Friendship

A week ago I spent the day with two of my good friends and we took the 90 minute drive to visit the Spiral Jetty on the north end of the Great Salt Lake. They had never been there before, and I'd only been once before about 25 years ago, so we were all looking forward to it. We stopped at Subway and got sandwiches & salads for our lunch, then sat in the dirt parking lot on lawn chairs and enjoyed the view after walking the spiral and hiking the overlook. Fun day! (I wore a quilty shirt!) If you Google Spiral Jetty you can see more photos and learn about the artist and the history of the installation - it's kind of interesting. People come from all over the world to see this, and yet very few local people even know it exists!

Also last week, I won my friend Janet's blog giveaway (Rogue Quilter) and the goodies arrived in the mail yesterday. Her handmade soaps are SO luxurious - love using them in the shower. The little thread snips will be great for both machine work and hand work so they'll be used a lot. And what quilter doesn't enjoy receiving new fabrics? The little Dresden pincushion is perfection itself! Thanks for your generosity Janet!

When I packed up my studio to move to the new house, I discovered some vintage fabrics I had forgotten all about. This small piece of cheddar & purple really caught my eye - it was shaped irregularly - maybe a fat quarter in size - and I loved the colors.

Janet had just shared a free pattern available on the Henry Glass website and I thought it was cute.

After I chose some coordinating fabrics from my stash, I decided to try making it.

This is what I had leftover, and I had to piece together small bits for one of the alternate blocks - I felt very 'make-do' in my efforts. The largest piece is probably 2" across.

The top is all finished - and just this minute I noticed that two of the blocks are turned the wrong way. ARGH! Guess I'll get my seam ripper out..... The finished size is 23" x 29".

A bit of a close-up shot below - a totally different feel than the original design by Stacy West!

I'm so thankful for friends and their influence and contributions to my life!

My Favorite Things

I've been busy doing my favorite things, and that makes me happy! I punched this cute little bird motif....

.....copied from a hand-painted tile I received as a gift awhile ago.

Also punched this basket of flowers that was designed by Country Threads. The pattern was drawn on the monks cloth already and it was on clearance at my LQS for 75% off - can't beat the price!

I hooked this rug years and years ago, but never finished it because the curved edge made me nervous. I finally tackled it last week and it wasn't such a big deal after all. Instead of whipping it like I usually do, I sewed twill tape on and just turned it back and tacked it down. Easy peasy!

I participated in Kathleen's monthly challenge to make this little 4-patch from one of her books. Looks pretty good with my yellowware bowl.

There was some good show & tell when I met recently with my two rug groups. Sandy said she finished this Santa in plenty of time to enjoy it during the holidays.

Jeanette was punching a little snowman - perfect for a January project!

Coralee show us the results of her experiment of dyeing with pomegranate skins - amazing colors!

And she has started a rug showing a calico cat playing with balls of yarn.

Victoria is working on a forest rug showing a tree & some deer.

Yvonne is making a rug for the guest room where her granddaughters usually stay when they come for a visit. Very bright & happy.

Nancy received this cool wooden puzzle as a Christmas gift.

A Karla Gerard design.

On a side note, I thought I'd post this here in case any local gals would be interested. I need to sell the custom made shelving units that I've used for storing my fabrics in for the last 10+ years. They measure 4' wide and 8' tall. The shelves are 12" and 14" deep. There are two of these. I'd like $50 for each of them which is probably less than it cost to make them. Fabric NOT included!

End of Year!

It's hard to believe the year is almost over, isn't it? It's been a busy month for me with LOTS of gift making and party/luncheon attending - but SO much fun!  One of the funnest things I made was this cute little Dresden Plate that measures only 2" across!

I call it a fashion accessory for a vintage sewing machine and I sent it to my mom to use on her old Singer 301. Blue is her favorite color. I forgot to put a note in the box explaining to her what it's for, so it'll be interesting to see if she can figure it out before I call her! LOL  I really, really want to make a little quilt with these blocks now, but I need to find a 30* ruler to make cutting the blades easier - anyone know who makes one? You can find the tutorial for making your own HERE and you can see more color combinations and step by step instructions.

I made a few other gifts for my rug groups - a set of quilted zipper bags - - - -

- - - - and some quilted key fobs. (tutorial HERE)

I made myself a different version by paper piecing a long string of flying geese.

One of my groups had a wooly ornament exchange and these were all the wonderful items that were made for that.

Janet's son works for a company that makes high end messenger bags and journals using very dense 1/4" felt that costs $144/yd. He saves all the tiny scraps for her and she made this four-sided ornament using some of them.

My local quilt store has been doing a weekly giveaway on their Facebook page and I was lucky enough to be one of their winners. I received a yard of this lovely Jo Morton fabric - they even mailed it right to my house!

Some of the rugs projects I've seen this month include a couple of finished rugs by Sandy and Coralee.

Sandy started a new Santa rug.

Myra is replicating a photograph to make this wonderful landscape rug as a gift for her aunt. The moose were added from her imagination!

Nancy finished up this cute pillow using mostly leftover worms from her stash.

And she has begun a new floral.

I do a lot of string piecing when I quilt, and I usually just use thread snips to cut apart the sections as they come out of the machine. But when I saw this new gizmo I could see how helpful it would be, so I ordered one for myself.

It works great!

I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas! That's what I plan on doing!

Working on Tiny!

I recently saw the picture of a churn dash quilt that caught my attention and I decided to replicate it on a tiny scale. These blocks will measure about 1-3/4" when sewn together - talk about fun! I think I'm glad there are only twelve of these little treasures.

I finished my hit & miss mat awhile ago. Need to get something else started so I'll have a project to take to my rug group meetings next month!

A couple weeks ago Nancy was making progress on this flower rug - it's probably completed by now. It kinda reminds me of a poinsettia because of the shape of the petals.

Nancy's daughter Kathryn stopped by to show us a rug she had recently made for her table. It's her own design with words and symbols of personal significance hooked into the background.

Hope you all have a nice Thanksgiving!

Keeping Busy

I stitched up a small quilt top this week - it isn't quilted yet, but hopefully that will happen soon.  It's a Kim Diehl design from her book Homestyle Quilts. The one in the book measures 60" square, but I shrunk mine down to finish at 26" square - the blocks measure 3-3/8". It's name is Crossing Paths.

I love all of Kim's designs and this one caught my eye because it's in the same book as the design I'm turning in to a hooked rug - my progress on that project is below. It's supposed to have a patchwork border, but I switched it up and added some scallops and circles that kinda makes me think of eyelet lace. Kim named this design Blackbirds & Berries. I'm not loving the brown basket at the bottom of the rug - think I'll have to find another piece of wool to replace it with.

My studio has a wood floor, and I am constantly chasing my sewing machine foot control all over the place under my cabinet when I sew. I saw this tutorial to make a non-slip pad to put under the controller, so thought I'd make one up to see if it will actually work for me. Crossing my fingers! You can find the same great tutorial HERE - she actually has a ton of really good projects and information on her blog - I need to go back and take a thorough look around and I urge you to do the same!

Today's the day I promised to draw the winner of my Valentine mug rug giveaway. So, without further ado, the name that came out of the hat is Lori who blogs at Humble Quilts. Congratulations Lori! I am very happy to send it to her since she is a generous blogger who leads free SALs on a regular basis that are a lot of fun to make. Hope you enjoy this little gift Lori! Thanks to all of my readers who make blogging a wonderful experience!

I'll Start With The Thread...

Last month I stopped at the thrift store and found a large bag of thread cones for only $5 - so I snatched it up quick. Most were still in their wrappers. Only problem is - now I'm not sure what it's designed for. Machine quilting? Machine piecing?

There isn't a label telling me what the fiber content is and I'm not familiar with the logo. Does anyone know anything about it?

I even tried scanning the bar code with my smart phone but came up with 'no results found'.

I started a new rug hooking project last week and I'm loving the way it's turning out. I just figured out what kind of border I want to put on it and got that drawn on the linen today. I've been pacing myself so that I won't finish it before going to my next couple of rug group meetings. It's a quilt pattern from Kim Diehl that I found in one of my books - I love that quilting and rug hooking are so compatible and interchangeable!

My two sweet daughters were SO good to me at Christmas - and gave me gifts that I absolutely LOVE! I've been seeing lots of coloring books for grown ups at the craft stores and online, but have never found one that really appeals to me. DD#1 found this one and it is so perfect - full of wonderful primitive folk art designs. Only problem is, I'm not sure I can bring myself to actually color them since several of them are perfect for rug hooking and quilt applique. So fun!

DD#2 found this table lamp with a clear glass base. I filled it with vintage wooden thread spools from my collection and it looks great sitting on a table made from a treadle machine base in my living room. I added one of my toy sewing machines, a small quilt, and other goodies for a display. Cute, huh?

Remember last month I made Christmas stockings for my son & his family? Well, for one of them I used a specialty ruler for cutting equilateral triangles and I had a lot of fun with it. So I decided to make myself a small quilt  using the same ruler. It's been pieced for quite awhile now and I finally got it quilted and bound yesterday afternoon. Pulled it out of the dryer just a few minutes ago and it's ready to use in my decorating. It measures about 18" x 34".

I used a variegated thread and did allover meandering - the type of machine quilting that I'm most comfortable with. I really need to branch out a bit and try something different one of these days. (sigh)

I had so much fun with the mug rug swap that my rug group did for Christmas, (see photos a couple posts back) that I made another one to coordinate with a mug I found at the thrift store. I'd like to give it away to one of my wonderful readers & friends. It's got a Valentine Day heart theme going on so it's perfect for this time of year. The rug measures about 5-1/2" square and in addition to using strips of wool fabric, I also used some wool yarn because I happened to have the right color (pink). Hope you like it! I'll take comments until Saturday, January 9th, and then draw the winning name from all the entries and pop it in the mail. Good luck! And thanks for making blogging such a fun experience for me each time I publish a post! I love sharing with you!
                                                      (GIVEAWAY NOW CLOSED)