joe tulips quilts

St. Valentine's Day postcards.....

2012-02-14T01:16:00.001-06:00

I saw the words for this one on a quilt....but now I can't find it back,

so I can't link to it. The words stuck with me though.

I made a bunch and put them all in the mail... to relatives (moms, sisters & cousins)

The preschoolers made cards too.

Some painted cereal boxes, some painted paper,

some stamped letters, some punched hearts and white postage stamps

and some did a little bit of everything.

It took us all week, doing a little bit each day.

We ended up putting all the elements into a community pile.

They each picked a card, then stamped their own backgrounds with the love and swirly stamp.

Some used lots of hearts, some glued just a few.

Putting the letters L-O-V-E in order turned out to be optional.

This was so much fun.

Happy Valentine's Day

letters....

2012-02-12T08:19:00.000-06:00

I am taking an online class.

Letter Love 101...and I LOVE it.

Joanne Sharpe is the teacher, this is a link (click here) to her blog.

I adore her stuff.

for practice, she has us use a composition notebook

Crispy had one from 8th grade science.

It has been in a cupboard for 4 years....

waiting for me to find a new use for it.

he hardly used any of the pages

so I am, for practice

Over the years I have collected pens for scrapbooking. This is a good way to go though them and find out which ones are good yet...and which ones are dry and no good.

On to sewing....

The blue baby quilt is still not done!

I had a border on it and went to cut backing and batting.

I needed to piece everything.

I wasn't very careful and ended up making it too SMALL.

Dang.

Then I quit working on it and everything just sat here.

Sometimes things work out...

The next think I knew, it was February and baby boy was born.

And of course he got a name.

Now I am kinda glad I didn't add more fabric to the backing and get it done before he was born.

His name will make the backing bigger. My lettering class came into play here.

I stuck blue on the inside of the letters.

Yes, it is all working out the way it should.

block lotto blocks.....

2012-02-02T18:56:00.000-06:00

Block Lotto has moved!

The new place is (HERE)

I posted these blocks there, and it seemed to take me forever. It isn't with blogger, so there are new and different ways of doing things. But I managed.

The blocks can be any heart block using at least two, or all 4 of the colors...

pink, orange, gray and cream.

This heart doesn't work. It only used light pink and dark pink.

I wasn't that crazy about the look of it.

Too long.

It needed doctoring real bad.

Real, real bad!

I sewed through the middle of the heart to shorten it and liked the look of it much better.

Then I needed to add different colors to make it work for the lotto.

This is how it looks. I love it now.

There is a big Super Bolt Sale this Sunday at The Quilted Forest in Forest City.

I will be going to get pretty pinks and gray. I have so little of it.

Here is the link for the kitty/heart block... (so darn cute)

finished quilt....

2012-01-21T11:16:00.000-06:00

It was cold this morning.

Very cold....below zero (Fahrenheit)

But I wanted to get a picture of the finished Zombie quilt before the sun came up...

while it was nice and bright, but no glaring sun hitting it!

I added red button eyes because Mary Lou Weidman says in her book...

(when making faces)

"avoid red or orange buttons-they make the person or animal look a little crazy."

Perfect.

Now all I need is to give this to Jacob.

He will be so happy! The first thing he says when I see him is...

"is it done yet??"

I can finally say yes!!!!!

fabric, fabric and wood.....

2012-01-16T17:03:00.000-06:00

There is a small box of cherrywood fabrics that are left overs.

scraps!

I have been playing with them.

This is what I have so far.

The LOVE ones (tonya loves) are potholders and the other one

is going to be a mug rug for the table in the living room.

(or will be once I put on some binding)

other sewing......

This month's block lotto block had me thinking. What is light? What is bright?

I hope next month I won't have to think so much.

I really have 7 to enter, but I lost the picture of the first one.

I did a quick table quilt using the scraps. I used raw edge applique. Should have tried a little harder getting all the edges sewn down. The edges are sorta hairy.

Now the wood...

When we moved here, there was a table base made out of 2x4's.

Nothing special.

Tractor joe added some wood to the top and and we used it outside for the last

decade or so. But the top started cracking and falling apart.

I had visions of putting on some "new" old barn wood and painting the base black.

A table for the living room so you could put your feet up.

Tractor joe was hesitant.

"it's junk"

"in the living room?"

"it should be thrown out and burned"

But he cut, attached and sanded some of the old barn wood for the top.

I painted and stained the top.

I love how it turned out.

It is now upstairs where I can put my feet up if I want.

& I think tractor joe is glad he didn't burn it after all.

Ian Malcolm.....

2012-01-15T15:18:00.000-06:00

I am still busy staring at fabric.

and it is staring back at me.

painting and paper.....

2012-01-13T20:27:00.000-06:00

This post doesn't have any fabric or sewing in it. This will be about what I do when I am not busy staring at fabric and wondering what to do next. (this way? that way? what color?)

This is about a free online workshop. [strathmoreartiststudio.com] The first one is doodles unleashed or some such thing.

I should have stopped at this point. It looked kinda cool. But no, I added doodles like the video showed.

These images are the before. When I finished, I was horrified by the doodling I did. It wasn't very pleasing to look at. (I never took a picture, it was late and dark outside)

So I painted over everything and started over.

I have come to the conclusion that I am not very good at doodling.

I went back to what I know, stencils and cut-up sponges to apply the paint.

I will try again, but for now I am happy with these sheets of painted paper, as they are, right now.

All of them hiding 3 different workshop attempts. The sheets are 18x24 inches.

What to do with these now??

Well,

My other latest obsession is making little books by folding paper.

Like this [8 page] or, this one that is [16 pages]...

I have used an old atlas page,

12x12 scrapbook paper, (they are the tall skinny ones)

18x24 makes the garden/love size with 16 pages

my paycheck deposit sheet, (the little white one)

and brown packing paper.

Plus several at school using unclaimed painted paper.

I think the workshop papers will be very happy becoming little books.

the lastest start, a movie quilt......

2012-01-02T09:27:00.000-06:00

When I was ready to start on Crispy's zombie quilt....

he said, "i don't want that"

WHAT?

"I want Jurassic Park"

So what goes in a Jurassic Park quilt?

"well you need a raptor"

I had to think about this for a while.

Never did a dinosaur.

When Crispy and I cleaned in the basement...I found a random dinosaur!

How perfect, a model.

I kept adding pieces.

Went with a closed mouth. Seemed easiest, even if it is a curve.

Crispy could see the raptor, but is blue really a good camouflage color for a dinosaur?

Well, when you are using the very last of a fabric, you can't be picky.

I got to thinking, the neck was sort of boring.

So I cut it off!

He is still in pieces, but when I start putting it all together.....

I can use these flying geese in the neck.

What else goes in a Jurassic Park quilt?

Muldoon! The raptor gets him at the end of the movie

He will be spooked and looking up at the raptor.

He says, "clever girl"

I do have those letter done, just no picture yet. It will have other quotes too.

I'll take more pictures when I start putting it all together.

It is time for filler!

But it is also time to go back to work, so things may slow down on this project.

a place to hang quilts outside.....

2011-12-27T10:53:00.000-06:00

The wire/cable stuff is hung between two nails.

Maybe next year this building will get painted, for now it will be a weathered wood background.

This should work out really well!

Christmas Eve was warmish and snowless.

It's like we went on vacation to a warmer place but never left the house.

I was able to take a bunch of pictures of the latest quilts.

iheart flowers....

The hearts were won from block lotto in February.

The flowers were one of the summer blocks.

When I combined them I thought of my father-in-law, he has so many flowers in the summer. So this went to tractor joe's mom and dad.

Aubri received a baby quilt. Her mom was very excited. I had done one for Aubri's brother a couple years ago. She was hoping Aubri would get a name quilt too.

A breeze came along. The backing is a hot pink sheet, just right for a girl.

As long as I was out there hanging quilts, I went and grabbed this off my bed. Finally, a fairly decent picture of the geocaching quilt!

This isn't a very good picture, but take note of the packages behind the cat.

They are nicely wrapped gifts for my children.

I am patting myself on the back here,

because last year....

I didn't put much effort into wrapping.

My poor children got grocery sacks that I just stapled shut. Each one got a different store bag. Looks like one of them needed two bags, so they got matching bomgaars bags.

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas!

made by others....

2011-12-24T07:10:00.000-06:00

My sister made me a postcard for Christmas. I loved the way she cut the pictures to make the letters in the words claws. After she finished it she thought...wait, we think of cats as having claws, not dogs, oh well.

It is just way to cute.

This quilt was made by a mom who has a visually impaired son. She collected fabrics that all felt different. He may not see all the colors, but he will feel all the variety.

Lots of different textures.....

...including some white fur fabric.

She said there were pieces of white fur flying around for days after she cut and sewed it in. I think she also said this was the first and last time she will use fur in a quilt.

Famous last words.

One of my goals today......rig up some wire outside, hang quilts and take pictures of my quilted presents.

They need to be wrapped for Christmas Eve gift opening.

Now is not the time to dilly-dally. I am off to find the hammer and a couple nails.

& clothes pins...

where did I put the clothes pins?

it is about time....

2011-12-16T16:16:00.001-06:00

Seems like forever since I was last posting.
My sister asked me to make a "blue baby quilt" for a friend of hers. She didn't care what I did, she trusted me to come up with something.
Using this technique... (8 at a time)....I made blue HST's for all the points.
I wanted to make some bears paw blocks for the quilt. Doing them this way REALLY made it all quite painless.

The 9 patches are randomly sewn 1 1/2 inch squares. As I sew other things, they get put through the machine. I emptied the drawer they were stored in. But there is still a box on the desk full of squares. Eventually there will be more 9 patches that finish at 3 inches, in theory anyway.
The HST's finish at 1 1/2 inches. I think the starting squares were cut at 4 3/4 inches.

Crispy brought home his art project from school today. I was so excited to see it! I was squealing in delight!

OMG, I LOVE it. I needed to find the camera right away and take a picture.

Then I had to ask....who is it?

He says, "if you were a fan of Weezer, you would know who this is."

It is Rivers Cuomo. oh, of course.

It is already hanging up in his room.

a quilt top...

2011-12-04T20:45:00.000-06:00

These blocks are from Block Lotto when I won back in May.

(block lotto was very good to me this year)

I painted Crispy's room a deep blue this past summer...so I used orange and blue to finish off the blocks.

It should look good in there!

and it snowed....the sticking kind...everything is white now.

fabric postcards are off.....

2011-11-25T14:32:00.000-06:00

What makes me happy here is....I finally figured out how to zig-zag around the edges and make it look nice! The secret is... letting the needle go off the edge!!

I am so pleased, I may make more.

Eventually.

I am keeping the top left one, his stitching was really bad.

I actually had 8, but one was already sealed in an envelope when I remembered to take a picture. Then I was off to the post office. These went "as is" & so far all my postcards have made it safely to their destinations, so hopefully, these will also.

It cost an extra 20 cents for hand stamping them AND she used real stamps this time, not that print out thing! An angel stamp along with a George Washington.

Bye-bye guys!

my favorite holiday....

2011-11-24T07:04:00.000-06:00

Some of the preschoolers made turkeys for Thanksgiving. They were pretty happy with them. I loved how they turned out, they make me smile.
Tractor joe is in Wisconsin. It is deer hunting season. I have no plans to go anywhere. Staying home! I do need to go find my roaster oven and stick a turkey in it.....
Happy Thanksgiving!
If you aren't in the states here....Happy Thursday, it is almost Friday!

more distraction.....

2011-11-20T19:47:00.001-06:00

I made 32 flying geese to use in the zombie border.

Jacob was over this afternoon. He wants the geese to go in a circle around the quilt. So there will be 7 on the top and bottom and 9 on each side. Then each side will get filled in with one of the orange fabrics.

I also worked on something else today......

When my mom was here she said, "I like your fabric postcards the best."

hmmmmm....I wasn't planning on making any out of fabric.

But there I was at the kitchen table this morning.

I had the background sewn up with some check fabric inserted in there.

Then I spent time tracing and cutting and pressing the heat-n-bond to fabric. Things went rather quickly.

This is what they look like. The snowman came from a book of patterns called

Holiday Whimsies by Trena Hegdahl

They are all quilted, button eyes sewn on and the words "warm wishes" is stamped on the side.

Won't be long and they will be postcards!

block lotto and postcards......

2011-11-13T16:58:00.001-06:00

This month for block lotto we are making scrappy trip around the world blocks. (November guidelines)
All the blocks must have black or very dark fabric going up the center diagonal.

OOPS....didn't quite get the dark in the center.

Try again......

the next one will work out right....

OOPS again....not even close.

I am in the middle of making my own scrappy trip around the world quilt.
So I was sort of happy, two more blocks for my pile.

But I really wanted some for the block lotto.

I figured out where I was going wrong and managed to make 6 blocks.

My sister, Jane, and my Mom were down for the weekend. Jane had ALL KINDS of artsy fartsy stuff she wanted to work on. All we managed to finish were two postcards....

I laughed when I saw this. Who will get it???? She didn't say.....She just continued to glue things down,
and giggle.
When she was leaving, I told her "wait, I need a picture of your card."
She pointed to the fridge. She had stuck it there.
The card was for me.

Yesterday, I had laid down on the couch and was having a hard time getting up off the couch when she arrived here. I was suffering from can't-get-off-the-couch-itis.
Haha.

My little niece, Madison or MJW, started a blog. She is 7, I think. One day she showed how to draw a simple coffee cup. This is my "wishing you luck" card for her. Her drawing inspired me!

the quilt show here in town.....

2011-11-09T17:17:00.000-06:00

The gym was full of quilts last Saturday. Big, small, old and new.

When I went to collect my quilts back, I quick took some pictures.

I am not sure who owns this one.

It reminds me of my grandma. It is tied the way hers were. I never liked the bumpiness of them when I was going to bed at her house. I didn't like the embroidered pillow cases either. That bumpiness on the edge would bug me....

but it sure is pretty!

This one is really old. It belongs to a friend of mine. She says her great grandma made it.

There were four ladies sitting and waiting for the quilts to come down, so they could take theirs home.

I walked around grabbing pictures of different quilts laying in the bleachers.

I know this one is Karen's. It is the only one I got a picture of. She had more there, I could kick myself. I didn't get a picture of my favorite one. Dang.

This one and the next one are mine. It was made for tractor joe to hang out in his men's crisis center. (the fixed up hog house or shed)

I have never shown this one finished on the blog. It sat with no binding for a LONG time.

I know Doris made this one.....

and this one. She makes all bed size quilts.

She doesn't "mess with that little sh*t"....(wall hangings)

This still isn't a nice picture of my geocaching quilt. I miss my clothes line.

At least you can see my colorful striped binding.

one quick thing.....

2011-11-07T16:19:00.001-06:00

These are travel tissue covers....keeps the kleenex safe and clean in your bag or purse.

I made four of them yesterday.

They are the cutest little things....and so dang simple to make!

I first saw them here at vesuviusmama's blog and really like them.

Erin found them HERE and made up a bunch.

I think they will make the perfect little gift

and I will be sure to keep at least one for myself!!!

the baby, the zombie, and I'm not sure......

2011-11-05T10:52:00.000-05:00

It is hard sharing the camera with Crispy, he always has it with him for school. It is never available when I want it...but it is finally back in my hands, for now!

All the northwind blocks are sewn together and the name is started. The letters are from a piece of tie-dyed looking fabric. I love the way they look. I may use it for borders too.

Center is complete....the second round will be this check fabric cut just so.

And then the final border will be some shade of orange. Exactly what orange hasn't been determined yet.... It is time to go shopping for it.

I am not sure about these. I made them up thinking they would work for a baby quilt. I need more made.

Right now it is sorta boring to me. Colors....it needs more colors.

One more thing, my baby turns 18 tomorrow. Sigh.

I am really not that old. I had him when I was about 10.

feels like forever.....

2011-10-25T19:29:00.000-05:00

I have been SLOWLY getting filler put together. Seems like it is taking forever.

I had 2 days worth of jury duty last week, that slowed me down. We voted NOT guilty in an assault case....very interesting to be on a jury. It was my third time over the years.

There will be a quilt show during out town's Fall Festival on Nov. 5th. I was asked to put some quilts in it, along with a bunch of other local quilters. So.... I have been putting binding on quilts, the geocaching one and the Live Laugh Love Learn quilt. Just the motivation I needed to finish them.

We can make up to 9 blocks for blocklotto I managed to get 3 electric fan blocks sewn.

When I went out to Crispy's car to get the camera, I snapped a Fall photo. The wind was from the NW (cold) and the clouds were dark blue.

We had very light flurries one morning, other wise no snow yet. It has really been very nice for the last few weeks. Warm days, cold nights and not much rain.

I must sew big.......

2011-10-15T11:44:00.000-05:00

I am tired of trying to squish it all in.

I have made a decision.

My words just come out bigger than what I picture in my mind. SO...I will stop fighting this and work with it. Instead of wall hanging size, this will be lap or nap size when it is done.

so who died? the zombie will be thinking about.....

Poor old Barry M. Deep

The wording for the gravestone came from some Halloween scrapbook stickers.

I am off to start adding filler to this, soon I will have a center. Then I will think about the border.

When ever I think filler, Michael Jackson's song THRILLER starts playing in my mind.

one stage done.....

2011-10-11T18:48:00.000-05:00

so far, so good

they aren't sewn together yet, just laid out rather quickly for a picture

I plan on putting the baby's first and middle name along the top and the last name along the bottom.

And some more border around everything.

Now, it is back to Zombie sewing.

zombie started....

2011-10-08T08:00:00.000-05:00

He is started. I got this far last night and stopped.

I still need words and a pieced pumpkin for the bottom right corner.

Some of the big chunks of purple can be chopped off to make room for words.

I need Jacob to do some more thinking.

My ideas so far.....

1. mom always said there'd be days like this

2. that'll leave a mark

3. sounds...not sure on spelling yet. Ida had aaaauuurrrgggghhh.

baby quilt and the quilt show....

2011-10-05T17:39:00.000-05:00

I bought a scrap bag of cherrywood fabrics last year at the quilt show. It was time to cut it up and start a baby quilt. The block is called Northwind and these finish at 6 inches. I want 36 blocks.

Not quite half way there yet. I am supplementing it with other fabrics to make it go further, the orange, light blue and pink.

Nothing was reaching out and grabbing us at the quilt show. It seemed like there were less vendors.

Both Karen and I found some fabric though.

Skeletons, tractors and animals for me.

Karen was in a beer and music mood.

We were also looking at fabric with circles....for zombie eyeballs. I debated about all these circles and decided I didn't need them. But Karen liked them enough to get them.

Outside, down these steps is a geocache. This is the third year that I have ventured down there to look for the cache. I could never find it.

that changed this year....

Me with two of my favorite finds this year, the book and cache.

Actually it was Karen who found it!!! If I had known she would be such a good geocacher, I would have dragged her out there 2 years ago! (maybe I have, I don't remember for sure)
She didn't do any happy dances,
but there was excitement in her voice when she announced that she had it found it.
It was a good day in Des Moines at the quilt show.

3 different things

2011-09-26T21:12:00.000-05:00

I didn't do any block lotto blocks this month.

They required the sewing of curved seams!

I am not a big fan of curved seams.

Its not that I have never done curves and didn't want to try them.....

I have, really.

I dug this out for proof that I have sewn curves. I just wasn't up to the challenge this month.

***********

An acreage right outside of town is being torn down. The elevator bought it and they are putting grain storage and weigh stations out there. The house will be torn down. The auction was this past weekend.

We went because we wanted this....

It was in the breezeway between the house and garage. Tractor joe's brothers made this cupboard way back in 1987 for the owner, Lois. They went out to the barn and grabbed the wood as they needed it. They were told to lay off the sanding by Lois, she wanted it nice and rustic.

We were able to buy it from the person who bought the breezeway and garage. She wouldn't need the wall it was attached to, so we got at it from the outside.

Tractor joe (and me a little bit) took the bottom half of the wall out. If we couldn't free it from the inside, we would take the wall with it.

Just about free!

Once we got it out on the driveway, we went back through the house. There was the man who bought all the kitchen cupboards, he was taking those out. Someone else bought all the plumbing and they were busy ripping out that stuff.

The house was about 90 years old. There was really cute wallpaper in the closet of a bedroom upstairs...

And some that was NOT so cute in the hallway....

We spent the afternoon cleaning the garage out.

UCK.

We still aren't done cleaning and straightening up in there....but it all looks so much better with the new cupboard in place.

***********

I have a new project to work on...

Crispy's friend, Jacob was over. I am not sure how we got on the subject,

but I was showing him Tonya's book WORD PLAY Quilts

"These are cool!"

Then I showed him this halloween quilt by Tonya...(click here to see it)

He fell in love with it.

"I want one like this! Only I want more Zombies!"

I gave him some graph paper, and he got busy drawing and coloring.

Is that a hand coming out of the dirt? He is missing an arm.

How do you spell the sound a Zombie makes?

Karen and I will be headed for Des Moines next Saturday. The Quilt Show is only one week away!!

Not even that!

She doesn't know it yet, but we will be on the look out for Zombie ideas!

I finally remembered to grab the camera out of the car.....

2011-09-17T10:21:00.000-05:00

The camera has been going to school with Crispy for a photography class. I finally grabbed it out of the car this morning to take a few pictures. I went outside with blocks and a quilt top. My first attempt with the blocks didn't go so well. Rather breezy.

This has got to be one of my all time FAVORITE blocks to make. It is a Bonnie K. Hunter quilt pattern. (click here) The link goes to the pattern. I sewed strips together on Monday. On Tuesday I put one block together, but it was wrong. Took it apart and redid it. On Wednesday, I had all afternoon to sew. I was surprised when my count was..... 12 blocks.

iheart flowers has a border on it. I loved the way it looked in the quilt store on the floor with this fabric surrounding it. But after I had it sewn on, I wasn't so sure. I thought about cutting it down and adding more black....then when it was laid out for the picture, I didn't think it was that bad. Black binding and it should be okay.

There is even a farmer flower, since it going to a retired farmer and his wife.

There were freeze warnings last Wednesday night. It really feels like fall. The sunflowers are still working their magic.

The barn swallows must have split. In August they start sitting and gathering on the electrical wires. They start with about a dozen....By early September there are about 4 dozen lined up...squawking and talkin' away at each other.....and then they are gone.

Well, good bye camera. Be good at school!

4 more.....

2011-09-06T19:30:00.000-05:00

Sunday was a good time cutting paper and spreading mod podge all over it.

I have a very old college yearbook. These pictures screamed, "use me!"

It was some kind of tea for freshman. Some sisterhood thing.

Been sewing too, just don't have any pictures of that. My memories quilt (legos) continues to grow

and the iheart flowers is just about ready to go to the quilters!

flowers from this summer.....

2011-09-04T20:51:00.000-05:00

Sorting through photos and putting all my flowers together in one spot.

sweet postcards and not as sweet......

2011-09-02T16:31:00.002-05:00

Gwen's daughter Lauren is going to college in Forest City. Only 20 or so miles from here. We had her out here for the weekend. She helped me paint some outside buildings!
Then we were in the kitchen making postcards for her Mom. I had to wait until they arrived in New Mexico to post them......

This one is Lauren's, her dorm building is named London Hall. I know this one made it.
Mine is a no show, so far.....I'll show it here anyway.

We painted the background on these. (used yellow, red and orange acrylics and a sponge) I had a book of Iowa artists, the girl is from a painting by John Kacere. We also used Walgreens ad. We didn't need to find letters....I have a pile of them cut and ready to go. All we had to do was brush on the mod podge & stick the letters down.

Monday morning I took an X-box magazine and started ripping out pages...

and then I started cutting out images, or leaving them whole if they were big enough for the backgrounds.

I ended up making 9 of them. They will be birthday cards for nephews and sons who have birthdays this fall.

Here is a close-up...Keep calm & kill zombies....

The font is the smallest font I have ever seen in a magazine, teeny tiny....obviously written for a much younger crowd. It was good for stamping the words. These were fun to make, and the first one was mailed today! I hope it makes it.

salvaged blanket......

2011-08-29T17:06:00.002-05:00

Last winter, one of the secretaries at school gave me a couple bags of fabric. It was cut up into big 12 inch squares, along with some old blanket, too. She was working on a quilt of some sort, but lost interest in it. I told her I would take her "junk" and it sat in the back of the car for months. I finally got it out when I was packing the car for camping.
There was flannel and fleece.

I cut the squares smaller and started making a rag quilt. I had never done one. Her cut up blanket was set aside and I used regular batting. I needed to add some cheap flannel that I had laying here for the backing.
It took awhile to get everything clipped.
When I was finished clipping, I brushed it all with my hands and took it outside to shake the crap out of it.
Then I (gasp) ran it through my own washer. It left a bunch of stringy clips, I wiped them out and haven't had any problems with the washer since doing this. I did take it outside again and shook it some more. Tons more of the stringy clips came flying out. Then I dried it.

This is an awful picture, I know. The squares are about 5 inches. The secretary was so surprised. She didn't expect to get anything back. She thinks it will be perfect for football games this fall (it is kid sized for her young kids)....and it is our new school colors!

Target Stadium, baseball & geocaching.....

2011-08-26T09:38:00.001-05:00

If you click on the collage it gets bigger. One picture says, Our turn at the love. I guess that works too....the "g" was cut off for glove.

scrapbook pages.....

2011-08-24T08:28:00.002-05:00

My neighbor kid, who isn't really a kid anymore, has been over a few times to work on his DC scrapbook. 7th and 8th graders go there for a week long field trip. He went a couple years ago. We are having fun using ALL his pictures.
Blurry ones have become background for the graves at Gettysburg, or tags were cut out and decorated. A friend had given him all their left over stickers and he wants to use them up too. His goal is to have this done by Thankgiving, his older sister will be here for a visit.
I am pretty sure he will get it done by then.

adding to the memories.....

2011-08-19T06:42:00.000-05:00

quick post.....4 more for the pile......

I trimmed all the blocks too.

The rules I follow, sort of....

If the fabrics are pretty together, they get sewn together to make strips.

If a strip is heavy/dark on one side, the next strip sewn to it, is heavy/dark on the other.

Stagger the seams, unless they are butted together.

If it is lookin' dull, add bright.

finished lap quilt....

2011-08-17T15:39:00.000-05:00

I finished something! It is made with Java charm packs and additional fabrics. It has been a stop and go project. I was never sure on what I would be doing with it, so it didn't get priority.

Then my brother-in-law was diagnosed with cancer. My cousin Gwen asked if I was making him a chemo quilt. I hadn't even thought about it. I remembered this half done project and decided right then and there the java quilt would be his.

I just needed to finish it.

We are going up to the cities this weekend, I'll be able to bring it along. It should look great in their family room and warm up any hospital rooms!

That dark block really stands out. If only the cat was sitting on that one! She could have hid it! Oh well.

Karen was down to Tennessee....moving her middle son back to school. I got to babysit Charlie, her dog. I never took any pictures of him.

But Karen brought me back treats! Things we don't have around here.....

The whiskey praline pecans are pretty tasty.

This is my favorite recipe in the book. But it doesn't say where one would obtain a squirrel....do you just go out and shoot one out of a tree??

older things since I have nothing new......

2011-08-12T08:53:00.000-05:00

The Iowa Braille School in Vinton put on a Summer Institute in Ames. I was there for 3 days taking classes. For instance....
Accessible math for Elementary. I found out here that we need to use the Nemeth code for numbers (slightly different from what I had just learned) it makes more sense when writing algebra. The dots all drop to the bottom of the cell instead being in the top......
or Canes, Doors and Stairs, oh my! We were blind folded to get a feel of what the Orientation and Mobility teacher is doing with the student when they come to work at the school. There was more, lots more, and I am still digesting it all.

Back to older stuff.....Amanda (niece) was here on and off working on more bags for 4H and the fair. She needed fabric for bean bags to go with a game she had made. But, when she saw this fabric, she fell in love and decided to make bags too.

Where did I get this fabric?

A few weeks ago, a huge box of fabric arrived in the mail from my cousin. She was in the middle of moving and wanted to clear fabric out of her piles.

She considered the colorful stripe fabric ugly and called it clown fabric. When I saw it, I thought...binding! There was also a colorful polka dot fabric.

It was late at night and the camera wasn't on the right settings, so the next picture is not very good.

My geocaching quilt is back from the quilters. Eventually, I will get the striped fabric on it for binding!

2011-08-07T11:53:00.000-05:00

Yesterday we went to an old tractor auction.

Lots of pretty colors.

I liked the looks of some of them.

It's the back wheels.....

I even liked this John Deere because of it's wheels.

It was this Minneapolis-Moline that had tractor joe interested and wanting to have a closer look.

It is a pretty yellow......

Except we got there to late, this one had already sold. Some lucky person got it for $600.00.....

Then there was this adorable fixer-upper......

As we ate our lunch of maid-rites,scotcheroos and pepsi we debated. Should we bid or not? What would be our top dollar?? What would we do with it? Yard art? Fix it?

We talked ourselves out of it. It went for $525.00.....we will concentrate on finding a decent yellow Minneapolis-Moline.

I sewed some more when we got home.

I am up to 9 blocks now. I am shooting for 30. Maybe. They are turning out to be 12x12 inch trimmed blocks. It is such a mix of old, new and uglies.

where are the ugly fabrics?

2011-08-05T17:31:00.000-05:00

I am amazed.

Tonya is so right.

Most of the fabrics I thought were ugly, just aren't. When I mixed them with all kinds of other fabrics, they don't scream "icky" at me anymore. This is becoming more of a memory quilt. A lot of the fabrics are left over from quilts I had made back in the mid 90's. There are recent fabrics too.

It is a mish-mash of fabrics. I have started to love this. Last night, after supper, I sewed strips together, I wanted to get an idea of what it would look like.

I now have 4 untrimmed blocks.

And gobs of strips ready to go together.

Thank you Tonya.

18 flowers and 3 million strips...

2011-08-04T15:29:00.000-05:00

This is 11 of the flowers that are done, there are 18 in the pile. I have been side tracked though.

It started out simple enough (click here) Tonya put a call out for old/ugly fabric.

Hey, I have chunks of ugly fabric hidden away, I sent her some.

Then she showed her project (click here)

Wow, that looks cool. But I still wasn't thinking about really sewing anything like this.

Then her project got bigger (click here) and I started to think about it.

Sure would be nice to get some fabric cleared out of here.

This morning I wondered what these little flying geese would look like mixed in with all those skinny strips.

I started cutting and sewing.

It all went rather fast. I made each segment longer than my 12 inch ruler. If it was shorter, it needed more, if it was longer it was good.

This is all strips. I haven't sewn any blocks....So I don't know how big each block will be yet.

But, I liked what I saw.

I like the flying geese in there. But nothing is sewn so they might not be there in the end.

I am going through a box of old, short, leftover pieces right now.... Making a bunch more 1 1/2 inch strips.

i heart flowers quilt, a beginning....

2011-08-02T12:16:00.000-05:00

Crispy and his friends went out to eat one night. I think they had Chinese. Before they left, they all bought fake mustaches in a gumball machine. Everyone was wearing one when they got home. The next morning, there sat the mustache on the kitchen table. It was still sticky on the back. A cheap pair of sunglasses lay there too.

Hmmmmm......

I ended up sticking them on this lamp for safe keeping. I am trying to keep the kitchen table clear of extra "stuff", not an easy thing to do. There is always something gathering there.

New month at Block Lotto! Flowers this time.

I made a few.

I don't know what made me try mixing them with the block lotto scrappy hearts I had won last winter, but I did...

I fell in love.

love

I have 6 flowers for block lotto, the rest are going into a different pile.

My pile to keep, for the....

i heart flowers quilt!

another bunch of cards sent......

2011-07-28T07:23:00.000-05:00

Follow up on postcards sent.....
I posted about two postcards recently.....(right here)
One went to Crispy's friend and he loved it! The other one went to my cousin who has started geocaching. She was looking for inexpensive things to do. Plus she has an iphone now and I guess it makes geocaching really easy to do.

In the comments, one person was a no-reply. I thought, I could always just send her one to see how I mail them as is. Then I thought Hey, I'll send mail to everyone who commented that day.
A surprise give away, sort of.
An old quilting catalog came in handy here. I started ripping, cutting and sticking it all down with mod podge. I put them under a heavy book to flatten them out a little.

Three were mailed yesterday on their way to Virginia, New York and Texas. I still need one more address and more stamps to mail the last two!
This was fun!

town celebration......

2011-07-26T12:19:00.000-05:00

Last weekend was our yearly town celebration. Clara Mayland was the grand marshal for the parade. Instead of making the sign with paint, I made her a wall hanging as a memento. I did some unscientific polls on how to spell marshal. So many said "LL" that I left the spelling alone. I hope it is hanging in the Care Center now. (where she lives)

Tractor joe, his two brothers, two nephews, and a friend were also in the parade.

They drove their beloved Oliver tractors.....

I was very busy picking up candy, so I missed the first one to go by.

I only have 5 Oliver pictures.

It will make tractor joe happy to have the Olivers in the blog.

just a one more.....

They needed posters for the parade too.

I borrowed a Cricut to cut out the letters for them.

And last, but not least, I made one small wall hanging to put in the auction.

It is from American Patchwork and Quilting Magazine. (June 2011)

They bundled it with some other stuff in a basket. I think the basket went for $70.00.

On Saturday morning I was on the "set up" crew for a noon meal at the park. Before I went there, I dropped off my lawn chair at Karen's. I left it by the curb and started walking back to the car.

I was thinking....I don't want to be late

how long will it take?

I needed to watch inflatable toys at 12:30

will I have time to eat?

what time will they start serving?

I got back to the car, opened the door, got in, and shut the door...

something didn't feel right

things seemed strange....

where was my steering wheel?

OMG!

I was sitting in the back seat!

Has this ever happened to you?

I did have time to eat, they were serving steak sandwiches, potato salad, beans, chips and a cookie. There was lemonade to wash it all down. Yummy!

no fabric, paint or glue in this post...

2011-07-23T06:19:00.002-05:00

I finished my online Intro to Braille class.

This covered basic braille. I took a picture of my cheat sheets.

I used these to double check my work. I always wanted perfect assignments to turn in. That never happened.

BUT, I did receive an A- for my final grade!

To write braille, you use a braille writer. It will make the raised dots on your paper or card stock. It looks like an old fashioned typewriter.

Except, there are six main keys. You use the first three fingers on each hand.

A is...first finger on your left hand or cell one.

B is...first and second fingers on your left hand or cell one and two.

If you push down your first finger on each hand you get a C.

This is part of one of the assignments. I had to take print words and write them in braille.

This is where I used the braille writer simulator on the computer.

Keys FDS were cell 1, 2, 3 and JKL were 4, 5, 6.

It even made click click sounds. I thought it was pretty cool. The more you do it, the more automatic it becomes. Your fingers just know what keys to push down...like keyboarding.

The other part of the assignments were putting braille into print. This is easier for me. I am faster at reading braille than writing it.

Next up....contracted braille. Sort of like shorthand. Things like ST, EN, SH or whole words become one symbol. There are almost 200 of them. That class will take a little longer to complete.

a couple things...

2011-07-20T07:16:00.001-05:00

It would appear I haven't been doing anything. But really I have.

I just haven't blogged it.....

Better do some catch up stuff.

Postcards......

I was in the grocery store checking out the Hershey display. There was a NEW candy bar.

"What's with this airy chocolate bar?"

A friend of Crispy's was running the cash register that morning. He said it was good and I should buy it.

"What's wrong with the plain old Hershey bar?"

He told me I should try something new.

"But I really like my regular Hershey chocolate bar. I'll just buy that."

I picked up the original and put it in my cart and started to walk away.

That's when he said....

OH, come on, live life dangerously.

and then it hit me, I could use the wrapper to make a postcard with those words on it. I went back and picked up the new candy bar. At home, I ate it as I looked for letters. I still need to mail it to him.

I am not sure what I will do with the next card....

I may keep it, I might mail it away.

mini scrap book......

2011-07-14T07:41:00.000-05:00

One day during recess, I took a picture of each child in preschool. It was near the end of the year and I wanted to make a small book for the teacher.

Every once in a while, the kids had given me what ever they had drawn/painted/colored....

"this is for you!"

Thank You!

Sometimes there are things with no name and everyone said,

"it's not mine"

I took those things home with me too.

I cut a bunch of cereal boxes, then painted them with a sponge. I cut up "artwork" from the kids and glued them in the book with mod podge.

To keep it simple, I didn't embellish with anything else.

In the book, one side is decorated, the other side is a picture.

I need to get this in the mail. On the last day I told the teacher to watch her mail. She would be getting something. I didn't think it would take until July to start working on it. It was simple enough, but other projects kept getting in the way.

I want to make myself one....but it is further down on the list of things to do.

postcards from cereal boxes & magazines.....

2011-07-09T16:55:00.000-05:00

The library wanted to do something fun and different. They asked me about doing something with scrap booking. I told them I was having more fun making postcards using cut up cereal boxes and magazines.

They didn't really understand....couldn't picture such a thing.

So I made some samples.

Yes.... this would be cool to do. A date was picked.

Today was the day to make them at the library.

Two ladies were there waiting for me. When the one found out it wasn't postcards that involved sewing......

well.....

she left.

That left two of us, we got busy cutting tearing and gluing it all down with mod podge. Ann made one and I made two more.

Then 5 girls came in. They were ages 8-11. They really got into it.

Two of them were sisters. They argued. The older one said the younger one couldn't do puppies and use the word 'love' because it was her idea.

Younger sister was a little worried. I told it didn't matter who's idea it was, she could make one too.

& that is exactly what she did.

Another one wanted to know if she could make hers into a book. She had made 5 of them.

Yes, that would be fun.

She called it 'funky people'

We need to do it again. The librarian working today wants to play next time. Plus, we didn't even make a dent in the pile of old magazines the library had on hand.

block lotto blocks.....

2011-07-08T16:31:00.000-05:00

I love these blocks......
They are for July's BLOCK LOTTO !
While you need to pay attention to what and how you are sewing, they are still fun and easy to make.
the seams don't always match and that's OK.
I have added these to my mental list of future blocks to use in a quilt.

Minnesota Twins ballgame.....

2011-07-04T08:48:00.000-05:00

We made our way to Minneapolis for a Twins game. It was our first trip to the new stadium & it was all pretty awesome......

The Twins were playing the Milwaukee Brewers. My sister said, "hey! a cheese-head!"

"Where?"

"Down there!"

"I see him!"
Wow!... a cheese-head in person. I have not seen one before.....
(Except for Karen, she is from Wisconsin. But she doesn't walk around with cheese on her head.)

We were surrounded by cheese-heads. All around us were cheering Brewer fans. That would explain why our section was so quiet during most of the game when the Twins were leading. But in the 9th inning, things fell apart. The Brewers went and made a bunch of runs.

OH NO!!!!

Our section got loud with all their cheering.

The Twins ended up losing. No matter, it was still an exciting game and we had fun.

Happy 4th of July!

happy birthday Karen.....

2011-07-01T17:55:00.008-05:00

Karen turns 50 on July 4th. I made her a wall quilt.

(this is her blog)

We are going shopping tonight and I will give it to her then. Right about the same time this will publish.

The majority of the sheets I have came from Karen. She is busy working on her own sheet quilt too.

The words are stamped with paint.

I am also in the middle of a doll quilt...

I am using dry sheets to make the string blocks.

& then there are the 9-patch blocks....

I'll start sewing these up just as they are.

I think I will be done with sheet sewing for a while. I am looking forward to working with plain old cotton again!

for crying out loud...

2011-06-25T08:12:00.000-05:00

Last weekend, I was asked if I could paint (or something) a sign for the grand marshal in this year's parade.

I felt like doing something different.

I made her name in letters.

The bonus triangles from pineapple blossoms! My own and some from one of the quilters that had mailed me her left-overs along with the blocks. There was just the right amount.

Perfect.

So far so good.

Wonky hearts. Perfect.

Stamped with paint words.

Lovely.

Except....

I spelled marshal/marshall wrong. I have already started quilting this. I ran out of thread and had to stop.

I was wondering what I would work on this morning.

I will be thinking about how to fix the error.

Some kind of cover up is in order.

Zoe's quilt......

2011-06-20T07:13:00.000-05:00

I wanted something "Japan" in this quilt. I found a fat quarter of Japanese character fabric. I made a bunch of hearts with it. They didn't seem right on the front......

They worked perfectly on the back, along with an "old sheet"...

this photo isn't rotated, but you get the idea...I went back and rotated the next one, so it is up right....

I know my cousin is back in the states for the summer....not sure when I will see him. It is just good to know this quilt is ready to go.

I laid the quilt on top of the cat. She crawled out and pounced on the top of the quilt,

then the dog thought he found someone to play with.

There was a lot of hissing and barking going on when I snapped this picture.

Before and after....I worked on this Saturday morning. Hard physical labor. After replacing the blocks to a certain point, I started pulling them out. There was bowl shape near the bottom.

The whole thing could have been pulled and readjusted to be more level. Tractor joe took over and finished. The blocks were raised up.....but there is still a slight bowl at the bottom.

That will be a job for cooler, less humid weather, later this week.

"some day" is here......

2011-06-17T12:21:00.000-05:00

The pad of concrete in front of the garage was short and cracked AND sinking. When it rained, the water would collect and take days to dry up. In the spring when the snow was melting, the puddle was even bigger. The water would go all the way across the driveway. Most cars, when parked, had the back wheels still in water. If someone was in the back seat, they had to step in water to get out.
We always thought "some day" we would fix this....and that day was yesterday.

The old pad was removed & a much bigger pad was poured. It is beautiful!

There is also a picture of the rose bush at it's finest and my braille homework. Tractor joe is out of town, so I needed to document everything for him to see when he gets back.

I also quilted and got the binding on the wonky baby Zoe quilt. No picture yet...I will go work on that.

crafts while camping......

2011-06-14T06:24:00.033-05:00

We took over one of the screened in canopies while we were camping...it was create time at the lake. Jane wanted more gift tags, just like I had made her last spring. We made them together this time and had so much fun. A few postcards were made too. Most of what is pictured here is hers. She is so artsy fartsy.
While we were working, she would say..."this is disgusting".....which means.... "I hate the way this is turning out"
she was wrong. I loved the way her stuff turned out.
My other sister, Jen, did one postcard. She had Tiki, her little dog helping her. I don't think the dog really cared though.

pineapple blossoms are arriving......

2011-06-13T08:46:00.000-05:00

Some of the pineapple blossoms I won at Block Lotto!

I love love love them!

camping weekend.....

2011-06-13T08:08:00.001-05:00

The weather was wet and cool. My goal was to arrive and get the tents set up before the rain....
The tents were up and then the rain started. It rained and rained Thursday afternoon.
The firewood stayed in the pickup with an umbrella to keep it dry. Two northerns and a bass were caught. They were plenty big and made for a delicious fish fry.
We had an excellent time.

the latest batch......

2011-06-08T07:46:00.000-05:00

I finished 28 more blocks. The pile of these blocks is getting rather big, so I didn't lay all of them out, just the newest.

I had been throwing 2 1/2 inch strips into a pile, the ones not big enough for the 9 patch. I had no real plan for them. Then I remembered.....

I had seen this block....

(click here)

and thought it was marvelous.

I cut the 2 1/2 inch strip pieces to 4 1/2 inches, then randomly sewed them together. I wish I had more variety, but it is just a "I need to try that" block.

can't decide......

2011-06-07T07:21:00.000-05:00

Years ago, I made a quilt that had black cat silhouettes on it. When I was cleaning, I found one black cat. I didn't remember it. I think it might have been rejected because he is backwards.

He was a fun find that I had totally forgotten about.

I wondered what he would look like on my current old sheet quilt.....

Maybe.

Would it work to make more 6 inch stars out of that same red fabric and have them sprinkled around the quilt?? A pop of dark color.

Or do I keep it the soft look and save the cat for something else??

I can't decide.

ooops.....

This is what happens when the fan gets turned on in the living room.

Every thing is picked up and for now I will just make more 9 patches.

20 more blocks...

2011-06-06T06:48:00.000-05:00

Making these 9 patches goes pretty fast.

The pile of them grew. There were 20 more to add to the pile.

Last summer I did a quilt-along with Blue is Bleu. One of the blocks was this 9 patch. I liked the way it went together. (click here!) to see how they are getting sewn. It seems like you are getting two for the price of one when making these.

I am off to make more blocks.

old sheet blocks so far.....

2011-06-04T19:49:00.000-05:00

I started cutting sheets this afternoon. This is what I have so far. The blocks will finish at 6 inches. So soft looking. I hope I get to make some more tomorrow!!

things I have been working on....

2011-06-03T20:22:00.000-05:00

I found this....I am pretty sure that I had made it back in the 90's,

...it was done except for two sides that needed the binding put on.

I don't know why I never finished it.

The bindings don't match, but are close enough. And look......

I had even hand quilted it.

My slate and stylus arrived in the mail. I need it for the braille class I am taking on line. I had to play with it and made Mr. B a postcard!

Lauren's picture came in the mail too. Her graduation card was finished and stuck in the mail.

I painted the downstairs wall a deep blue. Crispy picked this color because it is opposite of orange on the color wheel. We loved this color so much that......

Crispy room got a new coat of paint too.

I sewed these for block lotto this morning,

very simple block this month.

I am going to donate all of my chances this month,

because....

I won the pineapple blossoms from May!! I couldn't believe I had won again.

(here) are the blossoms I made and will just keep now.

Karen and I are splitting up our old sheets. Both of us want to make quilts from them.

Exactly what pattern I want to use is still up in the air. I keep changing my mind. Maybe I should just start making blocks and see what happens. There is enough fabric there for several quilts.

This could be fun!

day trip.....

2011-05-29T14:27:00.001-05:00

We met my Mom, my sister & her husband in New Ulm (Minnesota) yesterday. It is all very German.

Growing up, we spent lots of time here, visiting our grandparents.

Everyone spoke German to each other. As kids we never learned what they were saying to each other. I am thinking they liked it that way.

We had lunch at the Kaiserhoff, they make the best ribs!

Across the street is this little park and historical house.

This must be a touristy thing to do...take your picture with this guy. We werent' the only ones doing this.

When we took it, Jane said, "I better see this in the blog."

If you click on the picture it should get big enough to read.

Downtown is full of buildings with character and history.

There are more cool buildings, but this is the short, quick tour today.....

While Jane and my Mom went into shops, I wondered down to the clock tower. It has a fancy German name, but I don't know how to spell it....the spell checker went crazy trying to figure out what I was writing. It will be on the sign below.

A different sign posted said the shows were at

12:00, 3:00 and 5:00 pm....we missed out on the bells playing.

We did decorating out at the cemetery and putting stuff into my car for me to take home. My great aunt, who just turned 102, has moved to a care center. Her house is getting cleaned out. I was asked what I would want from it.

I said "sheets"

My Mom said....there wouldn't be any....

she was always sewing up the old ones for Meta to keep using.

and I said....I bet there are unused ones in the closet!

Sure enough there were.

(this is the picture Karen is waiting patiently to see,

we will share these for quilting)

When I think of Meta and her house, I think of these women's heads.

If no one wanted them, I would take them. So I got a few of them too.

postcards...

2011-05-28T07:03:00.001-05:00

I wanted to make a postcard for my aunt. She had cancer surgery back in March. That turned out way better than anyone expected...but....she would still need chemo. She started that recently and of course, it make her sick. She thanked God for smoothies and noodles....

I cut a Wheaties cereal box up to use for postcards. It is advertised as the breakfast of champions. I messed up on the wording here though.....it should have said..."the breakfast of real champions"

oh well.

As I am cutting up fruit I found other words and pictures that said "use me"

Lovebirds

Ann of roadtrip*treasures had left a comment that her anniversary was 29 on the 29th. As I was working on smoothies and noodles I found things that could work for Ann....so here is her postcard.....

I also received a "ready for cutting" picture of Lauren in the mail. I will be working on a "spead your wings and fly" card for her!

maybe it wasn't a good idea.....

2011-05-27T07:17:00.001-05:00

Crispy came home from school (on one of the last days) and said they had put together a time capsule. They wanted to bury it here. It had deflated balls, t-shirts and letters to themselves and other things.

Okay.

We pictured something the size of a shoe box or ice cream bucket or maybe even something as big as a 5 gallon bucket.

NOT a 55 gallon tank!
Tractor joe told them they could never dig a hole big enough...it would be to much work....it wouldn't stay in the ground....they would break shovels digging.....

Crispy thought his dad was being negative, that wasn't allowed..... and they were going to have fun! On Monday they had their fun. About seven boys started digging in the late evening and the digging continued well past sunset. Flashlights were found.
They quit digging when they hit water, threw the tank in, buried it and called it DONE!

They wouldn't see it for 10 years!!

Two days later, it rained and rained and rained and rained some more. I looked out the kitchen window at supper time....there was this mound of dirt.....what the heck is that?????

When it quit raining, I walked down to get a closer look.....

OH NO!! The time capsule was popping out of the ground.....

Crispy came home from work and went down to survey the damage. There wasn't much he could do.....he took some pictures for facebook. He needed to show his friends what was happening to all the hard work.

The sun was out nice and bright the next morning and so was the tank....

The earth was done popping that invasive tank out of the ground. There was now a nice big hole filled with water and mud....and a tank floating on top.

New plan....Grandpa has some farmland with an old shed. It isn't being used for much. Seems like a nice place to store a time capsule for 10 years and no digging is involved!

...and then there is tractor joe walking around muttering about how, "no one listens to him"

because I was cleaning......

2011-05-25T12:08:00.000-05:00

Dang...I have some actual sewing and this picture is blurry. While cleaning I found some blue squares and 30's print triangles. I sewed them to a few of the blue squares...

The next day I added some 1 1/2 strips that were near the sewing machine because they were the right length.....

I picked the dark purple because there was enough of it and the binding is some boxer shorts I cut up.

It is quilted with that wavy stitch....and finished at about 9 x 16

I found one red, one blue t-shirt.

I tried bleaching the red one, but it didn't turn out very exciting....so I went in the opposite direction.....I threw it, and the blue one, in some blue dye. That was better.

and while cleaning out things, I found......

This art kit.

I have no idea how old it is or where it came from exactly. I have fought the urge to go sit at the kitchen table with some paper and color.... with the paint, water soluble crayons, oil pastels, colored pencils and markers!

i will eventually

summer school for me.....

2011-05-23T07:16:00.000-05:00

School is done for the summer, sort of..... I just signed up for Introduction to Braille, an online course. As Mr. B learns his braille, I will too. (I would hope faster, so I am ahead of the game)
His Mom said I could post his picture......

I love this one, he is using the handrail and his cane, walking down the ramp at school, all by himself! His Mom is also a sewer/painter/crafter....on the last day she had gifts for me and the teacher.....

She made table runners. I only have pictures of mine though. We opened them, squealed in delight, then went back to our last day activities. It was a half day, we found ourselves wishing it was a full day...the morning was going so fast.

.....anyway, here is a photo of the whole thing, on my kitchen table...

I love that dotty fabric. It reminds me of selvage edge quilts. I am cleaning closets and cupboards. I am digging through the clutter that collects on every flat surface around here. Eventually I will get down to the tops of tables, and my new table topper will have a new home!

graduation display boards...

2011-05-22T18:52:00.000-05:00

It was the last graduation EVER at our high school. I really didn't want to go, I thought it might be too sad. But Karen wanted to go, so I went with her. It was all very nice and there were no tear jerking moments.

Crispy and some of his friends were ushers. Next year his class will be split up. Some will go to Forest City, Crispy will be going to Algona. No more Tigers. They will be Bulldogs now.

This is Crispy ignoring me....at least his friends were smiling for me.

My display boards.....

I agreed to make boards for "the triplets" and of course they needed to be done for their party last night.

I work with their mom. When it was in the talking stages of planning, we thought 4 of them.

But when push came to shove, 3 was a better number.

their little sister called them "the guys"

4 years times 3 dresses for prom....that's 12!

I wasn't the only one helping out. It takes a lot of friends. Ann of roadtriptreasures was also busy making artsy fartsy decorations for the party. They were so cute. Lots of different things. Lots of good ideas if you need some. She also has a good picture of the girls!!! (click on roadtriptreasures to get to her blog)

Is it common every where to have these big big parties at graduation??

A person doesn't even need to cook at home....you can just go from party to party and eat!

graduation cards.....

2011-05-21T13:24:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was the last day of school and graduation last night. I would have been happy enough to sit, drink some coffee and page through a magazine. Somerset Memories (spring 2011) to be exact.

Then something caught my eye on page 144.

It was a scrapbook page with the words....

spread your wings and fly

how perfect would that be for cards????

Next thing I knew I was at the kitchen table cutting up invitations that we had received.

Gwen, my cousin called while I was working. Her daughter graduates this year too. I told Gwen I didn't want to cut up the nice big picture of Lauren she had sent....or she would be getting one like this too.

I am pretty sure we decided Gwen would be sending a smaller picture to be cut up.

Anyway, tractor joe grabbed the camera and started taking pictures of me on the phone, me and all my morning glory.

The first two are twins. Their party started at 9:00 am. It had already started when I was snapping photos. We got there about 10:30 They were serving breakfast and was that ever good!

Anne's photo was already doctored on the invite...made her card look cool!

I've got more stuff. Keepin' things short and sweet. I'll be back.

bird watching....and playing with my camera....

2011-05-15T12:28:00.001-05:00

The birds are coming back. We have this bird feeder out front. I have been trying to get a pictures of them feeding. Hard to do with our camera. Not a lot of zoom on it and you need to be very still when snapping the shot to avoid blurriness.

I sat down in a chair and stayed very still waiting for some action. The camera was out on my knee for stability. I took the picture this way, then cropped it right away in the camera for a closer look at the birds.

I put some grape jelly in the water dish. A bird came to inspect.

Ahhh....it is grape jelly down there, yummy!

Oh no, company has come. They squawk at each other and the baltimore oriole flies off.

They all want a taste of the good stuff.

This picture is more scary than it really is. This barn is about a 1/4 of a mile away. That night as the sun was setting, there was smoke in the air. I went to investigate, walking out to the corner of our property....it was a controlled fire in the grassy areas out at Union Slough ( read more here ) ... the fire was still miles away.

It just looked like it was right there behind the barn.

I knew I needed a tripod to get a non blurry photo using the zoom. I don't have one. I did find a big rock and set the camera on it. That seemed to do the trick. This was probably the best of all the photos I took.

crayons in preschool....

2011-05-14T16:50:00.000-05:00

For Christmas I bought the classroom a Crayola Crayon Maker. Every chance we get, we have been making crayons with all the broken ones. We peel off the paper and I break them some more. The kids pick out 4 or 5 pieces to put in each tray. A light bulb in there melts them......

It is a big deal on who's turn it is to do the dumping.

We have two hands turning the knob here, they decided they would share the job.

Next week, when school is almost done, we will sort them out. Every one will get about a dozen of these colorful crayons to bring home with them.

I brought home a couple of the smaller ones. There was some scrap paper on the kitchen table. I started writing the alphabet. I love the multiple colors that happen when drawing/coloring with these.

I did the alphabet a few times and then I thought....

Hey, I can cut these apart and use the letters to make the names of the students for scrapbooking!

I'll have to make more letters when I get around to scrapbooking.

Who knows when that will be.

One more thing, a couple of the boys made pillows.....

I brought in some fabric for them to color on with crayons. Then I took them home to heat set them, and sew them into pillows. The boys stuffed them when I brought them back in. They were so excited with the results. We could have made more, but these were the only two that showed interest.

Right now a big chunk of my spare time is been used making memory board type things. A gal I work with has triplets, & they are graduating next week. So, I am helping her get photos ready for display at the party.

Eventually, I want to sew again too.

local weather conditions.....

2011-05-10T18:26:00.000-05:00

I just checked my local weather, it is 99 (F) or 37 (C) degrees hot.
No wonder the mowing was miserable......
There were a few wispy clouds.

But it is done.

The trees have still not leafed out, just a hint of green.

block lotto blocks.....

2011-05-10T14:51:00.000-05:00

I just finished posting these at blocklotto!

I have wanted to use this block, but never did, till now.

It really goes together easily.

We are having a hot and humid day. I really prefer the cooler and no major humidity days....I am heading outside to do some mowing. Rain is in the forecast...and lower temps!

making cards.....

2011-05-04T15:10:00.000-05:00

The kids are making mother's day cards. While they colored, so did I.

I wanted to make my Mom a card too.

My master pieces were brought home. They got a squirt of my spray paint.

One became an envelope.....

...the other got cut up. It was about then I remembered tractor joe's mom!

I needed to make two.

The outside of the cards were painted yellow and orange. My tool of choice is a sponge that I cut up into small sections...and use over and over again.

I was going to make the black and white fabric a border, but.... at the last minute, it became the stems for the flowers. It just seemed right.

Two cards, I needed another envelope. I found a scrap paper....and added more spray paint.

My envelopes are pretty basic.....

After cutting it square, I fold it in half, pinching only the very edges.

It should be cut at a nice 45 degree angle, I eyeball it and snip.

All the flaps are folded in. Here I decide which way will be up.

......and then glue down three of the flaps.

Wasn't sure what I wanted on the inside. I ended up with a heart, black &white fabric strip and cut out letters from the newspaper ads.

Found some stickers to add, and flowers that were cut from an ad selling flower arrangements.

When I had cut them out, I had no idea where I would use them, they became the perfect thing here.

The 'happy' is black letter stickers and I made a frame with a white ink pen.

This took me most of the morning to finish.

Here they are in the mailbox! They left this afternoon!

Mother's Day sure does seem early this year.

prom 2011...

2011-04-30T20:28:00.004-05:00

this was fun......

2011-04-29T17:46:00.000-05:00

We got the color on the flags right this time!!

The teacher and I set up the table for our tea party during rest time. The lights went on and the shades went up & the kids came walking over to see what we were up to.....

Real dishes, real silverware and fancier food....

One of the girls paused and said breathlessly,

"It is so beautiful!"

A couple of them were exited that they actually had knives at their place settings.

Even our local press heard about our party...and came to take pictures.

All in honor of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge

celebrating.....

2011-04-28T14:45:00.001-05:00

Preschool will be celebrating the royal wedding tomorrow.

Instead of snack time we are calling it "tea" &

if they choose, they will be dressing up in their finest clothes.

We will fix the colors...we messed up!!!! (4-29-11)

To top it all off they have made luscious crowns....

Final fitting will be tomorrow, all that glue needed plenty of time to dry.

Only the finest sequins, feathers and glitter was used.

Whoa! Somebody really went over board with the gold glitter.

The boys basically went through the motions to create these and decided they wanted to be kings, being a prince didn't seem very exciting.

But the girls, oh my, they could hardly contain themselves.

They LOVED these absolutely

BEAUTIFUL crowns they had made...and were very happy with the title of princess.

two finishes.....

2011-04-27T18:01:00.000-05:00

The penguin quilt for Zoey is ready to go. I took these at my mother-in-laws last Saturday. We had our Easter dinner and it was HAM BALLS.

I love them!

It was cloudy, but she has a handy clothes line to hang it on. You can see that some of the penguins are blue and purple, not all of them are black.

Zoey's parents are going to get a quilt too....and it is ready to go.....

It is my wavy quilt....one I made a while ago.

I put on a super small border. All that bias on the edge of it, did me in.

The bigger the border the bigger the wave became. But, oh well, it will still keep a person warm.

It is perfect for a couch quilt, laying on the floor for a baby to play on

or for a cat to pounce on then get spooked by a squawking bird out in the yard.

this picture look more like it's name.......old tobacco road (at quiltville) by Bonnie K Hunter.

border options, mail & binding.......

2011-04-22T18:29:00.000-05:00

I went shopping yesterday and bought some nice lime green marble fabric to use on the border of Zoe's quilt. The shop owner was pulling all kinds of bolts off the shelves and this is the one I fell in love with.

After I left, I remembered something.....

I had thought about adding some black and white check for an inner border. So off I went to the other quilt shop. What I really, really, wanted was a black and white stripe about 1 inch wide. They didn't have anything like that. I did find a checkered fabric......

I think having 3 rows of checks showing made it look like NASCAR, and more boyish.

The 2 rows of checks showing looks more girlish. I like it better. It would finish just shy of 1 inch.

I haven't decided yet.

I got more cool mail from my sister......

The outside was more Easter things.

But the inside, well that was the best part.....

She put the sweetest message inside.....

(I am the oldest)

I have the best little sisters!

(I need to make that plural, Mom had 6 of us girls)

And last, but not least.....

The penguin quilt! The backing is pretty wild for me....but the colors are so close to the front of it.

I had to use it!!

The binding is on and completely done!!

That is what I did today!

the card and the center......

2011-04-17T17:27:00.001-05:00

My sister made me a card for Easter. It was in the mail yesterday......

Lovely front. Traditional Easter things.....
Then I opened up the card.
It cracked me up....

She says George Lucas stole the words we use and changed them to say "the force"....so...

she is stealing them back.

I finished the center of Zoe's quilt.

Now I need to figure out the border.

postcards...

2011-04-16T19:37:00.000-05:00

It snowed last night. That's all I will say, I won't go on and on complaining about cold weather or even post a picture of snow.
We are still in spring mode and Easter will be here soon!

Last week I cut up the Sunday ads. I don't remember who had a bunch of stuffed animals on sale, but they were cut out. A ton of letters joined the pile too. I think I need a better system for saving cut up stuff like this. Cereal boxes were also cut up and painted.

The fourth one is my favorite. I can't help but smile when I look at it. It is the special one.

My Mom will be getting this one. I am 99% sure she will laugh out loud when it arrives. They went out today. The post office window is only open from 10:30 to 11:15 am....and I was able to get there to purchase some stamps! I used regular stamps, these cards are slightly bigger than true postcard size.

baby name and green grass......

2011-04-10T12:14:00.000-05:00

It is slow going with this baby quilt. I have her name....I am not sure I like the dark pinks in it. I went with what I had.... and this is what I ended up with.

I have some butterflies from last summer and the wonky flowers.

Just need to make it all come together.

It is finally getting green here.

We had storms go through last night. Lots of wind and rain. No major damage here, but it seems that the grass got a whole lot greener since yesterday!!

picky, not so picky...

2011-04-03T08:14:00.000-05:00

This month it is Clover flowers at Block Lotto (the picky)

I was working two things at once....the clover flower heads, which needed to be exact

and then wonky flowers, that didn't need to be exact.

My wonky's were based on these free-pieced flowers (the not so picky)

Mine don't exactly look like the example, but close enough.

It is putting the centers in that help them say flower. These are going to be in a baby quilt.

They all look like this yet.

But the block lotto flowers are done.

I can rest easy with block lotto for the rest of the month.

I couldn't decide on what colors to use for sewing letters to make the name on the baby girl quilt.

Then I remembered.....

The Quilted Forest, in Forest City, sells cotton candy packages of precut 2 1/2" strips. A few years ago I bought the pink one. I had no plan for them, but they were pretty.

These will be perfect for the letters in the baby girl quilt.

2 1/2 can be cut in half....1 1/4" strips

1 1/2 & 1" strips....the size cuts I most often use for wonky letters!

I don't know if I will get to sewing letters today or not, but the fabric is ready to go.

wonky town blocks.....

2011-04-02T06:43:00.002-05:00

When we were at the auction, I noticed this real-life wonky shed. Since I was thinking about sewing a wonky house, I thought it might be good inspiration for this........

border town ....a town made of Halloween and Christmas fabrics. There will be a drawing and I could win blocks made by others at the UnRuly Quilting Blog.

At first, I couldn't see mixing the fabrics.

In my mind these two holidays didn't mix. But I fought my perpendicular ways and went crooked and contructed some houses with the two fabrics.

And, I thought some more......and made the wonky houses as best I could.

With all that thinking..... an idea came to me.....why stick to just Halloween and Christmas?

Why not mix Valentines and the fourth of July?

Turkeys and Easter?

So, if I win some wonky town blocks.....

I will make more blocks with other seasonal fabrics....and then add the words.....

HAPPY TOWN ALL YEAR LONG

maybe add my city and state too

geocaching....

2011-03-29T15:28:00.000-05:00

tractor joe says to me: "want to go to a tractor action?"

me: "why would I want to go?"

him: "because there is an Oliver there, and we could go geocaching"

me: "okay, let's go!"

We went and watched this baby go for $3,800.00. That was that.

We, of course, did not buy it. So much for tractor joe's dream of...

"maybe it will go for $500.00"

Off we went in search of caches. It wasn't a very nice day as far as the weather went.

It was cold and windy. I wore my snow pants and boots and big old coat. For a small town there were a lot of caches.....many were micros, those teeny tiny ones.

Others were "small"....hidden in a tree that hung over the water.

I found it, so I had to replace the cache. Back up the trunk of the tree.

Then reach over and put it back in the hiding spot.

Success....and I didn't fall into the water!

Here the cache was hanging under a bridge. It was a cute little thing.....

We were able to find 9 of them in a few hours. Some were easy, some were hard, and some were so hard we left without finding it.....OR, it was missing.

As we were driving home, we went through Sac City.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw something so unbelievable.

We had to turn around and go back to get a closer look!

Actually, tractor joe would have kept on driving, but I said,

we really need a picture, you just don't see this everyday.

There in a little shed, right on main street,

was....

The WORLD'S biggest......

POPCORN BALL!

a quick story here

You just never know what treasures you will find when you go out geocaching!

paper stuff and the geocaching quilt.....

2011-03-24T20:56:00.000-05:00

Our preschool teacher had gallstones removed earlier this week. All that paper that was spray painted last week, turned into get well cards this week.

They used crayons and stickers to decorate them. The envelopes were old papers that they had colored or painted on...left over stuff sitting around....waiting for new life as an envelope.

The three year olds used dot paint and then decorated with some foam shapes glued on. Sometimes it was lots and lots of glue.

When I was snapping pictures of the cards, a few of the boys came over. They wanted their pictures taken with their cards. Okay, hold it up!

We even put the braille writer into action.....

It is supposed to say "I love apples"... I was typing rather quickly, hopefully I hit all the right letters.

"get well soon" is on the inside.

My sisters and I have decided we are going to go back to Okoboji. We have camped there for 26 years or so. But last year, we didn't. We thought we could live without it.

We were wrong.

We missed it more than we thought we would.

To celebrate our going camping again, I made a bunch of postcards & sent them off.

I had left over cut up pieces when I was done with them.

I put them in my altered book.

And last but not least....

the geocaching quilt!

Now it needs to be quilted. It will be sent away for that.

I am so excited.

it is getting closer.....

2011-03-19T15:44:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I finished all the words for my geocaching quilt. I snapped a picture of what I had.

Then I moved it all..... I laid a quilt out on the bed and put the pieces on that.

That way, when I am done sewing for the day, I can just roll up the quilt and everything stays put. The next time I sew, I just unroll it and everything is ready to go.

But this morning a cat was sleeping on the bed. I didn't have the heart to disturb her...so I partially unrolled the quilt. Pearl slept through all my sewing this morning.

She has her face all covered.

The sewing went faster than I thought it would. This morning I took another picture of all the rows coming together. As I finished a row it went back out to the living room.

I see the bottom row keeps changing...it doesn't look exactly like this, but close enough. All the rows are done. I used every tree block I won in the block lotto!! I'll put some black in between the rows to make the quilt longer....and some kind of spacing to make all the rows, the same width. I'll save that for another day.....to many other things I need to do right now.