Farmer's Wife and Civil War BOW

I've been playing the catch up game....

Here are some Farmer's Wife blocks...

And here are some Civil War Block of the Week (http://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/) blocks.

I swear, I could stay in my sewing room for weeks. Just send in meals and I promise to shower daily. Please? Sigh.....

Vote for Snoodles and Moses!!

Be sure and vote for the 2011 Pets Contest at SewCalGal - today is the last day!

Link:




I, of course, am partial to entry #55, Moses, in the CAT Category, a fabulous feline owned by my sister (Snoodles). There are some awesome prizes to be won by both the pets/owners, and those voting, and a number of ways to enter! Good luck to all!

Fairy Face Designs is giving away a Go! Baby!

FairyFaceDesigns is hosting a Go! Baby giveaway! Check it out!!

Drawing is Sunday, August 7th! HURRY!!

I want one!!

A Go! Giveaway!

LittleCottageComforts is giving a way a Baby GO! and three dies.....


Check it out!! I want the stars, the hearts and the Sunbonnet Sue dies. It was hard to narrow it down, but those are my three favorites.


She will be closing the giveaway at the end of this week, I think!


Good Luck!

Hands2Help Charity Quilt

My Hands2Help Charity Quilt is done! This quilt is going to Romania and hopefully will make some little one a bit warmer next winter, and give them something bright and cheerful to warm their hearts too!



















You can read about the Hands2Help Charity Challenge here. I hope this challenge is repeated again next year! It was fun and such a good reason to spend time in my Happy Place (my sewing room!).

Here's a last look at a couple of the cute dinosaur faces!
















They made me smile the whole time I was making the quilt! Thank you Kathy, of TroublesomeCreekQuilts for picking such awesome fabrics to exchange with me!

:)

Happy Fourth!

We had a quiet Fourth of July weekend. First I worked.... filling an entire Lawn Garbage bin to the top with weeds and overhanging lily fronds from our front border that were choking out the gardenia bushes. I yanked a bunch of dead petunias. Then I turned the soil a bit and worked in a couple bags of compost. And then I planted vincas. Then I collapsed. Then my lower back registered it's disapproval of the whole morning's events. Ow! I'm getting to old for this craziness!































When I was semi-recovered, I decorated the front porch a bit.
















Then, I typed. Ugh. Enough said.


Then, I played! Sunday, the gang gathered at the Orange Quilt Bee and enjoyed a class with our favorite Teacher Extraordinairre, Janet. I had missed going and I managed to go two weeks in a row! I will wait now, for the next time there is a single class and then catch up with everyone again! It was fun!






































Monday, I got up to the sewing room mid day, and I finished up the above two Sylvia blocks.

G6 and G7 are done!

Once I get done with this row, I have to devote some serious attention to completing a couple of flimsies. My Hands 2 Help quilt needs to be quilted and bound. And Dad called and said they sure could use a couple of quilts to auction for the Yellowstone Bible College fundraiser. His friend, Dr. Bill, is the president of the college and was telling Dad about the auction. Dad and I picked two from the stack of flimsies he and I have waiting, and I will quilt those and send them on up to him. I told Michael I need the dining room table for a month! As long as I am done before he starts his Master's program in August, it will be fine. Once his classes start, I think I can kiss my dining room table good bye for a Long Time! It will be his school desk!

Last thing I did tonight was make a Christmas present for a certain young man I know, who loves to barbeque.... It is an apron and this is what I put on the front of it. (Design from Emblibrary.com.)











HeeHee!





Back to the grindstone tomorrow, but it looks like it will be light. Maybe I'll be sewing by lunchtime!

A few more blocks...

Let's see, first is Sylvia's Bridal Quilt... I got G2, G3, G4 and G5 done.... Yay!

Then I moved on to the Civil War Block of the Week that Barbara Brachman is offering, that Yvette and I had been eyeing for weeks (here), because, I really and truly NEEDED another UFO project.

Yvette had a really good idea that since they are now up to week 26, they are half done. So if we do two blocks a week, say #1 and #26, and next week #2 and #27..... we might just catch up at the end and finish on time.

I love these blocks. They are a nice change in both size and difficulty from the Sylvia blocks! Here are my first few blocks....

And look what I tripped over in my garden today!

A 2 pound zucchini!

It's almost too hot for this type of lettuce to grow, I think this might be the last batch I get of this variety. Salad and zucchini - Dinner's almost planned!

Learning Curves....

I got my last two blocks done on my current row of my Farmer's Wife quilt....






























Then I put the Farmer's Wife stuff into a drawer, and pulled out my Sylvia's Bridal Quilt. I am going to conquer row G.

First up was G-1, a block that the book did not give me a foundation paper piecing pattern for. No way was I going to tackle this one with just bits of fabric.... there were bias seams involved and... it was 'Y-Seam Hell' to boot! "Y-seam" and "six-inch block" should not be used in the same sentence, don't you agree?














I used the EQ program and tried to make my own foundation paper. There was a bit of a learning curve getting the finished paper piecing patterns to print. Wasn't a scaling issue - it was something else weird on my computer and once I deleted a few programs (hope they weren't important!), things printed just fine (I thought). Turns out it was a bit on the small size. I lost a half inch approximately, all around.....

So I slapped on thin borders and put it in the "finished" bag. No way was I going to redo that block!

On to G-2!!

Come on Weekend!

I have a list a mile long and I'm so ready for a three day weekend. I'll work a bit in the mornings, but the afternoons are for fun!

I put some side pieces on two of the squares for the Hands2Help Charity Quilt....
































You can click on my OleFrogEyes widget to see how it's going to look, when I get it done. I have some great fabric from my H2H partner to use for a border, and I'm thinking a simple black binding would frame it nicely. Or, since the quilt will meet size suggestions without the border, perhaps I will cut the border fabric in such a way that it could be a binding, with the design on the bias.... Decisions, decisions.


Hopefully this weekend, the Red Hot Sew'nSews will be meeting at the Orange Quilt Bee on Monday for a free sew! If we're able to meet, I'm bringing this project to work on. :)

Not much to show, but some progress!

In the past few days I've done a few more FW blocks....

And a few more blocks for my Hands2Help Charity quilt. Here's another cute dragon, framed with his star block.

I got the rest of the blocks cut, and everything stacked and organized. I'll have 16 squares, each with a varied border. The quilt will be 60 inches square when I'm done, which is the size requested. This has been a fun one to work on. I don't have any grandchildren, but I would Sew buy some of this fabric and keep it to make one of these if/when the time comes. I love the pattern and it will be a keeper for sure!

I haz big purse!

My old purse was tattered, torn, mended and just sad looking. Okay, so I switched to another one I made from fabric I love.... but I'm just not loving the purse. It doesn't hold things as conveniently or hold as much, has no pockets, and while it was a fun purse to make, I'm just not feeling the love.

Here's the one I'm not loving...



















I still love that fabric, dog gone it!

Anyway, I wanted to try the Charm Tote pattern I got at Long Beach last year. At Easter, one of my prizes during the Easter Egg hunt at the Orange Quilt Bee was a charm pack! I got home with the one I picked out and raced upstairs to peek at my stash. Sure enough, I had a matching charm pack from another giveaway, from the same line. That meant I had enough to make the Charm Tote!

And for free!

It took me two evenings, because I kept getting sidetracked with NCIS episodes, but, I have a nice big bag that I really like!



















It holds EVERYTHING, and has convenient pockets inside, etc. I even had enough charms to piece the handles out of charms.





































Whoo hoo! I'm eyeing a few other charm packs and getting ideas! This one is more fall colors, I think. I would love to cut some red/white/blue charms and make one for summer. And I think I can score those right out of my stash. Yay for another frugal purse!

After finishing it, I moved on to a few more Farmer's Wife blocks.

I'm going to finish this row, and then I'm going to get serious about the next row on my Sylvia's Bridal Sampler. Farmer's Wife seems easier to me, but I will conquer the next Sylvia row. Or else!!

P.S. Look what lives at my Home Depot now!

The guys in the garden section put out feed for them every night. They've been living there over a year! I'm always glad to see them. Someday, I'll have a few of my own!

Gardening and Sewing

A few pix of the garden... this is the terraced portion on the slope between our house and the neighbor.














Squash (yellow crookneck, yellow straight, zucchini, Mexican, etc!) In the back next to the fence, pole green beans which will climb (hopefully) the barely discernable net trellis stapled to fence. And near each fence post is a very tiny tomato plant which I will cage and tie (the cage) to the fence post. Hope springs!
















My peas have found the trellis (I am SO late with the peas this year - hoping they produce before Blast Furnace Season bears down on us!).














One of Michael's roses. The name escapes me. I just call her Pretty!














And tonight's Farmer's Wife block.

It was a good day! :)