Monday, April 28, 2008

Posted by Picasa
I was able to get all of clue #2 of Orange Crush finished up this weekend. I am loving my blocks so far! I used to work in such dark colors but lately I am the queen of brights. I don’t know what has happened to me. They just make me happy.
Prom went off without a hitch. They looked so cute together. My middle one is a crazy kind of kid. He just loves to have fun. He told us he participated in the dance off and got runner up. He can be so silly. I spent all day yesterday shopping for chairs. I am in charge of getting the senior baseball players gifts. One of the talented mothers is taking the canvas chairs that come in a bag and painting them with a baseball on back and the boys name and #. Each one will be in the colors of that boy’s University that he will be attending. I cannot come up with 4 black ones for Purdue. Go figure. We went to 15 different places and I struck out. I am not sure where we are going to go with this project at this point.
I had a couple of questions about my doll quilts. One was how do I display them. Well, I don’t. But I have seen really cute ideas. Like the wall of little quilts or rolled up little quilts tied with raffia lying in a bowl on the table. Mine usually just get tossed on top of the finished pile in my sewing room. I was also asked how I quilt them, with a hoop or not. This whole doll quilt mania started when I read how Tonya quilts without a hoop. I have always loved to hand quilt but couldn’t find the time to actually get a large project finished. I decided to give Tonya’s idea a try and I loved it. It works perfectly for me with the little quilts and I can quilt so much quicker without messing with the hoop. She has a tutorial on her sight so please check it out. In fact check out all her tutorials as they have changed the way I approach quilting.

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Another Doll Quilt Finished Up


I finished up another little doll quilt. Yes I am totally addicted to making and hand quilting these little darlings. I have another one just about completed and then I am going to start using my free time to appliqué instead of hand quilt. I need to get Mariah’s bible quilt done and as I have half the border appliquéd I need to start working on it and get it finished.
I went to guild last night. This was the first meeting after our quilt show and it was financially successful. We will be able to support our causes for another couple of years. It was also show and tell night. Now I didn’t think that there would be that much show and tell since we just had a show but a quilt show must be a big motivator as we had a lot of new quilts shown. A few of our snowbirds showed up for the first time since last fall and we got to see what they had been working on all winter. I always love show and tell time. My good friend Linda bought me a little packet of hand dyed wools at the Chicago show and gave them to me last night they are gorgeous. Thanks Linda!
And speaking of good friends, I have two friends that have taken up blogging. Please stop by and welcome them to our world. Carol is my personal, ha ha, machine quilter. I have spoken of her many times on my blog as she does excellent machine quilting and is just a downright lovely person. She has a neat post on her blog about setting up an old fashioned quilt frame and quilting a quilt for her church quilt ministry. Jan is my Texas friend and she welcomes ya’ll to come over to her blog and see what she has been working on lately. She is a project oriented gal and I love her to pieces.
And this is way off the mark, but hey it is going to be a gorgeous day in Indiana today and I got myself up early and washed my sheets and hung them out on the line. That is a first for me in 2008.

Friday, April 11, 2008

Orange Crush


I bit the bullet and decided to play along with Bonnie’s Orange Crush Mystery. I love a good mystery quilt and my friends were playing so how could I not? I went back and forth and finally decided that it would all come from my stash and that would be a good thing so I started pulling fabrics. I decided to do mine in brights as I have a lot to play with, plus the title of the mystery really pulled me toward using lots of Orange. I used different light yellows for my background fabrics. I pulled a lime, purple and orange for my 3 fabrics from yardage and a black hula girl fabric I purchased in Florida a few years back for my accent. I have my 4 patches done and I am awaiting the next clue. I have written before about my fascination with mystery quilts as I have already made over 20. I love the not knowing where I am going with the quilt. This is totally strange to my friends as I am known for reading the last chapter of a book after reading the first chapter. For some reason with quilting it is different for me.
I am really looking forward to this weekend. We don’t have much of anything going on, that means I can spend time in my sewing room. And to make it even better we have a forecast of rain and cold temps. Nothing will be drawing me outside this weekend. I hope you all have a great one!