Monday Updates

Good Monday Morning!

I have many irons in the fire at the moment so I thought I'd do an update on a couple of things.

I'm trying to put in a little quicting each day on my Olympic Star quilt. I love the way the quilting is looking so far.


Here are the blocks I have finished so far for the doll quilt along, Strawberry fields on Lori's blog.

I have finally figured out a border solution that I like for this quilt, which I started late last year. Sorry, the colors are hard to read, I'll take another photo when I finish the borders. It's hard to catch the right light in the morning in the sewing room because it's on the west side of the house.


When I went to the quilt show about a week ago, my friend Susan bought a pattern for a tote bag. Pauline and I jumped on the idea and we had a sew day last week to get started.

And here is my new tote bag.


okay, so this is only the beginning.

You wrap clothesline with folded fabric strips -

Then you zig-zag them together into a strada

Here is a close up. I'm using neutral tans, which I pieced together.


Pauline is using gorgeous batiks and Susan is using a beautiful green fabric. They are all very different, so stay tuned to see more on this.

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms, I hope you had a nice day. I received these beautiful caladiums from my kids. Pink and Green? my favorite!

Finally, while coco was busy elsewhere, Luna (the one gold eyed cat) decided to visit me in the sewing room and use coco's bed.

It's Showtime (again)

Hooray, I went to the Northern Star Quilters show in Somers, NY on Sunday. It was a beautiful day for a drive and the show was great.

This was the Best in Show, by Bethany Morielli - her work is incredible!


This won my heart, made by Dawn Hayes - she won best hand quilting, best applique' and first in category and she deserved to!


Before I post the quilts, here is what I won at the raffle table. This was a $3.00 investment. I also won a $5.00 gift certificate which I used on the new needle-punch supplies. How lucky am I to have won a stuffed turkey panel that I don't already have? Too lucky, I'm sure.

Here are my purchases. I bought a set of Russian needle punches, it's Russian, so it must be good, right? It was ooober expensive, so it really must be good right?

cute new lamb pattern

I'm busy today getting things prepped for a sewing/craft day here tomorrow. So, in no particular order and with no further editorial comments here are the quilts - Enjoy~














See you soon - I hope you're making something fun in the meantime!

Whoopie for Doll Quilts

Well, I just couldn't say no after all to Lori's Quilt Along. Click here at Humble Quilts to join in the fun! I decided to reward myself for finishing 2 challenge quilt tops recently. Lori picked a wonderful pattern for us, Strawberry Fields.

Here are my first 5 blocks. They are really fun to make!


I already had all this stuff at hand, so getting going was really easy. I bet a lot of you have 1 1/2" strips and 2 or 2 1/2" squares laying around - join us!


I also decided to make it to donate to the NQA for their auction at the annual quilt show in June. Must have been good karma, because yesterday I found our that 2 of my quilts; Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious and Hex Vex are going to be in show.

And the best part? Mary and I are going!! Please email me at barb.vedder@gmail.com (or click my email in the profile) if you are going to the show in Columbus and would like to meet me and Mary for a cocktail. We can have a little blog-slog.

Today I made Whoopie Pies, which I saw on Jan's blog: Be*mused.
The other day my daughter was reading her blog and came across the whoopie pie post and we decided today was the day. Jan is so talented and fun and I was really excited to make them. Click here for the Whoopie Pie Recipe, from her post.


While I was wrapping them, I accidentally ate one :)


Are they worth a few dirty dishes?

You betcha!


And now for a few photos of coco, my little shadow.

First she helped me with the laundry, by guarding the towel load.


Then she tested out a piece of batting on the floor.


Then she protected some valuable fabric.


then she stood watch over my new quilt top on the ironing board.


What a good puppy.

The One-Two Punch

Well......maybe like the old 500-600 punches.

This is a needle-punch dollhouse rug that I recently finished for a friends' Birthday. She is a doll house creator and collector.
Here is the back - it is coated with tacky glue to keep all the loops secured to the canvas. I think the backs look kind of cool.


Here is a little vignette that I set up. You can see by the spool of thread that this rug is quite small.


Before I began this project my floss looked like this - ooops.

I am now converting that hot mess into this. Here are a couple more patterns that I'd like to do. I'd like to glue one onto the top of box.

Here are a couple that I've made in the past -

This little "cel phone rug" I made for my daughter, it looks like our cat; Starbuck.


This one is my favorite. I glued this to a fake Nantucket (fantucket) basket. I framed it with some white cotton cording. I use this basket as a catchall for quilting projects and stuff and bring it to guild meetings, sewing group, etc..


And finally - I finished my Pineapple Quilt top. I'm calling it "Lunar Pineapple". I'm going to submit it to be part of an exhibit. Even if it doesn't get accepted, I'll be happy to have the unexpected new quilt. I'm glad I took on the challenge and made this top in 3 weeks, it really got me back in the sewing room. Now to machine quilt it, but how?


For fun I did all the piecing on my little feather weight. It belonged to my mother-in-law and I'm so grateful to have it. They are just so cute and fun to sew on.


Thanks for visiting -- Happy Sewing and Crafting!