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"

State Bird Dresden & Traveling Stash Updates and other interesting stuff........

Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.-Albert Schweitzer

 I worked on the State Bird Dresden quilt for awhile last week and I am pleased to report that I got a lot of quilting done..........

 I stitched all around the diamond State Bird Patches and down the seam lines which then gave me a hexagon shaped border around each plate and a diamond around each corner patch.

And isn't it always this way......no matter how much we pin and place and fret........the backing never comes out in the right place once we have quilted!  My backing is too long on the top and too short at the bottom.....lol..........But I will just cut off the top and sew it to the bottom and get in that moving train and look at the back of  the quilt from there.......I bet I won't even notice that seam..........

I still have to quilt around the petals and I'm wondering how that will go.........did I mention that this quilt is 102 x 86??  Well  I was going so good that I decided to start the quilting on the plates themselves...........well lets just say that this quilting has not gone as fast as the other...........in fact I have one plate about half done and it is still sitting at my machine.....waiting..........

But I'm determined NOT to move it out from under my machine until I get at least the middle plates done.....lol..........

Other stuff from this week.......I got some nice packets in the mail!

A few times a year, Barbara, at The Curious Quilter has a postage stamp swap..........

this year I signed up as a "Newby" which means that 4 lovely ladies have signed up to send me 50 postage stamp charms to help me get started on my PSQ.......and so far here is what I received from Bunny, Mary, and Mandy........and I still have some charms coming from Mary Ann, who emailed to tell me she had dropped them in the mail yesterday.

From time to time, my blogging friend, Cherie  and I swap a FQ or two and she sent me a couple of nice pieces from her Swap Shop.

this is called Critter Community and you might have noticed next to the Postage Stamp Charms above is another piece she sent called Deer Valley.

.....and I spent more time working on my Hexies for my Oz hanging.......

 and the good news is that I have my flowers for the next THREE weeks done!  So now more reasons for having NO excuses for not getting to work on quilting the dreaded wonderful State Bird Dresden!

I am happy to report that Josie from Insanity Defense   is the winner of the Two Sisters Traveling Stash box and it will be going to her on Monday! Congratulations Josie!

If you would like to get a visit from one of the Traveling Stash boxes, you can go to Cherise's Page at Sewingly Along to get the scoop on how to sign up for one of the stash boxes!

 

Well finally I'm going to wrap this up by just reminding you that today is my Birthday and my 101st post and I haven't forgotten that I owe you guys a giveaway........I have ordered some goodies so stay tuned........as soon as I get them I'll post the giveaway so YOU can get them!     TaTa for now

 

Dresden Table Topper Done! Back to Little Apples and Novelty & Solids Layer Cake Swap Success!

Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. -Albert Schweitzer


I finished Mom's Dresden table topper.......as I mentioned before, I was not liking the original way I set the half plates so I turned them around and added some half square triangles to all the corners.....and voila!  I'm happy.

I had put the Little Apples quilt on the back burner while I waited for some charms I ordered to come in and here they are!

I know I usually go on and on about my "bossy" big sister but she is also one of the sweetest people I know........she knew I was short on fabric for the back of my Little Apples Quilt and she just happened to have a half yard of one of the fabrics in the collection.........so she didn't blink an eye.......just donated it "to the cause" and I am ready to get back to it........

Last of all I wanted to give a wonderful report on the Novelty and Solids Layer Cake Swap that she and I coordinated together...........Just look at this loot!

We were able to get all 24 slots filled and all the packets have been mailed back to everyone..............we want to thank all of you who participated and since everything went so well we may just decide to try it again sometime!

I think that wraps it up for today's post...........looks like I covered everything in the title so I will get outta here.........
TaTa for Now..............