Jelly Roll block progress.....

Here are two photos I took yesterday. The first one is Block #5 of the Jelly Roll quilt-along that many of us are doing. The other photo shows the 5 blocks I have made so far. While I am pleased with how each block went together, I am still not loving the whole thing. I think it is all going to hinge on what I do for sashing fabric and borders. While this is all fabric from the same, coordinated, line, I'm just not liking how it looks together yet.....and hope I do SOON!!!

I think I actually prefer this block turned the other way (no picture of that, though)....and will probably turn it the other way when I am putting the top together.Here are the 5 blocks so far.....all from the same Moda jelly roll.....Fig & Plum, I believe, is the name of the fabric line.I have been spending a lot of time doing a LOT of hand-quilting on the wall-hanging I am making for the lady in my quilt guild as part of our "brown bag" challenge...using the 4 fabrics she provided (and I believe I showed them on my blog not too long ago). I hope to get that done enough to put the binding on it and show it to you by the end of the weekend.

Gotta love my friend, Sherry......

Yesterday was our little neighborhood quilting group. We met at Joann's and had a nice time (and good snacks!!!) Here is a photo of a quilt top Sherry (NO blog!!!) showed to us. Isn't it lovely? (Click on it to enlarge it.) It's a whole garden of tulips and I love the interesting designs she fashioned into each corner. I forgot to take any other photos there yesterday....sorry! Don't you think Sherry needs to start a blog?

Strange ending to a giveaway win.....

A couple of weeks back, you may recall I posted on my sidebar about a giveaway by a blogger named Alice. She was offering 3 prizes. I won one of them....another blogging friend, (Tango), won another. I don't know the third winner. Anyway......my prize, which is a nice one...book and fat quarters...... arrived early last week (pictured here) BUT I had to pay $5.85 in postage due. I was a bit shocked!!! Tango contacted me and....lo and behold....SHE had to pay $5.85 postage due, also. I emailed Alice and informed her that I thought her post office had made quite a mistake. My prizes are worth more than $5.85, to be sure, but I'd not heard of any blogger doing a giveaway and having the winner pay "postage due". I wanted her to know her post office made this mistake. Well....I discovered on the box that she uses Click and Ship, which means she does the postage herself at home. So...the mistake would seem to be hers. Now...I know people make mistakes (and I certainly have made my share...and will make more). But...what I find odd is that Alice has never replied yet to my email (and my post on her blog about this) nor to Tango's email....yet she has posted on her blog since we contacted her, so it would seem she has been online. I would think the polite and correct thing to do would be to at least answer our emails and apologize for the mistake.....but it seems we are being ignored, and I don't think that is right....do you? See....I told you this was a strange ending to a giveaway! (And if any of you have, unexpectedly, been charged "postage due" for a giveaway you won, please share your story with me here!!! If there was a prior agreement for the winner to pay postage, that is one thing, but not for it to happen unexpectedly like this!) Okay....rant over!!!
EDITED to ADD: There was just an anonymous post put here (gotta love how people won't identify themselves when they are talking trash). I have deleted it, of course. If you aren't brave enough to identify yourself, then you don't deserve to have your comment posted! That person tried to suggest maybe it was a SPAMMER collecting the postage from me. DUH......I paid it to the mail carrier who came to my house with the package in a USPS truck...the same mail carrier we have had here for years hardly a spammer!!!

6th Photo "Challenge"......

A blogging buddy, Kathleen, issued a challenge today to 6 of her blogging buddies to go back to the beginning of their blog and find the 6th photo they posted...and to RE-post that photo and update it or comment on it or whatever.........LOL

So....here goes: This is a photo of one of the grands....Emily. It was taken when she vacationed here in the summer and wanted to sew. We made string-quilt hot-pads. This is Em proudly showing her nearly finished product. She is now nearly 2 years older than when this was taken and although she has vacationed here again, she's not shown any further interest in sewing. *sigh*
Now...I am to ask 6 of MY blogging friends to go back to the beginning of their blogs and find their 6th photo posted and to repost it on their blogs. Let me tell you......it was hard to choose just 6. About 15 came immediately to mind, so the names went in a hat and here are the 6 I will ask (you can click on their names to see their blogs, if you wish):

Tonya
Gene
Rachel
Sandi
Kaye
Barb G.

Get to work, you 6......complete the assignment and then YOU can name 6 on your blog to do it, too! Kind of a silly but fun thing to do!

Some surprises for me.....

Many of you know "Micki" and read her blog: Irish Muses. Well.....I got a surprise from her recently. A package with these goodies (shown below) that she made for me. She is a very talented gal and I treasure having items made by her. Thanks, Micki!!!


I am going to make the tea towel the center part of a quilt eventually. I've seen others do that and liked how it turned out.


Great card came in the package, beautifully made!Today is my daughter's 28th birthday. I hope she has a wonderful day. She is going with her hubby and another couple to a concert tonight....a group I don't know, but they all seem quite excited about it. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Tara!!!

Ta-Da......a UFO finish......

I did show this to you when it wasn't finished, but now it's finished and I'm pleased with it. There is nothing tame about it....wild colors (all batiks) and a pattern that certainly doesn't have the usual "traditional" look I seem to favor. BUT...it was a fun quilt to make and I'm glad I have it done now. It was from the Tesselating Stars pattern designed by Gyleen Fitzgerald, whose pineapple ruler I used for another wall-hanging I showed you here recently. I took the tesselating star class from her awhile back and will be able to show her this piece when I see her at our quilt guild on Thursday evening! I put ties (matching the fabrics) in the center of some of the "stars" and put colorful buttons in the center of others. I decided it didn't need anything else done to it, as I am very happy with it just the way it is.

Good old red, white, and blue.........

Before I hosted the green no-sew block swap, I was part of a red/white/blue no-sew block swap hosted by Kathleen. I now have 3 of those blocks assembled. They are all square and 12 1/2 inches (in spite of my poor photography of them!) The first one (pictured above) isn't the block I was supposed to do. I made a mistake and by the time I realized it, I had cut it into sections, so I had to juggle things around and come up with a new design.....I think it's fine,though. I managed to rescue it and still use the fabric that was provided to me for this block.


Below are the other two I've made so far. For those of you who aren't familiar with a no-sew swap, all the participants choose a different block and provide the fabric for that block AND cut it out for that block. They do that for however many people are in the swap...and then bag the cut fabric up and put it into baggies...and each other participant gets one baggie from each other person in the swap. That way, you just pick up the baggie and follow the directions and make a block and don't have to do the main cutting of the fabric for it. It's easy...but you can make mistakes..as I made above! (And sometimes you can rescue the fabric anyway...LOL) It's a fun kind of swap since you do your OWN sewing and that eliminates the sometimes problematic issue of each person sewing a "different" 1/4 inch seam!

Problem with blogger today???

I was looking at some of your blogs and trying to make comments, but I keep getting error messages. It's not just with one blog, but with about 5 so far.....and this has led me to believe that something is wrong with blogger's commenting capabilities right now. So......I AM reading your blogs, but I just can't seem to comment. I am hoping this post works.......let's try it and see now. (Is anyone else having problems today?) NOTE: Just tried again now and it seems to be working...guess it was a temporary glitch! Thanks to those who took the time to comment and let me know it was working for them.

Got scraps? Make a house.....

I found out the other day that "V" of the BUMBLE BEANS blog is collecting house blocks to make a quilt that will be auctioned off to benefit a program for homeless people in her area...trying to get them back into their houses. If you click on her blog name (above), you will see her post and she has a block there if you wish to make one and send it to her. This is the block I made that will be going in the mail to her today. I varied it ever so slightly from hers, but that is fine by her...as long as the block is 10 1/2 inches when it is sent to her and as long as there are no "wonky" houses.



The next picture is of my block #4 in the Jelly Roll Quilt-Along. I know many of you are doing that project, too. I have decided that I am probably not putting my blocks together in the same order in which I am making them.......will wait and see which ones look best next to each other before I decide on my layout (even though Konda shows them all going in sewing order on her first blog post about the quilt-along). I'm happy with how this one turned out.....but it is much darker, overall, than the other 3 blocks. I think since my jelly roll has many more lights and mediums than darks, I will have to space my blocks with dark fabric around in a way that looks best. It is fun to do this at the rate of just one block every two weeks!

New giveaway on sidebar....

Click on that cute fellow on my sidebar to enter Gene's giveaway!

A finish and a friend's quilt top.....

Here is a quilt top made by Sherry (from our neighborhood quilt group). She did this as a surprise gift for a recently-married co-worker of hers. I'd say that co-worker is pretty lucky, wouldn't you? Sherry is an excellent quilt-maker and a very generous gal! Sherry will sandwich this and get it quilted (on her home machine) lickety split, so I probably won't see it before she gives it away.......so I figured I better get a picture now. (I think it will enlarge if you click on it.)This is my green pineapple mini-wall-hanging....all finished now. It is hand-quilted and came out really nice.......good texture to it. I know you can't see the hand-quilting well in the photo....especially in the "busier" parts of the quilt that are around the center pineapple block, so you'll have to trust me when I tell you the quilting turned out very nice. I'm really happy with it and you know I LOVE green fabrics!

A pretty day for picture-taking........

Yesterday, hubby and I took several pictures in and around our church. The weather was gorgeous and while some of the flowering trees weren't at their best, the tulips were looking good. I will put here for your enjoyment a nice selection of the photos we took. As a point of interest, I can tell you the oldest gravestone in the cemetery is dated 1707. (If you wish to look up this church, it is St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Lewes, Delaware.....a really beautiful church in a very picturesque town that has both bay and ocean beaches! Gee....guess I sound like a tourism director, huh? LOL)

Hope you like the photos...you already know I like to "soften" the edges.....I hope you like that technique, too! This post has absolutely nothing to do with quilting, but.....I'm allowed......my blog title tells it all......!

Loved looking at the church steeple through the blossoms of this tree!This is not the oldest grave, but it is still very old.
A lot of the children in the parish helped plant bulbs last fall....and their work really showed up nicely this weekend.


We feel truly blessed to be part of such a loving parish in such a beautiful location!

A mixed bag today.....

Today I have 3 different things to discuss here.......first is these 4 fat quarters. Those of you who have read my blog for awhile might recall that I sought your input on a guild "brown bag" project. I had to put 4 fat quarters in a bag and send them off and I'd not know who got them....and who would be making something for ME with those 4 fat quarters. Well....this photo shows the 4 fat quarters I got that belong to someone else and for whom I have to make something (by the July meeting). I am permitted to add fabrics...but must use at least a bit of each of these 4 fabrics. If I make a miniature quilt, it has to be more than 12 inches on each side. I am going to ask for ideas for this......I was thinking of a log cabin mini....or maybe even making a toss pillow cover and even supplying the pillow to put inside it. Of course, I could do always do a table runner...maybe with some star-type blocks in it since the fabric leans toward the "patriotic" in looks but I also need to be mindful that one of the fabrics is a directional print. If any of you look at this fabric and have any super ideas, please let me know. (I am not so good on making purses.......so I'd probably not attempt that.) I think if you click on the photo, you could see the fabrics in greater detail. I doubt the gal who supplied this fabric reads my blog, so we can safely discuss this here.

Second is a book I borrowed from the library that looks like it will be quite good. Have any of you read this book or used it? It is called Machine Quilting: A Primer of Techniques and was written by Sue Nickels. I really need to learn to do some good, basic quilting on my regular machine so I can make my wall-hangings and runners more interesting. I also own Foolproof Machine Quilting by Mary Mashuta and that looks to be good, too....although I've not really put it to the test yet.

And last is a photo I wanted to show you of the tulip blocks I showed here a few weeks back. I was considering a few lay-outs and many of you liked this one best and I am glad you convinced me to do it this way. I did put a border on it and will probably call it quits and use it as a small table topper...I had considered one more border with some cornerstones but think that might be too much. What do you think? (I love to get a nice variety of ideas and opinions from my blogging buddies!)

I hope all of you have a nice weekend. Our weather is to be more like spring this weekend than summer...which is fine since it IS only spring now, after all, and those low 90's we had earlier this week were too hot too quickly!

My (GOOD) excuse for not quilting on Tuesday.....

Before I get to my excuse, if you crochet and would like a cute clutch to store your crochet hooks.....go to Kim's Blog and check out her giveaway!!! Really cute.

Now...for a few days summer was here (even though spring barely made an appearance yet). It will go back to more springlike weather by the weekend, but on Tuesday (and Wednesday) it was very summery. Living near to beaches, we had to go there and walk around. NOTE: I was NOT one of the folks in swimsuits nor did I venture into the water. Some did...in spite of the water temp being only around 50 degrees! Notice if you click on the first photo, the air temp (on the sign) was 94....no way I could stay home and sew on the first couple of days of summer-like weather. Some of the businesses that aren't yet open for the season...like the ice cream stand in the photo....really lost out the past few days!Just so you don't think I'm a total slug, here is a photo of a wall-hanging I am hand-quilting at night lately. It was made with Gyleen Fitzgerald's pineapple ruler....which is hands-down a better...and more fun..... technique than any other way to make a pineapple block, in my opinion. (Gee...guess my green preference is showing here, huh? LOL)

Follow-up to my ealier post about fusible batting...

I was made aware of another product that allows you not to pin or baste quilt "sandwiches"...it is called Misty Fuse and you can get information on Bradie Sparrow's blog by clicking HERE. This is a new product to me...never heard of it before but I may give this a try and still use my regular batting.

A Batting Question......

For any of you who have used fusible batting (or who may know someone who has and you can ask that person for me), I am wondering what method is used if you are making something larger than a small wall-hanging? I know the fusible comes even in king-sized (which I'd not be making anything THAT big), but I'm just wondering how you handle something maybe throw-sized....to get it put together and ironed (fused) without it getting "messed up" in the process? I'm thinking maybe you first sandwich it and then roll it up and only unroll a little bit at a time??? Any tips would be greatly appreciated. I am considering buying some and want to know, beforehand, how to handle the ironing SMOOTHLY for a larger-than-wall-hanging quilt. I bought some samples at the quilt show of Hobbs' fusible, but no instructions were included.
NOTE: Just got a reply from Hobbs....here is what I was told: Our fusible is designed to have all three layers fused at once. You will want your iron on “cotton” setting and steam seams to help but is not required. I think I will put my ironing board near my table and put the bulk of the quilt sandwich on the table and iron a little bit at a time. It will be awhile before I do this, but I will post about it at some point in the future.

This is a picture of a wall-hanging I love. This year, he is not on the wall...but draped over a little piece of furniture in my living room. (He still needs more hand-quilting, but I use him anyway). He comes out around Easter but stays out longer since his fruits and veggies are suitable for spring and summer, don't you agree? I believe this was a pattern in Quiltmaker magazine a few years back. (If I'd make labels for every quilt, we might know for sure!!! LOL)

Happy Easter......

To all of you in Blogland who celebrate Easter, I wish a happy and blessed day....filled with friends, family and good food but...most importantly of all, some time to reflect on the reason for (and true meaning of) this holiday...that our Lord died that we might truly live. Especially in these times of a tough economy and a war-torn world, it is essential for us to have faith that there can be new beginnings and that good things can come out of tragedies....that the sadness of Good Friday can lead to the joy of Easter morning over and over again in our lives. Prayers that all of you will celebrate the season with joy and love for one another....especially showing this love to those in need of a smile, a kind word, or some friendly help. We don't have to look far, as they are all around us... and you never know when the smallest gesture can make a big difference in someone's day.

The last cottage block arrived.....

A few days back, the last of the cottage blocks arrived. A group of 12 did this over the course of a year and we each took a month....and made cottages in fabric we thought represented that month....and made 12 of them. We kept one for ourselves and sent the other 11 out to the rest of the group. Here is cottage #12 for April.......which has fabrics that look like they have raindrops on them (for April showers) and a butterfly in the window. Paula in New Hampshire made it.


And below we have a photo of all 12 of the blocks...starting with January and ending with December. I believe I am going to do black sashing and borders.......as I laid them on black fabric and they stood out very nicely against the black. This was a fun project and Betsy was a good "swap" mom for this....thanks, Betsy!