Chattertime at Hearts to Holly in Charlevoix

One of my good "internet" friends asked about Chattertime. The last time I was there I took a few sneaky pics... We have a wonderful classroom where we can meet almost every Friday morning. Sue provides a treat (her sister is the best baker!) and coffee. We have show and tell. Sue shows us the newest fabrics, tools or tells us about trips, specials, sales, etc. Mostly we chat and eat. OH, we stitch too :) Some of us bring hand sewing.. some of us just come for the food and friends. If you're ever visiting on a Friday morning, stop in and join us.

Making Fans and Plates

We had our monthly guild meeting last night and Hearts To Holly Quilt Shop did demos of popular templates and tools. Since I was doing one of the demos, Sue let me choose what tool or template I would like to show. My favorite (right now) is the Fantastic Fan. It comes in 3 sizes and I've tried them all. This is a quilt center I made using the 12" size (makes a 24" plate): And this is the smallest size that I had... 3" fan (6-1/2" plate):I'm really hooked on making these. The one above will probably be turned into a summer mug rug since it's so colorful.

Catching up on projects plus goodies from swaps

Here's some pretty Charlevoix fabrics that I wanted to use for my second quilt. The first is already half (well, maybe 3rd) of the way done. Yesterday when I was working we ran out of some of my FAVORITE fabric... the light blue waves that are in this picture. I'm now on a search for it because it's the main fabric of this quilt (or was). I wanted it mostly blue and yellow with splashes of the red. Today I picked up the yellow floral. I already had the yellow stripe and the reds. I may have to work in the other blue in place of the waves. I like it but I didn't want to have two florals of the same pattern in the quilt.

Another project finished up today... the rug I've been crocheting using scrap strips. It's finally big enough. It was supposed to go in the girls bathroom but it's been hanging out in my sewing room so long, I think that's where it'll stay. Check off another project FINISHED! Now I need to start on the rug for DD2.

Lately I've gotten some wonderful squishy mail. Pat sent me two beautiful mug rugs, Sharon sent me some pretty green happy blocks I won on scrappyandhappy (yahoo group) and Dorian sent me this cheery mug rug in my favorite color of aqua for the mug rug swap on Quilt and Needle (Thank you so much Dorian). Yup, it's been wonderful getting the mail :)

And now another Happy Block swap has started. It was my choice this time and since I'm just dying for summer to get here, I thought I would do a summery swap. Here's my blocks: Fruits or veggies in the center and picnic tablecloth type designs for the outer fabric. I would love to do a quilt for myself out of these... to take in the summer to the beach.. hmmm.. might have to start another project.

Surprises in the mail

Look what came in yesterday's mail!! I found two mug rugs from Pat.. we swapped mug rug sets on our Yahoo group and these were two that I was just WISHING we going to be mine. It's a secret swap so we don't know who our partners are until the mug rugs arrive. Pat had posted a picture a while ago and said she had mailed them out... well.. I kept waiting and watching for something to arrive and it didn't.. I figured someone else had been the recipient of these beauties. Then she posted yesterday that her mug rugs were taking quite a long time to arrive at ____'s house but she had confirmation that yesterday they had been delivered. I thought, MAYBE, they would be at my house. I worked till 4:30 then went to a friend's house right from work. When I arrived home around 7 I checked the mailbox... nothing... then the kitchen counter..nothing. Al was at work and when he got home at 10 he had the mail with him. WELL, there was the package for me, FROM PAT! I was so excited!

If you look closely, the roses in the mugs are Charlevoix fabric and I'm nuts about that stuff. Right now I'm working on two coordinating twin quilts using some of the fabrics. One of the quilts is peach/coral with blue. The other will be blues and yellows. Here's a picture of the blocks for the first quilt. Now don't those mug rugs look perfect with it? I think these mug rugs will have to go on the night stands in the guest room where the quilts will be (this will be in the new house). Sure hope no coffee or tea mugs sit on these.. water should be ok. Thank you, Pat! :)Yesterday after work I stopped at a friends house. We trade fabrics every so often. She knows I'm collecting 30's reproductions for my seven sisters quilt so she had me come by to pick some out. She has quite a large collection of them... lots of different ones. We had a great time chatting about quilts and fabrics and quilt shows. She told me how she once got 3rd place (or so) in an ugly quilt contest (her first quilt, before she took any classes). It's hard to believe she could make one that bad because her quilts are perfection! She has loads of beautiful quilts on beds and walls in her house. It was like going to a quilt show.. inspired me to get some more UFOs finished up. Maybe I can get one of these Charlevoix quilts finished by the time we have our quilt show this summer. This is just SOME of the pieces she gave me... aren't they nice?

NOW, since I won the happy block swap on Scrappy and Happy, I get to choose the theme of the next happy blocks. I was thinking about it all day yesterday and decided on doing "Summer Fruits and Veggies". Digging through my stash, I found a pile of fabrics that I think will suit the theme. This should make a nice summer picnic quilt... fruit and veggie centers with dots or checks (think summer tablecloth prints) surrounding them.

Time to get some sewing done... Al is working again today. Chicken soup is simmering on the stove so time for me to get something accomplished.

I Won Happy Blocks :)

Today was a great day... I won the drawing at our Yahoo group for the Happy blocks... This month they were kelly green with yellow centers. These are the four I made. Very springy, don't you think? The colors are better in person. The yellow is bright and cheery and the green is a child's crayon green.. Now the hard part... what to make. Adding a third color to these might be nice but maybe I'll wait till they show up to decide what to do with them.

I made another mug rug, not too long ago. I didn't post it because it was going to my sister and I wasn't sure whether or not she reads this blog... I wanted it to be a surprise. It's pink and cream... very girly (unlike us, right MaryAnn?!). I was playing with some leftover charm squares and decided they looked cute together. So, she told me she's going to hang it up in her dining room turned sewing room.... Another mug rug destined to live out it's life hanging on a wall instead of cozy under a cup of tea...hehe... I should really learn to use darker colors. Who wants to spill coffee and tea on pink and cream? I guess it IS a miniature quilt. Well, off to the sewing room...

Binding Tutorial

Today I worked on a scrappy project... doing the binding on it. The corners of this one aren't 90 degrees and as I was doing them I thought that maybe someone out there would like a tutorial on how to do binding. If you follow this step by step you'll be able to do 90 degree bindings and odd ones too.

I cut my bindings about 1-1/2" to 2" for most projects since I do single layer bindings... in other words, I turn my bindings to the back, turn under the raw edges then stitch them down. Many people do double bindings... they stitch the fabric on double (it's folded in half lengthwise, both raw edges being caught as they go around), then when they turn it to the back, it's already folded on the edge. If you do double bindings, you'll probably be cutting them 2-1/2" or so.

Another choice in binding is cutting it straight along the WOF (width of fabric) or cutting it bias (at a 45 degree angle to the selvage). On this project I cut it straight but I usually prefer bias binding. Either way will work with the tutorial.

Here's a link to it:

BINDING TUTORIAL

Let me know if you have any questions or if I can add pictures to make it clearer. I've helped my daughters to do bindings and I'm hoping that this will help others. Once you get the hang of it, it's pretty easy.

Getting OLD...

Usually I write about quilting, sewing, shopping..etc... but today I have other things on my mind (what's left of it!) Al and I went out for coffee to a small place not too far away. I was chatting with the waitress as I stirred sugar into my coffee... she refilled Als's cup and as I'm stirring I look around and ask "where'd my coffee cup go to?" YEEAAAHHH...... This seems to be a trend lately. I hunted for about 10 minutes for my glasses ...asked Al if he'd seen them.. "on your head" was his reply. He's very good natured about all of this. He just laughs and rolls his eyes. It's probably just my age or maybe it's the weather but my knees are killing me today. They always creak but today there's a double creak... well.. sort of a creak, crunch, Take a step, creak, crunch. And if I'm doing the stairs?!.. it's creak, crunch, snap... creak, crunch, snap... Then when I get up from the sewing machine, I can't stand straight... at least not right away. So here I am, walking away from my sewing room, half bent over.. creak crunch creak crunch creak crunch snap... If you look up the word decrepit and see a picture of me, don't be surprised! Just an old quilter, falling apart at the seams....

Stitching up some new placemats

What a nice day today was to work in the sewing room....bright and sunny but cold, cold, cold. This morning I stopped at the quilt shop to pick up some fabrics and battings I needed to work on projects. The first thing I did was make up a bunch of new placemats for the kitchen. I wanted something contemporary and also wanted to use this new coffeepot fabric I picked up at Hearts to Holly. This is the pattern I made about a year ago..they were stitched up in Thanksgiving fabric back then. I think I'll make one more set... something bright to go with my Fiesta china. A while ago I made a set in some spring Lakehouse fabrics: These are so fast and easy since there's no binding, no handsewing and no quilting (unless you want to).

Finished up my Blue Strip Scrap Quilt

It feels so good to be finished with a project... check a BIG one off the list. :) This is my Blue Strippy Scrap Quilt that I started after seeing that my boxes of blue fabrics were overflowing. This helped... a little.. It's amazing how much blue I still have and I didn't buy A THING! I love bues, always have, so I suppose that's why I have, oh, maybe six bins of it. There's the navy box, the royal blue box, the medium blue boxes (2 of these), the light blue box, the aqua box, the turquoise box, the blue plaid box, the blue solids container, the blue civil war and Americana box... okay, maybe that's 9 or 10 boxes of blues... but it's down from what it was!

And this is my finished Central Park cosmetic bag.. I was leaving for the party and had forgotten to take a pic so it's wrapped but you can still see it. The bag wasn't really the gift, although everyone love it. The real gift was inside... yummy chocolate gift certificate, glass nail file and cuticle cream.
I used a little ric rac in the seam between the top and the bottom (found it in my box of old trims). The buttons on the right of the bag are stacked... a creamy white one with a nice swirl texture and an orange button with a little crystal imbedded in it. They were the perfect addition to this.. think I'll make myself one this week :)

Playing in the sewing room

My sewing room resembles a childs play room at times... I have Dr. Suess books, dolls, bears, stuffed animals, a childs rocker, wooden toys, a rag rug... among other things. I decided it was time to make myself a mug rug since I've done one for everyone else (well, kind of my daughter's idea) and so this is mine, which fits in with my child's theme... kind of a doll quilt mug rug:
I had leftover pieces from a quilt I call "my quilt"... it's a quilt I'm slowly making using just fabrics I love, blocks I love, applique I love... and it will be all mine when it's done. A while back I did some tiny patches to put in the quilt and then changed my mind so these became my mug rug. It'll go perfectly in my bedroom some day when the "my quilt" is done.

Today's project will be a cosmetic bag for a white elephant gift exchange I am attending this evening with my sorority sisters. I'm making the bag and then putting in a glass emery nail file (these are hand painted by a lady up here and they're so pretty) and cuticle cream plus I'm also adding in a gift certificate to Kilwins Chocolate (mmmm..who doesn't love chocolate?). These are the fabrics I picked up at the lqs this morning to make the bag out of. It's Central Park, one of my favorite new lines:

Aren't they yummy? And here is a pic of my favorite quilt shop...took it the other day when we were starting up Hearts To Holly's new blog. See that quilt hanging on the back wall... It's from Me and My Sisters and we now have kits for it. I cut up a bunch the other day using the Me and My Sister's pattern and Moda's Happy collection plus some from another new collection. Wouldn't that be a great quilt for a grad? If you'ld like a kit, just call Sue at her shop (number is on her website) http://www.heartstoholly.com/. She can send you one out.
And this is my Just One Star to be sent to Moda. Sue at Hearts to Holly is giving out fabric to make these stars and will be sending them into Moda all at once. Have you done yours? They're super easy and a worthwhile project. If you want to find out how you can help the Quilts of Valor project, click here:
http://modafabrics.blogspot.com/search/label/Just%20One%20Star

And the saga continues....

Okay, so I listened to my husband and daughter (who also thought that it was too busy) and split apart the red and cream quilt. I went to the lqs and bought a couple of yards of a deep beige to calm everything down. Cut the squares for between the blocks of mostly red, then the side triangles, then the corners... stitched MOST of the top together... and am not loving it. :( It's not bad but I just don't love it like I did before splitting the quilt up.

SO, my daughter (the above mentioned one) comes to stitch with me today and sees the first of the two quilts ..the one that is mostly red. She doesn't like it. Says she saw my blog and thinks I should have stuck with the first one .... AHHHHH!!!!

I told her she was one of the deciding factors for why I didn't make the original quilt and now have two. And my husband of course... who came in and saw the new one laid out on the floor and said he still doesn't really like it... but then he says.."I don't really like red"... Well, I'm SEEING RED!!

Moral of this crazy story (no the story isn't done yet but here's the moral anyways) ... Listen to your heart. You know what you like and what works for you...

PS: Anyone want to come over and help UNsew a quilt? It's looking like that is what I might be doing... And looking at the comments on this blog, everyone out there agrees that the first was the best.