Wrapping a Present

How do you wrap a present for a fellow quilter?   With fabric, of course!   This summer I sent a package to Barb in Alabama and wrapped it in her favorite colored fabric, lavender.  Well, it's one of her favorite colors.   Here's what it looked like.  

When she unwrapped her gift, instead of throwing away the wrapping paper she had a yard of fabric to add to her stash!   Even the bow and fabric "flower" can be reused.  

 

I wonder how she'll use them..........

Debbie

 

 

Blue Ribbon Winner

Last September I was approached by one of the ladies in our church asking me if I would be willing to make a quilt for the elementary school there.   A couple of weeks later I had a stack of squares that the fourth grade class had painted.   Each square was painted with a state flag.  The art teacher had painted several large pieces, each depicting landmarks of our country.   The trick for me was to assemble all these pieces into a quilt that would look interesting and a little different.

My goal was to arrange the largest pieces at strategic points in the quilt so your eye would travel around and take in the quilt as a whole.   Then, fill in with the flag blocks.

 

In previous years, the flag blocks all had sashing around them and were arranged symmetrically.    Not this year!   I had something else in mind.  

 

 

Normally the label is placed on the back of the quilt, but since this was going to be hung on a wall I felt the label should be on the front so anyone viewing it could read about the history of the quilt. 

 

 

Now that the label was on and the blocks all assembled, all that was left for me to do was to quilt it!  

 

 

The quilt was a bit of a rush job as the kids had just finished painting the squares two weeks before the school was holding an auction.   The quilt was to auctioned off that night to raise money for the school.   One lucky family bought the quilt and took it home with them.   I thought that was the last I would see of it.   Boy, was I wrong!

 

 

A few months later Joel and I were at the Florida State Fair.   We strolled through the building that housed the quilt show and then we had a real shocker.   The quilt from the school was in a showcase and it had a blue ribbon on it!    I can't remember when I was so excited.......I've never entered a quilt in a quilt show and couldn't believe what I was seeing.   Apparently, the new owners of the quilt had entered it on behalf of the students at the school.  

 

 

Amazing!   That was most definitely the most exciting trip to the Florida State Fair I've ever had! 

 

 

Kudos to the students and the art teacher who all did such a great job painting the squares.   It made my job a lot of fun and I was proud to help them complete their project.

 

Blue is my new favorite color,

Debbie

 

 



Puzzle Piece Pillows

Try saying that three times fast!   Hmmmm, now try taking a drawing and turn it into actual puzzle pieces that are also pillows.   That was the challenge I received from a recent client.   Her husband drew the little critters and her idea was to turn the drawing into pillows for her child's twin bed.   She brought the fleece fabrics to me and we discussed what she wanted the pillows to look like when completed.

The first thing I did was to blow up the drawing several times until they were the size we wanted for the finished pillows.   Next, draw around them and cut out the 3" foam with......my kitchen electric knife.  Yup!   Works great!

Then the cut out was used as a pattern to cut the fabrics and to trace the face and details.  

White fleece was used for the "palms" and stitching helped give definition to the "hands and feet".

I put a zipper on the back piece so the pillow could be washed and attached a side band to accomodate the thick foam.

His red buddy was made the same way and when completed it looks like they are holding hands.  The time spent adjusting the drawings at the start of the project was well worth it so they would interlock properly when completed. 

Just another interesting day at the sewing machine,
Debbie

Birthdays and Friends

Someone has a birthday coming up.    She's someone I've known for 20 years and I wanted to make a gift for her that showed her just how special she really is.   Margie and her husband moved from Florida a few years ago to their cabin in North Carolina to pursue their dream of living in the mountains.   They have a gorgeous cabin with fantastic long range views of Virginia and Tennessee.  They've planted trees, started a garden, fished a local pond, and buzzed around the top of their mountain on an ATV.

I came up with the idea of making Margie a tassle for inside their beautiful home.   Tassles can be hung from a doorknob, or a drawer pull.   They help to bring some personality into a room.  Margie and her husband have decorated their cabin with greens and reds to reflect the warmth of the log walls..   She loves the outdoors, so I decided to bring some of the outdoors to the inside by combining the colors of her decor with a nest and tiny eggs.   I think she'll like it!

 

The tassle is hung with large black ric-rac which extends from the nest holding three tiny speckled eggs.   Below the nest is gold, then green, then more gold plush fringe that overlaps black and tan 3" bullion fringe.   Striped grosgrain ribbon is looped and fancy gold ribbon decorates the 6" black bullion fringe to finish off the lower edge.  Voila!



Just hangin' around,
Debbie

44 and Counting

Whew!    My embroidery machine is smokin' !   Not literally smokin', figuratively speaking.   I've been working on a job for my upholsterer friend, Jeanne, who is making covers for beach chairs at a Clearwater Beach Resort.   There are 44 of them and they all need the resort's logo embroidered on them before they can be assembled.   I'm stitching as fast as I can......here's a peek at the finished embroidery.

Only 32 more to go,
Debbie

School Days

Yesterday was my only nephew's first day at college.   He was pretty excited; his mom and dad were missing him even before they got back home from getting him settled in.  Ahhh, growing pains.....

His mom really wanted his dorm room to be something special since he'll be spending a lot of time there.   Tyler is a music major and plays several instruments, so, music had to be part of the theme for his room.   I volunteered to make him a quilt for his twin bed and just got it shipped off to him last week.  

A lot of the fabrics have musical instruments on them or musical notes on a scale.   He loves red, white and black and his sheets for his bed are grey, so, it was easy to come up with a theme for the quilt.   Large blocks of half square triangles made quick work of the main body of the quilt.   A wide red border helps to define the center area and set up the outside borders.

 

I was so excited when the idea came to me to make the side borders look like keys on a piano.   Black and white strips cut  at 2-1/2", then pieced together did the trick.  The quilting was mostly done on the diagonal to follow the lines of the triangles. 

 

 

And there you have it.....Tyler's college quilt.   Whew!   Glad I had the opportunity to make something special for a really great kid.

Good luck, Ty,
Aunt Debbie

Red, White & Blue

As you are all aware, the upcoming Republican Convention is being held in Tampa.   A lot of the local businesses are gearing up for the increase in tourists that are expected in the coming weeks because many of those attending the convention are staying in hotels on our beaches.   Just a couple blocks from our house is Flying Needles, a needlepoint and knitting store where women go to sit and stitch as well as to purchase more supplies.  

Diane, the owner, is always changing the display in her window and for the next few weeks she has put in red, white and blue items.   Last week while I was knitting with the ladies, she asked if I could make one of the pincushions with a painted clay flower saucer as it's base.   I went home and dug thru my stash to see what patriotic prints I could find and this was the final result.

No matter your political persuasion, this is most definitely an interesting year to be an observer of all things political.  So put on your red, white and blue and remember to go out and vote.  Our Founding Fathers put it all on the line so we could have these privileged freedoms.

Flag Waver,
Debbie