Design Wall Monday

I had WAY too much fun today.  A friend gifted me her cut off triangles from a bunch of snowball blocks she was making.  I pressed and trimmed and started playing.  My DH thinks it looks "Halloweeny" but I think it looks fun.  UH OH! I see a triangle turned the wrong way and a few pairs missing on the left.  I'm hoping to have more of it to show on next week's wall.  Oh, did I mention that the 1/2 square tris finish at 1"?  I told you -- TOO MUCH FUN!

Hop on over to Judy's and see what everyone lse is designing.

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Friday Night Sew In 9/16/2011

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Another successful Sew In.  I got the border on this very well-aged quilt top.  I was going to put on another border but I think it's good here. I made this several years ago via the Leader/Ender method.  The pile of 4-patches grew into 9-patches until I finally had to make it my main project.  And then it languished, really languished.  I wish I could languish that long, doing nothing, just hanging out for years on end.  SIGH...  Alas, this was the UFO number that Judy pulled this month so I made it my Friday Night Sew In project and tomorrow it will get quilted and then I can proudly post my finish on Judy's blog next month.

But wait -- there's more!

I also trimmed up a bunch of broken dish blocks that were gifted to me by a friend who doesn't understand about using scraps to create more quilts.She gave me a gallon-sized baggie full of her cast-off black and white scraps.  I think I can get something yummy made out of them.  Maybe next month's FNSI.

AND, I got the binding at least cut for the Desert quilt.

A pretty good night's work.  Tomorrow I am making fresh fig bread and quilting September's UFO.  I am expecting another good day tomorrow.  How about you?

Actually, that question leads me to ask another question.  A friend and I were discussing happiness today.  I believe that, for the most part, we choose how we are going to feel.  It's not as black and white as that statement sounds but I do believe that we get to decide how we are going to react to situations, what we are going to focus on, what we want to think about any situation we are in.  Sometimes our old, forgotten experiences rear their heads and lead us to some automatic reactions that are not positive and situations may get on top of us and get us down for a while but, ultimately, it is up to us to refocus and rewrite what we are thinking to get to a better, happier place.  Sometimes we may need help learning how to do this but I believe it can  be done.  What are your thoughts?  Do I just sound naive and Pollyanna-ish?

Go out and have a good day.  You can do it!

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Another Commitment

I was reading Amy's Creative Side blog and got hooked on something she is joining.  It gets more complicated.  Jackie at Canton Village Quiltworks got a wild idea to have a bunch of bloggers design a block of the month starting this month.  You can visit her website by clicking on the link on my right sidebar.
She has chosen this pallette for all the designers to use:

It is absolutely yummy and you can order it from her online store OR you can use whatever fabrics you have in your stash.  You know that won't be a problem for me although the appeal of these fabrics.......

Hop over to Jackie's blog and see if you want to play along.  She has written a very clear (clearer than mine) description of the BOM.

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Happy Birthday!

My sweet DS2 turned 24 today - in Barcelona, Spain!  Last year he turned 23 in Haiti, the year before he turned 22 in Barcelona and the year before that he turned 21 in Nicaragua.  Hmm, I sense a trend.

He is two weeks away from completing his three month bicycle tour of Europe. He and his good friend Dane started the trip in Helsinki and have had the adventure of a lifetime.  Ross has kept a blog about it and if you read it you will be itching to hop on a bike and join them.

Ross will be home for two weeks then he is off to Haiti again to work on a research project aimed at reforesting Haiti.  I can't express how proud we are of him.

This photo is three years old but it is one of my favorites.  I know the smile looks a little forced but that is a curse shared by all the men in my life.  Each of them has a fabulous smile but aim a camera at them and they get all stiff.  Strange.  What is it about men and photographs?  We have an album of pictures of my younger brother where he would put something in front of his face every time we tried to snap a picture of him.  Anyone else have a man like this in your life?

Go out and have a great day!!

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Design Wall Monday 9/12/11

Ta DA!  This is what I worked on yesterday.  It's not exactly on my design wall anymore, it's officially OFF my design wall and that feels pretty darn good.

I have a great niece expected in a few months.  Her shower is in two weeks while I am out of town.  I hope her mom will like this quilt.  The pattern is from Sweet and Simple Baby Quilts by Mary Hickey.  The book is now out of print but still available from Amazon.  I pretty much used all her fabric ideas because I just thought they were so, so cute.

It's been awhile since I quilted anything on my DSM and, boy am I rusty!  It still turned out OK as  long as you don't look too closely!  I had to get pretty creative with the binding.  I used up almost all the scraps in the quilt top so I had to dig around in my stash and come up with other fabrics that were close to the pieces in the top. 

Check out what others have on their design walls over at Judy's blog.

Jacob's ladder Quilt Along

WOW!  Impera Magna knows how to take and idea and run with it!  She is quite a dynamo.
We talked (Mostly I talked and arm-twisted a little) to see if we could work on a Floribunda-type quilt together.  I had fallen in love with the one she is making

and HAD to make me one.

Before I knew what hit me, she announced a QAL, made a button, and started a Flickr group.  She is a powerful force.

She wrote up a great explanation for it here. 

Read all about it then jump in to have some fun with us.

I'm fixin to use only stash florals and I haven't decided on a background yet.  I have a LOT of neutrals in my stash so I'll have to have auditions to see which one gets the part.  You can use whatever you want: polka-dots, brights, kid fabric, civil war, 30's.  Absolutely anything looks good in this block.  Come on, jump in, it'll be fun.