Monday, December 17, 2012

Easy Street Clue 4 and Design wall Monday!


Here we are again! I finished a quilt top and worked on my Easy Street...also took 3 sick days at home with a yucky gout attack! I can't believe how excruciatingly painful that is! Oh man!

 This is the top I made from the 300 spool blocks I made....MOSTLY from leaders and enders! It will go for a charity quilt next year. I finally cleaned up my quilting room, and rearranged some things. That room had become a dumping zone for all kinds of junk, and I got so I didn't want to quilt in there anymore. Now I have my books somewhat rearranged...and off the floor and the junk cleaned out of there. That being said, I hope to get many more quilts quilted next year! It is scary to think of how many quilts are just waiting! The Spool top will be one of the ones I hopew to get quilted by next guild meeting, so it can go in the Mountain of Quilts drive. For more Design Wall Monday photos-GO HERE! 
And, of course, here is Easy Street clue 4. I love the colors in this one and am interested to see how it will go together! I haven't even played with the pieces yet. Just making parts and waiting for the next clue. I'll bet we starting putting some things together this Friday! For more Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt photos-GO HERE!

God Bless

Mary

Monday, December 10, 2012

A Finished Top, and Easy Street Clue 3

I don't have anything on my design wall, but the top that was there last week is DONE!

 I worked much of yesterday and again today to finish my Christmas Town Sampler top. Here it is spread out over the sofa-it's kind of big for my design wall. I like the colors and fabrics I used in it. Kind of Asian inspired fabrics, kind of Christmasey. I had thought about making 2 separate quilts-one with the center blocks, the other with the town blocks. I glad I pushed myself to do all one quilt! I love it!
And here is my clue 3 of the Bonnie Hunter mystery-Easy Street. How about that skull and crossbones fabric? I love it! There is also a batik-like fabric with turtles on it. It is always interesting and fun to see what I can find in the remanent bin!
Link up with Bonnie Hunter's blog Here to see other clue 3's or any progress on Easy Street!

God Bless
Mary

Monday, December 3, 2012

Design Wall Monday and Easy Street Linky

I will start off this post with my Christmas Town Sampler that is on my design wall. I decided to simplify the sashing quite a bit, and I am considering making this a smaller quilt and using the house blocks in a different quilt...No offense to the wonderful designers of this lovely quilt! We shall see what happens! Go here to see other design wall Monday posts!
 Here is my progress on the Easy Street quilt project from Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville! Steps 1 and 2 are done and I have the 2"x3.5" pieces cut for a future step. I am loving this quilt!!! I am excited to see what we do with the lime green and turquoise fabrics. Yes, I decided to go with Bonnie's color combo...I love these colors, and my purples and turquoises REALLY needed thinning out!!! A true quilter's reasoning if I ever heard one! Go here to see other quiltvillechat member's Easy Street Posts!
Lastly, I have the very simple December BOM blocks done. I love that these blocks really show up my background fabric!
Well, that is a little of what I have been doing! I also have some Pink Ribbon blocks to make up into a quilt top for donation to breast cancer patients, and I am putting my spools L&E blocks together in fourses. I will show those another time!

God Bless!
Mary

Monday, October 29, 2012

DWM 10/29/12

I have a new project on the wall today! It is from a new Thimbleberries book pictured here:
I am making a sampler from my favorites of the blocks in this book. I love Thimbleberries patterns-Always so easy to follow! Here is a photo of the blocks I have made so far. I wanted to use some of my turquoise fabrics, since the drawer they are stored in wouldn't shut anymore! LOL! I also have a selection of Connecting threads fabrics from their Riviera collection. The colors are so bright a pretty! I'm going to make 20 of the blocks from the book. I kind of like the idea of the basket blocks in the corners of the quilt-that's why they are where they are right now! I have not decided on a setting yet.


This is a photo of my Crab Tree quilt top that I finished earlier in October. I pieced those 1/5 inch squares as Leader/enders for a really long time this year. I acturally had a fairly large stack of little 9 patches left over, so next time I make an orphan block quilt-that is where they will go!This quilt is one of my favorite Bonnie Hunter quilt designs from the book "Adventures with Leaders and Enders". I kind of bought that book to have the pattern! LOL! But there are several others I will make as well!


Be sure to stop by Judy's blog for more Design Wall Monday posts!

God bless
Mary

Monday, October 1, 2012

Design Wall Monday

I worked on the Crab Apple Tree blocks for several months, using the 1.5 inch squares for a Leader/Ender project. I have had the 1.5 inch parts done for awhile, and yesterday decided it was high time to start putting the blocks together. I love these little tree blocks! They are so cute! I'm planning to make 32 of them instead of the 25 the pattern calls for, so it will be more a twin bed sized quilt. I finished 13 of them yesterday, then dug through the stash to find fabrics for the sashing, borders, etc. I am not showing it yet, as I am not sure if I like what I picked out yesterday. I'll revisit that later!
Here's my blocks so far:

Fun quilt! Thank you Bonnie!

See Judy's blog for more Design wall photos!

Good Intentions!

When I blogged about the "Just Needle and Thread " idea that Bonnie Hunter came up with, I said I was going to work on my applique projects that I still have to finish. One was the last 4 blocks of Garden Party, and the other was my Japanese Crane panel quilt I was going to finish embroidery and applique. Well, during my vacation in September, guess what I did? I worked on my knitting! Hey, that's needle and thread too, right? I have been making the ruffled scarves to give as Christmas gifts and I also made a few for my etsy shop. In all, during vacation and since I've been home, I made 7 scarves, and have also gotten 2/3 of a sweater vest for fall done. Here's all the scarves:

Unfortunately, the applique projects are still waiting! I also have the September block for the Christmas Town Sampler to do! My hand sewing does have a new home though! I found one of those lovely sewing caddies that expand out with lots of compartments for sewing tools and projects at an antique mall in Lincoln City Oregon during our vacation. I've always wanted one and finally found one in great shape at a reasonable price! Here's photos:

I love it and it looks great by our sofa. (in these photos, it's sitting ON the sofa! LOL)

Go to Bonnie Hunter's blog for more Just Needle and Thread posts.

See my next post for my design wall photo!

God bless
Mary

Saturday, September 15, 2012

Home from Vacation! Vintage Quilt Find

I just have to share my find on our recent trip to the Oregon Coast! I was amazed to find this lovely vintage quilt at an Antique store. It is in such pristine condition that I wonder if it is actually fairly new. But the fabrics are 30's prints and it is beautifully handquilted, so I'm not sure. Never the less, I think it is a wonderful find and I was happy to pay 95.00 for it! Actually a bargain if it is vintage! I would invite anyone who is interested to chime in-do you think it is vintage, or new? The clerk of the antique mall had no idea!




Monday, September 3, 2012

Simply Needle and Thread

I have 2 projects that are hand applique and embroidery projects that have been hanging on for a long while. The one with the blue background is my Garden Party quilt designed by Sheryl Till and posted on her blog last year as a BOM. I have 4 blocks left to hand applique and then I can put it together and quilt it! The quilt will be divine when done-so I am anxious to finish it! The one hour of simply needle and thread idea that Bonnie Hunter came up with is a great one to motivate and encourage me to finish these projects.
The other project has been around much longer-about 6 yrs. I haven't touched it in about 4 yrs. The idea was to applique and embroider around the birds and flowers that I added to the panel with the border. Then I will probably hand quilt it...maybe! The bird panel is an authentic indigo dyed Japanese cotton panel with the cranes printed on. It is so lovely and I hope to see it finished yet!
This will be a good week for starting this as we are on vacation until the 18th. We are going to Oregon for a few days, and then hanging out at home for a few more days.

God Bless!
Mary

Tuesday, July 24, 2012



Here's a few new summer mugrugs in my etsy shop!

Thursday, July 19, 2012

This is just about the funniest cat photo I have ever seen! If you don't see his paws, he really
Does look like an Owl!!!
This was definately my Belly-Laugh for today!!!

Mary

Friday, July 13, 2012

It's Not about the Money Honey!

My son Matt's girlfriend Ashley sent this card to me on facebook and I just had to share it! All of us quilters and other seamstresses can relate! I'm such a fabricaholic!!! I tend to think this is a wonderful addiction and don't need a cure!!! I just need to be allowed to indulge in fabric shopping, fabric fondling, and digging through my fabric drawers as often as I can!!! LOLOL!
I have been on a fabric-buying hiatus for this whole month though, and probably next month too. I want to save money for when we go on vacation in September, and the quilt show in October. Finding great new and unusual fabrics-and even finding some vintage ones- is one activity we love to do! Shara gets into it too, and is really good at finding some really great prints that are interesting or unusual.
Money might not buy happiness, but buying fabric certainly makes me happy!!!!!!

Mary

Monday, July 9, 2012

Design Wall Monday-July 9, 2012


I have a design wall Monday post! I started the Christmas Town Sampler yesterday and have several of the blocks done or in progress. Those houses are fun to make and I have 3 more to do. The lovely Applique' block is in progress. I love them all and am excited about this wonderful project.
See the CTS icon on my side board? Click on that and it will get you more info on this project.

See more DWM posts here!

Monday, June 4, 2012

May and early June quilt activity

Here is one of the new charity quilts I finished recently:

This quilt is going to be a baby quilt gift for a co-worker. She is due this month. I haven't worked with flannel that much and was pleased with the results.
These are two blocks I made for the new Carol Doak BOM/Mystery quilt going on now. The first one is the June block and the 2nd is the block for May. I chose some really bright fabrics!!

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Design Wall Monday

I am going to try to remember to add this post to the Design Wall Monday post at Patchwork Times in the am. I am posting this on Sunday.
Here is our cat Sadie, one of my Quilt Inspectors. She approves of the Kool Kaleidoscope Baby quilt-I posted about it last week.

Now here are some photos of the blocks I have been working on since last spring for the Garden Party quilt from Quiltin Tizzy. There is one more post to go! Setting directions I'll bet! This has been a fun quilt, and I am still working on the last 6 blocks as I am hand appliqueing them. I spent the last few days prepping the last blocks and I think I will be bringing them along on our vacation in September....I'm pretty sure I won't be all done with them by then!



And here is what is actually ON my design wall! This is a mystery quilt from McCalls Quilting Magazine. It only had 3 parts to it, so it was fairly quick. There were only 4different fabrics in the original quilts. That is so TOO FEW FABRICS for me, but it was fun to do something I don't normally do. I am a "the more the merrier" and scrappy gal! Even then, I ended up using 3 creamy yellows and 2 bright pinks...SOOO, I still did it MY WAY! LOL!


Be sure to stop by Judy's Patchwork Times to see more design walls on Monday!

God bless
Mary

Sunday, April 15, 2012

What I have been Working on

I recieved Ricky Tim's Kool Kaleidoscope Quilts book recently and kind of got fascinated with the technique of making these fantastic quilts. They are really not hard, just time-consuming! I have made 3 flimsies in the last month or so.

This is the second one I made. I had 2 zebra themed fabrics that I was unsure what to make out of them. Then the idea came while working on my first Kaleidoscope quilt. I also wanted to make a larger quilt, so I used an idea from the book to set the center star on point and make 4 smaller ones for the corners. I rather like the results!


This is the first one I made. I had a hard time at first visualizing what angle to cut the patterns, so the center turned out kind of round instead of star pointy. But it was alot of fun to make, so much so that I made 2 more!


This one is the 3rd, and probably NOT final one! I made this one in baby girl colors, because it is a baby quilt gift for a co-worker.


I loved making these and hope you enjoy looking at them!
God bless
Mary

PS-I mixed up the 1st and 3rd photos! Sorry!

Sunday, March 4, 2012

A Sale and a New Listing!

I had a great quilting day today! I found one of my quilts sold in my etsy shop and I made a new pillow cover and listed it. I also quilted 2 quilts. After I post this, I am going to get the bindings on the 2 of them.
Here's the new pillow cover. I got a new book recently, and this was one of the projects. I just love the big roses on the ivory background!



I am working on a rainbow hearts quilt for my yahoo group-quiltville hearts. I have been gathering heart blocks from various members of the group all month during February and tomorrow I am going to start putting them together. Someone else will quilt it. The quilts this group makes go to quiltville chat members who are going through a difficult time and need a "quilty hug".



I will show some photos of the quilts I finished when the bindings are done. One is for my etsy shop, the other is a donation quilt for my quilt guild's Mountain of Quilts project, and it is a Heartstrings quilt!

God Bless!
Mary

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Orca Bay Progress!

I spent a day getting all the blocks together for Orca Bay (Bonnie's Wonderful new mystery quilt design). The center is done, and the boder triangles are divided out and ready to go. I then turned my attention to making a few new items for my etsy shop for Valentine's Day.

Here's my Orca Bay right now:


You can click on the side bar there to see my new etsy shop items. I will hopefull have a new little quilt done to put up this week. V. Day is just around the corner!!!

God Bless
Mary

Monday, January 2, 2012

Orca Bay Finale'!!!

TADA!!! Well, not quite! LOL! I am still making the flying geese units and haven't even started the border units! But, yesterday, I could not resist starting to lay it out! This is really a great pattern!I love the interlocking block look. The play between light in dark and the angles is fabulous! Thank you Bonnie Hunter for another masterpiece!



Oh, and as you can see, Sadie has a fairly new favorite place to nap. right on top and middle of my ironing board! If I need to iron something, I either work around her or take her off. She is NOT crazy about either option! Spoiled much?

Have a Happy and Blessed New Year!
God Bless
mary