Jelly rolls

Last night, for the first time, I started working with a jelly roll. Well! Nobody told me what a mess it makes! Yikes! The pinked edges shed all over. And of course I was wearing black. :-P


Ah youth. I can't remember the last time I could wear heels like these! ESD found them at DSW Shoe Warehouse...for 70% off! And....she can walk in them! Woohoo!


In between shopping expeditions she's also managed to get more sewing done. On the design wall are her Biker Betty Boop table topper and the beginnings of a charm square diaper bag.


The air conditioning in the old part of the house is broken again...sigh. And of course it's the middle of another heat wave. We've been spending most of our time in the cool sewing room end of the house. Poor Ngaire seems to be feeling it more than the rest of us this time. If she isn't panting hard, she's zonked out on the floor. At one point she was so relaxed I poked her to make sure she was all right! I got a baleful look but she didn't move so I stepped back and forth over her snapping photos.

Pussy cat pussy cat

Yesterday I spent ALL day cutting squares and triangles for Bonnie Hunter's Blue Ridge Beauty quilt. Oh MY! My arms hurt from cutting and my legs are stiff from sitting. The day before, ESD (Evil Step-daughter) and I stopped at the local thrift shop. Not only did we find wearable clothing, and shirts for cutting, I was hugely pleased to find a quality office stool in very good condition. So now two can sit at computers or at my cutting table in comfort!


While ESD worked on her cat quilt, I cut 900 2" squares in creamish colors...900 2" squares in blues...and 488 pairs of triangles. Groaaan! :-) Pretty much a 9 am to 10 pm rotary cutter marathon, with a bit of time-out for a wonderful lasagne dinner cooked by ESD. I'm not used to lasagne made with cheddar and she's not used to cooking with atomic orange cheese. LOL! But we managed. It was very good!


I was determined to get the whole lot cut so I can start using them as leaders and enders. The cutting's done but there's a mess still to clean up. With two of us cutting the whole floor was strewn with bits. More to be sorted into the various scrap bins...sigh.

And I can't believe how fast this "useless scraps" bin is filling up!


All the cut pieces are now in gift bags and ready and waiting by my sewing machine. Yay!


And while I wasn't looking ESD got her quilt top finished! :-) She's pieced a back and traced four cat rhymes to be appliqued on it.

Pussy cat pussy cat where have you been?
"I've been to London to look at the queen."
Pussy cat pussy cat what did you there?
"I frightened a little mouse under the chair."

I love little pussy,
Her coat is so warm
And if I don't hurt her,
She'll do me no harm.
So I'll not pull her tail,
Nor drive her away.
But pussy and I,
Very gently will play.

Very cool!

What have I been doing???

Hello again. It's been a busy time. First I was sick...then I was sick again...sigh. Now I'm just wheezing and sneezing. Sheesh! What next???

We've been busy enjoying a visit by my Evil Step-Daughter (ESD). (She and The Tramp think it's extremely funny when we refer to ourselves as Wicked Ugly Step-Mother and Evil Horrible Step-Daughter. Works for me! :-) ) Since ESD has declared that everything is cheaper in the US than in NZ, we've been shopping, shopping, shopping! Lucky for me, she's also a quilter, so lots of that shopping is in fabric stores. Yesterday was a fabric shop hop day with ESD and Mom, and the day before was a sewing day.

Sooooo.... I managed to finish my Orange Crush mystery top! Yay! I struggled with the math for the borders but ESD saved me. Her math was perfect and so are the borders. Wooohooo!


This is the best photo I could get, late in the evening and balanced precariously on the arm of the futon. I need to take it outside for a better picture.

In one of our stops yesterday in a LQS we were having a lively conversation about New Zealand, quilting, Bonnie Hunter, Quiltvillechat, the Orange Crush mystery, and the Karolina Kwilters with the shop owner when another customer (a complete stranger) looked me right in the eye and said, "You're Katie! Hi, I'm the Mad Quilter!" RFLOL Yep! It was Lynn!! She heard me say I was doing Lynette Anderson's Noah's Ark block of the month stitchery and she's doing it too! The shop owner looked completely stunned and asked if we knew each other. I was so confused by how to answer I said, "No!" LOL But of course now we do! It was great to meet her in person.

The poor shop owner must have thought she was in the twilight zone by the time we left. After all the cross talk about England, New Zealand, Bonnie, and the Yahoo Groups....which led to the weblog reveal....and then when Mom paid for her purchases she recognized the wallets I made for Mom and I from a pattern by Karen Comstock, who is local. Then ESD spotted a sample hanging on the wall and insisted her Mum would JUST LOVE it. The shop owner, full of pride, said it was her design. So my Mom bought it for ESD's Mum and we all left very happy, though the shop owner was looking a little shell-shocked by then.

Let's see..... We really have been busy. Hmmmm...... OH! On Saturday we all went to see Forbidden Broadway at the Koka Booth Amphitheater in Cary. Great show, part of the NC Symphony summer series. BUT! OH MY! Did it rain! It poured on our picnic supper.


We had umbrellas but we still got soaked. Mom and I were sharing an umbrella and ended up sitting in soaking wet jeans the whole evening. Ewwwwwww!

But the rain stopped right at show time so we enjoyed the performance despite feeling squishy. :-)


On Thursday Mom, ESD and I went to the Capital Quilters meeting. We all had show & tell. I had my Bargello Bowl quilt, Mom had the Kowhaiwhai wall hanging that ESD made for her and ESD had the Percy Pukeko & Kenny Kiwi quilt she's made for my GS.


And this is a glimpse of what ESD is working on while she's here. Mom gave her a lesson in needle-turn applique. One lesson and she's nearly a pro!


Fun, fun, fun!!! :-)

Vote Now!

President schmesident. Vote for the important things! Check out what Tonya has to say about getting Gwen Marston's book, Liberated Quiltmaking, reprinted for those of us who missed out the first time.

If you'd like one, leave a comment on her post or send her an email.

Thanks Tonya!

Blogger Non-Help

I just noticed that Bonnie has this information by her Blogger comment box...

"*note* I can't reply to your comment, unless you have your email address visible in your settings! When you log into blogger on your dashboard page, click where it says "edit profile" on the right of the page. Click "SHOW EMAIL ADDRESS" in the 3rd line down, and then at the bottom of the page click SAVE CHANGES!"

Blogger (non) Help sure doesn't tell you anything about the doggone "no-reply" issue. I Googled and searched and played with my blog settings and it's all guesswork. Sheesh! I suspected the the problem had something to do with the profile but it was just a guess.

Thanks Bonnie! This is one of those things that can keep me up all night! LOL

No Reply

From: newquilterV (noreply-comment@blogger.com)

This happens more often than you'd think....someone asks a question in a comment and I can't reply to them because they have their weblog set to "no reply". If I have time I will go to the person's weblog and email from there, but mostly I just let it go. Some people don't have weblogs either so that's a dead end anyway. I feel bad not answering but what's a girl to do!

To me anyway, this is a game of give and take. So check your settings and allow replies!

On another subject....can I moan a bit? I have an ugly cold. :-( Here it's been over 100 degrees outside for days on end (almost a week anyway). Perfect weather for sitting inside in the air conditioning and sewing. But the last thing I feel like doing is sitting at my machine. Blleaaaahhh. Oh well, this too shall pass.

Dang...I don't even have any new photos to share. It's a bit cooler today. I think I'll go out and feed the birds and see what I can find. AAAAAAAAACHOOOOOOO! (moooaann) ;-)

Bubble Gum Crush?

Like many of us I'm not too sure about my Orange Crush mystery quilt. If you lay just the two blocks together they are pretty scary looking. But getting it all up on the design wall makes me feel a tad better about it. I have a few more blocks to press and add to the wall, and the corner blocks to make. Then I have to think carefully about borders. That's what's holding up my Carolina Crossroads.....sigh.


Seems a bit blah. (though it's brighter than it looks here) And I'm wondering about the red fabrics. But it's growing on me....

Bargello Bowl

I know the Super Bowl was way back whenever-it-was but I have finally finished my Bargello Bowl quilt. hee hee! Bonnie Hunter invited those of us who aren't rabid football fans (see? at least I know which sport it is!) to sew a scrappy bargello quilt along with her. Of course I couldn't resist.

I've been through a bit of Sturm und Drang with sewing machines this spring so it sat and waited to be quilted. I bought my new Bernina with the stitch regulator, took the master classes, took the machine back to be fixed, bought (of course!) and read books, watched videos, surfed the net and finally felt ready to tackle it. Besides crosshatching and stitch in the ditch I haven't really machine quilted before and I was so determined to get on with it!

After one false start and a whole lot of unpicking I finally got going. I am so pleased with the results...even if it was mostly practice! After show & tell at the guild meeting in June it'll be on it's way to it's innocent and unsuspecting new owner.

I couldn't hang it full length on the clothesline so here it is sideways, still dragging on the ground. I love the texture after washing it.

I pieced the back from hot air balloon fabrics. Now there was more work than I anticipated!

I practiced Line Dancing. Soooo cool.

I managed to make ribbon candy in the narrow border.

And practiced loops and hooks in the braided border. Here and there are a few leaves, hearts and stars because I just couldn't resist!

HUGELY satisfying. .....Next!

Retreat

Last weekend I went on a quilting retreat under the auspices of the Karolina Kwilters. I think I've recovered. Maybe...possibly....nope. :-) Non-stop talking, little sleep and lots of food chocolate has to be recovered from when you get to my age...sigh. :-D

As an aside....there are lots of teen-aged House Finches right in front of my nose fighting over the window feeder. You can just tell they are juvenile by their look and their behavior. The mom in me wants to smack them all and make them get along! Awwwww Mom....they're my buddies! (Uh-oh. I'm going around the bend.)



Anywaaaaaay...back to our regularly scheduled posting. The retreat was wonderful. "D", our host, was fantastic. Even her hubby got involved carrying our stuff, grilling dinner, calling our bingo games and being generally charming. Four of us slept over and two more came for the day on Saturday. We sewed, ate, played quilty games, sewed, ate, showed and telled, sewed, ate, visited a really nice LQS, sewed, ate, watched the PBS documentary "A Century of Quilts: America in Cloth", sewed, ate and sewed some more. There was lots of talk about hubbies, parents, kids, ex spouses, travel, homes, sewing and everything else you can think of. Very very nice. We all became instant friends.

Nice house. And it's supposed to be for sale soon!

Nice dogs too! Very well behaved. There were four of them. I only have pics of the greyhounds. Lovely dogs.


The yard backs up to Tanglewood Park. A peaceful and perfect setting.

I bunked out in the RV. :-)


And we did sew! I worked on my Orange Crush part 5 and a wedding signature quilt. "G" and "ME" started and finished whole quilt tops! Dang! "M" and I had our Featherweights with us. "C" was so charmed by them she got right on eBay and bought one! Right there...on Saturday...at the retreat. LOL Then a few of us took a little side trip to a neighbor's house and "MA" bought a practically new mid-arm machine and frame. There must have been something in the water. Geez!

The whole room was a mess of extension cords and fabric. :-)

My pictures aren't good. It looks darker than it was. What a great living room with space for seven people to sew.

Hi everybody! *waves to my new friends* Thanks for the great time.