"Be the kind of woman that when your feet hit the floor each morning, the devil says...."Oh crap! She's up!" Unknown

Sunday, November 30, 2014

December Design Wall

I'm pretty sure I just wrote the first
Design Wall post for November last week,
Didn't I??
Yet here we are...in the last month of 2014!

Over the past few days,
in between cooking and cleaning,
I finished the inside part of the
VCU t-shirt quilt for my older daughter.


It is a wild quilt, but I'm pleased with how it turned out.
Tomorrow I hope to get the fabric for the borders.
I held off, not knowing what colors I would want to use for each border.


I did use quite a few of her shirts.

Using the graph paper method made it a lot easier
to put this top together.


It's doubtful that I will get this quilted before Christmas,
but will take it to my LAQ right after the holidays.

One more gift almost finished!

Please visit Patchwork Times to see what others are creating.

Happy Quilting!!


Friday, November 28, 2014

Knitting Friday

Today is my family's Thanksgiving Day.
My oldest daughter and my goddaughter
both had to work  yesterday,
so someone would have missed out on dinner.

Since I wasn't cooking yesterday,
I was able to knit!

This pair of socks is finished.


They look funny... and really, really small,
but they will fit my sister.
I love using this yarn, but wish it had more on the skein.
 It's Schoppel Ambiente, color 2184... really soft and
lovely to knit.

My oldest daughter asked for new Maryland socks
for Christmas. (My youngest daughter is a Maryland grad.)
I decided to try my hand at knitting with two different color yarns.

I knitted the ribbing changing the color with every row
and didn't make a tangles mess at all!
I'm going to knit the body in black and add the red for
the heels and toes.
She has really tiny feet (size 1!!), so these shouldn't take long.

Please visit Patchwork Times to see what
others are knitting.

Happy Friday!
Happy Thanksgiving!!

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Recycled Clothing Quilt Week

I've noticed a theme this week...
Yesterday I posted the finish of the quilt top made from

Today I am working on a t-shirt quilt for my daugther.

I enjoyed making the men's shirt quilt much more!

This quilt is going to be WILD!!


I've cut all of the shirts and added stabilizer to the backs.
This way they won't stretch!
I'm using graph paper to help me know how large to cut the
fill in pieces.
 

One section is sewn together.
I'm not loving it, but will let it sit for a while before
deciding to change anything.

I'm hoping it will be a Christmas gift for my oldest daughter.
The top should be finished, but probably not the quilting.


Happy Quilting!

Monday, November 24, 2014

Thanksgiving Week Design Wall

Well, the church craft fair is behind me
and it was a huge success.
Thank you for all of your kind thoughts and words
and for those who visited and went home with little treasures!

On Saturday night, I came home and just sat and stitched
binding down,
Soooo....
I have a finish!

My "Shirt Top" quilt!



I love this quilt!
(It is straight.... just a problem with the person hanging it on the Design Wall!)
:)

This is the quilt made from 7 recycled men's shirts.

The top cost me $15 to make and I used solid red on the back,
which I bought on sale for almost half price!
I was planning on using the left-over shirt fabric for the binding,
but really like the solid red. It gives it a little extra
pop of color.
The Swirling design for the quilting just adds to the fun of this quilt.


I used the pattern on this blog to make this quilt.
There will be more of these in my future!
Fun and easy to make.

Please visit Patchwork Times to see what others are creating.


Happy Quilting!

Friday, November 21, 2014

Knitting Friday

It's Friday again and I do have some
knitting progress to share.
I have been finishing up things for
but found some time to knit while waiting for
my daughter, etc.

This yarn that I am working with
knits up so quickly and is so soft.
My only complaint is that the skeins are a bit on the 
skimpy side.

Thankfully my sister has little feet,
so I don't need to make the socks as big.


For some reason this sock looks funny....
I would be able to wear it,
stretching it a bit,
so it will fit my sister just fine.
 

The yarn is Schoppel Ambiente, color 2184
and is wonderful to work with, but you will
need two skeins for a larger sock.

Please visit Patchwork Times to see what others are knitting.

Happy Friday!

It's Friday!

And that means the
Craft Fair at my church is tomorrow!

I belong to St. Matthew's Episcopal Church
in Richmond, VA
and tomorrow we are having our first
Giving Tree Craft Fair
in conjunction with the American Sewing Guild's Craft Fair,
also being held at St. Matthew's.

If you live in the Richmond area,
please come by and see what has been
created for this event.
The church is on
1101 Forest Avenue
Richmond, VA 23229
and the craft fair will be held from 9-3pm.

I tagged my items and have most of them packed up to take.
It's amazing how much room is in my
"Hidey Hole" now that the fair items are not in there!


It doesn't seem like much when all of the items are
piled on the floor!
 

My army of Frogs is waiting to sooth an achy spot!
 

I love the spool topper...
I think I see another one in my future-
for ME!!
 

Lots of quilted goodies.
 

Here are some of the ornaments I've made.
The yoyos are sewn together in 9ft. lengths
to be used as garland.

The funds raised by the craft fair will benefit
the priests' discretionary funds to help those in need.

Wish us luck!

Happy Quilting everyone!

Monday, November 17, 2014

Design Wall Monday- Santa Edition!

I am so excited to have this quilt finished
AND
Just in time for Christmas.

I started appliqueing the wool Santas back in January
and loved picking the wool,
stitching the pieces down
and creating each Classic Santa.
(Pattern is by Sue Garman.)

Back in September I took it to my LAQ
and last week I got the call....
It was finished!
I raced over to pick it up and started making the binding.

There are a few tweeks that need to be made,
but I am so happy with this quilt.


It's hanging from my stairs, so it is not flush against the wall.
Hence... the wave.


Here's a photo using my Design Floor.



At first I was hesitant about quilting it with a grid
(my LAQ said it needed to be done because of the weight of the wool),
but it worked out well.


They are all so unique!

Now that it has been quilted,
I need to do a little outline stitch around the beard on the
one with the walking stick.
His beard is lost in the background.




I think the one on the bottom is my favorite...
The "John Travolta" Santa!
(Yes... I disco danced my way through the early 80's!)

The label needs to be made and I will put the names of 
each Santa and their country of origin on the label.

This has been a really fun quilt to make!

Please visit Patchwork Times to see what others are creating.

Happy Quilting!!

Sunday, November 16, 2014

Friendship Block

I have mentioned before that I belong to a
History of Quilting Club
and love being a part of this.

This past session we were asked to make a
Friendship Block.
We were given the pattern to follow,
but we could put anything we wanted in the
5" square in the middle....
a quote, a verse, embroidery...
whatever.
Then at our last meeting we would exchange them with each other.

Here is my block...


I had just gotten the book with this felted rose pattern and decided to make mine a 
Christmas Block.
 

I really was pleased with how this turned out in the end.

Yesterday was our exchange day.
It was exciting to see what everyone did with their blocks.
I'll be sharing the other blocks soon and what we decided to do with them all.

Happy Quilting!

Friday, November 14, 2014

Another One Back....

 ...from my Long Arm Quilter.

I am so excited with how this quilt turned out!
I don't design many quilts myself,
but will tweak and change a pattern and make it my own.
Sometimes I just make the pattern as it is....
and change the color scheme to my taste.

This quilt I had had in my head for a while
and wondered if it would move from my head to a quilt.



This is made from Kaffe Fasset's stripes and polka dot fabrics.
One of his shot cottons is used in the border.
 

I love the colors and brightness in this quilt,
and how the HST's go from tiny to big from the center out.
The quilting gives it more movement and
calms the angles a bit.
 

I was going to use the green for the binding,
but it's telling me it wants a striped binding.
Green stripes.
It's time to play with the fabric!
:)

Happy quilting!!


We Need These Today!

These warm wool socks, I mean!
The cold weather has arrived with a vengence,
so it's time to pull out our hand knit socks.

This week I finished the second pair for my daughter
to give to her best friends for Christmas.
YAY!




I love this yarn and wish I hadn't lost the tag that came with it.
I didn't buy it where I live, so can't go back to the  yarn shop.
It's so soft and was nice to work with and I love the colors!

It's interesting how the colors fell in the cuff and then became
random in the body of the socks.


Next on my needles...

More Socks! :)
This yarn is a lot of fun to work with as well.

It's Schoppel Ambiente color 2184
and is soooo soft!
I am making these a bit shorter... I'm afraid I'm going to 
run out of yarn.  

Please visit Patchwork Times to see what others are
knitting to keep themselves or their loved ones warm!

Happy Friday!

Thursday, November 13, 2014

Let's Make Ornaments!

Yesterday I finished up another batch of ornaments for
my church's Bazaar and thought I would share
making these ornaments with you.



These go together so quickly!


I started with two 6" squares of fabric, right sides together
 and a 5 1/2" circle.
 

Trace the circle onto one square.


Stitch on the traced line all around the circle.
Make a slit in the fabric you want as the "petals" on the top of the
ornament, going about 1/2" from the edge toward the center.
I made my slits about 2" long.
 

Turn inside out through the slit.
I used a knitting needle to push the edges of the circle out.


Press the circle flat.
 

Fold the circle in half, making sure the slit is 
along this fold.
Mark fold line with pins.


Open up the circle and fold in half again
so the pins come together at the top.
Place pins in this fold.
 

Open up circle, leaving pins in the circle.


Fold the edges in to meet at the pins and secure with more pins.
(The slit is on the bottom circle at this point.)


All of the "petals" are folded and pinned.




Next, fold the square in half and in half again and press.
(I forgot to take photos of this step while making the ornaments.)



This will give you and "x" in the middle for the next step.
 

Turn the square over and fold the points back to the middle,
placing the tip in center of the square at the "x" you ironed into the square.
(You can see the slit in the section that has not been folded back.)
 

Once all sides are folded back and pinned,
hand stitch the points together to secure.
 
Do not stitch through to the back.

Add a button in the center and the hanger 
and
Voila!!



These go together so quickly,
are great use of scraps 
and are so cute!

 

The finished size is about 2 3/4" square.


This is what the back of the ornament looks like.

Have fun with these
and
Happy Quilting!