A Little Friendship Bird AND... Hello from Hawaii!!

Aloha!Audie and I safely landed in Hulaland about 5:30 pm yesterday, Hawaiian time. Flight long and a little bumpy with turbulence, but we are thrilled to be here!

Above:  a little quilt I made and donated to my Quild in about 2004. My DDIL Donna held the winning ticket! She still has it hanging in her house -- love this girl!  "The Friendship Bird" has always been a favorite design -- I should make another someday. *g*

Below: Audie and Sidney on a small beach in Lanikai. Yes, the water IS this color! It is beautiful.

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Bill takes a pic of me on the same beach 'cove' in Lanikai... 29May11. We had just come from a yummy breakfast at Cinnamon's! Long wait, but excellent food. Yummo.

We parked the large truck the only place that was open... under a coconut tree! Yikes... some of the nuts were falling and we drove off just in time. Couldn't resist this picture, of Audie and Chris, though!

That's all for now... ALOHA ... will post more pictures later. Tonight we're headed for Waikkiki to walk the Boardwalk and listen to the bands... maybe even stay for sunset on the beach. I haven't been to Waikkiki since 2003, but I remember that it's lovely there.

Thank you for stopping by to visit -- I hope where ever you are that you have the time and inclination to make something that makes you or someone you love happy!

Hugs,





SPIDER WEDNESDAY & Other Strings n Things, & 10-Minute Quilt Blocks

Yesterday was Tuesday Friendship Group and Deb brought her Spider top -- isn't it gorgeous? A big "thank you" goes to Katrina for organizing our SpiderWeb Ring .  . . it has been a lot of fun! Go visit Katrina's blog to see a list of the whole Ring of quilters making Spider blocks.

Now to decide -- border or not to border? Here's one option:

I finished the embroidery on Sidney's SBS block and decided to make the little bird dark blue with a turquoise-green eye. Now just a small pieced border to finish it off. I'll take it with me to Hawaii on Saturday and finish sewing it while waiting in the airport. With a long two hour wait until flight time, it will give me something pleasant to work on.

Rani is new to our group  [but long-time friend] -- she makes beautiful quilts. This is her latest batik squares:

Also Rani's -- very colorful and with applique:

Pat has been busy sewing up more 10-Minute blocks from 5 inch batik Charm Squares. If you would like to see how to make these click here for a short how-2 video:

Pat is auditioning her layout [above] and the tape is to keep it all together -- she rolls it up and takes it home and everything stays in place! Good idea.

That's all for this morning -- I hope where ever you are that you find time to create something that makes you happy.

Hugs,

Do You Have A Favorite... An OLDIE BUT GOODIE???

Do you have a favorite quilt? You know what I mean... the one always hanging around where you can see it? One of my favorite quilts is quite small. It hangs on the back wall in the kitchen area. I made it a very long time ago -- in the 1980's, I think.  It is all made from bits and pieces -- just leftovers. It's one of those quilts, that the further you stand back from it, the stronger the movement-illusion becomes.

A friend and I had been fooling around with dying and marbeling just to see what we could come up with. After my 'main' project was completed for a Challenge, I had some bits left over... what to do with them? I strip pieced the bits onto little squares of muslin. I used mostly the hand-dyeds, but there were a few 'commercial' fabrics mixed in. The fun little quilt above was the end result of this experiment.

The feathers on the black border are quilted in teal thread. I love to draw feathers and used "paper folding" on this project. It is easy to cut a piece of paper for the border width and length, then fold it in half [long way]... open it back up. Now fold end to end, again and again [you are making "sections"]... now just draw a feather shape that you are happy with inside ONE of the sections, then simply keep folding the paper back over itself and tracing -- voila! Perfect and consistant feathers. Now transfer your design to the quilt top, layer and quilt. Works great.

Thank you for stopping by to visit. . . I hope where ever you are that you have both the time and the inclination to create something that makes you happy.

Hugs,

WHAT ARE YOU DOING TODAY? . . . I'm Embroidering An SBS Block

What are YOU doing this gorgeous Sunday? I'm finishing up the embroidery on a SBS block for one of my granddaughters. It's not quite done, but here it is so far. . . please ignore the basting threads:

A couple of years ago I made Sid a quilt using several embroidered blocks, adding sashing, cornerstones, borders, etc., to bring it up to twin size.  This block is similar to the ones in her quilt and will be a 'picture' for her bedroom wall. I hope to create a small pieced border for this embroidery using some of the material left over from her quilt. My plan is to carry it with me on my upcoming trip to Hawaii and frame it to hang in her room. Easier than mailing it, ya?!

That's all for now. Thank you for stopping by. I hope where ever you are that you have the time and inclination to create something that makes you happy!

Hugs,

BEARS n STRINGS n FRIENDSHIP. . . fun at Tuesday Friendship Group

First, as today is SPIDERWEB Wednesday, I should note that I have nothing new to report! ;( My top is finished, but not quilted or bound [please see pic of last Weds]. Perhaps by next week?!

Today is mostly about posting pictures. . . I hope you have fun with this "picture show". . .

Carolyn's red/pink/white/cream -- layout designed by her mother Darlene. They quilt together; isn't that nice?

Above: Pat's version of the "10 Minute block" made with 5 inch charm squares. If you are interested in making some of these blocks, go to U-Tube and search for "10 Minute Quilt Block". The video there explains everything!

Above: Susan's Batik Strings with the inner border, flange, and outter border added. This is a gorgeous quilt, but I didn't get a very good picture. I'm still learning about digital photography.

Two counted cross stitch blocks by Jill, a member of the Tuesday Friendship Group. The back of her work looks as good as the front! Wow, such neat work!

Below: Jill again. This time with one of her quilt-as-you-go blocks. I think the pins she used to baste with are nifty.

Chelsy is Pat's special friend and comes with Pat to all our meetings. Here she is 'helping' to pick out some sashing for Susan's string quilt...lol

Jill makes these tiny handmade and fully jointed bears... all the joints move and all are made by hand with the facial features embroidered. Darling! Hardly bigger than a small spool of thread.

Below: a sweater made combining quilted squares and handknitted pieces. Made by Jill.

That's it for now; thank you for stopping by to visit and I hope you enjoyed the pictures . . . it is time for me to get back to sewing some blocks that need finishing.

I hope where ever you are that you find the time and inclination to create something that makes you happy!

Hugs,

Cyn; -)

BLOG CANDY GIVE-A-WAY -- hurry, you only have 8 days!

Hurry on over to Cattinka's blog and enter to win one of her lovely handmade Key Caps! This is her Blog Candy in celebration of reaching more than 200 regular readers/followers. Go congratulate Katrin and leave a comment -- YOU could be the lucky winner!

Aren't they wonderful?? Good luck to all. . .

I've been working on embroidery lately and will get some pictures up very soon. Until next time -- thank you for stopping by and I hope you have the time and inclination to create something that makes you happy!

 Hugs,
Cyn; -)

SPIDER WEDs., and more strings n things, & a Touch of Crazy!

SpiderWeb Wednesday is here! Thank you Cattinka for starting and managing our 'web'. It's been a lot of fun. The block was drawn in EQ7 and so were the four setting corners in the border--they were all made with PPing. Not sure how to quilt it... does anyone have any suggestions??? I'd appreciate hearing your thoughts. Thank you.

Many of the gals in my Tuesday Friendship Group are also making Spiders and other string projects. This is Susan's Batik Strings set 4-blocks-together and then sashed:

 Rosemary made a couple of quilts! She's one of our High Achievers! The quilt below is her take on an Amish String HST. This quilt will have more borders added to it:

I love Crazy Quilting of all kinds. This is a pic of a name tag I made about 1987 or 88. It is worn and frazzeled, so it is time to make a new one... here's the oldie [but goodie?? lol]: Oh, I should mention that this piece has 'real' fresh-water pearls & 14k gold 'liquid' beads sewn on it... nope, don't wanna wash it.

Thank you for stopping by to visit. I hope where ever you are that you have both the time and the inclination to create something that makes you happy. . . until next time. . .

Hugs,

Cyn; -)

A "Different" kind of Mother's Day Gift. . . I love it!

This year my youngest DD bought me some unique items for Mother's Day. What genius! All of this stuff creates a higher table and saves my back. Yippee Skippee... it works! 

 Here's what we used from the local hardware store:
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* Four 12 inch by 1.25" pieces of PVC Pipe [#40 heavyduty]

* Four 1.25" Rubber End Caps

* Vasoline and a bottle of Alcohol [not the drinking kind...lol].

I've had an old table that works well for projects, except it is too low and can be tough on a tall lady's back! Pictures are worth a thousand words, so here they are to show what we did... some Vasoline swabbed inside the rubber caps makes it easier to get them on the ends of the PVC pipe--the caps are a very snug fit so they will stay on.

A bit of Alcohol on a paper towel cleans up the black marks lickity split!

The pipe and rubber cap inserted over end of table leg. Notice at far left of picture how the table leg is shaped... where it curves, is where we took the measurement from to decide the length to cut the PVC pipe.

Voila! My old-too-short-table now stands 37 inches tall and is perfect for me! What a back-saver. A real bonus to this solution - - it is not permanent! The PVC slips right off when the table is folded for storage.

My next project is to make a "giant ironing" cover for this table to create a nice place to press large projects, backings, even holiday linens.

Today was our Tuesday Friendship Group meeting at one of the LQSs and we had a lot of show-n-tell. Tomorrow I'll post the pictures... a lot of them and some fun projects, too.

All for now. Thank you for stopping by to visit. I hope where ever you are that you have the time and inclination to create something that makes you happy!
Hugs,
Cyn; -)
PS: I'm sorry it's been almost 10 days since my last post, but I blew a disc in my back and have been in bed... yuck, what a waste of time. Some physical therapy for a few weeks and I'll be right as rain!

SPIDER FINISH. . . It's not Weds., but. .

Hello!  As I don't expect to have Internet access on Wednesday, I will share my SpiderWeb quilt top finish now:

The poor little thing had it's pic taken on the tan rug, so the s.a. on the pale yellow stars are really shadowing through. It will be fine once the batting and backing are sandwiched together -- I hope.  This quilt measures about 30" square, which will be just fine as a table topper in my breakfast room.

For my "process". . . I decided to also string piece the final border corners and modified my original 4.5" block in EQ7 adding some lines and deleting others:

As you can see by the stitching lines, I only used this pattern as a general guide and didn't follow the lines exactly. I adjusted the lines based on the piece of scraps I had left to work with.  Here is a final corner block:

I sure wish I had more of that "stone or pebble" fabric.  . isn't it great?

Mitering the border corners didn't look right to me. . . I did lay one corner out and look at it. . . hmmmm, nope, don't think that's going to look right:

Because my strip sizes were so random, the corner didn't look good to me so I abandonded the mitering idea and created sort of a "fan" block for the corners.  It's not perfect, but it works.

Now I'm thinking about how to quilt it. On the machine, for sure with all the seams! Probably something minimal and not too fancy as there is a lot going on in this quilt already.

Thank you for stopping by to visit.  I hope where ever you are that you have the time and inclination to create something that makes you happy.  . . .until next time. . .

Hugs,

Cyn; -)

SPIDER WEDNESDAY. . . And: Strings, Strings, Strings!

This is my progress so far on the little Spider Block table topper I'm making:

Late last night I finished sewing the four pieced borders:

This is how I pressed it... with seams twirled inside the blocks, and s.a. pressed open block-2-block:

Yesterday was the meeting of our Tuesday Friendship Group. Many of the gals in this group are now making various versions of the Spider block.  This is Joy's block... what a cutie with the Pink ric-rack in the wedges:

Here is how Joy lined up the rickrack for sewing:

Deb sewing a triangle piece. A finished triangle sits on her machine:

Rosemary made TWO kinds of string blocks. . . Amish Shadows, and diagonal stripping:

Rosemary's layout for her batik blocks:

Our ever-smiling Renee', shows another version of stripping:

This is the pattern she drew [Renee is also a great teacher!]:

And some of Renee's blocks-in-progress:

An iron beside the sewing machine is a handy help with this kind of strip piecing:

Some 'lost' blocks found in Deb's Grandma's attic. . . trust me, Deb will do something wonderful with these rescued beauties:

Well, now that I've exhausted your eyes with 13 photos, I'll close for now. . .

Thank you for stopping by and I hope where ever you are that you have time and the inclination to create something that makes you happy.

Hugs,

Cyn; -)

PS: Want to see more Spider blocks? Click here for Katrin's blog -- she is the clever gal who started this whole "Spider Web Ring" thing.
On this side of the BigBluePond, Rosa is also making a Spider -- check it out -- nifty!

"Baby", Missy, 'n Me, go for a ride!

Finally got the RV out of storage and took it to Chad at Desert Sport RV in Vista, CA, for a little pre-season service and to replace the batteries. It was about time to get all new ones -- sometimes it's just best to "bite the bullet" and do something... so I did. Everything runs like a top now! Yippee.

Packed up Miss Diva, who wasn't too sure about the whole RV trip thing, a few fresh groceries, my new EQ7 manual [for some light reading...lol], and hit the road. Drove to the local Harbor where if one is lucky, one can find a camping space -- we were lucky and got one right on the water. The weather cooperated and it was beautiful.  I had a wonderful time, so relaxing and restful. Missy the cat? Not so much. She mostly stayed in the back bedroom. . . I think she just felt safer there. When I went to bed, she jumped up and in it with me like a shot and stayed there all night. She was purring away most of the time, so perhaps she did like the peace and quiet away from the dog afterall. Taking her on a couple more short trips ought to tell the tale if Missy will agree to be an RV kitty or not... we'll see. I can only be very patient and hope. Fingers crossed! lol

This is a quickie... I'll have more on Wednesday. Thank you for stopping by. I hope where ever you are that you have time to create and sew, knit, crochet. . . or ???., what ever makes YOU happy.

Hugs,

Cyn; -)

PS: "baby" looks a whole lot better after she's had a bath. She picks up a lot of grime while she's in storage. This photo was taken b4 her 'spa treatment'. I wish i had a picture of us at the Harbor, but I forgot the camera! Nuts.