Thursday, September 29, 2011

Quilts and Pigs

What else do you expect from me? LOL


I sewed this together several weeks ago. I've been using Bonnie Hunter's Leaders and Enders method with the little squares then sewed them leaders and enders again into four patches. Then I used Mary's pattern
4 Patches on the Diagonal and put them all together. And of course my quilt top is turned the opposite from Mary's pictured in her instructions. LOL It is VERY scrappy. Some people like scrappy and some like "controlled" scrappy. I like SCRAPPY. But next time I might use solid or solid looking fabric for the large half square triangles. What do you think? I will definitely be making more quilts from this pattern. I have lots more squares! LOL  I haven't decided whether to add a border or not yet. What do you think?

We have four litters of pigs that have been born with one more due in a couple of days.  The pen on the left has one mama and one baby. This mama had trouble having hers and we were very blessed that she and one baby are alive and well. The mama in front of the camera has six babies. Can you see the little ones in the back napping in the sun? These babies are around 3 weeks old. They are starting to eat feed and will be weaned soon.





These are still in the barn and are from a litter of ten. They have a Berkshire mama and a Hampshire daddy.










These are Hampshires babies also still in the barn and also ten in their litter.

Aren't they all sweet? I just love to hear the mama hogs call their babies when their milk lets down. They all scramble to latch on and fight over teats and squeal. Hilarious.

Blessings,

Monday, September 26, 2011

Picture Perfect Weekend

That's what we had at the Post Oak Quilt Show. DH and I had an outdoor booth and it was an absolutely fantastic weekend. I was busy last week preparing for the booth: cutting fat quarters, yards, etc. I organized totes; priced items; made a few kits up; etc. We had a good profitable time. I counted how many fat quarters and yards we sold. I am so surprised. We sold a good many but you know you can barely tell that they are missing! Did God multiply? Did they fluff up? It is amazing for sure. Thanks to all who came out and stopped by our booth. We had a great time. And most of all--Thank You Post Oak Quilters.

We got everything unloaded and put back in it's place. And again DH was great help. I couldn't do it without him. I did call ahead and got some help putting up and taking down the canopy. Thanks to the Scarbers and others who lent a hand. 

One of our customers showed me a picture of a quilt on her cell phone asking if I had the pattern. I did not.  I did some searching today. I hope she reads this so she can find it. I found it at Joy's Fabrics & Quilts in Godley, Tx. The pattern is called Quick Pieced Posies by Jan Ward. The link below is the a jpg of the quilt.
http://www.joysfabrics.com/Bluebonnets2002.JPG

DH has an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon Wednesday about his hip. I will keep you posted.

Blessings,
 

Friday, September 16, 2011

Giveaway

1 Choice 4 Quilting has a GIVEAWAY! Hurry on over and register. You have choices! She wants your best quilting tips for new quilters. While you're there look around--can you say SHOPPING.

Have a good Friday.
Blessings,

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Some Little Visitors and the Quilting Room


DGS Mason and DGD Paisley came to stay for a few days this week. We played with sidewalk chalk, dug in the dirt, rocked the baby, road tricycles, played with toys, etc. etc. They were very good and lots of fun. Aren't they growing?

I remembered to take my camera to quilting on Wednesday. I remembered to get it out of my purse. I remembered to take pictures. Thumbs up!

Below is Mickey's beautiful quilt. This is a Pam Bono pattern. We had borrowed her pattern and were in the process of making the blocks for a raffle quilt when the building burned. We lost six blocks in the fire. I had made one just like the sunflower one in this quilt. 

 Bonnie pieced this one from cute flannel prints that were donated to us. From left to right are Bonnie, Marie, and Mickey.


Kathleen is crocheting since there wasn't room at the quilt to quilt. We had several afghans donated that were not finished.
Sharon and Jan are almost ready to turn the quilt. This quilt belongs to Sharon. She had it ready to be quilted and when hers was lost in the fire we told her to bring it and we would quilt it. I hadn't realized until I took this picture that I should have tidied up the quilt top before taking the picture. LOL Some of the papers are the stencils that Sharon traced so we could determine the quilting lines a little better.
Here they are removing pins and unscrewing the c clamps to turn. Do you see that trunk behind Sharon? That was donated to us. Pretty neat, huh?
And here they are turning what has been quilted. The little disk you see is used to cushion the c clamp.

So there you have it.  I will take my camera again-- when I can remember!

Blessings,

Tuesday, September 06, 2011

Visitors and COOLER weather

My daughter, Amanda, called on Friday evening and asked if they could come over Saturday evening for supper and visit. YES! That meant I had to clean house. I hadn't done any good cleaning for awhile. Just vacuuming and laundry for a couple of weeks--so I tore through the house Saturday morning. Washed several loads of clothes and hung out. Stripped our bed and washed sheets. I straightened and dusted. Picked up the sewing room--seems like it always needs picking up. Things come apart in there pretty fast.

Amanda's husband asked if we might have fried okra for supper. Since we didn't have a garden this year we have to rely on the grocery store or MAYBE someone who did plant one. We'd had some okra gifted to us last week by an older gentleman that DH knows. Would you believe he stopped by with just the right amount for our supper? And it was so good. The last time DH barbecued we had some German sausage in the freezer and he grilled about five pounds and I froze it in separate packages for future meals. I got out enough for our meal and Amanda had asked for my fried potatoes. I decided homemade ice cream would be good so got that together and DH got it going for us. Our meal was great and we had a good visit. DGD Aimee asked her mom if she could stay and spend the weekend with us.(She wanted to sew. : )) They hadn't planned on that. They had shopped at a thrift store that day and had picked up a couple of clothing items. I told them we could run to the store for a toothbrush and undies. So that's what we did. She had finished the body of her quilt last time she was visiting. This time we added her border. We also had to comb out one of the Cabbage Patch dolls hair and rebraid it. We had a great time. We took her home yesterday and ate lunch at their house and enjoyed sitting on the porch with a cool breeze.

The weather is much cooler! We stayed in the eighties yesterday and overnight low was 59 degrees. Woohoo! The a/c is off. In fact it felt pretty darn cool this morning.

Please pray for the wildfires across the state of Texas. A huge fire is burning east of Austin--where nearly 500 homes have burned and thousands of acres. The Possum Kingdom fire is still burning. This one is in the same general area as the one back in April.

I'm praying for rain for all those who need it and for relief for those that don't.

Blessings,