Quilt Block = Coaster???

I have several little Dear Jane quilt blocks in a box hidden away. Why you ask? Well truthfully, they just didn't turn out quite the right size or quite the way I had hoped. But I didn't want to throw them away, so I thought....& thought....and thought some more. Then the light bulb came on over my head!!!! Yep, sometimes I get an idea or two *grin*



I made coasters out of those little darlings! Here's a sampling :)

They are just the right size (4.5" x 4.5"). Now I'm thinking some of my larger orphan blocks may become pot holders/hot pads :) Just goes to show you, if you hold on to something long enough...you will find a use for it.

September BOMs

Where has this year gone??? I can't believe it is already September, ahhh.

I have so many Christmas projects to get done, Oh My!!!

Anyway here are my September Block of the Month blocks: This is my Basket Case BOM. I really like the way it turned out. I'm not much of an "appliquer", but I gave it a try. And of course this month 2 of the blocks were applique blocks



The fan block is for the 2005 BOM I'm working on. This was actually much easier than I thought it would be. I might make more of the fan blocks someday...sounds like another project in the making :)

And this Churn Dash Block is for the 2009 BOM I'm doing. This block I will be making more of, only it will be in a light blue and dark blue for a wall hanging for my bedroom.

Giftie From Rosa...

My dear friend Rosa sent me this so darn cute quilted postcard. I have heard about "quilted" postcards, but I had never seen one. Well, now I have one of my very own :) I love it....another new project to try my hand at!!! Thank you so much Rosa, hugs to you. And to my shock and amazement this postcard made it through the mail with no damage to it!!!! Congrats to the USPS :)

August Secret Pal Gift :)

I have the most AWESOME Dear Jane Secret Pal. This is the wonderful gift that she sent me in August. She says she is the one on the left in pink, so I guess I'm the one on the right in blue :) Love this block, I can't wait to get the rest of these oh sooo cute blocks and get them together :)

Love the Christian Faith bookmark and the note pad. As I have said before, my Secret Pal is certainly spoiling me, and I love every minute of it!!!!

The New Back Door Project :)

Yet another re-do project for our house. Time for a new back door :) Just a problem or two...do you see anything wrong with this picture??????

Well for starters there is a new backdoor laying on the ground outside, not in the opening in the wall of my house. Next...no husband around completing this project, ahhhh!!! And guess what he isn't even on the property, oh no, he left and went to town for a coffee
break!!!!!!!!!!!

There is a good ending, the door did get finished and my husband is still allowed in the house (LOL) . And this project only started last Christmas, that's when we got the new door...it only took him 9 months to get the door installed. I can conceive and grow and birth a baby in 9 months!!!! ROTFL

Craft Room Reorganize!!!!! OMG

This project of reorganizing, or should I say "let the FUN begin", my craft room actually started in August :) This could be the beginning of the most horrific nightmare ever *grin*

My crafting supplies were strung out in a kind of organized fashion in 3 rooms...then I got the "brilliant" idea of getting everything into to 1 room! (LOL) Did I mention that it is not only my stuff, but also my daughter's. This is going to be fun! So this is what it looked like once I brought everything into the 1 room. Now mind you my daughter and I both sew, we both scrap book ,and we both do all kinds of rubber stamping & paper crafting, so this is not just one craft/hobby...oh noooo, it's 3 hobbies times 2 people!!!! And this is the room where both of our computers are, AND the Wii game system. So are you getting the picture????

Well after, 1 full week of work, this is what the craft room looks like now, *sigh of relief* I can now work in the room on any of my addictions :) And everything is quite handy, being all in 1 room, when I can find it!!! That's the hard part, remembering where I put my stuff. (lol) Anyway, there is still a little work left to be done, but for the most part it is done!

Pay It Forward (PIF)

Hi There!

I was just visiting Rosa's World...And she is doing a Pay It Forward.

You all remember the movie "Pay It Forward", right? Where someone did an act of kindness, for no certain reason, for someone else, and all that was expected was that the recipient would do an act of kindness for someone else. Well that is what this PIF is based on :) I believe another quilter friend, Frummie, actually started this.

Anyway, here is how it works:

I, like Rosa and Frummie, like to give things to people just because...No Special reason, just because!!! It's just plain FUN to do that :)

So, I will send something homemade to the first 3 people who leave a comment on this post. Don't know what I will make yet, but I've got some ideas dancing around in my head. In return those 3 people will, hopefully, do the same thing for 3 others :) Pay It Forward!

Sounds like fun, don't you think? And besides fun, it's just a NICE thing to do :) Imagine what could happen, if everyone would just do 3 little Acts of Kindness, and those 3 recipients did 3 more, and those did 3 more...

Have a Wonderful Day

Terry

Civil War Block Swap

The past week I have been working on the blocks for 2 different upcoming swaps :) I have had a wonderful time working on them, it was a welcome break from the garden, canning, and freezing that was consuming all my time.

This set of blocks are for a signature block swap over on the Civil War Diary/Love Letters group. All blocks were to be made from Civil War repro fabric. We could choose any block or blocks we wanted to make. Well these were my choices. I have a total of 50 blocks made...now I just need to sign them!

Christmas Quilt Block Swap :)

These sets of blocks are for a Christmas Block swap over at Sylvia's Bridal Sampler Group. The white set is not for the swap, they will be my four corner blocks. The other three sets are for the swap :) Each set contains 5 to swap and of course 1 for me to keep! I might just have time to make a few more sets for the swap, before the mailing deadline :)

Yep, I joined another quilt group...imagine that!!!! LOL

Quote for the Day...

It's been a busy last week and weekend, lots of sewing done, which I will write about later :) But, I just read this quote and couldn't leave it off my blog!!! Read it and then think about it (LOL)

"Every time you give someone a little piece of your mind,

you make your head a little emptier"

Rosa's Give Away!!!!!

Okay, a dear friend of mine, Rosa, is having a Give Away!!!!
You can get to her blog from my blog list (Rosa's World).
Her Give Away is in celebration of her 250th Post :) Check it out.
Now I get 2 chances at her Give Away, because I mentioned her Give Away on my blog :)

My Wildflower Garden

This was the first year that I have tried my hand at a wildflower garden. My dear granddaughter helped with this project. I think we will be doing this again:) We will just have to do a better job at keeping the weed population down!

This was also the first year that I have had bouquets of fresh flowers, from my own garden. Loving It!!!!

The flower garden may just have to be expanded next year.

The Lillies have so many colors on them, purple, yellow, orange, blue. But NO leaves, unbelievable, I think they are sooo very pretty! Click on the picture to enlarge it and you will be able to see more of the color :)

The Bounty of Our Garden

Well this is what my garden looked like in late July. A very hearty garden it became, and it blessed us with an abundant harvest. This is why I have not had time to quilt, card-make or blog. I have been canning and freezing...and canning and freezing.

I was able to put up enough corn (frozen, canned, and frozen on the cob) to last us a year. Plus several bags of okra, 16 jars of corn relish, many bags of bell peppers, 26 jars of salsa, 8 jars of freezer pickles (so far) and zucchini...zucchini chunked, zucchini sliced, and zucchini in pulp form for bread. We still have pumpkins, watermelon, and cantaloupe growing.

We ate the green beans, turnips, and potatoes as they became ready. And of course tomatoes and cucumbers have been served daily!

The garden has slowed down, so we are now enjoying just eating from it daily.

But, I do have a basket full of peaches waiting for my attention, and then I will have a break...until the apples are ready in September, ummm, ummm, there's nothing like homemade applesauce :)

August Blocks of the Month

August has been soooo busy, but I have managed to get my BOMs done :)

My first one is the cat in the basket. This block is for the Basket Case Quilters group....I know why the name "Basket Case Quilters", if you aren't a basket when you join, you soon will be, some of these blocks are quite a challenge, at least they are for me!!!!

Next is the block for the 2009 BOM. And then there is the 2005 BOM, love the picnic theme for this one.

My First Quilts

Well, I have noticed that a lot of quilters have been reminiscing about their first quilts...so I thought I would dig out pictures of mine and share too. WOW, this is going back in time a bit. This Sampler Quilt was my very first quilt. I took a quilting class in 1986 and this is the quilt I made during that class. The whole quilt top was done by hand. I also quilted it by hand, but the binding was put on with the machine. At this point I really enjoyed piecing the blocks,but I had no love for the quilting part.






I took a break until 1988, then I made this 8-Point Star quilt for my husband for Christmas. Once again the pieced blocks were done by hand, as well as the quilting, but the binding was added by machine.
At this time I began to enjoy to do the hand quilting almost as much as the block piecing:) I finally got my fingers to cooperate with my brain, so that they quilted together :) My alternate blocks had a huge feather quilted in them.






Life got really busy with my 4 oldest kids being involved in every sport imaginable during high school, adoption of our two youngest children, and then came weddings, etc. Anyway my next quilt wasn't made until 1996 for my Mother-in-law for Christmas. I chose the Flying Geese pattern, swore I would never do that pattern again. Such small little blocks, way too time consuming, were my thoughs then... (ROTFL) and now I do Dear Jane blocks!!! How funny is that?



So there are my first three quilts. I must admit back in 1986, I never thought I would ever become addicted to quilting. And never in my wildest dreams would I have ever thought I would be doing little, tiny blocks like the Dear Jane blocks. And no way back then would anyone have convinced me that I would ever applique!!! My how we change :) Too Funny.

July's Secret Pal Gift

My Oh So Wonderful Secret Pal sent me this beautiful quilt block, with more to come she said :) I can't wait. I think I will have a project to put together after Christmas...how exciting!!! She also sent me the lovely pottery cross and that so very cute card. She is just soooo good to me :)

I Can't Believe It Happened....

My worst nightmare has come true, my computer crashed!!!! Dead, Blank, KaPut, Hard Drive Fried!!!! I turn my computer on last Friday...and nothing, absolutely NOTHING!!!!!

It kept trying to load, But nothing, no Windows page, no pretty pictures, no nothing. Now I'm no computer guru, but I know enough to know that this is BAD :(

So I'm at a complete and total loss. What will I do??? No computer...OMG no email!!! Even worse - No QUILT GROUPS - AHHHHH, I'm not going to make it, and neither is this dumb computer *grin*

This is what I wanted to do to my computer, but I used self control and instead called my dear brother-in-law who took the computer home with him, zeroed it out and got it and me back up and running again :)

Now a HUGE, HUGE "Thank You" not only to him, but also to my dear friend Rosa who, every month reminds everyone on the Dear Jane group to back everything up. So I didn't loose too much stuff :) I just need to retrieve a few email addy's and I'll be all better (LOL)

And, by the way, my external hard drive is on it's way!!!! Lesson learned. VBG

July 10 - Thought For The Day

Planning your work is important,

but doing it is better!!!

July 9 - Thought For The Day

Oops I forgot to post yesterday, so today is a 2 for 1 day :)

Lord, when we are wrong, make us willing to change...

and when we are right, make us easy to live with.

Live each day as if it were your last - someday you'll be right.

July 7 - Thought For The Day

Age is a question of mind over matter...

If you don't mind,

It doesn't matter.