Dance of the dragonfly

Please pat me on the back. Go on, I can’t reach it that well myself.

UFQ #2, the Circle Quilt has been COMPLETED. That’s the third completed UFO for those of you keeping score at home. Here’s a shot of it with scrappy binding sewn on, but not hand sewn to back yet at the time of photography.
This was one of my first quilts (that I started, that is) and I suspect it may have been intended as a baby quilt for the nephew who turned ten this month. I’m so not joking. I wish I were! As a result of it being an early attempt, I had some seams that I didn’t take deep enough. I decided to cover up these “weak” spots with dragonflies, and added a few more dragonflies, just for fun!
Why dragonflies? Well, if you look closely at the fabric in the border strip, it is a tone-on-tone with a dragonfly and polka-dot design:
The cirles are all hand appliqued. I quilted it with “straight” squares overlapping the wonky squares of the blocks, and some outline quilting in the borders.
It has been renamed “Dragonfly Dreams” and I think it will be a donation quilt for my church’s auction this autumn. Ah, it’s good to be done with something.

The icing on the cupcake

Lorraine has received her cupcake goodies, so now I can post shots of what I made for/sent to her. First of all, I found some very cute cupcake paper liners, a bath cupcake for a relaxing fizzy bath , in “pink champagne” scent or flavor, a cupcake cookbook, every good cook should have one, and a cupcake card that I added an applique to, to match the apron I made.

And of course, the apron:


made from a Butterick See & Sew pattern, #B5125, it was easy to make except for the fact that I had to hem it by hand (not a big hand-sewing fan, unless it’s applique or embroidery), but that made it look nicer, and Lorraine likes it alot, so it’s worth every stitch!

The applique is my own design addition, complete with a cherry on top!
Maggy tried this out, too. What is it with animals and some new textile laying around?!?
Lorraine’s final surprise was the Batik Star that I first blogged about on July 11th, as part of my UFQ series. She was the only one to comment and suggested I “join a small quilt swap..or send it to me [her]…lol”. So, I finished it, and I did. Send it to her. See what a nice compliment can get you around here?

I had a lot of fun with this swap, getting to “know” Lorraine, and seeing some of the clever gifts people came up with across blogland for their partners.

Press On

I acquired a new ironing board from my mom earlier this year after mine broke. Well. Okay. After I broke mine. I fell. The ironing board got in the way. I weigh more than the board is designed to withstand. ’nuff said. My mom had one that’s probably 30+ years old that she doesn’t use much since she got an over-the-door model, so she gifted me her old one. I replaced the Walmart style cover with an Ironslide 2000 cover from Bo-Nash. If you don’t know what this is. Consider getting one from http://www.bonash.com. Seriously, you will not regret it, it adds heat to what your pressing like nobody’s business and is ideal for pressing while piecing. Anyhoo…I was having trouble with the edges coming undone, so I needed a cover to put over the Ironslide cover (plain metallic grey color) to hold it snug. I saw an idea in this book: and I borrowed it to make this:
In great retro 30s/40s reproduction fabric, the main cover is this Darlene Zimmerman clothesline print:
and the end has some other pieces from Darlene Zimmerman’s “Happy Homemaker” line, including the cute red-white-and-blue ironing board girls:
This was super easy to make, solved my problem of the loose edges on my Ironslide cover, and is bright and cheerful as a bonus.

My sweet swap partner, Lorraine, has received her Cupcake goodies from me–Yeah! So glad they made it to Australia without incident!

Parting Shot: Baby Boy, just four short days after surgery on his colon. That smile, and the giggle behind it, does everyone’s heart good.

Miranda Bag for Molly

This is the Miranda Bag (Lazy Girl Designs) that I finished this weekend for Molly. I love the colors, teals, turquoise, brown and lime greens. Molly seems to like darks, so this is going to be a color infusion for her…I hope she likes it. The handle is one continuous loop (not part of this pattern), so it can be carried like this with two shorter handles by the hand or over the elbow, or pulled all the way through to make a shoulder strap.
I put a handbag magnetic snap closure on the flap instead of using velcro as the pattern called for. The interior is full of pockets for everything, and a fun color to boot!
I turned away for literally about eight seconds while photographing, and turned back to this:
Maggy tries out all new quilts first, so why not the handbags, too? She refused to look at the camera. I’m sure she knew this was a no-no. Defiant, little….

I have to go clean the cat hair out of Molly’s bag, now.

Thank You

An update on the little guy’s surgery…

This is him the day before his surgery, being read to by his Auntie, assisted by his cousin. He is doing well, his prognosis is very good, he found his smile again yesterday and had some interest in toys again. He’s bouncing back like a champ and will be going home with Mommy and Grandma some time today.

Thank you all for your concern and your prayers.

Quilt Retreat Review

It’s no secret I love a weekend of sewing. And especially a weekend of sewing with quilty gals. This past weekend was certainly no exception. We talked. We laughed. We ate. We sewed. We ripped. We cut. We ate. We napped. We shared. We ate some more. Maida, our chef for the weekend did a great job of keeping the hunger pangs away. I’m doing extra workouts this week to make up for it.

Our retreat takes place in the cafeteria of an elementary school. Here is my table of quilters:That is my Pfabulous Pfaff to the right of center, there. It worked like a champ this weekend after visiting the doctor two weeks ago. I made two more Nearly Insane (UFQ #20) blocks (remember, my goal is two per month)–Thirty blocks for the Girlish Charm Quilt (UFQ #7)–
A new ironing board cover (I’ll post more on this later this week)–
Worked on my Liberty Garden (a WIP since June 2008)—
Made this for my friend Molly who has been patiently waiting all summer (UFP #8)–
And I made a gift for a little guy, but I can’t post pics yet because it hasn’t been gifted yet…

There is always show-n-tell at a retreat, everyone gathers around and oohs and ahhs and takes pictures and asks questions. This is Ann’s “tumbling blocks variation”:
Mom’s Blooms for Annabelle quilt, which will have hand applique in the background spaces and extra borders to make it bigger, but after ripping it apart A LOT, the main center is finally done. Note the smile.Cathy’s scrappy stars for a kindergarten classroom board, made from all donated blocks and fabric scraps:
Dawn’s hexagon strip quilt:And occasionally, a rest is needed after all that sewing, quilting, ripping, eating, laughing, and talking. Here is Lynn taking a nap under one of her creations :I’m going to have to get one of those chairs to take along next time…