Saturday, December 31, 2011

We have a winner

Congratulations to Linnea who is the winner of the giveaway tied to my Rice Bag tutorial.  I have sent her an email for her address.  I hope to be sending her a Rice Bag, 1/2 yard of Moda brushed cotten and 1/2 yard of muslin and maybe some other little goodie or another.

Thank you all for your warm comments on my tutorial.  I so appreciate you all.

Have a wonderful New Year,  stay healthy, stay safe and stay happy.   Selina

Friday, December 30, 2011

Another Christmas Present

Another Christmas gift finished and delivered.  Only 2 more to finish and deliver, one by next weekend and the other sometime in January.  Can't post those yet since both of the recipients are readers.


This gift is the 1600 quilt I started a couple of months ago.  I posted about it  here in September  http://selinaquilts.blogspot.com/2011/09/another-busy-weekend.html  The problem with making a top that far in advance of the holiday and knowing from the get go to whom it is going is that in my mind it was a done deal.  Well two weeks before Christmas I realized it really wasn't a done deal and it needed quite a bit of work before it could be wrapped. Things like a back and quilting and binding. You know, the little things, mere details.



Sorry but I don't know how to rotate the pictures.

What I did discover once the quilt was complete is that I think I like the back of this quilt more than the front.  I am very partial to polka dots so maybe that's what is doing it for me. 

If you haven't tried a 1600 quilt yet I can tell you that it is great fun. Instructions for doing one are all over blogland. I didn't compete with anyone but myself and I still enjoyed it. I also didn't use a Jelly Roll but cut my 40, 2 1/2 in strips  myself because I wanted a black and white top and couldn't find a Jelly like that.  I think my next one will be made from my scrap bin.

Enjoy the weekend and stay safe.


Sunday, December 25, 2011

Merry Christmas

It's Christmas morning here in NJ. I hope everyone has a Very Merry Christmas Day and a wonderful holiday season.

I finished up the last of the Christmas day delivery gifts last night at 10:55.  I still have 3 more gifts to finish but I won't see the recipients until later in the week so I have some time.  Yesterday was a wonderful day, I love the hussel bussel of the day.  On general principals I need to do some last minute shopping just to be part of the excitement. 

I spent most of the afternoon and evening working on this great quilt based on the stitchery patterns from   http://www.sewhappy.me/ for her Christmas banner.



I loved the redwork.  The banner had 7 patterns and I needed 9 so I pulled pieces of the center block and created the name blocks on either side of it.  This quilt is for a niece and her finacee.  Now that his name is in stitches she is not allowed to change her mind.


Now on tto the back.  Thanks to all of you influencial folks out there in blogland I no longer am able to just plop a plain ole piece of fabric on the back of anything.



Ok now one very, very important addition to this posting.

Tomorrow I am doing my very first tutorial. So cool.  I will be posted on
Please stop by and visit me there.  I will be having a tutorial related give away at the end of the week.

Again , please have a very Merry and Safe Holiday.  Hugs, Selina

Monday, December 12, 2011

gifts for the group

We have 14 coworkers in out group.  P and I try to give everyone something small to celebrate Christmas. Most years there is some home made item included.  We generally start putting some cash away every week starting July 1. Then around Thansgiving we figure out what we are going to do based on the number of staff members we have.  This year we decided on gift cards for Dunkin Donuts.

Well of course we couldn't just give them gift cards.  So I whipped up 14 Rice Bags.  Some of the staff received Rice Bags for Christmas several years ago and I have heard suttle comments about how old they were getting.



Then we needed gift bags for the rice bag and gift card.


I didn't realize how much Christmas fabric I had in my stash.  Some of it I don't even remember purchasing.  It does make for a great bag.  I made the bags large enough for them to be used for something like wine bottles.

I made P a sweat shirt with a pouch.  Well I purchased the swear shirt and added a holiday pouch to the front like on a hoodie. If you see my blog of 12/5 I have the one I made for me and another friend posted.  It's really a simple process and it adds so much to an everyday sweat shirt.  I added a white turtle neck and it makes a super gift. Try it you'll love it.

Tomorrow is gift day at the office.  I hope all are pleased.

I will be doing a tutorial on December 26 for the rice bags at http://www.sewwequilt.com/

Friday, December 9, 2011

Ta Da

They are done, all 3 of them are completely done.

I started them in August and so many other projects had to be done in between.  You know a couple of swaps, the Ghastly Blog Hop and ever so many brilliant ideas I tripped over while blogging that had to be tried immediately if not sooner.









These are for MJ's nephew's families for Christmas.  In the past I have only made baby quilts for their families and I decided I needed to do something else.  I designed these snowmen for a a guild project several years back and figured they would be perfect.  The same and yet just slightly different.

They will go out in the mail tomorrow. Woo Hoo

Monday, December 5, 2011

Christmas Presents Delievered

This is coming to you from Disney World.  We are have been having a great time with some friends and family. Sadly they all left this morning but we made the best of our time together.

I am now able to post about a couple of gifts I made for my friend J for Christmas.  She reads my blog so posting pictures in advance was a no no. Actually she saw a gift for another friend and she was wondering if it was hers or not.

I particiapated in a quilt along in October and the end result was this table runner for J's home.


When I participated in The Ghastlie Blog Hop I jazzed up a sweatshirt with a customized pocket/pouch and thought it would make a great Christmas present if I used a seasonal fabric for the pocket.



Here we are modeling. Not the greatest of pictures but you get the idea. We were rushing off to a parade and fireworks.




My birthday is at the end of the month.  When we all get together we celebrate the birthdays that are the closest. It was my turn.

We're now off to enjoy more of our time here in Sunny Florida.  Back to Jersey on Thursday.

Take care.

Monday, November 28, 2011

Quilts for the boys

I'm writing this post so I can participate in SewCalGals 2011 Christmas Quilt Show. http://sewcalgal.blogspot.com/ which is running from today to Dec 2.  Stop on by and see the wonderful Winter/Christmas creations.

I have been working on 3 quilts since the summer for MJ's nephew's families.  I make for my side of the family every year but I have only done baby quilts for his nephew's families. I saw the Christmas Quilt Show and hoped I would have them all done for this event.



This is the first one, please excuse th crease at the bottom.  I came up with the Snowmen designs a few years back for a guild block of the month project. Just love the way they work up. 

This weekend I had to admit that I wasn't going to get the 3rd one done in time for this posting. Close, I only have to finish hand stitching down the binding.   So I will be happy knowing it's just about done, definetly in time to mail for Christmas. 


And this is the second one.  I thought it was finished but when I went to take the picture 10 minutes ago I realized my snowmen don't have faces.  For that matter upon checking, quilt number 3 also is missing faces.  Not sure how that happened. Just a small oversite.  Easily fixed eventually.

Please go and visit all of the participants of this fun event.  They are listed on the link above.  Have fun.

Friday, November 25, 2011

How small can it go ?

Last weekend we went out to breakfast at our favorite diner. (I live in NJ, we specialize in diners). During breakfast our favorite waitress pays me a compliment on this wonderful bag I made a couple of weeks ago.
My beloved jumps into the conversation and says something like "its great isn't it, she'll make you one if you want"  Does he not get that this is Christmas rush time. He picks now to love my work and sing my praise.  Duh!

So she says My daughter would love one and it would be a wonderful gift for her birthday in 2 weeks.  So now I'm not only committed to making the thing but I now have a pre Christmas dead line.  and oh yeah,  she's a little girl so it needs to be smaller.

Alright I am up to almost any challenge.  And I had today off  ( planned to quilt the last of the snowmen quilts, maybe tomorrow)  so I made a little Bento bag.


 

The gray one measures 7 1/2 inches tall x 7 inches wide and 5 inches deep.
This little cutie petutty comes in at 4 1/2 inches tall x 5 1/2 inches wide and 3 inches deep.



So please cross your fingers, she said her daughter needed it to be smaller and I assumed little girl (5 ish) thus the frogs.  I'm hopping she's not a short 9 year old.  Oh well, I'll give it to her on Sunday and hope for the best.  Heck my sister would love to add it to her collection of my bags if it doesn't work for this little girl. ( that would be another Christmas gift off my list, too easy )

Hope everyone who celebrates had a wonderful Thanksgiving. 

Sunday, November 20, 2011

The "10" minute Table Runner

It all started here.
http://rgadesignquilts.blogspot.com/2011/11/jolly-holiday-free-patterns-table.html

I was following the Henry Glass Jolly holiday party this week and came across this tutorial for a 10  Minute Table runner. 

Too good to be true you ask.  Maybe, maybe not.  It truly looks like it could be done in that amount of time by someone. Just not me.  That is not the fault of the pattern, the problem lies with me who just can't follow basic direction.  I always want to tinker with the pattern and do something just a little different.

It started when I  wanted to get the table runner on my Christmas to do list marked off.  Hey the offer of spending 10 minutes to  a half hour getting something off the list couldn't be passed by.  I intended to follow the pattern but after losing 10 minutes just trying to pick 2 pieces of Christmas fabric that I liked together and couldn't I knew I was in trouble. 

I did find a large piece of blue snowy fabric that I liked and I knew I had a couple of blocks done with that fabric in it so I decided to make my own focus panel. This would have been fine if I knew exactly where I was headed but I didn't. 

I made the panel it really was just what I wanted and it only cost me an additional 1/2 hour at the time.  Of course my newly created panel was larger than the suggested panel but that didn't slow me down.  I kept going and it was going really well until I made the pointy part and it came down and cover part of my pieced blocks.  Really looked bad and I really had to do a heck of a lot of ripping.  I spent an additional bit of time trying  to figure out how to fix the thing.  I ended up ripping back to the original 2 panels and having to add fabric to them both. They needed to be several inches longer to showcase the panel.   Sewed it all back together in a jiffy and this time it all worked as intended.





I did do some quilting and all in all it took me something like 3 hours in total to complete.   It measures in at 48 x 19.  Was it worth it?  Heck yes.  I love it.  Would I do it again.  Yes.  Would I follow the original pattern,  Maybe, maybe not. (I don't necessarily learn by my mistakes) So tell me what you think.  Are you a follower or a creative thinker damn the consequences.

Take care.

Monday, November 14, 2011

Great day with an Old Friend

I spent Sunday afternoon with my old friend BA. It was a terrific day.  BA and I have been friends for almost 40 years.  If there is a craft out there one if not both of us has probably tried it.  My current craft of choice is quilting hers is crocheting. 

For most of the years we’ve been friends we have exchanged at least one hand crafted gift a year.  Looking at her house decorated for Christmas is just one long trip down memory lane for us.  A great chart of our growth in the world of crafting.

A couple of months ago we met for dinner and she saw one of my Bento Box bags and asked for one.  Why not, I’ve been on a bag roll.  I made her the bag on my Sept 5, 2011 posting.  She loves it and uses it every day for work.

A couple of weeks ago she asked if I thought she could make one herself.  It’s been awhile since she has had her sewing machine up and running but I think it’s like riding a bike.  We met one night after work  at JoAnns to pick out fabric and yesterday we met to sew.  I had given her a copy of the  Pattern for the Bento Box from the Pink Penquin and her job was to have the pieces cut out and labeled when I got there. Sure enough the pieces were cut (see the edge of the pumpkin table topper,I made that),



but also waiting were Scarves she had crocheted for my sister and me.  Pretty huh.



 It was great, I supervised and she sewed her heart out.  Here is picture of the base of the bag.  At this point you know you are on the right track. 




While she was sewing I was hand stitching the binding down on one of the Snowmen Quilts.  And of course we talked, and talked and talked.  Problem with all of that talking is that it did slow down the sewing process a tiny bit and messed with her concentration ( read that as a wee bit of ripping ). But 3 hours later she had a finished bag.  



She is now talking about getting her machine tuned up and making a bag or 2 as Christmas presents.  Could there be a better day??????? I don’t think so. 

Saturday, November 12, 2011

It's Ghastlie but true

It is Ghastlie but true, the knitting ladies who have been keeping me company everyday for the past couple of months have decided to go on a much needed, and very long vacation.  They anticpate returning sometime next September.

I hope they have a great time.

In the mean time I have made a new bag to tide me over for the next couple of months.  This one is a bit smaller than the Ghastlie bags and I'm not sure I can use it for my everyday activities unless I get a much small wallet.  I can definetly make due on weekends just because I think it's cute.


It's made of wool so I don't know how it will wear. Time will tell.

Back to the machine.  I am hoping to get my third snowman quilt put together today.  I spent yesterday quilting the other 2 and got up early this morning to add the bindings.  Only need to do the hand sewing part of the bindings and they are done and it's not even Thanksgiving.  I know I need to shut up so as not to jinx myself. 

Maybe I will have one done and pictures sometime in the next couple of days.

Saturday, November 5, 2011

My Ghastlie Winner

I have a winner.   Congratulations Duff.

I didn't use the "Random number Generator"  mainly because I don't know how but below is the way we do random at my house.


first I printed out the blog for the day.  Pages 1 thru 11 were pictures, 12 through 82 were the comments from 182 wonderful and kind people. About 110 people wanted a chance to win.


I highlighted the names of all of those who wanted a chance.



I cut the names of those intereseted into strips



folded the strips and put them in the colander


Had my Mr. Random pull a strip out and




here is my winner.  The notes on the top were to let me know where I could find her in the comment section since I needed to cut that info off of several of the participants so I could keep the slips of paper about the same size.

Duff has been notified by email.

I want to thank everyone for their comments I loved them all and let every one of them go to my head.

I also want to thank Madame Samm for the work she  put into making this event such a success. And last but not least I want to thank all of my Sistahs for playing along, they are just such talented and sharing people.

Friday, November 4, 2011

Gifts from a friend

 It's the end, it's almost over,  Please stop in to visit the rest of the Ghastlie Sistahs doings.

                                            ON Friday November 4th
 
 

The photo’s below are not of things that I have made, but of gifts made for me.

I got to work one day last week and found this wall hanging




And this nifty envelope with the pumpkin closure on my desk.









Not much left in it now.  It had been full of Halloween goodies.

I phoned my cohort in crime here at work asking if she knew where they came from and she said no.    My cohort, P, mainly knits so I ruled her out.  At some point I was in her office and the topic came up again and she started to giggle.  OK so she had something to do with it but wouldn’t tell be who made them.  I had to guess.  The  real puzzle is that I don’t know anyone here at work who quilts.

It took me awhile and I just threw the name of  my quilting mentor out there, no reason other than I had no other ideas. Oh course JS my mentor doesn’t work here which is why she wasn’t my first instant choice. JS usually makes me goodies and leaves them hanging on my front door.

JS really went to some great lengths to surprise me this time.  She found an old email that had  P’s email address on it and contacted her and they worked it out behind the scenes.  I am so lucky to have such great friends.

Thursday, November 3, 2011

A Ghastlie Thought

Oh my, it's almost over. That's such a Ghastlie thought, but all goood things must come to an end. Please  remember to visit the rest of my Sistahs today and tomorrow they can't wait to see you.                  

                                                               Thursday November 3rd


 ON Friday November 4th

 

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

It's Fall

Halloween is officially done and gone for another year.  So it’s time to change the quilted piece on the front door from things that go bump in the night, to thoughts of fall.  I finished these pumpkins Sunday night, not like cutting it close or anything.  Actually I had the stitching done over a month ago but the quilting part got put off while I was playing with my Ghastlie sistahs.  



The pumpkins are from a design I have used before, by Shell over at The  Raspberry  Rabbit  http://theraspberryrabbits.blogspot.com/ ,   it is called Elegant Pumpkins. Stop by to visit she has wonderful stuff.   I have enlarged the pattern a bit to work on my front door.  I wanted people to be able to see it from the sidewalk.  I love the way it turned out.  Very simple, very fall.  Thanks Shell, it is one of my favorite designs.




Oh, Please don’t forget to visit the Ghastlie gals posting today they are: 

 ON Tuesday November 1st 
Day 7





Have a great day.

Monday, October 31, 2011

And so it Continues....Join us on this Ghastlie experience

Ok, we are now into week 2 of the wonderful yet creepy Ghastlie Blog Hop.  The scope of ideas from the Ghastlie Sistahs is absolutely amazing.  So keep up this week and if you missed last week go and check out the fun. It's been a truely wicked experience.  Happy Halloween tp all my Ghastlie Sistahs and followers.
 
 
 ON Monday October 31st


 ON Tuesday November 1st 



 ON Wednesday November 2nd

 ON Thursday November 3rd


 ON Friday November 4th


Each day we will have a giveaway...
Some of my Ghastlie Sistahs  have made some special
projects to giveaway and we will have daily SPECIAL PRIZES 
from these sponsors....to sweeten the CAULDRON

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Please hop over to see all of us today

 
 ON Thursday October 27th 

           Mrs. Katherine Ghastlie              

My Turn on the Ghastlie Blog Hop

This may be a little long but its chock full of Ghastlie fun.  Madame Samm said to take lots of pictures and I follow instruction.

It all started with a Tea Cup Cozzie by Madame Samm.  That’s all it took to get me hooked on Ghastlies. A trip to my local quilt shop yielded these 2 pieces.


 
I was on my way. Of course I then ordered a different colorway on line. And then I discovered that there was not only a Ghastlie but a Ghastlie Nights too. So I ordered more fabric on line.

I got like a kid with a book of stickers.  I wanted to put a sticker (read Ghastlie) on everything I came across.  

The first piece I made was a purse for myself using the tutorial for the Bento Box   http://ayumills.blogspot.com/2010/08/tutorial-lunch-bag.html    I made mine a bit taller.  



My niece’s birthday is in October and she is a Halloween girl after my own heart and I knew she would would want one too.



After being forced to admire my creations MJ came to the conclusion that his boss would really love one of them, so now there are 3.



Well my girl friend’s birthday is also in October and since she has had to listen to every Ghastlie detail of this Ghastlie adventure I felt it was only right to give her a Ghastlie gift. Her main gift was a book on knitting so I attempted to make a bookmark.



No imagination on my part so it was a bit lame. I needed to put the book into something so I came up with this great fully lined gift bag with a draw string top and the Ghastlie Knitting Bee on the front that can be used to tote around knitting projects.



Well then I needed  a birthday card and gift tag. 






Ok so I was on a roll after her card and tag.  It’s amazing the things you can do with the little pieces. You don’t want to lose any of those Ghastlie faces. 






One of the pieces was a good size and the drawings were right there to the selvedge.  I bought a new car this summer and it really needed a trash bag at least a few steps up from the recycled food store bag.  This is my first experiment with iron on vinyl.  I used it on the inside surfaces.  Kinda fun to work with.



OK so I am a quilter after all and I do make quilts. So once I got my other Ghastlie fabric in the mail I set out to make a small quilt, 40 something by 50 something I think.   I just love it.  I think it’s the pink, a color I generally have nothing to do with.  It just sets off the Ghastlies perfectly.




Now back to the small stuff.  As I mentioned durning the past month almost everything I saw I thought about making using this Ghastlie  line.  One of my favorites is the Dumpling.  I found the free tutorial at    http://keyka.typepad.com/my_weblog/tutorials/      It is a super easy pattern to follow.  And as with almost everything I do I played with the size on the copier.  I needed to make it a bit bigger to showcase the ladies to their best advantage.



Of course 1 of these and a card got sent to MJ’s mom for her birthday. As you can see Tink had to help out with the photo, such a newsy girl.



I realized that some of my favorite little things belong in my purse and I hadn’t made anything to go in my Ghastlie purse.  I remedied that in record time with a new eye glass case, pouch (dumpling) and tissue holder.



Hang in there I’m almost done.

 Last weekend we ( my sister and I ) went to NE PA to visit some friends and a stop in a great quilt shop The Endless Mountains in Tunkhannock. While I was there Sissie prodded me into picking up a pattern by Paula Hughes called the Potato Chip Bag, you can’t make just one. Sissie mentioned that I still had time to make a couple of them out of Ghastlie fabric before my posting.

 I needed help in coming up with more projects like I need a hole in my head. Great pattern and easy.  It took me about 2 ½ hours to make each one.  I’m thinking it would take less time if you aren’t trying to figure out which Ghastlie you wanted to use for the flap.





By the way sissie put dibs on the one with the Ghastlie Castle.  And for those of you who read this far I am giving away the bag with little Miss Ghastlie with her hammer on the flap for those of you who leave a comment letting me know what the giveaway is. Ghastlie of me don’t you think. I’ll pick a winner on Saturday morning 11/05/11 after the hop is officially over.

So it was late Sunday afternoon and I thought I was done with the Ghastlies, the flu was just about over and again that peskie little sister calls with yet another brainstorm.  How about a sweatshirt with a pouch like on a hoodie. Her daughter (the owner of the Ghastlie purse) chimes in that if I make it for her (HINT), could I add something Ghastlie to the sleeve.   It isn't just decorative, I lined it with fusible fleece for some warmth.




Totally exhausted fighting this flu. The biggest problem I see in my full recovery is that all of my Ghastlie sisters are throwing out terrific idea after terrific idea and I won’t be getting any rest any time soon.

Please keep following all my Ghastlie Sisters on this wonderfully Ghastlie Hop.

Thanks Madame Samm it's been a down right Ghastlie experience.

Ms Selina Ghastlie