2014 Sew Along Galore

It is that time of the year again. Not the eat too much time; but the new quilt for the new year time.
It seems that there are plenty of new projects to tempt everyone.
The very short list I made just now, includes new sew along from:
. Quilters Newsletter magazine: this one has started and it is a beautiful star quilt.
. American Patchwork and Quilting: it will start with the January/February issue that is already on sale.
. Pat Sloan has a free quilt pattern that will be a block of the month. "Globetrotting" will
star in January. http://blog.patsloan.com/page/4/
. Sentimental Stitch will also have a 25 months sew along starting January 1st. It is an applique quilt called "The Benjamin Biggs Quilt." It will be under the "just takes 2" site. Go to sentimentalstitches.net and take a look at this great applique quilt.
. Bonnie Hunter has her mystery quilt called "Celtic Solstice" going on. She usually keeps her patterns on her blog for a few months. So it gives you time to think about it and also see the complete quilt before you decide to make it.
Many other blogs have new sew along projects starting also. Many are free; but others have a fee.
Way too many to list. Just enough to keep one away from the sewing machine and glued to the computer screen.
Better get back to pins and needles now.
Many happy "starts!"

More of Festival 2013

More mix and match to show the diversity of beauty.

Houston Quilt Festival 2013

I took more than 100 pictures and I don't think it is even a third of the Festival.

Enough to say that there is something for everyone.

And a chance to shop until you drop!

Pinwheels and Posies

This cute store is located in Dickinson, Texas which is between Houston and Galveston of I-45. The service there is outstanding and they have a great selection of fabrics. I stopped there with some friends and we all found things we "needed."  For me, it was the orange and green batiks for the pumpkin shown on my previous post.

Quilt UFO's weekend.

This past weekend was used to finish some UFO's. I have started my version of Orca Bay when Bonnie Hunter did this as a mystery quilt (2011). 

I don't cut my fabric in strips to store it; and soon realized that it was more work than fun for me. So I stopped making the quilt, collected the clues; and put it all away with the fabrics I had selected. 

It turns out, I really liked the quilt. So, I cut the fabrics into triangles, and squares, did not do any more string piecing and put the top together for a twin size quilt. The red triangles and light blue squares are not string pieced  like the original clues.

This quilt is smaller then Bonnie's. I adjusted the border to this new size and now I plan to quilt it on my Bernina. I will give it as a gift to a family member.

"Orca Bay"

Orca Bay on my design wall

I also finished up this pumpkin quilt. 

The original design from Quilt Matters is called "Cheeky Pumpkin." It was offered as a free pattern on her blog quiltmatters.blogspot.com on October 21 2012. The original is the size of a sheet of paper 8.5" X 11" (A9 paper size for the ones overseas.) 

To make mine bigger, I did enlarge the pattern 200%. My quilt measures 21.5" by 18.5" which is 54.5 cm by 47 cm.

It is made of batiks and the pieces were fused using "Heat and Bond Lite." I did a small zigzag stitch (1 X 1) on my machine to applique this wall hanging. I also did machine quilting. The quilted leaf is an original. I also put a small leaf on the lower left using the purple thread, so it stays in the background.

Great Pumpkin

It was a fun weekend for sure!

Coolest office at Rice Univ.

 This is a very creative family. I went to visit DH in his new office at Rice University and have some coffee. We also decorated it a little bit. We found this "human alphabet" on the internet and I think it is really fun. His pictures for the walls are still on a box somewhere; but it is starting to look really nice.

The Texas Quilt Museum field trip

I have made some wonderful friends since I joined the Quilt Guild of Greater Houston. I was invited to joint a great bee. These ladies are extremely talented and are very busy with their projects; but also equally busy with donation of their talents to the benefit of the community. I have been here for 2 months; and I am so glad they took me in. This is my first field trip with them.

We went to La Grange, Texas to visit the Texas Quilt Museum. The museum does not allow photography. But I can assure you, that it was worth the trip. Below are a couple of photos of the building with the mural on the wall and the grandmother garden on the side. This garden is a replica of the garden that would be here in the 1800's. The art work changes every quarter and a new show starts in October. The link below is to the museum website.     http://www.texasquiltmuseum.org/

Texas Quilt Museum La Grange Texas

Next door to the museum is a great fabric and yarn store called The Quilted Skein. The store is beautiful and the people there are very friendly and ready to help.
I did resit the yarns; but had to buy some fabrics with Texas prints.

The Quilted Skein, La Grange Texas

Below is the City Hall building in the center of the square. If you see this building you are very close to the museum and quilt store. The city is really pretty with some great stores around here. We ate at Bistro 108 and the food was delicious.

Center Square of La Grange 

Brazilian Quilts in Houston 2012

http://secure.smilebox.com/ecom/openTheBox?sendevent=4d7a63784d7a51794d44513d0d0a&blogview=true&campaign=blog_playback_link&partner=neverblue


This link is for the quilts exhibited at the Houston International Festival in 2012. The quilts are amazing.
Fair warning, there are 91 images on this slide show. Get your favorite beverage and enjoy.

Humming Birds

How do I miss you little friends! I hope you found a new feeder. I also miss all the other birds that used to come to the feeder with seeds.  So far, not many visitors to the new location. Just a couple of sparrows and a morning dove.

No time for quilting

This is the reason I have not sewn in 4 weeks. The top 3 photos are of my former studio been packed away in early July.

     

And here it is: 1320 miles south of the former studio, the same boxes on my new studio. Too many boxes hiding on the wall not shown on this photo. I am too embarrassed to show the entire mess.  It is amazing how much stuff I did collect these past years. But I do love all of it. Now back to unpacking.

Flower Garden Quilt

all 24 blocks completed

Glorious Garden with the top border started

These are the 24 blocks for my Flower Garden Quilt that I started in January, 2013. I am using needle turn applique. I really enjoyed making these blocks. They are fast and easy and an ideal project for air travel, since adequate light is not a possibility. The lower picture show the start of the top border. All 4 borders are different which makes it very exciting for me.

Chapel Hill Public Library

CHPL main entrance

After a couple of years closed for remodeling and expansion, the CH Public library reopened with an awesome new building. But this post is about parking. 

The new parking lot across the main entrance has several new spots. Do you see my car below?

Now look down on the next photo and see the sign on the post where it is parked.

And this spot is next to the spots reserved for disabled individuals.

We the green people get preferred parking too.

I LOVE this town.

The sign on 3 spots next to the disabled parking

The disabled reserved parking spots are closer to the door as it should be.

Kamakura, Japan

This is the main reason I wanted to visit Japan. I wanted to go to Kamakura. This is a gorgeous city that was the center of government in Japan until 1313. This wonderful Buddha was inside a temple and it was covered with gold leaf. That is until a tsunami in the 1600's took the building and weather since then has taken the gold leaf.

The famous Kamakura Buddha

Great city with thousands years of  history

Largest Shinto temple 

View of the bay. Mountains are around the other 3 sides of the  city

Kamakura was spared from bombing during WWII, that is the reason we can admire and visit such a wonderful place today.

Fawn by the door

My front door

closer view

Not bothered by the flash.

I came home a couple of days ago and thought I had a package on my front door. When I got closer, this is what I found. This cute fawn sleeping peacefully by the door. I arrived at 3:00 PM and went to bed at 11:00 PM and it was still there. By 3:00 AM when I went to check on it, it was gone and Mom made sure to thank me by eating most of the flowers on the pots by the front door :)

Next day, I saw it again on the same spot around 10:00 AM; but by afternoon it was gone and has not been back. 

DS new all about fawns been born without a smell and that mom leaves them in a safe place and comes back  to feed them. This way she can run away from predators and the baby is also safe. 

I did feel the responsibility to keep it safe. I tried to leave some water next to it; but it never took a drink.

Nothing like a new baby to melt your heart. 

But now back to protect the hostas.

Editing: I saw the fawn with other females around the back yard. Glad to see it is OK.