Recents

From the tone of my last post I guess I implied that I hadn't been sewing anything, which isn't exactly true. I have done a little, but none of which has been terribly inspiring to me.

To begin with, the boys girlfriends asked for quilts. So Stephanie likes orange, so I showed her some batiks I had orange and blue with orange, and I made this for her at retreat in September. About 3 days after my return she broke up with Q. Now I have a nice center but not a whole lot of motivation to finish. Emily, Gene's girlfriend wanted brights on black. This is going in the direction I want, but now I am regretting some of the red and orange squares in the nine patches, I think I need to do some ripping and insert different color squares where it makes the pattern look wonky. And of course I ran out of Kona black. I thought I had some here at the house but when I pulled the top out to work on the borders I found it definitely wasn't Kona, so I've ordered more.

These are blue and cream Jacob's Ladders for the lottery at Mailblocks for this month.

And here are six of the 23 total blocks I made for a Scrappy Irish Chain swap at Mailblocks.

So all in all, I have been sewing, just not with the intensity that I have in the past. I think my motivation is slowly returning, I am working on my Orange Crush Mystery today, getting all of the blocks assembled and hopefully a nice border or two. Then it will be time to choose which Orphan blocks or UFO will grace the back and I'll get it on the frame finally.

My OH My....

Its been a while since I've been on Blogger. Perhaps because this is my quilt blog and I have been going through a motivational drought of late? Yes, I have basically kept up with my commitments, but that's it, and its not been joyfully either, but instead with a "I gotta catch up" attitude which leaves me a feeling of duty done, rather than satisfyingly and gleefully complete.

I think I'm finally heading out into the light again. Is it the weather getting cooler? Thoughts of Christmas looming over my head? Hopefully its just my passion returning.

Door close, window open

I believe in luck, I am definitely one of those people who think that if a door closes, a window will open in its place.

I was scheduled to attend a meeting for work about 40 miles away on Tuesday. I had planned to visit a fabric shop that was very close to the meeting afterwards. I used a mapping site to plan my route, the directions were easy and simple. My printer has been driving me mad lately, it has a full ink cartridge, all the test copies come out perfectly, but when I try to print, I get nothing but a blank page. So instead of printing a map, with specific directions and mileage, I looked at the estimated time my trip should take and headed out, after all, there was only 5 turns on my entire route.

Then I hit construction, and traffic caused by the construction, I was sure I had missed my turn because I had been driving for well over an hour and knew I would be missing the meeting but I still had a shop to find! So as I backtracked, taking different turns here and there, I spent 2 hours looking for the quilt shop before I gave up and headed for home stopping at a Joanns along the way. I saw a lady buying a 6x24" ruler and asked if she was a quilter. Yes, she was. Did she know where the shop called Zig Zag was located? She replied, it closed 6 months ago. Just great. With the price of gas where it is, I just had a 2½ hour wild goose chase. Well I still felt I needed to buy fabric, so I stopped just a few miles from my house at the Back Door quilt shop.

The meeting was one of many scheduled so I rescheduled for Thursday. Not a big difference, but I work nights, so i worked until 8am and the meeting started at 2pm, an hours drive, plus showering, etc. I was running on about 3 hours of sleep and knew that would be all I would be getting before starting another ten hour shift that night. I learned of an alternate route, fewer turns, country driving, less traffic and it would bring me right to the location of the meeting, and I headed off. So I actually made the meeting and was driving home thinking about all the irritation I had caused myself a few days prior, I was stopped at a red light, looked to my right and had one of those "Angels singing Aaaaaahhhhhh! and a ray of blinding light" moments, I'll be danged if it wasn't a quilt shop! Not the one I was looking for, but an honest to God real live quilt shop nonetheless! I had to stop. Yes, I had spent my allocated fabric dollars a few days earlier at the Back Door, but, but, but I still HAD to go in! What a great little shop! And I do mean little. The owner was extremely friendly and apologized for being so tiny, explaining she was looking for another larger location. But it was so cozy, and had tons to see and look at. I told her the whole story, and she said, "The Zig Zag isn't closed, I just talked to the owner last week." What??????? You've got to be #%$&* kidding me!!! So I know where I'm going on my next SEX (Stash Enhancing Experience) field trip! LOL

While browsing, I happened upon a collection called Prairie Paisley by Moda which I have seen in magazines and online, but none do justice to this gorgeous collection as does seeing it in person, and her lone star shop sample was incredible, so I splurged and bought this:

Try this link for a better view of the entire fabric collection:

Moda's Prairie Paisley by Minick& Simpson

There's about 9 yards of fabric there, enough I think to make at a lap/twin sized quilt. It didn't take me long to figure out what I'm going to do with this....Why a Wild Goose Chase quilt of course!

I'm a Wylde Woman!

Wow! Thanks to Rhonda over at Patches and Pieces for presenting me with this beautiful Wylde Women Award!

This award was created by Tammy Vitale to send love and acknowledgment to women who brighten your day, teach you new things and live their lives fully with generosity and joy.

These are the rules of this award:
1. You can give it to one or one hundred or any number in between - it's up to you. Make sure you link to their site in your post.
2. Link back to this blog site (http://http://www.tammyvitale.com//) (so I can go visit all these wonderful women.)

Well, let me see here, I know a few Wylde Women and I would like to present this award to:

Amanda at Amanda's Musings

Gina at Quilting in the Valleys

Val at Pumpkin Patch Quilter

Neighbors who would have thought?

I did want to mention something that happened here in the neighborhood this past weekend that was just, really nice. We have lived here for 7 years and honestly we knew none of our neighbors. Yes, we'd wave to be polite and maybe say a hello now and then, but we knew no one. There was the preacher and his wife, the couple with the golden retrievers, the blonde and the guy with the beard or the people the kids help shovel snow for.
Well, Stan and Shirley (formerly known as the preacher and his wife) decided to have a block party. They provided hot dogs and hamburgers and all were welcome to bring a covered dish and attend. This was to take place in the cul-de-sac in front of the house. We felt compelled to attend, even though we really didn't want to. So we took some cookies and potato salad and headed out.
What a nice time we all had getting acquainted! Donna and Gene (formerly known as the people the kids shovel snow for) sang songs while Gene played along on his guitar. Mike and Patty (formerly known as the couple with the golden retrievers) brought their DGG Ashton and I just fell in love with her curly red hair and we played in the front yard. Ron and Paula (formerly known as the guy with the beard and the blonde) told us all about the history of the area since they had grown up here in town and their house was the first in the addition to be built 30 years ago.
We all had to tear everything down quickly and head inside as the storm rolled in and promised to do it again, and I really hope we do. It was relaxing and very enjoyable. We have some super sweet neighbors! Maybe you do too?

Changing patterns

This first pic is a row robin I was working on. Susan, the owner, wanted red, black and white exploding or bursting stars in red, white and black. I chose these two thinking they both looked like they fell within the guidelines. I argued with DH as to whether or not the star row on the left looked like it was bursting. I see bursting, he sees boring bars.Next I have pics of lotto blocks for Mailblocks. The block was my choice, its My Blue Heaven from Quilterscache. The only input I had was that the blocks were to have a light blue background and the quilters choice for the other colors, but that it looked to me like butterflies against a blue summer sky. So I made these, with butterflies in mind, the striped fabric was cut on the bias to make the stripes go in the right direction. And I think they do look like butterflies.
But then I thought to myself that I didn't really specify that the hsts could be different colors and I was afraid that everyone would take the instructions very literally, so I made these. I thought they were rather boring until I put them up on the design wall to take the pic.
Well now, that's a rocking awesome star in the middle where the blocks intersect...I didn't notice that at first. But that's the fun of playing with blocks on a design wall isn't it?

Recents

Bear paw blocks for a swap at Mailblocks I think I'll make some more and use them on point as a back to my Homespun Turning Twenty UFO 8" Batik Happy Blocks for a swap. I've made 50 of these, the maximum is 75 and the due date is not until August, I plan to make at least 25 to 50 more, hopefully!
Dog block swap at Mailblocks Blocks were supposed to be 12", my puppies are 24" I had hoped that I could just trim them up to be 12" but I would have lost part of their ears, so I expanded to make them 24" square, I hope Ronda and Melanie arent upset.

Summertime

I guess its the summertime that's making me neglect my blog. I've been enjoying mornings on the deck with my coffee, watching the birds and a bowling ball of a squirrel that lives in my backyard. I call him a bowling ball because he will wait patiently for the birds to perch on the privacy fence in the backyard, then catapult himself towards them sending them flying and sometimes falling off their roost! Evenings are spent either in the adirondack chairs in front or on the deck in back after the sun goes down. I have been trying to spend some time on the yard. Let me assure you, its not beautiful, I'm just playing catch up with the weeds I've let take over in the past month or so.

I finally started taking things into my own hands regarding the renovation of the living room. Q and I tore up all the carpet before DH got home one day last week. So now we have concrete floors. I am hoping this will be enough to light a fire under him so that he gets moving on the drywall. He thinks by asking me "What furniture colors are you going for? What colors are you going to paint the walls? Have you thought about what furniture you you're going to buy?" that he is putting me on the spot, in other words, "If you're going to make me do all this work then you better be prepared to get a move on also!" But I was already prepared, I have the paint samples in my purse and I've been to the furniture store twice and know exactly what I want, I just haven't decided on a color yet because he's not made a decision on the floor :-) Still just waiting on him!

How lucky am I?

June has started out to be a really lucky month for me, first I won the lotto for the tulip blocks from Mailblocks shown in the previous post! Then, I won the FQ lotto at Quilting in Indiana for neutral FQs! Plus, this is my surrogate birthday month at Quilting in Indiana also, there were too many November birthdays so I chose June instead...its going to be a month of squishy fun! I will post photos of all at the end of the month!

Lottery blocks

Lottery blocks for May at Mailblocks using Tulip Quilt Block pattern. I think these are so sweet, the winner will be so happy!