Hook-In

I attended the Utah Hook-In on Saturday, but sadly, didn't think to take very many photos. A friend snapped this picture of me with the door prize I won - a basket full of yummy wool!

And this is the project I started that day. My sweet DIL said she'd love to have me hook a rug for her, so she looked and looked to find something she liked and decided on a design from West Elm. I will hook MY version of it. It's very modern and definitely out of my comfort zone, which will make it fun to work on. With any luck I can get it finished by Christmas (crossing my fingers!)

Two weeks ago we went with two of our kids and their families to Moab to go off-roading and do a bit of hiking. We had a wonderful time in a beautiful place - people come from all over the world to see our state!

Help Me Decide!

I have a dilemma!  I have made a quilt top for my newest grand baby. It was super easy and it's super cute using only black & white solids.  My DIL saw a picture of it somewhere and I went from there. Made entirely of HSTs.

I found a white/black print for the back, and the aqua will be used for the binding. I plan to applique the baby's name on the back with the aqua also.

SO - I have no idea of what color of thread to quilt it with! Black? White? Gray? Clear? Maybe change colors to match the fabric in each section? I just can't decide, so I'm hoping someone will give me a solution and steer me in the right direction! And any suggestions on a quilting design would be greatly appreciated too!

Last weekend I had an itch to make a quick small project, so this is what I ended up doing.

Allover meandering turned out pretty well the very first time I used my new sewing machine.

It's a Juki and I'm really liking it so far.

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!

Home Again

I returned to Utah on Thursday night from visiting my family in California. I took this stitching project to work on during the 12 hour (each way) drive and I did a bit more while I was there. The pattern is a design from Lisa Bongean and was in a recent issue of AP&Q. Lisa used flannel for her background fabrics, but I'm using regular cotton instead. Would have been a LOT faster and easier to cut the pennies with a die cut machine, but I used my trusty old scissors. Whew! Lots of variety in the colors of wool I used. Bought a few colors of DMC perle cotton to stitch with. I usually use crochet thread and it didn't really seem that different to me. I guess it's the variegated thread that makes the expensive stuff more desireable. There will be twelve blocks total when I'm finished - these still need to be pressed & trimmed to size so they look kind of distorted here.

On Saturday I attended our Guild's Hook-In and won this darling pumpkin man that was one of the door prizes. He's even cuter in person. Thanks Tonia!

Before going to California, I joined with the gals who always meet on the 1st Tuesday of each month. I'm making progress on my hit & miss rug.

There were some great projects being worked on. Coralee saw a metal sculpture while on vacation in Washington State and was inspired to hook her own version of a Cranberry Gobbler - very whimsical!

Sandy had her Day of the Dead rug completed......

......and was beginning work on a new floral (sorry for the crummy back-lit photo)

Sharon had finished a wild turkey done in needle punch.

And Stacy was punching a happy sunflower.

I seem to have missed several other rugs so hopefully I'll grab them next time.

A Little Out of the Ordinary!

I've worked on a couple projects lately that are a little different from what I usually do. First of all was a couch update. DD#1 was given this old couch by a friend and the cushions were SO dated - the fabric was literally falling apart - crunchy and gross - I would guess 40+ years old.

So she ordered some new fabric that would give the couch a fresh look and I stitched up new covers for her. I was able to recycle the zippers from the old covers, and the foam cushions were still in good condition too so we were able to use them. Her throw pillows add a lot of color to the couch and her family has a comfy new place to sit!

THEN, my son asked me to help HIM with a project. He is passionate about his vehicles. He recently rebuilt the engine on a Ford Explorer that he bought for a song. Then he made a new bumper for it from scratch - the metal cutting and shaping - the welding - the winch installation - and the painting. He added a light bar above the winch and worried about it getting damaged from road debris.

So we used some vinyl fabric and made a cover for the light bar that fit like a glove when it was snapped together underneath. Whew! Quite a team effort!

Earlier this week I learned that I had won a giveaway on Polly Minick and Laurie Simpson's blog. My prize arrived in the mail today and I'm SO thrilled with it! A stack of 40 fat quarters  from their newest fabric line - can you imagine? That's 10 yards people! SO generous! I have no idea what I will make with it but I'm just going to pet it for awhile until I think of something! LOL

Have a great weekend!

Holiday Weekend

We don't often leave town on a holiday weekend, but made an exception this time because of the horrible inversion & pollution we've been experiencing here the last week or two. Hubby & I drove with DD#2 and her family five hours south to sunshine, blue skies and warm temperatures - it was perfect! We explored & hiked & swam & ate out and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Here are a couple of things I saw that during our travels that caught my attention. We stopped at Cove Fort which has been restored to resemble pioneer times and I loved seeing this hooked rug in one of the rooms. Rug hooking was a colonial craft and not a pioneer craft, but it was still fun to see this on the floor of a bedroom there.

Here's a close up of part of the floral diamond.

And we saw a barn star on the side of a house that was nice - not seen very often in this part of the country - I'd like to make one for my home someday.

I've been very busy working on a new quilt for DD#2 - she chose the pattern & the colors - I chose the fabrics. Each block is paper pieced in two sections. Each star is formed by sewing four blocks together, so the entire quilt needed to be laid out before I started any of the sewing.

Lots of trimming involved...

Last week when I met with my rug group there was some great show & tell. Nancy had started a new table runner - it will be symmetrical and placed on a small telephone table in her home.

She just had a bit of yarn whipping left to do on this cute piece that she began & finished since our meeting a month ago.

Myra is hooking a pumpkin rug for a friend with vibrant orange colors.

Yvonne is working on a rug that is in a Pat Cross book (if I remember correctly)

It's good to be home!