did you miss me?

i missed you

I've been trying to finish up these two doll quilts and Naomi's I spy. And they are done! I sent one of these quilts off to my secret swap partner for the Doll Quilt Swap 3. I hope she likes it. If you don't, my dear swap partner, tell me and I will send you the other and you can send the original back. Ok?



I also finished Naomi's I Spy quilt. I love how this turned out. We will take it over later today.



I wouldn't let myself work on anything else while these quilts were unfinished, so now I get to play. Yippee! I have so many idea that I don't know where to start. Houses of some sort probably. I have this quilt on the brain. I hope that it is coming to me! I can't do applique, so I might try a pieced version of it.

I had so much fun with my three way swap with LauraJay and Lucyellen06. We thought we would do it again with a fall deadline. Calamity Kim wanted to join in the fun, so we are making it a four way swap. Fun fun!

*more pictures of the doll quilts and Naomi's I Spy are over at flickr

weekend plans

I'm going to take the kids to see my mom on Monday. And I'm hoping to have a few quilts mostly completed to show my mom. I've been working on Doll Quilt Swap 3. I have made two quilts to put up on flickr and hopefully my secret partner will say she likes one of them. The disappearing nine patch is almost done. I just need to finish the binding.



The other quilt I made for DQS3 is a row quilt. I really enjoy free-piecing, liberated quilting, wonky style - what ever you want to call it. And I've wanted to try a row quilt. A quilt with a row of this and a row of that. We were supposed to go visit my mom today, but Marguerite and I were not 100% healthy. So we took the day off to rest, and I spent the day sewing. I finished the top this afternoon, and finished quilting it this evening. I'm hoping to have the binding sewn to the front tomorrow so that I can hand stitch it down later.



detail of the quilting:



The other task on the to-do list is to quilt Naomi's I spy quilt and stitch the binding to the front.

We will see. I also need to clean the pool and maybe mow the yard.

would you like to make a free-pieced flower?

you do? Ok, then. Let's get started! First let me start off by saying that this is not a new technique and not invented be me. I like Jan Mullen's flowers, and I used Tonya's, from LazyGalQuilting, asterisks tutorial to get started. I just took it a bit further to make the asterisks float in the block to look like a flower.

1. You will need fabric for your background, flower and flower center.

2. Cut a square for the block out of the background fabric. I made my square about 6 inches.

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Cut a strip of flower fabric with the height being the diameter you wish your flower to be plus one inch for seam allowances and your length being how wide you wish your flower petals to be plus two inches. Confused? I wanted my flower to be about 2.5 inches across, so I cut my flower fabric with a height of 3 inches. And I wanted my flower petals to be about 1/4 to 1/2 inch wide, so I cut the length to about 4 inches.

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Cut two pieces of background fabric the same size as your flower fabric.

3. Sew the background pieces to the flower fabric. Now my strip of fabric is still 4 inches wide but now about 8 inches high.

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Trim the long sides of your strip, and then cut your strip into 4 strips. I wanted my petals to be wonky, so my strips are not all the same width.

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Cut a square of flower center fabric the same measurement as the width of one of your flower petal strips.

4. Cut that flower petal strip in half and sew the flower center square between the two halves.

5. Cut your background fabric square in half diagonally. You will be sewing in a flower petal strip making sure to "center" the strip. Save the flower petal strip with the flower center for last.

6. After you have sewn that strip in, cut the big square in half diagonally the other way. You will then sew in another flower petal strip.

7. Now cut the big square in half again this time from side to side. You will then sew in another flower petal strip.

8. Now cut the big square in half again from side to side again. You will then sew in your strip with the flower center.

9. You now have a flower block with lots of background fabric that you can center and trim anyway you wish.

A few words about the tutorial:

*I made my background large because I wasn't sure what size I was going to trim my flower blocks.

*I'm assuming you know to press after each step.

*When pressing, press the fabric to which ever side makes it less bulky. You may even want to trim a few "dog ears" to minimize the center bulk. I used my widest flower strip for the center to have more room for the seam allowances on the back. If you make a larger flower, these issues will be lessened.

*I was trying to make the smallest flower I could. I think I could make a flower with shorter petals, but I don't think I could make the petals any narrower. My flower is about 2 inches wide with petals between 1/2 and 1/4 inches wide. If I had made all the petals 1/4 inch wide, then the back would have been really really bulky.
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Let me know if you have any questions or if I was unclear about anything. I'd also like to see any flowers you make.

Have fun!

*using flickr to add picture to blogger - easy. using blogger to add pictures to blogger - a pain in the rear!

*****You can use flickr to upload your pics. Here is a link were I learned how. I used the "cut and paste code from flickr" method. Very easy!

my end of the deal

The swap between LauraJay, Lucyellen06 and myself was to be with quilts and fabrics. We had a few rules, and we each came up with one.

experiment with color
include birds
try out a new technique, style, block etc.

It was fun encouraging each other, posting progress, and teasing with sneaky peaks. We hope to do it again this fall. It has been a wonderful swap with wonderful ladies.

I made LauraJay's quilt first. I wanted it to be aqua and pink, and as usual, I tend to use as many different fabrics as possible. So it turned out a little busy. Here is what I sent to LauraJay:



When I made Lucyellen06's quilt, I controlled myself in the use of fabrics. I love the look of scrap quilts, and that is why LauraJay's quilt is very scrappy. But I also love in antique quilts when a quilter substitutes a fabric that is very similar because she ran out of the original fabric. This is what I did in Lucyellen06's quilt. I substituted a fabric in three places. It is like a hidden surprise. Here is what I sent to Lucyellen06:



I also included a little house quiltlet in each of their packages as a little surprise.





***there are more pictures on flickr

ode to LauraJay and Lucyellen06....

how I love thee, let me count the ways....

look at these two wonderful quilts I received in my quilt and fabric swap with LauraJay and Lucyellen06!

This is from Lucyellen06:



Isn't it wonderful? I love the colors, the stars, the fabrics, the bird, and the chair - ok I love the whole thing! She also included fabric:



and a vintage linen with songbirds on it and one of her fabulous pincushions in green (of course!):



Now look at the fabulous quilt LauraJay sent:



I love it! The colors are great, and I love the little bird. He's a song bird, I can tell because of the swirls in him waiting to come out in song. And the quilting she did to highlight each fabric "coin" is fantastic. She also included these great fabrics:



And one of these ladies sent my kids some vintage stamps and stickers - I think it was Lucyellen06, but in all the excitement of opening, the kids tore into them before I could tell. They are long gone into bedrooms and sticker books. Thanks!

Thank you ladies for such a wonderful swap. I enjoyed every minute of it - ok, not the part of me procrastinating until the last week ; ) You both are very talented, and it was nice getting to know you both better. I've made two lovely friends. And I hope that we can do it again - maybe in the fall?

***there are more pictures on flickr!

finished....

the quilt top I was working on in the last post.



It is for our little neighbor who is turning one next week. They will be gone next week, so it will give me a little bit more time to quilt and bind it. And I still need to finish the two doll quilts I'm making for Doll Quilt Swap 3.

Marguerite is still sick, and my Sister in law and her family are coming up on the weekend to celebrate my Mother in law's birthday. And I'm trying to ignore the little soreness in the back of my throat. Hmmm

more details of the quilt are on flickr

I will be posting a tutorial in the next few days on how to make a free pieced flower like this one

sewin' sewin' sewin'....

I've been really busy this week working on quilts.

I finished one doll quilt top for Doll Quilt Swap 3:



I started my alternate doll quilt top for Doll Quilt Swap 3:



And I'm working on a quilt for my neighbors' little girl who will be turning one next week:



there are more pictures here on flickr

We were supposed to go see my Mom and Chuck today. But Marguerite has slowly been building up to a full blown cold. sneezes, coughs, snot. So I was able to get lots of sewing done today while the kids watched mineless tv, I mean rested. We recently change our cable lineup, and now we get Boomerang TV (I think that's what it is called). It's mostly old cartoons like Flintstones, Jetsons, Yogi Bear, Atom Ant etc. It's funny to hear the shows from another room while I work. I think I know every episode of the Flintstones from when I was little. Fun stuff.

I'll post later this week on the progress of the quilts above.

new fabric

here is the fabric I bought from JoAnn's and a semi-local quilt shop



the fabric above is for ConKerr Cancer pillowcase project, plus the butterflies for a dress is for Marguerite

the fabric below will go in my stash for quilting projects

bathtime at the house of krom

my daughter took the first outside bath of the season



One of the previous owners of our house was a plumber. And he liked to plumb. We have six outside spigots, an outside sink and an outside shower complete with hot and cold water.

It's been warm lately. In the 80's warm. Turn on the air conditioning warm. So we will get the pool in shape, and outside bathing has begun.

Since my swap duties have lessened, I was able to spend a few hours out in the back yard today. I raked and bagged 11 large leaf bags full from just our backyard. Whew! Then this evening, we stripped one of the grapefruit trees of its fruit to dispose. The trees are producing new fruit for this coming season, so it's time to get off the old fruit. Fruit drops everyday.

I went fabric shopping yesterday and today. I'll try to take a picture and post it for those who want to see.

15 minutes of play....

resulted in a little liberated star.



the star itself is 2.5" x 2.5"

Free piecing, liberated, play, creating, wonky - whatever you want to call it, really pleases me. For me, it is true creating. You think things through, try things out. I love it! The only down side I see to this way of quilt making is that your accuracy goes out the window.

I plan on making several more of these stars and using them in my Doll Quilt Swap 3 quilt. I'm planning a row quilt, with a row of houses, a row of trees, a row of stars, and a row of flowers. I think.

moving on....

to the next swap! My swaps with LauraJay and Lucyellen06 were mailed today. I also got started with Doll Quilt Swap 3. I have an idea for a quilt that I want to make. It will be a horizontal row quilt. With one row of houses, one row of trees, one row of stars or churndashes, and one row of flowers or butterflies. All free pieced. Curious about free piecing? Check out Tonya at Lazy Gal Quilting's tutorials.



I worked on houses today. It takes more thought to make small blocks! More than you think! The logs on my favorite/best block were about 1/4" finished. I'm pleased with the last house. It is the right shape and size. I also determined that I like the aqua as the back ground.



I turned the practice blocks into quiltlets.

Yay!