Happy Halloween!!

Halloween is celebrated the Sunday before Halloween in our area, so today is the day. Our trick-or-treaters have already been by, and there's still lots of candy left. I don't know if that's good or not!

My Halloween decorating became extra fun this year when I won a giveaway from Brynwood Needleworks!  Donna sent this fun embroidered pillow, along with several other goodies.  I just love my new pillow - Donna's work is so nicely finished.  This pillow has ties on the back so that I can slip out the pillow form and store the cover easily.  I'm going to start making my pillows this way - that would certainly cut down on the storage area needed.  Anyway, thanks for picking my name, Donna!

The only finish I have to show is the the Flip Flop Tablemat that is finally done.  I'm ready for next summer's decorating!  We have a long winter to get through first, but at least we didn't get the storm yesterday.  Our fall weather has been great.

The finishing kit for the Primitive Gatherings Block of the Week arrived yesterday, so I've been working on that.  This project may take the rest of the winter - there are a lot of little pieces to it.  It will be a fun project to finish.

Have a Happy Halloween!

Still Here!

This has been a very busy summer and fall - I can't believe it's been over two months since I've blogged!  Plenty has been going on.  I guess I've just been too busy to write about it.

My son's going-to-college quilt got finished, a couple weeks ahead of schedule, even!  It's all music-themed - mostly black and white notes, instruments, etc.  If you're ever looking for a specific fabric, I can recommened Equilter.com.  They had a great selection of black and white prints for this quilt.  No affiliation - I just liked their selection and service.  I also made a pillowcase and two throw pillows to match the quilt.  I'm looking forward to seeing this quilt on his dorm bed!  We moved him in, but left before the room was put together.

And I finally finished my Primitive Gatherings 2009 Block of the Week quilt:

I really like how it turned out, but the white daisies really jump out at me.  Do you think some instant antique would fix that?  My version of the quilt is the wool on cotton one.  The 2011 BOW blocks are finished, and I'm anxiously awaiting the finishing kit for them.  The 2010 BOW blocks are also done, and waiting for inspiration on how to finish them!

Today, while the weather is beautiful outside, I sat on the deck and put the finishing touches on four mini table mats.

The acorns and sheep are from the Mat of the Month club at Primitive Gatherings (can you tell I'm a Primitive Gatherings groupie?)  The other two are Bareroots patterns.  All of these mats are about 8" across.  These have been in various stages of completion for awhile, so it feels good to get them done. 

Our weather has been outstanding here!  It's been sunny and high 70s all last week, and the trees are beautiful.  We'd better enjoy it, because the leaves are falling off the trees and I'll be whining about snow soon enough.

Thanks for stopping by!  I promise I'll get back to blogging more regularly.

Hands2Help Update!

It's time to reveal our quilts made in the Hands2Help project.  The quilt I made from the fabrics received from my swap partner is this one:

The fabric had cute turtles, frogs and caterpillars, which I fussy cut and added borders around for the blocks.  The outer border is a border print from the same fabric line.  This quilt is much cuter than the picture shows!

I also sent two additional charity quilts to Green Fairy Quilts.  These blocks started out to be a full-size  quilt, and I don't even remember now what the pattern was supposed to be, but somewhere along the way the plan changed, and they are now two lap-size quilts.

I'm looking forward to hearing about the trip Judi and Clint take to distribute these quilts in Romania!  I hope we can do this project next year - it was a lot of fun.  Thanks, Sarah, for getting this all organized and getting us all together for this project.

Vegetables, Dogs, and a BOW

Those are my excuses for not posting for a whole month!  I can explain...




Vegetables -  This year I joined a Community Supported Agriculture deal at a farm near here.  The way this CSA works is that you pay a certain amount of money at the beginning of the season, and they deliver a box of vegetables each week for 12 weeks.  You are taking a little bit of a risk because what you get depends a lot on the weather and what they are able to grow.  I only bought a half-share, and despite the lousy growing season here, I have been up to my elbows in vegetables for the last six weeks.  We've had arugula, broccoli, kohlrabi, kale, garlic in various forms, several different types of lettuce, radishes, carrots, fennel, zucchini, beans, beets, potatoes, popcorn, strawberries, spinach, basil, parsley, and a bunch of things I've left out.  I joined this so I would be forced to try some different vegetables and get out of my comfort zone cooking-wise.   I have and I am, and nobody in my family has moved out.  Yet.  If I give them one more salad, they may!  Tonight we had a neat kale salad from a recipe I found here.  It was good, but I'm not sure I'm totally into kale yet.  We'll probably move on to okra or something this week anyway.

Dogs - I've been spending a lot of time with Holly.  We finished our obedience class and are now enrolled in a beginning flyball class.  We're having fun with it, and she's the star of the class in my biased opinion.  Of course, her classmates are two poodles who won't fetch, and another dog who has yet to come to class.  If you don't know what flyball is, Youtube has some good videos.  My goal is for us to be like the ones in the Crufts championships LOL.  It's good exercise for her and she seems to have fun with it.  We've been walking three times a day, too, so we're both getting a lot of exercise.




BOW - My other time-consuming summer activity is the Block of the Week from Primitive Gatherings.  I love it this year, and I'm keeping up...pretty well.  The first six blocks are done, block seven will be done this weekend, and block eight just arrived today.  Sitting on the deck and working on these blocks is a big part of my summer, but it's been so hot I've mostly been inside with the AC on lately.  I can't wait for the weather to cool off a little bit.

I've also made some charity quilts this summer, but I'll post about those next week when we have the Big Reveal.

Hope you're all having a nice summer.  If you don't hear from me again, that means the vegetables did me in.  Is there such a thing as vegetable poisoning?

Middle of June Already???

Wow, I can't believe it's already the middle of June!  I sure haven't been posting much lately, have I?

Well, I have a good excuse.  Seven weeks ago we adopted a new dog, a 10-month-old English Shepherd named Holly. 

She's a very nice dog, but needed quite of bit of training, so we had a six-week obedience class which we completed Saturday.  Here's her graduation picture

She even got to wear the hat.  It used to have a tassel, but some previous wearer chewed it off - LOL.  I'm having a lot of fun with her, but a new dog is really time-consuming.  She and the cat are still not best friends, but we're working on it. 

Not too much quilting has been going on in the last few weeks, but I did finish Town Square and sent it off to a friend.

The colors didn't come out too nicely in this picture, but this was made with the Lovely fabric line from Sandy Gervais.  It reminded me of a beach vacation with the turquoise and peach colors. 

So that is about the extent of my quilting lately!  I joined the Block of the Week from Primitive Gatherings, so I've been stitching on the first couple of blocks of it.  I'll post pictures when I get a few blocks done.

Hope everyone is having a nice spring.  It has been beautiful in Wisconsin the last few days. 

Hands2Help Update

A little quilting has been going on at Troublesome Creek Quilts!  Not too much, since spring is finally here and flowers need to be planted, but I have made some progress on my Hands2Help quilt.

The top is finished, and it's ready to be basted and quilted, which will hopefully happen yet this holiday weekend.

The fabric Joy sent to me was very cute, so I fussy-cut the little animals for the blocks.

I found some border print from the same line of fabric, so I'm really happy with how this turned out.  The quilt is about 60" square.

Hope everyone is having a great Memorial Day weekend!

Mr. Mailman's Been Good to Me!

This week has brought all kinds of goodies to my mailbox.  First, I won a contest on The Noble Wife and Jacquelynn sent me these wonderful quilty items - three of her fun patterns, some notecards, and a hand-painted quilt pin.  Thanks, Jacquelynn!  That pattern on top is saying "Make me in wool!"

For the past few months, I've been a pattern tester for the Quiltmakers 100 Blocks Volume 3, and yesterday in the mail I got my copies of the magazine AND and nifty mug with the magazine cover on it!

There are some great blocks in this magazine, and I got to test some of them.  It was great fun, although a couple of them were a real challenge.  I have a greater appreciation for what magazines go through to get a good pattern printed, and will probably be more forgiving of an occasional mistake after this experience!  Be sure to hit the blogs that are having the 100 Blocks tour this week - you'll love this magazine!

And last but not least, I got an Easter basket from my mom, but I haven't opened it yet.  Have to wait until tomorrow for that!

This weekend has mostly been spent getting to know my new dog.  Yesterday we got a 10-month old English Shepherd from another client at my vet's office.  We've spent the last 24 hours getting to know each other.  It's going as well as can be expected at this point - she needs some obedience lessons (which start next Saturday) and to meet the cat, but we're taking that part prettly slowly.  The cat is mostly hiding out upstairs or downstairs.  We left her plenty of escape routes.  She was used to our last dog, but it all has to start over again.  Last time, it took three months for the cats to be able to cope with a new dog, so I hope the process goes a little faster this time!  The dog is very keen to meet the cat, though - too bad it's not mutual!  I'll post pictures in a few days.

Hope everyone has a Happy Easter!

Off They Go!

Today is a vacation day for me, so I'm using some of the time to get some of my charity projects in the mail.  I mailed this quilt to Quilter's Newsletter to send to earthquake victims in Japan.

This quilt was made from a pattern in a Quiltmaker magazine.  I liked it because of the large pieces of fabrics that weren't cut up, and I had this cute dragon princess fabric to use.

Isn't this great fabric?  I've had it in my stash for years waiting for the perfect pattern.  Hopefully a little girl in Japan will love it.

The Just One Star blocks were finished last week and sent to guild to be mailed off to Moda.

And last but not least, the fabric for the Hands2Help quilt was sent off to my swap partner.  I had some neat dinosaur fabric for that one.

Can you tell I'm a sucker for kid's prints?  I have never met one I didn't like!  I made an I Spy quilt for my son many years ago, and just never stopped collecting fabrics for another one.  One of these days, I need to make about ten I Spy quilts.

Have you heard about the Hands2Help project?  The button on my sidebar will link you to the project.  I think it sounds like a great idea, and I had fun picking out fabric to swap with my partner.

We're in the middle of getting 6" of snow today.  (Sigh)  I thought spring was here, but I guess I have to wait for a few more days.  The daffodils always get snowed on at least once.  At least it's a nice day to stay inside and sew!

Guest Blogging

Today I'm a guest blogger at Stash Manicure.  Come on over and say hi!

Happy Birthday

Somebunny is having a birthday!  Be sure to stop by The Raspberry Rabbits and wish Shell a happy birthday tomorrow.

Happy National Quilting Day!

Tomorrow is National Quilting Day - how are you going to celebrate?  My guild is having a sew-in all day. I'm going to start a new quilt - Town Square, out of the new Scrap Basket Sensations book. 

The pieces are all cut out.  This is the Lovely line of fabric by Sandy Gervais - isn't it pretty?  It just says "spring" to me, so I thought this would be the perfect thing to make on a March day.  If the sewing goes as quickly as the cutting did, I should be able to get the top pieced in a day.

Our snow piles are almost melted, so maybe spring is on its way.  We had robins in our back yard today, so that has to be a good sign!

Whatever you're doing tomorrow, enjoy National Quilting Day!

A Finishing Frenzy

Three finishes this week - woo hoo - although I may look a little season-challenged.

The snowman clothesline is finished and packed away until next winter...

Easter eggs that were started last year were finished and put on display.

And a watermelon table mat that was started two years ago was finished.


Do you ever feel overwhelmed by your UFOs?  That is the way I've been feeling, so it feels good to get these three done.  I really like to start new projects, but sometimes (lots of times) lack the discipline to finish them.

Looking at my blog, you might think I never do much quilting, and just work with wool applique.  I do sew quite a bit, but lately I've been doing more handwork projects with wool.  I've joined a new group that meets at a church and it's just easier to take wool projects to that, so I've been getting some things done there.  It's a very nice group of ladies who meet and everyone works on their own stuff, while chatting and eating snacks.  What's not to like about that?

Winter is still hanging on here, but we are supposed to get up to 50 degrees this week.  Can't wait for that!  I'm ready for all the snow to go away for good.  Hope it's nice where you are!

Happy March!

Time to post my February finishes!  I didn't get as much finished as I would like, but then February is a short month, right?

The Strawberry Trio Table Runner is the only thing I've finished since my last post.

This was a fun little project from the Summer Gatherings book from Primitive Gatherings.  So now I'm ready for spring! 

The Scrap Basket Sensations book was all over blog-land a couple weeks ago, and my book arrived.  What a lot of great quilts in one book!  I can't wait to start one, but I don't know which one to choose.   One of them definitely has to be my next project. 

My UFO Quilt for February was a pink and brown wall hanging called Peppermint Twist from a Jo Morton book a couple years ago.  I made a lot of progress on it this month, but, alas, it's not done, so no picture yet.  I think I'm just going to ignore the fact that it's a new month now and just keep working on it until it's finished.

This is the time of year for lots of music activities for DS#2.  We had a chamber concert last weekend, and this Saturday is regional music contests.  He is in several events, so that is my plan for this weekend.   Keep your fingers crossed for some *1 ratings that go to state!

Birthday Quilt

This week I finished a quilt for my son's 23rd birthday.  (How did I get old enough to have a 23-year old kid?)  I thought he needed a warm, fuzzy quilt for a cold Wisconsin winter! 

The quilt is made from the Woolies line of flannel from Maywood Studios.  I love their flannel - it's so thick and fuzzy.  This line of fabric really looks like wool, and I thought it had a nice masculine look to it.  There is a wool batting, too, so it's really warm.  I could hardly keep the cat off it while I was making it.  I bought this kit because it required feather stitching between all the blocks, and I love to feather stitch! 

I don't need to do it again for awhile, though.  The cutting and sewing part of this quilt went really fast - just bricks!

My Woolies group got together last week and I put the finishing touches on this wool flower table mat.

This pattern was in the Summer Gatherings book by Primitive Gatherings, but there's also a similar smaller version in this month's American Patchwork and Quilting magazine that is really cute.

So I have two finishes to add to my OPAM list!  Too bad neither one is the UFO I'm supposed to be working on.

We've had below-zero temperaatures all week, but it made it up to 32 today - woo hoo!  It's supposed to be even warmer tomorrow.  I can't wait.   We've still got well over a foot of snow on the ground, and it's hard to see around all the snow piles when you're out driving.  The snow can all go away now.  I'm ready to start thinking about the real flower garden.

Goodbye, January...

I don't know about you, but I'm always happy to turn the calendar over from January to February.  I'm not really a winter gal, so I'm happy to see January go.   We are supposed to get a real whopper of a snowstorm the next couple days, along with half the rest of the country!  We've been out shovelling the first inch of snow.  I think the snowblower will be coming out tomorrow morning.

Just under the wire, I finished UFO #3 in the 2011 UFO Challenge.

This was the 2010 Summer Freebie from Primitive Gatherings.  For the last couple years, they've had a deal where they give out a free kit for a small block each week if you make another purchase.  I also buy their Block a Week (more of my UFOs!), so I've gotten the freebie kits as well.  I finished mine differently than they did.  I had some neat Remembrance fabric I wanted to use for the border.  So one UFO can be crossed off the list!  I'm better at finishing the freebie blocks than the others - these are only about 4" each, so they went pretty fast.  Now I need to finish the other Block a Week (for the last two years!)

Do you think we will get a snow day tomorrow?  That would be OK!

Oops!

I didn't mean to take a 3-week blogging break, but I guess that's what happened!  I'm in just-get-through-winter mode and haven't had a lot of exciting things to blog about lately.  It was -17 degrees here last night.  That's enough winter for me - spring can come anytime now.

One exciting finish to report - Wool Crazy is done and hanging on the wall!

This was really a fun project.  I've never been all that excited about crazy quilts, but now that I've made this one, I can see how you get hooked on it.

My favorite part is the watering can and bugs.  I'm not much of an artist, but the tomato pincushion is my own design LOL.  I added some buttons from my grandma's button jar to the project - partly to show off the buttons, but mostly to cover some undesirable seam joins.  If I do another one of these, I'll do the joining a little differently.  I'd like to make a seasonal Wool Crazy like some I've seen on blogs, but we'll see.  There is a lot of work in one little wall hanging, although it's pretty addictive once you get started.

Progress is being made on UFO #3 from the 2011 UFO Challenge.  The binding went on today during the Packer game.  I just have the sleeve to put on the back and then I can post about it.  Maybe there won't be three weeks before my next post!

Antique Fair

Recently I won a giveaway from Blackbird Designs - the prize was four packets of 2 1/2" squares of the entire line of Antique Fair.  This is a beautiful line of fabric, with soft reds, dusty blues, tans, and browns.  I think it will be in stores in February.  Thanks, Alma!  I can't wait to do something fun with these.

It was great to have some time to sew this holiday weekend.  The Wrapped in Paisley quilt top is finished.

This quilt was really fun to piece.  Everything went together perfectly and came out to the dimensions it was supposed to.  I really enjoyed the piecing, and there was a lot of it!  The fabrics were great, too.  If anyone is interested in this kit, I noticed Green Fairy Quilts has them on sale this week.  Now I need to get this quilted before next Christmas!

I'm supposed to be working on my Primitive Gatherings Freebie Quilt this week, as that was the one I have on the 2011 UFO Challenge, so I think that's what will be up next.

Hope everyone has some time to sew this week!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to all my blog friends. 

Time to post quilty goals for the year.  I've joined Patchwork Penguin's 2011 UFO Challenge, so my ten quilts are listed on the sidebar.  The first number she picked is 3, so I'm off to work on quilt #3 today.  Listing my ten UFOs to work on, I can easily see that Blocks of the Month are my downfall.  I get all the blocks made just fine, and then I just...stop.  I hope to remedy that in 2011.

It's a cold, windy day here, so perfect for staying in the sewing room all day.  I've got stew started in the crockpot so I don't even have to stop and make dinner!

Hope it's a great day where you are!