I won, I won, I won!!!

NOTE:  I apologize for posting this one at such a late date.  It was written on January 27, 2010. 

"Why it's a major award! That's what it is....."

There is something so wonderful about winning!  It's exhilirating, exciting, exhausting, and embarrassing all at the same time.  Yes, last night my DH and I won a bowling doubles tournament.  The prize was a Scottish theme hamper with all these goodies.  DH and I had recorded the football playoffs previously, so we sat at home last evening watching the games and sipping our Scotch.  It was almost as much fun as the bowling tournament.  I was sad to see the Jets AND the Vikings lose.  Oh well, it was fun anyway. 

Not your Grandmother's Button Box

I never showed the progress on my button box.  I had a real hard time finding the right colors and type of button.  So one day I decided to seperate my buttons and put them in plastic bags.  It is so much neater and easier to find what I need. 

When it came to the red and white buttons, I just couldn't resist on making this jar.  All it took was a scrap of fabric, a little batting, ric-rac, buttons, a string of craft pearls, and craft glue. 

The next thing I want to share with you is my first postcard in my challenge.  It took me about 6 hours to complete it, only because I was interrupted 3 times by the phone.  I finally hid the d@#n phone in the couch!

Maybe I'll conveniently forget where I hid it, mahhahhahaaaa! 

I used a scrap piece of black velvet, did some random smocking all around and bleached out some areas.  Then I added some seed stitches with rayon threads.  I really like the result even though the size of this one is a bit off.  That's OK, I'm the only one that will see it or care anyway.   To me, this looks like oooey gooey chocolate smothered over ice cream and fudge cake with sprinkles.  Gotta have sprinkles.  

The snowflakes are still rambling around in my mind, maybe I will still do something with that later.  I am always changing my mind about something and to me, this is why......excellent results!  

Postcards

I have always loved postcards.  Whenever we go anywhere, I head straight for the postcard racks.  We take hundreds of pictures per subject, thanks to digital technology and DH using the button that snaps 3 frames at a time, but I somehow feel compelled to purchase handfuls of postcards.  Sending some off to friends or family, but mostly to keep as a reminder of where we've been. 
Last month I read about the FiberArts Valentine Postcard Challenge in the Nov/Dec 2009 issue.  You make a postcard to be mailed through the postal system, pre-stamp and pre-address it, mail it to Interweave Press where they will judge them and photograph some of them for their magazine.  After all that, they will deliver them to the Loveland, CO post office where they will add a special cancellation and poem to your postcard and send it back to you.  Apparently, FiberArts has been doing this for the last 3 years.  
Here are my entries:

This blue one is my favorite, of course, blue is my favorite color anyway.

This one is a variation on a technique from the Quilting Arts TV series 400.   The DVD was a gift to myself.

When DH was in the USAF, I used to write love letters to him and draw the mouse at the end of my letter holding a bunch of flowers because DH always gave me flowers (he still does on occassion). 

This one is my least favorite only because it is so shiny.  Pictures don't do it justice anyway, but I did try some different techniques on this one with some surprisingly good results.  The shiny stuff is Textiva fusible film that's been heated on stamps, then sewen to the background.  The gold around the heart is not paint, but gold chocolate wrapper.  I was amazed at how easy gold foil was to sew through and not rip to pieces.  The red background "fabric" is a used colorfast sheet from a wash load of red towels over the holidays. 

These little works of art were so much fun that I am continuing the challenge, only it is a personal challenge to do at least one a week for the entire year.  Trying new techniques and ideas as I go.  Years ago I started a series of postcards with the theme of places we've been, but that grew old for me and I only finished 5.  So, this being a bit different and no theme attached gives me some freedom to create as I go which is what I love to do.  No rules, no restrictions, no instructions or patterns.  

Today, I will be working on this weeks postcard.  Since we've had sooo much snow, I am thinking about snowflakes....... Happy creating!  ;o)

Winter Wonderland

We've had a real winter wonderland here in the north parts of England.  The snow is still around after 10 days and that is very unusual.

I don't know what kind of tree this is, but the birds love to eat the berries off it.

Christmas day was beautiful with the sun shining on all the snow. 

We had fun making a snowman.  In two days time he keeled over and killed himself by decappitation on my garden bench.  We had temperatures above freezing and he just couldn't take the "heat" wave. 

One of the many Robins around our house. 

Hope you enjoyed my pictures as much as I enjoyed taking them.  I want to leave you now with a recipe for super easy holiday fudge.  I used to make mediocre fudge the hard way years ago, then I read a can of

Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed milk which had this recipe on it.  It's the best fudge I've ever had.  No more dry, grainy, sugary, hard fudge......who knew?   Now you know.  Happy Holidays! 

Easy Fudge

Ingredients:  

2 cups milk chocolate chips

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 (14oz) can sweetened condensed milk

1/4 cup butter

1 cup chopped walnuts

1/8 tsp. salt

1 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions:

Place chocolate chips, milk, butter, salt and vanilla in a double boiler over low simmering water.  Stir until chips have melted and the ingredients have been incorporated.  Stir in the nuts.

Pour into an 8" X 8" pan that has been lined with foil and coated with cooking spray.  Refrigerate for at least 2 hours to set.  Remove the foil and fudge from the pan, cut into squares and enjoy!

Merry Christmas

It's so beautiful around here all covered in fresh snow.  Just like that great old Christmas song, "It's beginning

to look a lot like Christmas."

 My village is set up in the window.  Some pieces I've had since I was really young.  My Godparents gave me the first set.  I remember it being in a gold colored mesh bag tied with a string. 

These pieces are newer, but I like how they all kinda go together no matter how old they are. 

In this photo, the blue church on the right,The 2 tiny people on the right bottom, the light green tree in the center and the animals in the center with the picket looking fence were the pieces from that first set given to me 42 Christmas' ago.  WOW, I never dated it like that before... scary

  I talked about restoring a friend's quilt in my last post and that I would get some pictures.  Here they are, finally.  There were a lot of tears in the fabrics and along seam lines.  I tried to keep as many of the original fabrics as possible.  Some like the thin light colored fabric near the center of the quilt, had to be replaced completely. 
As you can see, under the thin light colored fabric is a pink striped blanket the quiltmaker used for the batting.  This was a very heavy quilt.  The fabrics used were from old scraps of aprons, curtains, flour sacks, shirtings, ticking maybe from a pillow, and a couple table cloths.  I think the entire backing was a table cloth.  It is tied using floss in two colors.  I replaced a lot of the ties as they had worked loose and some were missing altogether. 
This is the finished quilt. 
One more picture of the finished quilt.  Where we are holding the corner up, you can see that I added a label.  I asked for a picture of the quiltmaker and used my computer to print onto fabric that is treated and prepared to go through a printer.  I use june tailor Colorfast inkjet fabric sheets.  It's very easy to use.

I am off now to relax for a while, watch the fire burn down in the fireplace and an old movie to fall asleep to.  Wishing you all a Merry Christmas! ;o)

Ideas

Working on my friend's heirloom quilt has inspired me to make one of my own.  I don't want it to be elaborate or beyond my skill set.  Just a bed topper that says "SANDY".  Something my son (and possibly his future family) will be able to look at it and know what I was all about.   Maybe some photographs printed on fabrics of my first car, high school graduation, pets, etc.... Some of the items can be pieced blocks or applique blocks.  I'll use my favourite colors and motifs in the quilting.  These are my ideas, anyway, and I will have to get them down in my sketchbook before they leave my brain all together.  When I made this quilt for my mother, I had her favourite color and family photos in mind. 

So, I don't want it to look too much like this.  Some of the elements I really like about it, like the frames around each picture and the way they are placed and not quite centered or straight.  

Today I will be starting work on a label for my friend's quilt.  When it's finished, I will post some pictures.

 

Giving Thanks

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! 

Later when the turkey is reduced to a bare carcuss and all that's left in the pie pans are crumbs, I will be getting back to working on my friend's heirloom quilt.  I'm hoping to surprise him with it's completion by December 2nd. 

The holidays are upon us and Santa's warming up his sleigh.  Every year for the last 18, I have been writing a letter with our Christmas cards.  This year, however, I am thinking about skipping it.  Do you read your relatives and friends Christmas letters?  How interested are you in their pursuits over the year?  I've tried different formats, from one line sentences, mostly pictures and comic book style, third person perspective, poem styles, regular letter formats, etc.....just trying to make it different and interesting every year.  It's hard to begin with simply because you don't want to bore the readers with your accomplishments or seek their sympathies for all your failures.  What is a happy medium?  Just a simple "Merry Christmas" in my opinion. 

Books and more

I wanted a couple pictures for my post, so I dug through some oldies but goodies for today.

This picture was taken 2 years ago at the Henry Ford museum in Detroit Michigan. On display were the "Stars cars and gitars", it was a memorable show.

There is something so wonderful about buying a new book. Is it the smell of the freshly printed pages, or opening the book for the first time and hearing the faint crack of the spine? Whenever I buy a new book I just have to look through all the pages, not necessarily reading anything, but visually "getting an eyeful" of all the colors, graphs, tables, charts, patterns and finished pictures of the project I could make in the future. I do the same thing with my magazine subscriptions, however, it is a little different. The advertising for drugs between almost ever page or so is extremely distracting and I find it a bit intrusive. Trying to sell me something completely unrelated to the how-to article I am reading about prairie points or how to make the perfect apple pie is just rude. I am convinced that people with emotional problems, insomnia, ED sufferers, and diabetics read Better Homes and Gardens, Redbook and Women's Day. I usually end up ripping these pages from the magazine in disgust. Sometimes my DH will enter the room and see pages strewn all over the floor and wonder if the cat has gotten to my magazines.

Anyway, back to my brand new books!
"Inspired to Quilt"......yes I have high hopes for this one to help me with my stalled creativity at the moment.
"Paper, Metal & Stitch"......this one should be a good one with the multimedia work I want to do.
"1000 Artist Trading Cards"......love the idea of this one. It's like a shot of espresso, isn't it? You get a creative fix from making just one tiny card. These titles and so much more can be found here.

November already?

I have taken quite a few fall walks, enjoying the beautiful color show.

Believe it or not, I had 5 big beautiful sunflowers in my garden this year. Three weeks ago, high

winds came through and ripped every petal from them and they hung close to the ground before

DH chopped them down.

The heather in August was just glorious!

So, what have I been doing for the last 3 months? Is it just me, or does anyone else think that time has sped up over the last couple years. I can't believe it's nearly the middle of November already. If I look back at the year as a whole, I feel very inadequate as far as quilting goes. What do I have to show for it? Last year about this time, I joined a challenge to finish my projects before the New Year began. That didn't happen. I finished 2 of the 6 items I had in my basket. However, I can safely say that I haven't added to the pile. DH's pants were hemmed, 4 sets of shoe fresheners were crafted and given as presents, 1 table runner was completed and gifted, 1 large quilt top was gifted to a charity, a cheater quilt was completed, and blocks were sewn. A pretty meager count, I may be forgetting the odd thing or two, but close enough to all that I did this year. I am hoping to do much better in the next year. There's always room to improve! ;o)

Bonnie Scotland

We had a fabulous holiday in Scotland. The weather was better than we expected, dry for the most part and partly cloudy most days. The Military Tattoo in Edinburgh was the absolute highlight of our holiday and it was the perfect day for it. Even the sun setting behind the Castle was spectacular.

As far as quilting interest goes, there is a lot going on this fall in the UK and Europe. Purchasing tickets beforehand will save you a couple quid. Go here to find out more.

Juliet sent me some wonderful fabrics for my birthday, thank you so much. Now I must find time to sew and quilt this fall.
My Schoolhouse block is still on hold. To solve my problem with the block it would involve a lot of ripping out or setting these aside and re-piecing the same block in a different layout of colors. I hate to rip out seams so now I am thinking about scrapping the entire block and choosing a different one. Possibly an applique block. I love the thistle picture at the top of this posting, so maybe I will play with that image a bit and see if it's something worth doing. I can't help thinking that I am turning this row quilt into a complicated nightmare and it has stopped me from sewing anything else. Have a good week everyone :o)

Cheater quilts....... Who's cheating?

Love this 50's painting scene, so I just had to start my blog today with it.

I don't take credit on making any cheater quilts I've ever bought. I only praise their beauty and functional qualities. About 11 years ago, I decided to buy one for our bed. It was gorgeous and lasted about 9 years and went through at least that many washes in my home machine. Recently, I saw one in the store and thought how nice it would be to have one again. I bought the king size (yes, we are one of the few couples who still sleep on a full size bed) since my DH and I usually fight over the covers at night. This one goes to the floor and is like a coverlet so that when I make the bed, the pillows get tucked in at the head of the bed. I also bought the shams for our extra pillows. It is just wonderful and there is no way I could've made one so cheap. The quilting is very elaborate with hearts and vines and swirls all over it. The blue and white colors look great next to my dark furniture. I am very proud of my find and I am hoping it will last for another 9 or 10 or maybe more years! Have you ever bought a cheater quilt or wish you had?

Ok, remember my last post I talked about working on my row quilt. Here it is. I did in fact get some houses done. After sewing the first one, I made an adjustment to the pattern that I found for free on-line. The next picture shows it better, but I combined a step and took out one of the 90 degree triangles. This was an easy paper pieced block. Before I go any further with this row, I would like some opinions about what you think about the layout of this pattern. Maybe the white strip at the top of the windows doesn't look right?

So the yellow one on the left shows the triangle on the roof and the purple one on the right shows the triangle taken away with the front roof being one odd shape piece. However, the more I look at these blocks, the more I am unsure of the white strip above the windows. Maybe I should remove that as well?

Well, it's been overcast all day and it has finally decided to rain. And I mean raining buckets. Before we get any thunder and lightening, I think I will post this and power down my computer.