Blogger's Quilt Festival Spring 2012

 Pink and green, pink and yellow two of my favorite color combinations.   A couple moves ago I was part of a small group of quilters; we met every week for conversation, coffee and stitching. We worked on our own projects but we also did some round robin quilts and sometimes chose a pattern and we each made our own inturpertaion of that quilt. This quilt is from Kim Diehl's book Simple Blessings we each made our own quilt with our choice of fabrics. Kim's directions use half square triangles for the spools. I used the Y seam because it isn't that difficult come back again for a tutorial next week.  There are 100 spools I used more than 50 fabrics, there are pairs of some spools but not all.  When I am old and feeble and curled up in this quilt I will play brain games and try to match all the spools.  I puzzled for a long time over how to machine quilt this and a couple years ago I took a machine quilting class and asked the instructor, a professional quilter, she said I really should hand quilt it in each of the spools. So I am hand quilting. Last winter I hand quilted every Tuesday night during NCIS and White Collar but some nights there was just too much action to get much quilting done,  it is amazing how much I can do during a commercial break. I only have 18 spools left to do but then I wonder if I should quilt the background fabric and I have all those geese to stitch inside. I will probably do a chain design or a rope in the borders.
Linking up to  http://amyscreativeside.com/2012/05/18/bloggers-quilt-festival-spring-2012/
Happy Quilting,  Ann

I have been working hard on my vegetable garden the past week. The sunny warm days of March were nice but the weeds wasted no time in growing. so had to rid the garden of  six weeks worth of weeds before I could begin planting. It is a long way from picture worthy except for the strawberry blossoms. I picked up 6 bags of top soil from the garden center and bought bedding plants. I was so glad I only bought 6 bags instead of 10. They were heavy and after I carried them to the various flower beds and got the tools out of the shed I noticed the red wagon which I thought disappeared a couple moves ago it would have made carrying the bags so much easier  but it was wedged in behind the snow blower and the riding mower. I would have had to move the riding mower which I don't know how to start and I have no intention of learning how to start it because I have no intention of learning how to use it.  I got my dirt worked up and planted pansies and violas. There can never be to many of either. I also planted snapdragons petunias.  My Lily of the Valley are blooming and a Mourning Cloak butterfly was enjoying the sunny day as much as I was.
---Ann

Design Wall Monday

I chose these fabrics based on Vickie's May color palate for Judy's May challenge on Design Wall Monday. The quilt was inspired by a quilt in an ad in Fons and Porters quilt magazine. It is a tri rec star with nine patches and double nine patches. I should have taken the time to sew a practice block but when I have been quilting for over 20 years who needs to do a practice block!?! Or at least checked my math. I cut my strips for the tri rec star 4 1/2 inches wide, I cut the strips for the nine patches 2 inches wide for a 4 1/2 inch block that would be a 4 1/2 inch finished block and my tri rec pieces will finish at 4 inches. I have to trim 1/2 inch off all my 9 patches to finish at 4 inches. I'm working with fat quarters from my stash so fabric is limited and old enough I'll never find the same fabric or that shade of green.
Happy trimmings,  Ann

Birds in my backyard

I had to look twice when I saw the bird with the red breast, it didn't quite look like a robin and oh my gosh it had the most beautiful blue jacket. I had never seen a bluebird before I didn't think they came this far west. So of course I grabbed the camera, I bought a new camera last week a Fujifilm HS 25 EXR and am learning how to use it.  More new material to cram into my head. Sometimes I wish I could delete things from my head so I don't confuse the new stuff with the old stuff. The top 2 pics were taken through the window, I'm amazed that the dandelions are identifiable and can you see the goldfinch at 11:00 in the second pic and 10:00 in the 3rd pic? The bluebird didn't stay long after I went outside but the pictures are better.

-- Ann --

On the Wall

 I made this little birdhouse quilt over ten years ago. It was a Thimbleberries pattern, I still love the fabrics I chose. I mitered (sewed the Y seam) instead of using all the HST used in the pattern for the roofs and base of the birdhouse. The morning glories and leaves are button hole stitched, there is a button in the center of each flower attached with embroidery floss, the 4 hole buttons are stitched in a square. I remember how sore my fingers were from pulling a large needle with floss through the quilt.
A red winged blackbird, killdeer and killdeer and pheasant tracks in the mud. The killdeer had a nest close by because they were not happy that I was near. The killdeer chicks look just like the adults only small. It must be that birds that nest on the ground have chicks that as soon as they are dry are fuzzy and cute and can walk or run as opposed to the birds that nest high up and have homely babies.
Another book I found in the elementary school library when I was there last week was The Boy Who Drew Birds a story about John James Audubon, written by Jacqueline Davis and illustrated by Melissa Sweet. Audubon was fascinated by birds from when he was a small boy in France. He came to America in the early 1800's when he was 18 years old. He would sit in the woods and sketch and watch until the birds thought he was part of the forest. He tied a thread to a birds leg hoping to find out if birds return to the same nest every spring. The bird picked the thread loose so he tried a silver thread, the bird couldn't pick it off so the next spring the bird with the silver thread returned to the same area. The scientific theories of where birds go in the winter was hilarious. The story and illustrations are delightful.

-- Ann --

Scrap bags

listed on etsy

While my computer was out I sewed more coil bags and sewed more and wrote a  few blog posts in my head.  My woodcarving tools are all in one basket now  much cuter than the shoe box they were in and easier to grab to take outside with my cup of coffee. I still haven't used all the 1/2 inch strips of fabric I cut for the first bag but then I find a little more of something that fits the color palate and I cut away. I've gone through almost 500 feet of cotton clothesline, 2 short 1200 yard spools of thread and a couple partial spools of machine quilting thread and only 1 needle broke. The only thing more fun than buying new fabric is using it up completely!

Scrap Happy,   Ann

May Flowers

My Memorial Day Peonies are blooming a month early! And the Fern Leaf  Peony is early too. Maybe my old fashioned and usually late peonies will be blooming for Memorial Day this year. Both of these peonies came from my Mother's garden, she got them from her Mother. I have my Grandma's peonies. Grandma always said rather than taking flowers to the cemetary, to plant something where you can see it to remember her. My Mother told me the same thing. I hope my daughter takes up gardening sometime.

They smell absolutely devine.  Ann