Monthly Archives: November 2009

Get Ready for Quilt Therapy’s Countdown to Christmas!

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It’s that time of year again – time to start thinking about Christmas!  This year, we’re doing something just a little different – we’re going to make a Countdown to Christmas fauz flower arrangement!  Essentially, it’ll be Christmas shapes (stocking, Christmas trees, angels, etc.) that will be attached to “stems” and “planted” in a flower pot.  We’ll make one per day, with the pattern provided each day.  By the time Christmas comes around, you should have 25 different “flowers”!

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So, get ready for some sewing & crafting fun with me – starting tomorrow, December 1, 2009! 

Here are the supplies you will need:

  1. Flower pot
  2. 25 round craft sticks, cut to various lengths (longest is 6″)
  3. Floral tape
  4. Fusible Peltex or Temtex
  5. Hot Glue Gun & Glue
  6. Fabirc – we are using an assortment of Wintergraphix II from AbbiMays.com to decorate the outside of the pot and to make the “flowers”
  7. Floral foam for inside the pot
  8. A touch of garland to decorate the inside of the pot
  9. Embellishments for your “flowers” such as beads, buttons, ric-rak, etc.

Crazy Thanksgiving and Quilting … ooops, Crazy Quilting and Thanksgiving

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Thanksgiving was a lovely affair at Mama Lu’s house, turkey, ham and all the trimmings.  We came home STUFFED as that turkey was, for a lovely little nap before everyone went back up to enjoy the pies. 

After we went back home at 10 pm, I heard that others in the family were going back for seconds.  Ugh, I was STILL stuffed!

I did cook the ham and green bean casserole in my oven, so of COURSE I *had to* stay home to make sure the oven didn’t burn the house down — and lo-and-behold, my sewing room is right off of our dining room.  It’s perfectly ok to cook AND sew.  Right?

Of COURSE!  hehe

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Give Thanks with a Thankful Heart

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Our church service on Sunday has left me singing “Give Thanks with a Thankful Heart” over and over all week.  And with that, I’ve been trying to come up with a list of thanks for tomorrow’s upcoming Thanksgiving holiday:

1.  I am thankful to God – who is the One who has made me what I am today, through His many blessings.

2.  I am thankful to my parents, who gave me life:

momdad

3.  I am thankful for the love of my husband, who loves me (and still talks to me) despite all of my faults.

4.  I am thankful for my children, four of the brightest, funniest, lovable, huggable and trying little people in my home…who give and accept love so freely - they make me thirst for more of their love and talents.

5.  I am thankful for the extended friends and family that have enriched my life, kept me grounded and shared of themselves with me – some for many, many years.

6.  I am thankful for my quilting talents, that I am able to share them with others and live a life filled with a passion for the traditional art of quilting.

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7.  I am thankful for my clients, who send me work and help me feed my family.

8.  I am thankful for being able to have a thankful, loving heart – at one time in my life, I was told I wasn’t capable of having and showing emotions – they were wrong.  So.  Very.  Wrong.

9.  I am thankful for our pets, who give unconditional love and little doggie moochies.

10.  I am thankful for YOU – who come to visit me and my lil’ ole’ life here in the hills of nowhere, Texas.  You brighten my days and help fuel my creativity.

A Tale of Two Techniques

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I had to make this quilt for my SIL’s boyfriend.  He chose two colors for the quilt.  That’s it.  TWO colors.  UGH  I’m just not a two-color quilter, that’s for sure.  😉

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But, this post isn’t about his color choices (or lack thereof) – it’s about variation on a theme.  I wanted to do SIMPLE (he’s a MAN, afterall), yet needed to try to create depth and some design fun. 

And then I ran out of fabric – which is totally amazing in and of itself!  And I live 45 min. away from the nearest quilt shop.  <thud>

So, I did what any quilter would do in the face of adversity – I punted!

Five of the blocks are simply pieced nine-patch blocks, with a border around the nine-patch. 

The center block is a 25-square pieced block.

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Four of the blocks are raw-edge applique, on top of the background fabric – giving the illusion that I’ve pieced them!

applique

Once my quilter is finished with her part, the appliqued fabrics will be stabilized and no one will know that I ran out of fabric and took a short-cut to get this quilt pieced!  Plus, I like the final results, a variation of pieced and raw-edge applique – gives a MAN quilt much more funshine than just pieced blocks.

Try it – and have FUN in designing or making a quilt that isn’t the norm!

Practice What you Preach – Teacup Pincushion

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One of the (numerous) things I do is search the Internet for free quilt patterns for BOMquilts.com.   In addition, I have other categories listed there, one that is just for quilted gift ideas.

A couple of weeks ago, a visitor to the site asked for some pincusion patterns, and I was happy to oblige and find some fun ones and add them to that category.

A week later, I got word that the lady we’d scheduled to teach paper-piecing at our quilt group meeting was unable to do so, therefore, my MIL asked me if I could quickly come up with something for the group to learn or do.  I remembered the pincusion patterns that I’d added to my website, and really thought the (older) ladies in our group would enjoy putting them together – plus, I figured they had teacups at their disposal.

I’m pretty sure everyone enjoyed our fun evening, even if it was a non-quilted project.  Sometimes, it’s just fun to throw out an idea and see how far we can go with it! 

Here’s my completed teacup pincushion:

teacup

And here’s where I found the pattern.  Enjoy!