Tag: craft

The Christmas Village complete with Quilt Shop….of course

Ha20161213_183932ppy Holidays from my house to yours.  We begin our trip through the Christmas village with a stop at the quilt shop (what else?).  This is one of my favorite pieces.  I hunted/waited for while to find it.

So, my village has multiple places that are important in a special way.  SO, I have the log cabin and wild animals, compelte with an outhouse.  This is Derrick’s place (my late husband)/  He was totally an outdoor guy and wanted a log cabin.  In front of that we have our Ohio State House and Fan center, complete with Tailgate party.  THis is for our biggest OSU an and my manfriend, Kevin.

Over on the other side of the village we have Uncle Donald’s place  Complete with Farm House, Barn, silo and tractor. Yep, the same Uncle Donald that made quilts.  Gong to his farm and visiting him and Aunt Helen was one of my favorite thing20161213_183936s to do.

Then of course we have a few of my favorite things.  A dog rescue and a dog training academy.  We have these in honor of my late great Koko, that spurred my deep love and affection for dogs.  We now have 4 dogs and have rescued many other and a few kitties along the way.  I tried to bring home a baby fox that came to my car one day, and Kevin put his foot down..  They were so cute.  I know he was right.  I am sure Momma was not far away.

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I totally love the fountain Kevin got me this year.  It changes colors and actaully has water in it.  It is so pretty.  He knows the things I love.20161213_184012-1

Of course we have
Bethlehem.  It sets up from the village in a
desert.  The whole village is about 15 feet long.  There are so many build
ings.  I even have more that don’t make it on to the table because I am out of room.

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One of the oldest pieces I have is the ice skating ring,  where there is actual ice skating going on.  I am sure I have had this one for nearly 25 years.  And yes that is Santa flying over the ice skating ring.  Christmas Music also plays as Santa flys above the village.  I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season.  My best to all of you and your families.

Happy Quilting

Happy Sewing

Happy Holidays

Treasure your family

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Progress, in several areas

Well. my hospital hexies are finally looking like something.  I feel like I have made progress.  I believe my plan will be to make a scarf for my dresser.    Seems fitting since I am the crazy dog lady.  As I type this there is one at my feel and one on the chair next to 20161003_195603_resizedme and one on my lap.  This is a great travel project because everything I need fits into my little dog bag (of course).  In my photo, you can see my Ruger.  This was my late Husbands “Hunting Dog”.  He weights six pounds and is scared of ants, so I am not sure what he would hunt.  Cute as a button though.  He is the only male dog in my herd, so he thinks any female is his.  He frequently rolls all over me as if he is making me his and then gives Kevin the evil eye.  Miss Moka’s paws are on the table where they should not be.

Other progress is with my beautiful daughter Miranda.  I think I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.  It has been six weeks now since her accident and she makes progress everyday.  I update my Miranda’s Journey page often.  It has saved me many many phone calls and texts.  Friends and family know they can go to the page and get an update on how she is doing.  We still have a long road ahead, but we will get their.  Thanks to everyone for their support.

Hospital English Paper Piecing

So, since quilting is my stress reliever. and I am spending a lot of time at the hospital with my daughter since her accident, I decided to try English Paper piecing.  I haven’t got much accomplished, since I still can’t think straight.  Miranda is doing better, which I am grateful for.  We still have a long way to go.

I don’t really have a plan for my “Dog Bones” (I hope that is what they look like), but it could turn into a table topper for dresser.  I guess that would make it a dresser scarf or something.  Not really sure.  Depends on how difficult it turns out to be.  So far, not to hard and it doesn’t take up to much space to work on, so that makes it easy at the hospital.

Thanks to all for the kind words during our difficult time.  They have been much appreciated.  To Follow Miranda’s Progress, please click on Miranda’s Journey Page.

Happy Quilting

Happy Sewing

Treasure your Family

Something pretty Amidst the Darkness

This is a quilt I made my youngest daughter when she was a baby.  It has multiple fabric types for that “special feel”.  I felt I needed to post a picture of a quilt.  They are comforting.

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On August 22nd, my older daughter was in a head on collision

Resized_20160824_120642on the freeway.  Darn near everything was broken; legs, ankles, knees, feet, elbows, collarbones, ribs, punctured lungs lacerated liver, spleen and intestines.  Fortunately, there was no head injuries.  Today was Miranda’s sixth day of surgery.  She still has more ahead of her.  She is still here.  For this I am grateful.  I don’t think I could stand losing another loved one.  I must thank family ( who came immediately) and friends for their support, especially Susan from DesertSky Quilting.  She was up texting me late night so I would not lose my mind.  It will be a long road to recovery, but we will get there.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

Treasure your Family

A Pre Y2K UFO…Yikes!

The only reason I know when this top was started is because I remember which house I was living in when I started.  This top was started before my daughter was born.  She is only twelve.

I think I started this quilt because I like the Asian inspired fabrics.  When I began to again work on this quilt I was concerned that it would not match up well, since way back then I was a fairly new quilter.  Not a new sewer, but a newer quilter.  I was pleasantly surprised that it was not to bad.

I had even purchased the fabric for the back long ago.  It sort of looks like bamboo leaves.  I still remember when I saw it and knew right away it would be perfect.  So, I am going to attempt to quilt a bamboo pattern on part of it.  I practiced for a while today and watched Leah Days video on this pattern, Bamboo Forest.

I have begin a page devoted to Uncle Donald Quilts.  I hope you visit it and make your own.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

An Experiment Gone…….Sort of OK

So, I watched a video of Jenny Doan from Missouri Star Quilt Company make a self-binding baby blanket.  It looked very cute.  The fabric that she was using was very expensive, and I wanted to try it, but not with anything that can cost a bunch of money in case it turned out horrible.  So, I looked at a bunch of scraps that I had from my great nephew’s dog blanket and decided that I would piece a quick top and then use a piece of fleece for the back.  I gave my daughter all the pieces and told her to lay them out and number them for me (She totally wanted credit for the design).

So, doing the self-binding part was not difficult.  It was actually pretty easy.  The only part I found difficult was quilting this. Fleece has a fair amount of stretch to it, so I had to be careful not to stretch as I quilted.  20160814_185736Her instructions said you could do as little as sew a square in the middle to keep the front and back from coming apart.  I did a bit more than that.  I am not sure if it was good or bad.  I think if I had started at it for a while, I might have come up with a better plan.  I will try it again to see if I can do something I like a bit more.

On a positive note, this was an inexpensive quilt to make.  The front was scraps and the back was a $6 piece of fleece.  There is no batting and it is a very nice weight for a quilt.

Last night I cut out a bunch of squares for my Uncle Donald Quilt.  WooHoo.  I will have a page devoted to Uncle Donald Quilts soon….

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

Ahhhh….What I learned this time…

Quilting is always an adventure.

So I finished the piece that I pebbled.  While I was pretty happy with the quilting on this one (odd for me), I learned a couple of lessons, again.

20160813_210935First, I read a lot of stuff.  There were quite a few people that recommended using quilting gloves.  I could not figure out how that would help me.  So, after considerable time, I ordered a pair.  They actually sat on the kitchen counter until I was half way through this piece (I have no idea why).   I happen to pass by the kitchen counter and grabbed them and holy cow did it make a difference. It was so much easier to move the piece around.  I bought Machingers and they worked awesome.  It was a great $10 investment towards my quilting sanity (I need to stop being so cheap).

20160813_210942Second thing I learned is to pay attention to everything.  I used some scraps from a dog quilt I made some time ago.  I hung onto them because I am the crazy dog lady.  I usually use scrap pieces of batting on these small pieces.  I have a giant bag of them in my sewing room.  So, I grabbed one that was big enough without a lot of thought.  Started he quilting and noticed that it stuck to everything.  I had pieces of this batting on everything.  Looking at it after it was too late, I discovered that it was some sort of odd polyester.  Thinking about it, I found it odd that I would have ever made a quilt with it.  I think it might have been a piece of snow from my Christmas village that someone  accidentally stuck in my batting bag.  So, I don’t like how this piece feels.  It is so lightweight.  But, it has my cute dog fabric, so I will have to use it.  Lesson learned.  Pay attention to everything.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

 

OMG- I Pebbled Something!

So, last night as I was practicing my quilting, I decided to get crazy and try pebbling.  I was pleasantly surprised that this did not look too bad.  It seemed to be very forgiving.  I am usually so chicken to venture outside the box (The box of meandering) that everything looks the same to me.

A couple things that I realized.  First, I practiced drawing these pebbles on paper.  You should see my notebook at work.  Oh, wait, you can.  Duh. 20160812_083523 While I am sitting in meetings, I am often drawing (practicing) my quilting designs, sometimes I am doing it on my Surface computer.  Funny thing, I feel my drawing often looks better than my quilting (Someone actually asked me if they could have my swirls doodle once).  But it helps get the flow down for me.

I think I need to watch more Leah Day videos and get crazy with another design.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

What to do……with this……

I am that person that has to be doing something at all times. If I sit down to watch the news or something else on TV, my hands must be occupied. If not, I will be eating something (which I certainly do not need to do) or I might fall asleep.
I have done some piecing by hands, but I find that it winds up being a lot of the same thing, so I find embroidery keeps my attention a little better. Since, I really like to quilt, I have to find ways to incorporate my embroidery into quilts.

Currently, I have this Halloween picture that I need to do something with. If I remember correctly, this was a picture from a coloring book (maybe. Honestly, I am not sure). I do remember that it took a fair amount of time to do this picture.

The problem I have is that now I am not sure what to do with it. I am a practical person by nature, so I do like things that I can use. So, maybe a Table Topper? The only issue is that it a picture that can only really be seen from one direction, and it would end up getting washed a lot (not sure if that matters or not). I already have one for hanging on the door, so I don’t really need another wall hanging….  It is also about 16″ x 18″ which is fairly large.

So, I am looking for ideas, if anyone has one. I have all my Halloween fabric out and am just staring at it with that blank look. Thanks.

Happy Quilting

Happy Sewing

A bit of success with Hard Candy

So, I practiced a bit again.  This one I don’t hate.  I think it is because I love Halloween fabric and I used a matching  thread so you can’t see the actual quilting.  I think I will practice on something else next time. I need a break from Rock candy.  However, I will continue practicing my quilting on these small pieces.  I find myself watching a lot of Leah Day videos.  Some day I will get a long arm, however, I have a child to educate, so it will have to wait a while.  Maybe by then I will get the hang of it.  Leah Day makes it look really easy.