The best jewelry is precious but not necessarily "precious"

Confused? Don't be. I only mean that jewelry delivered from the heart is precious and doesn't need to be of precious metals or stones. Take a look at what was in my mailbox tonight!!

Purchased from and handmade with love by my niece. I told her not to forget the bill. That would be the post-it-note with her math scribbles. 3 pairs of earrings, 2 bracelets and 1 ring. Total for this loot? $1.50

Smile!!

Lisa

Told ya - this is my favorite part

Rearranging on the design wall - I'm having a blast with these blocks. 3 more layouts for 1/2 square triangles.







I don't know where I'm going at this point - just playing with the light & dark. I actually think I'm going to incorporate some 4-patches into the design as well - now to decide whether the 4-patches will be greens with whites/off-whites or more light/dark greens. I'm leaning toward greens with whites - or maybe blues? I always like blue & green together - feels peaceful. :>

And I sent off that last quilt to its destination earlier this week. It'll arrive the actual day of dad's birthday like maybe it could be argued that I planned it that way instead of it just happened that way. That quilt didn't really have a name, (I'd been calling it the star quilt) but that morning in the shower it "told" me to call it Celebrate. I liked that name. It's appropriate both for the look and the intent.

Have a great day!
Lisa

Finish - and a Start

I put the binding on my "Stars" quilt this weekend. Started yesterday and finished it up today. This one was pretty quick - and creative. The stars are my own drawing on freezer paper and folded on the cutting line. Works pretty well. And the longarm quilting was free - I won the quarterly drawing with the last quilt I brought up there (they pulled my name out of the hat) - so that was especially awesome since this is a donation quilt. Dad's birthday is next week and I'm sending it along to Fisher Home Hospice House as a small token of thanks for their help three years ago. I'm guessing they'll sell it in their attached store to raise funds because it doesn't seem all that soothing to me. I did make sure to keep it really light, not heavy, so that if they do decide to use it for the patients it won't hurt them. One of the things I learned helping Dad is that toward the end nearly everything hurts, even your skin. Heavy covers can be agony. That may have been just him since he was in so much pain anyway, but I wanted to make sure this was comfortable. It's definitely bright!

So this quilt was finished on Super Bowl Sunday 2011 ... and the one below was started. No pattern - just took my stack of green 6" (ish) squares and paired light & dark, sewed down either side of the center line and cut / pressed / trimmed to 5-1/2" squares. So far I have 2 layouts and I'm undecided. I'll probably keep playing on the design wall (aka carpet) - that's my favorite part!!

Have a great night and thanks for "listening"!

Lisa

My elbow's fixed, my elbow's fixed!

So hollered (to everyone he passed) our 3-1/2 year old grandson on his way out of the hospital emergency room this afternoon. The emergency care "doc in the box" sent grampa to the ER after saying "I don't have the capability of fixing this." Good grief, poor Grampa. (Oops, and maybe I'm grinning a little too much ....... it appears to be slightly harder for him to babysit without me. Turns out maybe I do most of the work??? Hmmmmm.) ;>

Anyway - grandson has developed a tendency for his elbow to pull out of joint - it has some technical term that I can't remember, but basically the description is caretaker's elbow. How can a 3 year old have caretaker's elbow ???? Grampa said the nurse was really slick about it - played with his fingers and his wrist, and surreptitiously got a grip on his forearm and behind his upper arm, rolled him over and popped it right back into place in one move. After a few minutes, Michael decided he was thrilled and announced to everyone on the way out the door that his elbow was fixed. Grampa said he was pretty cute.

No sewing news.......except that I've drawn a basic design for the pillow cases for my last quilt - haven't had much time to devote to sewing this week, but I hold out hope for soon. We'll see.

Lisa

It's done....

So, the "Summer 2010" huge quilt is finished. Well, nearly. Still have the label to put on - design, figure out what I want to say, figure out what I'm printing it on, print, hope it works, sew on, etc. Ya know, that.

The longarmer said a couple of weeks - well, it was actually just a couple of days. I was thrilled! Dropped it off one Saturday and picked it up the next. How cool is that? Even cooler? I still have 8 weeks before the giftee's birthday arrives.

We did a variegated pink-purple-red thread for both top & bottom threads, and an edge-to-edge feather meander pattern. Simple pattern that I really liked. I was a little unsure of how the colored thread would look on the black back, but I like that too. I like the idea that it's reversible too, 2 quilts in one. I just like it all! ;)

This was a fun project for me .... kinda long, but that's ok. I'm getting better at enjoying the process and not necessarily finishing now. Patience. I've heard it's a virtue. The challenge for me is to keep focusing on each section while I'm working it and doing the best job I can. NOT rushing through to get to the end. This is a recent achievement ..... well, not quite a completely learned skill yet, but I'm workin' on it.

I got the binding made and sewed on yesterday. I was very careful to keep it lined up and my seam a consistent 3/8". That was a l-o-n-g day at the sewing machine ....... nearly 33 feet of binding when I did the math in the morning (or 2/3 yard - 33 feet sounded horrible!!). Like a good little New England born and bred saver, I was able to use the black that I trimmed off the back when I squared it up after quilting. I still have 4 or so feet left. Maybe I can use that on the pillowcases!

And finally, here's some pics of the finished project. I think if you click on them they should open up in a larger window so you can see the detail.

Have a great week!

Lisa

a weekend finish - yippee!!

Got all the borders on both the top & the back this weekend. This thing is HUGE - it takes forever to sew a border on. I think this will be the last queen size quilt for a while.......I'm ready for something a little smaller. I like admiring the finished product! Tee hee.

Neither the wind nor the sun was cooperating this morning. I actually took video of the quilt top swaying in the breeze. The photos are only of portions.




Looking through the back from the porch - looks like stained glass!! Kinda cool I thought.

The sun. Blinding.

Here's the back. That piece of pink trim in the middle? That's at 54" x 54".

Next step for this is to buy a room size (oops I mean queen-size) piece of batting and bring it up to the longarmer. The last quilt I had professionally done, I sent away to a husband/wife team in NC. Both their web site and blog are down, so I'm thinking I'd better keep this one a little closer to home this time. At least I can drive up there if I need to. Plus it's in a higher elevation which means cooler territory - never a bad thing in the middle of a desert summer. Maybe I can somehow make a full day out of delivering it next weekend? ;>

So glad this one's nearly on the finished pile. Just quilting and binding to do. Oh yeah, and make a couple of matching pillowcases with the scraps.

Have a great week!!

Lisa

Decided to see if I could upload a video........here's one of the reasons why there's no full-view photo. This is what I was working against this morning. Oh well.

Yay! It's raining ... and a progress report

Hurray .... it's finally raining! Thinking about it on the drive into work this morning, I realized that I knew how to make it rain. All I had to do was wash my car! I actually didn't find time to wash the car today but the clouds finally got heavy enough to let some out anyway. Even without my help. I'm thrilled. We've needed it.

I made good progress this week on the back of the Pick & Choose - got the blocks ironed, trimmed, & sewed together. I found a fairly large piece of black for the first border in my stash. It was big enough to make borders for all 4 sides as long as I did cornerstones. Now THAT was some careful cutting --- had to determine how much usable fabric I had in that piece after straightening then I divided by 4 to learn how wide the border was going to be! ;) Hurray, it worked. Now to decide on the final borders for the top (and back too actually). Queen size is pretty large and I'm not there yet.


I also did a little shopping this week. Mama Spark is cleaning up a little, and I was excited to make a new home for a few greens.....they came yesterday. Squishy mail, so fun!


Now I just need to figure out what I'm gonna use them for. :>

Have a great day!
Lisa