One of my favorite places

A little blog reading music for ya:


Remember my little bird bath garden inspired from this Spring?
Well, it has become our golf ball garden. I thought I had ten balls in there but counted today and there are eleven. I asked hubby if he found another one and he said no. So maybe one of the golfers is really THAT good. We live on a golf course and the golfers aim at our house on a 90 degree green so whenever hubby mows, he has to be kind of careful.
The plants on the back deck have done surprisingly well, considering I'm not much of a gardener.
Here are a couple tomatoes, some mint and the grill. I grilled a whole chicken the other day and inadvertantly left some of the olive oil marinade inside. It was a BIG fire in that poor little grill, I had to grab the bird while hubby doused the fire. I was really glad for a brick house that evening! Lesson learned, as much as I like fire, I don't want to burn down my house.

Misde is my sweet girl. She's a border collie and mystery mutt mix.

I can't believe how fast my tomato plants grew, we've got green tomatoes and it won't be long before the cucumber is big enough to pick. It's not a real garden but container gardening on the deck at least gives us the hope that we can keep some of it away from the deer. Our deer population is thriving here, so much so that they got the SWAT team to thin the herd a while back.

This is Hope, my border collie. She's a lovely creature most of the time. And sometimes she's a brat, but she's my girl.

I think this deck is one of my very favorite places right now. The other evening I wrapped up in a blanket and watched the stars for a while in the stillness of the night. There were some lightening bugs out and the evening was so perfect and peaceful. I love this place. It reminded me of the lyrics of a song:

I see skies of blue, clouds of white.

Bright blessed day, dark sacred night

And I think to myself, what a wonderful world.

Thank you Louie Armstrong!

Jacob's Stairs

I finished a quilt today. I added a few beads and some quilting with embroidery floss. I came across a tiny little antique key while I was moving my sewing stuff into the new studio space and so I included it in the lower left part of the blue. I’ve hung it on the wall in my freshly painted kitchen where the turquoise batik comes pretty close to matching the wall. I don’t know if I will keep it there or not but I like it so far.

I was fighting a bad case of the ick last week and feel much better after a restful day Sunday. So that is a good thing indeed!

Tomorrow I’m going to visit my local yarn shop and see what I can find in the way of sock yarn. Melody has inspired me again and I am really curious to see what all they have now, I haven’t been there in quite a while.

I’ll be out of town most of the rest of the week and I’m hoping that knitting some socks may make the time go a little faster. Of course I could take along a quilt and do some hand quilting, that would also work. I’m just not great at sitting still for very long without something to do.

Jacob's Stairs

It has been a beautiful day here, warm enough to leave the patio door open and allow the dogs to come and go as they please. I played for a while this morning then spent most of the afternoon on the couch trying to sleep off a cold that I haven’t been able to shake.
I took all of the quilting that I didn't like out of the piece I started yesterday and tried again with different machine quilting ideas to get something that I liked.
This was unintentional, but I see a door in this piece. It looks like a set of stairs in the doorway, drenched in light so I’ve decided to call it “Jacob’s Stairs.” I like the clean graphic nature of it but think it still needs something so I’m giving some thought to some embellishments
And so I picked out some beads that might work. It might be fun to suggest stars in the darker blue area above, I considered making them from polymer clay or going shopping for star buttons. Then there is the Swarovski crystal sort of sparkling star, that might be interesting. I have seed beads in any color and a bunch of other options. And I ran across this little tiny old skeleton key in my box of antique sewing stuff and it seems fitting that the key go on this piece somewhere. I have some floss and who knows what else. It will be interesting to see where this takes me!

There is a joy in this journey!

Five Point Quilt Star Pattern Tutorial Part Two

The first seams have been sewn at this point, the star fabric to the background.

Press the star fabric open.

Turn the section facedown and trim the points of the star leaving an extra .25 inch seam allowance.


Holding fabric up to a light source, carefully trim the extra fabric away from the star leaving an extra .25 inch seam allowance. This will become a guide in sewing the next sections of the fabric to the star.

You can just barely see the pencil mark through the fabric so that you know where to cut. Try to avoid using ink for this purpose, having the ink run when the finished quilt is washed would be rather annoying.

Choose ten coordinating fabrics for the second row of the star and cut 2 inch strips or strips of various widths for a more funky look. Choose fabrics one step darker in value than the color of the star.
Lay out the fabrics until you are satisfied with the colors and balance.
Carefully place the chosen colors on the star face down, sew leaving a .25 seam allowance.
Sew each star point starting on the right hand side so that all points of the stars “go” the same direction.
Iron fabric open and trim.
Place the second strip of fabric against the first, carefully sew and iron open then trim.
Continue to add rows to the star points until all the backing fabric is covered. Iron each section open and trim each section carefully.



Carefully sew two points of the star together matching the lining fabric and iron.
Carefully sew two other points of the star together, matching the lining fabric and iron.
And the final point to a pair and iron.
Sew the final two sections together starting in the center of the star and sewing each side to the edge and iron.
Your star is complete and ready to be trimmed. Add a border fabric or two, or piece several stars together in a quilt design. The options for using this star block in quilt designs are endless.

I have to admit, making a tutorial is kind of fun!

Another Star

I’m in the process of creating a tutorial for piecing a five point star. So of course I had to make another one. Who knows, this might be the first of many.

Quilt Project Update

This much was finished by the end of Christmas Eve, the HO and E were finished before and the P had to wait until after the festivities. Then I started in on the three stars. I tried a number of different stars and wasn’t really thrilled with any of them.

Taking what I learned from making the first three, I made three more that I like much better. Now that I have these three new stars, I need to decide which configuration works best.

Blue, Pink, Blue OR
Pink, Blue, Blue...

So far more or less like the sketch... only better. I love the creative process! I have not decided which portion I'll work on next.

Stars

The first one, way to complicated.

Trying another style... hmmm...

Try #3 hmmm....

New Project

I’ve been sketching ideas for a quilted piece that will go in my family room on the wall. The space is between two windows where I keep a collection art glass that changes whenever I make more. And it's begging for a piece that is 30 inches by 40 inches and it's going to need to be bright enough to hold it's own against the glass. I usually sketch on graph paper with something out of my color basket of markers and colored pencils. So here’s a sneak peak at the idea that I’m working with.



The base starts out with rows of colored fabrics that I think tend to look a little like grass. After that the four stylized blocks will hint at the word “HOPE.” Above that is something I’m picturing looking like an old rail fence. I’ll have to see how that goes but I like the idea so far. The fence represents the hurdles one has to cross in life, made better by a firm foundation of hope. The three stars represent the children that we are in process of adopting. It’s a reference to a scripture where God told Abraham to look at the skies and consider the stars. His children would be as the stars are. So I sometimes look at the stars and think of the future when the adoption is complete and they are finally home. Above that will be the “bookend” to echo what is happening lower in the piece to hopefully bring it all together. We’ll see, things like this never actually look like the sketch and sometimes the creative process creates drastic changes from the original ideas that gave them birth. So this is the early stage, we’ll see where this one goes.