I'm Picking Apples Again!

I often try to tell kids to think about all the people who love you, don't cry over the one person who doesn't"  -Bill Cosby


My mind has been on apples lately....."Little Apples" to be exact.....my Little Apples quilt has been in a drawer for months....(how long does something have to be not worked on to become a UFO?)  Well, whatever that time is......the Little Apples is now a WIP again!  

I don't know if you all remember but I had added some borders to my quilt top and in doing so, I ran short on the fabric I had bought for the backing..... 

 I decided to piece the backing so I ordered a couple of charm packs and then proceeded to get involved in some other project.....(quilters are so fickle....lol)

 I really didn't want to spend a lot of time piecing together something for the back and I also didn't want to spend a lot of time trying to decide what to do so in the end I just strip pieced several of the charms in long chains and then used some of the backing scraps to make up the rest of the shortage.  Here is a closeup of the center piece....

 I don't know if any of you noticed in the first backing photo that the right side of the backing is about 6 inches wider than the left side......and, in fact, I should have said that this is the "off center" piece.......
Again, this happened because of the borders I had cut out for the quilt top.....
Well this "stickler for symmetry" sure notices the difference but I decided it was time to step out on a limb and just make something off center for once.......(gulp)
If you all see the Symmetry Police tell them I went the other way........

I also finished a block for one of my swaps this week..........this is called "Toothed Star".  I got the pattern from Quilter's Cache....a really great website full of free patterns.

My swap partner requested a red and white block and, although the pattern called for 3 different colors plus the background I decided to give it a try with 3 different red fabrics and a white background.  Goes to show you that there is not much that can go wrong with red and white.......

Well...it's Friday again and in a few hours I will be headed back to work so I'm going to go back upstairs and see if I can squeeze just a little more sewing time into the day.............

See you all again for One Flower Wednesday......TaTa for now.....

One Flower Wednesday.....of Bicycles and such....

“ I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. ”     ― Maya Angelou  Aha........once again it is that day that Karen has set aside for us to get another hexagon flower made and posted to her linky at One Flower Wednesdays Last week I teased you all with some pavers which many of you guessed were looking much like a bicycle.....and, of course, you were right............... Together with last week's pavers .....here is that "Meany".... Miss Gulch, the Wicked Witch's counterpart, who lives in Kansas...........this flower and pavers attached will go on the Kansas Tornado side of the wall hanging.............. I thought I might have something else to show you today but, alas, I have not been sewing much but instead was cutting two and a half inch postage square charms for a swap..............don't know what I will do when I get upstairs but some sewing is definitely called for! Please don't forget to go check out the other lovely flowers growing in Karen's garden..........  ...............TaTa for now..............see you next time.................

Wonderful Mail today and rearranging my Sewing cabinets.........

I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next.  
 --Gilda Radner

I am going to start with the fun part first.......the mailman brought me three packets today....all with wonderful fabric happiness.....

  First let me show you what I got from my swap partner, Leona.....look at this gorgeous Autumn Mug Rug......

 can you see the pretty quilting she did?  and here is the back.........such vibrant autumn leaves!

 and Leona sent me some other goodies too.......chocolate gourmet coffee (I already tried it....yummmm) a pretty  autumn welcome plaque and some nice smelling autumn spray......thanks Leona....I'm loving all of it!

 Also in the mail was a packet of postage stamp squares from my blogging friend, Janet, and an Etsy packet I had ordered......mail delivery doesn't get any better than that!

Now for the re-arranging my Sewing cabinets part of this blog........I don't know how it happened........all I was doing was looking for a photo and the next thing I know........I have all this mess!

 

Somewhere along the mess I decided to move the last cabinet of drawers farther to the right and add a backsplash to the cabinet top........ so all my stash came out of the cabinets and onto the floor.........I do like this arrangement better...........

It gives me access to the electric outlet and a tiny bit of knee room when I'm on the computer....the cabinets are not built in so they have moved around several times already..........might not be the last time either......lol.............

so anyway...............guess what?  I found it!

This was the photo I was looking for!

.......And if you look closely you will see that the sewing room is clean again.....Yay!  I re-arranged my stash, filled up a box with photo frames, a lamp shade, and other stuff to donate and at the same time made a lot more room in my storage for my sewing stuff!  My computer and printer and iron are ready to go again.....

 

 and I am ready to go to bed now.................so I will say Ta-Ta for now...............see you next time...............
 

One Flower Wednesday---Munchkin Land!

“ If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion. ” ― Dalai Lama    Last week I showed you a couple of flowers that were missing petals while I waited for more fabric to complete them...........and I was so happy that the fabric was shipped quickly and I was able to get the flowers finished...   Here is the Lollipop guild....at least part of it.........the other two heads are on the next flower....lol Here is the rest of the Lollipop Guild and some of the Munchkin Houses behind them..... I also showed you a partial flower of the Munchkin Coroner holding the Death Certificate of the Wicked Witch of the West  last week and here is the rest of him.  Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of him before I sewed the flower to the other flowers: and here are both flowers sewn to the section with Dorothy's house...........The Oz Hanging is beginning to take shape!    To the right and upward next will come the Talking Tree Forest......and after that the Magic Poppy fields............ But before going there I am going to try to work on the left side of the hanging.........the Kansas side............here is a sneak peek of the next flower I'm working on.............I'll bet you can guess who or what that might be???   Before I say "Ta-Ta for now" I want to tell you all about a great Giveaway on Linda's Stray Stitches Blog..........she is giving away a $25 Gift Certificate to one of my favorite fabric places and one of my sponsors.......The Fat Quarter Shop! Just click above on Linda's Link or the link below....either will take you to the place you can enter the giveaway! Ok then, I will say Ta-Ta for now and see you next time.............

Back to Work and A Couple of Birthday Gifts

“ Think twice before you speak, because your words and influence will plant the seed of either success or failure in the mind of another. ”    ― Napoleon Hill    It's Friday .....oops, didn't get the post done last night so it is really Saturday morning now.....ummmm....make that Sunday...lol........(this post was a long time in the making..haha)..........If it was still Friday I would have told you that I was just starting my work week....but now I'm already halfway through it.........just work tomorrow and Tuesday and then I'm off again til Friday night! Last week I worked on a couple of Birthday gifts........one for this weekend and the other for next weekend for a couple of my co-workers. Both are sewing kits, which come from a tutorial on my sister's blog, Hilachas, in case you are interested in making one......they are handy little kits for carrying around your embroidery or hexagon flowers or anything you might want to work on while you are waiting, for example, at the Dr.s office or auto service place, etc..... Here is the gift I made for Kathy, who likes celestial themes.....       Front and back each have a pocket and the inside has even more pockets...........  Inside.......more pockets plus zip-lock plastic pockets for all your sewing goodies.............I think if I made one of these for myself it would be a great hexagon flower wallet for carrying around when I had to wait like while my car gets an oil change, etc.........I've made 4 of them so far and given them all away.....guess I need to change that and make the next one for Moi............ Here is  April's gift............ April loves skeletons and skulls.....(we all work in the radiology department so the human skeleton is our "trademark")....  I cut two of the skulls from the fabric and appliqued them to the inside, and then quilted around each one. ok...........now the confession...........I have made so many of these already and sometimes I change them up......for instance if the fabric I'm using has a motif that I don't want to cover with a pocket I will usually omit the outside pockets and that was my plan for this one........ First let me tell you about one of the "warnings" my Sister and I give each other from time to time:  "DON'T make this like you know what you're doing" and the reason for that is that it seems when we "know what we're doing", we make more silly mistakes because we aren't paying attention............ Ok.........notice the little skull motif I used for the applique on this extra scrap of material left over after I had cut out the outside piece and the inside pockets?  well I DIDN'T cut it out of the extra piece.....I cut it out of the piece I had cut for the outside of the wallet! Oh my gosh!  I could NOT believe it!.........luckily the left over scrap piece matched up perfectly so I added a patch to fix my blunder and then covered it all with an outside pocket.......... hahaha........I'm still cracking up at myself on that one..........thank goodness it was a relatively easy fix..... And....hey..... guess what I got in the mail yesterday!  I got the Wizard of Oz print I ordered earlier in the week so I could finish making the Lollipop Guild Kids and the Coroner holding the Death Certificate.........and I also ordered another half yard of a sepia print that I'm going to make a wonderful surprise for One Flower Wednesday next week.........so stay tuned! Ok then, I am going upstairs to the sewing room now to work on the flowers and try to stay awake as long as I can (worked graveyard shift last night) ........so Ta-Ta for now!

One Flower Wednesday---A Day late and a few petals short..........

“ I know war as few other men now living know it, and nothing to me is more revolting. I have long advocated its complete abolition, as its very destructiveness on both friend and foe has rendered it useless as a method of settling international disputes. ”  ― Ernest Hemingway    I have been working for days and days since yesterday (just seems like days and days....lol) trying to "catch up" on OFW since I was too busy with the State Bird Dresden last week to do my flower.   And with all that said I must admit that I am still not able to show you an entire flower!  I am at the point now with the Oz hanging that I am beginning to sew the flowers together and, unfortunately, I have discovered that some of the petals are sewn in the wrong direction and won't fit where I want them...........so I am not just sewing but unsewing too! Well now that my whining is done (yes, I would like cheese with my whine, please)...  here is what I have to show you today............The Lollipop Guild without all their heads.......lol........I have some more fabric coming so I can do the last petal.............  I covered a petal to give an idea what it will look like when I get the rest of the fabric...........  (....looks funny with the green lollipop kid's head coming out of the bushes....haha) and here is a sneak peek of the coroner............also waiting on more fabric to complete..................  I also sewed together several of the flowers and connecting petals for Dorothy's house after it landed on the Wicked Witch of the East................  the Coroner will stand next to the piece of fence....and the lollipop guild and Munchkin Land houses will be next to the Coroner........... If you haven't already checked out all the beautiful flowers growing in Karen's Garden at One Flower Wednesday....just click on any of the links on this post or in the side bar to go there!   Ok I have a project to do for a birthday present I have to have ready for the weekend so I'm off to do that........TaTa for now!

Traditional Dresden Entry and I have RED tomatoes!

Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.  -Robert Louis Stevenson


Here (at last) is my entry today in the Traditional Category for the Salt Lake Modern Quilt Quild's EZ Dresden Challenge.......
I call this (in addition to the famous "State Bird Dresden") "The
Quilt of My Dreams" because I have spent many nights dreaming about starting it....finishing it.....and also because at times it has been a Nightmare!  I don't plan to make another appliqued quilt this large again..........

A United States State Bird and flower is represented on each center circle of every plate.   Since this is a 20 plate quilt I had to figure out a way to display the other 30 states so in the corner of each block is an additional circle atop a diamond set on point.  The two center blocks represent my 2 home states, New Mexico and Texas and I will also be making pillow shams which will have those two state bird/flower motifs on them.

 Here you see the Texas Bluebonnet and Mockingbird and New Mexico's Yucca Flower and Roadrunner........

.......and a couple of the corner settings.....

With all the quilting difficulties because of all that turning of this (102" x 86") quilt.....I still consider this a quilt of "love" because even though I cut some additional petals so that my plates would not have any repeats, most the plate petals were cut by my Mother, given to me by my sister, and the quilt is to be for my son.  So I definitely love this quilt............and I think my son will too........oh.........and I have a great "inspector" who loves it too.....

 I hope you will go check out all the other lovely entries in the challenge...........just click on the banner below to go there!

Aha.........you thought I was going to forget to tell you about the tomatoes, didn't you???   This morning after waking up thinking about the State Bird Quilt, I went outside this morning to listen to the rain and looked out at my tomato plants which were all sporting green tomatoes a couple of days ago and picked these!

well.......the green one had fallen so I will let it turn red in my kitchen window.......

I planted 3 tomato plants this year....1 cherry tomato plant and 2 Early Girl plants.......I have had a few cherry tomatoes previously but today was the first day I had one of the larger ones turn red!  Yummmmmmmmmm.....they made a great breakfast!


So, wow.........this is my second post two days in a row!  Better right this date down.....lol..........I'd better go and rest my fingers!
Actually now I have to go back upstairs and look at the Oz flowers and see what I'm going to come up with to show you next..........so all I have to say is "talk to you later....TaTa for now"

Dresden Challenge Entry and Blog Hop Winner!

It's better to live your own life imperfectly than to imitate someone else's perfectly.   -Elizabeth Gilbert


Ok, all summer long my sister at Hilachas has been reminding me about the Salt Lake Modern Quilt Guild's Dresden Challenge..........she knows I've been working on the "famous" State Bird Dresden Quilt for my son and she also kept reminding me that the little mini quilt topper I made for Mama for Mother's day would definitely qualify in the Mini Quilt division............

I don't know if you remember the story of how Irene and I came to have so many dresden petals;  from time to time Irene and her husband pick up Mom and Dad and spirit them away to their little ranch in the Texas Hill Country.  My Dad loves to go out to the blinds and watch for the wild hogs that come out mostly in the evening..........and my Mom, not so much.........she would rather stay in the house.  In this case, she was watching TV and cutting out Dresden Petals.......and cutting.........and cutting..........and cutting...........need I say more?  There were so many Dresden petals that Irene gave me enough for a quilt and the little topper that I made Mom for Mother's Day and there were still enough left for two more quilts......and then some..........Lol..............

Ok then, here is my entry in the mini division:

 I hope you will click on the link below or on the Salt Lake Modern Quilt Guild's Logo and check out all the beautiful entries.................

P.S..........still working on the State Bird Dresden...............it's in the quilting stage but gosh it is a lot of work to turn that huge quilt around while going around 20 plates!  (Note to self:  when making applique quilts......make them SMALL)............

And also I want to thank all of you who entered my giveaway on the Back to School Blog Hop....all you, my faithful followers who keep coming back week after week (what would I do without your encouragement?).....and I got lots of new followers who I hope will keep coming back, as well...........
........but without further ado I want to let you know who the winner of those fabulous pocket packs from Fort Worth Fabric Studio is:

According to Mr. Random............who picked comment #123:

Our winner is Shirley Tener who said:

Congratulations, Shirley........the pocket packs are already heading your way!

Ok...........I have a date upstairs with the State Bird Dresden Quilt so I will say Ta-Ta for now...............