Fabric Addiction

Well, I did it again! I bought more fabric. I had a gift card to Joann's and got some great deals. But did I really need to add to my stash? I have collected fabric for over 15 years now... I'm not exactly sure what it is that provokes that NEED to buy fabric. I have so many projects lined up now that I think it would last 2 lifetimes! I just recently read about an acronym on Quilt Talk (yahoo group). The acronym describes this addiction pefectly:

S stash
A acquisition
B beyond
L life
E expectancy

I think they will have to mummify me with my fabric when I die! But seriously, how do you stop???? I don't know if it is the smell of the fabric store or what! I have even thought about opening a quilt shop just so that I can be surrounded by that atmosphere! Is that totally crazy? If you have any advice please share! What do you do to suppress your need to buy fabric?

Fab New Find

I found this on the net while searching for a color scheme today... I have posted it on my sidebar as well. Go to the Color Schemer here. I also found some other interesting schemers and palette generators too!

Happy Mother's Day!

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I found this on www.thequiltshow.com Happy Mother's Day!

My Baby's Birthday...

This past Monday was my daughter's birthday. No more babies! :( She is so beautiful and becoming such a wonderful young woman. Grandma put together this quilt for her for a birthday gift. Emily picked out the colors with her. I thought it turned out great!! And Emily loves it!!

Back Porch Bouquet quilt

Well, its almost done! I spent Friday quilting this one out. I just need to put the binding on! Hopefully I will be able to get to it this weekend..... The binding will be done in brown. I can't wait to finish it!

Abbey Thread Catcher

Here is the link to the thread catcher pattern...

http://abbeylanequilts.com/portfolio.html

You can see more on Abbey Lane Quilts blog here..

I love this pattern because you can use several coordinate fabrics.. I think these are going to make great Christmas gifts!

Thread Catcher

This has got to be one of the cutest thread catchers I've seen! I bought this pattern several months back along with the fabric (Back Porch Bouquet by Maywood Studio). The thread catcher was very easy to put together. My sewing could have been so much better on this project. This pattern requires Alene's Tacky Glue. I'm not sure what other people's opinions are of the product, but I personally don't like using it for heavy duty things that are meant to be permanent. So for this project I used a liquid glaze product used in paper crafting. I swear the stuff works better than superglue!

You can view another thread catcher HERE

Smelling the roses...

I bought some fresh cut roses a couple of days ago and they are so beautiful!! They smell as good as they look!!! I had to take pictures...

Tragedy Strikes Close to Home

Our whole town is mourning the death of two teens killed last night. The accident happened less than 1/4 mile from my home on the train tracks. You can see the news story HERE. My son was friends with these kids. Our town is a very small town so all the kids here are pretty tight. Last night I heard the sounds of the train blaring--quite a bit more than usual, and even louder than normal. The kids were standing on the double-line railroad tracks on the northbound track. Apparently (according to the local kids) the they were waiting for the freight train heading south on the southbound tracks to go by and were watching the end of the train while waiting for it to go by.. They think they didn't hear the oncoming Amtrak train (going northbound) because the freight train was so loud. The Amtrak train blared his horns for a long time, and the teens did not move. It has just been a hard hit on this community. There are piles of flowers and balloons around their make-shift memorial. Tragedies like this never make sense.... My condolences go out to these families and friends.

Back Porch quilt

I love this fabric!! Since this week was spring break I decided to cut out several quilts so that I can work on a few at a time. This is what I'm currently working on. It took me a while to find a good pattern to display the fabrics...

Diagonal length from a square

To calculate the finished diagonal measurement of a block, multiply the finished size of the block by 1.414.

This was taken from the following site:

http://sentimentalstitches.net/instructions/diagonal-measurement-of-squares/

Quilt by Mom 6/2005

This is a quilt my mom made a few years back. She always has great taste in her color combinations. This one is one of my favorites....

Bear Paw Quilted

I found these pics of this quilt all quilted. The bear paws have bears and moose quilted into them. This is part of a quilt I have posted previously. This is one of my favorite quilts. And as you can see it gets its use! If you click on the pic you can see the quilting up close.

Keagan's Quilt

I made this quilt a few years back for my great-nephew Keagan. I ended up making 2 at one time and gave the other to a friend of mine... I just found these pictures and thought I'd put them up here on the blog. Hope you like!

Stuff to show off..

I have been finding more pics of quilts made in the past couple of years. Here are a few of them...

This is a quilt my aunt made and entered into the Oregon State Fair. She won a red ribbon. I'm not positive, but I believe this quilt above is hers also... This quilt was made by my mom... One of her first quilts. She hand quilted this one. It is so pretty in person...

This is a quilt my mom made for my nephew. He likes all things oriental. It has a samuri sort of look/feel. A great pattern using drukards path...

pattern links

• http://www.missrosiesquiltco.com/Whats_New.html
• http://sandihendersondesign.com/catalog.htm?item=7
• http://www.quiltingworks.com/patterns/free.htm
• http://heatherbailey.typepad.com/heather_bailey/2008/07/some-of-you-may.html
• http://www.bhg.com/crafts/sewing/accessories/patchwork-pincushion/
• http://craftgossip.com/blog/cupcake-pin-cushion-patterns/2008/11/01/
• http://www.quiltmaker.com/patterns/patt95/
• http://www.thecalicocat.com/patterns-pincushions.htm
• http://lovetocrochetandknit.blogspot.com/2006/07/flower-pin-cushion.html
• http://tipnut.com/wild-flower-pincushion-pattern/
• http://tipnut.com/22-free-pincushion-patterns/

Blogger issues

• http://thepatternbasket.blogspot.com/
• http://mousechirpy-polkadotpineapple.blogspot.com/
• http://happyinquilting.blogspot.com/

I wasn't able to add these to the sidebar for whatever reason. Blogger was being nit-picky tonite... so I'm posting links here...

Cider Mill Road Quilt

This is the quilt I am currently working on. This is a 16 x 16 inch block. There are 64 patches to this block. It takes forever to do but I think it will be worth it in the end. Hopefully it won't take me ages to get it done.. The fabric is a Nancy Halvorsen print called Cider Mill Road. I love it.

How I plan a quilt square..

Well,I have tried many things including using Electric Quilt 5 programs to try to visualize what my quilt will look like. The program is so frustrating to me! I sat down and figured this out--and I really like it! I am a paper crafter as well as a quilter. I found this useful because you can create a grid without having to see the blue lines on a sheet of grid paper... If you look at the first picture, I took a blank sheet of cardstock and scored it every 1 inch--horizontally and vertically. Then I cut the paper down to 8 x 8 inches. I did this because the square I have planned out is a 16 x 16 inch square. I marked the pattern on the grid with a marker to bring out he pattern. What I particularly like about doing this is that you can see the squares and you can see the pattern without having to visualize those blue lines... Also with this you can flip it over and use the other side for another block.

Finished UFO

Well it's not a quilt but it's been sitting around for a little while--unfinished.. This is a potholder I made. My plan is to have enough next year to send out with all of my Christmas goodies. I think this one took me about 3 hours from start to finish, including cutting the fabric (estimated). For this project I purchased batting that has a mylar sheet pressed into the middle. The mylar sheet is padded by warm n' natural. They really were easy to make! And I was surprised at how quickly they went together.