Faux Applique......Fun, fun, fun!

I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaack! Boy do I have some reading to catch up on all the blogs. I could read before, I just could not leave a post. And what is the fun of reading if I can't say something?

It took two trips to the computer doctor and almost 3 weeks in the shop - but my pc seems to be on the mend now. I sure did miss this extension of myself, which is what it sometimes feels like.

So what have I been doing? I discovered Faux Applique by Helen Stubbings. This is so much fun. I have mine colored and sealed and stitched, but not yet completed and quilted . I am thinking of adding some pinwheel blocks to the bottom and then quilting it to make a cute wall hanging over the fuse box in my kitchen.

This technique involves coloring on the fabric with colored pencils, sealing it and then stitching around the edges. Of course there is a lot more to it than that, but you get the idea.

While I was playing with the technique, I did a test to see if the colors would fade when they were washed. I was also experimentting with different sealers and types of pencils. I have had trouble with crayon coloring technique fading when I washed it. With this technique, there was absolutely no fading what so ever! The top of the chart is just the color, not sealed and not washed. The colors on the bottom are sealed and washed in HOT water.

Virus are just downright MEAN!

My computer is in the shop and I am on a borrowed one, so I can't download any pictures. I have a project I want to show you - my first Faux Applique block from Helen Stubbings book.

Just a word of warning - if you get a popup that says it can not open a page you are trying to view because your Internet Exployer is out of date, DON'T FOLLOW THE LINK TO UPDATE IT! That is just what I did, looked legit to me, and it has about destroyed my computer. Doggoneit - I hope they catch the ones creating these viruses and lock them all away for a long time.

Sheep Seasons

Remember these?

I started on this project before I broke my elbow, and my very thoughtful friend Cathi (Shakerwood Primitives) offered to finish them up for me. You see, these are part of a project Cathi was going to teach at our club meeting today, and well, in their current state, they were just a tad of a dissappointment.




So here is the finished project:

The sheep comes from a pattern called Sheep Seasons by Sue Allemand. The pattern comes with 4 different quilt designs and I chose to do the Fall one. Cathi did a great job teaching the blanket stitch applique stitch on wool.

We had a great day and quite a lovely flock was all quilted by the end of the meeting.

How was your Saturday?
Teresa

Last Friendship Block....

....but not the last of our friendship fun. We swapped our final blocks today at lunch over a little "soul food" a great new resturant. We immediately began plotting what we would start doing now in our little mini lunch group, besides eat that is. We didn't come up with an idea yet...any suggestions?

So here are our blocks.

First up is Carol's block - a signature block with a sweet saying. I have enjoyed getting to know Carol over the past year or so. She always encourages me to try to things and shares my enthusiasm for new techniques and projects. Thanks Carol for all the blocks and for your friendship!

Next, we have Cheryl's Signature block - a little wonky, just like Cheryl! I love to joke around with Cheryl. We have worked together for years, but who's counting. She has a great heart, wonderful sense of humor and cares deeply for her friends. I am blessed to have her for a friend.

And then my block, which is the Nice People Nice Things "Friends" block. I gave Carol and Cheryl a signature block earlier in the year, and don't have a picture of it, but I thought this block so appropriate for our quilt.

This project was a lot of fun and thank you Thimbleanna for the idea. Gather up 3 or 4 of your own friends and have a swap each month. Some months it was hard to decide what block to do, but it was so much fun making blocks for my friends and receiving their special blocks. Now to get the quilt made!

Mushrooms

Now this post has nothing to do about quilting, unless you are looking to nature for inspiration. I often go to my mom's house (she lives right behind my house) on Saturday and Sunday mornings to share a cup of coffee and chat, and today I walked up to her paper box to get the Sunday paper, and WOW - there were RED mushrooms and ORANGE mushrooms all around that area. It had rained a lot last night and was still drizzling this morning, and these must have popped out this morning. So after coffee, I hurried home, woke my daughter (she loves me so much) and we both grabbed our cameras and went on a mushroom hunt in the drizzling rain and her in pj's (now's there's a picture I can't show you). Here are some of the pictures I took of the variety we have in our yard.

Isn't nature amazing!

A little stitchin..a little reading...

First I want to thank you all for your good wishes, thoughts, encouragement and prayers. My husband and I are both recovering very nicely and have much to be thankful for. It appears that his finger is healing and that he will be able to keep it intact. His pain is minimal and we are so thankful for that. I can use my arm now except no lifting for three weeks. I had hoped to be able to sew the binding on my quilt, but that can wait until I can actually lift the quilt with my left hand.

After a day of no sewing, not much of anything, I could not stand it any longer. So I rigged up a pillow to support my arm and found if I sat just right I could hold an embroidery hoop with little pressure on my left arm and do some stitching, as well as trace some patterns. This is a great thing! So over the last week and a half, I traced all the patterns for the Lynette Anderson's Noah's Ark Block of the Month project. I know, most of you have this one done, but hey, sometimes you have to fracture an elbow to get caught up! For those of you that don't know about this project, its a free stitchery project to make a mini quilt. I had one block finished and completed the stitichery on four others.
I also completed the "Chocolate" block and saying in the Nice People Nice Things Stitchery project, designed by Helen Stubbins.
And to round out my "leisure" time, I did some reading, completing the first two books in the Shenadoah Album Novel series by Emilie Richards - Wedding Ring and Endless Chain. I have enjoyed these books, and had my daughter drive me to Books-a-Million after a doctor's visit to purchase the next book in the series, Lover's Knot, and ended up getting the next three.

So, under the watch care of Nurse Kitty Felicia who would not leave my side, I guess you could say I made good use of my time, as well as good use of pain killer medicine! But alas, with recovery, comes going back to work and the end of my leisure time. But it is the weekend, and I can't lift anything, soooooooooooo..that means no housework, right?

Happy Stitchin!

Teresa

Thank You, Jackie!!!

I stayed home today, nursing my sick elbow, and received a wonderful "pick-me-up"! I had won a free quilting on Jackie's blog (Canton Village Quilt Works) a few weeks ago and excitedly boxed up my redwork and sent it her way. I received it back today and she did a beautiful job. I am showing the quilting here and when I get the binding on I will show the quilt. She used the quilting pattern Classy Curls to go along with my sashing fabric and it is just perfect!! Thank You, Jackie!!!

I have managed a little stitchery, but that is about all I can handle right now. Thank you for all your kind words, happy thoughts and prayers.

The good news is....

Fred got agood report from the doctor today and looks like his finger is going to be saved. Thank you for your prayers.

The bad news is...I fell when leaving work and fractured my elbow. I made it to pickup hubby to take him to the doc. Fred was given the ok to drive, so when we finished his appointment, he drove me to urgent care. I now have my left arm in a splint and sling - can't drive..can't sew :(.

My daughter says she is going to wrap us in bubblewrap before we leave the house again.

Mystery Project - Step 2

Today I did get a little sewing done - completed Step 2 of my project. Making great progress - lovely, isn't it?

A reminder of STEP 1, and here is Step 2.

Thank you all for you prayers for my husband. He is doing pretty good, pain under control with meds. Hopefully tomorrow we will find out that the finger is healing and will be saved.

Ouch!!!

No pictures today - but then you would not want to see picture. My husband had workplace injury yesterday morning, nearly severing his left index finger. The bone was completely severed, but the nerves and tendon, while damaged, held. Surgery yesterday afternoon to reatttach the finger and we got home this afternoon. We are still not sure he will keep the finger, but at least the doctor is giving us some hope. It was a long day of waiting, and a long night of typical hospital stuff and then again a long day of waiting to be discharged. I did get some quilting done though and finished hand quilting my Fall wall hanging. I am pretty tired after the stress of yesterday and very little sleep last night, so I am off to bed early tonight.
Happy Stitching and please pray for Fred's finger to heal.
Teresa

I need a vacation!

I have been putting in way too many hours at work these days and I need a vacation - but that will have to wait until Labor Day week. Until then, I'll just keep plugging along. Sorry I have not posted lately, but I have started a new project and thought I would share that with you tonight. Isn't it lovely? Honestly now, don't y'all just love the colors...the embellishment...the craftsmanship?

Reaching Roma

For those of you who are knitters and would like to follow along as my daughter teaches knitting to some ladies in Macedonia, check out her blog: http://reachingroma.blogspot.com/. She is on a mission trip, and in working with ladies who bring their children to this center. She does not speak their language, and they do not speak English, which leads her to some very insightful understanding on her part of our relationship with God. I am so proud of her and hope you will take a peek at what she is doing.

Thought I would paste Ellen's comment here on the front page just incase you don't check the comments.
Ellen said...
Ellen here. I'm sorry you haven't been able to comment on my blog - I'm not sure what's going on with it. Thank you for the kind words. I'm truly astounded by what God is teaching me here. I seem to always forget that mission trips change me more than I could imagine....Thanks for sharing my blog with everyone, Mom! It's great to have people praying from all over for the Macedonians. Love you!!!!El

KScope Returns

Remember this?

This is what I call my KScope quilt and is a design I worked up in EQ6. My design wall was looking pretty bleak, so I hung it up to add a BIG splash of color. I just love this quilt and all the colors I have in it. I set it aside while I finished up a few projects with this quilt as my reward for getting them done. Well, I finished Eli's baby quilt, the French Braid, the Redwork is now in the hands of a quilter and I almost have the hand quilting on the fall wallhanging completed, soooooooooooooo I get to start working some on this one again.

And, to share the fun, I am offering to anyone who wants it, the EQ6 file with the design. You have to have EQ6 installed on your computer for me to send you the file, but just let me know that you would like to play along and I will send it to you. Of course, you don't have to make the giant quilt that I am making at the request of my hubby!

You know, it kind of reminds me of a circus big top - so maybe I should call it Circus Stars. What do you think?

On the Road Again

Friday, July 3 I just decided to take the day off. It's a short day during the summer, and we get off at 11:30am, my husband was off and I was so tired after all the long hours we have been putting in. So, I took off. When hubby got up that morning, and saw I had stayed home, he said...lets go somewhere! He has been working 56 hour work weeks too, and we both needed an escape. So we hurridly packed our bags and headed South - destination Americus and Andersonville, Ga. My husband was wanting to check out some family research at Andersonville, home of a National Cemetery and the location of a Civil War POW camp where 45,000 Union soldiers were imprisoned and treated horribly, and close to 13,000 died. One of whom was my husband's relative - Jesse James Pauley.

I had gotten on the internet and made reservations in Americus at the Americus Garden Inn. This was a very smart move. The Bed & Breakfast was relaxing, beautiful and we were made to feel right at home by the gracious proprietors, Susan and Kim Egelseer. Susan is an excellent chef and we had a delightful breakfast of fresh fruit, cheese frittatas , cinnamon walnut pancakes, chocolate chip scones and fresh aromatic coffee and juices. YUMMMMY. We were also greeted by the house cat who was just as friendly as Susan and Kim. The gardens surrounding the house were lovely, and there was even a swing in a gazebo out back that I enjoyed sitting and relaxing in and enjoying the scenery. I would highly recommend that if you are ever in the area, give this place a try!!

Friday night we watched the movie Andersonville, which told the story of the Andersonville POW Camp and what a tragic story it is. This made the visit to Andersonville much more meaningful and I would recommend that if you are going to be in the area, that you watch the movie. There is a second movie that tells about the trial of the Captain Werz, who oversaw the operations and was eventually hung for the mistreatment the pow's received. The POW Museum and Cemetery is actually quite beautiful now and hopefully I will have some pictures to share tomorrow or the next day. I did not take any, and have to wait on husband to download me the ones he took.

An interesting coincidence. There was only one other couple staying at the Inn, and would you believe his last name was Pauley. They were from Florida and I showed the register to Fred and of course, that caught his interest. They were out when we got there, so we did not talk with them until breakfast the next day, and sure enough, his family is from West Virginia and he and my husband are indeed related. Now how funny is that!

Hope you had a nice July 4th. I did, and am so thankful for a husband who understood my need to get away even if just for one weekend. He is a great guy and I am blessed to be married to him!

What to do with quilting magazines...

In my quilting life, I collect many things - like gadgets, fabric, rulers, needles, buttons, threads, etc. All of these I use and enjoy in my projects. Another collection of sorts is quilting magazines and books, which I dearly love to look at again and again for inspiration - seldom making the exact quilt but using elements of them in my own designs. The only problem - now where did I see that particular technique or applique pattern or border design - so I spend lots and lots of time looking through my "library", which while enjoyable, seldom leads to finding the quilt I wanted. This was driving me crazy as I am one of those irritating organized people that has to be able to find stuff - at least in my sewing room, we won't talk about the rest of the house.

So, I came up with a plan. I scan the patterns into a WORD document, create a picture index that takes me directly to the pattern file on my computer, and then throw the "paper" away. Now I can just leaf through my notebooks and usually find the pattern I want right away, open the file on my computer and sometimes print it out and I am set to go. I can get around 8 years worth of magazines in one notebook. Under each picture in the index is a direct link to the file - I just click on the link and the pattern opens up. Now it is very important to back these files up on a external hard drive and I do this after I complete each page on the index.

I also keep a listing of the magazines I have so if I am ever looking for a pattern from a specific magazine, I can check my list to make sure I have scanned that one in.

Now the scanning process is slow as I just use the scanner on my printer at home. At first I tried to keep the magazines in tack so that I could then give them away, but it made for some bad scanned images as I had to fold pages back and there was so much bulk. So now I just cut the binding off and scan individual pages.

I enjoy the scan process as I look over the patterns as I scan them in. Not one to sit idle while waiting for the scanner to do its thing, I usually keep some hand work right by my scanner and multi task by stitchin and scanning. I still have lots and lots of magazines that I have accumulated over the years to scan in, but there's no real hurry and I just do it when I have some hand work to do as well. I would show you the block I am working on - but its a secret!

Happy Stitchin (and scanning),

Teresa