Last Quilt Finish of 2011

I put the binding on my last finish of 2011 this morning.  This poor Split 4-Patch has been waiting since before Thanksgiving for its binding and I thought it deserved to be done this year!

And since this is the last day of the Year, I’ll leave you with this quote from Sark:

“Invent your world.  Surround yourself with people, color, sounds and work that nourish you.”

That pretty much sums up what quilters cherish.  To inspire your creativity and love of color, here is a picture of a unique geological phenomenon called Danxia landform.

Click to enlarge - it's amazing!

This one is in Zhangye, Province of Gansu, in China.  The color is the result of an accumulation from millions of years of red sandstone and other rocks.  Can’t you see a gorgeous quilt?  Maybe in batiks?  There’s certainly inspiration everywhere in this gorgeous world!

2011-International Year of Forests

As the year comes to a close, did you know that 2011 was the International Year of Forests?

According to Wikipedia, the United Nations made this declaration to raise awareness and strengthen sustainable forest management, conservation and sustainable development of all types of forests for the benefit of current and future generations.

Amazon Rainforest

Here in the US, a campaign was organized by the National Association of State Foresters in partnership with the US Forest Service to elevate awareness and understanding of the value of America’s forests and showcase the connections between healthy forests, people, ecosystems and economies.   Read more about their activities at “Celebrate Forests.  Celebrate Life”.

I found some interesting, and free, paper-piecing patterns for trees at the Forest Quilting website including a darling pine tree pattern that she calls "Pine with Skirt" (there are also other pine tree patterns).  Check it out at:   http://www.forestquilting.com/masterlistfree.html#free_paper-piecing_index

It reminded me that I have an old UFO called Harmony Village that needs a few more blocks.  Maybe I’ll fit in making this pine tree during 2012!

2012 NEWFO Challenge

I was finally catching up on some of my favorite blogs and I found a cool link over at http://pattilousquilts.blogspot.com/.  Pat and I both sew quite a few quilts for donation , including some for the Sunshine On-line Quilt Guild that supports Wrap-a-Smile and Wrap-Them-in-Love (see the Sunshine button on my sidebar).  I must admit that Pat is way more creative than I am – her wonky baskets,  string quilts and liberated houses are just fabulous … to say nothing of her “designed” quilts – enuf said!  Oh, and be careful when you scroll down in her recent post … the picture of the Snickerdoodle cookies will make you drool on your keyboard!

Well, Pat found a website that is sponsoring a Mr. Linky each month of 2012 for Show and Tell – and get this – it’s not UFOs (UnFinished Objects) but NewFOs!  Now that’s an idea that I can get my head around.  I really like variety and trying new blocks and cute designs, but I get tired of forcing myself to complete old UFOs continuously.

I tried last year and successfully completed 11 of 12 UFOs, but I also found myself creating more UFOs.  Pat provided the link to Cat Patches that is sponsoring the Link Parties:  http://catpatches.blogspot.com/2011/12/whats-on-your-2012-newfo-to-do-list.html

The concept is for each of us to think a little about what we’d like to make in 2012:

• Is there a technique you’d like to try?
• Is there a special color combo you’ve been meaning to work with?
• Have you wanted to start AND finish a quilt each month?
• Do you plan on making next year’s Christmas presents; and to start early?

So I’m making up my To-Do list now.  Like Barbara at Cat Patches suggests, I’m staying flexible (not posting all twelve ideas at once), but I really do want to get a Lil’ Twister done with these fabrics:

And I received a Layer Cake from Connecting Threads with lights and darks of a rainbow of colors that I think would look good in the Alaska Homestead Block from Marcia Hohn’s Quilters Cache:

So those are my modest January plans.  I will get to a few UFOs in 2012, but I’m

XOXOXO

THE QUILTING ELVES AND I WISH YOU ALL A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS !!

Last Box of the Year & Reindeer?

I boxed up the last of this year’s donation quilts today.  I am sending off 5 quilts to Wrap-a-Smile for distribution to children around the world who are having cleft palate surgery.  I have posted about these as tops when I finished piecing them, but these are now finished – quilted and bound - and ready to go.  My timing is unfortunate, as I’ll be standing in line tomorrow with the desperate Christmas rush people, but that’s the way it goes!

Lottery Blocks I won

 

Lottery Blocks Detail



Road to Treadleonia Detail with backing

Road to Treadleonia - Block Swap

Frog in the Pond

Frog in the Pond Detail

Broken Dishes with Critters

Broken Dishes Detail with Backing

In Memory of Bev B

In Memory of Bev B Detail

And this was the false reindeer that I saw in the back of my neighbor’s yard today.  Well, I must admit, my dog saw her first and it took me awhile to spot her!  She was just happily munching her way down the fence line … waiting for the elves and Santa to get ready, of course!

Deer or Reindeer?

Nope, not a Reindeer but I'll keep looking for them!

Back to Regular Programming

I finished up the second quilt for the local quilt shop’s March of Dimes project yesterday, so today I’m back to those pesky UFOs.  I still have:

·         a jungle quilt,

·         a Mystery quilt (the mystery has long been resolved!) using Dora the Explorer fabric scraps,

·         a “sort of” D9P with novelties and

·         a Little Twister,

all sitting around waiting to be finished and looking like clutter!

I also have to gather up my leftovers from baby quilts to send to a woman’s prison ministry in Colorado.  I have been wanting to find a good use for these fabrics since I usually use older kids prints for my donation quilts.  These were extras purchased for friends and family quilts and I always start over with something new for those.  I saw a request for scraps on a quilting message board and thought that would really help me clear out some stuff -  a win-win situation if there ever was one!

These are the final pics from the LQS quilts:

Monsters  and Their Trains

Monsters - Detail with Monster Footprints Backing

Sports of All Kinds

Sports - Detail (before binding)

What's Been Happening

I’ll have to admit that this is what I really have been doing:

But that having been said, I did get some work done on the last quilt for the local quilt shop’s collection for March of Dimes quilts.  This is the progress on a little boy’s quilt with fabric that has balls from various sports:

And this is the goofy cardinal that has been distracting me while I read:

The picture is taken from inside the front door looking out - that is a real cardinal sitting on the fake berry wreath that I had up for the Fall.  We have real holly berry trees in our yard, but this lady liked the looks of this wreath and kept coming back!  Too funny.

Fun Event for a Good Cause

I was lucky enough to attend a volunteer event at Scrap and Sew, in Lutz, FL this past weekend.  This was a whirlwind event from 6:00-midnight (way past my usual bedtime!) and the response was great.

The recipients of the quilts will be kids from the Murray Child Development Center, a March of Dimes facility (the Easter Seals people).  Each sponsored child receives gifts per his (her) wish list and a quilt made by the volunteers.

The Murray Center serves children from 6 weeks to 6 years old.  They provide educational, childcare, therapeutic and family support services to children of all abilities and their families.  Many of the children have special needs and/or disabilities.  The center cares for children with conditions such as spina bifida, Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, cystic fibrosis, birth defects and/or developmental delays.  Physical, speech and occupational therapy are provided on an individual basis.

These are a few photos of some of the group as we watched a short March of Dimes video plus several of the quilts in process and some of the finished quilts stacked up.

I worked on my Monsters fabric quilt at the event, but had to bring it home to finish the binding.  I’ll take it back in next week.

I also donated this Ohio Stars quilt that I had finished earlier:

I also have fabric for one more quilt for them ... I should finish it next week also.

It was a fun event.  Oh, and did I mention we had pizza and cookies?  Yeah, a good time was had by all …

Happy Thanksgiving!

I started getting ready today for the Big Day – for the uninitiated, that is Thanksgiving, not Black Friday (I like eating better than shopping) - by baking the traditional pumpkin pie:

And then the trouble started:

As I was putting the pie in the oven, the flimsy aluminum pie pan buckled and out plopped at least a quarter of the filling onto the oven door.  I was able to clean most of that up without toasting my fingers, but there wasn’t anything I could do about the parts of the crust that got covered in filling and then naturally got burnt to a crisp.  So I just cut the crimped part of the crust off.  And made another pie.  I’ll have to sacrifice myself and eat the ugly pie all by myself.  Not a bad plan …

But then I got an email that a LQS was having a volunteer event to make quilts for 19 local children in a marathon event one evening next week.  What fun!  Of course, I signed up.  I’ll be taking two kits that I had made up while my machine was out for repair.  This is one:

Aren’t those monsters cute?!  I've had them a long time and it's time for them to go to some little boy somewhere.  I hope to remember to take my camera to the event!

Meanwhile:

As Fall turns to Winter, may you and yours enjoy the blessings of Thanksgiving

I'm Back Sewing!!

My sewing machine is back home and currently working well.  I’m not getting my hopes up yet because the problem took 3-4 days to show back up again the last time I thought it had been repaired.  But I was able to accomplish something yesterday and I’m in a good mood again – that’s a plus!

I made bindings for the quilts waiting for them – I added the border quilting on one quilt and I got the binding sewn down on another … I’m on a roll now, but I am being careful with my machine.

Bindings-in-waiting



(left) Borders Quilted and (right) Bound

Of course, I took the opportunity when I picked my machine up to select and purchase a few more homespun fabrics – lighter colors that I was lacking.  Can’t let those good 40-50% off coupons go to waste …

More Homespun Fabric

Spoiler Alert:

I’m about to describe a few walks and at the end I have a picture of a snake – so if you don’t like snakes at all, stop reading after the two bird pictures (you won’t see the snake picture because there is text first)!

So to continue -  I guess the silver lining to the machine being down was that I did take a few extra long walks.  I went to a new neighborhood where the sidewalk became a wooden walkway through a wetlands area then came back out and went back to being concrete.  It was very pretty (and much cooler!) in the cypress woods and I took a few pictures:

Fall foliage on the boardwalk thru the wetlands

Ibis

 

White Heron

 

Gorgeous day with a breeze blowing the palms

A new pond with a dock (that's an Ibis, too)

And now for the little guy I saw on the way back.  This Peninsula Ribbon snake is semi-aquatic and totally harmless.  It has brown and cream color alternating ribbon markings down the length of its body with a cream color belly.  It feeds on small fishes, frogs, salamanders and earthworms.  It is often found in marshes and cypress stands like the one that I saw this one in.

It has a very pretty round eye that is black surrounded by a gold ring then a rusty brown color.

This guy stayed motionless and tried to act nonchalant until he saw I wasn’t going to threaten him and then he went on his merry way and disappeared in search of dinner.  If I can’t have a nice Black Snake (they eat venomous snakes and other creepy undesirables around your house), then I like this guy that helps to keep populations in balance.  To read more (yes, some of you do) go to:

  http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/herpetology/herpetology.htm

Oh, and I can't forget that I have this fun Lil' Twister project waiting for me!