Friendship Stars exchange

This past Wednesday at my quilt bee we had our friendship stars exchange. These are the blocks I received! I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them yet. I could just leave them as they are and make a small lap quilt from them. (The blocks are 9 inches square.) or I could graph out an alternative. I am always open to any suggestions. :0)
Here are all the blocks laid out on the table. We all picked up our own blocks after they were set out for everyone to see.
Here are some ladies picking out their blocks.
This is a flower memory quilt. One of our members lost a parent not long ago. Rather then sending flowers to her, we each made a flower block and then put them together as a special memory quilt for her.
This is a really neat purse made by one of our members. And below are 2 more beautiful quilts brought in for "show and tell". :0)

I am currently working with 1 1/2 inch strips in "Fall" colors. The strips are from an exchange my bee did a while back. I have finally decided what I'm going to do with them. I have made a test block which seemed to work out with some minor adjustments. So I plan to go ahead and work on making some more blocks today. (I really have been wishing that we chose to use at least 2 inch strips for the exchange.) I had to re-work the pattern I decided to use in order to make these blocks (which I hope to show you soon). It has taken me quite awhile to figure out what I was going to do with them. Hopefully this is going to work out the way I have visioned it. We shall soon see!!

Have a great Day! And happy sewing! :0)

Friendship

Next week The "Sew n' sews" quilt bee that I am in will be celebrating the 12th year anniversary of when the "Bee" began! Right now we have 13 members in the group. Each member is to make 12 friendship blocks to share with each other. The friendship block above was the first one I made. Then I decided to be funny and do a second one for everyone (Just because! :0) )
Here is a close-up of the fabric I picked out for my "Just Because" block. It has honey bees and spools! :0)
Here are 3 of the blocks finished. I need to hurry up and finish them for next Wednesday. It should be a fun meeting.
These are some quilts from "Show and Tell" at my last bee meeting. Enjoy! :0)

The "New Look"

Hello Everyone! I hope you are all having a great summer and staying cool. It has been extremely hot here! UGH! Too hot!!

I wanted to share some pictures of quilts from my last "Bee" meeting. We have some very talented women in our group which I am proud to be a member of. Enjoy!





The quilts from here on are all hand pieced.

The nine patch blocks below were made up of only red scraps.
The Lemoyne stars in this next quilt are only 3 3/4 inches square!!

It's been a very busy summer in my household so I have not had the chance to do any postings here on blogger until now. I hope this has made up for my slacking off over the summer! :0)

****I noticed that my blog background had disappeared and turned into an orange blob. (I have no idea why????) So I now have a new "Look"! My daughter who is going to college for a Graphic Arts major set it up for me. I hope you like it. :0)

An Apron

I have had this apron pattern for about a year. I had everything I needed to make it except matching thread and buttons. I finally found some matching thread! I kept looking in the reds for a thread to match it to no avail. I finally said to myself how about in the oranges. Finally!! I found a thread color to match! The fabric looked red to me, but according to the matching of the thread it is more of a tomato soup color red/orange!! LOL
I never did purchase any buttons for the apron. I saved myself some pennies by tying a knot on either side of the neck tie after pushing it through the buttonhole! I then called it done!
I think this is so cute! I am very happy with it! :0)

A "Pin Keep"

I thought I would show you something that my was my Grandmother's. I have never seen another of these anywhere. Have you ever seen this type of "Pin Keep" before? I actually don't know what it's name is so I've named it a pin keep.
If you push down on the top a single pin will pop out of the tiny hole!! I love this thingy! I remember playing with it as a child and being very fascinated by it. Where were the pins coming from? :>) I am still fascinated by it!! :0)
Here comes the pin!
O.K. o.k....... I will show you where the pins come from! You open up the top and there they are! This pin keep only works with straight pins with a small head, as you see here. All of the pins must have their "heads up" or it will not work. :0)

I just love it!! :0)
By the way. The quilt that you see the pin keep sitting on is what I'm currently working on. I 'm hand quilting it. I am very close to the end now! Just have the borders to do!! Hooray!!!
Look!! This is the newest addition to our family of cars! It is just 2 days old!! A 2010 Toyota Prius! Soooo, If you see a red Prius driving by it might just be me! Give a wave and I might just smile and wave back!!!
This is what I should be doing! Ironing!!! My husbands work shirts. Blah. Look how many!!! He just returned from a trip to Europe and brought me all his icky dirty laundry back. (Don't get me wrong, I love having my husband back home safe and sound, just not his laundry!)

See the pretty fabric hanging over the door?? That's the fabric I'm going to use for my next project. :0) Maybe I will work on that before I iron shirts.......
Oh yes! One last thing I want to share with you today! My Father gave this to me a couple of years ago. I asked him where he had gotten it and if it was my Grandmother's. He couldn't remember. I had completely forgotten about it. It's been sitting in the attic since he brought it to me. I have wiped it down using mild dish soap and water. It needs some more cleaning, but I'm afraid to rub too hard or the design may come off.

Does anyone know anything about this type of machine or how to clean it?

I was not going to do anything with it unless it looked promising. Well guess what? The needle still moves up and down! And when I plugged it in, the light and motor worked!! Now I am excited about trying to clean it up more. The question is how? My guess is this used to be a treadle machine which was turned into an electric machine. ( I would love to turn it back into a treadle machine.... I don't have the special table with the foot pedal though. ) :0)