Eat Your Veggies!

I think that will be the title for my new quilt. another paper piecing adventure. i have had Ruth B. McDowell's book..Pieced Vegetables...for some time and decided i needed to use it. she has paper piecing patterns for 20 different vegetables and they are all so cute. some she does in straight and curved lines.

Last night i finished the eggplant. i made 2 of them since they were kind of narrow. i am just using the sizes that she has in the book and if they are small i will make multiples and add them together. this one turned out to be 13x13.  there is a pattern for a rounded eggplant also but i probably won't make that one unless at the end i need another block or 2.

I am putting the appropriate veggie fabric around each block. not sure what will be between the blocks to tie them all together. perhaps a brownish? ... for dirt?    won't have to make that decision for a while. hopefully i will get a vegetable done each evening or so. once again, i am using my hand dyes for the veggies and backgrounds.

Stay tuned for asparagus.

Some finishes

It's been a busy week and i'm trying to get some things done. first off, i finished piecing the top for my class quilt, called Our Town. it came out 90x100. a nice queen bed size. don't know when it will get quilted. but all the fabric came from my stash and i figured 8 yards, so that is good. here's a pic of the top...

and the dimensional rows...the geese are open and sewed with a new way that i really liked. and the cathederal window blocks turned out great, too. i wasn't sure i could do them properly but i like how they turned out. i used invisible thread to stitch down the part that was folded over.

 

and here are the borders. i made the last border 6"...was going to go for 8 or 10 but i think it is large enough like this. it is the same green stripe as the background.

I also quilted up the Winnie the Pooh quilt for a friend's baby that is due the end of May. i pieced the back with leftover fabric and put his name on there, too...Patrick Erin.

I tried a couple pillowcases using the burrito style of sewing and i must say it is quick and easy. i am going to make more. i just cleaned out my studio and donated about 35 quilts to various agencies and have decided to make pillowcases to go out with the next donation batch. i think they might like those, too. i have lots of kid fabric so will make some cases for them.

And something else i finished this week was this small quilt that was in the cabinet to be quilted. i call it Wild Child. it is about 56x62.

Well, that's it for the eye candy for this week. in the evening i am now doing more paper piecing. i have a book with vegetables so i am making a veggie quilt. so far i have done the eggplant. there are about 12 or 14 different veggies. i have the corresponding veggie fabric that i will put as sashing around each individual block. but i cannot find the beet or cabbage fabric. so those 2 may not make it into the quilt. i was actually wondering if i could paint beet fabric. get some beets at the store, cut them in half, and use them as a stamp on fabric. i may try it and see if it works. what do you think.  perhaps the cabbage would work that way, too. something to think about.

This morning i spent 3 hours whacking out the underbrush at the corner of my property. when the leaves are out my wireless connection has a problem seeing the connection at the barn....about 500 feet away across the road. i was pulling the vines out of the trees and cutting out sticker bushes and small trees. i was so proud of myself. LOL   when i came over to the studio and looked out the window it looks more open but i STILL can't see the barn. darn...now i have to go back and whack out more. perhaps tonight or tomorrow. my hands are sore and my back, too. may have to go take a nap for a bit.

See you next time.

SuzyQ needs a quilt

Our dog, SuzyQ, has claimed the futon couch in the tv room as her own. mainly, i think, because it is the closest thing to the vent where the warm air comes into the room from the wood stove.

To maintain some sembalance of neatness i usually cover the couch with an old sheet. Suzy roots around on the couch and turns and sprawls. consequently, the old sheet has become threadbare and been patched in several places.

This is what she had yesterday. she had gotten a new rip in it and i decided it was too old and threadbare to hold up much longer. so i washed it up and took it to the studio.

This morning i paired it with this...

and this...

This was another old flannel sheet that we weren't using.

So, now Suzy has her own quilt for 'her' couch.

here is the back...

i loaded it onto the machine and did some scribble meander all over it..took a couple hours. it's about 90" square. then i just pulled the back over onto the front and sewed it down...no fancy binding. i'm guessing suzy doesn't care if there is regular binding or not. she just likes to lay on the couch.

And, it's not like she doesn't have other quilts either. her pallet on the floor has 2 old quilts folded up on it. and the stuffed chair that she lays on in the living room as a quilt over it, too. this dog has more quilts than we do. but she's not spoiled or anything....hahahahahahaha

I better get busy making us some more quilts...the dog isn't supposed to have more quilts than the humans...is she?

More bag fun

Although i haven't been quilting much, i have been busy at night sewing stuff. here's what i've done in the last week.

A bag with cute dogs on it...the dog picture came from the dog food bag. you can sew through this just like fabric. i like how the stitching makes it look like they are behind a chain link fence. i put some selvages on the corners and it closes with a 4" velcro closure.

Here is the front..

And here is the back...i made a braided handle with 3 different fabrics.

The inside has 2 pockets and there is batting between the lining and the outside.

And i also made this square bag. it reminds me of a shaving kit bag. i used asian fabrics. the directions were a bit vague but i figured it out...it took me 2 nights. but i like it.

It has an iron on interfacing that is kind of thick but the bag didn't turn out as firm as i thought it would. pretty cute and once you figure out the construction, pretty easy to do.

i am working on another bag today...i seem to be in a bag mood. but i am going to a quilt show in kansas next month and need bags to carry my class supplies and any goodies i might purchase.

i put embroidery pictures on a couple more tshirts, too. instead of fabric around the outside, like binding, i used rickrack on one of them...i liked that a lot. the other had a colorful ribbon around it.

Other than that, not much going on around here. it is mowing season...and, therefore, allergy season. i mow a while and sneeze...then go in for a while...then go out and do it again. makes you wish for concrete yards.

I have an aunt and uncle who live in St. Louis who have a concrete back yard. no grass to mow. when i was a kid i thought it was strange but now that i am riding that mower and sneezing i can see the benefit of it. save money on a mower and you can rollerskate in your back yard.

OK, back to work...later.

Aaaacckk! There's an 8 ft snake in my shower!

I had a small problem this morning in the shower.

I use these little shower scrunchies...get them at the dollar store...all different colors. You know the kind...like this...

Well, this morning, i'm doing my thing and all of a sudden i'm looking down and saying "what the hell?"....my scrunchie was coming apart. i've never had one do that before. now i have an 8 foot scrunchie...kind of like this.

Good grief...how did that happen?? i showed Jim and he just said..that's what you get for buying it at the dollar store. no, that's not it...i get them there all the time.

I guess this one just wasn't tied tight enough. so tonight i shall attempt to roll it back up and retie it. and then as i was looking at it...i thought what a great piece of quilt art fabric. LOL   i think of all the scrunchies i have thrown away when they start to come loose. dang, i could have saved all the different colors of them.

so, that was my dilemma this morning. the rest of the day went much better.

I even got a few things planted in the studio garden. i got some flowering trees from the Arbor Day people last fall and was too lazy to plant them then. i stuck them in a glass of water and put them in the north window at the studio. they started to get leaves and grow so this afternoon i planted them outside. and i got a few little plants at walmart the other day and stuck them in my pots that are on the steps. now if i would just get out there and chop out all those weeds and grass from the garden area i would be set. when i was planting the trees there were 2 fat bumble bees buzzing me so i didn't spend much time out there.

Think i'll go mow some grass...it's therapy and thinking time riding that mower. LOL

where has today gone?

It is almost 4:30 and i am wondering where the day went.

Of course, if you don't get out of bed until 9:45 that pretty much takes care of your morning. LOL i find myself sleeping much later these days and don't really know why. i used to survive on 5 or 6 hours of sleep a night and am now doing 8 or 9. is that just age? yikes!  scary.  in another 10 years i'll be sleeping 10 or 12. LOL

Today was mowing day. Jim took the tractor out to the large pond and bushogged the tall stuff. i followed along on my riding mower and re-mowed what he did to smooth it all out and make it prettier. he says now it looks nice and makes him want to fish more.

Our neighbor's dog, Jigs, was down visiting and going round the pond looking for snakes...the dog dearly loves to kill snakes. He took a little swim when he got hot and continued his hunt. i never saw him find anything today. but there is a very large black snake that has lived under our barn for a few years now. Jigs saw him the other day and was barking and barking at him to come out and "play"...the snake wasn't falling for it and stayed under the barn. Jigs was quite perturbed at that. hahahaha

About 2pm we were finished with the section that we wanted to mow and decided to take a shower and wash away the grit and then go into town to eat. there is a new restaurant in town....the Whitetail Cafe. so we decided to give them a try. I had the fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy and corn. Jim has the catfish, shrimp and hush puppies. it was excellent food and we even took some home for later that didn't get eaten. the price was wonderful. but i won't probably go back...at least not very often. they smoke cigarettes in there and as soon as i opened the door i could tell. so i came home with itchy eyes. we only have 1 restaurant in town that has no smoking and that is where we usually go. but mostly we eat at home.

I never made it to the studio today so guess i will go work on a selvage bag that i started several days ago. at least i can say i sewed something today. tomorrow better be a studio day.

Hope your day was happy and your weekend will be even more so.

I'm back...

Did you miss me?

I went to my sister's last friday and we hung out for the day. she found a couple stuffed chairs at the goodwill for her family room. hopefully the dog won't eat these. they are too small for the great dane to fit in, so perhaps she will leave them alone.

Saturday we went to Hannibal, Missouri for a small local quilt show. there were about 200 quilts and a dozen vendors. only took us 2 hours to look at everything. while there, someone must have bumped the stand that was holding quilts. it fell over and took a couple more stands with it. we decided to leave about them....we didn't do it....honest. we did buy some very cool fabric from the Fern Hill vendor. and i got a couple packages of 2.5" Batik strips. i just couldn't resist them.

We found a great mexican restaurant to have lunch...it was yummy.

Sunday and monday we went to the beast and i tore out the downstairs bathroom. the former owners covered up the window with a fiberglass tub/shower combo and sis didn't want it. so i 'destructed' it. LOL   have you ever used a reciprocating saw?...woohoo!!!   what fun. that thing cuts through anything. after checking where the wires and pipes were i cut it into about a dozen pieces and got it out of there. and took out the medicine cabinet, the sink, paneling on the walls, and the ceiling that they dropped with the light fixture. lots of fun....took me 2 days.

Also took paneling out of a couple closets. i'm beginning to wonder if i'll ever be done removing paneling. there is still more out there.

My sis took the old tile stuff off the kitchen counter and destroyed the backsplash...that had ugly pretend bricks on it. it will get pretty new tile.

We have 3 piles going in the garage with stuff for the future dumpster.

Tuesday i delivered the wedding quilt to the happy couple and everyone who saw it seemed to like it. so now i have to start on the second wedding quilt. but it is a much simpler one.

This morning i put some bricks around my front flowerbed and mowed some grass. still have more bricks to do. then went over to the studio and worked on a current customer quilt. i am really not into it and have to make myself work on it. i managed 3 hours on it today. probably have 12 hours left to so. Siiigghhh!!

I had a small nap so now have to get up and go do something constructive. perhaps eat lasagna first.

Later

Cleaning out the studio

I have soooo many quilts in the studio piled up that something has to go. there is a point where there is no where else to put them. they have all been to several craft shows...or hanging in the studio....or been on ebay and not sold. so i talked to a friend that knows how to contact the people that run the women's shelter in the next town. she will come and pick them all up next week. when i spoke with her i told her i had 35 quilts to go...of various sizes. but since i spoke with her, i found yet another tub with about a dozen more.

I pulled out about 6 that i thought my son and daughter in law might like...a couple have horses on them and a couple have indians and a couple are asian. they have an asian room in their house so i knew they would like those. i told them they could have them if they wanted them....nothing fancy...sort of small....and not to worry about hurting my feelings if they really didn't want them. and explained that i was cleaning out the studio and was going to donate to the women's shelter. i get an email back from my son that says his wife tells him...."if she donates those quilts...i am going to leave you...move to missouri...become homeless...and find that shelter and get those quilts."   LOL  she is so hilarious. she says she loves all of them and wants them all. i have made them seveal quilts over the years and she just goes to pieces when she gets one...like i've given her a million dollars.

So i went out to the barn and dug around for a box to mail them out to them. i found a box that was a bit larger so i put in the 6 that i showed them and also about 6 more...to fill up the box. they will be surprised. she will be crying...and so happy. a daughter in law easy to please....i love that girl.

And the thing is that there are many, many more tops here to piece and send off somewhere. by the end of the year there will probably be about 30 or 40 more. the fun never ends.




 

Tshirts

Where have i been for a week you ask?   right here...sewing and quilting....but apparantly NOT blogging. i shall try to do better.

I am going to a quilt show in Hannibal, Missouri this weekend and decided i needed some new tshirts. so i pulled out some shirts that didn't have anything on them and decided to embroider some designs and sew them on the shirts.

This blue shirt was overdyed some time back. ignore the wrinkles please...it's been wadded up in a bag for the day.

These little penquins looked cute so i did them for this shirt. i usually enlarge the designs as big as they will get. this one is about 11.5" x 7" and took 3 hours to embroider.

I have found that i like it better if i embroider the design onto another fabric and then fuse that to the shirt instead of embroidering right onto the tshirt. the tshirt tends to get stretched out somewhat if i do it straight on the shirt. plus the stitching on the inside of the shirt is kind of itchy. i tried putting a fusible behind the embroidery on the shirt but that made it kind of stiff.

Usually i just fold the edge of the fabric under and stitch it down but this time i tried making a kind of binding on the edge. i did 3 different shirts and made all the bindings different. i haven't found a great way yet...but these all work.  here are the other shirts.

I liked the peacock on this black shirt. it is pretty bright in person.

And here is a light brown shirt with southwest designs on the front and the back. i couldn't decide which i liked better so i did them both.

Today was another Martha Stewart domestic day....i made 2 batches of cookies and put a chicken in the oven to bake for supper with sweet potatoes and carrots. will make dressing and gravy, too. i even cleaned up the bathroom. i think i need to go lie down until this domesticity passes....it can't be good for me.

See ya soon