One of my favorite things EVER

Does anyone know the pattern for this quilt? For almost 10 years, nearly every time I visit my daughter Deana, she puts this quilt on my bed. It was given to her by her mother-in-law around the time she got married. It is the perfect weight and yellow is my favorite color so it just makes me feel happy. The last time I was there, I took pictures of this one and the one I call "my quilt" which also came from D's mother-in-law. Maybe sometime I will show it off too. The little white square is the center of a block. I tried to get a close up so that it would be easier to tell what the block looks like.

*** Update***

I am sitting here this evening looking at several varieties of this quilt online thanks to my daughter Deana. She saw my post and sent me the links to them. It is called Pineapple Log Cabin.
I never even looked it up or asked her about it. I just took the photos and blogged about it. You have to love communication in the 21st Century. :) Thanks, D.

Pot Luck Dots

This is my offering for the GHQA2 Pot Luck. Congratulations to Valentina for winning. I can't wait to see what she does with all of them. She mentioned that she is thinking about embroidering the center dot with the person's name and location on them. I think that sounds really cool!

Progress and Frustration

I have finished 2 sets of hexagons for the Quilt a long but can't post about them there, every time I try the post shows up here.

Slowly but surely

It has been so long since I posted anything I about forgot how to. I love seeing all of the pot luck photos so thought I would pitch in. I think this group might actually get me back in the groove of WANTING to do something creative again. I took a quick break this morning and got started. The picture is kind of dark but you get the idea.

Taking a little break

I have absolutely no interest in sewing or crafting of any kind for that matter and really haven't for about a month. Just after I spent a lot of money to take the quilt class.

I haven't even had much interest in reading the wonderful blogs I was looking forward to reading each day.

To those who do come by here occasionally thank you, I know who you are and I will be back around and hopefully have something to show for the time off.

I just don't know if it will be sooner or later.

For now, I am going to read a book.

Happy Birthday to Me

My daughter had this on her blog this morning and it made me laugh. I was about 4 years old here and hated having my bangs cut. My Granny would sit me up on her kitchen counter and wouldn't stop until they were straight or I was nearly bald. Guess which happened first...

When I got out of my car tonight at work some of the guys got on the intercom and one after the other told the community that it was my birthday. I walked in and several people were standing there to tell me Happy Birthday then I see a cookie cake that my friend Michele got for me and it was decorated in my favorite colors and there were balloons that one of the sales guys put together.

I also received some beautiful flowers.

I have had a great birthday!

To all you have made this a special day for me, thank you very much.

Quilt News

I've been invited to join The Great Hexagon Quilt-Along. I'm not sure how I came upon this blog a week or so ago but I love it! There are so many beautiful things being made from all over the world. Check it out if you get a chance.

I just finished piecing all of the small blocks together to make the Card Trick block now I just need to put the small blocks together. I'm not sure that I am supposed to put it together before the class though. She said something about DO NOT iron the seams until we come back and I can't imagine putting it together without ironing the seems so I guess I will make a call Monday to find out for sure. I have the templates cut out to get started on the Ohio Star pieces so I think that will try to do that tomorrow.

Enjoy the weekend or in my case a day off.

My Hand Piecing Quilt Class

We went to class yesterday. It was a nice small class of only 4 people and the instructor. Our first block to make is the Card Trick. I have always liked this block and can't believe how much easier it is than I always thought it would be. I didn't take the photos until this morning before work so I didn't get to take one of Carole's but I will later. We had a lot of fun and I am glad we are doing this together.

Our instructor made each of us this flannel layout mat so that we would always be ready to sew on our current block wherever we are.

One thing I am sure of is that I am not going to be happy with my whole crib sized quilt being these colors. While I do like them, I am not sure it is going to be a very pretty quilt. Looks like I am going to be spending more money than I planned to. As always, I do reserve the right to change my mind in a minute.

There is always a glare from the florescent lights in my office. I am not a photographer as you can tell. But at least I have learned how not to have my finger in the picture too.

Spare Change Update

I finished up the first half of the flowers for the Spare Change Quilt. I am pleased to see that it isn't going to be as big as I first thought. It will be a nice throw size when finished. I wasn't to get all of these sewn together before I make the rest. I may have to bring them to work on at lunch during the day.
I am starting a Hand Piecing class today. I have a feeling that the homework from that will take up my evening hours. I am kind of excited about it taking this class though because I asked my step-mom to take it with me and she is going to. I'll post pics of that process along the way.
I have signed up for another class in March but after the stress I felt getting ready for this class yesterday I may wait until another time to take it. It looks like it will be a cute little thing and it involves English Paper Piecing so we will see.

Making Progess on the Spare Change

While most people just enjoyed a nice long break, I worked all but Christmas Day and on top of that I got a bad cold that decided to circle around and visit me again. I took the day off yesterday to recuperate a little and decided I could do a little of this while I was just hanging around the house.

I put together 5 of the "flowers" of the Spare Change quilt. I am using 2" hexagons.

Each flower is almost the size of an 8 1/2 x 11 piece of paper and I have 28 of them.

I was wondering last night how it would look to make it reversible by putting 1/2 on the front and 1/2 on the back. I don't want to make something so big that I won't want to finish it but I do want to use all of the swap pieces.

I am really pleased that there was only one duplicate square in the whole bunch I was sent. It will be kind of fun to place those in a way to make me look for it.

I'm looking forward to putting more together tonight at work. I have enough of the hexagons to put together about 14 of the flowers ready so I best get busy on it.

Happy New Year 2009

I am looking forward to a wonderful year and hope for one for you too.

I need some quilting help please. When I took the quilt class, the instructor was adament that we use only 100% cotton materials and 100% cotton thread. I am really having issues with using the cotton thread. I think this is a big reason that I keep setting my projects aside. The thread seems to be almost unraveling as I sew. I am trying to only use enough to sew one side at a time but it is still shredding. I don't see how this will make a very sturdy finished project.

What am I doing wrong?