Ann's Summer 2009 Mystery

Ann's at it again! She just posted the cutting instructions for her Summer 2009 Mystery. The actual clue-giving day will be some time in August. She's not sure yet. You can always join in through one of her Yahoo Groups - this one is pretty quiet except around mystery time.

I accidentally saw the finished mystery top... so I know what it's going to look like, but I'm still excited to play! It's a clever design and it'll work well for a boy's quilt. My background is going to be the circles, the blue fabric is going to be the "focus" and the green will be the binding.

I bought the circle fabric from Cowgirl Quilter who's trying to raise money for her son's school-related trip. She's got $500 of the $2100 they need by October. She's been offline for the past few weeks, so she hasn't been able to entice me with buying more fabric from her yet. ;)

Leah

Saying "Thank You"

My parents gave my husband and I a very generous housewarming check when we moved. We used it to buy chairs to go with our dining table, a DVD stand, a computer desk for my husband (his old one became my new cutting table) and several kitchen items. I wanted to say "thank you" to my parents in a special way, so I made this card.

It's just ends and strings of dyed pieces sewn onto heavy card stock paper. I did take care to change my needle after sewing through the paper! :) Wrote a nice message (but forgot to say "Happy Father's Day"... d'oh!) and sent it off to them.

I'm sure that card won't be trashed like a standard store greeting card might eventually be. And a great way to use up bits of fabric. :)

Leah

A long time ago...

...in a galaxy rather near here, I used to have a small assortment of quilting items. :)

These pictures were taken in October 2003. I had 5 quilting books.

The top right one is still in my mom's possession. She did buy it after all, and watercolor quilts just aren't my thing.


I had about 30-40 yards of fabric total. I look at that pile and can only think "not enough background fabrics!!"

My tastes have certainly evolved over the years. I fell out of love with bigger prints and now enjoy tone-on-tone fabrics.

Funny how I can dye over a hundred yards of fabric in a week with my mom and still lament over not having the right shade I need! :P

Leah

Reviving a ghost

I finally got one of my oldest quilt projects into a top! I want to say that I started it in 2002? Yeah, my first year of quilting. It's Eleanor Burn's Log Cabin in a Day. Yes... you may laugh. :)

I got the first row sewn together and half of the blocks made. Since then, it was untouched. I got married, I moved to apartment #1 and still didn't do a thing. Moved to apartment #2, placed the blocks and strips near the door so I would see it every time I walked in or out of my sewing room, and still didn't do a thing! Moved to apartment #3 (this one)... hey, let's get it finished. :)


It took me a little creative thinking of the pattern I was trying to create. All I remembered was that there was a "star" in the middle and the greens made a "diamond" cross. I lost the paper I drew up the design and didn't think to look back at my old pictures.

Yeah, you can't really tell there's a star, the green dominates. Two things that surprised me about this quilt - one, I still like it. Two, my quarter-inch seam allowance was pretty good and I didn't have to do much fudging to get the blocks to nestle together. I'll thank Mom for that, she taught me the 5/8ths seam allowance for clothes sewing very well. :)

But quilt in a day? Ha! Not from this gal. Now I gotta decide... green border, blue binding; or do I do blue border, green binding? My husband was no help. :P

Leah

Presto! A quilt top

From cutting the blocks...



...to sewing them together...

(I love the view from my sewing table!)

...to a completed quilt top.

That easy! ;) Not pictured: the time it takes to do all that stuff.

And I'm so happy that I have ROOM to take a picture of big quilt like this. I love my new place. :)

Leah

Rainbow Fun

I'm jumping in Dana's giveaway:



I've had my eye on the Janome 6600 for some time, but I'm afraid I wouldn't love it as much as I love my Bernina. I just mostly lust after the 9" throat space for free-motioning. But if I get it for free? I'm sure I can fall in love with it. ;)

My fabric choice was the most mottled hand dyes I could find.

This includes my most favorite dyed piece.


It has other pieces like the one below.

I had a lot of fun looking over the many hues as I cut my strips.


The fabric looks pretty boring from the side though! :P

I was also able to get my sewing chair back... so now I can go back to quilting full time!

And here's to hoping that I'll be the lucky quilter to win the machine! ;)

Leah