Pages

Monday, August 29, 2011

I have been working on a few quilts,
 but nothing to show yet.
I did finish Dana's wedding quilt, washed, dried and crinkled.

I wish I had of had a little more border fabric.  I think the border would look better if it was an inch or two wider.  Other than that I am very pleased with how it turned out.








Now with a little help from my assistant.
He is the little bump on the left side.



Label on the back....notice the date?
 Yep, I'm  late.  Maybe I can deliver it before
their one month anniversary.




And the back.  Yep, my little assistant is still under there.  If this were a video you would be able to hear him giggling.


I missed Whoop Whoop Friday and I have no progress on my UFO's, but I have been busy.


Hope you have a wonderful week.  Pray everyone on the East coast are ok and life will return to normal soon.











Tuesday, August 23, 2011

100 Quilts for Kids

See my new button?

  Isn't it cute?

  All you have to do is click on it and you will find all the details for the
100 Quilts for Kids Challenge.
Kate, http://www.swimbikequilt.com/2011/08/100-quilts-for-kids-spread-word.html has put together a great challenge to make baby, toddler and childrens quilts to
donate to a charity in YOUR area.

Pretty simple rules:
make quilts
take pictures of quilts
post pictures
donate to a local non-profit organization.
Of course there is a deadline, but other than that, very simple.

I am making quilts and will be donating them to the 
 Down Syndrome Assoc of Middle TN, (DSAMT)
in honor of my son
Stevie.
If you would like to help me make quilts for
DSAMT
leave a comment and let me know.

P.S. Katie has prizes too!!!!

Make a List Monday
 (on Tuesday, I'm doing better only 1 day late)
1. Finish quilting Logan's t-shirt quilt and binding.
2. Quilt and bind quilt made out of Bill's father's shirts.
(yes another one made from his father's shirts, this
one is simple and to be used daily since he won't
use the previous one)
3. Make on a 100 Kids quilt using Lil Rascal's
4. Start Butch's quilt (commission)

I think that is plenty for the week!

What are you up to?

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Give away

Quick note to tell you about  Green Fairy sponsoring a give away over at P.S. I Quilt http://www.psiquilt.com/ . 

I have been working on Dana's wedding quilt and I'm almost finished. 
I want to finish it so that I can give it to her this weekend.  I think this one has taken forever.
Things just keep going wrong, had it on the frame, just quilting away, reached the bottom of the quilt and
discovered the back was about 1 inch too short. I know I measured twice, I know I did.  Took it off the frame, added a strip to the bottom, put it back on the frame finished quilting border. Took it off the frame, laid it on the table to trim off excess and "Oh my gosh"  I didn't quilt part of the side border.  Put it back on the frame to finish the side border.  See what I mean.  Maybe it should be named "murphy quilt"

Hope you are having a better week.  Tomorrow is UFO update here http://www.blackberrycreek.typepad.com/ 
and Whoop Whoop Friday here

Hope you have had a better week.

Monday, August 15, 2011

Woo Hoo Winner!!


Sarah over at http://confessionsofafabricaddict.blogspot.com just posted the winners
of the H2H Challenge and I won the gift certificate Leah at Burgundy Buttons donated.
Burgundy Buttons is one of my favorite online shops, so I am one happy camper quilter. 
 Thank you Leah!! 
Thanks to Sarah for all the hard work coordinating this Challenge and keeping all of us on track. 
 I met a lot of wonderful blog buddies and will keep in touch.

Judi is also having a HUGE give away at http://greenfairyquilts.blogspot.com/ to help  raise money to buy school supplies and food for the children in Romania.  Check it out. 


Sunday, August 14, 2011

A date with my Man

Not a whole lot in the quilting department.
The first two weeks of the month are very busy for me at my day job, so quilting slows down.
Still trying to get the school routine down.
I did get my friend's ( her wedding gift) quilt on the frame and almost finished quilting it. 
Should finish it this week.


Saturday I had a date.
A date with this little guy.

We went to the Wilson Co Fair (best in Tennessee)
He insisted on wearing his SpongeBob shirt, must say it was easy to keep up with him.  I usually make him wear his DS BuddyWalk t-shirt (safety green really easy to find him).
The Shriners reserve the Fair on the first Saturday morning for disabled persons.  We had the park for 2 1/2 hours all to ourselves.  It allows the people who might not be able to attend because of their disablities to ride the rides and have fun.





It didn't matter to Stevie how high a ride went or how fast he wanted to ride all of them.  The ladies behind him befriended Stevie and rode many rides with him.  I think they enjoyed "helping".






That's my little guy on the big swings.(Notice Mama is on the ground taking pictures, lol)





See why Mama is on the ground, too high for me. He loved it.  I lost count of how many times he rode the swings, the bumper cars, the ferris wheel, kiddie rides, big people rides anything and everything.  SIX hours later we made our way to the car. (I must add it was 90 degrees and humid)  He was asleep before I drove out of the parking lot.
I promised we would go back next Saturday (the last day)





Hope he never asked to borrow my car.





Tuesday, August 2, 2011

He loved it !!

I gave my friend at work his quilt yesterday. 
At first I didn't know how to feel about his expression.  His face was just blank, no smile, no expression.  My first thought was "Oh no he doesn't like it, it's not what he expected."

But once he spoke he just said
"I'm blown away, I didn't know what to expect but
I wasn't expecting something this great"

OK, THAT made it all worth while!

Then I told him it had a story, and went on to explain what each star and pinwheel meant.
He looked at me with this blank expression and said "could Pam (his wife) or my mom call you
and you tell them that story because
I don't know if I can remember everything you just said and
 I don't want to forget any of it."
My boss suggested making a label (not in those words but I knew what he meant) with
"the story" and attached it to the quilt for future generations.
How awesome is that? 
 Don't know why I didn't think of that.
So I will take another pocket and write the story down and attach it to the back.

He said "When my mom sees this I know she'll want to keep it
and I don't know if I can give it up,
but I don't know if I can say no"

So there may be another shirt quilt in my future. 
I told him I would make her one but it would not be like his, 
it would be different because his was a one of a kind.

Through held back tears he just said 
"Thank You, I can never repay you"
and I looked at him through held back tears and said
"You already have"


You can see the quilt and story a few post back.

Monday, August 1, 2011

A special finish

I have already shared the story about this quilt (see post below).  I finished it this weekend and washed it today.  I am very pleased the way it turned out. 
It is a large quilt, so my quilt holder upper had a hard time holding it up so you could see all of it.

If you remember I did something stupid while I was working on it and dropped a Sharpie on it, making a mark on it. I had several suggestions on how I might be able to fix it. I had planned on putting 3 stars or pinwheels on the back for this man's great grandchildren. I couldn't figure out how to put them on the front. See how I "fixed" my goof up.  I put 3 little pinwheels, covering up my little mark.





Since I used the 3 great grandchildren on the front, I cut out the shirt labels and used them on the back. My favorite is the DuckHead label. ( lower right)





This is the back. See that litle blue spot on the left hand side?






I used one of the pockets to attached my label. Named "My Daddy's Shirts" I didn't know the DOB and DOD so I left a little blank spot onthe label for my friend to write them.





I did some custom freehand quilting, which is a first for me. I had a lot of encouragement from you guys and I did it and enjoyed it. It's not perfect, by any means, (I won't be quitting my day job) but I like the way it turned out. I love the crinkles. I didn't know if the shirt material would crinkle like the cotton background material.



It is finished and ready to deliver to my friend at work tomorrow. I don't know what he is expecting, but I do hope he likes it. And will give him a little comfort when he misses his father. I have enought shirt material left to make his 2 children a quilt, so that's next on my list.



Oops I see some threads that need clipping.