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