My Favorite Season

Ah, autumn, it just makes my heart happy. The warm days and cool nights, low humidity, colored leaves, mums blooming and all the rest make me smile. I love to sew with the doors and windows open.

My DH and I were gone for a few weeks as we went to Washingon state to see our son and granddaughter. I can't believe that she is growing up so quickly. She is 10 and it won't be long before she is taller than Grama. What a bundle of energy, too. She just never seems to sit down and she about wore us out.

On our way back home we stopped at Yellowstone National Park for a couple of days and then went by Windsor CO to see a dear friend and her husband. Of course, she and I had to visit a couple of quilt shops. Oh, by the way, if you ever get close to Helena, MT there is a wonderful Ben Franklin store there with really nice fabric plus a bead section and just about any other crafty thing that you might be interested in.

The quilt for my sister should be back from the machine quilting lady soon so I had to get the pillow shams done. I still need to make the label but it won't take too long to sew it on then I will be done. Yay.


Below is a bead (really?). My sister makes jewelery and I found this bead in WA that I am going to have her make into a necklace. She told me about Kazuri beads which are made by women in Kenya. Most of the women are single mothers and this is a way for them to earn money to support themselves and their children. If you would like to know more, just search on Kazuri. I'm hoping there might be a bead show close to us this winter.

Well, I guess I'll go see what quilting project I want to work on next. So hard to decide ;-)

Happy Birthday To Me!

What a nice birthday present my hubby got me. Actually, we had to replace the truck that he wrecked, so we got a van. It just happened to be my birthday and I sure do like the present. We no longer will go camping but that's okay. I don't mind motels and restaurants when we travel.


This is the quilt top that is the (almost) end product of the block I posted about last time. It looks a little dorky on my bed but that was the only place big enough to put it to take a photo.


I'm thinking that I need to get a few small projects done now but I may have to make one more big quilt because I keep looking at the fabric and trying to decide what I want to do with it. I sat down with my graph paper to start drafting some blocks but the two that I like best just don't want to play together. Back to the graph paper.

Have a great August! It will be time for the kiddies to go back to school before we know it.

Crazy month so far

I'm usually a pretty upbeat kind of gal, but July is apparently not my month. It started on the 2nd with my husband wrecking our truck which we used to pull our travel trailer. Since it was 14 years old we had dropped the insurance back to liability only. But it was still worth around $6000 and all we got was the salvage value - $1500. Okay, so we're dealing with that. Next we decide that we are not going to buy another truck so we have to sell the camper:-( Bummer! At least the people who bought it were very nice and I'm sure they will take good care of it. I'll miss it. On top of those things, my back has really been hurting so I went to the chiropractor, he took x-rays, and wouldn't you know, I'm getting old! Arthritis and degenerative discs are the problem so he is working on getting the pain levels down. Oh yeah, plus , my birthday is this month and I have a feeling no one is going to believe me when I tell them I'm 39 again! I've been doing a little quilting. Let me show you.

This is for Project Linus:
This is one for Scott Air Force Base Hospital.

This is fabric that I had in the stash for a while and finally decided to get it out and get going.

This is the block made with the fabrics above. Not sure yet about sashing strips but it's a start.

Well, I guess I'll go cut some more pieces for this. Have a great day.

Little britches and little dresses

I decided to make some little britches for boys to go with the little dresses for Africa. Then, a friend from my quilt guild dropped off 39 more little dresses and said there would be still more coming.
I'm just about done piecing the top for my sister's quilt then I have to do borders and it will be ready for machine quilting. Woo Hoo!!!

For My Sister

This is my latest big project and it is for my sweet sister. It is a double nine patch done is 30's reproduction fabrics with a different solid in the middle of the 3" nine patch blocks. Obviously, I am no where near done but at least it is almost half done. My quilt guild is asking the members to make comfort quilts to be taken to Scott Air Force base so I need to get going on that too. My Frayed Edges group made some blocks and donated some orphans so I need to put them together.Several years ago, I won these churn dash blocks in a drawing at guild so I finally got them put together. The quilt will be donated to Project Linus. I've been looking through my kits and UFOs to find more quick projects because I have a short attention span right now and have also been having a lot of back pain so I can't sit very long at a time. I tell you what, getting old is not for the faint of heart.

Still Working on UFOs

You would think that by now I would have made a bit more progress on UFOs but, no, I still have quite a way to go. I have two done that I had submitted to my Frayed Edges group and one new project that was the result of a class given by Cath Evans of Quilt In A Day. This first one I called "Crazy Mixed-up Crayon Kids". It started out as a panel of different body parts that were colored with crayons, cut apart and then mixed up and sewn back together. I think I'll give it to my church so they can hang it in the nursery. It's bright and cheerful and just plain fun!


This is the top for the quilt class with Cath Evans. The Hope of Hartford block is much easier than I thought it would be and the ribbon border was amazingly simple.


This last picture is my son's quilt (minus the borders and everything else). The blocks are from a drawing plus a bunch more.

I have two more UFOs ready to be set into rows and then the rows sewn together so I'd better get going. Need to oil Felicia Featherweight before I start. She gets thirsty.

Littlle Dresses for Africa

I found the neatest site for making dresses to send to Africa for the little girls who have very little of anything. The address is www.littledressesforafrica.org/blog/. There are very good instructions for making the dresses from lengths of fabric or pillowcases. Since I have a boat load of fabric, I'm using it. I made the one above using 1/4" elastic at the neckline and double fold bias tape at the arm holes and for the ties also. It goes together quickly and would be a great project for a group or guild. Why not give it a try.