Snoozy Sunday

It's been a loooong Staycation week here, redoing a bathroom.  Not too many things went together as advertised the first time...and in the case of reinstalling our old cast iron clawfoot tub...it has taken several shots and we still have some adjustments to make.  We have beautiful light icy blue paint on the walls, a little touch of beadboard to showcase the old tub and a pretty new floor and a super cute new vanity.  I'm pooped!  So for a few minutes, I'm declaring break time, before the darling of the hardware store returns, so that I can share photos of last weekends Idaho PieceMakerS Quilt Show.

So Here Goes!  Gotta Make It Quick!!  Enjoy!!!

This years theme was Purple Mountain Majesties

I Love This Paper Pieced Kitty!

 

Hubby was a fan of this Dahlia!

Stunning!

Can you see the inset zippers?

Something about this quilt makes me want to do the Hula!

We LOVED this little art quilt.  The original photo of this old pump was on display with the quilt.

The little window has clear vinyl over it so it look like the number face is still protected with glass.

Aloft.

Interesting Study in Value.

I have a soft spot for this design...must make one of my own!

Cute little Dresdens & Hexies!

 A Quilt to Cuddle in!

Drop Dead Gorgeous!

Cathedral Window Variation

Calling All French General Fans!

 

A Unique Sampler

Home Sweet Home

Doesn't Matter How Many Times I See It, I love it!

Cozy

La-La Lavender!

 

Itty Bitty Pieced Blocks!  Not A Stripe!  It's All Pieced and only about 12" long all together! 

And aren't the little jewels stitched to the back the cutest thing ever?

 

Warm & Wonderful!

A Little Americana!

Another mini quilt, hand quilted!

Older Youth Division

Younger Youth Division.

The quilt on the right was made by a boy who attended Quilt Camp locally.

Next Years Theme is Scrappy!

God Bless Our Most Beautiful Birds of Prey.

 

He's Ho-ome!  Happy Sunday Everybody!

 

~Nancie Anne



Doing The Happy Dance!

Early In June almost 500 Quilters submitted their photos of unfinished quilts into

The Better Homes & Gardens, American Patchwork & Quilting, Handi Quilter Big Finish Sweepstakes.  (Boy, that's a mouthful)

I submitted the following photo of my little lap/wallhanging size top, that I made as a "second unknown til reveal time, to surprise Lynn" version

when several of us participated in the Country Charmer Quilt Along in 2013. 

This quilt was part of a little secret that Sue Abrey, aka HRH, aka Quilt Times blog, cooked up! 

Sue made her own second wonderful surprise version too,

and, as we are prone to, we had a lot of fun egging each other on!

 

Mine is a combination of Lynn Wilder's Country Charmer

& Julia Ziegler's A Tree For All Seasons.

 

Here's another photo of the still borderless quilt! 



Soooo...I've been sitting on this news for THREE weeks, waiting til we got all the i's crossed and t's dotted & now the sponsors have made their official announcement, so I can officially remove my hand from over my mouth and share!!!

 

  Out of almost 500 entries, my little quilt (with a border) & I are flying to Salt Lake soon!!!!!

  I am looking forward to meeting the other 3 winners and the Handi Quilter Educators who promise to provide "One-on-one guidance, hand-holding, encouragement and expertise"!

We will be guests in the Handi Quilter Classroom in Bountiful for a 3 day educational experience that I have been assured by Lynn is incredible! 

Yes, I told Lynn right off the bat 'cuz, afterall, I just had to tell somebody...and I wanted to pick her brain a little before I accepted the prize, knowing that she adores her Handi Quilter Longarm & has experienced a Handi Quilter retreat.  As it turns out, she enjoyed the first retreat so much she returned a second time!  She sang the praises of the Educators saying "You HAVE to go!  You'll learn so much!" & added that "the food is great & they treat you like family!"
 

Thank you SEW much to All People Quilt.com
 Meredith Corp.,

Better Homes & Gardens, American Patchwork & Quilting,

& Handi Quilter

for extending this great learning opportunity for myself and the other three ladies who are scattered across the US to learn tips and techniques to finish our own quilts!
 

Serendipity Quilts

This weekend is the Idaho PieceMakerS Quilt Show & I just had to share some photos from a special display.  There were about 10 quilts...I'm just sharing my four favorites today!  They are all inspired by Susan Carlson's Serendipity Quilts.  Glue, netting & quilting is all that's keeping everything in it's place in these Art Quilts.

"Purple Pansy Eater" is actually more vibrant in person.

Taken from a family photo, her eartag was replaced by a quite lovely dangly earring!

I fell in love with her!  She could follow me home anytime she wants!

 

 This peachy little Filly is called Sun Blossom.

Little girls sure like to dance with Butterflies...or is it the other way around?

 

This is La Mama...taken from a black and white photo of an Alpaca.

Do you suppose some of his veggies are fermenting? 

I can practically hear the rumblings of his modified ruminant stomach!

Did you know that while most ruminants (animals that chew a cud), have a 4 compartment stomach, the South American Camelid Family has just 3 compartments?  This makes them much more fuel efficient which is a good thing in the High Altiplano where the air is thin and the vegetation is sparse, and a not so good thing when they immigrate to the land where Food Equals Love!

That's your lesson from the obsessed, card carrying, self described, Llamama today kids!

 

My only other experience with purple Lama Fiber was when we experimented with Kool-Aid dying during our 4-H years with the kids, supplied by our big, sweet, roman nosed, white Llama with the leaky heart valve & the angular limb deformities. Ironically he was named Lucky, only because his Dams name was Lucy!  He was the greatest babysitter we ever had, for both 2 leggeds and our 4 legged weanling Crias.  It was also not uncommon to see goat kids bouncing around him and twisting and leaping off his back if he happened to be laying down.  Bless his sweet imperfect heart.  We weren't sure he'd live to be 6 months old and he lived to be 18 years old!  We all, including our Vets, learned so much from this old guy, when camelids were still a bit of a North American mystery. Mostly, we learned love, patience, purpose and tolerance from him and to look at every day he was still with us as a most precious gift.

 

"The Lookout" is related to La Mama!  Their makers are sisters!

Raccoons are so darn cute!  I love them...except for when they start helping themselves to our spendy cat food! 

I loved this display.  I've been fascinated by this technique since I fell in love with Judy Mathieson's Ewe, "Rosie With The Golden Fleece" (click inside the quotation marks to see Rosie!) that she had laying on her Meet n' Greet table when she was the featured artist at Quilting In The Garden in 2012!  There she was demonstrating her wonderful Mariners Compass piecing technique on her cute little featherweight and it was everything I could do to keep from gathering Rosie up in my arms and hugging her!

 

So, if anybody needs me, I'm likely down the street in Julia's classroom paying tribute to one much loved critter or another!

 

There's more quilt show to come, so keep an eye out!

 

Hummingly Yours! (Llama Speak)

 

~Nancie Anne

It Feels Like Home To Me

Pieced, Appliqued, Embroidered, Quilted, Blocked, Trimmed, Bound, Labeled, Loved.

Blocked & Drying

I just have to say Thank You to that "well known by quilters" company that makes the nice scented starch for supplying good quality spray nozzles on their bottles!  We've purchased numerous empty spray bottles for a variety of uses over the past few years and sooner rather than later, we are completely frustrated because they never seem to spray correctly.  Therefore, I have a closely guarded collection of 4 or 5 of "their" spray bottles that I use for water or other concoctions. 
Upon recommendation by a LQS,  I also divide the contents of a full bottle into 2 bottles and dilute it.  It works just as well and goes twice as far!
I've also been known to toss my empties in the car, just in case I happen to drop by a quilt shop, so I can get a refill while I just happen to be there...totally an unplanned stop...really! 
So if you park by a little blue car with empty starch bottles rolling around on the floor boards...that could be me!

On the last Shop Hop that took me 2 1/2 hours into Oregon, I stopped in at the shop where I had previously purchased the olive green plaid homespun, twice, & purchased what was left on the bolt.  Odd as that may sound, it has, over time, become one of my favorite fabrics.  I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it, I just knew that sooner or later I'd be kicking myself if I didn't get more while I still could. 
That intuition paid off.  I had set aside a brown homespun for a potential binding while the quilt was away at the quilters.  When I put the two together I had an immediate Ick! Pooey!! Yuk!!! moment and went just as quickly to the homespun stash and grabbed my favorite green.
I worried for about 2 minutes, about strips of the same green landing so closely together, but once it was there, I was soon over it!  I love it and I'm so glad I made that purchase or I wouldn't have had enough to get all the way around.

Careful cutting, careful pressing with tons of Heavy Spray Starch (not the sweet smelling stuff) helped it go on beautifully.  The little disposable orange Steris bag clips that one of our nurses collected in a drawer & gifted to me have come in so handy for keeping my bindings straight as I do the handwork part of stitching them down!  Funny little things that squeeze open and closed & look like a Preying Mantis' front legs!  Sadly, we no longer use the Steris Machines, so no more cool clippys for me!  I have to keep good track of those I have. Fortunately one of our OR Techs also gifted me a great little plastic container that once held sterile implants used in an orthopaedic surgery, to keep them in. 
Repurposing at its best!  That is what we quilters do, right?

 

 So yeah, don't die of shock here...but I've officially finished three quilts in the last two weeks. 

I'm so proud of me!!!

 

So here we go...drumroll!

Country Homecoming,

now

"It Feels Like Home To Me"

 

Here is part of what I put on the label. 

There are Places you feel Safe,

Arms that Envelope you with Love,

Sights and Sounds that Calm Your Senses & Fill Your Heart,

Smells that Entice you to Breathe Deeper, Fill your Lungs, and Exhale a Sigh…

This Quilt, for Me, is That. 

Simply Put,

It Feels Like Home To Me…

It feels like home to me, it feels like home to me
It feels like I'm all the way back where I come from
It feels like home to me, it feels like home to me
It feels like I'm all the way back where I belong…

Completed July 10, 2015

~Nancie Anne

A Very Belated Finish.

On July 4th, 2012, I shared this photo with you all of my freshly pieced Liberty Road quilt, made with Charlevoix prints, all by Minick & Simpson, & my Executive Sewing Studio Assistant, Maecee.  Shortly after this photo was taken I decided on borders and added my own little bits of applique to what otherwise looked like a vast wasteland & then off to be quilted.  She was soon back and has hung on the wall all summer the last two summers...with her batting showing around the edges like a pair of bloomers that were run up a flagpole!

I decided to avoid furthering her embarrassment, it was time she was bound and labeled before going up this year.  I had every intention of getting the job done by the Fourth, but you know how life gets in the way of good intentions sometimes!

So, Ta-Da!  I finished the binding & label yesterday, having decided to just trim up and join select scraps from the excess backing.  The plan is to get her on the wall, waving proudly, if not more demurely, in the next couple of days!



Happy Really Belated Fourth Ya'll!

~Nancie Anne...and Maecee

Flutter By, Butterfly!

Finally finished!  I'm scratching this UFO off my list and it went into the hands of the birthday girl yesterday!  I started this for her several years ago, and she's no longer that little teenager, but she loves it still!  I'm trying really hard to follow your advice Lynn, and be a good Finisher!

On the other hand...what kind of ditzy person gifts someone a quilt on a 106 degree day?????

"Nobody can see, until I'm done reading the label"

If nothing else, this girl of mine understands the importance of documenting.  I'm not sure that she would accept a quilt 'til the "paperwork" was done!

The label itself was pretty much one entire day...I resized the design I've started putting on all my labels...then I had to pick just the right words to say, then do the freezer paper on fabric thing and run it through the printer, and heat set it...and trim it...and heat set it again... put a border on it...and heat set it again...then carefully pin it on smooth any wrinkles and stitch it down.

Parenting 101...

"Be Detailed Oriented, I Said,

Be Employable, I Said...

People Will Appreciate That, I Said!"

"Oh the back is so colorful"

 

The panel in the center of the back was from a shop hop goody bag.

 

 

Love that smile!

"I'm going to hug it and squeeze it and take it home!"

The quilter now has free motion swirls down pat!  Just what the owner asked for!

Buggy Barn's Butterfly Quilt with sashing inspired by Atkinson's Designs Slideshow.

 

I fussed over the narrow scrappy border...would it be too much?  Would it be so narrow that any little wobble would show?

Wish you could see the white fabric in person!  The design on it mimics the butterflies antennae!

 

What do you do when you realize you got carried away and made 4 extras blocks?

Make shams...King Sized Shams!  They're SOOOO Squishy!

 

And yeah...those shams are king sized and yeah that quilt weighs a ton!

I should've named it Butter-Zilla!

 

Oh well!  Go Big or Go Home!  Right?

 

~Stay Cool!

Nancie Anne

 

Why Is The Sky Blue?

I read a Facebook post this morning written by a woman whose 90 year old Mother was having difficulty with the idea of transitioning to a nursing home rather returning to her home, until she was wheeled into her room and saw waiting for her the two familiar quilts her daughter brought ahead of her, arranged on the bed and chair, and had waiting to welcome her arrival. 
No greater comfort could this woman have thoughtfully provided her Mother.  It touched my heart, and as a result, this is what poured forth...

You ask why we quilt...you may as well ask why the sky is blue...I can't answer that, but I've often searched for the perfect sky blue fabric.  You may as well ask why we breathe in and out...for some, maybe many, quilting could well be the answer.
We quilt for our sanity...we quilt to fulfill that urge to create...we quilt to fill emptiness..we quilt so that there will be something tangible left when we are no longer here...we quilt to tell our story...we quilt because it feels like "home"...we quilt for joy...for celebration and heartache...for life...for death...for comfort...we quilt to touch someone else's heart and to fill our own.

So here's what's been happening since I've been neglecting my blog...the neverending URI is pretty much gone, and I finally returned to work.  The annoying spring allergies remain.  Youngest daughter is in a new relationship and all sweet and twitterpated!  Youngest son is wedding planning.  Garden is finally getting started...lettuce, spinach, green onions and peas are now in.  Beans are next.  I'm another year older...they've killed off McDreamy...a beautiful new Princess was born...one of our BSU football standouts was drafted by the Dolphins and 52 year old Gary Stevens almost won another Kentucky Derby, post knee replacement surgery.  
I will not address the idiocy and violence that is occurring in this nation where we should be getting along peacefully and counting our freaking blessings!

These snowman stitcheries have been my "laying around getting well" project on days when I had some energy.  My apologies...you're getting mostly cell phone quality photos today...

 

Youngest daughters Butterfly quilt and shams are in the mail making their way to the quilter.

Again...sorry about the picture quality...I promise something better when it flies back home!

 

 

This is the wild pieced backing of leftovers and brights that I wanted to use up. You don't want to know how long I spent trimming, measuring and setting all this together, but it will be fun to crawl under and get peeks of when all is said and done.  The center flower basket panel was in a shop hop gift bag that I received a couple of years ago.  Yessiree, Use it up, Make due!

 

That now being off my plate...I have to get those challenge blocks from last summers quilt show put together in some fashion so that they all look like they are capable of coexisting! 

The Paisley is the common denominator aka challenge fabric. 

Here's my progress.  Right after this, I'm taking two of the contributed blocks apart and reassembling them so that I have pointy bits in the corners rather than cut off dog ears. 

I think there will be some embroidery and perhaps even some applique cover-ups added to some of the other blocks.

The owl and the churn dash blocks are mine. 

The "interesting" dusky tealish-aquaish paired with orange is not.
There's a lot of orange goin' on here, and some prints that are reading salmon orange in this fuzzy photo picture (first churndash) are actually raspberry pink in person. 

A more focused look at my little hooter, Owliver!

(His middle name is  Owloyicios)

The kitties will be joining Owly (for short) in a later row. 

Do you see both kitties?

 

Better get back at it to see what I can accomplish before I have to go back out into the work world tomorrow.

 

~Nancie Anne