Do You?

I wanted to show you the quilt that Martha, one of the owners of Calico Station, is working on. Isn't is gorgeous? She is going to enter it into QuiltFest. My picture does not accurately represent the colors. I love the applique and the half square triangle sashing.

I'm not at the point in my quilting journey that I would consider entering a quilt into any type of show. I use my hobbies to relax me, to have fun, and to grow the creative side of me that frankly I didn't know I had. The thought of entering something into a competition would just take all the fun out of it for me. I'd be curious to hear of any of your experiences with entering your projects (not only quilting) into shows. Was it an experience you'd repeat? Did you get any value or take aways from the experience?

It's a rainy day in Florida today. Go figure - I was going to start walking outside again this morning. I really need to get back into a regular exercise routine. I'll take the rain as a sign that I need to do something else this morning!

I thank each of you for visiting, reading, and commenting on my blog and thank each of you who have your own blogs. I learn so much from you and feel so inspired by you! Thank you!

Shocking!

To recap what I've shown you so far: Take a charm pack and sew the squares however you'd like. Use as many or as few as you'd like. Border with 3" strips of fabric.

Use the Little Twister Ruler (you can barely see it in the lower left) and cut out squares lining up the lines on the Little Twister Ruler with the seams on your piece. See the scraps? They're perfect for 2.5" border squares or to piece your backing.

You lay your new squares out in the same order that you cut them. Then sew together row by row. I actually got my entire table runner cut out and pieced in our 2 hour class last Tuesday. That is shocker #1 - I never complete what I'm supposed to in class.

Shocker #2? I actually finished my table runner. Quilted and bound!

Easy, quick and finished!!!

They All Deserve a Hero's Welcome

The latest $5 quilt block is below. A couple of points will be chopped off a bit when this is sewn together. That bothers me a bit but not enough to do it again!

What I saw on my way to knit night Friday just warmed my heart. Tyler Southern was coming home to a hero's welcome. People were lined up everywhere. They were lined up from the interstate exit ramp to the front door of his family home.

I saw the front end of his police escort but didn't see his motorcade.

I couldn't help but think about all the men and women who won't be coming home. What the service men and women (and their families) do for us is something we should appreciate every day, not just the 4th of July, Memorial Day and Veterans Day. Thank you Tyler Southern and Welcome Home!

Update!

I finally finished the next page of my Quakers and Quilts chart. I love the star but I dislike the 1/4 stitches! It sloooowed me way down. I was surprised that I didn't mind the back stitching. Of course, there is quite a bit of back stitching in the bottom half of this chart so I might change my mind on that later on.

In my last post, I showed you my homework for a class I was taking. During class last night , this is what my homework looked like. I'm hoping to have more pictures for you soon. Keep in mind that "soon" for me and most other people is not the same! It was a fun class and I was surprised that I completed more than the other students. That has *never happened* before.

I'm feeling a little itchy....dare I hope that I might be getting a bit of my mojo back?!!!

Homework Completed

My home work for my quilting class this week is done. We had to take as many charm squares as we wanted, sew them together however we wanted and then add a 3" border.

Class is Tuesday. I'll do the pressing there.
After I was done, I folded up my homework and left the room.
Enough for today.

Maybe I'll get more of my mojo back in class.

Saturday night was Midnight Knit. I went and knit for the evening and I've done a small amount of stitching. Not enough to show.

I hope you have had a good weekend!

Baby Steps

This past weekend, I walked into my sewing room for the first time in 2 weeks and sat down at my sewing machine. I decided to sew the buttons on to one of my Stitchers Garden blocks. My Bernina sewing machine offers a stitch (#17 on my 440QE) specifically for this purpose. I had no idea that there is a standard size for button holes. Who knew?

Bernina also has a specialty foot to sew on buttons - #18. See how it has that prong in the middle? You use it to line up the foot in the right place. When you stitch the button on the thread goes over that prong so some give is built in and it does not get sewn on too tight. Neat, huh? I sewed on a dozen buttons in just a few minutes. The biggest pain was clipping threads. I really love this feature of my machine because I hate to sew on buttons.

Here's the completed block with the buttons. Evidently I didn't notice the border was crumpled before taking photos.

Here is a close up of some of the details.

So I sewed on my buttons, took these photos, turned off the lights and left the room.
Maybe next weekend, I'll do a few minutes more?

Seriously???

I don't usually makes this type of post on my blog but today I'm going to. Saturday I went to the mall for my monthly skunk stripe removal (hair cut and color) and thought I'd stop by and check on swimming suits for my nieces (ages 7 and 4). I live in Florida and this is a good time of year to purchase them at a deep discount from a nice department store.

I always go for the pink.

As I got closer, I noticed the sticker on the bodice.

Are you kidding me????

This was on a CHILDRENS size 8. Can someone tell me why an 8 year old needs a padded swimming top? This was not lining - it was padding. I know the difference.

Either I'm officially a prude or there is something seriously wrong here.

The Dog Days of Summer...

...and I'm doing a lot of reading. Either it's so hot, I'm drained from the heat, or just feeling BLEH about doing much of anything else. I'm a huge reader - if I don't read each day I'm probably seriously ill.

This Mortal Instruments series is not something I'd normally read. Definitely not my genre. But one of my knitty friends put them in my hands and after a few months, I started with the first book. I was hooked within just a few pages.

What are you doing these days?