Giveaway Contest!

Lila Tueller is having a giveaway contest on her blog. http://lilatuellerdesigns.blogspot.com/2008/07/woodland-bloom-giveaway-contest.html Take a look and be sure to sign up to win!

Something Old

Not much quilty going on right now. I am trying to get customers quilts done before leaving on vacation in a couple of weeks and doing some piecing of a couple of different quilts.
Monday morning I came to work with the news that my boss had died unexpectedly the night before. We are all still in shock but are doing our jobs and trying to carry on knowing harvest is just around the corner. The search is on to replace him but it will never be the same and we all miss him terribly. This old quilt speaks comfort to me and that is what I need right now. This was a block exchange between 6 of us and was done in 2000-2001. We will all miss Chip, but will make him proud as we carry on.

A Fun Day At The Fair

Today was the 4-H pig sale at the county fair where we live. When we were told our grandaughter would be showing a pig at the sale we decided we had to go and see how she did. She will be in 4-H next year and will have a pig of her own, so showing this pig will be good experience. The neighbor girl who owns the pig that our grandaughter showed is the state FFA president and is in Washington D.C meeting with the president of the United States.

In this first picture you can tell she is having fun, and check out the pink boots!

All the kids have to do is keep the animal moving around the ring so all the people that are bidding can get a good look at them. She had to get the pig to move out of the corner, and to do that they take the cane and tap them on the side or back to get their attention and to keep them moving.

As you can see here we were sitting in the front row of the bleachers, as close as we could to the ring to be able to get good pictures. I was a very proud of my grandaughter and how calm she was for being only 9. You would think she had been doing this for a long time. Oh, by the way, this pig brought $11.25/lb and weighed in at 270 lbs. This final picture is the Grand Champion Barrow of the fair and it belongs to the daughter of a co-worker of mine. What a great day at the fair!

Another Baby Quilt

With all the uncertain weather in the area this evening I decided to finish up this baby quilt. I had pieced all the big squares before and it was too small so added a couple of borders and now it should be just the right size. I love the Tiddley Winks fabrics, so bright and fun! I am sure some little one will enjoy this quilt for years to come.

New Little Quilt

Happy Sunday! It is a beautiful day here in Indiana, a bit humid but not too bad, with a breeze.Now that I am home from church I will be staying in the air-conditioning quilting. Yesterday, after finishing one customer's quilt, I decided to make a small quilt with a bunch of Jo Morton little pieces of fabric. I have so many scraps that eventually I will be cutting them in usable pieces and hopefully make many more little quilts.

This next picture is a 'blurry' close up view of the quilt. I do need to work on this type of shot. The border and backing fabric is a Judie Rothermel fabric which I absolutely love and goes very well with these Jo fabrics. Along with this quilt I also sandwiched my small pink and brown quilt to hand quilt also. With the Olympics coming I thought this would be a good opportunity to do some hand quilting in the evenings after supper.

On another note I will be leaving on vacation for almost 2 weeks in August. I have been getting a few quilt kits dug out to take and work on. I haven't started my "Web Celebration II" quilt yet so I will be taking it along with, "Victory Garden" quilt kit of Jo Morton's and her "Peppermint Twist" kit. For hand work I will be taking my blocks of the "Elegant Garden" quilt. That should keep me busy I think. Friday I mapped out some quilt shops we will be stopping at. The husbands are being wonderful about this so we ladies are going to take advantage of it. Two that I have picked out so far are "Mill House Quilts" in Wisconsin and "Main Street Cotton Shop" in Minnesota. We are going on 90-94 in Ill. to 35 north in Mn. If there are any shops you know that we should stop at, please drop me a note, the more shops the better! The other ladies that will be in our group also hunt bear and fish, I am the only one that won't, do you blame me? I plan on staying mosquito free by sewing all day in the cabin with my DVD's and my music. I imagine it will be pure heaven on earth. LOL

Family

My son and his family go to Michigan every year on vacation and this year they had their family picture taken there. I thought it was such a good one of all of them and so I had to share. They are such a wonderful and very busy family. My son farms, my dil teaches, and the girls are, well they are my grandaughters, what can I say. :D I am very blessed that they live just 3 miles away in the country and I can see them as often as I want.

On a quilty note, I am fast approaching my 100th post so I am working on my give-away gift. I love give-aways so I hope mine will measure up to what I have seen here so far.
Tonight I will be going out to dinner with 4 of my classmates from high school. We got together last year and had a ball! We eat, laugh, eat, laugh, and laugh some more. No matter how many years have passed they melt away when we get together and continue on where we left off. I am so looking forward to it!
Have a great weekend and happy quilting!

Win A Quilt!

I was checking out some blogs this morning and found one that showed a blog that you could actually win a quilt, the site is http://www.oldredbarnco.blogspot.com
I went there immediately and signed up and if you are interested, hop on over and sign up also. You never know, you just might be a winner!

Newest Finish

Here is the latest scrap quilt I have been working on, American Beauty from Evelyn Sloppy's book "40 Fabulous Quick-Cut Quilts". I finally got the borders on it the last weekend. I really loved the quilt in the book much better than mine, more golds and buttery looking fabrics, but I am determined to use up alot of bits and pieces that I already have. It is fun to remember where you used the same fabrics in other projects. I can remember where I bought pieces of fabric that I have had for years but can't remember what I did yesterday.

The quilt is a good size but too big to hang in my studio to get a pix so I had to take them in sections. It would be nice to have a spot to hang them so the whole quilt will show. I am sure my DH can come up with something.

When I took this last picture I about died! See the block that is turned wrong, and I was so careful!!!! Oh well, I thought maybe I would just leave it as is, but I just couldn't do it. It only took about a half hour to rip that block out and turn it around. Now it is truly done and just needs to get quilted.

Jenna's First Sewing Lesson

This is my grandaughter Jenna who will be in the third grade this coming fall. She has wanted to learn to sew and so today was her first lesson. Jenna picked out her fabric last evening and so we set a sewing date for today. I had the pieces of fabric all cut when she arrived so we could concentrate on just sewing. As you can tell she is really enjoying it!

Along with sewing comes ironing and so here we are with our first ironing lesson. Not bad at all!

Jenna did one pillowcase and did such a good job she decided to do another so she would have one for each of her pillows. This one she did much better and was really comfortable with the machine. Here she is sewing down her ric rac. What concentration!

Another happy face! Maybe I was bothering her trying to get alot of picture. LOL I have hoped and prayed that one of my grandaughters would want to learn to sew and here is my first!

The final results! We had 2 1/2 hours together and she got 2 pillowcases done. She is so proud and so am I! She is already thinking of other projects she would like to make but for the next few weeks she will be working with a pig to show at the fair. I had such a wonderful day and will look forward to more days like today! :D

Can't Sleep

I don't like nights like tonight. It stormed and rained, good night to just go to bed early and get some extra sleep, but when I layed down I was wide awake. What to do. My eyes were too tired to sew, too much lightening to try and quilt on the Gammill, so I decided to post some of the quilts for the Quilting Ministry that have already been given away.
The first one is pieced and hand appliqued. I worked on the applique during a vacation at Branson, MO. That is a long drive so I got most of the applique done. This was such a sweet quilt and I know it will be loved.


Here is a close up of some of the quilting.





The next quilt was a kit that I have had for at least 5 or more years. It was a Debbie Mumm kit and the book showed it in 2 different color ways, the one shown here and then in blues. Both were made but I only got the one pix.






The next pix is a close up of some of the quilting.

When I started the quilting ministry at church, I used all my fabric to get started and then some of my wonderful and generous friends donated fabric and blocks that they didn't want anymore. The next quilt was made from some of theose blocks. Quilters are the most generous people that I know and I appreciate all of them!



The next picture is a close up of the quilting.

The last picture is one of my most favorite quilts. I got the pattern from a mystery class I was going to take, but since I was the only one to sign up I was given the pattern to make on my own. I added the applique border, I love applique with simple pieced blocks, and made the quilt my own. I enjoyed it for about a month until my daughter called me. She was getting a team together for "Relay for Life" in Columbus, Ohio where she lives and asked if I had a quilt that they could raffle off to make money. Yep, you guessed it, this is the quilt that was raffled off. Some day I will make another, but until then I have pictures.




It is late, I am finally getting sleepy, so I will go to bed. Thanks to all you bloggers who stop by my blog. I try and thank each of you personally but sometimes I can't. I just want you all to know that I enjoy all your blogs also and I thank God for the day I discovered blogland! :D

Look What I Won!

I love looking at quilts, all kinds of quilts, and I will search the word "quilt" and then check out the websites to see if I find any new and different ones that I would like to make. Well, one day while doing that I found this site http://www.quiltsandquilttops.com/
I looked at the quilt and found out that you could win a quilt top in a drawing that they have every 3 months or so. What you do is pick out a quilt out of the choices given and that would be the quilt you would win. I thought, what have I got to lose, so I entered the drawing and forgot about it. Well, last week I got an e-mail stating that I had won a quilt and I was so excited! I usually don't ever win anything and then to win a quilt was just unheard of. I received the quilt last Friday and it is wonderful. The backing and binding was included so all I have to do is quilt it. How awesome!

This is the quilt! It is not one that I would make for myself so I think that is why I picked it. The quilt is very well made and will quilt up nicely.

Here is a close up of one of the blocks.
Here is a close up of another. I am still in awe that I won! I will treasure this quilt always and can't thank the Linda enough for having the drawing! I will post another pix once I get it quilted and hope I can do it justice. Gosh, this is almost like Christmas! :D

Orange Crush 4th

Hope everyone had a wonderful and safe July 4th! I did my favorite thing, I quilted and sewed all day. My husband and 2 others spent the day putting a new roof on a friends house so I had the day to myself. My OC is all quilted and the binding is attached, as you can see it will be scrappy. I love sewing down the binding so will work on it the next few evenings. As you can see I added a border to my quilt from the same fabric line as the rest of the fabrics. It really ties eveything together I think.

This next picture is a close-up. I used the "Plumage" pantograph, one of my favorites and I really like how it turned out. The texture it gives to a quilt is wonderful!

I always seem to have problems with having enough backing fabric. As you can see I didn't, so I just used pieces leftover from the quilt. It really makes it look like a scrappy quilt now. :D


The FQ bundle I had also had two panels to it and I really think these turned out cute with the flowered fabric border! I am seriously considering have them framed and use them in the bedroom with the quilt.

And here is the second panel.


And last but not least, my buddy and bodyguard! Tye does not like the firecrackers and all the noise around the neighborhood over the 4th! We always stay home with him instead of going to see the fireworks to try and keep him calm. We don't mind, our wonderful pets aren't with us all that long and so it is a joy to be with him.

The Quilt Is Done!

Here is the quilt that I had to unstitch, all done finally and delivered to its owner. I really loved the quilt but not the ripping out. I basted it well before I quilted it this time and had no problems at all. I will definately remember to do that again.

I quilted this next quilt yesterday afternoon also for the same customer. She had been to Alaska in 2006, which she had me quilt in the border, and made this quilt to remember her trip with.

I love this next quilt! It is a sampler and it is awesome! I love 30's fabric and some of these I have never seen. It is going to be a wonderful heirloom.

I am getting all my customer quilts done slowly but surely and should be able to go into harvest this year with them all done and delivered. I am going to try and get my Orange Crush done this holiday weekend, we don't have anything special planned as of yet.

I hope everyone has a wonderful and safe holiday this year!


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