Saturday, January 21, 2012

My "Birding" Quilt

Birds of a Feather, which I have renamed Birding
Details of Birding

More blocks with blue eggs

About 1 year ago, I saw the directions for this quilt at Humble Quilts blog. Lori was giving them away. I did not win them. But I did find out through Lori that it was a Black Bird design. One search at Google and I found out it was now a book called "Birds of a Feather." Amazon came to the rescue. I bought the book and have been making this quilt on my travels and during my quilting bee time. I did change some of the blocks a bit and I also made my own borders using the elements from the blocks. I still remember where I was when I made the blocks. The pears were all made in Granada, Spain, while I sat on a deck looking at Alhambra. I demonstrated to some ladies in Seoul, Korea how to do needle turn appliqué while making the long thin block with the 6 flowers facing down. I only know "thank you and please" in Korean, and they did not speak English; but we all spoke "needle work."
I like this quilt a lot. It was fun to make and it looks great in my house. Jan Struble from Durham, NC quilted it for me.

Friday, January 6, 2012

Denise the pig bank

This is Denise. I bought her last year at a Goodwill store. Let me back up. 
I find a lot of coins on the streets and put them in my shoe for good luck all day. DH always makes fun of me and tells me to "find a million dollars," I guess that would be "good luck." My thing is that one cannot be greedy.
So I decided that I was going to put all the money I found in 2011 on a bank and count it at the end of the year. Since Denise is a pig, I had decided that all the money would go to an animal shelter. So January 1, 2012, I opened up the bank and I have collected US$6.10. How about that!
I did find some Australian dollars and Euros. But I converted them to USD when I got home. The 2 bills I found in the woods near my home. Probably some poor jogger lost them.
I have started to collect the "found" coins again. Happy to report that Denise has already 3 cents for 2012.
 

It Takes 2 part 1

These are the first 6 blocks from this sew along. I am using a solid red from Kona fabrics called "Cardinal" and a solid white from a bolt that I have for 5 years or so. I am debating with the red work embroidery. I think I will use the white blocks to add some quilting instead. I do not enjoy embroidery at this point. I have done it so much, that I am tired of it. I am looking forward the next blocks on the 15th of January.
This was a lot of fun. I have not trimmed the blocks to size or removed the marks from the appliqué. I will wash them soon. I need to buy the color grab product before I wash these blocks, just in case...
I will trim when we get the instructions to put these blocks together in March. This delay will prevent the many loose threads that always happens when I handle the blocks of my quilts.

Texas panel quilt

This quilt top is part of a Bee challenge. We are challenging ouselves to use a panel to make a donation quilt. Now, I will quilt it usin...