A little crewel

Sometime last year I was over at some quilter friend's hanging out and she was working on this beautiful crewel pillow.  When I questioned her about it, she told me she got it off of Ebay and that it was from the 70's.  Guess what I did the minute I got home?  Yep, did an Ebay search and bought myself a couple of crewel pillow kits!  I love these older kits from the 60's & 70's.   And I really am amazed at the quality of materials in them.  Unfortunately, that is not the case with most kits you find today.  The linen on this pillow kit is thick and soft and a nice weave.  The yarn is pure wool and the zipper has a heavy cotton twill tape and metal teeth!  It came with some lovely velvet piping for the edge of the pillow.  I gave you all a brief glimpse of this kit in this post.  I had only done a few of the flowers on the pillow top.  Here is what it looks like now

I love how it came out!  I can't wait to see this pillow on my sofa.  I hope to be able to get it finished this week. The colors make me feel all happy inside.  

And considering that we are supposed to drop to 25 degrees over the next 24 hours and have ice on the roads tomorrow, I think this pillow will really brighten up the winter days.  Now, on to the next project......

Workshop In Progress - 1/26

I signed up for the Workshop in Progress over at Naptime Quilter's blog.  I did this a couple of weeks ago in an effort to spur myself back into blogging.  And then, I didn't post anything the past two weeks!  Typical me....what can I say?  I have put this on my list of things to work on for 2011.  Follow through, doing what you say you will do.  So, I am throwing it out there to you all.  Now, you know a deep dark secret about me.  I start a lot of things and don't finish them.  I sign up for stuff and then don't do it.  Eck, I don't like that about myself.  So, I'm going to think long and hard before I sign up for stuff or say yes to a request for my time.  And when I do sign up or say yes, I'm going to do it.

So even though I missed the first couple of weeks, I'm jumping in now to Workshop in Progress Wednesdays.  This is a project I started almost two years ago.  It was a kit I bought at the Houston International Quilt Show in 2005!  It's on my list of quilts to complete this year.  G. absolutely loves this quilt and I am going to finish it this year and put it on our bed.

It's a medallion quilt that starts with a center block and then borders are added around and around.  It will be an extremely large quilt when it's done.  And it is extremely detailed!  That last border took hours and hours.  First, cutting all of those pieces and then they are sewn together using y-seams.  Very tedious....
The center was paper pieced.

There are three more borders and then I have to decide how I'm going to quilt it.  And if I will attempt to quilt it myself or send it off to a long arm quilter.  I have always thought that if I bothered to piece a top, I needed to quilt it myself or else it wasn't truly my quilt.  But, queen sized quilts are quite challenging to quilt on a domestic sewing machine.  What do you guys think?

M.

Unplanned Break

Without really meaning to, I seem to have taken an almost 6 week break from blogging.  Not sure what happened, life I guess.....I sort of lost my creative vibe for several weeks and with it went any desire to blog.  Go figure.  Tonight, I was hand quilting the Nicey Jane quilt and watching Julie & Julia and G asked me what my challenge was going to be for this year.  And a few of you have written asking what happened to me.  So, here I am, back in the saddle again.  I've actually been thinking quite a bit about what I wanted to set as goals for this year.  Still haven't come to a concrete decision yet, but I'm working on it.  I'll be posting about that soon.

For now, I thought I'd tell you a little more about my New York trip.  It truly was such a magical trip.  G & I had an absolute blast the entire trip.  So, where did I leave off?  Oh yeah, the World Trade Center site.  From there, we headed back into Soho.  We found ourselves at Purl Soho (okay, I planned to whole thing, no WAY was I going to be in NY and not go to Purl Soho.)  Can you tell how excited I was?

I bought a cool little coin purse frame and G bought me that gorgeous stack of Liberty of London that Purl put together for the Color Wheel Quilt.  I swear, I think that has to be my next project.  After I soaked up all of PS, it was off to Shoegasm.  (Best name for a shoe store I ever hear of!!!!)

Those adorable little boots on my feet?  Got them at Shoegasm! We another fantastic meal, this time at Asia De Cuba.  The food was amazing and it was such a cool space.  If you are in New York, I highly recommend this place.  We started off with a crispy duck appetiser and for the entree we had a seared ahi tuna with wasabi mashed potatoes.  YUM!  I was so excited about the food, I forgot to get a pic of our plate, but it was gorgeous.

And that was the end of day two of my Christmas in New York trip.  I'll wrap up the trip next post.

Can I just say, it's really good to be back in blogland.  I missed you guys!

M.

Magical

I'm sitting on a plane on the way back from New York.  They now have planes with Wi-Fi right on board....HOW COOL IS THAT???  My fantastic, wonderful, too-good-to-be-true husband took me to New York so I could see what she looks like all dressed up for Christmas.  He needed to visit a property for business and took me along for the ride.  It was truly a magical sight.  We arrived Thursday afternoon and after depositing the bags at the hotel, we headed off to Rockefeller Center to see the tree.  It was gorgeous!  I don't have photos of it, (they are on G's phone, I'll try to post those later).  We watched the skaters, went in a GIANT Lego store, saw where the Today Show is broadcast and then headed off to a wonderful Italian meal at Il Vagabondo.  All I have to say is..... Yum!  I had a chicken dish in a white wine butter sauce with sautéed spinach and G had Osso Bucco.  It is the tiniest little restaurant with a Bocce Ball dirt court right down the middle of the place.  The crowning glory of the meal was the Bocce Ball desert!  O.M.G.  Chocolate and vanilla gelato around a cherry and nuts, formed into a ball and then the whole thing dipped in dark chocolate.  I want another one right now!  If you are in New York, I would highly recommend checking this little place out.

The next morning it was off to the subway so we could go see Wall Street.  Riding the subway is surprisingly easy and the people watching is fantastic!

It was really, really cold!  I mean really cold!  We walked down to the NY Stock Exchange and G. took some awesome pictures.  (By the way, all of the pics in this post were taken by G.)

Next stop was Battery Park and after that we debated whether or not to ride the ferry out to see The Statue of Liberty.  We finally decided to wait since it was so bitterly cold and the tickets to go inside her were sold out.  Next trip....

This sculpture was in Battery Park.  It used to be at the World Trade Center and was damaged in the explosion.  It's been moved to the park and in front of the statue is an "eternal flame" as a tribute to all who lost their lives that day.  They moved the statue and lit the flame on the one year anniversary of the attack.  It's really hard to believe that it has been ten years since 9/11.  

We went by to see "Ground Zero" and it's a buzz of activity these days.  There were some pretty cool drawings of what they plan to do.  G made the comment that it felt to him as if they were saying, "we will never forget what happened here, but it's time to stop being sad and show that we are moving on to new and exciting things".   He had been before, not long after it happened and told me it was a somber and eerie sight.  I had been to the city one other time and the towers were still there.  I could not help but notice the huge amount of empty space in the skyline since the last time I was there.  It was quite odd.

Well, there is much more to tell.  But lest I bore you with too long a post, I'll follow in a day or so with more of the adventure.  I SO enjoyed myself and NY in the winter is amazing.  But, I have to say it will be very good to be back home and to be in my own bed tonight.  And to see and hug Rex the Wonderdog and Max the kitty!

Drawing a Blank

I sat down at my computer several times over the last few days to write a new blog post and every time, I came up blank on what to say.  It's kind of like when you have been exercising consistently and then you stop....and can't find it in you to get started again.  That happened to me with my blogging.  I was cooking along fairly consistently and then I missed about 10 days and then I couldn't get started again.  I just felt like I had nothing to say.  Two weeks ago, I woke up with vertigo and had to spend three days in bed.  The vertigo is gone, but I still am not feeling 100%.  Between that and trying to get ready for the holidays, I have had little time at my sewing machine and you have heard me whine about that!  I am almost ready for Christmas (a bit more shopping to do and probably a marathon wrapping day).  The house is decorated (as much as it's going to be this year) and it's been relatively cold here this week so I'm finally in the Holiday Spirit.  And I finally felt like I had something to write about.

The officers of DMQG had a little get together last weekend and we all brought one handmade gift.  The challenge was to try and devote an hour or less to this creation.  I think I went a little over, but I sure had fun making this little mug rug, or potholder, or mini quilt.  I guess it could be used for just about anything.  I neglected to photograph the finished product, but here's a shot of it in progress.  I stipple quilted it and bound it in green.  We had a really great time and I ended up with the cutest tomato pincushion made by Lisa.

And I got my Winter Wonderland Quilt back from The Sometimes Crafter!  She did an amazing job and I took it to the DMQG meeting to show it off.  It's hanging in my house right now!  So cute.  I am so happy with the results on this quilt.  It was a TON of work, but loads of fun.

I am really happy that I sent this one out to be quilted.  It's fairly large to quilt on my Bernina and Christina did such a creative job with the quilting.  I'm getting more confident in my free motion quilting, but I could never have done this good a job.  I'll post more closeups on my Flickr page once I take some more shots.  I need to take it outside and get some really good shots with decent light so you can see the awesome quilting.

Off to wrap some gifts so I can have something under the tree.....

Gratitude

I'm filled up with it....gratitude that is.  I had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday.  I had five days off work, I spent time with family at my cousins house in Oklahoma, I sewed a LOT, I relaxed.  Ahh......what an amazing life I have.  I am a very lucky woman with many blessings.  I have a husband who loves me dearly, a home I love, family close by, loads of wonderful friends and time to sew.  What more could a girl ask for?

On Thanksgiving Day, I got to see my 94 year old grandmother and her younger sister.  They are such fun women and a joy to be around.  Their mother lived to be 103.  I come from a family of women that live long, healthy lives.  My great grandmother died in her sleep at 103 and was still incredibly alert.

My son drove down for the day and it was good to see him and spend time with him.

And, on top of all of these blessings, I won a giveaway from Daisy Janie.  I won Giveaway #5!  I won these two eight foot panels.  What shall I make with these?  The fabric has a wonderful hand to it.  It is from her Geo Grand line and I won the Ogee and Caravan panels.  The colors are fabulous!

What a box of loveliness!  It was a happy mail day on Saturday.

Thanks to all of you who show up here to read my blog and leave your much appreciated comments.  It's been almost a year since I started blogging and I am continually amazed at the worlds it has opened up in my life.

You complete me

I have been in a mode of finishing up loose ends lately.  I have just not felt "right" about starting new projects with so many lonely little WIP looking down on me from the shelves of my studio.  It has felt very cathartic to be wrapping up all the little loose ends.  Don't get me wrong, I have a TON of new projects in my head that I am dying to dive into!  And all those new lines of fabric about to come out in a month or so.....DON'T get me started!  (Like Central Park, Parisville, Sherbet Pips, Shades of Grey, to name a few!) So, I thought I would take the next few weeks to complete a few WIP's.  I was really tired of my normal puzzle piece type of stippling, so I used a completed baby quilt top that I finished um......7 years ago (gulp)and this is what I came up with:

It was initially for a charity quilt drive for a guild I used to belong too.  Their requirements were polyester batting (yuk, but it is safer for kids?)  Anyway that is why it is such a poofy look, but I kind of like the quilting design.  I just love the way my new machine does free motion.  No pulling of the stitches on the back!  Yeah!  This quilt is on the machine right now and about 1/3 finished.

I'm liking this design as well.  It's really fun to just start playing.  I find free motion quilting very soothing.  Very.  Soothing....

It's funny, my tasted have changed dramatically over the last couple of years, but I still am really having fun working on these old projects.  I am totally excited about the Winter Wonderland Quilt I blogged about here.  After much debate in my head, I decided to have that one professionally quilted.  It's a pretty good size and it took me over a year to do all of the redwork.  I did not want to take a chance that I wouldn't be happy with the quilting I did on it.  So, I sent it on over to Christina to work her magic on it.  I am excited beyond words to get it back and see what's she's done with it.  She gave us all a little preview of it yesterday.  It looks awesome!  And I felt a little famous having my quilt on her blog!

As a little tease, there will be one new quilt coming in the next couple of weeks that is a new pattern that my business partner Lisa designed.  Remember this lovely stack of fabrics I purchased at the Trinity Valley Quilt Show?  Well, I'm going to use it to sew up Lisa's pattern.  She sketched it out and I used Electric Quilt to make it into a working pattern.  I hope to start work on that over this long Thanksgiving weekend. My bosses decided to close the office tomorrow so I have five whole days off work!  We will be with family in Oklahoma on Thursday, but otherwise, I hope to be at my machine.  How about you?  What are your plans for this long holiday weekend?