Wallhanging almost finished!

This is the mystery quilt I started last Nov. at our retreat. Everyone else did it in three-inch squares, but I didn't want a huge wallhanging, so I scaled it down to one-inch squares. I left the fence hinge (well, ok, the GATE hinge) on the pic so you could get some idea of scale. It finished at 27 inches square.


I don't do much machine quilting, so this was a challenge to me, making teeny loops and squiggles around the little half-square triangles. None of the green or brown in the center of the quilt has any quilting, so they puff out a bit, compared to the flat quilted white areas.

And I machine sewed the binding - have you guys seen the funny blog post on binding tutorials? I couldn't help but laugh at it:

Binding Tutorial Spoof

Finally, here's another flower picture from my yard. The wire trellis I borrowed from my sugar peas is keeping them all upright this year, and they look much better:


I love my peony bush, and I'd take some into work for others to enjoy if it weren't for the ANTS! Tiny little black ones that like my peonies as much as I do! I took 4 huge blooms in a couple of years ago, having put them upside down in a bucketful of water for an hour first, hoping to drown the ants, or at least chase them off. Didn't work, and I was thumbing ants to death on my desk at the library all day. :D

Anybody have a solution? I don't want to use ant spray, the flowers would smell bad, instead of sweet, like they do now.

Veggies and Tomatoes

Anyone ready for a status update on my tomatoes? Here's the Early Girl. I read a couple of reviews online after I bought this one, that said the tomatoes were early, but not as good as the tomatoes from plants that ripened a couple of weeks later. If I'd known that, I may have gotten something else, flavor is the most important reason I am growing my own.


Blooms on my Cherry tomato plant! Last year I got Husky Cherry Red, and enjoyed them very much, we'll see what difference there is between the two. I almost got a grape tomato plant too, I can buy a container of those at the store and eat almost the whole pint in one sitting. Maybe next year.


Here's the Better Boy, and I've heard only good reviews about this one. I'm actually thinking, if they all have blooms right now, don't you suppose all three of these plants will end up having tomatoes at the same time?


And I posted this one last, so you could easily see the difference between the previous week and this week - what a difference only a few days makes on my snow peas! A trellis that I bought for the peas is around the front of the house, holding up my peony bush. Those blooms get so huge that the flowers usually get too heavy for the stalks and arc down till they touch the ground. Now, watching these grow so fast, I'm hoping their blooming time will end before my snowpeas get tall enough to need the support!

Veggies and Flowers

Well, ok, they're not veggies quite YET... :)

But these will be my snowpeas:

And these the crookneck squash:


This is what Toby was watching from the front window, some yellow iris I planted ten years ago. I love stuff that comes back year after year that you don't have to keep planting, don't you?



As for my three tomato plants, the Early Girl has big blooms, the Better Boy has smaller blooms, and the Cherry tomato nothing yet, but it's still early. I'll try to get pictures of them later this weekend.

Are any of you planting container gardens?

Seminole Patchwork

Here's my first try at Seminole patchwork!

I've decided to have a Seminole strip in the Block of the Month strip quilt I'm doing with my guild. Since I'm offering it in several sizes, I'm giving them the choice to do a narrow, 2 inch strip, or a slightly wider 4 inch strip:



Because I had to test the sizes first, I'm doing both for my quilt. :) Some of the more complicated Seminole patchwork was really impressive, but I decided to do an easy one. If you'd like a sneak preview of the block of the month instructions that will be given to the guild at the end of April, here's the link:

Block of the Month for May, 2009

And of course, all the instructions for the previous four rows are on the guild's website at www.ucquilts.com

Ready for another Toby birdwatching picture? He thinks when he sits behind the curtain in the front window that he's hidden - unaware that he's totally exposed to the anybody at the front of the house... :) I have a bed of yellow and purple iris that are blooming there, so right now, the stalks are tall and green, lots to watch!

Container Gardening Again

Well, here I go again - pictures of my little excuse for a garden. I enjoyed growing three tomato plants last year, so THIS year, I'm doubling the size of the garden, adding several more containers.

I'm trying some snow peas in window boxes. I saw online where it's supposed to work... :) When they get big enough, I have a trellis thing I'm going to put between the boxes, for the peas to climb. The package says you can usually get two crops, start one in Spring, and start one in late Summer.


I'm also going to try a couple of containers of crookneck squash - I know there's not much dirt in here, after they come up, I'll add some more - I may even move them to something bigger, like a kiddie plastic wading pool with some holes drilled for drainage.


Here's the three tomatoes I decided on. An Early Girl, this one already has teeny blooms about to open:


A Sweet Cherry Red. There were two plants in the same pot, but they were planted so close together that I hesitated trying to separate them, I was afraid I'd tear up the roots for both. If it gets to be too much for the container, I may have to cut the smaller one out later.


And last, a Better Boy. They all look a little short now, but the instructions on the pot said to plant them deep, so I did.


And just for the regular readers of my blog... remember when I put the whole raw egg under all my tomato plants last year? When I dug out the old dirt from the pots this year, I was especially attentive to watch and see how much of the egg was left, and what had happened to it. All three eggs were flattened, you could see grayish bits of shell in almost a deflated water-balloon shape. None of the three eggs were surrounded by especially dense concentrations of root. I didn't put eggs in the containers this year, so I'll see if there will be a difference.

Kitty Pix

The weather in Memphis has been alternately nice and nasty. Today we're under a tornado watch, we had thunderstorms with hail this morning... but just last week we had a couple of lovely, sunny days with temps in the 70's. Both cats enjoyed sitting in the open windows, snifffffing long sniffs thru the screen.

First, here's Libby. This was just prior to a sneeze. I think she must have inhaled some pollen. :D


Below is Toby, and the sun on his window moves off to the left as the afternoon progresses.

*sings* ...but tomorrow may rain, so, I'll follow the sun....


I keep thinking he's going to fall off the window, but he hasn't yet!


Sometimes I think see Libby looking over at him and smirking at the poses he contorts himself into, to get the last dregs of warmth:

Clutch Wallet

My old wallet was just about to bite the dust... and the ones I saw in stores didn't have all the features my old one did. I like zippers and hidden pockets and velcro and lots of space for credit and ID cards. Sooo, I decided to try to make my own. I had bought two old purses at a garage sale for a quarter each, and that's where I got all the zippers and accessories.


A money slot first (and that dictated how wide the wallet had to be) with a zippered pouch for coins in front of it, and a pocket for stamps and stuff. You can't see it from the picture, but the dollar slot has a fold of fabric on either side, so it accordians out. I unpicked the plastic for the card slot on the bottom from the old purse, and used that AAA card to get the size right. That's where my driver's license will be.


Then I made a different 'page' that has four slots on either side for credit and ID cards. The velcro tab you see closes that half of the clutch, so when I'm getting money out, the cards don't flop open. There's also a hidden big pocket under this whole section here.


When the card page is flipped to the other side, there's a long pocket for my checkbook.


Here it is shut halfway, and below, completely closed.


There's another pocket on the front, with a second zipper repurposed from the same garage sale purse.

The only thing I don't like about it is the edges. I'd planned on putting some bias tape to finish it, but the card page had to be two cards wide, which meant it barely fit. I had just enough room to zigzag past it, but I'd never get bias tape on nicely. There's so much denim in this that it'd be a booger to hand sew bias edging on. If I ever do it again, I'll make the wallet ½ an inch wider, and that would give me more room to finish the edges. :) Live and learn!

March Update

First, the block of the month row quilt addition for April, 2009:


I'm alternating colors each star, some will have green centers, some brown.


All the stars will be the same off white muslin. Here's the link to the directions I made for my guild (and anyone else that wants to follow along.)

April's Row

I'm also working on a Heartstrings style quilt, but trying to use up all my strings and strips that are too short. Can you tell this will eventually be a tumbling blocks style quilt? Making that one side of the square from strips allows me to avoid the Y seams that are the bane of tumbling blocks. :)


I have plenty of the navy blue and plenty of the small sprigged white, for my solid diamonds, and of course I'll never run out of strings. I'm paper piecing the string triangles. This one will probably grow to be wheelchair lap sized, for donation.

It might be interesting to try this with all strips, divide them into three piles, strings mostly white, strings very dark, and strings in mediums. Of course, it'd also look neat in batiks too!

And finally, Spring has sprung in Tennessee, here's the daffodils around my mailbox - it's an especially thick clump of them. I hope I remember to separate them before next year.

Row Quilt, Row 3

Houses and Trees!

Row three for our guild's block of the month row quilt is up! This row is the one the members will be working on for March, here's the instructions, - I'm going to stay a row ahead.

I give folks the option of using any color palette they want, mine will be in browns and greens and creams... Here's my EQ coloring:


But if they want to make it bright and scrappy, that's ok too! So I colored one for the bright folks. As I was playing with the brights version, I kept singing that beatles song - the one about tangerine trees and marmalade skies:


Here's mine in fabric - I added the last green strip along the bottom after all my blocks were connected, but it' didn't make the picture.



I also gave links if folks wanted to use Tonya's Wonky Houses that are linked on Quiltville instead, so it'll be interesting to see what everyone's row looks like next guild meeting!

Top Finished

Another top finished... to add to the other tops that are done but not quilted... :D This one, I'd like to add an extra layer of batting under the two hearts, and see if I could get a heart feather design put on them, to make kind of a trapunto effect. Looks pretty much like the EQ design, doesn't it?


Now I need to go start making backs for all these unquilted tops, and maybe I'll send them off to the longarmer.

Smaller Tote

Now that I've been using my big totes to carry stuff home from the grocery, I'm getting less plastic bags... which is good, but I was in the habit of using one of those plastic bags every day to carry my lunch, to work. I also used them to line the small trashcans in the bedroom and bathroom... now my supply is dwindling. So I decided to make a smaller tote the size of the plastic shopping bags:


I still get plastic bags at the store (I tell them to put my raw meat in plastic, I don't want it to leak on my big totes) plus things like bread, bagels, squishable stuff doesn't work in the big totes. Anyway, I looked online, and found lots of free patterns for a smaller tote. Here's the pattern I used for the shopping bag itself and here's the site I used for the folding pocket.

I made the solid green pocket to fit a 1 liter bottle of water, and I wanted the main tote big enough for a Healthy Choice or Lean Cuisine (what I take to lunch every day) plus an orange or a yogurt, a diet coke, a book or two, a sewing project... etc. :)


And here's the neat part - when empty, you can roll the bag up, and that same pocket that holds the liter bottle becomes a wallet type closure, so I can remember to put it in my purse and take it home.


Now that I've made a utility one for my first attempt, I think I'll get my pretty batiks out and make a fancy one. :) That flap that laps over the pocket to close it all up was a little long, it's not a tight roll like it could be. I also think I'll put a teeny snip of velcro on the bottom so the flap doesn't hang loose - like you can see it does on the doorknob pic.

Heart Twist Progress

Now the top and bottom delectable mountain borders have been added:



And I've even taken apart the nine patch border bits I'd finished so far, plus made some strip sets with pink in them. I'd much rather sew than unsew, wouldn't you? ;)

Heart Twist

This is what I've been working on lately - remember the little 4 block sample I showed for the Superbowl Twist a couple of posts back? I've done Bonnie's Strip Twist in 1½ strips for the middle, then her Delectable Mountains in 1½ strips will be for the next pieced border, and I'm partway thru sewing a bunch of nine-patches from 1½ strips for the outer pieced border.


I have the top and bottom row of mountains completed, but just finished with the machine applique of the hearts last night.

Here's the EQ version of what I am planning the whole quilt to look like:



I'd thought I was going to do the quilt in faded denim blues and whites with blue, but it was calling for an applique in the middle. First I pulled out my reds, and almost went with a bandanna print, but the red looked too bright against the blue. When I opened the pink drawer, thinking maybe some medium pinks wouldn't look as stark as the red, this mauve seemed to slither right into my hands.

Then I had to go back to EQ and add pink borders and some dots of pink in the nine patches. Unfortunately, I've already sewn lots of nine patch strips as leader-enders while I was doing the strip twists and mountains, so I've got a little unsewing to do, do add some pink in here and there.

Anyone want to unsew for me? :D

SuperBowl Twist

Here's a logo for anyone doing the Superbowl Twist (or sewing anything with Bonnie's patterns) on Superbowl Sunday.



For the html code for the smaller 125 pixel blog button, like I've got in my sidebar, you're once again free to right click, select 'view source' then scroll down and copy the code that starts:

< !Begin SBTwist code>

and copy all the way to the end of

< !End SBTwist code>

Then put it in YOUR blog template sidebar, and you're ready to go!

Happy Twisting!

Mini Strip Twist and Bluejean Purse

I'm going to join Bonnie this Superbowl Sunday as she makes strip twist quilts. If you scroll down, you can see the one I made my brother, I've also made one all in pink for a 'Quilt Pink' theme. Click on the 'Take me to Quiltville' button if you want to see Bonnie's pattern and join us.

This little one is all in blues and white, and since I'm using teeny 1½ strips, I decided to start early. Here's the first 16 blocks done:


I have 64 blocks made so far, and I'm trying to decide if I want just the middle of the quilt to be twist blocks or if I want to cut more 1½ strips and expand this.

I've also been working on a little bluejean purse:


I bought the girls' size jeans at a thrift store for $3, then got a really filthy white vinyl purse at a garage sale for 50 cents... I ripped out all the zippers and useable hardware for this purse, aren't the little brass D rings and clips on the handle cute? A lady at work says they make the jean purse look like a 'real' purse lol.


I had the black star fabric strips left from the border of a quilt, to make the belt, and the beads were left over from another project too. I made another back pocket-flap with a velcro tab just like this one, but decided that two flaps were overkill. Now I'm thinking of beading a little star or heart on the pocket with no flap, what'cha think?


The hardest part of the whole purse was putting in the zipper - I'm bad about tossing my purse on the passenger seat of my van, so I had to have a way to close it securely or I'd be losing change and pens and pencils. :D I couldn't sew the zipper on with the machine around the big lumpy jeans button, OR around the beltloops, so I've still got some hand sewing to do there.

Row Quilt

Well, instead of block of the month swaps for my guild this year, I've decided to try a doing a row quilt with them instead. Everyone will get to keep their own blocks, and I'll be putting up different blocks and rows each month. They can choose from three widths, 36, 60, or 72, and they can choose their own colors/themes too, Quilt Pink, Quilt of Valor, baby quilt, holiday quilt, or one to fit with their house decor.

First, I played in EQ and drew a few row quilts in different color combos, with blocks I liked. If any of you has any ideas for blocks that work good in a row quilt, I'm still open to suggestions, I'm going to pick each row as I go.

Here's one in Red, White, and Blue:


And then one in baby colors, mostly Pink and Blue:


And one with a black background, for people whose favorite quilt word is 'pop' and who enjoy brights:


I picked a really easy spacer row for the first month, January... to sucker them in, sorta. Simple quarter-square triangles, and they could choose whatever layout they wanted:



Then I chose the basket row for February. I'd appreciate feedback on the web page if you have a chance to go look - that one got a little complicated - do you understand all the steps? Did it get too wordy? Here's my finished baskets:

4th File, 4th Photo

Hmm, I saw this blog-game on the blog after mine in the Stash Quilts blogring, Marcie at Patchalot More, and it sounded interesting. The rules say:

*Go to the fourth photo file on your computer
*Choose the fourth picture in that file
*post it and explain
*tag four people to do the same

So, curious, off I went to my photo files, to see what was the 4th file... I've taken a lot of photos, so my files were pretty nested, files within files. Is the librarian in me showing? After Catpix, Familypix, and HouseandGardenpix there came Quiltpix. And the 4th file in THAT (after BOMpix, MiscPix, and Quilts2004) was Quilts2005. The 4th cropped and named picture in the file was this one:



Brings back fond memories! This is my oldest brother, Dan, holding a quilt I gave to him back in 2005, around Thanksgiving. He liked it a lot, but I think his wife is the one that uses it the most. :) It was also the first one of Bonnie's patterns I tried, her Strip Twist.

I picked all the fabrics I didn't really like - my favorite color is forest green, so I pulled out all the olive toned greens, ikk. There were a lot of wine and burgundy and mustard FQ, and they made the pile too... then some 'ugly' pale colors. The ugliest one I remember was a beige with brown streaks and smears on it ... one of my brothers said the brown streaks looked like underwear 'skidmarks' -ewww! After that comment, that's all I could think when I saw that fabric!

Since I was making a guy quilt, I took out anything floral, then added back in a couple of blues, some prints with leaves and apples... till I had a mix I could live with. Even though it was all fabric I didn't like individually, I was pleased with the end result. :)

Now the rules say for me to tag 4 people - if you feel like playing, consider yourself tagged! Then let me know you're playing so I can go look.