July is flying by...

July is flying by and I still have lots to do. We got past the 2 funerals this month just to have another. Our youngest friends died this time and his girlfriend. Lots to that story... but I will just say we are so sad. We called Jason our 3rd son... Funeral will be monday, so I am busy quilting today trying to keep my mind off all the sadness. These are the worst set of tragidies I have every seen. Thank God for being there to give us comfort and guidance.

This is the front and back on one quilt. I used the all over meander in a rossette style. Just my way of doing things.
I tried to add another photo, but will have to add it later. I am still learning how this works. check out my Photo Album at; http://community.webshots.com/user/beansnana

Happy quilting...

Wandering again

Good Monday Morning to all,
I spent Saturday wandering through a craft show and 4 fabric shops with my friend. I have more fabric than a fabric store now... But I can always find more treasures with the help of my friends. I have been steady busy quilting... Quilting many for customers, but I have recently pieced 4 of my own. I will need to get pictures going. But I have also done some other projects.
I made a couple of beach towel bags that were so much fun to make. I had been told about them, but never seen one, so I GOOGLED around and found this link.
http://www.chezlin.com/2008/04/oldie-but-goldie-towel-pool-bag/
Of course I did not make mine just that way. I embroidered an outside pocket and used cotton fabric for the bag part. I also put 2 - 1" pleats in the bottom to give extra room for the towel to fold inside. I will attach picture of it open and folded.
Then this weekend I made a Grooms Cake for a wedding at the church. Now for those of you who don't know. In this part of the country they have the "Wedding cake" usually called the brides cake and the Groom's cake, usually a chocolate sheet cake. For what reason I don't know, but that is how it is.... This person requested a red chili pepper on the cake. So I made a Red Velvet sheet cake, iced with Cream Cheese Icing, and sprinkled with Rev Velvet cake crumbs.
The Chili Pepper is white cake(because it is easier to cut and shape) iced with cream cheese icing and covered with Rolled Buttercream. I used to be a baker and cake decorator, but I don't do much any more. I was so surprised at how fast it was to make and how much I enjoyed doing it.
I guess you can say that was one "Hot" Cake...
On a sad note..... When our children were young and going to school we lived in Louisiana, our oldest son had on friend that was his best friend all the way through graduation. We knew his family well and were all involved in school, church and community activities for years. We moved from that area over 10 years ago but still hold our friends there dear. Any way, Daniel was killed this weekend along with his 9 year old son. They were riding a motorcycle in their small community in North Dakota and a car backed out of a driveway and hit them. I am sure it was just an accident. But both of them died. My sons are so sad. Please pray for this family. Daniel leaves behind a loving wife and two other sons, his parents and a host of friends. They will need a lot of comforting during this time.
Now it is time for me to get busy.. I have lots to do this week and a memorial to attend...

Happy quilting to all

Twin Babies

Here I am again... Long time since I posted. I just logged on and read the last post about "Hot Days & Blueberries".... OH MY!!!!! I had to jump up fast and go turn the irrigation off. It had been on for 12 hours. I guess I will not have to turn it on tomorrow....
I have been busy quilting and making new things. There was a set of Twin Baby Girls born at our church recently and the ladies has a shower for them tonight. I was so excited. Of course I made two quick baby quilts. I use some Pooh panels that I had and added a pink border with some pin wheels in the corners. On the back I use a pink plaid flannel. I quilted them fast with an all over rosette design. they were so cute.... I can not believe I forgot to take a picture of them.... I hate to let a quilt get away with out a picture. Now all I have are memories...
I also took this opportunity to try something new. I had seen a diaper cake at Hobby Lobby when buying ribbon. They had a free paper that showed different things to make with ribbon. I got one and was interested in the Diaper Cake. It had no instructions... Just a picture. So I Googled it. I found lots of Diaper Cakes made many different ways. Then I also ran across bouquets made from baby clothes, socks, hats, onesies, and wash cloths. SOOOOO.... I made the cake with the bouquet and put it all together. Check it out.
Now it is the next morning, and I am trying to publish this... But I must say. I have just 1 CAT.. named Nancy Drew, but where we live our son is just up the driveway... They have 3 CATS, Handy Andy (who just ain't right), Mustang Sally (an ugly calico mix) and Titanium (The Tuxedo cat) Then when my other son is home... Like now... He plugs in his HUGE RV trailer and stays in the back yard. He has Repair... a very sad looking Basset Hound. So needless to say, they come to Nana's house too... So here I sit today, with Nancy on my lap, Andy tipping things over on my desk, and Repair jumping up and howling because he has the cat TREED.... If I had a camera, I could make you laugh.
Well the Grands just came by to help Nana make another diaper cake for so I best publish this for now....

Have a great day...

Hot Summer Days...

Oh My!!!! The time has flown by since I last posted on my blog..

Summer has come to East Texas. The time of the year I dread the most, it is 97* today, with a heat index of about 102* entirely too hot for me. My HB and I got up at 5am to work in the blueberry patch before it got too hot. He cut irrigation ditches with the tractor and I hoed and put pine straw around all the bushes. Our patch is young, only 125 bushes, but things are looking good. We have had an abundance of rain this year, but blueberries take a lot of water to survive so we are adding to the irrigation we already had. Now it should be OK for the summer. If all goes well we will plant about 200 more bushes this fall. We hope to have about 5 acres o fruit trees, blueberries, strawberries and blackberries within the next 5 years so we will have a small U-pick it farm when my HB retires.

Other than that I have been busy quilting. Got a lot of new customers, so I have been steady quilting. This past month I quilted 20 quilts for customers, so needless to say I have not been doing much piecing of my own. But I have lots of ideas.

I have so many projects put aside to do, It will take me 2 years just to use up the fabric I have.

By the way... If any of you quilters need tops quilted send me an email... I will tell you what I do.

I got a new computer and I thought to transfer all my files from the old one.... But I forgot to transfer my favorites, so now I have to work very hard to locate all my blog friends. My son took my old computer to use in his shop. He is getting a plasma cutter and needs a computer to use on it. He will not be connected to the net or anything and will run just one program on it.. So it should work great for that. I had bought a new laptop back in January and got the largest volume computer I could get with 64 bit vista. I did not like it at all... I am old... and used to XP office. I was getting it for ease of going to sewing classes with my MC11000. But SURPRISE!!!! My sewing machine would not work with VISTA.... you can download some updates to use with a 32 bit Vista... But now things were not compatible. So I ended up giving that computer to my DIL for he card making... (http://makinkstudio.blogspot.com) and my son bought me a new tower with XP..... Funny thing is you now have to pay more for an XP computer than Vista.

Here I go getting on my "high horse" I think it is not right, the way Micosoft crams new operating systems down our throats without giving us or companies a choice. They have the monopoly on operating systems... "they say they don't" ... and when they decide to make a change, everyone suffers. It is either buy more... or do without. It puts companies like Janome or any type of computerized equipment to great expense to change their machines. Then people that have older models have to work with updating or paying for new upgrades. Even if what they have works great. Then in a couple of years.... If you did not or could not afford to update. You are out of luck, since your equipment is no longer operational. I will stand down now. But I think it is terrible. I am too old for change now. So I will stick with XP until I can no longer use it.

As I said... It is so hot today... I am sitting playing on the computer until the heat passes for the day. But I guess it is time to get to quilting.

Happy Summer and Happy quilting to all.

Linda's Quilt

It is a beautiful day in East Texas. We have has a little relief from the rain that held on for a couple of weeks. Some items in our garden drowned out, But for the most part all is growing OK. I picked a gallon bucket of strawberries today. They taste so good fresh out of the garden.

My Cousin has a birthday this week, so I make this quilt for her. It was quite fast to piece. I was able to piece it in a day, and it took about 3 hours to quilt. I used a free form frumpy rose design. Kinda my own thing. I just freehand draw roses from one space to the next.

It is nearing bed time. Thanks for stopping by.

Holly

I really need to figure this blog thing out. I seem to do things in the wrong order. I tried to install the Batik quilt pictures and then posted the article before I was done. All well this is a new subject for you to see.
I was involved in a swap with one group and the theme was flowers. I made this table runner for a swapper in Australia. Imagine our projects going around the world.

The weather is really getting busy now. The storms are coming. Two cats and a dog looking at me, like they are so scarred. I guess I had better get off the computer.

Happy Quilting to all....

Rainy day in East Texas

It is a rainy day in East Texas! A cool breeze and very foggy. Just my kinda day. I hear the fountain running outside and birds chirping and the slow drizzle of rain. It makes it hard to get moving for the day. A great time to sit and rest.
We have rain every day for the past 10 days. Sometimes stormy and very strong winds, some days like today, just very cloudy and drizzly. The rain has helped our new trees and blueberry bushes to get well established, but it not doing much for the vegetable garden. The corn looks great, the cauliflower, broccoli, onions, potatoes, tomatoes, beans, looking OK, the half the watermelons have died, and some of the other items looking sad. The strawberries are trying to ripen, but starting to mold. Even though the rain has been nice. It is time for it to move on. Forecast says one more day, then maybe a break. The rest of the place needs the grass mowed bad. We have tried to keep up in between. But lots of mowing to do.
During this time I have been very busy quilting. I have doing quilts for my customers. One that I really liked was done all of batik fabrics. I quilted it in a curving meander pattern with variegated thread. It was so pretty, I hated to return it to my customer. She does very nice work.