Show & Tell

The quilt I made from my dad's shirts is all finished except for the label and I can't quite figure out what it should say. Any help/suggestions would be greatly appreciated!  Here's a picture of it - finished size is 50" x 60". Hope to get it in the mail to his wife very soon.

I used the remaining fabrics to piece together a panel large enough to use on the back of the quilt, so it's as busy as the front.

I incorporated the labels on the back just for a bit of interest.

I'm missing my monthly meeting with the Salt Lake rug group today - DD#2 & her hubby are in Cancun and I have their two little munchkins keeping me company. But here are some pictures of the group I met with last week. Coralee is working on a rug depicting the Pacific seashore she visited recently - kinda fun to preserve a memory this way.

The surfboard was interesting - she added tiny bits of dyed nylon here and there between the rows of hooking to add color and texture - amazing what an impact it has on the rug.

Sandy is also doing an ocean themed rug - this started as a punch needle pattern that she enlarged.

I just realized there were a lot of water lovers at this meeting as Marliss' mermaid rug is coming along nicely - I love the color she added with the coral.

Jeanette is doing a small sheep rug - we all love those, right?

Sharon's version of Lori Brechlin's Lancaster Barnyard pattern is awesome - she is really good at hooking in the anti-godlin style - as seen in the bird on the right. I love her colors.

Marliss showed us this shelf her hubby had just made of reclaimed lumber and some old hooks - it's available for purchase! Talent just seems to run in her family!

It was a really nice get together. I enjoyed seeing everyone since I missed last month.

Here I Am!

A couple of really nice gals recently emailed me to tell me that they missed reading my blog - how sweet! So I decided I better write a post to do a little catching up. Our move went just fine. We still have a lot of boxes to unpack, but we're getting there and it's starting to feel like home. Here's a picture of the new place taken this afternoon when it was dreary & wet. We hope to get a yard in this summer - hubby is a landscape architect so he has the plans all drawn up already.

Did you notice those two windows above the garage? That's the bonus room which is my studio. I've gotten my quilt fabrics organized and put on shelves - and found the perfect place to display my collection of vintage toy sewing machines. In fact, I think I can use a few more of them!

My very first project is sewing a lap quilt - here it is on my design wall below. My dad died unexpectedly in January and when I was talking to his wife a couple weeks ago she told me how hard the evenings are for her because it's so quiet with no one to talk to. I asked her to send me his cotton shirts and I'd make her a lap quilt out of them - she can wrap herself up in it when she's watching TV or feeling sad. It's been kind of therapeutic for me to handle the fabrics that he wore - funny that there were no stripes in his closet - only plaids, solids, and one Hawaiian print!

Here is the carnage leftover from disassembling the shirts on my family room floor.

I just finished reading a really good book - the author has a new one out so I'll get it from the library soon and read it too. I highly recommend this one.

I attended one of my monthly rug meetings a couple weeks ago and have a little show & tell to share. Myra had this darling apron - the flower pots are sewn from fabric and the flowers are painted on - what talent!

And she was working on this happy rug with the same bright colors.

Nancy had finished this cute rug since our last meeting - it all started with the star flower she had seen in a magazine and grew from there. I love that one of the borders is different.

A few months ago at my quilt group, we learned to make our own wool dryer balls using yarn - mine were pretty tame, but Jayna really took off and made a gazillion of them for Christmas gifts that she embellished with fun designs and colors. They look so nice nestled in her old wooden bowl.

Hopefully tomorrow I can catch up on reading some blogs - it's been weeks since I visited with my internet friends!

This & That

I finished a little quilt last week - the top was already pieced so I just had to do the quilting & bind it. It's wool diamonds appliqued onto a cotton backing.

The spiral I quilted in the open spaces turned out kinda neat.

I spent a couple evenings sorting buttons that I'd accumulated over the last year or so - such happy cheerful colors. These jars are just about full - guess I'd better stop buying, right?

And I finally got a start on this medallion quilt that was released as a mystery quilt in Quiltmania magazine over the course of a year or so. It's looking quite different than the original.

Inspired by this floral print that I found at Walmart, of all places! It has been fun to do broderie perse for the first time ever - the flowers are a bit bigger than those used in the magazine project, but I'm making it work. It's been a long time since I've done any hand applique and I'm quite enjoying it.

Here is a picture of part of the original quilt.