Month: July 2012

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Pets on Quilts Show Starts Wednesday

Are you ready? Have you taken a picture of your pet(s) on a quilt? Do you have an animal-themed quilt? Wednesday will be here before you know it. Just head on over to Lilypad Quilts on Wednesday and link your photo or blog for a wonderful quilt show. Read more about the Pets on Quilts Show here.

Remember the rickrack and flower quilt that I made and thought it needed “help”. Well, Jan in Atlanta came to the rescue and suggested that it needed some leaves. I couldn’t agree more – I think that will give it the pizzazz it needs. With so much on my plate right now, I asked Jan if she would like to take that quilt top and finish it with her own special touch for her granddaughter. So, Friday I shipped the top and enough fabric for leaves and binding off to Atlanta. You can visit Jan here at her blog, Geema Sews. She does some beautiful quilting, so it will be fun for all of us to see what she does with that top.

We visited with our daughter this past weekend for our grandson’s baptism. And what a delightful surprise to see a beautiful quilt that she received from a friend for our grandson. While I don’t know her friend, I do know from seeing this quilt, that she is a wonderful quilter. I loved this quilt so much that I have to show it to you. The overall design is very striking with the center pinwheel section set off with prairie points and a border and binding that accentuate it perfectly. I love the straight line quilting. (I’m going to try the same thing on a border soon.) And the fabrics are delightful. This quilt is almost too pretty to be used – it would be beautiful on a wall. But it is already being used as you can see that my daughter has washed it already. And it will be used and enjoyed for many, many years.

The fabric on the back is a tan color – on my computer it looks gray, but it is a very fun fabric and perfect for the back.

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Stormy Weather

We had very stormy weather yesterday and here are some photos of our afternoon activities. It was very scary when things started happening and it all happened so fast. We were running back and forth trying to protect our electronics and checking on everything.

Today is going to be a big day of clean-up. The number one task is to get a crane and work crew in so that the tree can be removed from the house. Debris removal and removal of the big red oak are the next items on the list. And then we have to get the fence repaired / replaced because our dog needs a place to run. She’s a boxerman (boxer/doberman mix) and she needs the entire back yard for running.

If I don’t respond to emails for a day or so, please understand. We’re also getting ready for the baptism celebration of one of the grandsons, so things are hectic here.

Here are the photos from my iphone (edited – with more photos):

This is one side of the fence with the top of the red oak lying across it. You can see our garden beyond where the tree tops fell. The garden and Rose of Sharon trees were spared.

 

The hickory tree on the house doesn’t look very impressive in this photo, but it’s a big tree. In the lower photo, you can see the full length of the tree including the roots. It simply uprooted and toppled The large limbs in the foreground are from what was a beautiful maple. We had both lightning and wind damage.

And this is the ceiling in the downstairs breakfast room. You can see the 2 x 4 protruding. It was split lengthwise and the floor was covered in splinters, insulation, and sheetrock debris. It’s hard to understand how this happened – whether it was lightning or whether it was a result of the impact of the tree hitting the house. I expect this is the most serious of everything that happened yesterday. And I was standing a few feet away when it happened – it was an incredibly loud explosion.

 

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Flower Circles Quilt Story

Every quilt has a story and this story isn’t finished yet. I had seen a beautiful quilt that had circles on a line, so that inspired me to do something with the rickrack die and the flower circles. Choosing colors is never easy for me – and I had a lot of the gray batik for background fabric. I decided on a scrappy look for the circles as I had quite a few circles that were cut and wanted to use them up. All said, now that this is complete, I am feeling only lukewarm toward it as a quilt top. Quilting often is what “makes” the quilt, so this top still has one more redemption opportunity.

I guess the moral of this story is that not every idea is a success. Here’s the top – unquilted.

 

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Pets on Quilts Quilt Show

It’s only 9 days until the Pets on Quilts Quilt Show opens. And everyone is invited. Not only can you view the show on your computer sitting in your most comfortable chair, but you can also be a part of this show. The show runs from August 1-9. And there are some wonderful prizes. You can find out more about that over at Lilypad Quilting.

Here’s how to enter:

Go to Lilypad Quilting to find out how to add a linky on the Lilypad blog or post your entry in Flickr using your own account or the Pets on Quilts account.

Enter in one of the following categories:

  • dog on quilt / dog themed quilt
  • cat on quilt / cat themed quilt
  • other pet on quilt / other pet themed quilt
  • Best EQ pet theme quilt design
  • Best Art quilt

Winners:

There will be one winner from each of the above categories based on viewer votes.

There will be random winners chosen from everyone who does one or more of the following:

  • Be a PR Angel (post the badge, blog about the show)
  • Enter the show
  • View the show
  • Vote for Viewers Choice awards
  • Followers who view the show
  • Take the time to visit all of the entries and leave comment love

So get your photos and mouse finger ready! This is going to be a lot of fun.

Here’s what I worked on over the weekend. The turtle shapes were inspired by Snoodles over at Lilypad Quilting. And the shell designs have been in my head for a very long time.


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Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days of Summer

After taking a few days off, yesterday has my quilting life back on track and moving again. Maybe it was going non-stop from April through June that slowed me down in July. Thus, when the opportunity for a beach trip came along, I took advantage. It was a fun trip with family including the grandchildren.

In June, I had so much fun making flowers out of circles that circle flower ideas have been floating around in my head. I have seen a couple of quilts with circles and other shapes on straight lines that look like ribbons running through the quilt. So, with a play on that idea, I used the narrow part of the Accuquilt GO! RickRack die to make strips to go across a 40 x 60″ piece of fabric. And I’m doing MEA (machine embroidery applique) circle flowers randomly along the rickrack. Not sure how this will turn out. It almost seems the flowers are a little small, or I didn’t stitch the rickrack close enough together, but since it’s random, I’ll see how this turns out. Please–suggestions are welcome.

Here’s progress so far:

This is the 40 x 60″ fabric with rickrack attached.

And here it is with one flower complete. That’s at an angle looking down – I’ll try to get a better photo tomorrow. I’m working on a t-shirt quilt, so can let the embroidery machine stitch while I work on the t-shirt quilt.

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Happy 4th of July and a few Circles

Hope everyone is having a Happy 4th of July here in the steaming hot USA. The last couple of days have only been in the upper 90’s here in North Carolina, but it seems hotter than our record 100+ temperatures of last week. I have spent the past few days working on a new machine embroidery set using my circle die and staying inside as much as possible.

There are two new machine embroidery sets using the Circle Die–and who doesn’t have a circle die? It is so wonderful to have perfectly cut circles every time.

I did something new that I thought I would share. It’s a way to reduce waste when cutting circles–and a picture is worth a thousand words.

Circle Die 2-3-5 inch circles

Use an 18 inch x 6 inch strip of fabric with fusible already pressed onto the wrong side. Leave the paper on the fusible until circles have been cut. 

 And here’s one of the designs from the Circle Flower Set I’m finishing today. You can also do this on your regular sewing machine using the applique stitch. Scroll all the way to the end to see this really fun flower made only from the small (2 inch) circle on the circle die.