My Favorite Thimble

Nancy in Norway is having a give-away for those who post a pictures of their thimbles on their blog. I have a few that I have collected, but I can not seem to get my camera to work right and the pictures always come out so blurry you can't even tell what they are. My daughter took a picture of this one for me - its my all time favorite thimble and the one I actually use. It was made to fit my finger and its just so pretty it looks like jewelry. I have forgotten to take it off before and worn it to work - that is how nice it fits. Sometimes its fits a little loose though, so I have an under-thimble sticky pad in it to help it stay tight. I will try to post some pictures of my collectible thimbles soon - if I can get my camera to work.

Be sure to check out Nancy's site. She has some beautiful thimbles posted and links to many more.

May I have your autograph?

My guild is sponsoring a signature block swap and I have been busily trying to get all mine done. Making the blocks went pretty quick, its all the signing that is taking me awhile, but I get to play with my new light box and my be-jeweler, so its fun. Its kind of hard to tell in this picture, but there are two gemstones in the swirly thing around my name. Like my artistic flair? That's about as artsy as I get (laughing here).

Yesterday our quilt club, Stitchin' Friends, met and we started working on quilted bags. I hope to get mine finished soon so look for a picture in the next couple of days. This was a fun project and it was interesting to see the fabric selections everyone made.

Time to grab pen and ink and sign a few more autographs........

What's clean, shiny and white all over?

My kitchen cabinets!!!! We spent the weekend sanding, cleaning and painting my kitchen cabinets and they look so pretty. The rest of the kitchen is still a mess as we have stuff everywhere - so you only get to see a head shot, so to speak, of a couple of the cabinets. After three trips to Lowes and one to Home Depot we finally found enough hinges to replace all the hinges on the old cabinets, add in new knobs and drawer pulls and lots of shiny white paint. I wanted silver hinges, but had to settle for white as that is all we could find enough of...but I really think the white looks better than the silver did. Now..on to new counter tops and then we knock a whole in the wall to create a doorway into my dining room. We'll paint the walls after we get the doorway finished.

One of my treasures...

Don't you have a few things in your life that are just so very special to you? Of course, my faith and my family are at the top of my list of treasures in my life, but I am talking about material possessions now. Here is a picture of one of my treasures. It is a sewing basket that my mother made for me. She collects pine needles from our yard and weaves them into the most beautiful baskets. I have several that she has made, but this one is by far is my most treasured. I keep my hand quilting/sewing supplies in this basket and it gives me pleasure to have it close by. How about you....do you have a treasured item that you use in your sewing? Is there a story behind it, a gift made by a special friend or loved one - maybe something that a relative once used?

Saturday project

You know how it goes...you try to do one thing in your house and that leads to another and another....

Yesterday my brother and his wife very graciously gave my daughter a refrigerator as they were getting a new one. Jennie and Bobby are looking for a new home, so a refrigerator is much appreciated. Now I am not talking an old used refrigerator - this is a very nice, side-by-side stainless steel front Frigidaire. Since we can use the extra refrierator space, we decided to put it in my laundry room to use until they move into their own home. That meant I had to remove a large cabinet that was in the laundry room..which I decided to put in the kitchen. That meant I had to take the upright freezer out of the kitchen. Now this is an old freezer that you have to defrost and I was so happy to see it leave! So I called a used appliance place and they came and got it. Then the cabinet did not look good in the kitchen so it went to the basement. Now I have a big open space in the kitchen...so off we go to Lowes. We purchased a very nice cabinet to fill that space, so now I need to paint the cabinet which also means repainting all the other cabinets in the kitchen,,hmmm...which means repainting the walls too, right?

Since the cabinet did not have a counter top, and we really need a new countertop over the area by the sink, we will also be getting new countertops throughout the kitchen. In the interim, we removed another old cabinet I had in the kitchen, put that counter top on top of the new cabinet and today we are going to move our refrigerator into the space where the old cabinet used to be and then get another new cabinet to put where the refrigerator was.....and a set of cabinets to hang over the new cabinet......on and on and on...

Thanks Mike and Jeannie for the refrigerator, didn't realize I would get a new kitchen out of the deal!

TGIF!

Yesssssssssssss,,its Friday. I think this work week has been 6 days long. Hope you all have a great weekend!

Here are a few blocks from my Alphabet I-Spy quilt. I did a block swap with some ladies in Texas and in South Carolina. I did the letter and they found all the I-spy things to go with the letter. I still have 9 letters to go - I, K, N, O, U, V, X, Y, Z .

Happy Easter!

I hope you have all had a good day and found time to enjoy family and celebrate the miracle of Easter. My husband and I attended church with our youngest daughter today, and it was nice to be together in church again. Over the last few years, our family has ended up in four different churches, with my husband and I preferring a small country church, while our children enjoy other churches of varying sizes. As long as the are all somewhere worshipping, I am happy, but it is nice to be in church with family.

My own personal Easter Bunny or should I say Easter Hubby surprised me with some very nice gifts this weekend. A new mixer and a light box. Now I think there is an ulterior motive behind the mixer as I had to try it out right away by mixing up a chocolate pound cake. It is wonderful!

I had asked for a light box for my birthday which is in May. That got stepped up though, as I am tracing the Blossom Time patterns for my mom from the

Nimble Needle cd, and the light box would make it so much easier.....so, he said go ahead and get it now. Woohoo, I love my light box even more than the mixer.

This has been a good few days for making progress on some UFO's. I finished the cowboy basketweave quilt, have my Christmas Beauty to the point of hemming the binding, and am quilting my tulip wall hanging. I didn't quite get around to cleaning up the sewing area, but I will as soon as I finish the wall hanging. I also put my alphabet I-Spy quilt blocks up on my design wall and that is making me want to work on it - but got to finish these other projects first.

My Oldest UFO

I have been enjoying reading your blogs about your oldest UFO's and the story behind them. Sometimes the story is so good you really don't want to finish the project. Here is my oldest UFO which dates back to 1950 - the year I was born. My grandmother started this and made two blocks before she died. She started it right after I was born and died 9 months later. She had a love of quilting, and although I have never seen any of her quilts, I have heard of her work and the fun they had making them. Daddy talks a lot about her butterfly applique quilts and my mom has made a quilt (which I proudly own) using the butterfly pattern that my Grandmother used.

My cousin, Ellen, gave me these blocks when I told her how much I missed knowing my Grandmother and seeing her quilts. Only one of the blocks that Grandmother made was with the kits, and I have 10 other kits that I can make blocks with. Each kit has the wedges cut and the fabric looks new, colors bright and they look like they could have come right off the Aunt Grace fabric shelf at the LQS. My picture does not do them justice, as their colors are much more vivid. The kit also has two muslin blocks, one with the ring pattern printed on the block and one plain block. I am not sure if the one with the pattern printed is for quilting the pattern on alternate blocks or for foundation piecing of the rings. The muslin blocks are stained with age, and I will probably need to replace them. I plan to finish this quilt that my grandmother started and for the missing block, I will make a memory block of her, including a picture.

And here is an update on my Christmas Beauty quilt which I finished quilting last night. The clam shell pattern in the body of the quilt turned out really nice and I added a Baptist fan border which I think looks nice too. I have not washed out the markings yet, so if you see some blue shining through that is why. I have the binding cut and ready to sew on, need to make the sleeve and label and this one will be done - hopefully by this weekend

I guess my oldest UFO that I started and still have in process would be my Dear Jane which I posted in an earlier blog. That one I have put away for another day - who knows, maybe someday my granddaughter will finish it for me!

Arghhhhhhhhhhh

After 30 minutes and at least 25 pictures later, I still do not have a clear picture of my Cowboy Basket Weave quilt to post. I just can't seem to take a clear picture! So, your eyes are fine, my pictures are blurry. The cowboy fabric will be used as the backing.

This was a class we did in my club Saturday. The pattern is from a Fons and Porter magazine and everyone chose their own fabric. We had some really interesting selections. We make quilts for a local hospital to use in the pediatric unit, and that is where this one will be headed once I get it quilted. The hospital uses the quilts to cover the cradles of babies that must be there for extended periods to get them used to night and day. When the baby goes home, the quilt goes with the baby.


Last night I met with a group of very talented and enthusiastic young ladies at the university where I work. They are interested in learning to applique and I gave them a lesson in needle turn applique. They did a great job and hopefully in 2 weeks I will have pictures to post of their accomplishment. Way to go girls - you did fantastic!

Pin cushion collection

As promised, here is a post of other pin cushions I own. I know we all have a nice collection going as they are so much fun to collect, but here are a few special ones. The blue wooden one was made by my dad and is great for holding a spool of thread and even has a place for putting small scissors or a thimble. The little mouse I made thinking I would make them for all my friends - forget that, once was enough. The oriental looking one belonged to my mother-in-law. The cute chair was a gift fromDarlene and the chicken a gift from an internet friend for doing a block swap with her. I guess one of my all time favorites is the porceline cat and dog which my mom gave me a long time ago, and in the front, another very special one in silver with its own thimble and scissors, a gift from Linda.

I hope you all have a relaxing peaceful Sunday. I hope to get some quilting done on my CB. Have to unpack from quilt club meeting yesterday and maybe I can post a pic of the quilt tops my daughter and I made at the meeting. She is such a smarty pants and got the borders sewn on hers - I still have the borders to do.

My Favorite Pin Cushion

In response to a challenge to show your favorite pin cushion - here is mine. It was a gift from a great friend, Darlene, and I just love it. It opens as you can see and I store my extra pins in there. I do like pin cushions and will include a picture of other ones that I have another time.

An update on my Christmas Beauty quilt - I started the clam shell quilting tonight and I think it looks pretty good. Took awhile to make a template for the pattern, but here are a couple of pictures of the little bit I got done. The chalk marking is still there on the quilt. Thanks for all your suggestions and encouragement. I know this is not a very fancy pattern, but then, I am not a very fancy person.

Here's a thought..

Read the post before this one first - "Woe is me, What will I do?"

How do you all think it would look to do a clam shell quilt pattern over the top and then add something fancy in the border - maybe even hand quilt the border with gold metallic thread? I just purchased some really nice thread from YLI that is heavier than the traditional gold metallic.

Let me know what you think.

Woe is me...what will I do?

Ok, I started quilting my Christmas Beauty quilt tonight - spent about 1 hour quilting , and another 1 and a half unquilting, with still more unquilting to go. As you can see...its a huge quilt and a regular sewing machine. I had planned to quilt around each of the points, but that is not going to happen. Any of you quilters out there that quilt on regular sewing machines have any suggestions? HELP!

Weekend is gone....

Hard to believe it is already Sunday night and I did not get much of anything that I had planned on doing this weekend, done. I did get my Christmas Beauty quilt pin basted, just to discover that the backing is about 1 inch too narrow in the corner...so guess I will be adding some backing to that corner..another day. I had planned to do taxes, but just never quite got there. Hubby and I did have fun Saturday morning. We went out for breakfast then hit some furniture consignment shops looking for some end tables, and ended up at a yard sale buying toys and Thomas the Train play table complete with train set for $40! All in all, a pretty good weekend, just did not get much accomplished.
Hope you all had a good one!