Weekend sewing and Friendship blocks

Finally working on a couple of "Club" projects. This one is from Party with Patrick. I am doing raw edge applique. This is not something I have done before. I do have a blanket stitch on my machine. Think it is about time I found out how to use it! This is just the start of this project. More on it later. This is the "Summer Sun" project for the Party with Patrick Club. I did do a decorative stitch around the sun points and tried a circular pattern for the center. I am so pleased with out the binding went on flat. There is not a curl around that edge!!

I belong to a Friendship Swap group on yahoo and we are doing the annual signature swap right now. I made these blocks. We had to use flower fabric and a green on green for the "leaves". I used Kona ivory for my background fabric. I had to make 22 in all. I love how these came out. I have made a couple more that I will add for the overall size of the quilt. These aren't due until August. I have them done and put them in the mail on Friday!!!This is a 6 1/2 unfinished basket block that I am going to be making for the same group! So far I only have two of these done! As of today there are 13 ladies signed up for this swap. Everyone is to make a different basket. I think this will be a cool quilt too. I love basket blocks. This block that I am working on is paper pieced, which is one of my favorite ways of piecing. I think I have until October to finish.

My friend Wendy called to let me know that my latest quilt is done! I will get it picked up this week and get the binding on. It always feels good when you get a project finished!!!

June will be a bit slower on project finishes. My Dad, and sister Linda, and I are cruising to Bermuda. Dad and I fly to New York City on June 12. I am so excited. While we are there I am going to visit with the Bermuda Quilt Guild! They are having their last meeting for the summer on the 16th. I am so looking forward to meeting them. It is fun if you can find quilt related activities while on vacation! I have booked one tour that takes us on an overview of the island. I am also looking forward to feeling the warm of the sun!! Our weather has not been consistant in forever. Today it is dreary and gray and I think we will barbeque inside! Working on the potato salad as I write!

Have a great day!

ALS Walk Day

What a day!!! Today was the day for the ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) walk. Talk about emotions. This is the picture of Kerry Anne's immediate family and friends.Her husband Jim and daughters, Jacqueline, Hannah and Mya were by her side. Her Mom and Dad, Jane and Hilary Goerge were here to cheer her on. Kerry Anne's Mother in Law Dorothy, and Brother Jon, and Sister Meghan and their spouses, as well as, aunts , uncles, and cousins, came from Michigan, Ohio and Iowa to support her and walk with her today. My husband, and father were also there to support her. Her "team" consisted of 134 people. Kerry Anne is a teacher, in the elememtary school system here in Oswego, and received additional support from co-workers and friends. Their goal was to raise $13,000.00 for research. The count going into this morning was $12,237.00. I am sure more people turned in donations this morning. I raised $131.00 in donations, which I turned in today. There were 2300 walkers for the 2 mile walk. This group raised over $300,000.00 today!! It was an amazing, emotional day.

This is the Lady of the Day!. Kerry Anne Engdahl. Her team is "Always Laugh & Smile.: She is Amazing. What an outpouring of love.

Thank you and Mystery Club

First, I would like to say thank you to all that voted for my quilt. I did come in second place. The quilt that won is a very pretty quilt. Thank you.

Friday night we had a sew in for mystery club, at our local quilt shop. This is the block we cut and made. Each block so far is 1 2 1/2 x 4 1/2 strip with 2 2 1/2 x 2 1/2 blocks, They said we could use a jelly roll strip, as we had to make 4 out of each strip, and keep the leftovers for the next part of the mystery. The finished block is to be 10 inches. (trust me they don't tell ahead the next step) So between Friday night and Saturday I made 56 sets. Should be a decent size quilt!
While we were sewing one of our sewing buddies, Jill, came to visit with her pet goat, Rocket Man! Rocket Man was the runt of 3 babies born to a Mom. The Mother would not fed him. Jill took him under her wing. She had to bottle feed him every 4 hours in the beginning. Now as he is getting bigger, not so often. Well you know how babies will latch on to the one feeding and taking care of them. Rocket Man did to Jill. Where she goes, so does Rocket Man. When she is not in his sight, he cries. He is just like a puppy dog!! She brought him to visit. He is so cute, and did want to see what we were doing. He did walk around the classroom and checked out our sewing bags on the floor. It was a riot to finally meet the goat we have all been hearing about!

This week I got this quilt finished!!! and then forgot to take a picture of it before I sent it to be quilted! I did use all but a very small piece of the background fabric. I thought I would have to suppliment it with Marsha McCloskey's remake of the background. The colors did not match, so I could only make the quilt as big as I had fabric for! Well it has turned out to be between a full and queen size quilt. I did put borders on it and WOW did it add to the quilt. It brought out the colors of the fabric very nicely. So another OLDIE but GOODIE off my list!!

Now on to finish the whirligig quilt!!

Quilting Gallery

Today, this quilt, 'Mary Mary Quite Contrary" is on the Quilting Gallery. They are having a contest and I entered this quilt in the Spring Garden Quilts. It is one I made several years ago, and thought fit the theme quite well. If you feel you would like to vote for it please go to: http://quiltinggallery.com/
There is a box on the right hand side of the page that says: Weekly contests. View and Vote.
I would love it if you voted for my quilt. Please look at all the lovely quilts. I had fun making my quilt, and as some friends know I love to embellish my quilts. This one called for "stuff". I collect things to use on quilts and the cards that I make.

Thank you for voting.

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all our Mothers. It is a special day to honor the person who helped shape our lives. She can be our natural Mother, a Step-Mom, a foster Mother, She can be a friend who is always there to help us . She can be a Mother-In-Law, after all, some one cared for our husbands or significant others. She can be the Mother of our friends.

This is my Mom. She was there every step of the way. She was the guiding force of who I am today. Her laughter, knowledge, firm tone when needed, loving and kindness in the good times and sad times. Her encouragement to keep on going, even when you thought you could not. She gave me history. Our family was all from Hungary. She was there when my own son was born, to show and guide me to be the best Mother I know how. I miss her every day. There are still so many things I want to share with her. I know in my heart of hearts she is still with me.
My son, Andrew, came out to visit on Thursday, to celebrate Mother's Day with me. He surprised me by showing up about "lunch" time. (Get the free lunch when you can.) (Oh, and with laundry in tow.) It was so much fun to have him around. He has to work on Sunday, so thought he would come to visit. He is an amazing son. He is going to be 25 in July. Where has the time gone. We had a great afternoon, the laundry got done, and we all went to dinner before he went home.

On another note, here are a couple of the critters that are visiting our backyard. This is a white-crowned sparrow. There are several pine trees along the back of our property. All sort of birds have made nests in them, and now the babies are beginning to appear. I do keep feeders full, so a variety of birds do come to visit.
The baby bunnies are appearing as well. This little one decided the new sprouts on my rose bush were delicious.

Happy Mother's Day to all. Enjoy the day.

Thank you for stopping by.

One day retreat

Pride of the Prairie Quilt Guild had a one day mini retreat, on Saturday. It was from 9:00 am to 9:00 pm. I arrived a little after 10m, and stayed until 7:30. I had fun and got uninterrupted quilt time!! I got these 40 quilt blocks done. A great one to string piece. They have to be sized to 6 1/2 inches yet. Have to cut more of the cream for the blocks. Still have more to make.

This quilt I have been working on for several weeks. Actually it was started quite a while ago. It is all paper pieced. The background fabric is Marsha McCloskey's "Staples". Only thing this is from the first time "Staples" came out. So the background is just a few years old. I still have more to make. My thought is to make 186 blocks for a queen size quilt. I have 129 blocks done, more are ready to put together. I probably have another 20 that need to be pieced together and the paper removed. It is getting there!! My husband always asks how big is it going to be? Great question. I usually tell him, either I have used up the fabric(sure), or when I get tired of making the blocks. Sometimes when I use a pattern I have purchased, the same things applies. A lot of times a wall hanging has become a full size quilt. I liked the block, it is fun to work on. That is the case with these two quilts. I like the process! It is so nice to have time to sew.

Happy May Day!!