I Love a Bargain!

I love a bargain. Today at Wednesday sewing group one of the ladies was talking about the local Bernina store moving. She said they were having a moving sale with some machine accessories at really good prices. So...on my way home, I took a little detour and stopped by there. I got 3 specialty feet for my Bernina that I didn't have and paid $5 each for them. Most of the extra feet I have bought have been in the $25 to $40 range. They also had DMC 50wt. cotton machine embroidery thread for 50% off. I bought 6 spools in colors I didn't have since this is the thread I really like to use for my hand applique and it was only $1.50 a spool. The really great part about this store moving is.....they will be less than a mile from my house in their new location. Right now they are about 13 miles away. It will certianly be closer to take my machine for professional TLC.

I made some more of the muslin foundations for my Cathedral Window quilt last night, so I really don't have any pictures to share today.

Each year at this time I watch the Little League World Series. That's what I was doing as I stitched last night. I don't watch professional baseball, but I like watching the little guys who play simply because they love baseball. No big salaries...just a love of playing the game. My grandmother always loved watching baseball. She watched the pros though. As a little girl, I can remember her getting so excited and yelling at the tv as she watched on Sunday afternoons. She passed away suddenly at the age of 85 at home in her rocker and they believe she was watching a baseball game. I always found comfort in thinking about that because I know she was doing something that she enjoyed and that she wasn't sick and suffering for a long time. She has been gone for many years now, but I think of her each time I watch these little guys play.

What I've done this week

I promised pictures yesterday of what I've done this week...so here they are.
On Wednesday, I went to sewing group and was able to finish the last of the 12 1/2 inch blocks for my version of the Conway Album quilt for DD. Today I will be working on the center medallion again. Even though the small blocks are made and the medallion is nearing completion, there is still a lot of applique to do on the borders.
This is my ruched bluebonnets block. The blue fabric I used to make these was Benartex Gradations by Carol Bryer Fallert. It gave me the shading I wanted without having to piece together different blues. This quilt has a lot of ruching, and I'm really getting tired of doing it for now....so anything requiring ruching that I haven't already made up will remain a blank spot for a while until I feel like making more. I may even decided to replace some of the ruching with a different flower that I like better.

Yesterday I went to LQS for my monthly applique class. I worked on this.
As you can see, I still have most of the leaves to stitch. The pattern is a Botanical Tiles design by Dinah Jefferies.

We had a lot of fun in class. The ladies are a wonderful, fun group. We share, joke, poke fun, and laugh together and Dinah has about as much fun doing that as we do. I was awful yesterday. Some of the ladies who had not done ruching before wanted her to show them how to do it. Oh my....just what I wanted to do after all that work on the bluebonnet block! They worked on ruching...and I just stitched away on my block you see above. I did listen and picked up some tips to try when I do work on my ruching again. So, maybe I wasn't so bad afterall.

Since this class is held at a LQS, I always go a little early so I can shop. As if I really need to do that!! I wasn't going to buy any fabric, but they had gotten in some new batiks. They were just to beautiful to resist, so I bought a few fat quarters. Here's what I got.
Since I have been complaining so much about the heat, I'll have to say it is so much better today. We are starting the morning about 10 degrees lower than it has been. The weatherman says we may only go to the high 80's today. A huge improvement!

Enough already!! People are dying from this heat. DH and I went to Barnes and Noble bookstore around 6:30pm yesterday evening. It was like a blast furnace walking across the parking lot with the wind blowing and temp of 102 with heat index of 115....but the store was nice and cool. When we came out, there was a young woman laying on the sidewalk. She was conscious, but had passed out and fallen. The fire dept. and paramedics arrived and took care of her. I'm careful to drink lots of water and not over-exert myself with it being so hot. If you are in an area of extreme heat...please be safe and do the same.

I don't have any pictures to share today, but I will try to get some taken later today or tomorrow. I did go to my Wednesday sewing group and I am proud to say I have finished the last 12 1/2 inch block for the Conway Album. I am still stitching on the center medallion. It will be a while before I complete that. Today I am going to my monthly applique class. This is the one where I work on the botanical blocks. I'll also try to have a picture of something from that tomorrow. This is my third day in a row to go somewhere and stitch with friends. It's fun to visit, but I'm a homebody and looking forward to a calm week at home this next week.

Please notice the scratch marks on the front of the rocker in my post about my Cathedral Windows. Forgot to tell you that I proudly leave those marks there on purpose. They are the marks left by my 2 little ones as they were teething. Little one who are now 25 and 27. Ah! The memories! :-)

Here's a picture of the guilty parties.....after they both have a full set of choppers! Both are wearing fashions proudly sewn by Mom!

My Cathedral Windows Projects

I have something quilting related to share today...and yes, I did a little stitching last night. I think I have mentioned before that I have a Cathedral Windows quilt in the works. I experimented with a couple of methods of working on this. The first thing I made was this little wall hanging.

It is made with scraps of a Trip Around the World that I made for DD. With this wall hanging, everything was stitched by hand.

Then I decided I was going to make a pillow top to go with some of the other pastel things I have on the rocker that I used when my kids were babies. I made the rectangle you see draped over the back, but I never made it into a pillow. I just leave it draped there over the quilt. I'll post about that quilt another day.

I decided I wanted a Cathedral Window for my bed. This is a project I started with no deadline and assuming it would take years to do as it was to be what I work on when I'm between projects. Reading several books, I found a method where I could do the sewing on the muslin squares mostly by machine. I start out with a 7 inch square and I sew them like this.
Then I sew another seam...leaving an opening for turning. They look like this with the second seam.


Then I turn and press and have a square like this, but they are still are not ready for the fun part yet.

I still have to fold the corners to the center and secure them with a stitch so I get squares like this. This stitch is the first handwork I do to them, but from this point on....I do it all by hand.
Then I take these squares and I have decided to join them into a 9 patch configuration so they look like this. I decided on the 9 patch configuration because I thought it would be easy to handle as I sew in the colored squares. Later I will join the squares and fill in with color in the joining areas.
Now comes the fun part...adding color. I am using scraps of all colors to do this project.

You pin a colored square into a square on the muslin foundation, fold the loose edge over the edge of the color square and stitch into place. Because the loose edges are on the bias, you get a curved effect that makes this such a pretty piece.Last night I did a complete block of these.

This is a project that I plan to take a long time working on. No deadline....no pressure, just a hand sewing project to fill those times when I want to stitch and don't feel like working on applique or whatever. The nice part about this is when the last block is sewn together, the quilt is finished! There is no layering and quilting to this. The layers are in the folding of the muslin squares.

Today I am going to quilting group at the library. I am putting the Cathedral Window back in its box and I will be taking the Conway Album to sew on today. I am in the mood for applique again. Finally!!!

Today was a cleaning day at my house. Mopping floors, dusting, vacuuming, etc. Tomorrow will be more fun. Our local library has a quilting time each month. Anyone is welcome to bring the project they are working on and we sit and do handwork for 2 hours. There are a wide variety of ages and skill levels. We all help one another and just have a fun time talking and stitching. On Wednesday I have my weekly sewing group and on Thursday I have my month applique class. This is going to be a busy week, but at least it will be with things I enjoy.

Since I didn't have anything quilting related to show, I thought I would show you a picture of another thing I enjoy doing. I don't know if you will be able to see in the picture, but there is a hummingbird sitting on the tomato cage in my flower pot.

I put a tomato cage there each year because the little birdies seem to like sitting there to rest. I love watching these little guys. There were 2 at my feeders this evening and they were playing chase. Wish I could get up closer, but they fly away when I go out.







They like my feeders, but they also like my flowers....what little there is left of them after all the heat lately.

My lantana is doing well. It likes heat anyway. I'm not a big orange fan, but I did really like the yellow and orange combination of this lantana. I also have them in white and then in a solid yellow. It is nice to have something blooming and pretty to look at in the heat of summer. I think the hummingbirds like these also....and so do butterflies.