March 31, 2012

Can you believe that April is literally right around the corner?  Here it is the last day of March and the weather is still wonky.  Yes wonky...it's my favorite word ... for now.

I am helping a friend do some t-shirt quilts.  She hates to do the ironing and cutting so I will be doing that to help "catch her up" and then she will put it all together.  This is good for me since I want to do a couple of also.  I have a variety of t-shirts from NIU that were given to me or I bought and don't wear any more.  I thought perhaps I should turn them into a quilt.  The other quilt that I was thinking of doing is from t-shirts that my friend sent to me from his travels in the army.  I won't have a lot of them so that might be more of a wall hanging size but still all this cutting and fusing interface will help later down the road.  I do think that I need to get another template.  Perhaps a 14" or 16" one since the blocks will end up being 12.5" unfinished.  If I use a 14" or 16" block it might cut down on some waste that is currently happening.

On the other hand, I have scraps of t-shirts, some fused and some not fused, to figure out what to do.  My friend Shelley might be able to use them in her "angry birds" but I have an idea brewing around in my silly head for some of the larger pieces.  I'll let all of you know after I try something out and see if it works.

Oops.  That's all the time I have for now.  Time to switch gears and start to think about gaming tonight.  Catch you all later.

Hugs.

classes

Oops.  Almost forgot to tell you.  I received a raise at work so am treating myself to two classes at the Acorn Quilt Shop in Rockford, IL.  The classes aren't until May and June but I am both excited and intimidated about them.  Intimidated about ....sit down Kat so you don't die from shock from this statement... the FREE MOTION QUILTING one.  Yep, you read that right..  I'm going to take a class on it.  9-12 for two Saturdays in a row.  The excited part comes from the other class.  I'm going to finally take a hand applique class.  I was told it was needle-turn so I'll see what they decide to teach. 

That was it.  You may resume your normally scheduled life now.

Finished something - finally

I know it's been a bit sine I've posted that I've finished something but I can do that today.

Actually I finished my test blocks but you don't get to see those until way later since they aren't published yet.  But I *can* show you the mini wall hanging that I did for mom.  It's a good thing I finished it because she was asking about it last week.  It's surprising what she remembers and when.  This is to go above her bulletin board of pictures.  She already has one that I did at Christmas time so she wanted something else to put on the other side.  Perhaps I'll be able to take a picture to show everybody after it is up.

Here's how it turned out.  The pink floral fabric is some of the fabric that my boss brought back from Ghana for me.  As soon as I saw it I knew that I would use it for mom's mini.

My Mother The Thief

Isn't that a bad thing to say?  My mother is a thief.  I have to admit it and acknowledge it since when she takes things it is either from the nursing home she is in or from me.  She thinks that my brother and I need all those cloth napkins and white wash clothes that the nursing home has.  Each week we accept it from her and then on the way of the nursing home, drop them in the laundry bin.  It's comical really.  BUT...yes that was in all caps...it's not so comical when she insists on borrowing my lipstick and then instead of giving it back puts it in her pocket.

She knows that we wear close to the same shade.of lipstick so she said she needed it more than I did.  It's awful hard to argue with that since *I* can get out to the store and she can't any more.  It's also hard to tell a 92 year old she can't have something as small as lipstick when it makes her smile.

So today I am without lipstick.  Wonder what she would do if I showed up at the nursing home and took my lipstick back.  I wouldn't be surprised if that was her plan.  She is always asking us to visit more often.  :)

All this, of course, is said in fun.  Yes mom did steal my lipstick but I will go out this week and buy another one replace it.  I usually keep two extra on hand for when she does things like this.

Just thought I'd share some of the news.

Speaking of news....Northern Illinois University finally sent out a notice that the civil service employees received a raise and it is retro'd back to January 1, 2012.  YAY me!

Inspiration.....or lack thereof

I have been so tired lately that I haven't wanted to work on anything.  I know I have to and I will but I really don't want to.  Why has it been like this?

Oh I don't know.  Lots of reasons ... or would that be excuses.  Yesterday there was some stress at work(more like a week of it) but that is starting to die down a little bit.  Then I picked up the bronze plaque that the military did since Tony was a vet.  It was much bigger and heavier than we thought it would be.  We will get it out to the graves eventually...before Memorial Day.  There isn't a rush since he isn't out there yet either.

I do have to paint the urns out at the cemetery.   They haven't been painted in years and desperately need it.  Perhaps I will see when Kerm can go out with me.  It's going to be his job to "install" Tony's marker.  :) 

I did make headway in the test blocks that I need to get done within the next two weeks.  One done and two to go.  The second one is fused on and just needs to be stitched.  Haven't done anything with the third block yet and it looks to be the most complicated.  I also need to help a friend with doing a T-shirt quilt.  She has so many T-shirts that she needs cut and interfacing on that she is paying me to help her do it.  I don't mind.  I wanted to learn how to do them anyway.  :)  I want to do two T-shirt quilts myself.  One out of the T-shirts that my friend Dan gave me when he was overseas in Iraq.  The other one will be from T-shirts from NIU.  I am not wearing them so I might as well put them to use somehow!

Happy National Quilting Day

So what are you working on?  I need to do some icky cleaning before I get to do some crafting.  But I did finally manage to get better pictures of the Ghana fabric so here they are and also I received my snowmen back from the snowmen swap I was working on.  Lots of stuff to scroll through today.  Enjoy.

First is the Ghana Fabric.  This first two have the yard stick on them so that my friend Shelley can see how big they are.  When I find a good backing fabric for it I will send it to her to do on her Long Arm.

It was funny to see patterns when I opened up the fabric.  I didn't think that this black and white had a border on it when it was folded up.

This fabric is heavy and I think it might be made into a tote or something. I have never done one of those so might farm that out also...not sure yet.  Another quilting friend of mine said I might be able to use duck cloth of similar weight to work with it.  They call it Holland cloth (according to my boss) but when I did some research, I think the Holland cloth actually refers to Holland dyes are that used in it.

Any idea what to use with this one?  Some of us can see rabbits and other animals in it..  Perhaps I should have put it first since it is St Patrick's Day?  LOL.

Orange and Black.  Not sure what I'll use it for but the design was unusual and I kind of like it

This one I love.  Not sure when it will get cut but it actually is more deep blue than black.

What it looks like folded up and......

what is looks like unfolded!

Kente cloth

Let the snowmen begin!!!!!!  The red scraf one is the one I did.

As you can see, all the snowmen were appliqued but there were a variety of applique methods used.

Another thing that was interesting is that we all managed to use different background fabric and patterns.

Hmmm.  It seems that two Snowmen are shy and hiding.  I will have to look them up and post a picture of them later.

Well I had better get off of the computer and start some cleaning if I want to do crafting today.  I hope everybody has a delightful day.

Zentangle

Zentangle - doodle art for grown ups.  At least that is MY take on it.  I just did a small square today.   Don't expect too much out of it but it was still fun.  I have a book and I know there are a lot of youtube vids on it etc.  so I will learn some other things.  I started off doing the moon walk (no not Michael Jackson's...the Zentangle one) and then things just sort of took off from there. 

I might be in trouble

What i might be in trouble for?  I just received the April issue of American Patchwork & Quilting magazine.  I found a couple of projects in there that I liked so they went on my to do list.  Not at the top but still they made it to the to do list.

I might not make this as designed but I did like how it showed off the applique parts to it.  The quarter squares might turn into Half Square Triangles too.  On the other hand I might ask somebody else to do the piecing part and I'll do the applique part.  Who knows.  I will probably change my mind 4 to 6 times before I get to work on it.  LOL.

This next one will be done sooner or at least a block of it will be done sooner since it is also a tutorial on how to do back basting.  I've wanted to learn how to do that method so this is a good time to do it.

I also received the April/May Quilters Newsletter magazine and found a couple of things in there that I liked.  This next one I like because of the border.  I doubt that I will make it as listed because I'm not fond of the baskets (they are a pain to do) but I will keep the picture so that it will remind me of some possibilities for borders.

Then, of course, there is this next one.  I love this but need to learn how to do some of the applique better in order to get it right..  This one will definitely be made hopefully in 2012 but if not it will go on the to do list for 2013.

Another goodie I received in the mail today was this book.  I don't know if I will ever make anything in it since i do not like to do piecing but I do like the background and information about the era.  If nothing else it will stay with me for informational reading.

Doesn't that all sound like a lot of things that can get me in trouble?

I am proud of myself.  I have gone through some of the patterns that I had printed out and will be getting rid of them.  They might go to friends but I'm not sure yet.

Have a great day everybody.  Time for me to switch thinking from crafting to gaming.  I have my face to face gaming group tonight. 

Fabric from Ghana arrived!

My boss, Lyndon, goes to Ghana every year.  While he is there he tries to bring me back fabric.  This year he had a little guidance since he figured out how to send pictures of the fabric stalls so that I would have a little idea of what I wanted.  Here is what he brought back for me.  The pink fabric I am going to use on mom's mini wall hanging.  She loves pink and wanted flowers so I thought it would be terrific.I don't know what I will use the other fabric for.  He did bring me back some Kente cloth which is terrific and totally unexpected.  It's very much in demand  so I was thrilled with that. We had a nice conversation going down memory lane with the one pattern which reminds us of the Dashiki's (sp?) of the 70s.  I even had a tunic top that I wore with almost an exact match to it.  Of course being I didn't call it that since being white and raised in a rural community I didn't even know what a Dashiki was/is.  I just thought it was a great pattern and all the kids in the 70s wore clothes like that.  :)  Lyndon said that the Dashiki's are making a come back.  I guess it is to be expected since I've also seen bell bottom pants legs making a limited comeback.  LOL.


Enough of my pratter.  Here is your peek into my fabric from Ghana.

Asian teapot February 2012

This weekend was a mixed weekend.  I did manage to get some of my fabric folded up on the foam boards.  Still have a ton to do especially since I managed to acquire some more the other day.  Funny how that happens isn't it.  :)

I did manage to finish the February 2012 Asian teapot for the BOM.  March should be coming out soon.  The picture is fuzzy so I will try  to get a better picture.  The green fabric has purple in it so I used some purple also.  I managed to take a better picture so here is the second Asian teapot. 

With March it means that another issue of The Quilt Pattern Magazine and now I can show another block that I tested for them.  This is the second block in the Wenche's Christmas Baltimore.

That's about it..  It's after 10 pm and I have to work tomorrow.  Catch ya all later.