Spring Water Designs: Quilts and Other Modern Day Heirlooms
Aren't these colors just the yummiest! This is the Sugar Collection from Art Gallery Fabrics. I got my box of fabrics from them this week, and I'm playing with them now :) 
These are from their Alhambra II collection, and I'll be making a project with them next week. I can't wait to show you my projects, I'll sneak you a peek as soon as I can ~ I love my job :)
I've been playing on Etsy and I finally, after quite a dry spell, got a Treasury last night! This is a screen shot of it, but you can go to see it in person here. The advantage of seeing it in person is that each of those items is a link to an Etsy store and that particular item ~ all are for sale (and as of this writing, still available)! You can't see my title with this picture (I'm not very adept at screenshots yet). I called it "Dots! And Fresh Lime". I thought everything looked fresh and Springy!
I've been busy whipping up little flags this weekend, enough to make Besty Ross proud. I've pieced all of the little flags that are needed to complete the blocks of Folk Art America designed by Pat Sloan.
And I've finished a couple of the blocks for our Sloanies Club meeting at the shop on Wednesday morning. 
I'm putting mine together using the fusible applique method, and I ran out of Heat n Bond Lite (my fusible of preference).
So I had to stop for now at three blocks done. I'll pick up some more fusible and see if I can get a few more whipped up next weekend :)
When I went in the shop to teach a class the other day, these beautiful happy colors were waiting for me on my shelf in the back room. 
Char Werner made this lovely quilt to donate to the Mountain Baby Blankets cause, and had dropped it by the shop one day when I wasn't there. What a wonderful surprise that really brightened my day, and made me smile! Thank you Char!! I love the fresh colors, and the size is great for a larger child (which they also have a need for). 
This is a quilt that I've made with my One Hour Crib Quilt pattern that uses a panel for the center, so it makes up super quick. I have more of this fabric, so some of these will go out in my next box being shipped to the Christian Appalachian Project.
My friend Mary Nielsen of Keep Me In Quilts did the adorable quilting on this one, and I finally got the binding finished. 
Mary quilted in little hands all around the borders for such a nice touch! I'm afraid the next quilts I make won't be quilted quite as nicely ~ most likely will just be my signature all over stippling.
Since we are working on filling a new box to ship, I pulled this fabric out that's been in my stash a while, and will sneak in another little quilt as time permits ~ sometime it's nice to just do something quick and easy that makes you smile :) 
Spending so much time at the nursing home and the hospital (Dad's currently back in the hospital with some kidney problems now), I've been killing the time with books and magazines as well as my knitting. These are my two newest quilt books that I've been loving from cover to cover. The first one, Quilting Designs from the Past I picked up on sale on my Valentine's Day outing with Heather. I got this one to help me with ideas on quilting up all my little Jo Morton quilt tops.
This next book, String Quilts by Elsie Campbell is not only filled with some beautiful string quilts of all different styles, it's really special to me because two of my best friends have quilts in this book! (I've also attended luncheons at Quilt Odyssey in Hershey where Elsie Campbell spoke. She gives a great lecture and seeing her quilts in person is a real treat!)
My good friend and co-worker Starlyn Baker has her quilt "Leftover Strings" in the Gallery of String Quilts section of the book. Starlyn has several beautiful string quilts and has taught how to make string quilts at our shop and led our Mountain Baby Blanket Sew Ins using strings :)
My close friend Mary Nielsen of Keep Me In Quilts has a quilt called "Diamond in the Rough" and it's pattern in the book. She has a picture of her and Elsie Campbell holding up her quilt at a class on this blog post. This quilt is also on exhibit this year at the People's Place Quilt Museum in Intercourse Pennsylvania!
Mary's special quilt even made the title page! You can purchase this book from our shop if you can't find it at your local quilt shop.
First order of business is to give away these snipets...Random number generator chose number 15, Quilt Hollow. Email me with your address Mary and I'll send these little guys your way!
One great idea for using up scrap snipets are these little Maverick Stars made by Jo over at Jo's Country Junction. This post of hers explains a great way of how she multi-tasks to keep these little guys moving forward ~ I chuckled when I read how she manages to fit in quilting tasks around other daily functions because I'm always doing little things like this. From Jo's blog I found Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville. She has a great site for working with scraps, and I already had loved her books. Here is her tutorial on making the Maverick Stars. Enjoy playing with your scrap treasures :)
Wow! Because of the popularity of my little flying geese snipets, I've pulled them out of the waste basket and they have a place of honor in my sewing room, at least for the time being. 
And I just had to share my little Day After Valentines Day present ~ a tradition that started back when we were first married and I was pinching our pennies pretty tightly. Instead of giving me chocolates on Valentines Day (Whitman Samplers are my very favorites, but was quite a splurge back in the old days), my husband would wait until the day after Valentines Day and go and buy one for me at half price. Now he continues the tradition, but gets me two for the price of one (isn't he cute) and he always knows how to make me smile :)
Last year we had a weekend in February where the temperature was in the 60s so we enjoyed the day and went out and worked in the pavers in the garden. This picture of my husband working in the yard was from a post from February 2009. 
This is my back yard now in February 2010. How different the weather can be from year to year!
So since working in the garden is out, (and I don't want to do housework), I'm chain piecing from the fabrics that I cut out the other day. 
I'm making Flying Geese. Lots and lots of flying geese. This is one of the piles of geese for the exchange that I have going with some friends for our Buffalo Ridge quilts from the Nickel Quilts book.
And...wait, this is big...I've even given myself permission to throw away all of the leftover snipets (the potential half square triangles) from the corners that get cut off of the flying geese (for some reason I felt the need to save them at the beginning of this quilt). I'm working on that goal of Simplicity in 2010 and have come to the realization that even if I saved all of these, spent time figuring out how to store them, and was possibly able to find them in the future when I thought of them again...I will most likely not want to make anything with them anyway. Ahh, that felt good :)
What are you doing for Valentines Day? The plan here is after sorting through some things at my dad's apartment, Heather and I will grab some lunch and hit some sales at local Stitch & Yarn shops. So in the spirit of the day, I thought it was time to put away some of the snowmen I have sitting around the house, and get out my Soft Hearts Valentine quilt for this weekend :) The pattern for this quilt is in the current issue of Quilt Almanac on new stands now.
The cute little fabric Valentine Postcards...
...and the throw pillows are available as free patterns on the Quilt Magazine website now. Happy Valentines Day!
Stopping in to say a quick hello between working on deadline projects and meetings with my Dad's social workers and doctors. We're trying to catch up on all of the canceled appointments and tasks that were postponed due our week of snow.
Here is my finished block number two of Bunny Hill Designs Snowbound. It was an appropriate block to work on this week while we were actually snowbound :)
While housebound, I also spent time cutting out some quilt projects ~ sometimes I get in a cutting mood, and now I have four quilts completely cut out and ready to sew, sew, sew! I even cut out some Jo Morton charm packs with my left overs.
So for the Jo Morton fans out there, I have made available a couple of charm packs of 25 assorted 5 inch squares of Jo Morton fabrics here in my Etsy store. Let me know what you make with yours!
We got yet even more snow yesterday ~ about another foot on top of what we had gotten over the weekend. Heather brought her cat Maddie and came to our house to get snowed in with us. So Maddie and Butters are getting to play together again, but even they are weary of the snow.
This is our backyard, and that's a four foot fence.
So armed with Heather's football cake from the Superbowl Party that was snowed out Sunday, we made the best of it and spent the day stitching and snacking. She worked on punchneedle, and I did some hand applique.
This is block number four of our Women of Influence Block of the Month that we're doing at the shop...done :)
I am finding that the easiest way to keep my hands and mind busy while sitting in hospital and nursing home rooms has been knitting. These are the first two blocks completed for my Great American Afghan. (Again I'm keeping with my one-block-at-a-time theme that I seem to have going here in 2010).
The first one has a cat worked in to it, and although I made some mistakes (they're there, so don't look too closely) I think it still looks like a cat, so it's a keeper.
The second block has some heart shapes layed out in a pattern, and was a little easier than the cat using just a combination of knit and purl stitches. Knitting is easier to do in less than perfect lighting, and is a little more portable than my hand applique because there are less tools to take along... just the two knitting needles, yarn and a pattern sheet ~ Simplicity. :)
Since this is what it looks like out my back door today...
...and we're snow bound here on Spring Water Path,
Butters and I decided not to bore you with more internet snow pictures, and just go back inside
...and take some update pictures of my kitchen :) We still have a small punch list of things to complete, but Bob got to the back splash so it really looks finished now.
We moved the furniture back a few weeks ago and I've been steady moving things that I had packed up back in. (The pie safe was made by my sweet husband a few years back as a present to me ~ he's a man of many talents!)
I love the built ins that he put in place where we had a pantry with sliding doors before. The big blank wall behind the table is where I will hang a quilt (as soon as I get around to quilting the top that I want to put here). What you don't see in these pictures is all of the drywall work that was involved to make the walls all work around our cabinets and appliances. It was truly a custom job!
We even got the computer all moved back in to the desk area that we put in, so I'm really up and running now :)
So I guess I'll go back outside and pick up a shovel and help out a little with the task at hand. 
...And I made this little project for the Jo Morton Little Women Club 9 session that's coming up. It's called "Sisters" and is made with a section of the Little Women fabric reversed appliqued in the center. I highlighted the four ladies with a micron pen instead of stitchery. It's subtle, but looks pretty good in person. 
