Thanks for......

Reruns!  That's what I'm doing--rerunning a photo from last year.  My turkey was so pretty that I thought I'd just get a little more mileage from the photo.

Okay, okay, the truth: We had our family Thanksgiving gathering tonight, but I cooked a pork roast and Will cooked fried a turkey.  However, there was so much commotion and craziness in my house that I forgot to take pictures.  So, I am forced to reuse last year's picture.  Hey I do have an excuse: my last Thanksgiving turkey was SO much prettier than Will's turkey tonight.  I know, without a picture, it's my word against his.  His fried turkey does taste better (a tiny little bit) but it's not exactly healthy, nor is it pretty.  Let's just say it has to be served already carved with, uhm, crispy pieces removed.  

In other words it was a typical Thanksgiving feast at our house....noisy, exhausting, delicious, fattening, and wonderfully blessed.   There are so many people and reasons to be thankful that I'll simply close with a prayer that you and your family feel as blessed and as grateful.

Another Pin It Wednesday

I'm supposed to be cleaning house and cooking, so this post will have to be a bit shorter than usual.  The kids and in-laws are coming for supper.  We're celebrating Thanksgiving today since everyone can come tonight.  Waiting till tomorrow means missing out on a couple of family members and we can't have that!

I was getting worried that I'm spending too much time on Pinterest.  While pinning yesterday, I took note of some other pinners' stats.  It was just for my own curiosity, of course.  Well, I discovered that I'm a bit of an underachiever when it comes to Pinterest!  Whew, that's a nice discovery.  

Enjoy these pins of a variety of visual arts.....

One of the problems with Pinterest is that people can load photographs from anywhere and include no information or the wrong information.  Choosing pins is fun and easy, unless like me, you tend to want the photographs to be captioned correctly. 


I've had to give up on this.  At first I would add comments with information I knew to be correct.  That is a battle I lost the day I began it.  Now, I choose carefully the pins I will add to my own boards and edit when I just can't take the comments.

I do enjoy looking at the photographs, and I've found them to be a great way to add artworks to my lessons.  My days of teaching fine art survey are long gone, but I still hold on to the appreciation I developed while teaching the masters.  That's a gain I hope to hold on to for a long, long time!  

Are you a pinner?  If so, leave a comment with your Pinterest address so we can come for a visit.  I can be found here.

The real meaning of "blue Monday"

has more to do with the color blue than the feeling of blue.  By that I mean that today's blue is the color of the sky and sea.  The quilt top that I finished today has been hanging on the design wall for months, no kidding.  It's looked just like this except when I needed the design wall and moved it to a basket.


I'd used the design wall, then stick the poor quilt parts back on.  Every time I did, I moved them around so I could look at the different settings, but nothing really spoke to me, so I'd put everything back in the original order.  


I'd almost given up when Angie came for a visit and saw the pieces and complimented it.  She really liked the center medallion fleur de lis.  That reminded me of a couple of other compliments that I've gotten, one from my sister Laura who visited in the summer.  Yep, it's been that long.  


Okay, so it was time to get moving on this baby before it ended up in a shelved basket.  Quilts in shelved baskets get forgotten, or worse.

On Friday I decided that the pieces knew their setting, so I sewed them to the center.

I need a few more pieces and worked on those on Saturday.  I even made a few pieces that didn't get used!  Would you understand if I said I just didn't know what this quilt was thinking?  That's what it felt like.  I'd make a section and put it on the wall, but the quilt would say no.  Off they came.  Tossed to the side.  And on it went.

Today, I decided to stop that business.  It wasn't working anyway.   The whole "Sand and Sun" collection is centered around this fabric with the circle shapes, so I wrapped up the center with a wide border of this fabric.  

Dad's home!

Guess what?  I LOVE IT!  I was beginning to take pictures when the phone rang and I had to rush to a grandchild.  Stacey  and Will 's children do not handle needles...at all.  Dusti has bronchitis and got a shot, then passed out and knocked her head on something.  Stacey doesn't handle one drop of blood but she managed to stop throwing up long enough to call me. 

Jolie's attempt to cheer up
Dusti, who refused a picture.

Thus my trip to the ER.  Everyone is okay, Dusti has a concussion and Stacey an upset stomach, but Will managed to get home tonight to tend to his family.  That means that I may be able to load this quilt top tomorrow and begin stitching it.  I hope so....I'm really anxious to see it finished.

Sunday Quilt Inspiration

Last Sunday's quilt inspiration post was so popular that I thought I'd repeat the idea.  These pictures are more of those I took while in Houston at Quilt Festival.  Enjoy!

I think that I had a theme going last week, but honestly, I'm just happy to have an easy post tonight.  We spent the day with Rory, Meggan, Caki and Sophie.  Playing in the park, window shopping for Christmas, and general fun all wore us out a bit.  Then we did all the shopping for this week's holiday meals and came home just in time to cook for Adam, Jenny and Marley.  

 I love the look of this quilt.  It is one of my favorites because of the applique flowers and the scroll stems and leaves.  I'm really into scrolls and flowers right now and have had a few great ideas for quilts.  Ah, if only I could get all those ideas out of my head and onto a quilt!

 

 I hope you enjoyed this quilt inspiration Sunday.   I'm already inspired to get into the studio tomorrow.  I have the entire week off for Thanksgiving!  Yay!
Happy Quilting,
Mary

HST Tutorial

I made a sofa quilt for a young man in one of my English classes.  I spoke to Daniel today and he begins chemo in a few days.  Again, please keep him in your prayers. 

The quilt is made entirely from half square triangles, so I thought I'd take a few pictures and write a tutorial on the process.


I used my Accuquilt Studio cutter to cut six inch squares from various blues and some whites.  The cutter is fast and easy and, most importantly, accurate.  I could have cut the squares using my rotary cutter, but I'm not as fast or as accurate as the cutter. 

 Once I had a nice stack of squares, I drew a diagonal line on each of the white squares using a ruler and pencil.  Then I chain stitched 1/4th inch from on one side, turned the entire chain around and sewed the other side, exactly 1/4th inch from the line.


After cutting the squares apart, I used the rotary cutter and ruler to cut the square in half exactly on the line.  

It's always a good idea to press the block so that the seam lies flat against the darker side.  In these photos, I used a dark thread so that the seams would show, but in reality I used a grayish blue in a medium tone.  My intent was that the lighter tone would fade into the darker whites (I used 3 or 4 different shades of white or off white) and blend well with the medium blues.

This photo shows several blocks after pressing.  Note that the corners are not trimmed.  I supposed I should have trimmed those, but I did not find that they added a great deal of bulk to the quilt.  

Although I do have a triangle die that trims off these corners, I chose to use the square so that I would not have to worry as much about the diagonal seams.  I'm a bit of a speed demon and was afraid I would pull or tug on the fabric and cause it to stretch.  Since accuracy is a problem--thanks to my speed--I didn't want to cause myself additional grief by stretching the fabric.

Once I had a slew of blocks cut, I decided to play a bit with the setting.  Really, I was just playing because I'd already decided on my setting.  Still, it's fun to play a bit.  Here are a few setting choices that I came up with:

squares

diagonal lines which could be
set on point for straight lines

straight setting--the one I used

zig zag or streak of lighting

barn raising

diamonds which could also be set on point to change the direction of the diamond

Hope you enjoyed my tutorial on half square triangles.  I did have fun making the quilt and playing with the blocks.  Imagine how much fun it would have been to play with no idea of what I would do with the setting!  Now that's an idea to keep in mind.  Knowing that it took me only four days, I started Friday and finished on Monday, adds to the joy.  I love quick gratification and this little quilt definitely allowed for that.
Happy Quilting,
Mary

Daniel's Quilt.....as promised

One of my students is a young man who found out only a month or so ago that he has cancer.  Two surgeries later and he is now facing the possibility of chemotherapy or radiation.  Although he went through surgery well and is okay now, he's not back at school nor is he expected back very soon.  

I've been quite worried about him and have been praying for him.  I've even asked his classmates to pray for him, especially on the day that Daniel had surgery.  We've signed some large poster paper "cards" with lots of well-wishes.  I wanted to do something else, though.  Daniel is such a sweet young man--quiet and hard-working and stoic.  He's handling his illness very well and has proven to me that 17 year olds can handle the toughest news with grace and strength.  

So, wanting to do more, I asked the kids to bring in school tee shirts, but that really didn't go over very well.  I gave up the tee shirt quilt idea and decided to make him a quilt using some of the many blues in my stash.  

That's the quilt pictured here.  I plan to deliver it in a few days, but first his classmates will have a chance to write well-wishes and sign it.  Definitely I want to deliver it before the Thanksgiving holidays begin.  I am sure that if he does have an additional therapy, it will begin soon and I'd like for him to have this quilt before that begins.  

a close up photo

showing two corners of the back....I used some color but
also some white so we can have more room for signatures.

Please leave a comment telling me what you think of the quilt and, more importantly, please say a prayer or two for Daniel. I'll pass along the prayers and wishes.

Noticed the little paws on the bottom edge of the quilt?
Those little Maltese stinkers make it difficult to do anything on the floor.

Happy Quilting,
Mary

Sunday Quilt Inspiration

Since I still have some unposted photos from the Houston Quilt Show, I thought I'd share a few to help inspire you for the week.  I've already started a project that I'm trying like crazy to finish tomorrow.  

It's a surprise for someone special, so I'm not going to reveal it till it's done and delivered, but I could probably use some inspiration to get one of those UFO's moved back to the front of the line.  There's a UFO on my design wall that's been there for a while, and I surely need to finish that up soon!

 Okay, enough about my silliness.  Here are some Houston quilts that should fire up some brain cells!

Most are blue ribbon winners, and I'm posting a full quilt photo followed by a close up or two.  

Hope you enjoy!

I tried to take lots of photos of any flowers that I could find.  I was very busy!  One reason for all the photos is that I love to applique flowers and am always looking for ideas.  I figured this would be a great way to find inspiration.....oh, wait, tonight is YOUR inspiration.  Well then, let's continue, shall we?  Here are a few more of those stunning quilts and their flower smiles.

There now, don't you feel inspired?  I know I do!
Happy Quilting,
Mary