I'm still here......!

I seem to have lost my mojo for blogging. Well, for a lot of things as of late! I'm thinking it's because I am working too much. What's that quote from the movie The Shining, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy". Not that I've ever seen the movie.... well okay, back in the early 80's I went on a date with this guy who took me to see the movie. Hum... I'm dating myself....

As some of you might know, I do not handle horror very well. As a matter of fact, to give you an idea of my fear level, I was scared watching ET The Extra Terrestrial. Within the first five minutes or so of the Shining, I walked or was that ran out of the movie theater. He stayed to watch the whole thing, didn't even come out to see what I was up too! I cannot remember his name, not that it matters because I wasn't interested in seeing him again! lol Wow, I what a digression....

It's been quite the week. My weekend was spent cleaning my home, including my sewing room. It's my way of mourning, clean everything! I do have a nice clean house, always a good thing!

On the quilting front, I want to show you a quilt I made not only for my swap partner Sandy from OH, but also for myself.

This is Crow meets Jack!

The pattern is called Jack at the Gate by Jan Patek.

It is machine pieced, machine appliqued using the Moda fabric line Blessings, designed by Brannock & Patek.

This is the fabric I used on the back of both quilts. It was a special gift that I received in June 2007 from Connie of Cootie Bug 2.

Isn't it just perfect?!? I just love that fabric! Thank you again Connie for the sweet gift!

I'm off to do a bit of hand applique. I'm working on a Jo Morton, Little Womens' Club piece. Have a great day and thank you for stopping by!

Goodbye Midnight...!

Came home from my hand appliqué class and found a black clump in the middle of the road, not far from our drive way. Stopped the car to take a look and it was Midnight!

I cannot believe that he's gone. We are all so sad. Stephen picked him up, I was hoping he was still alive, but no.

I feel so badly. What do you say to a child who has lost her first pet? He was so young, barely 3 years old! I wish people didn't drive so fast on residential roads!

He will be missed! Goodbye you little Stinker!

Jo's Little Women's Club....!

Our Shoppe is hosting part 8 of Jo's Little Women' Club . We meet the second Thursday of the month. We opted to not follow the sequence that was provided for us and did the second quilt first.

This is my version of Meg's Basket a pattern from Jo Morton!

I called it Holiday Baskets!

It became a gift for my Secret Santa partner Kaaren from The Painted Quilt blog. You might want to check out her blog, it's really nice.

You can read about read about her experience of the quilt here. She cheated and opened her gift before Christmas! lol

The SSCS is organized by Donna from Chooyblue. I've been a part of it since Donna first started! Lots of fun!

Thanks for stopping by! Keep well! Cheers!

Hello.....

It's me again! Surprised!

I've been working on that time management thingy! ;o)

On the quilting front....!

I've been working away at my Baltimore's Country Cousins quilt.

This is the Scottish Thistle block!

I'm plugging away at another block and hope to have a show and tell soon.

I'll be happy when that quilt is done. Gosh, I think I started that in 2004. I'll have to check my date!


I've also been working on my Hocuspocusville quilt, a pattern from Crabapplehill Design.

This is block 12!

I am enjoying working on this quilt. It's so mindless! Sometimes, I need that!

Thanks for stopping by! Cheers!

It's been a long time coming ....!

I must say that I do like the way it turned out. It sort of makes up for all the pattern problems I had.

Ta dah... my Women of Influence BOM Quilt.....!

It's done and hanging in the Shoppe!

I couldn't get a full picture of the quilt, as it's quite large (92 x 116)!

It's machine pieced and machine appliquéd.

The pattern is now available from the book Women of Influence 12 Leaders of the Suffrage Movement by Sarah Maxwell and Dolores Smith. You can read more about this BOM it in a prior post here.

I used this project to push my machine quilting comfort zone. I don't know if you can see some of the details, but I have some echoing going on in 2 (two) of the machine appliquéd blocks and lots of "in the ditch work" AKA ruler work etc.

Let me tell you, after machine quilting this project, Penelope and I are getting quite comfortable with each other! ;o) I can not even begin to tell you the number of hours I spent quilting it! And, I enjoyed every minute of it. Well, okay, some minutes were filled with colourful adjectives! LOL

I've even machine embroidered a label for it!

It just needs to get sewn on! A minor technical detail! lol

It's been a long time coming.... but I did have some skeletons in my quilting closet to work out! ;o)

Thank you for visiting my little corner in cyberspace.

Keep well! Cheers!

Hey.... it's me again.....!

Notice the time lapse between post? Yea, I think I've gotta this time management thingy figured out.

The lack of posts is really not because I've had nothing to write about. I have been busy quilting away. Things are getting done on the quilting front, it's the pictures and the sitting down to write that isn't.

So today is a new day!

We finally had some snow! I love snow!

It's nice to know that the snowy weather decided to come northeast as opposed to every where else!

Notice the barn? It does look nice in the snow!

Speaking of barn..... I think I did mention in a previous post that my DH thought that having a stash was such a great idea, that he build a barn to hold his.

Well......

Will you look at that? Proof! lol

Now, that's only on the main floor. There are lots of wood stash on the second floor of the barn. ;o)

Hum..... he's got me beat!

There's no way my fabric would stack up as high as this! I'll have to work on that! lol

Thanks for stopping by! Cheers!

To all in Blog land....!

May 2010 bring you all that your heart desires, or better! ;o)

Cheers!

Primitive Folk Art Quilting Swap...!

Notice how this entry is posted in a timely manner? Well, you'd think I finally got this time management thingy figured out, but NO! I just decided to create the post in advance and allow Blogger to post it a few days later. Would that be cheating? lol

My partner for the Primitive Folk Art swap was Sandy from OH. I'm not sure if she has a blog or not! Oh well....

First of all, she made me a wool pincushion and a needle holder.

Notice, another wool project! lol I can see wool in my future! lol

She also included some handmade ornaments that she herself fabricated.

Here you have some cute primitive snow person ornaments. They are adorable!?!

There's also a Santa! I couldn't get him to lay face up! Must be tired from all his travels! lol

She made me this wonderful "useful" bag, as she likes to put it and included other little goodies!

I love the fabric! As a matter of fact, I have that very same fabric in my stash! What great taste she has! lol

Thank you again Sandy for the wonderful goodies!

Thanks for stopping by! Cheers!

There's that time management thingy again....!

I do hope you have all enjoyed a wonderful holiday! Was Santa good to you? I sure hope so! I don't know about you, but I ate enough for a few months! lol

This year, I participated in a couple of Holiday swaps. One from Chookyblue Secret Santa and another for a primitive Folk Art Quilting Group that I belong too.

Today I'll show you my goodies from the Secret Santa Swap.

My Secret Santa was Alison from Cardygirl.

She sent me the cutest wool ornament. Isn't that little angel just so sweet? I love it!

As a matter of fact, I love it so much that I decided that I was going to actually attempt to work with wool.

Yep, it's my New Years resolution! Well, I have others, but no need to get into it now! ;o)

This gorgeous bag was another gift!

It is absolutely stunning. I love hand embroidery.

Alison's hand work is exquisite!

Inside the bag, was this sweet pincushion. Isn't it just the cutest?!?

I love her fabric choices! The colours are so cheerful!

Thank you again Alison for the wonderful goodies! And thank you Donna for hosting this swap!

Cheers!

Diet Monday..... or is it.....?!

I'm not sure but I think this diet Monday thing as taken the way side! Not that I've been diligent about doing a post, never mind the diet! lol

A few weeks ago I was fortunate enough to take two (2) longarming classes at Cowles Quilting with Sharon Schamber.

The Franklin County Quilter's Guild was hosting Sharon for a few days. I was also extremely fortunate to be able to attend Sharon's trunk show and actually got to touch and feel her quilts. I ended up helping Sharon that evening after our Friday class. She does amazing work, I mean the details!!!! She's also not afraid of passing her small pieces around. I came out of that meeting in awe of her work! Back to my class.

Sharon offered a wide array of classes, three (3) of which were for longarmers. They were hands on at Cowles. I took Feathers to die for on Friday and Monday was Filling the Spaces.

What's nice about Sharon's classes is that you are given a CD/video of the class. My learning continues after the class is done!

One of the most important piece of information I walked away with from these classes was, control of your machine. It might be obvious to some, but for me, it was like a light bulb had suddenly turned on.

She demonstrated her method for gaining control of her machine by using a piece of foam and weight, (hand made bag filled with rice). If you're interested in seeing how she controls her quilting machine, you can join her free area and view the various free videos.

Another important piece of information was this:

A drafting stool!

It makes custom work a lot easier!

I can gain control of my machine by leaning my forearms against the rollers. With that nifty Bitty Ruler I wrote about the other day, ditch work is so much fun!

I quilted the Women of Influence quilt sitting down the whole time. What a difference it made. I could actually quilt for longer stretches of time. We're talking pretty much until the wee hours of the morning. Many a nights, I went to bed at 2:00 a.m.

I cannot wait to finish hand sewing the binding so that I can blog about it.

Well, that's it for now. I need to get off this computer and write my lesson plan for tomorrow's class. I've been teaching a nine (9) part beginner's quilting class. It's quite the time consuming class, but fun! I'm enjoying it!

Thanks for stopping by! Have a great day! Cheers!