Dare to Dresden Blog Hop

I had no plans to participate in this hop. None what so ever. You see, my mind shut down, and I couldn't think of anything to do.  But in the 11th hour, I had one of those "eureka" moments. I was sitting down catching up on my blog reading, when I stumbled across this post from Sweet P Quilting and Creations.
http://sweetp-paulette.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-wheels-on-truck-go-round-and-round.html

That's when the light bulb lit. That title opened up the door in my mind, and I knew what my project was going to be.

                                    The Wheels on the Truck! 

You see my boys loved Monster Trucks when the were little. We went to just about every event there was in town. We had all the little toy Monster Trucks. We had to stop and look at every truck that might remotely be considered a Monster Truck.

 

Heck, they were even driving them at an early age.

If it wasn't the truck itself, it was tires!

 

 And there you have it, Tires!

Sweet P knew that all along.

I can do tires with Dresdens.

My ah-ha moment!

After a marathon day and night in my sewing room, it's here.

Little Boys Joys become Big Boys Toys

The truck came from my favorite scrap booking book, called 203 Paper Piecing Patterns. The book is long out of print unfortunately, but I use it all the time, not for scrap booking, but for applique designs. I love the versatility of their patterns.

Now, how about those Dresdens?

:-)

My little boys are no longer little, and monster trucks are not so big with them these days, but I will always have those memories of days gone by.

As for my oldest son... well, lets just say, its "still"all about tires. Racing slicks now. Some times you just can't take the "kid" out of anyone!

A big thanks to the wonderful Christine, from Quilt Monster in my Closet.

She was gracious enough to allow me to play at the last moment, and I am so glad I did.

Madame Samm, you've done it again. Another fabulously fun blog hop!

 

I am bowled over with inspiration from all the fabulous Dresdens. A huge thanks to all of you for opening my mind to the incredible possibilities for these lovely little and sometimes BIG dresdens.

I had no idea. 

 What I really should be saying here is "shame on all of you". I want  you to know that it's you, each and every one of you, who are going to be responsible for my UFOs still not seeing a finish. I have way to many Dresdens to play with now...

:-)

  It's give a way time. Oh boy oh joy!!  

OK, I know that was bad, but it was so fitting. LOL!

For this give a away, I want to know what you kids were crazy about, and what kind of a memory quilt/quiltie you might make.  Who knows, this might be the year we inspire each other, to make those memories come alive!

 

Now my prize!  A $20 gift certificate from Sew Lux Fabric & Gifts. I was delighted to win one of these guys from Felicia over at The Slow Quilter, on the last blog hop. I had never visited Sew Lux, but was delighted with them. They have a great fabrics and a newsletter that's geared towards our blogging world and what's, in it. The service is lightening fast! Best yet, it's like Christmas when you open your package! I can't wait to share it with YOU!

Leave me a comment, and remember you must be a follower. I will be picking a winner on Saturday Feb 2.

Don't forget to visit my fellow bloggers today, or last day of the hop.

And a big thanks to everyone who inspired me sew very much! My mind is no longer in a fog, over Dresdens!

:-)

January 31^th, 2013

Quilting Prolifically

Patchouli Moon Studio
 

Mountain Quiltworks

In Ga
 

Dachsies with Moxie

Color My World

Shepody Mountain Crafter

Christa Quilts

Moosestash Quilting

Lavender Quilts

Never 2 Many Quilts

Cathy's Chatter

Madame Samm

Clothes and Crafts

Here Fishy Fishy

Or Wonderfully Fishy I should say...

Have your visited Fat Cat Patterns lately? (yes it's linked for you)  Well, this is the new BOM for this year.  Best yet it's free. Sindy is generously offering up one block a month, for this cutie.   For those of us who just can't wait, there is a place you can purchase the complete pattern. I know it's late in the month, so if your interested you better hurry on over to get your January block before it's gone!  :-)

I was lamenting over my growing pile of batting scraps, when this pattern came into my line of sight. It was perfect for a Quilt As You Go method, so I could use up some of my scraps. I was equally delighted to find that I had enough fabric for the front and the back in my never ending stacks of fabrics too, so I had to purchase not one thing to make this quilt.  Yeah!!! All my bargain shopping is starting to pay off!

This quilt was a perfect place to start re-thinking about free motion quilting again too. I fell back on what my first instructor taught us. Use your fabrics to dictate the direction you quilt. They will talk to you. Oh yeah, I thought she was crazy! But I have to admit now, she wasn't at all. So if any of you are thinking I have slipped a cog in my brain, I am going to share a bit of the path, my fabrics lead me down.

Here is a piece of the fabric I chose for one of my fishies.

You can see how it leads your eye.

With a simple straight stitch you get this fun quilty effect on the fish!

 

 

In these photos you can clearly see how the design spoke to me.

 

Simple swirls.

Dots

Swirls on fins, and checkerboard fish.

Strings.

Plaid.

While this fabric was a bit more difficult, straight lines seemed to define it a bit.

The texture of more straight lines.

Rain drops.

All very simple once we let the fabrics speak.

 

I had so much fun listening to my fabrics, that my mind opened up a bit more.

 

 

While putting my blocks together I got to thinking about how babies love texture. The different feelings on their little fingers stimulates their brains. So I decided to change up my Quilt As You Go (QAYG) method a bit. Rather than making my quilt lie completely flat like a regularly quilt would be, I cut my strips to attach the blocks together, for the back a little smaller and pulled those seams in to where they overlapped. The top strips I made the regular size and hand stitched them down on my seam line giving it a bit of puffy-ness. You can clearly see that my quilt does not lay flat, but has a delightful texture to it. I added a line of wavy stitching thru all my joining strips once it was all put together.

 

If you have never tried a QAYG quilt, here are some great tutorials you might want to look at.

http://www.sewwequilt.com/2011/03/quilt-as-you-go-qayg.html

 

http://www.quiltingboard.com/tutorials-f10/ditters-string-quilt-t60764.html

            http://lifeisbeautifulbom.wordpress.com/quilt-as-you-go-tutorial/

Here is the back.

You can get a good look at the wavy lines

I stitched down thru the joining strips.

 

Sindy's pattern is a total of 15 blocks. She added a few extras for pillows, or wall hangings, etc. I chose to put them all in my quilt, but it needed a little more width to keep it symmetrical. I chose a simple border on one side only to accomplish that. With the help of my trusty Accuquilt "GO" Baby, I was able to cut out a variety of circles to jazz it up a bit and really bring the quilt together.

 

 

So, now hurry on over to Fat Cat

http://fatcatpatterns.com/BoMs.html

and start collecting your patterns.

 

This month's is...

Who I have named Herbie!

 

From all the others,

Gladys

Penelope

Oscar

Mulligan

Leroy

Sherry

Goldie

Candie

Stretch

Wilbur

Slick

Georgette

Millie

 

And last by not least

Burt

We wish you happy stitchin!

And by the way, you can name your fishy's anything you like!

 

:-)

 

 

 

What I've been working on.

With the "Words" blog hop over, I started a new project. It was one I had no intention of doing, but after seeing all the fabulous quilts that are popping up in blog land, I was having a change of heart.

Easy Street!  I know your seen it, especially if your a Bonnie Hunter fan.  I watched the progress of everyone, and downloaded the steps as they were posted, but I still haven't finished my "Carolina Christmas" quilt yet.  That was ??? years ago now...

Enter BEAQUILTER!  That dog gone Bea. She just blew me away with her version of the quilt and I knew I was sunk!  My resolve to finish up what I had started was over!  Shame on her. (You can click on her name and see just why I was so bowled over)

So I put my head down and the petal to the metal, so to speak, and in 7 days I got my very own Easy Street done.

It's pieced, quilted and bound!! Most of the fabrics were in my stash, but I did have go purchase about 6 lime greens. Lime and purple are my favorite colors, and I was a little surprised to find that I had used all the greens up. Many of the fabrics had been in my scrap pile for years. You gotta love when you can put the last of them to rest and make room for new scraps!

Here it is already on the bed. Me thinks, it's time to invest in some wild purple pillowcases!  What do you think?

Hey Bea, my husband wants to "thank you" for not having meals for a week, and my not cleaning house, or grocery shopping, banking, bill paying, you know all those wifely things I should have been doing!!  But really now, you do have to share the blame with Bonnie Hunter, don't cha?  LOL!!!!  And I am good with it all.  Wink Wink!

                                       

And the Winner is,,,

Mr Random.org tells me that # 38 is the winner of a Senior Delinquent pattern of their very own!

          That means that you JCnNC are the lucky one!

Here's what Judy had to say...

JCnNCJanuary 10, 2013 at 7:23 AM

This makes me so happy - wonderful work and I love it. Love stopping by your blog and have been a follower for awhile. Judy C

I've sent you an email Judy and will get it in the mail asap! 

This hop has been so inspirational, that we are all winners. Thanks to everyone who participated. Your projects were the best. I also want to send out a big thanks to all who took the time out of their day to read our blogs. I know I can speak for all of us, when I tell you, it makes our day!

A big shout out to Madame Samm and Linda, whom without, we wouldn't be what we are today!

      Congratulations Judy! Can't wait to hear from you!


Now on a completely unrelated side note. Blogger is having issues uploading photos yet.  I can share from experience, that if I access blogger thru another platform other than Internet Explorer, I have no issues.  Mozilla Firefox is a free down loadable platform and the one I have switched to. It came recommended to me, by a friend in New Mexico, who ran the largest law firm in the state. She tells me it is much more secure than Explorer. I have no knowledge of security, but I can tell you, I have no issues when I access my blog thru Mozilla. I am sure there are other platforms out there, but I am very happy with Firefox. 
Here is the link, if your interested in it. Hope it helps resolve some of the issues we are experiencing!  :-)

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/fx/#desktop

In a Word Blog Hop

In a Word...  Well now, that word for me, spells Trouble I am afraid!

                                   Trouble with a capital T that is!

                                      Who's afraid of them cops????
              Not me!  After all, I'm just a sweet lil ole lady. Harmless at that!

Ahhhhhh yes, break out your rattle cans and lets spray paint a building!!  After all, who would ever suspect little ole ladies like us!!!!!!!    Am I right???   LOL!!

Is this just the cutest pattern you have ever seen? Somehow it managed to get lost in my sewing room and I went on "quite" a mission to find it.  It's from Jukebox Quilts (it's linked for you).  They are the ones who did that "great" quilt pattern of the guys sleeping on a bench in front of the quilt shop. I'm sure you've all see it. Their patterns sure make me laugh. Especially this one!

For the spray painted building, they suggested using Tsukineko markers, but I decided to give colored pencils a try. (mostly cause I had them on hand) There was a little trick to it, that I will share in case you decided you have to "paint" a building or two yourselves. Now, you know I will deny I ever told you a thing if you get caught!!   hehehe

First I transferred the design onto my fabric with a pencil.

Then I fused a piece of freezer paper to the back.

That gave me some stability when coloring. 

(gotta love the shadow of me taking the photo)

 

Keep the iron close by. I found I was needing to re-fuse the layers frequently. 

Finish it all off with quilting that makes it look like a brick wall.

 

So there you have it. 

 

A self portrait of a Senior Delinquent!

But really officer it wasn't me!

:-) 

My give-a -way is going to be a copy of this pattern for your very own.

Leave me a comment, and you must be a follower for this one! 

I will pick my winner on Wednesday Jan 16th, the last day of the hop!

Good luck to you all!

And for heavens sake, keep out of trouble!!

A big round of applause to our wonderful hostess, the "lovely lalalala" Linda, who worked tirelessly, to keep us all in line.  And of course, that Energizer Bunny Madame Samm. I know she stays awake nights dreaming up more fun blog hops for us. I sure like the way her mind works!

Now, don't forget to stop by and visit my other blogging buddies today. They all have some great things to share too! 

Thursday, January 10

Life in the Scrapatch (Pat B.)

Just Sew Sue (Sue B.)

Nati's Little Things (Nati)

Amy's Crafty Shenanigans (Amy)

Pig Tales and Quilts (Thearica)

Scrappy 'n Happy (Jess R.)

Little Mushroom Cap (Amira A.)

Moosestash Quilting (Joan K.)

Sowing Stitches (Beulah aka. Carol)

Just Quilt It (Kathy G.)

Quilted Table

As I mentioned in my previous post, I am helping moderate the Quilted Table Yahoo group.  Our January Challenge table toppers are posted and ready for you to have some fun. They are personal challenges, we just ask you share photos when your done, so we can all be inspired. 

So to get you inspired, I have posted the 2 toppers for this month.

The top one is a quick and easy way to use up left over strips of fabrics or perfect for Jelly Rolls.

This bottom one is a bit more complex, but the combination of starch, careful cutting and piecing and it's quite do-able.

Please join us at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/quilted_table/     We would love to have you.



Also, I have in the past bragged about how much I love "The Quiltery" a wonderful Aussie website with fabulous machine embroidery designs, and quilt patterns. I got an email from them today that they are offering 20% off memberships to their clubs. That makes the Embroidery club on $48 a year and the pattern club $32 a year. If your a US person, the rate of exchange adds less than $5 to those amounts.  It's a wonderful deal, so I thought I would pass it along. You can find them here at
http://www.thequiltery.com.au/index.htm
                      

                                                               Happy Stitchin!