Merry Design Wall

Today begins a whole year before my next birthday and the beginning of the Christmas season: how fun.

Doesn’t it seem right that my design wall today has 11 snowmen? All of these are appliqued down and ready for the hand embroidery which I will try to get done when we are visiting in MD at Christmas. Anyway there is only one more snowman in this years Bunny Hill Designs BOM. And here is my problem, I need 13 snowman blocks for this layout. What to do, what to do?

Anyway, I finished these last two snowmen blocks this week so I am ready for #12 and will have to decide what to do about #13 later.

I have my 12 Days of Christmas ready to quilt and it will be on the HQ before today is over.

Yesterday was my birthday. After a week of reviewing the DVDs, DH took me to see Harry Potter (big fan), out to eat.

I only thought to take a picture (taken with my new iPhone) after I had almost finished.

And after we got home I opened my gift from DS#3 and his wife. Thanks my children.

It was a great day and now it is off to another great year.

Very Happy Thanksgiving

Here in the South we had a wonderful Thanksgiving and a beautiful day.

This is what we see as we step out our front door. It really looks so peaceful, doesn’t it? However, Thanksgiving was being celebrated at our DD and DSIL’s house so we passed right by all of this and left.

And this was what we came to see.

This is a charcoal grilled turkey. Even though it looks black no part of it was burned. This bird was perfectly spit grilled and smoked by our SIL, Gary.

He loves to cook: having his picture taken, not so much. Heh, heh!

So we ate, talked, laughed, and ate some more. And then it was time to come home.

I did get a little sewing in after our return and completed the applique. After being “scrunched” under the machine, one can’t say this is a fragile top. But later this weekend I will be putting it on the quilt frame.

I also made the star for the top of the tree. Well, attempted, I should say.

Look at those square points. I tried several times to get pointed points but I just can’t do it. So I have come up with an alternative for the tree top but will save that for when it is ready.

Hope everyone has a great weekend. Don’t spend too much on Black Friday. I plan to stay home, sew and quilt.

Hooray! Design Wall Monday

And I have something on my wall to show.

Isn’t she beautiful? And it is almost done. I have completed the baubles/ornaments and have two more gifts to applique. Oh, and I have a star to make for the top of the tree. Then borders and it is off to the frame for quilting (no complete quilting plan yet). I am so excited.

Now, since it is still November, I feel that I need to show that even here in the deep south, we have Fall color.

I took these as I walked around the house, getting some exercise during my full day in the studio.

But for some reason, my rose bushes don’t know that we are almost to December and are blooming all over the place

Now, off you go to Patchwork Times to see what other quilters are up to.

Friday's Work

I almost never post more than twice a week but I was so excited this afternoon I just had to share.

Here is my 12 Days of Christmas wall hanging. It isn’t sewn down yet but everything is ready and the appliqueing will begin tomorrow. I spent the afternoon putting a finishing edge on the tree and then making everything else would fit on the background fabric I have chosen. I find that I am very impressed and pleased with how it looks. I still have 4 ornaments to applique and then figure out how to finish them but I will figure that out next week. And I may have this on the HQ before the end of the month.

I also will show Block 2 in the Layer Cake Quilt Along.

I am not sure that I like this one as much and was very concerned that it called for 5 different fabrics. There are only 40 fabric pieces in a layer cake and if all of the blocks were to call for 5 pieces, we would need 60. I will pay more attention from now on to be sure I don’t run out of fabric before all 12 are introduced.

And lastly, I appliqued down the last 2 snowman blocks that I have prepped. I think I am 2 or 3 behind in prepping but I will get to that this weekend, I hope. This is a Bunny Hill BOM.

Hope everyone has a great weekend and I'll see you at the Monday Design Wall.

Christmas Quilt Show

My contribution to the Christmas Quilt Show is Flight School. It is a modification of a pattern I found in a Quiltmaker magazine a couple of years ago but since I have not been able to find it again I cannot say what issue or who the original designer was. If anyone knows, please let me know so I can give proper credit.

I made this quilt because we have a rather large fireplace hearth that encompasses the fireplace and a built in bookshelf. Our Christmas village is laid out on this hearth but the bookshelf was distracting. I had been covering the bookshelf with Christmas fabric but when I saw this pattern I knew it was the perfect setting for the village.

The quilt is 44"x40". The snow was quilted with nickle sized pebbles and the sky with a sidewise meander and occasional stars. I also quilted the "rays" behind the reindeer.

The quilt was hanging in our local quilt show last weekend. Although there is no Rudolph I overheard a small boy telling his mother that his favorite quilt was the Rudolph quilt. It made me smile.

If you haven't started the Christmas Quilt Show tour, hop on over to SewCalGal and enjoy some Christmas fun, beauty and inspiration.

Design Wall Monday, November 15, 2010

First, our quilt show went great!! The quilts were beautiful, the visitors were complimentary, the ladies of the guild worked like a well-oiled machine and the husbands, both for set-up and take down, were wonderful. If you missed our quilt show you can see pictures of most of the quilts here.

After three days away from the studio, I could hardly wait to get in there and, except for small breaks for food, I spent all day there. I finished all of the gifts for the bottom of my 12 Days of Christmas and have them “stuck” together. They are not really fused yet but they are holding on to each other. I also got the diamonds sewn together (no picture) so the top of the tree is done. Tomorrow I will get the background together and maybe even the rest pressed onto it. I have a lot of machine applique to do on this so I may still be working on this when we meet again next Monday. In the meantime, be sure to visit Judy’s blog to see what other’s are doing.

Progress & Quilt Show

I am making progress on my 12 Days of Christmas.

I have put the dove and 2 gifts together and have one cut out, ready to go.

Around the tree are some fabrics I am trying out for the background and borders. Decisions, decisions.

But there will be no more sewing for the next three days. Thursday, of course, I will be in NWFL and then Friday & Saturday I will be working our Quilt Show.

Sunday was setup for this show.

The setup chairman was so well organized and had a complete plan which worked out beautifully.







All of the quilts were lined up alphabetically and then














were picked up and deposited at their assigned location.







Guild members then clipped the quilts together and,







with the help of several wonderful husbands, the quilts were hung over the PVC pipes. (several weeks ago we were cleaning said pipes....oh, what fun.)

Then last night we tweaked the show layout and the vendors began their setup. It’s not the biggest show I have been to but it is really nice looking and I am so impressed with the talent we have in this guild.

And here are a few shots of how our show looks.

I have put pictures of individual quilts on my Webshots page. Please check them out. I didn’t get pictures of all the quilts but I think it is pretty representational of what we have to offer.

Design Wall Monday, 11/8/10

I am so excited to be able to show some progress on my design wall today. I was able to complete Block 1 of the Layer Cake Quilt Along hosted by Moose on the Porch.

It was designed by an Alabama artist, Gene Black. Didn’t he do a great job? I haven’t sewn the applique circle down yet but will get it done this week when I sit down

to sew the applique on these.

These are the last four so I will be completing the applique (machine) on all 12, hopefully, this week. I also will be sewing these green diamonds together so that they can become a Christmas tree.

I have prepped the tree trunk but still need to get the background together and then a bunch of gifts and stuff for under the tree. All of that will be applique, too, so I will still be working on this for a couple more weeks, or more.

And lastly, the local quilt guild started setting up for the quilt show.

This is just the beginning of the set up. I hope to have more pictures on Wednesday. We will be meeting again on Tuesday, guild night, to complete the set up and then the show opens on Thursday afternoon. I will be working the show on Friday and Saturday (Thursday I will again be in FL) and then the take down begins. This the first real quilt show the guild has done and I am very impressed with how it looks.

Now, check in at Patchwork Times to see this week’s edition of Design Wall Monday. It’s a quilt show in progress.

Wordy Wednesday

Sometimes my drive to NWFL can really be fun. As I was entering Panama City I came across this sign.

Then shortly after that I was laughing again when I saw this sign.

My first thought was how good that sounded and my second thought was that it might not be a good idea to stop for one of those in-between my two Weight Watchers meetings. Sometimes being a good role model sucks.

This is what I got done today and I am getting really

excited about this project. These are the last four baubles/ornaments. That’s the good news. The bad news is that I haven’t done the middle four yet (first 4 can be seen here). Somehow I skipped them so I am not as far along as it looks. However 8 out of 12 done is good, don’t you think? And these really do take a while. I hope to have the other four done this weekend and maybe even the background, who knows.

Friday we are going to the Greater Gulf Coast Arts Festival in Pensacola. I have been going to this for almost 20 years and look forward to it all year long. It is a juried show and the artists that get in are varied and way talented. Although I don’t think of myself as an artist, I find this show to be very inspirational.

Design Wall Monday November 1, 2010

Let me be brief. This is all I have accomplished since Wednesday. Thursday, of course, I was in NWFL conducting my two Weight Watcher’s meetings. Both groups are so much fun that it never seems like work.

On Friday I spent quite a bit of time in the studio trying to learn how to prep applique with paper templates and glue. Well, to say this experiment was a miserable failure would be an understatement. I got the parts prepped but then was unable to put them together. So I gave up in disgust and left the studio.

Saturday found me in a district wide Weight Watcher’s leader’s meeting: mandatory. It’s always fun to get together with people who are doing the same thing you are: this is a very solitary job. Anyway, the meeting was from 9:30 until 2:30 and then I was off to a quilt shop that was not quite on my way home. I needed some extra fabric for the Layer cake quilt along that starts this week. This particular shop was having a pretty good sale so I got my fabric for 25% and 50% off. Not bad, huh? (forgot to take a picture, sorry, but it will be showing up soon.)

So, Sunday I was back in the studio working on my applique. But I went back to what I knew (fused applique) and just worked really hard on the little bits. You will note that nothing has eyes and I have not yet stitched down the applique but I now have 4 of the 12 pieces almost done and am only 4 weeks behind the rest of the group. This is a 6 week “BOM” offered by Esther Aliu. She will be posting the 6^th installment this week and some people have kept up with her: NOT ME! But I do plan to keep working on it and hope to have it hanging before Christmas.

And, if I want to get it done I better get back in the studio and get busy. Be sure to check out what others are doing over at Patchwork Times.