Fast and Funky Coasters

Just playing around tonight with some funky coasters...not for fine dining!!!  Make the strata...I always have some around because it is relaxing to do.  Pin it to the batting and backing.  Trace the bowl on the strata; freemotion quilt concentric...kinda...circles....

 Cut out the circles

 Blanket stitch around the edges...just for fun...You can bind them if you want, but I was lazy tonight and just wanted to chill....

December starts:).

Tomorrow is December...I am so excited...I got out the tissues I had made two months ago and arranged them in the basket ready to go...  Happy December (even though tonight is still November:)

In the holiday spirit!!!!.

I feel in the holiday spirit!!  I am thrilled to have made these composition book covers.

 This button below is a very cool button, but very flat...so I put another button under it to raise it up for the loop.

I think that there is truth in the scrap thing...you can never use them up.  Though, I must say that in this project, I made a dent.  Everything was scrap....I used scrap cottons, scrap broadcloth  for the backing.  I used the big jar of hair ties that I got several years ago at the dollar store and I used my button collection. See...nothing like the concussion to realize that maybe I did not need to hoard buttons too.  It was much more fun to use them.  The only out of pocket expense was for the composition folders.  My husband picked them up for me during the back to school sales... fifty cents each.  Fifteen composition folders were $7.50 if my math is right.  My kind of present giving while I have the free time to do it.   Hope you are in the holiday spirit too....  

Vroommm.....

I now have two more composition book covers to make....my goal is to have them done today..because tomorrow is December 1!!!!!  I have a few more coasters and a few more potholders, but I can do the coasters tomorrow and the potholders ....maybe tomorrow too....humming along here.  So much easier to do  things in bunches because if I stop and start a new project, I will have to re-figure things....not my style.

Last night at Charlotte Modern Quilt Guild, it was announced that Leah Day was teaching a class on free-motion quilting at Sew Much Fun in Gastonia, NC on March 2.  I have been waiting for this.....First thing this morning I called, signed up and paid....so excited.  Their phone number is 704-824-1961.  The class is $60. Hope to see you there with me:)

Bingo

The morning brings the answer from Dawn...from the other side of the country to North Carolina comes this!!!!  Perfect.  Thank you Dawn....The two button answer...................

Choices at the Midnight Hour....again

I think it is because it is late...then I think it is because I am full of myself because I got to go out...then I think....oh, Dear...Well...I cannot decide the button on this book cover...so I am going to put it out to all of you to help me please.  I got carried away with the inside cover:)

Especially since this is the outside:

Several of these buttons are vintage.  I like the red one, but it does have paint chipping off of it...gives it character, maybe too much?  Actually I like all of them, but cannot decide.  Maybe after seeing them online and hearing what others think....Probably doesn't matter at all...I know one thing...things are different in the morning light:)

Freedom!!

After doing that four letter word today....R..E..S..T!! and missing my bee outing for Sherry's bday...I felt well enough to go to the Charlotte Modern Quilt Guild meeting tonight.  We had a potholder exchange and I got this one...Big thx to Karen..love it..especially the channel quilting and the hand stitched binding:).  Cat did a great tutorial on reverse applique..love my friends at the CMQG.

 Humming along here with the holiday thing and keeping in mind that it is still only November:) ...two more book covers revealed.....

These are so easy to make...the part that I love the most is going thru my button collection for the very best choice:)  I mean, everyone has to love something fun!!  Remember, the tutorial I used was here..adjusted a bit for the SIZE of YOUR books!

I am trying to add this link to my tutorials but I cannot do it right....can anyone help me??

Good Night Books....

Almost December...sew...sew...sew

The... On the Way Day.....

I am better....Lordy, what a ride this year has been...knock on wood, I know that there is still one more month!!  I finished this quilt completely...funky and wobbly, but fun..

 I have started doing my bindings like my sister does with a double stitch.

 A scrap binding suits a scrap quilt..

 Back in the groove of making composition book covers for the holidays.  I just finished making these two.

Keep Calm and Keep on Quilting....

A little bit of concussion, a little bit of cold and asthma and a little bit of quilting.  Just had to share that I had quilted something.  So nice to have two now off the pile done...oh, I know..this is not bound or snipped or washed, but it is quilted and I am pleased.  Mr.O'Quilts has the bug too...how cozy is that....rain and recliners and being under the weather together!!!  PS...a bit about the new bed....The Mr. called Ashley furniture where we got the mattress....they have a lower box spring...Can u believe, it is FIVE inches lower...We should be having that exchanged next week...and life will be perfect!!

Another PS...I am practicing the devil of freemotion quilting....I am having a struggle with borders...at the edge...puckering happens...any suggestions would be helpful..

My crazy life!!

The good news is that we have new ceiling lights in my office which (I)we are trying to make a bit more flexible for other purposes (design walls, etc)..I did not say that!  The bad news is that while I was upstairs in bed sick, the worker came to paint/popcorn where he installed the lights....and this quilt was still hanging..now it has damage....just ugh..especially since I had hand quilted it in my old hand quilting days.

 I have washed it and in these places, the red dye is missing or the white paint is there...ugh again...

 The good news is that last night I got one of the stack of pinned but unquilted quilts out...and finished it!!!  That is two Christmas UFO's done..amazing....The bad news is that I just finished washing these two quilts together, only to find some of the white blocks in the quilt below, are now red.  It bled consistently to the white and red polka dotted only...not into the white on the Irish chain or any where else...

 The good news is that it is ok, because it is consistent...mostly....

The bad news is that I got a cold which is immediately in my chest.  I hope that it does not involve my asthma again.  The good news is that I am up and at um...and trying to be positive and be calm and quilt on!!!!.

Things just ain't what they used to be....

 I told my husband that I had aged before my time...Mr. O'Quilts said no...that I was right on schedule!!!  Our mattress was 20 years old...it was time for a new one.  Seizing the before sale sales...our choice came today.  Hmmmmm, in 20 years things have changed.  Number 1...our old mattress cover no longer fits.  Number 2...Now this old lady needs a stool to climb into the bed....Number 3....My quilts no longer fit...How did this happen?????  Who needs a bed this fat?  We did not notice that part in the store...Very comfy once we are in it...One more reminder that....well...I just will not say it!!!   Times have changed....

 Just look...One new mattress is going to require a whole new revamping of my bed...Twenty years ago, we commissioned the bed,  hand made by a friend in Miami, from Mahogany...looks like the quilts no longer do it justice.  

More Green Fun...

So far, eight little trees all in a row........

 Just happened to have on hand this ruler which was the perfect size for the trees...

 I cut the light fabric shapes in the general size of what I was looking for...but much larger to allow for shaping up and cutting..

Whipped them into shape with my straight edge ruler!!  Now, you cannot work this way if you like to have control over the end before the beginning!!   I sew with not much of an idea of where I will be going...that is the fun of it.  This block looked best to me cut at oh, about 7.5 by 11 inches...that will do for now.  Using favorite scraps that I love is still a challenge, but brave me presses on...........

The Happy Day

Yesterday's relaxation in green has led to tonight's funky Christmas tree.

 Yesterday I made the prep and today Mr. O'Quilts did the rest!!  The food was great..evidently we were not the only ones impressed...Himself snapped this here in the yard this morning, one of four deer sniffing around hoping for some of our yummy turkey.  

Not to worry about nada...my mother was happy to stay at Sunrise with visits from us throughout the day.   We had ten today at the house with my bro and his wife coming in tomorrow for more feasting and card playing.  I do have to say that this old lady loved the day, but she also loves the calm at the end of the day....Good night to the Thanksgiving of 2012.  Thrilled to be sleeping while others are shopping:)

It was the night before.....

Thanksgiving!!!!  Everything is ready to go...so no need for my tangled brain to feel stress...hmmm...after all, the only thing I really have to do tomorrow is to pick up the family, make the gravy and be grateful!  Just in case my brain is stressed anyway(: I am following my commitment of using what I love...Here I go... 

I finished quilting this "book panel" quilt ...Thx MP for the ME..I really love the comfy of the Christmas flannel on the back..getting me into the season.

My man has kicked back in his recliner reading "IPad for Dummies" that he just borrowed from the library in Dublin, Ireland....!!!  Can you imagine this day and age??  We are listening to Irish Tenors and I am doing stress reduction exercises by sewing green scrap strips for an upcoming tree quilt...next year's version maybe??  I am so grateful for so many things.. Sending Thanksgiving wishes to all...

Mug Rug Man

SRP, or Sewing room puttering!!

While the Merry Little Breezes are whipping around the yellow leaves on the outside... on our crisp autumn day,  we are toasty inside with chili and cornbread.  Mr. O'Quilts is in his recliner after hours working in the yard, now watching tennis.  And, I  am puttering around the sewing room looking at fabric with new eyes toward notebook covers.  It is very, very fun, especially going thru my buttons...

 Emily...remember this skirt you got in NYC when we went for the college music school auditions??  Your hoarder mother kept it and has now made it into a notebook cover.....hmmmm, as I remember there was not much of it:)

 The ever present obsession with up -cycling things brings us this zippered pouch...with an attitude!  The back is clear vinyl.

 Check out the zipper pull...got it at Zipit, my favorite zipper store...

Grandma's love

Grandma's girl will be 4 in February.  Her waist is size 2 and the length is size 3.  This doting Grandma found this coat...size 4... I think that she can fit her baby brother in there too!!

 I am so glad that I saved all my kids' books.  The Yum Yum book is a favorite this generation too!!

The book cover thing..

Book cover number two with adjusted sizes.  My books are 7.5 inches by 9.75 inches.  I have adjusted the sizes for the tutorial of the previous post to: 17x11.5/ 11.5 x 5.5.  This seems to work...Thank goodness...

 This decorative stitch with the variegated thread looks good too...

 Inside flaps..

 Decorative button.

Now I am off to renew my driver's license.  I wake up so irritable.  I think I am trying to do too much..but I really want to.  Doc told me yesterday that it could be another 6 months before the concussion symptoms are gone.  Did I want to hear that????  Nope...Meantime, my dear mother has gone to lunch bunch at the Temple, in the Sunrise wheelchair van.  She is not Jewish, but all her friends are and she will not be left out...She is something else!!!