Snowballs in Red

Just so you know....I haven't been doing nothing this last week. Most of the time I have been watching the Olympics which have been great. I am always amazed that people can give 5, 10 and 15 years to perfecting their sport and then perform in front of millions. Some achieve great success while others see their dreams dashed in a matter of seconds. I am in awe of every one of them for their talent, perserverence and poise in such a stressful situation! The stories of how they got there and their families is an added bonus.

I have been making 5 inch red snowball blocks too. They have corners in whites to dark creams but it is hard to see the corners on my light design wall. I have 120 of them right now. Originally I was going to just put them right next to each other but it seemed rather blah. The top part of the picture is with them separated. I think I may now have to make light snowballs with red corners to put in between each red snowball. I won't get to that for a couple of days....so........ Any ideas of a different in-between block? Any ideas will be welcome.

Mrs. Moen's Mystery Roosters

Here it is....cut out, sewn together, quilted and binding on. This was a fun mystery project and so easy. I couldn't figure out what was coming when Nina Lisa put orange and red together but I love the roosters. I'm afraid it is going to take me years to feel comfortable machine quilting tho. My loops are more jerky than smooth and I still get a few puckers if I'm not careful but it sure beats taking small things to the quilter to do and not see again for a few weeks. The buttons I chose for the eyes make my roosters look a little startled. Maybe the sun came up too early even for them too.

I've got all the red and cream blocks cut out for a Snowball quilt now so I can start sewing on that. Still haven't taken my machine in to be serviced. Got to do that soon but I hate giving up my sewing time even for a few days.

Good News and Good with Bad News!

For the good news....I put together the table runner top from Mrs. Moen's mystery quilt. It is so cute. 4 roosters all lined up. I even had a great fabric left over from one of my chicken quilts to use on the back. Perfect don't you think? It was fun to do this mystery and wonder what the finished quilt would look like. Now I need to try to machine quilt it myself hoping to semi copy the look that Mrs Moen did on hers but possibly with my own variation....which is pretty much hit and miss for me! More good news: 2 of my daughters, Nicky on the left and Krista on the right, and I had our Red Pajama weekend together. Bad news: my daughter, Denise and granddaughter Kelsey, got stuck in Chicago and couldn't get the next flight to Salt Lake City. It was quite a disappointment for us all but we know that when we are lucky enough to fly for free (Krista works for SW airlines) then we have to be ready for disappointment on making flights sometimes. Kelsey, called me crying about not making it but Denise decided they would have fun anyway so they had their own mother/daughter weekend. We all sent pictures back and forth showing what we were doing. We went out to eat a couple of times, went to a couple movies, a play and had a pedicure again. We also went shopping for maternity clothes for Nicky. Boy, maternity clothes sure have changed since I was pregnant!! Nothing hangs loose...everything is tight. Dresses are unbelieveably short and hard to find in the first place. We didn't get much for Nicky but we got a few cute baby things to add to our darling little girl collection.

Also, I gave the quilts to them. They were so surprised and excited. They turned out soooo cute. Today I need to mail the other one to Denise. We had such a great time together and were so sad it came to an end so soon. Oh well, time to plan the next one!

I'm in the process of pulling reds and creams from my stash to make a snowball quilt. 3 quilts are at the quilters also. Boy, I sure love quilting.

Happy quilting to you all. Lynda

4!!! Count 'em.....4!!!!

Yessiree!! I've now completed 4 Christmas quilt tops. Of course, 3 are almost identical and they were easy patterns. But I'm half way and its only February. Been dancing around the sewing room for a couple of days now. Even mitered the corners thinking they would be a perfect match. But since the sides are different lengths it made the stripes come out not so perfectly together. I would have had to work from the corners in and made the seam down the center different. But, hey, these are for boys and they won't even notice the corners are mitered. They'll just love how warm and comfy they are when it's cold outside.

I've talked about my friend, Janine, quite a bit in this blog. When we became friends about 29 years ago she owned a sewing machine but didn't ever take it out of the box! I know. How bizarre! Anyway, over the years she has become obsessed like the rest of us in regards to anything quilted and she pumps out quilt after quilt after quilt now. (I do think her husband blames me for this obsession) She decided to take a class on this darling bag and look how great it turned out. Since this picture she added a tiny red button inside the flower and it really added. She laughs tho because after paying for the class, the pattern, and the fabric, this bag cost about $45. But now she has the pattern and the knowledge and can make more. Do I see one in my future?

Today is my quilt bee so I'm off to put the bindings on some quilts and enjoy the company of some amazing women.

Thanks for stopping by. Lynda

Still a Mystery

Yep, I've been working on arranging the blocks from Mrs. Moen's mystery and haven't come up with a real good arrangement at all. I've mixed and matched and rearranged several times but never come up with a possible design. Guess that's why its called a mystery and I'll have to wait for the next step.

Lynda

Bag Lady

This is a cute young girls purse that my sister-in-law, Geri, made. I have a granddaughter that is called Katybug so I thought this little purse covered in bugs would be perfect for her.

This is a bag that I made using lots of my black and white fabric from my stash. It is quite big for me. Originally I made it to carry on the plane but it is sooo big that it gets quite heavy if I load it up. Also, I really didn't want to sit it down on the dirty plane floor. I added the bows on the side to hold it a little tighter and as you can see I haven't put the button on yet. Right now I carry it to our Quilt Bee since I can fit everything except my sewing machine into it. I'm thinking it needs a bright pink or red button.