Block Swap

This is the block I made for my April partner

I managed to get this done the other day. Now if I can finish My other granddaughter's Easter dress I can get back on my Hoffman quilt. I have finally figured out how I want to do it and can't wait to get going.

Blackberry Bush

Is it called a blackberry bush, patch, vine or is it just an eyesore. Every year the blackberry vines try to overtake my bed and I get my gloves and start pulling. Last year my daughter begged me to let them grow. So I did. Now the Japanese Iris are in bloom with blackberry vines as ground cover.

I did pick a hand full. Of course my grandson ate as much as I saved

As long as I'm showing off something beside my quilting (haven't accomplished much lately - just alterations).here is a picture of my jasmine. I get such a sweet smell every time I go out my back door. Makes me want to stay in the backyard.

CW #3

I had to pick up my grandson this morning from pre-school and I thought I'd work on something simple - right. I cut out and sewed the wrong pieces - I re-cut and sewed them the wrong way and I spray starched them when I finished and the red one blead. No more red pieces. It's been a long time since I tried sewing with a 4 year old sitting next to me asking a thousand questions.

Civil War Block #2

My mother and sister came down from north LA on Wednesday to help me with my spare room. I decided to take out the bed and dressers (and junk) and make a second sewing room. I originall wanted to take the wall down between the present sewing room and the bedroom and have one big room but that was a little more work than I wanted to do.
So we set up new bookcases for the fabric and I brought in my old kitchen table. My sister spent 2 days folding and arranging fabric before they went home. I still have tons left to re-fold. I have been coating the table with polyurethane. Still need a few more coats.

Anyway last night I did another square for my the civil war quilt. I tried a different way of doing the applique on the brown square. It was alot easier but I don't really like the effect. I will probably re do it.

martelli rotary cutter

I know I've already blogged about the martelli rotary cutter but that was before I had one. At that time I didn't know how it would work. Now that I have one I can say that I love it. I have much more control and it fits in my hand perfectly. It was well worth the money.

I have also found a video that talks about the cutter, mats, rulers and the zip bind system. I am such a sucker for new toys, especially if I think they will make my work easier(that's just an excuse - I'm a sucker plain and simple). It also shows about their quilting machine and frame - (I don't even want to know how much that costs) it looks awesome.

Martelli also has a good machine oil that they talk about on the video

I just watched the video on the zip bind and it was so simple - where were all these tools when I was learning how to bind quilts.....I don't mean to bore anyone with this information but I felt if I put it out here then I would know where to find it when I needed it.

April Giveaway's

Sew Fabulous Quilt Shop is having an April Giveaway of a Montego Batiks Fat Quarter Bundle full of rich, tropical prints and colors.

I just love batiks.

STAY STICHES GIVEAWAY

Stay Stitches is giving away a $25.00 gift certificate to Fat Quarter Shop
.

Go check it out - you might be the next winner


Bryn Alexandra GiveAway

The "grand prize" winner of this giveaway will win 5 stacks of 5 one yard pieces of fabric


AND DON'T FORGET INCH WORM FARBICS

Is giving away a fat quarter of each of the 5 new Riley Blake prints

Pieced on Earth

Is giving away a fabric bundle by Riley Blake. One lucky winner will get five fat quarters of her Love Birds line.

My 1st quilt

After talking with Barb yesterday about her 1st quilt I thought I'd put mine out there. I thought she started quilting with Jeanette and me way back when. I remember sitting on the front porch with our grandmother's shoe box of scraps cutting out each piece seperately using a template made out of cardboard. As we cut it out we would string it so the pieces wouldn't get scattered and all we needed to do was pull off one piece at a time. For me this was about 40 some years ago. For Barb it was a little (little) less.

Anyway I decided to make a dresden plate, the only one I've ever made, and here it is. My mother and I quilted it about 35 years ago (as you can tell) and I have used it ALOT. For a long time this was the only quilt I had.

Here is a closer view. All the plates look like this. In some places there is nothing but the top stitch thread. My girls used it for entertainment by pulling the fabric.

They really went to town on the back. My son-in-law doesn't like to sleep under this - I wonder why

If any quilt is in need of a makeover it is this one. Even though it is in rags I can't bear to get rid of it and it doesn't seem to get close enough to the top of the stack to be worked on. So my 1st quilt still goes on.

My Grandmother's quilt

When I was making Erin's Easter dress I was digging in a drawer and found these squares that my grandmother made. There wasn't enough for a quilt so i had to make 4 more to go with them just to get enough for a twin quilt. So I spent yesterday putting it together and this is what I came up with.

Then I decided I would quilt it like my grandmother quilted (except on the machine). Knowing I couldn't get my lines even I had to make a ruler. I drew out what I wanted and cut it out of a piece of plexi-glass. Before long I'll have a good supply of rulers.

Easter Dress

I know I should have been working on my quilt today or even doing alterations but I decided to make this Easter dress for my granddaughter Erin. I still need to pull gathering threads and I'll probably hem it up a little more but for today I'm finished.

It took a little longer than it use to. I remember a time I could make 2 dresses in a day - but I did goof a little today - after all it's Saturday.

225 minus one

Instead of 99 bottles of beer I should start with 225 Dear Janes. I have finished my 1st Dear Jane square (D-8) so I can say that I have officially started my Dear Jane quilt. It took awhile to gather up the fabric

I decided that I would make one using the civil war fabrics and another with brighter fabrics. It won't be any more difficult to make 2 blocks at a time than 1.

I also thought that I would start with the applique blocks since I'm not that crazy about doing applique. It has been many (many) years since I did any applique and I'm a little rusty. These 2 blocks prove that. I'll get better. And one plus is there are so many squares that maybe when it's finished these will just be lost in the sea of the 225