Cleaning up the old quilt room, oh wiat......

Yes, it must be done, I will start tomorrow. Oh, wait, I am going to ride to Montpeiller, LA to Bear Creek tomorrow to help Frank use up his gift certificate I gave him on his birthday last. A western store is so much fun. And I am hoping that the steak house is open. 25 years ago it was the best steakhouse in the entire state.

When we lived in Hammond, LA we danced and drank the night away many a weekend there with Dwight and Jan. That was pre-Carrie. In our wild youth.

http://thesillyboodilly.blogspot.com/2010/02/work-quilt-3-all-done.html

OMG! I am in love. Well. With her stuff, not her! LOL. I must learn how to do that hand quilting and absorb that talent for the quilt colors and pattern. I love them.

I am taking a decidedly modern slant. Another one I love is Tallgrass Prairie. She just tosses some scraps on the design wall and POOF! a fabulous quilt emerges! How can these people do this?

I want to do it too!

glen

Raffle Quilt for Southbound Swissy Club is done

Well, nearly done. I have the binding yet to do, it will be done in a black like the backing. It is a fun quilt, a bit silly with the dog houses. But it is a really bright quilt.

The money it brings in will be used to support activities of the Southbound Greater Swiss Mountain Dog Club. Email me for more information. I am not sure if the Raffle Committee will open the raffle up for the general public, it is usually done at our Fun Day in April at the show.

It may be hard to see like this, but the quilting between the bones on the borders are frolicking dogs! Cool. Everything else is basically echo quilted. Check it out below the writing.

The backing is a black print with dogs tossed about on it in sort of Mardi Gras colors. I bought it in Colorado Springs when I was out there visiting Valerie one time.

What's on your design wall Monday #8

I just returned from a weekend retreat and I was pleased to have put the borders on a difficult piece. I had purchased two polar bear wall hangings while we were in Alaska, ohhhhhh, maybe 5 years ago now. And I had completed both to the top stage.

Now that I am into completing UFOs for credit (hee hee) I decided to put them together and make a single quilt top from the two hangings. And they looked great, however the blues were just slightly off and nothing would go with it. Finally after searching for a couple of weeks, I found the blue/purple border that makes it zing!

And I was so pleased about putting the borders on and it looking so good that I put it on the design wall when I got home last night!

So on my design wall are polar bears.......and yes, I know one is up side down....................

glen

Christmas tree strings finished! Finally

The Xmas Tree Farm String quilt is complete now. Since I have the Dog House quilt on the frame I just did a loop de loop meander and it looks great. I love the contrast between the black and white and the greens. Who would have thought? LOL.

This is another project that I credit the String Project with motivating me to do, I would never have gone into my greens and pulled them out for these trees. And I love it.

I kept thinking, what can I do that is different, cool and uses strings? And I opened the quilt magazine and there it was! Tree Farm.

I have used up all my string squares I had. Well, actually I have about 50 diamond strings done that I have no idea what to do with. Maybe someone will come up with a neat thing for diamond strings..........................soon.................

glen

Happy Valentines Day

Happy Valentine's Day to all. Hope you got kissed!We spent the day bringing Valerie to the New Orleans Airport. Her dad died yesterday and she needs to be with her family now. I want her to bring back either some of her dad's shirts or his t-shirts and I will let her help me put together a quilt for her mom.

Here is my latest string completion. It will be a Charity Quilt going to the Parrothead Group for their Christmas Basket Drive in November. I gave them several quilts last year and they loved having them.

It turned out pretty cool. Blocks are 9 inches finished. I used blackboard looking fabric for the border and a sheet from the Purple Cow for the back so it is recycled all the way! I like doing the kid's quilts with sheets on the back. Not only it is economical to get them from the Purple Cow (and it helps their coffers too) but I think it is sturdier than fabric.......and cheaper than $10 a yard quilt shop fabric.

Kids can play and jump on the quilts, and they can be washed multiple times.

glen: Happy Valentines' Day!

A rough day

We had a rough day today. Valerie's dad passed away early this morning. The family can now be at peace, it is over. She is flying out tomorrow from New Orleans to be with the family as they gather together. Go safely, my friend.

And I have been finishing up things. I cleaned off my sewing table, well a little bit of it anyway! And I did complete the top of the Blue and Beige Row Quilt that has been on my shelf for maybe, oh, four years now. So that felt good. And I put the back together so all I have to do is load it on the frame when I finish with Garret's quilt.

Garret's quilt is ready to meld with its backing. The backing came in day before yesterday, but things have been hectic. I hope to put them together tomorrow. It is not going on the frame because I am just doing straight line quilting. But it looks great. And the Marine insignia backing is fabulous! I am glad I found it, even if it doesn't match the front!

glen

Sneaux!

It started as sleet yesterday afternoon, then went into rain. But this morning Frank wakes me up around 7 am and says to come see the snow.

Sneaux! It held until about 11 am. Then it stopped and melted! But while it was sneaxing it was huge beautiful flakes! And I got a ton of pictures.

Bonnie Doon's grave is covered with snow, she is loving it. Dutch is curled up in the den in front of the fireplace, a silly mountain dog for sure. Bonnie was my cold weather girl.

Granddog Hugeaux is with us now, Carrie and Andrew are heading to New Orleans for a parade tonight. They are in for a cold night.

Now the yard is slushy and a cold mess. Temps are just at 31 degrees. It is a wet cold today. I am chilled to the bones. Maybe that is why Dutch is in front of the fire!

Got zips; will sew them up!

I returned from the store with 12 seven inch zippers. So I made two more little bags. I plan on offering them to the ladies at Dan's Superbowl Party this afternoon. This one I did directly on the scrap of batting. I love the thin cotton batting, it is sooooo versatile! This yellow and red beauty is lined with the red and yellow squares fabric.

Valerie is not sure if she is going to make it with the oncoming cold and her dad's condition worsening. So when I saw her this morning she was able to choose hers. And of course I did not take a picture of it before it left the nest

But here is the remaining one, a cutsey one at that. All red and yellow. I want to keep it for myself! (nothing new here!)

And here is a picture of poor sad little Dutch. He, like me, has not fully recovered from Bonnie Doon's death yet. We both miss her something awful. Sometimes we just go into the back yard and talk to her. He sits with me on the bench and we hug each other.

Oh, my two string projects in one day!

One of the ladies in the guild I am President of (darn, of which I am President) makes these beautiful little zip bags. So I decided I would do one. How hard can it be?

Well, three hours and a lot of ripping later I decided to look up on the internet and see if I could figure out how to do this. And wouldn't you know, the one I chose to follow was more confusing than what I was doing.

This was like no bag I had ever done before! LOL (hmmmmm)

Anyway, here is my completed one. I like the colors. I have two more to make but have no zippers, all I have are 22 inch zips. I guess I could go bigger........... (hmmmmm)

Well, I decided that I would make them for the ladies at the Superbowl Party. We will gather at Dan and Amber's home to watch the Saints perform a miracle. I don't particularly care for football, but being in Baton Rouge and growing up in New Orleans, ya just gotta root for dem Saints, yeah.

PS I have no idea why the picture comes out sideways, but it does every time I upload it.!

Christmas tree strings!

I remembered a pattern in a magazine from before Christmas and decided to use up some of my green scraps from way before Christmas!

Check out my String Christmas Trees! I even used up a lot of my black and white I got from Sassi Strippers for my birthday last year!

I am always surprised that while I purchase mega dollars of fabric for a quilt, I actually use very little of the fabric you have in my stash. It just never seems to go down. I still have a ton of greens!

Sigh............

Labels - I hate them

No no no! Not labels in the cultural sense. I hate to sew labels on my quilts!

My cyberquilt mates and I were discussing our UFO completions and I said, I hate to sew labels on even more than I hate to sew binding on.

I surmised that it is a psychological thing about "ending" a quilt. With the label, you are finished. It is over. Your labor of love (or hate as in some quilts I have worked on) is over. And you just have to sew the label on it to be complete.

And the label is usually small. Not nearly equivalent to most other work on the quilt, just a tiny label, hidden on the back. A marker, as it were, for your final effort of ending the piece.

Maybe that is why I hate to sew labels on my quilts. They are over.

And then what do I do with them?