Here's the first batch of blocks using the Jo-Ann fabrics. I've always loved the Log Cabin block and thought they would work out pretty well for the overall pattern that is growing in my mind. Initially, I was going to use paper foundations, then decided that it would be much quicker to just chain sew them with strips. Since these strips were going to be cut at 1", I figured it would be just as precise to cut and sew these the quickest way. After sewing, these logs are 1/2" wide. The center block is a true purple, not the blue purple that my monitor shows.



This block shows the scale of the blocks. They are 4" finished.



And the backside. If you press as you go, your seams will be nice and neat. I pressed toward each piece that I attached, to get them to all face away from the center.

And here's the finished stack of blocks. There are 27 of them and making them took the entire afternoon....about 6 hours. Had I gone with the paper foundations, I would still be working on them. Now I have tons more to make of different color combinations. They are a bit tedious to make, but I still like a good ol' Log Cabin block and the setting possibilities are endless!

A room with a view..........actually, this is the view from all of the rooms in my house this morning. The high humidity combined with air conditioning produces this greenhouse effect. I'll sure be glad when the high humidity and the high temps break for the freshness of Fall!

These are the fabrics (most of them) that I'll be using for the Jo-Ann quilt contest. There's a link for this contest a few posts down. I don't have a total plan or layout yet, but I do know the size of the blocks and the pattern of the blocks that I'll be using. As usual, it will just evolve as I sew. Whether I get it done in time for the contest or not, is yet to be seen. It's OK if I don't get it done, it's the process that I enjoy. One thing for sure, it will be a bright quilt!

Here's the 12th and last BOM of this series! I left all of the fabrics alone and put the block together as the quilt shop intended. Now I'm ready to set the series into a quilt. I bought some fabric for the sashing and one border, but I may change my mind on the original plan. We'll see.....

Here's a link for you to check out. Jo-Ann Fabrics is having a quilt contest and they are giving away some great prizes! The only restrictive condition is that you MUST use Jo-Ann Fabrics.

Good Luck!

I picked up our charity quilt that had been off to the hand quilter for quilting. The following pictures show the front and back sides of several different sections so that you can see the patterns that the quilter used. She did not quilt this the way that I would have quilted it, but it still looks pretty good overall. Her fee was very reasonable for over 35 hours of hand quilting and she got it done in a timely manner. So here you go;

Braided quilting on the sashing and the key board border, front side.




Backside of same.




Front side of one of the pieced blocks. She hand quilted all of the pieced blocks with the same crossed X kind of pattern.



Backside of same.

Front side of one of the applique blocks. Each applique block was simply outlined around the shapes. Because the appliqued pieces were all fused, our quilter was unable to needle the appliqued pieces themselves.

Backside of same.

I'm going to work on the binding today and will, hopefully, have a full sized picture of the quilt soon. I will be glad to have this behind us and delivered to the auction in September!

Happy 13th Birthday, Lily!

My friend's granddaughter turned 13 today (going on 21). I've known her since she was born, have changed her diapers, have watched her grow into a young lady, and the years have just flown by. She had a swim party and sleep over with several of her friends. You know the best thing about a birthday party for a friend's 13 year old granddaugher? I get to go home and leave the giggly girls when I get tired! ;)

Although I play Farmtown on Facebook, nothing compares to the real harvest that took place today.....my first ripe tomato!

I'm heading out to the kitchen to slice into this beauty! Yum!

The dog days of summer have certainly arrived. 90's, served up with humidity, is way too hot for me. From Mutts;




And this is how my cats handle the heat....all piled up on top of each other. Of course, they do live in air conditioning, so they aren't suffering too much. They have both been really tired after several days of noisy fireworks. They aren't afraid of the noise, but they snooze lightly....get startled awake.....snooze lightly......get startled awake. You could just see the expression of annoyance after each rude awakening.





Five minutes after the sleep picture was taken, Gracie took a racing lap through the house, leaving no rug unturned. She slides into each rug as if she's making the game winning home run!

This was left by my blue jay friend that stops to take a cool down in the bird bath everyday. He's been a regular with the excessive heat.

This picture doesn't capture the soft iridescence of the feather. It easily caught my eye when I walked by it outside on the sidewalk. God certainly has a good eye for color!

Hey....I'm on top of things for a change! OK, I'm only on top of one thing and that is July's BOM.

I changed quite a bit on this block. The planned block had just the upper left hand star block and the rest were stripes.....a flag kind of set up. Also, the sections had different widths of stripes. I didn't like the flag pattern done with pastel fabrics, so I made two of the star blocks to break up the flag setting. I also changed the fabrics in the striped sections. The supplied fabric was a very light blue and a light pink. I'm not a pink person and I liked the contrast with the darker blue.

I'm pleased with the way the block turned out. We only have one more month in this BOM series, then it will be time to set the blocks and finish it up.

Hope you all had a nice Fourth of July! I'm always glad when this holiday is over because it means I'll get more than a few hours of sleep......zzzzzzzzz!

Here's my cats cousin, Punkin, fresh from the groomer and decked out in her patriotic bandanna!

June's BOM is finished. I waited until the last minute again this month. This block really appeals to me, both in the design and in the fabrics, and I didn't change a thing.


This next picture was painted by Tao, an elephant. Sorry about the picture quality...the sun was glaring, even with shades drawn, and the flash only made things worse. Oh, and the frame is not wonky, it's perfectly rectangular. I've had the painting since 2001 and never had the wall space to hang it. Yes, every bit of my walls are covered....from floor to ceiling, and I've been taking some of them down and doing some regrouping and rearranging. I'm also eliminating several of them, as they no longer appeal to me. So anyway, I've had this painting for years and there is some controversy about the humanity of having elephants paint. At the time of purchase, (and I don't even want to tell you what I paid for this!) it was recommended by National Geographic and that the proceeds helped both the elephant and the elephant's trainer. It provided food, shelter, and protection for both. Recently, I've heard that it's not as wonderful as they once thought, although I believe that it's still a better life than trying to simply survive without basic provisions.

Tao painted this when he was only 4 years old, and recent articles say that his painting style has "matured!" He was born in Thailand in 1997 and has been painting since he was two years old. The canvas is a little rough, with what I'm assuming is a little elephant snot and a few smudge marks here and there. None the less, I like the colors that he chose and his "composition."

Here's Tao doing his thing. I have this little picture of him on my bookshelves. I pray that he continues to do well and that he does find enjoyment in painting!

We’re thankful for our fathers, Lord,
They’re special gifts from You;
Help us to show we honor them
By what we say and do. —Sper

Good fathers reflect the heavenly Father.

In church today, we sang "This is my Father's World", which is one of my favorite hymns. It always brings tears to my eyes, no matter how many times I hear the beautiful lyrics.

My first "encounter" with God was when I was very young and my Dad would take me for walks in the woods. My Dad knew every tree, plant, bird, and animal, and loved to share his knowledge with me. He knew each bird call, what plant to eat, what plant to avoid, what leaf came from what tree. I learned to love all of the critters, from snakes to spiders, as my Dad would tell me that people only feared what they did not understand and that God had a purpose for each and everyone of them. I'm so grateful that he passed the love of animals and nature on to me. When I'm feeling overwhelmed and lost, I still retreat to nature to restore my soul. It's where I go to feel surrounded by God's grace and beauty....it centers me and brings me peace.

Today, (and everyday) I'm thankful for the love and guidance from my Heavenly Father and from my earthly Father. (Miss you Dad!)

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!

Yesterday was a full day of wonderful quilting with wonderful friends! Six of us (only four were able to be there yesterday) made two blocks each, to put into a quilt that is destined for the annual Mennonite Auction to raise funds for hunger relief. We've had the blocks done for quite awhile, but didn't have a plan to put them together......the layout.....color choices......sashing, etc.

Here's Joyce, Fran, and Lois (Kathy and Bev were unable to join us) and the keyboard pieces that were to become the outside border.





Here is the quilt before adding the outside border. We laid everything out on the floor and auditioned the sashing fabric and the cornerstones. The original plan was to use black for the sashing but after we laid everything out, we decided that the green made it a softer, happier quilt.



This is the finished quilt top. We were all very happy with the end results. The blocks in this quilt all represent different Psalms and the appliqued blocks have the corresponding Psalm embroidered on them. We now need to have it hand quilted. Unfortunately, this auction will only accept hand quilted quilts, although the piecing can be done by machine. We are hoping that someday they may expand their quilts to include machine quilting. This auction is always extremely successful and if they opened it up to machine quilting, they would get many, many more entries to auction. Although I am able to hand quilt......I do not enjoy hand quilting a large top. I would also not be able to get it finished in time, so I will be contacting a local church group to see if they will be able to quilt it for us.

Ta-da!

Oh boy! New templates....new fonts.....new colors.....new backgrounds.......I'll be playing with these and changing frequently! Thanks Blogger!

Here's the completed cross stitch project that I posted about a few months ago. In that post, I took a picture of the sorted floss and was concerned about getting the project finished. Well....this is not the result of those particular threads. After considering the time deadline and the amount of work involved, I changed gears and started an entirely different project.

This pillow was for my dear friend Kathy's birthday and I wanted it to have a special meaning for her. I started with a kit, but didn't follow it beyond the green outline pattern and the corner quilt patterns.....the rest evolved as I stitched. I didn't even know what size or shape it would end up being. I think I have over 40 hours of stitching in this, even after I thankfully switched to a simpler pattern. It just takes time, even if you are doing the same stitch and same color, over and over.





I added this scripture to the middle square, as it is one of Kathy's favorites.




Overall, I was pleased with the end result. I decided to make the cross stitch into a pillow, and then added piping to make it stand out more. The back is zippered so that the pillow could be replaced if it was ever necessary or the cross stitch repaired if the threads got snagged.



And here is a warning that I doubt many people really have any problem obeying.....Kathy got me a little box of DeBrand Chocolates that are made locally. They are wonderful and I never have any problem eating them while they are fresh. I wish I had enough willpower to leave them alone to spoil!

Five wonderful friends + three quilt shops = the perfect day! It's hard to get five ladies to find one day that they can get together for a mini road trip, but few weeks ago, we managed to do just that. Here's my haul from the day (some are just small pieces from the remnant bins). Of course, even better than the fabric was a blessed day of fellowship!




I finished May's BOM today, just in time to pick up the next block on Thursday. As usual, I substituted a couple of the fabrics.



And lastly, I had a sweet visitor land on my rhubarb. It stayed while I zipped inside to get my camera and let me take several pictures of it before it flew away.

I had a great lunch with a great friend followed by a visit to a fabric store. One of our local quilt/fabric shops has a remnant section where all of the fabrics are at least 50% off. There isn't a huge selection, but the deals are just great. I got all of this fabric for under $7. Don't you love the last fabric on the right....."Dancing Bugs"...what a cute title for a fabric line...makes me smile!

In my heart forever.............

Everyone seems to be posting their spring garden and flower pictures, so I'm adding some of mine too. This is the rhubarb that I planted last spring as tiny, little plants. They did really well last year and came up long before any other plants this spring. If I was away for most of the day, I could actually see their growth during those hours.....I kid you not!




Here's a longer shot of the rhubarb bed. All of the plants came back with gusto. I'm still going to resist harvesting many stalks from them so that their root core can continue to thrive without strain.




And lastly, here's my little tomato plant, already caged in anticipation of some HUGE growth. I only planted two of these Big Beef tomato plants, which should be tons for my personal use.




I bought last years' rhubarb starts and these tomato plants at one of the local Amish markets. I wish I had taken my camera with me to show you the array of flowers and plants, all bright, fresh, and healthy. I don't know where they get their plants, but they are always first rate and priced less than other places. The Amish community is very close to me so I'll have to remember to take my camera along for the ride too.

Happy Gardening!

I joined a gym today! A free membership with Silver Sneakers, an old folks perk from my insurance company. I have such a problem with dizziness that walking outside isn't exactly a pleasant way to exercise (it can be down right dangerous) and I don't have the money or room for any inside exercise equipment.
I'm not expecting any quick changes, as it took me many years to get so unhealthy and out of shape, but I hope to stick with it and little by little, regain some endurance. It's never too late, right!?

And another perk for joining........I dug out my tennis shoes, (which had been hibernating in the closet for a couple of years now) and found a hidden cat toy in the toe of one of the shoes. Oliver has been reunited with his green fuzz ball and is also getting some exercise as he chases his "new" toy!

As part of a little blogging game sent to me by Kathleen, I was asked to re-post the 6th picture that I posted when I started my blog. I'm supposed to give you an update on the picture and what's happened since. (I wish it would have been another picture with better story and a happy ending!)

Well, this was part of a block of the month quilt and I have to admit that I've done NOTHING with it or it's fellow blocks! There were a few blocks that I didn't like that much and kind of put it in the company of my other unfinished projects. Seeing this picture again has sort of sparked an interest in retrieving it and see about setting the blocks in a table cover.

I would like to add that keeping a blog has been a great way to have accountability for my crafting. I feel like I should finish as many projects as possible in order to keep my readers interested. I've really enjoyed blogging and plan to continue, even if I don't finish a project. Gee, we can all relate to that problem!

Thanks, Kathleen, for sending me down memory lane and reminding me to finish what I start!

Do your part to preserve

our precious planet!

April BOM. I changed this one too and made the arrows double pointed. The instructions called for an additional plaid fabric at the end of the arrows which meant that your eye couldn't decide where to look. These fabrics are pretty soft so much of the contrast is lost but I still think it's a pretty block.
If you look closely, you'll see that my arrow corners are somewhat lost in the seam allowances. I'm not sure what happened except that the pattern called for 16th's in cutting, so you have to eyeball those measurements since they aren't on the rotary cutting rulers. (.....or maybe it was just poor construction......I'd rather blame it on the rulers!)

I'm still working on spring clean up in my little yard and just haven't had much time for sewing and crafting. Little by little, I've trimmed the bushes, chopped off the ornamental grasses, raked, weeded, edged, and of course, mowed (twice already). The weeds are a constant battle and I think I can sometimes hear them chuckling at me, knowing that no matter how much weeding I do, they will return in a day or two. Oh, how I miss the seclusion of winter and the refreshing chore of shoveling! .......sigh.........

Not much to blog about lately....life seems to be getting in the way of crafting.

Thought I'd show you the chocolate fabrics that I've been collecting for a couple of years. Yesterday, I had lunch with some dear friends and we ended up at a quilt shop (naturally!) where I found two more fabrics to add. I bought the bottom two fabrics on the right. I thought the fabric with the writing on it would make a good sashing or maybe some cornerstones. I don't have a plan for these fabrics yet, no specific pattern in mind.....I just like them. Ebay has a bunch of chocolate fabrics right now that I don't have yet, but the money is sparse. Each of these fabrics below is a yard, so I already have enough for a good sized top or several smaller projects. Gotta quit collecting them at some point and make something out of them! (Not!)

I've been trying to get my yard mowed most of the afternoon and the rain slips in and out long enough that I can't get it done. After the rains, I'll need a machete to make the first cut! My neighbors took down their Christmas lights yesterday so I know that it's officially spring and time to get the yard cleaned up!

I was able to get March's BOM finished today. It seems like March is slipping away very quickly and I didn't want to be sewing this block the night before it was due. I kept the fabrics the same, but redrafted the corner and center blocks to take them from 16 pieces each, to 8 pieces each.



And from the Sunday comics.......a little chuckle!

I had to wake my cat up today.....thanks to daylight savings time. Gracie is on a specific time schedule to receive insulin shots. Normally, she comes to get me at the right time as her internal clock is pretty accurate. I live in Indiana and we are in the Eastern time zone. There's nothing "eastern" about Indiana and in the middle of the summer, we have daylight until 10:30 PM. It's absurd. People actually mow their lawns at 10 PM, when I'd like to be sleeping, or at least be enjoying little peace and quiet.

I live in an area of Indiana that only recently started using DST (maybe 3 or 4 years now). We never changed our clocks, we just relied on God's natural timing. It worked for us! CBS's Sixty Minutes did a segment on our area that said that it costs us 60 million dollars per year in extra utility costs on DST. The only advantage that they found was that golf courses got more tee times. Grrrrrrr.....

Oh well. I have no choice but to adjust and accept....and so I will! Gracie too!

It's too early......let me sleep!

Gracie and Oliver on "robin watch" duty. They've been keeping quite busy with all of the bird activity lately....well, between naps, anyway.

Spring has sprung....or at least it's springing! I'm not sure when these crocuses broke ground because the snow just melted over the weekend. This is right next to the house where it's the warmest.



(Kathleen.....looks like Indiana is about a week behind Illinois.)