Dibs & Dabs

I have finished appliqueing the wool pennies onto these blocks, and I've got them all sewn together. Now I need to add more pennies at the corners where the blocks meet, and find a good fabric for the border - I don't seem to have a piece that will work in my stash - imagine that! Guess I'll have to go shopping! LOL

I met a gal who makes and donates small quilts to her local Ronald McDonald House in Texas. I have sent her blocks before, but last week I made a couple of scrappy tops to send. I found wonderful fabrics on clearance for the backing & binding to accompany them - she will layer them and quilt them and deliver them. Such a good project! If any of you are interested in sending orphan blocks or tops or supplies, I can send you her address. She prefers 10" blocks so the backing doesn't need to be pieced.

I have discovered a new author that I like thanks to the suggestion of my friend Terri. These are murder mysteries and feature London police officers who are married to each other, as well as their friends, family & co-workers. I haven't read them in order, but that would be the best way to do it. Maybe you'll like them too!

On occasion I've been working on a new denim quilt. I'm in love with hexies, and this is a version of one that's new to me. I put the word out to my kids asking for old denim jeans, so as I receive them, I cut the hexagons and then cut larger hexies from homespun plaids. There is no batting in this - the edges are folded over and stitched. Then the hexies are butted up next to each other and joined by a decorative machine stitch. Not sure how large this will end up, depends on how quickly I tire of it!

I'm getting close to a finish on my 20" hit & miss mat. Only about 2" left to go on one side.

On Tuesday I met with my group of hooking friends and there was some great show & tell! Sharon had finished this small mat - she will back it with a nice piece of wool.

Sandy is filling in the background on this Susan Quicksall floral design - lovely colors!

Coralee is also working on the background of her Cranberry Gobbler.

Tonia has made arrangements with an antique dealer to make this rug for him in exchange for some nice antiques - it's looking great! It depicts the Kirkland Temple.

And the two bicycles below are SO fun to see side by side! This is a Polly Minick pattern. Jeanette is staying true to the original with an Americana color scheme.......

.....while Kim is switching it up by omitting the star border and doing her own color planning.

It was decided that at our December meeting we will exchange wooly ornaments - either hooked, or appliqued, or even needle punched. Can't wait to see what everyone comes up with! Hope you all had a nice Halloween - our trick-or-treaters were nearly non-existent this year - only 4 small groups came to our door - much different than it was when our children were small and we handed out hundreds of pieces of  candy!

M.I.A.

I've had a busy few weeks and that's my excuse for not blogging. One sewing project I started and finished is this little penny rug. I have several pieces of wool that are too thick for rug hooking, but they're perfect for making penny rugs - so I cut some circles and squares and stitched this up on a recent road trip.

I have always avoided stitching things with points because the stitches would always fall around the corner, but I think I finally figured out how to get them to stay in place and it wasn't as hard as I had expected! Yay! I like to use cotton crochet thread instead of the pricey perle cotton that so many others prefer - I buy it at thrift stores and it works great.

I took this little owl wall hanging to the Ogden Nature Center yesterday so they can auction it off at their annual fundraiser in October - hope someone buys it for a decent price!

I saw that my daughter-in-law had one of these fabric buntings on her Pinterest board for the baby's new room, so I made one for the shower last weekend.

My Clover binding clips helped immensely in holding things in place till they got stitched together. I sure love those things!

It's a big one - hope it isn't too long for the room!

I'm finally done with green beans from the garden - canned 24 pints and I'm calling it good - that should be plenty for hubby and I.

I recently found out that my grandmother read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn back in the 1930's as she traveled across the country from Massachusetts to California, so I thought it would be fun to read it myself. It was a good one! I guess it's been made into a theater production and a movie so I might try to find it to watch sometime.

I also read Orphan Train and enjoyed it a lot - had no idea that this story was part of our national history.

Pam Buda Class

I spent seven hours in a Pam Buda class yesterday, along with 25 other eager students and had SUCH a good time! It's been years and years since I took a quilt class and I had forgotten how much fun it could be!  

I met up with my friend Janet - of Rogue Quilter fame - and her friend Kim. 

Janet spoiled me rotten and gave me two more paper pieced ornaments for a birthday gift. These things are SO tiny - only 2" square!. She also gave me two bars of her delicious smelling handmade soaps that smell good enough to eat! LOL

And my table mate is a new friend from Idaho - we clicked immediately and I felt like I had known her for years (hi Jami!)

Pam taught us two different ways to make flying geese units, two different ways to make quarter square triangles and several other methods  -  plus shared some great products with us. Most everyone finished making the center blocks for their quilt project and they were displayed all together at the front of the room at the end of the day. So many fun color combinations. Mine is in the top right corner of the board and I switched up the project by using black for the background instead of a light fabric. I had to always double check to see if I was getting the color placement right and only had to use a seam ripper once....

I don't ever remember the teacher giving gifts to the students before, but each of us received a darling tote bag from Pam.....

......and one of her patterns as well! Wow!

A delicious lunch was provided - along with dessert and snacks on each table. Mmmm. The staff at Village Dry Goods gifted everyone with a mug & liner for storing and organizing your tools - like pencils, seam rippers, scissors - whatever - so cute! I felt spoiled!

I loved walking around the room to see what treasures I could spot. This button covered journal was just darling - I believe she bought it at Target awhile ago.

Janet made one of her tiny little paper pieced quilt blocks into a darling pincushion.

I've seen these design boards before - great for laying out your blocks and taking them to the machine to sew - but this gal had used colorful duct tape on the one in back to finish the edges up - so cute!

One gal was wearing a darling vest that she bought on sale at Christopher & Banks. The fabric looks just like a penny rug, huh? 

She even embellished it a bit by stitching a REAL wool penny here and there across the surface. Unfortunately, it's not available in the store or on their website anymore, but I did find a size medium listed on eBay if anyone's interested.

Fran had the cutest purse made from a wool Army blanket that had wool flowers appliqued to one side - the leather straps were very sturdy and added a lot to the look of the piece.

This class is a yearly event and I think I might be hooked on attending from now on! Today I'm hoping to finish making the rest of the quilt top and I'm looking forward to spending more quality time with my sewing machine....

Eye Candy

I meet with two different rug hooking groups each month, and this month they happened to land one day apart - so I've enjoyed two days of visiting with friends and being inspired by their projects.

Tonia finished her Karen Kahle rug - this is a pretty big one (by MY standards anyway) and it was only half finished last month - so she's been really busy!

Here are several close-ups so you can see some of the beautiful details. Even though she hasn't ever taken a class from Karen Kahle - I think she's captured her technique really well.

Sharon was binding this cute little bird rug - love the colors she used on this - especially the background..

Victoria was working on a penny rug that she started a long time ago.

Jeanette brought these finished proddy flowers that she hooked and installed in a thrift store frame - I love the texture of them, and how she left the background unhooked so you could see the linen.

And this is the project she's working on now - everyone's favorite quote from the Bible about working with wool and flax - so appropriate for all rug hookers!

Switching groups - this is a cute little bird pillow that Terri recently finished - these vibrant, cheerful colors really pop against the black background. This was a free pattern in a recent issue of Rug Hooking Magazine.

And this is the second Halloween rug she's hooked using this pattern - the first one was made as a gift for her mother.

I'm making slow progress on my scrappy rug. It's very unusual for me to hook the background before the motifs, but that's what I've done with this one cuz I didn't want to drag a million colors of wool with me to meetings so I just grabbed the antique blacks and a green for the vine & leaves in the border. I hope I don't run into any problems when I get around to hooking the rest of those flowers!