Miscellaneous Crafty Catch Up

In keeping with the end of year catching up, here are some crafty projects I was working on. I'm tired just looking at it all! I honestly don't know how I did it all in two months.

I was really pleased with my craft show set up. Don't look too closely at the prices. I already know they are too low. 

The princess totes went to Abby & Olivia in Denver. The 2 mug mats were commissioned. I like that they are similar, but different. The two pillowcases were for Mollie's new pillow.

 My niece asked for collars and leashes for her girls' doll pets. Lily's dog is wearing the new collar, but Anna wanted to put hers on her new unicorn. It's a good thing I made them adjustable!

I liked the NYB postcards so much, I put them in tow blog posts! I spent one night in front of the TV making origami stars for a small Christmas tree. I need to get my paper folding fix from time to time! The brownie trees were my go-to party contribution. The candy cane bow tie is for my super cool son.

 

Twelve key fobs made from my father's ties were gifted to all of his kids and grandchildren.  Some people cried. Mission accomplished.

In addition to all the crafting and quilting, I did take a few breaks to cheer on my kids. Pete participated in the Camp Lejeune Marine Corps birthday ceremony. He's on the 45 yard line on the left, 6th from the front. (Julia and I watched the ceremony live streaming on line.)

That's Julia, number 11, playing in a rugby tournament that her team won. We also went to her Christmas concert to hear her sweet solo. She has the most beautiful singing voice, but can throw a mean tackle!

 

 There was some beautiful color in the house: birthday roses, pretty poinsettia and anniversary roses. Someone knows my favorite color!

Random Wrap Up

 I received an email recently informing me I had been awarded a Gold Star Badge by the staff of The Quilt Pattern Magazine. My friend and fellow Ninnie, Barbara Chojnacki, wrote a review of my blog for the June 2013 issue. Thank you Barbara and QPM!

I entered the Friendship Star Mini in Ellison Lane's Modern Mini Challenge.

Hop over and take a look at all of the inspiring minis! 

I've been busy painting furniture for Pete's room (I'll show you soon). The only sewing I managed to do was two more Girl Scout pillowcases for Julia and her best friend. I cut these out last May, along with the ones I gave to the other graduating seniors from my troop. There were other priorities, and these had to wait. (Genevieve got a whole quilt, so don't feel bad for her.) When I went to pull fabric for the one I needed last week, I found these and had to get them finished. I was NOT putting them back in the pile!

 Julia is plugging along on the Old Italian blocks and has passed the half-way mark. Add eighteen to the twenty that were done for the last post. Each pair is our favorite as they are being stitched, then she pulls out the next pair and we love them even more!

It's senior week for Pete, so we attended the athletic awards banquet. He was on the swim team for 4 years (captain this year), and ran cross country and track for two years. He learned to pole vault this year!

Next up: Graduation!

WIP Wednesday

 Hi there! I didn't intend for an entire week to go by without a post. Lots of good stuff is going on around here, but not much sewing. 

Finishes:

Julia and I took a class last weekend to make these cute Peek-a-Boo bags. Julia's is on the left, with the cute quahogs.

I used an orphan block on the back of my bag. It was one of the only blocks I made during Jackie's blogger's BOM last year in Fall 2011.  This post says I'm keeping up with the BOM. Ha! That was the last block I made. Month #2!

Last week, there were Boy Scout pillowcases; this week - Girl Scouts. I made one for the last remaining girl in my troop who earned the Gold Award and one for the top cookie seller in our area.

I made 10 giant tissue paper flowers for our Girl Scout Bridging ceremony. Each color represents a different line in the Girl Scout Law. We had older girls reading the script, and little girls placing the flowers in the umbrella stand "vase."

And now my job is done. After 14 years as a Girl Scout volunteer, that was my last event. I'm happy to be moving on, but I hope my Girl Scout friends will still invite me to lunch!

In Progress:
Julia finished a dozen more Old Italian blocks this week.

She's up to 20 blocks now. I was tempted to mix them all up to see how it will look, but I'll save that bit of fun for her.

In family news:
Pete went to his senior prom. He went with a bunch of friends (no date), so we had to pose him with Grandma.

His band played on Main Street during a 5K race. They were supposed to entertain the runners as they passed by, but by the time they got set up all the runners were gone. Oh, well. They played their whole set to the ice cream eaters and innocent bystanders instead.

We're gearing up for graduation. He bought a patch to attach to the top of his cap and I bought a lapel pin for his gown. He is one proud poolee!

After all this running around, I'll be happy to sit with a glass of iced tea and visit the WIP Wednesday goodies.

Design Wall Monday

I've been working on this baby quilt, on and off, for a couple of weeks. Other projects took priority, but now I can get back to it. I decided to go with the Waltzing Matilda border, so I need to make more whirlies with the bluish print from Fandango.

The sagey green will be a narrow border or binding.


I made His and Hers pillowcases for the bride- and groom-to-be (my nephew) as part of their shower gift. Christopher wanted to use his pillowcase right away, so I think he likes it! He is a bow hunter and picked out the deer fabric when we were shopping for their wedding quilt fabric. They chose a few collections that they liked and I picked Fandango. I love it so much! Which is a good thing, since I'm going to be spending many, many hours with it over the next few months.

I've become the designated bow-quet maker at bridal showers!

I'll show you the wedding ring blocks soon. There are only two done so far. Only 47 to go! And a hand-appliqued border. And hand quilting. Maybe it will be finished for Christmas!

Boy Scout Update

Pete is packed and ready to go to the National Jamboree, with 18 hours to spare!
The bus pulls away at 6 am on Saturday, headed for a day of sightseeing in Philadelphia.
They will spend Sunday at King's Dominion and the Jambo starts on Monday!


Class A shirts are pressed and ready! They won't be clean and wrinkle-free for long.


I decided he needed a new pillowcase today, so I finally used some of the Boy Scout fabric I bought ages ago.
Jackie, thank you for keeping the pattern handy on your sidebar!

I've always admired the Turk's Head neckerchief slides that other boys had, so I found a tutorial and made some. Pete will be wearing the official Jambo slide, but he'll have these for back up.

We have some new Eagle Scout friends!
Fred...

and his brother Matt!
(See the Turk's Head slides?)

I'm really going to miss that goofball!

MQX Highlights

MQX was amazing! If you've never been to this show, you should try to make it to MQX West this Fall or come to Providence next Spring. The quality of the machine quilting on display is higher than I could have imagined. And if you're in the market for a long arm quilting machine, this is the place to go. Every manufacturer had a booth so you could try them all out and see which one suits you the best.

I probably won't post much about other people's quilts that were on display. Copyright issues, you know. So I'll show you the highlights of my experience there, starting with Wednesday.

I drove up with Karen bright and early to beat the rush hour traffic. We volunteered in the morning to help set up the show and met some incredible people. That's Karen in the white blouse and our new friend, Diane from Massachusetts in the green sweater. (Hi, Diane!)


Here is the pike of Charity Challenge quilts. Mine is the one with the blue binding.

After lunch at the Cheesecake Factory with our new friends Diane and Linda, we took a terrific class with Pam Clarke. Her technique for marking guidelines for quilting is fascinating and I'll be giving it a try later today.

Friday...
Karen and I were back for the show with another friend, Sarah.
I was happy to have my quilt hanging among so many amazing pieces. It was the first quilt I've ever had judged, and I was grateful for the constructive comments. The scoring made sense and now I have a "grade" to beat the next time out.

Sunday...
I went back again, but brought Julia and my mother this time.
Julia delivered 2 Quilts of Valor from her Silver Award project. She presented them to Angie, a QOV ambassador from Dover, Deleaware. She works in the mortuary at Dover Air Force Base.
The women in the QOV booth treated Julia like a rock star! They were so happy that a teenage girl would be involved with the project that they gave her a bunch of goodies- tote bag, pin, and lanyard. She'll be using the tote bag at school every day.

We both sat down to make pillow cases to be used as QOV presentation cases. We both loved sewing on the Featherweights. There may be a FW purchase in our future! We will be seeing our local FW dealer at a show next weekend. This could be trouble.

They were also collecting donations for the 1 Million Pillowcase Challenge.

This is the Lost Heroes Art Quilt.
It is just incredible. Please visit the quilt's website to learn more about it and find out when it will be on exhibit near you. The artist, Julie Feingold, was at MQX with the quilt and was happy to meet people and talk about the process and hidden messages in the quilt.

It was definitely a quilt-filled week! I'm excited to get back to sewing and creating.