Home Again

One of my friends had to get some tests done at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester so I volunteered to accompany her. What trip is complete without a quilt shop? There was a Hancock's with a 60% off sale just down the street from our hotel. I got the fabrics in the photo . I think I exercised quite a bit of restraint!


The next stop was TJ Maxx where there was also a mega sale going on. I got a new suitcase for our trip to Australia, two bathing suits and some running shoes (not that I run...). I thought I was finished shopping when I spied this leather bag. I know, I have dozens of bags but this one was too beautiful to pass up. The back is the same without the butterfly. The price was right so it came home with me.
We drove home just before a big ice storm in Rochester and a predicted blizzard here that didn't actually amount to much. It's good to be home.

Australia

Today I booked tickets to go to Australia at the end of February. We will be there for a month. We will be taking our 13 year old granddaughter along so she can spend time with her cousins over there. Pretty good Christmas present for all of us I'd say. The picture was taken at Red Rock, NSW, where our daughter lives, when we went there a few years ago.

My Day So Far...

Going out to eat this evening so at least I won't have to cook any more today. Tomorrow will be another story.

The Sky is Falling

I am making the words "The Sky is Falling" for this piece. After I made the and sky I realized it would look better with the first two words up in the sky and the last two down in the grass. I'll need to make a few more houses too because is falling will be longer than the two houses that are already made.

Practise

I wanted to learn how to make words and to space letters properly so I made this Christmas apron. It's not 100% but for a first attempt it's not too bad. Actually, it's my second attempt. The first one ended up in the garbage.

Decision Made

I got a couple of pieces of fabric in town today but in the end I liked the dark hand dyed fabric the best. I may take out some paintsticks and fabric paint to do a bit of embellishing on it when it's all put together. The sashing looks a bit heavy. Maybe I should have made it narrower. I could also quilt it with silver thread and draw stars and other celestial things on it. I'm not sure how well the metalic thread will work on the quilting machine. It goes very fast...

Hand Dyes

I have lots of hand dyed fabric left over and it's snow dyeing season once again so I thought I'd start another quilt to use up some of it. I have been waffling over the sashing. I think this one is too dark. I don't have enough of the dotted fabric from the last one. I may have to break down and buy some new fabric. I saw a blue with gold stars that might work...
Meanwhile I made a couple of chicken houses. I am thinking of making words to go with them. Maybe "The Sky is Falling" since these chickens look a bit freaked out.

Dragon

Yesterday was girls' day out. I went to the big city with three friends. We had a wonderful Indian meal and an afternoon of shopping. Fun, fun.
Today I made another embroidery while I was loading the hand dye quilt on the frame. I didn't have the exact colors suggested so I used variegated thread for the wings, tail and feet. I wonder what I'll do with all these embroideries? Maybe that's what everyone will get for Christmas.

Piecing Done

I finished piecing this one this morning and now I am dyeing a big piece of fabric blue for the backing. I didn't have anything on hand that really matched the front and there isn't enough of the black and white print to do the back. I'm hoping to get it loaded on the frame later this afternoon.

And Two More Word Quilts

Words and houses just seem to go together. I should have used a darker color for the letters so there would be more contrast, making them easier to read.


This one was for my two Australian grandsons. "Reve" means "Dream" in French. Hence the quote at the bottom.

Another Start

I am still practising away at my embroidery. I did these ones in Christmas colors. I'm still not sure what I'll do with them. Maybe they need a bit of lace around them to become table mats or something like that. They are fairly small.


I needed something easy to work on while stopping and starting to tend to the embroidery machine so I started this one using some of my huge stash of hand dyed fabrics. Some blocks are embellished with paint sticks and a couple have batik stars.

More Letters

Here is another quilt with words and free pieced animals. It was my first attempt at lower case letters. This is another one I would have a hard time selling or giving away. It's a strange looking horse and a very large goose but kids all love this quilt.

Word Quilts

Because Tonya's new book, Word Play Quilts is being released soon, people have been posting pictures of quilts made using her techniques. Here are a few of mine.


On this one I tried words without spaces between the letters.


This one of the chickens is my favorite. There aren't many words on it but the chickens and the fox are all pieced using the same techniques. It was probably the most difficult quilt I ever did!


I love the words on this one but never liked the landscape. I probably should have taken the word border off and done something else with it but I did finish it.

More Embroidery Practise

While my new machine was working away at this,


I finished quilting this. Now to find some black for the binding. Unfortunately, I'm out of the blue and black dotted fabric.

Musical Mice

Today while playing with my new sewing machine, or I guess waiting while the new sewing machine did its thing, I finished quilting Musical Mice.


Here it is from the back. While watching TV this evening I got half way around the hand sewing of the binding. There's nothing like multi-tasking.

FIrst Embroidery

Here is my first stab at embroidery on the new machine. No fingers were stabbed in the process, unlike when I try hand embroidery. There are only two mistakes. The blue missing at the bottom left is where I ran out of bobbin thread but didn't know what the flashing light was indicating. The brown at the top left is where I started over with another color, not realizing I was done. Moral: Don't work on two machines at the same time until you know them both. I was quilting on the frame while waiting to change colors on this one.