Adieu

An icon has passed from this world.

Whether you loved him or hated him,

listened to his music

or quickly flipped stations when it came on the radio

thought of him as talented or twisted,

you must admit

he had quite an influence on the world.

He performed on the World's stage from the tender age of five.

He has always "been there" as long as I can remember...

But now he's gone.

Michael Jackson

August 29th, 1958 - June 24th, 2009

Thank you for the music...

A Few of My Past Quilts...

Nichole had a question that made me pause to think...

So I think I'll post a few pictures of a few of my quilts. (I'm on Boyfriend's computer 'cause mine's been having troubles alllll day... So I only have a few pictures...)

This is a Wedding Ring Quilt (NOT to be confused with the Double Wedding Ring!):

And a close-up:

A *Huge* Bear Paw Quilt:





And a Close-up:



A Trip Around the World (made from Batiks):





And a close-up of the center :

That's all I have time for today Folks! =-)

Number 30, I Believe...?

I've been obsessing lately...

I'm making a quilt for Bunny (19 yo daughter), and it's applique'd!

Did I say it's applique'd? I mean the entire thing is applique'd!!

Yes, I *am* crazy, thank you very much.

I'm quite possibly STUPID too!!!

Anyway, the vision I originally had in my head looked a little bit like this:





But not quite.
Yes, that's a strange, Tim Burton-meets-Willy-Wonka-type curved, rounded or whatever tree. I wanted it to have another curved-rounded-whatever branch on the left, but it just was not cooperating. I just could NOT get the vision that was in my head onto the fabric (well technically, onto paper first, but whatever). Plus, I wanted many flowers and lots of greenery around the bottom of the tree, a silver moon on the top right, and a Luna moth flitting around on the left...
But things were not going as planned. The fabric was NOT cooperating...

So I went to plan B:




I decided it would look better as a more "traditional" tree...

Because the image in my head just would NOT become a reality for me!!!

So then I added a few flowers:




I haven't added any of the greenery yet (except for the one lone lily on the right). It is really slow going. Did I mention that the WHOLE thing is applique'd?!?!

Damn! Whose bright idea was this?!

Anyway, a close up of the large daisy-like flowers:




And the really time-consuming, but adorably cute... whatever-kind of flower:

So, luckily, I'm liking it. =-)

But it's not finished. Oh no. It's not nearly finished.

I still have to make lots of greenery.

And more flowers.

And did I mention there'll be a flutterby flitting around on the left (instead of the Luna moth)? No? Well, there will. And guess what? It too is to be applique'd! Big surprise, that, I'm sure.

None of this is tacked down yet. It's still fairly "fluid", so to speak. I'm still messing around with the layout.

But I plan to continue on, despite that it may possibly be the most difficult quilt I've ever done. That, plus the fact that I really don't have any applique experience to speak of, and that the layout continues to change as I go along...

I've known for quite a while now that I'm clearly out of my mind, but now... well... There's no denying it to me or to anyone else, really.

But the upside is that you, my dear reader, get to simply sit back and watch the chaos ensue! =-) So, bonus for you! haha!

Please allow me to go back to my own personal CrazyTown to continue in my Folly. More pictures to follow... soon, hopefully.

Today seems to be an odd day for me...




I'm sort-of wandering around, talking out loud to myself...




Boyfriend is at work, our oldest daughter is at one of her college classes, and our youngest is taking her kitten to the vet...




So I'm stuck here, alone, wandering around between loads of laundry, with the tv on for noise...

I'm sort of lost today.





I'm in a funk.





But SHE gives me comfort! =-)





It's not a very focused picture, but really, are we supposed to *clearly* see faeries? Aren't they supposed to stay in the realm of "those things that we're not quite certain of"?

She found me at a yardsale, and my 18 yo daughter tried to claim her, but she stuck with me. (Yay! The gods smiled on me yet again.)

I still need to find a name for her. Any suggestions? I have no idea if she came with a set of anything, nor if she's a cartoon, or what. Nor do I want to know!

And the quilt I'm working on is lying there looking at me accusingly.


I need to get to work on it, but I'm stuck for a bit.




I guess I'll go look around the 'net for some tutorials on applique'...




Back later. But in the meantime, here's a sneak-peek at this thing I'm trying to work on:

*Hot* Damn!

::Scream::

I won a give-away!!!
Rachael had a give-away, and I entered it, blogged about it, and even linked to it (Go Me!), and... ::drumroll::
I won her give-away!

http://parkave-sweatshop.blogspot.com/2009/06/ikea-giveaway-winner.html

Well, guess what came in the mail today? (Okay, okay. So I'm slow. It actually came on Thursday [TWO days ago, for those who are counting], but I couldn't find the time to post about it!)

Yep. My IKEA fabric that Rachael so generously gave away! =-)
It's four pieces of 58" by 18" fabrics, so it's like "chubby fat quarters"! =-)

I'm thrilled! (As if you couldn't tell by all of the exclamation points!)

I have no idea what I'll make with these almost-upholstery-like fabrics, but I'm sure *something* will come up in my little mind! =-)

Thank you Rachael!!!

I haven't won anything in a really looong time. This feels nice.

Hmmm...

Maybe this means I should start looking around my scraps to see if there's anything in there that would like a new home...

=-)

Finally Friday!

I am finally posting pictures of the baby quilt!
Yay! Go me.

Unfortunately, the pictures are not as good as my daughter's would be, so you'll just have to bear with me. I apologize for that... But hey, at least I got up off my butt and did it for myself finally! =-)

The first picture is the whole thing. It's flannel! from "Giggles" by Moda. (I had saved the card with all of the info on it, but now I can't find it!!! Oh well.)

I got a jelly roll and just sewed the strips together.
I had a difficult time with this one, let me tell you.
First of all, I wanted to put yellow strips in there, in a blue-white-green-yellow-kind of pattern, but there were not enough yellow strips to do that!

Crap!

So I left the yellow out, but decided to do a border strip with the yellow.
Once I got it put together, I got out the flannel fabric that I thought coordinated with it when I was in the store! Only to find out when I got home that it didn't really match!!

Crap!

So I went to the pitiful fabric store we have here in town, and looked and looked for a flannel that would look good with it (and, YES, I took the quilt top with me! I have learned a thing or two over the years. lol ) and...

Crap!

Nothing really matched! I did not want to go into the next town to look for fabric, so I settled on a plain white fleece.

I've never sewn with fleece before, but I thought, "It's just for a baby" and got what I thought would be enough fabric. (Mind you, this was after much debating with myself about the downfalls of having a basically white backing for a baby, and wandering from aisle to aisle between the flannels and fleeces... which were on opposite sides of the store!) I got it anyway.

Crap!

It did not cover the back!

"Holy cow, how many more 'craps' am I gonna have with this quilt?!?!"

So I decided to put a stripped piece on the backing, kind of like Amanda Jean of http://crazymomquilts.blogspot.com/ does. I've done this technique before, and have always ended up liking it. I like it on this one too. =-) Yay.


So, here's the front:

This quilt measures approximately 37" x 45".

And a close-up:


I'm not sure if you can see it, but I used a variegated mostly-green thread to machine-sew on the binding. It's fleece too, so I didn't double it or turn it under like I usually do on bindings. It went super-fast putting it on like that! =-)

Also, on this picture, you can see that I just straight-line quilted it, staying 1/4 inch from the seams.


And here's the back with the strip of flannel:



And a close-up of the strip, just so you can see how cute this fabric is! =-)



Okay, I think I'm done saying "cute" for the day.

Well, you go have a great Friday, and a restful weekend... Hopefully I'll be quilting! I've sort-of started on my next one. It's for my 19 yo daughter.

And it's different from any quilt I've ever done before!

Wish me luck!! =-)

I'll be applique-ing this one. I'll need all the help I can get!