Happy 2013

I am wishing all my friends and family a very happy and prosperous new year. I look forward to 2013 and the many quilting and sewing projects I have planned.

Over the last couple of months I have come to the realization that I don't really enjoy blogging. I've never aspired to be a writer. I believe I would rather spend that time on other pursuits. So, you won't be seeing more posts from me here. In the meantime, I will enjoy seeing what all of you are posting on your sites. You are such an inspiration!

Little Christmas Projects

My daughter has promised not to peek at my blog posts between now and Christmas. I have been making some cute little Christmas gifts for her and my granddaughters. They are so cute I could not wait to share. These were fun projects to make. Think I'll make some more tomorrow. 

What have I been making? I've made snappy bags and tissue holders. I used this tutorial here for the tissue holders. There are lots of tutorials online for the snappy bags. They use pieces of cheap metal tape measures for the closures. 

M's favorite color is red and she almost 18. I thought the red, black, and white was sophisticated enough for her. Here's a close-up of her tissue holder.

S loves the combo of brown and green and she loves plaids. I love plaids. S could not believe the brown/green combo is not one I care for. But, I found these prints in my stash. I think she'll like this. 

Months ago (maybe longer) I bought some batiks. I was just interested in the colors mostly. But, later I was looking through my stash and realized that one was of a blue, sunflower design. My daughter loves sunflowers. Remember this wallhanging I made for her? Anyway, I used batiks to make my daughter a bag and tissue holder. I made her bag shorter and wider than the others. The rosy red is the perfect contrast.

What fun things are you making this holiday season?

Loved, Not Perfect... and Slow Sunday Stitching

Do you remember the first quilt you made? Has your quilting been influenced by another quilt maker? Over the years I have made a stab at becoming a quilter. It is only this year that I really consider myself a quilter. Why? Not from a lack of trying, I can assure you. I've made a couple of crib quilts years ago. I would really hate for anyone to look at the machine quilting very closely. This was before I discovered the use of a walking foot. Anyone been there and done that? But, these quilts are loved. You can view two of them here.  My granddaughter took a Sharpie marker to her Sunbonnet Sue when she was about 3 years old. But, at nearly 18 years old, she still has and loves that quilt.

My mother's quilts were my first knowledge of hand-made quilts. My family has always loved my mother's quilts. They are strictly scrap quilts made from our left over dress fabrics. There were four of us girls so there were plenty of scraps. I recently inherited a few of her quilts. They are much loved. They would not win a prize at the fair, but I am thrilled to have them. The fan quilt shown below is my favorite. I love the royal blue and sunny yellow. One of the fans says "Vote". LOL

My first try at making a full sized bed quilt was back in the mid-1990's. I thought scrap quilts were passe'. (I laugh at that now.) So, I went to Walmart and bought fabrics just for that quilt. They are not great fabrics, but are 100% cotton. So, that was a plus. I'm pretty sure the seams were more like 3/8" rather than a scant 1/4". I machine-pieced the quilt and started hand-quilting it, just as my mother did. The backing was solid white, cheap muslin...just like my mother always used. And I was intending to just lap the backing over the edge of the quilt to finish it. My mother never used an actual binding on her quilts.

Some where along the way, the backing shifted just enough that I wasn't going to have enough to lap over. I became discouraged and stopped. I put it away and eventually it found it's way to a mobile home on my husband's family home place that's used for storage. Friday I went and retrieved it. The fabric really is cheap and the mice had nibbled at the edge of it. There was a couple yellow stains on the backing. The safety pins I used to baste it were rusting. I was shocked to realize that 2/3's of the hand-quilting was done. Believe it or not, I washed that unfinished quilt.yesterday. I took out all the rusty pins after it was dried. I then re-pinned (new pins) all the unquilted parts. The batting is polyester... like my mother used. I intend to repair and finish quilting this quilt. It was my first and deserves love. Even if it will not ever win a blue (or any color) ribbon, it will keep someone warm at night.

Here is the quilt. It is a Rail Fence pattern set on point. Colors are pink, med-light blue and navy. I'll bet someone in my family will love it as much as I love my mother's quilts.

This is a bad photo of the side of the quilt I apoligize. It is of one of the set in pieces. 

This will be my slow Sunday stitching for a while. You can see what others are slow stitching on Kathy's blog. Link up what you are slow stitching.

Slow Sunday Stitching and a Finish!

Today I hand-stitched the binding of the Hugs and Kisses quilt. Well, actually I began last night and finished today.  I decided to go with the lavender 1930's print for the binding. What do you think?

Here is the entire quilt spread out on a full size bed. This quilt is 50"x50".

 I still think it is too big for a crib quilt. This quilt seems more toddler size than crib quilt size. My new great-grand baby will have a half sister who is less than 2 years old. I am thinking of giving it to her and making another crib quilt. What little girl wouldn't love a quilt with lots of pinks and purples and bunnies and kitties? here is the backing.

Today I suddenly remembered a crib quilt tutorial I saw during the Dots on Dots blog hop a couple months back. It was designed by Julie of The Crafty Quilter blog. It is a pinwheel quilt, but she has a unique way of making the flying geese pieces. Plus, I love the bright colors she used along with a dotty black. I hope I can use some Dilly Dally fabric I have on hand for the pinwheel blocks. It has the same colors in the collection. We'll see. But, I can't wait to try out her technique. You can check out her tutorial here.

You can check out the slow Sunday stitching at Kathy's blog here.

Hugs and Kisses

This month I have been very busy. I drove down to west Tennessee to visit with my mother and have a Thanksgiving lunch with her at her assisted living facility. I think she really enjoyed my sister Karen and me eating with her. Mother didn't recognize me when I first arrived, but soon realized who I was. I know the day will come when she no longer knows who we are and that will be a sad time for us all. Momma smiles all the time...except, of course, for when we were trying to take this photo. That's Karen on the left and me on the right.

Then, I came home and cooked Thanksgiving dinner for my hubby, son, and myself. This was the first time we were home for Thanksgiving in several years. I enjoyed cooking all our family favorites. We had chicken instead of turkey, which was fine with all of us.

I have done a lot of sewing, too. I made a tee shirt pillow for my step-daughter. It was a super bowl tee that belonged to her late husband. It had special memories for her. I loved how it turned out and then forgot to take a photo. Maybe later.

The bigger project is the Hugs and Kisses quilt I'm making for my first great-grandchild. She is due to arrive in January. These blocks have been so easy to piece. I like how they turned out. But, I must say, after using the 1930's reproduction prints for 2 quilts in a row, I've tired of them. I may save the floral and geometric prints and give away the "kiddy" prints.

I was not at all sure about the size of this quilt. It's about 50" square. But, I decided to just go ahead with it. I am leaving off the border. I found a pretty pink printed fabric for the backing. I am debating whether to bind the quilt with some lavender 1930's print or use the same pink as the backing. what do you think?

Here is the top spread out on a bed. See the row in the top left corner. That's actually the bottom. I thought the bottom row was too bland. So, today I took out the yellow print in the center of that row and replaced it with the square pictured below. I like it much better. All the other rows had a mix of pastels and vibrant colors. Now, this row "pops", too.

This afternoon I have put the sandwich together and it is waiting to be pin basted. I hope to have this quilt finished before next week. Lots of other projects waiting!

I Won! I Won!

There is always some type give away going on in the quilting blog world. I have tried 100's of times to win in the past year. But, this week I got very lucky indeed! I won a copy of Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks, vol 6 magazine. It goes on sale this Tuesday. Last Monday I was checking out the blogs of quilters who had blocks featured in the magazine. Sonja at Artisania asked for us to tell her a joke or funny story to enter. Mine was chosen! You can check it out here. And, I didn't realize until today that I had won. I can't wait to get my hands on my copy! This is the cover.

Last month I was very unmotivated. But, after my Music City Quilt Guild meeting this past week, I could feel my creative juices coming back. We always have so many gorgeous quilts displayed. This time members brought in quilts that were designed by Bonnie K. Hunter. She will be teaching classes at my guild next April. Hope I can get in one of those classes.

I spent the last couple of days kitting up some quilts. One is Spools by Camille Roskelley of Thimble Blossoms. I have seen lots of spool quilts, but really love this one that looks like a child (or I) stacked them. I am using scraps from my stash for the spools of thread. The one I cut out is a 50"x63" throw size. Here is a photo of it from Camille's website. Don't you love it!

By the time I finished cutting out the 140-1 1/4" squares of white background fabric, I decided I wasn't ready to tackle that quilt just yet. So, then, I cut out a baby quilt that should go pretty quickly, I hope. I used some of my 1930's reproduction fabrics for this special quilt.  It will be for my first great-grandchild. She is due to make her appearance in January, 2013.

That was a lot of cutting, especially the white backgrounds on both quilts. Guess I better start stitching this week.

Simplifying My Life

Lately I've been giving a lot of thought to simplifying my life. Of course I've tried to do this before. Usually I would start with trying to declutter my home. But, my husband is a pack rat, bordering on being a hoarder. (He disagrees with that assessment. LOL). This often makes decluttering an unpleasant task. Plus, I have lived in this house since we married 21 years ago. He has lived here twice as long. It's an old house with little storage. I do what I can.

I have come to the conclusion that the best approach for me right now is to declutter my mind. How?

Smartphone. I'm starting with my smartphone. Do I really need to see my email or the internet or Facebook no matter where I am? Just a couple years ago I didn't realize that was a necessity. Now it is always at the ready. I do like the convenience of the cell phone.

And, why do I feel that I can't just print out a coupon for Michael's or Joann's? Not long ago I drove 15 miles to Joann's to use an awesome 60% off coupon on my smartphone. I had accidentally left my cellphone on my desk so, no coupon. If I had printed it out and put it in my purse as I do other coupons I would not have had to drive home and back to Joann's again. Like my friends and many family members, I am going to downgrade to a basic phone. No bells or whistles. However, Verizon is charging me $30 for the "upgrade" fee.

Facebook. I wish I could just give that up, but I do love the photos of grandkids and trips. It's the best way to keep up with family now. If a lot of family and friends need to know some info, you only have to make one post and everyone knows. What I do not like is that some people push their political or religious agendas. Some ideas are better discussed face to face. I feel that Facebook should be fun and bring people together, not make people feel bad. I may weed out a few "friends" who more like just "acquaintances". I am certainly going to limit my access to Facebook.

Internet. Luckily, I have not become an addict of Pinterest. I do stay on the internet waaay too much. I am going to try to find a way to limit my screen time. We will see how that goes. I've been addicted to the internet for 20 years, so this could take a while. Hee!

Blogs. First of all, I "follow" too many blogs. Many blogs I follow because it was a requirement to try and win a give-away. I never won anything, though. I am going to pare down the list of blogs I follow. Some blogs I do really enjoy!

My own blog. I considered giving up this blog. I find myself pushing to find something to blog about. I feel bad when I don't have a new project to showcase. I need to stop stressing over it. For now, I will try to post something at least once a month. It may not be a project. It may just be something random. If I am still stressing in a few months, I will just let this blog go. It should be fun and not a chore. 

I will continue those activities that I enjoy. I am so inspired after my monthly quilt guild meeting. And, I love, love my book club. There are only 3 of us in the group, but we have met each month for 2 years. I would not miss that...and I never have.

How do you simplify your life?