Pointless Quilter

A funny thing happened on Saturday after my husband and I went out to lunch.  We ran to Michael's to get clock works for a clock of ours that was broken and we heard some puppies barking at PetSmart, which is conveniently located next to Michael's.  I asked my husband if we could stop and look, (he wants to get a Doberman) but we saw this sweet little girl dog and I asked Jeff if we could keep her.  We went home and discussed it some more and we decided that if she was still there after I ran some more errands then it was meant to be.  So meet my new little baby.  The rescue people had named her Noodle but as a quilter, I felt Needle was better and sounds a lot like Noodle so she won't get so confused. She's fitting right in.  She has a collar now, and she has been rid of all her fleas and is clean and fluffy.  We've only had one pee and one poop accident so far (that I've found).  The boys, Walter and Guy, are coming around to accepting her. ...

I gave my mother-in-law this redwork kit and some white fabric and she got busy. About a week or so ago she brought me all the squares because I told her I'd put it together for her. With the help of my friend Janice who helped me piece at Party Party Party last week, I got the top done by Thanksgiving. I finished quilting it last night and the binding this morning. I had just practiced the swirl in the sashing thru the November Free Motion Quilting challenge. It was the perfect design for this piece. I spent the rest of the afternoon cutting up my scrap basket into the 5, 3.5 and 2 inch squares for Scrap Therapy. The first picture was taken on Friday afternoon. The second one just minutes ago.   My neck and back are aching but I have one more quilt to start machine quilting. So I better get busy. Thanks for looking.   Posted with Blogsy

Last weekend I went to Pacific International Quilt Show. While there I picked up two patterns from Quilts in the Attic. One is an ornament pattern and the other a pumpkin wall hanging. The ornament pack came with fabric but the pumpkin fabric all came from my scrap therapy boxes. Yea!!! I did buy the accessories kit that included the raffia, buttons and letters. I like both projects. Tonight the Loose Threads girls met to show our "Dog Days of Summer" Challenge quilts. My quilt is pretty literal. I'm calling this one RockStar Walter. Oops. Don't know why it's turned sideways. Next is Sara's. She has three panels of windows in her living room and on hot days she looks at the hot summer days from her air conditioned house so her quilt reflects that view. Her machine quilting is of ceiling fans. Janice, our coastal member, has a beautiful beach scene. Karen's isn't quilted and she hasn't done her thread thing, but this will be a spectacu...

I finished this Scrap-Therapy   quilt top.  It started with the border fabric - found some background Kona cotton for the inner sashing and found the stripe by a happy accident.  The picture makes it look pinky red - but it's actually a chocolate brown.  Made these two little Easter wall hangings (pattern from Material Possessions) for the guild's boutique. And also another pillow which used up the last of the red and white scrap squares and half-squares triangles.  For the boutique. My goal tomorrow, since I have the day off, is to make at least 8 baby bibs (also for the boutique) and start on my Loose Threads challenge, a quilt using the theme "Dog Days of Summer".  I have an idea and am hoping it will work.  We'll see.  I have until October to get it done. I spent a few hours at Debbie's house today with Diane and had a quilt pinning party.  Debbie had some quilts that needed to be pinned and since her husband just had knee ...

First, I want to thank all of you again who commented on my last post.  I will look at the comments from others about my "talent of finishing quilts" as only positive and I hope I will be just as cautious about my comments about others as well. So, I did a little retail therapy this week.  I have seen all these cute Lil' Twister quilts and decided I needed to make one too.   So off to Fat Quarter Shop to purchase the tool and the 5" solids.  It's not like I don't have a lot of 5" squares, but I decided I wanted only true solid colors for my first try.  I will use a black border as well.  Here's my purchase, I also bought about 7 yards of kona white as well. I also bought 3 books from Amazon.  I used to go to Scrap Therapy at the LQS but it has changed ownership and the new owner isn't continuing the program.  I contacted the owner of 'Scrap-Therapy" and she said she was having a book for Scrap Therapy out in March so I have been pa...

Won't be a lot of quilting going on here this week.  I'm having a big birthday party this coming weekend and I need to get busy cleaning and cooking.  But I wanted to get this Scrap Therapy project done before and I finally finished it last night.  I will probably be donating to our guilds charity quilt program. It's made with a lot of the scraps I cut from my grandson's baby quilt.  Maybe I'll keep it and give it to him for his 1st birthday.  Speaking of my grandson, I got my husband to drive to Livermore yesterday so we could meet him.  He was not happy - 6 hours of driving for a one hour visit.  He wouldn't even hold him.  Said he was too small.  I was pretty nervous myself.  And since I was holding him the whole time, I was unable to get more pictures. Happy Halloween everyone.  We don't have street lights so we never get any trick or treaters here so I don't get to see all those fun Halloween costumes. Thanks for looki...

I will be leaving on vacation for over a week to go to my nephews wedding back east, so I thought I'd post this quilt even though it isn't quilted yet.  I started this when I went to Cambria a few weeks ago and started finishing up the blocks this week.  With the help of a friend Janice (who completed 2 blocks for me since she was looking for something mindless to sew) I was able to put the top together yesterday.  I will not be adding any other borders, it has a small white one just to keep the edges from stretching, all the block cut edges are on the bias).  Anyway, my husband had to hold it up for me to take the photo and he deemed it long enough for him to use.  So, yipee - he just got himself another quilt.  You would think I would have used up all my strip stash but my box is still 1/2 full.  And it's not that big of a box.  Last year I won some double wedding ring blocks through the guilds block of the month program.  I ended up wit...

My latest Scrap Therapy quilt is finished.  Bright colors like this are kind of out of my norm, but I really like this against the black and white patterns and I just love the border fabric.  That was actually in my stash too.  I even used some older fabrics for my backing and got rid of a lot of stash for this one.  It was guild night tonight and I won the block of the month.  Yea!  This is a photo of some of the blocks.  I got some extra checked fabric so I can make more blocks.  It was a nice meeting with a few new members.  I also picked up a book from the library called  Liberated String Quilts.  Just trying to get more ideas of what to do with some of the extra strips I'll have left over from my other strip blocks I made at retreat.  (See two or three post before this one.)  Our library has some great books and am surprised more people don't use it more.  I know I hadn't taken advantage of it much before....

This is a Scrap-Therapy finish.  The original pattern has scottie dogs but since I'm a Doxie owner, I thought that would be too cruel, so I found a picture of a doxie and enlarged it and made this.  I love it.  Used a lot of 2" scraps and I used all flannel pieces on the back and got rid of some big scraps. I spent all day yesterday machine quilting it - did it simply.  Straight lines in the checked sashing, scribbling in the beige part, paw prints in the white border and just circling the white circles in the outer border.  Finished the binding tonight.  Named it Foxy Doxie.    Yea me!  More finished projects to show on Friday after Thursday guild meeting.

Okay so only the pincushion is really completely finished but I just couldn't wait.  I needed to post.  Here's the finished pincushion.  I'm giving this away as a giveaway at guild on Thursday for the drawing of people who have kept up with the Mystery Quilt.  An almost finish - another little table topper for March - another giveaway.   And finally the scrap therapy - all that's left to do is to sew down the binding on 2 sides and put a label on it.  I'm thinking the name will be Tequila with Lime.  The green is so strong that I tried to tone it down with some royal blue quilting.  I think you see the stars a little better.  Who knows.  You can still see some of the chalk marks on the border.  This is another Scrap-Therapy  pattern called Star Gazing.    And I also finished this Scrap Therapy purse - I made it with my orange, lime green and purple scraps and found this fun cat faced fabric to go with it.   ...

I felt like I had to organize before I started any more projects.  So I took this (a box for each color, a box of Christmas fabrics, a box of batiks, and a box of novelty/other fabrics) and folded and organized and pulled out pieces that were smaller than a fat quarter, to this... And with all the scraps.... I cut up into 5", 3 1/2" and 2" squares for Scrap Therapy and this is what I got to add to all my other boxes of cut up scraps. So, am I crazy?  Or just organized?  Should I be really crazy and sort by color too?  I unfortunately don't have time for that.  Oh, if you need any squares of a particular color for your scrap quilts, let me know.  I have enough scraps to make alot of scrappy quilts. I will now start working on the guild's Opportunity Quilt.  I was asked to machine quilt this beautiful quilt - and I AM NERVOUS.  This quilt top is exquisite and it demands custom quilting...and they entrusted that to me.    I...

This is the Lightening Strikes Twice pattern from http://www.scrap-therapy.com/ I wasn't sure about the pattern from the pictures on the pattern, but when the owner of the quilt shop where I take Scrap Therapy did it, I really liked it.  I love how I got rid of so many scraps for this quilt.  The only material I had to buy was the outer border fabric and the backing (which I got at $4 per yard.).  I think this is a pattern I might even do again.  Makes a good sized quilt and looks more complicated than it is. And here is one I really can't take much credit for.  I bought the blue work pattern when I went to Massachusetts a few years ago, meaning to make something for the beach house.  However my mother-in-law did a redwork pattern, liked it and asked if I had anything for her to work on.  Plus she wanted a new table runner for the the beach house table so I showed her this and off she went.  She did everything but the quilting and binding....

I had Scrap Therapy on Saturday and this was my final project.  We had the option to make a travel pillow, a decorative pillow or a pin cushion.  I decided on a little pin cushion.  This is left over fabric from our guild's mystery quilt.  I had 2 quilts in our local fair --I got a first place on the yo yo quilt and a 3rd place on the blue cherrywood fabric quilt.  There were quite a few quilts there and they did a great job displaying everything.   My friend Adena ( Sew 4 Real - check out her blog) came with me.  We also checked out all the Home Art Buildings, checked out some animals and had a little funnel cake.  It was a warm day outside, but I'm glad I went. And finally, I completed 2 scrapbook pages of my niece with pictures I took last weekend.  She is quite the ham.  Here she is playing guitars for me. Also went to Home Depot and got the cabinets for my new sewing room cutting table.  They had all th...