dog found

Just a few minutes after my post last night, Michael (dog owner) drove back in with Maggie (lost dog).  We all just about cried with relief. Hope she did all right last night with the storms. The storms is what scared her into running before.

what a day

What a day, forgot it was even design wall Monday. Just as I was about to go walking this morning it started to rain, later I was at the table and glanced out the window to see a dog that we had just got a missing dog flyer for over the weekend. I called the number and then went out to see if I could get her to come to me but she had disappeared again. The owner got there in about 10 minutes and we ended up spending the next 2 1/2 to 3 hours helping him hunt for her. She is a 10 year old Boston Terrier but we didn't have any luck. I stopped the mail lady and she had just seen her so that made 4 people that have seen her in our neighbor hood but there are a lot of woods around. The owners are still looking tonight hopefully they will be successful. Johnny and I will walk separately in the morning to cover part of the area twice. But back to quilting, I had a good sew day Saturday and besides getting the borders on two quilt tops and making a back for one, I got several more Star Gazing blocks made. I  played a little bit with the sashing and think I really like the blue and black. Having to do the mirror image of the sashing units will be a little confusing but I really like it. Hopefully tomorrow will be more calm and I can get more block done.

A Productive Saturday

Today has been a very productive day in the sewing room. Johnny went to a HAM Fest in Cullman so Lucy and I had the house to ourselves. I got started at a few minutes after 8 am. I had the center of this quilt complete but added a yellow-orange inner border then a lime green outer border. Now the quilt measures 70 by 99. I was thinking that if I did this one again I would make it another row wider, but that might not work. It is hard to see the actual block but the chain pattern is made with a 10 inch block and a 4 inch sashing row. That would make it 84 x 99, I guess that works. What do you think?

My next project was a back for the quilt. I didn't have any one piece large enough. It would have taken 6 yards. I had several large pieces that were in the front so I pieced a back. Well I did use one little green check that was not on the front. Let me tell you this was harder to do than you would think. You start to sew two pieces together and of course they are not the same width. So then you have to start trimming. I learned a lot piecing this back. If I ever do it again I think I will go about it a little differently. And I do think I will do this again, it got a lot of fabric out of the stash.

Then I added the yellow inner border and purple outer border to this scrap 1600 quilt that I started piecing at the April retreat. I didn't have enough of the outer border for binding but I found some more of those purple 2 1/2 inch strips so I pieced a scrappy binding. I had told Jo at Jo's Country Junction that I would send her some quilts and or quilt tops for her charity. This one will go to her along with two other tops and three quilts. It took a while to find the matching fabric for bindings for the other two tops but I finally did. I got all this done by 4 pm. A pretty good eight hours. However my day was not over, I then spent a hour putting an Italian Pizza Casserole together for our supper and a second casserole to carry to Ada tomorrow. I need to make labels for the 3 quilts but don't think that will happen tonight. I think there is a movie on the Hallmark channel or will watch Olympics.

Oh yea, I also made several of these Star Gazing blocks. Was this not a good day?

Salsa

The name of this blog may be Teresa Quilts but sometimes I do other things. The past few days I have been working up extra tomatoes. I froze several quarts but then Donna gave me a recipe for Salsa. I have made two batches for a total of 15 and 2/3 pints. I can hot water bath 7 pints at a time. The first  batch made the 7 and 2/3 pints. Johnny ate almost that whole piece of a jar at one sitting. He said it was the best salsa he had ever eaten. The first batch was made using Cajun bell peppers instead of jalapenos. I used jalapenos in the second batch. I hope it is just as good. I still have tomatoes left.

Not that many thank goodness, just enough to eat on until others are  ripe.

How do you like how I am drying my gloves. I was smart enough to use rubber gloves while cutting the onions and hot peppers. Messed up once before and then rubbed my eye, not something you want to do.

In between garden chores, walking, playing on the computer and other things I have done some sewing. A couple of weeks ago I was flipping through all my Bonnie Hunter books and was looking at all the quilts she had done in plaids. Well I have a tub of wovens that need to move on so I got started cutting for Star Gazing. All I needed was 2 1/2 inch strips, but I also really liked her Holly Toledo and I could make the small HST's using 2 1/2 inch strips so while I was cutting for Star Gazing I cut extra for Holy Tolido. I also cut a 7 inch strip for the  larger HST as well. So basically I have two quilts cut out. I'll have to cut something else I'm sure but most of it is cut.

Here are a few block I have done on Star Gazing. I am using just one red for the sew of corners but several different whites for the opposite corner.

This is a box of 2 1/2 in strips.

Here are my 7 inch squares, I've even got the line drawn on about half of them. Just need more sew time.

Scrap Quilts

I love to do scrap quilt and some of my favorite patterns are by Bonnie Hunter at Quiltville.com.
This is one of her patterns called Hopscotch and Butterscotch. I did this one in Thimbleberrie fabrics. These were scraps from teaching the Thimbleberrie Block of the Month for four years. This is just one of three different quilts I made from those scraps.

This is the same pattern only done in brights. I did change the center from a four patch to a solid square.  This one would be a easy Eye Spy quilt. It is  super easy block and I already have a few other blocks put together for another quilt. A good pattern to use up 2 inch strips.

DWM July UFO

This is my July UFO challenge. I just got back to it this week. The pattern is  Those Fabulous Blues by Evelyn Sloppy. The pattern is in the book 40 Fabulous Quick-Cut Quilts. The quilt in the book is done in blues and whites and I remembered as I was working on this Saturday that I do have one started in the blue and white as well. So sad isn't it that I have more started than I can remember. Oh well I will try to put it on next year's UFO list with Judy.

This one is done with a variety of beige centers and HST made from civil war and shirting fabric. I was  inspired to use this fabric selection when Valerie brought her blocks into the shop and asked our opinion. Of course I liked it so much I went home and started one of my own. Just didn't finish it until now. I have all the blocks done and am putting the rows together. It then has a small inner border then a pieced border of HST's and then repeats the inner border fabric in a wider outer border. I had originally pulled a blue fabric for the borders but now I am looking at a greenish brown. I may audition a few different fabrics here later and see what you think. I have the HST's made for the border so it should go pretty fast. I used Thangle to make the half square triangles. I love them because even though this project had been put away for over a year all my HST's were still nice and neat and easy to use. Hopefully I will get the rows put together today but I do have some garden stuff to do this morning so it may not happen. We picked two dishpans full of tomatoes yesterday. It was the first day it was dry enough to get in the garden. But I'm not complaining about the rain we still need several inches of rain to get out of the drought situation. So let it rain

7/9/12 DWM

This is from one of the patterns that I got on our shop hop trip, it is called Garden Paths by Amanda Murphy. It's going together rather quickly. I used part of a jelly roll and added about a dozen other bright fabrics. There is a little less variety than I usually have in scrap quilts so placement is a little tricky. This is also something you have to have all the different components made before you can start to assemble and that is not how I usually work so this has been a little different for me. I guess it is good to work outside the box every now and then. Hopefully I can get this put together this week so I can get started on my July UFO challenge. I think I still have a lot to do on that one. I really wanted to get it off the shelf just to see yesterday but I made myself continue with this one and I'm glad I did because I made a lot of progress. I just need a few more of the smaller connecting blocks and I can put this one together. I'm not sure what I will do for a border yet but I'm sure I can come up with something in my stash or maybe in one of my stitching buddies stash.  First I have to go walk this morning so have a good day.

Friday's stitch

I am a little late posting this but this past Friday the stitch group met at Ada's for a day of stitching.

Dianne had been very busy the last couple of weeks. Not only did she make this cute little candy corn wall hanging, but she made two of them. She has plans to share one with someone special.

Last time she shared her brown bag challenge and she enjoyed the fabric colors so much she put this little lap quilt together. It started with one charm pack. Sashing the charm squares made it not only bigger but very interesting.

This little project is one she has worked on for a while and the picture does not do it justice. There are yo-yo's all over the quilt. Even the little Dalmatian dog in the bottom corner is made of yo-yo's. This was just too cute. Makes me want to dig out my yo-yo makers.

She also made this cute little birdhouse. Linda says she will add a bird instead of a flower when she makes one for herself. Dianne had much prettier fabrics than was on the front of the pattern.            

We are going to skip next Friday because the Athens guild is having a workshop and several are attending that. I'll try to post later where we will meet the following week.

July 4th, 2012

We have had a nice relaxing day. Kelly Keeney and Stanley Cobb joined us for a little pool time, adult beverages and dinner.

Johnny cooked 3 racks of ribs, I don't know who he thought was going to eat all that. Needless to say we have left overs.

In addition to the ribs we had potato salad, corn on the cob, baked beans, slaw, rolls and fresh garden tomatoes.

For desert I tried Ada's Peach pie. Not your traditional peach pie.
Everything is cleaned up now and the feet are propped up and there are no plans to do anything else tonight. I doubt we are even still awake by fireworks time. I will have to walk double the next 3 or 4 days to walk all this off.

Work in Progress

It is a good thing I don't have a problem with more than one project going at a time because that is definately the case now. I have been making multiple HST's and as you can see have completed two more blocks. I probably have enough HST's for 6 or 8 more blocks. 

I'm putting them together in rows, then in units.  Ignore the blue four patch, it was left over from the Patriotic Patchwork top.

However the best of plans sometimes get put on the back burner. One of the young ladies that worked at the quilt shop has announced that she is getting married. So I packed this project up for a while and pulled out a jelly roll we had made at the shop, added some white on white that I got on our trip plus a new pattern from the trip and started cutting. I don't have enough together to show now but maybe next week. This is also a new month on Judy's UFO challenge and my #3 is only about 3/4 done so I need to get a lot more sewing done this month than I did in June.