Crazy for Quilting!

And crazy for crazy quilts! I like crazy quilts because there are no rules when making a crazy quilt. You just take your fabrics and start stitching and embellishing and you get "lost" in the creative process. I think I like crazy quilting because when I am stitching a crazy quilt project I get so "lost" in the creative process that I forget about the craziness of real life! Here's another old crazy quilt that belongs to my mother.

This one is in very good condition. The backing on this one is the red fabric that borders this quilt. I love the circle in the center and decided to invent my own story for the maker..........I am sure it's a wagon-wheel that is a symbol for the wagon that carried the young woman who stitched this across country from the East to Ohio, to Missouri and then north to Iowa.

Speaking of stories, have any of you read the books by Emilie Richards? I am currently reading "Sister's Choice". She also has quilting instruction books that go along with her novels. Who is your favorite author of quilting related stories? And what's your favorite quilting book? I treasure a copy of "The Romance of the Patchwork Quilt" by Carrie Hall and Rose Kretsinger. My favorite instruction books are in my small collection of old quilting books that first inspired me. Then I have several of Better Homes and Gardens quilting books that area a staple for finding blocks and quilts to make.

Hope you are enjoying a quilty day wherever you are. Lovely crisp, fall day here in the midwest!
Sandi

Busy week, busy month coming up.....

I can hardly believe that September is almost over! Only two days left and then October, which is just about my favorite month of the year, arrives! I am ready for lots of wooly projects and that is just what's on my horizon. I am excited about the month of October because I am teaching a couple of wooly classes and also a program at the end of this week for the Clear Lake Quilt Guild. Pictured above is a little penny rug that is just perfect for a simple brass candle holder. The pattern for this can be found in my Wooly Buddies Yahoo Group (click on the button in the sidebar). I also made one in a gold and brown flecked wool.
I'll be doing a pincushion workshop for the St. Peter Quilt Guild next Monday and then on Oct. 20th I'll be teaching a pincushion class at Firefly Quilt Shop in Mankato, MN. Janice, owner of Firefly, has ordered up some gorgeous wools and you can see some of them in the photo of the cupboard at her shop. She gave me bundle to use to make samples (in the basket in the photo). The little pincushion/needlecase sets are patterns that I designed and made a few years ago.

Working with wool is so relaxing and it is so easy to take along wherever you go. Must get back to work on wooly projects now.........

Have a good Monday and a good week!!!

Sandi

Lots of quilty fun to share.....

Oh, my, now that the flu is a thing of the past, I have been out and about and busy as a bee! I can't share everything that's gone on in the last three days because if you're like me, you don't have time to read every bit of news of every blog. I do want to thank all of you that stop by my blog. Sorry that I haven't posted the past couple of days but as noted, I was busy as a bee! Here's what kept me busy.........this past Thursday I taught a crazy quilted pincushion class at the Stans Museum in Shakopee. Now usually, we are in the actual museum building which is behind the house in this photo. But because of the opening of their new 1950's exhibit, we were set up in the Stans home which is part of the reasons for the Stans Museum. This house is the boyhood home of Maurice Stans, resident of Shakopee, MN and the former Secretary of Commerce to Richard Nixon. It's a charming little house and if you are in Shakopee, it is worth a visit. I'll share more about the pincushion in a day or so.

I was up early (yes, I really was) on Friday morning and I was............
GONE QUILTING!
......................well, almost. Actually, I went to see a couple of guys......Lenni and George that have a real quilting connection. :-) They are, of course, not really guys but that's their names. They are long-arm quilting machines. Heidi Kaisand, National Sales Director for APQS and other APQS (American Patchwork Quilting System) reps shared their enthusiasm for these machines. I decided to go because I have come to realize that there is no way I can hand-quilt all the quilt tops I have on hand and I have so many projects that I want to make! Plus, I like to do the work myself. I was impressed and when I gave the machines a try, I was surprised at how easy it was to use the them. I also knew within minutes that I preferred Lenni to George. To check out the machines just go to APQS !! And to check out Heidi's blog, go here.

The APQS presentation was hosted by Roseanne of Rosebud's Cottage in White Bear Lake, MN. She is so creative! And if you go here, you will find her blog and a post about Lenni and George. Her shop is currently located in North St. Paul but she will be moving to White Bear Lake soon. (Note to my local quilting buds........I see a road trip to her new shop in our future!)

I am not fond of driving in Minneapolis/St. Paul as, like with most cities, there are miles of convoluted highways, entrance and exit ramps that drive me nuts. However, I managed. I even figured out how to easily get over to my son's place (in MPLS) and drop off birthday gifts for him and his girlfriend, Stacia. And bonus for me........he lives just two blocks from another Twin Cities quilt shop....Glad Creations. I had a specific purpose when I went in to the shop. I was looking for black and white fabrics to go with the ones in my basket. I found a bundle and a couple of fat quarter rolls that were perfect. The fabrics are for a crazy quilt wall hanging for Devlin. I'm not cutting into this til winter but at least now, I think I have enough fabric to do what I see in my mind. :-)

We got some very welcome rain and with that came some beautiful clouds. I love clouds and thought I saw an elephant in this one. What do you think?

Speaking of clouds, tonight I watched "A Walk in the Clouds" with Keanu Reeves and that is a really good movies. Trust me. If you see that it's on, stay tuned and watch.

I may be over the flu but Kaiser is still having allergy issues. He loves to be covered up. I think his name should be Baby instead of Kaiser. LOL! I am hoping we get a freeze this next week and that will nip the goldenrod and such "in the bud" and he will be able to recover. He's on allergy meds so that helps but not enough.



I'm not looking for really cold weather, just a nip in the air that tells me it's fall. It was so lovely outside this

afternoon, though, that I took a few quilts out to the line for some pictures. This one belongs to my mother and is one a few that she has that are crazy quilted calicos. This one has severe wear and tear. I like to thing the holes were made by being tucked along a bedframe and not by mice which is the more likely scenario. The colors are very vibrant and there's a green that is especially bright. Interestingly, the back of the quilt is almost as interesting as the front. It's really an amazing piece of textile and it's just too bad that it has such obvious wear.

I took some pictures of a couple other crazy quilts and will share those in the next couple of days. Looks like I better get to bed now. I have a busy week coming up with a road trip and then a class next week. More later. Off to bed now. Sleep tight!

Sandi

It's done, it's done, it's done!!!

Another project is finished......done, done, done!!! I am so happy with this little wallhanging! It's a pattern by Pat Sloan and I printed it out long ago and finally started it last spring. My goal was to finish it by the end of August. I'm a little off but not bad considering all that's been going on around here! One of the reasons that it took me longer to finish is because I decided to hand-quilt it instead of machine quilting it. I'm glad I did as I like the look of the hand-quilting as I do it better than machine work!

The quilt is called "StarBlooms". Years ago, I grew some Strawflowers in my garden, then dried them and used in wreaths and other arrangements. I had a "bumper crop that year". Tried to grow them several times since then and have had no luck. This design reminded me of those Strawflowers. The nice thing is that once this quilt is "grown" the flowers will never die! LOL! If you'd like to try this design, you can find it here....... PatSloanStarBlooms .

The finishing touches on "StarBlooms" were (or was? I need an editor) done while I was baking supper this evening. If you want to know what I made and read my tea post for this month, just pop over to TeaAndStitches and check it out!

It's only 10:00 p.m. The night is young so I think I will cut more Christmas Charm squares. :-)

Night all.....

Sandi

Fall arrives and I am feeling wonderful!

Oh, boy, today was a really good day! I felt normal - only a couple of coughing jags and otherwise doing fine! I decided to get some "outside time"! Everything red, white and blue and summery was cleared from the porch. When I emptied my big basket, though, it was in a sad state. Three straight winters took a tole on the paint. Luckily, I had a can of green spray paint in the paint cupboard and I sprayed the whole think and it looks great. A couple of weeks ago I bought the flowers. I love all the colors and wish they were real. However, we decided not to do any plants or landscaping til next summer so, just imagine they are real. :-)

I cleaned away the summer cobwebs (and probably a few spiders that were looking forward to Halloween). Then I put away the summer quilt on my chair and replaced it with an old wool patchwork quilt. You can also see a new piece - "Arabella's Blooms" (Pat Sloan design) in the center of the photo............

It's my new "front porch project" because I am almost finished with the other two projects that I worked on this past summer. They are down to the hand-quilting and one "Summer Blooms" is this close to being done! Picture will be posted tomorrow! The other is the basket table runner and that one will likely be finished in a couple weeks. After I cleaned the porch, I decided it was a good idea to take my lunch out there and relax and did just that!

When I came back in the house, I caught a quick glimpse of this pair crossing our back yard. I grabbed my camera and click!..........

I was wondering what they were doing in my yard at 1:00 in the afternoon. They usually cross really early in the morning or around dusk. Very brave of them to cross midday.

After they cleared out of the backyard, I grabbed a quilt and my camera so that I could head to the trees for some picture taking. Behind the quilt is this big tree that is my favorite. You can see the leaves turning orange at the top. Colors are washed out because it was so sunny.


This quilt is another quilt that someone gave me so that I would be it's caretaker. That someone was Carol, staff member at Villa Maria where I host my retreats. The quilt belonged to Carol's husband's family and was brought from Pennsylvania when the family came to Minnesota many years ago. The family's last name was Morgan. That's all Carol knows about it. She put it in my hands so I can share it with my friends here and all of you out there, too.

It's loaded with an incredible variety of scraps. I would love to have yardage in so many of them! It's always interesting to me to wonder why someone puts a color here or there and how I wish that I could know!

Here are some close-ups of various sections of the quilt.

Beeeeeautiful, isn't it?

That's all for tonight. Time to turn out the lights and do some "Quilt Dreamin'!!"

Sandi

Where was I?

That's right. Where was I? I mean, I was blogging along and then the flu bug dropped in and I had all these "ducks in a row" and now they are all over the pond! I am trying to get the "ducks all in a row" again but finding that it is not so easy. No more excuses, though. Things could always be worse. I am actually feeling much better in spite of continued flu symptoms and the need to take more naps than I'd like to. My voice is sounding less and less like Kermit the frog although I don't think I'll be hitting any high notes in the next few days. However, since most of what I've done is sleep these last few days, I haven't done anything really blogworthy and haven't taken any photos. So what can I tell you about?
Hmmm, well, I was feeling good enough to get back to cutting charm squares from my Christmas fabrics tonight! I've been putting them in piles to go off to some of you blogging friends who are waiting for them! I started the cutting a couple of weeks ago when my husband was home on vacation. I found that while he was home on vacation that he got a lot done but I, well, not so much. It's good to have him back at work. :-) As I was cutting my Christmas fabrics, there were a couple that caught my eye and I knew they would look good used in the stockings challenge that Pat Sloan has going on at her website. It's another one of those "have been printing out the patterns and going to do them one of these days" projects. I was ending up with lots of scraps of fabrics so I started making the first stocking ......... then the second one. Finished them both in one night. I was hooked. Every evening while my husband was on vacation, I finished off a little stocking. Just like I can see Gail Pan's "Christmas Wish" blocks in a wall quilt for my pink bedroom, I can see these stockings in a wall quilt that will hang by my front door. I plan to fill the stockings with candy canes and add other fun buttons and bits. They stockings were easy to do and I had fun using trims and buttons to really make them "pop". Here are the finished ones up to this point...........If you want to make these just move it on over to Pat's WEBSITE and you'll find the patterns! Thanks, Pat!

My Christmas stash covers the years of 1976 up to today. I thought I'd brought all the Christmas prints upstairs to my sewing room and tonight I went to the basement looking for some fall leaf fabrics and found another box full of Christmas fabrics! Over the years, I bought lots of Fat Quarters and 1/4 and 1/2 yard and, you know, some of them are really cute!
I also found the fall fabric, thank goodness! Especially, since this is the first day of Fall/Autumn for many of us. We got a nice refreshing rain which made the leaves on the trees sparkle. Just a bit of orange and a touch of yellow are beginning to show up now. I'll be back later this afternoon when Autumn officially arrives and share another post.

Have a good day!

Sandi

Thinking of Bill Cosby.........

That's right, I've been thinking of Bill Cosby and the routine he did about the "tonsils". I seem to recall a part where he's talking about "not gonna swallow" and that's because it hurts. That was me last night. Throat so sore that I didn't want to swallow. And this is a virus so other than aspirin and cough syrup, I am at the mercy of this flu.
I was also thinking of my mother in the wee hours of this morning when I couldn't sleep because of the cough and sore throat and oh, how my ears ached! When we were little she would warm some mineral oil and then dip a cotton ball in the warm mineral oil and place it in our ear. It was soothing. I went to the bathroom cupboard and thankfully there was a bottle of mineral oil in there. I didn't take the time to heat it, just placed it on the cotton ball, put it in my ear and laid down on the heating pad to get some sleep. And it worked. I got 2 1/2 hours of solid sleep! I felt a little better after that nap. Then I took another one after lunch and before supper. I think the cough syrup is making me drowsy. It hurts to talk so I am glad that the doctor said stay home til the cough is gone. I should have stayed home all week. I'm going to make every effort to not pass this on to anyone else!
So, other than naps, what did I accomplish today? Well, I did some handquilting on a tablerunner then, I went to the pantry and decided to check all the canned goods and boxed foods to make sure they weren't expired. Exciting, huh? I've never had a pantry until we moved to this house so having a good supply of food on hand is a blessing. Again tonight, I heard another news story that donations to food shelves are down so tomorrow's excitement will be to pull a couple of bags full of items from the pantry and donate it to the Food Shelf. And there'll be some more handquilting tomorrow and probably a nap or two.
And speaking of naps, Kaiser the Wonder Beagle, excels at napping....................

When I saw that he had fallen asleep on the edge of my project table as his pillow, I couldn't believe it. How comfortable could this be? Must have been fine as he slept there for over an hour! I'm glad he likes to nap because when I am not feeling well and need a nap, he lays down and takes one, too! :-)
I'm feeling better today than yesterday and hoping that tomorrow I will feel better than I did today!
Have a lovely Sunday!
Sandi