What is This I See?

What is this from yonder bedroom window I see?

Well, it's finally the sun! We had a few hours of sun today followed by a downpour at 2:00! So I grabbed the camera and snapped some pictures of my most recent finish. This quilt is made entirely of Amy Butler fabrics that I had for a while. It's a brighter palette than I usually use but I love it and it's bright colors have been a lift to my mood these dark days we have had since the beginning of June here in NH. I am calling it "No Summer for You!" but more on that later.

My quilter did a wonderful job choosing a flower design that echoes some of the fabrics. And it's actually been cool enough at night to want a quilt on the bed. Very unusual for July for sure.

They say Sunday will be a nicer day so I am looking forward to that. I hope the rest of you have a great holiday weekend.

Update 7/4/09; I forgot to let you know the name of the quilt. I always name my quilts, usually some silly name. My sister gives her quilts names based on a song but I usually just use whatever pops into my head at the time so here is how this one came about. As I was e-mailing Karen Dianne one evening and wondering why she wasn't resting or at least watching Seinfeld like I was, the name of the quilt popped into my head. It is "No Summer for You"!! You know, like "No soup for you". I watch way too much Seinfeld!

It's Come Down to This People

July 2nd. It's pouring rain again. Daughter, daughter in law and grandson are here and we are trying to entertain each other by building forts. I think we are all slowly going crazy. Thanks for listening.

Weather Update and Other Things

I really want to post a sunny picture of my Amy Butler quilt, which is finished, from this post but I keep waiting for a sunny day for a nice picture and there have been none. The weatherman on last night's news had some statistics for us. June 2009 had no days in the 80's-None, Nada, Zero! It has rained all but a handful of days and guess what-it's July 1st and it's raining!! So pictures are on hold. I think I have mushrooms growing out of my ankles from the moisture. My gardens have mostly rotted from too much moisture but there should be good juicy apples coming up this fall. Maybe it will stop raining by then. Appologies to those of you suffering from extreme heat.

On another note, Kim from Magnolia Bay Quilts has bestowed upon me the Honest Scrap award in which I need to tell you 10 things about myself. I've done this many times before so it's going to be hard but here I go with some really random things.
1-I hate lima beans
2-I pretty much love all other foods
3-My mother was a sewing teacher
4-I went to kindergarten with my husband
5-I like tea over coffee (don't tell Pam)
6-I don't especially like Martha Stewart
7-I grew up in Massachusetts
8-I have an artificial knee (I love it too!)
9-I have two grown kids-a daughter who is 28 and a son who is 31
10-My second grandchild, another grandson, is due any minute

So that's it for now. I am choosing not to tag 10 people since I have done this before and don't want to make 10 other people mad at me! Hopefully my next post will be a sunny one!

Happy Anniversary

Well here you have a picture of a couple of my favorite men on a recent recent trip to Cape Cod and what’s better than splashing in puddles with one’s grandpa, or as Carter calls him, “Ga”. My husband is a great husband and a wonderful grandpa and June 29th is our 34th wedding anniversary. It was a rainy day when we got married 34 years ago but it’s been mostly sunny days for us since so we are blessed. So Happy Anniversary to my favorite guy.

Well, Looky Here!!

I had a pile of Amy Butler fabric which I was trying to put in to a quilt which I wrote about in my last post. It was really giving me fits. All the colors and patterns were a little over whelming to me. But then as I was reading the comments on that post there was one from sewmeow who said, Sometimes us quilters just need to "do it" (as Nike shoes ads used to say) instead of "thinking of doing it".......good luck.
And that was what I was doing-"thinking of doing it". So I just trusted my instincts and did it and this is what I came up with for color and pattern placements.

I just love the colors, especially all the turquoises and oranges. The pattern is by Valori Wells and is just fantastic in her new fabric line but I am on a fabric diet so into the stash I went. You can find this free pattern here. And believe it or not, I already have this quilt back from my quilter who did a fantastic job. I would have shown you a picture of the quilting but it is so dark and rainy here today that the pictures just wouldn't come out. Seriously people, it has rained 18 of the past 23 days here in NH! Good days for staying in the sewing room.

What is Going on Here?

So I'm back from Cape Cod and trying to get into some sewing during the summer which I have off from the college I work at. I really wanted something simple and what's simpler than just strips of fabric in different widths and sizes. These Amy Butler large prints seemed perfect for this since they don't lend themselves well to being cut up into small pieces.

Simple? What am I, crazy? This quilt seems to have stymied me from the begining. You have to consider scale and color and the texture of all these fabrics which will be residing next to each other and I want happy neighbors so it's taken me a while to get it together.

So as I ponder and stare at the remains of the day you may see this quilt someday but right now that day seems a long way off.

I'm Off!

I'm off to Cape Cod! My mother in law's side of the family has been having a family reunion every other year since the 1920's. Since 1967 we have been having it at this heavenly site on Cape Cod and usually between 75-100 show up. You can read about the last reunion here. So I'll be back next week with hopefully sunny pictures. The weather looks iffy. I guess I better bring games and puzzles! Hope your weekend is sunny and nice.

My Quilt Ladder

Well, I'm of work for the summer from the college work I do and it's taking me some time to decompress from a very busy year, but I can feel my quilting mojo coming back and have a few projects in mind I want to start. First up is a little cleaning and organizing. I had a corner of my great room that was kind of empty and needed something and wanting to display some quilts and always wanting one of these quilt ladders I broke down and ordered one from here.
It'll be nice to rotate some quilts on this display that I haven't used in a while like the second one from the top which is an antique and too delicate to actually use on a bed.

It went together simply with these pegs-look Ma, I did it myself!

So hopefully I'll get going on actually sewing something here soon. I think I'm going to stop fondling my Amy Butler fabrics I've had for a while and making something with them. Stay tuned.

Mother's Day a Little Late

I should have posted this a while ago but am just getting around to showing you one of my wonderful Mother's Day presents, this one from my daughter Caryl. She's a very talented young woman and one of her crafting specialties is card making. By the way I (stole) borrowed all these pictures from her blog which you should check out. In this wonderful box is a collection of cards.
But not just any cards. These are cards with a quilt theme.

Like a quilter she pieced this one with little pieces of different papers.

This one says, "May your bobbin always be full." That is a wonderful quote when you think about applying it to everything in life.

And this is my favorite. It says, "When life throws you scraps, make a quilt!"

So along with the gift card to a new restaurant My son and daughter in law gave me it was a very nice Mother's Day. My daughter's blog is Stamps and Stitches and if you wanted to purchase cards from her I'm sure she could put something together. By the way she is a first grade teacher so she is a busy girl, and along with taking care of her house and husband, she also works part time in a Hallmark store which is very ironic! Perhaps she'll put them out of business someday.

A Quilt for a New Grandson

When I was in Tennessee recently for my nephew's wedding I found this quilt at Tennessee Quilts in Jonesboro, an amazing quilt shop. I had been looking for a quilt for my new grandson who will be arriving in July.
You can't see it in the above the quilt, but many of the colors in the border fabrics were very pinkish and coral which I didn't want in a boy's quilt. Here's my version below. Most of the border fabric I had on hand. I did buy the polka dots-who can resist polka dots!

My quilter as usual did a fun quilt design. So I have got to get going on binding on this soon.

I hope everyone has a great Memorial Day. We'll be at my son and daughter in law's house, painting the room that grandson #1 is moving into to free up the nursery for his baby brother who'll be here in July.

More Rebel Roses

I wrote in a previous post about some Fabric, Rebel Roses, that I won in Heather Mulder Peterson's blog giveaway. A layer cake yields a lot of projects, I am finding. I made the table topper in the previous post and I also made this table runner out of one of Heather's Little Charmers patterns.
One of the reasons I like her patterns is that they have simple directions with great shortcuts. This pattern tells you which way to iron everything and by doing that you get those perfect intersections.

The pattern calls for applique on the triangle ends but I think this brown fabric is cute and I'm going to leave it as is.

I love her combination of colors and I have enough fabric for a couple more table runners so I'll be tackling those at some point, probably for Christmas presents. Make sure you check out Heather's blog and read about the amazing house renovation she and her husband have undertaken.

The Guest Poster

Hi, Carter here. I'm at Nya Nya and Ga's (a/k/a Chris and Mike's) house today. It was so nice out we went to the river nearby and walked on this boardwalk over the river. This is my action shot.
Then Ga and I had to check out the river.

On the other side there was a cow! Nya Nya and I liked it alot. Nya Nya said there used to be a meat packing plant here, whatever that is.

Then we got to go to a playground and play on all the slides and we took a walk on a trail around the pond at the park.

When we got home we picked some lilacs from Nya Nya's garden since it's finally warm weather here.

And now I need a nap from all this running! And Nya Nya and Ga do too!

Finally Some Quilting

Way back in February I won some fabric from Heather Mulder Peterson which I posted about here. So using one of Heather's patterns I already had, I made this little table topper.
Then I tried my hand at a loopy free motion quilting design and quilted it on the old Singer I recently acquired.

I need some practice in speed control but it was surprisingly easy to do. I have a Bernina with the stitch regulator but I have never been able to master it. I think the problem is that the Bernina is too fast and the Singer is much slower. So I'm trying to get back in the sewing groove. I work at a college and this time of year is frantic but I'll be off soon for summer so there'll be more going on quilt wise. Next up is a baby quilt for my soon to be arriving second grandchild, another grandson. I can't wait!

A Blog to Check Out

Remember the post about my acquiring the above machine? I really enjoyed the comments from everyone on what machines they had and how many you all had. Among the commenters was The Quilt Rat. You should go right now and check out her blog and especially check out the pictures of her toy sewing machines, which there is a link to in her right side bar. Counting her 78 toy machines, she has a total of 93 machines! Makes my puny 8 machines look like nothing!

By the way, I have used that old machine above to free motion quilt a table topper and it worked great doing that task. I still need some practice but I was very pleased with the results. I'll post a picture next week of that. In the meantime, have a Happy Mother's Day.

The Blog Friends Award

My dear daughter, Caryl, has nominated me for the Blog Friends Award. I kind of like the description of this award;

"These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind of bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers."

The reason I like blogging is because of the friends I have made from all over the world so this is an appropriate award. Plus I get to see some amazing quilt ideas, many of which I have then used in my own work.

Caryl is a very creative young woman. She's a first grade teacher and also works on weekends at the local Hallmark store which cracks me up because her craft of choice right now is card making! She makes awesome cards and is a master crocheter so check her blog out. She lives in a cute Victorian two-family home not far from me so I'm glad she's close by. She's my buddy for checking out antique and consignment stores.