DESIGN WALL REPORT: I (barely) started a new pair of socks, and I’ve been busy sewing…something I can’t show you, so I’ll give you a peek at the colors and fabrics:

ON-LINE FRIENDS REPORT: It was fun to get a mention on a couple of other bloggers’ sites this week:  Floribunda (a/k/a Julie) and Lori (a/k/a Lori in SD).  Be sure to stop by their blogs for a visit.

BLOG HOP REPORT: Those crazy pattern designers have done it again!  They are calling it Fall-O-Ween.  If you check back here each day, I will have a link to the next day’s featured blogger.  Today it’s Gudrun. and while you’re there, read the rules of the hop and be sure to comment.  And I forgot to mention — FREE PATTERNS are involved!  Gudrun has a cute candy corn runner pattern on her blog today.

WHAT’S-FOR-DINNER REPORT: I’m trying out Judy Laquidara’s recipe for Jen’s Chicken, a creamy chicken dish to serve over egg noodles.  It sounds wonderful!  Review tomorrow…

SELFISH IT’S-ALL-ABOUT-ME ITEM: Anybody out there play Words with Friends on their iPod Touch (or maybe you can play it on the iPhone also)?  If so, leave me a comment or contact me through the “Contact Me” button at the top of the page if you’d like to play a game or three.  Seriously addicting.  It’s like playing Scrabble.  But better.

OUT-MY-WINDOW REPORT:  The Hummingbirds flew the coop, and the finch are enjoying having “their” crab tree back as a supplement to the seeds in the wild flowers in back:

And I KNEW I was forgetting something — the post card exchange through Three Creative Studios!  I’ve received all the pc’s now, you can see the photos from the five participants on the TCS blog.  It was a lot of fun, and the sign-up for the next one is open.

–Sue

This pair made me smile.  ”My place or yours?”  Notice where their nostrils are.  They can wade in the water with their beak almost fully immersed, looking for food on the bottom, and still be able to breathe.

There was a lot of wing lifting yesterday.  According to Wikipedia, they do the wing lifts to straighten a primary feather, for preening, or for drying.  They certainly are pretty pretty birds, and should be inspiration to all of us who have noses a little larger than the ideal size — just wear a lot of bright pink!

One more picture for a good look at that spatula of a beak…

–Sue

 We are staying in a condo in Texas where there are a lot of other Winter Texans seeking refuge from the winter weather of the north.  Every year we get a few valentines from friends, and I tell myself, I’m going to remember that next year and be ready to reciprocate.  Hah!  I forgot til today.

So I went to the little quilt shop we have in town (little is a lot better than none), found this cute fabric of children playing at the seashore.  I spent the rest of today (Saturday) making little “post card” valentines, but I called them “Candy-Grams” because I stapled a couple of pieces of salt-water taffy to each card.   They are very simply done, no fancy trims, not much quilting, no embellishments; I know I could have done something better.  Maybe next year?  Yeah, right.

Today, Sunday, I’ll get back to my overly ambitious applique project, but the valentines were a fun diversion.

BIRDS:  The birding center and Paradise Pond continue to offer surprises.  Last week the shrubs at the birding center were teeming with Yellow-Rumped Warblers:

Today at the birding center there was this tiny, quick bird who just wouldn’t sit still for a picture.  Didn’t he/she know that I do much better if the subject will actually sit still for two seconds — and five seconds would be really good?  I think this is a Ruby-crowned Kinglet:

Which brings me to my mystery bird from last week.  Could it be a young and/or female Ruby-crowned Kinglet?  This little bird had the same jumping-around behavior, was very tiny, plus I think they look similar.  The Ruby-crowned Kinglets do frequent this area, but I haven’t seen them before.

The coloring looks different, but these two pictures by the pond are of the same bird.  What do you think it is, any ideas?

–Sue

Here is the little centerpiece mat for our crayon challenge at guild tonight (where my colors are yellow and orange).  The pattern is from a kit I bought at Rosebud’s Cottage at the state fair; the fabric is from stash:

And finally is my first turned-edge hand-stitched applique that I’m doing in the class at Quilt Cove:

This piece is 16″ x 20″, and it’s from a new Lori Smith book (all 16″ x 20″ wall hangings in the book).  I love the interest the pieced border gives, although I didn’t love doing it.  The little blocks finish at 2″.  The applique was surprisingly fun.  Yes, I said FUN.  Who knew?  I always thought applique was a four-letter word.  No, I’m not ready to tackle a queen-sized appliqued quilt, and probably never will be.  It’s just nice to know that I now have the “tools” to do this.

Another note on this little wall hanging.  I used a different border from the book.  This pattern had a border using some long strips for the first borders and I made this from a Moda Gypsy Rose layer cake (10″ squares), so I wouldn’t have had the longer fabric pieces.  Besides, I loved the look of this border!

And don’t you love the pre-cuts (jelly rolls, layer cakes, charm packs, etc.) when you need a variety of coordinated fabrics but don’t need much of each?  And a bonus:  this layer cake was in my stash!  Stash busted!!!

Click here to visit JudyL’s site and see what other people have on their design walls this week.

–Sue

However, my Aunt Bert finished hers (pictured above).  She did a great job on it, and I’d like to mention that this is her first real quilt!  She made her very first quilted project the end of June during a visit to Minnesota (a pot holder).  She’s come a long way since then!  What a great job, and it will be fun to quilt it for her. 

Click here to visit JudyL’s site and see links to other Freeze Frame quilts.

–Sue

I was having so much fun, I decided to go back to Shelly’s placemat tutorial and see what I needed to do to make the placemats she demonstrated.  I found a sort of gradient (it’s a purple and black Paula Nadelstern)that I had been saving for “something special”, and decided to only use the silver for some dining room place mats.

Oh, there’s just nothing like diving into a new art project, is there? 

I’m up to date (haven’t done today’s assignment yet) on JudyL’s QFAH, Freeze Frame.

Next is a deep purple border, then the white again.  The third border will be more of these small “frames” around the whole quilt.  Very fun!

Part of the fun is my Aunt Bert in Huntsville is also playing along and making this QFAH!  So fun that we can sew together.  I believe this is also her first “big” project, having made some table mats and smaller items this summer (Bert, correct me if I’m wrong…).  Here is her quilt so far, in fall colors, with Tanner standing guard:
 
 

I’m up to my armpits in UFOs, and so of course I joined in Judy Laquidara’s Quilt For An Hour project, which started Monday.  Another new project.  And it always takes me more than an hour to do the day’s allotted tasks.  I’m not the first person done either when I take classes, so I can assume I am a slow sewer.  I like to think I’m just enjoying the journey. 

After I chose my fabrics from my stash for this quilt, I started thinking that approx. 60 x 80 is more like a big throw size than a bed size (at least at my house), and I don’t think many people’s living rooms are the colors I chose (raspberry, turquoise, gray, blue).  I know — I’ll make it BIGGER!!!  And so I did, like Judy’s larger example with 12 of the big blocks instead of six big blocks.  Now my Quilt For An Hour is more like Quilt For Four Hours. 

Also, when I decided to make it larger, I realized I wouldn’t have enough fabric for the darker background.  I hunted high and low in my stash, but I didn’t have enough of anything that would work.  So I went shopping!  In my defense, I went to Mill End and found a lovely gold that leans almost to a Creamsicle color.  Two bucks a yard (with one of those precious coupons out of the Sunday paper).  I think it actually works better than the gray-blue I originally chose.  The colors pop more against the gold.  DH and DS#1 will like it better too, because when I get the purple border on it, it will be leaning towards Vikings colors. 

These blocks are fun and quick to make.  The cutting is a little putzy, because usually I do all my cutting in the beginning of the project.  I could see myself making this quilt again.  Different colors/fabric patterns would really change the look of it.  I have some reds/oranges/yellows that might look pretty good.  I hope Judy sets up Mr. Linky or Photo Bucket so we can see everybody’s color selections and their progress.

–Sue

New this week is the Corn and Beans block at the top of the middle column.  These blocks are all done in Asian-inspired fabrics, and this quilt will be offered to my DIL Lynn, if she still likes it when it’s done.

 Judy L’s new Quilt For An Hour (QFAH) project starts today.  I hope to get my hour in tonight after our guild’s monthly meeting.  This looks like a fun and easy quilt, and I don’t see any half-square triangles in sight!  I pulled the fabrics yesterday from my stash.  It was so much fun, and only took about ten minutes.  I also had a red and orange option I could have taken, but I was won over with this raspberry/aqua/purple/blue combination.  PLUS this is about eight yards out of stash! 

Yes, as Kare in Ohio pointed out yesterday, My name is Sue, and I am a Judy Junkie.  There, I said it!  At least I know I’m not alone — there are a lot of us out there.  Her patterns are such great stash busters, her quilts are always fun and interesting, so it’s hard to resist jumping in and getting an extra quilt top done.  Click here to see other quilters’ design walls; click here for the first post of Judy’s Freeze Frame QFAH.

– Sue

And like everybody else, I just don’t have enough projects to work on, so I plan to jump in on Judy L’s next QFAH (which starts tomorrow).  This will be especially fun because my Aunt Bert, who just started quilting this summer, plans to do this one as well.  Hundreds of miles apart, and we can be quilting together!  How fun is that???

Well, time to go down into the stash and figure out what I can use to get started on Judy’s QFAH (I have a bucket of bright FQs I think I will tap into).  It really makes it a challenge, when you’re just working from stash.  Three other quilts I’ve made along with Judy, and they’ve turned out quite nicely, just using up some of that fabric that was waiting patiently on my shelves:

If you’re on the fence about joining in this next QFAH, hop off the fence and come on over to the fun side!  Judy’s quilts are great stash busters, and she’s so generous to offer a free pattern along with the encouragement to get it done.  I always tell myself I can find an hour a day for another project (as long as I don’t break a wrist like I did last November), and it’s fun to watch everyone’s projects develop along with your own.  C’mon along!!! 

–Sue

Judy Laquidara hosted a “Quilt Along” a while back and offered her Bears in the Farmhouse pattern to participants.  (In her Quilt Along, you were given a step via e-mail, and had a deadline by which to finish that step and e-mail Judy a photo to show that you truly did complete the step; then you would receive the next step, etc.)  300 people signed on, and over 150 quilters continued to at least close to the end. 

I created a problem in mine by making my half-square triangles too big (should have been 3 1/2″ unfinished; mine were 3 1/2″ finished.)  As a result, they didn’t fit in the border in the order Judy designed.  I am very pleased with the quilt; I’m just explaining why mine is different.  And it’s also a good reminder that there are no real mistakes — just pathways to creating a (slightly) different quilt!

I used a lot of fabrics that were offered during the Minnesota Shop Hop in 2007/2008, and I purchased them during that time frame.  I didn’t know what I was going to do with them, but they were only available until sold out.  No additional trips to the LQS were made  in the creation of this quilt!  Totally out of stash.  Woo-hoo!

Here is Judy’s original Bears in the Farmhouse quilt pattern, which is now offered for sale.  Click here for Judy’s post where she’s inviting people who have completed their top to add a link.  It’s so much fun to see what other people do with the same pattern, so check back as I’m sure there will continue to be new links added.

Thanks, Judy!  I’m keeping this quilt.

Sue