Modify Tradition Swap Quilt received

sorry to liz for taking so long to post it, and i'm not going to make excuses, but this quilt took the scenic route to get here! i scared barney with the squeal when i opened the envelope!

My swap partner was Liz in Maine.

i LOVE this little quilt! (19.5" x 19.5")



ETA: i just realized that this is the first time someone made me a quilt.....just makes it that more special to me....

here's a detail shot...i love the quilting....pebbles!

and the extra gifty goodness! homemade coasters...i love that fabric!!!


thanks again Liz!




when's the next swap?

i committed a cardinal sin

i fed a stray....all i could think was if she was mine i'd want someone to take pity on her. it's a shame that so few actually would.




i'm not keeping her....

look at them yellow eyes....and that black nose.... shows absouletly no fear. no fear of strangers or the dogs.



and she has the longest whiskers....and a bottle brush tail....




i'm not keeping her....

poor critter. looks like she's been through some hardship.... it's over 90 degrees out today.

i'm NOT keeping her!




anyone want a cat?





ETA:  the whole "lucy sent her" thought has crossed my mind....alot

dog days of summer

nickel quilt

i get quilts every once in while that, for wahtever reason, i want to keep. joan's quilt is in the top five.

this was a big quilt- 97" square.

she used the cover quilt pattern from the nickel quilt book (i'm feeling lazy today- no quick link)

those are 8" finished blocks and there are 144 of them....the little 4patch squares finish at 1 inch!

i quilted a E2E that i have been toying with, but haven't quilted on a quilt yet....til now. i call it feathered swirl (like i said- i'm being lazy and that's the best i can do. not a very creative name, but hey, it get's the point quickly across)

i chose a dense E2E because the patchwork of the quilt had little pieces.

funny story, once i got the quilt unloaded and trimmed down, i was folding it up and found this sticker. if you look closely you can see i quilted within a hair's width on both sides of it and didn't stitch through it...what's the odds of that?

i'm back to my 'normal' quilting comfort level. me and nemo are one again *smile* check out how pretty the stitches look on the back. perfect tension is a thing of beauty to a LAer....it takes tons of frustration time to hit the sweet spot.

vintage spiderweb

my friend sue made this quilt....it will be a wedding present for a friend.

i used an E2E becuase i needed to be able to miss the bulk of the SAes in the center of the webs...


it is very pretty sue, you did good!



i'll have a scrappy beauty to share tomorrow as well!

temperate perspective

they don't call it hot-lanta for nothing. i'm not one to complain about the weather. it's summer it's suppose to be hot...and it's cold in the winter. that is an expected fact.....they only solstice i have is that we still have july and august to look forward to.   *unenthusiastic clapping*

so i dug these out to remind me that back in febuary i was so looking forward to these tempertatures....

that's right, barney thought he had to eat it all.....it was funny to watch him try. he soon gave up.....

crap- it didn't work....i'm still all sweaty....*sorry* women don't sweat....we glisten :)

saturday morning at the lake

e live 9 miles from lake altoona. we went yesterday morning...

davis caught a fish (little spotted bass) actually he caught two, but he threw the first one back in before i could take the picture...

i caught a fish (spotted bass again) i actually caught two. i caught a white bass and right when it got to the boat he shook the hook free.....and i have accomplished something davis hasn't ever done (which is quite the achievement and a total free for all bragging rights) the white bass- i caught it on a spoon jig. davis was impressed, he's never caught a fish on a spoon jig....never!

i have....

then i just took some pretty pictures....but they don't really do justice. you can not take a picture of a sunrise over a lake....you just can't...at least not with a $100 dollar digital camera *grin*

i like how the clouds mimic the surface of the water.

here's the sun peeking out from behind the clouds....

usually when we go the lake is 'muddy', it was clear and the prettiest shade of green....

i'm not a 'morning person', so i want this printed out so i can frame it and hang it above the bed.....*giggle*

then we took the kiddos to get their vaccinations. that's always 'fun'

sashings and cornerstone math

i haven't posted an 'easy math' in a while.

i found this....it's how many sashings and cornerstones you need for specific layouts- with the sashings continuing to the outside edges of the block (think inner border)...i dug it out when i was working on FootNotes this weekend.

backatcha buddy!

yesterday

me and davis took barney to the hunting club yesterday to 'survey' the added acreage to our lease (a brand new 70+ acres!!!) we hunt an area that is 'swampy' with lots of creeks that are in deep ravines and this added land will allow us to drive an 4wheeler onto our land to get a deer. we were looking for a place to build a bridge....here's a few pictures. (i choose not to take lucky because it is hot and humid and lucky is getting old and is heat intolerant. the last time we took him, he suffered heat exhaustion and it scared me. he'd rather sleep on the couch in AC anyway)

barney got his feet dirty...see how steep the sides of the creek are? it's like that cause it floods so much back there....you'd think you were stepping on firm ground, then when you took a step you'd sink up to your knee in stinky mire.

barney found a new friend. we noticed he was nosing around in one spot and this is what he found.

davis said this shot reminded him of the post turtle joke... this little fellow was none to happy to be handled.

then we came across this. i don't know why, but i found it really pretty. it's a little creek running through georgia clay. it's like it's own little grand canyon (if you were an ant, it would be the grand canyon) it looks like rock, but it gives when you poke it. i'm going to do some research and see if i can make pottery with it.







so that's how we spent father's day morning....

my pretty precious....

i finished my FootNotes quilt and it's ready for borders. that's where the momentum kinda slows, since i'm wanting to bash some stash i need to see what i have on hand! i'm thinking a really nuclear lime green as an inner border...and to keep with the 'dizzy' visual, i'm thinking some creative piecing in the outer border. that'll help with my lack of yardage of one 'vintage' batik....i was going to use the flying geese that were in the bag with it, but they have a cream 'background' and that doesn't fit with this quilt. i will use them in their very own quilt....

the quilt is kicking butt and taking names! I LOVE IT!!! i want to be buried with this quilt. i would never have thunk that piecing a scrap quilt could be so much fun....now i see the addiction level of this style of piecing! no scraps are safe from my rotary cutter now!

Bash 'the Stash'

i have decided to bash my stash (bashing a stash is much more brutal than simply busting *lol*)....that includes finishing up UFOs. i found quite a fair share of those

oh lookie- here's one now! *grin* i started this one a looooonnnggg time ago in a kingdom far far away. when i started LAing, i quilted Ardelia's scrappy quilt. (*wave* ardelia)  i liked it so much i decided to make one using the not so desirable batiks i had in my stash (hey- they are considered 'vintage' now)

i have sewn all the blocks. thank goodness i had a couple blocks completed (note to you UFOers, make a block or two and throw it in the bag with the rest of the pieces, that way you'll remember what you were doing when you dig it out decades later) there were also a lot of flying geese in the bag, so i have no idea where they go...i called ardelia and she is going to send me a pic of the quilt....i think i remember where they go, but i'm thinking i might go another direction with it...stay tuned

i think sewing scrap quilts is the best. as i sew each tiny piece i remember the story every fabric holds...i have one little square left of my favorite all-time batik in there, there's the scraps left from the business card holder lisa made me for my birthday (the same birthday i had my wisdom teeth pulled), and there's pieces left over from all my other quilts.. i also decided i'm calling this quilt "FootNotes" as i was sewing it all together, i wrote little notes on the fabric. i pretend the whole quilt is it's own label :)

another neat thing i discovered is the unexpected color combinations you'll get. since i sewed it together randomly, (my only rule was that the same fabric couldn't touch- diagonlly was okay) and 'ugly' fabric transforms when cut up into 2.5" squares and becomes little magical abstract works of art....

i found another one

this is another quilt that i quilted before taming 'the stash' *giggle*

i love this quilt. i like the pattern, the colors, everything.

i quilted it with my signature E2E with a jewel-toned varigated thread.



i love blues, purples, and espically lime greens....i like cool colors. i'm a 'cool' kwilter

i fell HARD in love with this particular fabric. how do i know? my heart smiled and i wanted yardage, lots of yardage, of it NOW! :)



Hi, my name is shannon and i'm a fabri-holic

kinda like riding a bike

having my priorities in check, i have totally got what i need to LA unpacked (my clothes are still packed) and 'sacrificed' one of my own tops to get Nemo all tweaked where he needs to be....

i learned a very valuable lesson i would like to share: not quilting for three weeks made a HUGE difference when i went back to it. i felt like a newbie.... i was all wobbly at first, but as i stopped overthinking it, it naturally came back....(this is the longest i've ever not quilted since i started LAing)

keeping that in mind- don't look to close at the quilting....it looks okay, but personally i'm not overly thrilled with it.

i used Buggy Barn's first 'In the Pink' fabric collection. i've had this flimsy finished for, oohhh, like 5 years...well, now it's a quilt. i'll put the binding on it later.

see the sashing motif- there's a story (isn't there always a story?)  
i was at a fabric shop and was perusing the stencils (i don't buy stencils, i like to look at them for ideas)  one sashing stencil caught my attention, it was 'different' and pretty. i looked at the size: 1 1/2" x 14".....


*huh?*  


i've quilted my fair share of quilts over six years, and i can honestly testify to the fact that i have never seen a quilt with that particular sashing measurement....but it was okay, i drew a quick sketch and modified it to fit my needs....

one more shot of the back....i'm sorta embarrassed to even show it....the quilting is all wonky....*shrug*


but it is a testament to the quality of APQS's machines....Nemo has perfect tension after over 12 hours of bouncing over 500+ miles of interstate...just saying!



(ps: 194 days til christmas...)

i mentioned a great picture in a previous post and here it is!

after driving all the way to tenn, i get there, and get the dogs all settled and went to go back out to the truck to get my stuff  and this is what i saw. now, i'm no rainbow expert, but it's been a llooonnnggg time since i've seen the full ROYGBV in a rainbow.

that rainbow stuck around for at least an hour.....it never did rain.

"And when it rains on your parade, look up rather than down. Without the rain, there would be no rainbow.”

~G. K. Chesterton

trip around china

i was looking thru my pictures and remembered that i didn't blog about quilt...i finished it before the whole 'spring clean' adventure *giggle*

it is a trip around the world done in asian themed fabrics. i was originally suppose to quilt it with an E2E, but while loading it on Nemo, it whispered to me and asked if it could be customed. who was i to argue? after all, it asked very politely :)

here's a shot of the back....if i may say, i think the designs chosen really compliment the theme of the quilt...

winner winner, chicken dinner

i'm sorry....i unpacked my calender today and noticed i was suppose to pick a follower winner for the little box tote....

i'm gonna be lazy and use random number picker....

number 16 is.....*drum roll*

Alberta (bertiequilts)

i have your address, so i'll get that into the mail...

CONGRATS!

the good, the bad, and the ugly..

the good: i didn't move to tennessee....that's kinda the truth, i did move, then came back this weekend. so i have changed the address in the block swap directions, make sure to make that note of change...dad said he would mail anything to me that gets there....

here's the link to the block swap pdf to save you the trip: CLICK HERE

the bad: i did pack everything up, so now i have to unpack it....i'm thinking of it as the hard way of spring cleaning...

the ugly: my allergies. yuck! i don't know what's going on.....i can't breathe.

and a post is not a post without a picture...today's is a shot of barney's chin wrinkles. too cute! he got a bath this morning, silly noodle rolled in something rather offensive. pea-you!  i'll be taking barney to the vet soon. he is getting 'sores' in weird places. they are like a hot spot, but not as nasty as the pictures i saw when i googled 'hot spots'

it's good to be 'home' i'm looking forward to getting everything back into it's place and get to quilting again!
i missed you guys! i have a cool photo to show you later....

Block Swap Update

Hey everyone...life is not cooperating fully right now, so hang onto those blocks for our swap.  I may be updating the address for mailing again, so if you haven't mailed them, don't.  If you have, don't worry, I'll still get them.

And in the meantime...keep on sewing!  The Swap is on, only the location may change.