Bird Dance Blocks 1 - 30

All the blocks are now complete and sewn together. I have really enjoyed stitching the bird blocks and learning some new stitches. I am working on the borders and I can't wait to sew them on the top.

Christmas mistletoe 2011 and 2013

It all started with Mistletoe Magic, a pattern by Debbie Busby of Wooden Spools Designs. I completed the kissing ball stamp pillow in 2011 and but the finishing the wooly green mistletoe was bit more elusive. Debbie Busby's pattern instruction called for buttons on the hanging mistletoe. While I was at the 2011 Houston Quilt Show I saw small wool balls and decided I would use wool ball rather than buttons. It was not easy to find about 70 cream wool balls but I did it. When I got home, I began sewing on all the wool balls. Much to surprise Katie, my standard poodle, decided that these wool ball were quite tasty. Katie was stealing the wool balls from the bowl as I was trying to sew them on the mistletoe sprigs but I finally sewed all the wool balls on the wool mistletoe sprigs. I left the almost finished mistletoe ball in a project bag and left the house for an appointment. A few hours later, I came back home and I discovered a ripped and torn project bag in the back yard, mistletoe sprigs minus wool balls strewn around the yard. Lucky for Katie, I was able to buy more wool balls on line, then the bow was the only thing missing. I may be able to do a lot of things but making a wired floral bow is not something I can do. Last week, my friend Wanda Seal, came to my rescue. The bow she made is beautiful. So 2 years later, the pillow and the mistletoe ball are now complete.

Christmas tree

It is that time of year, time to unpack all the Christmas decoration. I put up my tree on the day after Thanksgiving and have been busy putting up over 400 ornaments. I have a 9 foot tree and really struggle to get all my ornaments hung. I began collecting and making Christmas ornaments in 1969. I have 33 years of Hallmark Frosty Friends ornaments, who would have guess that Hallmark would continue that series. There are needlepoint, crewel, counted cross stitch, felt, and wool appliqué, and bread dough/femo ornaments made by myself, Lucie, my mother and other crafters. I hang my ornaments and reflect on Christmases past and family no longer with me. Each ornament has some special meaning.

Christmas stocking are hung on the fireplace place, no easy task since I removed the mantle during the remodel.

Wishing everyone a wonderful holiday season.

Bird Dance Blocks 1 - 27 and Molly

I finished stitching Bird Dance blocks 25, 26, 27. I have begun to stitch blocks 28, 29 and 30 which are the final birds. I received the border for the quilt last week which has 96 circles to stitch along a vine. Just cutting 96 1" circles seems overwhelming.



I continue to get my house organized after my remodel. Molly had the difficult job of testing out my new sectional. We all should have such a difficult life.

Houston Quilt Show

I am finally getting caught up after my trip to the Houston Quilt Show. I flew to Houston on Wednesday, October 30 with my quilting buddy from Henderson Nevada. Can you imagine about a thousand quilt vendors in one place plus hundreds of spectacular award winning quilts, the Houston Quilt Show is simply overwhelming. I became fascinated with the World of Mother’s Dream quilts by Reiko Kato. The quilts are exquisitely hand appliquéd and so charming.
This is one of Reiko Kato's quilts from the show.

Hanging quilts and pictures

Starting with blank walls has given me a great opportunity to arrange new groupings of my quilts and pictures. I moved my desk into the great room, in an area formerly know as the family room. Today, I hung the Funky Baltimore Album quilt plus two of my watercolors. The cactus watercolor use to hang on the living room side of my fireplace.


This is a corner in my living room. Lucie and John bear are sitting on the Victorian marble top table. Fang, a bear made from Lucie's wolf parka, is on the audio/video component cabinet. The Japanese needlepoints were done my mother. The wall with the rose watercolor will also have a grouping of some painted china, which I hope will be hung soon.


My blue and yellow hunter's star is hanging above the atrium window, it has always hung there. Lucie did the seagull stain glass.


I hung my wool appliqué quilt above the player piano.

Bird Dance Blocks 1 -24

Life has been quite hectic. The remodel/construction finished Saturday, October 12, 2013 but the clean up was just beginning. Closets, everything in the kitchen, basically everything in the house needed cleaning. I am beginning to place furniture and rehang everything on my walls. Last Saturday was the first time I was able to stitch on my Bird Dance blocks. Before the remodel began, I was almost finished stitching the August blocks, blocks 22, 23 and 24. Last night, I finished the blocks and placed them on my design wall. It really felt good to do something besides cleaning and organizing. I will really have to concentrate on finishing September, blocks 25, 26, 27 and October blocks 28, 29, and 30.

Day 17

Today, is the seventeenth work day of the remodel. The tile is complete in master bedroom and 2 bathrooms. Today, the stacked stone veneer is being installed on the face of the fireplace. I am hoping that the major work will be completed by the end of the week.

Color and tile

My house is starting to look more like a home. The wall are painted and the new baseboards were installed. I decided to have blue as an accent wall in my new office area and in my master bedroom. Blue is probably my all time most favorite color. Today, the tile started to be laid, I was really excited to see the tile in my master bedroom. I will have the look of wood floor but with the easy cleaning and maintenance.

Lucie's Heart Quilt

I have slowly been going through boxes of stuff in my garage and I found a quilt top sewn by Lucie circa 1988. Lucie had pieced the entire log cabin heart but the tulip appliqué was not done. I machine appliquéd the tulips using fabric from my stash. The logs are 3/4" wide. I just need to make a label. The quilt is from the book Holiday Happenings by Christal Carter. Machine quilted by Jessica Gamez.

Remodel update

The new ceiling in the great room is up and textured. Can lights were tested out with bulbs. Wow, I am going to have some light in my great room. Today, saw cuts were made in the living room slab so I can have some in-floor electrical receptacles. Monday, painting will begin. I just have to make a firm decision about the colors.

Lead in The Holidays

I was asked to make a quilt for Leader Dog for the Blind, Lead in the Holidays silent auction to be held November 22, 2013. Tonight I finished sewing on the binding and attaching the quilt label. The quilt, called Ruff Around the Edges, was designed by Karen Brow, Java House Quilts. The dogs were machine appliquéd with Floriani embroidery thread. The custom machine quilting was done by Jessica Jones Gamez.

Demo day one

Today was the first demo day. Carpet was removed from the living room and master bedroom. Tile was removes from entry way and family room. The dust is just unbelievable.

Construction has begun

I have been thinking of redoing the flooring in my great room and master bedroom. The thought of doing such a huge space has always caused me to rethink the idea. In August, I was referred by a friend to Diane Drummond of Moon Valley Interiors and so the snowball started down the mountain. I think today is officially day one of my 2013 remodel experience. I survived and so did the girls. These last 3 weeks have been a whirlwind of decision making but I think that most the decisions have been. Now it is time to watch my home be transformed through the extraordinary efforts of Diane Drummond and my talented team of contractors.
Today, the electricians began cutting the existing ceiling to install can lights and ceiling fan.


Katie inspecting the work and Katie and Molly playing after being restricted from some of the house for most of the day.


Monday, the removal of all the tile and carpet begins. My plan is to keep you posted on the construction process.

Quilt labels

I have spent the last week, embroidering quilt labels on my Bernina 780, I always seem to procrastinate about making labels for my quilts, so I really had a lot of labels to make. So far I have finished 9 labels. Now I just have to sew all the labels on the quilts.

I used the Floriani Total Control Professional embroidery software. I am new to machine embroidery and embroidery software, so making these labels was a great learning experience for me.

Bernina Bonanza

I attended Bernina 830/780 Bonanza at the Bernina Connection. This was a two-day event where we worked on 2 projects. Everyone enjoyed learning embroidery pointers and winning prizes.

Friday night we made a pin cushion. We had a choice of doing embroidery or using the Bernina PaintWorks tool. I decided to make the embroidered pin cushion.


Saturday, we worked on the Melford Messenger Bag by Charlie's Aunt. A Bernina educator had adjusted the pattern so we could use some of the embroidery features on the Bernina 830 or 780. I did not finish constructing the entire bag but got an excellent start. The picture shows the embroidery I completed. The top left is the front flap, the bottom left is the front of the bag, right is back of the bag and lining fabric. Endless embroidery was used for the flap embroidery.

Bird Dance Blocks 1 - 21

January 2013, I started Sue Spargo's 2013 Block of the Month called Bird Dance. There will be 30 colorful birds blocks, each block is 6" finished. The blocks are made using hand dyed wools, linens, silk velvets, linen and velvet ribbons and rick rack. It has been quite a challenge to learn all the embellishing stitches, use new embellishing threads and re-learn needle turn appliqué. Needle turn appliqué is definitely not my most favorite technique. Valdani #8 perle cotton, sea grass, silken pearl, Razzle, Dazzle are some of the embellishing thread used for the Bird Dance blocks.

I have placed blocks 1 - 21 on my design wall in the order I think they will be in the finished quilt.

Madeline Island School for the Arts

I just returned from a fabulous week at Madeline Island School of the Arts in La Pointe, Wisconsin.
Five days with Sue Spargo exploring Contemporary Folk Art: Small Embellishment Studies. Sue is absolutely inspiring and generously shares her knowledge of wool appliqué embellishment.


I really got a good start on my Tree of Life, but there is still a lot of embellishing to complete. The tree, approximately 14" by 18", is appliquéd on silk Matka. My plan is to use my Dad's, John ( my brother-in-law) and Uncle Henry's silk ties, wool from John's sports coat, vintage silk which was purchased when my parents traveled to Japan in 1962 plus velvets from clothes sewn by Lucie and myself.

My First Cruise

I am back from my first cruise. I went on a 7 day quilting cruise to Alaska on Holland America. On the "at sea days" I took wool appliqué classes with Sue Spargo. I started embellishing circles which I hope one day will be a pillow.

Birthday Quilt for Marcie

I started a quilt for Marcie in 1996 but I never finished the quilt. When I remodeled my sewing room in 2012, I found the blocks and I really wanted to finish the quilt. Marcie found a kitten in 1993 and she named it Ari. I picked the fabrics based on Ari's coloring. I made the label on my Bernina 780. The quilt is machine quilted by Jessica Jones Gamez



Ari

New York Autumn

I made this queen size quilt for my cousin Deb who lives in Pavilion New York. I the quilt was machine quilted by Jessica Jones Gamez. Quilt designed by Jenny Foltz for Wing and Prayer.


The quilt label was stitched on my Bernina 780.