Correction!

A big shout out to Ruth D from Quilts, Books, and Dogs. At block exchange tonight she noticed that I had turned a pattern piece in my illustration for the Ribbon Quilt pattern. I have corrected the situation and am really grateful. I have asked my block exchange friends to each make me 3 blocks. That would make 48 blocks that I would have to take apart and re-sew. Dodged a bullet there! In the next couple of days check out these blogs; Lavender Pie, Quilts, Books, and Dogs, and quilts and kids to see all 16 projects for this year's block exchange. Although this only my second year as a member, the group is in it's 20th year. The projects this year are really fun. Coming home with a bag of goodies, it's like Christmas.

Till next time.... Happy Quilting

New Floors

I moved into my house 15 years ago. Everything in the house was white. White walls, white carpet, white wall paper (grass cloth). The only color was a grayish cast, sort of reminded me of a dentist office. Slowly I've been replacing a lot of the white. Now, I'm not totally against white, I did like the white appliances and white cupboards in the kitchen and I even liked all the white trim. But I hated the white floors and walls. So the kitchen was painted yellow, but the white floor remained and drove me crazy until now. Last Wednesday we had a new vinyl floor installed. It's gray and yellow and it looks great. Even in today's yucky weather, Boomer's paw prints don't show. The gray works with my counter tops. I'm not thrilled with the color, but the counter tops are in great shape and I don't want to spend the money to replace them. The little bit of yellow picks up my walls. Yeah!












The next floor to get a re-do is my stairway and upstairs hall. You can't tell in the photo, but the walls are a warm tan, with white trim. The carpet used to be a grayish white and always looked dirty. So we chose a carpet color I like to call Boomer Brown. I had a rug this color in my living room when I lived on Horton Street and it always looked great.

The next project is replacing the cheap 1960s interior doors with some six-panel ones. I love projects where I just pick stuff out and someone else does all the work!

Till next time... Happy Quilting!

Ribbon Quilt

The name of this block is Ribbon Quilt and I've included a free pattern for a queen size quilt. I've also chosen this block for my block exchange quilt for Ruth D's small group. The blocks were started probably 10 years ago in the Wednesday Group. I was digging through my pile of UFO's and still loved these blocks and decided I needed more blocks to make a queen size quilt. In the box were 48 finished blocks along with 2 1/2" squares and 2 7/8" triangles, so I made blocks to finish off the cut pieces and ended up with about 100 blocks. I'll need 156 for a queen size quilt (each block finishes 6 1/2"). I'm excited for block exchange to start. I love making blocks for everyone in the group. It's fun to play with patterns and colors that I haven't chosen. I'm also happy to continue my quest to finish UFOs and that the blocks are still interesting after all these years.

Till next time.... Happy Quilting

Philena's Friendship Quilt

This book came out last year and to my surprise, my pattern for the quilt was in it! I met Lynda Chenoweth a couple of years ago at the MSU Museum. She was working with Marsha MacDowell on the manuscript for this book and learned I had written quilt patterns. She asked me to write a pattern for Philena's quilt. I wrote the pattern, got paid and never heard another word. Then, last fall the book came out and the museum got a free copy and and sure enough, there was my pattern (with credit given to me), exactly how I wrote it, illustrations and all. I've since got my own copy and found it to be a good read. It's not only the story of Philena's quilt, but of the whole community and a chapter on signature quilts as well. Also included are many photographs of the people involved in the story. You can buy the book on Amazon and lots of other sites.

Today is a beautiful, snow covered, cold day here in Lansing. I'm looking forward to a day of sewing blocks and writing instructions for my block exchange while watching some old movies (right now I'm watching Golden Boy, Barbara Stanwyck, William Holden, Adolph Monjou, 1939, Columbia Pictures). Then 5:30 brings the Spartans vs. Iowa. I went to the Wisconsin game on Wednesday and even though it was low scoring, it was a great defensive battle.

Till next time....Happy Quilting!

Christmas Done! Back to quilting!

I love this ad featuring Joan Crawford and Whitey delivering the always perfect gift, Lucky Strike cigarettes. I found this on the back of a circa 1935 quilt pattern in an old magazine.

Colleen came in on Tuesday from Ypsilanti and Katy arrived from Chicago Wednesday night. We had a lovely Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, just the four of us. Colleen worked Christmas afternoon and Tom, Katy and I saw It's Complicated with Alex Baldwin, Meryl Streep and Steve Martin. I highly recommend it. It's nice to see romance with people my own age.

Saturday, Colleen went home to Ypsi and on Sunday Tom's family came over. I made a pork loin (brined, then dry rubbed, yum), wild rice with cranberries and pecans and roasted asparugus. After the party I drove Katy downtown to East Lansing to hook up with her old college roommates.

This afternoon Tom is going to tie up some loose ends with his Dad's estate and Katy is going shopping.
Could this be my opportunity to get in a little sewing? This year I'm determined to teach myself more free-hand machine quilting. I'll be starting on a wall hanging from a round robin with the small group the Outlaws probably five or six years ago. Colleen wants to hang it in her new apartment. So, I'll quilt the whole then free-hand, and finish another UFO.

Tomorrow, it's on to Chicago where we'll stay overnight with Katy (and possibly ice skate at Wrigley Field), then spend a night in St. Joseph having our New Year's Eve celebration a day early at the Grande Mere restaurant.

So, till next time.... Happy Quilting!

Santa is coming to town

Merry Christmas everyone. If you live in the greater Lansing area make sure and take in some of the exhibits produced by the Michigan State University Museum's very own Santa, Val Berryman. In the YouTube video he talks about his fabulous collection. He has seven different exhibits this year all around the area including these on the MSU campus:
A Merry Dairy Christmas at the Anthony Hall Dairy Store
Christmas Around the Globe at the Student Union
Crackers & Biscuits, An English Christmas at the MSU Museum
Santa Takes a Break at the Spartan Stadium Tower
and these around town:
Signs of Santa (my personal favorite) in the window of the Knapp's building, downtown Lansing
TAKAAN, Christmas from the Phillipines at the Williamston Depot
and
Where's Santa at the MSU Credit Union headquarters of West Road, East Lansing.
Val has one of the world's best collection of Santa Claus and Christmas items!
Learn more about the exhibits here.
I'm lucky to work with Val and I look forward to his displays every year.



Till next time.... Happy Quilting!

Christmas Quilt

I've been keeping up with the blogs in my list and have been inspired to post my Christmas Quilt. I called it Christmas Eve since that has some special memories for me. My Mom's birthday was Christmas Eve and every Christmas Eve when I was a girl, my Uncle Ed would come over. He was a bachelor and was my Dad's best friend, so not really an Uncle. But he would come over with TONS of gifts for me and my older sister and my two older brothers. On top of the gifts he was very funny and did a great impression of Mr. Magoo! At midnight my mother would take all the kids to midnight Mass and my Dad and Uncle Ed would stay home, drink whiskey and watch the Pope serve midnight Mass on TV!

About two weeks ago my daughter Colleen moved out. I've been a bit worried about her transition, but she seems to be doing great. When she left, she took lots of stuff, so I was able to rearrange my sewing room. I'm anxious to get some sewing done and try out the new arrangement.

Today, Tom and I bought a snow blower (we're not getting any younger) and a Christmas Tree. Tomorrow, I'll be decorating and hopefully doing a little sewing, too.

Till next time... Happy Quilting!

Jigsaw Puzzles

I went to Jigsaw Planet and made a puzzle out of one of my quilts. Very fun!

Cake and Ice Cream

Just click on the quilt to do the puzzle.

Till next time...... Happy Quilting!

Great Dane Puppies

Beware of the cute Great Dane in today's Daily Puppy!

















He could turn out like this!

Learning from Blogs and Tutorials

Here's a picture of an antique Bay Leaf quilt from my collection. I'm including just because I love to see pictures of quilts when I go to blogs.

My first blog was May 26, 2008. In the 18 months since I've started blogging I've discovered a few things.

1. I love other people's blogs and follow many of them. The first blogs I started following were my friends. They're great quilters and great photographers. I really enjoy the show and tells from the small groups they belong to. Also included in these blogs are old friends who have moved away. It's an excellent way to keep in touch.
   
2. The next group of quilters I started to follow were bloggers who were interested in reproducing antique quilts. Again, the show and tell of projects keeps me coming back.
3. Then I discovered many famous book authors and quilt teachers are blogging. I get to keep up with the latest on their work.

The best thing about having my own blog is the ease with which I can keep up with everyone. My blog list shows the latest blog entries at the top of the list. Even though I follow more than 40 blogs, there are only about five new posts each day. It makes it manageable.

I'm always adding new blogs and sometimes removing them, too. What I like in a blog is lots of pictures and just a little bit of writing. I also enjoy the links to other blogs from the list. This has led me to adding features like "The Daily Puppy." Everyday a new puppy, what's not to love. I've also decided to add a new feature with links to quilting tutorials. My latest interests have been to improve my applique and machine quilting. My skills aren't bad, but I'm looking for ways to make those processes more enjoyable. The first tutorials are one Back Basting for Hand Applique.

So, look for the tutorials list and "The Daily Puppy" and take few minutes to surf for blogs on your own. You'll be surprised how much time you can waste!

Till next time... Happy Quilting!

MSU in the Fall

I can't remember when I've seen a more beautiful fall. Not only do I have the best job, but I work at the best place, the campus of MSU. Here are a few of the trees I snapped last week.
























































Today being Halloween, I've got all my candy ready for tonight and since my husband is going to the MSU football game in Minneapolis, I've got the next two days to sew. I'm starting to add fish and plants to the Mermaid quilt.
Till next time..... Happy Quilting.

Busy Weekend

It's been one busy weekend. First we went to see the new final four banner raised at Midnight Madness at the Breslin Center. It's was great to celebrate the last season's basketball team again. We got home about 1:30am.















We got up (not too early) and went to tailgate in the Commuter lot.


















Next, was the football game. It was homecoming and we won, but my favorite part of homecoming is always the Alumni Cheerleaders. They always cheer in front of our section. This year they managed some pyramids. Making it to the top of the pyramid is a great achievement, but getting down is even more fun to watch!














After the game was the Otto's annual Octoberfest. This is the best dinner party of the year. Mark and Jennifer spend months, researching the menu, then spend weeks, working on the meal. It was a great way to end the day!


















Today was the last event, a pumpkin carving party.

















Tonight, it's time to rest up and face the work week. It will feel like rest compared to this weekend!

Till next time... Happy Quilting!