current project-Bonnie Blue Quilt Kit

This is my current piecing project. My Aunt Mary brought this kit to me when she came to visit for festival earlier this year. I had hoped to start working on it again sooner than today. Life has gotten in the way. There have been a lot of distractions and a few plan changes in the last couple of weeks. I found this very interesting fabric in about the middle of the kit. This fabric is reversible! It feels like a batik. There was no selvage, so I have no idea who made it.

I'm done with the cutting for the blocks. I'll cut the setting triangles, border and binding later. I haven't decided on a backing. I have cut over 121 print fabrics for this quilt. I'm adding 1 row to the pattern. Are there any thoughts on how long it will take me to get all the blocks pieced? I actually only need 100 pieced blocks for this quilt.

MERRY CHRISTMAS! and hybrid 12-06-2009

MERRY CHRISTMAS, I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday with family and or friends. This afternoon our grandson will be here. Today starts his Christmas weekend with our family. We have a lot of plans for him while he is with us. There hasn't been much sewing done but, I've had another bloom. The plant is a hybrid and I've grown it from a seed. It's current name is seedling 12-06-2009 for the date of it's first bloom. Below is a picture of the 1st bloom taken indoors. Below is a picture of the 2nd bloom taken yesterday indoors.

Below is a picture of the 2nd bloom taken outdoors today.

day 6 quilt 6 and hybrid hybiscus bloom

This is the 6th day of Christmas decorating and the 6th quilt. The table cloth was given to me by my mom. She used it when I was was a kid at home. Below is the 2nd bloom of the last hybrid hybiscus that bloomed for me. It bloomed today.

2 projects finished -UFO

This project was a UFO. I was thinking about making it into a wall hanging for almost a year. The last day or so, I decided a pillow was a better idea. I added the yellow fabric to the embroidered section and machine quilted it. My quilter went out while I was quilting it. I finished it on my other machine. This is the back of the pillow.

Below is a detail shot of the quilt of our grandsons quilt. I used a bright yellow 100% poly shiny embroidery thread to quilt it. The thread worked out very well, it never broke while I was quilting. It looks great on the quilt. Yellow is our grandsons favorite color.

This is the finished quilt below. It's a fun quilt to make and I'm sure I'll be making this pattern again.

our grandsons quilt-a work in progress

I started this quilt earlier this year. I ended up making the quilt larger than I had planned. I'm trying to get it finished for Christmas. The block pattern is called patience. I revised the block and it's one of my favorite blocks/quilts to make. This is the 4th quilt I've made using this pieced block pattern.

day 5 quilt 5

I've taken a great from decorating and this is the 5th quilt. It's a log cabin tree skirt that I started in the 80's. It's machine pieced and hand quilted. It took me years to get it quilted.

9 to 4 quilt

I think it was back in 2002 that I learned about cutting blocks up and rearranging the pieces. The guild had a speaker come in and talk to us about it. I went home and cut up shoo-fly blocks and 9-patch blocks. My daughter-in-law, Christi and I call this the 9 to 4 block. You make 9-patches, cut them into 4-patches and rearrange the pieces. Below is the 9-patch I started with today. At 3:14 pm today I sat down at my sewing machine and started piecing. This is what I mean by cutting the block into a 4-patch.

This is just one way to rearrange the pieces.

At 5:04pm today the top was finished. This is quilt will be a lap quilt for my mother-in-law for Christmas. I like this pattern with 3 fabrics or more. It makes a great scrappy quilt. I have one in halloween prints and Christi has one in snowman prints.

garden update

Last Friday we had snow in the greater Houston area. The garden was severly damaged. We lost the purple hull peas, the peanuts, the bell pepper plants and a lot of the tomatoes. We're waiting to see what will happen with the rest of the tomatoes.

Wednesday in the garden

It's Wednesday in the garden. I counted 78 tomatoes over the weekend. Several of the tomato plants are taller than me. The purple hull peas are coming along and the okra is going to seed. Bud watch-1st bud for this hybrid hibiscus

Bud watch-2nd bud for this hybrid

Bud watch-1st bud for this hybrid

LR's zinnias

day 4 quilt 4

This is the Christmas quilt that I made from a top I won at a guild meeting in 1988. That was back in the day when it was a while lot easier for Christmas blocks to go together. We signed the blocks in those days. I will cherish this quilt for a long time. These gals meant a lot to me.

another bloom!

This was a surprise. I didn't expect this bloom to open this quickly. The pale yellow in the petalsisn't showing up very well. This shot was taken inside. This is the the 4th hybrid plant to bloom for me this year. Parents were (Remembrance x Rosalind) x Smokey Mountain.

Day 3- 3rd quilt

This is a trip around the world Christmas quilt made with 9 different fabrics. It's on our grandsons bed. It was a fun quilt to make.

new seedling!

The seedling opened this afternoon. It's 7" wide. The parents are (Remembrance x Rosalind) x Smokey Mountain.

Christmas quilts and bud watch

I've decided to start decorating for Christmas this week. I'm putting up a Christmas quilt each day until I have all of them put out. I'll continue with the trees and other decorations each day until I'm done. The living room wall quilt was hung Monday and the buffet topper quilt was put out today. The bud watch continues. This shot was taken in the morning sun. I was hoping it would be open today but, it was cool here this morning.

This shot was taken in the shade and closer. This plant is going to be a keeper. It has the same parents as the bloom I had earlier this year. When it blooms, I'll post the parents.

This is the bloom 2009-11-16. It's parents are wallflower and rainbow christie. This shot was taken outside in the sun.

This shot was taken later in the day inside. I wanted to try to get a better shot of the edges of the bloom. It's interesting how different they look.

Bud Watch

These are the pictures of the buds this morning.

Quilt-Wednesday in the Garden-Bud Watch

This is the charity quilt that I have just finished. The top was sent to me, I quilt it and bound it. It's for a woman with cancer. Her friends and family will sign the hearts. This Wednesday in the garden, the tomatoes and purple hull peas are doing well. We need taller stakes for the tomatoes. A few of the tomato plants are over 5 feet tall.

We love purple hull peas. This is the 1st time we have tried to grow them.

I counted 22 tomatoes yesterday.

The following pictures are of the buds I'm watching. These are hybrid hibiscus plants that I have grown from seeds. I got them from Sonny in Maryland. I've had a lot of problems with bud drop this year. I'm hoping these three will bloom soon.

Wednesday in the garden

This is a shot of the garden. Some of the tomato plants are doing well. We have had a few bug problems. The purple hull peas are on the right. The okra is going to seed on the far right.

Ranch Rush

Our grandson was into this game, then I got into it. I finally finished it yesterday. It's a lot of fun. This is a shot of my trophy page.

2,000 piece puzzle

I really enjoyed putting the 2,000 piece puzzle together. It's the largest one I've ever worked on. It took almost 2 weeks for me to put the puzzle together.

stitch samples

I watched a you tube video on raw edge machine applique. The stitch she used looked like the top on one this sample. I may have to try it for applique. The sample stitches were made on a Brother 650Q. I haven't been doing a lot of applique the last few years. The stitch I used on my old machine looked more like the 2nd one on the sample.

Bonus Quilt & puzzle progress

The quilt is finished and ready to be wrapped. This is one of my favorite patterns to make for babies. I also love the hand print fabric.

This is the update on the puzzle. I had hoped to be finished with it by now but, it's been a really hard puzzle. I also have a lot of distractions in my life.

PLAY!

I like to do puzzles. This is the biggest one I've done so far. I started it Sunday evening. The following photo was taken about 9 pm on Tuesday.

PLAY!

This is the background for an applique practice piece. I'm trying to come up with a technique for a quilt I'm piecing. The following photo is of the applique and quilting I did last night. The last flower has faced petals. It was a lot of work and difficult to attach to the quilt. The seam allowance bulk got in the way. The stems are bias. Some of the edges were straight and some were cut with a rick-rack rotary blade. I'm planning to use some other techniques on the lower section of the quilt. I plan to wash the piece several times to see how it holds up.