The "Oh so not Friday Finish" Post

Thank you all for the lovely prayers and thoughts today!

My mom reads the blog faithfully, and will see them all next time she feels like being online.

She made it through today's treatment with good spirits and an appointment for her shot tomorrow.

We're thinking this is her fourth time through and God has been so good to keep her strength and health up!

This week I started and finished up a table quilt for a good friend, Gerri.

She's my basketball/soccer practice, game and tailgating buddy.

She loves the colors of the Fresh Cotton and Breakfast at Tiffany's (secretly showed them to her making her think they were for a quilt for me).

I'm still diggin' the machine piecing technique for hexagons.

This is being gifted tomorrow at co-op.  Hopefully in time for all of her fall hostessing duties.  She opens her home to anyone and everyone and has such a spirit of hospitality.

I used some ribbon that Rene had wrapped some of her gorgeous photography postcards in a while ago.  I thought it looked perfectly lovely on the back of the quilt.

A shot of the quilting on the back.  I did this one the old fashioned way, bringing my underside thread up through the top and then securing it and the top thread when I'm done quilting.  I like this much better, even though it was very time consuming on this one.

Amy is not hosting Friday Finish Sew & Tell this week in order to gear up for the Fall Blogger's Quilt Festival.  I'm not submitting this time, but you can be sure I'll be scouring the pictures for inspiration and enjoyment.

God gives good friends through blogland, and I'm so glad you're here!

Thanks!



Ovarian Cancer-Teal Ribbon Day

Thanks guys, for everything. 

You are the best!

Blue was in honor of my hubby's favorite color and a blanket named "Denim Mist" I'm crocheting for him.

Would you pray today though for my mom and my family?

She begins chemo today at 9:30.

About five years ago, she was diagnosed with Stage IV ovarian cancer. 

We've often talked about how we wouldn't trade what we've learned through this for anything.

Except maybe a cure.

Each day is a gift.  Second chance and new beginning.  We never know what's right around the next second hand on the clock, so make each one count!

Thank you all.



Am I Blue?

Blue and White Snails Trail

Vicki Welsh

Lightstreams Glass Tile

Marble King USA

Kaffe Fassett Blues

Auto Accessory



Friday Finish!

If you've never been to the Friday Finish over at Amy's, you are really missing out on some truly gorgeous, creative, beautiful and fun projects showcased for Sew & Tell!

This week, my finish is a surprise for someone very special.

Just a sneak at part of something fun heading out in the mail soon.

I watched a tutorial on machine peicing hexies.

Lady Harvatine's technique is awesome.  I love hexies, but they're rough on the hands!  LOL

This lil' something was fun to choose fabrics for and learn a new way to make something I like-that much easier to make!  What could be better!

 

A look at the back and machine quilting I finished this morning.  I tried to backstitch to anchor the inner hexies' quilting (somethine I saw someone else do), but I don't like the look as much as doing it the old fashioned way.

I used my ruler to enlarge the hex template I used on this and cut out 42 (42 more to go) hexies from Breakfast at Tiffany's charmpack from Moda.  The other 42 will come from the Fresh Cotton line.

Something with a fall palette, but without being so kitchy.

Also finished was my October block for Claudia at the ISQB.



She chose these incredibly bright, happy fall colors!  I just love them!  My points were off on this a little bit.  No amount of seam ripping and reworking would make them exact.  Ratz!  I hate that!

Jessica from the ISQB sent my this lovely block

to round out the number I have received to 10.  I can't wait to make more of these and get the top finished!

Thanks ladies for helping with a quilt full of friendship and memories!

I'll leave you with the view this afternoon from our backyard.  I'm really enjoying these Indian Summer days.  Lots of sunshine and warmer than normal temperatures.

It could stay this way until next spring!

Hope your weekend is blessed and full of fun times!

Oh My Stars!

This summer I started a quilt using the Modify Tradition's cheater Star Block combining vintage fabrics from sheets and pillowcases and new, modern fabric.

I believe this is some of the vintage stuff my snowbirds found for me combined with FMF that Dorrie so graciously gave me.  Another block to add to the growing pile.

Claudia asked us to make an Ohio Star for her October blocks in the ISQB.  I tested the block out using some Jennifer Paganelli fussy cuts in the center. 

I made two to go with my Dandy practice for a IMQG block from last month.

I'm not sure why I'm starting another project.  Maybe because I'm insane.  Yup.  I'm pretty sure that's it.



A few weeks ago, Amy from Sew & Tell and E from pinksuedeshoe awarded me a very special something for the Aloha quilt I posted about during the Amy Butler challenge.  It came in the mail yesterday and I did a double take at the packaging.

On the bottom, E wrote "You'll have to excuse the packaging.  Creamie was in charge."  Visit her blog to find out who her package wrapper was!

Inside was

the cutest lil' pumpkin she made!  We host Thanksgiving here for honeybuns family and this year, my family too.  This will be a perfect addition to the decorations.

Thanks E.  Thanks Amy!

Off to soccer practice!

Sleep well!

Sew & Tell Finish!

Waaaaay back in August, I started the back for the Aloha quilt.  6 x 6 rows completed.  Begun with 2" sq scraps from the quilt itself.  A single Irish Chain.

15 x 13 rows of happy, scrappy heaven! 

The next step is making the sandwich and pinning it together for quilting.

Linking up with Amy's blog and just as soon as I drop Javi off at BSU, I'm off to catch some eye candy from her Sew & Tell Friday Finish!

Have a blessed weekend!



And so it grows

Hi.  My name is Dee and I am a stashaholic.

I've been one for a little over a year now.

I admit I have a problem.

Well, not really a problem.  Sort of more like a fancy.  Yeah.  That's it.  An affinity for all things soft, bright, happy and useful in a quilt, or table runner or pillow or...whatever I want!

Unfortunately, my picture of the vintage sweetness you see on the bottom of the stack did not make it to the computer.  Wonder how that happened?  Hmmmmm.

Several weeks ago, I went to a quilt store in a nearby town and snagged some gorgeous fabrics I'm already using, thank you very much!  I got home and realized they had charged me for twice the fabric I had bought and a quick call saw me getting an instore credit.  Two of the items I purchased were these Moda charm packs.  Fresh Cottons and Breakfast at Tiffany's.  When you flip through them, you find many, many complimentary colors and patterns.  These two will share a quilt someday.

These were little scraps picked up on a shopping trip with KT not too long ago.  Yummy!

Fabrics auditioning together for a new (yes, yes, I see you other unfinished ones in the corner) project as yet unplanned.  I'm just playin' here, sheesh.  Who would be insane enough to start another WIP?

More new additions to the mix.  The one on the left is from our local Joann's that I've been coveting.  With a 40% sale on their calicos, who could pass this up?  The other two were part of what I purchesed with the store credit.

Lesly's block for September.  A Snail's Trail, which I have always wanted to try and just love.  Her fabrics were so lucious and fun to play with.  I hated to send the scraps back!  But I did.  I try to be good.

Is this where I confess that I messed this up the first go around?  When I finished it, it just didn't look quite right.  Bean had the camera making stop motion Lego Ninja videos or I would have snapped a shot to show how goofy I am.  It was looking at another sampler quilt that was finished and hanging up at the quilt store that I realized I had the QST in the wrong place around the four square.  Some very careful seam picking, pressing and praying allowed me to salvage the fabric and remake it the way it's supposed to be.

Sheesh.

Beautiful Autumn days and temps here.

Hope it's happy and sunny where you are.

I'm thinking about temporarily relocating to Australia as it is just now spring there and I hate winter.

Any donations towards my living expenses can be sent to me asap!

LOL

Memory Quilt

for Shelby is finished!

Shelby lost her mom a year ago August to cancer.

She and her dad saw the Memory Quilt I had made for Marcia's brother

 

out of their dad's clothing.  Denim jeans and cotton shirts.



They asked me to make one for Shelby, who is only 11, out of clothing her mom wore that was special and significant to her.  Her mom loved her family.  I can tell from the clothes.  They look a lot like what I wear or would have worn.  And you know how much I love my husband and kids!  There were two jackets they sent to me.  I didn't use them because I thought, someday, Shelby might want to wear them and remember her mom and feel like her mom's arms are around her when she wears them.

After I started this quilt, it kept telling me it needed a little something.  I started playing around with the blocks I had made and realized, Shelby's a little girl, who might like some brighter colors sharing the quilt with her mom's things.  So, I went through my stash and scraps and found fabrics I thought would be happy and cheerful.  Fabrics and colors I thought her mom would have liked and that Shelby would enjoy.

Middleman and his two friends, both named Alexis oddly enough, helped hold the quilt up at the school playground at the end of our street.

Shelby, I hope you like it.  I hope it helps you remember your mom and all the fun times, silly times, sad times and happy times you had with her.  You will always be in my prayers.

Eye Candy is "Dandy"

I am thinking of officially petitioning God for more hours in the day.

Corrine at the Indianapolis Modern Quilt Guild asked us to make a 12.5" unfinished square using Jenean Morrison's "Moondance".  She asked us use mostly triangles, HST or Flying Geese with half of the square white.  This block was taken from Quilt.com's Block of the Month.  It was September 1997's block, and since Corrine's month was September, I thought it was fitting!

It's called "Dandy" and it was a fun block to cut and piece.  I didn't have quite enough of the clamshell fabric for the inner "star" points, so I supplemented with a complimentary light pink scrap.  I think it turned out well.

This is the test block I made to check the size and decide how to place her five fabrics.  Martha Negley alongside some fabulous anonymous fabric I picked up at a fabric store while driving to a soccer game.  LOL

Love this combination!

And here are the two blocks, side by side.  Same block pattern, just different fabrics and colors.  Wow!  What a difference!

Thanks Corrine for letting me learn a new block and play with some beautiful fabric.  I hope you like it!

Hubby sweets just called and said they had mowed down by the river and would I like to take a walk?  That's a no brainer on a gorgeous Autumn day like today.

Hope your day was blessed and that tomorrow the sun shines just as bright!

Linking up with Amy's blog for Friday Sew & Tell.  I haven't been there yet this morning, but let me tell you, there's usually some incredible creations and eye popping sewing going on!