Some vintage Teresa...

I am quilting like mad on my Joseph's coat quilt along quilt for baby Asa, but don't really have a picture yet.

So, I thought I would show some quilts that I did before I started blogging last year.  This is Bessie the Cow...she's a patriotic old girl...

Check out the quilting on her chest...

The one below is called One Room Schoolhouse, machine pieced and hand quilted, made for my daughter's kindergarten teacher (she is now going into 8th grade...when did THAT happen?!?).

Here's another gift for a beloved teacher and I called it Red Schoolhouses, machine pieced and hand quilted.

This is a Bagello Quilt wall hanging that is hanging in my living room...the skinniest "slice" is a quarter of an inch wide...YIKES!  It is machine pieced and hand quilted.

This next one was wild (for me!).  It was the wedding quilt for my youngest sister.  They got married on the beach in Destin, Florida on a perfect October day.  Their colors were the colors of the water of the Gulf of Mexico (teal, aqua, blues, greens)...and bright orange (for the Monarch butterflies).  I just made up something youthful and funky.

I hand appliqued some hearts and butterflies that I drafted (from hearts) on random blocks.  They picked October on a Florida beach in the pan handle of the state due to all the Monarch butterflies that are there at that time (hence the bright orange in their color scheme!).  They were flying all around during the ceremony...oh, so cool!  The quilt was machine pieced and quilted (along with the hand applique).  The colors are really brighter and more beautiful than my bad photography indicates.  I really enjoyed collecting all the fabrics for this scrappy quilt.

Well, that was fun...going down memory lane.  I always think of this blog as my quilting journal, but I've been making quilts since 1982 and have only been blogging a little over a year.  I've got a little more catching up to do when it comes to sharing projects (at least for the things I have pictures of)!

I hope to be through with baby Asa's quilt soon.  I have a lot of "quilt guilt" over it, as my nephew is now 6 months old.  Do you deal well with quilt guilt?  I hate it, but I have a hard time avoiding it.  This hand piecing, hand quilting stuff takes time, and sometimes life gets in the way of my quilting agenda.  I will definitely be doing a little happy dance when I finish it and can send it off to my very patient sister.

In stitches,
Teresa  :o)

Not quite done...

Wow...two posts from me in one day...it's either feast or famine lately, huh...

I talked earlier (today) about trying to finish this baby quilt for my nephew.  I still want to put a skinny light blue border on, followed by another narrow white one, then bind it in white.

What you see was all hand-pieced and hand-appliqued.  Once I figured out how to connect all my little circles (that were on square backgrounds...go figure), I ended up appliqueing the whole mess on white borders.

Thanks to Kellie at Don't Look Now for this "adventure" in quilting.  Her tutorials were great...I'm just an idiot.  I like the name of her blog...I will think of it every time I think about the messy back of this quilt top (as in, "oooo, 'don't look now'...at this messy back side of the top...). 

When I get the other little borders on the top, I will show you the back side before I layer it all for the hand-quilting (and hide it all away forever and ever, amen).  Now THAT will be a humbling experience for me!  I always try so hard to press carefully so the back of my work doesn't look like a train wreck, but joining these round blocks on square backgrounds...let's just say it was like putting a square peg in a round hole.

The important thing is that I pushed through my mental block about this quilt and I will have it finished, layered, quilted, and sent on it's way to little Asa in no time!

In stitches,

Teresa  :o)

Two finishes!

I finally finished hand-quilting and binding two small quilts from Barbara Brackman's Juniper and Mistletoe book.  These will be samples for the shop, then Christmas presents.  Ha!  That's ONE way to stop procrastinating on getting started on making gifts for Christmas 2010!  The first on is a block is from the sampler quilt featured in the books are "square"...it's just I'm a bad photographer!  LOL  I hand quilted little oak leaves in the cornerstones on the first one.

I used chocolate brown YLI quilting thread for the cardinal piece.  It's hard to see the quilting because it so closely matches the dark brown Maywood Shadow Play fabric I used for the applique background.

On an unrelated subject, have you ever started a project before you knew how it was going to end?  OK, that was a dumb question...we've all done that...duh!  Have you ever started something, showed your feeble efforts to the final recipient, then realized that you might not be able to finish it?  Then you put it aside because you can't face it, but you can't "scrap it" because the recipient is already excited?

I did this recently.  Remember the Joseph's Coat Quilt Along, sponsored, with tutorial, by Kellie at Don't Look Now??  I took one look at that awesome quilt and thought that it would make a darling baby quilt for my newest, soon-to-be-born nephew.  This project is supposed to look like this:

Kellie posted this first step of the tutorial in January and I thought it was INCREDIBLE and started cutting out little blue and lime green wedges.  I thought, "Wow!  I love this quilt!  The first step looks easy and I bet I can do this quickly and my sister will love it."

The first step was easy...look at my adorable "blocks"...I was ready for another tutorial step so that I could whip the thing out PRONTO!

Then the next step was posted by Kellie...uh-oh...a little tricky.  I hit a brick wall.  I stuffed the project in a box and avoided it for a while.  I'm sure other people found the next steps easy and went on to make a huge, beautiful project.  I was only making a small baby quilt, and I was afraid to go on.

To add to my misery, I broke my number one quilting rule:  NEVER show a recipient their quilt before it is finished; it deflates creative energy (and commits you to that particular effort, even if you hit the wall, like I did).

Well, when I was visiting my sister and new nephew in February, I was working on step one, and she saw the "blocks."  Uh-oh!

Well, my adorable nephew is now 6 months old and I feel so guilty that I have not finished his quilt.  I made the decision yesterday morning to "put on the big girl panties," get the project out and work on it non-stop until it is done!

I am making GREAT progress and will post a picture of the top later this evening...I'm almost done with the top...and that is saying something...it is all hand-pieced!  I am so proud of myself for pushing through this and dealing with all the feelings of "I can't do it" and "I feel so guilty!" and "he won't get this until he starts college!"

(You know...it wasn't so bad doing it.)

We are our own worst enemies.

In stitches,

Teresa  :o)

Back "in town"...LITERALLY!

I've managed to get another couple of house blocks finished for my Around the Town quilt (by Sue Garmon)...I have not posted a block on this project since the end of May...my, how time flies!  The block above is block #4, called the "good as gold house."  And here is block #6.

 

And here are my first 6 blocks that make up the right side of the quilt:

This is the picture off the pattern...

This was the first block...I loved the whale weathervane...that's what attracted me to the quilt in the first place.

This is the right, top corner...

This is the gable house...

And this is the bottom, right corner, the "dark and skeery woods."

It has been fun getting to use the architectural fabrics I've been saving...stones, bricks, wood.

I've been choosing fabrics and prepping pieces of the remaining six blocks.  Maybe I will be more timely in posting another block!

In stitches,

Teresa  :o)

Inspiration from the great outdoors...

It's good to be home again!  While camping in the Canadian 1000 Islands, I managed to do a little hand-applique by lantern light on two little samples for the shop.  Once home, I added the borders and now they are ready to quilt.  This tablerunner is 45-1/2 x 13-1/2.  Here's a closer view of the first one:

They are both from "Juniper and Mistletoe: A Forest of Applique" by Karla Menaugh and Barbara Brackman.

The second one is one of the blocks from the cute folk art quilt in the book (the block pictured on the cover).  This one is 18-1/2 x 16-1/2.

As I unpack and do all the camping laundry, I look forward to catching up with your blogs. 

In stitches,

Teresa  :o)

Leaving Hogwarts...

Greetings from the Wizarding World of Harry Potter!  We are briefly back from Infinitus 2010, a Harry Potter Convention in Orlando, FL.  Don't let that snow on the roofs of Hogsmeade fool you...it was in the high 90's with opressive humidity.

I did manage to get some more baskets hand-appliqued while sitting in Harry Potter seminars and discussions (at least until I broke my needle!  I forgot to pack a spare!).  Other attendees kept asking me if these were cauldrons, or some other sort of witch or wizarding thing.  No, just baskets.  Although, boy do I ever have some ideas for Harry Potter related quilting...

I guess the black print ones do look a little like cauldrons...

Here is my daughter, standing near the back of Hogwarts, School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, behind her in the Universal Studios theme park, "Islands of Adventure."  The structures were amazing and did not disappoint!  It was VERY crowded in the park, but since it did only open a month ago and there are SO many Harry Potter fans, that was to be expected.  We did the rides, shopped at Honeyduke's Candy Shop and Zonko's Joke Shop, dined and had Butterbeer in the Three Broomsticks, Riley got a wand at Olivander's Wand Shop, sent "owl post" from Hogsmeade, and talked with the Hogwart's Express train conductor.  There are rumors, even though only a month old, of adding to this corner of the park...maybe a Diagon Alley and Gringotts.  We'll see...

Here is my daughter, sporting the appropriate Butterbeer moustache in the Three Broomsticks Pub.  Our 4-day conference was in a hotel/convention center at the universal complex and we were allowed in the park one night after hours...just 1500 crazed Potter fans, most in costume...that was awesome!  In fact, most of the fans at the conference were in costumes all days and nights of the affair.  We had book seminars/discussions/panels, live quidditch and human wizard chess matches, an opening feast, Wizard Rock, a "Night of Frivolity Ball," and live performances of Harry Potter musicals, etc.  Just imagine a Star Trek Convention and substitute Harry Potter. 

Although I doubt Star Trek had all the literary seminar programming that we had and all the university scholars giving talks...

There were Harry Potter fans at this convention from ALL OVER THE WORLD!!!  (I thought WE had traveled a long way to get there.)  I met people from the Netherlands, South America, England, France, Asia, and 3 from Australia and New Zealand!!

LOTS of great costumes...(Flitwick, Snape, Lupin, Tonks, Dumbledore, Lavender Brown, and of course, Hermione,  Ron and Harry).

Hagrid and Norberta, the dragon (which was HUGE!).

Two people dressed as Luna Lovegood...

The sorting hat...

Tonks and Bellatrix (people were posing and hexing all over the place...).

Riley posing with Lily and James Potter (Harry's parents)...

The evil Lucious and Narcissa Malfoy...

(If you aren't an HP fan, thanks for enduring all the photos!)

In stitches (and in the laundry room!),

Teresa  :o)

Checking in before checking out...

Here are some little green cherry tomatoes and some basil from my back stoop garden.  I am off to spend some quality family time for 3 weeks.  (Maybe, just maybe, I will get a little stitching done in the mean time...maybe very little, LOL!)  We'll definitely be eating ripe, home grown tomatoes soon!

I will certainly be doing some summer reading (Stephanie Plum book #16 by Janet Evanovich and a small pile of "Bubbles" books - thanks Mary J!!), some original applique scheming and dreaming, and visiting the new "World of Harry Potter" section of an Orlando, FL theme park with my husband and this excited young lady (freshly back from New York City and her first Broadway show)...

I can't believe she talked us into a Harry Potter "nerd convention" (Infinitus 2010, in conjunction with the opening of the park).  What were we thinking?!?

We'll let you know how it turns out...

In stitches (and in a wizard robe...),

Teresa  :o)

Going around in circles...

Oh my.  Is anyone else doing this fabulous Joseph's Coat Quilt-Along from Kellie at  Don't Look Now???  I have been at this for a while as a baby quilt for my new nephew (now 6 months old...oh my...).

I have to admit it has not been an easy project for me.  First of all, I broke my rule and let my sister see it in progress in February.  Sometimes it takes all the wind out of my sails when I do a partial reveal.  Then the cat turned over my tea cup and I ended up having to re-make a few circles (since I glue my edges under, I couldn't plunge the pieces under the water to get the tea stain out of the bright white background).  Then I bled on one and didn't realize it until it was too late for my spit to remove the stain...had to re-do that one too.

Somehow I managed to finish all the little whole and half circle blocks...now to put them together so that the pattern is continuous.  I don't have a picture of that for you yet as it looks like A COMPLETE MESS!!!  I'm following the tutorials, but it is awkward folding the excess background out of the way in order to connect the circles in a continuous pattern...bulky, bulky, bulky. 

I think it is going to work eventually, but I am very clumsy trying to do the hand applique with the weight of all that excess, folded-out-of-the-way background fabric...especially when trying to get those 6 little points to meet PERFECTLY.  I may need to do some pre-mature trimming...

I got really spoiled by the ease of hand-appliqueing all the little circle blocks...la-tee-da!  Then I hit the wall, which I will push over...at some point.  I'm feeling the pressure of Asa possibly being in second grade before he gets this quilt!!

I will show progress on how it is going together next time...until then, off to work at the quilt shop!

In stitches,

Teresa  :o)

Not in Kansas any more...

"Wickedly Liberated" is finished and ready to quilt.  I wanted to have it machine-quilted, but some of the bulky trims/embellishments may remove that option.  Weasley jumped in the picture...he got all excited when he thought we might be "getting" some doggies!  Here's a picture without him...

I'm pleased with the bottom-right corner house, and I ended up free-piecing a witch hat in the top-left corner to balance.  I had an extra one of Mary J's liberated witch blocks...I wish I had put it where the witch hat is now, but I think I have another, SMALLER, project in mind for that.

Thank you to all my liberated lady swap group for contributing to my top: Ola, Mary J, Judy E, Ellen, Kathy, Jean, Judy T, Chris, Mary H, Mary Liz, Margit, Barb N, Marilyn, Cindy, Cheryl, and Beth.  And thanks to Tonya of Lazy Gal Quilting (and Lynne of Patchery Menagerie and Bonnie of Quiltville's Quips & Snips) for all the visual inspiration on making the free-pieced letters.  There are many more of THOSE in my future!

(Weasely, waiting to "get" the doggies...where are they?!?)

(Nessa the witch is having a "bad house day"...)

We are having another blazing hot day in southeast lower Michigan...be careful of the heat (or cold) wherever you are!

In stitches (and in Oz),

Teresa   :o)