October 29, 2009

Crazy Quilting Round Robin

My good friends Carolyn, Nicki, Darlene and Ellen were in a round robin with me for the past 5 months and we are all starting to get our finished blocks home. This is the block that these ladies have worked their magic on for me! Isn't it a beauty!

Every Christmas I always chose one unsuspecting person to give a gift to...someone I would never give a gift to otherwise. As I am shopping, I let the gift chose the person actually. While shopping I will finally come upon something that I will know a certain person would just love and that is how they are chosen. It has to be something unique...nothing normal will do. After this person has been chosen, they can never be chosen again. Each year it is always someone new.

While deciding what fabrics, color scheme and theme my CQ RR block would be my eyes fell upon these lucious purple fabrics that I had purchased from Marj on Ebay. I knew right then who my unsuspecting person would be for this year. My friend Sue, who I go to guild with each month loves purple!! ANYTHING she sees that is purple, she thinks she has to have!

So I wrote a note to the ladies and told them who the block would be for and gave them a little note about my friend...She loves cats, flowers, anything to do with nature. I love how these ladies came together and worked their magic to create such a stunning work of art for me to present to my friend!

I am going to take a photo of the presentation because I want my friends to see the reaction on Sue's face when she opens her gift. I will share that with you during the Christmas holidays!
















October 7, 2009

Granny Ida


Granny Ida was born October 11,1900. She lived to be 94 years young....passing on to the sweet side in December of 1994. She was a quilter and crocheter. I have a few pieces of her crochet and will cherish them forever! I also have a quilt that she gave me when I first married in 1978. It is stained but still together because it is made from double knit fabrics. She loved to do applique quilts using those fabrics. They will be here when nothing else is.

Granny had 10 children, one of which died at the age of 3 months. My mother was child #7. My granddaddy died when my mother was 4 and left granny to raise all those children on her own. She never remarried. When her last child left the nest, she was afraid to stay alone so she moved into the house with our family. I grew up under a quilting frame because granny always had a quilt up working on it. She sold many of her quilts to neighbors in the community. I am sure she did not get what they were worth! She also sold many crochet items. I wish I had some of her early works back from these people.

Granny did not like chocolate and did not drink cola. She did like to have a grape or orange Nehi on occassion. But she loved her coffee! Her favorite cake was homemade coconut and her favorite pie was egg custard. From way back I cannot remember granny having any teeth. Most likely due to the fact that they rotted out of her mouth because she dipped Bruton Snuff for many years. She was very clean with it and you could never smell it on her. She never enjoyed french fries because they made her gums sore but she loved her mashed potatoes.

As hard as it might be to imagine granny never drove a car. She never got her license, never wanted to.

Her hero was John Wayne! My sister bought her the entire VHS set of his movies one year for Christmas. Granny thought she had died and gone to heaven already. :)

She loved to play rook, aggravation, and dominoes. She would sit for hours with her grandchildren and play games as long as they would. She was truly a wonderful granny!

She taught me all I know about quilting, along with my dad's mom...Granny Ella. If it weren't for these 2 remarkable ladies, I may have never learned to love quilting the way that I do.

In 4 days we will celebrate grannys birthday even though she is no longer with us. We will celebrate the beautiful memories as we do every day of the year! So, please join in with me and leave this remarkable lady a special message!

October 6, 2009

2 UFO's Finished!

I was in an Ugly Swap that a friend hosted early last year? I sent this fabric in as my ugly..


This is the quilt I received back...I just loved it.. :)...I finally got it quilted and bound..Ready to hang in my quilting studio!



This is a Choose Your Own Color String Block Swap that I was in...

I took my blocks and put fusible web behind them and put them on a big piece of muslin...I then used the folded bias tape and sewed it to each area where the blocks met...I did not quilt this one...I added buttons in the cornerstone areas...I did put batting behind the quilt top and finished the quilt using the pillowcase method. I sewed a 1/4 inch seam along the edges.

This one will hang in my sewing studio as well...I was going to put it on my website for sale but hubby said NO! :)

I may play with adding some crazy quilting stitches around the border but that will be for this winter when we are snowed in! :)

October 3, 2009

A Little Crazy Quilting

I am participating in some crazy quilting round robins and have been in a few that are completed. I wanted to share a little bit of the work that I did on some of the blocks that came my way.

This is a Mermaid RR that I am involved in at the moment. I fussy cut an image from the computer and embellished the hair with fibers and beads and gave her a pair of earrings. I thought the sun coming up over the horizon was the perfect finishing touch for this part of the block.


I purchased the pewter branch at Hobby Lobby and love using them in my CQ work. The large flower was dyed by my good friend Nicki If you love hand dyed laces and appliques, check out her blog!


My first ever beaded bird! This is one of my favorite additions to anything I have worked on so far.


I had seen a vase similar to this stitched and wanted to try my hand at stitching one. I think I nailed it. I really liked how it turned out.


A friend had previously stitched a wheelbarrow on someone elses block and I really liked it and wanted to do one myself. When this block came my way I knew it was the perfect opportunity. I stitched the wheelbarrow and filled it full of flowers that I painted with sharpie markers and 3 glass rose beads.2 of the flowers were dyed by my good friend Nicki Finishing off with Mr. Bluebird on the handle. :)


My friend had painted her own silkie upon which was a white fence so I brought the fence to the outer edge of the block. I embellished with trailing roses, birds, a rabbit, and butterfly.


My friend Carolyn, from CA, painted her own silkie and I stitched the wreath frame around the the 2 sides and embellished with tiny sequin flowers in colors to match the flowers she painted.


I have found that painting lace with sharpie markers can be quiet relaxing and fun. The lace in the lower left corner was painted with a sharpie and then embellished with tiny white beads.


This is my first spider. The quilter requested we stay mainly with blues, whites and creams so hence, she has a blue spider. I think she turned out quiet nice. :)