Merry Christmas

This is a picture of the mystery ornament we made on Saturday at the Quilting 101 workshop. I gave this one to Julie when we met for breakfast yesterday along with some chocolate chip cookies. I made 60 of these a few years ago and gifted them to the staff at school. I had stars on top of those trees. I tried to find a star to put on Julie's tree, but I could not find one that was large enough in my stash of stuff. I must have used them all on the staff ornaments. Bummer! I think it is cute anyway.

This picture is of the paper origami quilt that my friend Monica made for me for my birthday. Isn't it darling? She made it in my favorite color combination: purple and turquoise. I just love it. She is really into origami and I am certainly happy about that! You should see the hexahedron she makes (I know that may not be a real word, but I cannot spell the real word because I don't really remember what it is)! They are open work round thingy dingys that are way cool.

Here is a picture of the two blocks I have done for Bonnie Hunter's Carolina Christmas Mystery Quilt. I have not completed step four, but I couldn't wait to see the two blocks sewn up, so I completed a couple of each block. There is so much sewing on step four. Maybe it seems like so much because I am close to the end and want to see it all done before Christmas.

So many little pieces to sew together. I cut very carefully, and I sewed very carefully, but still some of those little units are not the same size. My sewing machine likes to chew up the edges of my triangles, so between the cold and the machine, I am likely to toss it all out the window if I cannot get it done pretty soon!

Did I mention that our heater is nonfunctioning? I called our gas company and reported a gas smell. A nice fellow came out and checked the heater, the whole house, and the gas line outside. He determined that our heater was dangerous and turned off the gas to the heater. My hubby bought a new heater on Saturday so now we must find someone who can put it in and check all the stuff the gas man said needed checking, and possibly replacing. So.......we have not had any heat in the house since last Friday. I know 50 degrees is not really cold to many people, especially those in the east who are experiencing a terrible snow storm, but 50 degrees is cold to me here in sunny California! The only way I can get my feet warm is to go to bed and turn on the electric mattress pad. I honestly do not want to get out of bed in the mornings because it is so nice and warm under the covers. I apologize for whining since I know so many other folks across the nation are so much colder than I am. Wanda told me last week it was -5 degrees where she lives. OMGoodness! Way too cold for me.

Wherever you live, I wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. And.....

Happy Quilting

New Applique Blog

I am so excited. I just found out that my favorite applique teacher (who moved away to Michigan six years ago) has a blog. Please check out Nadine Thompson's blog - Bapplique. I have just listed it in my side bar.

The quilt she has pictured in a recent post, In The Garden, is a class I took from her years ago. It is a Piece O Cake pattern, Through Grandmother's Window. Nadine made a center medallion and added it to her quilt. Her quilt is stunning. Her work is stunning. She made a Baltimore Album quilt and entered it in the Pacific International Quilt Festival years ago. It won first place. This quilt was featured in a calendar also.

The picture I have included in this post is my Through Grandmother's Garden quilt. It is still "in progress". I have the blocks together with one border attached. My second border is a vine with flowers from various blocks in the center. I have the vines sewn down, and I need to decide on which flowers I will add to the vines. My Baltimore Album blocks I have pictured in previous posts. Those are the blocks that I sewed in Nadine's BA classes.

Nadine is the unfortunate teacher who had me as a student in her Baltimore Album classes years ago. The class description stated this particular class was for experienced applique students. Well, I had made a baby quilt with two appliqued blocks, so I considered myself as an experienced applique student! Poor Nadine. She was so patient with me. She is the person who instilled in me my love of applique, and especially Baltimore Album quilts. She is a great teacher. If you ever have a chance to take an applique class from her, DO IT! You will certainly enjoy it.

Happy Applique

P.S. I am almost finished with step two of Bonnie's Carolina Christmas mystery quilt.

Here's the latest

Here is a picture of a community quilt that I finished. The top is Chinese Coins. It was tied at a community quilts activity. I took it home to cut and tie the knots on the back and also to apply the binding. It is amazing how much gets done at these activities. Last month there was a Saturday community quilts day. I think there were 14 quilt tops put together that day, and some tying and lots of sewing accomplished.

This little wallhanging with the crooked picture is a sample that I sewed up last week for a local quilt store. It was made from a charm square packet. This is not my color pallet, but it was a nice charm packet. It was different sewing with colors not in my comfort zone. I also decided this week to participate in Bonnie Hunter's newest mystery quilt, Carolina Christmas. I do not have much gold in my stash. When I need the color gold, I purchase what I need for the project. After my pumpkin block exchange, I did not have many gold fabrics left. I used almost all I had in my stash for that exchange. So, out to the quilt store I went. It was such fun to be in the store for a particular purpose. I looked at the Christmas fabrics and found a couple of pieces I liked. I also found some wonderful reds and greens (that I don't think I really needed, but wanted). I have not purchased any new Christmas fabric for quite a while. I had some background fabric left over from another project, but not enough for this mystery, so I bought some more of that fabric. I was lucky there was still some at the store. I have completed part one, now I am on to part two. We have been very busy the last few weeks with some family business, so I have not been sewing as much as I want. It was not smart of me to start another project, but I cannot seem to pass up a mystery quilt challenge very often. I have been trying to get some UFOs finished this month with Finn's UFO challenge, and I have accomplished more than I thought I would. I decided to reward myself with Bonnie's mystery quilt. You know how Bonnie loves those little 3 inch units for designing her quilts, so I am cutting and sewing all these pieces for these little units. I also have a lot of scraps I have collected at the last few classes I have taught and taken. I have enough scraps to make quite a few crumb blocks I think, and I am itching to start sewing them. I have been sewing together HSTs from scraps that I have been given. I have also been cutting 2.5 inch squares for a leader/ender project, too. I want to work on that also. My problem is that when I start using these pieces for my leaders and enders, I get so caught up in sewing them that I stop what I am working on and only sew the leader/ender pieces! That sort of defeats the purpose of the leader/ender idea though, doesn't it? I am so undisciplined, it is sometimes scary!!! I still have some time to sew today, so I want to get back to my fabric and my machine. I hope you all have a great weekend....... Happy Quilting

P.S. It seems that I have lost my paragraph spacing again. Whenever I put my pictures in first and then the text, I lose my paragraph spacing. It appears that I am rambling in the text after my last picture, but really, there are four paragraphs. Sorry!