Friday, October 25, 2013

Blogger's Quilt Fest 2013 Part II of the Duo


(scraps sewn together then cut to make flying geese)
Part II of my scrappy adventures started with the chain stitched like crazy flying geese.
Before I trimmed off the corners of said geese I turned that chain of flying fowl around and stitched 1/2" on the other side of the seams to make half square triangles (HSTs)!!!:)
Each goose gave me two HST now I had 100 5.5" HSTs!:)
Hence my second entrance in the Blogger's Quilt Fest Scrappy Quilt category!:)
 Scrappy  Rainbow Geese on the right and Scrappy Paths on the left!
 I had such fun playing with all the squares making different designs. In the end this pattern was the winner.  I did some hand quilting on the Fusion Ombre straw background fabric.
 Backing is a Dutch Wax Print from Africa courtesy of my sister-in-law. This quilt now belongs to my pal Sally's lovely daughter who graduated from college this year!:)
Hopefully you will all join me over at the Fest taking in all the other talents of our worldwide online community of quilters!
Thanks for visiting!
~d

Blogger's Quilt Fest Fall 2013 Tale of Two Quilts Part I

Five years ago Amy of Amy's Creative Side came up the idea of the 
Blogger's Quilt Fest to celebrate the creative fun of our online community.
This year I thought I'd enter a quilt or two!
Remember this photo I took of scraps sewn together by color? These sat around for a long time while an idea percolated.
 Finally I figured out what to make.  After cutting out some rectangles then adding two squares to each corner....chain stitching like crazy...finally I had...
 ....my Scrappy Rainbow Flying Geese!  My pal Linda did the awesome quilting, sort of like a breeze!
 Twenty-five geese duos, each duo is 12" square.
 The background is Robert Kaufman Fusion Ombre in Straw.
I wish I had a whole bolt of that stuff!
 Backing is Jane Sassaman Willow Wands from her Garden Divas collection.
I really like this quilt. I see something different in it every day. 
I am submitting this one in the  
ROY G BIV Quilt category!  It makes me happy!

But remember this a tale of two quilts.
Next post will be about Part II!!:)

Now go visit some other online Fest  friends and leave them a comment.
It makes us feel good!:)  
Thanks for visiting and thank you Amy for all the fun!!
~d

Thursday, October 24, 2013

Twenty-eight Years?!!

 Last weekend my little bro brought up his portable sawmill and....
...set up shop where a couple years ago hubby had plopped two huge pine logs. 
They did some measuring and calculating...
...adjusting and readjusting....
...then got down to milling lumber that will one day...
 ...be steps going up to our second floor!:)
 While they were milling....the boy was collecting wood and kindling and making....
 ...a great stone surround so we could have...
 ...an anniversary fire complete with smores and hot cider compliments of James' friends!:)
Next day hubby and I took a drive over to West Virginia and then back down into Western Virginia and back to our favorite pumpkin patch.
 Nall's never disappoints! I had a hard time not bringing one of those wee gnomes home!
Guard dog?:)
What a perfect weekend...thanks  hubby for 28 years of great weekends!
For those of you going to the International Quilt Festival in Houston....Carly and some of the Webfabrics team will be vendor number 1336 right in the middle of the convention center under the flag....a little bit of me will be there too so go say hi to my wee zippy bag!:)

~d

Saturday, October 12, 2013

Bitty Block Bee meets Clock-Along!!

 This past year I have participated in the Bitty Block Bee.  There were 14 of us and each month one of us was Queen/King Bee, picked a theme and received two 3 1/2" or 6 1/2" blocks from each member for a total of 26 blocks.
The month of May rolled in and it was my turn to be Queen!  I was inspired by some fruit and veggie blocks on text fabrics seen while perusing Flickr AND wanted to make a clock.  Yo peeps, could you each pick a Roman numeral 1-12 and a fruit or veggie and one of you  make me some clock hands?
They were game and more than rose to the occasion! Here are the blocks all put together that those crazy creative folks made for me!! 
All I did was highlight the numerals with a black running stitch and do a bit of quilting.

At the Mini QT Swap we are having a Clock-Along.  A couple of the lovely ladies (Marilyn and Ruthie) made up a tutorial for us to follow which made it soooo easy for me! 
In this photo you can just make out some buttons we received when our girl was at West Virginia University...left them there so you could see how big it is....21" square!
I love it!  Thanks Bee Buddies!
I bought more clock works because it's a great gift to make with orphan blocks!
I was going to put some buttons on the clock then I found the huge hands so that idea went out the window but my buttons now have a new home cause...
...my pal Sandie gave me this HUGE glass Ball jar for my perle cottons!!:)
See that little project next to my sewing machine?
Now it's an oh so cute little zippy bag made from a pattern called 

Gotta love plaid!:)
~d

Thursday, October 10, 2013

Guess where we went last week?!:)

The Outer Banks of North Carolina!! WhoooHooo!
Hubby had to put some crown molding up in a condo in Kill Devil Hills so we got to stay there for the week...for free!:)
 We finally found some sea glass!
 Collected buckets and buckets of shells!
(This was the only day with ANY clouds at all!!)
 Enjoyed the near empty beaches!
Found a skull-shaped shell!
 Took some selfies!
Because of the government shutdown there were no vehicles at Oregon Inlet which is part of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore. Never seen that before!
 They have a really hard time keeping the sand off the roads on these barrier islands and to show you how skinny some areas are I borrowed a photo...
 ....from the Outer Banks website.  Can you get over this...it's an amazing place!! Go look at the map to see these barrier islands along the coast of North Carolina!
 On the way home we visited my folks....and a farmers market.  
 Oh....and I found a quilt shop at the beach and bought a few treasures!:)

~d