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

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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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