For your viewing pleasure...

...and the continuation of my documenting my quilts.
 This little wall quilt I made in 1995, it's hand appliqued and the bow was attached after the quilt was finished. This is the 2nd one I made.  The first one my SIL made such a fuss over-I was compelled to give it to her.  This is one of those quilts that never seem to lose its appeal for me. I just love seeing it every fall.

This is an oven mitt.  I never use is, just hang it on a cabinet knob every October and put it away when the Christmas decorations come out. It was a project from a LQS in 2003, called The 3rd Saturday of the Month Club. You paid a small fee in January and got your first little project. Then as long as you brought the completed project into the shop the 3rd Saturday of the following month; you got the next month's pattern free.

This is the quilt on my bed right now, made in 1997.  It's all flannels even the backing.  The pillow panel at top is cottons.  I machine appliqued those using a loose zig zag stitch. This was before I had a machine with the blanket-stitch. There was no way I was doing all that by hand. It's one of the few quilts I've tied. 

This is a lap size 'raggy seams' quilt I made in 2004.  The front is all homespun's, the back is mostly denim from the kids' worn out jeans. It was amazing how little usable denim is left from kids jeans after removing seams and holes in the knees etc.  I had to go to a thrift store and buy some large men's jeans to make up the difference.

This is a Little Quilt (literally and patterningly as well). It is only 13" x 17". I hand quilted it.

I just love this little guy too. As I've started to document these quilts.  I'm finding some of them haven't been labeled... GASP!  Bad, Diane, bad. 

And in this process am seeing first hand why it's so important.  --It's a pain in the butt to go through 4" ringbinders of patterns and notes to try to find the date that I took a class (that quilts further down) or in this little quilts case looking back through my quilting photo albums.

Much easier to just flip the bottom up and read the label. 

This is another Little Quilt, scrappy 9-patch made January 2004.

This little winter door hanger I made in 2005.  The pattern was in Amer. Patchwork Mag. in 2004. 

 He hangs on our door almost all year.  Annie will use her nose to ring his little jingle bell to get our attention when she needs to go out.  Our 1st westie, Haley, taught her that, but Haley rang the sleigh bells  on the hinge side of the front door.  It, too, was a holiday decoration, that stays up year-round.  

Annie will hit the big ones first, but if we don't jump up within 30-40 seconds.....she'll start flipping the snowman.  Sometimes we just watch her do it, cracks us up. 

And finally, my no diamonds Lone Star. It's made with HST.  I think 5/2005 is when I made it.  It doesn't have a label, and the class notes just have 4/29 on the top of one of the pages (in my hand writing).  I don't remember and didn't have a picture of it in my photo album.  Wow, I really dropped the  archival ball on this one.

The "design wall"

This is my design wall the little maple leaf quilt is ready for quilting, I will probably just do it quick on my 4.0, I've never tried the built-in stipple stitch. I got this little kit on my quilt bus tour and am glad another project I bought is getting done. 

The 3 embroidery blocks are up there only because I found them in a drawer a few weeks ago.  I made a bunch of these while oldest son was in Iraq, I think the 1st time.  I had more of them (all with different little sayings) but used them for gifts, pillows etc.  These are what's left.  They'll probably get taken down and put away again, until inspiration strikes.  

The other 2 blocks are orphans. 

On Saturday I finally loaded my Spring Journey sampler quilt on HQ but have yet to start. I figure I can work on it a little, while waiting for the dang turkey to thaw. haha.   I've marked the huge setting triangles with the spines for feathers and will probably quilt the blocks and sashing "as the quilting spirit" moves me as I go along.  I know once I start on this, I won't want to stop.  (Its an illness, I know.....)

It's finished!

And I'm really happy with it.  I did an all over micro stipple but in the center block area I quilted a feathered circle....really was a waste of time 'cuz you really can't see the feathers.  But I like to do feathers and micro stippling is sorta boring...so it's all good! 

  Oh, and you may be wondering "diane, why would you make a turkey blue?" Well..... I made this to go on my table for

Thanksgiving, the new tablecloth I got for it is blue, my dishes are these:

Pfaltzgraff "America" there are 4 different quilt blocks in the set.   So I think it will really look nice together,

Oh I am liking this little Turkey

After my morning post I got dressed (he-he, I do a lot of my best work in my jammies) and headed to the sewing room to work on this Turkey block. Oh my gosh I am in love with him.  I took a picture of the pattern sheet, you may have to enlarge to see it though.  I wasn't able to use the special ruler to make the long tail on my turkey because I'm using scrap pieces of batiks and the directions call for cutting 10 inch and 7 inch squares....my pieces aren't big enough. We are really scaping the bottom of the scrap barrel--which is a good thing too. But just took me longer to figure out how to piece this one.

Oh and here's a new little cabinet I got last week while I was out searching for a new fall front door wreath.  I didn't find a wreath but I spied this little cabinet and thought it would be so cute to hold spools of thread.  When I got it home though, I decided it would look great on the walll next to my china closet.  It would never have held all my spools anyway so I didn't feel bad about that.

I'm busy

  I've been busy...planning my menu, grocery shopping, shopping at Kohl's (do you love Kohl's?-I do)  I got an electric knife   Then I got a food processor, that was a luxury buy I will admit.  I have a small version, but it takes a long time to chop up large quantities.  I've been mulling around getting one for so long...I'm doing a little happy dance about it! 

And my most important purchase-a new heavy duty turkey roasting pan of my own!  Can you believe married as long as I have been and I'm still using the old one my mom gave me years ago, when she bought herself a new one because our family got so big her's wouldn't hold a 22 pound + turkey.  

 So now I have one with a very sturdy roasting rack, with handles  I'm so excited to use all my new stuff. It feels like Christmas came early for me.  

I've been sewing too, but not a lot of progress.  I finally got the binding hand sewed to the back of the Black, White and Red Circles quilt I posted about last time.  I was reading a blog (Ponderings)  about Faux paper towels and fabric napkins.  So I bought some fabric at Joanne's that I thought would go nicely with my dishes and made some.

The yellow ones are hemmed, the fall leaves ones I cut on the bias, no hem.  I didn't know if you cut something on the true bias it wouldn't fray.  I was skeptical, but dang it's really true!  .

Today I want to make a turkey block using an Eleanor Burns pattern that I can't remember the name of right now.  It's actually a maple leaf block that you add applique head, waddle and legs to to turn it into a turkey.  You have to use her special rulers, so this will be new for me and will take a little un-interupted time, which I think I may be able to squeeze in today
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This morning I went into my sewing room, on the way back upstairs from starting a load of laundry, and I spied my Santa Hooked Rug project...

This is a project UFO that I honestly don't know when I started it or bought it.  This is what my notebook says....

-I got this kit years and years ago, probably in the early 90's! I was afraid I was going to screw it up, so I just put it away.  A few years ago, (3-4?) I got it out and did a small area of it, but after Christmas was over, I lost interest...

11/04--I got it out again and did a good bit more on it. I would like to finish this in 05...

I didn't finish in 05 so I'll try again for 06. :)...

It's 7/2006-I haven't looked at it yet... 

It's 10/06-I moved the project bag it's in but haven't added one stitch.

(no further entries)

Yes this is my most procrastinated project ever.  I brought the bag upstairs with me.  Maybe this is the year.  LOL.  I used to have a 14" quilting hoop that I used for it....I can't find it anywhere.
I'm not going to hope for a finish this year, let's just say 'significant progress' which at this point would be anything, haha.  It's really cute and after all these years I still really like it. So it's definately something I want to finish.  I also remember that this kit was terribly expensive and that was part of the reason I just put it away,  I would have bee Here's a picture from the pattern, finished....  

And here are my efforts so far. Pathetic, I know. 

Today I quilted the Black,white & Red quilt. I need to give it a name. I did an all over what I call "water ripples" using black thread. Here's a close up picture, I hope you can see the quilting. I really liked how it turned out. The colors are not true, the whites are pure white-not off white or cream as they appear here.

 

Tonight was my book club meeting.  A couple of us went to dinner first and then to Panera's for the meeting. The book this time was Tallgrass by Sandra Dallas.  It was a good book, nothing earth shattering, but I liked it.  We had a really good discussion which was nice.  Sometimes it's not a good discussion and I think I should have just stayed home. (I get cranky like that occasionally!) *wink*.  

After I got home from the meeting, I finished the B,W and Red quilt and unloaded it. Then  I loaded a baby quilt that another friend dropped off today, she's run out of time to quilt it herself and wants to have it done before Thanksgiving to take to her daughter who is pregnant with their first grandchild, so I told her of course I could do it. I was just going to load it for tomorrow, but I'm up anyway so I quilted that too.  It's done.  She'll be surprised when I call her tomorrow.  

I finished the Winter Welcome runner this weekend and just love it-hated to put it away until Christmas decorating time. 
Today it was nice out, cloudy but warm-I didn't even need a jacket- so I got out in the flower beds and pulled out and cut off all the dead stuff, it looks much better and I feel much better being able to get that off 'the list'. 

Yesterday and today I sat out on my empty deck (had to drag a chair out) and cut out the logos on all the t-shirts.....a much more managable pile to work with now.  And it takes up much less room.  There are about 50 t-shirts!  Just getting this much done makes me breathe a little easier, now that I've started I'm getting a little excited about the process. I've never made a t-shirt quilt before and probably never would if my sister-in-law hadn't asked.  I'm only going to work on one quilt at a time and am hoping to have the pieces fused  and a layout started by this time next week.  hmmmm, crossing fingers, legs and eyes that I can do this.  I bought 9 yards of woven interfacing. I don't think that will be enough, but it will be a start. 

My other goal for this week is to load and quilt my Black, White and Red Circles quilt that I pieced a few months ago.  I have the backing ready and waiting....

Today I finished the little trivet that was our gift from visiting Calico Gals quilt shop on the bus tour last week. In back of it is a bag I made today as well, I'm going to keep my GPS in it in my car....disguised as a cosmetic bag...in-genius!

Oh, one more picture.  My friend Libby asked me to quilt a baby quilt for her.  It's an adorable Mother Goose quilt.  My photography skills are crappola so my apologies.  I just had a ball quilting it.
A good friend of hers hand appliqued the center and then Libby assembled it.  I only did a little quilting on the appliques, most of it was background stuff to help set off the design. She was very happy with it, so that makes me happy too.