Tea Party!

One of my best friends calls me her sister friend. (Isn't that just a loving endearment?) Leta's daughter is getting married in less than a month. Today was one of her bridal showers. Since Jules (her nickname) loved to play tea party when she was a little girl--her late grandmother was a true Southern Lady--Leta decided to have a tea party theme. 

The ladies of her church prepared a variety of tea party foods, I loaned a few of my rose decorated dishes, and a couple of other friends pitched in to decorate and prepare. 

Leta (mom) and Jules (bride to be)

The beautiful decorations created a lovely, fun party atmosphere for a bridal shower. Having it right after Easter means that there were lots of fresh "yard" flowers in bloom to create bouquets for the tables. However, the weather was downright cranky: cold and windy, then cold and wet, then miserable. 

Still, we had a wonderful, cozy time dressed in summery dresses and sandals with light sweaters. So very perfect for a spring tea party. Packing the dishes and linens to the truck proved that getup to be a little skimpy in the rain and wind, but I survived. 

Oh, one more thing: remember the bunting that I made a couple of weeks ago? That little project for this party.

I love having friends who are there for each other. Leta and I have been through many years of laughter, fun, tears, heartache, and friendship. I know I can always count on her. And I am committed to being there for her anytime she needs. Happily most of her calls are for help with a fun project, but I love her no matter what she calls for.

Who is the friend that you can call no matter the circumstance?

Scratch that list!

I love lists. Well, I love scratching things off a "To Do" list, anyway. My list for this week was getting rather long. In fact, I was forgetting some of the items that needed to be added to the list. 

You know how it goes: you have something in the back of your mind, you need the something now, but it's not happening. I do that pretty often. It's my main reason for having a list. 
   
In fact without a list, I will do 100 other things--none of them important or necessary. That ADD will get me every time. Some time ago I found this To Do app for my phone. I really like that I can use it in several ways. Mostly I use it to help me stay focused. 

In the screen shot above, there are actually two lists. On the left side is the list I looked at this morning. On the right side is the list tonight. I managed to strike off four items today. Yay!

Of course there are times when electronics just won't cut it. Those are the times for "old school" apps: pencil and paper. When I work on a quilt, I write notes and pin them to the quilt block(s) or strips. I'm not very neat but that doesn't matter. What matters is that I have paper and pencil/marker/pen close at hand and use them. 

I find that keeping a notepad near my worktable doesn't work: I lose it. Instead, I just tear off pieces from any paper that is handy. I recycle, sure, but mostly it's fast and easy. Those scraps in the picture above are the actual notes that I wrote and pinned to the last quilt I made.

The first item on my To Do list for today is to make Leta's bunting. It's for a tea party shower that she is helping with. I agreed to make the bunting and have put it off waiting for her to get back to me. Well, no more. It worried me that I'd forget completely. So today was THE DAY. And here it is.

A couple of the items that I crossed off I can't show you. Just believe that I ordered my medicine. :) Oh and I really did log on and change my password. Easy, quick, done!

And this is the last that I accomplished today. Two members of our guild donated this lovely quilt to be sold (or raffled) to raise money for future projects. My job as president, was to pick up the quilt,  add a hanging sleeve to the back, and display it in the local museum. Hopefully the extra traffic that they get during an annual Easter festival will bring in a buyer. 

 I managed to get the sleeve stitched on yesterday and brought it to the museum today. Luckily, the lady who works at the museum is very accommodating and helped me in hanging it.

Since I've played with Google photos for an hour now, trying unsuccessfully, to create an animation for tonight's post, I'm going to call it a night. Here's hoping your day was at least as productive.

Halloween Hauntings

This entire week seems to have been the week of last minutes. You know, the kind of requests that are from crazy other people and are needed Right. Now. Please!  

It started with Jenny's needing a hand-decorated tee shirt for Marley. It ended with Grandmay being said hand-decorator. Tuesday they started looking at Pinterest ideas. They needed it today for a school contest. 

Marley wanted something in this vein, so Wednesday Jen picked up some Halloween fabric in a deep purple with spiders. 

Making the m was relatively stressful easy using my ruler to make sure I got the wide letter they wanted. I simply ironed on a bit of fusible web, cut out the letter and pressed it onto the shirt so that I could easily stitch it down. It was finished with a day to spare. The end result is pretty good, except that Marley demanded wanted a girly bow. Marley got a &*O% red bow and everyone is happy.

Sorry that you really can't see the shirt because of the bunting. That was last night's project--in preparation for the hayride planned for Monday night's trick or treating. Note: again, Grandmay is ahead of the game.


Jen bought a panel of Halloween bunting pieces. At first I had plans to sew a backing to the individual bunting pieces, but I decided to just cut them apart and sew them to double fold bias tape. 

I happened to have a four yard pack of orange. Not enough. So I added some green. It doesn't work so well, but this is a one-time use project, and they were thrilled with the outcome. They are easy to please, aren't they?

It's one very long banner of about 5 yards, so decorating a trailer may be challenging, but we already have an idea or two that may work. 


Tonight Dusti and her boyfriend showed up for a few minutes with a quick request: Grandmay, I need a tee shirt that looks like "Thing 1" for work tomorrow. What!?! Are you serious? So much for staying ahead.


Luckily, she meant she had the tee shirt and an iron on and needed an iron. And an ironer. But being the ironer was not a big deal after the shock of thinking that she wanted me to sew a shirt tonight. I think she may have suckered played me, but I can't say for certain.

I'll leave you with pictures of a few of the Jack-O-Lanterns that students painted for the annual contest at school. They are in a display case in the art classroom, so the pictures are a bit blurred, but you can see enough to know that our students are pretty artistic and resourceful. (And maybe a bit competitive.)

What have you been doing to prepare for Halloween? 

Join me in linking up with

Amanda Jean at Crazy Mom Quilts

Busy Hands Quilts for Finished or Not Fridays and TGIFF

Fort Worth Fabric Studio

Baby Bunting ~~ Finish!

Another finish! This one is a small baby quilt. Well, average size: 45" x 45" is not so small. 

There's no particular reason for the quilt except that I wanted to use my new Studio dies in the Drunkard's Path design. Remember that last summer I made up some quilt kits to sew while we were on vacation? This is one. 

I sewed for a while when we spent a day resting at one of the parks in Michigan. My idea was to get as many blocks completed as possible while we were stopped but I didn't get very far before we moved on. At the next stop I wanted to work on something different. 

At least I'd gotten enough blocks together for a baby quilt, which I put together once we returned home. Last week, I quilted it and love the design. The moment I got this design while playing on the design wall, I knew it was the one. It makes me think of bunting, especially when it's turned so that the pointed corners are pointing downward. 

To quilt it, I stitched feathers in the scrappy pieces and echo quilting in the soft white pieces. I did not expect to have to make quite as many connections as I did, but in the end I'm satisfied. 

This is one pretty little quilt. I didn't worry about whether fabrics were too close--and they are in places--I just threw it together and had fun. What fun-filled scrappiness are you into this week?

	Quilt Stats
Name:	Baby Bunting (Scrap Quilt)
Size:	45” x 45”
Fabrics:	Scrap fabrics; Stash fabrics-- Kona natural white
Backing:	purple from stash
Binding:	Drunkard’s Path
Pattern:	Baby Bunting (Scrap Quilt)
Quilting:	Free Motion Quilting
Completed:	September 2016

Linking up with

Em's Scrap Bag 
Fort Worth Fabric Studio 
Kelly at My Quilt Infatuation
A Quilting Reader's Garden
Amanda Jean at Crazy Mom Quilts

Pin It Weekly #158

I've been pinning a few things this week, but very few since I've been in New Orleans for Beta Convention. I took a few pictures and hope to have those ready for you in a day or two. 

Here's what I've been pinning: a few random quilts and old buildings

And lots of banners and bunting...

You can find these and about 50 more pins like them on my NEW  "bunting, strings" Pinterest board. Have a great week of pinning.

Pin It Weekly #152

Check out these cute summer dresses and shorts!

These pins are all over the place. Mostly I've just been vegging out and looking at things that may (or may not) be of great interest. Find something--pin it.  Find nothing--move on. Easy squeezy!

Have a great end-of-school-year! We're down to two weeks with EOC's starting tomorrow. (Say a little prayer for my kiddos, please.)