Miss me?

Where did time go??? I can say it sure was NOT spend in the sewing room......more like it was spend on baseball fields at endless children's ball games. And the season has just started!!

But I have managed to get a few things done.......I started cutting out more wool flowers. I'm on the yellows now.

And I made some house blocks for Bumble Beans. She is doing a charity quilt project......I am going to mail off my blocks and some extra fabric tommorrow.

I got a bag of scraps from my friend Lisa at the recent guild retreat.

That messy pile became........THESE!!

I like the pink houses the best......

I finally finished up another Paintstik project too. This nifty totebag/purse uses lots of scraps! I had alot of fun playing with the grommet hole maker. Gonna have to make something else with that thing!

Time to head off to bed. I decided today to do as much cooking as possible for the week ahead. I ended up making: a turkey breast, tacos, BBQ, pumpkin muffins, pea soup, and browned some extra meat. Hopefully this will make the nights go smoother. With baseball games four nights a week at 6pm, its been hard to get dinner on the table.

For the rest of the week I am going to be stitching away on Candy Cane Lane!!! I have four blocks done and it looks so cool!!! With any luck, I should have most of the top done by the next class on Sunday. Check it out at my Candy Cane Christmas blog.

Have a good start to your week!!

kathy

The candy cane picture

Ok, I had some requests for a photo of the quilt......now mine is still in pieces down in the she-cave. So you are going to have to settle for a photo from the book. Click here to check it out.....

Isn't it adorable!!!! All the yo'yo's.....so cute!!!

And I am going to do my via machine applique since if I tried to do this using hand applique, I would be dead before it was done with.

Now hurry over to A Candy Cane Christmas and join the fun!!

Good night and almost the weekend, horray!!! Going to spend some time with Mr Bernina this weekend!!!

kathy

Done!

I finished up a commission quilt on Tuesday. It was for a school that has a tradition of doing a quilt of the students in a particular grade every spring and then raffling the quilt off to raise money. This tradition was started years and years ago......and over time it has gotten harder for the parents to do the quilt since less people sew. This year, they were unable to find anyone in the class to put the quilt together. A call to the local quilt shop turned up my name........a couple of week later, the project was done!

My friend, Annette, did the embrodiery for me since I am clueless about that. She did a great job and the parents are very pleased with how the quilt turned out.

I am starting a new project this week for a class I am teaching. The quilt is called Candy Cane Lane and it is very cool. I decided to make a blog for this project so students in the class can have a visual reference for the different techniques used in the class. AND I thought it would be fun for my friends in blog land to sew along with us!!! If you would like to join the sew along, go to A Candy Cane Christmas and leave a comment. I will email you back with an invitation to join the blog. Then you can post pictures and comments of your progress!

Hope you can join in!

kathy

My Folder

Tonight I decided to do a little playing around.......I saw this folder folio project over at Three Creative Studios and have been wanting to make it for a while now. So tonight was the night!

I got out scraps, heavy duty interfacing, and threads. I fused, stitched, and zigzagged away.....and when I was done, I had this.

Isn't that cute!!! Here's the inside.....

Lots of room to hold my stuff, a pen, and some paper. Now let's suppose I get bored during a class or meeting. I can take all my stuff out and gaze on this!

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Snicker, snicker, snicker......I am so bad.......if you want to make your own folder, here's the link for the instructions. You're own your own to find man fabric though....

Have a good rest of the weekend!

kathy

Wordy Wednesday

Lots of people seems to do "Wordless Wednesdays" but I love to blab so that's not happening here. Hmmmm, what to say......its really hot here in Maryland. I heard rumors it was 90 degrees today, which is really freakish. It's supposed to drop to the 60's by Friday though. And that's a good thing cuz I have alot of weeding to do and I really hate weeding in the hot sun.

I'm getting my garden ready for the spring......the coneflowers are coming up all over the place and the parsley seems to have survived being buried under 4 plus feet of snow. I'm thinking of trying those containers that let you grow your tomatoes upside down. Has anyone tried those before?? If so, did you like it?

Gotta wonder what he's thinking about.....birds? bugs? or no thoughts at all......hmmmmm......

Ok, time to get back to work on that commision quilt. Only two more heads to sew, now that will leave you wondering!

Have a good day!!

kathy

The mail

Last Friday I got home from work and look what I found in the mail.....

It's from Austraila! Now I am really curious because I have no idea who it is from or what is inside. Hmmmmmm.....what could it be??????

It's a lovely angel from Misteacrafts. I love her blog....she does the most amazing stitchery and it was really funny reading about how hot it was in February over in Austraila while here in Maryland we kept getting pounded with snowstorm after snowstorm.

Thanks so much for the wonderful surprise Misteacrafts!!!

We did some egg dying for Easter.....here's my two faves. I made the green one and my youngest made the purple one.

No one here is really fond of hard boiled eggs so two years ago, we started giving the dogs the Easter eggs. They adore them! We put them in the backyard and the dogs have a grand time finding them and eating them up. Their very own Easter egg hunt and a good way to use the eggs.

Working on a commission quilt this week and hope to have it done by the weekend. Wish me luck and have a great day!

kathy

The final retreat project

Ok, here's the last thing I made at retreat.......ready???

It's a wallhanging and those flower blocks?? Those I made with paintstiks and rubbing plates. They were alot of fun to do. Paintstiks are basically crayons for grown ups. If you have not tried them before, then you should give it a whirl......you'll have a blast. Here's some close ups....

Got to run along......would you believe I still have not bought the kids Easter candy???? Ahhhhh!!!! I'm heading up to Log Cabin candies this morning to stock up and I am sure there will be another 50 crazed parents there too.

Have a wonderful weekend!!

kathy

Farmer's Wife continues on.....

Here's another project I worked on at the retreat.......it's more of those Farmer's Wife Sampler blocks. They have such cool names.....

Like Buzzards Roost......where did THAT come from??

Calico Puzzle......

Now I realllllly like this block, Century of Progress.......but I put the blocks together the wrong way, see?

So I invented a new block!!!! What do you think I should call it????

Then there is this block.....it's called "Cats n Mice".

Let's put the photo into the editing program and add a few details.....

Viola! Don't you think that is funny.....I sure did!! And the cat fabric is from my friend Cheryl. She bought it at a store near the retreat, cut it up, and let me have her scraps. Couple hours later, I started doing these blocks and realized one was called Cats n Mice.....so out came the cat fabric scraps. Cool huh!

I still need to decide if I should add eyes, noses and tails on the real block.....what do you think?

Have a good night!

kathy