I'm excited about the coming year and the quilting projects I have planned.  I have recently become interested in Zentangling.  I haven't learned much about it, but I already love it.  You can read more at http://www.zentangle.com/  Here is my tribute to the year 2012.  Can you see 2012 in there?  It's being celebrated all over the world.

And here are some of my first effotts. My favorite is the last one.

 

I'm busy today finishing some quilting and working on a crazy quilt patch.                                                     

Be happy and keep quilting.                                                                                                                        

Quilting inspiration

Happy New Year!  Christmas was great here.  Hope everyone had lots of fun, family, good food, etc.  Now its time to get back into the swing of things.  I have lots of projects planned for the year ahead.  First, I signed up for the Crazy Quilt Journal Project challenge at cqjp.org. I'm not cheating, but I already have some blocks started that I can use.  I'll share pictures later. 

These potholders and oven mit were a Christmas gift from my sister.  She is amazing.  She told me that she made about 26 sets for gifts for family and friends.  This original design is called Four Seasons Moon.  Now I will tell you that last summer on her vacation from teaching school, Carol Ann fell and broke both of her arms.  She has had a very long recovery and when her insurance would no longer pay for physical therapy, she took on this project to help herself get back the use of her arms and hands.  A lot of her work during this time was hand sewing and she is now hand quilting a wall hanging for her physical therapist.  I am counting my blessings and being inspired by her. 

Be happy and keep quilting.

Christmas really is coming.  I have things to finish, shopping to do, parties to go to.  Its a busy life, so I have nothing to show this time but my little tree.  Its not fancy, but it holds a lot of memories of people and places, so it is precious to me.  Hope you are having a great holiday time.

Keep quilting and keep happy.

I have a start on Christmas gifts for friends and neighbors.  These potholders are fast.  I'm sure I can get many more done. 

Last night was the first guild party of the season.  Good friends, food, entertainment and gifts made for a very fun night.  This is a creative guild, not just for quilters.  This is also a small glimpse of the quilt store where I work. 

This knitted dishcloth was the gift I got.  We exchanged gifts we had made.  Jess is such a good knitter.  She makes beautiful scarves too.

 This is the gift I gave, along with a promise for needle tatting lessons. 

A lot of members were talking about the new Bernina machines we got to try out this week.  Some of us went to an event where we got to try three new machines, including embroidery.  They were all on sale at really great prices, but I still couldn't have one right now.  Oh well, I keep sewing and creating with what I have.  I just had fun seeing something new and I have a $20 gift card I can spend on fabric. 

Its so cold.  I think I will bind a quilt or work on a rug that will keep me warm while I work.  Have a great weekend and keep quilting.

Vote and Give Away

Please go to http://quiltinggallery.com/ starting tomorrow and vote for my Oh My Stars Quilt in the Weekly Contest section.    Also I am including a give-away in their Quilting Blog Hop Party.  It goes from Dec. 9 thru 17th.  I'm giving away five "Christmas Melody" fat quaraters. You can register for a chance to win by leaving a comment with your email address here.  Become a follower of Mamabill Quilts for a second chance to win.

 I'm getting excited for Christmas.  How about you?

Stay tuned for more later about parties, guilds, etc.

Here it is--my Itty Bitty Primitive Pinwheels quilt.  It was so fun!  I want to make more.  You can get the pattern and tool at http://www.primitivegatherings.us/.  It really isn't hard to make.

I got my Grandmother's Nine Patch quilted with a cute allover floral pattern.  Jennifer, my zospecial.wordpress.com daughter, helped me tweak the pattern so it slowed better. 

I'm progressing on my medallion and BOM quilts for two guilds, which both met in the last week.  Isn't is always enjoyable to quilt with friends? 

The turkey is thawing and the groceries are bought.  Tomorrow will be a wonderful day of cooking and eating and enjoying family, for which I am so thankful.  Hope you have a warm and Happy Thanksgiving.

Remember that mess from several weeks ago?  I finished a rug with that basketfull of strips.  Its a bit smaller than some I have made, but I ran out of the rust colored fabric. From here--

to here--

took some work.  I have already started the next one.

I'm working on a miniature quilt made with the itty bitty twister template and I will show it to you as soon as it gets quilted.  The finished squares are 1".  I might make a bunch of these.  It was fun.

I have started on hot pads for Christmas gifts.  I learned a new way to make half square triangles at missouristarquilting.com.

You sew a 1/4" seam all around two charm squares that are right sides together.

Then you cut from corner to corner both ways and you have four perfect half square triangles.  I hope to get a lot of these done to give at guilds, clubs, etc.

Have fun sewing this week and plan some great Christmas projects.

Snowing, sewing, fabric and fun.

Winter weather is here and I wasn't ready for it yet.  Oh well, its a great time to spend lots of days quilting. 

I finished this quilt top and I don't even have a name for it.  I do know that when it is quilted and bound, it is going on my bed.  It is actually a quilt pattern I dreamed one night not so long ago.

I'm excited to dream up something to make with these gorgeous fat quarters that my bosses brought back as a gift from quilt market.  They are great to work for at Suppose.

Thursday evening was a guild night and I won these fat quarters for taking show and tell.  They are just going in my fat quarter stash for now. 

Saturday night was reserved for good food and friends. I even got my dinner on a purple platter.  Makes me hungry all over again. 

After a restful Sunday, I am ready to jump in and work hard for another week.  Thats what I like about Mondays.  It feels like starting all over again with a clean slate.  I guess its time to get started on hand made gifts for Christmas.  I hope you have lots of good ideas and plenty of friends and family to share them with.

Have a good week.  Keep sewing and smiling.



November Already?

I missed Monday, but I hope you had a great Halloween.  I spent it with a cute witch (Jennifer) and a ladybug dog (Tinkerbell) and Clayton.  Also had a good week quilting and other things.

Just so you know I have something in my life besides quilting, Sunday I helped to welcome home our West Side Girls volleyball team.  

About fifty cars met them and followed them for the last ten miles of their trip.  We had a fire truch with lights in the lead and lots of honking and waving by people along the way.  There were even fireworks as they got  to the school.  It was lots of fun.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

Courtney (in the white shirt) is my granddaughter.  She was their stats keep this season. 

Congratulations West Side girls.

Now for sewing from the last week.  I finished a star made with no diamonds or set in squares or triangles.  The book is "One Star Quilts by Magic".  Its great.  I want to make another.

This is a Legling.  It is always happy and will keep all your secrets.  It will be your best friend and you don't even need to feed it.

Have a good week and be happy.

Happy Monday Again

The last week was a guild week.  Monday was Quilters Anonymous, where I am working on a block of the month.  This quilt will be a long time in the making.  Pix will come later when there is more to see.  Ditto for the medallion quilt at Suppose Creative Guild.  Its just fun to get together with friends and sew. 

I have been to events with daughter, Jennifer.  We wore witch hats last Friday evening to get a bigger discount at Ghouls Night Out.  Food, make 'n take, halloween  ideas and lots of friends were what made it a fun evening. 

Today Jennifer and I went to a Nancy Halversen trunk show.  She is a delightful lady.  When I asked how she accomplishes so much in the same 24 hours that I have, she replied, "I don't sleep much."  Is that a tip for success in any endeavor?  I think I will stay up late.

This is a nine patch quilt I finished piecing this week.  I pieced a back from scraps, so I won't even need to buy extra fabric.  I will quilt it when its my turn on the midarm machine.  I call it Grandmother's Nine Patch.  It is done in 1930's fabric.  My grandmother would have been in her thirties in 1930.  I see a mistake in this photo, but it was just on the design wall.  I actually pieced it correctly. 

I got out a project a couple of weeks ago that I may be working on for the rest of my life.  Every now and then it gets put away for a while.  This is just a small section of some finished blocks.

These are blocks I have been working on recently and one of my boxes of crazy quilt doo dads.

 This is my alltime favorite block because of the beaded vine on the pink fabric.

This crazy quilt contains everything imaginable--buttons, charms, ribbon embroidery, tatting, crocheting, fabric labels, fabric from ties, beads, ric rac, lace.  Here is where my imaginataion can run free. 

Thats probably enough for now.  I hope you are loving all the projects you do and plan to do.  Have a wonderful quilting week.

Another Monday

Last week it was my turn to use my midarm quilting machine.  I quilted a top that has been waiting for several years.  Its fun to have it done, but I can surely tell that I have improved at piecing.  If you look closely, you will see that several star points are lost.  I hope I wouldn't let that happen now.  The quilt's name is Oh My Stars.
                 

                                                 
Here is a detail of the quilting.

I gave a demonstration on rotary cutting to some brand new quilters (and some not so new) at a brand new quilt guild called Quilters Anonymous today.  It's always good to be reminded of basics.

Line folded fabric up with a horizontal line on your cutting mat.  The folded side should be towards your body with selvedge edges at the top away from your body.

With fabric to the left for right handers, place ruler on a line on your mat, matching top and bottom on the same line and cut with rotary cutter to square the end of the fabric. This insures that your strips will be straight when you unfold them.

Placing your index finger on the grooves on the top of your cutter handle will give you better control of your rotary cutter. Always cut away from your body and never saw back and forth with your cutter.

To control your ruler better, place one or two fingers of your left hand off the ruler and hold ruler in place with fingertips, not the flat of your hand.

With fabric to your right, align a horizontal ruler line on the bottom fold of the fabric and a vertical ruler line (in this case 2 1/2") along left edge of fabric.  Then make a cut from bottom to top through all layers of fabric.
Remember to be safe and always lock your blade when not in use.                                 

Still here

I'm still alive and quilting.  I just need to be more diligent at blogging.  Maybe I will try once a week.  Let's say Monday. 

So, I got the Jason Yenter quilt bound and it is hanging in the window at Suppose.http://www.supposecreatedelight.com/

I have done some work on the Farmer's Wife Quilt and posted photos on their Flicker group. Am I too ambitious because I am trying to make two of them at once?  I love the Kaffe blocks, but the scrappy ones are fun too.

The toothbrush rug and the blue and black reverse applique blocks are coming along, but no pictures this week.

I wish you a lovely fall week and lots of success in all your quilting projects.  I will check in again next Monday.

Protecting my investment

When was the last time you cleaned your sewing machine?  One of my most-used tools is a one-inch paint brush I bought at the variety store.  Everytime I have to fill my bobbin, I brush out all the lint.  Today, I removed the plate and took everything apart to clean more thoroughly.  Its amazing how much lint gets in there.  I put in a new needle too.  They are so inexpensive, we should all change needles more often.  Have you read your machine's manual to see if you need to add a drop of oil anywhere. 

It's just no fun to have your machine not working, so take a little time now to do some routine maintenance.  Keep sewing and keep happy.

What's This Mess?

Its a basket full of torn fabric just waiting for me to start a new toothbrush rug.  Yep, its another thing I love to do with fabric. 

This is a finished one with a diameter of about three feet.  It takes almost ten yards of fabric.

 Let's see if I can finish this one in the next couple of weeks.

Portneuf Valley Quilt Guild

What a delightful group of quilters.  We had a great day Saturday learning to make Cathedral Windows blocks.  Not too many quilters get excited about making a whole quilt by hand, but the sewing machine and the totally fake method get some people hooked.  Thanks for inviting me.

Cathedral Windows Tutorial

OK, here are the instructions I promised.  This is the one most people like because it goes faster than hand sewing. 
1.  Cut four 7 1/2" muslin squares.
2.  Fold each square in half and stitch a 1/4" seam, from the folded to the raw edge on one side of the rectangle and from the raw edge to the folded edge on the other side.


2.  Trim corners of stitched rectangles.

3.  Fold the seamed edge of each rectangle to meet the opposite seamed edge, right sides together.  Place a pin where the seamlines meet.

4.  Stitch the folded-upon-itself rectangle, leaving a 1" opening for turning.

5.  Taking care not to stretch and distort the fabric, turn the square inside out, shaping and sharpening the corners.  Press the square carefully since the straight edges are now on the bias.

6.  Turn one corner to the center and press.  Repeat with remaining corners.

7.  Place 2 squares wrong sides together and sew across pointed flap on the pressed line.

8.  Put 2" colored square on top of diamond formed in the last step.  Turn edges of diamond over square and top stitch.

9.  Continue adding squares until quilt is desired size.