Edgerton Raffle Quilt 2011

I keep forgetting to ask people the name of the block or pattern used.  I know I have seen this block before, but for the life of me cant remember what it is called.  Very old fashioned looking and fabrics are 30's reproduction.  I just love this one.  When I have more time, I will look it up and see what it is called, or I could just try to remember to ask Jane when she picks it up.

I was told the gal that sewed all the blocks together  had never made a quilt before.   She did a fantastic job.

One of our quilt committee gals had made the blocks and donated them for this years raffle quilt.

Two days and 4 different stitch patterns in this quilt to give it that very special look.

After finishing this quilt I then moved on to making another bag(tote) for a customer.

What pretty spring colors she chose.

Yesterday Wayne and I and our daughter Stacy went to Kopke greenhouse and purchased flowers for the flower garden we are putting in for the wedding, and more flowers for my pots out front of the house.  Spent hours and hours and hours planting, rota tilling raking and more planting, but I think its going to be worth it.  Will get pics as soon as garden fills in a little more.  Also we have to or should I say Wayne has to put together the beautiful trellis we purchased for the flower garden.

Today going to Emma's (granddaughter) birthday party.  Have to be in Pardeville by 1pm, so I better get off this computer, make the beds, do the dishes, wrap the present and get showered and ready to go.


Bye

Who's Cooking Easter Dinner?

Had a wonderfully busy day.  This am, bff Nettie came over to finish sewing her quilt (7am)

After she left we heard from our friends Bill and Kelli, meet for Lunch?  Sure.  Quick pick up house run vac, wash dining room and kitchen floor, take shower, put on make up, whew made it just in time for them to arrive.

Lunch at Two Brothers, Edgerton.  Kellie brought another Tshirt quilt for me to do, so I suggested after lunch to load it on machine and get it going.  This way I can have finished before they return to Ft Wayne IN tomorrow afternoon.  Heck I got all afternoon to do it right.  Going to supper at Toby and Sarah's so I don't have to cook anything, I got plenty of time.

4pm, hmmm, I seem to be forgetting something.  What could it be?   Holy heck, I forgot to go to grocery store and buy what I need to prepare Easter dinner.  Stop the presses, or in my case the quilting machine, grab your purse and rush to store, where about 50 other people are doing the exact same thing.

So never fear kids, mom will have dinner ready for you tomorrow as planned.

Now all's I have to do is get up early and finish the quilt for Kelli, make potato salad, bake pies, put ham in oven, make my home made baked beans, and oh yeah, re vac house before company arrives.

HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE.

from Millie

Another baby scrappy

Oh the weather is nothing to brag about here in Wisconsin, cold, rainy, windy, good day to stay inside and quilt.  Will we ever get our spring?????????

You would think we would be looking forward to warmer days, and planning our spring planting.

Right now I'm wondering if I should get out the winter coats again. NOT.   Its almost depressing, and if I didn't have so much sewing to do I would probably think about crawling back into bed and staying there until spring does arrive.

Finished this small baby quilt for one of my customers.  Bright batiks

backing

Simple blocks, she used scraps again, but the colors are so bright.  Quilted with my favorite Peacock stitching.

I also finished another bag, from my scraps drawer.

I'm really liking these scrappy bags.  With my scraps I could probably make about 10 or more of these bags, and only have the cost of the fusible, buttons and maybe the lining.

Right now I have to make a choice, quilts or bags.  Hmmm, with a day like today, I better stick to the quilting.  Have a few customers quilts to finish and of course my pastel LS quilt.  Time is running out, the RVQG quilt show is coming up and must finish some quilts for my booth.

Oh and lets not forget a little dinner called EASTER, need to clean house, shop for and prepare dinner etc, you all know where I'm going with this.

Today, bff Nettie came over to sew. We manged to get in a couple of hours, but time was shortened.  Whenever she comes, Wayne likes the company and spends a good deal of the first hour just chatting.

Jane from the Edgerton Quilt Committee, dropped off the raffle quilt for me to finish.  So pretty, looking forward to quilting the quilt for this years show.    Now to decide how do I want to quilt this one.

This is my 3rd year and I feel very honored they chose me to do the quilting for their raffle quilts.

Complete Chaos

Yikes, I totally destroyed my sewing area looking for scraps and working on too many projects at one time.

I have got to find some time to organize that scrap drawer. 

Brainstorming again this morning, had to find just the right scraps to make another bag.  I'm really liking the scrappy bags.  They are bit more work having to sew all the strips together, but I think they are worth it.

unfinished but looking good

Put quilting on back burner for a few days. 

 Been a busy week, Sunday did the workshop for Barn Chixs.  Monday night Edgerton Quilt Committee Meeting.  Thursday morning rode with Wayne to Madison dropping of horse trailer for the horse fair.  What a miserable weekend for it.  Cold, wet nasty. Thursday night, quilt guild meeting, which by the way, turned into absolute chaos and for some of us meeting split up. (no details necessary)  Not too concerned,  a new guild is being formed, and hopefully we can move on to bigger and better things.  Friday exercise class then checked out a new location for guild meetings.

Really hope this week I will be able to work on  LS quilt.  Easter is coming and would like to finish a few things and clean the sewing room.

Oh I did manage to clean up the mess I made, just in time to start again tomorrow.

Butterfly Wall Hanging

Completed a small wall hanging made from the pattern I designed at the workshop last Sunday at Loose Threads.

 I didn't feel like making, yet another, quilt or large wall hanging, so I just used 4 fat quarters, which results in a 4 block small wall hanging.  A person can only use just so many wall hangings, small quilts.  I think this is going to Kylee for her room, once I have done all the show and tells.  Will probably keep it and show at the Rock Valley Quilt Guild show May 14th - 15th.  I will be doing a booth promoting my quilting business and my patterns. Also entered "Stepping Stones" in the show.  Maybe will enter in the Edgerton Quilt Show October 22 for the small quilt category.

This is my 3rd original design using the Buggy Barn technique and still enjoy the process from thinking it up, putting it down on paper, drawing the pattern, finding just the right fabric and then finally cutting and sewing the pieces together. 

Brief description on how to make your own pattern , I challenge you to  GIVE IT A TRY:
Think of a design, be creative and think outside the "box"
Draw a rough draft on any size paper, I sit in front of the TV, recliner feet up and start doodling.
Draw the pattern onto parchment paper using a sharp pencil and a good eraser and ruler. Make your design into sections of squares, rectangles, triangles to form a block.  Think of how your pieces will be sewn together to form that section and block, lines should be drawn to meet the next section and outside edges of block. Once you are happy with the pattern, number the cutting lines and using alphabet, mark the pieces A, B, C etc.  Now if you are familiar with the Buggy Barn technique, you are ready to make your own quilt.

Here is the picture I have shown of my pattern I drew at the workshop

Now go ahead and try this. Have fun with it.

Barn Chix Play Day

Today the Chix were supposed to get together at Loose Threads to participate in learning how I make patterns using the Buggy Barn technique, stack, slice and shuffle.

Some of us made it, and 3 of us participated in the class.  A few girls came but brought other projects to work on as they were not clear as to what we were going to be working on.

We brought a snack to pass, and as always we manage to eat well.

Elaine working hard on making her pattern, she is going to be doing a barn, and its going to be wonderful. She even plans on putting a "barn quilt" on the front.  Cant wait to see this.  



My preliminary Butterfly pattern



Dee Dee is making a Owl pattern, and I'm sure it will be as awesome as her Birds and Birdhouses she recently finished.  Sorry took her pic into the light so it is not a good pic of her.

 That's it, nobody else was working on patterns, but between the 3 of us, we had a good time.  I am looking forward to seeing Elaine's she has already picked out the material she will be using.  She seemed very pleased about learning the process, and I am sure there are more patterns coming from her.

There was not enough time to do any of the sewing today.  It takes hours to work up a pattern before you even begin the cutting and sewing portion of these projects.   Most people don't realize the work involved in drawing up a pattern, no matter how simple the design.  Mary Kay (owner Loose Threads)  actually thought we would draw the patterns, cut fabric and sew pieces together today. We started at around 11 and finished with just the drawing around 2.

Dee Dee also picked out her fabrics, and her Owl quilt will be beautiful based on her chosen fabrics.

I have mine already cut to sew, but thinking, I should have made some adjustments to the pattern before cutting.  Oh well, I'm sure it will be fine, if not I will make the adjustments while sewing.  That's whats fun about Buggy Barns, the blocks don't square up anyway, so you just have to do the best you can and TRIM.

Too Many Projects To Do

Would you believe I have been losing sleep because I have been waking up thinking about materials I have in my stash that would work making  bags.  2 nights, or I should say early mornings in a row, cant get bags out of my mind.

Went to exercise class this morning, and rushed home to start making a bag with scraps.  The only way to get something out of my head is to DO IT so I can stop thinking about it. 

Now that I have one more bag done, I can hopefully, move on and get back to quilting.

Here is the scrappy bag.  Still have to buy and sew on buttons, then its complete.

Donna (my sister in law) will be pleased I finally found a use for some of the material she hand dyed last year, used for lining of bag.  Hmmmmm, I'm seeing a complete bag made from this material in the future.

Now that this is out of my mind, maybe I can get back to working on the pastel Lightning Strike



Now let me show you what I should be working on today:

Enough said??

Birds and Birdhouses

My sister-in-law Alice, we call her Dee Dee, took on the challenge to design her own quilt using the Buggy Barn method.  Stack, slice and shuffle.

Here are the results:

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She met the challenge and did an awesome job.  I love it.

I tried a new quilting stitch that I found through "Leah Day Freemotion Quilting Designs" http://www.freemotionquilting.blogspot.com/.

I follow Leah's blog all the time and used a variation of moon paisley and shell echos.

This is obviously a small wall hanging, but Dee Dee has purchased enough material to make a full size quilt from her design.   Cant wait to see what that is going to look like.

So glad my snow bird is home, have so many plans for her and I. 

Vegetable Soup

Where do they come up with these pattern names?

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I am curious how do they come up with the names for patterns.  As I am now designing my own I find it difficult to come with a name for each.  Sometimes the way the pattern turns out just makes it easy.  Then you have one like "Lightning Strikes" where I just didn't know what to call it.  I thought of Mouse Trap, Mouse Maze, A Maze, Corn Maze, Licorice Sticks, Aztec, Hidden Path, and the list goes on. Finally decided on LS because it reminds me of lightning strikes that looks as if they might hit a building.

This pattern is Vegetable Soup.  Does it look like soup, don't think so. Whatever it is called it is sure pretty.  Customer (friend) Cheryl purchased the pattern some time ago and was going to use all scraps, but instead decided to go with just these few colors. I like it very much.  She requested I do a small meandering and then she picked the flower design for the solid color blocks and she wanted the threading to be a gold or yellow.  Good choice Cheryl.  I have to compliment her on her sewing, she did a great. Usually when there are patch seams meeting you will get a bulk seam that just wants to pucker up.  Not hers, they were so well sewn they laid right down.

Bag Lady

Its official I am now a Bag Lady.

Bff Nettie talked me into taking a class making bags. I put her off for a week and finally agreed to the class.

So glad I did, what a fun time we had.  There were 6 of us including Nettie, Dee Dee, myself and the instructor at Loose Threads, and laughed and sewed and laughed some more and each made a bag, and each was a different color. 

The 3 of us sat at one table, and we got laughing so hard, I had tears in my eyes and couldn't see what I was sewing.  I think the other 3 ladies thought were nuts or drunk, but they began laughing with us or at us, not sure which it was.

OK so now I'm hooked and in more of my spare time  ( if I can find any) I'm going to make more bags.

See Stacy's mosaic flower pot she gave me?

Not quite finished with the bag, need to do a top stitch along the top of bag, but had to show you what it looks like.

Who Likes Horses

This has been one of my busiest days ever. 

Nettie and Dee Dee came over this morning and I cut fabric for purse making class we are attending tomorrow.  Dee Dee took hers home to cut, we were talking so much, had a hard time concentrating on the cutting and I was so afraid I was going to screw it up and make the wrong cuts.  That wouldn't be good as it cost lots of moola to buy the fabric for this class. One mistake and I would be the one buy the extra material.

They left around noon, and I proceeded to quilt a beautiful horse panel quilt.  This quilt is going to the Midwest Horse Fair with a friend of ours.  He sells horse trailers, and suggested I make a horse quilt. He is going to display while vending his trailers, in hopes someone would want to buy this, and he is going to promote my quilting business.  What a good friend.

I had a heck of time finding this fabric.  Finally went to one of my favorite online stores Fabric.com.  I have found if cant find it in local quilt shops, they will most often have what I am looking for.  Purchased the panels and the coordinating sashing through them.  Purchased the borders at Loose Threads.

Now I am not a horse person. Its not that I don't like horses, but I would not purposely make a quilt just to have a horse quilt.  However, this turned out so beautifully that if I was a horse person I would be very happy to have this quilt in my home.

Spent the remainder of the day and part of evening hand sewing the binding. Now that this is finished, I can take it off my check list of things to completed within the next week.  Much to do.

Love it.