Tulips completed

Here is the completed tulip top. I quilted and sewed the binding on yesterday. I slept under it last night and did I sleep well! I am very happy to have a spring quilt. Here is the back of the quilt. I did finish the poem on the back. I think I should have positioned it a bit higher on the back, had more of the black floral on the bottom but it is what it is.

Here is the quilt on my bed. It certainly brightens the room and makes the room feel cheery.

Spiral has posted a picture of her completed top today, go over and check that out. Hers is really nice and springy also. I like her pastel background. I might (might) just have to try another. I am thinking of a smaller tulip, baby sized. We'll see, you know if I do it will be posted.

Have a good day. DD and BF are coming over for diner tonight. Swiss steak and mashed potatoes are the requested menu. Of course Mom will comply, there are just somethings I will always accommodate my children on and one the those things are making their favorite dinners.

Dot

I WON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here is a copy of an e-mail I received tonight. I forgot that I signed up for this drawing and then surprise surprise, I WON!!!!!!!!!


Congratulations, You are the winner of a $500 Thread package from APQS!
It will be shipped to you in the next 2-4 weeks.

Maybe I need to buy a lottery ticket tomorrow.

Good evening to all. Dot

My March Trips

Just pictures of my four finished TATW that I made this month. They will be going to their respective owners in the next week. I was fun and certainly a challenge.

I am finished with the words for the tulip quilt so now I will be the back put together so I can start quilting on that.

Have a good week-end. Dot

A celebration

We are celebrating a new citizen to the United States of America. Yuliya took her citizenship test last Wednesday and passed. We are all so excited to celebrate with her. Yuliya is in the blue and Vita in is the green. Vita made red/white/blue cupcakes for the celebration. We certainly had a yummy lunch as you can see. I made Yuliya a pair of citizenship socks, red/white/blue. She seems to like them.

Yuliya will be a very welcome citizen, she is hard working and very much interested in being part of the United States. She is very excited to go through the ceremony, she has not done that yet, they will let her know when her ceremony will be. I hope it is on a day that I can attend.

Well I guess I will get back to sewing now. Have a good evening one and all. Dot

Signature blocks

Yesterday my buddy Diane and I went to the Airing of the Quilts show in Milwaukee, Or. We happened to arrive right when there was a presentation on memory quilts, so we went into the presentation. Well, it certainly was informative and fun. We decided our small sewing group needs to make some signature blocks for each other. We figure there are five of us regulars so we want the block fairly large. I found this block at cache cow, it measures 12 inches. I think it is going to be a good size, we could set it on point if wanted and make a nice wall hanging with the completed blocks. I will present this to the others and see what they thing.

I hope everyone had a good Easter. We haven't eaten yet but the smell of the ham is making me hungry. Dot.

Happy Easter

This was the picture on the cover of The Lutheran magazine this month. I love this picture, it speaks volumes to me. Whenever I see this picture I am reminded of whom is to be the center of my life, not me..

Have a Happy Easter one and all. Dot

My own March Madness

Well I am at it again. I am making another TATW. We received a baby announcement in the mail the other day so I am in the process of making a quilt for the new baby. This quilt will be for a little girl and I don't want to make it pink so it will be oranges with yellows and pinks burgundy and white. Oh how bright the fabrics were before they were sewn together. I am always amazed how fabric will tone down when placed next to one another. I will post a picture of completed top when done.

I hope everyone enjoyed their first day of spring.
Dot

Tulip top done

Not a very good picture but this is the tulip top. It turned out big, approximately 92x88. It will fit my bed which is fine, I needed a spring quilt for my bed. Most of my quilts end up fall colors as that is the color scheme I seem to prefer for myself so it will be nice to have a spring quilt for my bed.

I will finish the poem off on the back side of the quilt. I tired to find the author of this little ditty tonight on the internet but couldn't find it with the little search that I did. It guess it won't really matter if I am keeping it for myself. If you are not familiar with the rest it will say, The tulips I like best are your two lips in the dark.

Oh well, I will go to bed now. Have a good day tomorrow. Dot

HAPPY ST. PATTY'S DAY

Oh!!!! how I love this day. I get one of my favorite dinners. A Ruben sandwich and of course for celebration of the day a green beer. I hope everyone had a great day.

Dot

My last trip for awhile

This is the third TATW. I like it but not as well as the other two. It is bright, good for a child. I will now quilt the last two and get the bindings done.

Wow three TATW in less than a week and working 5 days. I didn't think I could do it but I did.

Have a good evening.

Dot

Second Trip

Here is the second of the three needed tops. I like how it turned out. I learned that using Bonnie's pattern and cutting the strips at 3.5 instead of 4 you can get a pretty good sized child quilt. I think it measures 51x57. I also learned if you use two colors you do need a third (whence the white) to separate two of the same colors being together when you join the panels. I do think the white adds a bit of character though. I also figured out if my fabric is 45 width and I cut very carefully when making the sub cuts I can get by with three sets of nine strips instead of four. Cutting the pieces at 3.5 allows you to get 12 cuts, if all goes well, and you need 36 sub cuts to make the top without adding an addition to the top and bottom. I hope you understand what I am saying here. Sometimes I just can't seem to get the concept in words and need to show in person. Oh well on to pulling the fabric for number three. Have a good day. Dot

I"m Tripping again

Well I had my taxes done today, not good news. I get to pay more again this year. I did have extra taken out of my check during the year so the blow wasn't to bad but yet again Uncle Sam wants more. We don't even make that much, we even made less this year than last. Where does all this money go?
Any way to explain my title. My tax lady asked me if I would make 3 child size quilts for her. She would like to have them by April 15th which does not give me much time so I started right away and decided the Trip Around the World would be the easiest to make in such short notice. This is the first one. I decided no borders, just tripping. I will put a black binding on this and call it done. It measures 51 x 56 which I think is a pretty good size for 1 year olds. I guess they are triplets and she wants to give them quilts when she sees them after tax season. I will sew the binding on tonight and pull fabric for the next one. I am leaning towards a pink and brown. I will see what I can come up with. I don't want to purchase any more fabric just using stash. I hope I have enough pinks and browns.

Here are my two buddies. They were so cute last week laying on the floor like this, I just had to snap a picture. Their names are Jo Jo and Bo. Jo Jo is the older long haired dog. She sure is starting to show her age lately. I figure she must be about 13, I can't really remember when we got her. Bo is about 3, he really belongs to our daughter but lives with us. I am sure there are parents out there who understand that.

Good evening to all. dot

My Iron

Su Bee over at Pieces of time asked me to post a picture of my iron and explain why I have it and what I think of it. Well, I bought this iron a little over a year ago at the Goodwill. I had bought about three irons in one year previous to this one and broke each one of them. I had a very bad habit of knocking the iron off my board and onto the floor. I would break the water reservoir and also cause the iron to not work properly. One day while I was in Goodwill looking for a cookbook for my son I found this iron for 4.99. I thought why not? I like the iron, the spray has recently decided not to work properly but other than that I really don't have any complaints. The iron does not have an automatic shut off ,which I like. I don't have to worry about it turning off then having to wait for it to warm back up when needed. I have not dropped it on the floor and it heats well. I do wish it weighed a bit more but I can live with that. I like a good heavy iron, I am not particularly fond of the new light weight irons. I hope to have this iron for a few more years, we'll just see how long I can keep it off the floor.

Challenge to all blogger who read my blog. Tell us about your iron. I look forward to see what others like in an iron.

Unproductive week-end

What a week-end. I sewed about 1 hour on my tulip quilt then decided I best get my quilting done on the long arm. Well, that did not go well. I quilted for about 1 hour, found out my tension was off on a section, went to rip it out and found a couple small holes in the quilt. I called the owner of the quilt and we decided to rip out all the quilting and return to her so she can repair these small holes. One of the holes probably would not present a problem but the other one would continue to fray and be a problem in the future. I spent all of last night and part of this morning ripping, ripping , and ripping. What a chore. Here is the completed Tripping with Bonnie. I really like it. I ran out of the focus fabric so I had to improvise on the borders but am very happy with the outcome. It is probably about a double bed size. Oh so bright and cheery.

A finial picture of Fiddling with Finn. This quilt is now on my bed. I am not to keen on brown but I do like the quilt and the fact that the 4 patches are from my blogging quilting buddy Finn in Wisconsin. I was born in Wisconsin and am half Finnish so I feel a connection to this quilt. I will keep this one.

Here is the completed pink/black quilt. It seems in this picture a bit more of the pink appears. I have named this quilt "Hope in the midst of Despair". My original plan was for a breast cancer quilt, that is the reason for the name, but I am not really happy with the outcome so it will go into the charity pile. It is queen size to someone out there will certainly get use of it.

Now off the housework, which I should have done last night, laundry, and getting tax info together for my tax lady.

Have a great day one and all. I hope to get some sewing done later this afternoon. I reserve the 3-5 pm slot for American Routes on OPB so I plan to sew while listening to this. Enjoy. Dot