Westport Washington Anniversary Trip

View from the condo we stayed at in Westport Washington for a week. Celebrated our 40th anniversary there. Wow, does time fly. Westport has been a place my family started going to decades ago and we've loved taking our children and now grandchildren there. Would love to live there year round!
Haven't been there in a few years but it's always just a fun place...fishing port and wonderful beaches. Had a great time enjoying the salmon festival with my cousin and her husband who live there, a day watching the grandkiddos fly a kite--well...saw the kite from the condo deck, drove down to the beach every nite and watched and heard the waves, slept each nite to the sound of the waves, and found a lovely quilt shop where dear hubby bought some wonderful lighthouse fabric and wave fabric to match. Always hate leaving Westport, but stopped at DL's on way home to spend another day with her sweet, sweet family. Home is always nice, too.

Spent a lot of time working on my boyly boys' (grandsons) quilt bindings, getting all the applique parts for snowman and a birdy/birdhouse quilts, and cut out some Christmas presents. All the while watching and listening to those wonderful sights and sounds. Every day was beautiful, even the day it rained most of the day. Saw just glorious sunsets that we got fantastic pictures of and would like to figure out a quilt using them some how.

All in all a marvelous time that was arranged by my sweet hubby. Thanks, sweetie!! Life is good!

Ladybug Quilt Along

Geesh!! I don't need another project to start but since I love ladybugs so much, this just seemed like a have to! http://ivoryspring.wordpress.com/2010/08/20/announcing-dottie-a-summer-quilt-along/ is the site for this. Figure it'll get done as it gets done around here with everything else I'm doing. Not sure what fabrics I'll use--have some black and white prints and a few more coming, so like that idea. Not expecting to start on her beginning date--it's our 40th anniversary!

Free Motion Quilt Along

Usually I don't blog about other people's blogs, giveaways, etc. BUT this looks like such a fun, fun thing to learn to do and in case you haven't heard about it, go here and think about signing up for her quilt along: http://tiny.cc/fcyi1 (i went to tinyurl.com because that was the longest url I'd ever seen when i copied hers!!

Beautiful View From Sewing Room

This is the view from my sewing room--isn't it beautiful? I wish you could see the mountains--they're actually there but not really showing up well. Behind the hill you can see which is across the river from us. We live on an acre in the midst of hundreds of acres of cherry, pear and apple orchards with generous neighbors who share with us. That's a wisteria attacking the window. Such a pretty thing to see in the spring. The tall spindly tree in the middle left is a mountain ash

. Wish you could see the berries better as they look like little bouquets tied all over. My paternal grandpa's favorite tree and I remember them in the side yard at their home near his hammock. Most of the trees on our land were planted by my mom and brother--usually from little teensy starts that reminded me of bottle brushes! Mom would buy them from the Forest Service for a couple dollars each.

We had several trees cut down a couple months ago because our view was obscured from all their growth. I love that we again can see The Enchantments while sewing. Such a beautiful area we live in!!

Sewing Machine Blues And Bunches Of Color

My machine is driving me nuts!! It's so in need of a tuneup but we live 125 miles away from my authorized repair shop. When I bought the sweet thing, Eddie,(the owner of the sewing center) lived near us and would pick her up when needed and deliver her back home safe and sound. Things have changed since he's moved. Thankfully we're going past there in a couple weeks, but in the mean time she's being totally irritable--absolutely noisier than normal, not cutting thread like she's supposed to so wasting lots of thread, and a few other irritating things. I can still sew but grrrrr. Oh, well...this too shall pass.








Made three quilt labels with the embroidery part of my machine and tried to ignore the noises coming from it, but regular sewing isn't quite that nerve-wracking so have been working away on my paintbox squares. If you've not seen a paintbox quilt and want directions, go here: http://www.ohfransson.com/oh_fransson/2010/01/paintbox-quilt-along-how-to-make-scrappy-blocks.html She gives the best directions with pictures and supplies needed. Aren't those pink elephants too cute? There are also directions if not wanting a scrappy quilt you can make the classic blocks. here's a picture of a finished quilt: http://www.ohfransson.com/oh_fransson/2008/10/finished-paintbox-quilt.html I got a Robert Kauffman jelly roll then used other materials. The blocks are really easy to make. I made up a chart for cutting pieces and labels for each color. It's the only way I could keep track of everything. I goofed on a couple of the strips, but otherwise think there's enough of everything for my daughter to make a quilt too. Am thinking of actually making two lap size quilts instead of one huge one--or maybe even four baby quilts--will just have to see, but it's enjoyable putting them together right now. Oh...just finger pressed seams until got to the middle square (like second and third picture) then ironed, sewed rest of pieces and ironed again--first picture. Worked well for me.

Machine Quilting on Baby Quilt

This is my first quilt quilted on my machine. I've been sewing for 54 years, so most projects don't intimidate me too much, but this did. I practiced on a couple small things and then realized I've done similar things over the years, just not a whole quilt. It isn't a sandwiched quilt--just the front and the flannel back, but it has a nice heft to it that I like. Part of the reason for that is the foot that was recommended by my machine's manual didn't work really well going over anything very thick. Looking further in the manual there were directions using a different foot--one very similar to the one I use when machine embroidering and wow did that make a difference!! Next quilt will have three layers.


Below are two pictures of the quilting--front and back. Mostly just loops all over the place. Some loops look a lot more like leaves!! Tried making hearts but not good at that at all. Obviously there's a learning curve I've got to tackle!! Also, a lot of the stitching turned out to be longer stitches than wanted, or teensy stitches. Did a lot of stitching on it first that really didn't like at all, so spent several hours picking it out while watching tv--oh, well!!



The last picture is my first use of binding clips--aka hair clips which really, really are great to work with. So nice to not get poked a cazillion times while sewing on the binding--except the occasional needle sticking me while sewing.

Quilt is on it's way to the sweet baby along with a bag for her momma.

Christmas Blocks

Got a Kate Spain Christmas fabric layer cake that's wonderful and having so much fun making up blocks. Most are from a book already mentioned on here: 301 Country Christmas Quilt Blocks by Cheri Saffiote, printed 2002. All sorts of techniques, but mostly doing pieced ones. I'm also using ideas from other places. Last nite the ones done and in progress counted up to 48! And that's not all I want to do, so obviously they're not all going to fit into one quilt, but I'm intrigued by trying so many different blocks. I've added in some other fabrics--in fact, looking at the poinsettia one I noticed there's not any Kate Spain fabrics in there, but most blocks do have hers in them. The blocks are turning out to be all sorts of sizes, but mostly less than 10 inches. A couple have turned out to be 12" so am thinking they will be a pillow top or a mini quilt or two.

So far my very favorite is one called Poinsettia Wreath. The directions in the book are quite minimal and don't make sense to me on some of them. The book has two or three blocks per page; includes a picture; includes some direcctions; and includes a black and white drawing. This one was just not working at all, so decided to draw the pattern out on printer paper, then trace each section on a separate paper and add seam allowances. I then numbered each section on the pattern in the order they'd be sewn. Am so pleased with it and just love the block. Did it so the background color (yellow) was two different yellows--wouldn't do that again, but it'll be ok. I can see a whole quilt done in this design. The design consists of four small blocks with a flower in each. Think this could be done in several colors and layouts. It looks a lot like tulips to me!





The second picture is what I call the eighth block. It's based on 2 1/4 inch squares--size before sewing. Since it's copyrighted, I don't feel like I can put the pattern on here, but will tell you how I did it, so maybe you can figure it out. You need 16 yellow and 8 green squares. I think you could look at the eighth block and draw that out like I did, figure each section and add 1/4 inch seam allowances. I can't think of what that odd red piece is called--a parrallelogram of some sort? For me the way I figured out to sew it was to sew the small red and yellow triangles together--one is sewn with yellow on top, other with red. EVERY time I sewed them I had to look at the diagram to figure it out! Then I sewed one set to the right side of a yellow square, then sewed the other triangle set to the bottom of the square. This produces a small triangle that then was sewn to the long side of the odd red piece. Then sew the green triangle to the shorter side of the odd red piece. (for part of the sewing, there will be points hanging over at one or both ends) This all forms a square. I sewed a yellow and green square together, and two yellows to a middle green square. These rectangles were then sewn to the red/green/yellow square. Cannot tell you how many times I had to pick things out because I wasn't paying attention!! So...pay attention a whole lot better than I did!!
This one is called Christmas Tulips

This one is called North Wind--love how it looks with the fabrics chosen:


Peppermint Candy is one of my favorites, too: There are lots of patterns for blocks out there--lots of free ones!! Try it to add up to a Christmas or any other holiday or no holiday quilt, so give it a go.