Vacation Over....dagnabit

Just when I was getting used to being at home all day with my husband, who is currently on short term disability, its time to go back to work.  Sigh....

So what did I accomplish while off for one week? 

Each morning was spent working on the china cabinet. Its almost done - just have to paint the inside of the glass doors, which is why you see the green and blue tape on the glass.  This has been a real labor of love as my dad made this cabinet, I want to preserve it, but geez - I just hate painting.  I must be the messiest painter in the world and ending up covered in paint from my hair to my toes.  I went with my husband to the doctor this week, and had to laugh when I looked down at my feet at the doctors office. Had on croc slides, and sure enough, the tip of each toe had paint on it, in addition to the soles of my feet.  Now I know I washed those feet!

On  Friday, I took a break from painting and life in general, and headed to Columbia to visit my friend Darlene.  We had a great time and made a trip to Michaels to get beads and floss for the Gifts of Grace project.  (See the button on  my sidebar.) This is the first block and I just love working with these.  A combination of stitchery, applique and working with beads.  The free BOM has already issued 5 blocks, so I have some catching up to do.

And last but not least, I got my klosjes sewn up for a second wall hanging.  Hopefully I can sew the binding on straight on this one!

Yesterday all the family came over and we had a great gathering for July 4th (July 3rd - in our case), and it was a ton of fun.   I hope you have all had a good week and thanks for stopping by,

Teresa

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Pictures of busyness....

Its been a couple of weeks since I last posted and time has just gotten totally away from me.  I first started to title the post "Pictures of business" thinking that adding "ness" to "busy" you would drop the y and add an i.  And what do you know...that spells business.  Just something I thought you might find interesting.

Anyway, I am going to just show a few pictures of what I have been doing. Hope you enjoy...

This week started out with Vacation Bible School at my church.  My daughter was the director this year, and she asked me to keep the nursery - which turned out to be just my sweet lil angel, Taralyn.  So each night, I got to bond with my granddaughter - how special is that!

We left town on Friday for a family reunion in West Virginia.  The weather was beautiful the whole trip, as was wild and wonderful West Virginia.  Here is a view from one of the bridges we crossed over. 

  I did manage a little sewing on the trip, finishing up some klosjes. I am still working on the pattern for this project.

On getting back home, rested up a bit and dove right into a project at home - refinishing the china cabinet my dad made. Started out early by taking the cabinet apart, sanding and sanding the varnish off each inch of the cabinet and finally cleaning up the room - which meant vacuuming up all the sawdust, wiping down the china cabinet and the walls and the windows and ME for that matter. Here it is all cleaned up and ready to paint - tomorrow.

So, that is what I have been up to.  Tomorrow, who knows, I may have a WHITE china cabinet to show.  My "As the Needle Turns" applique club is coming over tomorrow for a klosje lesson  using English Paper Piecing. I know, that is not applique, but we diversify!

Thanks for stopping by,

Teresa
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Pattern Writing with EQ and Word

I enjoy designing my own quilts in EQ and then once I make the quilt, I like to write the pattern to share with others that might want to make it too.  I have always been so frustrated trying to get a pattern that looks professionally done, or at least "neat" drawings.  I have tried taking pictures of the process and using those in my pattern, but I am not that great a photographer. 

So I posed the question to EQ, and got the best response from Penny McMorris of EQ - and I will say a very prompt response at that.  She explained how to create a metafile of the block in EQ and download this to WORD.  Once in WORD you can do all kinds of neat things with the block.  I still have a lot to learn, but I though I would show you a before and after of what I have learned. 

(If you would like a copy of the  question I posed to EQ and the answer I got, just let me know and I will forward the email to you.)

I am writing a pattern for my Klosje wall hanging that you can see on my post before this one.  I wanted to be able to print multiple copies of the paper foundation pieces on one page, to run off on card stock. The only solution I came up with was to print copies from EQ, cut out the patterns and tape them on a piece of paper and then make copies of that.  The problem being, first - you can't include that in an electronic pattern write-up as scanning distorts the size, second - I could not add the text I wanted to in EQ and third - it just looks kind of tacky.

So following Penny's instructions, I created the metafile, copied it to WORD, separated the parts of the block and then arranged them on the page.  I added text boxes to label the pieces.  Woohoo..this is just what I wanted.   Here you see the before (left) and after (right).  [I didn't really need to tell you which was the before and which was the after, did I?]

This is just so neat and I am excited about writing the pattern now.  If only I could sew the klosje and write the pattern at the same time - I just love making these cute little blocks.

 Monday Mystery - I finished my Owl block. One more to go and the final explanation of what we are making. I am looking forward to that.  I think I will outline my petals and center in a purple. 

Thanks for dropping by.
Teresa
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Flittering

There is so much talk now about tweeting, and writing on walls, and Lord only knows what else, I thought I would just come up with my own word...Flittering. 

Definition: Flitter - to flit from one project to another, completing nothing, but making progress on each. 

And that is just what I have been doing this week, flitting from one project to another, and enjoying every flit along the way.

So knowing how curious us quilters are, here is what I have been flittering my time away doing:

Prepped the "Be Joyful" block in my  Be Attitudes series. 

This is the last one in the series of 12 blocks and will probably be my favorite since I have this "thing" for Santa.  I have been collecting them for years, with treasures like a lego Santa my children made to an antique felt Santa that my Mom gave me, which really started the collection.

Next on my flittering path is the Monday Mystery.  I finished the fourth block, and am anxious to start the next, which is owls!  Wooooooooohoo, that should be fun.

Then I just had a hankering to do a little more stitching, so I got out my Nice People Nice Things project and finished up two more blocks with their sayings.   These little blocks are so much fun and someday I will finish them all and make a quilt - but no hurry, cause once they are done, they're done and I will miss working on them.

And of course, I flitted right along to the klosje project.  Now this is where I kind of fall off the flitting path as I completed a project - my wall hanging.

Here is is hanging in my kitchen.  I added a few more flowers since you last saw it.  These are tons of fun to make and I will be teaching this to my club on Saturday.   Hope they like them as much as I do.

As a matter of fact, I got so addicted to them, that I started cutting out more - I intend to make a queen size quilt.  Now this will take 90  of the blocks with circles and 360 of the squares ones. 

This is what I got cut out - 39 of the circle blocks and 56 of the squares.    See how neat my 30's tub looks after cutting out my blocks and neatly folding all the fabrics back up.

Now you may be thinking - there is not enough fabric in there to make an entire quilt, and you are right - but have no fear, I have an whole wall of tubs full of FQ and short cuts of fabric. I know they do not look so neat, but I will go through and cut out  blocks and fold up the remaining fabrics all nice and neat and before you know it, all my stash tubs will look just like the tub of 30's.  Yea, I can dream can't I?

OK...so I have shown you my flittering fun, and my messy stash and that is about all I have to report on this week.   Hope you have all been having as much fun as I have. 

Happy stitchin'

Teresa18968

  

Shakerwood Quilts

Check out Cathi's new blog and fantastic give away: http://shakerwoodquilts.blogspot.com/

Cathi is a talented designer, quilter and has the most beautiful hand dyed wools!

Accuquilt-Go give-away.

A great give-away of an Accuquilt-Go. Be sure to say I sent you!

Check out Bejeweled Quilter

Are you in a guild?

Are you a member of a local quilt guild?  Do you pay dues and attend monthly meetings? Do you make friends and share talents, joys, sorrows, concerns, friendships?

I am a member of my local guild and enjoy the monthly meetings and the speakers and friendships. But you know, I am also member of an international guild, one with no dues, unlimited membership and chock full of talents and wonderful people, meets daily all day long - this is the guild of bloggers. An amazing group of guilters that share so freely of their time, talent and lives.  I just want to say thank you to all the wonderful people that read my blog and the bloggers that share with me and have taught me new techniques and inspired me to try new things.

I have worked really hard this weekend to have my Klosje wall hanging near finished so that I could show you what I am doing. You know, I would never have discovered these fun blocks if it were not for blogging and I am having the best time making them.  This is where my wall hanging is now - pretty much ready for quilting. The yoyo flowers are just pinned on as is the binding on one side to show the color.  The Welcome is done in Faux Applique - another technique I found through blogging.  I am still debating on whether to handquilt or machine quilt.  One thing for sure, I now plan to make a full size quilt in this pattern - these little blocks are fun to make!

I also finished up the Chicks block on the Monday Mystery. I think this is the cutest one so far.

Is anyone else out there playing along on this project?  

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend.  My husband was out of town, and my good friend, Darlene,came up to keep me company on Friday - Saturday.  Cheryl joined us on Friday for a trip to Mary Jo's and of course we did some shopping as well as lunch at Olive Garden.  Darlene left on Saturday and I spent the remainder of Saturday and Sunday just hanging out at the house, except for a couple visits with my Dad, and enjoying some quiet time with my sewing and reading.

Thanks for stopping by,

Teresa

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Klosje fun

This week I have been working on my klosje project, and have really worked at figuring out the best way to make these blocks.  Mine were getting that wonky look, and that is not something I wanted. So I reprinted patterns, made at least 10 attempts and I think I finally have it working for me.  Here is what I have completed so far: (these are just on my design wall)

Two things I figured out: 

1 - In making the 3 1/2" squares, I cut a little extra on the outside edge to allow for squaring up the block.

2 - In making the klosje in a circle, I machine sew two strips together and then cut out the piece that has the spool and background fabric on it.  Before this, my circles looked more like saw blades!

Once I came up with those two steps, the rest all went together great and I have had so much fun working on these.  I need to make 14 more of the 3 1/2" square and I will be ready to sew the blocks together.

I also worked on the Monday Mystery Stitchery project (http://beetreedesigns.blogspot.com/ ) and here is my version of the second design in the series.  Each section is a flower petal and I am not sure what this will become.  I decided to do each petal in a differnet color, and not sure yet what I am going to outline them in - but leaning towards red.  Hmmm...can you tell I like to use lots of colors?

Hope you have all had a good weekend.  Tomorrow, hubby and I will be celebrating our 36th wedding anniversary.  Nothing major planned, as we have had a busy weekend and will probably just go out to eat. 

Thanks for stopping by,

Teresa

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And the winner is..........

Judy of kjquilts (The Quiet Quilter) !!!!
 Congratulations Judy, and I will be watching your blog to see a Cathedral Window in the making.

As I wrote down the names of all you lovely ladies that entered my drawing, I so wanted to give each and every one of you a kit, but that is just not practical at this point.  Many of you are followers and your comments always encourage me so much.  Thank you for stopping by, leaving comments and I hope you will continue to share in my quilting life.

Teresa
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Giveaway !

Heyyyyyyyyyyy -  I am having a giveaway - see my prior post.  I have had over 48 hits to that post and only 3 left comments.  Is the Cathedral Window scaring you off?  Its ok if only three are interested, but just wanted to make sure you all read down that far in the post in case you would like to win the kit.  I did have a link to a great blog and maybe you all just skipped on over there and did not finish reading my post.  My pattern is called You Can Do It Cathedral Window and I think you will find with my technique, you will be successful in making a great CW sample and maybe venturing forth to make a full size quilt. :)

Teresa
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A little fun makes for big stress relief.

These last few weeks have been very hectic in my world - mostly self enduced stress, but stress none the less.  Today I taught a Cathedral Window quilt class and had so much fun  working with a group of great ladies.  Came home, and my children and husband had worked hard redoing my flower beds, not quite finished, but I will have a picture to share soon. Then tonight, I started to pick up a project that I commited to, and  thought - what the heck - I am going to just work on something for the fun of it.

I found this the perfect project on a wonderful blog http://beetreedesigns.blogspot.com/ called Monday Mystery and tonight, I just kicked back and relaxed and did this.  Not because it was a commitment that I had to get done, not because it was a project that I needed to finish, not because I "had" to, just because I wanted to, and it was fun.  So, if you would like to join in the fun, just hop on over to Cyndi's site and go for it. She has only published the first stitchery so you are not that far behind.  (While there, sign up for her great giveaway too!) I don't know what it is going to be, it is a mystery after all, but then, the end product is not important - its the fun getting there.

I wanted to have a giveaway too.  So if you would like to win one of my "You Can Do It" Cathedral Window patterns and kits, just leave me a comment here.  I will draw a name on Sunday, May 23 - in celebration of my birthday (21st) and my anniversary (24th).  So come on...help me celebrate..leave a comment!  And if by chance you already have a kit, I have a back up gift for you, but that is a mystery. 

The kit is a sample kit to make a 16" square - just to learn the technique.

Thanks for stopping by,
Teresa    
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Happy Birthday to me!

Its a little early, but hubby got me a this tonight for my birthday (May 21)!

I have been admiring this machine for several years now, and am thrilled to finally own one.  I think I need a day off from work tomorrow!

Teresa

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A lesson learned.....

Have you ever used this product?   My quilt club was at my house on Saturday and we were working on the project for my daughter's class.  We are sewing together quilt blocks colored by the chidren as well as some picture blocks. The picture blocks, we printed on this product.

It was an absolute nightmare trying to get the paper off the back of the fabric.  We read and re-read the instruction, and all the directions say is to slowly peel the paper off the fabric.  We peeled and peeled and peeled - slow, slower, slower than a lazy snail slow.  So, we just decide to get off what we could and leave the remainder on.  As I was ironing the blocks, guess what!!!  The paper almost slides off when you heat it up.  All we had to do was iron the paper, and then lift it right off.  Who knew?????  I wonder if Printed Treasures knows this? They sure don't tell you in the instructions.

BTW - other than the paper peeling nightmare, the product  printed great!

I did manage to finish one of my Be Attitude blocks this week.  This is the 11th block, Be Grateful and I have one more to do - Be Joyful.  Whoopeeeee, will I be joyful when I finish that one. 

Hope you all have had a great Mother's Day.  Mine was very nice - but I miss my Mom. This was my first Mother's Day without her being right here to hug and talk with.  Love you Mom, and miss you very much.

Happy Stitchin,
Teresa
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Klosje - Wall Hanging

This is what I came up with so far on my quilt design. This is an EQ drawing, and the klosje is 3" square.   The background is unbleached muslin. I may add a wider border to it, and I am debating on sashing.  The border I am showing is to represent the binding and is only 1/2".  This top is 19" square.

So, what do you think?


For great tutorials on how to do the klosje with the curved sides, check out Rose Marie's blog Applique n' Patch Quilting:  
Making the templates: http://appliqueandpatches.blogspot.com/2010/04/klosjes-templates.html

Doing the Paper Piecing: http://appliqueandpatches.blogspot.com/2010/03/klosjes.html

Thank you for your thoughts,
Teresa
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Klosjes - my attempt

I have lost sleep over these cute little blocks.  Stay up late working on it, get up early, and I think I finally got it.  I have redesigned my blocks too many times to count in EQ6 and tried various size blocks.  I like the circle setting (see http://appliqueandpatches.blogspot.com/2010/05/klosjes-saturday.html for where this idea came from - she has a great tutorial on how to make your pattern), and that has added an additional challenge, but here are the two I finished.  The one on the right with the blue background is my first one. It was totally off center, and fortunately I had cut the background big enough that I kind of centered the back around the block.  The circle is a 6" circle ( somewhat) and the klosje is 5 inches.  On the block on the left side, I set the circle to be 5" and the klosje is 3".  I also enlarged the center square to make it look a little more like a spool. Both blocks measure 6 1/2" unfinished.  So which do you like the best?

Here are some of my mom's blue bird dishes.  They now reside on my dining room wall and make me happy everytime I see them...they are blue birds, afterall, and my mom loved them, and I loved my mom.  I miss her so much.

Thanks for stopping by,

Teresa

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