Sewing is a pressing matter...

The Bloomin' Rose Signature quilt block exchange quilt top, is mostly done. I need to pick out a couple of borders and add some leaves and the top is complete.

Last Christmas, 2006, for a present from our group members, we all made 16 blocks and signed them. With lots of excitement and laughter we sat in a circle and exchanged the colorful blocks with the other members that participated. This was a wonderful way to get a little something from everyone, without spending any money. That time of year we spend so much on our families and we all had fabric, of course, so we made these easy blocks for our exchange. After the exchange, each member was on their own to decide how to put the blocks together in a quilt. I've seen butterflies and flowers and some very creative borders. We will be having our party for the unveiling of the quilt tops in June. I can't wait to see what everyone has done.

I'm sure all you quilters know how important it is to set your seams. First using the cotton setting, and I like to use steam, on the side just sewn press and then open and press to either side of the seam. Shadowing is a factor-don't press to the light side. Here's my Bloomin' Rose bloomin'.

This makes 2 quilts in the queue almost ready for quilting. I might be sending some quilts out for quilting, if I stay this prolific.


Springtime in Kentucky is to be the theme in our quilt challenge for the Quilter's Day Out quilt challenge, March, 2008. I can't say what my design is going to be. I've thrown out all kinds of hints to the ladies in the guild. They think I've given them all my secrets, but, ole Julie ain't telling all she knows...hehe...smile...

Double Secret Quilt Productions will unveil that little jewel later on. Does anyone remember that phrase? Double Secret? Where did that come from? I just made the name of that "quilt company" up. I don't have one, just like to quilt for fun. Maybe someday...naahhhh...smile

NYC, Quilt show and Job Shadowing...smile

This is what quilting looked like in the 1850's. Can you imagine? All that stiffness, not to mention how hot it must have been under those skirts. This is a picture at the Chester County Historical Society's quilt show. This is an excellent show and I highly recommend going. It is not large, but it has very well documented information about the quilts and the makers of the quilts. Sorry about the glare on this civil war era quilt, but, it was in a glass case...anyway, it was beautifully made in the mid 1800's. I really like the printed pictures in the centers of the blocks.

I've always liked making feathers in my machine quilting designs, but, I'm going to try this willow tree designthat was hand quilted in a whole cloth white quilt from 1802. It was a little discolored with age, but, you could see the detail of the quilting very well.

The collection included a lot of fund raising signature quilts.

The skill of the signatures is amazingly beautiful in it's own right. These 1800's beauties haven't been seen in 10 years and are only on display until September. Besides the quilts, there is a wonderful grandfather clock collection from the 1700's to 1800's. Lot's of eye candy here.

We made the trip to New York City, in order to bring our daughter, Chelsea, to Columbia University. Oh and guess what...IT'S FLEET WEEK!

Just another thing to add to the list of worries about her time away from us...yikes! She's supposed to be at the American Natural History Museum learn about a meteorite. She wants to be a geologist. I hope there's not a lot of distractions...yeah right! Our other daughter, Jennifer, was thinking about being a teacher and she got to shadow her aunt Kathy while she taught a special needs class in Pennsylvania. If you or your kids are considering a profession, this is a wonderful way to get some insight into a given field. Just spending a day at work with someone, might not give the complete story, but, it'll give a good sample. She has lots to consider. The job of being an English teacher failed in comparison to being a French teacher after a day spent observing, at least as far as my dd was concerned. She also was interested in being an English as a Second Language teacher. Oh well, it's another cog in the wheel of the decision making clock...smile.

These Boots Are made For Walking Original

Enjoy...some of you might remember...smile

One of the best take along projects...

Can you guess what this is a picture of?


Only one of the best take along projects a quilter can do.








This is my assortment of Aunt Martha's. This is an embroidery pattern company that's been around for over 70 years. These patterns are usually inexpensive, but, I've seen, I suppose what are the original year printing for 20 to 30 dollars, you can buy them elsewhere for under a dollar, depending on the pattern you choose.

I learned to embroider using these patterns when I was a little girl. A feisty widow woman, named Mrs. Park, taught me how to embroider. She never remarried and always said "there are far worse things than being lonely." She liked sharing her love of quilting and embroidery with whomever would listen, so much so, I think my mom dreaded another trip with a visitor to her home, when she felt she had to bring out all the quilts she'd made and lovingly share where each piece of material was from whose dress. I guess that really was my beginning of my love of quilting, because, I was not board by it all.

Mrs. Park showed me how to iron them onto my tea towels. I would make a trip to the dime store, as they were called, before the main streets and down towns of small town America disappeared. The Dime Store held all the little items like sewing notions and kitchen gadgets and small toys, it was a treat to go in there. Once I purchased my embroidery thread at the dime store, I used to sit around my house in my mini skirt and white vinyl go go boots like Nancy Sinatra, doing embroidery. My mom used to laugh at me, all of 8 or 9 years old, trying to look like Nancy Sinatra or somebody like that, embroidering. Hey, I was nothing if not stylish for the 1970's...smile...

Anyway, I like cows. I think I'll start this one on some white cotton fabric. I do like to add an interfacing to the back of the piece for a nice lay of the stitches. I know I have a bunch of cow themed blocks in my special closet. Most quilter's have one, you know a secret place that hides fabric and most of our quilty things that I know won't go bad on the shelf and that someday will become wonderful finished projects.

I doubt if Nancy Sinatra likes cows...or embroidery...

I'm having to come up with a take along project, because we are on our way to take my youngest, Chelsea, to New York City, USA. She is studying to be geologist and is starting an internship at the American Museum of Natural History, to study a somewhat famous meteorite, the Allende.

Well you know, I think it's exciting, but, my DH is beside himself, a bit, with worry...too much Law and Order on TV. I think we've given her a healthy dose of fear-stay inside after dark; don't talk to strangers; and for heaven's sake DON'T LOOK THEM IN THE EYE!...did I forget to mention she's 19? We might have gone overboard...smile...

But, you know, she's going to be there for 8 weeks! Oh well, it'll be a good opportunity for us to visit NYC a couple of times, hopefully. I'm looking forward to it and so is she, it's my DH that can't understand why women like NYC so much. I think I'd like to live there for 6 months, just to see all the museums, then that's probably enough, back to my Old Kentucky Home...smile.

I have a suggestion for a day trip in Louisville, Kentucky. Get your bicycles to or walk the Riverwalk. My DH and I started at the waterfront, at the turquoise parking lot and rode a 16 mile round trip on the bike trail that is both wide and shaded in most places. It follows the Ohio River. Then we loaded the bikes back up and went to El Mundos on Frankfort Avenue.

Happy quilting and biking!

Taking pictures of quilts and Mother's Day Happiness

Taking a picture of a quilt can be quite a challenge. Either the quilt is so big you can't get it all in and focused properly or you have to shoot it at an angle. I think I've solved this dilemma, at least for myself, by bringing my quilts outside and photographing them in nature or on my front porch. You can see the difference the shade makes verses the full sun
and mottled shade.

This is an Arced Double Wedding Ring quilt that I made for my daughter Chelsea when she was very young. The front is pieced with a whole cloth back. I say whole cloth when I don't piece the back with different fabrics to use up the stash. Shame on me there is no label on the back, and you know how I feel about labels-they must be there for the future, so this will move to the top of my handwork pile by the TV and I will put one on it. The sad thing is I think I made it around 1992. I remember taking several classes at that time and I imagine that's about the time frame. But, you know at least it will have a date and designate whose it is. Perhaps, in the future my girls decide they both want one of my quilts, there will be no doubt to whom it was given.

I started following the design of the print on the fabric for the quilting, which is a perfectly viable option for quilting, but, I just don't like that quilting design for this quilt. I think I'll redo it and will have to come up with another design for the center of the rings. I love this quilt and it's soft colors. Notice the all over soft harmony of color. The curved binding is one of the most difficult things to do in quilting. This is a twin size quilt, made for her bed at the time. Some quilts really do make our hearts smile.

Next is another quilt I made for Chelsea, I try to switch back and forth between my daughters, it just so happens I've picked up two for photographing for my blog that are Chelsea's. I'll try to get 2 for Jennifer next time. Anyway, this is made with my favorite block, Ohio Star. The offsetting squares are Kaffe Fassett bright clear fabrics. These are set against the dustier/duller Japanese fabrics, which give an illusion of the bright squares floating on the quilt. I like the use of color and quilting to add another dimension to an overall quilt design. This is a full/queen size quilt made for her bed later in life.

The back is stash busting supreme,

using huge chunks of fabric sewn together.
You can see my free motion quilting on the back and

there is a label.

So much for the quilting part of the this post.

I had such a great Mother's Day yesterday. We went to Marengo Cave, in Indiana, which is about 45 minutes from Crestwood, Kentucky, where we live. For about $30.00, we were able to go spelunking (cave exploring),

have a picnic and also go on a float trip on the Blue River with Cave Country Canoes. Great fun. I hope everyone got to have a great special Mother's Day. If you live anywhere near that area, I highly recommend visiting. There was also a pretty good restaurant, the Blue River Cafe, although, I think they were slammed with people and understaffed for Mother's Day, so service was pretty slow. But, it was right next to the canoe rental and we worked up an appetite canoing.

Happy Quilting!

A quilt grows and a cowbird mystery...hmmm

First the quilt. It's a really big quilt. We have a king size bed and it needs to be large on the face of it and then comes the borders to hang over the sides. I like combining appliqué and piecing so the quilt will have an appliquéd outer border, with vines and tulips. If you click on the label of this post, pink and brown scrap quilt, you should be able to see all the work I've been doing on this quilt, as well as the book the pattern is from.


Now on to the next example/lesson for adding the borders. I usually like an inner border to set off the quilt, but not always. In this case I have added an inner border, which is light brown with polka dot to frame the inside of the pink and brown hour glass/nine patch quilt. I don't know what I'll name it, maybe something will hit me as I write.

Anyway, I like to tear my fabric. As long as it's good quality fabric you should be fine doing that. Especially for borders, where you are cutting many yards of fabric, tearing is easier than wearing out your hands. This is a great quality Northcott brand fabric. To me, their fabric is close but not exactly like, Liberty of London fabric, which is like butter. If your fabric is not so great, you might get a lot of thread pulls when you rip, so check a small piece before you tear. You will get some little ripples, but, should not have any deep thread pulls.

I also like a mitered border. When you are tearing your border fabric, be sure to add extra fabric in order to make the miter. You will want an extra amount of at least the width of the border and I add a couple of inches more for good measure. You can always cut fabric-it's harder to add to something. Sew your inner border on first, miter it, then attach the outer border. To miter it, fold the borders on top of each other and draw a line from the seam of the inner border out to the end of the mitered outer border. Pin and sew on the line. Trim the seam and iron. Repeat on all the sides. The next time I work on this, I'll be adding my applique vine and flowers, using the Quilt in a Day method of applique and using the Fast Turn tool for the vine. But, this post is getting pretty long, so it's off to bird land, my other favorite hobby.

Has everyone turned on their air conditioner? We are still trying to save some money and have 4 fans running-2 pointed in the house-2 pointed out of the house to really circulate the air. So far, it's 85 degrees outside and I'm working with a sewing machine and iron and am staying comfortable.



The cowbird, I've only recently learned, is a parasite of sorts. It likes to lay it's eggs in another birds nest and lets them sit on it and raise it.

Anyway, the other day I opened my front door and noticed the floral wreath had fallen off the door. Underneath the wreath lay a broken egg. I thought, OMG, someone in our neighborhood doesn't like us! What did I do? Was I driving a little too fast? Should I have gone to that party, but, had other plans...hmmmm....

Upon further inspection, I realized the egg was splattered away from the front door. Not towards it like someone throwing it at us. Then I noticed is was really small with light brown speckles.

So I went upstairs and don't we all just love the Internet for the answer to anything? Sure enough, that egg matched the egg of the cowbird and don't you know, that bird has been a regular visitor to our bird feeder. So mystery solved!