Minky Bullseye

A few weeks ago I wrote that one of Eagle1's buddies downrange was drafting his own quilt pattern. He chose a black, red and white color scheme in a bullseye pattern using Minky fabric. Drawing up a scale pattern along with cutting diagram and shopping list took little time at all. Finding a decent price on 17 yards of Minky was a different story.

It's all here though, and in less than a week, too! So, I spent today washing and drying, then trying my hand at the dreaded stretchy, slippery, super soft, oh-so-cuddly mountain on my cutting table. Thankfully, I did a bunch of research before the box of goodies even arrived, and I have to say I'm so very grateful to everyone who posted tips and tricks for working with this stuff. So far, the hardest part is getting all of the nap to flow in the same direction so that it doesn't look sloppy. (We won't talk about the 10 different times I had to vacuum the sewing room because of the "minky snow" left from cutting!) It's coming along though and at a quicker pace than I expected. Even with all of the horror stories I've read, I'll say that I haven't experienced any of them...yet. By far, my favorite thing about Minky, besides the feel of it!, is that with a 1/2" seam allowance you don't have to mess with trying to press seams. They just naturally fall to either side and the only thing you have to worry about is making sure they stay that way when you piece the blocks together so that they stay flat. Quilting without a hot iron. Who'd have thought?

He's DEAD!

Bin Laden is dead! 

A heartfelt salute to all of our military personnel on the ground for a job well done. 

Super Scrappy Quilted Curtains

The old scrap basket, okay I'll be honest, baskets, were overflowing so I got creative. Two hours of sorting later, I had two piles (mountains) separated on the cutting table.

Feeling a hint of spring in the air, I decided to use the lighter colors to make window curtains for the sewing room. I lost some of my motivation after 8 straight hours of piecing these little bits and pieces, so decided to scrap the curtain idea and went with valances instead.

Still tedious, but worth the effort. They really brighten up the sunroom and I'm thinking that some white muslin panels appliqued with matching flowers will complete the sets. Valances first though...  Six more windows to go!

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Looks like the Rooster quilt was a hit with the guys in Afghanistan. Big Chief wrote this morning to say that one of his soldiers is interested in having a crib, a toddler and a lap quilt made as gifts for his family here in the states. Do I have to say how I excited I was to hear this? Happy dance! :) Then, just a bit later he tells me that one of the lieutenants in his shop was drawing up a pattern for his own custom quilt that he would like me to make for him!

So now I feel a bit overwhelmed. First, I have never sold one of my quilts...ever. It's not that I don't think they would sell, it's that I don't know what price to put on them. I don't want to charge too much, but at the same time I can't see parting with something that is so much a part of me for a pittance. It's really odd because normally when I make a quilt, I just give it as a gift and the happy thank you I get in return is better than any amount of money. Maybe it's because I know that if I sell a quilt it will be critiqued more closely than one I would give as a gift and I'm afraid of having my feelings hurt. I wonder if anyone else has problems putting a pricetag on their work.

The Great White Rooster

"The Great White Rooster"

This is a two ft. by four ft. hand quilted throw rug made out of my boys old blue jeans and fabric remnants from the charm quilt I'm currently working on. My husband asked for something to place next to his cot in Afghanistan so that he wouldn't have to wake up to the feel of gritty sand on his feet when he gets up every morning. This quilt marked a couple of firsts for me as I've never made a quilt that was meant to be walked on nor have I worked with blue jean material before. Quilting with perle cotton was also a new experience and I found that I quite liked the look of the stitches when I was done. It will be interesting to see what this poor thing looks like after a year in Afghanistan.

Catching Up

It's been a little while since I've written, so here's a quick update of the past few months. This is my friend Heather's quilt, all finished up and ready for mailing.






Now, remember the scrap quilt I mentioned earlier? The one where I thought it would be a neat idea to sew a whole bunch of odds and ends together willy-nilly just to see what would happen? Well, this is what happened. :)





This is Fiesta's block. She was my Blue Heeler (Australian Cattle Dog). We had her for 14 years before she passed away from cancer on 31 December 2009.






Kadi never did come home, but she will always be a part of our family. I miss her and my Fiesta every day.








Jesse is our male Blue Heeler. Even though he is all grown up I believe he will always have the heart of a puppy. Ranger is the newest member of our clan. I found Ranger on the local Humane Society website while checking to see if maybe someone had turned in Kadi. I'll post a real picture of these guys later on.

Bumblebee is our old orphan kitty. She adopted us back in 2003 when we lived in Louisiana. Someone shot her in the head with a BB gun and dropped her alongside the road. To this day, she still has the pellet because it is too risky for the vet to remove it. Petey is our pain in the butt Yorkie dog. Jesse has always been our oldest son's dog and his little brother felt he should have a doggie of his own to make it fair. So along comes Pete in a Craigslist ad and he was just too cute to resist. For such a little dog he sure can be a handful!

While I was researching scrap quilt blocks, I happened across some pictures of old fashioned redwork embroidery. Thinking it would be fun to try something new, I found a coloring book page online of this basket of apples, traced it out on a leftover piece of cream muslin from Heather's quilt backing and started stitching. There are a few mistakes here and there (Shhh!) but overall it came out good enough to be part of the Duncan Family scrap quilt.

The boys like to spend time in the "woman cave" with me on occassion so I take the opportunity to teach them a little something if they stand still long enough. Both of them thought redwork was pretty nifty, so they gave it a try. They each picked something that they really love to embroider. As this was the summer of fishing and the first time Jake had been out on our little john boat with his Dad, it didn't surprise me a bit when he went searching for a picture of a boat.

Kennedy chose pizza as his favorite thing, but he got a little tired of sewing towards the end, so I just left the stitching "as-is" for his block because I wanted the work to be his alone.

Missing Kadi

My Kadi Cat went missing on 28 September around 10 p.m. I'm beside myself with grief and fear that something terrible has happened to her. I've resorted to begging the community for help in finding her to no avail. The vet clinic nor the humane society has seen her and with the exception of a few kind hearted people on a local message aka gossip website, no one cares that she is gone. How the hell can people be so heartless?

We are down to simply waiting now as we've pretty much exhausted all avenues to find her. I know it's wishful thinking that she may still be alive, but I so desperately want her to come home safely. Winter will be here soon and the thought of her being out in the cold...I just can't describe how scared I am for her. :*(

There's nothing like the feeling of finishing a task, whether it's huge or tiny. While I enjoy the process of creating, I do think a little part of me also yearns for that thrill at the end when I get to stand back and heave a big sigh of contentment. This is the third of 10 scrappy window quilts I'm making to reduce the winter draft in the sunroom/sewing room/woman cave. Two of the ten will go into my eldest son's room as he likes the primary colors. I'm having to take a break to turn to another project, a handbag for my sister's birthday, before I can go on to the remaining 7 window quilts, but for the moment I'll just enjoy the tingle of accomplishment even if it isn't the prettiest quilt I've ever made.

Farewell to Summer....Almost

Vacation time with the family is now over and school will be going back into session next week for my boys. Usually, these two things indicate that summer is over and I can start looking forward to Autumn and all of the glorious sights, smells and tastes that Fall brings. Mother Nature seems to be pulling a fast one on us this year, though. We've been sitting pretty the past week or so with upper 60 to mid 70 degree temps and loving it. Then today, we get hit with 86. 86! Now, my friends back home would be laughing at me, saying what the hell are you complaining about; 86 is almost winter weather in Southern Nevada. I suppose all I can say is I've become a "Heat Wimp". I've never been a fan of hot weather and the older I get, the less tolerant I am of anything above 78. Bring on the snow! Ok, maybe not just yet, because I really do love Autumn, but the 86 degree stuff needs to go!

Patriotic and Pack Rat Scrappy Quilts

Connecting Threads is one of my favorite online stores for quilting fabric and thread. I'm not exactly crazy about some of their color themes but I adore their thread, so I go shopping there often. A while back, I bought a fat quarter bundle of "Hearth and Home", or something along those lines. It sat in my "favorites" trunk for a good while until I decided to make some oven mitts for the new camper we bought. With the rest, I made a chair runner for the living room recliner. To my surprise, the colors seem to blend into the fabric of the recliner instead of standing out against it. Hmmm...funny how things work out sometimes.

In between quilting and binding the chair runner, I made my very first queen sized quilt! My oldest son needed something new for his room as his old quilt was store bought junk made in another country and falling apart. He chose a patriotic theme and even helped me to design the quilt top and iron the blocks. We had a great time working together on this quilt and I know at least one of us learned something. (I'll not be making another queen sized quilt again anytime soon!) ;-)

Like most quilters and crafters, I have more than one iron in the fire at any given time. Lacking the cream muslin I need to complete my friend Heather's quilt, I moved on to a quick little Christmas themed table decoration that I saw while browsing on Etsy and Ebay. Not having a pattern to go by and no experience making Flying Geese, I had to do a bit of reading to figure it out along the way. It isn't perfect, but I know what corrections to make should I decide to make another in a different color. This little runner took all of about 4 hours to make even without a pattern. I just love evenings when I'm feeling inspired!

Having nothing better to do and still lacking Heather's muslin :-( what else is there to do but to dig into what is around and make do? Bored as could be, I jumped back into the wicker basket full of old clothes and Gymboree blankets my sister gave me to make her a keepsake quilt. This whole project started out as a disaster and if I haven't lost count, this will be my third try at doing something with what she gave me. The fabrics are the stretchy ultra soft t-shirt type of cottons and they drive me nuts! Having mutilated quite a few of the larger pieces trying to come up with a suitable design, I've decided to make a crazy quilt. I think this will work because I'm using 10"x10" muslin backers which helps to keep the cottons from stretching so much while working with them. Three blocks completed and so far so good.

While I was digging through all of my sister's goodies, I started thinking about just how much stuff I have in my scrap box, or should I say boxes, now. Tired of working with patterns and measuring, a scrappy quilt seemed like the way to go to make some space in those boxes. I'm not talking about a pretty little pieced scrap quilt with a sweet design built into it. Imagine your whole scrap box dumped upside down and sewn together willy-nilly. No white borders, no pretty patterns. Just sew, sew, sew all of the colors together, cut them into 10" sq. blocks and there you go...a whole stack of blocks in every color of the rainbow. Frogs and airplanes pieced next to gorgeous florals and calico. hahaha! Sounds crazy, yes? We shall see.

Well, that's all for me for the next few weeks. We are expecting family to start arriving tomorrow. How I wish I had made up a few quilt tops to take along for the road trip to Lake Placid and Niagara Falls. Happy Summer to all!

Back in December 2007, I bought a new Brother SE-270D sewing/embroidery machine. My heart ached for this machine for at least 2 years prior to its purchase but life and all that goes with it takes priority over trivial wants. My patience paid off in the end. One evening I made a trip to the local Wal-Mart for yarn and found my heartthob on sale-50% off! There were two machines on the shelf, so with heart pounding I made a mad dash to the checkouts deep down thinking that the shelf label had to be a mistake. It wasn't!...and away I went home with my brand new toy, happier than a kid with a double decker ice cream.

It took me about a half hour to unearth this darling new toy from its wrappings, only to realize someone else had purchased the machine before me. Not only had they used it, but they cannabalized the accessory pouch before returning it to the store. :-( A quick call to Wal-Mart to ask (beg!) them to set the second machine aside until I could return and away I went back to the store broken-hearted. The exchange was a bit of a challenge in that the store manager actually accused me of stealing the missing accessories! Thankfully, we live in a small town, and although we are relatively new here, the lady who worked the fabric and crafts section of the store stood up for my honor. After 45 minutes of inspecting and comparing the contents of the two boxes, the store manager finally agreed to let me exchange the "damaged" package for the intact machine. A mad dash back home with not only my new machine but a mean stress headache to boot, I proudly placed my new Brother on the kitchen table and called it a night, hoping for a clear head and renewed sense of untarnished happiness for morning.

Having never quilted anything in my life, I rather skeptically began picking through my material stash for what would eventually be a stroller quilt for my new nephew, Caleb. Having spent many days and hours researching the how's and what's of quilting, I decided to start small and easy...a rag quilt. They are forgiving if a stitching mistake is made and I wanted something that would be soft and comfortable for a new baby. The resulting baby blanket surely did have a few mistakes, but in the end, it was worth the effort. It was completed on 5 January 2008, in plenty of time for Caleb's birth in April.

A few weeks later, my husband mentioned that one of his co-workers was going to be adding to his family, also. As I was in full-blown creativity mode and still super excited to have my new Brother, I went round 2 with rag quilting. This one came out a lot better and the family mentioned, although it's been a few years later, that the little boy it was made for still loves and uses his blankie. There is no greater thanks than to see someone use the little something you made special for them.

Being delighted with the outcome of the second rag quilt, it dawned on me that my three nieces in Texas would love personalized doll blankets. Stitch, stitch, stitch, snip, snip, snip. Three identical miniature doll blankies were created in pretty pastels, the first of which was completed by 30 April 2008. It was with the creation of these little cuties that I realized you could "nest" the seams as you are piecing the rows just by ironing the seams in opposite directions. What an epiphany that was! :-)

Burnt Orange Sky

1 July 2010 2041hrs


Captured these images of our evening sky a little over a week ago.
It was the most unsettling experience as not only the sky and clouds turned orange quite suddenly, but it seemed as though the air itself actually held color.

The transformation passed quickly, inside of five minutes at most, but it was a spectacular experience that I hope to repeat again someday. Never again will I believe that the desert is the only place to experience a truly breathtaking sunset.

Motorcycles, Barbed Wire and Candy Kisses

It's been just over 20 years since I left the Vegas valley to travel the world. At least, that was my intention. While world travel was never achieved, I have been able to see about 2/3 of the United States while bouncing from one duty station to another. Yeppers, this here is one proud member of the United States Navy doubling as the road weary wife to an Army Ranger. I've traded my Airedale days for diapers and deployments and Craftsman tools for cooking utensils and quilting paraphernalia. It's been an interesting and often hectic life moving around from one base to another every 2-3 years, but I wouldn't change it for the all the chocolate at the Ethel M factory.

The best part of military travel is being able to see and experience different parts of the country. Every set of PCS orders is another chance to taste new food, live in a new house, make new friends, and in some cases, to take a stab at a new language. (Deciphering Deep South and KY/TN/VA Hillbilly accents and terminology should earn us college credits!) There are some bases I wouldn't mind going back to (Fort Campbell, KY) and others that I'd give my left leg to never have to look at again (Fort Polk, La.). Thankfully, we are near every career soldiers' dream...retirement!, and we've pretty much decided that the North Country of Upstate NY is where it's at.

At first, we thought we had all four seasons here, but after 3 years we've learned that we have Chilly, Cold, Oh-My-Goodness-I'm-Gonna-Die Cold and Spring. For instance, today is 1 July. Today's high was 62. 62! I'd love to say that this is abnormal weather but last year on the 4th of July it was a whopping 55! Am I complaining? I know it sounds like it, but no, really I'm not. I've done my time in hell (temperature-wise) and even though I abhor snowmobiles, I do love snow.

Three seasons of chilly/cold/subzero temperatures is perfect quilting weather. My wonderful husband even let me talk him into heating the sunroom-turned-sewing room so that I could have year-round access to all of my toys. I kind of feel bad for confiscating his favorite room in the house for my hobby, but he has been compensated generously for his loss by means of his own personally designed hand stitched quilt that he takes on deployments.

His quilt is proof positive that hand-crafted goods can in fact be "manly". Motorcycles, skulls, flames and barbed wire just scream masculine and he incorporated every one of them into his fabric selections. I love this quilt simply because it is my first large hand-quilted project. When it was completed, I realized I had a new found respect for the Amish and ladies of today and yesterday who use this technique for every quilt they make.

Hand quilting is relaxing and almost meditative. Rocking the needle back and forth through the layers has the same calming quality as swaying on the front porch swing, at least for me. I loved it so much that even though I promised myself I'd take a break from the sewing room for a bit after the Motorcycle quilt's completion, I immediately started hand-quilting my very own favorite "Country Lane" throw.

Out of all of the crocheted, cross-stitched and quilted projects I've made, there has only been one that I completed for myself, until I came across RJR's Country Lane collection, that is.
Despite the nasty little case of carpal tunnel I gave myself with crocheting, I couldn't resist using up the Wal-Mart bag of pink baby soft yarn I found stashed away in one of my numerous craft totes. So low and behold, I created a pastel pink afghan for the back of my sewing room recliner to use during afternoon naps. Cozy!

Now, as for my Country Lane, I'll get back to that one again, maybe tomorrow...or the next day, or the next day... :-) No need to tell about all of the fun stuff in the first post, eh?

On to today...

Introducing "Candy Kisses". I'm making this quilt as a friendship/thank you quilt for an old high school friend in Nevada. Today I finished piecing the top and began designing the backing. Normally, like most quilters, I would simply use one type of fabric to cover the back and be done with it. This quilt is a bit more difficult when it comes to the backing because the colors are not what I would call "typical" colors, meaning I'm not able to find a darned thing to match one single color in the whole quilt top! So, I've decided on a pieced backing using the remaining fabric from the fat quarter bundle along with lots of antique cream muslin. Keeping my fingers crossed that my creative eye doesn't fail me on this one.