Ready, Set, Go!

Just a quick reminder.....

Tomorrow is my day for the Hexie Queen Blog Hop - be sure to come back!  I've got lots to share!

And today is the day to start the Dreambird Shawl Knit-Along with Judy (Patchwork Times) and Denise (JustQuiltin)!  I made one feather a few weeks ago .....

- now I have to figure out how to pick it back up and make more without getting lost LOL!!!

Have a beautiful week my friends!!!

Hugs & Blessings!

Teresa

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Going Into the Red.....

But in a really good way!!!  This month the color for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge is RED - luscious, gorgeous, deep, rich RED!!!

And here is my scrappy RED Fantasia block for August....

Isn't that little guitar in the upper right corner just perfect for Nashville?  Hehehehe.....  I got a really late start again this month on my Scrap Challenge blocks (this time because I've been busy working on my Hexie Queen Blog Hop project which will post on Monday.  I think you're going to like it!)

Remember, a couple of months ago, I started work on Bonnie Hunter's Talkin' Turkey in a group with some friends.  It's an all-red quilt, so since I wanted to use up as many of my scraps as possible on it, I went through my scrap bin in advance .....

and pulled out all the pieces I wanted to keep for my regular monthly blocks for the RSC, and then I paired them together as they would be used in the blocks.....

That really was such a help this month, because I didn't have to dig through as usual and decide which scraps to use where and find matching pieces for each block.  I just sat down at my machine and started sewing pieces together :*)

I am wondering however if I have too much of the same color/texture fabrics in that top row together?  Those are intended for the Lone Starburst block sections, and I'm thinking I may have to raid my fat quarters to get some more interest going there :*)  The fabrics on the bottom will be used for the Hatchett blocks and little left-over half-square triangles, and I think they'll be just fine as they are.

I also decided to play with the little left-over pieces from cutting the curved sections on Fantasia this month, and these cute little blocks just materialized as if by magic on my sewing table ......

Aren't they cute?  There is just the barest hint of a curve in them - just enough to catch the eye and make one stop to look closer :*)  I have no idea if I'll ever use them for anything, but I just can't bring myself to throw away pieces of fabric this size just because I can't use them in the block I'm currently working on.  I can't find the pieces from the past months - surely I didn't throw them away - egads!!!  Hopefully they'll turn up in that mess I call "organization" in my sewing studio LOL!!!  And when they do, I'll make some more of these and see what happens.  I love to quilt serendipity style!

Many more wonderful RED projects are linked up at SoScrappy for your enjoyment HERE!

I'll be in my sewing studio all day tomorrow, finishing up my Hexie Queen projects ;*)

Be sure to come by and see whether I've managed to get  my Hexie-groove on or not!

Hugs & Blessings!

Teresa

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A Special Gift =^..^=

Have you ever just been blown away by someone's generosity?

Well, that's what happened to me the other day when I went to my mailbox and found an unexpected squishy package there from a friend.  Inside that package was THIS AMAZING LITTLE FEATHER QUILT!!!

Mini-Batik Feathered Wholecloth
Quilted by Janet O. of Rogue Quilter Blog
Size:  9-1/4" x 12-3/4"

My friend - and I'm betting your friend too - Janet O., who blogs over at Rogue Quilter, has been very quietly becoming quite the expert at feather quilting!  I've been happily following her journey and telling her often how impressed I am with the progress she's made on her feathering.  But the day she posted this feather quilt, I went nuts!  I so fell in love with it and of course I told her how much I loved it too in my comments.

Well, next thing you know, sweet Janet has wrapped this little beauty up and sent it all the way to Music City to live with ME!!!  WhooHoo!!!!  I'm over the moon excited :*D  Of course, batiks are irresistible to me - always have been - but combining blue, purple and aqua in one batik - give me a break!  I was a goner at first sight!  And then add to that the gorgeous feathers Janet has created on this beautiful fabric!  Just look at this amazing stitching..... hyperquilting, no less!!!!

Her note says to me, "I can see all the flaws..."  WHERE????  I can tell you, there are NO flaws on this little gem!  It is flawless and beautiful and MINE!!!!

Janet was one of a handful of wonderful bloggers who made me feel welcomed and at home when I first started my blog almost 2 years ago.  That meant a lot to me, and still does!  But I'm betting that Janet has been a special friend to a lot more of you out there too!  I just had to share my gift with you so you could see what a special quilter she is, as well as a special friend :*D

Janet, you made my day, my week, my YEAR!!!!  

Thank you so much dear friend!  

I will treasure this gift forever ♥♥♥

Hugs & Blessings!

Teresa

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On the Needles - 8/23/2013

I finally fired up my courage and blocked Cloud Illusions!

I had never blocked a knitted project before, and I hit a roadblock when I realized that I might need blocking wires - which I didn't have.  A few knitting friends suggested that I could probably get away with not using them on this shawl if I was careful to not pull the neck out of shape too badly, so I decided to go ahead and try it.

This shawl turned out to be quite huge!!!  It is much larger after blocking than I thought it would be!  I used the directions for the extended body section because it seemed to be working up very small, but in hindsight, I'm thinking I could have stayed with that smaller size and been fine.  Look at how I had to add another piece of matting, and a small portion was still on the carpet.  One of these days I'll invest in another yoga mat to replace that piece of one LOL!!!  I think I cut that one up a couple of years ago to have pieces that I could kneel on in the flower beds.  It sure came in handy to have it!

Doesn't the lacework look pretty?  I can hardly believe I actually did that!!!  

I'm not sure I did everything correctly during the blocking process, even though I had a supervisor in the room with me.  Gypsy sniffed around a few minutes to see what in the world I was up to crawling around on the floor with wet stuff and pins, but I think she quickly decided that her bath was much more urgent and satisfying LOL!!!

Of course, I have to show you a few more views of the shawl....     =^..^=

...............on the love-seat in the living room - the light coming in the window washed out those gorgeous colors, but I like the way it shows off the expanse and delicacy of the lacework ....

It's so long, I can't even reach to each tip!!!

Overall, I would have to say that I'm happy with my first knitted shawl, and my first lacework project!

Next in line is to get busy on the Dreambird Shawl!  We start the KAL on August 25th!!!!

My current project to keep my needles busy until I can get back to Dreambird is a much smaller one....  

This is the Noro Bias Lace Scarf pattern (free on Ravelry!) using a Noro Silk Garden Sock yarn in a range of deep, rich fall colors.  I love the diagonal design to it!  I'm not really very fond of the yarn - it is not as soft as I would like and it curls up quite a lot off the skein.  But you all know I'm a COLOR girl, and those colors just sucked me in!!!

Be sure to go to Patchwork Times to see what others are creating On The Needles!

I know I haven't shared a lot of quilting items lately, but there's a very good reason for that.  I have been busy, busy, busy at the sewing machine, but I haven't been able to show you....

What am I sewing, you may want to know?  

Well..... come back on Monday to see!  

That's the day that I magically turn into a Hexie Queen!!!

I hope you've all been following the Hexie Queen blog hop so far!  Madame Samm and Cheerleader Debby Kratovil have put together a doozy of a blog hop for our entertainment!  And I have been simply amazed at the abundance of wonderfully creative hexie projects being shown!  Click HERE to find all the posts!

Hugs & Blessings!

Teresa

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Dreambird Yarn Choices

Judy is posting a link-up today for us to show the yarns we've chosen for our Dreambird projects...  I'm so excited!!!

Here are the yarns I've chosen to work with....

The top yarn is a black fingering yarn, which will pop those blue, aqua, and purple Noro feathers like crazy!!!  Like quilts, like knitting, it seems - I just can't help loving black as a background!!!  And of course blues and aquas are always a favorite of mine. :*D

Here is my inspiration picture once again for those of you who might have missed it in my earlier post - Reminder:  THIS IS NOT MY PROJECT!  It is a picture from Ravelry of another knitter's project that I love and chose colors to make my own as close to it as possible :*D

Go to this link to see this shawl made by Bienenfresser
http://www.ravelry.com/projects/isiss/dreambird-kal

Since our local knitshop, The Knaughty Knitter, held a Dreambird Knit Along (KAL) last month, my friend Joanne and I went over to start our shawl and get some pointers before we get into this project too far.  Joanne has done two feathers so far, and I have completed one 'perfect' feather - after tearing my first attempt out (see post about that HERE).  I'm in LOVE with this sweet feather!!!!

That's where I've stopped so I can start the KAL with Judy and Denise on August 25th.

If you're looking at this project and thinking, "I WISH I could do that, but I'm not a very experienced knitter" - then I encourage you to read Judy's post today!  Last year this time, I was drooling over the socks she makes on her blog and saying that same thing to myself.  It had been years since I had knitted anything, but I was really itching to learn how to make socks.  So I took her excellent advice and decided to start small.  I made a million simple knitted dishcloths to get my rhythm and tension back up to speed - which by the way everyone in my family loves and I can't keep enough of them knitted up!  I started reading a lot of sock-knitter's blogs and soaking up information.  Then I made a couple of scarfs.  Then I bit the bullet, bought some sock yarn and a couple of books/patterns and set off on my grand adventure.  And what an adventure it has been!!!  I've now made two pair of socks and love them!!!  And now I'm comfortable tackling this Dreambird Shawl project. You CAN do it too if you really want to!

Be sure to go to Judy's Patchwork Times HERE to link up if you are doing this wonderful shawl!!!

Hugs & Blessings!

Teresa

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A Fun New Project!!!

I went to a really fun and different workshop at my Music City Quilt Guild's Sit-n-Sew day last week.  One of my favorite people, Starr Howell, taught us how to make selvedge boxes.  Just to prove that I was an A+ student, here is my finished box.....  cool, huh???

One of my favorite quotes from Bonnie Hunter is - the smallest leftover strip of fabric costs the same amount as any other piece of fabric you buy - why throw it away?  I've been throwing away selvedges since I started quilting; that is, until I saw Starr's first box at a meeting a couple of years ago, and I've been wanting to make one ever since!!!  The class was on Thursday and I was looking forward to it excitedly, but on Wednesday night I got NO SLEEP AT ALL!!!  I kept hearing that 5th Dimension song from waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back all night - you know the one..... "Last night, I didn't get to sleep at all, all, all..... I lay awake and watched until the mornin' light..."  Yeh, that was me!  When hubby got up at 5:30am, I was in the studio cutting squares for Talking Turkey!

But even though I was afraid would pretty much be a zombie, I was determined to take this class!  All my stuff was loaded and ready to go, so I "suited up and showed up" LOL!!!  Actually, the zombie state did not hit me until Friday - go figure!  But I was really glad I went to class, because we had fun and I've got a really cool new box to keep my selvedges in now! ♥♥♥

The first thing we did was cut pieces to fit the top and all four sides of the box, allowing an extra 1-1/4 inches for trimming.  Then we had a BLAST digging through our selvedges and picking out our prettiest ones, then pinning them down.  Once a couple of pieces were all pinned, we chain-pieced the selvedges down, trying to sew as closely as possible to the edge (sorry this one is a little blurry!)......

Here are my finished pieces (before trimming down to the correct size)....

Starr had told us ahead of time that the trick to pretty selvedge projects is to cut at least 3/4" of the fabric off with the selvedge so you get some color with it.  She sure knows what she's talking about - look at all that wonderful color!  And look at my completed box top shown below ...yoohoo!!!!

Now I ask you, does that look like me or what?  

All that color - oooo-la-la!!!

And look at some of the special selvedge designs... can you see where the designer used birds instead of color circles on the upper left here?

And Christmas Trees here?.....too cute!!!!

And the cutest little set of Japanese fans in the bottom corner.... awwww......

There are selvedges in here that remind me of the projects I've made.... like Easy Street - this fabric was used as the border....

And Genevieve's Live-Laugh-Love - this one isn't even finished yet, but it's now immortalized for me in my selvedge box!

A lot of these are from friends who knew I was collecting them, which makes them special too!!!

As I was gathering my materials together from Starr's class list, I wasn't sure what to bring for the bottom and trimming on the box.  I finally just grabbed a bland pink/red buttons print figuring a sewing motif would work no matter how the box turned out.  Boy, was I wrong!!!  That pink looked horrible with it!  All these wonderful colors in this box, and I just couldn't put that washed out pink on there... no way.  A bright, happy pink might have worked, but.....

Then Sheila came to my rescue!  I had spied her trimming fabric earlier and drooled all over it - she had chosen a bright purple and it glowed!!!  When it was determined by a large group of us that purple was what my box needed, Sheila generously offered me her left-over purple so I could make my box beautiful - now that's a sweetheart folks!!!

Looking at the finished box again - isn't that purple just perfect???  
                     Yep, I thought so too :*)
                                    Thanks so much, Sheila!!!!

And here is my finished box with all my selvedges (so far!) in it.  They were all neatly folded before I began the project, and I'll sit with this in my lap tonight while I watch TV and straighten them all up again.  It's so much easier to see what's there when they are not all jumbled up like that!

Love this "Good Morning!" piece =^..^=
(I just cut it last night, or it would have gone right on top of my box!)

........ all ready for a new selvedge project.  Let's see.... what will it be????  There are a ton of cute projects out there right now!  And tons of new selvedges, like "Good Morning!" just waiting to shine....

I cut this one Friday while playing with Talkin' Turkey!
(Another candidate for the top of the box, am I right????)

That sweet measuring tape selvedge was cut from this fabric :*D

And how about this one - too sweet!!!!!

I bet you are designing something just as beautiful!

Be sure to see other gorgeous designs over at Patchwork Times!

Also linking up with:
Connie at Freemotion by the River
Quilt Story
Sew Cute Tuesday at Better Off Thread
Can I Get a Whoop Whoop Friday!

Hugs & Blessings!

Teresa

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Pets on Quilts 2013

Boy oh boy, am I coming late to the party!  But I just couldn't let the Pets on Quilts party slide by without joining in, could I?  Not with a beautiful kitty like Gypsy to share, right?

Gypsy is 17 years old this week - lookin' pretty good for an 'old lady' isn't she?

In these first pictures, she is sitting on "her" quilt.  This is a quilt that I found at a yard sale.  It was very dirty and all wadded up, half in and half out of a black plastic trash bag, lying in the dirt!!!  I was so offended, I huffed out loud and grabbed it up immediately.  I asked the lady how much she wanted for it before I even looked at it.  I wanted to take it home and nurse it back to health!  Imagine my shock when she said, "Well, is $3.00 too much?"  Trying very hard not to appear too eager, I paid her quickly and left.  I was even more surprised when I got it home and found that even though it was pretty dirty, it was unstained and in great shape, and it was even custom quilted!!!

"What are you up to now, Mom?  Can't you see I'm trying to take a nap?"

True story.... I took this quilt to my Guild meeting that month and told the story of finding it in the dirt.  When I unfolded it to show the group, one girl on the front row blurted out, "I think I made that quilt!"  Sure enough, after looking it over up close she remembered making it for a raffle several years earlier and never knew what had happened to it.  Needless to say, we were all amazed at that coincidence!!!

"Uh-oh!  There's that flashy box again!!!  Don't you have any business of your own to get into?"

The quilt was given a home on our sofa in the living room, and before long Gypsy had claimed it as "hers."  Being a long-hair cat, she sheds like crazy, so I'm delighted to have something catch that hair besides my wine-colored sofa!!!  Gypsy's quilt goes with us when we travel and helps her feel comfortable even in a strange environment.  She is a true quilter's kitty and loves her quilt!

"Okay, you can play with that flashy box all you want - I'm taking my nap!!!"

In the evenings, after hubby has gone to bed and I'm ready to relax, I have recently begun sitting in my recliner upstairs in my sewing room, watching taped TV, and working on whatever knitting project happens to be current.  It's soothing and helps me relax enough to get sleepy - something that gets harder and harder to do the older I get LOL!!!  Gypsy has caught on to my routine and loves to come sit in my lap and catch a few zzzzz's.  The minute she hears the TV come on, she shows up at the foot of the chair, ready to jump aboard.

If you look very closely, you can see that I snuggle up under my blue-and-white flannel rag quilt, My Blue Heaven

Sometimes she gets aggravated with me though when the knitting yarn "tickles" the hair on her back, or if I move around for some reason and poke her with one of the needles LOL!!!  Can you tell she was not particularly happy with me because I was trying to take her picture?  Yes, her face is very expressive :*D  If she were human, she would be Sophia on The Golden Girls LOL!!!

Here she has chosen to sit in the other recliner in my sewing room while I was sewing.  This is my Blue Pineapple Blossoms quilt, a Bonnie Hunter design.  Just in case you can't read kitty expressions, she is very snarkily sweetly telling you all to have a wonderful week and to leave her alone now so she can take a nap!!!

I think at her age I'll take a lot of naps too!  

I just hope I have beautiful quilts to snuggle up with like she does =^..^=
Sleep tight, my friends!!!

Check out all the wonderful Pets on Quilts link-ups HERE

Hugs & Blessings!

Teresa

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