Beautiful Needlecase!

This gorgeous needlecase was sent to me from Corina of Winnipeg, Canada.

Her free motion quilting is wonderful and I love the idea of the additional pincushion on the outside monogram !  And isn't it so functional, I love it.  Thank you, Corina, for the wonderful surprise!

Bloggers Quilt Festival (Jar Quilt)

Amy over at Amy's Creative Side is putting on the Bloggers Festival again.  This is a fun way to see a lot of beautiful quilts without leaving the comfort of your easy chair.

I decided to participate again and chose a quilt I finished ten years ago.  I've been noticing a lot of people are doing "jar quilts" again and wanted to show mine made way back then.  I even left one jar "open" with a fly trying to get in it.

When this pattern first came out, everyone on the internet jumped on the idea of swapping jar blocks.  I was in a group that decided to do FOOD instead of bugs.  This was in 1998, I finished it in 2001 and it hung in my kitchen for quite a while.

It was so much fun and I was lucky enough to get blocks from the Netherlands, Australia, Norway and many places across the United States.  I decided to put labels on my jars and put everyone's names and email addresses on them, just like they were real canning jars on a shelf.  (It's doubtful any of the addresses are still current, I know mine isn't!)   It was a real conversation starter!

Anyway, I thought it might be fun to list the names on the quilt.  Maybe some of your are still out there and might like to see your block made into my quilt. (And if you are, please let me know!)  Here they are:

Bonnie Preslar, Beverly Burris, Peggy Raley, Judith Brainerd, Jean Fajimoto, Lyn Sethna, Wendy Harrison, Barbara Morris, Patsy Brown, Dixie Reed, 
Laurel McDaniel, Eileen, Chrysanne Demirel, Karen Dent, Lucy Radatz, Synnova Vanar, Susan Leise, Nataya Segerink and Patsy Hasenfratz.  (Thank you all.)

Everyone enjoys the back of the quilt too.  It was a huge jar full of Hershey candy bars and my label was on the jar lid.

Be sure to check out all the quilts here.

Enjoying the week in Texas with GRANDkids!! (Sewing, too!)

This week my daughter and son-in-law are on a fun trip and Nana volunteered to come stay with Jake and Paige.  I am really enjoying them so much.  Jake is always on the computer as you can see. 

 Paige sometimes teases him as she goes by.  He always gets even though!  With an eight year old and a ten year old--something is always going on between them.  Paige showed me the neatest experiment she learned in science class.

Put a little milk in a bowl, then add a drop of four food colorings.  Take a cotton swap with a little dishwashing soap on the tip and dab in colors.  The soap reacts to the fat in the milk.  It really is pretty cool.

I tried to insert a video clip but didn't have success, but the process is neat!

While the kids are in school, I have been sewing and shopping.  On Monday, I made it to "Quilt Country", one of my favorite quilt stores.  I'm like a kid in a candy store there.  So much to see, patternwise and FABRIC!!!  I only bought one yard of fabric for a specific purpose, so I was happy about that.  But you just have to visit those favorite stores just to keep you

aware of what's out there, right??

I had brought my little Janome and a couple of projects to sew on.  One being--Nickel Bricks, a great way to use up scraps.

It's mindless sewing, something I can stop and start at any time, so it's perfect to do here.  I'm determined to diminish that stash!!

Oh, can't forget this!  Julie treated me for Mother's Day!  She gave me a massage, a manicure and my FIRST pedicure.  Oh, I like that pedi!  I even had them paint a little design on my big toes.  I'd show you, but I emailed a pic to my husband and he responded--"those cute little sausages look pretty".  So a photo online is not gonna happen!!  But NOW I can say I've had a pedicure and up with my granddaughters now!  Thanks, Julie and Tom!!

 

Paper pieced table runner done, well almost

Since last week, I paperpieced the remaing squares for the blocks, keeping in mind the different colors and trying to match blocks a little better.

After rearranging the squares in the blocks, I came up with this.  I like it so much better than the other one I showed you before. You can see the yellow, blue, pink and kind of purple blocks and they don't look so "discombobulated".

My daughter tells me I need to improve on my picture taking and use the outside light.  Looks like I still need her help!!  Draping on something would help too.  I should have pressed a little better also.  Somewhere online, there are tips for this and I'm going to find them!!

I did just want to show you the color difference and remind everyone that those beautiful batiks that have lots of different colors can be problematic in some blocks.   The center square had to be "matched" also.  Now, I have to figure out how to quilt it, but there is no hurry for that.  The goal was to get the top pieced before the guild meeting.  Woohoo!

Pincushions!

Look what I received in the mail this morning!! 

My little BLUE BIRD of Happiness.  It makes me smile everytime I look at it.  You can't see them, but there are some very cute pins with button heads on them.  Thank you so much, Sandra!  It's so sweet.  And that candy egg will be gone this afternoon!

I don't think I've shown you the pincushions I made.  Here they are.  Hope they are liked.  I included the fingercushions too.  They come with warnings though.  REMEMBER to insert your pins from the side NOT the top.  lol

Paper Piecing Class

Saturday our guild had a paper piecing class.  We have several new members and this was something they wanted to try.  I had done some of this years ago, but not recently so I was ready for a refresher too.

Our teacher from another guild, Ellamay, was great.

She has done a lot of paper piecing, including taking classes from Cynthia England.  So talented!!  We wanted the basics, so she chose this for us to do.  The enrollment started with 12.  We had 15 wanting to take it, so she said go ahead and open it to 20.  When we told our guild that, we had 22--sooo, my friend and I helped with the class and didn't get to sew.

Here is Nita with her finished squares, read to sew together.  So pretty!   I didn't get any other photos of the finished blocks, but be assured there were some pretty ones.

Today, I started sewing on mine.  So accurate!  I had forgotten how nice and sharp paperpiecing can be.  However, the batik I chose for my "flower" has several different colors and patterns and when cut up I am not happy with it.

I think what I may do is go ahead and make all the squares for the runner and see if I can position the same colored batiks together for each block.  In other words, don't sew the squares to make the blocks YET.   Any other ideas out there??

I can't wait to see all the finished runners at our guild meeting!