BLUE X TWO

At long last I have completed these two baby quilt tops! Last post I showed a corner of the above quilt, but, as you can see I changed the corners. I loved the Friendship Stars so much, and I happened to have several, so I took the 4-patch blocks out of the corners of this quilt and added stars. It would have been fine if I hadn't seen the stars, but I am happier with this. What do you think? Oh, and humility blocks have been discovered and will remain as they are.

The second little quilt quickly became my favorite. Those darn little stars did the trick! Now for the quilting!

A side note to my last blog post, I received a comment from Karen Dianne who reminded me that she sews in her kitchen and has her fabric stored in the pantry! Go check out her blog and see her pretty pantry! (And her progress on her Indian Paintbrush quilt, which she re-named to suit herself. Imagine!)

Have a happy scrappy day!

QUILT CLUTTER

Well, it finally happened. My sewing room is such a mess that I can't work in it any longer, and I have moved my sewing machine to the kitchen. I have actually had it in the kitchen for a couple of weeks, and I keep saying that as soon as I finish this project I will clean up the kitchen table AND my sewing room! But, like the nervous tic that has developed in my husband's right eye, this project just won't go away! (Yes, he has been patient, but has trouble with clutter. How have we lasted 40 years together? He travels a lot!)

The project? Well, you may recall the 4-patch quilt I showed a while back. I decided that I wanted to do a cute little border to make it unique among 4-patch quilts. So on to EQ6 for a little design help. After auditioning borders, I decided to add a few flying geese. Have you ever tried the paper pieced flying geese? I bought these Sew and Fold on a Roll a while back, from the makers of Triangles on a Roll. You pre-cut all the pieces and just Sew and Fold! It is pretty slick.
The above photo shows one corner of the quilt with the flying geese. The opposite corner looks like this as well, and the other two just have 4-patches in the corners. This quilt is for my nephew's new baby boy, but his broher is also having a baby boy in September. So, since I already had all the scraps out for this quilt, I decided to make another 4-patch quilt for the next baby. The top went together quickly, since I had leftover pieces from quilt #1. I was pretty pleased with myself, feeling well ahead of the game. I went back to EQ6 for another border idea and decided on one that I liked. The second quilt will have little Friendship Stars in the border.

Since I am working in the kitchen, I snapped a photo of all the little stars in the cabinet with a few blue items that I display there. Now I am feeling so proud of myself for getting this far! I sew the little stars into strips for the border and lay them around the quilt. That is when I realize that I meant to have white stars with blue background. As you can see from the photo with the flying geese, the geese are white and the background is blue. It just flows better with the blue squares that make up the rest of the border. So AAAKKK!
More cutting, more sewing and more pressing and here come more stars. Only this time they are white with blue background. Yes, they are still in progress. Yes, the kitchen is still Sewing Central, and yes, I now feel it is necessary to increase the Prozac doses that I have been sprinkling on my husband's cereal each morning.

Will she ever get back to the sewing room? Well, I am not going to tell you to tune in next time, I am not that optimistic! But I will return with a report of something!

Have a happy scrappy day!

WESTWARD HO

My daughter and her family just moved from Minnesota to Missoula, MT. I wonder if we will ever go back to Minnesota now? We raised our family there and really love Minnesota. But when it comes down to travel, I will always go where my kids are. So look out Montana, you just never know when Grandma Mousie will show up!

This picture is so typical of scenes I have enjoyed while driving across America. I picked it off my daughter's family blog, so am not actually sure who took the picture. (Lisa?) Anyway, I love it!

I think they are going to love Missoula. They have deer in their yard every day. Polly said there is a doe with two fauns. They are thrilled to see them so up-close and tame. Their neighbors said they will soon get sick of them. Neighbors have a big tall fence to keep them out of their yard. She said the doe actually brought the fauns to Polly's yard over the summer, when the house was vacant and used the fenced backyard as a playpen while she ran errands, or whatever momma does do. Haha. That looks funny "does do". I am easily amused. Neighbor also said that when the doe was ready to give birth she layed down in the flower bed in her front yard and produced two little fauns. In her front yard! Imagine!

My 16 year old granddaughter has her room in the finished basement. She sleeps with the window up to let the air in at night, and she has been hearing strange noises outside. She said it freaks her out. She hears moving around and heavy breathing. She thought there was a man outside her window. Turns out it was deer munching on the grass by her window. There are other funny stories as well, like the woman washing her cow with a hose as they were driving by. That was new to them!

I haven't shown a quilt for a while, so I thought I better post something to prove that this is still a blog about quilting! This quilt is a Buggy Barn pattern that was in American Patchwork and Quilting Best Quilt Shops issue several years ago. I always enjoy those issues and "visiting" various shops around the country.

Have a happy, scrappy day!

PURCHASING POWER THROUGH PAYPAL, etc

I am excited to announce that I have finally added PayPal to my website! Being fairly computer inept, I needed someone to give me encouragement and walk me through it. Once again Karen, our Sew Primitive gal, came to my rescue. I have already had a few orders, and it works like magic! Just click on a button and you can pay with a credit card and PayPal handles the details. Silly me, I thought it was going to be a big deal! NO BIG DEAL!

Also, if you click over to Karen's blog you can see a beautiful quilt that a customer at Little Quilts made with my Williamsburg Medallion pattern! By the way, Karen has designed some darling punch-needle patterns that she is selling on her website, Folkart Children And if you haven't seen her Primitive Children, you really must take a look. The girl has talent!

Last week my son came for a visit. He is living, working, and going to school in Provo, UT, and doesn't get out to the East Coast very often. It was great having him here. I know he was bored silly at least part of the time, but that is the price you have to pay when you are young and you go visit "old-timers". On Monday he and I drove to Jamestown to see the sights. We visited the museum there, which is quite wonderful. Also, there is a replica of a small Indian village. The first picture, above, shows us inside a hut with a big bear skin hanging on the wall behind us. There were many furs on the walls and sleeping cots. Very authentic!

The ship is a model of the Susan B. Constant, one of the three ships that sailed from England in 1607. They actually came ashore right down the road from where I live. When they found the James River (I am sure the Indians didn't call it that) they sailed up it and established a fort at what later became Jamestown. Both named after King James, of course.

We went on board the ship and walked around. Let me tell you it is so small! Those poor people were on board for four months!!! A year ago my friend, Joan, loaned me a really good book written by one of the descendants of a Jamestown family. The book is Dark Enough to see the Stars in a Jamestown Sky, by Connie Lapallo. I tired to order it from Amazon, but they didn't have it. I was so pleased to be able to find it in one of the gift shops up there. I had to have my own copy! The book tells the story of the women and children and how they survived (or didn't). Very interesting!

So that was my excitement for the week. Next post I promise something quilty. I have been sewing! Until then, have a happy, scrappy day!

THE APRON REVISITED

Here she is, my darling granddaughter, displaying her culinary expertise in her new apron. You have to admit that it looks cuter on her than on the hanger! Becky is a testament as to what can be accomplished in a college dormitory kitchen! We mostly call her Becky, but when she was about five years old she decided that she wanted to be called "Becksterama the Cool One", and that kind of stuck. Well, at least the "Beckster" part stuck. But you have to admit, she is a "Cool One"! You can tell she is shy, can't you? Ha!

While Mrs. Goodneedle and Cheryl at Polka Dots and Rick Rack, are enjoying the thrill of new grandbabies in their families, I have to admit that "old" grandbabies are quite awesome as well!

On another note, Lyn, at Welcome to Bluebird Quilts, is looking for a name for a lovely blue and white quilt that she made. She is asking for suggestions, and giving a prize to the winning name. Go visit her and be sure to scroll back and see this quilt as it progresses. The quilting on it is wonderful too!

My youngest son has been here visiting for the past few days, so more on that later!

Have a happy day!

SHADE YOUR EYES, I'M BRILLIANT

Who is this cute girl, you may be asking? Well, her name is Karen, from Short Story Long, and she blogs from Colorado. I don't know much about her, but I can tell you she likes RED, which gives us immediate common ground. Also, she just awarded me the Brilliante award that you now see glowing on my sidebar. So she is cute and has an apparent degree of discernment. She also has three little boys who are quite accident prone, as little boys are wont to be. I have heard that the emergency room at her local hospital has a daily appointment set for her family and once in a while she calls to say they won't be in that day. She is also a quilter, but frankly, when does a mother of three have the luxury of sitting down long enough for something like that? Go visit her and see what I mean!

So thank you Karen, for the very nice compliment of this award. I have so many brilliant blogger friends out there that I can't really chose, and I think if you read my blog you must be brilliant!

Now if I may, I feel the need to interject the fact that I have several Karens who are kind enough to leave me comments, and I am having a heck of a time determining who is who. Would it be too much to ask you to add an initial or part of your blog title to you name? Say maybe, "Primitive Karen", or "Short Karen", or "LC Karen", etc. Just a thought.

Have a happy day!

THE APRON HAS LANDED!

You may recall that my granddaughter is attending BYU in Provo, Utah. She is pictured here hard at work in the school library. Oh that girl!

Well, her long awaited apron finally arrived! She also needed silverware, pots and pans, etc. So Grandma packed a very heavy box. The post office wanted $35 bucks to mail it Priority, so I opted for the $20 road trip. She loves the apron, and I finally get to show it off on my blog. Such fun! This is apron #3 that I have made, and each one gets constructed better than the last. The first one I made according to package directions. The second one I faced the bib and shoulder strap, and top stitched the bias binding. For this one I added a little more ruffle, along with the other improvements. Also, I skipped the bias binding and added tiny rick-rack. Isn't it very 1940's?

If you missed the first two aprons, they are pictured HERE, in another post.

Have a happy day! ~Marcie

A LITTLE SPAM WITH YOUR BLOG?

Did anyone have a little SPAM problem yesterday? Yvonne, at Quilting Down the Stairs. e-mailed me first thing in the morning to alert me that my blog was not opening. Is that sweet or what? I opened my blog, and sure enough, it was frozen. I looked to Google Help, and they were already on it. Apparently it had to do with spam. It was all back in order very quickly. I thought that was pretty impressive. Kudos to the BLOGGER TEAM, wherever they are! (I know they are out there)! So on that note, Google has also presented us with a delightful assortment of SPAM recipes. Dig in, there is plenty to go around!

Coconut Beer Batter Spam with Raspberry Horse
Creamy Spam Broccoli Casserole
Cricket's Spam Quiche
Delicious and 'Good For You' SPAM Salad
Easy Spam Triangles
French Fry Spam Casserole
Gingered Spam Salad
Healthy Spam Peppers
Savory Spam Crescents
Spam A La King
Spam Ala Gary
Spam Ala Gary
Spam Breakfast Burritos
Spam Broccoli Pecan Salad
Spam Confetti Pasta
Spam Denver Biscuit Souffle
Spam Fajitas
Spam Hashbrown Bake
Spam Hashbrown Bake
Spam Hot And Spicy Stir-Fry
Spam Hot Vegetable Salad Sandwiches
Spam Imperial Tortilla Sandwiches
Spam Meal In A Bundle
Spam Primavera

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