Whew! Just in The Nick of Time!

DD#2 had her baby on Tuesday evening - 2 & 1/2 weeks before her due date. Tyce is three now & loves his new sister - Nora Mae. She has long slender fingers and toes - and quite a bit of dark hair.

I was in a bit of a panic when she was born because her quilt wasn't ready for her! I stayed up late on Tuesday night to finish the quilting and binding, and then threw it into the washer & dryer the next morning. It was all finished by the time she came home from the hospital - whew! Here's how it looked before I washed it.

 And this is the after.

Lately, I have been seeing some quilts with the recipient's name written on the back, so I decided to try and do that with this baby quilt.

 At first I was going to piece the letters, but I ended up using machine applique with a cute font.

Each row was done with a different quilting motif on my home sewing machine. Amazingly, I even attempted a little bit of feathering - not too bad!

The binding was made using leftover bits of the fabrics I had, so it's scrappy. I can't remember what brand of cotton batting I used, because I used leftovers from another project, but I was amazed at how much it shrunk! The quilt was 36" wide when I made it, and after washing it measured only 31" - that's a LOT!

Since my last post three weeks ago, hubby & I spent a week in Missouri & Illinois on vacation.  Visited the St. Louis Arch, the Zoo, and the Botanical Gardens. Then we drove up the Mississippi River to the beautiful small town of Nauvoo which was very significant in the history of our church. Now that we're home from vacation & the baby has arrived, I'm hoping that life will settle down to normal and I can start posting more regularly.

We're loving this new addition to our family -  we now have four grandchildren and hope for several more eventually.

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Just a LITTLE to Share Today

I recently spent a week in California visiting family so I really don't have a lot to share right now. This is the hand stitching project I took with me to work on in the airport, on the plane and while visiting. I got it all finished except one piece that I lost somewhere along the way - so I stitched it on as soon as I got home. Wool pieces appliqued onto a cotton background.

I helped my mom finish piecing this quilt top. She's had the fabrics for years and years - two years ago I helped her lay it out and she stacked up each row and labeled it so they'd stay in the right order - but she never did a thing with it after that. I told her that this quilt was going to be our project while I was there and we got it all done! I brought it home to get it machine quilted for her - then I'll send it back with the binding sewn on too.

Before leaving for CA I completed the border on my family rug - if you compare this photo with one a couple posts back you can see what I accomplished.

Baby Quilt Lookin' Good

I've had so much fun making this little baby quilt for DD#2. Totally out of my normal sphere of color & design, but it made me stretch a bit and think out of my box.  It's a row quilt and I have all the rows completed - they just aren't sewn to each other yet. The finished size will be 35" x 48" or so. I won't add a border - just a binding in a color still to be determined.

I love the little bits of metallic that I included in the quilt - she's got touches of it throughout the nursery so I wanted to have some in the quilt too. And I added some rick rack for color & texture.

Wasn't sure of what fabric to use for the metallic, so I ended up buying a bit of gold lame and then ironed on some fusible interfacing to the back of it. I stitched up a little sample block and quilted it - then threw it in the wash a few times and it seems to be holding up just fine in spite of the fact that the fabric bolt said to dry clean it only.

We found that the best way for choosing the various colors was to pull paint chips from the hardware store - I carried them with me from quilt shop to quilt shop searching for the best match - worked great!

She found the inspiration for the quilt on Pinterest (of course),  a rug that is no longer available (photo below) - worked great for a quilt too, don't you think?

 I can't wait till the entire room is put together and I can give you a tour. Two months till her due date so we're both making good progress.

Home Again

Got home awhile ago from a one week outing. Spent a couple days in a hotel room while hubby was in meetings, but I took my Featherweight with me and got this little scrappy quilt made while I was there - a good use of my time, don't you think? It hasn't been pressed or blocked so it will look better after I do that & get it quilted.

Then some of the kids and their families joined us for a few days and we did fun stuff like hike in this kind of country - we also played in some sand dunes and explored a lava cave.

This is the new rug I'm working on - I had to start a small portable project because my family rug was getting too big and bulky to transport to gatherings.

My family rug just needs a little more of the border finished and then I can tackle the center part again and hopefully get it all finished.

Here are some show & tell photos from my recent group meetings.

Tonya is making this rug for her grandson - a warrior wearing the Armor of God with a scripture around the border.

Kathy is a brand new hooker and this is her first project - she drew it herself - I think she's a natural!

Jean is her friend who is doing a great job on a hooked penny rug. These gals are a great addition to our group and I look forward to getting to know them better - they both live quite near me.

Nancy got her Maggie B rug finished - fun to see it done so vibrantly instead of the drab colors that Maggie uses. The design looks good every which way it gets hooked.

Janet shared a couple quilts she recently made. This small green one looks great with the spiral machine quilting that she did in each block.

Her & her sister both made quilts exactly like this one - very graphic and modern looking.

Jayna showed us a pretty bowl that she recently bought - - -

- - - she works for the school district and during Spring Break took a trip to Venice Beach CA with a couple friends. Her favorite part of the trip was touring the Mosaic Tile House where she bought her bowl. She shared a slide show with us of this house which was amazing. The artist was delightful and friendly. Guess the house has been featured on several HGTV programs, in books and magazines - it's very unique - you can tour it yourself if you click here

I got a couple rows done on the baby quilt for DD#2 - I'm having fun with it!

OK - I'm all caught up now!

Not Much To Show

I've been working on various projects, but in spite of that I don't really have much to share with you today.

I finished piecing this quilt top that has some little hexie flowers in the alternate blocks - wish I was able to machine quilt some circular feathers in each block, but since I can't I'll have to come up with another idea for quilting it. One block got sewn wrong - can you spot it? I'm not going to change it at this point - it will be my humble block ala Lori.

DD#2 is pregnant with a baby girl due in June so I have started working on a new quilt for her. This is the crib sheet she bought from Target and she's designing the nursery using all these colors.

I'm using only solids for this one - they remind me of ice cream sherbert - I was surprised at how hard it was to find them - in fact I wasn't able to find them all in 100% cotton so some of the pieces have polyester in them - hope it won't be too much of a problem.

There ya go - - -

Back & Forth

There has been mail crisscrossing the country lately - I've been on the sending end of some - and on the receiving end of others. Remember awhile ago I posted a request on my blog for a certain rug hooking book? Well, Fran reads my blog and emailed me - said she had an extra copy of the book that she'd love to share at no cost to me - she didn't even ask me to pay postage!

Well, I couldn't let such a kindness go unrewarded, so I stitched up a little Chinese Coins quilt and sent it off to her by way of thanks. She just let me know that it has been received so now I'm able to share a picture of it here.

And I was the lucky winner of a rug hooking pattern giveaway on Saundra's blog - I'm a big fan of Polly Minick - even got to meet her & her sister Laurie several years ago. I pulled the fat envelope out of my mailbox earlier today and look forward to getting this checkerboard hooked some day.. Thanks Saundra!

I know stuff gets lost in the mail all the time, but I've been very fortunate through the years and have only ever had one package go missing. It was a small hooked mat that I made for a one-on-one swap, and I had a sneaking suspicion that the recipient just claimed that it hadn't arrived so she wouldn't have to send me anything in return. Made me very cynical about participating in online swaps ever since. Have you ever had anything get lost in the mail?

Show & Tell

Last week I bought a metal bird cage and put together a spring centerpiece for my dining table. I found the runner at Hobby Lobby and I love the colors of it because it reminds me of my beloved yellowware collection. I cut some branches from our forsythia bush and put them in a vase and they bloomed in just a couple of days.

 The bird is sitting on a Robin's nest that I found in the yard last summer - didn't want to worry about critters hiding in it so I put it in a plastic bag in the freezer for a few days - figured that would kill anything yucky.

I totally finished my little cake stand basket quilt and I really like it - 4" blocks.

Found the perfect fabric for the quilt back in my own stash - brown - with baskets! Yay!

Picked my tiny hexagon quilt up from the frame shop and hung it in the living room. Hard to get a good picture because of the reflection in the glass, but you get the idea. I bought the frame for $2 at the thrift store and had my son cut it down to size - then I painted it a nice golden brown color. The frame shop mounted it and added the mat and the glass.

Last week I was looking at a little pouch I use for carrying my hooks & scissors - it's bright pink with neon embroidery stitched on it - my mother-in-law brought it home from a trip to China and gave it to me.

Well, the size was right, but it wasn't exactly prim so I found I had some orange wool that was too thick and heavy to use for rug hooking - I had always planned to use it for a penny rug. I just randomly stitched some #8 wool strips to the front and back - - -

- - - added a zipper with some cute charms attached to the pull - - -

- - - and the lining suggested the design I put on the outside. Fun!

My family rug is coming along - I hope to get the two borders finished in a couple weeks or so and then figure out how to finish the inside of the rug. This is getting too big & heavy to carry to meetings, so I'll have to prep a new project that's a bit smaller and easier to transport when I go hook with friends.

Myra is making a lovely springtime rug with beautiful flowers on it - it's an original design that she worked in watercolor first - so talented!

Yvonne is making a small mat using the traditional quilt design called log cabin - working exclusively from her worms.

Nancy is halfway done with a Maggie B design - the poison green really pops against the antique black background.