Been gone so long.......

Hope you all had a good Christmas. Ours was wonderful. A couple of our children and their families came for a few days (making 1 cute little granddaughter and 1 very active grandpuppy). Having family around sure makes Christmas more fun. I think I love having Christmas on a Sunday so that we can attend our Church meeting and then come home to open gifts. Here is one of our little Ellie enjoying the bag just as much as the gift that came inside.

Ellie helped us make pies using her very own rolling pin and dough.
I saw this simple felt Christmas tree on pinterest and knew I had to make one also. A very simple triangle tree with magnets to hold it to the fridge. The ornaments were just circles cut from felt I had on hand. It was a big hit with Ellie. She spent a lot of time redecorating the tree each day.
I've also started a Rikrakasaurus quilt for my niece who is having her 3rd son in January. I found the pattern in a Quiltmaker May/June 1997 magazine and have always wanted to make it. I'm now looking for some dinosaur fabric to use for the outside border and maybe some wild striped inner border and sashing.

Looking forward to 2012!

Happy Quilting! Lynda

Back in the sewing room.......finally

I've been wanting to make a zipper bag for quite some time but was a little leary because I really don't like to sew in zippers. But I was really surprised how easy it was. Much easier than putting one in the back of a dress. The patten for this was off the internet and it wasn't lined, just used iron on interfacing. Next time I'll line it for sure since I now know how easy it is now.

I call this a "free" quilt since everything I used was in my small stash. Several months ago I cut strips from fabrics and started trying to use them in baby quilts. This one is just 8 inch squares with a tiny white sashing. The pink polka dot flannel for the back was even left over from a larger quilt. Would you believe I even machine quilted it myself AND sewed the binding by machine too. Now it's ready for the next little baby girl born in our neighborhood.

Happy Quilting! Lynda

A little of this.....a little of that

The other day my boss, Dr. McBee, needed to borrow my car. He rides his bike to the office quite often and he forgot he was taking another doctor out to lunch. We figured he wouldn't want to ride on the handlebars. So...............After taking lots of picture of Ellie during our visit this week....this is what I found...............
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wait for it..........
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I know..................funny guy.

I gave this quilt to a young man in my neighborood named Harrison. He is such a quiet young man but is such a strong, gospel centered young man too. Whenever I give a quilt to someone I tell them why I picked the colors and the pattern. I figured the creams were indicitive of his calm and quiet nature and the red depicts his strong love for our Savior. You can see by the smile on his face that he was happy to get a nice warm quilt since it is cold outside.

We went to visit our daughter and her family this week....again. Luckily her husband doesn't get tired of our visits.....yet. Ellie's favorite place to play is the bottom step. She carried this bag around most of the day filling it with her toys and taking them out to line them up on the step.

Here she is digging to the very bottom to get everything out.

She is at that age where she wants to try everyones shoes on. When I got ready to leave I found cheerios and toys in my shoes.

We brought these cute pink furry feet slippers for her. The toes are painted with bright pink polish.

We found this gyro bowl for her. It is amazing. It really doesn't spill no matter how she carries it. However, she likes to take all the cheerios out and line them up.

She has discovered her tongue. She was probably making raspberries (that's what we call it) with her grandpa.

Here she is reading a pop-up book with Grandpa.

Maybe this week I'll get back into my sewing room.

Happy Quilting! Lynda

More Retreat

Suzanne, our Quilt Retreat Hostess, always has a gift for each of us. This is a bag filled with buttons, a covered notebook (that she made) and a chocolate bar wrapped and ribboned. The sticker says, "So much CHOCOLATE, so little time".

This is a quilt I took to take the binding off of. I used the backing fabric for the binding and didn't like the way it looked on the front with the rich fabrics. However, the vote after folding it over and seeing how it would look, was to keep it and save me the trouble of all that ripping out. I'll be working on that tonight.

This is what I worked on. You can see the baseball quilt and the bag of applique that I was sure I would have time for also. I love this quilt and I'm sure the young man I am giving it to will love it too. Funny how I didn't notice until I looked at the picture that most of the light reds are on one side!

I do enjoy getting together with other quilters spending the day working on projects, seeing what others are doing, laughing, talking and eating. Thank you again, Suzanne, for sharing your home with us.

Happy Quilting! Lynda

Retreat was a real treat!

Myrna's quilt top that she worked on all day. Then she started the borders.....oodles of 2inch squares sewn together.

These pumpkins greet us every year on our climb up the stairs to Suzanne's quilting room. AND every year I say I'm going to make some of those next year!!!

Maybell showing a darling 4 patch and square in a square baby quilt. She also had a beautiful quilt in blue with the most amazing back (no I neglected to get a picture) :(

Claudia, Nancy and Alice busily working on projects.

Claudia with a cut finger still managing to make a big dent in her projects. She finished the vest she is wearing. Judy and Alice sewing and laughing in the back.

Suzanne, showing off her striped socks was binding a quilt and Dee was working on applique.

Myrna admiring Patti's Dresden Plate.

And of ourse.....there is always delicious food.

Alice and Judy taking a break from their projects to admire Dee's applique. This is the 2nd panel of 3 that will go into a quilt. Dee and Suzanne are champion appliquers. I brought some to work on so they could help me learn.....but never got around to doing any of it. I spent the whole time binding 1 quilt!

Dee explaining how "easy" it is to applique.

Nancy sharing the quilt top she finished.

And a couple of quilters spent a long time helping Nancy arrange and rearrange her Sampler quilt blocks.

A big thank you to Suzanne for sharing her home with us a couple of times a year for quilt retreats. She has quilts hanging everywhere and on every bed and couch.

Would you believe I didn't even take a picture of the quilt I was binding! Tomorrow I'll show you the finished quilt.

Now I just want to lie down and take a rest.

Happy Quilting! Lynda

Gobble Gobble & Candy Corn Dress

We took a drive to Logan again on Wednesday to spend some time with our granddaughter, Ellie. My daughter had a couple of projects for us to work on. Above is a cute little Turkey shirt. She finished it after we left.
She had a picture of this candy corn dress. It took us about an hour to figure out how to make it without instructions and to make it. It was quite easy and went together quickly but it is always nice to have two heads working on figuring it out.
Tomorrow I am going to a quilt retreat. It started today but I couldn't get the day off of work. I have prepared a couple of quilts to bind and am finally going to work on some hand applique on a project I started at least 2 years ago called Antitude. One of my quilting friends showed me how she appliques and it makes it look a lot easier than what I have been trying before. I'll take pictures and share them later.

Happy Quiltng! Lynda

This should keep your eyes moving!

I made a bunch of these blocks from a pattern in "More Nickel Quilts". After they were made I wasn' sure I really liked them But I took the stacks......... Trimmed off these......

Sewed the blocks together and ended up with this block. I decided I liked it after all!

I put them up on my design wall.....

Arranged again leaving space for sashing......

Then sewed them together......No sashing.....

I love all the patterns when they are sewn together. I see squares....I see stars.....

Now I think I may add a small border of green, or maybe red, or maybe blue.......

Happy Sewing! Lynda

Another great weekend

One of my sons, Eric, and his family came from California for a couple of days. One reason was to visit us and the other to get Taylor's wisdom teeth extracted by the oral surgeon I work for. Nicky and Ellie also came. Ellie had a hard time warming up to her uncle....unless he had candy to share!

Nicky brought another Halloween project for us to work on. Taylor, smiling in back, didn't seem to be feeing any pain from the surgery. Katie, my granddaughter was a big help with the project. Everyone headed back home this morning. Our home is now deafeningly quiet and I miss all of them already.

Katie made the comment that our house was sure a lot messier than when they all came. But I assured her that I love the mess, the noise, the laughter, and the staying up until midnight talking.

Guess I'll start washing towels and bedding and maybe even get down to the sewing room for a few minutes....and look forward to their next visit.

Happy Quilting! Lynda

Witches and Boo Blocks

About a half an hour from my home is a wonderful shopping place called Gardner Village. There are lots of fun little quaint shops. During the whole month of October they put on a witch festival. My daughter, Nicky, and my niece Elizabeth decided to meet there with Ellie (Nicky's little girl) and Cameron and Conner (Elizabeth's 2 boys). Ellie and Conner aren't quite sure what to think of this witch.
Here I am with Ellie, Elizabeth and Conner. Cameron was off and running throwing rocks in the pond.
After we went to lunch we went to Elizaeth's home and made these cute "boo" blocks from wood and paper and glitter. That's Cameron peeking over the counter.
We thought Witchie Poo was quite funny reading the paper in the outhouse.
Nicky trying to keep Ellie still long enough for a picture.
We especially loved this witch pushing a giant green frog in a stroller too.
Elizabeth and witch.
Here the kids were looking out the window while we waited to be seated in the restaurant. Outside the window was a purple toed witch jumping from the roof into a pond. There were many many more witches playing baseball, dancing, riding a bike thru the sky, fishing with dynamite in the pond, and even spraying water when you walked across a bridge. There were pumpkins everywhere and ghosts and goblins too.

It was a fun day.

This week I've been in a cleaning mood! I've cleaned out file cabinets, closets, cupboards, and more in the sewing room. I washed and changed bedding ready for the next group of visiters this next week. I filled the backseat of my car and trunk and hauled it to Savers (a place like Salvation Army). Also filled my garbage can to overflowing and have several bags ready for next weeks garbage. Oh it feels good. Now I have a stack of quilting books I am getting rid of also. Wonder how long I can keep it clean?

Now maybe I can get back to some sewing time.

Happy Quilting! Lynda