My Weekend

 I finally finished a tribble scrubbie.  I had forgotten how to make them and there was much ripping and looking up things before I got it right.  It is might cute though so I will be making more of them.
Yesterday we all went up to New River to help my sister move into her new house and my parents move into theirs.  It is nowhere near done, but much progress was made.  Spent the day today helping June pack for her move.  I did the entire sewing room and fabric which was the best room to pack as far as I am concerned.  Randy helped me and Kathy and June worked on the kitchen.  There is a lot of work to be done!

I did sneak in a tiny bit of sewing this morning...made more tiny bow ties and this block.  Two more and I can add another row to my cheddar challenge quilts.

 I forgot to show you a picture of these four blocks I got last weekend.  They are paper pieced and were
from the estate fabric sale.  I think they will go into a QOV to donate.  I haven't taken pictures yet of the heart blocks I also got.

Late this afternoon we moved all the furniture, ripped the carpet and padding out of our room and prepped everything for our hardwood floor installation tomorrow.  I can hardly wait for it to be done.  I cleaned everything top to bottom as we moved it out and dusted the walls and shook dog hair and dust out of everything so it will all be super clean when it gets put back together tomorrow night.   I work til ten so it make take two days to get it all squared away but it is a new beginning which I am in desperate need of.  

Still missing DJ and haven't seen her at all.  Have heard lots of nasty rumors which all put together point to someone I don't even know.  I don't know what to believe and I guess it doesn't matter anyway, it is over.  I only wish I could have a mind wipe so it didn't hurt so bad:  

"How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!

The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd."
- Alexander Pope

A Review of Modern Quilts Illustrated!

All pictures were borrowed from Weeks Ringle's blog at craftnectar.com.  I am sure by now you have heard of the new modern quilting magazine that recently become available--I was one of the lucky ones to get a copy of the first edition to do a review on.  While Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr have been on the forefront of modern quilting for a long time (my first modern quilts were all made with their designs--Outside the Box being my absolute favorite so far!) this magazine will appeal to quilters of all ages even if modern quilting isn't the only type of quilting they do.  

The table of contents includes a photo of each of the three featured patterns for quick reference.  There are two regular columns which include "The Cutting Table" and "Palette Chasing," the latter is pictured below.

While "Palette Chasing" shows an inspiring group of colors/fabrics (in this first issue they are Kona solids) with the inspiration photo--the library of congress' wall in Washington D.C., "The Cutting Table" is two full pages that are also graphically appealing (it looks like a design wall with inspiration all over it!) which includes tips and musing and much of said inspiration.  My favorite tip in this issue is a silver dog tag that encourages quilters to visit a website to get more information about adapting clothes for wounded service members. 

The photos are by Jim White and are gorgeously done and on quality paper.  The pages in this magazine are really more like a good quality art book.  

While the magazine is only seventeen pages plus cover and back, it is all content and no advertisements whatsoever.  Most quilting magazines are full of ads which thicken the magazine so I think for this type of publication this is a good size.  The editing is great and I didn't notice any typos or spelling errors (I am one of those people that spots things like that easily!).  

Each of the three original quilt patterns is shown in several different color variations--often changing up how many different colors are in the layout which really provides a lot of options for each quilt pattern and is really inspiring for people like me who tend to follow patterns as they are.  This gives me options to successfully create my quilt as I want it!  As you can see from the picture below, the directions for cutting and sewing are shown visually as well as written in words.  It is spread out and is very readable.  I never like magazines that try to save space by jumbling the directions all together and skipping steps or combining steps.  This step by step explanation is SO clear and easy to follow.   

Each quilt is introduced with a page that tells how it came about or why they chose it.  This page also includes suggestions for changing up the quilt or pattern.  These designers know and use color theory and make it easy for people to understand how to get the look they want with each quilt.  They also list exactly what fabrics were used for the pictured quilts for quilters to assemble it themselves and offer kits of the original fabric choices for sale in case the quilter doesn't want to hunt each fabric down.  

All in all I love this new modern quilting magazine.  I plan to subscribe to it myself and know I will learn a lot and will make more Modern Quilt Studio quilts.  If you want to know where to order it you can go to http://craftnectar.com/ and check out Weeks' blog.  Their new website is still under construction at http://modernquiltstudio.com/ so meanwhile you can check out http://funquilts.com/ for more information.  This publication gets five (modern looking) stars up from me.  Check it out and let me know what you think!

Shopping a Quilter in the Sky's Stash

BJ's good friend from high school, Gail, had an estate sale yesterday in which she was selling her sister's (a quilter in the sky) stash.  BJ and I were more than happy to make sure all this amazing fabric gets put to good quilting use.  I spent about 65 dollars and got bags and bags of fabric, a roll of batting, thread, patterns and various other things not even quilt related. I started out by organizing the fabric by color or style.  

 Batiks...I only took a few that I really liked because BJ is the batik lover so I mostly helped her gather those.  But I couldn't pass up the rainbow looking one and the dolphin one.

 These are the novelty looking fabrics I got.  Several larger chunks including one that has suitcases and says Paris that will wind up in a backing for my neice's wedding quilt (she loves Paris).  That yellow with the strawberries has already found its way into some burp cloths!

 Found these Halloween fabrics...I am hoping that they turn into a future Schnibbles!

 I took just about any Christmas fabric I could find even if I didn't particularly like it .  I didn't have much left after making lots of tablerunners last year and I figure I can use something sort of ugly for backing more tablerunners!  I love the blue with snowflakes and the pinkish red poinsettias!

 What a rainbow of color!  I was so happy to get so many blues because though it is my favorite color I never seem to buy much of it...I think I always assume I have lots of it, lol.  Kathy and Randy came along and we went to breakfast at IHop after with BJ...and Kathy spent her time looking for anything white because one can never have enough white on white.

 Just some of the thread I got, there was lots more.  I will not be needing thread for awhile!  These Chocolate Traveler tins I took because I thought I could make them into little sewing kits to gift or give away.

 I got a few pieces of Asian looking fabric to add to the five fat quarters I bought just after my Dad died.  I will eventually make something with them.  A few of those pieces might actually be civil way fabric, lol I couldn't tell!  There were also a few pre-cut squares of civil war and 30's fabric.  I seriously love so much of this fabric and I hope Gail's sister is smiling down as she sees it come together into quilts and such!

 Several patterns that I hope to make.  There were TONS of patterns, but most of them were not my style.

 I also got a ZILLION zippers in every color under the sun.  I filled my jar with them and next month for Christmas through the year I will be making zip up bags.  Zippers have gotten really expensive and I only had a few left so this is great.

 This rainbow fabric is one of my favorites!  Here is Bug helping me sew the backing for the Rainbow colored Pineapple Blossom quilt.  I used fabric ALL from my new stash.

 Here is the backing for it.

 After putting everything away in my drawers (it ALL fit because I really had used a lot of what I had) I only had a little bit left to fold and add to my shelf.  I couldn't believe that I had a place to put it all neatly!  It really was the best day I have had since losing DJ.  Fabric makes me happy.  Thank God!  I also used up the leftover squares to piece a backing for the Schnibbles Summer Day baby quilt that I think is going to Rachel (my honorary daughter) in Norway who is expecting her first baby.

 Here it is with the front of the quilt so you can remember what that looked like.  I also have been knitting again.  Finished up the orange one and completed the Suns colored one and weaved in the ends of the other two.  I am now working on a Tribble again...lol.  I am starting an intermediate knitting class next weekend and am looking forward to it.

Kathy and I are off to see her niece and then to help June get organized because it looks like she may be moving sooner than she expected.  Hope to sew more later!

Burp Cloths for Christmas Through the Year

I finally did my Christmas Through the Year project today!  I made six burp cloths following KJ's tutorial over at http://buttercreamsewingmachine.blogspot.com/2012/03/tutorial-quick-easy-burp-cloths.html !  They whipped up quickly and look great.  Now I have a few gifts for little ones on hand for Christmas!  

Liebster Award--for me?

Shannon over at Nunu's Quilt World gave me an award! This award is given by "one blogger to another for excellent, beautiful, humorous, or sparkling work." Liebster is apparently German for dearest or favorite, what an honor!

The Liebster is given to blogs that deserve to be recognized, but have less than 200 followers. The Award comes with just a few "rules", which are:

1) Post about your win on your blog.

2) Link back to the blogger who presented you with the award.

3) Copy and Paste the award to your blog.

4) Present the award to 5 blogs that have less than 200 followers that you think deserve to be recognized.

5) Let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.

So I picked:

http://skattebo-skattebo.blogspot.com/

http://ros-the-quilter.blogspot.com/

http://beckysbitsandpiecing.blogspot.com/

http://sandrakayedesigns.blogspot.com/

http://phoenixmodernquiltguild.blogspot.com/

Thank you Shannon for picking me--you made my week brighter!

Two Finishes and a Schnibbles!

I got the binding on Randy's Orca/Green Bay Quilt and snagged it off his bed for a picture. He loves it and is happy to have the very old and sort of holey strawberry quilt off his bed!
I also got the binding on Suli and Diegos' wedding quilt for their June wedding. Both these quilts still need labels, but other than that they are done!
Today Kathy, Becky and June (along with Phideaux) came over to sew. We really had a nice day of gabbing and sewing and ate some Papa Murphy's pizza too.
I was working on my Summer Day Schnibbles quilt...trimmed up all my geese yesterday and today.
Sewed them into blocks and trimmed those up too. Then sewed them into a top.
And added borders to it. It is a sweet little quilt and I am pretty sure this one will be for Randy's daughter Rachel's first baby. She lives in Norway and is a few months pregnant. No idea if it is a boy or a girl, so I think this little quilt will be a good one to send her!
So another finish for April's list...Whoot, whoot!

What is on my Bed

Bonnie did a shout out and asked what was on our beds. I too changed my sheets yesterday and have the cheery Double Delight on my bed! Bug is modeling too.

Happy Easter!

Just had to show these tops again!

Kathy cut the Summer Day Schnibbles this afternoon and I drew lines on all the squares so it is ready to sew when I get a chance.

And I picked up my NYE Mystery from Ros today on the way up to Mom and Dad's. It is quilted in a lime green thread which is perfect. I did a little repair on a seam that didn't quite seam and dug out a pin that got quilted in the border then made and attached the binding. It is scrappy but mostly purple.
And here is the wild and crazy, use it all up backing. I need to take pictures of it outside this week and get a label on it. The wedding is in June so I still have some time!

I showed it to my folks and my sister and they all swear that Suli and Diego will love it. I hope so! Happy Easter everyone.

Sewing at June's Again

Well the plan changed last minute again and June and I wound up sewing at her place instead of heading up to Ros'. I managed to get the borders on my Bonnie Hunter Pineapple Blossom quilt. It is very colorful!

I also decided to just put all my little cheddary challenge bow ties into one quilt like this. I tried laying it out with a different layout around the blocks I had already made but didn't like it afterall.
I still have more bow ties to make and a few made for a block, but this is growing pretty good!
I brought Bug with me and as usual she had to get in the pictures every time!
On Thursday I grabbed a few leftover blocks and whipped this up following the doll quilt group's plan led by Kathy Tracey. Mine is a bit smaller but otherwise it is made. Not sure what to do with it because I think it is too small for a doll quilt. But it was a good diversion to sew it.

Ros Worked More Magic

I am once again tickled by Ros' quilting! She quilted this Ann B. Smith 2011 NYE Mystery for me! This one has grown on me...I loved the fabric but am not nuts for how things had to line up just so and mine don't always line up...but overall I am happy with it! This will be a wedding gift for Suli and Diego and I think this really suits them. In personal news I am doing my best to put one foot in front of the other and keep moving forward. It is hard when we still love each other but just don't see things working out for us. UGH! My cat ran away (didn't even know she knew how to get out the dog door) and didn't come back too. I think there is a country song in this somewhere.
June and I are going to sew with Ros and BJ (and maybe the rest of the Huggy Bunch) at Ros' tomorrow. We have a trip to a quilt shop planned and some lunch out. Should be a nice day.

Pineapple Blossom and Another Huge Loss

So I went to June's and sewed to keep busy today. She and I took turns crying in between sewing this Pineapple Blossom (me) and her Orca Bay. Why I am crying you may wonder? Well DJ and I broke up on Wednesday night and she pretty much moved out on Thursday and most of her stuff and her dogs are already gone. I have a huge hole in my heart. The odds were against us from the start but she convinced me we could make it. I love her heart and soul and wish the stars would have aligned somehow so that we could have been together forever. It is so hard to lose your best friend and biggest cheerleader. I have lots of friends and will survive this loss too, I know in my head it is the right decision for both of us, but in my heart I want what we had back. Damn my heart.
Both Randy and Kathy invited me to dinner and so June and I met up with them and had Indian food which is my favorite. Really hadn't eaten for two days so it was good. We then rented two movies and came to my place to watch them. It was nice to be distracted..for me and for June...life goes on and somehow we just put one foot in front of the other and get up when we fall. I think there is lots of sewing in my future....