Vintage Sheets + One Pattern= Summer Love?

Ok, maybe not Summer LOVE, as in love...
but I love these vintage sheets!
And I love the pattern I have been working on... my special mission
for the Simple Things quilt a-long
with Carol from Brown Quilts and Kelly at
Charming Chatter.
This is what I have done so far.


I thing everything is coming together and this could be a done deal very soon!

I hope to see you tomorrow for Le Petite -parade of quilts!

Not Exactly Mosaic Monday

I played a little bit yesterday...

You know those little tiny bits of scraps that are so precious

and delightful that we hang on to them?

Well, I copied Lori Holt of Bee In My Bonnet and used my

Sew Cherry scraps and some Ruby scraps that were sent to me

to treasure.... and wrapped them around some of my wooden spools.

Now I can really enjoy them!

It was much like another idea I saw on Make Mine Beautiful blog.

Painted wooden spools. I don't think there are any laws against that.

Add some paper and some little jewels and there you have it! Something to remember for Christmas.

Then I played with a little bit of Strawberry Fields...

 

Yummy colors!  But that's all I'm showing for now!

Umbrellas By Moda?

So, yesterday I was looking around on blogs etc.

and somehow I ended up at United Notions (Moda) site.

It has changed/gotten a little makeover. I found all sorts of  fun things to look at and do...

I'm sure you already know that they have the free patterns, and Moda Bingo game as well as

Sudoku. There is also measurement guides, graph paper with Moda logo and

the details on what is freshly delivered and coming to a store near you soon areas!

But these banners caught my eye....

Aren't they cute? 

Fun! 

Just thought I would share all of that. If you haven't been over there lately...

I think you should take a peak!

It has been a whole year since my son got married...

so I thought it was time to take these photos

that were taken of the "bachelor party" hike up to Half Dome in Yosemite.

 

and make them into a pillow for him like I promised! 

 The photo is blurred... or that was how I was seeing things this morning- I'm not sure.

I had made their wedding cake and thought I would make

a topper for them for their anniversary... (they didn't save the cake top)

but the heat has kicked in

and I had to rethink that idea.

I came up with a Plan B.

I had also made a gourmet luncheon for the rehearsal and included individual

handmade cherry pies. These are so fun. You just make the pies and freeze them

and when it you are ready for them just pop them from freezer to oven after taking off the lids.

(For the rehearsal luncheon I put the lids back on so they would transport well.)

Anyway, that was my Plan B... I made up a mini picnic with pies for them to take with them as they head off to the beach for the weekend.

Oh, and I got my borders on my BOM and finished Flurry too...

but that left my hands before I could get a photo of it.

Have a great weekend!

Something New - Simple Things!

I started something new!

I am probably the last one to show my "project start" for

Simple Things quilt along that Kelly from Charming Chatter and Carol at Brown Quilts

started up. But I'm "all in" never-the-less.

I had a hard time deciding between Carol's large version of the quilt

or Kelly's cute little version. I have to be honest... reading the part of how

many 1 1/2" pieces made my brow lift!

  So I looked at the cutting instructions for Carols' Simple Things quilt and thought that the larger one would actually be a little easier/quicker for me.

 I wanted to use my vintage sheet collection for it but in the end I picked my charm packs of Dream On and a small mix of vintage sheets.

And although I am going super size, I stayed with the lighter, brighter colors Kelly at Charming Chatter did hers in and I plan to somehow figure out how to make the border of her smaller quilt on the large quilt.

So, maybe it wasn't the easier route after all.

I also decided to make the flying geese units  my preferred way ...
you know, the easy way! I'm guessing that it won't be any easier than
the way they have instructed but it's my plan and I'm stickin' to it!

So,  you can see that once I committed to the cutting..

. 

I'm hummin' right along now. I'll be caught up with the rest of the group

...soon.

I also got things prepped for my FQS BOM Block 1.

It's just a happy block. I was kind of thinking of making a second block of each block and

have two quilts when I'm done.

I'll have to come back tomorrow to show you the pictures of my weekend projects.

Those photos were blurry.

Mosaic Monday

My recipe for today:
A little of the red, white and blue...


with a pinch of fresh country!

Counting the Days

I don't have anything to do.

Remember when you were a kid?

 Did you ever utter those words?

Well, it's been a long time since I have even had a thought like that.

I can guarantee you I haven't said that since I discovered Block of the Month Clubs!

I am still on a mission to work on BOM's -

like this one that arrived:

and I need to get a grip on the 2010 Designer Mystery Block-of-the-Month as well.

It's kind of fun because it's a Christmas quilt with Kate Spain fabrics.

 I am seeing a lot of finishes out there!

That's always good motivation to work on a project. Thelma's is just beautiful... you have to go check it out at Cupcakes 'n Daises. Sherri, is working on hers here at A Quilting Life is working on hers too. 

At the same time I am making up a shop sample using the

new line of Holiday fabric by Kate Spain: Flurry!

I don't even want to think about how many days there are until Christmas...

 but of course you probably already know that there is 190 days left.

I know, that was just mean.

Sorry, I'm like that though!

So I guess that is how my weekend is going to look.

How about yours?

Oh yeah, and a Father's Day BBQ too!

Sunny Today but a Flurry is Expected

I am blushing regarding the slang term I used in my last post!
I am glad that people were able to get a chuckle out of it...
but really, that's embarrassing!
The temperatures are heating up (and it's not just from me turning red) but I got
to play with Flurry by Kate Spain!

S

This is such a fun Christmas group!

I am going to be making Moda's little freebie pattern with it!

Although I don't think I posted my goals for this month, I have it in my mind to concentrate on finishing up my BOM's. This one here is from the Fat Quarter Shop 2009 Designer Mystery.

It was made with a Christmas line by 3 Sisters, Peace On Earth.

I had stopped at block 10. But I had designed this setting for the blocks and it was ready to go...

 

but I never did #11 or #12. I pulled out the plastic bin that had all the pieces in it...

or so I thought. Twelve was there but Eleven was MIA. But thanks to my bloggy friend Sherri

at A Quilting Life (who also made this quilt) I was able to get the instructions! Thank you Sherri!

I did have to make a 13th block because of the setting but that was no problem. Now all

I have to do is put an outer border on the quilt. I am taking a lesson learned from Carrie Nelson and doing a scrappy border.  This one should be a finish by the end of the week, just in time for the new BOM to start up... the 2011 Designer Mystery Club made with Strawberry Fields! I am loving that group of fabrics by
 Fig Tree & Co. ... so I know it will be a good BOM to do.

I have one more BOM to tackle this month though... it is the BOM that just finished from FQS and

it was with Kate Spain  Christmas fabrics from last year! And if you liked those fabrics... you are really going to like the Flurry group!

Please Excuse My Whining Today

Normally I'm a pretty happy camper... but I feel like "whining" a bit today.
edit: I had
 to change this from the original word...
it wasn't my understanding of the word AT ALL)LOL
I worked on this project last weekend and hope to
finish it up this weekend...

 It was a  project that I started last October and it's been on my design
wall -pretty much ever since then.
I thought, and still think it's an adorable pattern
The question is WHY did it take me so long?
Well, it's because the blocks looked like this:

 

these are the ones I made last October. 

Here is where I start my 

wanking... and it has nothing to do with my toilet backing up this morning while I was washing clothes and doing my dishes, which made me late for work and that's without taking a shower!

Ok, that being said., and the plumber on his way there...

Do you see how the blocks don't look the same?

I had followed the written instructions of what I refer to as a "fill in the blanks" pattern.

But obviously, my results were not the same. I even wrote to the pattern designer and

her response was... "I don't know, I don't have that quilt anymore". Hmmm.

I had to walk away from the project, a little bit bothered now.

So I was ready to approach it again. I looked over the instructions again, which was a free

Moda Bake Shop pattern. In the tutorial pictures you could see that the cut strips that were photographed on the cutting mat were larger than the written instructions.

So maybe it was me... I wasn't expecting "finished" measurements in the cutting instructions.

I got out my seam ripper and unstitched all of the blocks... with the help of DIL, and with the exception of those on the left side of the photo. I tossed those and started new ones.

The time it took me to make this? Probably all of 6 hours on Sunday. That includes the time it took me to fill in the blanks on the rest of the pattern.

End results... I'm happy, I still love the quilt, I still love MBS and the designer too.

I have found errors in dozens of patterns. It's almost expected. It's hard to write patterns and I give those designers my sympathy because that is the worst part of designing.

Usually everyone is really nice about it though.

So what does make a good pattern?

It's probably kind of like Goldy Locks...

not to big, not to small...

Some patterns are crammed packed on a small format...

which I take to the copy machine and enlarge for the sake of my eyes and to help sort it out... sometimes they even have graphics on top of the writing.

Some patterns are on large paper and really don't contain that much information that warrants that large of paper, which drives up the cost of the pattern.

Some patterns are wordy, seriously word-y!

There is one pattern that I made that was 19 pages! I kid you not. It should have been a book... well, later it was made into a book! Ha!

I actually taught it as a class and made a "Cliff Notes" version of the pattern for the ladies.

Ok, I'll stop there... before this post gets too wordy!

Here is a little something else I worked on last weekend... that needs borders now.

So, what do you think makes a good pattern?

See What I'm Staring At...

This week is getting away from me! But, no, I'm not on vacation...
I tried to take pictures of my
project I had been working on from the weekend but
my camera seems to need some battery charging!
So instead and while the batteries are charging, I will show you the photo that is my screen saver
on my computer at work.



I love this photo. I could daydream here all day.
The farthest island in the background is actually Catalina Island off the coast of Southern California.
You might be familiar with that or at least have heard an old song about it.


These are actually taken from an iphone and were sent to me by my coworker.
I work for environmental consultants and some
 of our people had a special mission to do.


Their job was to remove all of the ice plant from the Anacapa Islands
because it was not indigenous to the area.
It's a ruff life.

This is Nathan... he just had removed some fishing line that was tangled up around this seagull.
Then the bird bit his finger!

Highlights of My Presentation

I just wanted to let you know that when I got pulled over the other night...
it wasn't for speeding or anything like that... my tags had expired... but
I had a receipt for the tags in my purse, they just hadn't come through the mail yet.
but it did end the night on a funny note!

Here are some of the quilts that I showed at the local quilt guild.

I don't know who that lady with the mic is!

I even showed some that weren't quilted yet... just keeping it real!

Hope you are having a good weekend!

My Little Story As Featured Quilter

The story begins:

Once upon a time

I thought I would report on how the evening went last night.

I was the guest speaker/featured quilter at the local quilt guild and there were 50

wonderful women there for the show!

I brought in the 40 quilts and nobody seemed to run for the doors!

In fact they look

very happy don't they?

They welcomed me and made me feel like a shinning star...

But here they are again....

even the camera person was falling asleep!
I guess it was all too much for them!
Ok, okay, I'm just kidding...
I asked them pose for me at the beginning!
Willingly, they agreed. They are so funny!
But the night wasn't over yet...
the bright lights were yet to come!
If I had only known....

You see there was this guy....

Oh yes he did!
 He pulled me over on my way home... and it wasn't for an autograph either!
*
*
*
*
*
*
But do you know what happened?
Nothing!
 I didn't get a ticket!
***
And I went on my merry way!
(I'll be back with pictures of the quilts from the little event)

5 Le Petite Winners and 1 "Because"

Well, you know how I have been doing a lot of what I shouldn't be doing and not enough of what I should be doing? That has come back to bite me in the rear a little here!

 I didn't quite finish my Ric Rac to show you today...

because while I was out and about during my lunch time yesterday in my little town,

I ran into a friend who asked me if I was ready for tomorrow night...

(this is where the little light starts to come on inside my head).

" Tomorrow". I say?

You know, you are the featured quilter at the quilt guild tomorrow night, she says!

Wholly moly! I quickly drove up to the quilt shop and pilfered some of my quilts off of the walls and loaded them in my car. When I got home last night, instead of finishing my Le Petite, I started taking quilts off of racks, walls, and going through closets- snatching quilts off of beds, until I thought I had enough for a decent representation... now all I need to do is think about what I am going to talk about!

That shouldn't be too hard, right?

So, while I am thinking of that I will show you my nearly complete Ric Rac:

Le Petite wouldn't be nearly as fun if it wasn't for Carrie Nelson and her Schnibble patterns!

 I hope you like the new project choices for Le Petite! And just an FYI have you been over to Miss Rosie's Quilt Company lately? Have you checked out Carrie's "Stuffus Gratis" section? Well, you know that girl, she is generous to a fault... and there are several patterns over there for free, for you, just to print out!  "thank you Miss Carrie"!

(just putting this picture in for Miss Rosie)

Now for our Moda Bake Shop Candy Bar winners:

Quilt Taffy has a sweet little gift certificate for a winner... which goes to:

LeAnn
(I might add that they have a wonderful sale going on right now too, seriously, a big sale!)

A $15 gift certificate from the fabulous girls at Quilter's Paradise goes to:

Simone

Bear Paw Quilts and More has a very cute little Potholder kit for one of our winners...

and the winner of the kit  is:

Amanda

Congratulations to our winners and a big thank you to our Featured Quilt Shops

who donated prizes for our winners! Please check out their stores...

they do carry the patterns for Le Petite!

Wish me luck tonight!

Do you think 40 is enough???LOL