and we never thought that my Dad would survive.

Now eight years later at 98 he is still spunky and totally in his right mind but wondering if maybe God has forgotten him! He told me a couple of years ago " You know dear, there's an old lady up there [pointing skywards] that wonders what's taking me so long"!

He goes to her memorial every day, says he's "going to visit my girl", and takes fresh roses a couple of times a week.

God bless him and the lovely lady he married on February 9th, 1942.

PS. Here are Mum and Dad on his 90th. birthday, five months to the day before we lost Mum. She was still a pretty lady!

I miss her too.

Wordless Wednesday

Pillow Is Done Too!

Just finished the pillow from that extra DP.

Now for the quilt binding!

Dresden Plate Client Quilt Is Done!

I have been AWOL for a week from Blogland. It takes me a few days to get back into the city lifestyle, so many distractions- reorganization of everything is an irritating necessity, add church Sunday, the fun of watching baby Matthew Monday, company for dinner another night and the rest of the week mostly quilting. I just haven't taken time to blog.

I took the client's Dresden Quilt off the LA just a short time ago.

Here's a close up of the front.

Feathers seemed a good match for it so that's what it got!

It's about 60x80 so about right for a single bed I think. In hindsight I could have added more muslin to the sides or alternately, set the blocks on point as I will do with my own DP blocks- as soon I get caught up with the SITP project, I am 3 weeks behind!

I have yet to make the pillow out of the odd left over block- that comes after the binding is done then they can be mailed off to the owner, she must be anxious by now to have them back. I have had them for some time, but I had to applique the blocks and sew them together and I kept getting involved in other projects.