Show and Tell

I just got a notice
 that I had new followers- and much to my chagrin I haven't posted in ForEVER! However, I have been sewing like a fiend ( how exactly do fiends sew? - They prolly don't have time in between being fiendish. ? ?)  So I decided to just do a quick show & tell today and save all the fun extras and whys and wherefores for later

 Get ready for picture overload!

Seatbelt pillows

Elijah's has a pocket for Dog Dog

Drawstring Backpacks

Splendid Sampler 2

Bags 

 UFO from 2015  that is now gifted!

Professional Tote Bag (my version) 

Can you guess what profession :)

Garment Bag! 

 There you have it! Actually I know there are quite a few projects missing from this show, I will have to search out the pictures and possibly have the gifted photographed- I'll try to post all the fun stuff soon!
Have a great day-
 back to sewing- Sherman and I have 2 more pillows and one more bag to make this week!

Wednesday Already!?

UPDATE: Due to Computer Issues Yesterday, Wednesday's Post did not get finished or Posted!! I apologize for the misssing pictures. Check back this afternoon for Thursday's Traveling Stash update and Teacup!


Wow! I have had a sedulous weekend! Friday night I left work a few minutes early so that I could stop at the LQS before it closed. I was still looking for fabric for "the pillow turned quilt" I had a great time chatting with the shop owner and found exactly what I needed. Then, I decided I should go to Wally's since I was half way there anyway and found some fabric (I can hear you fabric purists groaning out there, but it's not for my quilt) on clearance for $1.00 per yard and found more leafy camo fabric (that is for the quilt but in small doses) Our Wal-mart is one of the few that still carry fabric on bolts for which I am grateful- otherwise it's a 30-45 minute drive to the nearest fabric type store! Of course, I knew that once I got home I would have to restrain myself from using said fabric- I had culottes to finish! When I did arrive home I had two fun packages awaiting.

The top one  is the Traveling Stash that I won from Danny over at Mommy For Reals (more on that later!) and the other gimungous box is from CaMom. It was filled to the brim with stuff for SisterMine, stuff for My SweetMommie and the rest was all for me! Fabric, patterns, books, more fat quarters, a lovely battenburg lace tablecloth, all sorts of fun stuff! After getting to the bottom of the boxes, I started sewing culottes and I got all five pair stitched except for the hem and waist bands in no time at all. Sherman did great and just purred away.

   

On Saturday, after working at the store, I rushed home to make the house presentable. MySweetMommie and Fredly came over and Fredly cleaned out my flower weed bed and added flowers. I grilled chuck eye steaks on my handy dandy George Foreman's (I just got a *new* one for 2.99!) and MySweetMommie made Potato Salad. The steaks turned out great! I marinaded them in Raspberry vinegrette dressing and raspberry soda! We ate outside and enjoyed the summer weather. Fredly did  a great job on the flower bed. Some are already blooming! MySweetMommie also received packages from CaMom, so we got to share our goodies. I do believe CaMom is my fairy CaMother! Instead of saying Bippity Boppity Boo, she says "let's send this to Bobbalou!" *tee hee hee* 

     Just as Mom and Fred were leaving, the owls made a special appearance- they are so amazing to watch.

Sunday afternoon was spent sewing- I assembly lined the hemming and waistband casing process. Then I decided to see if there was an easier way to put the stinkin' elastic in- I fought with one pair of culottes for an hour before church- safety pin opened in mid-shove and got stuck, then it got caught in the pleats and then I repeated the process- I was a snarlin' n spittin' before it was through. I found this link  and wow! What a Difference! I put the elastic in 3 pair of culottes in less time than it took me to do the one last pair! (I had to do the last pair the old way because I already had sewn the casing- I should have just unstitched that casing!) I don't think I will EVER do elastic the old way again! Thank You Sherrie!!!!!  Anyway, the culottes were done on time  and the girls are at camp - hopefully my sewing is holding up! :)

      Monday mornings I usually go to SisterMine's but they went to camp as well, so I had Monday morning all to myself. I worked on the grad "pillow turned quilt" and I am loving how it is coming together.

I also worked on the other grad pillow (that isn't turning into a quilt) and made 64 half square triangles using this speedy 8 at a time method!  After working at the store, I played around with the cute little HSTs and came up with a plan for them.

Then Tuesday morning, I changed it a bit and as of Tuesday evening, I have the flimsy almost finished!

CaMom asked if was an Aunt Sukey's Choice block- I said nope- it's an Aunt Bobbie's Choice! I believe I will add one more skinny yellow border and then a wide blue swirly dot and it will be ready for quilting. What are you working on?

Be sure to check back tomorrow TODAY!!- I will have a tea cup to share and a traveling stash giveaway!

hodge podge

I was hoping to be able to show you a finish from the squares I cut out on Wednesday. However, I left them in the car and decided it was too much work to go back out and get them. So I decided to go a different direction with Aunt Sukey- I am really loving the name Sukey- such fun to say.  I looked up Sukey and it is a diminuative of Susan, means lily and was popular in the 18th century.  The Kalona Quilt Block Walking Tour pamphlet  states that Aunt Sukey's Choice was featured in the Ladies Art Company mail order catalog in the 30's and 40's. I decided to make my block red, black and white. Of course, after working both jobs, my brain was rather deadish so I couldn't remember how many extra inches to add to the block to do the easy four patch or the 4 in one half square triangle. I looked up the four patch in my book - no problem! got those all cut out. Went to look up the easy 4 HST's and totally forgot where I had found it, couldn't even remember which quilt block I had been looking up when I stumbled across it (I switched phones and had bookmarked it on the old phone- that was dead and waaay in the other room) so I searched for "HST 4 at a time" and discovered how to make 8 at a time! Way too cool! After straining my over tired brain to do the calculations (that were actually already done for me- I just could not get my poor noggin wrapped around it)  I managed to get those squares cut. After all that brain overuse, I didn't have enough oomph left to actually make the HST's. BUT if my calculations are correct- I should have those babies whipped up by the time supper is ready tonight! (MySweetMommie cooks yummy food for me on Quilt Class Nights- that's her class fee!) I will let you know how they turn out!

I found this V.I.P.  Snow White Doll panel at the thrift store the other day, while looking for the batting- it was only 99cents. She is much larger than I originally thought. She's about 18 inches tall and has movable arms and legs. I believe AbbyDoo will enjoy making her. 





SunshineBoy was unusually adventurous! He even held a frog!



As promised here are some pictures from the Memorial Day Picnic. The park that we like to go to is amazing! Great trails, a fabulous spring fed creek, fishing lake, and playgrounds. There are also poles for a volleyball net- We played quite a Crazy game of volleyball.  I love Volleyball- we used to play EVERY Tuesday night when I was a teenager, in the church parking lot, on the asphalt. NOT a good place to dive for the ball. Playing in the grass is much better for the knees! Of course, my favorite place to play would be the beach, but the beaches in Illinois are few and far between. :)




Determination

  One of the highlights of the park is the pump. The kids would play around it all day, or at least until someone is ready to take them down the trail to the creek. EmmaBean was so determined that she could make it work! "The desire accomplished is sweet to the soul!" I love the look of pure joy when she finally gets the water to pump!

and success!





I told the boys to make their scariest faces





and then their happiest faces



MySweetMommie will be putting all of her blocks together to finish the quilt top tonight- we may even get to the borders.... maybe!

More on that next week! Have a Great Weekend!

Thursday - Tea Cups and Ta Da's

Hope you are having  a wonderful Thursday!

Be sure to visit these blogs for more tea cups:

Rose Chintz Cottage* Antiques and Teacups* The Rosemary House* Lady Estelle's Tea Corner

Denise's Delights* Faith Hope And Cherrytea* Beautiful Clutter* Martha's Favorites* Breath of Fresh Air*

Lady Linda Teacup* Teacups In the Garden* Letters from the Northwest* Gracious Hospitality*

A Delightsome Life* Poetry in a Pot of Tea* Lady B's Time for Tea*

Romance of Roses* From This to That* Fabby's Living*

Art Books Tea* Tea, Friendship and the Fine Art of Card Making*

The Nest at Finch Rest* Rose Walk Cottage* Christine's Home and Travel Adventures*

Just Cats* Rosewalk Cottage* 

Atteatude and Chocolate* and of course our wonderful Hostess Miss Spenser*

Ta Da!!!!

Sending  Love Table Runner

I used snaps to attach the envelope
because I wasn't sure how well my ink
would stand being washed

 This runner was made for my CaMom who keeps us stocked with fabric and supplies and machines. I am teaching MySweetMommie, SisterMine and AbbyDoo how to quilt, so everyone had a hand in creating this. MySweetMommie chose the colors to match CaMom's Tiffany lamps. We wanted it done for CaMom's Birthday but we ended up ready for Mother's Day instead. We made it to represent all the love sent back and forth between Illinois and California via phone calls, internet, snail mail and occasional airplane rides.

Envelope tutorial is from Dread Pirate Rodgers

Linked up to Sew many Ways and Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Yester Year WIP

It Happened in 1968 

• North Vietnam and Viet Cong troops launch the Tet offensive
• Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
• President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1968
• Earthquake in Sicily
• Redwood National Park is created in California to protect the Giant Redwoods
• Aristotle Onassis and Jacqueline Kennedy marry
• The Gateway Arch in St. Louis is dedicated
• Boeing 747 made its maiden flight.
• NASA launches Apollo 7, the first manned Apollo mission
•  Allen K Breed invents an air bag that deploys and inflates automatically on violent impact using nitrogen gas.
• Apollo 8 orbits the Moon, becoming the first manned space mission to achieve the feat.
• Dr. Christian Barnard performs the first successful heart transplant.
• US Explodes experimental hydrogen Bomb.
• The Emergency 911 Telephone service is started in the USA which provides a single number for reporting emergencies and is manned 24 hrs per day 365 days per year
• ATM First Philadelphia Bank installs the first automated teller machine in the U.S. 
• The first Big Mac goes on sale in McDonalds costing 49 cents
• The Beatles create Apple Records and record "Hey Jude" as the first single on the label
• The CBS television news magazine program "60 Minutes" shown for the first time
• Cleveland Fabric Shop changes its name to Fabri-Centers of America, Inc. and changes shop names to JoAnn Fabrics
  
• Beverly starts her Gingham Rick-Rack Log Cabin Quilt



All the strips are cut for me- its almost like getting a jelly roll



Fast forward to 2012 as

           Bobbie attempts to complete Bevy's Gingham Rick-Rack Quilt!

I actually haven't started stitching anything yet, but plan to do some this weekend! I really love the gingham fabric with the faux rick-rack and will probably add some real rick rack to the finished quilt/quilts! Thank you Christine for the challenge!

Have a Great Weekend!

                               TTFN! Bobbie (who is still trying to make a cute signature line)

PS. the date may not be exact- I think Bevy said she started this when she was 16 or so.

Also I was trying to find the cost of fabric in the 60's but didnt come acrross anything, so if anyone has a link please let me know. All my info came from: http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/1968.html

Granny's Domestic Bliss

I have been working on my "Granny's Domestic Bliss" quilt off and on for a while now.

If Granny could tell me the secret of domestic bliss, I know she would say FORGIVENESS.  That sends my mind to Ephesians 4:32- "Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." Wow! That verse packs a punch- how often are we kinder to strangers than we are our own family?  I wanted to illustrate that verse with this quilt, so I ventured off into the hitherto unknown (by me) world of FMQ... free motion quilting- I have this great idea in my head and if I can just get my sewing machine to go along, I think it's gonna work.

So far the biggest problem seems to be seeing where the needle is going- from everything I've read, I think I need to find a different foot for my machine? Until then I am just going slowly and picking out the bad stitiches. 



bee



Here is the top border. I may go back and add antennae to the bee and I am not sure if I like the "n" in kind.

  

kind

 The side borders will say Bee Forgiving and Bee tenderhearted. <----- I hope!   The bottom border will say Ephesians 4:32 or just a row of hearts.     I quilted an echo flower on two of the blocks and an echo heart in 2 others.  It's slowly progressing and I am learning patience. :) I haven't taken good pictures of the echoes, I will try to remember this weekend.

 I am sew excited! I get to be part of the next Blog Hop beginning July 1st! I have sew many RWB ideas running thru my little mind!

Actuated by the Hop part 2

SPOILER ALERT!!!

 If your name is CAMom Please do not read any further!!! You have to wait for the mail (hopefully tomorrow's mail) before reading this post! CAMom received her package on thursday!

WORD Of THE DAYMain Entry -Actuate
Part of Speech- verb
Definition- to start a function or action, motivate, to set working
Notes: when something is activated, it is made active. When something is actuated it is moved to take action (or produce a consequence)






To celebrate CaMom's Birthday, SisterMine, MySweetMommie, Abbydoo and I were planning a surprise made by all of us. But as the best laid plans of mice and men seem to go, we were unable to complete said surprise. So I found myself with less than a week before the birthday and nothing to send my very dear CAMom. And then the Creeping Crud found me and I ended up with only 3 days to make something! But as usual- I work best under pressure and was actuated by the over 159 tabletoppers

pinterest page

in the blog hop and this little block from Christine to make my own table topper. I can't tell you how much fun I had hopping with Madame Samm on this table topper hop! So many great quilters and new friends to meet!

CAMom if you are still reading this you are in BIG Trouble! No Peeking! She did good and didn't peek!

From this

Years ago CaMom sent Sistermine and me a bunch of vest and jumpstart panels. I made most of them and put some away for gifts but saved these  to make *someday* for myself, but never did. I also had  fabrics from the same line that I thought about using for curtains in my sewing room but decided not to use. The designs on these panels were sew cute that I decided to make the improv log cabin block with them. It was a very fun block to make! No measuring allowed! In fact, it was so much fun, I made two!



to that!     This one is for My tabletopper



"Cut, Sew and Enjoy" 
I stole the title from the instructions fabric  I used in the quilt

I played around a bit with the quilting - these mini quilt's are great for practicing! I used the sewing basket from the vest as my label and some pink checked fabric from my "supplier" (AKA CaMom) for the backing. I really like the way both blocks turned out and had a hard time choosing which one to send!

I hope CaMom enjoys her mini quilt and knows how much I love her! Happy Belated Birthday!





Tea cup thursday AND From this to that, that, that, that and that






Tea cup Thursday!



AND



From This.....



We have a new holiday in our family!

Miah says we have to put it on the calendar!

It's BLANKET DAY!

  

to that ( Lou's)



 



and That (Abby's)



and THAT ( mine) isn't it pretty?



and That ( A.C.'s)












did I mention I really LOVE mine?

  


and That ( I G's)





to that (Mom's)






Earl Stanley Grey likes mine too

  

 



and That ( Miah's)

 




and that - even Samantha got a blanket!

 



Our dear wonderful talented California Mom decided that we could use some TLC- tender loving crochet- in our lives and she bestowed lots of love and hard work on the entire family! We had a Blanket Day party complete with Checkerboard Cake-



(the pan was another Bevy find) It was like Christmas and everyone's birthday all on the same day!

Thank you Bevy and her Helper Elf- Dad! We love you!!














Others Who Are Participating in Teacup Thursday! * Miss Spenser's*

The Hope Chest * Rose Chintz Cottage
Antiques and Teacups *The Rosemary House

Lady Estelle's Tea Corner * Denise's Delights

Faith Hope & Cherrytea * Beautiful Clutter
Martha's Favorites * Breath of Fresh Air 

Lady Linda Teacup * Gracious Hospitality

Atteatude and Chocolate *Teacups In the Garden
Letters from the Northwest *A Delightsome Life
Poetry in a Pot of Tea *Lady B's Time for Tea
Romance of Roses *From This to That *Fabby's Living 

Miss Kathy at The Writer's Reverie *Art Books Tea
Tea, Friendship and the Fine Art of Card Making
The Nest at Finch Rest