The ABC's of my quilting style

Found this on Ms Jans blog and thought it was a great idea!

THE ABC'S OF MY QUILTING STYLE
A- Artist? Nah, not me. I just do what I like although I love trying new styles and mixing and matching.
B- Best Blogging Buddies? I read a lot of blogs, all are the best cause they inspire me!
C- Crazy or Sane Quilting? Depends on the day, sometimes I crave some crazy.
D- Dyeing or Stamping? One of these days, when its warmer, I'll try dyeing. Class at Quiltuniversity by Marjie McWilliams looks promising.
E- Essential Item? My rotary cutter and tiny embroidery scissors.
F- Favorite Fabrics? Batiks, Thimbleberries, florals of any kind, Kona cotton is my meat and potatoes though.
G- Great Quilt Design? Quilting designs...love to do my own!
H- Hand or Machine Quilt? Machine mostly, but I always try to have one handquilting project going. And some scrap quilts are just begging to be tied with bright red yarn!
I- Indispensable Notion? 6½ and 12½" square ruler.
J- Janome or Bernina? Neither! Liking my Pfaff and Singer just fine thank you!
K- Kits or Original Designs? Never a kit.
L- Life in the Studio is? Is good. Is happiness. Is frustrating. Is rewarding. Is spent hunting for stuff! :-)
M- Most Projects Made in One Year? Heck I don't know, I have so many UFO's that I start and put away and then pull out again months and years later. I couldn't begin to guess.
N- Number of Gadgets? probably around 3 or 4, I'm pretty straightforward when it comes to quilting.
O- OH, I wish I hadn’t. . . . .? Started quilting so late.
P- Pet Peeves about Quilting? Scraps drive me crazy, I should use these up, but I'm tired of looking at the same fabric, I'll put them away until someday I decide to just make crazy crumb blocks, oh look, my scrap bin is overflowing, I need a bigger one, oh look, that one is over flowing I need to start a second one for larger pieces, oh look both my bins are over flowing, I'll start cutting larger pieces into 2½" strips and smaller pieces into 2½ squares and 3½ squares, now I have 5 scrap bins look at the space I have devoted to these &(*$@! SCRAPS! I should give some away, but what if I need a small piece of this or that? My favorite quilts are scrap quilts! And the strips can be made into log cabins, and the squares can be made into stamp quilts.......it never ends.
Q- Quilt Show? Going to try to make it to Bloomington, IN and Paducah this year. Bloomington will be easy but Paducah will be a challenge.
R- Reason to Rip Out? Blatant mismatched points, paper piecing when I cut pieces too small and they don't cover.
S- Sewing or Knitting? Sewing only.
T- Tag, I try to remember to tag my blog posts
U- UFOs? they're just napping, I'll wake them up and play with them at a later time.
V- Vexing Quilt Pattern? Ironically a Double Wedding Ring...I have agreed to make one for co-workers daughters wedding in Decemeber, so I have better get un-vexxed!
W- Wishlist Item? Singer 301 just to try and have, new Pfaff to replace Singer
X- Xtra Fabric you will never use? Cut that stuff up into strips and squares for scrappy and charity projects! (see "P" )
Y- Your Biggest Goof? Reading in QNM about fudge factors and how you could fudge your way through some problems and being so egotistical to think that fudging could make up for careful piecing.
Z- Zip! Love when I can zip through projects with easier patterns but more intricate fabric and still make an interesting quilt.

Friendship swap 2007

One of the 2007 swap events at Mailblocks, a friendship swap. We send a block a month for 12 months along with small gifts throughout the year.

These are supposed to be whimsical and traditional with favorite colors of reds, blues and purples. Hope my friend likes it!

The decision has been made!

I decided to try out machine applique on the wool leaves. I learned some lessons, first of all, I can make my machine 'blanket stitch' which is wonderful because I was stressing over doing it by hand. I also learned that I like working with wool, its thickness really beefs a project up. I wish I had tried to do something with the packet I have had lying around sooner. I also reinforced the fact that I was still too chicken to put binding on inside corners so I birthed it instead, maybe a future project will find me feeling a little more froggy. Now for the big question.....what happens when I wash this? Will that wool bleed all over everything? I guess time will tell.

Sometimes quilting has a way of leaking in...

My friend Jamie has two daughters, Jessie 6 and Julie 3 (and a baby brother on the way!) I used to sometimes take Jessie places with us, but then Julie came of an age when she would realize her sister was going, but still too young to trust enough to come along, I stopped for a while. So I was delighted when they visited me at work and Julie asked, "When are you going to keep me?" :-)

So on Monday I was prepared, I had granola bars, crackers, cookies, fruit snacks, a doll for each with things to do, like one could be doodled on and the other had an extra set of clothes and accessories, some "makeup" for each, crayons and coloring paper, a big exercise ball, and Nick on the TV. I had dog treats for the dogs, cat treats for the cat and purposely didn't feed the fish that morning. We were going to spend 4 hours together and I was loaded for bear against the dreaded boredom.

Yeah, we blasted through all my preparations in a little over 2 hours and then they were on the hunt for something fun to do. We looked through pictures on the computer, they tried on all of the boys wrestling and football medals, they rummaged around (but not too deeply) in the boys' rooms and I was starting to sweat...what else did I have entertaining? Then they saw my design wall and were fascinated that blocks stuck to the flannel. So what was the biggest hit and consumer of the most fun of the afternoon?

Guess!

Unconscious mutterings 1/28

1. Limit :: two


2. Voice :: change


3. Change :: pocket


4. Expression :: painting


5. Tailor :: sew


6. Lemonade ::glass


7. Thought :: about


8. Phoebe :: Cates


9. Impression :: footprint


10. Sister :: friend

Remember, to play along visit:http://subliminal.lunanina.com/

WWC choices

So which layout shall I choose? If I add wool felt leaves like I had originally planned, then I guess I should choose the left one so I have nice open light space to play in. But then again, I just want to be done with this challenge because I have so much on my plate right now and I could whip this puppy out this afternoon. But its technically not due until 2/15.
Hmmmm...choices, choices. Stay tuned to see what I decide!

Spring bargello

The first bargello project from the class at Quilt University.

We were to choose colors that represented spring to us, these are the colors of my spring bulbs, daffodils, tulips and hyacinths. Now I think I need to find a nice brown and it will look like a freshly mulched spring bed. I really wanted this to be special so I had to buy most of fabric, just half yards of each, I had plenty of the lavender already on hand.
I made a couple of boo-boos, mostly in pressing/cutting, my strips are a little angled and they're not supposed to be. Then the whole thing was a little skewed, so I blocked it using my design board and sprayed the heck out of it with starch hoping to make it look more squared. Next time I will try cutting and pressing a little differently. All and all it wasn't a difficult project, but you do definitely need to pay attention to the details, I did a lot of frog stitching on this one!

Unconscious Mutterings 1/21

1. Audition :: lights


2. Urgent :: to pee


3. Lunch :: box


4. Adult :: movie


5. Mug :: shot


6. Awful :: smell


7. Comics :: paper


8. Damage :: control


9. Kicks :: flicks


10. Experience ::matters

To play along visit: http://subliminal.lunanina.com

Mailblocks snowballs

6" floral snowballs for Mailblocks, there are 5 blocks of each pattern, should make a really nice quilt when all swapped out happy to say that since I am a floral fanatic, I had everything already in my stash and I shopped none.

Unconscious mutterings 1/14

1. Episode :: repeat


2. Source :: beginning


3. Jerk :: off


4. Introduce :: myself


5. Ralph :: Cramden


6. Stare :: competition


7. Cast :: arm


8. Scenario :: same old


9. Flu :: shot


10. Mad :: Gab

Split nine patch

for a mailblocks swap hostesssed by Evelyn. Loved to dig into some of those scrap bins.

Forgot to post pics of shoo-flies for Jan lotto.

Unconscious mutterings 1/6

1. Incomplete :: transaction


2. Bobby :: sox


3. Chopstick :: suey


4. Trauma :: center


5. Hesitate :: lost


6. Leap :: frog


7. Magnify ::glass


8. Yards :: of fabric


9. Alexander :: the Great


10. Fracture :: bone

to play along: http://subliminal.lunanina.com/

Unconscious Mutterings 1/1/07

1. Resolution :: resolved


2. Happy :: smile


3. Bubbly ::Champagne


4. Kiss :: close eyes


5. Leather :: couch


6. Fancy :: feathers


7. Pages :: turned


8. Stupid :: thing


9. Apologize :: for what?


10. Secrets :: spy case

To play along, visit: http://subliminal.lunanina.com