Memorial Day Weekend Bidness!

I am happy to have graduated from walker to a cane; bright orange with leopard spots, naturally!  On Saturday we decorated some graves then made a brief stop at the local quilt shop for some b&w fabric for roads between my liberated house blocks!  OMG! they had some Wizard of Oz fabric with Dorothy, the Scarecrow, Tinman, and the Lion, that the figures were just the right height for my liberated houses.  I bought a fat quarter of that and a bit of two of the b&w fabrics.  Monday afternoon, I finally got my extra flag anchor knotted onto the cord on my flag pole, and got my bigger flag up and flying.  Yeah! That took me about two months to get to.  Then . . .  I counted how many liberated house blocks had men and how many had women and determined I was short on women, so I started on the Dorothy liberated house block.  I also finished it the same evening!  It is true I did purchase fabric for Dorothy to be in the doorway, but otherwise, I am trying to only use fabric I already have in my stash.  I did not have any ruby slipper fabric, but I had wading boot (goolashes, Wellies, or rubber boots) fabric! I knew the Tin Man needed a heart and I have heart fabric. I wanted to use green to represent the Emerald City, but I used my avocado background Munchkin zombie fabric instead, so I guess it would be the Avocado City.  Of course . . . poppies, poppies! for the roof.  I went through my barn and farm fabric stash looking for those strange colored pig fabric scraps, but could not locate them, that is when I decided against the green sky and went with the yellow with barn yard animals for the background. I placed a yellow brick road at the door leading passed the tree. Note the tree and the roof are tilted because the tornado is coming!  

Toto, we are not in Kansas anymore. We are in Caroland!

Daria's Disappearing Four Patch Nearly Finished!

The Knotty Quilters are doing a group project. I am doing Daria's blocks, and I must say they are coming along.  We needed more blocks with red, so here is more red.

The top one is a finished block, just not trimmed up yet.

OMG! I finished my Be A Man Liberated House Quilt Block

Today I worked on my "Be A Man" Liberated House quilt block, and finished it.  It looks awesome with the garage and flying nachos roof. 
I also finished up my "Yoga Girl" Liberated House block; see below. It is the least liberated of all my liberated house blocks, but I think I'll keep it.  Now, I have 15 liberated house blocks complete.  I am going to do the "You had me at Merlot" liberated house block, then I will have sixteen.  I am still looking for some black and white fabric that looks something like a road, to use as sashing between the blocks. Also, I have some RR track fabric that I can use across the bottom, and I am going to figure out a street sign and a couple more details.  Since I will not get it completed for this year's quilt show, I am going to have to halt work on it, and complete the quilt I have started for the competition at The Fair.  I am running out of time.  Because of my foot surgery, I have not been able to do much piecing and not much anything else, so I am behind in everything, except the dishes. 

Liberated Houses

I made two more Liberated House blocks this last weekend, at our quilting retreat in Eagle, Idaho.  Tonight I made some progress with my yoga girl block.  I think her house is turning out pretty sweet!  It is not completed, but here is a photo so you can see where I am going with it.

Eagle Barn Quilting Retreat This Weekend!

I had surgery on my old left foot, so have recently been out of commission.  But yesterday (Saturday) I drove to Eagle for a retreat with the Knotty Quilters.  I drove into the parking lot, where they left me a space nearest the building, and they all came out an took all my materials into the building by the time I managed to get out of the vehicle.  By the time I got into the building Colette had my sewing machine all hooked up and ready to go! Wow!.  Then around 1:30 we went for lunch at Smokey Mtn Pizza and Pasta, where they have changed the menu again, but they have gluten free French fries!  Yeah! What a dream day! I got another block completed for my Liberated Houses quilt (aka Wonky Houses quilt).  Gotta go, headin' back to Eagle in two minutes for another fun day of quilting magic!

Ebony's Quilt

I used a piece of an old sheet, that was still in very good shape, for the backing of this kitty quilt.  It is 26" wide and 50" long. I make them this size, so they can be located on the back of the couch or folded in half and place on the seat of a chair.  It keeps the cat hair in check and you can wash them frequently.  This one is for my daughter's cat.  I just use scraps and try to include fish, bird, and cat fabric if I can. I have made them with frogs and you know the cat does not mind.  I just did a stitch-in-the-ditch on this one.  My sewing machine has a little foot that is raised on one side, so the seam sits right up against the other side, and I adjust my needle to the left enough to sew right next to the seam, so it looks much nicer than my old attempts at doing stitch-in-the-ditch.  After I have it quilted, I trim the backing down to an inch larger than the top, and just fold it over on the front to create a cheaty binding that I just top stitch down.  I do this for kitty quilts, because it needs to be sturdy, not fancy.

Sunset Sail coming along

these are blocks on my design wall

I am a slow sewer, even today, to say the least.  But I love it so much, I just keep doing it! I took the Sunset Sail class last Thursday and Friday evenings at Room to Learn in Kuna.  I am liking how this is going.  Of course, none of us finished by the end of Friday evening, so we are meeting again this Friday to do some serious finishing up and a baked potato bar.  Quilting and a potato bar! How awesome is that?  Sunset Sail pattern is by Margaret E. Stone for Snow Day Designs.