"IT WAS A DARK AND DREARY NIGHT

You can go here for the poem "It was a dark and dreary night"
It sure feels that way lately and for some reason I keep saying this phrase over and over so maybe if I tell you, it will go away.

How soon the Holidays came up on us and how soon they will be fleeting away.....

 For over a month now my husband and I have been traveling back and forth between this home and the one in San Antonio.  We bring a load each time we come.
  Unfortunately, the previous owners have not moved all of their stuff out of the out buildings so it is making it difficult for us to move our stuff in and renovate the one large room that will be my sewing room.

Did someone say sewing room????

I am going to embarrass myself and show you the room as it is now.

Do you see all of the items that could go in an out building? 

 Boxes of sewing items that I haven't a clue where to put.  I have shoved boxes in closets and piled fabrics and well.....gosh...I should be ashamed for having so much but for some reason I am not...just irritated that they take up so much room right now.

 Here is our home.....it is an older home...no fancy new home for me but it is cozy and as soon as we get all the renos done....it will be just right as one of the Three Bears would say.

Here is the beautiful tree in the front yard, it is 125 years old.  The grandpa of the previous owner recorded or had records of when it was planted (who does that)?  

My favorite place is the living room.  It has yellow walls and at first I was going...oh noooooo but it is so bright and happy in there that I find myself just sitting or reading a book.

It will be a long while coming before things get moved where they need to be moved but true to form...I have a sewing machine set up in the spare room....

Only one issue, I left all of the Christmas fabrics in San Antonio and I need them soooooooooooooooooo bad.....that is not a whine...or was it???

Was it?

If you look on the side bar, Jacquelynne Steves is having a Holiday Hop...do join us next Monday!!!  Lots of prizes...

 

What does Sew Cal, Green Fairy Quilts, Marjorie's Quilting Bee, Jay Bird Quilts, and Lily Pad Quilting have in common?

THIS IS WHAT!!!! If you have not heard, or have not gone over there....now is the time. Lots of fun, lots of prizes.


Here is the link to the auctions

Here is the link to the raffling

Here is the information about the fund raisers

There are four charities....

 Green Fairy Quilts Charity for Romania.

 Marjorie's Quilting Bee for

Jay Bird Quilts for

Lily Pad Quilting for

I did not ask permission to copy these pictures, I ask forgiveness if there is an issue.

But the main issue here is to raise awareness and try to help these charities.  You get to choose which one.

Won't you hit the links and go find out more and maybe help out...great prizes, great fun!!  Thanks Sew Cal for all of your hard work and to all the sponsors!!

SO FAR SO GOOD!!!!!

This is what I have so far. If you want to see the tutorial see post below

WINDOW PANE BY MISSOURI QUILT CO.

A cute little friend from Samoa is getting married in Dec. so I decided to do a quilt...what size?

 That is to be determined later.

I cracked open two charm packs and extras that were floating around.

Found some yellow fabric (about half my fabric is gone) so I felt fortunate to find this.

  I am doing all this at eleven last night.

Got up to 47 of these segments made  last night, which I determined  it would make about 15 nine patches.   How many more I am making??  who knows, I will let the fabric determine that for me.

No rhyme or reason just going where everyone of us has gone before, just sewing until we can sew no more.

ON THE HOME STRETCH!!!

WEll......

The time has come

 The time is now!!

The only thing left to do is sew the hanging sleeve on to the back....and a few other surprises I am going to add here and there.

The noose around my neck it gone....

I am a free woman again.

It is amazing how something can hang over your head and just suck the life out of you until you get it taken care of or done.

It feels wonderful.......now I can breathe.

CAN'T COMPETE WITH THE BIG DOGS!!!

I am smart enough to know that I am not a  Judi Madsen from Green Fairy Quilts, Leah Day, or any of the wonderful quilters out there but.....in my own way I wanted to share with you some of the quilting on this "Tree of Life" quilt.

 I put some religious symbols in this quilt because "The Tree of Life" is very much mentioned in the Bible.
 For those of you who are not Mormons' it is mentioned in the "Book of Mormon".

 Now...I had thought to apologize for the religious tone to this post but then I got to thinking....my religion is what makes me who I am, you whether you believe in a God or not, that is who you are and is your right.


Here is a picture of the Savior.....

 I was asked how I did this.

 I used the straight stitch on my Pfaff quilt expression 4.0.  I drew with the frixon pen on some tissue paper.  I pinned the paper where I wanted the picture and just went to town.
  Now....once I got going  I learned that I should remove the pins where I could because this only caused the tissue paper to tare in places that I didn't want.
In some places it looks like small knots, it isn't, that is just the tissue paper that I can't get out but will either wear away or wash out.  I guess I could take some tape and rub across it.

Here is the Angel Moroni, he stands on every Mormon Temple.

Some swirls...you know I love swirls

I guess you can call this feathering?
Hearts???

This is a bad picture but did some small swirls between the rays

This is one of my favorites to do as well.

The Golden question is

Do I have the quilt done yet?

I am hanging my head in shame...doing the shame walk.....

NO>>>NO>>>NO

I have procrastinated, I am bored with it, tired of it....can't pull the trigger.  All I have to do is go in my room and put the last border on and bind it..that is it....that has been it for a week now.

I did go and do extra quilting in it this last week but it has sat for days after that.

Won't someone come over and keep me company while I make the last plunge in getting it done and out of my home?  Begging here!!!

SCRAPPY HAPPY

About six years ago I made this quilt top from scraps.


 Many times I have gone to quilt it but realized that it is one row wider than it is long.

So for six years I have been too lazy to fix it.

Fast forward to yesterday.

Got this quilt out.  Counted squares.

I thought to myself....hummm  Barb when did you fix this quilt??

The whole time I am getting the backing and batting ready to quilt I am thinking....and I might say, thinking real hard.....

When did I fix this quilt?

So.........................fast forward to quilting it...... went to count the squares to know when I could flip it  under the machine to make it easier to quilt.

Yes, you guessed it, NOT FIXED>>>>>>

So...what we have here is a failure to count properly?

Oh well....

Talk about fun....I am so "Scrappy Happy" here I could just run around in circles....


I  will say I used the wrong fabric fusible, each time my needle would hit one of the hearts my thread would fray and then break a few seconds later.  YEs, had tons of thread breakage.

When I got done, I had one wrinkle in the back, I thought I was being careful and checking.  MISSED ONE!!  It is staying.

So...........no temper tantrums even with all of the thread breakage.

A few times I was just going to wad it up and put it in the corner but I told myself that if I did, it would never get done.  So I pushed through and finished it up.

These scrappy quilts are just fabulous, especially when they evoke so many memories....





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