Celtic Solstice Clue 5

Clue 5 pieces

This was an easy clue to do.  I had these sewn on Saturday but I took my time getting them sliver-trimmed.  I love the colors I have chosen.  The darker purples seem to set off the brighter colors used elsewhere.  The second picture shows s possible combination of the pieces I have made so far.  Of course, I could be far off on putting the pieces together.  Maybe this week's clue will have us putting these together.  The quilt designer, Bonnie Hunter, visited Ireland last June and this quilt was inspired by a tile floor in a church over there.  I think I will pay more attention to things like that!  

 



Celtic Solstice Clue 4

Here is a picture of my clue 4 four-patches.  We were to make 120 of these in orange and green.  Of course, my orange is hot pink!  I worked on these in between customers yesterday.  We sold several sewing machines to be Christmas gifts.  It was a pretty good day.

Celtic Solstice Clue 2

Here is a picture of my completed Celtic Solstice Clue 2.  These 100 blocks were not hard to make but they were time-consuming.  After I got them finished today I heard of another way to make them - an easier way.  I pieced each piece, but another blog, http://www.stitchingcircle.com/?p=1876bduct showed how to do it by strip-piecing it.  If I had known that I would have done it that way.  However, I got them done and now look forward to the next clue, slated to go live on Friday morning.  I do love the colors together.  The yellow seems to strike sparks off the green, and with the white is very pleasing to the eye.  I can't wait to put these together with my dark purples and hot pinks.

Celtic Solstice Clue One Finished

I am making Bonnie K. Hunter's new mystery quilt, Celtic Solstice.  She posted the first clue Friday morning, and I got started cutting my fabrics at work that day.  I worked at it off and on over the weekend and just now, Sunday night at 10, I finished the first clue.  Here is a picture of my pieces finished.  I made 92 blocks with pink in the center and 96 blocks with my neutral in the center.  Here is also another picture of the fabrics I have chosen to put in this quilt.  I changed two of Bonnie's colors - my purple for her blue and my pink for her orange.  I didn't change her green or yellow but I did change some of my neutrals.  I am using white on white scraps for my neutrals.  I like Bonnie's way of using prints on the neutrals but it really makes for a busy quilt.  I am linking this post to Bonnie's blog quiltville.blogspot.com.  Many people will be linking to her blog, because many people are doing this quilt.  I am proud to be one of them. 

Clouds

I happened to look out the window a few minutes ago and saw this beautiful sky.  I grabbed my camera and ran outside.  I took these pictures at 5:20 pm today, November 16, 2013.  This is the sky over my house. 

Smith Mountain Morning

This is a quilt I started in a class with the designer of this quilt, Bonnie K. Hunter, last November.  I finally decided to finish it (make it, really, since I had only made a couple of blocks) last month and spent a day remembering where I was with it and how to go on.  Since then I have worked steadily at it and I just got the inner border around the center blocks.  This quilt has a pieced border and I have the blocks already pieced (except for the four corner blocks).  I want to get this quilt finished and to the longarm quilter before Bonnie's new mystery quilt begins the day after Thanksgiving.  Now I have to decide what to use for backing.  By the way, that is Rosebud, better known as Rosie, on the quilt top.  She thinks all the quilts belong to her.

Speaking of the new mystery quilt, I know I showed my fabrics chosen in my last post but I have changed my mind.  I got to thinking that there will probably be more than two hundred quilts in her colors and the ones I've seen pictures of that used different colors stand out.  I want my quilt to stand out!  So I am using Bonnie's greens, yellows and neutrals, but I am changing her blues to medium to dark purples and her oranges to strawberry pinks.  I would love her colors exactly but I need to go my own way.  I used Bonnie's colors for my Smith Mountain Morning but I probably won't do that again.  So here is a picture of my new fabrics.  Just changing two colors will make a big difference in my quilt.  Now I can't wait to get started.  Hurry up Black Friday! 

Fabrics Chosen for Mystery Quilt

Bonnie Hunter posts a mystery quilt on her blog quiltville.blogspot.com every year starting the day after Thanksgiving.  This year it is called Celtic Solstice and she has already posted the fabric requirements.  Like all her followers, I have already pulled my fabrics for this quilt.  She will post a new clue every week for six to eight weeks, finishing with a large quilt.  I love to do these mysteries because I always learn a lot.  This year her colors are blue, orange, green, yellow, and neutral.  She always does her quilts in scrappy fabrics so here are the ones I chose.  My fabrics are probably a little lighter and brighter than the ones Bonnie shows on her blog.  She actually went to Lowes and got paint chips to show her exact colors.  Many of her followers went to Lowes and got the exact same chips to use to choose their colors.  I would not want to be that precise.  I want my quilt to be mine, not anyone else's.  Ok, Bonnie, I'm ready!  Let the games begin!

A Quilt Top Finish

This quilt is one I started in Harriett Hargrave's class in early August.  She designed it to teach the techniques in her class from her book Quilter's Academy, Vol. 1 - Freshman Year.  I got the center blocks of the quilt together in the two-day class and have been working on it off and on ever since.  I put the outer border on tonight and then threw it across my bed to get a picture.  I still need to choose the backing for this quilt and then decide if I want to quilt it myself.  I would love to put a circular design in the open blocks.  I am very happy with the fabrics I used.  I still need to give it a name.

Now here are a few more pictures from the game on Saturday.  You may have figured that I really liked the band!

An hour before the game

Pride of West Virginia

Pride of West Virginia

Pride of West Virginia

Press box up behind us

Pride of West Virginia

WVU vs Oklahoma State

Richard and I went to the game today, using the tickets I won a couple of weeks ago.  I will put pictures in the next couple of posts I write.  Anyway, we left home just before 6 am on the way to Morgantown.  Kickoff was scheduled for 12 noon.  It was dark and there was intermittant fog the whole way, 2 hours and 41 minutes.  When we got there we gassed up, $3.30 a gallon.  We started up toward the stadium and there was a parking lot so we pulled in.  We paid $25 to park and then sat in the car for about an hour and a half.  Then we walked up the hill and got lost.  We followed a bunch of people who were not going to the stadium right then.  We finally got our bearings but meanwhile we walked a l-o-n-g way.  We got to our seats (in the nosebleed section) and I told Richard I was not going back down until the end of the game.  Long story short, the home team won the game, against all odds.  Loved the band, called the Pride of West Virginia.  WVU wanted everyone to wear gold to the game and nearly everyone did.   We bought a frozen lemonade at half-time for 5 bucks.  It was sure good but everything cost that much. 

Sunrise

Fog

Band before the game

Band before the game

Band before the game

WVU football players taking the field

Orange shirts Oklahoma State's contingent

Scoreboard

I'm a Winner!

I had an appointment this morning with the doctor who is going to do my cataract surgery.  Bad news - surgery has to be put off because my previous eye doctor did not provide my records.  Now I have to have tests to find out which lens implant I need.  Since I have to have my surgery at the hospital (due to having hospital insurance) and the doctor has limited time at the hospital, they said it may be after the first of the year before we get to do it.  I guess I can wait.  Now - to get to how I'm a winner - while I was waiting in the doctor's office I got a call from MSN, that is, Mountaineer Sports Network.  They said I won!  During the WVU game last Saturday they had a Listen To Win contest where you text  MSN to a certain number when they said to.  I had the text all cued up on my phone and when they said to I hit SEND.  I really didn't think any more about it, even when I noticed that the call this morning was from Morgantown, WV.  Everyone in the waiting room was listening to my side of the conversation.  I was so excited!  They said I won two tickets to an upcoming home game at Mountaineer Stadium, a year's worth of lottery tickets, and a year's worth of Pizza from Papa Johns!  Woohoo!  I can't wait to go to the game!  Richard and I are super fans of WVU football, and we haven't been to a game in years and years.  This Saturday the WVU football team is taking on the Terps of Maryland at Baltimore.  Kickoff is at 3:30 and I work until 4 but I can listen to the game on the radio and then watch it when I get home.  Go Mountaineers!

String Blocks

Finished String Blocks

This is what I've been working on lately.  You take a piece of paper; phone book paper, almost any thin paper that tears easily.  I like the glossy ads in the Sunday newspaper the best.  Anyway, you have paper about a half-inch larger than you want the finished block to be.  Lay a strip of leftover fabric across from corner to corner face up.  Then lay another strip face down on the side of the first strip.  Sew with 1/4" seam allowance and flip the second strip over.  Finger-press over the seam.  Add another and another until you cover the paper entirely.  Then I press the block flat.  I turn it over and cut the block into the size I need for my quilt.  Because I shorten the stitch length before I sew the blocks I can tear the paper off the back easily.  Then I have blocks I can use for almost any solid block in a quilt.  They can be cut in half and used as triangles.  String blocks make use of fabric that would normally go to waste, being long and too thin to cut for blocks.  I think I am going to make an entire quilt of these blocks, using sashing around them to make the bright colors pop.  The strings seem to multiply in their bin so I am never close to running out of fabric. 

Top - Paper on back of pieced block.  Bottom - Front Side

Bad day today

I had to put one of my kitty cats to sleep today.  Missy was 18 1/2 years old.  She has been with me since she was six weeks old.  We got her and her brother Peanut from one of my daughter's friends on St. Patrick's Day in 1997.  Peanut had a congenital anemia and died at age 2 1/2.  I am so happy to have had Missy with me for a long time.  I will always miss her, just as I do Peanut.

Ruler Bag Made

I made this Ruler Bag today to carry my rulers to sewing classes.  The first picture shows the bag empty, with no rulers in it.  The second pictures shows the bag loaded down with about seven rulers, including an 8 1/2" X 24" very large ruler.  You can see it at the top of the bag.  There is a pocket on the bottom of the front with three sections.  I have a rotary cutter in one and some small rulers in the larger one.  I love this bag, but the next one will have longer handles.  I strip-pieced the front and the back is a teflon ironing surface.  The bag is big enough to carry a small cutting board.  I found the pattern on an old hand-out from JoAnn Fabrics, but I did change it somewhat.  I strip-pieced the front using the Quilt As You Go method, when the instructions said to piece the front and then quilt it.  You put the front together with the lining and the pocket at the bottom, and the back ironing surface together with the lining, and then bind the outside edges.  The instructions didn't give any details about how to bind the corners and the top edges.  It's a good thing I could figure it out on my own.  I think we will offer this as a class at work next month. 

Can You Believe It - Another Finish!

This is probably the fifth 3-D Bowtie quilt I have finished.  I love making these blocks, and they use up lots and lots of scraps.  I used a cheddar dot on white for the background of all the blocks.  I couldn't decide what fabric to use for binding so I used the little bit of background fabric I had left.  I think it made a beautiful binding.  This quilt has been sitting and waiting for binding for probably a year.  I finally decided to get it done!  I bound this quilt and the last quilt, the Cheese and Crackers quilt, at the same time.  I think I have all my quilted quilt tops bound at this time.  I have at least three quilt tops waiting to be basted to batting and backing.  Two of those are lap-sized quilts and I will do them myself.  But one is king-sized and although I had wanted to quilt it myself in three sections I think I will have Vonda Cochran do it for me.  I have not yet chosen the backing fabric for that one, although it is done except for borders. 

Finally - Another Finish

 This quilt is called Cheese and Crackers - where it got the name I don't know.  It is from Atkinson Designs.  Any time you want a simple but striking quilt Atkinson Designs is the designer you want.  I used scraps from my small scrap bin (small scraps, not small bin) but the tone-on-tone white I used for the background came from the back room at WV Quilts, my favorite quilt shop.  The bottom picture shows the back of the quilt.  The fabric I chose for the backing was a little short so I made more bricks like the front of the quilt and pieced down one side.  It's the first time I've done that and I will undoubtably do it again.  I really like the way it looks.  This quilt is lap-sized.  The kitty cat in two of the pictures is my kitty Sascha.  Every time I lay out a quilt I get a kitty on it.  Usually it is Rosie but she must have been asleep.

Adam and I visited the farmer's market this morning and I got green beans, new potatoes, corn on the cob, cucumbers, bell peppers, and some peaches.  We had a wonderful fresh vegetable dinner!  I also fried some squash (I ate it all!) and baked cornbread.  Richard and I really enjoyed it.  I also have a cantaloupe that I am going to get into in just a few minutes.  We have been overrun with tomatoes.  I only have six tomato plants out back but they are producing a lot of tomatoes.  One of them is growing way too many grape tomatoes.  Richard has been taking them to work to share and I shared some with neighbors.  I only eat tomatoes out of my garden because I hate the gassed things that pass for tomatoes in the restaurants.  I also have a green pepper plant growing but it is not producing very well.

Storm Clouds

I was sitting on the porch the other evening when these storm clouds started closing in.  They were coming from the east, usually they come from the west.  I already had the first picture on my computer, but quickly took the others to show what it looked like.  I sat there until it was raining hard and I started getting wet.  Usually I can sit there during a storm and maybe get my feet wet but that time the whole porch got wet.

Notice, also, the roof on the house across the street.  My neighbor put a new metal roof on his house.  He must have liked our new roof because he got the same people to do his.  He had a tin roof (very old!) and when they took the sheets of metal off there was nothing under it except for some studs.  They put sheathing on, then a layer of rolled felt, then another layer of sheathing, then the metal roof.  I'll bet it makes a huge difference in his energy bills!

My brother lives in the house directly across the street with the big yard.  The yellow fence encloses his above-ground pool.  I call it the yellow monstrosity.  They tie a big dog out there daily by the deck and then let the grandkids play there.  One of them does her gymnastics there.   

It's my birthday!

As of today I am sixty-two years old.  I can honestly say I never expected to live this long.  Most of my family is not long-lived, of course, they were all smokers, and I never smoked in my life.  I did breathe second-hand smoke for forty-five years.  Since then I simply do not allow smoking where I have to breathe.  My mother was one month from her sixty-sixth year when she died of lung cancer.  Dad lived to eighty but he quit smoking at age thirty-eight.  Heart disease and everything else smoking causes took the rest of them.  I am being treated for heart disease even though I have never had heart symptoms simply because of my family history.  My brother had a heart attack at age fifty-two.

Richard and I were going to spend the day out running around but there came up a horrible storm before we got out.  We had high winds and hard rains and I was glad we were still at home.  The sky was very cloudy but we went to Elder-Beerman this afternoon because they had texted me a coupon for 50% off a single item today only.  I used the coupon to get a new nightgown that was already 25% off, so the $44 nightgown was only $16.50  I also bought a new white cardigan sweater that was on clearance, $59 for $29.49.  I lost a white sweater a couple of weeks ago when I left it somewhere.  I quit shopping then because I don't torture Richard by shopping too much when he is with me.  We then drove out Corridor G to have an early dinner at Panera Bread.  We also stopped in Cabela's and bought a couple of pieces of chocolate peanut butter fudge (yum!).  Then we came back home and settled down for the evening.  Now here I am updating my blog and Richard is watching tv and playing Words with Friends on his phone with Audrey and with me.  It wasn't a bad day at all.

Embroidered Calendar

Look what a terrific calendar holder I made today!  I embroidered the center block on our Husqvarna Viking Designer Diamond Deluxe  and did the rest of the stitching on the Opal 670.  The pattern says you can make a quilt block instead of embroidery for the center.  The squares around the center block were scraps from a quilt I made just recently so I knew they would coordinate nicely.  The calendar slides out so I can put a new one in there next year.  Of course, I put a Viking pen in the pen holder in the center.  I love this calendar and really enjoyed making it.  I know I am going to make many more.

West Virginia Shop Hop

Well, two days and probably six hundred miles were spent doing the Shop Hop.  Debbie, Diane and I visited eleven quilt shops in West Virginia, signing up to win prizes at each shop.  The only thing wrong was that Tammy was not with us.  She went home to the Cayman Islands the other day so we had to carry on without her.  This picture is one of the beautiful quilts we saw.  Each shop used the same blocks to make up their own quilts and there was quite a variety!  This one was my favorite, I think from The Sew Inn in Morgantown.  I'm sure Diane will correct me if I'm wrong.  I did not buy the blocks this time because I still haven't finished the quilts from the last two shop hops.  We hit eight shops yesterday (the first day of the shop hop) and it took us about fourteen hours.  We had great weather all day, then after the last shop, on the worst road possible, there came up a downpour that lasted all night long and included thunder and lightning.  Debbie was driving and I was helping by watching the side of the road.  I commend her skills.  It was very nerve-wracking.  We had just left the shop near Hawk's Nest and drove down Rt. 60 with all the hairpin curves.  At times it was nearly impossible to see the road in front of us.  Debbie did a great job and deposited us at my house (where Diane had left her car) and I was sure glad to be home.  I restrained myself when it came to buying all the wonderful fabrics and notions I saw because I want to go on vacation sometime soon.  This morning we picked up where we left off and visited three more shops.  We didn't have to hurry today and enjoyed it much more.  Kudos to the great quilt shops of West Virginia, and I'm already looking forward to going again next year.

Pictures of Topsy Turvy Nine Patch Quilt

Topsy Turvy Nine Patch

I got this quilt finished the other day but just now got pictures of it.  This is a quilt pattern I found in an old magazine.  The design is by Judy Laquidara, one of my favorite designers, so when I found it I knew immediately that I wanted to make it.  The first picture shows the background color accurately, flash changed the second one.  I love the border on this one and I will definitely use it again on other quilts I make.  I used scraps for the nine-patches.  This quilt will be desplayed in Viking's space at the WV Quilter's Quilt Show, held June 22 thru 25 in Summersville, WV.  I should have a couple of quilts displayed.   

 

The third picture shows my cat Rosebud, better known as Rosie.  She is my shadow, my constant companion.   



Topsy Turvy Nine Patch



Rosie

 

I'mmmm Baaaack!

Finished the Tropical Punch Quilt!  I think it looks beautiful on my bed.  Viking will be vending at the WV Quilters Quilt Show in Summersville, West Virginia in a couple of weeks and this quilt will be decorating our space.  They are also taking my Topsy Turvy Nine-Patch Quilt to hang, and another one I haven't shown yet if I get it done in time.  I have more to say later but right now I have to take Audrey to work at the mall.  Then Richard wants to go to St. Albans to look at the new Fiats.  (We are NOT buying a new car, he used to drive Fiats and now wants to see what they've done to them.)  Anyway, look for another post really soon.

Finally! Got my computer fixed!

So happy to finally have my computer fixed.  Now I have to install all my programs again.  Lost a ton of pictures and music and things I really didn't want to lose.  Adam got a new CPU and motherboard and then had to get a new hard drive.  I was using my old computer thru all this but I had replaced it because it was driving me crazy.  I am glad I kept it but so happy to not have to use it.

 

The lavender tote bag was the one I made as a class sample.  The others were made in class by my students.  Anne made the red, white and blue one.  She put a star on the pocket on the back.  My friend Debbie made the selvage tote.  Didn't she do a great job?  The one in autumn tones was made by Angie.  Kim was also in the class but hers didn't get finished that night, so I didn't get a picture of it.  They all did a phenomenal job and I am so proud of them!  I told them I was going to put them on my blog.

 

My Class Sample

On Tuesday we are repeating the 3D Bowtie class we did several times last year.  I think I have four students signed up.