Saturday, October 27, 2012

Small Quilts Finished

I have three small quilts to share today. The first is called Mountain Trail and it was a QAL headed by Lori of Humble Quilts. It went together pretty quickly for me and I enjoyed every step the process. However - those two black logs stand out like sore thumbs to my eye - but it's too late to change it now!

I've wanted to make a spool quilt for years and years, so I finally did it after being inspired by a project in a recent issue of Primitive Quilts & Projects. I didn't use their pattern or instructions, but did it my own way. The blocks measure 3" square.


And here is a scrappy little one I made using lots of half square triangles. These blocks are 2" square.

I have another small quilt pieced and sandwiched, but haven't been able to get it quilted yet, so I hope to share that with you soon.

Yesterday I took a break from my own projects and helped DD#2 make a dragon costume for her little guy to wear on Halloween - it was fun to do and he looks so dang dute in it! Hope I can get some pictures of him to share later.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Emma Lou Lais

I'm a self taught rug hooker who started about ten years ago. After a couple of years I was able to find a group in Salt Lake City to hook with, and when they told me that Emma Lou Lais was coming to teach a three day class I jumped at the chance to attend. This is the rug I worked on during that workshop - I can't believe I've never gotten those chimneys finished! LOL

I was so sad to read a few days ago that Emma Lou died last week. The rug hooking community has lost a great teacher and inspired designer. You can read her obituary here, and leave a message  in the guest book if you'd like. She had an amazing career as a singer before she ever began rug hooking.

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Pumpkins & Crows

Since I'm not a huge fan of Halloween, pumpkins and crows are my favorite motifs to decorate with for fall. Over the weekend I got the itch to do a couple needlepunch projects when I was looking through some old issues of Create & Decorate magazine.

This is the first one I did, and I turned it into a boxy little pillow by adding a fabric border and following the tutorial that Janet at Rogue Quilter shared awhile ago. The pattern had a checkerboard border around the pumpkin, but I added tongues instead.

I made this crow with the suggested border - using the same boxed pillow format.

After I got those two made, I pulled out my box of decorations and found this project that I had made a year or two ago - I like the needlepunched pumpkin mixed with wool applique crow.

And this appliqued pumpkin is sweet too, with a three dimensional leaf left floppy.

Monday, October 15, 2012

Hook-O-Ween

The Guild party on Saturday turned out to be so much fun! There were quite a few gals who wore hats so that made for a very festive atmosphere - plus the decorations were over the top too!

The day started by working on a make & take project - there were kits to make wool lapel pins in the shape of a cat or a pumpkin and these were some of the finished items.


We also made luminarias using canning jars and printed pictures that were then embellished with cut outs, glitter, stickers and whatever else people could think of to use.


Tonia won the best hat contest with this top hat embellished with tulle netting and a pumpkin guy sitting on top.


These were party favors that each attendee took home - The cats were hand sculpted from clay and attached to the top of a decorated paper mache box that was filled with candy.

This was my favorite of the rugs that were displayed.

And here is a picture to show you some of the decorations.

The most excitement of the day was caused by these three gals who regaled us with the story of their trip to the event. They drove 1-1/2 hours to get there and on the way they had to stop for gas. One of them noticed a rock in the road so they went to move it and realized that it wasn't a rock - it was a huge frog. Now all three of these ladies were dressed as witches so they knew they just HAD to bring this frog to the Hookoween. They picked up the frog and went into the convenience store/gas station to see if they could find something to transport him in - I guess people were just rolling on the floor seeing these witches with a frog. And they had our group rolling on the floor as the recounted their adventure - too funny!

The frog was really big and strong and slippery so that's why they were holding him with the help of a paper towel.
 
 
More pictures of the Hookoween event will be added to the Guild's blog later today, so if you'd like to see more you can stop for a visit here.





Saturday, October 13, 2012

Hats!

This morning I'm heading to an event hosted by our Rug Hooking Guild that they're calling HOOKOWEEN. I'm not much of a Halloween fan, but everyone is encouraged to wear a hat of some sort (witch preferably), so to make it more fun for me I decided to participate in the hat competition. I bought a hat at the Dollar Tree and embellished it by making a ruffle and flower out of newspaper. Then I added words by cutting letters out of the paper also and spelling out Spooky, Eek!, and Boo. Found a black spider and VOILA! Here's what I'm wearing today for a grand total cost of $1.35! It will be fun to see what the other ladies come up with.




It's a potluck lunch, so for my contribution I made some witch hats using Keebler Fudge Stripe cookies and some Hershey Kisses attached with orange icing - Yum!

I'll post about the day's activities as soon as I can. There will be a rug display showing fall & Halloween themed rugs, so that will be fun to see!

Friday, October 12, 2012

More Rugs

Yesterday I met with the Salt Lake Rug Group and got a few pictures of rugs there. Our numbers were few, but the conversation was good and so were the rugs.

Myra finished hooking the center of this woodsy rug she is making as a gift for her cousin. She thinks the border will be hooked to look like a wood picture frame. I absolutely LOVE the way she hooked the ground, and the trees, and the sky on this piece - it's awesome!


Last month at our Hook-In, we learned how to do a crocheted edge on our rugs, and Myra used that technique to finish off an Easter rug that was ready and waiting to be bound. She did it hit & miss using all the same colors that were used in the rug itself - Great job!

And Nancy's crow rug will be done in plenty of time for Halloween. The green and purple that she added to this really make it spark!

I haven't shared pictures of the project I'm working yet on because I need to learn how to crop my photos before I show bits and pieces of it as it progresses - stay tuned!

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Rugs in Progress

At rug group last week I think nearly eveRyone was working on new rugs - here are pictures of what was there - quite a variety!

This is the second time Sharon has hooked this design - first one was for her - this one is for her daughter.

Jeanette bought a penny rug pattern that had three designs for Christmas stockings - she combined all of them and is hooking it as a single mat. She'll be moved into her new home for the holidays so this will be a nice addition.

Sandy just started a wonderful witch - she's hooking lightning bolts on the witch's dress and she'll have a green face!

Kim drew this design herself and is hooking all around the love birds cuz she's having a hard time deciding on what color to make the birds.

Tonia started a tree skirt for one of the wool feather trees that she has made - the mat measures about 15" across and shows a village of houses on snowy hills with a dark night sky in the middle. I really need .make a little skirt for my feather tree too! If I started now I could have it done for Christmas, right?
Marliss is hooking a fish that is a Polly Minick design - but her colors are much, much different than the ones Polly hooked.

Monday, October 1, 2012

Memory Lane

I've made quite a few small quilts this year because I plan to have a gallery wall of them in the guest room eventually. Awhile ago I pulled out some small quilts that I made years ago so I could include them in the wall display, and one of them really took me back.

 I was part of a small quilt group - we called ourselves Thimble Minded Friends - and for one of our projects we paper pieced rows of thimbles (so appropriate, huh?) and then exchanged them. Each of us finished the project in our own way. When they were done we were really pleased with ourselves and we ended up submitting pictures of them to a now defunct magazine called Miniature Quilts. They printed a story about our group and included pictures of all our little thimble quilts. It was a fun fun time - about 12 years ago! Below is the magazine cover and the story pages.......