Ideas and Snow

This is some of my new reading material; Amish quilts, Susan McCord's fabulous appliques from the Henry Ford, Gwen's wonderful quilting, Ami's stitches, and Tonya's words.  Enough ideas for dozens of quilt designs, now I just have to find enough time to get some of them onto fabric.  I love having lots of options and opportunities to try new things.     






This is March 24 in my back yard in mid-Michigan.  Last week was in the 40 and 50s, all the snow melted, and I went to buy seeds.  Hmmm...this week we got 5" of snow and 1/2" of ice on Tuesday night and it is still hanging around in the trees.  I'm going to be optimistic and pretend that spring really is here.  Tomorrow I start my tomato, basil, and flower seeds in flats in the florida room.  It will be good to see little green stuff.  It's time.      

Still Knitting and the World Wide Swap

Okay, TWO dishcloths have been completely knitted.   They aren't perfect, but as Nita keeps telling me, "they are dishcloths". 

On the other front, the on line quilting group that I belong to is having a world wide swap.  I just spent two hours foraging in the boxes in the florida room to find my extra pieces, strings, buttons, and bows.  Tomorrow these will be going to Connecticut and I will be getting a package from California.  It is worldwide because we also have members participating from Australia, France, Panama, and Germany.  Harold is less than impressed that we are shipping fabric scraps across 4 continents.  I think it is totally cool! 

Knitting, not Purling...The Dish Cloth

Okay, once again, Nita is teaching me to knit, notice that I did not say purl...yet, only knit.  My next lesson is purl.  I decided to figure them out one at a time.  It doesn't seem like it should be difficult, however, my motor memory seems to be faulty when it comes to knitting.  Of course, practice would help...and practicing oftener than every 2 months would be even better.  I will figure this out, even though I have to admit, I'm not sure that dish cloths are really worth the time or money for cotton yarn....but I need to make something to start.  Don't look really close though, every time I said that I had made a mistake, she said "keep going, it's a dishcloth". 

Oak Leaf Applique and Kids

I have not been blogging, but I have been busy.  This was spring break week for the kids' colleges and they both went out of town to visit their sisters and then spent a couple days at home and Chrissy brought her housemate too.  It was a lot of fun.  We went to Detroit and the Eastern Market yesterday, drove around Belle Isle and down Jefferson so she could see where they made the Chrysler commercial.  We had lunch at PF Changs and walked around Somerset eating Godivas.  Chrissy drank Starbucks again and again, since she can't get it up north.  But back to school today... 
The Oak Leaf Applique
I started this applique about a month ago.  I was thinking about maybe hand quilting a whole cloth  quilt when I saw this style in an old magazine.  I loved the oak reels and with big spaces between them, I'll have lots of room for fancy hand quilting.  The blocks are 25" with a 2" green border and a 5" white border.  (It's amazing how big and white 25x25" blocks can be when you are going to fill them up with stitches.)  I used white Kona muslin for the background and 1948 Roses by Maywood Studios for the varigated green applique and border.  It does have a fairly distinctive rose pattern in the green, but it was exactly the shades of green that I was looking for and I don't think it bother me when it's done.  I'm going to wash and dry it so I understand how it shrinks and then hand quilt it.  When it's done, I'm thinking about maybe tea dying it to give it a more vintage look and take some of the whiteness out of the background.  The next step is to decide on quilting patterns.  This one will take some real time.  Postscript...thanks to Harold for holding it for the photo (it was starting to snow).     

Free Day at Basket Guild

I think we all had a good time.  It was our guild's, Mid Michigan Basket Weavers, free class day.  We had 10 new weavers looking for entertainment on a snowy Saturday.  We offered supplies, tools, instructions, lunch, and chit chat and they made small market baskets.  Everyone finished their basket and seemed pleased.  A couple people signed up to join guild (always a good thing) and I think a couple more may be back too.  It's a nice weekend; Chrissy is home from school with her roommate for the weekend and we had a good day making baskets.  I'm always grateful for family and fellowship with like minded women.    

Putts, Spider Webs, and Koi

 I laid the spider web quilt top out on the floor to see the finished product (in case you can't tell, I put a few flying geese down each side) and Putts had to investigate.  She often "helps" me quilt, consequently pet hair is one of my distinguishing marks.  I apologize if I give you a quilt with hair, but with Putts "helping" at every step of the way and the 2 dogs vying for attention, every stitch seems to have a bit of padding.  It is especially noticeable (at least to me) in the hand quilting and applique because I have to take off my glasses and get very close in order to sew and I see every hair... 

This wallhanging is for Dick, my brother in law.  I know he likes oriental gardens so when I saw these Kaufmann panels, I thought that he might like them as a wallhanging in his home office.  I used Maywood Shadowplay fabric as the sashing and appliqued the circles.  I didn't want to have it machine quilted as I wanted the piece to be more open, so I used big stitches and hand quilted it using some gold colored silk thread.  I hand quilted the inside and outside of each seam and around the inside and outside of the circles and along the koi stream.  These pictures aren't terribly good as they were taken on the floor of the library as I was trying to get the best light after dark to take the pictures.  I did learn that the Maywood shrunk more than the panels after I laundered it (to get rid of the majority of cat hair) so I put rod pockets at the top and bottom of the back hoping that it will hang flatter with 2 rods.  I enjoyed making it and I think he will like it.  It's a good thing to bring your gardens inside in February in Vermont.  To that end, I have in progress a much wilder garden hanging for my wall too.  Next time.       

Galloping Moss and Big Stitches

At this site, you can see photos of moss "galloping" down the slope of stromatalitic limestones (remember Don, like the stuff we looked at last summer off the road behind the hardware in Marquette).  I believe I have also seen this phenonmen on rocks in the UP, although not on the stromatolites...  I will be looking this summer and post photos if I can find them. (and you guys thought we were just going to the wedding...)  http://www.ubcbotanicalgarden.org/potd/  Cool website, check it out.  Botany pics every day. 

I returned last weekend from another quilting retreat with P, R, and K at R's cabin.  It was a blast.  3 trips to the local quilt stores, lots of great food and drink, laughter, and funny stories.  I took 6 quilts to work on, didn't actually do much on any of those, but found a perfect fabric for another one and am finishing that up this week.  It's a gift, so you'll have to wait for a photo, but I tried out "big stitch" hand quilting for the first time and am really enjoying it.  You can cover alot of area quickly and I really like the way it looks on this piece.  It will actually contribute to the quilt top and not just hold it together.  I've also been looking through all the quilt magazines that I have been collecting for our guild quilt show in April, and have found at least 100 more patterns, styles, and color combinations that I just HAVE to try out.  I have to live a LONG time.