A table Runner Completed

Here is a couple pictures of the table runner I completed for a swap in the Ohioquilters Yahoo group. I got my friend Ellen who owns Honey Fork Fabrics, which is a wonderful online & brick/mortar shop here in Logan, Ohio. She wanted an american theme. So I came across this pattern online which reminded me as the fireworks you see exploding in reds & blues. I hope she likes it as much as I liked making it for her.

The Red that looks like dots is actually stars, what looks like black is a dark navy and the paisley is on a white background.

Another UFO Bits the dust

Well yesterday I finished up another UFO called American Crossroads. i found this in the quilt sampler magzine last year, it was featuring one of my favorite quilt shops called Quilt Plus in Indiana. I dug thru all of my scraps done up in dark navys, blues, dark pinks, tans/browns and some shirtings. away i went. Well got distracted bag them up along with the magazine in a ziploc and put them in my pile of kits in the baskets. Well I decided this year I was going to get a lot of those kits etc done. Well another is done, BUT i may put a couple of boarders on it, maybe a pink small one about a 1" then a larger one in blue for the final with a tan binding.

So far I have about 9 quilt tops to get quilted this spring once the weather warms up. With the price of propane I don't want to run it too much out there in the sewing room. I machine quilt all of mine on my grace machine quilting frame using a Janome 1600 DBX which I love. Investing in that has saved me so much money on sending them out. Worth every dime. I send some still out for custom work atleast until I get better, LOL.

The snow has came & gone, but boy do we have some ice leftover. Which I would loved more snow then the ice. Talking more snow this weekend which is a possiblity. Well I'll just put on a pot of soup, warm up some bread & keep on quilting.

Now I'm working on my pedels for a quilt called Aunt purdy's palor. Need some hand work for the evenings so I'm applique them on each block.

Snows a Coming~~ I can Sew, Sew, Sew

Well Snow is suppose to be coming late tonight along with Yikes!! Ice. ( bad,bad word) Let it snow all it wants as long as the electric is on I'm fine. I've dug out two ufo's to work on, plus a tablerunner for a swap I'm in, along with 2 birthday blocks in the Ohioquilters online group. So I'm content with staying home and sewing. I'm hoping this year to complete most of my ufo's that I have in my sewing room. But the question is what am I going to do with all of these quilts when they are done. :0) I'm sure I can find something to do with them. One of the ufo's is called American Crossroads, I purchased the kit at a quilt shop called Quilt plus. I love the blues, pinks, tans and creams. I added to the selection of fabric they sent to me, most of them are vintage looking or civil war reproductions. The other ufo I dug out is called Aunt Purdy's parlor quilt. It was another block swap, need to make some more of the border and add all of the leaves. I believe I"m going to add them buy using fusible lightweight interfacing and machine applique them, but we will see. It will look nice once completed. Why is it we ( quilters) have UFO's?? I mean do we get that bored with the fabric? Don't like the pattern any longer? Are we all adults with A.D.D? Or is it something catches our eye and we hafta start it now!!! I know on a recent trip up to the Glass thimble in Columbus, Ohio with some girlfriends. I saw this quilt called Home Sweet Home done up in creams, dk. muted pinks, robin egg blue, sage green and gorgeous tans. Well I just stood their gazing at how beautiful it was. I knew then I had to make this quilt. So guess what I bought the book, now looking for that perfect background fabric and collecting the other fabric for the houses etc. so I can get started on it!! Yep, here is another one started before long, LOL hopefully not a UFO!!!
Stay Warm~~~ Pray for electric during the next couple days so I can sew, sew, sew~~~~

Another quilt top done, Yea!!!

Well I finished another top. It is called Chelsea's Boutique done up in my favorite lines of fabric called Kansas troubles. It turned out rather nicely and used up a bunch of scraps, which is always a plus. I did this in 3 days while being snowed in with the kids this week. Had to do something to keep my sanity.
Was a very easy pattern, plus i simplified it and instead of uning 4 7/8" square to make 1/2 square triangles I dug out my 5" charms I purchased for another quilt project. Use them instead, which was a major time savor, and trimmed them down to 4 1/2" after sewing them. Now I have to replace my charms to do the other quilt. Don't you love how the colors just go together? One more quilt that went into the "need" to be quilted pile. Now up to 8 boy I wish the weather would warm up so I can go out there & sew without turning on the heaters.

Log Cabin blocks all done

Well finally got all of my 6 1/2" log cabin blocks done for a quilt. I was needing to make 104 of them and 80 flying geese to make a quilt called double duty by mis rosie. I did these all in scraps of Kansas trouble fabrics. Will send some in to swap with other quilters and then once those are returned I'll put it all together.

Spent the most wonderful day on sat with some friends. Visited a quilt shop in columbus, Ohio called The Glass Thimble. It was a shop I visited a while back but the people there were kinda snobby, acted like it was a bother for them to wait on you, stuff every where, and kinda had the feeling of drab unbecoming. Well they sold the shop to some new owners this past fall. The new owners have done such a wonderful Job, Love the shop. It felt so clean, well organized, lite and airy. The gals working were oh so helpful & polite. Wonderful lighting and just gorgeous inside. Will definately return there. I found a quilt top I just fell in love with called home sweet home by blackbird designs, done up in robin egg blue, muted pinks, buttery yellows and lite tans. They were sold out of the book. So started searching on the internet~~~found the book & found out they have block of the month also, hhmmm but every place is filled up, gggrrrrrr. so this is going to be one of my projects to do up my own quilt and hopefully get it completed by the end of the year.~~~~~ I hope.~~~~

Well been awhile since I've posted anything, been so busy with life. Boy life just seems to get in the way of quilting at times. So it is a new year, hopefully a great year. It is snowing and looks so fresh & clean outside. Right now I'm working on so much, lets see~~~ We've got the Ohioquilters retreat coming up in May finalizing things with that, the Chillicothe Guild starting a new raffle quilt, and working on my own stuff. Trying to get done some of those UFO's done up this year. I've got 3 I'm wanting to get done by the end of March BUT I keep getting caught up in some wonderful online projects with some yahoo groups. Hate to miss out on anything with them. Here is a picture of one of those I did, thru an online group. All done up in Kansas Troubles fabric. The pattern is called Itsy Bitsy Spider. Love how it turned out but oh so time consuming. I decided to use up a lot of my scraps and took much longer than expected. But made a dent in my stash. :)
That is one of my goal this year is to cut down my stash, I know such a drastic thing to do but I do have so much. Plus maybe make room for some of the fabric I truely love. I have fabric when I look at it I'm thinking now " What was I thinking buying that? Was I on some drugs?" so it is being used as charity quilts or as backings. Now don't get me wrong it is beautiful fabric, but not my cup of tea any more.
Well off to sew some 6" log cabin blocks with 1/2 square triangle centers used in a block swap. I've already done up all of my flying geese. The pattern is called Double duty, going to be done up in all Kansas troubles fabric.

My newest addition

Here is my newest addition to our family. Her name is Mischief & boy does she live up to her name. She is about 4 1/2 months old, she was another drop off. She loves to play, which I think keeps the other older cats on their toes ( or should i said Paws) for sure. Here is one of her favorite spots to sleep in. Doesn't she look all comfortable? Well getting ready to start sewing my 30's quilt swap blocks that are due end of the week. Only have 12 blocks to make, Yea!!! Also a birthday block swap is due too. Gosh things piled up because of the quilt show, now need to play catch up.

Life back to normal~

Well have the quilt show behind me. Now I've got to get caught up on my two upcoming swaps and a birthday blocks~~ Kids are back to school so hopefully once we get a routine set up will be more time for quilting. Have some christmas gifts to get done.
Debating right now to rejoin one of my quilt guilds there just seems to be quite a lot of drama and high school clicky crap going on, which I hate to get involved in. Plus it is a drive for me 40 minutes one way & gas prices need I say more. plus I'm not really getting anything from it, which I feel is sad cause there are talented people in that group, but don't like to share.
well gotta finish my house work for the week so I can sew, sew all week.

Quilt Show Has begun

Well the quilt show starts today. We spent yesterday with a NQA judge, writing comments for over 150 quilted items, then hung the quilt show after that. Made for a long long day, but learned a lot and had fun too. Plus seeing all of those gorgeous quilted items, makes you want to run home and quilt.

Well I ended up with 3 - 1st place ribbons, 1 - 3rd place. Not too bad for entering in 9 items. I recieved a first place for my black & batik quilt, one for my 1930's miniature quilt, and one for a amish trip around the world wallhanging that was hand-quilted. The 3rd place was for my nine patch on point quilt that was hand-quilted. I was so thrilled. This was my first time entering a show, always have been so nervous & I'm funny about letting other look at my stuff & making comments. Cause you know sometimes those comments you don't want to hear.

The NQA judge we had was Lorraine Covington. She was awesome!! Had a great personality, always had something nice to say about each item, plus commented on where you need to work on. Loved it!! Had a wonderful sense of humor as well. I learned quite a bit while writing out comments for her for the quilt entries. I would recommend her for any quilt guild show that needs to be judged. Such a great lady.

I'll post some pictures lately of the show & my quilts that won~~

Getting Ready for Quilt show

Well I've been getting my quilts ready for our local quilt show. This will be my first one to enter, scared to death. LOL. Right now I'm putting prairie points on my block quilt that is done in spinning star with batiks & black, plus crystals. Boy am I going out of my box!! I'm a primitive folkart type of gal!!
I posted a small picture of it. Love the quilting in it. I've got two wallhangings, another quilt done up in turtles, and one done up in hearts & stars that has button hole stitched them down all by hand. Hope to have a couple of minitures done as well. There is a contest to see who can enter the most. I don't think I'll win but I'm going to try.
The prairie points are going to be a challenge, never done one before so this is all new to me. pressing all of those points I have a feeling is going to take hours. I have 2 weeks till show time. Hope to get them done & ready to go.
I've posted another picture of a mystery quilt I did this past weekend. It was lots of fun. Done in Kansas trouble fabric, which is my one of my loves. Turned out to be kinda americana but didn't mean for it to. Isn't it funny how a quilt takes a mind of it's own. Love to know what you think.
God Bless~~~~

A little bit about me~~~

Well lets see, I live in Ohio and have for all of my life. I've been quilting going on 16 yrs now & still lovin' it. I mostly lean towards traditional patterns with some primitive style thrown in there. I love the soft muted muddled colors and also the deep dark rich reds/mustards/blacks and such. I also enjoy working in my flower gardens i have, a small vegetable garden, and primitive doll making. I belong to a couple of quilt guilds which are a lot of fun. I'm married for 16 years have 2 sons ages 15 & 8, which my boys are a handfull in themselves. We also cater to our babies which are our 5 cats. hhmmmm let's see I'm a stay at home mom going on 8 years which is a job in itself, gosh working outside the home seemed a lot easier in a lot of ways. I have a 16x24' sewing area all mine, my sweet husband converted one of the garages on our property in to my "quilting" area in which i have my grace machine quilter, all of my fabrics, vintage trims ect and filled with things that make me smile~~~