Hallwoween Party 07

Halloween Party 07

Oh, this might not sound like a big deal ...but around my house it is HUGE! DD1 is coming in from IN and wanted me to host a Halloween Party. Every year for many, many years we have hosted HP's. The kids from all around know about ours and I think the largest group we ever had was DD2's sr year with probably over 100 kids. I had my work people here in the afternoon, followed by my friends and then all the kids. We decorate like most people do for Christmas. There is a lot of spooky food!

So I have to pick up the sewing room. Which, you would think, would not be that difficult to do. Ahhh...but it takes a lot of time to put the LR back to "normal". Then there is the planning and the shopping. And the making of the food. I did the decorating yesterday with just a few things left to do in that department. I am finishing up the last little bit of, not really cleaning, but putting away. Today I will go and get some mums to put around the front porch and then to the grocery store.

I did manage to sew down the binding on the gigantic U of M quilt and label it. I also got the binding sewn down on "Sunny Days" which is the quilt using the embroidered animals that Liz did and that I designed a quilt around. I also got that one labeled. Just before I put everything away, I made the binding for the Crazy Rail quilt, finished the cat quilt, made the binding and label for that, and finished all 42 pumpkins for the swap.

I will post pictures of the decorations and the quilts later when I get some time, maybe tonight. What will you do for Halloween?

Crazy Rail

Update on projects

I snapped this photo quickly before I sent the quilt to Liz for quilting. It is from a pattern I bought in Indiana while visiting DD1. I loved making this and it went together very quickly. I can see myself making this one again. It used 9 one half yard pieces for all the crazy rails and 1 yard for the red border. I just love it! I did the entire thing out of flannel. I saw the bear fabric and fell in love with it so I built the quilt around that fabric. I got the fish fabric as a compliment since it is in the bear fabric. Our church group is making quilts for the boys at a local Methodist children's home. the boys are middle to high school age and have been taken from their parents due to abuse and or neglect. The person in charge spoke at a LQS and told us that these boys often come to them with nothing of their own and was asking if we would help and make some quilts so they would have something of "their own". So my group is adopting a cabin (10 boys) and making quilts for them. We will also be doing little things trhoughout the year for the cabin since the director suggested that they get a LOT at Christmas and much less during the year. I thought this pattern might make a cute I spy quilt too if you made all the rectangles that you begin with from different fabrics.

These are a few close ups of some of the bear blocks.


This is the cutest ghost fabric I found when I went to the LQS last weekend with my DF, Charlotte. See howit is irridescent?

Last but not least, you have all heard me talking about the pumpkin blocks so here is a photo of what mine look like! (All 42 are the same). I like the idea of getting them back and all being different but it is kind of boring to make 42 of the same pumpkins! I hope my group will like them.

Cats N Stuff

I hope everyone had a good weekend. Mine was pretty productive. I got home from work early on friday so I finished my crazy rail quilt top. I will try to get a photo today before Liz comes to get it. I went to East Lansing with my Dh to pick up DD2. We went out to dinner with her and her boyfriend and we had a really good time. Sat was LOTS os shopping. DS needed a shirt and tie for his homecoming dance that night so he went and picked them out and I had DD go and purchase them while I went with my DF Charlotte to a quilt shop. I got the cutest ghost fabric! I will try to remember to get a photo and post it tomorrow.



I then went to the mall with DD, and to Sam's club and then to the grocery store. I was exhausted, but i worked on some of my swap pumpkins. When I got up on Sun am I took a quick picture of my pink Morning Glories for Jeanne at Luv2stitch. For some reason the frost seems to have killed the purple ones. They sure are beautiful at the height of summer!


I was sitting on my couch in the FR with an old quilt (a cat quilt) over me and guess who decided to join in on some quilt action...that's right, Jack. I got up to go and do something and he stayed where he was napping so I took a few pictures. He is so sweet!




On Sun am he decided to help me get my batting ready to send to Liz with my quilt.



Then last night when I stepped away from the pumpkins again, Aiden decided my sewing bag was the puuurrrrfect head rest while she napped on the couch. Oh to lead the life of a cat!

BIG TEN MANIA

The Big Ten Quilt

I am finally catching up with all my pictures!! Last Saturday a small group of women got together at my friend Robin's house to work on the Big Ten quilt top for the pathology raffle. Our goal was to have multiple people help and to finish the top so we could send it home with Liz to quilt. Robin is the woman in charge of the quilt raffle for the University of Michigan (money to benefit patients in need). She and I have been gathering fabric all year toward this end. In theory this sounds like an easy task but in reality it is made more difficult by the fact that several schools don't license their logos for fabric. We had to use scrub pants for Northwestern and Indiana. I found someone selling Ohio State fabric on ebay but the logo was very large so for the actual "Big Ten" block, where I appliqued all the school logos on, we needed a smaller "O" we used boxer short fabric. Penn State also no longer has fabric. So if any of you ever see fabric with any of those schools logos on them please let me know, as we plan to make a Big Ten quilt every year for the raffle. We made one last year but we all made a block and then we gave them to a woman that put the whole thing together. This year we decided to make it like a retreat day. Robin graciously opened her home to all of us. We had great food and great conversation.

Robin hung the top from her second floor balcony so it is a little "light" b/c the sun was coming through the window behind it. At least you can see it.



Here are some close ups of some of the blocks.


I love how this block turned out with the large O's around the appliqued center.

You can see the "cat" in the center of the N. My talented LAQ, Liz is also a talented machine embroiderer and did the cat and then I appliqued the N around the cat.

I like the Illinois block too. Again, Liz embroidered over my appliqued I

I would have taken more, but I wanted them front on and they were too high up for that, so I will post them all once Liz brings it back quilted. Robin and I designed the quilting and now Liz, the amazing, will get to make our vision come to life in the quilt. Here is a photo of some of the women that were there. From left to right Virginia, Robin, Liz (the LAQ), and Judith.

This is the "Boob Line", hahahahaha!!! We were a little punchy at this point!

I am interested as to what you all think of this quilt.

Jack-O-Lantern

Halloween Quilt

I finally finished my Jack-O-Lantern wall hanging. I began it over a year ago and got the top done in a timely fashion then I gave it to Liz to quilt for me. I told her no hurry and then proceeded to bomb her with a ton of other stuff. I think we both forgot about it for many months (Halloween was sooo far away). She got it back to me probably 2 months ago but I have been so busy with other projects that I sewed the binding on but just didn't get around to turning it. I had a little wake up call when I realized that it *is* October and Halloween is right around the corner! I usually go all out decorating for this holiday as it is one of my favorites! My DD1 wants me to have a Halloween party this year. Our Halloween parties in past years have been well attended and a lot of fun. (People are still talking about the one from 2 years ago). I didn't have one last year and everyone was disappointed. It necessitates cleaning up the living room of all sewing related "stuff" and I still have a lot to do before I can do that. So I told her I will try. I really need to get my pumpkins done so I can post them for the swap and then I can fold up until after Halloween. If I can get them done this weekend, I will have the party. I digress...Here is the wall hanging in all it's Halloweeny glory. I love it!!
I hung it in my little bathroom and went to take the photo but I can't get far enough away so this is a little skewed, but I think you can tell what it looks like.

These are close ups of all the J-O-L's.









This shows the 2 different ways Liz did the quilting around the J-O-L's. she also outlined each cut out. Notice the blanket stitching around each J-O-L? It is glow in the dark thread!


I realized that you can't see the borders and I absoloutely LOVE 2 of the border fabrics so I am showing you some of the close ups. One of the batiks looks like eyes and the other one I love is the one with all the wild spirals. What do you think of the spider web batik I got for the inner border? I also used that for the back.

Winnie the Pooh

Winnie the Pooh

I have a collegue in the lab that was expecting their first baby. I had intended to give the yellow and pink bow quilt to them, but then I found out that they were decorating their nursery in Winnie the Pooh. I had this cloth book panel that a friend had given to me for a "quick quilt", (Since I had turned her on to doing that, she bought the book when it was on sale and gave it to me!) I decided to kill 2 birds with one stone and give the WTP quilt to my friend and give the yellow and pink bow quilt to the U of m quilt raffle. Win:Win situation!! So this shows the top and some of the blocks, up close.






I made a label and if you remember what happened to the last one, this one had a similar problem, which is how I figured out what the problem was. this smear is not quite so noticable so i didn't re-do it.

Ahhh, what post would be complete without a cat photo. they give me so many photo ops! Here is Mosen "helping" me on my cutting table. See my crazy rail blocks by him??

Of course, here is Jack. What an awsome sleeper!!

Ribbons and Bows

The Bow Quilt

I think I told you all that I was making another bow quilt for my SIL who is expecting a baby any day now. I had no idea what color the nursery was going to be, just that it was a girl. So I chose aqua and pink, but in those Moda colors. It turned out that the green in the leaves of the rose matched the "brown" in the baby's room (brown and pink). This is a photo of the whole quilt.

This is a close up of the bow and the space next to the bow.


And this shows the swag around the border. (you may remember this from my doll quilt "Spicy Chicken")

This is the bow on the bottom right (as you face the quilt).

These two pictures show off the exquisite quilting that my friend, Liz the magnificant, did on the back.


This is the close up of what the quilting looks like around each bow and what the block work was like in the blocks that did not contain a bow on the front.


This is the label. Funny story abut this. I used that new lavander water from Mary Ellen in my iron. I had my friend Liz embroider the bow on some fabric for me. I then made the label and wrote on it. I heat set the ink using my iron after I had sewn it to the quilt. It was late, I was tired, I had to go to the baby shower the next day over an hours drive away and it was dark. So I did it and went to bed, I can wrap it in the morning, I said. Wellll...I got up and went to wrap it when I realized that all the ink had smeared!!! PANIC set in, now what was I going to do, my beautiful bow was ruined!! Wait, i'm a resourceful person, right? I work in research where things don't always go as planned, I can trouble shoot...but I didn't want to. Like I tell my kids, no one cares if you "want to". So I un-sewed the label, cut the bow off, sewed it to another piece of white fabric, made another lable, wrote on it, heat set it (without steam) and sewed it on. All in time to wrap it and get myself ready to leave by the time my SIL that was going with me arrived. WHEW!!! Glad that is over. I gave away the lavender water and went back to plain water. I really like the spray starch but the water made my iron spit and leak and made my ink run! I think it must be that the surface tension of the LW is different than just plain water as regular water doesn't spit and sputter and leak.


Have a happy weekend. We have a quilting bee for making the Big Ten quilt for the quilt raffle this Sat. I appliqued all the centers and now we will make the blocks, and put the top together and give it to Liz to quilt. Sunday I have the Lacrosse golf outing fundraiser (I have to be at the golf course at 6am, ugh!!! Hope we make a lot of money. Then to the funeral home on Sunday with the funeral following on Mon. (My friend, Ellen, the one needing the breast biopsy on Tues, her father passed away today). Please keep her and her family in your prayers!