March 13, 2023

Happy Birthday Emilee Claire!

 My granddaughter turned 12 this past week.  Emilee loves cats and does her bedroom in black cats.  Her favorite colors are black, purple and seafoam green (the cats eyes).  So I made her a quilt to fit her bed.  It was a long time in coming as I had never made her a quilt before.  She loved it and I was proud to finally gift her a quilt.







February 17, 2022

TShirt Quilt

I love anything to do with my Alma Mater, Belgreen High School, so when Tressa asked if I would make a quilt with her daughters tshirts, I gladly took the job!  I love how her quilt turned out!




February 15, 2022

Tickled Pink Blog Hop! It's My Day!

 


Carla from Creatin' in the Sticks is hosting this fun blog hop and I am happy to be participating!  Hopefully this will nudge me back in to blogging!  This is day #2 so if you missed yesterday use the list below and go back and see their tickled pink projects too!  I have been working on customer work so I decided to show off 2 of the most recent finishes as they are both PERFECT for the hop!

The first thing I am showing is a quilt I made using a little girls clothing that she wore the 1st year of her life.  LOTS of pink and lots of little girls tickled giggles.  There were a lot of monogrammed items and I think it turned out great.


My next show and tell is my most current finish and although it may not have pink in it, it is full of HEARTS!  Perfect for Valentine's Day which was yesterday!  The fabrics are all Girl Scout fabrics and the young girls badges will be sewn to the quilt now that it is home.  I quilted the Scout Pledge in the lower solid yellow area below the bottom row of hearts.  I could kick myself for forgetting to take a final photo of the finished quilt once it was bound but I was trying to beat the post office closure the day I bound it so it got boxed and mailed.  I need to ask my client to send me a few pics of it for my files.  I do have this pic that I made to show her the quilt before it went on the frame for quilting.  I am very TICKLED with how it turned out!


Lastly, I want to show off something I made a few years ago when I was headed to a quilting retreat in New Hampshire.  We were all sent a piece of fabric that depicted something you might find there hence the cow fabric since New Hampshire is a Dairy state.  We were instructed to make something with it.  My readers from the past know of my love of pigs, so I made a pig and then made a cow to ride on him.  The challenge fabric is his cape.  I added a sign to the tail of the pig that reads New Hampshire or Bust!  The parasol was the perfect finishing touch!  I gifted him to a friend of mine there at the retreat who also has the same love for pigs.  She is from Iowa.  I asked her just recently if she still had the set and she said she did.  I hope this tickles you as much as it did me to make and gift it!




Thank you for joining me on my day and I hope you love my Tickled Pink Show and Tell!
Please join the other bloggers today and continue through until Thursday so you dont miss a thing!  The list of other bloggers is just below!

Monday, February 14th


March 27, 2021

Sunbonnet Sue and Overall Bill

 All 50 USA states are represented in this quilt.. Sue and Bill's clothing is from Northcott's state flower fabric line. This was a huge swap between 50 ladies. We all had to do 50 blocks using the state fabric we were assigned. At the end we sent them to the hostess and she gave everyone 1 block from each swapper. Was a lot of fun and a whole lotta work but so worth it! 



February 28, 2021

In The Kitchen Stitchn' Blog Hop

 There is a new blog hop on the horizon called In The Kitchen Stitchn'!  Carla over at Creatin' In The Sticks is our host once again!  If you love to be a part of blog hops, head over there and look for the sign up details.  Hops are a lot of fun and I just signed up to show my kitchen item I will be making over the next month and a half!



February 24, 2021

Show Your Stripes Blog Hop! - It's My Day!

                                Hello, thank you for visiting my blog today to peek at my contributions to the 
Show Your Stripes Blog Hop!    
Carla over at Creatin' In The Sticks has put a lot of work in to getting us all prepared for the hop 
                 and this is a big thank you shout out to her!   

I love to make charity and comfort quilts and am currently out of baby quilts.  I generally have a stack in the backseat of my truck in the winter.  If I see a mom with an infant and it is only wrapped up in a receiving blanket I can gift her a quilt right on the spot.  So I have prepared some tops that I still need to quilt but it wont take me long to get them completed and in the truck.

My stylized rose will wrap some little girl up nice warm and cozy don't you think.  The striped inner border just adds to the look.


           I received these fabrics in a kit from a blogger several years ago and now have them in top form just waiting to be quilted.  It is just a dab bigger so it can go to a 1 - 2 year old little boy. You will find some stripe fabric in the quilt and the jelly roll strips make stripes of their own. Some little boy will love this!


      This is one of my favorites.  I didnt use a jelly roll but cut my strips of fabric for this one.  Lots of polka dots and sewn together in stripe form. :)  Very bright and cheery.  It could be for either a girl or boy.  It needs an outer border but I dont have anything in the house to match.. I just might add a multi color stripe border on it or maybe bind it in stripes. Decisions decisions. :)


And I love giveaways so leave me a comment about your quilting endeavors.
Someone will win this Tree of Life panel.  I will use the random number generator on Saturday, Feb 27 at 9am Central time  to choose the comment number and whoever made that numbered comment will win! 
I do have these for sale so if you are interested in one, just give me a shout!


 Well that's it for me.  I hope you have enjoyed being here!  Be sure and visit the other bloggers that are showing their stripes today!  

Thursday, February 25th

                                   Be sure and go back to visit the previous bloggers in the hop!

                                                           Monday, February 22nd

Tuesday, February 23rd

Wednesday, February 24th

Thursday, February 25th

February 14, 2021

Time For A Refresh

Yes, PigTalesandQuilts is gone from the banner but the domain will always point here. I have been back and forth with this decision but I finally made a definitive decision and I believe it is time to retire the old name and bring in the new. Our lives have changed so much over the past 12 years and the old blog name centered around our pottery and the pigs we collected and since we no longer collect it makes sense to refresh the blog. 

 I am in love with my new blog banner!! I bought the image of the machine from a seller off of Etsy and with her permission used it for my blog. I took it in to my photo software and added the words. I love the saying at the bottom and that is SO me! 

I have done some housekeeping on the blog this morning, deleting some irrelevant posts, so the dates will look out of sync but the remaining posts are what matters anyway. I am excited to get back to blogging and I hope you will all come and read my musings. I know it has been a long time and I have tried to get back to blogging a few times but the time just wasnt right. Our lives have slowed down considerably so I am looking forward to blogging and sharing my work. I hope to do a few blog hops again but I dont plan to get in as many as I once did. I just want to hang out with people of like-minds. :) 

To give you some eye candy, I will share this quilt I made for a blog hop a few years ago. It was a lot of fun to make! My hubby still gives me grief for giving it away during the hop. Maybe I need to make a second one just for him. :)

February 7, 2021

Tshirt Quilts

I completed these for different clients. They both were thrilled with how they turned out. They have become my favorite quilts to do for clients.

January 5, 2021

Lets Do The Twist-er!

I am seriously going to try and get back to blogging this year! It has been a long time since I blogged regularly. When Madame Samm stopped the blog hops, it was like the air went out of my desire to blog. Couple that with selling our home in NC, moving to AL, then reselling the first home we bought there, renting a while and everything in storage, and then buy a home right when Covid hit. Well, you do the math. Not much creative spirit has gone on in my brain. lol I have had the pleasure of creating a few fun pieces lately and I will share them with you one per week. At least that will get me one month of new blogging to start off with. Maybe fill in an extra blog day if I can but I wont promise to blog every single day right now. But do check in weekly to see what I have created and/or am working on at the current time. I made this quilt to fit a king size bed! I had made a smaller version and gifted it to a child at the Masonic Home For Children in Oxford, NC back a few years ago. I had been wanting to do another one so I finally did! I hope you like the outcome!

October 28, 2020

Pieced Leaf

Or else that is what I am calling this one..This is the largest quilt I have ever made from the ground up. 360 half square triangle blocks about drove me crazy piecing, pressing and squaring them to size...I am glad it is finished! I really enjoyed the quilting process though... Just low end custom..Nothing too fancy...Just keeping with the leaf designs...

March 19, 2015

Some Of My Stitching

I would like to thank you all for coming by my blog to see what I have to share.  I dabble in a little bit of a lot of things but one thing I am trying to sharpen, are my embroidery skills.  I love to crazy quilt and embroidery skills are a must.  Before I started crazy quilting I basically had never embroidered anything, but fast forward 8 years+ and my skills are getting better.

I have been a needleworker most of my life, creating my first quilt blocks by hand at the age of 8.  My granny Ella taught me but would not let me use her sewing machine.  Those are the only quilt blocks I ever hand pieced but I have been quilting, sewing and using a needle ever since!
Next to a needle and sewing machine is my favorite place to be.

Although I have been a quilter for the past 36 years, I have found that I can find contentment and enjoy just sitting with a different kind of needle in my hand at various times.  I love to cross stitch, embroider, knit and needlepoint.  But not in that order.  I actually don't have a favorite any longer...
I just love to Create! no matter how!

The first photos I will share with you today are of some pieces I have done that involve creating trees.  I want to do a study in trees eventually.  My idea is to create trunks with various elements and then create the tree tops with as many materials as I can possibly find that will work.

First up is a tree that I did with a water theme.  This is the likings to a weeping willow growing by the side of a pond.  I used silk ribbon french knots to create the tree itself and did basic embroidery for the branches and other elements within the piece.


A close up of the embroidery work on the background of the piece.


This tree I call the fairy Goddess.  I used large leaf charms and buttons to create the tree top and embroidered a simple chain stitch for the tree itself.  I want to re-visit this tree and maybe do a satin stitch to fill in the trunk so you don't see the block background as you do here.


This tree is one of my favorites!  I call it my Apple Tree... hence the red and green vintage buttons.  I used tons of small buttons to create the tree top and then using silk ribbon, I created the tree trunk itself.  I did not do french knots in the tree but only pulled the silk ribbon through so far and then stopped each time before pulling it tight.  
I love the texture it gives the trunk.


To get away from the trees a bit, I have quite a bit of embroidery on this grandmothers fan piece.  My chain stitch and back stitch still need some honing but I am getting there little by little. I enjoyed embroidering and beading this piece and the use of the birds all hand dyed is the perfect finishing touch.  My friend Nicki hand dyes laces and I get my pieces from her.


I can't end without showing all of you my best masterpiece to date. In 2010 I had achilles tendonosis and was recliner bound for over 4 months so this piece was started for my oldest granddaughter as her 8th birthday present.  It took me a couple of months beyond that to get it completed but it is my best work yet.  There is a ton of embroidery work in this piece.

Allie's Tea Party

 
When I started this Allie's favorite color was pink... everything in her room was pink and just about every piece of clothing she owned had to be pink!  She also loved to have tea parties in her bedroom with friends or whoever would oblige her... sometimes that would be my hubby. :)

Fast forward 5 years and her room has changed quite a bit.. now it has horses, lassos and camouflage everywhere.  I asked her if she would like for me to bring her tea party piece home with me to safeguard it for her until she got married and she promptly told me it was not leaving her wall.  So  Allie's Tea Party hangs out with all the horses and camouflage and they all live happily together in her bedroom.  She makes this grandma smile. :)

Here are several close ups showing detail work.












Thank you for your visit today.  I hope that I have inspired you in some small way to go and pick up a needle and thread and stitch something. 

December 8, 2014

The Tree Is Up and Another Gift Out The Door!

We put up our tree tonight... and if you remember, it isn't any ole' tree.  it is our non-traditional piggy tree. And what is laying under it... but a stocking, Tammy bag, candy and lots of surprises for someone! Another Christmas gift out the door. Hope she likes what she is getting from Santa. :)


A stocking with a vintage piece of linen to adorn the top.


A matching Tammy bag because the stocking just isn't big enough to hold it all. :)


The matching stocking and Tammy bag.


I just love the handle on this Tammy bag.  It has scroll type swirls in the metal that match perfectly with the scrolls and swirls on the fabric.


My sweet hubby is playing hard to get! ha!