Diamond in the Rough and NPR...smile

Bloomin' Roses aside and parties complete, it's on to other things. My next project in the queue is the Diamond in the Rough quilt. My MIL was over for my daughter's graduation and she liked these blocks, so, I'm going to make this quilt for her. I haven't been much of a quilt gifter. Other than making quilts for high school graduation for my daughter's friends and a baby quilt for my niece. Making quilts is like raising children, there's so much work in them, I can't give my children away. All the quilts that are stacking up around here, have been labeled with one daughter or the other on the back. I've been switching back and forth, make one for Jenni, make one for Chelsea, etc. Some of the quilts they really like, some they don't, but, I figure, one day they, or their kids will enjoy one of those quilts. The original pattern is for maybe a twin size bed, but, I'm enlarging it to fit a bed. My super practical MIL wouldn't probably want it any other way. Maybe she'd use if as a lap quilt, but, I think this design will look stunning on a bed. Moda makes great fabric. They are smart to build on previous collections. The blocks in this project began with the Folkloric collection. Once I decided to make the quilt larger, I knew I needed more fabric. The light bulb went off and I remembered there was more Moda fabric on the shelf I had intended to use on another project. The project is a scrap project, although, I'll admit to buying more fabric to complete the scrap project. There's just something in me that wants things to look right. But, like I said, luckily I did have some fabric I'd already purchased that will work great for the scrappy sashing. Yeah, I like when things work out that are a complete surprise-those are usually the best for me.

Here's a wonderful tool, the Alto's cutter. It really makes cutting multiple layers smoothly, diamonds, squares, whatever.

Waterfront Wednesday and National Public Radio...smile. There aren't many places left where you can bring your lawn chair down to the river and watch great live music for free. Here in Louisville, Kentucky, USA, it's called Waterfront Wednesday. From 5:00 to 9:00 there are big acts, Duncan Sheik, Jonatha Brook and not so big acts and soon to be big acts. The public radio station in this town supports the local music scene and I like that. When an artist that is lost and finds that he or she is good at singing or playing an instrument, I think that is the best gift anyone can give or receive. Thanks WFPK.

Whoopty Doo, it's a Bloomin' Rose Quilt Party

Yep, we had it, the unveiling of the Bloomin' Rose Sigi block exchange. Last December for a present we gave to each one that wanted to participate, a quilt block with our signature on it. There were 16 that made and signed the blocks, well, mostly. We had some catching up to do today with the signatures, but, we got it done. We were to have 6 months to do something with them, or not. So it's June, that means party and Show and Tell. Show and Tell is the same as it was when you were in grade school. Since quilters are all children at heart and we never did grow up, we have Show and Tell.

Here is our lovely group of talented gals with their quilts they made:

Shirley our most wonderful Southern Bell Hostess

This is Carol one of our newer quilters that continues to amaze

This is Sherrill's quilt.

Evelyn is the Queen Bee of the guild.

Cici used the leaves to create a secondary element to the quilt.

Ginny used some fabric that had been on her shelf for the longest.

Joan is a master quilter and was the first to finish her quilt.

Yours truly

Deloris's lovely quilt

Dot's soft and lovely quilt, if you click on the picture you can see the unique sashing she did.

Mary's quilt, if a prize was awarded, she would have won.

Ruth's was the most planned to show off the signatures. All the signatures on the 4 roses were surrounded by butterflies.

It's always amazing to me how all these gals started out with the same blocks and all the finished quilts looked so different. Flowers on point or in square blocks; butterflies added, appliqued or pieced borders really brought out the colors of the quilt.

That's the beauty of quilting and the art in it. Our chance to be creative with a practical craft that we and our family can enjoy for years. We had the worlds best cake to eat and even the flowers wanted some. Good Food; Good Friends; Good Times...smile

Drama Prairie Dog

If you need a laugh...

Panda Sneeze

Too Funny!

Tagged I'm it...

I've seen these tags everywhere and as of yet have not been asked to list my seven most random things about me. Until now, I've been tagged by the the lovely Diva of Quilts. Randomness is really something I like, uniqueness, oddities and all things original are my favorite things in life. Here are some specific random things about me...hmmm...that may be an oxymoron, one of my favorite things.

1. I like juxtapositions: words or titles that conflict, such as Waxfang, a band I'm liking a bit these days.

2. I like to understand people, but, I tend to "wear" their problems and it scares me.

3. I like to stay busy, quilting or volunteering with NPR or my church.

4. I love swamps and cypress trees with moss hanging from them. My favorite is the Corkscrew Swamp in Florida.

5. I cry sometimes, when I see young people being brave and getting up to sing on stage. I think how hard that must be to overcome that initial fear, not knowing if it's an appreciating audience or not or if they'll be good or not.

6. I like visual texture. Artwork that you look at once and see something, look at it again and you see something completely different.

7. Bats are the coolest animals because they have radar or sonar or something that allows them to fly so fast without bumping into each other and they eat mosquitoes.


Well, there it is, my weird random little known and less cared about facts about me.

So now I must tag 7 other bloggers for 7 random facts about them.

1. Yankee Quilter
2. Firefly Needles and Threads
3. Confessions of a Mad Quilter
4. Friendship Threads
5. As The Needle Bends
6. Creative Little Daisy
7. Pieces of Time

These are wonderful inspiring blogs that I have listed to the right. All these blogs are about life and quilting and other things to enjoy.

Make it a Great Day!

Bloomin' Rose Complete

Quilting is daunting sometimes. I suppose that's why we have so many UFO's. Our eyes are bigger than our stomach-or so goes the old saying about filling your buffet plate too heavily for you to eat when you were a kid.

So it goes for our creative mind's eye with projects for quilting. We see so many possibilities and being an instant gratification kinda gal, I'm the first to admit to mumble, mumble projects in the closet in boxes, ready to pick up for completion...some day. You know, they don't go bad on the shelf!...smile. Anyway-this Bloomin' Rose quilt is a great easy project to finish-no matchy matchy-no perfection-just easy fun quilting making at it's best. And also best is the signature project-that being a block exchange with friends in my quilt group, Northeast Quilting Friends. Now we all have a reminder of the laughter and all things quilters share with the signature of our quilting friends.

My new favorite thread for hand stitching is Essential from Connecting Threads. One of the gals in our group, Mary, discovered this website and purchased this very inexpensive thread for our members that wanted to split the mailing cost, I think each spool of 1200 yards, size 50 was only 1.25. Boy was I surprised when I grabbed the closest color to my binding (not the one pictured, I used that to show the label). In the past I've used a thread conditioner, called Thread Heaven, to keep my thread from twisting and knotting when hand stitching. This thread did not need it. It came off the spool beautifully and did not knot! I'm sure it's made more for the machine, but, upon my quick need to match thread to binding, as I'm under the deadline for our party on Tuesday this is a superb discovery, thanks Mary!

Quick movie review-The Good German-don't bother I finished the binding while I was watching The Good German-don't waist your time, unless you really like the film Noir genre, which I am a big fan of, also George Clooney and Kate Blanchet and Toby Macguire-it should have been great....alas...

Quick CD review: Instant Karma-relief for Darfur-Check it out!

On to all things quilting...smile. This is what it takes to finish a quilt: Essential Thread from Connecting Threads; Archival quality pen to make your label; the label itself.

Make it a great day!

Binding is on and I'm on to the Diamond in the Rough.

Binding is the final touch to make your quilt complete, er, well, almost, one must always, always, always put a label on a quilt. The future needs to know the story about this quilt-who made it; when it was made; etc.

Off my soap box about the labels.

I like a 2.25 inch binding. Fold it in half and sew this all around the edge. I don't trim the batting until after I've sewn on the binding.
Sew up to the corner, all the way to the turning point, then fold back and turn the corner and begin sewing again. If you need clarity, Fons and Porter sells a great cheat sheet, tool sort of thing for this. It's laminated and well worth the money. The back shows how to make continuous binding. The card/tool also shows a great trick for sewing the binding ends together.

I'm whip stitching it to finish while watching a movie called The Good German. I'll let you know if it's any good.

The Diamond in the rough has started out as a scrap quilt (excuse my dirty floor, must quilt, not clean right now...smile). I did end up buying some more scraps to match. How crazy is that? I wanted the scrappy, coordinated look I guess. Anyway, I wanted the sashing to look scrappy and was a bit befuddled at how to accomplish this. Until I read one of my really great blog inspirations (to the right), that being the Quilting Daze Blog. Funny thing is, she admitted to using another quilter's ideas and gave her full credit for the idea. I'm now giving full credit to the Daze for her sashing technique, that I'll employ in this quilt. Is that okay? Are not all quilt blocks a rendition of another quilter's work. If not today, then certainly in the 1920's or 1930's when a lot of these blocks were designed?

Even though quilting is a craft handed down through the years, I still like my technology today. I'm a full sensory kinda gal. This is me sewing the Diamond in the Rough with my noise canceling headphones on, which are plugged into my ipod. I keep these on when my DH is watching something on TV I'm not particularly interested in. He bought them for me for Mother's Day this year-yeah DH! Notice my big radio in the background-it is my daughter's-like mother, like daughter.

Happy Quilting!