It all clicks

 For whatever reason, yesterday it all clicked...  Feathers are flowing...  Not going to question it, 

just going to roll with it...  Thank you for all the support!  

My fears have gone away, and I am so excited the way this quilt is turning out...

 The back makes my heart sing. You can see the feathers better through the blue...

Speaking of quilts turning out... Here are two proud owners of the sisters quilts...  

Wasting no time to snuggle up in them!

I'm back to quilting... Have a great day!

under covers

I'm still under cover!  I worked 5 hours on the Star Splitter yesterday...

Just stitching in the ditch around all the half square triangles and stars, 

and big blocks... 

I'd say I have another 3 hours to go, before I can actually start the feathers...

Not feeling so confident again about feathers...  I decided I can now draw them well, but I tried doing it free motion yesterday on a small piece, and with tension problems, its' rather a mess... I put the binding on it anyway and just sort of thought I'd chalk it up to practice, but now after thinking about i over night, I will rip it out...  I like the little piece to much, to leave  it looking crappy.

I did have an insanely productive day yesterday.  Tuesdays are my long day in the studio. I can get a full 8 hours in of work...  So, besides the star splitter, and feathers on the little piece... I cut bindings for 4 quilts, and got them sewn on, (just the machined part)  and they are ready for me to finish hand sewing..

I have a stack of quilted quilts here that only need binding. so this quilt, 

The Scrappy Happy from LAST summer 

and the Circles and Stripes quilt are about to be finished...

2 Basics quilts got finished, 

and the binding on that little feather mess above...

My pillowcases were falling apart, so I finally dug out fabric I bought in Dallas (in march!!)

just for that purpose...  Now I have HOLE FREE pillowcases!  yippee!

I have to say, I've been working pretty hard these days, and COOKING, 

my other love has gone to the back burner...

After a great day of sewing yesterday, I felt I needed a good yummy meal

So I made a chicken pot pie because I was SOOOO hungry, 

as I just didn't stop yesterday...

With gravy!  Yes, it topped off the day...

And at 9:45 last night, I just had to peek at these  blocks...

Hoping one day I will get  some extra time to finish the last 5 blocks...

Sigh.  But only to dream about them today.

Alright. I'm off for that next three hours of stitch in the ditch sewing...

Wish me luck!

ready,steady, go

I've got :

Music blasting.

Lot's of bobbins wound.

And a full day ahead of me.

deep breath.

Dive in.

Have a super day!

fun fun fun!!!

Some of you may have seen this project I have been working on with Tonya at the 15 minutes blog. 

 She made the fabulous star, and I did the background orange/yellows and bits...   Hop over to the other site for more info on it...  It's been so fun to work on, and now I need to get to those Y seams!

It makes me sing and dance when I look at it!

Yippeee!

******

Many of your comments yesterday regarding machine quilting feathers, were extremely helpful! Thank you! It's good to learn form others who have gone through the same thing!  

Thanks for all the great encouragement as well!

Above is one practice attempt at my feathers, I drew it out on vellum, and then quilted right over the drawing...  This was very helpful.

Although it was hard to get the paper off... I felt much more confident after I saw how it looked....

I did watch that DVD on FUN WITH FEATHERS, and I took her advice on which way to start your feather swooping motions, which was very helpful indeed. It was opposite from the way I was drawing them...

 As I sat watching the DVD on my computer, i thought, why do I have such an ugly mouse pad??

So I had to fix that with a bit of steam a seam and some funky fabric...

Much better! Do you agree?

After I ironed the mouse pad down, I accidentally pulled my iron off the ironing table and quickly did  dance to get my feet out of the way... But alas, it bit me twice...

After I watched that DVD on feathers I got all excited to get the STAR SPLITTER quilt basted...

Half way through I ran out of pins... oh well, always tomorrow! My day wasn't going so great...

Later,

I had much more fun anyway, running around NYC with RENE from Rene creates, and her son.

They were in town for two days checking out colleges, so I took them through Times Square, Central Park, Union Square, subway rides, etc... It was a lovely day!

I'm so glad you came by Rene!  Great to see you again!

STARS..DONE!

STAR SPLITTER TOP DONE!

OK.  I am not touching this quilt anymore.... If anyone hears me say, 

"I'm just going to add this one more thing," STOP ME!

The length was long enough already, I needed it to be wider, 

so I added borders and all the leftover half square triangles I had!

Right down to the last 6 I had cut out originally!  pretty good huh!

Of Course my backing was to narrow, after my adjustments, but luckily I had some extra

half yard cuts of this backing fabric... I am obsessed with Jennifer Paganelli prints... 

You have no idea how many cubbies I have just of her prints... or how many more I just bought!

I have 6 yards cuts of every color of this print...  Isn't it lovely!

Gotta get my iron out.. and get this baby pieced and basted...

I had intended to do this last night, but Boo insisted I watch the America's Got Talent finale...

She was nearly in tears when the 10 year old girl did not win... 

How sweet is that?  Some voice on that girl!

Anyway.

**

Selvages?

Holly K.!  Send me your address! You get the selvages! 

You were the lucky pick this a.m.!

**

We can get just about anything for fabrics in my neighborhood.

yesterday I went to the Leather shop...

We have three leather chairs, and TWO of them got damaged, (see the splice in the seat?)

while the construction was going on this summer....

Serious bummer...  This is a huge pieces of leather I found to replace the leather on mine...

Normally I wouldn't, but they are beautiful chairs, and for the price of one of these pieces of leather, I am hoping I can just replace the seats of the chairs... the one on the left is closest... 

Interesting place though. Funny what You can find in my hood.

Here's a OLD picture of my living room.. I couldn't find a empty picture.... 

but  you can see the White radiator covers behind everyone, 

and the empty TV corner under the white painting...

Here it is now!  See the raspberry ice on the walls?  Subtle huh?

 It warms up the room just a bit, I just love it. (the one thing i was most worried about!, PHEEW!)

Now, hopefully all my furniture fabrics make sense!  Remember when I was recovering them, an the colors seemed all over the place?  I think it all worked out well...

I just need my coffee table put back in, but I need 4 people to come move it!

for now it sits behind my couch! Fat lotta good it does there! ;-)

tomorrow, a few pics of my kitchen area...

Have a super day!

And THANK YOU TO:
PAM, CATHY, SHELLY And CHERIE

who have offered to help quilt the last 8 BASICS QUILT TOPS!

ALSO! 

Please don't forget the BAISCS QUILT DRIVE  

is ongoing, and we still need to get to 200 quilts

so I can give away the SEWING MACHINE!!!

Stay tuned, I am waiting for the quilt log update from BASICS

to raffle off the $100 longarm service

from Cottage garden Quilts!

HST'S

So, I ran around yesterday getting batting, backing etc for my STAR SPLITTER quilt, 

knowing that TODAY was the day to baste it and plan my quilting ideas...

I laid it out this morning, and I thought, 

"Well, you know, It's plenty long, but it should be a bit wider..."

So I cut my strips, laid them out, then I thought, 

"well, that's a plain border, I can't  have that!"

So I got out all my extra half square triangles left over from this quilt, and....

Well, now I am sitting here sewing more HST's ...

 It JUST HAS TO HAVE THEM!!!

Does this happen to you?

It's a serious problem, I know...

I thought I'd start showing you some pictures of my loft as we get things all put away...

I figured I'd start with My daughters room, as you know kids rooms, it may be clean for 5 minutes!

well, Boo's room, 

( She says it's OK for me to Call her BOO again, as everyone at school is now calling her that...

And I have been calling her that for the the get go!)

was clean, and it's on the fast train to messy, already, so I snapped a few pics before it's really bad.

I recovered her chair for starters... I bought this super comfy chair at a flea market in NYC long before I was married... Everyone has claimed this chair over the years, but it has become a staple in her room... a good place to sit and read....

Doesn't it look so much better!

With Stuffed doggies and all!

I bought her TWO shower curtains from Urban outfitters and made curtains out of them using fabrics from Tanya Whelan's line. This post of her's inspired Boo's room...

She had a mural on this wall, that we covered with Tanya's DOLCE fabric...

(she'll be thrilled that this was the only picture I could find for a BEFORE!!)

WALL STICKERS

We were at TARGET one day and she found a wall sticker of the STATUE OF LIBERTY

that she wanted to put over her bed between the curtains...  I thought that was a pretty cool idea!

she then wanted the NYC skyline, so we searched and searched and I found this one above her mirror on ebay... it's Vinyl stickers by lucid graphics...

She thought it needed to top her mirror...

We turned her bookcase to face her desk area, not only does it look cool painted RED, but it hides a whole mess when you walk into her room! Brilliant huh?  hahaha!

She loves her room now...  She spends a whole lot of time laying in bed reading & listening to her tunes, really becoming a TWEEN.... yikes...

Today I should get my living room rug back form being cleaned.. then I will show those pictures...

I better get back to my HST's...  They are calling me!

OH!

I have a bag of Selvages here with someone name on it...

Whose name I don't know.

leave me a comment, and I'll pick a lucky someone to send them on to!

The Star Splitter

Yippeeeeee! YAHOO!!!  I got this blasted STAR SPLITTER top together!!!

I found it very interesting when I posted this at the 15minutesplay site, 

that more than one person said, "isn't the last leg of the quilt just the hardest part to do? "

YES! I sooo get that!

You run out of QUILT MO JO as you near the end, once you have an 

idea what "IT" is going to look like...  

I was dragging my heals as it was, putting this beast, I mean, lovely quilt together...

You'd think after getting more THEN half of the quilt together, I'd have all the quirks worked out...

but no... alas, I think I ripped out nearly every seam twice to get it together 

Sometimes the old brain just didn't work...

But in the end...  I won!  (I LOVE IT)

I added in a few other yellows to break up the rather PERFECT looking border...

I much prefer funky THAN perfect...  I like how it draws your eye around the quilt...

The other HARD part of the quilt was, I have a VERY difficult time

NOT making every quilt a KING SIZE quilt...

I mean, If I am making a quilt, it should at least fit my bed! 

no?

I did settle and make this a full size quilt for my guest room,

but it doesn't match anyway... see? I should have made it king... LOL!

It's a sickness I know...

Speaking of sickness... Tonya took me to a goodwill

store and we pretty much cleaned them out of super soft well worn, men's cotton shirts...

They were on sale that day! super score!

She got me hooked... 

These are all in the wash now, so I can start cutting them apart...

This maybe one, if not two quilts...(maybe three?)

I've been corrected by the PROOFING POLICE on my use of THEN AND THAN...
Obviously my creative skills are better THAN my typing and grammer...
Lot's of luck!

a day without sewing.

The Star Splitter

It look like I got a ton done on this today doesn't it?
fooled ya. It was a sewing hooky day...
well sort of... I did this a couple days ago before
a migraine knocked me off my feet yesterday...



Actually, the day was spent with
Jackie, from Canton Village Quilt works!
She and her hubby and some friends brought
me another load of the BASICS quilts..

I took these tonight quick, so the pics aren't great... but you get the idea...
They fill my lawn with patchwork FABULOUS!


Recognize any of your blocks in there?
This batch had a bunch of baby quilts...
so so cute...


We, (my hubby , B and I) took them to the Montauk Lighthouse...
Of course, I didn't bring my
camera, but I am sure Jackie will have some great pics to share...

Thank goodness for my iphone..
the beach was fabulous. surfers, boats, and lots of people..

I'm sneaking off for a few days to play with another quilter pal...
be back soon!

seeing stars!

I'm on a roll, can't stop now!
happy sewing!

Happy day.

It's so fun to get mail.
I had a lovely surprise in the mail when my hubby came out to our house yesterday...
in the mail was a box from Toni.
Inside the box was this lovely turq/red/white fabric
that I was drooling over, (several of us were)
and several of us bought the Yellow version of it, because Toni
was lucky enough to have gotten the last of the bolt...

EEEEK! I screeched in PURE DELIGHT.
Then I proceeded to do a little happy dance...
The fabric is by Jennifer Paganelli,
and you know how much I love her fabrics!!!


I cut into it IMMEDIATELY with the package all laying on my cutting mat...
And added it to one of my star blocks...(above)

thanks Toni.
I love it.




I have a question for all of you.

Can any of you spare
ONE Orphan Block?
(orphan block = any pieced block that has not found a home in a quilt)

I'm working on a project
(not a charity quilt)

and I need a some
extra Random squares...
Any size,
any colors
any block design


NOTE:
I don't need 10 of the same block.
And I don't need TONS of blocks...

So if you have ONE block you want to contribute...

Please send to:

Bumble Beans Inc.
335 W 38th St, 8th fl
New York, NY 10018

*****



It's not all BASICS quilts over here...
I took a break on this triangle commission quilt...
now am back at it...

My go cutter from accuquilt has been so helpful with this project...
Once get the borders on, I am gearing up for the applique portion...
Horses, girl, house, from the design on the pink fabric..


And lastly. But most importantly.

11 years ago, I said " I DO"

And I'd say "I do" a million times over to him again...

Happy Anniversary, Hubby!