First Attempt At Applique

This is part of the border on a quilt that the guild is donating to the Southeast Textile and Quilt Museum that will be in Carrolton, Georgia. The museum is slated to open some time in 2011. All the quilts that are being donated by guilds and individuals will hang in Georgia's capital building early next year and then will be displayed at the museum. After a period of time they will then be auctioned off to raise money for the museum.

So this is my first try at applique and I used the freezer paper and starch method to do the leave, flower and center of the flower. I think it turned out fairly well.

I had started with the stems and leaves a while back, but had set it aside because I've been having a problem with my left shoulder for sometime now. Doing the applique really aggravates my shoulder even though my left is just my holding hand. Time was a wasting though, so I had to get back on it. I tried doing it with a pillow tucked under my arm, but that really didn't seem to help.

Today my shoulder/arm aches and I finally bit the bullet and called the Dr. for an appointment. Amazingly, they had an opening this afternoon at 3:30. I'll see if he can check for arthritis or any other type of "itis" associated with getting old. I'll also have him check to see if Max might have further aggravated my shoulder when she yanked me off the front porch a few weeks ago and I landed on my left shoulder.

Chattanooga Visit With Daughter

 

My daughter came in from Milwaukee for a visit on Thursday of last week and it sure was great having her here!

On Friday, we headed to Chattanooga for sight seeing and a VA visit for Sweetie. I can't tell you how many times over the years I have driven through Chattanooga and looked over at Lookout Mountain, thinking how cool it would be to go up on that train. Well, we finally did it. It was a little pricey ($14 round trip), but we did enjoy it. The air was beastly hot and humid in the valley, but pleasantly, 8 degrees cooler, much less humid and breezy up on the mountain. Even though it was hazy in the distance, it was still quite the view. We also enjoyed strolling around the neighborhood and looking at the homes.

On other days, we went into Ellijay to shop and have lunch, drove down to Canton to explore the Exit 19 and 20 shopping areas, and went tubing on the Coosawattee River. Before we took her to the airport on Tuesday afternoon, I took her with me to Quilt Guild in the morning and then we had a fun lunch with some of the ladies at Canterburys in Ellijay.

Our next visitors will be my son and his family. They will be here for a week in the middle of August. Sure hope the weather isn't so hot, but I'm not counting on it.

Lemonade Pillow Is Done

I think it turned out pretty darn cute IMOHO!

Yesterday afternoon, we put up rods and drapes in the master bedroom and questroom in preparation for company. After a couple hours of steaming wrinkles, I'm pleased with how they look.

Yesterday, I also made order in the quilt room. Now I won't be embarrassed by my mess, although my daughter probably wouldn't have noticed the mess. She's a messy kind of girl.

The Border Is On The Hexie Lemonade Pillow

I'll use the same fabric as the border for the back of the pillow. The borders went on last night and I'm not sure I'll get to the back until after Sweetie turns in.

The center (hex and first border) of the pillow was something that I had sewn together a month or so ago after I saw it on Sue Daley's blog. All of her hexies are hand sewn, but I decided to give it a go the the sewning machine and it worked just fine.

Woo hoo! Susan ,adding a link really was easy!!!

Woo hoo!! Today is Susan's birthday!!! Drop in to her blog, leave a birthday greeting and view her beautiful photos!

Lemonade Pillow....Or Reject Hex Block

To most of you, this probably looks like a quilt block...it was suppose to one, but now it's going to be a lemonade pillow for the back porch. You know...when life (or screw ups) gives you lemons...you make lemonade.

(BIG SIGH)

What have I learned today.......if you're going to use starch, I think it would have been wiser to have sprayed, pressed, and then cut...and not the reverse like I did (things can get ever so slightly wonky)....when you're experimenting don't try and get to precise to avoid wasting some fabric (live with a little waste...bad things can happen...especially if you may have been just a skosh more generous in your seam allowance).



(Another Big Sigh)

Tomorrow or maybe latter tonight, I'll add a border, cut a back and stuff the pillow.
When it's done, I think it will be a pretty darn cute lemonade pillow.

Here's The Hexagon Block!

The block measures 10 1/2" and was smooth sailing until it was time for it to become as square....the four corner pieces were a bite difficult for me. Everything considered...I think it turned out well and I will make eight more for a square table topper for the back porch.

Blogging On The Porch

This morning, after the flowers were watered, the furkids were brushed, the hair swept up in the greatroom (daily ritual)and a cup of coffee was made, I headed out to the porch to read. I had my coffee and book and the doggies had a fresh bowl of water, so I settled into a log rocker with coffee in hand, opened my book and eeerrr! doh! duh! drat!....after reading the first sentence, I realized that I've already read this book. I had checked it out a couple of years ago when it was new!

Not to waste the cool of the morning, I went up to the loft and got the laptop, brought it down to the porch and jumped into the web universe. Isn't wireless Internet a marvelous thing!

I've seen a lot of collages lately in blogs and I've played with it before on Picasa, so I thought I would use it today. My pictures start out at a high resolution so at this point Blogger will only let me put up three pictures. Susan and Sandy...any tips since you both blog with such beautiful pictures. I also need to figure out inserting links!

The collage pictures were taken two years ago at the annual flower show held at Navy Pier, on the lakefront in Chicago.

When the heat comes back this afternoon, I'll be heading back to the quilt room. Late last night I got this inspiration for a hexagon quilt block that I could actually use strips and to some chain piecing!!!!!

Later!!

Guild Project

Here are the pictures of some finger pincushion that we made at the guild. I didn't make these particular ones...mine are already at the LQS and as a matter of fact one of mine was the first to sell (grin). I jazzed mine up with some braiding on the cap.

Two of the three books have been read, but since heat came back I haven't read as much. I really enjoyed going out on the back porch and reading under the fans.

The past couple of days I have made it back into the sewing room...just playing around on the machine, reading quilt books and doing a little straightening up.

Tonight was date night, so Sweetie and I went to Jasper and had Chinese at Ably's...major yum! The mango sticky rice was exceptional tonight!