It's all about me, or is it?

When I saw this great pattern from Amy Bradley the first thing I noticed was that there were hair choices that closely resembled mine and my sister's current looks.   That got me to thinking that my life is not just about me.  My sister is my rock. So the idea of the two of us posing for this event  became a given.  By the way, beyond the hair there is absolutely nothing that we have in common with the pattern.

There were a lot of catch phrases out there for sisters but this particular song lyric seemed to capture "US" 

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Sisters, sisters, there were never such devoted sisters

So that's the background. I had a few problems. The largest of these was that I am a polka dot gal and had next to no striped fabric to use to showcase the Bias.  Actually you are looking at most of my options. Now while I like the look of the red and white stripe now that it's over.  It was an absolute bear to hand stitch on at so many levels, not least of which was what it did to my vision.

Try looking at that fabric and stitching lots of letters and your eyes begin to twitch and you can no longer focus on the eye of a needle to thread it.

Ok, so I intended to give this to our mom in the form of a pillow.  She lives in an assisted living complex so I thought a pillow would work better than a wall hanging.

One slight problem,  I didn't measure properly and the words get lost at the very top and very bottom.

What I need is a larger pillow. None were to be found in any of the usual hiding places.  I tried the basement, the trunk of my car and the closet.  I need a 20.  I found pillows in 12, 16 and 18.  I'll get to Joanne's soon but not soon enough for this to be a pillow for this hop.

So  this is what it looks like as an unbound wall hanging.  I like it.  

And here is what we actually  look like in 2 very blurry pictures.  I know that somewhere or another there must be pictures of  the two of us that are not blurry. Probably in the same hidy whole as the pillow.

          In this one I cropped out everyone we knew and was left with this stranger in the background


So in summation, I had a wonderful  time participating in this blog.  As always it pushed on the walls of my comfort zone and I am thankful for that experience.

Thanks to  Madame Samm head cheerleader and  Amy Bradley who designed this wonderful piece. Thanks also to our Hop Cheerleader Marlene who kept us all up to date on the happenings for this hop.

It's 10 PM the night before this is due to post and I am doing an edit.  I gave up lunch and went to Michael's in search of a pillow.

TaDa !

                     Please stop by and visit all of the other participants for today and the rest of the hop.

Tuesday, February 26~

Pat Sloan's Blog

To Love Handmade

Feathered Nest Studio

Selina Quilts

Gypsy Dreamer Quilts

Sheila's Quilt World

Meadowbrook

13 Woodhouse Road

Zellerwear

Stitches of Love

Janice at That Other Blog

In The Sewing Basket

Thanks for stopping by, glad you could visit.

Sew busy Weekend

You know how you have a weekend with nothing on the schedule and then all &*+$ breaks loose? Well OK not that dramatic but I started the 3 day weekend with really nothing on my plate beyond weekend erands and eating. Saturday started out great, did a few errands, went out to breakfast, and did a few more errands. I hooked up with my sister and we went to visit mom for tea.  Wonderful slow paced day and then I got the mail.  

In the mail was an invitation to a baby shower taking place in 3 weeks. Yeah I knew this kid was coming and I knew I was going to make him a quilt but that was back in December and now we're past the halfway point in February.  I don't know how that happened. Since this is family I can't even buy my way out.

 

I'm participating in 2 blog hops between now and then and I have not actually started to sew for them yet. I do have plans on paper but no cutting or sewing started yet. Sew I took a deep, deep breath and we went out to dinner so I could think about this dilemma I got myself into.

Sew on a full stomach I came back and looked at the stash.  I found this great novelty fabric that had  a truck, car, helicopter, boat, plane and train , great little boy fabric. That was the up side the down side was that the block centers would have to be fussy cut.  Sew on Saturday night I did the cutting and put the inner border around the fussy cut squares.  I hope you can see the great fabric. It is white on white letters, super for a kid quilt.

On Sunday around Church, Food shopping and going out to breakfast (yes we eat out a lot on the weekend) I managed to get the entire top put together with the exception of the red outer border. I did make dinner and did fit in a nap. I finished up at about 9:30.  Just didn't have enough umph to cut the borders.  I can sew when I'm tired but cutting is too expensive to try with a fuzzy brain.

This morning I got up and before brushing my teeth I attached the border.  Top complete. Ta Da.

Sorry about the shadow in the pictures.  It was 20 degrees out and I just didn't have what it took to play in the cold.

I love the way it turned out.  Brights makes such a great baby quilt.  I quess one night this week  I will spend pinning it and next weekend quilting it and I'll have a week to spare for sewing down the binding just in case.

I hope to get shadow free pictures when it's actually complete.

Gotta run, I have lunch date to get ready for. yeah, more eating and I wonder why I can't loose weight.

Hugs and Kisses

Welcome to my stop on the Hugs and Kisses Blog Hop. Thanks go to M.Samm for her unusually creative mind and Jane of Jane's Fabrics and Quilts http://janesfabrics.blogspot.ca/ for taking on Cheerleader duties.

          

For me this hop turned into a 3 for the cost of admittance.  1^st I got to participate in this Valentine related hop, then I got to do the hot block this month in the blog world, the scrappy trip around the world and last but not least I forced myself to work on my machine quilting skills.

Let me begin with the fact that I love how my quilt turned out warts and all.  I had never done this block before.  I understood the need for the contrast on the diagonal but never read far enough into any of the various instructions to see how that was done. Some trial and error and ripping and I was able to figure it out.  My biggest problem was the contrast.  I wanted a valentine look and not all of my lights had enough contrast for the quilt.  I could see it in the block but lost it in  the quilt. I put those blocks in the middle cause I was done ripping.

Last fall I followed a month of postings at http://blog.petitdesignco.com/  called 31 days of walking foot quilting    it  really gave me some great things to think about.  This was the first thing I made since then that I thought would work for me as a trial.  After all this was for me.  I didn’t care if it wasn't a work of art. OK I’ll admit it, I hate to practice.  

The few problems I had with this quilts quilting were of my own making.  The biggest issue was that this quilt was too big for a starter/learning project. It measures in at about 52 inches square. 

 I chose to do a 4 inch heart in the center of the quilt and then to do 2 inch echoes.  Not a problem with the bottom half of the piece which is pretty much straight lines but I did have some issues at the top.  Swinging all of that bulk around and around I somehow lost the heart shape in places and got several good size wrinkles.  Apparently what I thought was lots of pinning wasn’t enough.   This was THE practice piece and I learned lots from it and I love it.

       

                              

                                        Love the back too.

So I live in NJ which was in the bottom of the northeast blizzard area.  The company let those of us who were driving into the snow leave early on Friday.  By the time I got home things were just starting to heat up.  Spent a lovely evening working of these projects.  I was in a fortunate part of the state we had somewhere in the range of 6 – 10 inches of the stuff and no power issues.  Things were back to normal by noon on Saturday.   The very best part of the snow was that I had a red quilt to take pictures of on it. What a terrific backdrop for this quilt.

      

Next up, I saw this great tutorial  http://www.sewhappy.me/quilt-blogs/bunny-bags-idea/  and I had to make it for my favorite 3 year old for Valentine’s day.  I know it was posted as an Easter Bag but to me it was a Valentines bag with a bunny on it.  To my very  logical mind, If it were an Easter bag there would have been Eggs not Hearts.  

  

On this piece I actually tried FMQ successfully, this is something else I won’t put the time into practicing.  The parts I quilted on this piece were only about 7 inches square.  I always loved these hearts in a quilt pattern and what better place to try them out.  Success.

Last but not least are a couple of shots of my first heart quilt.  It was from a beginners applique class for beginner quilters I took  at least 20 years ago.

Didn't understand the whole squaring up concept at the time.

Still  love it and hang it every year.

Now please go and visit any of today's hoppers that you may not have gotten to yet. Actually go and visit any of the hoppers you may have missed on Monday or Tuesday too.  Lots of great Hugs and Kisses to drool over.

Wednesday February 13th

The 4 R's

Em's Scrapbag

Kris Loves Fabric

Kathy Quilts

Cherry Blossoms Quilting Studio

The Distracted Domestic 

Selina Quilts (me)

Terry's Quilting Time

Rosemary B @ that other blog

as sweet as peaches

 Karma Willow Designs

Thanks for stopping by and sharing in the fun.

Vacation fun

I have been on vacation for the past week and a half and it was terrific. Before we left on our trip to Florida I was working on my D9P which I had told myself I wouldn't touch before I left. HA !

This is how far I got before leaving

Came home and did a little bit more

Now onto the highlight of my vacation.  It started here

 http://stitchinbythelake.blogspot.com/2013/01/lets-go-visiting.html

Marlene had this wonderful idea that we could meet other bloggers by visiting their blogs and making friends. Anyone interested could participate and she would coordinate.

The very first blog that was highlighted was 

http://flourishingpalms.blogspot.com/

I went to visit Linda and while perusing her blog I noticed that in one of her pictures of her new home that her living room looked just like the living room of the home we will be retiring to in The Villages, FL.

I read more and found that she lives in the Villages.  I got in touch with Linda via Email and find that she lives just blocks from where we will be living.  The blog world is simply amazing. 

Moving on, Linda is in the process of getting the Central Florida MQG established.  She mentioned this in one of our email exchanges and told me when the next meeting would be and invited me if I was around. Well it coincided with our trip. I went to the meeting and met Linda live and in person, so cool, such fun.  Thank you so much Marlene.

I also signed up to be part of this group.  The fun part is that you don't have to be there to participate.

For their next meeting they will be working on the current block trending in blog world, The scrappy trip around the world. Coincidentally that is the block I am working on in conjuction with the D9P, surprise, surprise a quilter working on multiple projects. 

These are the 2 I finished the night before we headed to FL.

And this is what I've been up to since I've been home.

It's the makings for an additional 7 blocks plus the reds and pinks from my stash for additional blocks.

In summation, my vacation was absolutely wonderful on every level.