Need quilting suggestions!!!

Good morning!

I just realized how long it has been since my last post!

I have actually managed to squeeze some sewing time in, I finally finished those cursed backpacks! I will post pictures of them soon. Officially I will NEVER do another backpack I truly hate them!!!

On the fun side of things I finished my block for next months block lotto at our local Craft Warehouse, I will have to take a picture of this block I really like it and was happy with the final results.

And I have begun work on another coffee wall hanging, matter of fact I was up till eleven last night working on it! (this is what happens when I have caffeine in the evenings - I just knew I should not have had that iced tea)

I am happy with how this one is coming along. I have also started work on Torrie's Jeff Gordon quilt. When our local Joann's closed I got an entire bolt of JG fabric for almost nothing. Torrie (who is a huge fan) ask me if I could make her a quilt, so I am using a pale blue minkee and going to make it similar to the red alien quilt below.

Oh and I am almost finished with the watermelon quilt that I have on the frame, I was stumped for a while on how I was going to quilt the green part of the watermelon (OK so still am but have an idea... If you have any suggestions let me know) I have done a basic stipple in the dark green areas, and loop t loops in the pink border area, for the pink watermelon area I am also doing loops, so I can sew black "seeds" in the loops. I am having a terrible time with the green "rind" area, I thing I am going to do peacock feathers to fill in the area... but am still not sure, having only 5 inches to work with is hard because I have to break it into smaller sections when I quilt.

So please for those of you who are quilters, I would love suggestions!!! I really do like this little wall hanging and want to get it finished before the summer is over!

Thank you for stopping by today, I promise I will post again soon...

We have a big neighborhood 4th of July party every year, and this year is our year to host... so have been gearing up for that...Wish me luck as I am NOT a natural hostess... I envy people who are!!!

So if I do not see you before then, have a safe, sane and happy 4th!

Ginny

Sharing the fruit of our labors

Good Monday to all!!!

Well, another week has started and it is promising to be a nice one. The temperatures here are nice and cool. I thought I would show you a few pictures of my garden, about a month ago I posted this picture, every thing was small and just starting to sprout.

Saturday I decided to take a few more pictures just to show the difference a month can make! All of the sudden every thing went POOF!!! I have everything from Basil to Zucchini stuffed in this little garden! There is... (from back left working around clockwise.... corn, lettuce (in the hanging baskets) tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers, thyme, oregano, chives, sweet basil, cilantro, dill, lemon balm, banana peppers, garlic, green onions, carrots, cantaloupe, Zucchini and a watermelon plant.Here is a shot from the other side, and yes I know it is a ton of veggies in a very small space! Oh I forgot, I have spinach in this hanging basket.And amazingly I have already started to harvest! My first of many zucchini, I have tomatoes ripening, and both kinds of peppers, I have already given the lettuce a hair cut and need to do so again, same with the spinach. Then there are the herbs... Wow did they take off, I have been gathering and freezing some, given away a bunch, and Sunday Morgen and I started bundling for drying... here you see from left to right, bundles of basil, oregano and thyme, Oh my house smells so good!

So now you can see why I have not gotten much quilting done, I have been outside and loving it! I have already told Stuart that we are putting in two more raised beds next year!

My favorite part about this whole project was Morgen's comments as we were bundling the herbs, she says Mom, I thing we should have a fire going, and quilts over our laps, and Torrie should be reading to us as we do this by lamp light! (I think she was feeling a bit pioneerish) I told her that her sister would need to be reading the Bible to make it authentic!

Thanks for stopping by!

Ginny

Quilty weekend!

Good evening,

I just thought I would drop in for a few to share with you a little project I got done this weekend,

It was a crazy weekend, almost all day Saturday was spent driving the teen age daughter to work, back from work, the a friends house, to the pool to sign them is since friends mom forgot, pick of girls, drop off friend... and on and on. So I got NOTHING done Saturday.

Sunday on the other hand was spent in my little room quilting my heart out!

The a couple of weeks ago a friend was having a yard sale, when it was over she gave me this little zip lock baggie full of coffee fabric, really cute stuff, I looked at is, thanked her and decided right then to make her a coffee wall hanging, you see Diana is a coffee fiend!

Well, off to the store I went... after all I love a good reason to go fabric shopping... I picked up a couple of complimentary fabrics all coffee themed and in colors to match her living room...

Sat down, and looked at some block patterns, decided in a square in a square pattern, and stared cutting. I did not have a written pattern, just a picture in my head of how I wanted the wall hanging to look when I was done...

Roughly three hours later...

Look below for close ups... The quilting on this little guy was fun, the entire wall hanging measures 35" square I quilted the word Coffee all the way around in the boarders, except I put hearts in the corners and the sashing blocks. There is a simple figure 8 design on the sashing. The blocks were the most fun to quilt, on the top row I quilted the word Java then a Cup, then Cappuccino, on the middle row did a cup, then the word Espresso then a cup and on the bottom row I quited the word Mocha, then a cup then Latte. I did it in a tan thread as my quilting is still a work in progress so it does not show well in the pictures, but you can see it when you look at the wall hanging in person.

This is a close up of the center square, the little 3" brown square was the fabric that she gave me, I think it is so cute! I would love to know who made it, and where she got it from as I would love to get more of this fabric and of the white fabric in the next picture.I had a 12" square of the white fabric with the coffee cups on it, I love it they are so sweet. If you know where to get this fabric please let me know, I want to make another wall hanging for another friend but do not have enough. So, for something a little different. This is K. She is one of my DC Kids.... Earlier this year she got to pick a craft out of a book for a school project.... I don't remember all of the crafts but they had to complete it at home. Well, K chose to make a 9 patch block, The little book the teacher gave them had all of the instructions. K ask me if I would help since I love to quilt.... Well how could I turn down that face... so we spend an afternoon cutting and teaching K how to sew her blocks together, pressing and sewing, she had so much fun. We kept saying that she needed to finish her little quilt, so last week she brought the block to me, we marked out a quilt design on the block, I hooped it, the back and the batting, and away she went... I think it turned out PERFECT! And it really is all hand pieced and quilted. I am very proud of K. I hope we will be able to make many more quilts together.

Well, it is pumpkin time for me... I hope you all had a wonderful quilty weekend also.

As always, thank you for stopping by.

Ginny

Sold a quilt and working on a new one.

Sunday is a day of rest right? OK so no rest for me, we have one of Torrie's friends staying with us this week while her Dad travels. Of course this is also the last week of school so the word FINALS is being thrown around a lot!

So to save my sanity I locked my self in my room last night and sewed up a little fun. This cute little guy is still a WIP, I need to add a couple more rows, then a few boarders then it will go into the QUIP (QUilts In Progress) pile. I usually wait till I have 4 or 5 of these little guys pieced before put them on the frame, then I quilt the entire weekend. I had fun with the layout on this little guy, the pattern called for all of the triangles to face the same way, with the red on bottom, pointing to the bottom left. I did not like it. So I mixed it up a bit and found I liked this layout the best. This is a close up of the fabric, it is all space aliens! The back and one of the boarders will be a space fabric in the same line, it is all planets and stars. The red of Minkee, oh so soft and cuddly!Oh I also wanted to share my good news, I sold my Rosebuds quilt! This is the first time I have EVER sold a quilt!!!! This was hands down one of my favorite quilts I have ever made, I just loved the look, the feel and the quilting. I think I may have to make another like it. I am happy it sold, Rosebuds is flying its way to Iowa as I write this as a birthday present from Grandma to her sweet 2 year old grand baby Annabell! I just know she will love her new blankie!

Well, that's about all for today, I am going to sneak out to my room for a little more sewing before I have to pick up Torrie from her afternoon job.

Thanks for stopping in.

Ginny

No quilting but sure have been busy!

Life is just not sane... yep I think I am loosing it! I peeked my head into my sewing room the other day to grab a quilt, breathed deeply and out I went again. That is the most time I have spent in my beautiful room in weeks :( The down side is I have gotten nothing creative done and it is driving me out of my mind.

The good part about life, the kids are almost done with school for the year, the 10th is the start of summer vacation, that means, 4 day work week for me. Whoo hoo! Of course that also means my income is cut in half OUCH!

I do get to spend time with my lovely, sweet smart, fighting, nitpicking teen age daughters, that means when they get on my nerves I get to lock my self in my room!!!

We really have been going non stop here, just a few things like.... Torrie finished Drivers Ed.

Morgen was indoctrinated into The National Junior Honor Society last night!



Stuart turned 50! on Monday.

I have been cleaning out my storage areas getting ready for the mother of all yard sales! I have had it with the clutter.

I just started a new pre-school program in the daycare, that has been quiet the change, I love the company I went through and am super happy with the curriculum!

The poochy got a bath and soon a hair cut!

Oh and my two kitties turned two on Monday also!


Yep been a crazy crazy week!

Pirates off the port side Captain!

Part two of my weekend.....

As promised this post is all about the rest of my weekend.

Several months ago there was a write up in our local paper about two Tall Ships coming to town, The ships were The Lady Washington (AKA the Interceptor from Pirated of the Caribbean) and her sister ship The Hawaiian Chieftain. Both ships are replicas of ocean going merchant ships built around 1790.

Well, I got tickets for Torrie and Morgen to go on a 3 hour battle sail while they were in port. I really really wanted to go also, but Stuart was being budget minded and said no.

OK, so fast forward to Sunday. We arrived at the dock and this is what greeted us. How cool is that!!!

Torrie and Morgen boarded The Lady Washington, and set sail. We stayed and watched as they left. About that time the gal that was doing the ticket check for the Hawaiian Chieftain announced that they has 6 extra tickets so if you wanted to sail but did not have a ticket please speak up. I shouted!!! Then I turned and told Stuart that we were going!!!!

So away we went! I have not had that much fun in years! The best part, Stuart and I were on one ship, and the girls were on the other, I could see them but did not have to referee any arguments, or tell Morgen to stop touching stuff for 3 HOURS!

This is the Lady Washington, she is so pretty!


Then, she fired at us!!! Well is was a battle cruise so yea I guess that was to be expected!

Then we fired back at her, she ran away! We circled each other for about an hour and a half, trading shot. When both ships ran out of shot, we pulled along side each other and serious hostilities broke out... WATER BALLOONS!!!This was at the end of the day they were putting the sails away before we headed back to dock. I am terrified of heights, no way could I do this job!


Of course they were wearing fall protection.

Stuart and I on the Hawaiian Chieftain. Look at that smile on his face. I had to drag him on the ship but once he was on he had as much if not more fun then the girls and I all together! Me! Morgen! Torrie! My ship, the Hawaiian Chieftain!Oh and by the way......

We won!

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend also.

Ginny

Oh I forgot to mention, if you are interested in learning more about these wonderful ships, or want to sail on board, check out their website at http://www.historicalseaport.org/web/index.html

These ships are used most of the year as teaching vessels for young children.

What a great weekend!

Good morning!

OK so my weekend was so busy that it is going to take me two posts to cover it all!

I had three days of go, go, go... I got a little bit of quilting done, got some gardening done, got the garage and my storage shed cleaned out getting ready for a yard sale...

Here are a couple quick pictures of the garden and two of the baby quilts I did. I have to stitch the binding down, but that is all.

This is my view out my front door!

The entire front of our house is roses, we put in a rail fence and covered it in climbing roses, it make a wonderful screen, this is by the driveway.

The garden, you can see in the back ground, the fence and roses. in the garden I have tomatoes, zucchini, corn, carrots, onions, garlic, peppers, cucumbers, and various herbs. In the hanging baskets I have two kinds of lettuce and spinach.

And, this is one of the two baby quilts I did this last week, the black and white is Minkee (oh so soft) and the blue has penguins!

This one is the same, except the colors! I also used Minkee on the backs!

OK so that was a quick flash of part of my weekend. I have to go out for a bit to drop some paint off at another daycare. I will post the rest of the weekend when I return!

Be back in a flash!

Gin