Another pincushion...

I must be developing a fascination with pincushions. They come to mind when I start to think about making a gift lately. My  friend, Vicki, and I are heading out to a Gwen Marston retreat (http://gwenmarston.com/index.htm) in Michigan next month and we talked about taking her some small gifts representing Oklahoma... here's the "Oklahoma" pincushion I made this week as part of our gift... I attached several pewter charms representing icons from our state: an Indian chief head, a buffalo, an armadillo (right side up), a cowboy hat and a sewing machine (for all those pioneer ladies who settled in Oklahoma back when it was Indian Territory). 

Hope you are enjoying these last few days to August as they roll into September and hopefully Fall. Pretty much all through July, we suffered through triple digit heat here in Oklahoma. That heat was unusual for us that early in the summer... heat like that is a given for August, not July. Guess it's what you call the "dog days" of summer, but honestly, it felt like a whole pack of dog days! Don't know about you, but the heat makes me lazy and not too creative.... lots of naps are a good thing then! Thankfully, we had some cooler weather and a bit of rain to revive the scorched grass. So I'm looking forward to wanting to be more creative, soon!

Couldn't continue sewing on the "disappearing 9-patch" top I am making from my Kaffee Fassett stash, that is until I made a new pin cushion today. I have discovered the need for a pin cushion, needle threader and thimble in every room..... how many of  you feel way?

Spent the day with my friend, Vicki, last Wednesday. We sewed all day except for the couple of time-outs to have a piece of strawberry yogurt pie and take a trip to the quilt store. Vicki shared a new (to me) piecing pattern called "disappearing 9-patch". Here are a couple of great links that explain how to do this fun and fast block:  

http://www.psiquilt.com/2009/03/disappearing-9-patch-tutorial-super.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEjZOXxPazg

I have been stashing away some of those wonderful Kaffe Fassett fabrics for a few months, but was feeling intimidated  thinking about what to make with them. Thanks to Vicki, this particular pattern seems to be perfect for those colorful fabrics. I am using Michael Miller's solid jet black fabric along with 3 Kona fabrics (a dusty lavender, a teal and a bright orange) for the center block on the 9-patch. If you haven't had a opportunity to use this "rich black", you should... it is lovely and reminds me of the rich black I would build in my computer programs for graphic design projects. Just delicious!

Butterfly|Moth wall quilt finished!

I recently finished quilting the butterfly|moth quilt I started last summer. This quilt was a "collaboration" project with Vicki. We each  appliquéd butterfly and moth blocks using batiks that we selected for the project, then embellished the blocks with embroidery and/or beads, buttons, etc. Before piecing our 12 blocks together, we traded each other 6 of our blocks. Up to this point, we had not shared much of our handwork on this project. So, it was a pleasant surprise at this juncture of our collaboration. Here are the finished wall quilts. This top image is of Vicki's quilt. There is a slight difference in the fabrics and treatment we chose for piecing the borders, other than that, all the fabrics used are the same yet the difference is in how and where we used them.

This is my finished wall quilt.

I'll take some close-ups of the blocks to share later. You can see the progression of my quilt in my earlier blogging:

http://dsavage-threadsthatbind.blogspot.com/2010/08/my-first-attempt-at-blogging.html

http://dsavage-threadsthatbind.blogspot.com/2010/09/its-time-to-embellish.html

http://dsavage-threadsthatbind.blogspot.com/2010/09/butterflies-and-moths-are-growing.html

http://dsavage-threadsthatbind.blogspot.com/2010/09/more-butterflies-and-moths.html

http://dsavage-threadsthatbind.blogspot.com/2010/11/metamorphosis-of-my-wall-hanging.html

It's Sunday evening about 8:50 p.m. here and the temperature outside is 100º... YIKES! 

Thanks for visiting and hope you have a very creative week. 

2.5 lbs of seed...

Am thrilled to find the 2.5 lbs of wildflower seed I planted in April before leaving for the farm actually came up and I have flowers..... lots of pretty delicate looking flowers blooming in the upper garden area. Of course the weeds came up too, but I have been pulling them out so the sun can get to my wildflowers! Here's what this area looked like back in April.

Did quite a bit of stitching while at the farm. Here's the latest quilt top I am working on for the Hubby. He saw this pattern at a quilt show last year and that is all he has talked about since. Trust me, it's a good thing I like him, because I doubt I would piece another top like this.... it's foundation pieced and it wasn't easy. One good thing about foundation piecing is your blocks are more accurate which is important with a pattern like this. The undulating waves are made up of squares, rectangles and triangles, pieced to fool your eye into thinking they are curves. Very clever.

I'm happy to be back!

It's planting season...

It's time to head out in the fields to plant ..... looking forward to catching up with everyone when the last of the seeds are in the ground! Thanks for stopping by.....

Do you see what is wrong in this photo?

I thought I would finish some sewing projects the other day that I started last summer... among the projects are three pairs of cotton "knock about" shorts for the Hubby. From the photo below, you can see I was having trouble deciding just where to attach the pockets. Trying to sew them together, I had one leg going side ways and the other straight down, had to chuckle when I realized what I had done..... one of the pockets was stitched to the bottom of one of the legs.

If you are like me, I hate to rip out and redo..... but did and here are the finished shorts. Only two more pair to go.

The past few months, we have been insulating and putting up siding in the garage to make it warmer in the winter for the Hubby to work out there. We are almost finished and have one last section to insulate and side ... pulling down the drywall on this area over the weekend, we discovered some termite damage. Notice where the weight of the wall mashed down the 2x4 from damage. Our soil here in this area of Oklahoma is red and you can see the red dirt on the walls where the termites were tunneling. Luckily, the damage wasn't bad and the house and garage have been treated, so hopefully these destructive buggers won't be munching at our home again. The worst of the damage was concentrated here at the bottom and on a couple of studs in the wall ... now we have new treated lumber replacing the termite buffet. 

On a happier note..... our dogwoods are blooming. Am thrilled since we didn't really get much in the way of blooms last year.

Enjoy your weekend and thanks for stopping by.

Another fabric give-a-way...

Check this site out to win this treasure of Waverly fabric...... if I understand it correctly, you can win 5 bundles of Waverly fabric totaling 5 yards a bundle. How awesome would that be

http://brynalexandra.blogspot.com/2011/04/april-giveaway.html

Fabric give-a-way...

Hop over to the Piecedonearth blog for a chance to win this bundle of fat quarters by fabric designer, Riley Blake.

http://piecedonearth.blogspot.com/2011/04/favor-for-mefree-fabric-for-you.html

Meredith from Piecedonearth, is one of the 75 finalists in the Spoonflower | Michael Miller Project Selvage contest. Here is her winning design. If you haven't already voted, please vote for her design. 

I found out about her give-a-way and her design via one of my favorite quilt store's FaceBook posting, so I think she may be a local girl and that would be awesome to have an "Okie" win this contest.

Thanks and have a good week.