The Straw Needle

Shall I try again?

2011-04-28T01:19:00.004-04:00

Hello my sewing friends, it has been so long since I have posted. I have been ill from an assortment of things for awhile. The most recent started in February with both of my ears being infected, the right one being the worse. I am still not fully recovered, still have some fluid issues, but I am rejoining the world again. I am anxious to see what you all have been doing while I have been gone! I have a few photos to show you a little of what has been happening here.

First of all, we have a new addition to the family. Her name is Amber Marie and in November she was approx. a year old. She is a rescue cat. She had been starved and mistreated but now she is happy and gaining lots of weight. She was named Amber by my granddaughter and I gave her Marie for her middle name. Most of the time, tho, I call her Fido, as she reminds me of a little puppy that follows me around all the time. She has become very affectionate and is never far from me. I hope I bring her the same amount of happiness that she brings me.

The 150th anniversary of the Civil War was April 13th. This is one of my civil war quilts that I had in my guild show called Civil War Maze. I accumulated these reproduction fabrics from internet swaps over the years.

This next quilt is titled Remembering Gettysburg. I used my Dear Jane blocks with Jo Morton reproduction fabrics. My hubby and I went to Gettysburg battlefield where I took the photographs for this quilt. I am doing some embroidery of cannons and stars, which are the quilting designs in the borders. I also plan on embroidering the name of the quilt on the upper border. The center medallion was hand quilted and the rest was machine quilted.

This last photo is a tablerunner using the braided quilt as you go method. I made this for the shop. It was fun and easy! And my favorite colors!

Well, that is all for me right now. I am going to visit your blogs for awhile and see what you have been sewing! See ya soon!

What happened to Dawn?

2010-11-21T11:23:00.007-05:00

Hello there! I guess you have been wondering what in the world happened to me? I have had so many things going on....deadlines to meet....places to go....pain to deal with (knee, of course). Whew! I get tired just thinking about it:) Anyway, the worst, I hope, has past and now just the usual everyday stuff, sort of. I have missed all of you and can't wait to get caught up and see what you have been doing while I had my machine and hands whirling. Here is a sampling of my projects:
My TAS group had a basket block swap. We could make up to six baskets to be swapped. I had originally want to make all of mine Baltimore Album style with the album that opens so everyone could write who made their blocks, but I'm afraid that was too ambitious. I only finished two, did a third in Baltimore style, and two I borrowed ideas from a book. The ladies seemed pleased and that was the most important thing.

Here I am with my swapped blocks. It was hard to choose from each of the ladies blocks but I am happy with my five:)

My guild held their fall retreat at West River a couple weekends ago and I was able to attend. This is a few of us Friday night. We had a total of 26 ladies. It is a great place with a nice view of the river.

Some of the ladies are helping a member with the layout of her blocks.

If you ever wanted to see Plymouth Rock, MA here it is. Or at least here is half of it. It is maybe 2 feet tall and 3 or 4 feet wide. My poor hubby expected to see some huge boulder jutting out from the beach. Sorry Jerry. It was exciting, tho, to be in the place where the pilgrims first landed. So much history in Massachusetts.

So, that is the short version of my 8 week absence. Since we are in the holiday season for the next 5 or 6 weeks, I will probably only post twice a week. Also, my quilt guild's show is coming up on March 12 and 13, 2011 and I will be getting very busy with that. There are several of us who have made quilts using Civil War reproductions and since the 150 Anniversary of the war is next year, our guild will be hanging our quilts together as a Civil War display. I am very excited about this. For those of you who live fairly close I hope you will be able to attend this show. We have very talented ladies in our group, which includes traditional and art quilt makers. Some are nationally known with Cathy Kleeman being one of our famous quilters.

Now I am off to see what you have been doing!

One flower Wednesday and my miniature dresden plates

2010-09-23T00:53:00.003-04:00

I had some unexpected hand sewing time so I thought I'd work on my miniature dredens plates for awhile. I am only using Jo Morton scraps as I plan on using these in one of her quilts someday. lol I have a few different size blocks but I think I am going to settle on the 4 1/2 inch since most of her projects are small.

Today was One Flower Wednesday and I managed to complete four since last week. I was looking for a book in my personal library when I came across this one! Woo Hoo! I remember I had purchased it to make the project on the cover so I think that will be my plan for my hexies. The problem, tho, is I keep changing my mind as to what to make with them. One of the ladies in the group made a really cool looking bag with hers. No matter what I decide I still need to make lots so off I go:)

Birthday Party

2010-09-21T02:49:00.002-04:00

Please meet Isabelle, my third youngest granddaughter. We helped her celebrate her birthday Saturday evening. She is such a sweetie! I love spending time with the grandchildren. We kidnapped the 3 girls at the end of the party to go for a little drive and what do you think they wanted? Yes, more food with sugar in it. So we had snowballs, ice cream cones and donuts! Then we took them back to their parents! Like I said, I love being a granny:)

I am now working on a satchel type bag for the shop. I forgot to take a picture of it but I will post that tomorrow. Ooops, probably on Wednesday since tomorrow is hubby's birthday and we may go out to dinner. Unfortunately he has the tummy germs now so I am not sure if he will want food tomorrow. We will see. Happy sewing!

Friday Night Sew In Results

2010-09-21T02:38:00.003-04:00

Wednesday my friend and I went to Lancaster, PA in search of fabrics for two quilts she wants to make. One was all black and whites and one was a lot of different pastels and dark pastels as well. Apparently while she was picking up fabrics I was picking up germs because I woke up Thursday morning with a very sick stomach. The only thing that made me feel better was the big stack of quilt books that I needed to review that were donated by guild members for our guild library. I did tell you that I am the librarian, right? And I absolutely love it:) Anyway, so there I was, laying on the sofa, moaning and paging through books for a couple days. My tummy was feeling calmer by Saturday so I went up to the ole sewing room and made these next two blocks of my The Queen and Her Court quilt. I love these fabrics and I really love this BOM. It is a real pleasure making these. The instructions are clear and everything just goes so smoothly. I believe these are blocks 3 and 4. I have many more to go:)

Tuesday Guild Meeting

2010-09-21T02:10:00.003-04:00

The second Tuesday of the month is when the Baltimore Heritage Quilter's Guild meet. My quilt guild. I love them. We have the best ladies, so talented! Here is a sampling of our Show N Tell from last week.

This quilt was made by my friend Rita C. She is a hand appliquer and hand quilter. I have learned so much from her:)

Isn't this Baltimore Album quilt a beauty? Debbie R. made this quilt. She entered it in the state fair and I can't even tell you how many awards and ribbons it won. I have watched her work on this quilt at retreats so it is nice to see it finished and I am so happy for her with all her ribbons!

Unfortunately I can't remember this lady's name and the circumstances in which she made this quilt but it is a hoot!! Be sure to zoom in so you can see the faces!!

We always have a summer challenge and this summer we did something new. You purchased two FQ"S for $5.00 and you had a choice of oriental fabrics, batiks, or reproductions. If you had a top finished by the Sept mtg you would get your $5.00 returned and you would be eligible for a prize. Well, if you know me you know I love reproduction fabrics so that was my choice. Here are the projects displayed. Mine is the pineapple square underneath Rita's Dear Jane blocks. She won third place in our category. I didn't win anything. The log cabin piece and the raw edge flower piece won first and second. It was fun and I loved working with those fabrics.

Original Sewing and Quilt Expo

2010-09-14T04:04:00.003-04:00

It's that time of year again for the Original Sewing and Quilt Expo in Chantilly, VA, from September 30th till October 2, 2010. The Maryland Chapter of The American Sewing Guild, of which I am a member, has put together a bus trip for this event. The trip will be on Saturday, October 1. We will arrive at 9 AM and depart at 5:30 PM. So we will be there for the entire day. The cost is $40.00, which includes admission, one class session, a tote bag and a pin. Why drive alone, in your car, dealing with traffic, when you can ride, carefree, with your sewing buddies on the bus with your new tote bag and attend a class? You know we are going to have a good time:) So, give me a buzz or shoot me an email and let me know it you would like to attend. The deadline is this Wednesday, the 15th. So hurry, hurry, hurry! Don't get left behind!

Happy 50th Anniversary

2010-09-14T02:52:00.002-04:00

On Saturday, the 11th, my friend Rita and her hubby celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. I wanted to make something that they would both like so I thought of this banner. I printed a picture of them on printable fabric. I then embroidered their wedding date on the left side of the pic and the 50 year date on right side. I embroidered Happy 5oth Anniversary on the top of the signature part of the banner. Their favorite colors are blue, purple and cream so I incorporated those. Then I had to get some gold in there so I used that for the lettering. Both of them are interested in the Civil War so the backing fabric has scenes on it from the 1800's which are printed in purple. I had two pigma pens attached with ribbons for the guests to use to sign the banner. They both seemed to like it so I am happy:)

I forgot to take a picture of it before we left so I had my hubby take a picture of me holding it with Rita. Rita has a great sense of humor and just as my hubby is about to take the photo she decides to tell a joke which breaks me up. We had great fun that day. Congratulations Rita and John!

Making a pocketbook Part 2

2010-09-14T02:35:00.002-04:00

Welcome back to Making a pocketbook Part 2. What I wanted to share with you this time is how I made the inside bottom of the bag. I didn't have this special plastic Nancy mentions in the DVD so I hunted down some of my plastic canvas sheets from my crafting days. I didn't think one layer was firm enough so I wanted to use two. However, I knew they would slip and slide all over the place while I was trying to attach them to the bottom. So.......

I cut a piece of my outer fabric and stitched it on top of the two layers of plastic canvas. I selected a 3.0 basting stitch and stitched very slowly. Sometimes the needle hit the plastic, but I just raised the needle, scooted the plastic canvas forward, and continued on.

Here is my nice pocketbook bottom insert, waiting to be attached. And I did attach it, but it was a bit hard trying to stitch through all those layers. I looked at the instructions for the next step and that is when I noticed ......I had cut the plastic canvas an inch too long!!!!! No wonder it was so hard to stitch. It was not supposed to extend into the seam allowance, which Nancy did mention on the DVD!!! Oh well:) As of this writing I only have to add my straps and it will be finished. So, you guessed it. Stayed tuned for Part 3, The Finale!

Making a pocketbook Part 1

2010-09-14T01:46:00.005-04:00

So, here we go. This was supposed to be an easy bag that you can sew in an evening....according to Nancy Zieman. And I suppose you could make one in a long evening, after you have made one that took 3 long evenings! I love the bag, but the instructions were a bit confusing. This is a Nancy Zieman project, as I mentioned earlier. The package came with a DVD, a booklet, an instruction sheet and a template. The DVD only tells you how to make 12 variations of two different style pocketbooks. The instruction sheet only tells you how to make the basic shape of the first six variations.The template is only for the first 6 pocketbooks. The DVD says you will use outer fabric, cotton duck cloth for support, polyester fleece for support, and a lining. The instruction sheet only mentions the outer fabric, lining and support fabric. Three, not four. For the purse I wanted to make you must remember to look through the entire instruction sheet to see where the strap instructions are, as the DVD tells you to add them before you sew the sides of bag together and the written instruction sheet has you add them after you sew the sides together which means you have to take the sides apart. Now, that was a bit confusing for me. But as you will see, I had to make things even tougher for myself. First, tho, let's look at the nice purse!

My purse is falling apart and that is why I wanted to make a new one. And I wanted to use parts of my old purse for the new purse. See those metal rings? They were 6 of those on my old purse, but this new purse needed 10. Why didn't I count them before I went to JoAnn's to pick out the outer fabric? The pattern called for a magnetic closure. I missed that on the list of supplies as well. So on the first trip to JoAnn's I bought the fabric and duck cloth. I thought I could find a nice cotton fabric to use as lining in my stash. But when I got home and looked....nope. Nothing matched the nice upholstery fabric I had purchased. However, I came across this cool looking denim and then found the perfect lining to match:) I then proceeded to cut out the fabrics, and fused as directed.

After a few more steps it is time to make a pocket. Well, I wanted a zippered pocket and hers called for a flat inside pocket that was stitched against the lining. So I get this bright idea that I will just cut a slit in the lining, and attach the zipper and have my pocket! Good idea, right?

Wrong:( If you look closely at the picture, you will see that I cut the pocket the pattern size, folded over all the edges and attached zipper to top. Good so far. Then I cut a slit on the pocket line to insert and attach the top half of the zipper. And this would have almost worked but I forgot to allow for the folded over edges so I cut the slit too long. Plus, (and get ready for the big laugh) since I cut the slit I only had a loose inside piece of lining instead of an enclosed pocket!!!! What should I do now???

I cut a piece of the outer fabric and sew it to the back on the lining so that I now have a pocket.

Now in this picture you can see that white fabric flapping around.

I turned the pocket inside out and cut off the flap!!! Whew! I never do things the easy way.

Now I have what looks like a normal pocket except I do have two nasty looking ends on that zipper. I apoligize for the blurry photo. I also wanted to mention, why in the world did I do all my stitching on the right side of the lining so that all my markings would show??? This is what happens when you are in a hurry:)
Stay tune for Part Two:)

Maryland State Fair

2010-09-08T16:41:00.003-04:00

These are some projects that you haven't seen yet. This picture frame, with one of my DGD's picture in it, won Third Place at the Howard County Fair. It is machine embroidered. It did not win a ribbon at the state fair.

This is the first garment I have ever knitted. It won Third Place.It was supposed to be for youngest DGD but I had to keep ripping it out and starting over. And now she is five!!!!! I will probably offer it for sale at my guild show in March.

This apron won a Blue Ribbon at the Howard County Fair, but nothing at the state fair. There were a lot of entries. The critique was that they (judges) loved everything, but the gathers weren't perfectly spaced.

And here was my surprise!!! My wool saltbox table mat won a Blue Ribbon and Viewer's Choice!!! This is the first time I have ever won a Viewer's Choice Award! I would like to thank everyone who voted for me:)

My other items you have already seen pictures of in previous posts. So here are my stats for this year: Howard County Fair: 6 items, 5 ribbons, $18.50.

Maryland State Fair: 8 items, 5 ribbons, $32.00.

I have already selected my wool project for next year, plus I have some quilts to finish for next year as well! Please share your fair experiences with me as I love to hear them. Have a great day!

Trip to the mountains

2010-09-08T16:09:00.005-04:00

We went to Paw Paw, West Virginia on Monday. We took the long way, all through the mountains in western Maryland. We tried to take the smaller roads to get there and got caught in a loop called Mountain Road. According to the map, it went south and straight to Paw Paw. However, when WE came to the end of it, we were back where we had started! lol It was okay, tho, as it goes right through a Wildlife Management Area and I have never been to or through one of those. Now, don't laugh, but I was expecting to see wildlife everywhere...herds of deer, maybe a bear or two....you know, wildlife. What I did finally see was a huge hawk perched in a tree. I tried to get a picture but the sound of the truck backing up scared it away. One thing you need to know about Mountain Road if you ever plan on going there, it is truly a mountain road. Just ruts in the dirt. Sometimes deep ruts. A couple of times we were shaken so bad our heads hit the roof of the truck. It was quite an adventure! Now, finally, we found the C& O Canal in Paw Paw. There was this huge dead tree. I asked my hubby to stand next to it so I could take a pic. Well, typical of hubby, he has to climb ON the dead tree. All I could picture was it breaking and him falling in the dirty water:)

On the way to the canal we stopped at a fast food place. It was around lunch time. I looked up and saw all these pigeons. Ya think they were waiting for lunch?

I asked humorous hubby to take a picture of the birds while I was in the shop. See who he took a picture of first?

We stopped at this overlook called Town Hill. Isn't it beautiful!!

This is a view of Sidling Hill from the lookout!

It was a beautiful day and I am so glad we went. Hardly any walking, just driving. I am still not able to walk for very long. Sigh......some day. Hope you had a great Labor Day weekend!

One Flower Wednesday

2010-09-08T16:05:00.004-04:00

Yes, today in One Flower Wednesday and look what is with my flowers? My Viewer's Choice Award from the Maryland State Fair! It just keeps popping up everywhere!

State Fair Info

2010-09-05T09:05:00.003-04:00

I was finally able to attend the MD State Fair on Thursday! How exciting! I knew I had won some ribbons as some of my friends sort of let it slip. LOL But I didn't know which items won what. So...here we go. First of all, see the picture of my wool project? They don't have it open all the way but it still looks good:) My DGD's nightgown won Second Place, pink knitted baby sweater won Third and my table runner won Third. So that wasn't too bad, entered 8 items, won 4 ribbons. My friend Missy who usually enters the wool category and she is the friend I was referring to in my earlier post, didn't enter under wool this year so we didn't get to compete against each other. She did, however, enter two quilts which won Blue Ribbons. I have posted the pictures of her quilts as I thought she did a fantastic job! Yea Missy!

Missy's quilts:)

This last picture is a bust of Elvis made from cardboard. Can you believe it? Of course it looks much better in person! Megan Clark entered this and as you can see, it won several awards! Congratulations Megan!!

That is it for me for now. Today is Civil War Sunday at And Sew It Goes in Savage, MD and I am looking forward to attending. Have a great Sunday:)

One Flower Wednesday, DGD project and sunflowers

2010-09-02T00:50:00.004-04:00

Today was another One Flower Wednesday! I actually have three flowers to show as I have had a couple meetings these past few nights and took my little hexies with me. I hope you like them. I have found it is easier making them with the paper templates than with the plastic ones. Also, the more I make the faster I am getting. I have been thinking about how to connect them. Do you usually make bunch of single hexagons and then lay everything out when you have made all the flowers and background? Or do you connect as you go along? I am sort of anxious to start connecting since I am getting a little collection now. But then I wonder if I will be sorry later as I have no specific plan as of right now. (Sigh) I guess for now I will just have fun laying them out:)

My DGD started Kindergarten Monday and needed some bath towels with her name of them for nap time. So I decided to applique the letters. They are four inches tall and three inches wide. I used Steam A Seam II for the fusing. Of course, they didn't fuse very well because of the terry cloth but it was enough to hold them in place while I appliqued by machine.

I just had to share this photo I took of one of the sunflower fields near my daughter's home. They are between four and five feet high. I love how they are all facing one direction! I planted some in my backyard and they are now between seven and nine feet tall. I had to choose the tallest ones! LOL Unfortunately, the flower bud broke or was chewed off my best one. All of them have buds now so I guess in a few weeks I will have my huge flowers! Woo Hoo!

What are you doing this Labor Day weekend? We are planning a day trip to the mountains on Monday. I can't wait! Have a great holiday weekend!

One Flower Wednesday

2010-08-25T23:30:00.003-04:00

This is my latest addition to my One Flower Wednesday flower garden! I made this one with papers, instead of using the Patis. It looks just as nice! I must admit I am getting a little faster at making these now. For my fair update, I did get the tablerunner finished. My Designer 1 machine started having some issues, so I had to come up with plan B for the remainder of the quilting. I am pleased with my idea and how it turned out. I entered a total of 8 items for the MD State Fair. They are in the processed of being judged now. Good luck to all who entered in their local fairs!

Another AccuQuilt Go Give Away

2010-08-22T22:10:00.002-04:00

Yes, another blogger is giving away an AccuQilt Go! Just go to visit Jackie here and read all about it! Good Luck!

Friday Night Sew In Early Results

2010-08-21T07:24:00.003-04:00

This is the table runner I am working on. I decided to post a picture now before quilting it because my DGD will be coming to spend the night so I don't think I will have an opportunity to get online. This is the same pattern that I used for the quilt shop sample. (see Wed. May 5 post)Much easier to make the second time around! Have a great weekend!

AccuQuilt Go Give Away

2010-08-21T04:53:00.002-04:00

Yes, folks there is another chance at winning an AccuQuilt Go!!! Just visit Sew Many Ways blogspot and get the details. I am trying every time I see a give away cuz I would love to own this AccuQuilt Go!!!! Good luck to all!

Friday Night Sew In

2010-08-21T04:31:00.002-04:00

I am a little late posting this but the Friday Night Sew In is happening now! Woo Hoo! I am trying to machine quilt a table runner for the fair but I am having some problems. So I have sat for the past hour un-sewing:( It is rather late so I may stop for now and pick it up later on Saturday. I was hoping to finish the quilting part tonight as I wanted to work on something else for the fair. Oh well. This table runner is really cute and I will take a picture later and get it posted. What are you all working on? I am going to take a few minutes to peek at your projects!!!

One Flower Wednesday and new sewing toy

2010-08-19T05:54:00.002-04:00

I am giving you a sneak peek at one of my projects for the state fair! I have a friend who loves wool projects and last year we unknowingly competed against each other. We had such a good laugh! She claims that she is not entering that category this year.....but...just in case she is I am only giving a sneak peek of my wool project! lol Do you all enter you local fairs? Aren't they fun? I would love to hear about your entries, or maybe your favorite fair story!

This is my new sewing toy. It is a pin magnet by Fons and Porter. My other one broke so I decided to try this one. At first I was not happy with it as some of the pins sort of stand up instead of laying flat. Then I realized they did this on purpose to make it easier for you when you reach for a pin! So now I love it!!!

This is my little collection of hexagon flowers that I have been making for

One Flower Wednesdays! I am getting a little better each week. I just realized yesterday that you need to leave the template in until you are ready to sew the little flowers together! Ooops! So I may have to remake the first three!

This is what I have been working on while recuperating from my surgery. I am going to come and visit you now on your blog to see what you have been doing lately so get ready to show and tell!

Fair Photos

2010-08-19T05:24:00.003-04:00

I thought I would share my Sunday with you at the Howard County Fair. Hubby and I took our youngest granddaughter and we had a great time, even tho it was hot! The fair provides wheel chairs free of charge. I am so grateful for this service as I would not have been able to attend since I still cannot walk for very long. The big game winner of the day was my DGD! I even had to ask her to win a prize for me as I wasn't doing very well in the game department! Here she is with the first two prizes that she won.

My hubby usually takes my picture while I am pointing to my entry so...here I am pointing to knitted pink sweater which won Third Place.

This picture is a bit out of order but I wanted to share with you the Ravens Marching Band, which open the fair every year! Woo Hoo! They sound great!

Okay, back to entries. This is my machine pieced and machine quilted Basket Quilt. How do you like those basket buttons? It won Third Place.

Here I am pointing to that picture frame in the case. It is machine embroidered. I won Third Place. I was told by several volunteers at the fair that the judges loved it and had there been less competion I would have won a Blue. That's okay, I am quite happy with third:)

There is the blue night gown I made for my granddaughter. It won Second Place. She was thrilled to see the ribbon on it!

Unfortunately this one is hard to see. This is a bib apron I whipped up in just a couple days. It won a Blue Ribbon. I will take a better picture when my camera has recharged!

The other small quilt I entered was this wall hanging. It is made primarily from reproduction fabrics. It didn't win a ribbon. The judges wrote on the tag that even tho they liked my colors, corners and pattern, my stitch in the ditch quilting strayed a time or two, therefore, no ribbon:(

It is hard staying in that little ditch:)

Well, that is it for my fair entries for now. Next week the Maryland State Fair begins. I will be entering these six items plus a few more that I have been working on. I will have more details on my next post!

Popping In

2010-08-11T06:42:00.002-04:00

Hello sewing friends, I am just popping in to say hi and to let you all know why I haven't been posting lately. I started physical therapy for my knee last week and it is quite painful. Painful enough to keep me awake at night and miserable for two days.....just in time to go back again. I know it is necessary and I do look forward to the day I can walk without a cane and a brace and...well...walk normal like everyone else. But it sure does hurt. I am not able to sit and sew at a sewing machine just yet so I am getting lots of applique projects finished! I was able to enter six items in the Howard County Fair and won five ribbons! I will share photos with you in a few days. I can't stay on the pc very long as I have to sit in an awkward position with painful knee propped up. Anyway, hope you are all doing well and enjoying your summer:) I will "see" you in a few days. PS. I know today in One Flower Wednesday and I plan on making at least one flower. It will be flower number three!

Trip to PA

2010-08-04T18:14:00.003-04:00

My hubby surprised me Saturday with a trip to Pennsylvania. First we went to our favorite farmer's market, located in Bird In Hand. I purchased some smoked ham hocks and knockwurst. Yum! We stopped at some yard sales on the way where I did find a nice collection of 78 speed records for just pennies. Some of the singers are Bing Crosby and Patty Page. Visited a couple quilt shops, Zook's and The Old Country Store. By then it was near 5 PM and my knee just couldn't take anymore walking so we drove up north to the mountains. Yes, it was fabulous! The weather was great on Saturday. I wore a baseball cap so we had the windows open and the wind was blowing! The air was several degrees cooler up there and we were loving it. Of course all good things must come to an end so after a while we made a right to come out of the mountains and the first town is Hamburg, where there is a Cabella's, which is a store that carries anything you could possibly need/want for any outdoor activity. We have been there a couple times before and it is an extraordinary store so we thought we'd look around. They have the electric chairs for handicapped folks so I was good to go. One of the neat things about Cabella's are these nature scenes they have set up. I believe these are all real animals. I took some pictures to share with you. The lighting isn't the greatest.

This is me in the Africa room. Look at this huge elephant!!

Same room. Now I am with the lions. Roar!!!!!!

And how about these cute deer! This is part of a huge exhibit right in the middle of the first floor!

If you ever get the chance to visit one of these stores, please go. You will love it! Hope you had a great weekend!

One Flower Wednesdays

2010-07-29T01:45:00.004-04:00

I have joined One Flower Wednesdays and have made my first hexagon flower! Woo Hoo!
I have always wanted to try this but I have never seen a quilt that I liked. The colors just
weren 't me. Well, one of the blogs I follow, Journey of a Quilter, has been doing this for some time and I was intrigued. I then saw another blogger's flower garden and I loved her colors of tans and creams. So I decided I wanted to join this group. I chose Moda's Astor Manor Charm Pack and purchased one yard of a cream on cream, Martinique by 3 Sisters for Moda, for my background. I had purchased a pack of Quilt Patis a few years ago at a quilt show. I almost forgot that I had them. These are plastic templates. So here is my first flower! It is not perfect, and I may have to redo a petal, but here it is. When I told my hubby that it is one flower each Wednesday and it is for a quilt, he wondered what year it would be completed! I really don't know, but I will have fun making these cute little flowers!
PS You will notice the basting stitches on one of the petals. I had decided that I could make a petal without a template, but I couldn't, and now I have to leave those basting stitches in until I join that flower to another flower or the background.

Today is the Big Day for two reasons!

2010-07-26T09:15:00.003-04:00

Today is my youngest son's birthday!!Woo Hoo! He is a big 35! So Happy Birthday Tony!

Tony is sitting on the floor with the tatoo on his arm, cracking up as usual. It seems everytime we have a family get together we always get silly at picture time:)

Also, my other reason to celebrate.....(drumroll please) my stitches come out this afternoon! WaaaHooo! Please pray I won't be in too much pain. I still can't walk very well, still have a lot of swelling and still have my buddy Mr Pain. But we are progressing. I have been in this house for 11 days today. It will be good to get out for awhile. I think it is supposed to be a little cooler today. Now I am rambling....lol! Hope you all have a great day!

My Birds

2010-07-26T08:53:00.002-04:00

This is what I see every morning at 6 AM. My birds waiting for me out back. I usually water my flowers first, pick a few weeds if necessary, clean and fill bird bath, then feed the birds. If I take too long, they start swooping down around my head. When I looked up this morning from my deck, it reminded me of Alfred Hitchcock's movie. "The Birds". Remember that one? The larger birds in the top photo are mourning doves, which my granddaughter has renamed Happy Birds because she doesn't want them to be sad. The bottom photo are the usual wrens and sparrows. They are all getting nice and fat now:) I didn't realize how many wires were out there until I took these photos. Ahhhhh city life!

FNSI Results

2010-07-25T06:37:00.003-04:00

Well, here is what I accomplished. Doesn't look like much does it:( Here is the reason why. I finished attaching all the berries and leaves on the first border. I attached 4 more berries on the second border. ( I had already attached the vine) I looked in my little case where I am keeping all the pieces for this quilt and I can't find the remaining 24 leaves!!!! Where did I put them? I had wrapped them in a tissue because we ran out of sandwich bags and with my knee pain I didn't feel like going up to my sewing room where I keep used bags from swaps. So I wrapped them in a tissue. I use tissues all the time for everything. I keep a box right next to me in every room in the house. I remember placing the little tissue package in the corner of the project case. At least I thought I did. I looked everywhere but I couldn't find them. So.....I had to remake them. I still need to make 6 more, I think, but I was getting tired and knew I could make them later. Oh, and as far as the missing leaves, I think I mistook them for trash when I cleaned my table. Moral of this story? Store things in their proper containers:) Now I am going blog hopping and look at everyone else's FNSI projects!

PS I am just wondering if anyone has noticed my color code these last two posts? Have you figured it out? Let me know if you have!

Friday Night Sew In!

2010-07-24T09:06:00.007-04:00

Woo Hoo! It's time for Friday Night Sew In! Even though I still can't sew on the machine yet, I have loads of hand applique to work on. "Sew" tonight I will continue working on my Warm Wishes For Christmas quilt. I am still adding vines, berries and leaves to the borders. It is starting to look pretty good! If you would like to join me for this sew in, please click on the button on the right! This FNSI is sponsored by Heidi and Bobby, and participants are eligible for a cool give away. I won a couple months ago the very first time I signed up for the sew in! "Sew" let's stay in and beat the summer heat and have a fabulous time! I will post a picture of my FNSI project Saturday night....so stay tuned!

Jo Morton Project

2010-07-22T04:39:00.004-04:00

Well, this time last week I was getting ready for my surgery. I am still hobbling around, still have a bit of pain, but I am glad it is over! I will have my stitches removed next Monday, the 26th, and then perhaps some physical therapy. Not too sure about that yet. I have watched so many movies my brain is fried! I was able to resume work on some hand applique a couple days ago. I had cut out the 32 leaves so I have them basted and ready to go. I also cut out 52 berries. I use the Karen Kay Buckley templates, but you only get 4 of each size so it is a little slow going. I have found that if I use spray starch and let the berry sit for at least 12 hours on template, I get a much nicer circle. So I can only get 8 per day! I have my borders cut, 1 vine attached and second vine in progress.

I had to share this little cartoon my friend Rita enclosed in her get well card! It really gave me a chuckle!!! Thank you again Rita!

I also thought I'd take a photo of some of my applique essentials. The item in the upper left corner is an armchair caddy. It has the pincushion in the center and a pocket on each end. I used quilt labels for the pincushion and pockets. Next to it on the right is a small pillow. When I took Mimi Dietrich's Baltimore Album classes, she used a pillow like this. It really comes in handy to help you attach your pieces, smooth out your fabric, and jab some pins in when you need something handy! On the center left are the remainder of the 52 berries waiting to be placed on templates. Then there is a needle book that one of the ladies in my quilt guild made. And on the bottom is one of the borders for my Warm Wishes for Christmas quilt! Must go now as I can't sit at the computer for very long. Will see you again in a few days! Happy sewing!

Laptop Satchel, Thursday is the day!

2010-07-15T00:23:00.008-04:00

I have been working on a cute laptop satchel for Seminole Sampler.
While I was busy cutting.....

my granddaughter was busy cutting! I just purchased a little sewing kit for her to keep her occupied while I sew. Now she can play with her own spools of thread! lol See post on Saturday, June 19.

Ta da! After several days I finally finished the satchel! Pretty cool, huh?

Now my big news of the day is that today, July 15, I will be having surgery on my left knee! Hooray!! This is a good thing:) I have been suffering with a torn meniscus for over three years. I also have some other things going on in that knee that the surgeon is going to take care of. So....I will not be online for a week or so as I will be recuperating and learning to walk again! Walk....oh my, isn't that a wonderful word? I have not been able to walk without a cane, brace and pain for so long!!!!! I have stocked up on hand work, books and dvds so have fun sewing everyone and I will "see" you all soon!

More Birthday gifts,Jo Morton leaves and Paper Pieced Pineapple block

2010-07-09T02:07:00.004-04:00

Okay, off we go. First picture: My wonderful hubby fixed a friend's garage door opener. As a thank you my friend gave me this quilt kit which included a wonderful basket to store it all in!!! I decided, however, to make the table runner and table topper, which are pictured on the back of the pattern booklet! Aren't the fabrics yummy? I am an earth tone girl:) And the cool wire basket everything was in..... I love it, love it, love it! She is probably reading this so Thank You Mary!!!

Then, my First Wednesday Dear Jane group met and the ladies had a little birthday party for me! Woo Hoo! And look at the goodies I received! A beautiful hand fan(because I am always HOT), lovely fabrics, and a gift card to one of my favorite quilt shops. Now that big, giant thimble you see in the middle I actually bought for myself at JoAnn's at 70 percent off!!!!! I really didn't need one more sewing knick knack but I just couldn't resist this one. After I find its new home I must take a pic of my knick....knacks !

Okay, third picture! Tonight I was naughty. It was the Second Thursday Dear Jane meeting night but I have made all the blocks and triangles that I wish to make for right now. I have been stumped on what color fabric to use for sashing and borders. I have decided on reproduction blue, and I want to use a Jo Morton blue, but haven't had a chance to shop for it....yet. So.... I decided to make the 32 leaves that I need for my Warm Wishes at Christmas quilt. Hence a photo of 32 leaves. I forgot I wanted to turn one over so you could see the back. I trace the leaf on to freezer paper and then iron the freezer paper to the back of the fabric on the bias. I then cut it out adding a 1/4 inch of fabric all way around. My next step will be to turn under that extra 1/4 inch and baste the fabric to the paper. The last step will be to applique the leaf to my background and remove paper from a small slit I will cut in the back! The fabric I have the leaves on is the actual background fabric for my borders. My next step at this time is to cut out fifty-two berries! Woo Hoo! I love applique!

And finally, this is my completed paper pieced pineapple block!! I think it turned out rather well. I did not have two pieces large enough to make the corners so I had to do some piecing, but that's okay. The light colored stitching you see in the corners are just basting stitches to hold fabric in place until I am ready to attach it to the pillow back. That is scheduled for next month's ASG Quarter Incher's quilt group meeting!

So that is what I have been up to. I would love to hear all about your latest sewing project! Tell me all about it in the Comment section!

Front Royal VA

2010-07-05T22:14:00.004-04:00

Welcome to Front Royal, VA . Front Royal is the town near the entrance to the Shenandoah State Park. We always stop here to eat lunch, check out the shops, and enjoy the town!

Main Street.

Shenandoah National Park

2010-07-05T21:16:00.006-04:00

For our Fourth of July celebration we decided to go to the Shenandoah National Park, or Skyline Drive, as it is known locally. This park is located in the northern part of Virginia, and is only about a 2 hour drive from our home. We have visited there many times and we love it. There are many wild animals that live in this mountain range and I am always trying to spot some of them. There is an abundance of white tail deer, of which we did see several on this trip and there are also black bears. I have spotted some bears on a couple of our previous trips but not this one. When we stopped in the camp store for ice we were told that we had just missed one hanging around the store. I quickly went around back to see if I could spot him but he had disappeared in the trees. I have many pictures here to share with you so sit back, prop your feet up, and enjoy my day with me.

Entrance to park. It was 95 degrees here on the street level. By the time we had reached 3200 ft elevation, the temperature had dropped to a cool 78 degrees!

First overlook. In the very center of the picture is the beautiful Shenandoah River.

Me, looking at you!

See the doe? The deer know they are safe here so they do not run when they see you.

Sign for Big Meadows. On the paper we received it says that on August 14th folks will come here to view the meteor show. I would love to come here for that. This meadow is huge!!

We picked up this little hitchhiker on the antenna. See him holding on? He stayed with us for quite a bit!!!

Another beautiful overlook. I believe we were at 2400 ft elevation. There are quite a few overlooks along the way. Skyline Drive is a total of 105 miles long. It begins at Front Royal, VA and ends at Rockfish Gap, VA. We had to exit at the 65 mile mark as it takes quite a while to drive the entire way. The speed limit is 35 MPH and folks usually do 30 because you are always pulling over for an overlook.

Me in the mirror, having fun!

Another breathtaking view!!! You are looking at the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Another overlook. I thought it would be cool to take a picture looking through the wild grasses growing there. I hope you have enjoyed my little tour to one of my favorite places on earth.

ASG Quarter Incher's quilt group

2010-07-05T20:40:00.005-04:00

My ASG Quarter Incher's quilt group meet the first Friday of each month. This month Vicki was teaching a paper pieced pineapple block. We had decided to make a 12 inch pillow top as next month she will be teaching the hidden zipper. Vicki brought in preprinted papers for us. Most of the ladies had not paper pieced before and paper piecing can be quite a challenge. I had to take several classes myself before I finally got the hang of it. A popular saying around here is "Paper piecing, you either love it or you hate it!" A lot of folks I know do not care for it at all. Anyway, the ladies met the challenge and are on their way to having beautiful pineapple paper pieced pillows! Here are some photos of my hard working group!
Members are holding up their paper pieced pillow tops! The rest they will finish at home.

Working hard.

Cutting strips.

Two of my paper pieced blocks from a class I took a few years ago.

Hand pieced and hand appliqued top by Dolores.

Row quilt by Vicki.

Paper Piecing and Happy July Fourth

2010-07-04T08:24:00.003-04:00

Happy Fourth of July to all! How are you going to celebrate or have you already begun your celebration? Hubby and I are going to enjoy a trip to the beautiful Appalachian Mountains! Woo Hoo! I love the mountains. Born and raised a city girl but if you xray my insides you will see snow covered mountains with eagles flying over the lake! I wish you all a safe and enjoyable holiday and may God Bless America!!!!
Now, the other purpose of my post is to hopefully help the ladies who had difficulty Friday night at my ASG quilt group. We had a lesson on paper piecing and our projects just weren't working out as they should. I don't want anyone to become discouraged so with the help of my hubby I made my first sewing video! Woo Hoo! On it I am explaining how to paper piece this particular pattern we were given. Perhaps this will help others with paper piecing as well!
Enjoy and I hope you have a fabulous day!!!
PS I am sorry for the black screen as I do not know how to put the first frame of the video on the front.

Birthday Fat Quarters and finished tablerunner

2010-06-29T18:51:00.003-04:00

I am a member of Kaye Wood Yahoo Group and every year we have a Fat Quarter Birthday Swap. I thought I would share with you my 18 wonderful fq's I received for my birthday. I have also posted two photos, front and back, of the batik table runner I made for Seminole Sampler Quilt Shop. I had fun quilting this one on my Viking Designer 1, after my Brother Quilt Club decided to go on strike! I will be putting it in the repair shop this week. For the quilting I just did a rough outline of the flowers and since the background fabric had little geometric squares I thought I would do wonky squares! I quilted a diamond pattern on the sashing strips and little diamonds on the joining squares. Hope you like it!

Celebrate Dawn's Birthday Give A Way Winner

2010-06-29T18:41:00.004-04:00

Woo Hoo!!Congratulations to Dawn over at Quilting By Dawn on winning these beautiful handmade pot holders in the Celebrate Dawn's Birthday Give A Way!!! They will be on their way as soon as I get your mailing information!

My Birthday Celebration

2010-06-29T18:20:00.003-04:00

On Saturday, the 19th, my daughter, granddaughter, hubby and I went to my favorite chinese buffet to have a mini birthday celebration since my daughter and granddaughter would not be available for the big family party on the 26th. At the buffet they present you with this cute flower that opens up with the lit candles while playing a mechanical version of Happy Birthday!!! I have seen them do this for other customers this past year and decided that I wanted one of those , too!!! I knew my granddaughter would love it as much as me......and she did! She picked out the cupcake balloon that I am holding. I hope you enjoy my mini birthday party video and pictures!

Scrapbooking

2010-06-23T14:34:00.003-04:00

My dear sewing friends, this coming Saturday, the 26th, is my birthday. Every year all my family members give me this wonderful gift of 3 beautiful days in Chantilly, VA, where I attend the Great American Scrapbook Convention. So, while you are stitching away for the next few days, I will be creating, gluing, and embellishing a fabulous scrapbook! I also have some cards I want to make as well! "Sew" I will see you in a few days!
PS. My friend, Rita, made two wonderful pot holders for my give a way that unfortunately I don't have time to photo right now. But, if you would like to wish me a happy birthday in the comment section, I will have a Celebrate Dawn's Birthday Give A Way on Sunday, the 27th. You may also send an email if you have trouble leaving a comment! So Happy Birthday to me and Good Luck to you!!!

Friday Night Sew In Results!!!!

2010-06-19T11:59:00.004-04:00

This is what happens when a five year old occupies herself with your thread while you try to sew!

This is my almost quilted tablerunner that I worked on for Friday Night Sew In! I tried to finish it this morning but the top photo shows what I was up against! I love that little girl! Today we are taking her to the movies to see Toy Story 3. I hope I can stay awake! I am looking forward to seeing all the other FNSI projects!!!!

Friday Night Sew In!!!

2010-06-18T20:40:00.002-04:00

It's that time again to join Heidi, Bobbi, me, and over 100 quilters for a fun filled Sew In!!! Just click here or on the button on the right of this post and that will take you to the page with all the info! Remember in May I won the give away from Heidi and it was my very first time participating! So be sure to read all the rules (not that many), decide on your project and get sewing!! Check back tomorrow to see what project I decided on! Have fun!

June Taylor Shape Cut, clever way to make HST

2010-06-17T01:42:00.005-04:00

I needed to make 135 Friendship or Siggie blocks for my Jo Morton internet group swap. I was able to cut out 270 two and a half inch squares and 135 three and a half inch squares in just minutes using my June Taylor Shape Cut! (link will take you to video)It took me longer to iron the fabric than it did to cut 405 squares! And what do 405 squares look like? See photo number 3 and look at those stacks of squares!!! In the 4th and 5th photos I wanted to share a piecing technique I picked up from Dawn S over at SpringWater Designs. (see her June 14 post) Stitch your smaller square diagonally on your larger square. But before you trim off the corner, stitch again about a half inch away from your first stitching line. Then cut between the two rows of stitching. As the last picture shows, you will have a completed block and two HST's already stitched and ready to be sized and used! Pretty clever, eh? So I will have 270 HST's when I have completed these 135 blocks. Now my friend, Wenche over at Wenche's Pieces of Time, was a bit more clever and designed a way to use these 270 HSTs in her Jo Morton swap quilt she has been working on! Don't ya just love it when things come together like this???? Quilt bliss!!
PS I am afraid I have to add a post script here. I forgot to put the second HST in the photo which is supposed to be showing you the TWO HST you will get from each block! Sorry:(

Fair time and Jo Morton patriotic panels

2010-06-17T00:57:00.005-04:00

Well, it is that time of year when the counties start sending out their fair catalogs and I received mine for the Howard County Fair! Woo Hoo! I live in the "big city", as my granddaughter calls Baltimore, and we stopped having the City Fair a long time ago. While visiting the Howard County Fair one year I asked one the the volunteers if I could enter some of my projects. She said since the city does not have a fair, I was welcome!!!! Yippee! So I have been entering ever since! In fact, the apron that I am wearing in my header photo won a Blue Ribbon, a Champion Ribbon and the President's Choice Ribbon, all at the Howard County Fair, two years ago!!!! So I will be very busy for the next two months finishing up projects, keeping lots of secrets from my sewing buddies (lol) and using the crock pot ALOT!!!!! Hubby is used to it, though, and is very supportive of me!
The other two photos are my newest Jo Morton panels that I picked up in Lancaster, PA, in The Old Country Store. I may use them for backs, or fronts and backs!
PS I would like to thank my friend,Missy, for showing me how to attach links to words! It's working Missy!!!!!

Ups and Downs

2010-06-11T02:06:00.002-04:00

Oh, the ups and downs of sewing. I went to my sewing room tonight at about 7PM. Told my hubby that I wanted to get some sewing in while he worked on the front porch. I had some trouble quilting that last baby quilt so I took Linda's suggestion and took my Brother Quilt Club machine apart and cleaned it. I removed the plate, front one and back, then removed the bobbin case. There was a bit of fuzz down there so I took my time and gave it a real good cleaning. Then I thought I would put in a new needle since I am starting a new project. Well, I would love to hear from any Brother owners out there if you have this problem. This happens to me all the time. I put the bobbin case back in, then the front and back plates. Then I stitch a sample. The top thread is not picking up the bobbin thread. Take it all apart again, adjust the bobbin case, put it all back together, try again. Same problem. After a few tries I realize I put in a Klasse brand needle and some of my machines don't like these needles. So I replace it with a needle that actually came with the machine. Still won't sew. My hubby popped in to say goodnight and that's when I realized I had lost 4 hours fooling with this machine. Usually I can get it going again. But not this time. And the thing is, I have a little portable Brother and I have the exact same problem. So it must be a Brother thing. I am going to contact them in the morning and see what they have to say. That was the down part of this post.

Now for the up side!!!! I switched over to my Viking Designer 1 machine because I wanted to get SOME sewing accomplished. I was really excited to work on this new tablerunner. I had already cut out all the pieces, just needed to assemble. So I did get in some sewing......and the above are my results! I have two rows stitched together so far, but I was so excited with the project that I just had to lay it out to see how it looks so far. Do you ever do that? I wish my table was a little wider but you get the idea of how it's is turning out. Now I am taking some snack and blog time, then off to dreamland! See ya soon!!!

Oh, and did you hear the news? Pat from A Little of This and A Little of Pat won an Accuquilt Go! Woo Hoo for Pat ! A link to her blog is on my list of blogs on the right sidebar. You may want to pop over and congratulate her!!

Tablerunners

2010-06-10T00:36:00.004-04:00

The top tablerunner is the sample for Seminole Sampler. Linda selected all batiks! Tonight I cut out all the pieces so tomorrow I can begin assembly!

The bottom tablerunner will be for me. I selected Moda's Frolic collection. When I made the first runner I discovered I liked working with charms so when I saw these at Good's in Lancaster, I couldn't resist! This will be the second time for this pattern as the first one was for the shop. Do you recognize the pattern????What???(you say) You are making it again after all the problems you had with the first one??? Yes, say I. I figured everything that could go wrong did, so this time should be a breeze! I will let you know!

New fabrics for new projects!!!

2010-06-10T00:05:00.006-04:00

Okay, let's see how this turns out!
The two photos of dark blue are half yard cuts of Jo Morton's Indigo Berries! If you know me you know that this is a combination of all my favorite things: love blue, love indigos, love Jo Morton fabrics! The bottom two photoes are also Jo Morton fabrics. They are for my Siggie block swap. I zoomed in on the Sisters fabric so you could see the ladies heads on the fabric.
Isn't it cool!!!

Sunday afternoon at Granny's house

2010-06-07T23:44:00.002-04:00

First we got in the pool, then we watched Pop Pop through the living room window while he worked on the front porch, then we finished up the afternoon helping Granny put the binding on her quilt! The perfect Sunday!

Barb's projects, Me and Granddaughter in Lancaster, PA

2010-06-07T23:28:00.002-04:00

The quilt photos are projects by my friend, Barb. The hunter star blocks are made by a special ruler. I should have written down the name because now I have forgotten. I will have to email her or, Barb, if you read this, maybe you could tell us the name in the Comment section! During Memorial Day weekend, hubby, granddaughter and I went to Lancaster, PA on a fabric hunt. I needed a specific fabric for my Jo Morton Siggie Block Swap and I found it in the second place I looked, which was Zook's! Yards and yards of it! I only needed 2 (I think) but I bought 4! You know how it is! Some kind Amish folk let us take a picture in their buggy! We have such fun up there! Thank goodness my granddaughter loves the trip as much as we do! They have an old steam locomotive up there is Strasburg and we took a ride on that, too! It was a beautiful day and we made lots of memories!

Farmer's Market Day

2010-06-05T22:31:00.003-04:00

On Saturday mornings we try to go to the local Farmer's Market.... me, my hubby and my youngest granddaughter, who is 5. We love the excitement, all the different smells, and right now the vendors have all sorts of flowers. This morning we purchased a variety of squash, snow peas, tiny red potatoes, multi grain bread, apples, and one loaf of foccacia. Yummy! My granddaughter wanted to have a cookout so for dinner I marinated the snow peas, potatoes, squash and onions in olive oil, garlic and rosemary. We then skewered all but the snow peas, tossed a few hot dogs on the grill, made a pitcher of iced tea, and what a scrumptious dinner! I have been reading the blogs of some friends from Australia and they are going into their cooler season and posting pics of all these great soup veggies, so I thought I would share my Farmer's Market dinner. Unfortunately, I didn't think to take a pick until food was almost done on the grill, but I am sure you will see how delicious everything was!!! And, as usual, my granddaughter is "helping" her PopPop!

Go Cutter Give A Way

2010-06-02T21:21:00.003-04:00

http://bejeweledquilts.blogspot.com/2010/05/accuquilt-go-giveaway-time-is-nowthe.html

Barb, over at Bejeweled Quilts, is having a Go! Cutter Give A Way! Please click on the above link to find out how to have a chance at this fabulous cutter! Please be sure to tell Barb that you heard it from me so that I get an additional chance...hehehe! Good Luck!!

Sunflowers,Civil War wallhanging

2010-06-01T22:00:00.003-04:00

A week ago Saturday my granddaughter and I planted these sunflower seeds. I was hanging some laundry out last Friday and happened to look down and saw these huge seedlings. But the interesting part is that there was this large piece of dirt sitting a couple inches above the rest of the dirt. I thought the neighbor's cat had vandalized my garden yet again. But upon closer inspection the seedlings had lifted up the dirt!!! Oh my goodness!! I had never seen such a thing and could barely wait for my granddaughter to come over and look at this amazing site! So cool!!

My other photo is of my Civil War wallhanging. I still need to put on the binding and do my little extras on the solid squares. I am playing around with several different ideas! Stay tuned!

Memorial Day

2010-05-31T22:07:00.002-04:00

I hope that you all had a happy and safe Memorial Day, and that you took the time to thank a veteran! We do appreciate all they have done and are doing for us!

What I've Been Working On

2010-05-26T08:39:00.006-04:00

I have been a little under the weather but I am feeling better now. I have missed all of you and am happy to be back! I have been working on a few projects. My commissioned project is an adorable baby quilt. The shop owner chose pastel batiks and a very light green batik background. The triangles that form the edges are a darker batik with little spots of the pastels in them. The backing is a light blue with little colored speckles on it. It has been fun to make. I am in the quilting process now, which is a simple stitch in the ditch on the 9 patches and then the same pattern is carried on into the solid squares. I hand basted around the edges to avoid any bias problems, a tip a sister guild member, Denise, shared with me a few years ago.

I have also finished quilting my Civil War wallhanging, now I just need to bind it and add a few things in the little squares. So that's what I have been up to.....how about you? What have you been working on? This is the challenge week so finish up a project to have a chance at a prize!! Woo Hoo!

A Giveaway at Charmed Cards and Crafts

2010-05-10T15:52:00.005-04:00

Sewing/quilting is my first love and scrapbooking is my second! I just found out today that www.charmedcrafts.blogspot.com is having a "Sweet May Candy" giveaway. It includes Tim Holtz's book
"Compendium of Curiosities", plus some other goodies. So check them out and see what you need to do for a chance at these goodies!http://www.charmedcardsandcrafts.co.uk/acatalog/Tim_Holtz.html

Nice Family Photo

2010-05-09T00:40:00.003-04:00

This photo of half my family was actually taken at Christmas. But I wanted to share with you on this Mother's Day what happens in my family when I say I want to take a nice picture of everyone!!!!! Does this happen in your family, too?

Happy Mother's Day everyone!

Pat Sloan Finish It Up FIU and Give-A-Way

2010-05-06T13:08:00.003-04:00

I just left Pat Sloan's Site and she is having a Finish It Up Challenge from May 10 thru May23. This is a good opportunity to finish up that project that you absolutley love but just couldn't find the time. Or maybe other things keep coming up. So, why not join me in this challenge? I have 3 Jo Morton projects in the works so I am going to commit myself to finish up the Warm Wishes at Christmas one. In fact, I was planning on having a give-a-way to celebrate being a blogger for one month so maybe I'll incorporate the two! Sounds like fun! I think I need some give-a-way rules, so here they are.

Rule 1: You must commit to finish up one project. You don't have to sign up at Pat's site if you don't want to, just leave a comment and and email me a photo of the unfinished project so I can attempt to publish it on my blog. (notice the word attempt)

Rule 2: When your project is finished, please email a photo of the finished project so that I can, once again, attempt to post them on my blog. Another idea I just had was that you could post the photos on your blog instead of me trying to do it here and we could just link to your blog to see photos.

So, send me your comments and/or suggestions! I am learning as I go! Forgot to mention ..here is the link:

http://quiltmashup.com/index.php/topic,1448.new.html

The Big Secret is Out!!!

2010-05-05T12:50:00.009-04:00

Okay, here is the big secret! (giggle) Two weeks ago, I went on an
interview at Seminole Sampler, a local quilt shop in Catonsville, MD. The position I was applying for was a sample maker for the shop. I was a little nervous. I know the owner, Linda, and she is a very nice person. But it was still an interview, therefore, nervous. She liked my pieces of work that I had brought in and noted that they were mostly made of 1800's reproduction
fabrics and she is right! Her shop carries more batiks and gayer
(is that a word?) type fabrics. But the main reason I love her
shop is that it is an appliquer's dream. She carries all sorts
of fabrics that would make great backgrounds.. fabrics that
look like wood, sky fabric....I could go on and on!
I guess she liked my work because the next thing I know
we were discussing which project I would make for her first. We decided on
something small. A tablerunner. It looked cute and I thought it
would be fun to make. She selected a pastel charm pack with a
pastel yellow for backing. Okay. It was cute. A little different for me,
but cute. I was so excited I told her I was going home and starting
on it right away. She gave me two weeks to complete it, I told her I'd have it finished it one.
Oh, I was on cloud nine. That is, until the cloud turned gray. And became a storm cloud. With thunder. And lightning. And heavy, heavy rains. And it lasted for 13 days. Everything was going well on the second day, until I attached the outside border. If you look at the photo you will notice that the outer border is bias, I cut the yellow inside border on the bias ( I was worried if I cut in on the straight of grain I wouldn't have enough for the backing) and the row that the yellow border was attached to was a bias edge. So what do three bias edges spell?
T R O U B L E Yes, trouble. Actually, 3 sides were perfect. It was the 4th, one of the long sides, that chose to torment me. I ignored the minor stretch in the beginning, thinking it will quilt out. HA!!! Quilting it only made it worse:( So I ripped all that out and tried to figure out how to fix it. I ripped out the entire outer border on that side and the yellow inner border. Cut out a new inner border, on the straight of grain this time, and stitched everything back together. Now the fabric was flapping in the breeze, it was so stretched out. It reminded me of the Cat in the Hat book, the more he cleaned the dirtier the house became. Meanwhile, over a week has passed, and the tablerunner is not completed as I told Linda it would be. I sent her an email on Thursday, day 10, and told her I would be there the following Monday, day 14. I didn't want to tell her of my dilemma as I am trying to make a good impression and don't want her to think she has hired a totally incompetent person:( So.....I get the bright idea that on Sunday I will go to the shop and just buy all new fabric and start all over again, a much wiser person. Sounds like a good idea, right? There was a little ray of sunshine beginning to peek out from behind that cloud. Well, what do you think happened??? Of course, they had SOLD OUT of the charms. And, to make matters worse, as I am trying to buy this fabric undercover because I don't want anyone to know I couldn't even make this simple table runner, one of the employees say to me, "Oh, are you getting supplies for that tablerunner for Linda?" Yikes! What should I say? I can't lie? So I just nonchalantly say, "yeah". I confided to one person there my situation and asked her not to tell Linda. Now, what am I going to do? I also remembered that Monday morning I would be spending the entire morning at the dr's office for my knee. I had from 6:30PM Sunday, till 6PM Monday, to fix and finish that runner. Twenty-three and a half hours, minus the 4 hours I would lose at dr's office, gave me a total of 19 and a half hours. And I have to sleep in there somewhere. And maybe eat. Well...eating I could possibly skip. Yes, I was getting desperate!!!! So, on Sunday at 6:30 PM I disappeared to my sewing room. Told hubby he was on his own for dinner and he understood. Plan D was about to go into effect. Plan D was to disassemble the two borders once again, fuse with a lightweight interfacing (thank goodness I am also a garment sewer and had some on hand) and reassemble. I put in a Creed cd, pumped up the volumn, and a ripping I went. After many trials and errors, at 11:30 PM, I had it reassembled and laying flat!!!!!! Whew! Went to sleep as my ride was picking me up at 7AM. Packed a bag with the tablerunner so I could baste down those edges while at the dr's. My plan was, of course, to get that last side quilted, attach binding, and be ready to deliver by 6PM. Sounds good, right? What could go wrong now, right???? Can you even guess at what could possibly go wrong???? When I returned home, a few of my neighbors are sitting on their front porches. "Oh," they say" You may as well stay out here with us". "Why" I asked innocently. (are you ready for this readers???) "BECAUSE THE POWER IS OUT" they said!!!!!!! I almost let out an ear piercing scream. The cloud was back and darker and meaner than ever!!! I think it even contained a tornado!!!!! So I silently said a prayer and asked the Lord to help me. By the time my key opened the door the fan blades were spinning!!! Then I screamed..... Oh, I have power!!!!! I immediately threw off my shoes, and went straight up to my sewing room to finish this quilt before the power went off again. I was holding my breath the whole time. In conclusion I finished the quilt at exactly 6PM. Oh, one thing I forgot to mention. I am not quite sure how it happened but while I was quilting the border, somehow, as I was reaching for a stray thread, I actually stitched halfway through my middle finger through the nail. Thank goodness I wear those Machingers, (gloves) so most of the blood was absorbed by the gloves. Ladies, this is very painful and I recommend that you never do this to yourself!!!:)
In the photo you see the finished tablerunner, Linda loved it, and now I will be making a crib size quilt for her. I am back on cloud nine!!!!

Saturday's Doings

2010-05-05T12:29:00.005-04:00

Okay, I have finally entered blogland again! These past few days have been crazy! Before I tell you the big secret, I want to catch you up on my doings. If you look at the photos on the right, you will see that on Saturday the birthday granddaughter, my hubby, and I did some gardening. Because I have a injured left knee, I had to sit in a chair but that's okay. I love having the granddchildren over at planting time. So, hubby tilled the area at the base of the birdbath, and granddaughter and I planted snap dragons. It is the first time to try them so we will see how things go. It was very hot,
in the 90's. And here in Baltimore, we are known for our high
humidity and it was high! After a couple hours of planting, and of course hosing down everything, including each other, what else is Maryland famous for?? Our steamed crabs, of course! So the top
photo shows us enjoying our reward, one dozen large steamed blue crabs, straight from the Chesapeake Bay.
MMMMMM

FNSI

2010-05-03T21:46:00.002-04:00

The sign up for the FNSI is up on Heidi's blog now. So click on the icon in my right column and link on over, say hi to Heidi and sign up! We will have a blast!!!

Civil War Group

2010-05-01T13:54:00.004-04:00

Tomorrow my Civil War Group meets at And Sew It Goes quilt shop, which is located in Savage, MD. I will be working on this little Civil War quilt. I machine quilted it, but it needs more. I tried echo quilting around the hand appliqued border, but it didn't look right so I took it out. What I have decided to do is some meandering stitching by hand. What do you think?

A few weeks ago hubby and I went to the Gettysburg Battlefield in Pennsylvania and spent the day. Fifty-one thousand people lost their lives in that 3 day battle. So sad. I took this photo of a row of cannons.

Me and Eleanor Burns

2010-05-01T13:34:00.003-04:00

So, did you guess Eleanor Burns? You are right!!! I was able to meet Eleanor Burns!!!!
Woo Hoo!!! She is such a sweet person. Her son, Orion, was also working in their booth. I stood in line to get in the booth, stood in line to purchase something that she could autograph, and stood in line for the autograph. But it was worth it. She is a great lady and I was thrilled to meet her!

Civil War Quilts

2010-04-29T20:28:00.010-04:00

These are photos of the special Civil War Quilts display at the Spring Quilt Blossom Festival http://www.springquiltblossomfestival.com/ which was in Lancaster, PA last month.

I love, love ,love, reproduction fabrics so I just had to see this display. I hope you enjoy looking at these quilts. The AQS show was also there that weekend. I have some photos of some great quilts that I will post tomorrow. I met a famous quilter there, and even had my picture taken with her! Can you guess who it was??? Here's a hint: she is always trying to make a quilt in a day! Check back tomorrow for the answer:)

Dress with matching purse

2010-04-29T18:18:00.007-04:00

This is a dress I made for my granddaughter for Easter. I had some fabric left over so I designed this little matching purse. I found some beads at JoAnn's that match the design almost perfectly!

And today, the 29th is her birthday! Happy Birthday Sweetie!

Read Backwards!

2010-04-27T08:43:00.001-04:00

I still don't have the hang of how this posting works. I need to remember to say last what I want to say first, since I am unable to say and post pictures of everything in the same post! I can't seem to get the photos to go where I want them to go, so I have to post separately. Any advice would sure be welcome:) I look at all your blogs and everything seems to be where you would like it. As soon as I finish this commission piece that I am working on, I will explore the inner workings of this blog a little more! I hope you all have a great day with your family and with your sewing machine!

Dear Jane Triangle

2010-04-27T08:38:00.004-04:00

I finished this triangle on Friday night. It is triangle number 4 for me. I am not planning to make all the triangles. I will not be making the entire Dear Jane quilt. I want to do a lap size but I want to do a little something different with it. Now that I have finished this triangle, I am going to put everything up on my design wall and see what I come up with!

Clifford, the big, red dog!

2010-04-27T08:26:00.007-04:00

These are two pillows I made for my granddaughter's birthday. They were panels but I made the ruffle myself using my ruffler attachment! I have quite a collection of sewing machines, ranging from handcranks and treadles to the computer embroidery machines. The 5 I use the most are my Viking serger, Viking Designer 1 (which is the one I used to make the pillows and the nightgown) Brother Quilt Club, which is my favorite for machine piecing and quilting , Brother PED, which is an embroidery stand alone machine that I purchased so I could stitch out Disney designs, and last my little lightweight Brother, which is the one I usually take on retreats and friends homes because it is so light weight! Anyway, (I love to talk machines) my granddaughter has put a pillow on each end of their sofa and told my daughter they are there for when they get tired and need a pillow! She is so sweet!!!

Cute fairy nightgown

2010-04-27T08:18:00.004-04:00

I have not posted for a few days for several reasons. First, I am having problems with my camera. Second, my granddaughter's 5th birthday party was this weekend. And third, the latter sent me into a sewing frenzy!!! So, over the weekend I turned this:

into this!!!

I may enter this in the state fair as I am very pleased with it! Sorry the photo is dark but camera is tired, I guess:(

Jo Morton Project and new BOM

2010-04-24T08:22:00.004-04:00

The photo on the right is The Queen and Her Court BOM which I just started. It actually debuted last year so I am just a little behind:) I was in my Marie Antoinette phase so when I saw this I just had to have it!
The other photo is another current Jo Morton project. I still have one more berry to applique then I need to make a sawtooth border, I believe. Not my favorite type of border. If anyone has any tips or suggestions to help make it a more pleasant experience I would love to hear from
you!

I received a package yesterday!!!

2010-04-23T02:49:00.004-04:00

I got these goodies from Heidi yesterday! My winnings from her FNSI drawing! Thank you so much Heidi...I love them!!! There will be another FNSI next month on Friday May 21st so come and join us for a fun evening of sewing! Here is the link for Heidi .http://handmadebyheidi.blogspot.com/

TAS Continued

2010-04-23T02:37:00.003-04:00

I am having a lot of trouble trying to post these photos:( Anyway, this is me at meeting unsewing! I had trouble with the first two blocks of my Warm Wishes at Christmas quilt. I figured out what I did wrong so I unsewed them so I can fix them. Unsewing doesn't seem like a chore when you do it amongst friends!

T.A.S.

2010-04-23T00:26:00.017-04:00

The Applique Society

http://www.theappliquesociety.org/

Our local group, On Pins and Needles, meet the 4th Thursay of each month so tonight was our meeting night! We are in the midst of a basket block swap, in which each participant makes 6 appliqued basket blocks. We will swap them out in October. Here are some of the blocks:

Rita's 1st block. Notice the ruched rose!
Rita's 2nd block. She did some broiderie perse.

>

Anne is working on a different project.

Debbie and Patty working on their basket blocks

Rita doing some embroidery on dish towel

Japanese Indigos

2010-04-21T08:14:00.003-04:00

How do you like these beautiful Japanese Indigos? I purchased these from Fennell Artworks,

(located at 107 E. Main Street, Arcadia, IN 46030 (317)984-1732)

last month at AQS in Lancaster, PA. They are really a deep blue but I lightened up the photos a bit so you could see the patterns on each one. The lady, whose name I can't recall at the moment, was very nice. She carries jacket patterns which was the purpose of my buying these indigos. I will share the pattern later as it is upstairs and I am not:) She also orders the complete line of Jo Morton fabrics when they come out! So she will be another source for me for my beloved Jo fabrics!

2010-04-20T10:42:00.002-04:00

I have completed 6 more blocks for my quilt. I am getting excited about it now and wanted to see how the blocks would look with the green ones that I had already cut out! See how it has a Christmas feel to it? So I am naming it Warm Wishes at Christmas! I think Jo would approve:)

Eye Candy

2010-04-20T10:19:00.003-04:00

Yesterday I visited one of my favorite local quilt shops, Seminole Sampler, which is located in Catonsville, MD. I needed some Jo Morton fabric for a Friendship Block Swap that I signed up for and found this wonderful fabric she designed for Andover Fabrics. I thought the name was on the selvage but it's not and I don't remember what was on the bolt.It is in the center background. Then I saw that Monopoly fabric and just had to have some as I am collecting fabrics to make a quilt about me. A friend of mine made one a few years ago and I loved it. She had all these rectangles of things that meant something to her such as the game fabric because she liked to play games, she had a car fabric that featured her first car, etc. And her last rectangle was a fabric with pink dots on it as she worked on this quilt while she had the chicken pox!!! It was so cute! So it inspired me to start collecting fabrics for my quilt.

Now, why, you are saying to yourself, has Dawn posted a picture of her dishes drying and what in the world are those shiny things? Well, my poor husband asked the same thing! I saw Sue Hausman make little simple purses using the Capri Sun packages so I decided to see if I can make a few for some of my grand daughters. They have been saving their empty packets for me and it was time to wash and dry them. So you never know what you will find when living with a sewer!

Friday Night Sew In

2010-04-19T00:07:00.001-04:00

Friday Night Sew In

Oh my goodness!!!!! Can you believe this???? I won the give- away on Heidi's blog for the FNSI!!!!! Woo Hoo!!! This was the first time I participated. And you had to have a blog to post the link and the pictures of your project. My blog had been up for a week so I met that requirement. Had to sew, of course, that was the easiest part. Then you had to post pics on your blog, which I had to learn how to do. Then you had to post the link for the FNSI on your blog, which was the hardest of all! Thanks to Erica for helping me out on that one! So you must check out Heidi and Bobbi (they co-hosted the FNSI) and join us next month. I think this is monthly. I am so excited I can't remember at the moment!

2010-04-18T01:40:00.000-04:00

http://
I love, love, love this blog! Micki has made it so interesting and I must admit my favorite part is the music! Open her blog first, browse her posts and pics, then minimize it while you peruse other blogs. You will have cool music to listen to while you visit your other favorite blogs!
Enjoy! And thanks Micki, for a great blog!

Folk Art Bird

2010-04-17T08:41:00.001-04:00

I am making some progress with this blog! The Folk Art Bird was not made on Friday Night Sew In(FNSI). I just wanted to show it to you. It will be the center medallion for those 6 blocks that I did make for FNSI. I have to make 14 more, and I already have cut out 20 green ones. This quilt is really cute and although it was not designed as a Christmas quilt, because of the reds and greens I am using it will be perfect for Christmas!

Friday Night Sew In

2010-04-17T08:38:00.001-04:00

Dear Jane triangles

2010-04-17T08:23:00.001-04:00

Friday Night Sew In

2010-04-17T05:02:00.000-04:00

http://Tonight, or should I say last night, I participated in a Friday Night Sew In! Well, I don't know how to paste the link so here is the Addy:www.handmadebyheidi.blogspot.com.
I hope I will be able to figure out how to post some pics! I made 6 blocks for one of my Jo Morton quilts. I also completed 3 triangles for my Dear Jane. One of them I paper pieced and it took me 2 hours because I kept making silly mistakes. Has this ever happened to you?
I think I will mosey on over to the tour link for this blog and see if I can learn a thing or two about posting links and pics!
Happy Sewing!
Dawn:) Yahoo! I added the link!!!!

http://handmadebyheidi.blogspot.com/2010/03/april-friday-night-sew-in-and-giveaway.html

Here I Am!!

2010-04-09T00:01:00.000-04:00

I am so excited to start this blog! I have been a follower of about 40 quilters blogs for a while now and have learned so much that I thought it was time for me to share some of my sewing endeavors. I am an appliquer at heart, but I love patchwork quilting and sewing in general. I have 8 grandchildren, 5 are girls, and all of them love to have granny sew for them. So I am kept quite busy!
My current quilt projects are a Snowball Variation, Dear Jane (have completed 50 blocks and have four corners in progress), Baltimore Album (12 completed blocks), The Queen and Her Court(this is a BOM and have completed first block). There are several more but I will list them at a later date.
I am a JLWC member (Jo's Little Women Club), which is lead by Jo Morton via our local quilt shop. I have several pieces in progress in this group, also.
I am a member of TAS(The Applique Society) and meet once a month with a great bunch of ladies.
In the next few days I will figure out how to attach some photos and pretty this place up and we will be on our way!
Have a great day!
Dawn