Blank Canvas

Next week I will be having lunch with a friend I haven't seen in a very long time.  She is the gal who got me into stamping and card marking way back.  Stamping stuff makes up one of my larger stashes of things. It takes up a good size section of the basement. I don't do much of it any more but thought this would be a good time to drag out some of the goodies and make a gift of some kind to give her.

So I took these items, a piece of "BLANK"canvas from a drop cloth from Home Depot, a piece of fabric from my quilting stash and stamps and ink from my stamping stash

 I spent an evening being creative and came up with this lunch bag /small tote from a tutorial I found at http://ayumills.blogspot.com/

This is a bag I've made on 2 previous occasions from my quilting stash. Once for a friend as an emergency bag after she spent an afternoon in the waiting room of the local hospital twidling her thumbs. I filled it with things like sock yarn, needles and a pattern and a paperback mystery and some quarters for the vending machine (hopefully she will never have to use them).  The other one I gave to a friend for use as a lunch bag with a gift card for a local sandwich place.

I think I will put in this one a suduku book with pencil and maybe I'll make a matching tissue holder and eyeglass case if time permits before Tuesday's lunch.

It really was a fun time making this and combining crafts.  Maybe now that I found the stamp stuff again I will even make a few cards or some of my own designer fabric(tee,hee).

The frogs are done

They are done, really and truly done.  Hanging on the wall even. Yea team.

This quilt was really a long time in doing.  M is a Disney nut.  We saw this tile floor in the Animal Kingdom (bathroom floor)down at Disney World and I knew I could do it in fabric. Of course that was years ago. But it's done now.

So now what?

Saturday I picked up a piece of canvas 3 yards by 2 yards for $10.67 at Home Depot.  I'm seeing a friend who got me involved with stamping.  You see it coming don't you? I'm starting with a blank canvas, tee hee.

I'm not 100% sure what it is I'm going to do but I have 7 days to do it in.  Cross your fingers for me OK.

Have a good week.  Selina

side tracked yet again

last week I took my lunch hour at the local yarn store.  In addition to picking up some sock yarn at 45% off I picked up a flyer from a group looking for wash cloths for a Breast Cancer Survivor project. The same evening I stopped by http://www.hookedonneedles.com/2011/06/crocheted-cotton-washcloths.html for the first time and got inspired to do my own. So this week instead of finishing the frog quilt I did these. Of course I had no cotten at home and had to get donations from friend J and friend Mrs T.  Thanks ladies.

I promise I'll get back to the frogs tommorow. (where have I heard that before).

Done

I did it.  It's done and ready to go into the wash before mailing.  Need to get all of the dog love off of it before sending off.

It's a great little boys quilt full of cars, trains, planes and boats.  It is for my goddaughters little boy. He is just past his first birthday.  My goal is always to try and finish quilts before they start school.  That's ususally a safe amount of time to allow myself. His oldest sister's quilt arrived in time for the baby shower, but the next in line didn't get hers until she turned 2, I think. So I did better on this one.

Their mom and uncle were the recipients of the first quilts I ever made.  Back then I took a childs novelty sheet and sandwiched it with a coordinating sheet and hand quilted around the motifs. Then added a huge ruffle instead of binding.  I need to see if either of them still have them,  I need a picture for the archives.

thisis the back.  I needed to fussy cut the squares from the original fabric and I had several left over that needed a home.

Now that, that is done I need to get back to work on the frog wall hanging.  I'm down to the outer border and quilting. It will end up about 45 inches square I think.  It' made up of 4 blocks.  I think I will machine quilt around the blocks and borders and then hand quilt in big stitch around the frogs.  Hope to get it on the wall with at least the machine quilting done by tonight (it is afterall a fathers day gift....because it wasn't done for his birthday or Christmas or  etc.  etc. etc.)

Hope to  be able to post it sometime in the next couple of days.  Have a great week.  me

Sandwiched

I did it. I got the quilt sandwiched before I went to bed last night.  Closed the last safety pin at 9:58.  I hope to start the quilting tonight.

Out of focus

Since coming back from vacation I have not been able to focus on any one thing. Two  weeks and I have nothing completed.  I have started lots of things. A nook book, 3 audio books, 2 new quilt tops and touched an existing project.  I am one of the fortunate who has a room to call my own for sewing, but in my unfocused phase I had pulled out my feather weight and was puttering with one of the new quilts at the kitchen table because I didn't want to clear off the sewing table of whatever else I was working on.  I did return to the library 2 of the audio books I had started and dropped.

Friday evening, after supper, while trying to determine if I wanted to read, listen, quilt and/or watch an NCIS marathon Tink let me know in no uncertain terms that she wanted to go for a mind clearing walk.

I spent the walk talking to myself and giving myself a lecture on buckling down and finishing something, anything.  It worked.  Friday evening after the walk, with NCIS playing in the background, I cleared off the sewing table and brought out all of the projects mentioned above. I choose   a childs quilt I had started for my goddaughters little boy. The fabric I had picked out needed to be fussy cut.  That was all I had accomplished before I dropped the project.  You know the fussy cutting, the hardest part of the whole thing was done. DUH.  Well between then and just before dinner today I managed to finish the top and am almost finished piecing the back.  There was another NCIS marathon on last night to keep me company and I listened to the audio book this afternoon.  I hope that when I am finished this note I will be able to get the back finished and the sandwich made before bed tonight ( yes, and walk Tink). I believe the tony's are on tonight for background noise. I hope to have pictures by next weekend of a completed quilt ready for the mail.

Have a productive week.  Selina

Vacation Highlights

Just back from Disney.  Had a great mini trip to visit the mouse and our good friends over the holiday weekend.  The first highlight was giving the matching tee shirt to J.  She loved it and we did the matching outfit thing for the holiday

The next highlight is this picture of the bathroom floor in the Animal Kingdom. Several years ago I pieced the frogs.  I have been sitting on them for all that time promising MJ that I would make him a wall hanging.  I just couldn't find the original picture. Hopefully by fathers day I will have the thing finished now that I have this visual to work with or around depending on the day.

Last but not least was my gift to me

It's a henna tatoo. I have been passing the stand in Moraco in Epcot for years telling myself I'd get one and each trip I stroll by on my way to something else and say next time.  This time I told J I wanted one and she forced the issue.  It is just cool. It will last about 2 weeks.  I am just a very happy, happy person.  It is on my right wrist so I can look at it all day every day til it wares away.

And now for the lowlight, I am now waiting for our luggage to arrive.  It missed the plane. I got a call a half hour ago telling me that they had it and it would be here in the next 4 to 8 hours.  That means midnight to 4 am.  I think I won't be my perky self for work in the morning but I will have my tat to keep me smiling.  I'm not actually complaining about the luggage. In all of the years we have been traveling this is the first time our luggage didn't arrive with us.  Actually, the airline knew when we landed that the bags missed the flight and they would be on the next plane so they weren't ever lost, just late.

Hope you were all thankful for our Military this weekend.  Take care til next time.  me

The cocky quilter

What happens to a quilter who gets cocky?????  She spends a lot of time ripping. How do I know this you may ask. 

Well for the last several weeks I have been working on a 9 patch with pinwheels quilt. I said to myself "9 patch with pinwheels, easy peasy right.  I can do that with my eyes closed," ha.

The 9 patch portion of the block was pretty simple.  I hacked up 60 charm squares that spanned the past decade ( we all have charms left from the millennium don't we ). Since I pulled primarily fall looking colors I used creams for the background.  Now is the part where I got cocky.  Two of the edges of the 9 patch get sashed with a cream strip and the triangle for the pinwheel.  I cut all of the strips and then auditioned fabric for the pinwheels, thankfully I only cut enough for 8 blocks to start because I put half of the triangles in at the wrong angle. Of course I didn't catch that until I had trimmed the cream off the back of the triangle. Can you say scrap bag?

Next I took the 48 small blocks with the corrected sashing and whipped them into 12 large blocks.  Merrily I sewed along in ignorance putting the 12 together upside down or backward.  RIP

I have no idea what was wrong with my brain this weekend because the insanity just went on and on. Next I put 2 of the 4 rows together wrong.  RIP

All I have left to do now is the outside edge of sashing to complete the pinwheels.  That part not only has seen ripping but parts have seen the trash and parts have seen the scrap bin.  I so badly wanted it done today but common sense finally won out and I have given in and accepted the fact that I was going to do some real damage to something if I didn't give myself a time out.

I hope I have learned the valuable lesson on not being so cocky.  Maybe by week end or next week even, I will have a picture of the quilt top with all of the triangles going in the correct directions.

 My sister dropped in, in the middle of this afternoons tirade and has put dibs on this quilt. That means I not only need to finish the outside edge I need to quilt it.  It is probably the incentive I needed to calm down and think positively about finishing it instead of dumping it in a box.  All in all this "simple" quilt has been a humbling experience.

Have a good week.  me

Linked up

I linked up to quiltstory - Tuesday - with Tink's quilt

Tink's new quilt

On Thursday I bought a new Spring/Summer bed spread in a lovely shade of green.  Very pretty, very simple.  It took all of 3 hours before I found Tink on it all comfy cozy chewing on a rawhide making a puddle the size of her head with slobber. 80 pound dog, big head.

I tried a bath towel and a beach towel.  Both of which she used for her body but somehow missed with the rawhide chew.  My quilters brain said that a throw size quilt would work if I had one handy.  Since it is destined to be abused, not a complicated quilt or one I spent money on to have quilted professionally.  So, are you sitting down, I went into my UFO box.  There I found this:

Half a top, with the remaining blocks, with the pattern and fabric for backing all in shades of green. I worked on finishing the top Saturday afternoon.  Saturday evening I thought I could get it sandwiched but found that the piece I had for the back was too small.  Found another piece in the stash, bigger but not big enough. So for the very first time I pieced a back.  I went through my stash and scraps and found that I still had several pieces of fabric that the blocks were made from.

Saturday night I finished the back. Sunday morning I sandwiched and Sunday afternoon, around a visit with my mom and dinner, I quilted it.  I even experimented with binding it totally by machine.  It’s the perfect size and her majesty took it over immediately.

So back to the other 2 tops I was working on last week before they go from WIP to UFO. 

Starting something new

yesterday I found my way to this great blog http://blueelephantstitches.blogspot.com/  and found this great little quilt.  I thought it would be a nice little project to work on when I realized I actually had some of the HST done for another Wonky star (bonnie hunt) quilt.  Ok once I pulled them out I decided on a different backround and pulled out the chopped off triangles drawer and set to work.

Great quilty day

Had an all around great day.  Spent some quality time with my mom, sister and my sister's family in between some real great quilt projects.

Several weeks ago I saw ticker tape projects on several blogs and thought I might like to try it.  Then i saw some raw edge applique and thought I might try that, also or instead of, depending on the project.  Further thought and I realized neither was something I wanted to do a whole quilts worth and the idea morphed into maybe something on a tee shirt for the summer in maybe red, white and blue.

Last weekend I was sorting through my hangings for the front door and came across the country flag I came up with several years ago for a guild block of the month.  The timing was just too good and I knew I wanted it on my tee shirt. 

                                                                         

So now I have a fusible, blanket stitched, appliqued flag on a tee shirt for the summer.  While I was at it I whipped one up for a friend who I will be seeing in a couple of weeks.  I guess that means that the ticker tape and     raw edge will need to stew awhile longer for an outlet of their own.                             

       All in all a very Happy Mothers Day.

Baby quilt is done

I did it. I finished the Baby's quilt yesterday and gave it to the new parents this morning. Great feeling all the way around. It was a Mother's day thing.

The fabric is sort of watercolor animals of all sorts, a great baby boy fabric.  It was gifted to me from a friends stash.  All of the rest of the fabrics were from my stash.  The backing is just a boring plain yellow.  Since I mostly did in the ditch quilting the quilting looks great on the back. I do need to start thinking about creating backs with personality. One of these days.

Happy Mother's day to one and all.  me

Photo's of a couple of April's finished tops - Part 2

 This top was started in January.  All I had left to do was add the outside border. It took less than 2 hours.

I based this top on  a picture I found in junk mail that came wanting me to subscribe to a quilting magazine. In an effort to show how detailed the instructions would be it gave the block info.

I'm happy to say that this quilt and the one pictured in Part 1 were both made entirely from the stash and scrap bag.  Great feeling of accomplishment.

I had planned on working on another WIP started earlier this year but the photographer reminded me that at least 2 years ago I started a wall hanging for him that had yet to get to the wall stage.  It's another piece where the hard stuff is done all I need to do is sash and border the 4 four squares.  Maybe I can bump it up to the top of the list.  I think I even know where all of the parts are located.

Til next time.  me

Photo's of a couple of April's finished tops - Part 1

I finally got the tops and a photographer together at the same time and place.  I tried doing this on my own with the help of the back fence but it really wasn't a good idea.

This is the top I finished last week.  I worked on this one pretty much from start to finish.  That doesn't happen often.  Usually another idea pops into my head midway through a project and the WIP gets set by the wayside.

My favorite part of the picture is that my quilt has little feet.