Purple posies

I quilted the second purple posie quilt tonight. Here are some pictures.





I'm still learning on the quilting, but I'm slowly improving.

My Weekend Fun

Here's a recap of my weekend. I actually started my weekend early as I finished up at work early. I came home and set to work finishing up this quilt top made for my Dad. It is made with flannel charms with trees, camping equipment, bears, etc. Just up Dad's forest service guy alley.



Friday night I cut up a bunch of florals so I could make more blocks for the penny pincher 8 swap. I sewed them together Saturday day, and then watched a movie and worked on the hand sewing part of my brother's Christmas quilt (shhhh Al might hear). Here are the finished blocks for the swap



Today (Sunday) I finished up the last seams on the swap blocks. Then I started playing with the purple posie blocks I won in the July block lotto on about dot com's quilting forum. I added some pretty lavender florals and some lavender tone on tones, and sewed it all together and ended up with this. I hate to do it, but I will give it to Grandma Hamburger for Christmas. She likes purple, we all know that as she has painted Dad's living room purple. technically I guess its her living room too. Anyway, here it is. I like it a lot and will have a hard time giving it up.




I was hoping to start the quilting on the purple posie quilt, but we were hit with a huge thunderstorm, with lighting and hail and the whole bit. So, I decided not to turn the handiquilter on, for fear I would have Janet's bad luck and get hit by lighting, boom there goes the handiquilter computer. (I don't trust the surge protector).



So, instead I sewed a bunch of batting leftovers together to use for Dad's quilt (in true Mr. Depression era Dad fashion, use what ya got theory) Then I started scrounging around for fabric to use on the back of Dad's quilt, and found some great National Park flannel. I pieced this back together. I like it as much as the front, I believe.



Here is a close up of the National Park flannel. Now I know this is nowhere near as impressive as salvaging an entire house worth of wood, and cramming it into your garage for future use, but hey, I didn't go to the fabric store once today to purchase more fabric, and that's using what you got at its finest, even Dad would maybe agree. Okay, he wouldn't but its my best work today.

Don't let the pineapple block get ya down!

Sophie has started a campaign of sorts to collect blocks for our friend Kate, who has recently lost her father. We are going to put together a comfort quilt for her. Kate and Sophie put their heads together and came up with a pineapple block made with browns and tans for the outside rows and centered with a pink block. Sophie referred to this as chocolate covered cherries. We will be using black for the corners of the block. We were given a link to a paper pieced pattern, which of course intimidated me. I ended up having time alone on my hands last night, and decided to try and figure out how to make this block in traditional piecing. I did it! And amazed myself. I took notes and pictures along the way, and Sophie is going to double check it all this weekend, and then we will share with others who are more comfortable with this type of piecing. Here's a picture of the block I made.

Its Fall Y'All

Seems like summer flew by this year. I didn't even go camping once this summer. Disappointing, but we are going Steelhead fishing next month for a week, and that is always fun. Maybe this year I'll actually catch one of those elusive buggers. I got out Mom's fall decorations, specifically the scarecrow, and put it out on the front door. It was there for about 1/2 hour when a big thunderstorm rolled in and I had to bring him back in. I can't get the window on the storm door to shut, and he would have gotten all wet.


I started with the scarecrow, and then ended up re-arranging the living room. I had recently moved to glider rockers from the living room into Nellie's old bedroom (now turned tv room)



Notice the geraniums, I'm hoping not to kill them this winter, and still have them next spring. I'm terrible with plants though, cross your fingers.

Cody's Quilt

Last year when I made Nellie a scrap coin quilt, it was about the same time as we were swapping black and white noodles on the about dot com quilting forum. Cody saw the noodles and thought they would make a cool quilt for him, in the coin style. So, this is his design technically. I finished quilting it last night. I backed it with soft soft black minkee fabric, and didn't use any batting in it. I think it turned out great.



Here is a close up of the quilting:

Another fun Little Quiz from Dez

What color is your soul painted? Blue Your soul is painted the color blue, which embodies the characteristics of peace, patience, understanding, health, tranquility, protection, spiritual awareness, unity, harmony, calmness, coolness, confidence, dependability, loyalty, idealism, tackiness, and wisdom. Blue is the color of the element Water, and is symbolic of the ocean, sleep, twilight, and the sky. Click Here to Take This Quiz

Quizzes and Personality Tests

Christmas Sampler Quilt

Last night I finished the quilting on my Christmas Sampler quilt from the swap last year on Quilt Shoppe Forum. I'm still getting the hang of the quilting itself. I did a stipple in the blocks and sashings, in green and white, respectively. Then did feathers on the borders. I think it turned out okay. I have a long way to go on the learning how to quilt the quilt part though.

They loved it!

Here is a picture of Rachel and Asante with thier welcome to Pocatello quilt.

Happy Scrappy Houses

This morning I quilted up the second quilt top from the Happy Scrappy Houses Swap. This one is going to my niece Rachel and her guy Asante. They moved to my town this week.
Welcome!

It is fire season!

Here is what I see out my back window today.

Yummmmy Pie

Lately in blogger land I've been seeing that someone has been making a lot of yummmy looking pies. There have been peach pies, and chocolate fudge pie (my fav.) something called icebox pie, strawberry rhubarb pie. Elsewhere in blogger land they have been making yummy stew, recipe by George. You get my drift. Beautiful food. I don't eat like that. As I was eating my oh so healthy dinner tonight, I was thinking of those yummmmy pies. Now generally I don't have the watermelon, just the frozen dinner, so truly this was healthier than usual for me. But, as I was eating the "individual size" watermelon, well half of it anyway, I was thinking..... Do watermelon seeds count as a whole grain? Most everyone who knows me well, knows I don't like "green food", I was also wondering...... Does watermelon count as green food? And, just to clarify from the start here. Yes, Stormy I did eat the green beans in that delicious looking frozen dinner by Marie Callendars. Yum! Gotta love Marie Callendars and PIE! LOL

Sixteen Patch Quilt

I finally got around to making the quarter square triangles for this, and sewed it all up today. I will quilt it tomorrow. It will be a gift for Christmas for my father in-law. Thanks Sophie for the help with the qst's earlier. I kept all those e-mails for info., and I like how it turned out.

Spring Fling Sampler

This past spring I participated in a block swap on MSN Quilting Around the World Group. I made 2 flying geese blocks for each participant, and received the rest of these blocks in the swap. I backed it with very soft minkee, and quilted away on it. Its definately not perfect, but for my hmmmmm 4th quilt on the machine, its not bad. I'm planning it as a gift for my ds's girlfriend.



Flower pot up close


close up of border feathers, my first.

Fun cat in the bird house.

Close up of bird.

Matt's Quilt

I have a guy friend, Matt. We've been friends for quite a long time. Matt is the guy who will drive across town to change the lightbulb I can't reach in my stairway. Or prune my tress, cut down dead trees, pretty much anything I need help with, Matt is always there for me. He's been wanting me to make him a quilt for a while, and I've finally finished it today. Here is first a closeup of the quilting. This is the 3rd quilt I've quilted on my new HQ-16. Then there is a picture of the entire quilt. I quilted into it, For Matt from Colene 2007, but was unable to get a good picture of it.

Its Like Magic!

Magically, I found enough time to finish putting this quilt top together today. I love how it turned out. I can hardly wait to get that handi quilter and learn how to finish this quilt.

More flowers, everywhere!

I just can't seem to stop making these little flower blocks. Here are pictures of the last 8 for my lap quilt.

Blue Eyed Grass


Milkwort


Downy Gentian


False Beech Drop


Bouncing Bet


Morning Glory (Can't believe I made one of these despite how they plague my garden)


Wild Rose


Tulip

Can You Say "A"ddicting?

Okay, I never would have thought it possible, but I'm sort of feeling addicted to these little flower blocks. Since this weekend, I've made 3 more. Loving it! Here they are.

Arrowhead


Phlox


Trillium

The "A" Word

I recently purchased a book by Eleanor Burns titled The Magic Vine Quilt. This book is based on newspaper articles published long ago. You can read all about that aspect if you purchase the book. I hadn't attempted the "Applique" as, although, I purchased the book I was quite intimidated by the process. UNTIL........ Sophie posted the July lotto block on the about dot com quilting forum. I tried the applique' flowers for Sophie's lotto, and to my surprise quite enjoyed the experience. That was 8 days ago. Today I made the first flower block from The Magic Vine Quilt book. Here it is. I had fun doing it, and it wasn't as hard as I had imagined it would be.


Its called Evening Primrose

Log Cabin

I had a couple of bins full of fabric strings I didn't use up in the string block swap. I was thinking of throwing them out because they were always telling me to do something with them, but of course, I wasn't motivated to do anything. Just as I was about to throw them out. (I had them bagged up in trash bags) I saw Ami's swap for little log cabin blocks. I thought, hmm perfect chance to try some log cabin blocks. I got cutting and realized I didn't have enough tan or brown strings to play in the swap, but decided to go ahead and use what I had and just not swap them. Here they are on the wall (82 blocks) I need to make 18 more to finish this in the Barn Raising setting.

Women over 40

I received this from an online friend, and had to share.

60 Minutes Correspondent Andy Rooney (CBS)

As I grow in age, I value women over 40 most of all. Here are just a few reasons why:

A woman over 40 will never wake you in the middle of the night and ask, "What are you thinking?" She doesn't care what you think.

If a woman over 40 doesn't want to watch the game, she doesn't sit around whining about it. She does something she wants to do, and it's usually more interesting.

Women over 40 are dignified. They seldom have a screaming match with you at the opera or in the middle of an expensive restaurant. Of course, if you deserve it, they won't hesitate to shoot you if they think they can get away with it.

Older women are generous with praise, often undeserved. They know what it's like to be unappreciated.

Women get psychic as they age. You never have to confess your sins to a woman over 40.

Once you get past a wrinkle or two, a woman over 40 is far sexier than her younger counterpart.

Older women are forthright and honest. They'll tell you right off if you are a jerk if you are acting like one. You don't ever have to wonder where you stand with her.

Yes, we p raise women over 40 for a multitude of reasons. Unfortunately, it's not reciprocal. For every stunning, smart, well-coiffed, hot woman over 40, there is a bald, paunchy relic in yellow pants making a fool of himself with some 22-year old waitress. Ladies, I apologize. For all those men who say, "Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?", here's an update for you. Nowadays 80% of women are against marriage. Why? Because women realize it's not worth buying an entire pig just to get a little sausage!