Butterfly babies

Since I rarely buy fabric, unless I just can't possibly work with what's in my stash, I decided to get some specific 'butterfly' fabric and a few fat quarters to go with it. Hey, I was good, I only bought 1.5 yds of it and it was on sale! Besides, I used plenty of my own stash for the 9-patches... And besides, look at the great selvedge for my selvedge quilt project!

My thought was to make an emergency quilt for Charlotte's Garden and one for our own Peace by Piece Quilters group that gives to local charities.I wanted to make something simple, so I took a variation of the book 9-Patch Pizazz! I made a strip set of three 'sherbert flavored fabrics (some batiks, some not)

Then cut the strip sets into 2.5" strips

until I ran out of them...

I pinned them to my design wall and just randomly grabbed three different ones and put them together into 9-patches.

I threw them onto the wall....

then added a chocolate brown border...one top done.

Then took the leftovers and made a second top,

then decided to add the chocolate brown sashing to define the 9-patch theme.

Voila! Two little girl quilts!

Random Squares for Charity

I sent a few 'random' heartstring blocks to a couple of ladies who are putting together charity quilts for Charlotte's Garden. They will combine them with other members squares for a girl and a boy quilt (maybe more than just one a piece??)

This is a close-up of one of the girl's blocks.....

And one for the boys..... It was fun picking out the fabrics for each one. I hope they post a photo of the completed quilts.

Papa's 61st Birthday

What's the best thing about Papa having a birthday?

...the cake! At least Malakai enjoyed it!

Of course at this time of year, we don't get to do much to clelebrate it. I'm busy at work (longer hours) and we have so many events that we are involved in,... Pumpkin carving night at church, planning for Halloween, finishing quilting projects for my next mtg... so we'll go to the casino (Foxwoods or Mohegan Sun) for the buffet and a roll of quarters to blow in the slots (big spenders, huh?). Hey, that's what he wanted to do, and it's his birthday. (We'll never go broke there, since we only hit it once every year or two).

157 Christmas Stockings for the Troops!

Fran B. in IL asked the quilting community for some Christmas stockings to be sent to her (Operation Care Package) to be filled with items for the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Peace by Piece Quilters got busy and made 157.... !! I only thought we'd make 25-30... Boy did the girls surprise me!

Here are some of the great variety of stockings that were made...

I even made one from some selvedges...LOL

one of my favorites....

Fall Fun!

Kai and I had a great time raking leaves (me) and him distroying the 'volcano piles'!!

This is my favorite time of year... love the leaves, too!

You can't beat New England for the foliage.

I have great photos of my next quilt project....I'll be posting later.

What a little Devil!!!????$#@!

Okay, I know he's only 2 (we're talking about the cute little grandson in the last post), but I'm glad he's so 'sweet'.... here's the story.

I came home from work on Wed last week, and as I walked in the door, my dear hubby asked me to go up to our bedroom and "see if you can stand it, honey"... (I can smell trouble already). Since I knew he was home all day and my daughter and grandson were home all day, I wasn't sure what I was walking into. Well, I got to the 3rd step on the stairs and the smell HIT me!

WHEW!!

"What did he do??" I said loudly...

Does Papa look upset?? Well as the story goes, my grandson, Kai likes to go up and jump on (our) Gramma/Papa's bed and since it's old, it's no big deal usually. I guess when he first went up his mom called him down (but being a typical- or NOT- 2 yr old, he didn't mind her). She called again, but by now, Papa (who is under the bedroom on the computer) can hear him jumping, then heard a 'crash'! They both run up the stairs and there he is.... jumping on the bed...

Papa's 'special after-shave' (hidden, or so we thought, in the bedroom end table) was in his hand as he was jumping, but now is on the floor....in the meantime, it's been spilled all over the quilts on the bed (old ratty ones), on the carpet, on the floor, on the dresser (old ratty one) and I'm sure all over him!!

Since I get deadly Migraines (especially from strong perfumes), my dear hubby wanted to make sure I could stand sleeping up there. He'd had the carpet, floor and dresser (with it's new white stain) wiped up, the bed changed and the two quilts hanging outside to air out. I guess he aired the room out all day, too (good thing it's good weather)...

Well, I slept in the bed, but couldn't roll to one side (smell was still too strong on that side), and managed not to wake up with a massive headache.

Grandkids.... gotta love 'em!

Leslie's Housewarming!

Just got a chance to post a few pictures of Leslie's party. As you can see by the photos, most of what I did was keep an eye on Kai (just my mom, Kai and I went from CT... as Lee and Julie were working). I did get to visit with Leslie and Scott, but I didn't take any pictures of them. Now I wish I had....It was fun, but I wish I'd gone with Lee and we would have stayed longer....into the night maybe. Here's Kai and his friend he made, Ian.

Back to Blogging and quilting

Oh my Gosh, it's nice to be quilting again...

This was me at our last Peace by Piece Quilters meeting (I've since cut my hair VERY short!). We did get some great things accomplished. We got 4 quilts back from our quilter and have the bindings for all of them cut and in the process of being sewn on, then labeled. That should be done by next month. We checked out over 100 Christmas stockings that our ladies worked on at home (made some repairs), that are going to the troops, via Fran B in IL. We tried to plan our group's agenda for the next few months.

Mom got a chance to come up to my 'new sewing room' to play, too. I say 'new' because my design wall (behind mom) used to be laid up against a twin bed and box spring (Murphy-bed style), but now my little two-year old grandson, Kai, needed a "big-boy bed". (He was crawling out AND back in to the crib WAY too often!)

Here he is in his first real bed, though let me tell you, he STILL gets out of it and comes stomping upstairs to visit everyone a few times a night (He and his mom are in the basement).

On to quilting things..... Since I had to move things around in my sewing room to get Kai's bed out, I figured I had to clean it up major-ly before I could sew again, so I started moving furniture, had to go out and buy a plastic drawer set to put all the things that my Murphy-bed edge (on top) held. It was a great shelf while it lasted....

Here's the new shelves (already filled with UFOs and ophan blocks (in the upper three drawer section)... projects in the individual boxes...

The ironing board and cutting table have a window to the right of this picture (not sure how I like the placement of the table yet... we'll still see....

The sewing machine and design wall are easily accessible to each other and it feels like there's more room, even though you can't see it in these pictures.

So now that I've made the room neater, I've been playing with a new book I got recently... Quilts from the Selvedge Edge, by Karen Griska. Great selvedge quilts! I've been making them on the sly (before I got the book)... little 5" blocks. Some day I'll put those together and post a photo.

Here are my very neat selvedge (see I'm getting organized with everything!)

Of course, these are my selvedges when I'm using them....

Messy, huh?

Here's a take I put on one from her book. (I used very large florals and HATED the first 4 blocks I'd covered, but kept going.

I think I like it now. I've decided to call it Lisiere de Garden (Selvedged Garden). I've since put it together, but not finished yet.

Oh, and just some 'eye candy' .... one of the ladies (Dot G) in our quilting group, showed off her large queen-sized quilt at our meeting, that she had just finished! Beauty, eh?