My new I-Pad cover…

Mar19

I take my I-Pad everywhere. I rarely leave the house with out it. I decided that although I have a cover for it I needed a bit more protection…not to mention something that was just a bit more my style. When I put my I-pad in my bag the magnetic cover sometimes opens which could lead to scratches or a dead battery. I decided that I would make one – Big Surprise right???

I googled covers and tons of covers that I could buy popped up – then I turned to Pinterest. All I needed was an idea – I had a pretty good plan already bouncing around my brain but I wanted to see what others were making. Sure enough loads of good ideas popped up on Pinterest. Many very similar to what I had been thinking about.

I took some measurements, thought about what materials I had on hand, wondered how I could use scraps rather than cutting “new” fabric and this is what I came up with.

Here are some of the stitches that I used to decorate it.

I used velcro to secure it when my I-pad is in it. I am very pleased with the way it turned out. Here are a few more pictures of the final product.

So that is my latest little creation. It is snowing again here in Maine. It is pretty, but I am ready for Spring. Winter just wants to hang on tight but eventually Spring will win and little green shoots will be poking up through the dirt and I will be very excited.

Enjoy your day…

Be Kind…

Faith

Flower Show and some other cute stuff…

Mar8

My beautiful Orchid – Blooming in my sunroom.

We woke up to snow and wind this morning. Don’t get me wrong, I love the seasons all of them including winter, however I am about done with winter this year. I need some Spring in my life. We went to Portland this afternoon to visit the Flower show. The displays that the landscapers put together are absolutely amazing. It really makes you long for a yard free of snow and the smell of dirt. We always get ideas for our yard and gardens.

Weeping Cherry

I love this Weeping Cherry Tree – I have the perfect place for it in my back yard. We will have to wait and see. I love to imagine the yard free of snow and full of flowers poking their way up through the mulch.

Here are a few more little plants that I want to add to my gardens.

Lenten Rose

Maidenhair Fern

I also saw a lovely little flower called a Ranunculus ‘Bloomingdale Mix’ – it seemed to be in almost all of the displays. It is an annual and I usually like to plant mostly perennials but this little flower is so sweet. Of course did I get a picture of it – Nope – missed that one. I got a picture of the name card but not the actual flower. Oops.

After the flower show we went to grab a bite to eat at Allison’s in Kennebunkport, ME. This is the view from the parking lot before we went in to dinner. I love the amazing colors in the sky. What a beautiful sunset.

Beautiful Sunset – Kennebunkport, ME

I also spent the week sewing – I was making gifts. There are some people who I really love to make gifts for, they are people who also like to create, people who really appreciate the passion I have for creating things. Mari is one of these people. Mari is also a creative person – we are both a bit stifled in our actual jobs because we would rather be making things with our time. We both love to cook and to create for others. Kindred spirits for sure. Mari loves whimsical things. I made her these gifts for her birthday. I think the purse fits the description of whimsical.

Little bag

stitch details on bag

Pillow

So once again this evening I am in my sewing room. In a few minutes I will be parked in front of my little antique Singer Featherweight machine stitching my swap blocks.

Have a nice weekend and don’t forget to set your clocks back.

Be Kind….

Faith

Block Swap…

Mar7

A couple of weeks ago I was perusing Facebook, and I noticed a post by one of my favorite authors – Marie Bostwick http://mariebostwick.com/. Marie has written loads of books about a woman who goes through a difficult time in her life – moves to a new city/town and opens a quilt shop. As a quilter this has always been something that I have wanted to do. Life and finances have always kept me from doing that – it is still on my bucket list but the lottery may need to be involved for it to happen at this point. We all need our dreams. But I digress….

The post was regarding a block swap – as a reader of Marie’s Forum I was very interested in this project. We were instructed to check out Bonnie Hunter’s blog http://www.quiltville.blogspot.com and check out her tutorial for The Guilford County Block http://quiltville.blogspot.com/2012/08/its-guilford-county-block.html. To sign up you needed to let them know that you were interested – forum posts and e-mails started flying all over. We have 22 people who have signed up – they are from all over the place – the US and Canada seem to be the most interested.

We are making the blocks pink and brown – not colors that I would usually use together but I am happy with the blocks. I am using Batiks which I love to work with. They give you such a range of color tones within each piece of fabric. We can use scraps within our stash but I decided that I would buy some new fabric.

This is a picture of my first attempt at the block. OOPS – I flipped one of the pieces and this is what I got. Not bad but not right. That is why they call it a practice block.

First attempt – oops

This is what the block is actually supposed to look like.

Guilford County Block

However this is also a practice block because it isn’t 12.5″ square which is a requirement for the swap. I am using my new sewing machine and I am still fiddling with the seam allowance – it has to be exactly 1/4″ in order for the block to measure 12 1/2″ square when I am finished. If you don’t have your blocks exactly 12 1/2″ when you assemble your quilt it will not be square – it will be all wonky. You don’t want a WONKY quilt!!!

Last night I fiddled and fiddled and finally got my seam allowance correct and now I am making 22 blocks that will be 12 1/2″ square. So I will be sewing Guilford County Blocks and then mailing them off by April 16th. In return I will receive 22 Guilford County Blocks made by 22 different people who love quilting and love Marie Bostwick books.

I have never done a swap like this before – I am looking forward to seeing the blocks that I get in return and I am also looking forward to making these blocks into a quilt. Just the idea of 22 different people interpreting the block and picking fabrics is exciting. So after I get my blocks all assembled I will send them off to the quilter who is organizing this and then I will wait to get my 22 blocks in return. I will show you the blocks as soon as I get them.

More snow coming tonight – hopefully it will all blow out to sea and we will not have to shovel. Beautiful weather is coming for the weekend. Don’t forget to change your clocks on Saturday night. We lose an hour – bummer.

Be kind…

Faith

My Little Hexie Project…..

Feb27

My start of my Grandmother’s Flower Garden

I have scraps, lots and lots of scraps….I have told you about my scraps in previous posts.

One of my scrappy projects is to make a Hexie Quilt. I am using the technique called English Paper Piecing.

Creative Memories Paper Punch

I cut my hexagon out with a paper punch. The outer edge of the larger punch is 1 1/2″ long, I use the little cards that we find in magazines – the ones we hate, that fall all over the floor when we open a new magazine. Hey they are free and the perfect weight for this project.

I have a folder full of these cards – one more stash of stuff.

I use my Go Cutter with a Hexagon die to cut the scraps into the size and shape that I need.

various scraps cut into hexies

I pin the fabric to the cut-out hexagon and use a running stitch around the outside to hold it in place. I do not stitch through the paper because I am going to remove it after all of the hexies are attached to each other.

Hexies basted to paper

After I have a bunch of them basted I start to group them but color and sew them together. There are several different stages to making these little “flowers” so I am never bored.

the beginning of a little flower

I have had one of these red fabrics for 30 years!

It is the perfect mindless project to do on a car ride, or air plane ride or while watching TV when you are too tired to really think about sewing. One thing that I have noticed about quilters is that they never want their hands to be idle. If we are sitting, we are stitching.

I realize that this quilt (whatever size it turns out to be) will take me years. There is no time limit on it, it is “busy work” but eventually it will be something that is totally made by my hands – no sewing machine. Every tiny little stitch made by hand. An age old craft still being done in spite of all of the amazing technology available to us. Don’t get me wrong I absolutely love the technology that we have – I use it all the time – the internet has brought so many quilters together in so many different ways. I use a computer to design blocks and quilts and I love it, but doing things totally with my hands is really fun. I really have a sense of accomplishment when I do hand work. That is how I learned 30 some years ago because I didn’t have a sewing machine but I wanted to make quilts. It is relaxing.

Hope you aren’t getting to buried in the snow – it has just turned to snow here on the coast- it had been raining all day. To the west of the Maine Turnpike it has been snowing all day. Drive carefully.

Be Kind….

Faith

Happy Valentine’s Day….

Feb14

Happy Valentine’s Day to all of my valentine’s.

I used to love Valentine’s Day when I was little. We would dig into our mother’s package of paper doilies and pull out all of the pink and red construction paper and decorate our shoe boxes. We would cut out hearts with our little silver child safe scissors and glue all of the hearts and doilies to the shoe box that we had saved from the start of school (when we got our new shoes). We would have our mother slice a slit in the top so that all of our classmates could give us a valentine. There was always a party with fruit punch and cupcakes decorated with pink frosting with sprinkles. I remember Valentine’s Day being one of my favorite school days.

I am sure that this would all be politically incorrect these days and children are probably not allowed to participate in a party like this lest someone’s feeling will be hurt. So sad that the powers that be can’t let children just be children any more.

Years ago my darling daughter made me this lovely little heart pin. I still wear it every year on Valentine’s Day. I am wearing it now.

Especially handmade by Elizabeth for her Mom.

My Valentine gave me this lovely orchid for Valentine’s Day. I have several other Orchids in various stages on bloom. One that my children gave me is blooming for the third time. They are amazingly easy to care for and so beautiful to have in my home.

For those of you who don’t realize it today is also Ferris Wheel Day.

I always loved the Ferris Wheel when I went to a fair or carnival. I especially loved it when it would stop at the top and you could look out over the entire fair.

So have a very happy Valentine’s day and try to remember the last time you were on a Ferris Wheel – maybe it was with your special Valentine.

Be Kind…

Faith

The Best Laid Plans….OOPS!

Feb4

So, the beginning of the oops started with purchasing a new sewing machine last week. My goal over the weekend was to totally straighten up all of my scraps so that I could sew, sew, sew with no guilt. As I was pulling scraps out of the many containers of scraps I started to remember – “Oh I made Elizabeth a jumpsuit out of that fabric”, “I used this in the quilts that I made when we were furnishing our first condo in Maine”, the list goes on and on. I was getting nostalgic, so of course I needed to sew.

I pulled out my Accuquilt Go http://www.accuquilt.com/ and started to cut different shaped hearts.

Accuquilt Go

I was using my scraps. No yardage was cut in the making of these table runners.

Work in Progress

I happened to take a quick picture of my work in progress to send to Elizabeth –she of course loved it so I offered to make one for her as well. I worked on these all weekend – finishing the last stitch just as the Super Bowl was ending.

Back to the new sewing machine, I purchased a new Janome Memory Craft 7700 QCP http://janome.com/.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my vintage machines and I will continue to use them but this new machine is a gem. My old Bernina 1230 is still chugging along and doing well but it has a very narrow throat 6”, very difficult to put a quilt through that narrow space. The new machine has an 11” throat. Wonderful! It also has many other features that make quilting a larger quilt much easier. It is really the reason that I bought the machine. So I had to give these new features a try. What fun I had and these 2 table runners are the first of many projects that this machine will help me create.

I used an applique buttonhole stitch to sew the hearts on and the free motion quilting feature to quilt the runners. I will not win any awards for these pieces but there is a learning curve and these are sort of my practice runs. I thought why use a bunch of scraps and thread to just practice – why not make something?

Of course I still have 3 baskets full of scraps and my closet still needs to be straightened out but I had a great time making these. So I will continue to sort scraps and straighten closets until another creative surge hits and then I will stop and sew, sew, sew.

Be Kind….

Faith

Super Bowl Weekend Plans….

Feb1

So I would classify myself as a pretty big football fan. I usually am very excited about the Super Bowl games but this year not so much. I won’t get into all of the reasons why I don’t want the Ravens to win or the reasons why I do want the 49ers to win but I will not be glued to the TV all day on Sunday waiting for the “Big Game” to begin.

OLDEST BIN

Instead I will be sorting. I have way more bins of fabric than I have room to store them. I am going to sort through the scraps that I have been saving for close to 25 years and slice and dice until I have nice neat piles of strips and bricks of fabrics.

LOTS OF MEMORIES HERE

I know that this project will be a walk to memory lane. I can see just by looking at the fabrics in the baskets that there are fabrics from quilts that I made when my children were babies. Many of these scraps of fabrics are from clothes that I made for both of them over the years. It will be a lot of fun to look at all of these fabrics but what will be even more fun will be the bags of fabric that are ready to be made into new quilts. No $ spent and laundry baskets of jumbles of fabric emptied. How great is that!

MORE!!!!!

I have a storage container with 3 drawers in it that fits very nicely under my sewing table and a box of 2 gallon zip lock bags ready to be filled with slices of fabric. My plan is to cut 3 ½”, 2 ½” and 1 ½” strips when I can. I am going to cut 1 ½”, 2 ½” squares, 5” blocks. I am going to cut a variety of bricks 2 ½” x 3 ½”, 2 ½” x 4 ½”, 3 ½” x 4 ½” and possibly 4 ½” x 6 ½”. These are all sizes of fabrics that can be combined easily with strips to use in quilt tops. I will then sort them by colors, not to fussy but general sorting.

Where most of it will end up

I am looking forward to getting all of this organized. I have been trying to use more of my scraps lately just to add some zip to my quilts and to also use up fabrics that have been sitting around for years. If I have an organized way to get at the scraps it will make my job that much easier. All of this organizing has been inspired by Bonnie Hunter – you can see Bonnie’s tips on this here – http://quiltville.blogspot.com/2005/06/scrap-users-system.html. Check it out – she has loads of clever ways to get your scraps controlled.

I am really excited about this. Ok call me crazy for being excited about something as mundane as sorting and cutting fabrics, but I know that in the end the reward will be great! So wish me luck and I will show you the results when I am done.

Enjoy the weekend and the game. Remember to do everything in moderation, eating and drinking.

Be Kind….

Faith

Unexpected treasures….

Jan30

1860’s Civil War Quilt made in Hopkinton, MA

You just never know where you will find a treasure. I have a very friendly relationship with the Postmaster at the nearby Post Office. It is a little Post Office that thankfully is not going to close – it is only having its hours cut. It is amazing how much people in little towns depend upon their PO’s. It is sort of like the village center – especially when you live in areas that are full of people in the summer and little bit empty in winter. That is in no way a complaint! We have a wonderful little community here in Biddeford Pool, we have an active community club that has loads of activities all winter long to keep us all in touch. No Cabin Fever here.

But I digress….back to the topic of this post. A Civil War quilt from the 1860’s!!!!! Terry – the Postmaster – brought this amazing record of American History for me to see today. It was made by someone in his family in the Boston area in commemoration of the soldiers in the war. It seems to have been made by one person. All of the names and towns appear to be written by the same person.

Boston, MA

close up of signatures

Stars in the corner

tells where the man was killed

The quilt doesn’t have any batting in it. It has been very lightly quilted and it clearly has been well taken care of because it is in remarkable condition. It is stored properly in a archival box wrapped with acid free paper.

I am amazed by this quilt – I don’t know very much about it but I am thrilled that Terry shared it with me. I of course, would love to have spent hours looking at it. I would love to know about the maker of the quilter and her history, why she felt compelled to make this quilt. Was it a quilt made by a group or just a single person? So many unanswered questions. It such a wonderful treat to see this quilt up close and comfortable. Thank you Terry.

This is part of the reason that we quilters quilt. To leave something behind, to be creative, to keep our families and friends warm with something substantial and creative, something from our hearts and hands. Quilts remember when the maker is long gone. They hold the memories of happiness and tragedy, of new beginnings and lost loves. Quilters quilt when they are happy, when they are mourning, when they are expecting new things in their lives. Most quilters these days quilt as a creative outlet – years ago many women quilted out of necessity. They needed to keep their loved ones warm. No matter the reason it is wonderful to see a quilt that has documented a very sad time in our nation’s history and is still here to remind us of it.

Be Kind…..

Faith

EASY STREET almost done..

Jan11

Gracie likes it!

EASY STREET Almost done…..

I have to say that I have really enjoyed this Mystery Challenge and I will look forward to next November when we can start another one. I am truly amazed that I have almost completed a quilt top in less than 2 months during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. Of course I have been a woman with a mission! I wanted to be able to link up to Bonnie’s Easy Street Page http://www.quiltville.blogspot.com/p/easy-street-mystery.html every week so that meant that I had to keep up. That is a pretty good motivator. Plus I couldn’t wait to see and start the next step. Bonnie did a fabulous job keeping us all guessing.

It will fit this bed perfectly!

I went to a LQS yesterday – http://www.sanfordsewing.com/. There was a 25% off sale on ALL fabrics so I splurged and bought some for the borders, binding and backing. I didn’t really have any good choices in my stash for the backing – I am still deciding on the borders. These are the fabrics that I bought for the borders. I love them and they may work beautifully but I am still deciding.

border fabrics

I will use the fabrics that I bought one way or another because I love them. I have found that it is fun to take pictures of the edge of the quilt with different choices of borders. It makes the quilt look so different to see it through the lens of a camera.

border fabric audition

Thank you Bonnie Hunter http://www.quiltville.blogspot.com/ for sharing all of your wonderful talents, for sharing this fabulous quilt with us all. I am definitely going to be making this quilt again with different colors. The stars in this quilt are just screaming at me to be made in Christmas colors, who knows, someone may get it as a present next year.

I will be putting the borders on this weekend and bringing it to my longarm quilter next week. I can’t wait to see it completed. This has been a wonderful learning experience for this quilter.

Keep pushing your imagination – keep trying new things. I have been quilting for over 30 years and I have never made a quilt that is this “Funky” before. It has stretched my use of colors and taught me several new, quicker techniques. So you can teach this “oldish” dog new tricks. Remember to have fun and sometimes just let it fly!

Be Kind….

Faith

The New Year…..

Jan10

So it is January 2013. I don’t know about you but I am having a difficult time figuring out where 2012 went. Phew that was a fast year. For me it was a good year. I got alot of quilty things completed. I designed and made a wallhanging without using a pattern. It was great fun and it was very satisfying to look at a quilt and know that I had created it start to finish. No patterns, no one elses idea just changed to suit yourself, just a quilt made from your own imagination. I think that as artists and quilters we need to trust ourselves more often. Take a risk, go with your gut and let it fly.

This is a picture of the work in progress.

in the garden

I assembled the background by paper piecing different log cabin blocks. The blocks were 6 1/2″ with a 6″ finished size. My vision was to have it look like a landscape. The top is the sky and the bottom is the ground. I am very happy with the way it turned out. The stems are biased cut tubes that I first stitched down on the machine then flipped and hand appliqued down. Some of the flowers are English Paper Pieced grandmothers flowers – they were hand pieced and the hand appliqued onto the top. The rest of the flowers are yo-yo’s, which are then hand appliqued to the top. The leaves are also hand appliqued to the top. I really love doing hand work, so this was a lot of fun to work on.

I added the borders – I loved this blue for the border. It just seems to tie the quilt together.

in the garden

The back of the quilt was also pieced. I had gotten all of the members of our quilt group to sign peices of fabric and then I peiced them all together to assemble the back.

This was a gift for the out going President of our Quilt Guild. She is a gardener, she had just finished her quilt studio and I am proud to say that this hangs on the wall of her studio.

The recipient of the Quilt

So go for it – start the new year with a project that you have created yourself. If you are worried that you will not like it start with a small piece. Make a pillow or a table runner. Pull out the fabrics and go for it. You will be amazed what you can do.

The most important thing is to enjoy yourself. Don’t be your own worst critic – give yourself a break and get rid of the self doubt.

Have a wonderful January day. The sun is shining here and it is really rather warm. The perfect day to imagine your garden.

Be Kind…

Faith

quiltingonthecove

A peek at my life. My quilting, my cooking and a look at the beautiful place that I live!

Archives

My new I-Pad cover…

Flower Show and some other cute stuff…

Block Swap…

My Little Hexie Project…..

Happy Valentine’s Day….

The Best Laid Plans….OOPS!

Super Bowl Weekend Plans….

Unexpected treasures….

EASY STREET almost done..

The New Year…..