A 60's Obsession

This is one well used and much loved ruler! As you can see I have florescent tape in a variety of areas marking different cutting lines for a variety of projects. I have been having a 60's obsession! Actually I am stealing that line from Heather Mulder-Peterson's new book which is titled: Sizzlin' Sixties. Her quilt patterns in this book uses the 60 degree ruler. Easy peasie... I'm telling you! No Y seams are needed for any of these quilts.









This is a photo of a pattern called Twist & Turn by Laundry Basket quilts. I did this pattern using an assortment of Fig Tree fabrics. I also taught a couple of classes in this and there was a variety of fabrics people used from 1800's to Batiks. They all looked amazing. My quilt is with son #1 in Chico. Sorry I don't have a photo of it. Thanks Edyta from Laundry Basket for the picture.

I have showed this one before... no, it's still not quilted. But, I wanted you to see what you could do with the same ruler. This is an American Jane pattern: Triple Crown.

I had shown this one a couple of weeks ago also. This is called Wee Spin but Merry Go Round looks about the same, which was in McCalls Quilting magazine last fall. Most of these can be made with jelly rolls also. (woohoo!)

Here are a few other things you can do with the same ruler. I have had a lot of fun with this. The quilt here is still in strips- I haven't sewn the rows together yet. I'm sure you have seen other quilts from the One Block Wonder books. They just use one fabric. I know the idea is similar to stack and wack, but (in my opinion) a 100 times better. If you click on the photo to enlarge it you can see the strips and how it goes together without the Y seams.

Here is a couple of pictures of another one I did. It's the "basis" style. The one above is using a couple extra techniques. I am really looking forward to getting my hands on the Sizzlin' Sixties book and playing with the more traditional blocks some more!

Until then I might just play with the Dresden block a little. I have seen some of those done at V & Co. and at A Quilting Life. (I haven't figured out how to link those yet... please help me if you can). Edyta has a pattern that is a variation of the Dresden also, called Dresden Star, you can see it on her web site.

Thanks for stopping by and visiting with me. I enjoy your comments!

Aprons & Quilts

Boy did I ever get lost last week! I came down with a mega migraine! It can really spoil a day (or two). Fortunately by Saturday I had re-cooped. It was Mr. B's birthday! Woohoo! Guess who can retire now!!! Uh, no, it's not me. Guess again:)
We met up with some of our kids and a few who might as well be our kids (they acted as stand-ins for the boys who couldn't be home) and had lunch at Bass Lake. Some of those boys had been fishing since early morning, thus "the look".

Notice the hat is traveling! It's nice to share the Mother's Day weekend with my DH! We took turns getting spoiled.

I hope everyone had a great Mother's Day! Last year we celebrated in Hawaii with my mom, who goes there every year. That was really special. It was my first time in Maui. Certainly not the first time for my DH. So I got to be the tourist with lots of Maui savvy people around me.

The downfall was that we were not with our kids!

Today is National Wear Your Apron Day, so I thought I would share a few photos of aprons with you. I love the little vintage fabric on this one and the ric rac on it.

See the little panels on the side? They have built in little pockets!

I wanted to show you another quilt that is hanging at Cottage Quilts for an upcoming class. This is Sweet Dreams by Heather Mulder Peterson. I like the way this one turned out. Very nostalgic, it reminds me of grandma's hankies.

I have returned to this quilt. I am tempted to be lazy and just put on the borders but I thought I would show it to you and how it is suppose to look. See the adorable border? I have all the pieces ready to fuse on but I am dreading stitching around the edges of all those leaves and flowers. What do you think? I am open to suggestions.

Pictures are Proof

I am back with the proof today! I have my camera and I have my cord... I am armed and dangerous! First of all I can show my pots that I planted very early on Sunday morning. The sun was barely up. It had rained all night, so I took my opportunity and was able to add a little color to the front porch.

I needed to put sleeves on the back of my quilts that are going to be in the local quilt show in a couple of... ooops, scratch that thought, the quilt show will be here the weekend after this one. On May 16th & 17th. Yikes. So back to the mission of putting on sleeves. I was checking out quilts I have here and there in the house so that I can steal a sleeve from one to put on the other. I know that is a bit lazy but really, I don't need the sleeves on the quilt after they are shown. So that's the plan. I showed you the quilts that will be entered into the show a couple weeks ago now, so the quilts you see are the ones that I am stealing sleeves from.

I pulled this one out but I thought that I had better just leave it one alone because it needs to go for a ride to Cottage Quilts in Fresno. I am going to teach a class there this summer for this quilt called Christmas Heart Lights. It's about 70" square. I have some other classes that will be coming up at Cottage Quilts. I will take some photos of those and show them to you soon.

This is a quilt that I did several years back for a Moda challenge. It won locally but it didn't hit the big time. I am taking the sleeve off of this one.

The sleeve is coming off of this one also. I made it for one of my sons when he was graduating
high school. It just came back home for safe keeping because this son (#2) just went to go live at the barracks. It is almost the start of fire season. He is a wildlands firefighter. A Hotshot. So he is starting along with the other guys to gear up. This year, his twin (son #3) will not be with him. #3 has decided to stay in college. Anyway, this quilt was one of my beginning quilts. It's fun to see it again.

I tried to take photos of the lap robe for the Dressage (horse carriage) compitition but it's just black on black so it didn't turn out well.

Remember the quilt I showed last week made from the Wonderland line? A flash of the quilt came to me about 4:00 in the morning and then another flash of some fabric on my cutting table. As soon as I got out of bed this morning I went to see if my suspisions were true and sure enough... I had forgotten to put the outside border on the quilt... and there it was all pinned and ready to quilt! Argg! So I am going to have to back track a little and unpin the quilt top and get that border on it. Darn it. I got ahead of myself there!

Can You Feel The Heat

Can you feel the heat... and I don't really mean the weather! This wonderful little box came in the mail yesterday! I now have my secret assignment for Spring Market! The heat is on... but I'm up for the challenge! I can't wait to let you know what it is... but for now, it's underwraps!

Here is a photo of the Lupines I have at the begining of our driveway. MyDH & DS (#2) went out yesterday and cut the lawn and did weedeating but saved the beautiful lupines for me! DS said he was going to cut them into a heart shape (but didn't)... isn't that sweet though? So, Happy Earth Day!

I just found out that Amy over at Park City Girl is holding the 1st annual Bloggers Quilt Fest! How cool is that? There has been over 100 entries per day getting added into the festival. Today the number is in the mid 500's. So, I took a photo of one of my quilt to enter...

What I remember most about making this quilt is that I was rushing to get the border and binding on it. I didn't like the black & white toile very much with the blocks, so I tea dyed the fabric and it turned out pretty good. But when I went to add the binding it was to bold... so again, a quick tea bath! I was in such a hurry that I had to dry the fabric while I was in the car with the heater on full blast and the fabric blowing around in front of the vents! But it dried, I got that binding made and on the quilt that day! I have been tempted to send it to my husbands heart surgeon on the anniversary of his surgery! That man not only saved my husband (twice, I might add) but he also saved all of our hearts too. What do you think?