When you Wish upon a Star...

To those of you who I am not married to - let me explain about my husband and his gift buying issues. See - I will give out ideas all year round - especially in the fall - of things that I would like and DH will hear them but not retain them, so right before Christmas he will want me to come up with a list. Of course I cannot remember all those great ideas I had throughout the year, or where I saw them, and so we go round and round every year.

This year I told him I would post my wishes on my blog - even post links where I have them - and tag them with a WISHES label so come Christmas shopping time (which for DH is often December 24th!) he could sort out the list and get some ideas.

So here's my first one... a quilting calculator.

He has one for wood -I could use one for fabric, since I am very often winging it on the fly, and either coming up short or way overbuying.

If you have used one of these, or know of a better vendor or price, let me know. He'd appreciate the feedback.

Merry Christmas in July!

Momma's Little Quilter??

The munchkin thinks that my quilting rulers make great tracks for his trains - or templates for him to practice his counting on.

Just so long as I get them back - and he realizes they are mommy's toys and not his, I think we can all get along.

Not your Momma's "Little Black Bag"

I tried to work on the baby quilt yesterday - really I did - but the heat was frying my brain and I screwed up the first seam... so I put it aside and worked on something a bit less strenuous.

My son is very fascinated by numbers right now, so I picked this fabric for him. This was a free pattern from Leisure Arts and is supposed to feature their purse handles and have interchangeable handles on a reversible bag. I chose to make the fabric handles, but liked the look of the loops and d-rings, so I kept that in.

It is reversible, but I think I will keep the numbers out where the munchkin can see them. And next time I make one -reversible or not- I think I will add some pockets.

Nice to be appreciated...

The Orange Brick Road quilt was given as a graduation present - and the graduate and her family were at our house on July 4th. Her mom made a point of telling me how special she felt the quilt was, and how it was nice that I gave a gift of something that would be treasured and kept forever. She was also amazed at how I took school colors of orange and brown (which always made her think either YUK or HALLOWEEN) and turned them into something beautiful.

It felt good to hear that...

Every quilt I make is a fabric hug - but sometimes I get hugged in return with comments like that.

Quilting on the 4th of July ...is becoming a habit

OK - that bag of blocks can reappear now, because I punted... I found a few scraps and was able to construct 3 blocks which went into the baby quilt and the others moved into the pink one (why? because when you are making a quilt for the person who taught you how - you don't want the one block with the fabric that appears NO WHERE ELSE in either quilt because you just needed that little square and had to bring in an outside scrap just to get it done - you want it to be "perfect"...)

All the components are ready to assemble -but with July 4th at hand and a house full of 28 people because our outdoor picnic moved inside due to rain - I decided the baby can wait... I did have the strips spread out on my bed to show a friend though - it looks AWESOME! I cannot wait to finish this one!

Here is what I was sewing the morning of our July 4th picnic LAST year...(look behind the munchkin on the swing)

I taught a class at my dining room table, and this is what I made while I taught it. I machine sewed the binding the morning of July 4th because I wanted it on the swing and just ran out of time - even though I prefer to hand finish my bindings. It is a great summer weight quilt and came inside onto the sofa for yesterday's picnic. The munchkin has now discovered "brankets" and loves to curl up on the sofa or floor and figure out how to cover himself up.