IT'S FINISHED !!!!

ahhhh....................... finished.................

photos taken...........................

application to the show nearly completed... 
couldn't upload online, but oh well... 

It's due Tuesday - so glad Fed Ex isn't going to shut down on Tuesday!

so... here it is... it's called Mystic Glacier...  it's a vintage damask napkin, mounted on a piece of light blue Radiance fabric, and trimmed with vintage lace, and beaded.

ah, I think I'll go pat myself on the back for an hour or so... 

Kate

A Sewin' Saturday

oh my but I love Saturdays....  now that DH is retired, he does all the errands like shopping, etc., so I just have Saturday to do what I want - which is usually to sew..

I hope by tomorrow I will be posting a finish on my linen quilt -  a little bit of last handwork to do on that during the rest of the LSU game...

But mostly today is charity quilts - these are just so darned fun...

Someone else donated this top to the Sunshine Online Quilt Guild - I quilted and bound... so cute!

 This little crumb quilt seems to fascinate Mystic - he thinks there must surely be a mouse under there.....  Going!

 Going.....................

 Gone !!!!

 This twin string quilt is bright, bright - wowee, I'm not sure if I love this or really can't stand it...  but its quilted and bound now, and it's really really snuggly... so off it goes - not sure where this one will go, sine it's a bit too large for the Wrap A Smile initiative...  I think I'll just put it aside until I have three or four this size, and then find just the right place for them.

 

I hope you're having a great Saturday !!!  Let me close up this computer and go put some beads on my little show quilt - got to think of a name for it, too...  ugh, names just don't come to me very easily..................

Happy Quilting,
Kate

A Travelin' Stash !!!!

Yippee, a travelin stash box arrived at my door - fun, fun, fun........

 A set of directions, and a 'travelogue' of all the places the box had been, who had taken what out and put what in, topped off all the neat and nifty contents.

 pincushion doughnut?   too cute, too funky..

 fabric and fabric

 cute tiny precuts

and a darling little ceramic sewing machine.......

a special gift from the previous box-recipient in Utah

 and books and patterns, too!

I took out:  fabric, and more fabric;  thread;  a tape measure;  some four-patch blocks.  And I put in: 

nine-patches, binding, ribbon, some dinosaur pre-cuts, and more fabric!!

And, off it will go on Saturday to my friend Gail in Southern California !!!!  She raises dogs, so I put this CAT fabric in just for her!!!

how fun...............

Kate

Beading..... 60% complete

Beading, beading, beading.... on this little lovely....  all the machine quilting is complete...

 Now it gets beads and more beads..;

I figure I am a little over halfway with the beads - tedious and time consuming, but oh do they sparkle gently in the light... 

I found two of these redwork embroidery pieces on ebay, and I am keeping one.  The one pictured here will go back up for sale - it's a beautiful piece, almost in perfect shape with just a couple of repairs needed.   If you are interested in redwork, pop over to ebay and put in a bid and you can adopt this little lovely.

 

I have been power sewing this morning - DH has decided he likes to iron (be still my heart), so I sew up a bunch of chain piecing on the weekend, then sometime during the next week he snips it all apart and irons it for me...  and I start the next weekend with a lovely bin  of ironed pieces.   He has a medium-sized "ironing bin", and I can fill it chock-full!   What a fun thing this is...  it is helping me get some of my 'part' sewn up, like bags of four-patches sewn into square in a square, for example - and those 'parts' then become quilts so much more readily.

Did you see the call for quilts for Colorado from the quilt shop in Golden, CO?  I know now why I had about four quilts that did not have a destination - they were too large for my normal kid charities, and I had begun to wonder what I was going to do with them.  I guess they are going to Golden...  isn't there a book... "The Quilt that Walked to Golden", or something like that... well, mine probably want to go UPS...  spoiled little things...  let me go see where they are and what kind of finishing they need... 

Happy Sunday to everyone,

Kate

I Just Love that Charity Quilting!

 

Hi everybody... and happy Saturday to you all................

 

 

 

It is early, early here and I am up and ready to sew .... that is, after I blog and read blogs!   Too fun to resist...

 

 

First, let me brag on this tomato sandwich - our first tomato of the season!!!  Yes, I know, we should have had it long ago, but this one little tomato plant we had in a big pot just took a long time - but finally it yielded six beautiful tomatoes, and I shall enjoy the first one in a sandwich - oh I do love a good tomato sandwich...I ate it yesterday, and it was yummy...

I am hard at work beading my show quilt (hint to judges:  masterpiece)... and I am almost HALF done, with one more week to go... photos to follow soon.  I am not good at staying on one project day after day, so it is taking all my energy to keep going - but I will...

To keep from losing my mind, I always have some charity quilting going on - so fun, to use up those fabrics in bright colors to make kids quilts...  and to quilt and finish up some made by friends in the Sunshine Yahoo Online Guild...

I made some screamin bright blocks - orange, green, yellow - (hmm, I think those are Mardi Gras colors, aren't they?   Miss Bit just had to pounce on them when I laid them out for a photograph.  Those go in the mail to a Block Lotto.  The requirement this month is brights... do you think I met the standard?

Continuing with the bright theme, I finished up this quilt from a top made by another guild member - this is bright, too, isn't it?   Love that black fabric...and it has a cheerful flannel "beary" back the member sent!

 

Kittens loved this little nine-patch - raspberry and yellow...  now, let's see, perhaps I could have a raspberry and yellow outfit - probably I would look like some kind of insect - but it sure does look good on a kids quilt...Kittens loved this one, too.  This one came from tops donated by another member... this is a great group who works well together to make lots of quilts!

 

 

Well, I am off to try to make it to the machine before six a.m.  What shall I do?  Bead on the competition quilt?  Put borders on a charity quilt?  Quilt on the pineapple quilt?  Work on my ongoing Bonnie Hunter mystery from LAST year?  aw, heck, maybe I will start something brand new....what a fun set of possibilities... 

 

See you all later... 

 

Kate

 

 

 

 

The Kitty Who Won Some Fabric

Well - when a girl has a serious fabric habit, the entire family has to pitch in, don't ya know?

I entered this photo in the "Pets on Quilts Contest" - this is Miss Bit when she was about 12 weeks old, on my Bonnie Hunter quilt, the mystery called "Orca Bay" - it was being quilted when she crawled on and gave me this pose with her gigantic eyes! 

And, bless her little heart - she won a prize !!  And, was that prize some Catnip, or some Tuna, or even some Greenies?  No, she said, boohoo, in her little kitty voice.

The prize?Fabric, from Hoffman... yippee for me...............not so exciting for Miss Bit, however... So, I got her a nice bag of treats at Pet Smart... and I will look forward to breaking into these yummy fabric treats!

I had quite the weekend with several projects: 
this handkerchief quilt was mailed off to my friend Virginia, in Georgia.  If you read my blog, you will know that this handkerchief belonged to her mother, who passed away a few years ago.  I enjoyed making it for her - hope she likes it!

 

 

And, this damask napkin quilt was in "Urgent Care" cause the basting lines were showing.  After two hot-water soaks, I am happy to say they are much diminished -  I don't think they will be noticeable when it is all said and done.

 

So - I'm going to try and finish this before the Oct 1 deadline to enter it in "Road to California"...  I need to put beads on it - lots of them...  so that is what I will be doing from now until Sept.  30... beading, beading, beading.   I really don't know if I can get it done, but I am going to try!  

Wish me luck..... I'm starting NOW...

Kate

What a fun Saturday I am having sewing !  I opened a drawer in a small dresser in my sewing room - it was so crammed, a bunch of stuff literally jumped out, including these very cute 4 patches (and another pile of them much bigger ) - I have no idea where these came from - someone must have given them to me - they have been in that drawer long enough !

 Let's make them a square in a square.................. hmm,  like that

and I have lots of denim - this is a denim "leg"... I got SEVEN boxes of denim legs FREE from Cone Mills in North Carolina when I lived there - many quilts have come from that... but there's a little (!) bit left.........................

 hmmm, alternating denim squares... I like that arrangement - a nice stury quilt, but not so heavy as an all-denim quilt.  a great picnic quilt or quilt for a man or a teen.  And the side seam makes a nice design detail.

I like it - it will be very homey and snuggly...  and let's see how I am doing at using up that denim....

rut roh - three large bins of denim, one small bin of denim... good thing denim lasts a long, long time!

Hope everyone else is enjoying the weekend.

Kate

Progress? or Disaster?

Hello everyone... I have been working very hard on this little piece, made on a damask table napkin.
It's moving along...

 

 
 

 The design is woven into the linen itself, and the color was handpainted on the napkin.   So, my inspiration for most of the quilting was from the original piece.

I found some vintage lace for the trim, on a piece of blue underlayment - so sweet - still have to miter the corners down.



But - arckkkkk - do you see those lines?  those are my basting lines - I used wash away thread, but the depression from the stitching won't go away... I have gotten them to fade a little bit with steam and rubbing.... 

any body have a secret remedy?  Please send it, post haste!!!!

Keep quilting,

Kate

Deadline Ahead !!!

Hello everyone... 

I just popped in to show you my new linen project... this is a damask napkin... has some lovely painted pastel flowers on it, so I am trying to highlight those...

Interesting, this is the stage of every project where I decide I don't like it and I should quit working on it.  Washing out the blue marker will help immensely.............  So -  there's a quilt show coming up with an October 1 submission deadline... Do you think I can finish this by October 1 ?   yikes, I don't know... but let's see... 

gotta go .... gotta sew............. bind.... wash out blue...  bead.... photo.... entry form........

yikes, that was not helpful to think of it that way!

Happy quilting...

Kate

Never Leave Your Binding Unattended

I just left the room for a minute, I swear!   LOL, he must have really liked this color! Mystic is such a goofball ---- 

 

Can you see the other kitty?  Bit????  She is under the chair... I can hear her saying "you're gonna get it trouble for doin that..... she'll be right back and you're gonna be in trouble"...  "you better put that back up on the sewing table where it was !"

They are always good for a laugh..  and the binding is safely sewn on a quilt now...

Kate

Forward on All Burners

Hi all....  I'm a bit sad to see Labor Day in the rearview mirror.  It's time for a new academic year for the Quilting Professor, and that's a good thing, but it's also a busier time - since I work an administrative job, I work all summer, but summers are still quieter than the year, and I'm sorry to see that quiet time end.  Oh well, time to be back on all burners!!

I've been really, really busy.  On Monday I linked up to Bonnie Hunter's Yard Sale - and I sold this gigantic pile of books - yippee - I am happy to see these go to new homes - my bookshelves were starting to sag, so it was time!

 Labor Day was also the day for a traveling box of quilts - here are all the quilts that I have collected in the past 18 months for the organization Wrap-A Smile.  I made some, and others I just quilted from tops someone else made.... in a box they went, and off with a friend to Stockton, CA, where they are labeled and prepared to go on a medical mission with Rotary International, where they will snuggle some child as he or she comes out of surgery for a facial disfigurement - a big job for a little quilt , but somehow I know these quilts are ready for the challenge!

 and I am busy quilting the pineapple quilt...  I am stitching in the ditch every single seam...  I know some think that is nuts - but it's my way, and I'm sticking to it - it outlines the piecing so sharp and crisp....  it will take a while, though!  At the moment I am enjoying the work....

 the little hankie quilt for my friend Virginia is getting beads, and is almost, almost ready to send to her...  I'll share a photo when it is completely complete -

So - all in all, a little nostalgia for the summer past...  but there are always new quilts to make,,,  aren't there?   Oh yippee............

Happy Quilting,

Kate