Big Horn Mountain Creations and Quilting

Shoe Box Swap

2011-12-31T14:03:00.000-07:00

I know it has been a long time since I have posted any quilty things.

so I am back to share some things I have been working on.

But first

I join a group for a

SHOE BOX SWAP,

the idea is to fill a shoe box with

goodies. Requirements are 2 fat quarters

for each month of the year and either a hand made

ornament or pincushion.

Each person fills out a questionnaire with 2 colors

and choice of the ornament or pincushion.

My secret shoe box santa is Fran R.

and she out did herself.

Can you believe she fit ALL of this in a shoe box!

Hand made this darling needle book and ornament for me.

She really does beautiful work

Look at these FQ bundles, oh my goodness

(my colors were pink and green)

Neat pillow pattern.

Some wool, it is soooooooo soft

ribbons, threads, book about quilts,

a motif, magnetic needle case, silk fabric

(we do CQ, too)

candy, which was a huge hit!

Everything again.

Thank you Fran, I love my box of goodies

Happy New Year to All

Turquoise & Brown Split 9 Patch - Completed

2011-07-25T10:08:00.000-07:00

Turquoise & Brown Split 9 Patch

The completed quilt.

I waited to post the final product until

after giving the quilt to my daughter.

The label

Whole completed quilt

Quilting details

Binding details

Front and Backing

I am pleased with the results, despite the quilting issues.

It now lives in OK, with DD and SIL

Enjoy kiddos

What is next?

Finish BOM (block of the month) 'Ruffled Roses'

Quilts for my friends, Amber and Tyler's, 4 wee ones.

(one of which is started, a cute pink and white)

Beautiful quilt kit that is waiting.

Quilt Judy's bear quilt

Learn thread painting

Whole cloth quilt

Wall quilts for my newly finished stairwell

(which leads to my studio)

So you see, I will keep busy and have more to share with you,

I hope you will come back for a visit

Please let me know you were here by leaving a comment.

Hugs

May God Bless and Keep You.

Ginny's Flanged Binding

2011-07-13T19:03:00.000-07:00

Ginny's Flanged Binding

I thought I would do a tutorial on

a machine binding technique that I learned

from Ginny Singer while at a quilt show.

She had done her quilts this way

and shared with me how she did it.

I changed it up just a little bit, but it is still

her idea.

I have never been happy with the results of machine

binding until this technique.

First I wanted to share a picture of my first attempt

at this way of doing the binding.

This is on my daughters quilt.

Alright, lets cut our binding. I used 2 1/2 inches, prepare

the length as you normally would. I did not do bias here, just

cut across the fabric.

Next cut a 1 inch strip the same length as your binding

piece it together as you desire.

Spray your binding with spray starch to help get a crisp fold.

Press in half length wise both pieces.

Be careful not to stretch the fabric which is easy to do.

Now open the 2 1/2 inch binding up, laying it flat.

Place your accent piece (flap) on top, so that the pressed

fold of the large strip in centered down the middle of the

flap, stitch that on about 1/8 inch from the raw edge.

It should look like this.....

with a little space between the fold line and the stitching to create

a small flap, that will help hide the stitch line when you sew it down.

Now, fold your binding in 3rds, like this using the stitched line

of your flap to aline the back side. You do not need to do the

whole thing this is to get an idea of how wide you will stitch the binding on.

When you open it back up, place it under your presser foot

lower the needle and this will tell you how far in you stitch line needs

to be. See how mine is on the outside of my 1/4 inch foot?

Use this measurement to sew on the whole binding.

Trim away any excess binding you may have.

Apply the binding just as you normally would.

Except....sew it to the back, not the front

To connect the two ends, I do the bypass/overlap method.

trim away excess layers where needed.

Pull the binding to the front of the quilt

I suggest pinning, like this......

So you can put your zipper foot on and move the flap aside,

sewing up close and letting the flap go back over the stitching.

The seam ripper helps hold the flap out of the way.

The corners are done the same as normal, but you will

need to stop and cut your thread, then start again on the

new side.

Try not to sew past the line of stitching that attaches the binding

or you will sew into the binding on the back

this is the back view, can you see where I over sewed my line?

Here is the binding on my daughters quilt, it was much easier

to work with then the small sample. It does take some

tweaking on these corners but the result is worth it.

A close up of the stitching on the front and under the flap.

I hope my explanation is clear, if not let me know if

I can answer any questions.

Give this a try and let me know if you have

any ideas to make it better.

Thank you Ginny for sharing this with us.

May God Bless and Keep You!

Ruffled Roses BOM - 4

2011-06-10T19:11:00.000-07:00

Ruffled Roses BOM

part 4

Oh yes, I am behind, that is for sure.

I am still working on part 3 or Marches borders

for my Ruffled Roses quilt.

Things got off track back in Feb and here it is

June and I am still working on March, but alas I AM still working on it.

For March we are to add the swagged border.

Wow, alot of work but I am nearly done, and ready to move

onto the next task or Aprils border.

Here is a picture of how how the quilt should look

of course with our own fabrics

Some of the details........

these are the corner blocks, sewing down the applique.

I really love it when a mistake turns out to be a better way

of doing something. I started sewing the applique down

backwards, well the stitching that holds it down that is.

Turns out I liked it better so continued to do it wrong

the picture shows it ~~wrong~~ er now what is right.

All 4 corner blocks, can you see which one is wrong (that used to be right)?

One of the swag borders

And now attached to the quilt. All of the flowers are being hand

stitched down with a blanket stitch just like the center was done.

The whole quilt top so far. I am loving it, was a little scared of the

strip, but an really glad I chose to go with it.

That stripped fabric is one of those that I use alot in different projects.

Stay tuned for Aprils work.

I am hooking up to Pink Saturday

so come on over to How Sweet the Sound

so many sweet pinks to see.

Thank you Beverly for hosting Pink Saturday for 3 whole years now.

May God Bless and Keep you

please leave me a note, I love to hear from you.

Turquoise & Brown Split 9 Patch-Quilting

2011-05-20T08:15:00.000-07:00

Working on quilting Samantha's

Turquoise & Brown Split 9 Patch

Finished top

Mounted to the longarm and ready to go

Quilting begins, this quilting pattern is on I love to do

and have not seen anywhere else.

To see the process of making the top,

check out my earlier post HERE

Thank you for stopping by, hope you are having

sunshine at your place, it just won't stop raining here.

Off now to quilt the rest of this quilt.

God Bless

Trying to Catch Up!

2011-04-05T15:11:00.000-07:00

Boy oh boy it has been busy since we got back from our trip.

I have been trying to get caught up.....

quilted this hugs quilt

it is in the process of hand stitching down the binding.

I did an over all heart and swirl design

except in the field around the hearts

where I put a meander, then

in the hearts some feathers.

I also made 2 baby quilts for my niece

the blue for her son

and

the pink,green and yellow for the new baby she is expecting

I also quilted up another hugs quilt,

cut the pieces for my BOM, which I am now a month behind on

worked on Samantha's quilt a little.

Now if I can get well maybe I will get more going, just can not seem to shake this cold.

We also worked on the garden beds

put in 4 more, but have been to sick to work outside much.

Packed up my longarm

it is going back to the factory for an upgrade, WAHOO.

We have a long list of things to get done this summer

Busy is good, right?

Thanks for stopping by,

I will post more about the BOM soon

and on Samantha's quilt, too.

God's blessing to you and your family.

For Karen

2011-03-26T08:52:00.001-07:00

Karen's Table Runner

A couple of years ago my SIL saw the

table runner I put together (with help from several CQ friends) for my

daughter Samantha @ Three Men and a Lady

see her table runner here

and wanted one, too.

So I began collecting fabrics and deciding on

a pattern;

Blossoms & Butterflies by This & That's Sherry Falls

Then everything sat and waited its turn

to come to life.

I liked this patten because of its shape.

Karen is into blues, so this was fun to do

because blue is not a color I normally work in,

and I love being stretched, creatively.

The flowers are appliqued, I like

to do raw edge, putting a buttonhole/blanket stitch on by hand.

I used Sassa Lynne thread for this.

Now I have to tell you that I was in a rush to do this

because I was going to see Karen in a week, so put everything

else aside and made this up, SOOOO, I forgot

to take finish pictures. DUH.

Maybe Karen will take some for me and I can show you the finished piece in its new home.

The flower also has 4 pink french knots in the center, on the finished piece.

A close up of the center blocks. I quilted it with

stitch in the ditch, and an outline of the flowers.

Next up.......

2 baby quilts...........

Still working on my Ruffled Roses BOM and

Samantha's Turquoise and Brown Quilt.

With a Hugs quilt on the Longarm

So stay tuned for more quilt creations.

Ruffled Roses BOM - 3

2011-03-04T19:46:00.000-07:00

Ruffled Roses Quilt

February Block

err......... border........... but anyway.

Last month we began with the center block

A close up of the raw edge applique and hand stitching I did.

Now lets add some borders, to create this;

The thing about this BOM is that all the pieces are small,

I don't usually work this small, so it

is quite trying, but I love the results

and if one is not challenged to improve themselves

then what is the point?

So I began cutting and here is what I had.

and this

Sue writes very good instructions.

So, I sewed the strips together and cut them into tiny units, 1 3/8 inches wide.

Next is paper piecing the 230 little triangles and 112 strips together.

Paper piecing helps to keep things more accurate

you put the fabric under the paper and sew on the lines.

Just on either side of part one there.

the dotted lines are for cutting the block down to size

which is 2 1/2 inches.

Chain stitching each one twice. You use a small stitch so

once done the paper tears away with ease.

And here is the result

Now lets sew them together to make an X

First join two together then put two sets together, be sure to

pin so everything lines up (finished these up today, took awhile).

To get this........

Ok, sew first we put on a floater (burgundy),

next the stripped border, then another

floater (also burgundy)

then the X border.

Sew, what do you think?

Pretty cool?

Next months additions

(well this month cause I am late and it is March now, LOL)

Sew until next month.

May God bless you and keep you.

I am linking up to Pink Saturday,

visit Beverly @ How Sweet the Sound for

lots of wonderful pinks.

Turquoise & Brown Split 9 Patch

2011-02-23T14:07:00.000-07:00

Turquoise & Brown Split 9 Patch

Now that the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation Quilt is done

it is time to work on my daughters quilt again.

In October of 2010 I started to work on this quilt

but things have changed a bit (you can see that here)

if you go and see the orginal beginnings you will find

that the colors have changed.

We changed from greens and browns to

turquoise and browns (only one of the original browns made the cut).

You see I have wanted to make a quilt for her for a long time

but she kept changing her colors, like every 6 months to a year so I waited

and I thought we had it, but once again we changed,

but this time I think it is a go.

Besides if she ever wants a quilt this will have to be it. LOL

You can visit Samantha @

Three Men and a Lady

she is working hard on her new home and is sharing

her progress.

Ok back to the quilt.

The pattern is the same, a split 9 patch.

I got the pattern from Quilters Cache

The blocks are 9 inches and we are making a king size.

The new fabrics

Sewing begins....

The paper that you see below is so cool.

Normally to do a 1/2 square triangle you cut your

square and then cut it in half again from point to point to

make a triangle, then you sew it to another

triangle of a differing fabric.

Well with this paper, instead you.........

Place two strips of fabric (in this case 9 inches wide)

right sides together, then you pin the paper

in place on top of them like so.

Then you sew on the dotted lines in the direction of the arrows.

Using a very small stitch. You see two sets of arrows?

This indicates that you have two dotted lines to sew on

either side of the solid line.

Once that is done you begin to cut apart the paper on the solid lines

Until you have all of the triangles cut apart
and when you open it up, you have your square composed of

2 - 1/2 square triangles. Pretty cool.

Once you press it open you can remove the paper.

The paper removes very easily because you used

a small stitch and it perforated the paper nicely.

Set one of the triangles are done, with set two awaiting sewing.

Now I have to tell you that my assistant Missy Moew,

keeps a close eye on my work and helps hold things down (not always what I want her to do).

She also has an opinion on where the pins belong, some she finds

to intriguing to leave along (I have to watch her closely, she likes

to steal them and chew on them, not a good idea)

She also inspects the needle as I sew (nose up close) and

wants to put her paw in there to play with the needle, needless

to say, she get shooed away. As soon as the machine starts going

she is in the middle of things. I don't mind until she

gets to close to danger.

Set #2 being sewn

and completed

Next up strips cut at 3 1/2 inches, these will be sewn together

in strip sets of 2 each

and then cut at 3 1/2 inches

Once combine you will have

a quilt block

only 131 more to go.

So onward and upward,

The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation Quilt was picked up today

the owner won't see it until Friday sometime, but her rep was

more the happy with the results.

I hope to be able to share with you how it did at auction.

So now we shall work on the T&B quilt for my daughter

I also am binding the quilt for my grandson Codey

I will share that picture soon

and

have a hugs quilt on the long arm waiting to be quilted.

It is good to stay busy.

Thank you for visiting and please leave a comment

so I know you came by

May God Bless and Keep you

God Bless America

A Little Playing Today

2011-02-20T15:10:00.000-07:00

Today, I decided to play a little with

the

Texture Magic

I got the other day.

It is put out by Superior Threads

and you can find it at most quilt shops.

For my play time, I decided on this fat quarter

and drew a design.

The Texture Magic is white and reminds me of

lining for a skirt.

I also put batting in between before I did my sewing.

Here it is sewn, but not steamed

After sewing you steam (not iron), hold the iron

above the fabric and let the steam penetrate.

It took about 15 minutes to do the whole thing

Pretty cool, I think.

Alot of possibilities with this.

I am thinking it would be a great addition to a

Crazy Quilting project.

Rocky Mt. Elk Foundation Quilt 11

2011-02-19T21:38:00.001-07:00

Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation Quilt

Part 11

The label

My friend Lyn let me use her embroidery machine

to make this wonderful label.

This is also made on material from one of the shirts

and is a deep midnight blue with silvery blue thread.

I think it adds the finishing touch to the quilt.

Just a couple more things to do

such as tacking down the large embroidered logos

by hand because I did not quilt through them

2 more of those to go. The binding is all

finished, so we are nearly there.

Thanks for visiting,

and

May God Bless and Keep you.

Update: March 5. This quilt
brought $4,000.00 at auction.
A great money raiser for the
foundation and good pat on the back
for me. WOW.

Rocky Mt. Elk Foundation Quilt 10

2011-02-18T09:00:00.000-07:00

Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation Quilt

Just a little update. No pictures at the moment.

I was busy stitching down the binding

last night and all of a sudden I came

to the point where I began.

OH NO!

Now I am going to have to undo some of

the stitches,

I got so carried away, I sewed down the

area where the label goes!

LOL

The label will be made today, my girlfriend

Lyn is bringing her embroidery machine over,

so say tuned for pictures of this amazing process.

Then the quilt will be heading to its owner

and off to the auction.

May God Bless you and keep you safe

Rocky Mt. Elk Foundation Quilt 9

2011-02-16T16:57:00.000-07:00

Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation Quilt

Part 9

Now that the quilting is done

it is time to bind the quilt

After cutting my fabric 1 3/4 inches

I attached it with a 1/4 inch seam.

I chose to do a single layer on the binding,

normally it would be doubled, but with

the thickness of the fabric

I felt it best to do the single layer.

The binding is sewn to the front of the quilt

and then turned to the back to stitch down by hand.

Pinned and ready to stitch. This will take several days

the hand cramps after awhile so breaks are required.

The needle and double thread.

After stitching

Next up, the label which will go in the last corner

Thank you for stopping by. It won't be long now

and it will be going to its owners.

May God Bless and Keep you.

Rocky Mt. Elk Foundation Quilt 8

2011-02-13T17:16:00.000-07:00

Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation Quilt

Part 8

The quilting.

Yes, the quilt is on the long arm

(Saturday morning)

I was so busy quilting I forgot to take any pictures until I was about

half way done. LOL.

A close up of the machine during stitching.

Some sections quilted.

All finished and ready for the binding. A task for tomorrow.

(Sunday)

May God Bless you and Keep you.

Rocky Mt. Elk Foundation Quilt 7

2011-02-11T16:59:00.000-07:00

Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation

Part 7

The quilt top is done and ready

to go on the long arm tomorrow.

Click the picture for a close up.

Not much else to tell today

finished up all the borders and

getting the backing ready.

More tomorrow when it goes

on the long arm and we begin quilting.

So what do ya think?

It is good to see my vision come to pass

the top measures 88" X 100"

See you all tomorrow

God Bless and Keep you.

Rocky Mt. Elk Foundation Quilt 6

2011-02-09T18:03:00.000-07:00

Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation Quilt

Part 6

Welcome back to the progress on this fun quilt

Today I began working on the

3 borders for the quilt

First is a 1 1/2 inch midnight blue

keeping with using the shirts for this quilt

I cut 2 inch strips for the first border this morning

(won't bore you with that process)

and sewed them to the quilt.

Next I began construction of the main border

which is 6 inches wide and incorporates

yokes, sleeves and more blocks.

To begin I cut apart and squared up the

back yokes from the shirts, no point in having

extra layers of fabric to quilt thorough and

add weight to an already very heavy quilt.

After squaring up the yokes some needed to be added to

(another thing I won't bore you with, besides I forgot to take a picture).

The sleeves have wonderful embroidery on them and this will go in the border, too

Ready to cut.

The quilt has become to big to fit across my king size bed

so it is a bit crumpled up.

Now you can see the first border and the lower 2nd border

Remember to click for a bigger picture

The upper 2 borders, sorry the picture is off kilter,

I took it upside down, so it would be right side up.

A close up of the lower border, with a bit of the black fabric that will

be the last border so you can get an idea what it will be like.

Yes, I plan for the one yoke to stay like that into the final border

cool, yes?

Tomorrow I will not be working on the quilt, we have to head

to town and do some cabinet work.

So stay tuned, I will be back at it on Friday.

Please leave a comment, I love to hear from you all.

God Bless and Keep you.

Rocky Mt. Elk Foundation Quilt 5

2011-02-08T17:10:00.000-07:00

Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation Quilt

Part 5

Time to celebrate...........

the center of the top is
DONE.

I am pleased with how it looks

What do you think?

Today's work included,
joining row 3 components together
making the 4th section.

Here we have, the left.

the middle

the right.

Joining the 3rd and 4th rows together,

then joining the top half to the bottom half.

WaHoo, and it looks cool.

Next up are the 3 borders. So stay tuned

The thread for the quilting and the backing arrived.

Real Tree Camo for the back. Cool....Yes!

God Bless and Keep you.

Please leave a comment, they mean alot to me,

I love hearing from you.

Rocky Mt. Elk Foundation Quilt 4

2011-02-07T20:43:00.000-07:00

Rocky Mt. Elk Foundation Quilt

Part 4

Welcome back to the creation of this quilt

The weekend is over and it is back to working
on this neat quilt.

This is row 3 of the quilt.

the left side (working on adding the red and tan logo)

Middle

Right side

the whole left side

The whole middle

Right side

(remember you can click on the picture for a closer look)

The whole quilt, well 3/4 of the whole quilt.

Thank you for stopping by,

more tomorrow.

God Bless and Keep you

Rocky Mt. Elk Foundation Quilt 3

2011-02-04T16:04:00.000-07:00

Rocky Mt. Elk Foundation Quilt

Part 3

Welcome back to the creation of this quilt

It is at what I call the gangly teenager stage

you know when kids are growing so fast they get awakard in

mobility and looks. LOL.

I finished cutting the strip sets this morning and sewing

them together into 4 patches.

Leaving some in 2 patches

Then construction began (left side)

Middle

Right side

All together

Time to stop for today, what should I make for dinner

we are about leftovered out. Is leftovered a word?

Will work on the next section tomorrow.

Come on over to My Tin Shack,

I am working on a post about my faux leather treatment

in my stairwell and hope to finish that up to post

later tonight.

God Bless and Keep you

Rocky Mt. Elk Foundation Quilt 2

2011-02-03T20:20:00.000-07:00

Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation Quilt

Part 2

Today, nothing very exciting happened

All of the fronts of the shirts and some backs

have been cut into 3 1/2 inch strips

and paired up with another color strip.

With right sides together the strips are chained piece together.

Ironed open and ready to be cut again.

Each strip set is cut again at 3 1/2 inches, like this.

Then two different ones are joined to..........

create this 4 patch unit.

These units will be used to fill in between the main elements of the top.

Once constructed the finished block is 6 1/2 inches

The finished block within the quilt will be 6 inches,

having 1/4 inch seam allowances.

Not all of the strip sets are cut, and not all of the

units created. Time to rest my hand.

More tomorrow.

God Bless and keep you

Rocky Mt. Elk Foundation Quilt

2011-02-02T15:59:00.000-07:00

Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation Quilt

I have been asked to make a quilt for

the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation.

I will be using commemorative shirts to construct the quilt.

This quilt is being donated to the foundation

by several local families.

It will be auctioned off at one of their affairs in March.

On Tuesday February 1,

I was given this stack of shirts to use

in constructing the quilt.

Beautiful shirts.

With great graphic logos

The deadline for this quilt is February 28

It is a queen size quilt.

So I began cutting apart the shirts,

starting at about noon and stopped to take

inventory about 6 pm (with a few little breaks inbetween).

Above are the shirt backs with logos

Shirt backs without logos, but will be used for fabric.

Shirt sleeves

Extras with possibilities

Shirt fronts with logos

After dinner (thank goodness for left overs).

I decided I needed some direction so I

cut out shapes for the large motifs (like you'd do for funiture

when your decorating a room)

Once I found a pleasing arrangement

I taped them down.

Next I put in the outer border

and began filling in the center.

There will be two borders

the outer most I am thinking will be black and 3 inches wide

Next will be a 6 inch border,

it will house numerous items from the shirts.

This morning (Wed), more cutting,

prepare the element for the top

Large motifs cut to size

Smaller motifs cut and sewing has begun.

A star from a shirt front and strips from a shirt

Star fabric with strips.

These are 6 inch blocks, the 4 together makes a 12 inch

component for the quilt

More small motifs awaiting placement

These 6 inch squares were shoulder pads on the shirts

they are awaiting placement.

Another component which will be going into the border are the

yokes from the shirts.

That is it for today's post.

I am beginning to cut the fabric into 3 1/2 inch strips

so I can begin making 6 inch four patches for fill blocks

then I can begin constructing the top.

Now I think it is time to shop for some fabric for the

back of the quilt.

Until next time

May God Bless you and keep you.

Ruffled Roses BOM - 2

2011-01-26T21:08:00.000-07:00

Ruffled Roses

Block of the Month by Sue Graman & TQS (The Quilt Show)

Update on my BOM

I have been working on getting all of the applique

secure.

Even though I did fuse the design down it doesn't stay.

So I machine appliqued the stems and leaves down,

this style of applique is call...Raw Edge Applique

because you leave the raw edge showing.

I am trying to decide how I will quilt this on the longarm.

I was going to machine stitch the flowers also, but did not like the outcome.

Being a Crazy Quilter I decided to

secure the flowers

with a blanket stitch, using 3 strands of embroidery floss.

Also the heart.

And the little berries, with french knots in the middle, 33 of them.

Next step is to add the setting triangles.

The next set of instructions begin Feb 1.

I am try to keep on track.

Thank you for coming over,

I hope you will follow the progress of this

beautiful quilt.

God's Blessing to you.

Block of the Month - TQS

2011-01-17T19:24:00.000-07:00

One of the things I want to do this year is this BOM

it is from TQS , The Quilt Show with Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims.

it is designed by Sue Garman

Isn't it beautiful?

I have seen alot of wonderful BOM but

never one that made me act.

If your a member of TQS it would be fun to see you do this

also, to see how yours would be different from mine.

If your not a member, you might like to follow my progress.

This is January's block which you can see is the center block

Sue has done hers in needle turn applique, but

I decided to do mine in raw edge, fusible applique.

I decided to take all the fabrics from my stash, and I was able to,

the only thing I will need to buy is the backing, but that is a ways off so I can

probably save up for it by next January.

I finished putting all the little red berries on tonight.

My setting triangles will be a creamy beige.

This one is by Margo Clabo, all in Pinks and greens.

So follow along won't you. Have a blessed week.

2011-01-13T15:32:00.000-07:00

An appeal has been issued to help crafters in Australia who have lost everything in the horrible floods that are going on over there.

I thought you all might be interested in helping and maybe did not know about this chance. I did not know until today when it was passed on to me by a friend.

So read about it below and see how you might help.

For all links and to contact Jenny go to

****************************************************************

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

We need your help!!!

A large part of our country is under water...the devastating floods have destroyed town upon town, and there is no end in sight for the next month or more. The water is still flooding towns as it makes its way down the country, and more rain is till bucketing down. This is indeed "Queensland's darkest hour" as our state Premier has described it.

The inland tsunami that hit Toowoomba yesterday has left the nation reeling, but no more than the people of Toowoomba with the deaths of children and still over 70 people missing.

The list of towns affected is long. The area of flooding is larger than Texas.

The Gum Tree Designers are asking for your help.

There will be many hundreds of crafters who have lost what is their joy, their hobby.

In our own small way we want to help, and we need you to come along side with us.

We want to collect, and then distribute, a 'New Beginnings' sewing kit for those who need to start over with their craft. We will be posting the kits in bulk to the various quilting groups in each town.

This is what we'd like in each kit:

1. A handmade sewing caddy, complete with needlebook and pincushion.

2. A pack of embroidery scissors with a scissor keep.

3. Six individual skeins of stranded embroidery threads.

4. Embroidery needles.

5. 1 fat quarter of fabric.

If you can help, please email Jenny at -

jennyofelefantz AT yahoo DOT com DOT au
OR
purpleflowerpatch AT gmail DOT com

for the address in Australia to post these kits to.

PLEASE post by the first week of February.

Fee is going to make some drawstring bags to put the kits in, but if you can put your kit inside one you have made that will be even better.

Please share this appeal on your blogs and link back to this post!

Some free online patterns for sewing caddies can be found at -

Helen's blog HERE

About.com HERE

Maureen's blog HERE

Marcus Brothers HERE...

If you know of more free caddy patterns online, please leave a comment with the link and we'll add it to the list.

~~~~~

Jenny is also auctioning two of her original handmade Shabby Roses quilts to raise funds for the Flood Appeal. You can see the details HERE on her blog.

Joy is auctioning a kit for one of her beautiful patterns HERE.

Fee is auctioning a pretty fat quarter bundle of Sugar Pop HERE.

Our recently retired Gum Tree Designer, Vikki, is also auctioning a set of 'Springtime' patterns HERE.

We will keep you posted on other ways we intend helping as the weeks progress. The effects of the flooding as it continues to rage on will be felt for a long time to come, as it is not looking like ending for many weeks, perhaps months.

Your help is appreciated more than you know.

We are also asking for donations to raise the funds for the postage costs to all the quilt groups, so if you can help out with that we are most appreciative! We have put a DONATE button on our sidebar for easy Paypal payments.
Any money remaining after postage will be given to the Queensland Government Flood Appeal.
'll set up a button in our sidebar later this week to contribute.

Thanks,

the Gum Tree Designers

xxx

Finished Slippers..........

2010-12-18T10:03:00.000-07:00

Finished slipper collection.

Warm footsies in the future.

Once I figured out how I wanted these to look

they went fast and I did the last 3 pair in an afternoon.

For a tutorial, see my last post.

Slippers for Christmas

2010-11-12T20:46:00.000-07:00

Awhile back I shared some slippers I made for my youngest grandson

just the beginning of making a pair for each of the kids

To cute aren't they.
This is the pattern I used to make these cute little slippers
you can find it on Keepsake Quilting.com

I also found this pattern over at the Pink Slipper Project

Have you heard of this great site. They organize and collect slippers to give to

displaced women and their children.

Aren't these slippers just darling.

I used both patterns to inspire me. I did not want the raw edges or the binding,

so this is what I did.

After making a test pair I lengthen the

sole by 1/2 inch and widened the heal by 1/2 inch on each side.

Here are the main pattern pieces, just two

the sole and the toe.

Place the sole pattern on the fleece, cut 4 pieces, and cut 2 pieces of batting.

I am using cotton batting

Cut 4 of the toe pattern, I am using flannel, and again 2 cotton batting.

I tried using fleece for the toe also but it is just to thick for my liking and for the machine to sew.

Oh the machine will sew it but it is hard on it, not worth it, besides I like how this looks better.

One pair cut.

Note: you can use scissors if you don't have a rotary cutter,

the rotary cutter will save you quilt a bit of time and is easier on the hands.

To assemble start with the toe.

Place the batting on mat, top with one piece of the

flannel wrong side against the batting,

top with the other piece of flannel right sides together.

It is helpful to have a walking foot to work with this many layers.

What the walking foot does is feed the top and bottom fabric evenly

because the walking foot has feed dogs, too.

You can do it without, though it may be a bit more difficult.

Sew the 3 layers of the toe together at the top, about 1/2 inch from the crescent shaped edge

Clip the curve, it helps when you turn it to have a smooth edge....

turn so that both right sides enclose the batting.

Next sew a 1/4 inch from the new finished edge to top stitch.

Also sew down the raw edges, just to make it easier when attaching the toe to the sole.

Trim of the little wings (above)

Now it is time to join the toe and sole.

Place the batting down first, then one of the fleece sole pieces
next the toe piece, and top with another fleece sole.

it will look like this (below), begin to pin all layers together

pin around one side to the heal, tucking and aligning the edges

as you go around the other side aligning the edge of the toe to the edge of the sole

you will need to tuck the center (like so) in order to bring to sole piece over to pin.

making sure to keep the end of the toe against the edge.

Leave an opening along one side like this, about 4 or so inches long so that you

can turn the the slipper right side out.

like this.

Slipper turned and opening pinned to be hand sewn.

The pair.

Perhaps the addition of a bow?

Another pair.

The next pair will have orange flames.

I hope you have enjoyed the tutorial and will give making slippers a try.

They do not take very long, about an hour if your not taking

pictures.

May God Bless you richly

Marianne's Quilt - Part 7- the Finished Quilt

2010-10-29T20:13:00.000-07:00

Here we have Marianne's finished quilt.

It turned out beautifully and as I write this,

the quilt is winging its way to it's new home.

This first picture is the completed quilt.

(It is laying across my bed so you are also seeing my log cabin underneath.)

the front and the back

close up of the long arm quilting work

here you can see the color of the thread

one of the corners, with the binding, another look at the quilting design.

Yes, this is the same corner, but I wanted you to see the pink thread.

(Remember you can click on the pictures to enlarge them.)

quilt back

close up of the quilting from the back side

The label

again the whole quilt.

I hope you have enjoyed the journey of making this quilt for Marianne.

It has been fun sharing it with you all.

Please join me as I make my daughters quilt.

May God bless you richly.

Split Nine Patch Quilt

2010-10-20T14:36:00.000-07:00

Split Nine Patch Quilt

I am starting a new quilt.....well really I started it some time ago

this quilt is for my daughter and her hubby.

I had Samantha pick a pattern for this quilt and the colors to be used

The name of the pattern is Split Nine Patch

you can find this pattern at

the Quilters Cashe here

this site is full of wonderful blocks for your use.

The color way for this quilt is, greens and browns.

I will be going through the process of making the quilt

To begin

The pattern and alot of notes

I numbered the different patches and then numbered the fabric

The fabric, as you can see I began cutting the patches

Cutting and sewing patch #6

100 of patch #6 sewn together and separated into stacks of 10 each

Sewing the remaining 32 patches of #6

The Thread this is the thread that I will use to do the quilting

it is Master Piece by Alex Anderson, Superior Threads

color #133 Meadow

it is a #50 Extra long staple Egyptian Cotton

Ok, that is it for this first installment of the Split Nine Patch Quilt

I hope you will come back and follow the process

God Bless

Marianne's Quilt - Part 7

2010-10-16T12:09:00.000-07:00

Part 7

Quilting.

A peek at what is happening on the longarm

a couple of close ups

One of the corners, notice the leaf design in the dark blue outside border.

and an all over feather design for the center.

Ok, back to work on the long arm, we are getting there Marianne.

May God bless your day.

Slippers for Christmas

2010-10-08T08:02:00.000-07:00

Christmas projects are underway.

I decided to make slippers for all the grand kiddos this year.

I found several patterns I like and this is one that says comfy to me.

This first pair is for Codey who is our youngest.

Five more pairs to go.

If you like this pattern it is called

Pitter Patters Pattern

from Keepsake Quilting

Marianne's Quilt - Part 6

2010-10-04T17:37:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Part 6 of Mariann's quilt progress.

The quilt is on the longarm and quilting will start tomorrow morning

I tried to take a straight on picture,

it is to close, so it looks like the quilt dips on the sides,

BUT

surprise, it doesn't.

As you look at this next picture you can see the bed of the longarm machine

I won't go through the steps of loading the quilt

each machine is different.

I will tell you that the backing is rolled onto the two rollers.

Then, I 'float' the batting and top. Floating, just means

that the top and batting are not rolled onto rollers, but

layered on top of the backing and they just 'float' there.

Of course once I start sewing...er, quilting....the layers will then become one.

Here is the thread I will be using.

"So Fine", by Superior Threads

Rose Petal # 416

isn't it pretty, I fell in love with it right away.

So, tomorrow I will begin quilting and will take pictures so you can see that process.

Thank you so much for stopping by.

God's blessings to you and yours.

Marianne's Quilt - Part 5

2010-10-01T20:34:00.000-07:00

Welcome to installment 5 of Mariann's quilt.

Now that we are past the confusing corner blocks

and the large 18 inch blocks are constructed.

I wanted to look at a couple of details

Getting the corners of these blocks to line up was a challenge, it took some experimenting to

get it right and even when I found the 'trick' it did not always work out as it should.

I don't know if you can pick it out in this picture, above

to match the corner of the triangle and the rectangle (below)

you line up the raw edge of the triangle (lower seam in pic above) with the

sewn edge of the rectangle (upper seam), then when you sew your 1/4 inch seam

it comes out right on (most of the time).

Clear as mud?????

In the picture above you also see the 3 borders added to the quilt.

The aqua and dark blue borders are 2 inches each and the little flip border

is one inch, see how it flips up, I love using this kind of accent.

And here is the corner with all three borders. Next comes the quilting.

I hope your enjoying the process of the quilt.

May God bless you richly.

Marianne's Quilt - Part 4

2010-09-24T20:18:00.000-07:00

Welcome to part 4 of creating Marianne's quilt.

Remember last time all the problems I was having with the corner blocks?

I can tell you the confusion does not go away, sigh.

Let me show you why.

The pieces below are for the right side, top and bottom blocks

See how the fabric on either side of the blue strip are the same?

after cutting these in half, we put one from each on either side of the light blue strip.

That is pretty straight forward, no big deal.....

BUT

We have to do the blocks for the left side now. One would think, easy peasy, right?

Just change the dark blue and lt blue around and ya got it.......

Think again,

the dark solid pink has to go toward the center of the main block.

See my last post.

Soooooooooo, there are some differences in how to piece them together.

Instead of the same color on either side of the center strip,

for this one you have to put one of each on either side.

(See the picture)

Now someone with a more organized brain might not have a problem with it

and I did ok, as long as I did not take a break. LOL.

After cutting this in half, as the ruler shows, then you can put it onto a dark strip.

and you get this.

I know, I know! How can it possibly make a difference? Trust me it does

I can not explain why, all I know is it does.

Now this block can be turned so the dark pink goes into the center.

(it is backwards in the picture)

Go look at my last post again to see how they set.

Are you confused?

I am happy to say that I made it through and got them all right

(although my seam ripper got a really good workout).

I am also happy to say, the quilt is ready to go on the longarm machine for quilting.

I have more 'process' to show you, but felt this was enough for one setting,

especially if your head is spinning like mine ~~was~~ is (it still makes my brain twist in knots).

I hope Marianne is going to love this quilt,

I know I do, despite all the challenges (good for the brain).

Happy Pink Saturday

hop over and visit Beverly at How Sweet the Sound

to find more Pink bloggers.

May God Bless you richly

Marianne's Quilt - An Opps

2010-08-25T13:56:00.000-07:00

Well, so much for getting all 4 corner blocks done.

When I layed out the blocks to put together this second large block

I noticed a problem, boy am I glad I have not

sewn anymore corner blocks!

Look at the top block.

now

Look at the finished block below that is correct.

Notice the left blocks (the right ones are ok)

can you see what is wrong?

Now I need to take these two left blocks apart and rearrange the triangles.

So when I make the remaining blocks with the dark strip

running over the top, they have to be done differently then

the ones with the light strip running over the top.

Can you see how I need to change them around?

It is always a good idea to do one block of a quilt

to 'practice' the construction. In this case I needed

to do 2 practice blocks, before going gang busters sewing things together.

I really had a time organizing these corner blocks

and now I can see I still need to change something.

This pattern is not difficult, unless you change it up like I did.

When your challenging yourself with a change

of a pattern like this it really does make sense to take your time as

there may be unforeseen things to work out.

I am so gladI found this now,

before I sat down and sewed up the

left corner blocks all wrong.

So now to fixing them.

Until next time...........God Bless.

Marianne's Quilt - Part 3

2010-08-20T15:22:00.000-07:00

Happy Pink Saturday

Hi! How are you doing?

All is well here, some work progressing on the quilt.

Are you ready for part 3?

Please feel free to ask any questions, I will do my best to answer them.

Here we go, lots of pictures.......

Today we are going to cut and sew up a set of the corner blocks.

We start by cutting strips of fabric 5 1/4 inches wide.

I have 3 different fabrics stacked, hold down on the edge of the ruler

firmly so that the fabric doesn't scrunch, be very careful

that rotary cutter blade is very sharp, even when it is dull.

Trim off the uneven edges, make sure the ruler is square.

Turn you strip, so that it is in the right position for cutting

and line up the ruler to cut at 5 1/4 inches.

This is still 3 layers thick so each cut gets me 3 blocks.

Switching to a smaller ruler for better control, I cut the squares

in half, to create triangles. You will need 2 triangles for each block

After cutting the triangles, needed, (which I need 4 corner blocks to construct 14 large blocks

and there are 2 triangles needed for each corner block, I will let you do the math).

The next step requires cutting strips of dark blue and aqua. You need one

9 1/2 x 2 inch strip for ever 2 triangles, no biggy?

But wait, we need to make half of them the dark and half the light color

you will get 4 strips out of a 44 inch strip, so cut (in my case) 13 - 44 inch

strips of each color, then cut that in fourths.

In the picture above I have 4 strips, you will see why in a few minutes.

The next step is to fold everything in half and press, right sides together.

I have put the aqua strips aside for now, as we begin working with the dark first.

On half of the blocks I will reverse the order of the colors, this will create the weaving of the lattice.

Each large block will have 2 with dark running through and 2 with light.

Clear as mud? It will become clear in a bit.

See the reason for the pressing, you now have the center of everything and

you can line them up!

Placing right sides together and lining up centers, stitch a

triangle to the long side of a dark strip, using a scant 1/4 inch.

Be careful not to stretch the fabric, yours will look like the one above.

In my case I need to sew a printed pink to one strip and a dark pink to another.

Next................

You will put another triangle on the other side, like this, keeping the printed

fabrics together and the dark pink together.

Cut, like shown

Now put a printed half with a pink half.

Bring back the aqua strip, that was folded and pressed,

put a print and a pink like shown

Begin sewing each half to an aqua strip, like this. For my change up

I need to put a print on one side and a pink on the other.

Here is the completed block, do you see how the dark seems to run under

the aqua. I folded and pressed the block to find the center.

Now it is time to trim the block, to square it.

The reason I needed to find the center is so I could get a true square.

This is a 6 1/2 inch unfinished block, so I need to trim it up (or down) to that

size, once it is sewn into the quilt top it will be a 6 inch block, because each seam is

1/4 of an inch. So I need to find center to place my 3 1/4 inch mark

there (click the picture to enlarge). I also made sure that the 45 degree

marks on the ruler were centered.

Almost done.....

Trim side and top, now turn the block

Line up the cut edges with the ruler markings at 6 1/2 inches, trim.

Here is the squared up block, you have created 2 blocks, now do this again

except reverse the placement of the aqua and the dark blue.

Once you do that you will have.........

These. So now I need to do this 13 more times.

Of course I have everything cut now, just have to sew them together.

That is it for this time.

Thank you so much for sticking around, if you have any questions please feel free to ask.

I hope you have enjoyed making these blocks with me.

Please visit Beverly our pink-0-lishish hostess

for Pink Saturday over at How Sweet the Sound

and

Miss Rossie at Fresh Modern Quilts

our hostess for the Process Pledge.

May God bless you and keep you......until next time.

Two Cute Give-a-ways

2010-08-17T19:40:00.000-07:00

My friend Candi is having a give-a-way, well really she is having 2

on her blog Quilts N Things

she is giving away 3 cute windmills

Also

on her blog Candi's Eye Candi

Aren't these cute. Go over and visit Candi and sign up for the drawings

Good luck.

Marianne's Quilt - Part 2

2010-08-13T17:11:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the second installment of making Marianne's quilt.

I wanted to mention, that I am linking this post to the Pink Saturday

blog Party over at Beverly's How Sweet the Sound

I have been taking part in this fun blog party for several months now.

I have re-routed my post from my Decorating My Tin Shack blog over here

so I can share this pink quilt with everyone.

Here is the finished block (read part 1 for how I got to this point)

Pretty isn't it!

But there are some problems that will require me to take the block apart

first, it never pays to put the cart before the horse,

things just do not work out well when you do.

I know the block looks fine, until you begin to look real close.

things are shifted this way and that, not lining up right,

go ahead look close, click on the picture to make it bigger

yep, I got the cart before the horse.

I did not trim my pieces up

I was in such a hurry to see how it would look sewn together.

I do have a tendency to be a little impatient,

especially with such pretty fabrics.

I took, the top and bottom row off and took apart the blocks and trimed them up

and put them back together, being very careful to line things up.

I know it may be harder to see in this picture, but trust me it is alot better.

Why go to all the trouble, because I want to do the best job possible.

Now that I have the mechanics of the block down, and

I have ironed out the kinks, lets get to the

the other 14 blocks that will

make up this quilt.

Cutting begins and sewing begins.

upper left -center square

triangles for the corners

strips for the middle blocks and

some of the middle blocks sewn.

So we have 14 blocks, with 4 corner blocks and 4 side blocks,

that is 56 of each to make the 14 remaining large blocks

and to make the 56 small corner blocks I will need

224 triangles, half in pink and half in fuchsia.

Today we are going to work on the 56 side blocks

so I cut 9 strips of the aqua and 9 strips of the dark blue fabric

each 1 1/2 inches wide by the width of the fabric (44")

but as always, getting my cart before the horse. When I cut the 9 strips of pink fabric

which is 5 1/4 inches wide, I cut them to length of 6 1/2 inches.

Why is this not right?

Well, it is ok to do it this way but if one wants to strip piece, one should have left the

strip 44" long.

Then I could have sewn the aqua strip on one side and the blue strip on the other side of the pink strip

and

THEN cut them to the 6 1/2 inch length, but no not me!

So instead here is how I did it.

I sewed the cut block to the strip of 1 1/2 aqua (I already did the blue but forgot to

take any pictures). You will note the pile of completed pieces behind the sewing machine,

I did those while I waited for my camera battery to charge. LOL.

This picture shows you the pieces joined and in the process of pressing.

Press the seams toward the pink.

Some pressing tips.....first do not iron (pressing down hard and sliding iron across fabric)

ironing can stretch you fabric and we don't want to do that, so press please

There is a 'school of thought' that one should press the seam before

opening it up to press, this is said to set the stitches into the fabric.

Another note: In quilting we do no open the seams like you would in garment construction

we press them to one side together.

Before pressing.

After pressing.

I can see a difference, but I do not know if the reason behind it

is important. I do it because I was taught that way and I feel like I am

skipping a step if I don't do it. You decide, better yet, tell me if you press first or not.

So now because I got the cart before the horse I get to cut these apart for the third time

when I could have done it only once. Sigh.

Cutting these apart is pretty straight forward except that I have to make two cuts

do you see how much more work I made for myself?

I will begin working on the corner blocks next (once I finish cutting the side blocks apart)

lets see if I can keep the cart and the horse in the right order.

Until next time...........

Please go over and visit with Beverly and the other Pink posters at

How Sweet the Sound

and

head on over to Rossie's for more Process Posts.

May God bless you richly.

Marianne's Quilt - Part 1

2010-08-12T08:36:00.001-07:00

I HAVE TAKEN THE PLEDGE!

Rossie has issued a challenge, it is called the

Process Pledge

The idea is to share the steps of your project, not just he finished picture.

Yes, this does require some extra work

I think it will be worth it and mostly hope it will encourage others to try quilting.

So here we go.......

My first Process Pledge post is the work I am doing

on Marianne's quilt.

This is a commissioned quilt, my second.

When we talked about colors Marianne wanted her quilt to be pink, she then enlisted

the help of her daughter to pick the colors, Leslie went fabric shopping

and brought me beautiful pinks, teal, aqua and turquoise fabrics

Next I went 'shopping' for a pattern to use

I did my 'shopping' over on The Quilter's Cashe

on this site Marcia has hundreds of quilt patterns for your use, some are well known

patterns and others Marcia has created. The pattern I chose is called

Garden Maze

you can find the pattern here

This is a intermediate pattern because it has alot of pieces, but me being me, I had to

kick it up a notch or two. Marica gave several different variations on this and I had to go and combine a couple of them. Well let me show you the pattern I printed off.

Remember this pattern is free at The Quilter's Cashe

There are 3 pages to this pattern and as you can see I make notes and highlight

the pattern so I hopefully will not miss any important information.

I note my fabric and what position it will play in the quilt

for this quilt, she had 2 fabrics, I am using 5 fabrics

(I just increased the difficulty level 2 1/2 times)

you will see why soon.

Page 2 of the pattern

More notes and I got out my colored pencils and colored parts of the pattern so I can follow my design

this pattern has two lattice type designs I want them to be different colors

and to weave in and out of each other. So my lattice are light aqua and dark turquoise/blue

this will give me depth and alot of movement in the quilt.

I colored the part that will be dark with a dark blue pencil.

this way I can refer to this while piecing

on page 3

you can see some of the ideas for kickin up the design and one of them was to

put different colors in the corner of the block. Well I like that idea, too.

I am putting fuchsia in the corners, jewels of fuchsia .

so this kicked the difficulty up yet another 2 notches

at least for my pea brain it did.

I know your saying that is only 3 of the 5 colors, let me show you the finished block.

Ok now you can see the 5 fabrics. Can you see how the lattice will weave?

It was not easy getting here, it seems straight forward when

you look at it but when one (at least this one) goes to execute it

well that is another story,

to help get things straight in my mind on how I was going to do this I drew it out in my idea book

made more notes and changes, began to cut the fabric for 1 and only 1 block

and I still did it wrong, because then I had to remember that one corner block went one way and the other another, that one had dark blue through the center the other aqua,

after several tries and head scratching I had it, or so I thought

so I started sewing the block together, and

nope, that is not right. Out came the ripper again, take it apart. Now if I put those fuchsia triangles here

and the pink ones where the fuchsia ones were, no-no thats not it,
put one pink on here and that one fuchsia one

where the pink one was. Finally, ya.

Sew the block together...............it looks so pretty, but wait

to be continued...........

I took the Process Pledge

2010-08-11T11:10:00.000-07:00

What is the Process Pledge, you ask?

Click on the button and visit Rossie at Mutant Quilting and she will share the details

perhaps you will want to take the pledge, and really folks it is not just

about quilting, share your scrapbooking, sewing cloths, curtains,

gardening, cooking, what ever it is that makes you purr.

My first Process Post will be coming up soon.

First I need to go pay the bills, and I don't think you want to see that process.

Stay tuned.

Susan's Quilt

2010-07-29T14:37:00.000-07:00

I want to share with you the comfort quilt

that was made for a dear friend

of many..Susan.

Many ladies helped make this quilt possible

each heart is an expression of love

to Susan, we all hope that this quilt brings

comfort and hugs

to see close up pictures of each heart

you can go here....

Thank you everyone for the part you played in making this possible.

Basket

2010-07-20T09:54:00.000-07:00

I have had this basket for awhile and decided it needs to be lined

The rose fabric is one I have also had for some time

it won't stop fading no matter how many

times I wash it or how many 'tricks'

I use to stop the bleeding

So this is a perfect use for it, it can't fade

and ruin a quilt (unless it is still on a quilt when it rains or is otherwise wet).

You can see the size of it in reference to the thread cone.

I decided to quilt the bottom on my domestic machine.

I really like how it turned out, but I can tell you with the sloped sides it took me

alot longer to do then I expected and I had to make several

not so pretty adjustments. LOL.

Bloggerette Sorority

2010-06-25T00:00:00.001-07:00

This is as close as I will ever get to belonging to a sorority
AND
what better sorority to belong to then the,

Bloggerette Sorority!

check it out over at Karen's place, Some Days Are Diamonds
she has all the details there, come on you know you want to join the fun.

To be a part of the sorority, we have to do a rush,
that is common knowledge.

Here is what Karen says

"Now everyone knows to be initiated into a Sorority - you must "Rush" Your rushing preparation will take place between now and June 25th. Then on that Friday ~ we will announce our Sisterhood! To rush you must do the following:

Take this picture . . .

and create something with it.

Post to your blog your creation, with you in the picture"

Now I do have to tell you I don't like having my picture taken so
this must be pretty important to me to do this, so here goes......

There ya go. And I am wearing pink and so are my ladies in the picture. I colored the picture and mounted it to card stock. I will hang it on my idea board (once I get one up).

I am linking to Pink Saturday and Bloggerette Sorority today. I hope you will visit Beverly and Karen to see how they are blessing us with their unselfish ways, by putting on their blog parties.
Thank you Ladies.

Heather

2010-06-24T20:29:00.001-07:00

Thank you to everyone who is praying for Heather, I know her family appreciates it. Another way to help is spread the word. Maybe someone who reads your blog will be able to help or will know someone.

Note: Heather is not my daughter, but Cathy's of The Stylish Home
where you can keep up to date.

Help is Needed

2010-06-22T12:50:00.003-07:00

I have copied and am posting this (a copy of Cathy's post) to my blogs, in hopes that someone can help this family. Cathy from The Stylish Home is in need of our help. Please spread the word, time is critical.

Seeking The Gift Of Life!

HEATHER ERICKSON

Dear Family and Friends,

Please help spread the word about my 25 year old daughter, Heather's medical situation and critical need for a live liver donor transplant.

Heather is a wonderful, caring young woman who has shown amazing grace throughout this difficult time. She is my husband's and my only child and is a daughter dearly loved. Seven years ago Heather was diagnosed with a rare liver disease called Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis. It's a progressive illness that destroys the liver ducts and despite everyone's best efforts it could not be stopped.

As a result Heather is currently listed for a liver transplant at Henry Ford Hospital in Michigan. The doctors recommend a live donor to give Heather the best chance for survival, due to the critical shortage of cadaver livers available. Rick, my husband, and I would love to be her donor, but we are not a blood match so we are seeking people who are.

Heather needs someone with O blood type (either negative or positive). who is willing to be tested to be a live liver donor. To learn more about donating please call the Henry Ford transplant coordinator Arlene Helms 313-916-9882 on behalf of Heather Erickson.

We understand a living donation may not be an an option for everyone and respect it's a personal decision.

As always with love,

Cathy and Rick Erickson

Family is a circle of strength and love!

To my blogging friends and readers thank you for your support. I appreciate your kind words and prayers.

Where Bloggers Create - Party!

2010-06-18T16:23:00.002-07:00

Welcome to "Where Bloggers Create" blog party. With over 450 participants, this party promises to be full of inspiration, fantastic spaces, and just plain fun. To visit the other blogs and see how it all works go over to My Desert Cottage for a visit with Karen (or click on the button below).

I am also linking to Pink Saturday, to see more pink posts visit Beverly @ How Sweet the Sound or click the button.

Note: If I have not made it to your blog yet to see your studio, I will. It is June 28th as of this note and I am in the "B's" so as you can see I am taking my time and absorbing each space.

Ok, now to the party......................................

First up........my sewing area. One of the things I like to do is quilting. My sewing area is still in the master bedroom. Two years ago we made an addition to the house, going from 800 sq feet to 1700. This addition includes a new studio on the second level. We are not finished with it yet (we are on the pay as you go plan), so my sewing area is still down stairs. I do have an awesome view, and a bay window to sew in. No fancy sewing table here, but one of our dining room tables.

I wanted to introduce you to one of my sewing helpers. This is Missy Moew. She loves to help sew, she is inspecting the sewing machine to make sure everything is working right and the thread is in the needle.

In this same room I have book cases holding my supplies. The one below holds some fabric, embroidery threads, laces, patterns and whatever else lands there. I admit I cleaned it up a bit. My sewing table is in the lower corner (just so you can see how things connect).

A close up of my embroidery thread storage, it is intended for use in the garage for nuts and bolts, but works wonderfully for threads and small items. The other containers have smaller containers inside, that I keep my beads in. Also I use several TV dinner type containers (plastic with 3 sections) to hold embroidery supplies as I work on a project for my Crazy quilting. Remember to click the picture for a closer look.

On the top shelf I keep some of my pincushions, laces, ribbons and a picture of my daughter and I.

See, honest it is in the bedroom and I use the bed for a staging area. The white thing standing up in the window is a magnifying lamp. I must remind you if you have one of these lamps to keep it out of the window when you are not working. The sun beats in this window in the afternoon and magnified thought the lamp glass and caught one of my finished quilts on fire, thank goodness I walked in the room and smelled it, what if I had been gone? Very dangerous.

Is it break time yet? All this sewing is making me tired...........

The other, of the two, bookcases in our room holding my sewing things. I won't know what to do with all the room once they are moved to the studio. This holds more lace, ribbon, buttons, beads, patterns and a bunch of other stuff, including Calgon.......which I will use with some dyes for fabric. Now if you will go through the door there, we will head upstairs to the
studio.

A collage of some quilts.

As we enter the studio, I need to introduce you to Me Moew. He is enjoying some sun, we have had alot of rain this spring so the sun is very nice.

This room is not finished as you can see....but it is usable, so why not. First up, is my cutting area (well it will be once I move the sewing up here). This used to be in my kitchen, I have now re purposed it. It has good storage space and a nice size cutting surface.

A wider view of the room, over in the corner will be a wood stove to keep things warm (it gets to -25 around here), next to that under the window will be where the sewing area goes. Tile will go on the floor in front of the door. If you'd like to see the building of this room and the rest of the addition visit my Wyoming blog here. This link gets you to where we began on the addition.

A hutch I refinished to use in the studio.

My longarm quilting machine. This room was built with it in mind, it was housed at a friends for two years, so good to have it home.

The back side of the longarm, with drawers underneath for storage.

Looking at the room from the other end. Way over there is my scrapbooking area, we will come back to that in a bit.

Going back downstairs,............I guess, sewing was very tiring for Missy Moew.

Missy Moew is asleep in my chair where I sit to do my embroidery.

A collage of some Crazy Quilting and bead work.

My stitching area, when it is not being used for a nap. To the right are the stairs that lead up to the studio, in fact lets go back up to see my scrapbooking area. After you......

Do you scrapbook? Here is a collage of a few of my things. Don't you just love the word albums, and what do you think of the dog food cans, re purposed and decorated, to hold pens and such?

My work area, an old school table, provides alot of room to spread out. The opening on the other side of the table, is the staircase we just came up, in the background is the longarm and sewing area.

Back downstairs in the dinning room you will find my jewelry area. Inside this desk, with the grandchildren overseeing the work.

Open the door, and you see the goodies.

Lastly a few of my pieces. Jewelry making is new for me.

I hope you have enjoyed your visit and you have gained some inspiration. Thank you for coming by, I hope you will come back again. Please leave me a note to let me know you came by.

God's blessing to all.

The Pink Slipper Project

2010-06-06T19:06:00.002-07:00

I just found this site and wanted to share it with everyone.

It is called

The Pink Slipper Project

they make and send slippers to women and children in shelters.

See their button on my side bar.

I know how generous and helpful crafters are so I figure
you will want to help.

They have patterns for sewers, crochet, knitting.
Check it out!!

Come Join the Bloggerette Sorority

2010-06-05T19:51:00.003-07:00

Would you like to be a sister in the Bloggerette Sorority?????
Just click on Karen at this address
SomeDaysAreDimonds.... to find out all the details..

Won't you join us.

Now everyone knows to be initiated into a Sorority - you must "Rush"

Your rushing preparation will take place between now and

June 25th.

Then on that Friday ~

we will announce our Sisterhood!

To rush you must do the following:

Take this picture . . .

and create something with it.

A banner, a hanging, an ATC,

a piece of jewelry, a tag, a card . . . anything!

Print the picture and place it in a frame -

it doesn't have to be fancy!

Just use your imagination. The possibilities are endless.

You have inspiration all around you.

After all . . . that's what our blogs do - they inspire us.

This can be as simple or as elaborate as you like.

Then take a picture of your creation.

There are no rules.

Well - except one.

You must be in the picture too.

You can always take a self-portrait in a mirror.

Because we all want to see who are

"Sisters" are!

Then post your picture the day of our

Sorority party.

Friday - June 25, 2010

Come on join in, you know you want to.....

Quilt Show and Cowboy Carnival

2010-05-31T20:32:00.007-07:00

I hope that everyone had a great Memorial Day Weekend. In our hometown we celebrate with a Cowboy Carnival. Things start out in the morning with horse races. We had a large turn out for the whole day, it was even more awesome that the rain skipped us this day, which has not been the case in the past.

The first two pictures here show a small part of the horse races (pun intended). Just look at these cute little horses pulling the wagons. The were such a delight to watch, and they even raced each other, here they are doing some advertising for a couple of the carnival's sponsors.

While your looking at the sweet horses and the cowboy, check out the landscape, everything is so pretty right now.......an well it should be, we have gotten (I hear) about 8 inches of rain in May.

Look at these skies, OMGosh is was the most beautiful day (and I have the sunburn to prove it, LOL). Along with the horse races, we also attended the sharp shoots contest, in its first year with 12 participants. There were dog races, bb gun shoot (for the wee ones), plant sale, book sale, bingo, 2 auctions, pie contest (which I was going to enter, but when I went to make my pie I found out I way out of butter for the pie crust........sigh), I know I am missing some of the events, but fun was had by all.

Then there was food, yummmmm. And look at that line, we stood in it for 45 minutes. Alot of people attended this year. This by the way is about 1/3 of the length of the line, and that line circles around to the back there where the meat was. We understand they ran out of silverware sets which they had 500 made up.

Also, the Quilt Show. You did not think I would post this with out some quilts. Now I have more pictures but did not want this post to be to long. I thought I would share with you my entries

The first is my Painted Quilt. It is a kit I bought from Sherry Rodgers-Harrison. She pre quilted it and sent along some pens to "color" the quilt with, but I could not resist adding embroidery, beads and crystals. It is 11.5 x 11.5 inches. Remember you can click on the pictures to enlarge them.

My second entry is my king size Log Cabin quilt "Colors of Wyoming" I chose the color for the quilt from the colors in nature here.

AND......................DRUM ROLL PLEASE..........................

My quilt took first place in the large quilt division. This is a viewer choice award. So those who attended got to choose their favorite quilts.

The quilts award.......................

And here is the quilt..........................I was so surprised and excited. I hope to enter these quilts in the county fairs quilt show in August. I just hope people enjoy seeing them.

Happy Memorial Day to everyone and thank you for visiting and I hope you have enjoyed a glimpse of our weekend doings.

It's a Party!!

2010-05-16T07:11:00.002-07:00

I am joining this party, it promises to be fun and full of inspiration. I hope you will come along, join the fun and perhaps even share your creative space.
For info visit Karen @ My Desert Cottage

2nd Annual Where Bloggers Create party- June 19th, 2010!!!! It’s time again to share your creative spaces!!!

Is your space at the dining room table? Do you have a room of your own? Have you converted a closet? And what do you do in there? What kind of things do you create?

Quilting joins Inks and Paints-Udate

2010-04-29T07:26:00.002-07:00

Update on the Painted Quilt. Being a crazy quilter I could not let a piece get by without adding some thread. These are the first two corners. Stay tuned for more updates. See my last post for a link to Sherry's site, so you can see her amazing works.

Quilting joins Inks and Paints

2010-04-25T07:11:00.002-07:00

Greetings. I hope this post finds you all doing well.

I wanted to share with you one of my latest projects. Over on Facebook I met Sherry Harrison, she is an amazing quilter who has taken quilting to a new level. She is adding paints and inks to her whole cloth quilts with breathtaking results. Sherry being a smart business woman has made up kits so the rest of us can try her technique. You can see her website @ Sew Far Sew Good

Seeing her beautiful work, I had to try my hand at it and below is my piece at about the half way point. The main colors are added with Gelly Roll pens, the gold is a Sanford Gold Coat pen (from my scrapbooking supplies) each color is 3 layers thick, which seems to be where the ink starts to show its full color strength. I plan to change it up a bit with hand embroidery, beads and crystals. What else would you expect for a Crazy Quilter, right? So stay tuned to see the results.

Remember to click the picture to get up close and personal.

I know I have been lax in posting, but rest assured I have been quilting. I will have pictures to share with you soon of my Log Cabin quilt, and a Crown Royal quilt I am doing.

Have a Blessed day.

Prayers Needed

2010-04-20T13:30:00.001-07:00

I am sad to report that Holly passed away this afternoon about 2pm central time. Please hold Mitch, the kids (6 and 10) and their families up to God in your prayers.

Prayers Please

2010-04-13T12:56:00.001-07:00

My daughter's friend Holly is in desperate need of prayers ...... here is Samantha's update in bit ago

Holly, needs extra prayers today! She is in a critical state with her lungs! We're praying for strength for her to fight this and for her husband to hold on to God and keep himself well! We're also praying for the Dr's that they will know what to do next!!! PLEASE EVERYONE STOP WHAT YOU'RE DOING AND SAY ...A QUICK PRAY FOR MY FRIEND AND HER FAMILY!!!

Please pray for Holly, put her on your prayer chain, anything. Help this young family.

Log Cabin Quilt

2010-04-10T07:21:00.005-07:00

Aw, my Log Cabin quilt.....the one I have been working on here and there for over a year. It always gets put aside when another project comes on the scene. Such as a commissioned Crown Royal quilt (in progress). Revamping curtains for a local business (in progress), just to name two.

I am at the finishing point of my Log Cabin quilt now, the binding is being sewn down (between other projects) and once that is done, it will go on our bed, well after I put it in a quilt show or two.

Oh I forgot, besides the binding this piece has to be attached to the center of the quilt, this is an important bit of information because...........................

Calculate as I might, I still managed to mess up on the number of blocks I needed, now mind you I now have left over blocks that I could have put in this spot, but like I said.......calculate as I might! The panel will go where the white space is on in the picture below. It will make for a unique quilt but I really did not have to do this.........don't tell anyone, ok, it will be our secret, we will just pretend it was by design.....right?

The size of the quilt is king, and the table it is hanging from is 14 feet long (my long arm table). This picture was taken just before I began quilting it, which took me 3 weeks (between projects).

Here is a close up of the quilting in the center of the quilt. The colors are a representation of the colors of the red hills around our area, with many layers of different colors and dressed in the greens of late spring. The center of a log cabin quilt is always suppose to be red for the heart of the home, here it also represents the color of the Indian Paintbrush flower, the state wild flower of Wyoming.

More to come on the Log Cabin quilt......do come back for the finished project.

New Video Classes

2010-03-16T20:27:00.002-07:00

Over on DIY Dish you can watch videos on a new craft each week. This week Kim and Kris show us how to make cute cake pincushions. What is cool, too, is that it is free to watch the videos. They are also having a big drawing for a sewing machine and an embroidery machine. Go check it out here.
I am not affiliated with DIY Dish, I just wanted to spread the news.

2010-02-23T16:02:00.002-07:00

I am blog hopping this afternoon (I think I have a new addiction) and I came across this great blog and she is having a give-a-way. Go check it out, especially if you love tassels..............
Susan @ Between Naps on the Pourch. BTW, Susan hosts a blog party, (which I did not know about earlier) here called Metamorphosis Monday. Ok, back to Pink Saturday blog hopping.

BYE...................................

Blog Parties.......Everywhere!!!!!!

2010-02-22T15:17:00.003-07:00

Ok, I have to tell you, I have discovered a most fun activity.......

Blog parties................now I know I am a bit slow, because they have been going on for a long time, but I am just having so much fun discovering wonderful blogs from all over. You know the kind where you hate to hit the close button, because you really, really do not want to leave.

So if you have not discovered blog parties you should give it a try, here are a couple

Over at Twice Remembered is Make your Monday, where you will find DIY projects
On Beverly's blog you will find Pink Saturday where 164 bloggers share something pink.
Blue Monday's are celebrated on Smiling Sally's blog
Charlotte hosts Spiritual Sunday and White Wednesday over at Faded Charm
Then there is Out Door Wednesday and many more, like Table Scape Thursday.

So get a cuppa, and join the parties.............you will be so glad you did.

2010-02-15T15:11:00.003-07:00

One World One Heart

It has been so much fun to be a part of OWOH blog party. What a treat to visit 1038 blogs from around the world, getting a glimpse into each persons life. I have always know there are alot of blogs out there, but this experience has shown me that I have not a clue. 1038 blog owners participated in this event, as many as that is, it doesn't even scratch the surface of the wonderful places to visit.

I want to announce the winner of my Crazy Quilted purse.

The winner is

Ginny from Mom of 2 Dancers

Congratulations Ginny, (Ginny has been contacted via email this morning) please contact me with your address.

One World One Heart

2010-02-03T09:26:00.014-07:00

Feb 15th ..........The drawing deadline has come and gone. I am accepting no more entries and the name has been drawn. I will announce the winner shortly. I am excited to say, I have won a gift as well. I will show it soon.

Feb 14 update: Today is the last day to enter the OWOH drawings. There are so many awesome gifts being offered 1038 to be exact (some blogs are giving 3 and 4 gifts, so generous). So hurry and get to visiting.

Happy Valentines Day

I am happy to announce that I am joining the One World One Heart blog party. To find what it is all about and find the blogs that are participating (968 last I checked) click on the button below, or the red link above

Now for the gift you could win.
This is a hand made purse, made here in my studio.

This all cotton, Crazy quilted purse measures 8 inches wide, is 8 1/2 inches high and the handle is a total of 40 inches. It has cotton batting between the layers.

The front of the purse has beautiful lace, buttons, beads and hand stitching.
(click picture for a closer look).

On the inside are two small pockets for your treasures, to help with a bit of organization.

The back of the purse has a pocket as well, perfect for your cell phone (Item shown in pocket is just for illustration).

The particulars

February 14th at midnight (Mountain Time) is the deadline to enter. On February 15th I will use a random number generator to pick a winner.

Here are the rules...they're quite simple! 1. You must be a blogger, after all that is what One World One Heart is about...bring bloggers from around the world together! 2. You must leave a comment on this post. 3. You must leave a way for me to contact you...email address or make your blog open for me to find your email in it! If I can't get ahold of you I will draw again. So don't let that happen, leave your info.

I am excited to join in the fun. I hope you will also go and check out my daughters blog (#965) she is giving away 2 items.

Good luck to you all!

A Generous Give A Way

2010-01-30T13:48:00.003-07:00

Over on Tales from an OC Cottage you will find a fantastic give away. Go check it out, enter your name. I am

Good luck

Pink Saturday

2010-01-29T09:04:00.003-07:00

Pink Saturday is coming up.

What is Pink Saturday? Go here to see. Also check out my other blog.....Decorating my Tin Shack for my Pink Saturday post ( a wee early).

Log Cabin Quilt

2010-01-22T16:00:00.005-07:00

The Log Cabin quilt is finally on the long arm, ready to begin the quilting tomorrow (I hope).

I began work on this quilt nearly a year ago. I had collected the fabrics months before and knew what design I was doing, it has just taken time to get all the blocks finished. Of course I did not work on it all the time either. The colors in this quilt were chosen to reflect the colors of the beautiful red bluffs around here and the green vegetation on them.

A close up, the colors came out pretty good in the picture.

The border, cool fabric isn't it.

The center of the quilt (goes in the white space in the first picture). I will add this after the quilting is done, I wanted this to be different, and did not want the stippling on the back of the quilt, so opted to add it after.

To see the backing fabric you can go here , it is really cool and will make the quilt reversible without making more blocks which might have taken another year. LOL

I will post the quilting when it is done, it is getting close to going on our bed.

Long Arm Work

2009-12-17T19:27:00.007-07:00

The two quilts below belong to Judy, I was privileged to quilt them for her.

The inspiration for this quilting design came from the background fabric which has tiny
flowers.

for closer
detail click the
picture.

The border is quilted in a vine of leaves.

The whole quilt, isn't it a beauty?

The second quilt is a friendship star. The quilting on this one is
an all over design. No real inspiration, just wanted to do
swirls to soften all the lines and this is what resulted.

Check out our Wyoming blog for some Christmas decorations.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL AND GOD BLESS

Crazy Quilting Tablerunner

2009-11-13T19:34:00.004-07:00

Here is the finished table runner for DD, Samantha.

Several of my CQ friends helped me do the stitching on this beautiful runner.
Below are close ups of the finished work. I love how it turned out and am hoping
Samantha will, too.

Be sure
to click on
the picture
for a close up.

Thank you girls for helping me with this, it will be heading to its new home this next week.

Dakota's Quilt

2009-11-04T20:57:00.006-07:00

Click picture
for a close up.

This beautiful quilt was made for Dakota, she is in high school and was involved
in a bad car accident. She spent a month in the hospital and we are thankful she
is recovering just fine. She has been home about a week now.

The quilt is filled with loving messages from her school mates and teachers.

I was honored to be asked to quilt this quilt for her. Marylou designed and piece the top.
Below are some detail pictures of ;

The rick rack border, which was paper pieced.

some of the siggy blocks

one of the corners

the back of the quilt. I am very pleased with the addition the quilting
made to the quilt. Get well soon, Miss Dakota.

A Few Words

2009-09-21T14:40:00.006-07:00

New additions to Samantha's table runner.

Christmas Table Runner

2009-09-14T14:36:00.005-07:00

More lovely details of Samantha's table runner

This seam treatment and snowflakes were created by Candi.

Karrin decorated this corner of the runner.

More work by Candi. Except the arched treatment, that one is my first addition.

More to come, I am adding the words Love, Hope, Charity, Joy and Faith.

T-shirt dedesign & Christmas CQ

2009-09-07T08:24:00.007-07:00

I wanted to redesign the collar of this t-shirt. I don't like things against my neck so after checking out the internet on how to do this, I dove in and here are the results.

I also shortened the shirt, no more puckers of fabric around my waist, which doesn't need any more attention. LOL

This is DD, Samantha's Christmas table runner done in Crazy Quilting. I put together the table runner and sent it around my CQ group for help in decorating the seams. It has been to Texas, California, Arizona, South Dakota and is back here in Wyoming so I can add my touches and finish it off. Last year when Samantha, Andy and the boys visited for Christmas we went to Cody, Wy. for after Christmas sales and she started getting blue, crystal and white things for a new scheme for her dining room. So this is part of that.

Click on
the pictures
for a
closer look
at the
details

by Susan and Moira

Close up of seams details

Spider and web by Susan.....spiders and webs are good luck in CQ

More details of the table runner to come. Believe it or not Christmas is only 3 months away.

Citrus Gift Sets

2009-09-02T16:06:00.007-07:00

Time to share the gift sets I have. Each set has 3 soaps, all in a citrus scent. Lemon, Lime, Orange, Tangerine, Grapefruit or a mix of several.

Below are examples of the sets. There are 5 sets up for sale @ $15.00 each plus shipping. Individual soaps are also available for $5.00 each, all are different.

Please click on
picture for a
closer look.

A look at
interior
labeling.

Please leave a comment with your addy and I will contact you. Thank you for looking.

August Already.............

2009-08-26T14:57:00.005-07:00

I am sitting here with the AC going, it is to hot to work outside or up in my studio (no AC up there yet......well it will most likely be a swamp cooler but what the hay, it will be cool).

So I though that since I have been a bad blogger and not posted in awhile.....
I do have an excuse if you want to hear it.....well a half way excuse....my computer is down and has been for over a month and I am using the lap top and it doesn't have my picture program on it so it is kind of a pain.....so I finally decided to bit the bullet and figure it out so I can post a picture or two. Next it is my camera, it is not well at all and unless Santa brings me another one, I don't know how much longer I can get it to work. Sigh......so those are my excuses. Oh and I must add, all my links are on the other computer, and I have not bothered to get them on here, it was only suppose to be overnight, but you know how those things work out.........I miss my computer...........................

What have I been working on. Below are a few pictures of and American Hero quilt that I quilted and is back at headquarters for binding and give out. It came with another quilt that I ended up ripping the quilting out of because it was loopy, it is now back on the longarm and being quilted.

I am still working on my LC quilt, creating a elk center for it. I will hopefully show you that soon.

Thank you for hanging in there with me, I appreciate your comments and friendship.

I have been Neglectful

2009-07-17T19:18:00.003-07:00

I want to touch bases with you all, I have been very neglectful with all of my blogs. I hope I am beginning to get back into a more settled place.

We gave Ken his quilt on July 5th at Claudia's memorial service and he was/is very touched. He can't believe how everyone came together for him, people he does not even know.

Our kitty, Missy Mew, who we believe was bitten by a snake is now back to her ornery little self, we were very worried about her, she was a very very sick kitty for nearly a month. At one point we feared brain damage because of the sickness, thankfully we were wrong.

My current projects include a king size log cabin quilt for our bed. Instead of a regular backing my plan is to do a 2 sided quilt, I have found a pattern I like so we shall she how all that comes together. So I still need to piece another top to become the back to my log cabin. LOL.

There is an American Hero's quilt on my machine, it is taking a long time because I had to rip out one and a half rows of quilting.........it is ready to begin quilting again. I really do not like the design I am doing but it is to late to do anything about that. So now for a test run before starting again.

Also, making soaps for Ole Timers a celebration of the Anniversary of our town, with this year being 100 years. I need to do more soaps, it is next Sunday. Have been playing with different techniques.

We also have (well Kirk has) been putting a porch on the house. Tomorrow we have to go cut fire wood, and need to make a few more trips before winter (yes, winter is coming).

Thanks for hanging in there with me....

Ken's Comfort Quilt

2009-06-23T18:01:00.007-07:00

On June 4th we lose one of our dear neighbors and friend to an unexpected death. It has effected all of us in our small town. Claudia's death left us all stunned not to mention the
shock to her family. Her husband Ken is doing pretty well considering.

I decided that it would be good to make a comfort quilt. Putting out the call on two of my quilt lists and in town 30 orphaned blocks arrived and a nice amount of cash donations. Of course not all 30 blocks are being used in this quilt, but will be saved for a future need.

Fabric, batting and thread purchased, work began on construction of the quilt. Spending most of the afternoon for 3 days, sashing, and borders went together.

My vision for the quilt worked out well. Done in dark chocolate brown, sage and blue.

There is one pink block in the middle of the quilt, which is to represent Claudia.

Here you can see the detail of the borders. Sage green, with a blue flip (that is what I call it) border and brown outer border. The quilt is a very nice size to snuggle under for a man who is 6 feet tall.

Once I get the quilting done (tomorrows work) it will go to Marylou for binding. Kris has enlisted the help of her sister to embroider the label on her machine.

Claudia's service is July 5th, and it is our goal to present Ken with his quilt then.

The label will read

This quilt is filled with hugs,
to comfort you and keep you snug.
Don't worry about washing the hugs away,
they are sown in to stay.
In loving memory of Claudia.

I want to thank every person who has helped us make this quilt a possibility.

Quilt is Finished

2009-06-10T12:31:00.003-07:00

A couple more details on Kasey's quilt.

A block close up.

And the label for the quilt, which is edged in lace.

The quilt is ready to mail, tomorrow I hope.

Note: to see more details see previous post.

Now onto finishing the logcabin quilt, and making a comfort quilt for my neighbor Ken.

Quilting done

2009-06-03T19:15:00.005-07:00

The quilting is finished.......(what is with the underlining????)
Please click for a closer look.
The white blocks have a double heart with feathers

A close up of the side borders and half square triangles (where'd the underlining go??)
In the half square triangles I did not echo the hearts feathers because of space.

In this photo I wanted you to see the upper corner of the border with the feather design, and the quarter square triangle design.

Next, is a picture of the lower corner of the border.

Tomorrow I will get the binding on, as well as the label.

Big Horn Mountain Creations and Quilting

Shoe Box Swap

Turquoise & Brown Split 9 Patch - Completed

Ginny's Flanged Binding

Ruffled Roses BOM - 4

Turquoise & Brown Split 9 Patch-Quilting

Trying to Catch Up!

For Karen

Ruffled Roses BOM - 3

Turquoise & Brown Split 9 Patch

A Little Playing Today

Rocky Mt. Elk Foundation Quilt 11

Rocky Mt. Elk Foundation Quilt 10

Rocky Mt. Elk Foundation Quilt 9

Rocky Mt. Elk Foundation Quilt 8

Rocky Mt. Elk Foundation Quilt 7

Rocky Mt. Elk Foundation Quilt 6

Rocky Mt. Elk Foundation Quilt 5

Rocky Mt. Elk Foundation Quilt 4

Rocky Mt. Elk Foundation Quilt 3

Rocky Mt. Elk Foundation Quilt 2

Rocky Mt. Elk Foundation Quilt

Ruffled Roses BOM - 2

Block of the Month - TQS

Over at Among the Gum Trees

An appeal has been issued to help crafters in Australia who have lost everything in the horrible floods that are going on over there.

I thought you all might be interested in helping and maybe did not know about this chance. I did not know until today when it was passed on to me by a friend.

So read about it below and see how you might help.

For all links and to contact Jenny go to

Among The Gum Trees

****************************************************************

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

We need your help!!!

Finished Slippers..........

Slippers for Christmas

Marianne's Quilt - Part 7- the Finished Quilt

Split Nine Patch Quilt

Marianne's Quilt - Part 7

Slippers for Christmas

Marianne's Quilt - Part 6

Marianne's Quilt - Part 5

Marianne's Quilt - Part 4

Marianne's Quilt - An Opps

Marianne's Quilt - Part 3

Two Cute Give-a-ways

Marianne's Quilt - Part 2

Marianne's Quilt - Part 1

I took the Process Pledge

Susan's Quilt

Basket

Bloggerette Sorority

Heather

Help is Needed

I have copied and am posting this (a copy of Cathy's post) to my blogs, in hopes that someone can help this family. Cathy from The Stylish Home is in need of our help. Please spread the word, time is critical.

Seeking The Gift Of Life!

Where Bloggers Create - Party!

The Pink Slipper Project

Come Join the Bloggerette Sorority

Quilt Show and Cowboy Carnival

It's a Party!!

Quilting joins Inks and Paints-Udate

Quilting joins Inks and Paints

Prayers Needed

Prayers Please

My daughter's friend Holly is in desperate need of prayers ...... here is Samantha's update in bit ago

Log Cabin Quilt

New Video Classes

Blog Parties.......Everywhere!!!!!!

One World One Heart

A Generous Give A Way

Pink Saturday

Log Cabin Quilt

Long Arm Work

Crazy Quilting Tablerunner

Dakota's Quilt

A Few Words

Christmas Table Runner

T-shirt dedesign & Christmas CQ

Citrus Gift Sets

August Already.............