Valentines

I have been busily working on my beads. It is very time consuming but great to occupy your hands while watching programs such as LOST. (I am trying hard to keep up with it.)

Besides that I have been making some valentines cards. It is part of my new years resolution to
make homemade whenever possible to save money and be more creative. I will show them later as too many of my friends/family view my blog and I do not want them to see them before they get them in the mail.

Tomorrow we are supposed to be above freezing! 34 degrees. Since it is in the single digits today I will wait to see it before I believe it.

Morning Mourning Doves

I got up this morning and was making some coffee in the kitchen and peered out to see this on the rail of my deck. They were all snuggled up trying to stay warm on the wooden rail instead of the snowy icy ground. I have always loved this bird and do not like their name. They are so peaceful and friendly that to think of them sad and "Mourning" does not suit them.

I worked on my beads last night once again. Hopefully I will keep getting a little done each night.

I am also reading "The Story of Edgar Sawtelle" and loving it. I do not know the ending but heard it is very sad. I have also heard that Oprah and Tom Hanks are going to make the movie together and that there are two more books to follow this one. So I am enjoying it, but it too takes some time out of my day. I just can not find time to do all that I want to do.

Blondes have more fun?

I decided my blonde did not have the movement I wanted, so I gave her a new body. Now I think she is having more fun! I plan to add a hint of lace below her skirt to lengthen it just bit. The sun was shining in the window so I apologize for the photo.

Then last night, while watching tv, I did some more beading. I am getting the hang of it now and move along a little faster. I really like doing it as it is relaxing and yet keeps me from eating. (I am on a diet to lose 10 pounds before summer!)

It is freezing cold here. You really have to bundle up whenever you go out and not forget your gloves or your hands freeze in a matter of minutes. Soon it will be February though and once that is over we are on our way to spring!

Beads, Blondes & Boys

Yesterday we made a trip to visit our son Jason and our other son Jon, his wife Becky and our one year old Grandson. We left at 8:30 and got there at around 11. On the way we met our daughter Molly and she rode with us. We had a nice lunch at Olive Garden and then spent the afternoon visiting at Jon and Becky's house. Max is just learning so much right now it is amazing the growth he shows in a matter of weeks and those blue eyes just melt your heart.

Last nite I did find time to do one new girl, a blonde, for Mulberry Bush. Then I needed to just sit on the couch and relax, so I took my floral quilt and began the beading. Took me a bit to get myself set up so my two dogs did not interfere with the beads as they were curious as to what was in all those plastic containers. I got a good start and sort of enjoyed it. I am doing what is called "haloing" where you halo the flowers with beads and then just put a few on the flower itself. I decided to do that because I liked the flowers as they were and thought the detail on them was exciting enough.

We will see how it progresses.

On to the beading!

This morning I finished the quilting on the floral beaded quilt. I am happy with it and wish the metallic thread showed up better in the photograph. I am excited to start the beading. I have not added the binding yet. Not sure if I should do that before of after beading. If it matters please let me know.

The Frost Wizard

Did not have much time to quilt yesterday. Had a delightful conversation with my sister Vicki, who lives in Kalama Wa. She is 3 years younger than me and the third oldest of my 4 sisters.
I miss her a lot since she lives so very far away from me, but thank goodness for technology. Soon we will be able to skype each other and that will be better yet.

I was quilting on the floral quilt for a little while and kept looking at this frost on my window. In my mind it became a wizard. The more I looked at it the more wizardy it became, but alas, he is gone today. Too bad he could not wave his feather wand and finish the quilting for me!

Inauguration Day!

Just a few pictures of the quilting progress on my soon to be beaded floral quilt. Had a bit of time this morning before I had to quit to watch this historic event in America.... The inauguration of President Barack Obama. We are all so excited and hopeful.

Mulberry Bush

What a great day of progress! I worked on Mulberry Bush for the entire afternoon. Four of my girls are together. I still will have three to four to go. Also put the beginnings of my kite in the corner. Now that I am moving along I feel a lot better about the quilt. There are many elements in this quilt and I am excited to keep adding them. Now to relax a bit with a cup of tea and a magazine.

Still working!

I did not get much studio time yesterday. It started in my kitchen when I opened a cupboard door and decided to undo the clutter that had developed in there. That led to opening all cupboard doors and eliminating all the pots I never use, gadgets that are never used, worn out appliances and whatever else just needed dumping or a trip to Good Will. I guess I was purging. It ended up taking all of my morning and part of the afternoon.

Then my dear husband, asked me if I was in the mood for a date night. Now a date night for us means picking up a gourmet pizza and a movie and relaxing together. I was not going to pass up on that. So at 3:30 we are eating pizza (not so bad since no lunch was served during my purge)! We then watched not one, but two movies. I will not even tell you the titles because they were awful.

You see, we got this new blu ray player and now all my husband wants are blu ray movies. Our local movie rental carries only action films so far in Blu ray. This is not my style and to be honest, no his either. By the end of the two movies, he was cured! So now we will just watch good movies whether blu ray or not.

By the time we were finished with watching those it was time for two of my favorite shows, Desperate Housewives and Brothers and Sisters. I really wished it was time for me to begin beading on my floral quilt because with all this tv/movie watching I would have been well along my way! Unfortunately I am still quilting it.

Publish Post

So I am off to work on one of my two quilts. I think it is time to construct some of my new girls.

Quilting progress

Making progress on quilting my flowers etc. so I can start the bead work. With the cold temperatures and grey days, it is nice to be working in turquoise/teal and orange.

Have been rethinking my Mulberry Bush quilt and think I am ready once again to begin the girls.
So hopefully over the weekend I will make some progress. My quilting friend, Claudia, had some great ideas for me. It is nice when you are stuck to have someone to get you thinking again and moving in the right direction.

Starting Over

Today I spent most of the afternoon quilting one flower on my quilt that I plan on beading. Did a couple of smaller flowers too as well as about 1/3 of the background. I am really happy how it looks and it will only look better with the beads on it. I used teal, brown, Orange, black metallic and copper metallic thread.

When I finished that I went back to my girl that I wanted to put on my Mulberry Bush quilt. I thought maybe I would try satin stitching the edge.....well that was a mistake. I am not happy with the results, part of which is me and not doing a very good job. I just do not like the feel of it. No softness no movement, too stiff. So I am starting over not sure of my plan but I do know this is not it. I am also rethinking my color palette and my go softer with the clothing to go back to my idea of an old time story book.

It is interesting to me how early failure, no matter how frustrating, can sometimes be the best thing to happen to lead you in the right direction.

New Header

How do you like my new header? My daughter, Molly, designed this for me. She made up business cards, which she gave me for Christmas and now this new header for my blog which is my logo. I am very happy with it and very proud of her and her talent as a graphic designer. If anyone needs some work done, I recommend her.

I worked part of the day on the beaded floral quilt. Finished quilting the black and white flowers.
Now I am switching to a rayon thread for some sheen and then I will add the metallic. After that I should be ready to bead it.

Today, since we are experiancing the coldest day in a decade here with temps at -15 and windchills of -40 we will keep our business closed. So.....I am planning on working on the Mulberry quilt in between the machine quilting. Hopefully I will have some pictures to share with you later.

Bit 'O Progress

Had time to begin quilting on the floral quilt I plan on beading. I am starting out with varigated threads. I plan on using some rayons and finally some metallic. When that is all complete I will begin beading. I found it very hard to work on the black and white fabric especially the mums. For some reason my eyes kept losing focus, like I was in a maze! So I decided that was enough of working on that and switched to piecing the background and two borders on the Mulberry Quilt. I had for gotten how time consuming that job is when doing a larger sized piece.
Plus I was being very careful since the inner border is only 1 inch wide. But I finished it and
actually began work on one of the girls who is furthest in the background.

Quilting and Cleaning

Yesterday was spent doing long overdue heavy cleaning. It just had to be done and I had put it off way to long. The only time I have to do it is on one of my two days off because once I start I do not like to quit until it is finished.

The good news is I started early and finished by 3pm so could work on my beaded quilt beginning the quilting. I hope today to work some more on that as well as perhaps start making one of my girls for the mulberry quilt. We will see how far I get. ( We are supposed to get snow so that means I will get my first hand at using our snowblowers.) I did drop some beads on it just to see how the colors will look and I think some of these will work. I also added a few more flowers. Just did not look balanced to me the way it was. I think it is much better now.

Saturday night I went out to get a photo of the full moon. I know it is called something strange but forgot its name. The shadows from the trees in my yard were so sharp it was just beautiful and peaceful out there. My camera is not good enough to get good shots, but you will get a bit of the feel. It would have been a great night for a walk.

Yesterday while working at my kitchen sink I was watching all the mourning doves line up on the power lines at the back of our lot. They do this everyday now. I am happy to see them.

Beading Project

Okay, here is the beginning of the 27 x 22 quilt that I plan on beading to death. I now have to quilt it first and then start all the beading. It is different. I used a black and white floral on the right side and then a blue on the left. I added the fabulous flowers in orange and brown to both sides and then brought some of the black and white over to the blue side too. I wanted to intermingle them just a bit. I hope to spill some of the beads into the border as well. This should be interesting. Now to quilt it first.

I am also getting ready to start the Mulberry Bush quilt. I have re-layed it out on my design wall
(this is when I wish my studio could support two design walls) and will begin working on each of the girls separately.

Mandarin Goby

My daughter Molly and her boyfriend Mark just got a new saltwater fish. It is called a Mandarin Goby. I told her that God must have been in an art quilt mood when he created fish! This is just unbelievable so I had to share with you. Look at those colors!

Sidetracked

I am beginning to appreciate all the things that Bob does for us. It is really hard once you are responsible for everything from little things like opening up a bottle of juice to big things like shoveling snow! (So far we are lucky because we have only had one inch out of the six that were predicted...but it is supposed to snow again tomorrow!) Then there is the element of his manliness being compromised. He has always been a doer and not a couch potato. So this is very hard on him too. But "this too will pass"! (For those of you who do not know, he broke his right wrist this week.)

I did not have the time to get into my "Mulberry Bush" quilt. When I have too much on my mind I just can not tackle a bigger project like this will be, but I still needed to do something. So I started something small that I want to put beads all over. My dear quilting sister, Bonnie, gave me a book on adding lots of beads to your quilt. Well I read it the night before last and it really made me want to try it on a small quilt. That way, while working on the larger piece or watching tv, I can spend in-between time putting beads on the small one. I only had about half an hour this morning to begin it, but hopefully will have a little time tonight and some photos tomorrow.

Mulberry Bush

Well, here is my next quilt. I am calling it "The Mulberry Bush". I have sketched out the children and some animal characters. I may not add all of them but they are ready in case I do.
I want it to look like the old time storybook illustrations. I plan on doing all the girls dresses in bright pink, yellow, greens and blues. The tree will go up through the middle and the cat will be looking down from a tree branch. There will be a kite up in one border corner with the tail curling around into the quilt body. Other things may come to mind as I progress through this
piece so we will see where it goes.

Wrist Woes

While doing a repair on a Grandfather Clock at a Assisted Living Complex in Sheboygan, my husband tripped on the steps and in trying to stop his fall he pulled his shoulder and either sprained or broke his wrist. He goes in to the doctor this morning for X rays. I am crossing my fingers it is a sprain because a break is going to make it impossible for him to repair clocks which is important to our business now when retail is down so far.

So I may be taking time to repair clocks, do the snowblowing, and all the other little jobs he does around the house and store.

Let us pray!!!!!

"Evening Solitude"

Last nite I put on the new binding and added a few more dew drops made from glass crystals and
decided it was complete. The title for this 21X 24 inch quilt is "Evening Solitude". I hope you can see the detail of the border where I quilted two meandering lines around the quilt and between them I added french knots. I really like that enhancement to this border and it repeated the addition of dew drops to the body of the quilt. I also decided to show the back of this quilt. I have not done that in the past but thought maybe I will since it is a whole other challenge to make the backs of our quilts tidy and interesting. In the past I have appliqued fish, birds, and flowers on the back sleeves and labels. I did not with this one because I am not sure it is worth the time. I know at shows many time the white glove person will say...."wait until you see the back!" ...and then
grab a corner and show you this other side of the quilt. Although interesting, I still have not decided myself if the extra work involved, which takes time away from your next piece, is worth it.
Does it ever get seen once the quilt is hanging in its permanent home? Is it just the little surprise that you get when you least expect it that makes the time involved worthwhile? I have decided to omit it for this little quilt.

Binding woes!

I always hate finishing up a quilt. I am talking about the binding, the label and the sleeve. Last night when I think I should have called it quits, I decided on a multi colored binding for my Pinecone quilt. It was sort of woodsy looking and I thought the contrast would be good. When I finished all the above steps, I put it back on my design wall and that binding was all wrong. Looked good when I auditioned it, I thought (maybe I just wanted this step over and I was tired), but once finished it was distracting to the rest of the quilt.

I decided to sleep on it.

This morning it was just as bad. So today I am ripping it off and redoing it. Thank goodness this is a smaller quilt. Learned a big lesson about stopping when you know you are just in the "I want to get this done" mode!

Antique Quilts

When I got home from work last night and finished dinner, I decided to finish reading "The Secret Life of Bees". I loved this book. It was a wonderful character study and reminded me of how far we have come since the 60's.

Since that meant I did not have time to quilt, I decided to photograph some more of my antique quilts. I needed to refold them anyway ( I mark my calendar to remind me). So here they are.
The only one that is family made is the pale grey and pink star quilt. This one was made by my husband's Grandmother Marie Murphy in Greenfield Indiana.

The other quilts I have purchased while owning our antique business. Over the years I have had to keep a few that have crossed my path. If I had had it my way, I would have kept them all but space requirements held me back. The one red and green one Bob bought for me and there was no history of who or where it was made. I wish it did but like most of these were sold at auction with no history attached. I know it is mid 1800's and just hope the fabric holds up with care. The one with all the most close up blocks was made in Cascade Wisconsin by the same woman who made the previously posted block. I love the colors and everything about this quilt. It actually is tied and does not seem to have any batting. It is all hand done with the exception of the binding which is machine sewn.

So I hope you enjoy these fragile quilts. I know the condition of the green and red one is most fragile so I make sure I refold it as often as I can and keep it out of the light. I call it "Spinning Feathers" but am not sure of the actual pattern.