Christmas presents

 I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. We had a great day, but we wish you all were here. This picture above is a wall hanging I made for my mom. It is about 9" by 12". ( I made one for myself too). It is kind of country folksy with a lot of hand stitching.
 The quilt below is a quilt I fell in love with in a magazine(McCall's Quick Quilts) and another blog, Jaybird Quilts. It is called Julie's Snuggler. It is about 54" square. Remember a few posts ago? I showed you a quilt that was a surprise for someone. That one, the Whiligig, was for Baylee and this one was for Hannah. This is made from a jelly roll. A jelly roll is made up of strips of fabric that are 2 1/2".

 I layered the backing, batting, the cream fabric, then weaved the strips on top. Then I sewed straight lines about 1/4" on each side of the strips. I then added the border and straight stitched a couple of lines. I made the binding with several different strips from the jelly roll.

This is a doll quilt I made for Malaya. It is called the Sudoko quilt. If you study it there are nine fabrics. And just like the puzzle each of the nine fabrics are use only once in the horizontal and  vertical rows and the square blocks.

These are the chalkboard mats I made for the older grandkids. They are made so you can roll them up to store or carry them around.

It's so fun making things. Now I get to start on next year. As soon as I finish Bryan's late birthday quilt.

Now on to the quilty stuff

I am itching to post the pictures of the Christmas presents I've made, but a few more days so I don't spoil the surprises. I have had this done for awhile but hadn't taken a picture of it. I made this for Ethan.

 I should have taken a close up of the inspiration fabric. The five blocks in the middle that are in the x have US Air Force planes. I picked the block pattern because it reminded me of a window and I thought it would look like the airplanes were flying out the window. But alas, I cut the fabric wrong and some of them are flying sideways. I only had 2 fat quarters of the fabric. Ethan helped me pick out the other fabrics.

 It is very hard to see, but I quilted stars in the 3 small squares within the block and on the border top and bottom. The side borders I quilted with a slanted line about 1-2" apart.

This is the back of the quilt.
Merry Christmas everyone. Have a wonderful day.

The Pizza

OK, You know that Dave loves pizza. He could eat it 3 times a day for months and not get tired of it. If I ask him what he'd like for dinner the answer is always 'Pizza'. So here is the pizza we got last weekend. It is hard to get enough pizza now that Matt is home and Ethan is shoveling it down too.

It was 29". We had to put it in the trunk to bring it home. Enough said.

Well I have been so busy getting all the Christmas presents done and bought and wrapped and sent out that I haven't been good at posting my projects. So tonight I will show you one thing that I've been waiting to show. This is the first quilt top that I pieced after the Christmas tree quilt. I saw the whirligig block and liked it so much that I wanted to use it. I couldn't really find a pattern for it so I just figured out the ratio for cutting it. I used a charm pack, which is a package of precut 5" squares. I finished the top in the spring sometime and it just sat there for a long time because of my bad experience of free motion quilting with my home sewing machine. I wanted to use the long arm to quilt it. The summer came and went and it was finally Oct. when I set up a time with Chris for her to show me how to use "Sally" (her long arm machine she rents out). I forgot to get a picture of me using the machine, but I'll try to remember next time.

I don't know if you can see it in the picture, but I used a variegated thread (multi-colored). It was so fun to quilt. And so much faster and easier than on the home machine. I will let you know the owner of this quilt after Christmas.  That's all for now, because I can't give anything else away before Christmas.

The cruise and other stuff

We went on a 2 1/2 day cruise after Thanksgiving. It was a surprise for Dave's moms 80th birthday. She was very surprise when we showed up and then Charles and his family showed up in the dining room the first evening. She had tears in her eyes and was very touched. We had lots of fun. We ate so much food and saw some beautiful islands. Here are some pics.

 This is as we are leave the port in Florida.

 Me, Peggy and Aunt Doris on a carriage ride around Nassau, Bahamas.

 Dave and I relaxing on the boat.

 All of us having fun Sunday afternoon before dinner.

 Dan, Peggy, Dave and Charles. I am hoping someone else snapped a better picture. Mine didn't turn out to well.

 We flew in on Thurs. night, so we got to have brunch with Izzy and Mark. We were so glad to see them. And this last picture is the wild and crazy vacation fun I had. Although I could only stand it for about 6 hours if that. The Bahama ladies wait for unsuspecting tourists off the cruise ships!

Now I have to go back to work on Christmas presents. We put up our tree last night. It took us about 20 minutes from the time we left the house until we were back in the truck with the tree. Very decisive this year. We miss everyone and wish you all were coming here for Christmas.

Finally some finishes

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!!  I am so thankful for all my family. Love you all.

Ok, I've gotten Malaya's  present done, but no picture. And Jonas, Brynnan and Jesse's done but no pictures. I can't give them away.

Here is a picture on the lap quilt I made for Grandma Peggy. (Surprise for her birthday, Don't give it away!)

I just decided to make this for her 80th birthday in Oct. So I was scrambling to find some fabric out of what I already had. It is hard to tell from the pictures but this is a royal blue and coordinating floral prints. I had found this block pattern on a blog and had just drawn it on a sticky note on my desk. I really wanted to try it so that is how this quilt came to be. The back is a minky fabric, which is so soft and lux. (kind of like soft fur) With the minky, the quilt did not need batting. Also she lives in Florida, the minky is heavy enough. I straight stitched it using my walking foot. Really simple, but it turned out great.

This is so Fun, Fun, Fun. More finishes after I get back from holiday.

The creative space!

I have been working hard on some projects, but haven't had a lot of pictures, so in the interim here are a few of my sewing space. It is in the corner of the family room between the computer and the TV.

It is really messy because there are so many projects going on. Can you see the sticky notes on the top of the bookcase (that I got at a garage sale for $5, btw)? Those are the lists of everything I have in progress. And I have many more in my head. The white felt hanging on the back wall is my design wall. I hang my blocks up to see how the look and to work on the arrangement and keep them in order.

 This is a stack of tops and bottoms that are waiting to be quilted. On Tuesday I had my first lesson on Sally. More on that later, waiting on pictures.

This is the start of my stash of fabric. Not a lot but it's growing.

And last but not least is a sneak peak of the quilt I made for Grandma Peggy for her 80th birthday. I actually finished it Monday night, but don't have a picture yet.

Enjoy Life.

filler

I have been working on some things. Several WIPs. But I don't have anything finished or any pics. So you get Ethan info. He just finished up a great cross country season. Here are a few pics that Matt took at the last home meet.









When I clocked him he ran 1.8 miles in 12:02 minutes. He didn't believe me.
And just one more picture of when we picked Matt up at the airport.

Enjoy, I am back to sewing or cutting or designing presents or something.

More small projects

Here are a couple of small projects that I've done in the past little while.

This is a tote bag that I made for my primary stuff. I changed the pattern a little bit and it turn out huge. But I love the fabrics. It is a simple patchwork block and then quilted diagonally with a straight stitch.

So far this wallhanging is my favorite thing I've pieced and quilted. Do you see the green square with the red applique in the middle? I found that at the thrift shop on base for $4. I knew I could use it and snatched it up. It just grew from there. Most of the fabric were small pieces and scraps that I had and my friend had a few matching fabric scraps that helped pull it together. It is 20 1/2 inches square. I have it hanging on the wall going up the stairs.

Have a happy day.

pink and more pink, then more blue

OK, I think I am almost caught up with the quilts that are completely finished. I have many tops that are waiting to be quilted. I am going to learn how to use Chris's (my neighbor that has the quilt shop in her basement) long arm machine. It's just a matter of me getting ready and our schedules meshing.

Here is the quilt I made for Malaya. It was so exciting to finally have a girl to make something for. I don't particularly like the color pink, but I wanted to use it for her. As I was making the quilt, it kept getting pinker and pinker. Plus instead of just binding it I put a ruffle on it. I wish I had taken a picture of the back. Of this one and all of them. One of the first things my quilting friends told me was that I needed to put a label on the back of the quilt with my name and the date.

This is the quilt that I made for Tinian. This one changed as I was making it also. It is made out of flannel and is really cuddly. I wanted to use the green with orange circles and decide to applique them on the dark blue, but leaving the edges raw. I straight stitched the middle and quilted the circles around the borders to coordinate with the appliqued circles. Do you see the label on the back of this one?

Grandson visit and spoiler alert

Joseph, my grandson, came to visit in Sept. (Justine came too.) Here are a few pictures. He looks just like Justine.

 The one below is Ethan and the note that Joseph left for him on the chalkboard. Ethan loves being an uncle.

 Here he is in what Justine calls his old man PJ's.

He is a fun and a very happy and content baby. He was so on the verge of walking. I love being a grandma.

Now for the spoiler alert. Stop here if you don't want to see part of a hint of future Christmas presents for the older grandkids.

A few more

Well, I've had a few questions about the nicknames and Ethan doesn't like his so I will use real names from now on. By the way, HH is hunky husband, of course.

 This is a lap quilt I made this spring. I think I finished in May.The pattern is called New Wave. I got the pattern on one of the quilting blogs that I read. I love the fabrics and I quilted it using a straight stitch with a walking foot. I gave it to my mom for her birthday.

This is a wall hanging I made in July. I found the pattern for the star online and then I design the surrounding blocks. It is about 13 x 22. And right now I have it on the back of our living room couch. It quilted it using a walking foot with wavy line going horizontal across.

Now some of you might be asking yourselves, what is a walking foot. It is an foot attachment on the sewing machine that pulls the fabric on the bottom and the top in the same uniform speed so that one doesn't bunch up. Amazing right. My friend Vivian is letting me borrow hers. I am enjoying using it but sooner or later I will need to buy one.

Stay tuned, next will be Malaya's quilt. I need help from Matt to fix the picture!!!!!!

Sew, this is meant to be a blog about my learning to quilt so I'd better get on with it. This is a picture of me with my first pieced baby quilt I made and machine quilted using a straight stitch. I made it for my grandson Jacob in January. Quilting has always been in my mind as something I wanted to learn since I was a teenager learning to sew. But I always thought it would be later, when I got older and less busy. Well I'm older and we can argue about the less busy part. When we moved here last year it was to the perfect place because my neighbor happens to have a quilt shop in her basement and the rest is history. I am hooked or should I say pinned. I started going over while everyone else were quilting and I would work on the quiet books that I was making for my grandkids last Christmas. Then my neighbor had a class to learn to make a top for a Christmas quilt. This is the top we made.

I finally finished piecing it in Feb. and then in May I free motion quilted it. That was hard and I am not very good at it. At some point I will try it again. That's all for now. More to come.

The big E's CC meet

The big E had a CC meet at home yesterday. Bottomless and I got there just as the girls started their race. I was frantically calling HH to see if he was going to make it but couldn't get a hold of him. So the big E's race started and he was doing great. After we saw him go by us we moved over to the finish line so we could see him finish up the race. Bottomless yelled there he is about 50 yards out and then as I see him I hear HH voice behind me cheering him on, so he made it to see the big E finish a great race. The first 7th grader(from his school) to cross the finish line. Wish I had a picture.

Do you believe it?

Well, I've finally done it. Here is my new blog. Now I just have to have something to say. This is going to be just me rambling for awhile until I get a feel for it. I will be letting you know what I am working on in the quilting and sewing area, which is my new excitement, with a little of our daily stuff that is going on because the big E wants me to blog about him of course!