Lots of Pillows!

Our old pillows were getting pretty shabby - so I decided to redo and give some of the others a little face lift. The material was from an old quilt top that had pieces in very bad shape - so I cut it down and free motion quilted the heck out of it and then made the top into pillows. The tan pillows were not in too bad a shape - so I put some applique on top of them from the same quilt top. I use regular bed pillows (feather) for the large pillows and put two padded pillow protectors on them to make them extra squishy. They are much more comfortable than the pillow forms you can buy at craft stores! Great for a nice nap on the couch! The small square pillow was made over from left over quilted fabric, denim and buttons.

Color Wheel

I am taking an online class from Machine Quilters Resource called Color and Design for Art Quilters. The first assignment was to create a color wheel. It was allot of fun to do and I also practiced free motion embroidery for the first time (the ladybug.) I have never been trained in color use - I just use what I love and sometimes it turns out well and sometimes it doesn't! That's the nice thing about scrap quilts - they usually turn out great no matter what you pick!!

Operation Support for Deployed Military

It's Christmas in July! I was at the LQS last week and saw a wall full of stockings - there must have been at least 200 of them. I found out that they were for the "Operation Support for Deployed Military" program. I have a soft spot in my heart for the military and their families, as my husband is retired Army. So I ended up making 9 stockings. The material was originally for sleep pants for my kids - I think about 8 years ago!


Check this group out - it is a WONDERFUL program -

100th Post!

This is my 100th post! I never thought I would blog this long - as I am not a diary person - but this has definitely been fun! I've "met" allot of great woman all over the world! In honor of my 100th post, I'm posting a free pattern for a quilt that I designed and made for my daughter and her husband when they purchased their first home. It is foundation paper pieced and the second picture shows it framed. Click here for the free pattern!

Chicago International Quilt Festival

Ed and I headed to Chicago Saturday for the IQS quilt show. It was a beautiful show. I didn't take any classes, but was content to look at all the beautiful quilts and of course the vendor area! I played with allot of the long arm quilting machines - they are allot of fun - but the price has always scared me off! Maybe when I win the lottery!

Ed doesn't mind going to the shows with me - and I'll tell you why. We went to the Mid-Atlantic Quilt show several years ago when it was in Williamsburg, VA and very, very crowded; you could barely move through the vendor area. I won't go into much detail here but lets just say he was inappropriately groped and not my me!

The quilt shown won the Best of Show Award- "I Ain’t No Spring Chicken" is 57” x 39” and was made by David Taylor of Steamboat Springs, CO. It really is a fun and beautiful quilt.

On the Road

2600 miles and 33 hours of driving in 4 days! I am whooped. Ed and I drove from Iowa to Harrisonburg, VA to move our daughter, Kelly to Augusta, GA - in 4 days! We are crazy, but that is all the time Ed could get off from work. It was wonderful to see my girls and son-in-law and wonderful to see all the blooming trees and flowers! I love the South and can't wait to get back to living there! It is such a pretty part of the country. There is nothing like Spring time in the South. I had my fill of "good" sweet tea too!

On the drive back to Iowa, we drove by Paducah, KY and of course had to drive through the town! I had never been there before - I thought it was very pretty. On the way back to the interstate Ed had to stop and get some gas - and low and behold it must have been quilter's karma - Hancock's of Paducah was right next to the gas station! Very fun!! I was embarrassed to take pictures so I asked my husband to do it. He's so nice. I couldn't stay long, but long enough to pick up some bolt ends of Kona cotton - at $1.59 a yard. Hard to pass that up!

Done!

I think sometimes it takes me longer to put the binding, sleeve and signature on a quilt than it does to make the quilt itself! You can definitely tell what parts of quilting I don't get very excited about! Anyway, my Dutch quilt is finally up on the wall!

Quilt Hangers

I love flea markets and you can usually find pretty good deals on salvage pieces of old furniture. I saw these old moldings and turned them into quilt hangers. I used large cup hooks and screwed one into the bottom on each side and then put a hanger on the back. I used a regular cafe curtain rod to hang the quilt through its sleeve and placed the rod on the cup hooks.

The top picture shows a molding that is from a dresser I had as a child. The dresser was crushed by the movers placing my husbands motorcycle on top of it when we moved to Germany! So much for that dresser, but I saved the molding - it was too pretty to throw out. I've seen lots of small molding pieces that I thought would make cute hangers for miniatures too - someday...





For the quilt hanger to the left I used a pair of old skis and poles that we picked up at a yard sale when we lived in Alaska. I tied the skis to a nail in the wall with jute thread since I didn't want to damage the skis.

Military Quilt

I'm still working on machine quilting the Dutch Tulip Quilt so there is not much new to share. I thought I would share something older. My husband retired from the Army six years ago and I made him a retirement quilt to pin all of his past company insignia on. I paper pieced it and then hand quilted it. During some of our moves I think a couple of his pins have been misplaced, so hopefully he can get some new ones.

New Sewing Room

When we moved from the Netherlands in August we had these cupboards from Ikea that we had bought for our clothes since our apartment did not have built in closets. Of course we do not need them here in Iowa for our clothes - but they make wonderful storage for my quilting room! We took a spare bedroom in the house and turned it into a sewing room - it's great to have so much space to spread out for a change.

















The picture to the left shows my flannel board. It is made out of a preprinted flannel piece of fabric that I picked up at the local quilt shop. My husband and I wrapped it around a thin piece of particle board and hung it on the wall. It works great and no more cats on the floor laying on my quilt blocks!












I used to collect crocheted potholders from the 40's and 50's - I looooooooove them! My husband hates them though so I put them in my sewing room as valances for the windows. They are so fun to look at and I love the bright colors.

Dutch Fabric Quilt

I'm almost done with my Dutch Fabric Quilt! I really should have a name for it by now, maybe something will come to me soon. The center is hand pieced, the tulip border is appliquéd with machine embroidery and I am machine quilting it. I really enjoy hand appliqué but the carpal tunnel problem still nags at me so the machine works quite nicely for right now! When I was ironing the quilt top some of the red bled onto the white and beige background so hopefully that will not be a problem when I wash it. Maybe some of the color catcher sheets will help in the washer.

26th Anniversary Celebration

Ed and I will celebrate our 26th wedding anniversary on the 30th of this month so we went on a quick getaway to Galena for the weekend. It was sooooooooooooooooo cold! -13 degrees! We had a great weekend regardless of the weather. Ed was a good husband and heated up the car and dropped me off at the door so I wouldn't freeze my toes. We stayed at a victorian mansion built in the 1880's called the Cloran. We would highly recommend it, the owners were gracious and the breakfast was the best!!!

We had some wonderful meals, not particularly in line with my attempt at healthy eating these days but I guess it could have been worse!


Of course there was a quilt, bead, and yarn store in the agenda!!!! Phat Quarters Quilt Shop was very nice, had a great selection of fabrics and patterns and a nice and helpful staff. The more I move and travel, the more I appreciate kindness and helpfulness in stores!!! Galena Bead is a very fun store. Nicely layed out, fun owners and staff and they have a great selection of beads and supplies. My other favorite store in Galena has to be the yarn store. Though I don't knit as much as I used to, I still love wonderful yarn and will still answer the call to come into a yarn shop!! Fiber Wild! does not have a web site yet, but said they were working on it. This is a beautiful yarn shop. The owner is very, very friendly and helpful.

On the way back to LeClaire on Sunday we stopped at the Mississippi River Museum in Dubuque. This is really a great museum, very well done! We kind of hurried through it to get home to watch football, but well worth the visit if you are ever in the area!

We had a wonderful weekend in Galena and I really look forward to going back when it is maybe 75 degrees!!!! Thanks Brad for watching Bear and the kitties!

It's Been Quite a Week!

Ed has always teased me that the week between Mother's Day and my birthday has always been a week long celebration, but I do have to agree with him this year! He really spoiled me this year! We went away on Mother's Day weekend and stayed in Maastricht Saturday night after seeing Luxembourg and drove around Belgium. We saw Bastogne where the Battle of the Bulge took place and the American cemetery in Luxembourg city. It was nice to see that the cemetery is so beautifully kept but sad to see so many young lives cut short. We also saw the German cemetery and was reminded that they too lost sons and fathers.

We stayed in Maastricht that night on the river and had a wonderful dinner.
The next morning we headed to Tongeren for my favorite thing to do - checking out flea markets!!! Ed found a great painted trunk and lamp made out of an old surveyors tool. I picked up some wooden bowls and some white stoneware potties (yes, I know that's weird.)


Thursday we headed to Amsterdam by train and checked in to our hotel. Kelly, our daughter had arrived in Amsterdam the day before with a group from her church. We met up for lunch and then took a tour of the Van Gogh museum. I think he was my favorite artist. The museum did a great job of displaying how his style progressed over the years of his life. We then went out to dinner with Kelly and then Ed and I headed down to the Red Light District. It was kind of sad actually. I couldn't look the young woman in the eye's. It sickened me to hear men making obscene remarks at them and laughing at them, but most of all I think I'm not happy with my self for going down there.

Friday was totally a fun, fun day!!!! Coffee with one of my daughters, two quilt shops, a bead shop, a canal boat tour, apple pancakes, and two English book shops, need I say more!!!!!!
This is a picture of Den Haan & Wagenmakers in Amsterdam. It is such a beautiful store! It is not a traditional quilt store, but sells mainly the traditional reproduction Dutch fabric that I just adore!!! I learned that the fabric is actually made not to far from Enschede, it would be great to go see it made, hopefully I can figure out how to make that happen.

We got back home Friday night and then Saturday morning, the day of my birthday we headed to Munster, Germany for the first big flea market of their Summer season. It's a great flea market and huge! Needless to say, I took a long nap that afternoon! Saturday night Ed took me out for dinner and boy was I surprised when several people we knew were there waiting to surprise me! I felt very honored and loved this week!!! Thank you honey!

Another One Bites The Dust!

One more quilt is done, yeah! It's my mission this year to get all my UFO's finished. It is so hard to not start something new! Seeing what everyone is doing on the Quilting 4 Pleasure Ring is filling my head with all sorts of projects I want to do. All in all, I don't have too many UFO's left, so I should be able to get them done within the year. I don't count my Dear Jane quilt. That is on the five year plan at least! The carpal tunnel problem keeps flaring up, so I find my self using the sewing machine more and more. I love to hand piece and hand appliqué though and I hate to give that up. When I get back to the states, I guess it's time to check in with a dr. to see what can be done.

Update on Dutch Quilt

This is one block from my Dutch quilt I've been working on. The block is 18" square and there will be 4 of them set on point alternating with blank squares. I think I'm going to do some appliqué in the blank squares. I'm not sure of what yet but I'm thinking it makes sense to do tulips, it being a Dutch quilt! I've been hand piecing, which I really love. I'm not sure if I like the very pale yellow along the outside of the block though. I ordered it from a shop in Amsterdam and on the website I thought it was a little more beige. Maybe it will be ok. In the picture, it doesn't look so yellow, (maybe it is my computer!!!!)

My 40th Birthday Quilt

It seems like I can't get anything completed lately, so I thought I would show a quilt that is done! I think maybe I am working on too many things right now, if I could focus on completing one project maybe I would feel like I am accomplishing something! All this beautiful weather has given me spring fever I guess, so I have difficulty working on one project for any length of time. Anyway, this is a quilt I made in honor of my 40th birthday. It is a tree of life quilt and if you look close there are a couple "planned" errors in it. That is to reflect the side of the family that gave me my mental issues!!!!! It is scary to say, but my 50th birthday is in 3 years and 1 month. Goodness! Well, I guess it beats the alternative. The Dutch have a custom of calling one's 50th birthday their Abraham or Sarah. When one reaches the age of 50 they are supposed to be filled with wisdom. Well I better hurry up and start getting some of that wisdom, because I could sure use it! Can you see the errors?

Clam Shell Quilt

This is another quilt that I used the millennium charm packs for. As you can see, I got bored with this one too - so it is small also! I love charm quilts - I love owning them and looking at them - but boy do I get bored with making them! I have it hanging in the little bathroom - so I had to photograph it at an angle (in other words - it really isn't as crooked as it looks!!!)

My "Millennium" Quilt

This is a quilt that I made for the new millennium. It was part of a charm pack a month club during the year 2000 from a shop in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Needless to say, I got really, really sick of this quilt - and ended up making a small quilt instead. So instead of the 2000 different fabrics it is supposed to have I think it only has a couple hundred. Oh well, I started out with good intentions!

Spring has arrived!

Spring has arrived in Holland! The daffodils are out in full force on our patio and the flowering trees are doing their spring thing. It has been a beautiful week - SUN! Wonderful sun!!!

Brad was here visiting on spring break, it was great to see him.


I haven't done allot of quilting this week - but hopefully I will get back to getting my current projects going again. I did baste my Lone Star and appliqué quilt and started quilting it though. I added a pieced border to it containing the other fabric in the star and appliqué - and I think it will be ok. Ed is playing golf - so I am off to quilt!!!

Dutch Fabric Quilt

I've been looking through my old quilting magazines and books to get an idea of what I want to do with my Dutch fabrics. I think I've decided to do something with this block . I'm thinking maybe 4 of these blocks set diagonally and then work out from there to make a medallion quilt.

I'm not quite sure what to do with the background though. I feel very comfortable with using white or off white for backgrounds - kind of like all the white walls in my house! I love to see color on walls and in quilts that people use, but when I use it - I feel it doesn't look right. It reminds me when we lived in Colorado and I decided to paint the bedroom a lovely shade of green, well the bedroom looked like it had toothpaste thrown all over the walls! Needless to say - we repainted it white!