429,924 Another Palindromic Number

at 12:35 am

On The Home Stretch!

I am anxious to finish knitting this so I can see if the fringe “happens” like it is supposed to!

It won’t take much longer and I’ll be able to hopefully make it happen!

Probably less than 40 rows to go and they get shorter as I get closer to the finish line.

It’s just that those purl rows take longer than the knit rows.

Wish me luck!!!!!!!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

This is an antique post card from an album of cards I purchased many years ago. It is about 100 years old. I love these embossed cards.

While you are sitting around after dinner instead of taking a nap you can put the turkey back together!

Spaghetti Dinner

I hosted a spaghetti dinner for friends Sunday evening. Our local high school put on a spaghetti dinner to raise funds to finance their trip to march in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Savannah, Georgia. I thought that was a perfect way to treat my friends to dinner when Andy said they would deliver the food.

Here are some of my lovely lady friends.


Another group of my friends.

I think Rose (far right) is probably telling Sandy about when she played French horn in the Weyauwega marching band when she was in high school.

Some of my neighbor friends, socializing and having appetizers and beverages before dinner.

Drew, left, plays trombone in the marching band. I can brag about Drew since he is not related! He is very talented musically, and besides that he’s a good student. His dad, Andy is a great supporter of the band and designed the shirts they are wearing.
They delivered all the food, helped serve it, stayed and socialized and helped clean up.

Dinner is served, buffet style. We had salad, spaghetti with a delicious sauce, great breads, and dessert.

Andy with Gary and John, the red shirt guys!
Everyone enjoyed themselves. The food was delicious, so much better than the usual spaghetti dinner done as a fund raiser.
Maybe we should do this again next week!!!

No Brainer Knitting Project!

Well, almost a no brainer! After I had knitted about 20 rows I realized that for about 3 rows I was knitting every row instead of pearling alternate rows.

I ripped it out and started all over.

I needed a project I could work on with friends, while watching TV, etc…….my socks are at the point they require concentration

I have a feeling this is not one of those patterns you can make an error on and have it turn out.

The diagonal rows you see become a fringe when you unravel them….MAGIC!

I am guessing if I don’t do the increases and decreases correctly the entire shawl could unravel….

Stay tuned.

Another Palindrome Number of Views!

427,724

This was the number of views on my blog at 1:14 p.m. today.

I know YOU don’t care, but I love numbers!

It has been a long time since I have caught one as I was too busy with other things!

Aged Like Fine Wine Puzzle

Todays post is another puzzle since I think this will be so much fun to put together.

Aged Like Fine Wine

If you’ve been following my blog you have seen several variations I could have done with these diamond units.

All of the ones I have shown to this point were traditional and logical.

Had I made these units into something 15 years ago when I made most of them I certainly would have chosen one of them.

In the intervening years I have started thinking farther “out of the box”!

I’ve had this idea for a while and finally was able to execute it this week.

My original idea used different proportions. This is one reason why a design wall is so important.

You can SEE when something works and also when it doesn’t work.

I am so pleased with this top and hope to layer and quilt it very soon.

I Am Seeing A Recurring Color Story!

I have a feeling that each of the quilts I am going to share was started about the same time.

Although this one is done with prints and the previous one was done with solids, the colors are almost spot on.


This one combines prints and solids.
Is the similarity because those were the types of fabrics most popular and available at that time?
Or is it because I loved those jewel tones in that era?
There is one other MAJOR similarity between them……
None of them are finished quilts.
I was teaching so many classes at that time I didn’t have time to finish many of the things I started, needing instead to go on to developing and making prototypes and teaching samples for the next class I had developed.
I no longer am under that pressure and occasionally I finish one of the quilts from that era.
This year I also have given away unfinished projects and units of quilts I knew I would never finish.
Yes, I only have to get rid of 343 more things and I’ll reach my goal of getting rid of 5000 things in 2013!

Diamond Variations

This is one possible design I came up with using the pieced diamonds on the design wall. Each of these star units were what I originally intended to do with them, just not all together.

They look great, but it is a more traditional set than I want to do.

What if I used them placed on the diagonal? Another possibility.

This Broken Star layout also looks good. I will not be using it as I have made several broken stars.

I will be trying another arrangement that was the one I had hoped would work with these unit.

Stay tuned!

What Would You Do?

There are 4 sets of diamond patchwork here – 8 identical pieces in each set.

I started piecing these probably 15 or so years ago. I had to do the final assembly on one set and now they are ready to use.

I was teaching Lone Star classes at the time and probably intended to use them each in a Lone Star piece. I also had 4 different backgrounds cut – a different one for each set.

I am not going to use them in the way I originally planned to.

What would YOU do with them?

Stay tuned and follow my progress as they become a piece of ART!

I have an idea of what I will do with them and what I will combine them with.

Just because I have an idea doesn’t always mean I will follow through with it.

I let the piece tell me what it wants as I work.

Puzzle Time!

One of my friends told me how I had got her hooked on puzzles and I realized it was time to share one with all of you.

I think it might also be fun to share a gray scale version of the same puzzle with you!

This one has a different cut. I’d love to hear which one you like doing best.

Circle Challenge Part 2

Elaine Scully’s quilt won for Best Mixed Techniques.

This was Gladys Tice’s second quilt she made.

Mary Ann Young made this wonderful whimsical giraffe quilt. I thought she had painted the circles on the giraffe and the background.

No, each circle is a piece of fabric she attached and did a spiral quilting design on.

Judy Devaney’s quilt won the ribbon for best applique.

Beth Sherman’s quilt won the best embellishment award. All those tiny dots (circles) you see are beads she quilted onto the quilt.

Everyone who completes a quilt for a challenge is a winner.

Circle Challenge

I am going to share our Circle Challenge quilts with you in no particular order.
This quilt by Gladys Tice won the Viewers Choice Award.

Frieda Toback’s quilt won the award for best piecing.

Beth Shutty’s quilt won the award for best quilting.
Beth was the hostess for our tea. She also made the awesome ribbons.


Gloria Meachem is best friends with her sewing machine and can make it do just about anything with stitches and embroidery.
This quilt not only has a variety of machine embroidery stitches, but she also did part of the quilting on her long arm machine.
I will share the rest of the quilts in my next blog post.
This was a challenge that was a lot of fun and each piece was so different and showcased the makers skills.

It Has A Name!

I’m sure I’ve mentioned before one of the hardest things when I make a quilt is giving it a name.

A former student and good friend sent me the PERFECT name for this quilt.

This is what she posted on Facebook:

Cyndi Moody Wheeler Very nice :) I know you don't need a title, but when I saw it the phrase "and...then the centers fell out!" sprung into my head. The depth of the quilt made it seem like an ongoing story and you just turned the page and the next line was, "and....then the centers fell out!" Made me smile :)

So it will now be known as “and…..then the centers fell out!”

I also want to share with you the reason I think I outlined everything in black in school.

I started reading comic books when I was about 4 and our Aunt Alma always sent us an annual subscription to Walt Disney comics. I loved them.

In the comics everything was outlined in black and it added a sense of action and definition to the pictures.

If any of you have every seen a Jinny Beyer Border print or many of her other prints without the black lines printed on them, you will have to agree they are very weak. The black outlines make them come to life and pop.

Black is also a unifying color when you need something to pull things that don’t seem to be working to make a cohesive design.

If you go back and look at this quilt photo before I added the black stitching the effect of adding it will be very obvious.

By the way, I did hear from the friend who was also in Miss Smiths classroom.

The friend share another story of Miss Smith’s poor judgment. Miss Smith was let go at the end of the school year.

So There, Miss Smith!

When I was in 4th grade I outlined everything in black. My teacher Miss Smith said that was not good art and I couldn’t do that.

It is amazing how things like that stay with us over a lifetime. If she looked at some good designs, art and fabrics today she would see a LOT of black outlines.

Black can make colors pop, define an image and unify many different colors and styles.

I didn’t start out to prove her wrong when I did our Circle Challenge for our Art Quilt group.

I actually started with a different quilt than the one I am sharing with you today.

I finished the other one and put it in a box to send to myself here.

After I had the box sent I had a nagging feeling that it was possible it might not arrive in time and thought I could start another one if it didn’t show up in Saturday’s mail.

It didn’t take me long to realize that was not enough time to make something I could be satisfied with.

On Thursday I pulled out these pieces that were left from a previous quilt. I had added some silk screening to them a year or two ago.

I played with them and came up with a possible arrangement and idea.

The next step was to piece together some of the other leftovers from that project, many of which I had also silk screened on.

I shaded diagonally from dark to light with what I had available the best I could.

Once that was done I arranged the circles and negative circles on the background shading in the opposite direction.

When I was pleased with the arrangement I did a relatively heavy zigzag stitch around each of them.

In this photo you also see the quilting and the backing fabric that have not been trimmed.

The quilting was simply circles that echoed from a central (off center) point.

 

All that was left to do was to finish the edge.

I chose to trim it evenly and stitch around it with a heavy thick zigzag stitch.

This is the finished quilt. I left a “horsetail” at each corner.

My quilt won two ribbons in our challenge so in case you are reading this Miss Smith, you were wrong!

I don’t think anyone from my 4th grade class reads my blog, but it was a combined 3rd and 4th grade classroom and maybe one of the 3rd graders is reading this!

And just in case you are wondering, the other quilt DID arrive in time and also won a ribbon!

I made the quilt in 3 days, but in reality it took 10 years. I started to paint the fabrics 10 years ago and came back to them several times to do my painting and silk screening on them, as well as to use part of them for my quilt “Secret Circles”.

Crushed Velvet On The Needles

These are the socks I am currently working on. I’m almost ready to shape the toes on both of them.

I prefer knitting socks on 4 double pointed needles. I have learned I am more successful if I knit two at the same time alternating between them.

WHY?

Because my gauge can vary and this way I get two very close to identical socks!

The yarn is the color Crushed Velvet from Emily Parson’s Sophie’s Toes Sock yarn.

I love the names she chooses – so creative and so spot on!

Maybe I could hire her to name my quilts?

All's Well That Ends Well!

 

This is my new shirt! Why aid I buy it?

Some of you have heard I was stranded overnight in MKE because of an airline snafu.

I will not explain what happened.

The airlines did their best and made it right even though it delayed my arrival by almost 24 hours.

They comped my hotel and dinner and gave me TWO round trip tickets anywhere in the US to use within a year.

AND the shirt? I bought it in the airport before I went to the hotel so I didn't have to sleep in my clothes!

Light Show

Honey, I'm Almost Home

Trick or Treat?

 

We had one trick or treater at the house for Halloween.

I’m sure you think this is the REAL Batman!

It’s really my grandson Cooper.

He is following in a family tradition as his Dad and Grandpa were both Batman for Halloween years ago.

We had to get out the family photo album so he could see them as Batman.

He seemed obsessed with age and we had to figure out how old those who have passed would be if they were still here, as well as those who are still here.

His Great-great grandpa would be 137 years old if he were still alive. That got a big WOW from him!

He also went home with a treasure from the Watermelon basket.

I just knew he’d pick the fish to hang on his wall and he did…….but when I showed him the little address book where he could keep track of friends and families phone numbers he changed his mind.

Now when he is talking on his Bat Phone he will know if he is talking to his Mom or Sally who raised his dogs Murphy and Marley!