THE CHOIR IS READY TO SING

Owlies have flocked to my house all dressed up. Don't they look like they're going to break into song? What do you think they would sing?

These were easy to make and directions are here: http://moonstitches.typepad.com/photos/tutowlrial/ just click on enter gallery on that page. You could make these in several sizes. For me, the hardest part was sewing on eyes!! Wish there was a way to do it on the machine. I did the bottoms a bit differently by making larger circles that were basted with double thread and pulled tight around cardboard discs. Black and white ones would look like penguins I think!! These are all from scraps of batiks I used in the Baskets in Bloom blocks and are going into my Rose of Sharon quilt blocks.

I fell in love with owls last year while looking at several quilts on Amy's bloggers quilt festival. Several people had used them in various ways. Found a lot of owlie fabrics online and was excited to use a couple of them in little Livie Lou's pink Marabella quilt. For Christmas she got the owlie dolly I made up using a picture her mom sent me.

CHRISTMAS IS A COMIN' BUT NO GOOSE IS GETTIN' FAT HERE!

Winter has come to our area. Not ready for it, but sure does make things look pretty with snow on them. Look at this beautiful art Mother Nature left on my porch early this morning! Would love to try free motioning something like that someday.A few days ago it was cold outside but still some fragrant roses on my lovely arbor. I've been so happy to have this strong rosebush survive and bring me such joy.

The thought of eating goose or duck has always made me ill. For years I didn't know why until Mom reminded me of this experience...my father worked building trades when I was an eight year old and broke his arm that year with unemployment benefits not available to him. The only income was from my mom selling RealSilk door to door. (anyone remember that company?) As a result, we had enough to pay rent and that was about it. We did have a freezer locker full of geese and ducks my father had shot earlier in the year and had that for breakfast, lunch and dinner for about two months. I really don't remember eating the foul fowls, but obviously, it's instilled in memory!! Another fowl, however, is residing at my house for now...below are a couple sneak peaks.

Here's some more fowls living at my house right now. Aren't they adorable along with their snowman and snowwoman cohorts? They're from Bunny Hill's free Snowbound BOM. So far 11 blocks are done and I'm anxiously awaiting number 12. This week I'm working on the 13 blocks that will go between the snowbuddies ones. Will probably not be doing what the BOM suggests,

but we'll see.

Here's where I am so far on the ladybug quilt along at Ivory Spring. I changed things by halving all the sizes of each block, and used fabrics I had on hand. Aren't those Betty Boop corners just adorable? They worked out to be the exact size needed...is that cool or what?

Home Tweet Home was a BOM started last year, but I found it earlier this year as a completed pattern set that I couldn't resist. Wasn't sure I'd be able to do the applique by hand with old, old hands, but it worked well. I don't know what it's called, but I sewed light fusible pellon (right sides together) to each piece then turned them and ironed them in place. Took all the pieces to the ocean in September and turned and pinned them there. For the small berries, I made tiny yo yos for the best results. There are eight blocks of different sizes and some have darling pieced sections to them. Not sure this will get done before Christmas and at this point it's mine!! My daughter thinks it would look great on her living room wall, but for now all that work and the cuteness of it all means it's home tweet home is here!

Went to western Washington for boyly boy Adam's baptism. Got some really good pictures with my phone of him with his mom, dad and baby brother, Spencer. Trey (10 years old) gave a talk on baptism that was so great. Girlie girls, Sabrina and Sydney (they ARE twins) in the beautiful dresses Diannalynn made. And beautiful Sagie played all the music for the program. What a great weekend we had.

Cute Chef Gavin at his "kitchen" that fits conveniently under his mom's kitchen counter. His toque is from a free pattern I found online last year. He wouldn't have anything to do with it at the time--had to be bribed with a peanut butter sandwich to even try it on, but the other day he popped it on his head himself and Jenny got a quick picture while he was baking one of his Toy Story toys! The picture of my Adam and girlie girl Olivia was in Philadelphia last month. I love how she's grabbing Daddy's sleeve; what a sweetie pie!
The last picture is the head of one super cute and rambunctious little Spencer. Are those curls wonderful or what? He's so fun and just a joy to be around. Makes my life so full to have all these fantastic grandchildren to adore and Christmas time can't come soon enough for me to enjoy my whole family here.

BLOGGERS QUILT FESTIVAL--OLIVIA'S QUILT

Cutie pie Olivia on her quilt today!!

Oh, Gramma! Sure do love my quilt says little girlie girl!

This is Olivia's quilt and it's my entry for the Blogger's Quilt Festival going on at Amy's Creative Side blog: http://amyscreativeside.com/2010/10/29/bloggers-quilt-festival-fall-2010/ (I know someone told me how to do that correctly, but can't for the life of me remember!!) It's a very vibrant quilt, but doesn't show up as well in this picture that was taken on a rather dreary day.

Olivia is my newest girlie girl (it was Seahawks game day) and was the inspiration for the quilt. Wendy at Ivory Spring (http://ivoryspring.wordpress.com/) had her Marabella quilt in the spring festival and I just loved it, so was ecstatic when Olivia was born and I had a super excuse to get the pattern. I fell in love with several quilts that featured owls during the spring festival also, and got a couple pink owlie fabrics to use in it.
About had a heart attack when hubby sent the picture of Starsky (grandpuppy) and his claws on the quilt! Like the picture of Olivia and Gavin enjoying the quilt together a lot better! Randy was visiting my son and family when the quilt arrived at their home in New York a couple months ago.

This is my first effort to really do free motion quilting and am happy with how it turned out. There are different kinds of things in each section...sort of meandering wiggles in the owlie triangles, outlining in the square owlie blocks and a different design around each of those--stars in one, words in another, etc. It's so far from perfect, but it was a lot of fun. The pattern was great to work on and came together quite easily. Last picture is my oldest girlie girl showing off the back of the quilt with lots of different fabrics in the "coins" that are from quilts made over the last year or so. I've posted about the quilt before and showed some of the process pictures that I could without showing too much before it got to Olivia. (just added the three photos on the top after ddil sent a bunch to me today)

ADORABLE PYRAMID BAGS

Four pyramid bags (also called teepee bags) sewn today. Aren't they just darling? My friend Shirley, gave me the pattern quite awhile ago. She'd sewn one but for the life of me, I can't figure out how she did it from just the directions! I found a tutorial on flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/cascioli/398244195/ . Was hoping for a video, but this worked ok...still found it a bit difficult. The sewing is all straight lines, it's just the directions that confused me, so I decided if four were needed to get them done at one time! This isn't a tutorial, just hoping if you want to make one, these pictures help some!

Left above shows topstitching. It's not entirely necessary and doesn't go the length of the zipper as I couldn't figure how to do it, but it keeps the material from getting into the zipper. Right is a finished bag...isn't that material just darling? Came from Attic Window Quilt Shop. Below left are straps for two of the bags--one pressed, the other finished. Right is inside of the flowery bag.

The left above is the first side of the zipper to be sewn, the right one is after both sides of the zipper are sewn, the sides are ready to be sewn on the bottom (right in the picture). I found it was easiest to sew the zipper with it open. It has to be closed to do the bottom stitching and then you cut off the extra.

Below left is the strap sewn to the outside material...I always super sew straps and tops and bottoms of zippers as those are where all the stress is. Right is inside and outside with zipper closed after sewing them together.
This is with zipper opened. Pull the two materials out so they're touching themselves. You then sew it with the zipper tops touching each other, and from the owlie side here, across the zipper tops (sew back and forth) and then over to swirly material side but leave about three inches open. See the pinky one which really doesn't have a big enough opening showing there on the left so I had to unpick some stitches (one set of directions said to leave one inch open--all I can say is, HA!). Just makes it a lot easier to pull everything through if it's bigger.
Blue swirly is fuzzy picture, but shows the top stitching to close up the lining of the owlie bag. Have fun making these if you want to. I think they're just so cute!! Here's four bags made for my boyly boys on Oct. 30th. Thinking of fun things to put inside these marvelous little bags for my dear grandchildren.

Olivia's Quilt Is Done!

These are the last few inches of hand sewing the binding down. I did go over the binding with a serpentine stitch--want it to wash well! Still can't show the whole quilt--it has to be wrapped around my littlest girlie girl first. Waiting for DL to get here with her kiddos so they can see it before it flies off to their little cousin's home in New York. I'm so excited that it's done. Well...I still have to figure out what ribbons to sew on the applique blocks, but the hard work is done and what was once so daunting--the free motion quilting, is finished. Not the prettiest sight in the universe but ok with it. I finally got brave enough to try free motion quilting it from the info at A Few Scraps quilt along. (thanks to Joanne for telling me how to make that a hot link!!) Love how the label turned out, but just realized it was meant to be sewn on as a circle--oh, well!! It was the last thing done on my machine before it went in for a much needed spa treatment--the noises coming from it were startling, especially with the embroidery attachment! The right hand picture is one of what I call the owlie corners. Isn't that fabric just adorable? I have a charm pack of Love U and when I saw that fabric I knew I had to have it for this quilt.

I love how the fabric bunches up when it's washed and dried--used Warm and Natural for the batting and the backing fabric is a flannel. It and the binding fabric have ladybugs.

This is one of the fussy cut owlie blocks. It's got a weird perspective because picture was at my sewing machine and upside down!! Makes me a bit dizzy looking at it. I am in love with owlie fabrics--have them in several colors by several different designers...so cute!! And, of course, perfect for my cute, cute little granddaughter.