Lone Star Class

At Quilting in the Desert this week, I took "Lone Star Sparkler" taught by Helen Young Frost. (pictured here during her show and tell).

I showed up for class with a variety of fabric...

And chose these three for my first star:

Here are the pieces for the star points (mine on the left, a classmate's at the top is actually green with purple accent fabric, and my friend's earth tones on the right).

Jeanne and I at the end of the day! We both like to finish as much as possible in class, so we stayed in and sewed during lunch.

And my first stars! You can see I have a problem with the blue star, the red fabric is very rippled. Jeanne's solution is to rip it our and applique the star onto the background, but I think that A-word is nasty! I'm going to email the teacher and see what she suggests.

Since I had some extra time and fabric, I pieced an orange and green star, but it's just pinned to the background. I might try the background again, but I am nervous about screwing it up again! I thought I did a careful job measuring, cutting and pinning...wish me luck on the next attempt.

Sunny Day

This is why people suffer through 120 degrees in the summer...to enjoy 70 degrees in January.  I love living in Phoenix Arizona!  And I love my variegated rose bush, lovely pinks and yellows.  We had a few frosty evenings in December, so everything is looking a little ragged until the gardener (hubby) goes to work.
I was going to tease you even more with pictures of the luscious tangelos in another corner of our yard, but the battery in my camera died.  oops!  For anyone unfamiliar with tangelos, they are a citrus, I think a cross between oranges and tangerines, with fewer seeds.  Yummy!!

Sunday Sewing

While everyone was napping, I cut more 1.5 inch squares for my Centennial Postage Stamp quilt, and started work on the left half.

Here is what I have so far...I'm not liking the darker "stripe" between the star and the left-hand blue section, so there may be some ripping soon.  I knew that would be a possibility when I began sewing before I had all my fabrics laid out!  I tried to keep lights near the center, but I forgot that the whole section was the center of the quilt!

 

More quilting fun this week - I checked in today for Quilt Camp in the Desert. 

 

I can only take one day off from work, so I decided to take a Lone Star class with Helen Frost and meet up with my camp buddy Jeanne.  I hope these blue fabrics work...maybe the star will be a medallion for a future Quilt of Valor.

Fun Mail

I was a lucky winner AGAIN in the Block Lotto!  So, it will be a fun week or so as all my wonky trees arrive.  And, the UFO Challenge group promised to send each other fat quarters to celebrate finishing things, so those are the other fabrics, some nice blue and cream small prints.

Here are the trees that I mailed to one of the other winners:

The green one is supposed to look like Charlie Brown's sparse Christmas tree :-)

I have to share a cute Christmas memory...my daughter is obsessed with the "Gloria" song.  You may know it as Angels We Have Heard On High, with the chorus "Gloria, in excelsis deo."  We were singing it and she was saying "Chelsea Stable" for excelsis!  I love how that little mind works.  And then, since the subject of stables came up, she figured that the stable Jesus was born in was pretty dusty.  Probably!  She also wonders why angels don't have shoes, LOL.

New Year, New Project

My neighbor asked me to make her daughter a birthday quilt, so I planned a simple quilt in bright colors, made from 6 inch squares.  In this picture you can see the colored pattern, so I can keep track of my pieces without a design wall.  I am making a four-patch with two pink squares and one each of green and purple.  This will be a very scrappy quilt, since I cut 11 different pinks, 5 greens and 5 purples. 

 To get random blocks, I stacked the colors and mixed them as I chain-pieced.  The next step is to sew unique four patches together, then build 4x4s and 8x8s until I have the top finished.

 I saw this fabric on the sale rack and thought it was perfect for the backing:

It is a fun project to work on in these grey and unusually cold winter days in the desert!

The end is a new beginning

As I was at the sewing machine yesterday, I realized 2010 was a year of paper piecing for me!  I started with "Sparkling Jewels" a queen size quilt that I made as a wedding gift.  Completely pieced and quilted by me.  It took about six months.

 On New Year's Eve, I whipped up a little 6-inch-square sunflower from a kit I purchased at least a year ago.  It will make a nice gift for a friend at work since I wasn't organized with my Christmas cards before we left on vacation.

UFO Challenge Final Report

I officially finished 2 of my 5 projects for the Ravelry Quilters Fall Challenge...placemats and the bargello top.  Status of the others:  AZ Centennial is about a third done.  Top priority in 2011 since I want to enter it in a traveling show in June!

QOV -

 

 Quilted, needs binding, label and presentation pillow case.  I did finish the binding on a different QOV, so if I put the two together, I could mentally give myself a third "finish," but they aren't really done until they're in the mail, so QOV carries over to the new year.

Block of the month - the center is done!

I have the fabric cut and ready for the borders, so this will be a quick finish to flimsy stage.  I am envisioning feathered wreaths in the green squares, and lots of stitch-in-the-ditch in the star blocks.  Sashing, probably a simple meander variation.













There are many different groups focused on UFOs, and I did make a list of about 15 projects that are in various stages of completion.  Ultimately, I decided not to join any of the "completion contests."  As I said earlier, the AZ Centennial quilt needs to be my focus, and I promised a friend a quilt in January.  Then there are the knitting projects I want to work on...plenty of fodder for future posts!

Making Progress

I've been quilting on the longarm, trying to finish a Quilt of Valor. The pattern is Mystery 12 from Persimmon Quilts. Nothing too fancy, just some loops in the background and squiggles in the gold area.

An older UFO, "Hidden Stars" a block of the month from Marti Michell, started in 2005.
The pattern originally called for alternate squares of a busy floral, fussy cutting the large roses. I am not that kind of girly-girl! My first thought was to find a light denim blue to match the light blue in the patchwork blocks, which would have been a great plan five years ago. Alas, my LQS didn't have anything suitable when I went shopping a few weeks ago. Rather than spend time searching for something to fit that perfect mental image, I settled on this forest green. I think it looks great so far - just masculine enough while still being a soft complement to the other florals.

And, TA-DA!!!! A finish! I started this bargello quilt at my first Quilt Camp in the Pines, July 2004, just 6 months after I made my first quilt. The class was taught by Louisa Smith and she actually had us turn a section of the strips to create a twist in the design. Great idea, but six years have gone by and I can't even find pictures of that layout now.
When I picked out the fabrics, I had the local quilt show theme of Mardi Gras in mind, so I went with yellow, purple and green. I am still debating adding some applique to "explain" the Mardi Gras colors, but really, who am I kidding? A much better idea is just to get it quilted and donate it to the small quilt auction, or maybe keep it as a spring display for my classroom.

Fall Update

Life with an extroverted four-year-old is B-U-S-Y!! Grandma cleaned out her spice cabinet and washed some of the empty tins, so now Kendra has a collection of ingredients to play with.

Here are some of the highlights from our day at the Arizona State Fair. There was a "Kids Zone" hallway with soft building blocks and a haybale maze, but the fan was her favorite.
Every girl needs a pony...
Kendra decided to be "Sparkle Barbie" for Halloween and she had lots of fun at the school carnival with her buddy Superman.
And just yesterday we went to the Great Arizona Puppet Theater for a performance of "The Little Red Hen."

UFO Club

Thanks to some quilty knitters on Ravelry, there is now some incentive to get moving on my UFOs. We all pledge to work on specified projects, with a reward of fat quarters if we finish at least one thing in three months. Fall is really busy with school and clubs and life, etc. but I think I can focus on these things:
#1 - Reversible placemats for a Christmas gift
#2 - Quilts of Valor. I have several tops pieced and I need to load them on the longarm then get them in the mail. If any of you have time to devote to this worthy cause, check out the QOV website. The group in Delaware needs many more quilts for the airmen/women stationed at Dover AFB, which is the point of entry for fallen soldiers. A difficult assignment for sure.


#3 Marti Michell's 2005 Block of the Month. Ha, ha, ha. Yes, this is an oldie, but goodie. You can see some of the floral fabric that is supposed to be alternate blocks. Not in my version! I will be shopping for a light denim blue instead. (hubby breathes a sigh of relief...I want this one on my bed!)#4 Bargello...even older! I started this one in 2004 at Quilt Camp in the Pines, Flagstaff AZ. I got all the strips together and laid out on a "Block Butler" portable design wall. I was worried that years of being shoved in the back of the closet on sticky stuff would damage the fabric, but it looked pretty good today as I unwrapped it! My plan is to press a couple strips at a time and pin them in front of the TV, then sew them together in between other projects.
#5 My Centennial project...the 2012 piece Arizona Flag postage stamp quilt. Here is a section of the bottom half. I need to make steady progress on this because there is a call for entries in a Centennial Quilt show due next September! June is my best month for quilting on my longarm since there are no pressures from school, so that is my self-imposed deadline for this one. Phew! The journey of a finished quilt starts with a few stitches, and I've got quite a list!

Hello out there!

We're back to the school year routine, which means I only get to sew on holidays! Well, on the occasional Saturday I can squeeze in time to do things like put borders on a QOV mystery from Persimmon Quilts:
Of course, my photo skillz are horrible, and I chopped off the borders. You can see a few bits in the upper right corner! Great pattern, but I have no idea how I will quilt it. I need to do something all over (pantograph suggestions anyone?) or it will languish for at least a year.

Then I needed a quick project, so I grabbed some fabric that I bought on a whim this summer during our vacation in Minnesota and made some placemats. Left side is stack-n-slash, and the reverse is a log cabin with the Minnesota fabric in the center. They will be a Christmas present for a snowbird friend who splits her time between Arizona and Minneapolis.

It's that time again

Kendra had a birthday so I had to get the annual bunny picture. (Background: each month of her first year, I posed her on the couch with the same stuffed bunny. Now that she's older, it's a birthday tradition.) As a four year old girl, she is quite the drama queen, and she doesn't always cooperate with photo requests. Today, bunny was too scratchy.

I solved that dilemma by having her wrap it in a blanket like a baby.Quilters with a sharp eye...look behind the bunny and check out the Dick and Jane quilt on the brown chair :-) Thanks to Grandma!!

Of course we had a celebration complete with cake:
And presents. ALL BARBIES. You should see the clothes and shoes, Oh My Goodness. I am the official "dresser." She has several of the Disney-themed dolls and it's funny to see Mulan in Snow White's outfit!

Quiltathon Progress

Change of plans since the last post. The quilt I wanted to put on the longarm was a bit too small to be a Quilt of Valor, so I added some borders. Then, I had no batting so I set that one aside and turned to the other mystery of the summer.

I've been working on LeAnn's QOV mystery #12 (check out Persimmon Quilts).I'm almost done with Clue #5. Of course, I'm a couple months behind the rest of the world...LeAnn has already started mystery #13!!

The Quiltathon was a success, I logged 6 solid hours in my sewing room. Now THAT'S a vacation day :-)

Mystery Solved!

Judy LaQuidara designed a great quilt. I left off the innermost border, since I did not have enough fabric and I could not wait for another run to the quilt shop! In my defense, I recently went on a shop hop, and the seven stores I visited did not have a match. The next question is how to quilt it...I may have to browse for some new pantographs!
I'm going to load up the longarm after lunch. Great quilting day so far!

Quiltathon Plans

JudyL over at Patchwork Times is "hosting" a quiltathon today and tomorrow. What that means in blog-land is that we all try to clear our schedules and hide away in our sewing space, emerging only to eat and post our progress! Hubby's at work, daughter's at daycare and Mama's gonna play!

I have two mystery quilts that I'd really love to finish today, plus ideas for quilting on the longarm so I plan to alternate my time between those projects. I'll be back in a few hours with pictures.

Happy Stitching!

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Barbie World

This summer is all about Barbie. Kendra got her first Barbie doll for Christmas, and just recently became enamored with it.
I wanted an easy project for my summer travels, so I asked Kendra if she'd like some knit dresses for her dolls. Of course the answer was yes! Luckily, I am used to working with small needles for socks, and these dresses were knit flat with a seam up the back. Easy peasy!

AND, Grandpa searched the garage and found my old dollhouse!
It is a wooden house whose walls are hinged so it folds flat to store. The furniture is wicker. The whole set was purchased in the Philipines while my dad was stationed overseas in the late 1970s. I think it held up rather well!

Friday Fill-Ins

Hey Pickle...here's another theme day!! If you want to fill in your own blanks, visit Friday Fill-Ins.

1. I feel ___hopeful for rain__.

2. ___Run __ to catch up.

3. Do _you have a plan?____.

4. Snowflakes are ___ completely unique.

5. It's hard to know how much __spaghetti to cook___.

6. Card players_____ follow suit.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to ___finishing a quilt____, tomorrow my plans include ___movies_____ and Sunday, I want to _get back to church after a few weeks off____!

Thursday 13

In an effort to blog on a regular basis, I will resort to "theme days." This week's list:

Thirteen places I've been this summer (in roughly chronological order)

1. Quality Inns in various cities.
2. US Airways Center for a Phoenix Mercury WNBA game.
3. Rose Chapel in Fort Worth for a lovely wedding.
4. Perini Ranch near Abilene for a dear friend's birthday.
5. Carlsbad Caverns
6. White Sands National Monument
7. A minor league baseball game: Brainerd Lunkers vs St Cloud Bats
8. Park Point beach on Lake Superior
9. Nickelodeon Universe at Mall of America
10. The dentist
11. The movies
12. Gettin' my kicks on Route 66
13. Swimming