New Quilt Designer?

Maybe. I will need your help with this endevor though! I entered a contest on the McCalls website. It is for potential new quilt designers, wanna bees so to speak. I think I wannabe! So if you are so disposed and wouldn't mind too much taking a minute and going to their site and view my quilt. You will be able to vote for my quilt, I believe, after June 24th. I put up "My Neighborhood" quilt. Remember it? Well it looks like this:

If you are an aspiring quilt designer too you can enter the contest and I guess you can vote for your own quilt! Have fun looking and I am keeping my fingers crossed.

Super Bowl Weekend

I will get the business of Monday posted first and then on to the fun stuff.  

Weigh in was on Friday and I lost 2.2 more pounds for a total of 6 pounds so far.  uh...good think I don't weigh in on Mondays, LOL, the Superbowl food was too good.  Although my stomach is really upset this day from last nights food.  I need to stick to my regular diet!

Stash Busting Report.  I need to do this tomorrow.  I left my binder at home that has all the info in it!  So, I will post that info tomorrow.

I put the borders on "My Neighborhood" this weekend on Saturday.  Isn't it pretty?  I will take it to LTW on Thursday after I show the CL's on Tues and the CHV ladies on Wed.  I also drew each house for a pattern.  There are 24 houses.  I am going to get LTW to scan them and then I will post 2 each month for a BOM for all of you to do.  I will get close ups of the houses I did so you can see what I did with them too.  Sound like fun?
You can see that the cat inspector was hard at work to make sure each pattern was accurate.  I had the house on my light box and Hallie wanted to make sure I was doing it correctly!  Only the best for you guys!
I haven't talked much of the "S" quilt I wanted to make from the graduation squares I had from DD2's HS graduation (3 years ago now).  I finally decided what I wanted to make with the squares.  I designed a BIG block "S" to be done in the white squares.  I then split the quit diagonally from the upper right corner to the lower left corner through the "S".  The left side is done in all blue squares and the right is done in all green ones.  Why you ask?  Well she attended "S"alem high school and now attends "S"tate.  Salem's colors are blue and white and State's are green and white. (I hope this makes sense!)  I had laid it all out a few weeks ago and so I pulled it out on Sunday to see if I could finish it.  Done!!  Now I just need to make the back and get it to LTW.  Again, I want to show the ladies so it will go with the other one on Thursday.  

How was your weekend??

Updates

So I haven't blogged for a few days and now look at all the pictures I have!! I had a chance to make some of the 9 patches I am doing for my sister's Posie Patch quilt. I found some fabulous white that looks like it has dandelions on it (you always have weeds in your flower beds, right?) I had an opportunity to lay a little of it out and here is what it is going to look like. What do you think?

I found this little lacrosse guy online and ordered the software and sent it to Liz (she not only quilts but does machine embroidery, who knew?) I need her to make a few color changes but this will be my little (or not really so little) lacrosse player. Since he got the OK to play again we have had a game and he played yesterday. The whole game we only scored 3 times and he made 2 of the 3 goals. He kept going off the field and we didn't know why coach was taking him off. After the game we asked the coach and he told us it wasn't him! DS needed to catch his breath and get water as he has not been able to run at practice for the last almost 3 weeks. The coach said, "Are you kidding me, I told him to stay out there, we needed him on the field!". LOL, makes a mama glad!
I also promised to show you the fabric I bought when I went with Charlotte and so here it is, first the fish, for DH's someday fish quilt.
This one doesn't show very well but it is really nice in person, very soft.
These next photos are from Karen's bridal shower. She is my friend from Brazil that I made the garter for, remember now? Isn't this pretty? It was before everyone got there.
Everyone brought food so I thought I would show you what the food table looked like. Obviously we didn't starve, laugh!

This is Karen, the poor unsuspecting bride. We made a special "bride's chair" for her to sit in. Apparently there is a custom in Brazil where everyone draws a number and then "decorates" the bride, so this is the before.
Oh, yes, I thought you might like to see the famous Robin. She is my boss's wife and my friend. She is a fabulous graphic artist also. She helps Liz and I design quilting and I help her design her quilts. It is a good relationship! She does great work and is very easy to work with. I do talk about her so thought you might like to have a face to put with a name.
So here is the after! She was a good sport. That side pony tail really "made" the bride!*VBS*
Here she is modeling with her "bow boquet" that the infamous Robin made from all the bows from the shower. Leave it to Robin to make something so artistic from bows and ribbons!!
Here is the lovely Karen modeling the garter I made.

Well, I have to go and clean the house now (as DH is making a LOT of noise and making me feel guilty for blogging). I don't know if I will post again until I return from Paducah so have a good week.

What's Going On

So I told you I would post about some of the things I am working on/doing in my life right now. My good friend from Brazil is getting married (to one of my bosses) on June 14th. We are having a 24 hour shower for her. Do you know what that is? Everyone that is invited is assigned an hour of the day. Whatever hour you get you will buy a present for the bride that she would be using at that time of the day or night! Luckily I got 5pm, an easy time. It should be fun. Well. the women putting on the shower asked me to make the garter for Karen. So here is what I came up with. It is new, blue and the button is an antique from my mother/grandmother/s button tin. What do you think?? I hope she will like it!

The next thing is that I was looking for this pattern and my friend Natalie managed to find it for me.  I received it in the mail yesterday along with a very sweet note.  I saw it online and asked Nat if she would find it for me as the quilt shop it was from was near her.  THANK YOU NATALIE!!  I LOVE it!!  It is so wonderful how you can make such a dear friend with someone you have never actually met in person!  One of my other dear friend's, Mary, bought a condo in Florida and I was thinking to make it for her for Christmas.  I can tell you because she doesn't read my blog (at least I don't think she does).  Actually, few of my real live friends do so I guess I can talk all I want about things for them!!  I won't be able to begin it for awhile but I will let you know when I do!

So you all remember the Ugly Quilt, right?  Well I had all these 2.5" strips left over when I finally finished it.  What to do, what to do?  When quilting gives you strips, make a Jelly Roll, I say!  So I did.  And here is Autumn and said JR.  (apparently she doesn't like the fabric either)
These are some close ups.  Dig that crazy tie fabric, from the purple quilt!  I will probably change that later, I just happened to have it handy.
Guess what I am going to do with this?  If you remember my friend Ellen gave me these ugly fabrics for Christmas last year with the note that she wanted me to "work outside your comfort zone".  I plan to wrap up my JR and give it to her for her birthday with those very same instructions!!  Moral of this story, be careful what you give as it usually comes back to you!  (both good and bad!)  
I did some more 4 patch units last night and got the total 96 more done which is now a total of 288.  So I drew out the quilt using my graph paper and realize to make it what I want and as big as I want I will need another 72 - 4 patch units!!  As I was sewing what I thought were the last of them last night I was a little sad as each one is so different and fun to see how they turn out, again I say, be careful what you wish for!  Now I have to make more.  Oh well, I am having fun doing them.  I laid some out on some white fabric I happened to have and now I am not sure I want to use stark white, maybe a pinkish/purpleish color?  I just don't know.  If it is an irish chain maybe it won't have an outside border.  I need to find the color I am thinking of and see if I like it better than white.  Decisions, decisions!

I don't know if I mentioned it but I am going to Paducah on the 22nd.  I am so excited about it.  I am going with Liz and Yuki and Liz's Aunt.  We are staying in a cabin on Kentucky lake.  Yuki and I are taking some classes from Jan Krentz that should be wonderful.  We are also taking a needle turn applique class.  It is something I have always wanted to do.  (better than I do on my own now!) I was talking with Jeanne at Luv2stitch and she is going to Paducah too.  We may try to meet up.  If not we are going to plan a MI shop hop for ourselves and meet for lunch and shopping.  Doesn't that sound like fun?!!  I will actually get to meet one of my blog friends!!  She lives in MI too.

If this is not exciting enough I was reading Marsha McCloskey's (queen of feathered stars) newsletter and she will be teaching in Indianapolis in March of 2009!  I can't believe she will be so close.  (6 hours)  I just *have* to get into her class, if she is teaching feathered stars.  That block is one that I have admired forever and her books are some of the first ones I bought, hoping to be good enough to be able to make one someday.  I am a little scared of that block but I love it.  I would just die if she taught how to draft your own stars.  The quilt show she will be at is the Indiana Heritage Quilt Show.  Go check out their site, you wouldn't believe the teachers they had this year!  (Just know that you can't sign up for MM's class so there will be room for me = 0

DS has his MRI tonight at 6:30pm so keep him in your prayers for a good outcome!  I have to run the lacrosse parent meeting tonight, sucks to be the president, how did I end up in charge?

This means DH will be taking him.  Hopefully he will remember to get the date I can call the ortho to get the results.

Have a great day and I'll try to check in tomorrow!

M Go Blue

Because I *know* you are all dying to see another page in my design book, here is the U of M raffle donation quilt the church ladies and I are working on right now.  It is a string quilt using only blues and yellows.  Each square represents a 7" block.  

One of my friends suggested that I write a "String Quilts of the Big Ten" book and see if I could publish it.  I don't know how you would ever do the Iowa Hawkeye, the Northwestern logo with the cat or the Nittney Lion of Penn State.  I might be able to do the others though.  I suppose there would be some licensing issues also, right?  Anyway, just a thought.  Being in Michigan I *know* could do U of M and MSU!  The ladies are already turning in their blocks.  This will be a pretty big quilt so will take a LOT of blocks.

On the more traumatic side of my life, I had to buy some new bras last night.  The last one I liked actually broke yesterday.  You know how you finally find the right one for you and you can only buy one because all the rest seem to be in size 32A which is not going to work, and you take it home and then you have to keep looking for another one and then you finally find one and if you're lucky maybe 2?  Well of course those dirty dogs that design them then change the styles so you have to start all over again!  So I was on the hunt last night.  I ended up taking 3 styles home with me.  I want to see which one I like the best and then I will go back and buy some more (as soon as they re-stock my size, because of course, I bought the only ONE in my size they had!)  Those things are pretty expensive too!  I had an additional 15% off coupon but still...more than I wanted to spend, but what are you gonna do?  

In a completely different aside, one of my friends at work is getting married (the one I made the U of M quilt for, remember?) well, some other friends are throwing her a bridal shower and one of them asked me if I would make the garter for the bride!!  I am really honored that they want me to do it.  Now I just have to figure out what to do.  I can't just say, "Here, let me measure your thigh", as they want it to be a surprise.  So I used a stand in thigh.  Now I have to decide what to do.  It needs something blue on it and I was thinking to look through my mom's jewelry and see if I can find a vintage pin to put on it for something old.  ( A smallish one, of course) or maybe a vintage rhinestone button.  Any suggestions??

I have a lacrosse game tonight and, of course, I will be getting things ready but DS will NOT be playing.  Our treasurer's son broke his hand in practice this week so her son will not be playing for awhile either.  Maybe being an officer is bad luck for our boys?  What do you think??  Anyway, I hope you all have a good weekend!!

Life at My House

This image of Mosen under our Christmas tree is so artsy and it makes me happy.  Let me tell you, I could use a little "happy" right now!  

Things at Chez Lincoln are not all that fun and happy at the moment!  DH took DS to the orthopedic surgeon today as DS injured his knee at the lacrosse scrimmage on Sat.  Well, things are not looking good for DS.  The knee doc said there is a lot of fluid on the knee but he needs to have an MRI in order to determine exactly what is going on.  None of the choices are conducive to getting back on the lacrosse field quickly.  Poor DS.  He has been looking forward to lacrosse season since last season ended!  He is one of the teams best players and they really missed him on the field on Tuesday when we had our first game.  Needless to say DS is less than thrilled by the prospect that this season may be over before it even begins!  There will be NO living with him if he is not able to play for the season.  YIKES, I may need to get out of the house until season is over!  Please keep him (and us) in your prayers that this will just be minor and that he will be able to play soon!  There are several things it could be and some are better than others.  Please pray!

So here is another photo that I thought was kind of artsy too of Hallie on the cat quilt.  It is on a rocker that used to be my grandmothers so kind of an old one.  I used to rock all the babies in this chair when I nursed them and would put them to sleep or when they woke up in the night.  It was always in the baby's room.  Now the cats have claimed it!  Especially if there is a quilt on it!
My friend, Faith, had asked me for some cat photos as she is painting and wanted to try some cats.  These are 2 of the photos I sent her.  She is VERY creative and her work is amazing.  You all need to see the butterfly wings she is working on for an art quilt she is doing, truly amazing and inspiring!!

There is a give away of an ipod over at cooking by the seat of my pants.  Go and check it out and enter to win one!!

I tried to upload a pic of the U of M string quilt pattern I designed but no luck.  I will have to check with Liz the Whiz and see what format she sent me.  I am just thankful she scans stuff for me, thank you Lizzy!!  Once I figure it out I will post it along with some interesting ideas I would like some feedback for.  It is a sunny day here and is supposed to warm up into the 50's so woot, woot!!  Hope you all have sunshine in your lives today too and remember this by Ralph Waldo Emerson...

"Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing on one's own sunshine".

Designing

So I guess I am kind of a freak.  I write nothing and then have TONS to tell you all!  Oh well.  Two years ago when DD2 graduated from HS I set out 6" white squares of fabric and markers for people to write "Patches of Wisdom" for her and I was planning on making a quilt.  I had NO idea what kind of a quilt, but a quilt.  Her party invitations were a block "S" diagonally colored in blue/green (Her HS colors were blue and white and her college colors are green and white) so here is the design I came up with for her quilt.  The "S" (for her HS, Salem and her college State) will contain all the white signed blocks and the background will be split diagonally with the top being all done in various blues and the bottom in various shades of green.  What do you think?  I had a few people that didn't do a block at the party so I put a square of the white fabric in an envelope with a fabric pen, and the directions and I included a SASE so there was NO excuse for not sending it back to me!

While I was on a designing nut, I designed this 4 leaf clover to be done as a string quilt.  The CL's make a donation quilt for St. Patrick's church each year.  It takes me about a year to get all the blocks and then I (sometimes someone else) put all the blocks together.  The outline of the clover will be done with a white center string and the other strings will be various shades of greens.  I cut the center string for all the other blocks out of a green clover fabric so the centers will all be the same.  I still need to do this with the white so they will all match too.  The CL's can make the other strips out of any dark or bright green (no pastels).  What do you think??
Since you have all seen this quilt as Texas and U of M I thought I would show my work on this one too.  I hope you can read my writing!  Does anyone else use graph paper?  One of my friends wanted me to will her my design books!! HAHAHA, I don't think she would be able to make any sense out of them!!  I have the EQ 6 program and still resort to graph paper!!

This is the pile of blues I have put together for DD2's graduation quilt.  The CL's are also working on a blue and white quilt so some will be for that too.  In addition, I am thinking of using the "S" design to do a quilt for my son upon his HS graduation next year but adding appliqued lacrosse sticks across the "S".  (That is the lacrosse team's logo).  If I decide to do that, I may have to make 2 of those and have the boys on the team sign the "S" for the coach as a going away gift.  We will see how ambitious I end up being!!

Liz the quiltin' whiz gave me my birthday quilt back all finished so I thought I would share some pictures of it.  I did not get the binding sewn on but I did get it trimmed.  She used aqua thread and I love how it turned out!!  This is a close up of the back.
Close ups of the front.

Here is a quick pic I took this am before I left for work.  I will try to get a better one once it is bound and post that later.
Lastly, I found this adorable gingerbread hutch!!  DD2 and her college friends like to make them.  Their pictures on facebook of them making the Christmas one were priceless.  So really, I just want to see their pictures again as they make this one!!