KaBam

Got involved in a fenderbender yesterday on the way to work. I'm fine, I had my seatbelt on... but the big delivery truck that rear ended me just mashed my poor van. I was actually hit twice, once by the truck, and then again by a car that rammed into the back of the truck. Here's a picture of what it looks like now:


And here's a picture of a van the same year as mine, showing what it looked like before:

I'm still able to drive it, but it drives/rides 'funny' and it feels like my seat is back too far from the steering wheel. (I've driven it for 7 years now, and know exactly where my hands fit on the wheel, and the wheel is too far away by about an inch.) I also noticed that the mirrors were showing too much sky, so I'm wondering if the underneath is bent up too. I tried to get a rent-a-car to drive, but this is a bad weekend to get one, they were all out of cars at the two locations nearest me.


The delivery truck was owned by a fairly large company, with locations in several states, so at least they've got insurance. I've already been in contact with them, but things move slow, esp. with the holiday next week, and I have to have a claim number before I can do anything about getting estimates or repairs.

Does anyone know anything about driving a vehicle with frame damage, if that's what it is? The linen delivery truck was pretty big, and he hit me pretty hard, almost straight on. Here's a pic from their website of one like the one that got me:



Out of the three vehicles that were involved, I was the only one that didn't get ticketed, and all of us were ok, so I guess I should be thankful for that.

Retreat Results

Well, here's the main thing I did on our retreat this weekend, sewd four half lone-star blocks to the 4 corners of this unfinished ostrich of mine, setting it on point. It's not quite as pinkish as it looks in this photo under the indoor lights at the lodge:



This was my first lone-star, and I realize I've still got a lot to learn about quiltmaking! All those set-in squares are SO not my thing... but I can do them now. And I need to work on my pinning and accuracy! Most of my seams match pretty well, but I've got to be more careful, I think.

I also got a quilt bound - one made with the delectable mountain pattern from Bonnie's site. I'll get a picture of that one later. *Yawns* We were up late the last two nights, talking and eating and sewing and laughing, so I think a Sunday afternoon nap is called for. :)

Quilts in Progress

Well, I'm back to work on my own stuff now, and here's some of what I've been doing. First, I'm going to a retreat the end of June where we're going to learn how to make a strip pieced lone star quilt block. We had to make a paper paste up using our fabrics, little ½ inch diamonds. I have a ruler that cuts that angle for me, so making the little bits was easy. Deciding on the final color layout was the hard part:


The paper was nice and flat when I first glued it up, but unfortunately, someone (who shall remain nameless) decided it'd make a good place for a kitty nap.

I actually plan to make two of these stars, and stick them on my UFO that started out as the Ostrich that Peachquilting was doing. I figure half on each side, and then maybe I'll come up with a big block for the four corners? Here's what I've planned so far in EQ6, many of you may recognize the middle part of the design. My favorite of the 4 corner blocks is the bottom left one, but it has 16 points meeting in the center, and that's a bit much. I'll have to keep looking. I have Block Base software that works with EQ too, but I've yet to install it on my new computer.


Or maybe I'll do some border stuff between the lone star halves and the next bit? I have an idea for a strip of triangly pieced bits I'll have to try in scraps before I use the matching fabric from this quilt.

I've also made most of a quilt top - but I can't show it because it's a sample for a mystery that I'll be teaching at a guild retreat. Won't be much of a mystery if people see it here, and there are a few people I know from guild who stop in at my blog. But I'm really happy with how it's turning out, and wish I could show it off!

Happy Quilting!

Last String Top

Well, ok, here it is, folks, my last string top - at least for a while! This one used all but ONE of the blocks my guild members made for two months of block-of-the-month:



Can you find the one block I used in there with a red center string? The only other block I had left was really dark, all thimbleberries colors, red, navy, forest green, plum... I needed something brighter there and decided the red string looked better there, even though my eye picks it out first... lol

I also finished another string top this weekend, but it was nothing to take a picture of, just a 4 blocks by 5 blocks combo, nothing exciting, no sashing. Both of these quilts will go to my board meeting Monday night, and I'll try to get someone to add one last outer border to them and quilt them. :)

I'm really itching to get restarted on some of my own projects now, seems like my life has been string blocks for toooo long. I'll probably return to them, or at least charity quilts of some pattern, but I've had enough of strings! Maybe it'll be time for some chinese coins?

Heartstrings Pinwheels

Here's another just finished heartstrings wheelchair sized top:


I'm about heartstring-ed out, but I still have a few more of the heartstring blocks my guild members made left, to put into a quilt. I did finally finish trimming the ones I have. I found out after I'd started sewing them into strips to make a top that some of them measured 10 inches square, and some measured 9½ inches, and some weren't square at all. And there I was thinking, boy, these things sure must be stretching, because my strip side seams weren't matching up at all. :D

So, quite a bit of ripping seams later, all of them are now 9½ inches square. Off I go to visit all of you!

Heartstrings quilts and tops

Here's what's quilty lately, three more heartstrings quilts (wheelchair sized) from the blocks made by my guild. First, a square top in the brighter string squares from the pile of blocks:


And a rectangular one with with no brights, but lots of navy and khaki strips, and khaki sashing for the guys who prefer something in mostly 'manly' colors:


And finally, a strip pieced star thats gotten quilted, that I happened to get back to put a label on. The quilter did a superb job, lots of feathers and swirls and very tight quilting. It turned out so beautiful I almost don't want to give it away. :)



And about the EQ difficulties I was having? The copy of EQ6 I got wasn't an upgrade, so I didn't need to install EQ5 first, it turned out to be a BUAK problem (between user and keyboard.) I tried to open a file that I'd saved and moved from my old to new computer, but neglected to notice that at the very bottom of the file window it says 'files of type' with a little EQ6 in the window. So of COURSE when I looked in the EQ5 file folder, it showed nothing, there weren't ANY ... EQ6 ... files in my EQ5 folder. :) Boy, did I feel stupid when I finally figured it out.... :D

My New Computer

Well, I finally upgraded from my old faithful win98 with dialup to a new Vista hp computer and cable. Cable IS faster, but I'm not sure it's worth $60 per month. Here it is:


It's been fun (NOT) having to install all my programs and files. The computer didn't come with Java preinstalled, so that was one of the first things. Did you know that Java does not have ANY browsers selected when you first install it? I uninstalled and reinstalled the stupid thing twice, trying to figure out why it wasn't working, till I looked in the Java control panel, saw browser versions, and put a little check beside 'internet explorer' and 'firefox,' which are the two browsers I use the most.

I also haven't found out how to use my Corel Print House with Vista, I'm suspecting it is not compatible, since the Corel is a pretty old version. I also have run into a problem trying to access my EQ5 files with EQ6, and I'm wondering if I have to have EQ5 loaded on this computer too, not just the copied files. Any of you quilty ones know?

Siamese Quilt

I've been asked if I have ever made a siamese quilt - yup, I've made two, both wall hanging size. Here's the first:



I made this one for a guild challenge, Black and White and .... (we had to finish the sentence.)

Some people made black and white only quilts, others added one color, and some did a free interpretation, adding all colors. Mine is titled ... and We're All Over. The Siamese cats are based on Solange, from Brooke McEldowney's comic strip '9 Chickweed Lane', and used by permission.

If you like cats, you'll enjoy looking through his Hallmarks of Felinity website, collection of his cat comics.

This one was quilted for me by fellow blogger and quilter Ann H., in Missouri.

Birdwatching Toby

Toby never is allowed outside, but I'm sure he's thinking that if this screen weren't in the way, he could have a drumstick for supper:


I'll admit to putting the occasional bits of stale bread out for the birds, just so the cats will have some window watching fun. Think it's like TV for them?

Flowers Blooming

Beautiful Spring weather for flower growing we've had so far this week in Memphis ... tomorrow it's supposed to rain, and for the rest of the week, so I took pix while the picture taking was good. My yellow iris are done, but the big purple/white ones are just starting:


And my favorite part, a closeup of the zebra stripey pattern on the bottom:


And my peony bush is just outdoing itself this year. Most stalks have two or even three huge blooms on them - I'm trying to keep the old ones pinched off, so they don't get too top heavy. And that's not weeds behind it (well, maybe one or two!) but the lighter green pointy foliage up against the brick is the beginnings of my orange daylilies:


As they bloom, over a week, that center bit of these peonies gets huge, tennis ball size. The scent is just glorious. This year, I sprayed them with ant spray before the big golf ball size blooms opened, and now I can take some in to work, to share, without taking in little crawlies too. The ants just love these:



Anyone else got flowers to show?

Border Fabric Bought

Well, I couldn't find the exact Hoffman butterfly fabric I wanted, although I really appreciated all the people who helped me look! I decided instead on a medium blue skinny border, then I found a fabric with green, teal, purple and blue stars on black. I'll be sashing the blocks in black, so this will brighten the edge up a bit without standing out too much, I think.

Here's the two fabrics I bought:



I have all my sashing fabric strips cut, half of them sewn, and I'd show you the EQ design of what it's going to look like, but it's a seeeeecret... :)

In other news, I finally bought a new computer, but... I can't hook it up till I switch ISPs. I'm using CompuServe dial up, and they don't support Vista. I can get cable hookup, but it'll cost me $60 per month, internet only. Ouch! And if I don't want dial up, Comcast is my ONLY choice. AT&T and BellSouth have merged, and don't have service available in my neighborhood, Comcast bought Roadrunner/Time Warner... there's just nothing else out there. I wish I could put rabbit ears on my computer like I have on my TV!

More Fabric info

I went and looked on the Hoffman Challenge site, and saw all their challenge fabrics since 1988, and my butterflies in deep purple/pink/blue wasn't one of them. But I did find this one, which is VERY close, in fact, I'll add it to my hunt, this one would be great as a border print too:


This one is titled 'Orchids' from their 1995 challenge. I must be about 10 years too late on my color preferences - guess I never will be in style!

Their 1994 challenge fabric was titled 'Tiffany Windows' and has lots of butterflies, but way too much yellow/gold to fit in the quilt I'm doing now.

Looking for Fabric

Maybe you folks out there all around the world can help me find these:



I have enough for the center of the quilt, but I'd LOVE to have a couple of yards more of one or the other to make borders. I used these two fabrics to select all my other fabrics (the ones in the pizza box, remember?) and I've searched all over the place online for these, and can't find either one of them. It would help, of course, if I knew the fabric line they came from.

Any of you have any in your stash with a selvage still attached, showing the company? The butterflies do have some metallic lines, in gold. I've found another butterfly fabric that's VERY similar, but it has some yellow, and that won't go in this quilt. I'm down to the dregs of these two fabrics, in fact, if you look close, you can see that these two swatches are actually put together from 4 inch squares... lol I hope someone's seen them before!

*ForestJane crosses her fingers*

Double Star with borders

Well, here it is:


I used Dawn's suggestion and added two wide strips of the blue on the outside of the string stripes, then went around the whole thing in dark red. Kinda bright, but should add some color to someone's room in the nursing home I'll be donating it to!

And on the bad news front, I went to Walmart for an oil change today and of course, had to cruise by the fabric area. I'd never bought as much there as at Hancock's, but they did offer some name brand quilting fabric, Cranston, VIP, Quilter's Blenders, etc. Now, as stuff sells, they're not getting in any more. They said they'll still have some small notions, but nothing that has to be cut. So first the Hancock's near me closes, now the Walmart nearest me closes it's fabric area, where will I shop? Online only? But I like to feel my fabric... :(

Double Star

Yet another Heartstrings quilt top... this one again from the blocks people in my guild made for block of the month. I picked all the brightest ones I could find for the stars, eight with a red stripe for the points, and 8 with a blue stripe for the centers. Some of these blocks had center strips that were too large or too small, but in this layout, it's not as noticeable, I think:


The blue is actually a snowflake print, bought on sale, but the snowflakes are much smaller than the dark blue bubble shapes or the white asterisk shapes you may see, so I think I'm getting away with it. :)

One more blue border on the two long sides, do you think? It could stand to be bigger, so I COULD put even another border all the way around, red, maybe? It's going to be donated to a nursing home, so bright and cheerful is good, and any sizes from wheelchair to crib to twin are needed. I only used 24 heartstrings blocks on this one, so I still have plenty left to keep on playing with (and I'm getting more donated every time I meet with the guild members.) Those side borders made from the half blocks are a GOOD place to use the slightly 'maverick' blocks. I cut the red centered ones in half with the stripe leaning to the top right, and the blue centered ones with the center stripe leaning to the top left, so I got the zig zag effect.

I got another bit added to all 100+ of my bright squares that were in the pizza box, AND got all of them ironed, made another 6 kaleidoscope blocks for the king size quilt, AND got those ironed. I really appreciate all the name suggestions for it too! I haven't decided on a name yet, I like the beach references, because that tan/beige does look like sand with water, but I also like the windmill and diamond ideas a lot too. Thanks, everyone, for the super suggestions!

Need a quilt name

Here's what I've been working on lately. I took it to the library this morning and laid out a 4 x 6 set of blocks so I could see how it was coming together:


The colors are off in this picture, I attribute that to a bad camera battery and the gloomy rainy day... no daylight from the windows. I just went and bought a new camera battery today. I'll get a better picture when I lay the blocks out for real, and spread out the beiges and blues nicely. I know it's supposed to be scrappy, but don't most of you play around with the layouts, trying not to have two identical fabrics touching, like I do?

Anyway, the whites and beiges aren't as dark and contrasty as they came out here. It will also look much better when I go iron the kaleidoscope blocks flat... but I really DO hate to iron. :) All the depression blocks are made for this king size quilt, and 17 out of the 28 or so kaleidoscope/kite blocks. I'll be making two king size pillow shams too, and a couple of pillows to arrange with them. I'm getting there - but slowly!

I need to come up with a new name for this quilt, that doesn't have anything to do with depression. Depression blocks have a diamond shape inside them, that you see here, alternated with the kaleidoscope blocks... so something - diamond or ... ? Anyone have any ideas? I'm awful at naming quilts.

Uses of a Pizza Box

Like many of you, I like using pizza boxes (clean, unused) for sorting/storing my projects in progress. Here's the palette for my next quilt, teals, lavenders, purples, fuschias, blues, a few lighter turquoises, and two slightly larger prints tying together several of the colors:


I wish I could find more of the two prints on the upper right and left, either one of them would work nicely as a border. All 200 of these squares are from my stash, I haven't bought any fabric since before Christmas. Most of these are from 4 inch squares and FQ's I got VERY cheaply on eBay some time ago. It's so nice to already have your squares cut for you!

And, like the half square triangles in my other ongoing project, there's a furry good reason I have to keep them all sorted out in a pizza box with a lid:


Now there's no shortage of places Toby can lay. He has a cat tree with 3 perches. There's a windowsill with a view. The couch behind him is empty, with a nice cushion... and just over his back, you can see the raggy quilt that I leave on the couch for them. Not much damage they could do to that old denim thing, even with both of them still having their claws. It's very soft, very sturdy, easy to wash. But nooooo, where does he want to lounge? He shoves over the book I'm reading and sprawls half on, half off the pizza box. I could understand it more if it smelled like pizza, but this was an unused box I begged from Pizza Hut.

He kept squirming around, pushing with his feet, till the book landed on the floor and he could get truly comfy. But at least he's not IN the box, shedding on my squares! :D

Busy, busy busy

I haven't posted in so long, but here goes with the news from my life:

Had a Family Activity Night at my library, featuring Australia, and with Tazzie's kind help, everyone got an authentic Australian nickel and teeny flag to take home. We also made koala bear puppets, played bingo, heard stories about marsupials, tasted Marmite, etc. Great fun!

Also went to a Sit and Sew last weekend, with my guild, and got a lot done, sewed the last row of blocks on a string heart design quilt, and gave all three of the tops for Heartstrings to guild members who'll quilt them. And I still have about 16 red-centered string blocks and 2 blue-centered string blocks to combine with the blocks I'll get at tomorrow night's guild meeting.

I got the backing finished for my pink and brown quilt. That one's been sitting at my longarm quilter's in Missouri since our guild retreat last November. This was a quilt I didn't have a particular person in mind to gift it to, so there's been no rush to finish it. I'm ashamed to admit that it didn't take me long at all to get the backing sewn - considering the amount of time I've procrastinated on it!

I meant to quickly put together another back for this floral quilt, remember this one? I bordered it in the deep purple you see down the middle:


I had one long strip of pieced chunks, and 6 leftover blocks I wanted to use on the back, plus some assorted biggish hunks of fabric left over from the front - but somehow, the other folks at the Sit and Sew talked me into using the baggie of strips I had left to make some 'new fabric'for the backing. I spent the rest of the afternoon making the inside of the star shape:


That's the floral top draped off to the lower right there. I've never spent that much time making a backing for a quilt, and... well, don't know if I will again. I did get all the scraps used, but I think a string quilt would have been a better use for them, even if I did have to buy some 'whole' fabric for the backing.

Let's see, what else have I done besides sew? I had a root canal on Thursday... ow, ow, ow... *whines* and it hurt worse afterward than before I went to the dentist. But in all fairness, it's fine now... :) I'll have to get the root filled up then fitted for a crown next. And I detest going to the dentist, too.

When I got home from the dentist, both my neighbor and I had citations from the health department on our doors. Apparently, a woodpile stacked on the concrete of my carport (a very small woodpile less than a yard long and just over a foot high) was in violation. Our woodpiles have to be 18 inches above the ground, for rodent control. Never mind that neither of us has ever seen any rodents - apparently the HD was getting everyone. It wasn't worth it for me to go buy blocks, or figure out some other way to elevate the wood, so since I was off work Friday, I just went outside and pitched all but 7 of the best logs in the trash bin. Those 7 I moved in my little storage room.

They also cited us both for 'junk and appliances.' Here's the list of what I had out in my carport: one blue ice chest, upside down to drain, with lid; two concrete blocks, three clay flowerpots; a green garden hose; the one gallon plastic gas container for the weed whacker; a shovel; one windchime that had fallen from my porch; and about 8 cedar boards, all about 6 inches by 2 feet. Oh, and a rudolph lawn ornament, leaning against the back wall. Definitely no appliances. Isn't this pretty much normal carport stuff? Oh, well, it's all cleaned up now. Everything but the gas can is moved in my storage room, and I CAN'T put that in there, I have a gas water heater, and don't want to mix the two flammables.

My neighbors had rather more than that, but as far as I'm concerned, what they have in their backyard is their own business, especially since it's behind a fence. Any of you ever had health dept. visits like this? Geesh. So THAT'S why I haven't been posting here!

Another Heartstrings Quilt Top

Here's yet another Heartstrings quilt top made from the blocks my guild did for their block of the month:


This one's just a tad over 44 x 44 inches square. I picked out 8 of the blocks that had a slightly maverick interpretation of the heartstrings guidelines... you'll see some that have no red stripe at all, no centered red stripe, or too small or too large of a red or blue stripe. In this layout, with the red not forming a lattice, the variations don't matter at all.

I didn't chop one up to make the cornerstones, but instead made 4 new little blocks the size of my inner navy border that 'floats' the star.

Now that I look at it, if I were to do it again, I'd rotate those cornerstones so that the strips go diagonally the other way, but I'm certainly not going to rip them out and rotate them now... :)

It's Daffodils!

Well, for all of you in snowy parts of the country, with below freezing temperatures, here's a few pictures of MY front yard to give you heart:





And if it doesn't give you heart to brave the cold, at least it'll make you jealous and want to move to Tennessee! :)