CQ Monday - Week 4 of 5

Ok, I know it's not Monday, but I've been a little behind. I'm sure glad I have this little Monday thing to keep me going. I spent a good part of the weekend installing a new hard drive in my IBM notebook. It's 2.5 years old and it started acting funny, so I called IBM and they had me do a test with a secret key combination and sure enough, there were errors. I was lucky that I copied all my data and photos off the computer, but I did have to re-install every program that I was using. I was impressed with IBM though. When I called, there was no press 1 for this, 2 for that. The person who answered, assisted me through my whole ordeal, and was quick to say, I'm sending you a new hard drive and bootable disks. I got them the very next day. I was impressed.

Anyway I'm starting to get distracted with other sewing projects and seasonal activities so I'm really glad I gave myself the little Monday challenge to help me get my Crazy Quilted socks done. Last evening, I did manage to get all my buttons out and it's fun making a little cluster. They do take more time that I remember. The button cluster and the silk ribbon rose cluster took the entire time that I was watching Dancing with the Stars.

I did manage to start applying some buttons to my Christmas Socks but every time I pick up the socks to start to work, I keep saying, oh, that line of stitching could use something else. So I'll be working on it a bit longer than I thought.

My friend Linda H. has some spectacular CQ work on her blog. Have a look. She's so good. I know when her students at Quilt Canada take this class, they'll be wowed at her samples.

A Blue Quilt for St. Dunstan's

I can't believe it's that time of year again already. It just seems like I finished the Nines and Vines quilt for the St. Dunstan's Quilters, but that was mid-January 2009, some 11 months ago.

A few months ago, on a hot sunny day, I visited with the ladies at St. Dunstan's and had a nice cup of tea and a biscuit. I brought books, magazines and snapshots of a dozen quilts that I had pre-selected for them to choose for their 2010 raffle quilt.

Just this week, I bought fabric and I'm cutting out a kit for this quilt and will start sewing next week. There are 10 French Country blues that will go with the white background. The blues are mostly from the same collection, so I'm sure they'll look beautiful together in this quilt. It just so happens that my only grandson wants a blue quilt too, so the left over fabric from this quilt will go into his 'Birds in the Air' quilt.

This is the quilt I will be sewing. The name of it is Nine Patch and Squares but I can't tell you what book it came from. We saw this quilt at a local quilt show and with some rough directions from the quilt maker of this quilt, I'm starting to cut my kit of fabrics. I like the larger white space in the square. This will really show off the fine hand quilting of these ladies. Also the border is room for the stunning rows of their fine stitches.

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Watch in December for weekly updates on this quilt. I really find that blogging about my progress, helps me to meet deadlines that I set for myself.

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What helps you get stuff done?

The Olympic Torch is coming

The Olympic torch is heading our way. It is scheduled to be here in Fredericton next Wednesday, Nov. 25th.


Have you happened to read my sister's blog this week?. She ran with the Olympic torch in 1987 and it was quite a moving experience. She has lots of mementos from her experience and is blogging about it all week.


Reading about all her recollections this week has me all excited for the torch coming through our city. I think I'm going to buy a nice Olympic fleece to wear when I go to watch the torch pass through next week.

Go Canada Go!

Crazy Quilting Monday - Week 3 of 5

I would never do a CQ piece without adding the good luck spider. Here are the two spiders spinning their webs on these Christmas socks.

I struggle with stitching the web more than the spider now, so I'll have to work on that.

These socks are close to being done and this week, I'll be adding a few button/bead clusters as embellishments. Those are fun to do.

My friend Linda H. got some crazy quilting done this week too. She's going to be teaching this Christmas sock class at Quilt Canada in Calgary next May. I know everyone who is taking this class will be so pleased with what they have learned but will they know the addiction they are getting themselves into.

Doodling a Name Block for a quilt back

Today I made a 12" quilt block that will find it's way into a quilt that is being made for a colleague that I used to work with on a volunteer board of directors. I was given one small piece of fabric to use in the quilt and then I was to add other fabric and make any block I wanted. That was easy and it's done.

I've also been asked to make a 6.5" white, cream, or light NAME block that will be part of the back of this quilt. These quilt blocks along with the name blocks will come from all over Canada. I don't know how these will be stitched into the back of the quilt, but it certainly has peaked my interest.

So today, I started thinking more about the Name block than the 12" block. I've never made a name block. Sounds easy, but I thought I'd take the opportunity to use this neat little book that I've had for years. It's a doodle book called the Kids Book of creative Lettering . It's harder than it looks, for me anyway. I think the trick is practice.

I dig out my 48-pack of Zig markers, ironed a piece of light fabric to freezer paper, measure a 5" square on the fabric with disappearing marker, take a deep breath and then put zig marker to fabric. I use some illustrations and techniques that I find in the book. I'm ok with the little frame that I created and if you stand back 2 or 3 feet, it looks pretty cute, except for the printing of my name. I gave it a quick press, and it looked ok. Just ok. To get rid of the disappearing marker, I rinsed it under the tap, and gave it another press to dry it out. I noticed that some of the ink bled a bit. oh no. I thought Zig markers were colorfast. But it was a good excuse to do another since I wasn't really really happy with it.
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Maybe a different fabric and a good hot heat set before rinsing it. So I prepared another piece of plain white cotton fabric and drew the frame. I did the name with the thick end of the Zig marker and it was too thick. I'm not happy with this name block either. I did give it a hot hot iron for a good 30 seconds and let it cool, then rinsed it to remove the disappearing marks. It did bleed a bit but not bad.
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I think in the morning, when fresher (ha ha) I'll try again a third time.
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One of the three will have to do. It along with the 12" block is going in the mail tomorrow.

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Also, it's Crazy Quilting Monday today, but my CQ spiders are not done yet. I will expect they'll be done this evening while watching Dancing with the Stars. I'll post about them tomorrow.

Well used Quilts

There's nothing better to a quilter, than a well used quilt. My oldest grandchildren have always had a "blankie". Actually, they are quilts and they have been slept with every night since the girls were one or two years old. These quilts go everywhere with them. Even on vacation! These are well used quilts.

This is Jessica and this is her I spy quilt from at least 6 or 7 years ago. It is well worn and very soft. When she was little we used to play I spy with it. She was a smart kid and knew where all the cats, balls, bugs and flowers were. now after years of use, little rips and holes are starting to show up. This quilt has been patched once. Today, while it didn't need a patch, we sewed a beautiful little dragonfly embroidery on it today. It's just sweet and I can guarantee that this quilt is going nowhere except home with Jessica.

This is Emily having fun under her blankie. This little quilt was given to Jessica by her other grandmother when she was born. When Emily was a baby, she adopted this little quilt as her own. It's been washed and washed so much that within a few years, holes started to appear.

Emily has a great memory and says that the very first patch that we put on the quilt was this little purple cat. When she was a toddler, she was a real cat lover.


Then Emily said we put on the poodle patch. She must have been going through her doggie phase.
Then we added snowmen, apples, more cats.



Then the holes were out of control especially on the back, so the back of the quilt has been completely patched over with large pieces of quilting cottons. It has many many lines of zig zag stitching and is very secure now.



So, back to the front, the holes were continuing to come quilting on the front, so I started adding my stitch-out embroidery samples. They were cute too. So Emily has an octopus, a "Bride" patch, a lovely "S" from when I was making Stephanie towels, and even a snake on her blankie.

Today, we added a very elegant dragonfly and it's covering a new hole that just came out in the past week.
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Both of these well used quilts have fun histories and many many memories, for both Jessica and Emily and of course me too!

Word of the day - Over-Decorated

We're home now from our fun trip to visit with Grandchild # 1 and 2. We arrived in Moncton and played the game Planet Earth. What an educational game that is. I think it helps to watch the movie first. Grampie is either very lucky or very smart. He got most of the answers right. So everyone will want him on their team next time we play Planet Earth.

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After supper, the 4 of us went to see Where the Wild Things are. It as a cute show about the imaginary creatures of a little boy. While this show was not animated, the costume effects were amazing. We all enjoyed the show.


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After breakfast this morning, we had a big job to do. Over-decorate a batch of gingerbread cookies. First we had to gently roll out the dough. The girls were trying to get as many cookies as possible out of the first rolling.

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Then they didn't take very long to bake, and cool.

Then came the fun part. The Decorating or Over-Decorating as we called it. We snipped the tips of our 5 decorating bags of icing, and did some test cookies. Everything was perfect.







If we were simply to decorate these cookies, they would have been done in an hour flat. But to Over- decorate, took special skillnd over 2 hours .
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Jessica and Emily started out a little insecure about their decorating ability, but by the end of it, they were old pros at it, as you can see from the result.

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Great Job girls.

Crazy Quilting Monday - Week 2 of 5

Slowly but surely, I'm making progress on my two crazy quilt projects. I really love the flower sprays that I see in other peoples Crazy Quilting projects, so I'm trying to become more confident in stitching them into my projects. Here is one that I finished last night. I'm pleased with it.

I also got the initial done on each sock of the special girl that these socks are for. I won't show you because they might see it.

I haven't put the spider on these socks yet, so I'll be finding the perfect placement for these this week. I love the spiders that LouAnne Sassone does. Here is a link to her article on spiders in the CQ Online magazine. I find this article so helpful. I'll show the spiders next Monday.

Did you do any Crazy Quilting this week? I want to see!

Gingerbread

Today, we're packing up and heading to visit with our two oldest grandchildren. No special reason, just looking to go for a drive and spend some quality time. Since there's no school in Moncton, the kids will be off school and so for a little something to do, I prepared some Martha Stewart gingerbread dough and her wonderful Royal Icing. I prepared the icing into 5 colors and our craft time with the kids will be roll out the dough, cut out and bake the cookies, then to use all that royal icing to over decorate 30 or 40 cookies. Won't that be fun!!

I know you'll be dying to see what kind of artwork we'll put on these cookies that are shaped like feet, maple leaves, gingerbread men and women, and of course hearts. So I'll take some pictures and so you tomorrow.

We'll probably also take in a movie. I hope they want to see "Where the Wild things Are". I heard it is a great story from a few of the teachers that were on the Egypt trip with us.

More small sewing projects for School Christmas Craft table

I've really enjoyed making more stuff for the Christmas shopping table at the triplets school. Here are more things I'm adding to the box.

Criss Cross coffee mug coasters. I'll pin them in sets of two. These are super easy to make and you can follow the easy tutorial here. When I have left over quilting cotton from making a quilt, I usually see if I can get a 4.5" strip and put it away just to make these coasters.

These baby bibs were mostly made when I came across them earlier this week. All I had to do was add the Velcro around the neck. I recall getting a $10 bag of these fabric scraps from Suttles and Seawinds in Nova Scotia over 10 years ago, and I as trying to use up some of the fabric. Obviously I forgot that I made these a long time ago because we've had 6 grandchildren, and these never got pulled out to be used. I'm glad I just came across them and have a good use for them.
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These taggie blankets came together quickly. I thought some child might like to buy this for their mother if she's going to have a baby. I've only been making these for about a year, but everyone seems to really like them. Aurora drags around the very first one I made. Because it was a prototype to see if she'd like it, it had ugly colored ribbons, and not so nice colors of silky fabric on the back. She was just a baby and didn't care about colors. When she has a quiet time before going to bed, she likes to hold the blanket up close to her face and without even looking at the taggie, she flicks the ribbons and plays with them with her little fingers.
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I also have made a bunch of luggage tags. My sister recommended making some Dad things because they're always hard to buy for. I don't have a lot of masculine fabrics in my stash, so I bought a half a yard of camouflage fabric. Not my favorite, but I did make half the luggage tags out of it and they will be manly.

Dragonflies and an Elmo

I've had a busy but fun day.

Today was fruitcake making day. I make them about 6 or 7 weeks before Christmas so that the cake has a chance to age and the flavors all meld together. I wrote about it here last year, so I won't repeat myself by giving you the recipes again. They're in the oven cooking right now, and the house smells so good.

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I still have my embroidery machine out and I'm gathering up all the supplies to send to my sister next Saturday. I keep coming across pages of "Embroideries on my to-do list". So for fun this morning, I stitched out some beautiful dragonflies. Here is one of them. This Oesd design pack has about 20 different elegant designs. These stitch-outs will all become patches on blankies sometime soon.

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I need to make baby Aurora a plain quilt that I can add some patches onto, each time she visits. The other grandkids used to love that. Some still do, and I won't say who. Aurora's first patch will be this Elmo. She recognizes him anywhere and says his name really good. It's cute. You know it won't be long before we have her starting to bake cookies with Grammie. She already loves to help Grampie put the silverware away from the dishwasher.

Machine Embroidery - 12 Days of Christmas

I don't use my embroidery sewing machine much for embroidery any more. So I'm going to send it to my sister for a while to see if she can get some use out of it. It's quite old, but still stitches out embroideries quite nicely.

So her hubby will be coming by in 2 weeks and I plan pack it up with my old notebook with the designs on it, my thread collection and stabilizers. She'll be all setup to stitch.

Meanwhile, I thought, I should at least do one project this year before I send it away. I've been wanting to do a table runner out of the "12 days of Christmas Redwork" embroidery pack that I have, so this is the incentive to do so. I have 7 of the 12 five inch blocks stitched out. They are stitching quite quickly since it's only one color. Actually, I think they're really nice, now that I've started them.

I hope to have the table runner done in the next couple of weeks. The blocks will be set on point and sashed in red. I hope to have it ready to show at our next quilt guild meeting, which will be our final one before Christmas. I'll show you when its done.