My Folk Art Pleasures

As promised yesterday, here are my Folk Art Pleasures quilt blocks thus far. I apologize in advance for the poor quality of photographs. For example, the stars on A3 are actually not solid black, but are very pretty dark blue prints. I also did not bother to press these blocks before I snapped the pics. I posted the original quilt at the bottom, so you can see what I've changed.

A2

A3

A4

B1

D1

D2

D4

The original by Lori
Hope you liked them and thanks for visiting!

Lori Smith Needs to STOP!

LOL, at least that's what my great friend Linda and I always say. Lori Smith (CLICK HERE) is a quilt designer/genius and she needs to be stopped, because her patterns are SO ADDICTIVE. That's a picture of her spectacular Pieces of Time quilt. We won't talk about the fact that I've completed all 31 blocks and it has STILL become a UFO, waiting quietly for me to jump in and tackle those borders. We also won't talk about the fact that I have her Heritage pattern, still untouched. But that's not really what this post is about.

So if you remember my Be Mindfuls, you may recall that I promised you a peek at a project that's near and dear to my heart. It all started with Lori again, and her wonderful Folk Art Pleasures pattern. I LOVE the pattern, but I also love Jeanne's idea (CLICK HERE to visit her Spiral blog) of redesigning some of the blocks to better fit my own life.

With apologies to Lori for muddling up her borders with letters and numbers, here is a pic of her Folk Art Pleasures (FAP) quilt.
Many of the blocks are perfect for me, just as they are. However, some will "fit" better if I change them. For example, see C4, the chicken one? I have no particular 'truck' with chickens. I never had one as a pet and I certainly don't eat them, so that's one block that I'm going to change. And there are definitely not enough (or ANY) cats in her blocks. And see B2? I'd like to be holding the hands of TWO little boys, rather than just one.

Thus far, I've only completed 7 of the 16 blocks: A2, A3, A4, B1, D1, D2 and D4. I'm working on A1, and that's my current Be Mindful project. I'll post pictures of my blocks tomorrow, even in their current, wrinkly/un-ironed state. But if you've made it this far in today's post, you deserve a reward. Here's a closeup of my version of A3 - it's FOSTER! Here he is in real life:
And here he is in a fabric tree. Check out his Mad Eye, LOL.
In real life, he doesn't go outside and he doesn't have red moons. But his eyes really do look like that when he looks at our dogs.

If you click on the Mad Eye pic, you can see some applique "warts". In particular, you can see the pencil line where his tail connects to his body. (I've since learned not to draw the bottom of that U-shape, because it's hard to turn it all under.) I guess I'm still Celebrating Imperfection. CLICK HERE to read the Warts and All post.

Check back tomorrow to see the rest of the blocks and thanks for stopping by!

Ta DA!!

I just sewed the last stitch on the commissioned t-shirt quilt I've been working on. I had my husband hold it so I could snap a quick pic - if it looks like it's pulling/wrinkled/not straight... believe me, the fault lies with the holder and not the quilt.

This is part of a graduation gift for the son of a friend. I'm so excited to be able to deliver it to his proud mom tomorrow! I quilted the name of his high school in one block, and the year of the tournament that the t-shirt represents in another. And NO, it does not really say Soggy Bottoms Baby Duds in the top border, LOL.

I think the mom will LOVE it. And you know how teenage boys are...he probably will give it a cursory glance and not give it another thought...till much later in his life...

Thanks for stopping by!

Progress

Popping in to say that I'm making progress on the t-shirt quilt. This mom has saved her son's sports t-shirts (almost exclusively baseball) since he was little...what a wonderful keepsake this will be for him!

For those of you who quilt, I'm sewing it in the 'quilt as you go' method, which I've never done before. For a couple of reasons, I now look like this:

For one thing, of course, I made it WAY harder than it needs to be...the seam allowances are 1/4" (although the tutorial I'm following said to make them HALF an inch)... and the difference between the front and back sashing is less than 1/8" (although it should be more like HALF an inch)!

PLUS, the customer wanted BLACK solid sashing. It is HARD to sew with that minute accuracy on BLACK fabric!

Today, I should be able to at least finish getting the center together and, if so, I'll try to snap a pic...that is, if I can focus my eyes enough to tell what's in the viewfinder!

AND we're supposed to webcam with both grandbabies!!

They're too little to realize Nannie should not look so squinty. YAY!!!!!

Don't You Just Love It

Great pic, eh? Hope you don't have a weak stomach. Or have at least had your coffee.

Don't you just love it when you call the doctor's office to say that you have a sinus infection and would like a prescription for an antibiotic to be called in and they say NO, because they have to SEE you?? I was JUST THERE about 3 weeks ago for something else, and I'm also there every 6 months so they can check my blood work because of my meds. And you don't have to be a rocket scientist to tell when you have a sinus infection. But NO, I might be trying to get high on antibiotics, I guess.

So Thursday, I left school early, waited in the doctor's office for 45 minutes, had the NP say, "Yep, sinus infection." and then waited for over half an hour at the pharmacy, just to get the antibiotics I'd asked for in the first place.

One good thing...the NP turned me on to the wonders of saline nasal spray. OMG has THAT made a difference!!! Well, that and the ANTIBIOTICS!!!!!! LOL

Starting to feel a little more perky, although I slept another 11 hours last night. Good thing, because I'm supposed to be working on a t-shirt quilt that's due to the customer in no longer than 12 days, since her son graduates on the 17th!!

Thanks for visiting!

Q is for Quilts and O is for Thank God 26 Letters in 26 Days is FINALLY Over!

This one is easy...in fact, I'm kinda cheating. Here are some quilts I made before I got hijacked by the embroidery bug! Some are not quilted yet and are pinned to the design wall. And some are being inspected by the quality control supervisors. Such helpful cats!

Thanks for visiting and I'll be back with some cool new things I've been working on!

Excitement!

I'm SO EXCITED!!! We have moved up our departure time to go see Zoey!! Our house-sitter was able to adjust and we are OUT OF HERE as of tomorrow!! I am not sure I'll be able to post from my 'remote' location - I'm sure it will be hard to type while holding my granddaughter. And I plan to be holding my granddaughter pretty much constantly.

In the meantime, here is a bib/burpie combo I did for Zoey's mom's friend's little boy.

I combined a couple of designs. I just love this wizard frog! It seemed appropriate. Oliver is a very early preemie and I think he must be a magical little boy, to be doing so well!

On the burpie, I added a couple of magical sparkles and I prevented the embroidery machine from stitching out the frog so that I could hang his hat on the "O".

Here are the pictures that I promised you yesterday- Zoey's quilt! The front (admittedly, not a stellar picture):

The back:

A closeup:

Thanks so much for stopping by! I'll try to touch base if I can and if I can't, you'll know my arms are just too full!

What I Have to Show for Myself

Is not all that much. I did manage to make Zoey this cute soft book:

Really, what could be better than Beatrix Potter's illustrations? Look at the dad bunny in the pic below, with his pipe in his mouth and his superior expression!

Oh, and guess what!? Zoey's quilt is DONE...labeled, washed and dried so it's nice and soft and crinkly. I'll take pics of it outside tomorrow and hopefully, you'll be able to see the texture and colors.

However, I couldn't resist showing you a pic of the label:

Which leads me to my current dilemma...what to call myself!?! Am I Nana? Grandma? I'm definitely NOT Granny, LOL. I guess ultimately, Zoey will probably make that decision for me.

I'll never forget what our older son called my mom...Boyda. Apparently, he THOUGHT he was saying Grandma. My mom would enunciate slowly, "Say Graaaannd - maawww." He would answer obediently, "Boyyyyyyy-duhhh!"

Hmmm, "Granny" is sounding better all the time!

We Have A WINNER!!

The random number generator just picked my giveaway winner...can I have a drumroll, please?!?? KAREN at MERRY LITTLE QUILTER, come on down and place your order for your handmade, monogrammed handbag!! Wooo hooooo!! Karen, you're set as 'no reply' and I don't see your email on your blog (it's probably there and I just don't see it). Please contact me so you can choose your fabrics and your monogram style!

Now why is it that when I give something away, I'M the one who's excited, just like I won it myself?!

Alrighty, that's all I have for today. I'll leave you with some pics of Zoey's quilt in progress. In true Celebrate Imperfection! style, I did manage to stretch some of the blocks out of shape with my overenthusiastic quilting. However, I told myself that it's a BABY quilt and that the BABY is not going to know or care that Grandma quilts like a gorilla. Right??

Here's the front:

And here's the back:

I'm binding it in dark purple. Thanks so much to ALL who entered my drawing. I wish I could make a purse for every one of you!!

Quilt Show, Day Three - College Quilts

Hi and welcome back! I hope you're enjoying your quilt show! Today I have two graduation quilts that I made for the son and daughter of dear friends. This family lives in Ohio and they are ardent Cleveland Browns fans which makes for an interesting rivalry during football season, given the fact that my guys are all all rabid Steelers fans.

When their son Taylor was going off to OSU, I made him this Browns quilt and let me just tell you, working with that neon orange about killed me. Plus, I had severe basting issues and the final product looks wrinkly and baggy. I'm just going to say that I was Celebrating Imperfection!:

Here's the back. I kind of like it better than the front, LOL.

When it was their daughter Alysia's turn to go off to OSU, I made her something a little more feminine. I drew the flower design myself, but our cat, Kong, was also instrumental in the creation of this quilt. (Don't worry, that family loves cats, too.)

Here are a couple of pictures of it on my longarm machine.

And here it is on Alysia's bed at college. All that work on the flowers, and she liked the back! LOL, hey, as long as she's using it, who cares which side is up, right?

I'll be back tomorrow with some more quilt pics. Thanks for stopping by!

Quilt Show, Day Two - Wedding Quilt #2

Welcome to day two of my quilt show! Today I have pictures of the wedding quilt I made for our younger son and his wife, Sarah.

They have a painting of a Pacific ocean sunset and Sarah requested that I incorporate the colors in that painting (pinks, golds and purples) for her quilt. I used Bonnie Hunter's Birds in Flight pattern and made it in a queen size.

Here it is as a top:

And here are some pics of it on my longarm. (Even though this quilt was pretty huge, it didn't have the complexity of the Monterrey Medallions quilt, so I got brave and decided to quilt this one myself. I freehand quilted an allover meander and some (pretty amateurish) ribbon curls in the borders.

Here it is, all bound and ready to go

And here's the back, showing the scrappy binding I made.

Thanks for popping in! Come back tomorrow for day three of the eye candy!

Quilt Show, Day One - Wedding Quilt #1

For day one's eye candy I have for you some pics of the wedding quilt I made for our older son and daughter-in-law. It's a pattern called Monterrey Medallions by Atkinson Designs.

The Monterrey Medallions booklet offers the pattern in several levels of difficulty. In order to make things as stressful for myself as possible, I chose the hardest version, entitled "Challenge Medallion". It lived up to its name, but I do credit working on this quilt with improving my accuracy in piecing quilts.

Even though I had recently purchased my own longarm machine, this quilt was HUGE and I was really scared to quilt it myself. Instead, the quilting was done by Bonnie Hunter - I thought she did a fabulous job!

Here it is as a top:

Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of it already bound, but here are pics that Bonnie took during and after quilting:

Hope you enjoyed day one of the eye candy quilt show! Pop in tomorrow for day two, and thanks for stopping by!