The Brown Bag Quilt

This week I cleaned out the closet of the ex-sewing room which is now my husband's man-cave/computer room. I wanted to clear some of the clutter out of there so I first emptied the closet which is packed with my stuff. I found lots of fabric scraps (which gives me a few ideas) and a few of my first quilt projects which I had gotten tired of and stowed away. One of which was this one.


My Brown Bag Quilt ---

Why is it called the Brown Bag Quilt? Well, during my second year of quilting the local quilt shop had a little challenge where they put some fabric in a brown bag and you were supposed to buy it and use it in a quilt project. I made this wall hanging with it and I have always thought it was kinda garish and tacky. The funny thing is that my tastes have changed so much that I got it out this week and took a good second look at it, and now I kinda like it.

I used to like subdued tones and antique looking... sort of ... thimbleberries type stuff I think. Now I love brights and jewel tones and novelty stuff. It isn't too big of a suprise since my paintings were always painted with the brightest boldest colors too. Hmm.. maybe I will post a photo of one of my paintings too. Here is my best and favorite-

Which reminds me. I used to excell at drawing and I haven't done much of it in years. I once did a very large very detailed drawing of a train for my husband when we were dating which he really loved. Today is our 8th Anniversary and I am making a new resolution (on top of my many) to get back into drawing again which he has requested many times. It isn't that I have a whole lot of extra time to do more stuff, but I do think it would be sad to let my skills dwindle away completely. It used to be the one and only thing I could do and it was the spark of talent that took me to college and onward in the first place.

I am off to go ride 4 miles on my bike per my resolution that I haven't had time for yet this year and it is a warm day today and hubby is watching the kids, so I better get while the getting is good! Later people!!!

Door Treatments

This evening I didn't get to do any work on quilts, but I finally did the curtain for our outside door, (the only one we actually use) which leads out from the dining room. I have some coordinating fabrics to make a table runner with also to match.

While I was working on this I had the brain storm to put an old tablecloth backwards on my laundry room door (which is very close to my sewing station) Now it is a design door! I can stick my fabric to it and move stuff around to decide what I like. It isn't much space, but it is enough to do a block or two at a time. I used to have a sewing room, but I never went in there because then my son would come in after me and get into stuff. I found that I would get stuff done if I just went back to the old dining room table plan. Now my sewing room is my husband's man/cave.

Anyway, how does it look? I hope not too tacky. I think it is fun. I need to take it back off and iron it. Maybe I will also find something to cover the bottom of the door also. There is my green dining room wall that I stenciled... as you see from the other photo above I did stripes on the other wall. (covering nasty wood paneling.... didn't even have to tape off the stripes, just paint the panels!)

also... I love green apple green!

Well, I gotta go put punkin in bed. I might post again tomorrow, but we have out-of-town guests coming in for the day. I am looking forward to that and then the day after that is my 8th anniversary of marriage. I was looking forward to that too, but due to schedule changes with his job we won't be going out like we had hoped. He will be working 2-11:00 p.m. which doesn't allow for much of a date. Then not another chance for one for a week. Oh well, maybe next week will be better for some reason anyway.

Take care!

Weekly Calender Strips

I am still continuing with the 7 strips a week project. I was a bit late with last weeks, my goal is to do it on Saturdays, but I have been doing them on Sundays, and this week it was about Tuesday of the next week when I got to it. So I went ahead and put together this weeks too. Here they are and then a photo of all four so far. I feel good when I get caught up. It is sort of like the scripture reading that my husband and I are doing this year (one of those read the Bible through in a year plans) I try to stay caught up and sometimes I get behind, but other times I read ahead and then feel good that I have some slack!

I did stumble upon more of my stashed fabric today so there should be enough for a few more weeks of this before either repeating fabrics or getting some new ones.

I really enjoyed reading many blogs today. It is amazing how far you can go when you read one blog and then click on a link that they refer to and so on and so on. I ended up looking at a very interesting homeschooling site and another called 'Ladies against Feminism' and many many wonderful blogs by really interesting and talented women. It is very nice to find many people who have various similar likes and dislikes as yourself. Even in far flung places. It makes the world feel a little smaller and warmer and more encouraging. Keep up the great blogging! Good night ladies.

A name for my online shop and the first items.

Well, I have a few photos of some sewing I have done this week, but I am unable to load them at the moment as there is a nine month old cord chewer at my feet and I don't want to plug the camera in while she is watching. lol So I will post those later today...

Yesterday I did some work on the online gift shop that I am working on. Most of you have etsy shops to sell your handmade crafts which I love! This is different. I had an online t-shirt shop and I am now converting it to a Quilt themed t-shirt and gift shop! So tell your friends, maybe I can have a nice giveaway next week with one of my new products. I will keep you posted on that one. In the meantime, the shop isn't very full yet but as it has finally been named, you are now welcome to shop there. I appreciate any word-of-mouth traffic you can send my way also.

Here is the new name via some pics of a few of the first products available-

Block Head Quilty Gifts.... I thought it was a cute idea... quilt blocks, block head... I wanted something with a little humor and cute. Above is a mousepad and mug with the shop logo.

The main products are clothing of course. here are two of my products with designs I have done. The logo and another which simply demonstraits what we love!

Many other products are available including these ceramic tiles which can be used as coasters. I will be designing a set of tiles with quilt blocks which can be used as a quilty set of coasters or even a tile backsplash!

I am very excited about the fact that I can provide truly quilt themed gifts and the possibilities are endless! I will also make available the option to have a photo of your quilt on any of the products available. Also, I can personalize products too! Anyway, the link to the shop is-

www.cafepress.com/blockheadgifts.

Hopefully I will be posting about actual quilting later today. Have a good one!

The Green Background and the Little Observers

Well, we were home sick from church tonight so I played around with some fabric. I found some old fabric which I had sewn together haphazardly once in an atempt to be creative. I cut it into 2 1/2 inch strips and sewed them together, then I cut that lengthwise twice and took out the middle and turned it around and sewed it back in. My goal is to applique something with this as the background and make a wall hanging. I am thinking of something like maybe the word home and an appliqued house or something like that. Maybe. I don't know yet.... Here are photos from my goofing off.

I was too lazy to get him to back out of the photo.

He wanted a photo taken of him too. This is my 3 year old quilting supervisor.

And she was also watching and having a great time.

I still need to sew together my 7 strips for this week and I have them picked out already. I will probably play around on the computer tonight with an idea for the applique on this geen background.

Gotta run now and do more mommy stuff! Take Care.

Improv Word Quilt

Well, things are still not quilte settled here what with the little ones and me being sick. Last night was very hectic and they wouldn't go to sleep for a long, long time. So no post last night.

Here is something I worked on two nights ago... I was looking at Jacquie's blog about improvisational quilting, and though I didn't want to join the challenge group and commit to anything, I did notice a few people were doing words without any pattern, so I jumped up and tried one myself. I think it came out great, but now I am wondering what to do with it! Maybe I will do Faith and Hope and somehow make a wall hanging out of it. It certainly turned out big! lol

I really enjoyed doing that as I am anti-pattern anyway.... I love anything I can do without following someone elses plan. I like getting to the actual fun stuff! One funny thing was that I was watching a movie while doing this and the song "That's the Story of Love" was playing.

Let me help you get this one stuck in your head for a moment....

"Youve got to give a little, take a little,

And let your poor heart break a little.

Thats the story of, thats the glory of love.

Youve got to laugh a little, cry a little,

Until the clouds roll by a little.

Thats the story of, thats the glory of love.

As long as there's the two of us,

Weve got the world and all its charms.

And when the world is through with us,

Weve got each others arms.

Youve got to win a little, lose a little,

Yes, and always have the blues a little.

Thats the story of, thats the glory of love.

Thats the story of, thats the glory of love."

There, now wasn't that fun? I hope you have a great one! Thanks for stopping by!

Deep Frying a Surprise

Tonight I didn't get to sew but instead I tried a new recipe as a way of surprising my husband. I knew he liked Caramel/Apple Empanadas, and we had never made them before so I tried my hand at it. I made some deviations from the recipe I found online... here are photos from my experiment. If you want the actual recipe ask and I will post it.

First, I made the dough and refrigerated it and then I started cooking the apples and caramel sauce....



Then I rolled out the dough and cut circles.... here is my secret replacement ingredient for the carmel part... ice cream topping!


Then I placed spoonfulls of sweet apple goodness into the little dough circles...



Next I crimped them shut and they were ready to chill for 3 hours....



Then after supper later... we dropped them in the fry daddy for 6 minutes and then after sprinkling a bit too liberally with powdered sugar... done!





And finally... mmmmm.




Next time- thinner dough and more caramel!!! Still pretty good.

Tommorrow, back to our regularly scheduled quilting blog!!! heheee.

Last Week's 7 Strips

Here are the 7 strips that I meant to sew together Saturday night. You can join this group and make a "calendar quilt" with us. I believe the idea is to sew a strip on each day, but I am doing 7 strips each week. I am already afraid my stash will not last even half the year as far as having a totally new strip each week. I am not sure if others are repeating fabrics or not. I should go there and check on that.

Today has been going pretty well considering me and the little ones are all sick. I managed to get caught up with many of my daily and weekly chores and habits I am trying to start. The only one I am not progressing well with is the bike riding. I'd really love to go, but being sick and only having a small window of time when hubby gets home to go before dark and it being really cold outside have been hindering me.

Well, gotta go run and get my little girl to bed. Take Care All!

Anything with Wheels Quilt- continued...

I got a lot done last night and tonight on the Tractor quilt... which should actually be known as the "Anything with wheels" quilt since I have put in all the moving vehicles that Micah likes... such as a train, an ambulance, a fire truck and a convertible and others. I fused them to the interfacing last night and traced and cut out the shapes. Today I ironed them to the backgrounds and stiched around them with a zigzag stitch on my machine. I am getting so much better now at doing that.

Here are the blocks laid out. I also have some tractor/construction fabric to throw in also. I still have 8 blank blocks left. I may put his name on them or more vehicles or wheels or maybe road. My biggest problem is that I didn't plan ahead and don't know how best to arrange the blocks. I am not worried about it though, I am glad I just did it and didn't sweat it much. There isn't much left to get the top together once I get those last few blocks appliqued.

I am proud of the stitching on this one since there were some tricky places. It's too bad the photo doesn't show it well.

As long as I was taking shots in my bedroom I decided to show the little trio of wall hangings I made once. It was quick and shabby, but I like them. I actually glued the fabric to cardstock and just tried some stuff. They are small and a bit warped.


Here is the blue and white quilt I made for my bedroom my first year of quilting. I was still bad at binding (really bad at corners that is) but I like it. It is typical of my style of cutting out squares and triangles and arranging them till I like what I have. I think I even scanned the fabrics and planned it on my computer with some graphic software. I haven't done that in a long time but I am doing it for a black and white quilt I am planning right now. It is so nice to just drag and drop a block until you get it the way you like.

Well, enough for tonight. I am getting sick and both my little ones are coughing too. Hoping for some rest for everyone now. Later quilty people!

Work In Progress: Tractor Quilt

I did a lot of work on the bed quilt for my son today. I cut the fabric into 12 inch blocks and am using the leftovers to make applique tractors, trucks and trains for the blocks. I then drew the pictures that I wanted freehand. I did pretty good seeing that I was in a hurry. He did later come in and name each one. (So I at least made them reckognizable! lol) I also cut out pieces of fusible webbing and pinned them all together with the fabric and the drawing so that tommorow I can hopefully take care of all of them in a pretty short time.




Here is a photo of a couple of them. I believe there are about 15 or so ready to fuse and cut out and fuse to the background.



I am really ready for bed now, but the 3 year old is still up! Gotta go work on that! Bye!

Quilty Mousepad

Hi all, Not much as far as photos today. I am having one of those days. My 9 month old darling has decided that night time is for getting up and daytime is for sleeping. This wouldn't be as bad if I didn't have another little one who has his days and nights correct and expects me to pop out of bed at 7 a.m. Right now they are both asleep, or is she? Anyway, I haven't gotten anything done today and am quite 'ferhoodled'. I believe that is the Amish term for being all mixed up. Nevertheless I did get to work a bit on my new shop that will be ready soon. Actually is is my old online t-shirt shop that I am revamping to be a Quilty Gift shop online. There will be plenty of t-shirts marketed toward quilters and other products too, like mugs, magnets, caps and bags and even clocks! For a preview, here is a mousepad I worked on today which will be available in my shop for only $12.09.
There will also be shirts and mugs and magnets and tile coasters available with this design. If anyone has any ideas for a quilt themed t-shirt or gift, please comment and I may be able to incorporate them into some products. Also I will be able to offer products with your own quilts on them. All you have to do is provide a good photo and voila! A comfy sweatshirt with your favorite comfy quilt on it to show to everyone! Also, imagine your favorite quilt blocks on coasters! I can even feature quilt blocks on Christmas ornaments! I am very excited about the possibilities.

That's all for today.

Leftover thoughts from yesterday and Pay It Forward

Well, yesterday I didn't get to sew or post. I had a great plan for after the kids were in bed but Sundays are often hectic around here and sure enough when I was getting my son to sleep I went too and afterward I had the opportunity to get up and get busy again but instead I took the extra hour or two of sleep while I could get it. My baby girl has been waking me up at all hours of the night so I need a bit of catchup sleep.

Anyway, I have this idea of doing a block every Sunday this year involving some fusible webbing and my own pattern that I am thinking up. I was going to start last night but didn't get to. Maybe I will work on it later today and post again tonight.

In the meantime, I signed up a few days ago for a Pay It Forward Group. So I am on Julie's over at Bush Baby Jag. Now I need to find three people to be on mine. Come on girls!!! I just want three people to send a handmade gift to this year. All you have to do is sign up to be one of my three people and then find three people of your own to send a gift to sometime this year. Then they agree to find three also and so on. Any takers?? Just make me a comment if you want to join mine. I have never done this before but it sounds like lots of fun.





I am so inspired by all that I am seeing on everyone's blogs that I will probably get planning overload, but here is the list I made several days ago of all my current project plans for this year. I don't think this will be all for the year of course, but as I am simply working off of the fabric I got from Christmas gift cards then I will be happy with what I have and use it to the fullest before seeking out new projects. Maybe I should set a goal to finish all of these before starting something new. (Unless it is a paid commission of course) This will at least keep me from stashing up more UFO's.

So here is my list of current projects to work on....


Calendar Quilt (join this group with us- sew a strip a day (or 7 strips a week like me!)
Walk Around the Block quilt - (needs to be finished, been hanging around for a few years)
Baby boy quilt 1
Baby boy quilt 2
I Spy Quilt for my son
I Spy Quilt for CASA
Tractor/Truck bed quilt for my son
New curtain for kitchen
New curtain for side door
Wall hanging to match curtain
Black and White Challenge Guild project
Painted muslin sign projects (multiple small ones)
Block a Week project (still working on)
A lap quilt for Papa
Wall hanging or bag from pink and green fabric
Fall fabric table runner
Blue and White checked project
Table Runner

That is 15 projects. Most are very small projects however and a couple are real question marks. I also now know of another expectant friend but don't know if I can make the baby fabric stretch, plus don't know what she is having yet. I usually try to make baby quilts for all my friends, and have definitely made more baby quilts than anything. The last three years were almost exclusively taken up with baby quilt projects(and having and raising babies!). And since I don't have any other photos at the moment, here are a couple of my more recent baby quilts-


This one was for Baby Julia. I call it Orange Sherbert. I made up the pattern as I went. I am sure it isn't original though, but I sometimes just cut out tons of triangles and then arrange them until I like the look. I am not one to look at patterns to do anything, I just wing it.




This one was for Baby Peyton. Again, had no idea what it would look like when I started. I really liked the colors and how it came out. Couldn't get my son to stay out of the picture. lol






And here is the one for my daughter. Still not bound. All I did was order two charm packs from the fat quarter shop online. I put them together and then fused the name on. Funny Story.... I was completely finished with the quilt with a different name on it that we were going to name her... and then a couple of weeks before she came we completely decided to change her name to Allison. We are so glad we did too, just weren't happy anymore with the old name. I felt pretty dumb after having told everyone months earlier the first name and sewing it on the quilt, but within 2 days I had the old one off and the new one on and stitched all around again! (still needs binding!) Love the colors.





Anyway, there are others, but I will save them for another time. I have about 5 more to show. I like doing lots of projects but don't have the money or time for full sized quilts, so for now baby quilts and lap ones will have to do.
Thanks for stopping by! Talk to you later.

Weekly Block, I Spy again, and Black and White Challenge!

I have lots of pics today to make up for yesterday! It was a good day full of new habits to be resolute about. This year however, one thing I am not thinking about is a diet. I know that is the usual resolution for everyone, but I don't feel too bad since one of mine is to get back to doing my 4 miles a day on my bike. I was doing so well for about 3 months until I hurt my back right before Thanksgiving and am just now brave enough to go out and start again. I did 2 miles today and will probably be stiff tommorrow, but I did it! Now on to quilty stuff!

First, my guild is having a challenge this year that I am going to participate in. I missed almost every meeting last year since I was ultra-prego at the beginning of the year and then handling a newborn for the middle part. I am going to try to make it to every meeting this year and join in the challenge too. It didn't hurt that I was super-excited about this particular one. At the Guild Christmas party, which I did actually get to attend, they handed out mystery pieces of fabric. When we got to see what color we were given they told us that we need to make something with only that color and black and white. I have been itching to do something black and white with a touch of color. Now this may not be the color I would have chosen, but it really isn't bad considering. (could have been much worse, like coral... yuck) So here is the color and the black and white fabrics I have collected to go with it. Also a fabric I found that matches the challenge fabric almost exactly!





I have been thinking of what to do with these for this project and I believe I will make a wall hanging with them using a wonky log cabin block! I was already thinking of doing that when I found this great one demonstrated on this quilty blog- It is perfect! I am so tempted to break the challenge rules however and add a red fabric in there... maybe the blue as the center square and the a red ring in the cabin. Also, I may not actually make it wonky, I am a little scared to try it!


Next: I said I would show a pic of the second I spy quilt I slapped together this week. This one is for a charitable organization that our guild makes quilts for.


Now there is this block which is from an idea someone had on their blog in which you put together a strip a day for the year. I wanted to do something continuous, but I am not sure if I will stick to the rules. Also *grimace* I can't seem to remember which blog I saw it on! I changed it from 1 inch by 10 to 2 inches by 12. I think you end up with two long sets of strips and put them together for a quilt. We shall see. I may morph this into a totally different idea.






Next: The Reindeer wall hanging I started last year and hung this year that still lacks binding. It is quilted though!




And here is one of my favorite things I have made, though it is only a small project that I did a couple of years ago and never even quilted or bound until this week. I love the pattern and hope to do a large one someday. I think it is sometimes called 'Crossed Canoes" Not sure though.






One more pic! I am on a roll... I got some good news yesterday. A friend who has been trying to get pregnant is now expecting! We were praying for them as this she had undergone a tubal reversal surgery last year to try to have a baby. We were so happy for them and I tried to explain this to my son (3 yrs old). After I told him how excited they were to have a baby, he got so excited about our own baby he decided to hug her alot! So here is the shot- ( not the best lighting but cute)



Praise the Lord for little babies and big brothers too!!
Have a great weekend!







ps. Finally finished the blog header!! Yay! Spent a lot of time on that today too.

Busy Day !

Well, no photo today, but a few words anyway. I had fun working on the blog background last night and reading some other blogs. I ended up joining two projects. One is a strip a day project. I think I may simply put together 7 strips each week. I believe I am supposed to put them into two large columns in the end. (1 inch by 10 inch strips). I can't even remember where I joined this project either! I will have to be more careful next time I sign up for something. lol
I also joined a PIF project. Which I had never heard of until last night and I thought it sounded like a great idea without really understanding it fully and I joined. Now I find I have to get 3 more people to join as that is how it works. The person I joined will send me and two other people a homemade gift (quilted I think) within this next year sometime and I am supposed to find three people to send gifts to and they have to agree to find three people too.... so anyone interested? I need three people to make gifts for!!! (all you have to do is the same thing I am doing!) Please let me know if you want to be my PIY people.
As for the blog. I am excited about it. Still not finished with the look. I will be making a better header soon. Had a busy day with a checkup for my 9 month old and other errands, now we have my brother over for a game night... (trivia, scrabble, maybe cards) So no more time for photoshop stuff tonight. Tommorrow, a photo of the second 'I Spy' quilt and probably a photo of the fabric I have collected for our guild's challenge for this year! Thanks for stopping by.

I Spy and Background Plotting

Hi all, I spent the first half of the day putting together two "I spy" type quilt tops in a hurry. One is for my son who was thrilled (seen below) and the other, which I will post a photo of tomorrow, is to be given away. The novelty fabrics I got on sale this week included some of his favorites, like Thomas the Tank engine and Cars. I used to think I would never make a quilt with commercial characters in it (a purist I guess) but when you have your own kids and see how easy it is to make their eyes light up with their favorite characters then you say 'what the heck!' lol

The last part of this evening has been spent learning how to make my own background for this blog. The one you see now is probably the temporary one that I used to learn with. I will hopefully come up with something better soon. I will get busy on that again tomorrow! Gotta go put my son to bed!