At Sharie's House

There really is not much going on at Sharie's house.............unless you want to count the road trip the "Quilting Chicks" and I went on this past Saturday.  We went to Kinder, LA, stopped at a quilters house, left off several quilts and then went on to Oberlin, LA where we visited a new shop in town.  I could not pass up the batiks.  I could have bought many more but you know that pocket book thing, and then of course I do have a few in the house.  Look at that kitty cat fabric.  It is so cute, it has shiny "stuff" on it.  I bought that for a friend who could not go on our trip.  She loooves kitty cats.  There is a panel in there.  I bought that because I have a lot of fabric in that line.  I thought I would use the panel on the back of the quilt (when I make it).  The others are just things I wanted and the last piece with all the stripes is gorgeous.  It will make a lovely binding.  I bought enough so I could sprinkle it through a quilt and then bind it to match.  So much fabric, so many ideas and not enough time.  I wish I could do something about all the time I waste sleeping.  I cannot seem to get away from sleeping. 

These "Bottle Brush" bushes are in my back yard.  I have never seen them so loaded with flowers.  All the flowers this year seem to be in abundance.  We have been in summer now for at least a couple of weeks.  It is 72 degrees and it is 8:30 in the morning.  It is lovely weather but it is a sign that we are going to have a loooong hot summer.  Everything is very green.  You can see from the picture my yard needs to be mowed.  I had it mowed on 29 Feb, and I took this picture a couple of days ago, so it is less then three weeks since it was mowed.  Everything is growing like a weed.  I hate the thoughts of summer, I really would like to have a long winter, but I think that is unheard of in the deep south.  Although I have seen winter last a little longer than this one has. 

Tomorrow, we have 100% chance of rain and 90% chance on Wednesday.  Guess what I am going to do....sew????

Hope all is well on your end...........

My Design Wall and Spring

I have been lazy again about blogging.  Where does the time go????

When I open the window in back of my sewing machine this is what I see.  The azalea's are in full bloom.  No matter where you go you see lots of color.  They don't last long but while they are blooming they really are beautiful.  We have had so many grey days this winter and a lot of rain, we needed it (drought)), but we didn't need all the grey days. 

This is what I have on my design wall.  This is a quilt designed by Judy Niemeyer.  I have wanted to make this quilt for years.  I first saw it at Market in Houston probably roughly 4/5 years ago.  The pattern at the time was not available and it was over a year before it was.  I never forgot the quilt, and I bought it as soon as I found that it was available.  It is really a terrific quilt with lots of movement and I love the border.  Typical of me, I brought it home and have looked at it many times saying I should make this quilt and put it back in the drawer.  Five days ago, I started making it.  It is time and I do have the stash (don't have to buy anything to make it except batting) I figure roughly 60 days to get it together.  You say, 60 days, I am slow, slow, slow.  I do a lot of thinking.  See all those strips, I move them around every day.  They are for the border.  Just as I cannot take scraps out of a paper bag and be happy putting them side by side, I cannot be happy doing the same thing with my strips.

It is starting to warm up in the deep south.  I have turned on my air conditioner.  It is humid.  I hope it is not a sign of more to come soon.  This is suppose to be winter, you know cold.

Hope all is well on your end.

Raspberry Tea and Flowers to See

This quilt you have seen before except.........it is different.  I made this quilt with a border of green and brown polka dots.  Sometimes you do stupid things and you know there stupid but you do them anyway.  Well, I made this border, cut the strips, the dots were not straight.  They were straight on part of the strip but not straight on the rest of the strip.  I knew I would not like it, but I didn't want to mess around with it and I did like the polka dots, so I put the border on the quilt, added the outside border, which you see plus the polka dot corner stones.  When I looked at the quilt hanging, I did not like it.  I put it in the amoire.  It stayed there for months. 

I finally decided that I really like this quilt and I needed to do something with it.  I took off the borders (the green and the brown polka dots) and the corner stones.  I found enough fabric of green with brown leaves and etc and decided I liked it.  So a new border was born.  Then I decided I had a red border on it already before the green and I thought a flange border in red would look really good.  So thus, a flange border was added.  Then I thought about the corner stones.  What can I do for corner stones?  I decided to make four more pineapple blocks.  So now we have pineapples in the corners, I put the brown print border back on and I have a top finished and I like it. 

I made a back and it is ready to be quilted.  Hooray!!!!!

I must apologize for the terrible photography.  I really need a new camera, and I guess I am going to have to break down and buy one.  When I do get one, I will post it again.  The colors are great and picture does not do it justice.

I must run, I am off to sew with friends.  I will add to this tonight or tomorrow, so come back and see what is going on at my house.