EASY STREET # 5

Bonnie Hunter's Easy Street number 5 was pretty easy, but I'm still having a hard time keeping up with it.  I have all my turquoise 3 1/2 inch squares cut, and most of my purple 2 inch squares.  I just need to finish marking the diagonal sewing lines and spend a little more time at the sewing machine!  Making little turquoise houses.

I just went blog hopping and one lady had this posted on her page.  A messy house is a sign of a happy quilter.  I thought about that and concluded that I must be delerious!

Another lady was tired of purple and turquoise.   I might be more tired of those colors if turquoise was not my favorite color!  As I stated on my last easy street post... I LOVE these colors!  It is such fun waiting for a new post each week.  I have a hunch it is time to use more green.  I wonder if we will use green on Friday!



This is so much fun!



my birthday quilt cake

Isn't this the cutest cake?  And the kids are kind of cute too!

I'm so glad they were able to help me eat it!!!

Santa Clause quilted Christmas Card!

I have a friend that loves to make beautiful hand made cards for people.  She never misses an occasion and the card always arrives on time.  I am sort of the opposite type of person.  I forget what day it is and even after being reminded, I can frequently forget again.  My goal this year was to surprize my friend with a hand made card.  It will go out in tomorrows mail so that she will have it on Christmas Eve!!!

My photography is very amateur!  But if you notice Santas eyes they are looking down in this photo.  He has google eyes and it is so cute!  His beard, eyebrows, mustache and hair is fusible fleece and his nose and the top of his hat are tiny little pom poms.  The photo just does not show how cute he really is!  The dimensions are 6" X 7".  I looked on the USPS website and it says that first class letters must be rectangular, so I had to take an inch off to make it 'legal' to mail him.  My original idea was to send it as a post card, but it was too big for that.  The hardest part was the binding ! 

I used fusible fleece for a light batting then added Pellon Peltex II ultra firm fusible stabilizer-double sided to make the whole thing very stiff!  Maybe I'll make some more little quilted cards for next Christmas!  It actually didn't take very long and was kind of a fun project.  I think a Christmas tree would be cute decorated with ric rac and tiny round buttons!  What do you think?

update:

I had a small problem when I went to sign the back of my quilted Christmas card.  I used a blue line water erasable pen to write out the message just in case I might make a mistake.  I then went over the blue lines with a permanent marker.  When I sprayed it with blue line eraser, all of the color bled into the surrounding fabric.  Apparently the blue line marker had a reaction with the pigma pen and the blue line eraser spray!  EEK!!!!!  I ran for tissue and dabbed over and over again.  This is what it looked like afterward.  OHHHHHHH NOOOOOOOOOOO!  Now what!!!!!

Time for damage control.  Once it was dry, I went over the original letters with a black pen.  Then I applied a light coat of snowy looking glitter around the words.   This will have to work because it's going in the mail today! 

last customer Christmas quilt finished!!!

Card tricks in the center.  This was a large quilt!

I forgot to rotate this picture before posting. 
Perhaps you wouldn't mind turning your head.

It is so wonderful to be finished until next year!!!  Now I can wrap presents, cook and maybe even find a little time to work on one of my projects and finish #5 of Bonnies Easy Street Mystery before Christmas is here!!!

EASY STREET #4

 

I love these colors!!!

grandchildren's Christmas quilts

Joshua's kaleidescope quilt!

 

There was only enough fabric to complete 12 blocks and then it was just a matter of cutting and piecing what was left until it was almost totally gone.

This quilt was sent with a scholastic book about the old lady who swallowed a fly (and several other unusual things). 

I LOVE THIS STORY!!!

Julie Gabrielle's bright quilt.

The I Spy Quilt



 This quilt was started several years ago.  I finally finished it in 2011.  The child it was made for is now close to 13 years old.  Somehow he grew up before I could get it finished.  How do my days fly by so quickly?  I really thought  I would have more time when I got "older".  I'm actually semi-retired now.  I used to custom bale hay 6 months out of the year and custom quilting was my other job.  Now I have sold my tractor.  No more hay bales.  I replaced my old longarm and my tractor with a new Millennium.  Now I have more time for quilting... or do I?.

 It is hard to justify starting a new project with so many UFO's.  But I somehow manage to convince myself that it is ok.  Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that I find it more fun.  Maybe I will finish another quilt after Bonnie's Easy Street Mystery is complete.  Notice I said complete rather than  finished.

Easy Street #3

I got to help my grandson make a 3-D model of a plant cell today.  I learned parts that I will never need to know and it was fun finding items that would look like ribosomes, vacuole, chloroplasts, golgi apparatus, etc.  When we were all finished making and cleaning up the mess, there was not much time left over for sewing, but I managed to get a bakers dozen of these little units finished before it was time to call it a day.  I guess I do have one thing that is a priority above and beyond quilting.  No...... it is not plant cell models!  It is my grandson!!!

This is the 3-D plant cell model we were working on.  The assignment is due today!

EASY STREET part 2

I have finished 1/4 of my purple flying geese!!! 



Hopefully I will be caught up for this weeks clue!

batiks

Batiks are my favorite fabrics!

Just before Daisy got in the shot

There is no doubt in my mind that Daisy thinks I have the camera out to take her picture.  When I spread out the quilt, she is paying close attention to what I am doing.  As soon as I'm ready to snap the first picture she runs over to get in the shot.  At least she is considerate enough to just sit on the corner.

crocheted coat hanger cover

I really hate it when my clothes fall off the hanger and really don't like those little loops they sew into the shoulder seam to loop over the top of the hanger to keep them from falling off.  I decided to try crocheting over a few of my metal hangers to use up some of my leftover yarns.  I found a video of a method of crocheting something that looked like this one.  It was not easy, but I made it around.  I couldn't figure out how to finish the top. I just ended it.  It looks sloppy and unfinished.  I also twisted it as I crocheted just to see if it would look better.  It doesn't.

I guess a hanger doesn't need to be pretty!

This one was made from a yarn ball left over from the socks in my post "to darn or not to darn".        It was much easier than my first hanger.  I made up a pattern as I went along.  I used 2 metal hangers for this one.  It started with a chain that measured the length around the hanger and joined the ends to form a circle. (not including the length of the top hook)  I then single crocheted three rows.   Careful to keep the circle straight!  Starting at the base of the hook, I wrapped the width of the piece around the 2 hangers (one hanger on top of the other) and began crocheting around until I got back to the base of the hanger.  I was going to quit at this point, but had just enough yarn left over to begin a chain that measured the length of the hook.  I single crocheted back and forth 3 times, widening out with a double crochet on the last 5 stitches to give more to wrap around the twisted part of the metal on the base of the hook.  Since this is still joined to the wrapped part on the bottom, I just wrapped it around the hook and crocheted around to the top.  This not only looked better, but it took less than half the time it took to make the twisted grey one.  I hope these directions are not too confusing.  After hiding the yarn tail, I had used up all of this yarn!

Easy Street 4-patches

This grey is very light, but I have had it forever and jumped at the chance to use it up!  Thank you Bonnie for the opportunity!!!  What it lacks in contrast value is surpassed by the excitement of getting it out of the stash!  Who knows... after the mystery is solved, I may decide it was the perfect choice!!!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!                 I have so much to be thankful for and I hope that you do too!

Now this picture is to get you in the mood for what is to follow.  If I make a list of everything I would like to do before Christmas is here, I wouldn't have time to write the list!  Just kidding.... or am I?  Anyway it suffices to say that I have a lot to do.  I just couldn't even live long enough to finish all the things that I would like to do in one lifetime.  I guess I better go get a newspaper so that I can find out if I need to brave the crowds for black friday!

watercolor quilts

I found this picture on facebook and just wanted to share it.  Isn't it beautiful?  I love watercolor quilts!

Grinch tree for Josh

This little quilt started with almost 250 pins in it.  It was totally ready for my friend to machine quilt on her regular domestic sewing machine.  Even though Phyllis had physical challenges, she did amazing things.  I wish she was still here to finish her Grinch quilt, but since she can't I am glad that I can do it.  It was made for Josh.  He will surely treasure it.

Her daughter Theresa would pin to perfection so that her mom could finish them.  Phyllis was an inspiration!  She would cut her binding and wind it on a piece of cardboard, then label it with the name of the quilt that it was intended for. 

 

Once when I mentioned how organized she was by doing her binding and keeping everything in a kit until it was finished.  She informed me that if she didn't do it that way she would end up using the fabric for some other quilt.  If this happens, you can be sure that you'll never find the same fabric in the quantity you need!  Since Theresa often took her on shop-hops as far away as all of the surrounding States,  she probably wouldn't even remember where she bought it!!!

 I think it turned out really cute!