Those jelly roll quilts

I'm sure you've seen them.  You sew a whole jelly roll end to end and then grab the two ends and sew them lengthwise.  They're kinda boring.  Just a buncha strips sewn together.  The only variations are sewing the strips together with bias seams or straight seams and maybe adding a square between the strips when you use the straight seams.

But I had a black and white jelly roll.

So I jazzed it up.

I'll add a very narrow border of orange.  Then I'm going to have to hunt for border fabric.  The black and white I have is more off white and just doesn't work.

Sunflowers!

I'm really happy with the way the sunflower turned out.

The Meadowlark is pretty cool too.  The wheat has been fairly uncooperative so far though.  I was going to make it with beads and perle cotton but the beads were too big, the wrong shape and the wrong color.  They just flat wouldn't work.  I looked thru every bead website I could find and Hobby Lobby and I didn't find anything that would work.  So I'm fusing it too.  Talk about tedious!!

In other quilty news, I'm now the chairman of the quilt section at the county fair.  I knew that Baker Arts thing would just lead me into more trouble!!

I'm working on the Kansas, My Kansas challenge wall hanging.  It's not due until May so I have only been doing enough to show "participation."

Anyway, I have the main sections done for the background now.  I've figured out how I'm going to do the wheat so far.  I am still not sure about the sunflowers.

fabric bowls

So at the retreat in October we had a table of "white elephant" type stuff.  Basically books and notions somebody did want anymore.  Each table drew four cards and each table got to go the the white elephant table according to the cards they drew.  The pickings were starting to get a little low and I saw the book "Fast, Fun, & Easy Fabric Bowls."  I didn't take it the first time I saw it but it was still on the table the next time so I grabbed it.

When I went to Denver at the beginning of November to pick my BFF up to come visit for a month we did a fast shopping trip at JoAnn's and I bought a couple of yards of Peltex II.  It's fusible on both sides so you don't have to use up a bunch of Wonder Under too.

So this is the results.  Next time JoAnn's has a 50% off coupon and I have the money I'm buying a whole bolt of Peltex!!

All three of these bowls are on their way to their new homes now.

Silence descends!

Boy did it ever!!  My BFF was here all month.  We had a great time! 

Then Son 1 and his family and my mother came for a "pre-Thanksgiving" dinner since he had to work on T-D.  My youngest granddaughter will be 1 tomorrow and is just the cutest and goofiest thing ever!

Then the next week on Tuesday I went and picked up DGD #2 and her dad came on Wednesday.  Then for T-D my hubby's best friend, his wife and 3 kids plus my mom came for dinner.  I think I outdid my self this year and reached turkey gravy nirvana.

I took my BFF home yesterday and hubby is off at his second job and the house is totally silent again.  I mean like clock ticking, I hear the cat snoring silent.  LOL!

In quilty news, I am suddenly the chairman of a quilt show at our local arts center.  I volunteered to "help" and now I'm in charge.  The chairman's husband has several medical issues and she quit.  She gave me notice 2 whole hours before the board meeting.  Wasn't that sweet??  I still don't have any of her notes.  Hopefully I can get them before the guild meeting next tuesday.  If she had let me know right after the guild meeting at the first of November when she also didn't show up I could have had several things done and had more info for the board meeting.  I guess I'll spend the next few days playing catch up!

a UFO finish

I have been working on going thru everything and sorting things out.  Since I've moved 3 times in three years and two of those moves were only 9 months apart things got to be kind of a mess and really needed sorted out and organized.


I have no idea what I was originally going to do with these blocks.  I know I made them at least 6 years ago because we moved from that house in 2005.  Anyway, there were 10 of them.  6 of one color scheme and 4 of another color scheme.  And I had some yardage of two fabrics with them.  I put 9 of the blocks together and added borders for a nice size throw and turned the extra block into an accent pillow to go with it.  I love the way the plaid and gingham work with the florals.

I have one more set of UFO blocks put together.  It's not quilted yet though.

the next challenge project

The next challenge project for the guild I'm in is called "Kansas, My Kansas or what ever state you're from.

I have a rough sketch of what I'm going to do.  I'm going to use the Kansas dugout blocks in dark green and tan at the bottom.  Then the Kansas troubles block in two shades of blue and white and at the top two lines of flying geese.  I'll applique wheat and sunflowers on it and it'll be framed with a wood print fabric I have.