Fire in our neighborhood

One of the benefits of living on a golf course is seeing some awesome sunrises. I took this picture on Friday morning. We had some fog rolling around as the sun was coming up. The picture doesn't really do it justice. As I watched, it became more awesome by the minute as it rose in all its glory!

Yesterday, we had a grass fire in our neighborhood on the golf course. Thankfully it was not near enough to us to cause us to leave our home. We live on "Hole #5". The fire was near hole #14. We are in a drought here in NC. Normally this is our rainy season. The fire was started by someone carelessly tossing a cigarette out. The grass here is very dry right now and it was windy yesterday. It didn't take much to start the fire. I don't have any pictures of the actual fire, as you can well imagine, it was blocked off so the fire crew could put it out. They actually asked some people to leave there homes. 3 houses had siding damage. All totaled there were between 25 and 35 acres burned before they were able to get it under control! That's quite a bit!

Well, on a much happier note, I have started my college bound daughter's quilt! Here are 12 of the blocks so far. I have 7 more to go. ( I finished one more while I was uploading all these pictures!) There are 20 blocks total I need to do. My goal is to get all the rest of the blocks done today so my daughter can place them where she likes before I sew them together. Gotta get her involved in her quilt somehow! :0)
I have not gotten to go to IKEA yet. :( My books are still on the floor in boxes. One of these days I will get there so I can finally have a place to store my books! I think I told you that it takes 2 hours to get there from here. By the time you drive there, do your shopping and drive back. Its a full day.
The next pictures are from my quilt bee's show and tell. I hosted the meeting this past Wednesday. Above you see some cute little triangle bags or pouches. Perfect size for lots of things!
Here is a bright table topper.
A table runner.
A Cheerful little quilt!
This is kinda fun! I've never seen this pattern before. It is a four patch turned into a gingerbread man! It's appliqued onto the background or blanket stitched.
This is a raffle quilt.
There are three of us in the group doing the Civil War quilt along from Barbara Brackman's blog.
I'll try to remember to show you mine next time I post.
This is another fun quilt! Something that is dear to my heart. Recycling! This quilt is made all from Men's 100% cotton shirts purchased from "GoodWill"! The maker added a couple of fun bright scraps which adds just the perfect punch. Wonderful! I think she said she spent only $6.oo for all the shirts she bought. I'm not sure how many she got. ( It might have been 6 shirts at a $1.00 a piece?)
Oh darn! I thought I had a picture of the back also. Sorry. Let me tell you this though. The blocks on the front were the sleeves of the shirts. The back was made totally from the larger pieces of the back of the shirts!! What a bargain!!!
Last but not least, is a baby quilt made from all left over scraps from other quilts. Who would have thought that you could put pink and orange together??? Not me... But I really love it!! :0)

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!!

I made some chocolate chip cookies today and added some festive colored M & M's! Chocolate Chip cookies are my husbands all time favorite cookie. I've made lots of different types of cookies over the years. If you ask my husband what kind of cookies he would like, he ALWAYS chooses chocolate chip!! So I have made his favorite cookies for Valentine's Day. What's that saying... To win a man's heart is through his stomach. LOL! :0)
I thought I would show you two quilts that I have hanging in my "Dining" room. This is an applique basket quilt I did. It is fairly formal. Although I will tell you a secret. One I can't hide if you ever came to my home. I gave up my dining room so my daughter could have a piano. It was a gift from her Great Grandfather. And she does play! I told her if we got the piano she would have to take lessons and use the piano! It is way too big a piece of furniture to never be used. I am very proud to say that I rarely if ever had to remind her to practice. So... it was well worth giving up my dining room so she could have a piano. :0)
Here is the other quilt I have hanging in the dining room / piano room. I believe this was a Thimbleberries pattern.
As you can see here I have started my piano playing daughter's college quilt. It is still a work in progress. In the last post I showed you the pattern she had picked out. I am actually liking how the fabrics are playing together so far. Let's keep our fingers crossed that they will continue to do so. :0)
Block # 4 from the Civil War quilt along. I was having some problems piecing this one. The center square was fine. It was trying to add the outer triangles. I had to take it all apart and redo it.

My husband daughter and I went out to dinner on Saturday evening to celebrate out Valentine Day! Who says you can't celebrate a couple of days early with the family you love! (I miss my other daughter and wish she could have been with us. She will be home in about 3 weeks to celebrate her 21st birthday which happens to fall during her Spring break.) :0)

What am I up to?!

Hello, friends! I hadn't realized that it has been a whole month since I last made a post! Where did the time go!

Well, let me show you what I've been doing. I started Barbara Brackman's Civil War quilt along. She has been posting a new block once a week on Saturday's. I am only on week 3 since I did not start it right away. I have 2 more to go in order to catch up. I am hand piecing the blocks. Just like my ancestors would have done. :0)

This is a project that I have not begun yet. My youngest daughter will be going to college next year and has asked me to make her a special quilt to bring to school with her. How could I refuse! This is the pattern she chose. I now have everything I need to make it and hope to start it soon.
Here is the Fall 1 1/2 inch strip exchange quilt that I have been working on. ( The top is all together, finally, except for the border) I'm not finished yet so you only get to see a peek of the borders I have been auditioning to see what might work. I think I'm going to go with all three you see in the picture. I hope I have enough fabric to do the last border. If not I will have to devise a plan "B". Stay tuned!
:0) This is something I just whipped up from someone else's caste off! My quilt bee occasionally has a meeting where you bring what you don't want anymore. A sort of "my trash is someone else's treasure"Day. I had picked up three baggies of pre-cut rail fences. It was really easy! I just had to sew the pre-cut strips and ended up with this small lap quilt! I am thinking about adding a border and then finishing it up to give to my daughter who is now living in a college apartment. It will be a perfect throw for her sofa!!
Another baggie I picked up!! Pre cut pyramids! I have been playing around with the pieces on my design wall. This is what I have so far. There were plenty of darks in the baggie but I did have to cut more lights for the background. I'm still moving pieces around yet, so I haven't sewn it together.
Well, here's my story of the day. I have had a book shelf in my sewing room which was made of press board. The bookshelf had been mine as a child. So it was weak and wobbly but I was using it anyway. It had had enough. I have a lot of quilting books. I love my books! I often use them as references for my projects. I think I have more books then fabric.... Uh maybe not. But it sure is close! :0)

Anyway, My bookshelf Kaput! So..... I have two new shelf units that I bought from IKEA called Expedit. I love them! I only bought two to see how I liked them. I will be purchasing another one. Only this time instead of only the four cubes, I will get the bigger one with (I think) it had 12 cubes! I can't wait! My books are currently on the floor in boxes. Our nearest Ikea is about 2 hours away. So it needs to be a planned trip. Maybe I can convince my husband we should go this weekend. ;0)
And last but certainly not least! I did make the little quilt into a pillow!! I am just loving it! I took the two old pillows I had on the sofa, which were falling apart at the seams literally, and cut them open. I reused the poly fill stuffing in them to stuff this one. I love it when I can recycle stuff!!

Have a great day everyone!! :0)

Almost Finished!

Hi Everyone! Happy New Year to you!

I wanted to show you what I've been working on. I just finished hand quilting the above little quilt. It's a Kathleen Tracy pattern called "Harvest Quilt". Her website is: www.countrylanequilts.com She also has a blog which I think you can get to from her website.
This is supposed to be a little quilt but I am thinking about making it into a pillow. I haven't put the binding on it yet because I am still thinking about it......
I just love this stencil!!! This is the one I used for the Harvest quilt which is a 15"x 21" quilt. I hope the picture shows the quilting well enough for you to see.
Wow! It's funny what taking a picture of a work in progress can show you versus seeing it on the design wall. This is the 1 1/2'' Fall strip exchange I've been working on! :0) It is not sewn together yet, but I wanted to put it up on my design wall and see how it was coming along. It's getting there!
This is a picture of my beautiful family!! I don't often get the opportunity to take a picture of everyone altogether anymore.

Yes, we actually had some snow here in Raleigh, NC! It started on Christmas day and snowed all through the next day! We ended up with 7 1/2 inches!!

Until next time,

Happy quilting!! :0)

Moshi Pillow Gone Flat & A Christmas Gathering

Hi everyone! My posting is sporadic and probably will be for a while yet. This is a long post with lots of pictures just to quickly catch you up as much as I can.

The book above has a quilt in it that I am currently working on. If you have the book, the pattern I am using is called "Colors of Autumn". You can see one finished block I have done sitting next to the book.
I am using these piles of strips which are 1 1/2 inches wide. The strips are from a Fall strip exchange my group had a couple of years ago. The pattern actually calls for 2 inch strips. So I am re-working it for this project.
This is what I have done so far! It has taken me a lot longer then I thought it would to get these blocks to this point, but the end is near! I only have about 6 more sets to make and then I can put it all together!! :0)
(My pictures are backwards for how I wanted to post but OK.)

Here are 2 pillows I made last night for my younger daughter. They will go under the tree for Christmas morning. She has 3 "Moshi" pillows which she has had and slept with for many years. You can't wash these things because of the filling inside. ( They smell pretty bad now! Yuck! Not only that, they are sooo stretched out they have become thin and may tear soon which means little tiny balls all over the place) I used my Grandmothers canning funnel to pour the filling into the new pillow forms. (I made these new pillows so the covers can be removed and washed!!) :0)
Anyway! :0) She received one new Moshi pillow as a gift recently from her "Secret Santa"! My daughter decided it was finally O.K. to give me the old ones so I could get rid of them. Well I figured I won't waste the inside filling. So, I am recycling and repurposing those beads. I made her the two new pillows out of fleece. With the colors she chose, black, red and white.

Here is one really stretched out Moshi pillow and the filling from another. (She still has one she won't let me have. Yet.) :0)
A Christmas gathering!! Here are all ( almost all) of the gals in my sewing Bee! They came to my home for our Christmas get together Luncheon. I don't have as many Christmas decorations as some people but I do the best I can with what I have! ( Most years we travel to see our family which live in a different state. This year we are staying home) :0) (By the way, I am the fourth one back on the right.)

Enjoying full tummies! Everyone brings a dish of something good to eat for lunch so it's not to stressful for the hostess.
Sharing gifts! We do exchange gifts with each other.
Sharing projects. We also had show and tell.
A beautiful black and white quilt with red in it. My younger daughter would love this one! (I call her younger....She will graduate this year from High School and be off to college next Fall... Ssssheeesh!)
A sweet soft flannel baby quilt! I love this!
Christmas hour glass quilt.
The table set for my guests before they arrived! ( I told you my pictures were not in the order I wanted them to be in. Hehehe. Oh well. I am just telling you my story in a "different way")
A little quilt.

A table runner.
Beautiful pinwheels.

A signature star.
Two of the gals have been working on their friendship blocks that we exchanged a while back!
I like this one.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Holiday that is Joyous and Filled with Love laughter and fun!

Merry Christmas everyone!! :0)