Tuesday, June 30, 2015

RANDOM SEWING, ETC.

 I bought these blue triangles at a garage sale for $1.00 back when I lived in Texas and decided to finally get them sewn up.  There was some white fabric with them, but not enough, so I found some other white on white to finish them.




There are about 60 HSTs in this batch.  I'm sure I will find a way to use them one of these days!

A friend of mine gave me a ticket to the garden club tour of 5 beautiful yards.  I went on Sunday and took a few pictures.  Remember, these are pictures of garden club members - not my yard.  These 3 pictures were taken with my cell phone, so they aren't real sharp.

These poppies are huge!

Beautiful hydrangea bush!

Fairy garden


OK - here is a picture of a tiny section of my flower garden.  The Calla Lily just came up while we were away and now has one little flower!  Woo Hoo!


Little by little, I'm getting my yard in shape.  When we moved in, it didn't have a lot of things in it except some huge, ugly bushes.  I dug 2 of them out and I've been putting in flowers as I come across things I like.  

Saturday, June 27, 2015

LONG WEEK

The reason the week has seemed extra long is because I have been working on the garage sale fund raiser at my church - it raises funds for the women's ministry.  First it was taking in all the donations, then pricing and arranging and then yesterday was the first day (very successful).  Today is the final day.  We are all very tired!

I finished quilting this baby quilt earlier this week.  The blocks are from my guild in Texas.  Before I moved, I had signed up for a "block of the month" where each month you make an assigned block.  Then you turn it in.  There are 12 people in each group and at the end of the year you have 12 sets of blocks with different themes.  Then you draw and everyone gets one set.  Since we moved in the middle of the year, I mailed mine in for June through December and my name drew the baby blocks.  I think they turned out very cute.


I wasn't sure how I was going to quilt it and after quilting one block (top right) I decided I didn't like that quilting, so I changed it to the lines.  I didn't mark anything, except the 2 lines in the rectangles that form a "V" and I marked that with a hepa marker.  The top right block might just stay the way it is, but I am thinking about taking out the quilting and making it like the rest.


This is the end of my cow fabric.  I had bought it at a garage sale and used it to back several  baby quilts.


I think it might take me another week to recuperate from the garage sale!  I'll be happy to get back to having more time to sew.

Thursday, June 18, 2015

LOG CABIN TOP FINISHED

This morning I finished piecing my log cabin quilt top!  The inspiration for this quilt was my visit to a quilt shop Barrington, IL with Beth.  Here's my post about that visit.  Scroll down about half way to see the quilt in their shop.  I'm not sure exactly when I started it, but it may have been later in that year - 2011.  I worked on these blocks a lot while we traveled with our 5th wheel.

Here it is kind of spread out on our patio table & chairs.




It measures about 85" x 95".


I will get some batting and hope to get it basted soon along with another queen size quilt to I can get busy quilting both of them.  I'm starting to see some progress with my UFOs!!!

Happy quilting!

Tuesday, June 16, 2015

CRAFT PROJECT

Need any matches?  I just emptied two of these boxes of matches so I could make fairy beds.  Yes,  I said fairy beds.  Warning:  no quilty pictures in this post.


Here's the story.  My 6 year old granddaughter, Abby, has a fairy house that DS helped her make.  The problem is, there aren't any fairies living in it.  While visiting them, I just happened to see a youtube video on how to make fairies and told my DIL that I might make them.  In fact I looked for the supplies while I was there, but didn't find them.

These are the fairy dolls I made for Abby.



Next, I made a tiny mattress and pillow for each "bed."  They had to be rather flat or the "bed" wouldn't close.  My oldest GD helped me by covering the inside of the bed as well as the outside with pretty paper and gluing the buttons on.




Here's the outside of the match boxes covered with pretty paper and decorated with buttons (from my vast collection).



The fairy just fits in the match box bed.


Here are both of them in their "beds."  I hope Abby likes them.


Yesterday I finally got back to getting my log cabin quilt put together.  I want to get it finished!  

Thursday, June 11, 2015

THIS AND THAT!

We are home from our trip now!  We were gone a little longer than we had planned, but had a wonderful visit with sons, DILs and grandkids.  We helped one GS celebrate his birthday.  My DIL is an expert at decorating cupcakes.  He wanted ninja cupcakes and you can see them below.



For his birthday, my 7 year old GS got to pick what he wanted for supper.  The picture is below:  Rice, Salmon and grapes.


I took better pictures of my DJ blocks after I pressed and trimmed them.

D-8

D-3

C-9

C-6

E-1

E-10

E-2
I had prepared some easy appliqué for the trip, so now that I am home,  I better get going on some of the PP blocks.

When I participated in Julie's Binding Blitz for the end of May, I was selected as the winner for that month (random drawing).  She sent me these FQs, 2 half yard pieces  and I think the polka dot is a fat 8th.  These are wonderful and are fabrics that I don't have (except I used to have the polka dot).  Thanks so much, Julie!



It's SOOOOO good to be home again!  Our bed always feels so great after a trip - I think we could do commercials for Temperpedic.  Now I just have to get everything put away so I can start using my sewing machine more.  I really missed it while I was gone.  

Saturday, June 6, 2015

FAMILY VISIT AND A LITTLE HAND SEWING

We're in Florida right now and have been enjoying our time with GD Abby.  She even got me in the swimming pool a few times.


She likes to play with her dolls who like her tea parties.


We picked blueberries and then made BB pancakes, BB muffins (put in freezer) and BB cobbler.


I managed to get a few more DJ blocks stitched.  BTW, they are on top of a quilt I made several years ago for DS#2 and DIL.  I have 2 more DJ blocks left to do and then all the blocks I prepped for the trip will be finished.


We will have one more stop on our trip of family visits and I am looking forward to getting home.