Ice Storm and a Quilt

I can't believe we had two winter storms within two weeks of each other.
Seldom do we get one winter storm, but two and so close together... Why that is unheard of in these parts.

 

There was no snow this time.  At least not for our neighborhood. 30 miles north got 6 to 8 inches of snow.  All we got was freezing rain.

And with tree branches falling all over the neighborhood from the weight of the ice, we ended up losing power.

We lost power at 3:30 pm on Wednesday and didn't get it back till after 7pm on Thursday.

Some of our neighbors got their power back this morning.  Others are still waiting.
Shouldn't be too long for the rest of the neighborhood though.  All the ice is gone and they sky is a beautiful blue.  Other than all the branches down throughout the neighborhood no one would know we just had a spectacular ice storm.

While the first of the ice was coming down, I finished the binding on this quilt.

It is one of the UFO's on my Finish A-Long list.  It is a Schnibble pattern called Dimestore.

 It is also my February Finish for "A Lovely year of Finishes".  I quilted it using my current favorite design of swirls and feathers.

I put this quilt as my February finish because I had plans for it to go to a friend this month and wanted to make sure it got done on time.

It got done on time, but the ice had different plans for me delivering it on time.

Everything shuts down here when there is ice. Even the Wal-Mart was closed.

Everything sure is beautiful encased in ice, but it sure does cause a lot of havoc.

My poor Birch tree will never be the same.

The ice was just too thick for a lot of trees.

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Mug Bag Winner Announced

Thank you all for stopping by to visit and leave comments during the She Who Sews Blog hop.
They were very much appreciated!!

Congratulations to Sandy she has won the Mug Bag Giveaway.

I have sent her an email.

Thank you again to everyone who stopped by and left a comment.

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Project Quilting Week 3 Entry - Sweet Treats

The them for week three of project quilting was "Sweet Treats".  Your quilting project could be anything as long as it was inspired by sweets.  I choose lollipops.  I call this one Lollipop Orchard.  It measures 30 x 20 inches.

 When I think of visually appealing candy I think of great big swirly lollipops.  When I was a kid I loved seeing them in the store and wished I had one in my hand.   So I knew I wanted to do something with lollipops for the challenge.  

I started out by finding the perfect swirl graphic and printed it on the back of some wonder under with my regular printer.  This made it easier to mark and cut out the different swirled fabrics.

I used my exacto knife to cut out the center of the smaller swirls since my scissors were too big.  The exacto knife had no problem going through the paper and the fabric.

Once I had the lollipop tops complete it seemed natural to put them into a landscape scene.   

I did raw edge applique for this one.

It seemed the easiest choice for the smaller swirls given the time limit.

I thought about adding pink fluffy clouds for cotton candy clouds, but they didn't look right, so I went for pink binding instead.

There were 42 different entries this week.

You can see them all listed at PersimonDreams.com.

You can also vote for 4 of your favorites!
My Quilt is Number 28. ;)

Head on over and check them all out.

And don't forget to vote!

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She Who Sews Blog Hop

Today is the last day of the "She Who Sews" blog hop,  hosted by hosted by Carla of Creatin in The Sticks and Mdm Samm of Sew We Quilt.  All the previous projects have been wonderful and have definitely given me inspiration on how to use up the rest of my fabric.    

I am excited to show off my creations and I am going to start from largest to smallest.

First up is a new wall hanging for my sewing room. 

I call this one, "Just the Ladies"

My favorite lady is the the Hearts lady. I love her red hat and her green wings.

And her lips are the perfect shade of red.

 Second in the line up is my new wall organizer.

It will hold my smaller rulers and current (or next in line) patterns that I am working on.

The pattern is called Four-Pocket Organizer and was originally in the February 2011 Quilter's World magazine, but I bought the digital pattern from Annie's E-Pattern Central.

 Next up is a Mug Bag. Complete with built in mug rug.

I fell in love with this bag as soon as I saw it.  It is a free pattern from www.Red-Brolly.com  

The bag is meant to safely carry your special tea or coffee mug to your friend's house and back.

When you open it there is a pocket for your coffee and tea bags and a place to set your mug while you are drinking, but since I am not a coffee drinker I turned it into a small sewing bag.  Right now I have my yo yo makers in it.

It is perfect to carry around for road trips and doctors offices.

Here it is opened up. In the background is project number 4.   

It is little zippered sewing pouch.  You can never have too many pouches.  ;)

This one measures about 5 inches. Maybe a wee bit bigger with the binding.

 Now we come to the smallest project in the line up.  A needle and thread carrier. 

 Sometimes I do bindings in the car and this tiny pouch is perfect for that.

 The tutorial didn't call for velcro, but when I was trimming the extra strings I wasn't paying attention and I cut off the thin cord that was suppose to hold the case shut. Instead of un-stitching it and putting the cord back in I added the iron on velcro.  Perfect fix.

I had a great time making all these little storage containers and my new wall hanging.

This is a fun fabric line to work with.

Yep, there are two Mug Bags.

Since I made the mug bag out of strips instead of fat quarters and was able to get two bags out of one strip, and was able to sew two bags at a time. One for me and one to Giveaway.  I'd love to share one of the Mug Bags with you. Just tell me where you are from when you leave a comment and I will put your name in a hat to win my extra Mug Bag. I will pick a winner sometime Monday February 10.

Thanks so much for stopping by and make sure you check out the other ladies who made projects for us today.

February 6th

Lixie Makes It

 How ART you?

 Seams To Be Sew

threads on my socks
Quilted Delights  (Me)

Life in the Scrapatch 

krislovesfabric

Sew We Quilt

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Another Finish - Ric Rac

Since Wednesday was a snow day and I didn't have class, or any assignments for class, I spent the night finishing up Ric Rac.  This one has been basted for too long so it was time to get it finished. It is a small quilt., about 40 x 46 inches, so it was easy to quilt and bind in a couple hours.

We still have snow, which is even rarer than getting the snow.

Usually when snow comes it is gone within a couple hours.

Since the roads aren't too bad it is fun for it to still be here.

 I did some simple quilting on this one.  Trying to figure out what to quilt on it was the main hold up for this UFO.  I was trying to come up with some super fancy quilting for it, when I should have realized that sometimes meandering is just what is needed. Particularly if it is going to be a quilt that gets used a lot, which this one will.

This is my second finish for the 2014 Q1 Finish A-Long

and 4th finished quilt of the year.

I love all the icicles! They are so pretty with the sun shining on them.

 There wasn't much wind when I was taking pictures, so it was actually nice to be out.
My fingers didn't get cold while holding the camera.

 I sure love the "fluffiness" of our birds in the winter.

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Don't let the Door Stop You Blog Hop

Welcome to my day of the "Don't Let the Door Stop You" Blog Hop, hosted by
Carla of Creatin in The Sticks and Mdm Samm of Sew We Quilt.

   Say Hello to Mumford.  He is my newest feline companion.
He will hold the door open for my two real kitties as they head to the gentleman's lounge - aka the litter box.

 What a nice little fellow Mumford is with those pretty green eyes and those hand stitched facial features.
The patterned called for a cat nose button, but I didn't have one on hand so I drew a triangle where his nose should be and filled it in with some thick black thread.

This is Jasper and Sheen, my two feline boys.
Very seldom are they this cuddly.

The pattern came from SewCutePatterns and is called Attack Cat.

It is a stuffed animal pattern, but can easily be converted to a door stop by adding some

heavy "stuffing" in his body section.  I'm partial to poly pellets.

Mumford was easy to put together and looks fabulous.
Here he is with the flash, giving us a better view of his shifting "fur" colors.

Be sure to check out the other great door stop hoppers today.
Clicking on their sites below

January 30th
Just Let Me Quilt
Quilted Delights   - You are Here
Meadowbrook
Hill Valley Quilter
Pampered Pettit
Life in the Scrapatch
Seams To Be Sew

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A Finish Just in Time For Snow

We have snow and ice!  Very seldom do we ever get snow and when we do everything shuts down.

They canceled school yesterday in anticipation of snow.

We could have had a perfectly good half day if we wanted to.

but to be on the safe side they closed everything.

Freezing rain started last night around 5 o'clock yesterday.

I went out to take a few pictures and then enjoyed the rest of the evening in my

sewing room working on my Christmas pinwheel quilt.

I finished the quilting and binding this morning and the dogs and I went out to do a photo shoot in the snow.

Belle likes to eat the snow.

Dean was a happy camper and running all over.

We even saw Roscoe, the neighborhood cat.

I never thought I'd have a quilt with snow in the background.  I'm so excited!

I love seeing quilts in the snow.

I wasn't going to put any quilting in the white part of the pinwheels but as I was about to add the binding I decided they needed a little something, so they all got some squiggles.

School was canceled again today ...

and tomorrow for good measure.

That includes my college class tonight.

I am ok with that.  :)

Notice the choice of foot wear for southern snow.

This is my third finished quilt of the year.
It is also my January finish for A Lovely Year of Finishes, - My goal setting photo can be found here.
It is also my first finish for Quarter One of the 2014 Finish A-Long.




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Project Quilting Challenge 2 - Upcycling

This is my entry for Challenge 2 of Project Quilting.  Rules for Challenge 2 Can be found here.

Basically the whole project had to made from materials that had a previous life as something else.
We also had to include two materials that were never intended for use in a quilt or clothing.
Again you didn't have to make a traditional quilt but you did have to have either patchwork, applique, or three layers stitched together.  I decided to go the non traditional route and I appliqued the front door on in order to stay within the guidelines.

I really struggled with this challenge. I am not one to up-cycle anything. I usually give away old clothes and unwanted items, so I was racking my brain trying to come up with an idea. Finally near the end of the week I had the pincushion idea pop into my head.

I have a bin full of old denim pieces that I cut from worn out jeans. I save them to use as patches when needed. I decided the denim would make great walls for a cute little house pincushion.

I added some fringe, beading, and yarn as vegetation. These items came from my daughter who had salvaged them from other items.

The two items I added that usually can't be found on a quilt are a bottle cap, and a CD. I put the bottle cap as a wall decoration. It reminds me of the quilt images that can bee seen on the side of barns. I used the CD to make the windows. I cut it into tiny squares and glued them on.

The door is an old piece of felt that had been tucked away in a drawer.

The roof is denim covered in a gold mesh. Another treasure from my daughters stash.

The pincushion measures 3 inches wide x 4 inches tall.

You can see all the other entries at the Project Quilting Flikr Group.

Can't wait to see what the next challenge theme is.
Hopefully I can come up with something more quilty next week.

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