New Postcard

Snow Ballet

While in my sewing room yesterday to make and apply binding to Hunting Season II (boring job), I found a half-finished postcard that was needing some TLC. My friend Pauline (see yesterday's blog re: potted plant rescue) sometimes sends me the fabric left over when she has her dresses shortened. This one was royal and turquoise blue sheer fabric with sequins!

Don't ask what I did to it, because I can't remember. I know it involved adding some sheer navy ribbon with silver snowflakes, a blue and silver fiber, and snowflake beads and buttons. Some time before yesterday I used the heat gun to melt something away. The three hearts are just some fused Angelina that I cut out freehand and stitched down. I like the feathery yarn trim on the outside! And a few clear Swarovski crystals.

I may send this as a non-traditional Valentine!

Hunting Season II

I finished the quilting on my newest quilt yesterday. All over leaves and woodsy-looking things. I think it looks great! Too nice for a twenty-one year old single guy??? I think he will take good care of it. I made one for my nephew, another hard-partying deer hunter, and he has had it reverently folded on a quilt stand at the end of his bed for years. Does not even sleep under it. That is never my intention! I always want my bed quilts to be used. I made one for one of my husband's friends at deer camp a few years ago when he was suffering from terminal cancer. I envisioned him snuggling under the quilt with his beloved cocker spaniel. Nope, his wife hung it on the wall. This was Buddy's quilt, also a Yellow Brick Road. But once you give your quilts away, it is up to the owner to decide on its new life. Anyway, Buddy's quilt was named Hunting Season, also a Yellow Brick Road. So this one for James is now Hunting Season II. I will try to get the binding attached today so I can do the handwork in the mountains this weekend.

Our weather here in the Raleigh, NC area has been very schizophrenic- bitter cold for a few days, snow showers, then balmy warmth and sunshine. Yesterday when I walked the dog, it was only 24 degrees. Today it is supposed to get up in the sixties. Could not help purchasing this cute little pot of daffodils yesterday when I went out for groceries.

And here is another little touch of color, courtesy of my husband's colleague Pauline. They work in a very nice office building with a huge atrium. Every month, professional decorators change out the floral arrangements in the lobby, and just toss out the old plants. Since their office is on the first floor, Pauline and some of the other women salvage some of the potted plants. She saved these two kalanchoes for me. I need to get them in some better pots.

In this photo, they are sitting on the lazy Susan section of an old oak table from my husband's family. The three children in the black and white photo are my brother Chris, brother Tim, and me back when there were only three children in the family. Another sister and three more brothers later joined the family.

Another Yellow Brick Road

I got my Yellow Brick Road quilt loaded on the machine today, and about halfway finished quilting it in the style of Forest Floor, one of Suzanne Earley's Meandering Magic designs. Everything is going well! The biggest problem is that the thread blends so well, I can't always tell where I have quilted. I'm using Signature cotton in "Mother Goose," a light brown color. I hated to stop quilting, it was so much fun!

The Lilly Look

The Lilly Look
All finished!

Lilly Pulitzer fabric quilt, and change in lifestyle coming soon!

More progress on the Lilly Pulitzer fabric quilt- still unnamed. I got brave and cut the border into funky curves, then made a bias stripe binding. I have the binding hemmed on two sides and it is going pretty well. I think the diagonal look of the bias stripe adds to the style of this piece. Any naming ideas?

My current burst of trying to finish some projects stems partially from the fact that I applied for a teaching job at an elementary school only three miles from my home. I had not heard from them after a week, so decided that it probably was not to be. Then, I got a call from the principal yesterday at 4:00, offering me the position! It is teaching remedial reading and math to third grade students. Not special ed, but students at risk of failing the end-of-grade exams. Of course, I have mixed feelings about giving up my freedom of time, but I think I can handle anything for four months! I don't know when the start date will be, as Central Office can take two weeks to go through their bureaucracy. Two weeks ago I went over there to sign a release for my criminal background check. This after having worked for the school system as my only employer for twenty-four years. Oh, well!

DSH and I went to the movies last night, a rare event for us. We saw Will Smith in the sci-fi horror, I Am Legend. Grim! He was good, but I can't say I enjoyed it. Makes me want to go see a piece of fluff like 27 Dresses.

I am getting a lot accomplished, quilting-wise, this week! Yesterday, I finished quilting the Lilly Pulitzer fabric quilt. This one is going to my daughter-in-law's sister Ellen, and her husband Arno. We attended their beautiful beach wedding in Nags Head, NC, in which all the bridesmaids wore their choice of Lilly Pulitzer sundress. I personally had never heard of Lilly Pulitzer, but she is the designer of many Florida-style dresses and garments using tropical colors and themes. All of her fabrics have the name Lilly hidden somewhere in the print- sort of a "Where's Waldo" gimmick. Anyway, Ellen and Arno both worked on a cruise ship and currently live in Miami. Did I mention that Ellen and Emily's mother is an interior designer? Needless to say, they both have a sense of style that won't quit. So, here is the quilt, which has yet to be bound. I am thinking of a funky curvy shape instead of just square.

Anyway, I started out with a curly free-form feather in the border, and a pantograph design in the center by Linda Taylor, called Double Rose. I thought that with the busy fabrics, an overall would be fine, and this pattern has funky flowers. This is how they look: Just a little side note here: I have not used a pantograph pattern in over a year. And I probably will not use one again. I tried twice to complete a row across the quilt, only to discover at the end that my thread had broken back at the beginning. I was having some other problems, too, and said "Heck with this!" So, I gleefully went back to the front of the machine and finished up with free-motion flowers, leaves, and vines.
The borders have funky curly feathers I made up as I went along. It was fun using this sea-green thread against the black, white, and tropical prints.
By the way, Ellen's hunky handsome husband is set to premier on television today and tomorrow as host of a show on the Food Network (Kitchen Spaces.) I think he definitely will soon be famous! If you happen to catch a handsome brown-haired TV personality named Arno, with a South African accent, somewhere on the tube, that will be him! By the way, this wedding took place in May of 2006. I am not the speediest maker of wedding presents, but I hope they don't mind too much!

Sewing and Reading

I have been cocooned in my sewing room for the past two days, finishing up two quilt tops and cutting out another. I have finished the deer fabric Yellow Brick Road, including borders and backing, and also added the borders to my Lilly Pulitzer fabric quilt and made the backing. One of these will go on the Gammill today. It might have to be the Lilly: its bright cheerful fabrics will be a solace for cold winter days!


The one I cut out is using up lots of the other deer/mountain related fabric. I am a little tired of Yellow Brick Road, so I pulled out another Atkinson pattern, Lucky Stars. This one also uses fat quarters cut into strips. This is the quilt on the pattern and the website. I am thinking of combining flannel and regular cotton in the top. Anything wrong with that?


Bonus: Much more space in the sewing room after cutting up all those fabrics and making backings!

While I have been sewing, I have been listening to the audiobook, On Agate Hill by Lee Smith. I love to read books by North Carolina authors, and Lee Smith is certainly a master story-teller. This book follows Molly Petree from her girlhood on a plantation during reconstruction days, to her adult life teaching school. Guess where? In Ashe County, North Carolina! Huge smiles as I listened about living in Jefferson, NC in the late 1800's. Of course this is where we go shopping when we are in the mountains at our cabin. I want to go to the sewing room and make some bindings before quilting on the Gammill, just so I can listen to the end of the story.

When we got back from the very same Ashe County on Monday, I had a Voice message from a woman in my Cary High School class with information about our 40th Re-Union. Yikes! That seems impossible! Our re-union will be very informal, a pig-picking followed by a DJ and dancing. This is to occur on the day we return from our annual beach vacation. Usually that is a day to unwind after frantic packing, traveling, and unpacking. I may be attending by myself if I can't talk DSH into going. I live about 45 minutes from Cary in non-rush hour traffic, and may join the group of planners at the monthly lunch meetings. How fun to re-connect with old school chums.