When I woke up this morning ~

You were on my mind ~

and you were on my mind ~ oh, I've got troubles, ooooh troubles

One of my troubles is called too little time.  I've been concentrating on getting a few more community service kids' quilts completed.  While sewing orphan 6" squares together is easy, it still takes time.

               Yes, time, you were on my mind ~ when I woke up this morning!

 

Faulty Construction?!!

Melanie....it's all your fault !

Several months ago my most generous friend Melanie, who in the process of getting rid of stuff, gave me a gallon zip bag filled with  blue and white star blocks.  Yesterday when I dug through the bag, I didn't know whether to thank her or curse her.   How stupid happy am I to have taken this bag off her hands!    As I filtered through the bag  separating the finished from the unfinished quilt blocks I found that she had completed  six 12 1/2" blocks and many 6 1/2" ones, enough to finish my lap size quilt at 42" x 60". 

No, her construction isn't perfect.....nor is mine.  Upon close examination of each block, I remembered her telling me that there were a million bunny ears to clip off each block and that this was one of her early quilting attempts and that the seam allowances weren't perfect and none of the blocks squared up correctly and she just didn't have the time! and on and on.  At the time, I remembered just seeing these beautiful blue and white stars and not believing my luck that I was the recipient.  Each block had so many little pieces.  How did Melanie even get this many sewn together?  I would have given up long before she did.    I'm sure Melanie has a quilt pattern somewhere for this quilt, probably in one of her zillion quilt books/magazines that she pared down in her recent move.   But I didn't have it so I just puttered and placed blocks on my design wall and came up with this arrangement. 

I think it turned out beautifully and don't think it will collapse on top of me when it gets all quilted, washed and spread across my legs as I doze.    No, I see no faulty construction here and

here's what remains that will be put into another quilt.  Aren't they gorgeous?  No,  I see nothing faulty about the construction of these little blue shining stars. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I got my Michael Miller fabrics today

Michael Miller Fabrics is once again sponsoring the Modern Quilt Guild  members fabric challenge...and I got my 6 fabrics this morning at the NELA MQG meeting.  I've already added a few solids to the new Petal Pinwheels collection  but do not yet have a project idea.  But, that will come. 

Love being a part of the modern quilt movement and  having new eye candy in the house.  I'll be designing a quilt in my sleep tonight.   

 

For The Love Of - Springtime and flowers and paint and fabric

I awoke just in time to see the first ray of sunshine dancing across my fabric....painted flower on muslin.  Edited in Photoshop to include in Kim  Klassen's Texture Tuesday blog edition.....for the love of ~

Okay...Okay...so it's Wednesday - I'll get over being a day late if you will.   I still woke this morning with sunshine in my face and on my flowers. 

 

.....and what a fun challenge it was ~

As if I didn't have enough projects to complete! 

When Victoria (as in 15 Minutes of Play, Bumble Beans) issued the Spring challenge, I just couldn't resist.  It's been a long and cold and wet winter and I was so desperately needing a Spring day when I saw her newly posted challenge. 

And I new just where my starting point was going to be.   After ordering the fat quarter bundle of Anna Maria Horner's new fabric collection, True Colors, I cut most of it into 7" hexagons for my next quilt.....but I saved all the little scraps.  Some fabrics are just too precious to trash....don't you agree?

Back to my story - here's the challenge block diagram.  Not much going on here!  But with high hopes of Spring nearby,  I intend to make it my own. 

Victoria says we can do anything to the block that we want....make it any size....sub-divide it even more....whatever.  Her only "rule" is that somewhere within the block, there must be some "made fabric."  Okay, I can follow that rule!  Using my left-overs from my True Colors collection, I set about making fabric which I then turned into a 4-patch square - flying geese.   Component #1 now complete x 4.  To SOLIDify my block, I found some Kona snow and cut into my attaching triangles to complete component #2 of the challenge block.  Now what?  Lucky for me I went to our local Hancock's the other day and found a home dec fabric remnant on sale which I thought read Spring.  Component #3 complete.  

I got four blocks completed just in time to STOP and smell the Spring flowers.  It's a skinny little wall-hanging - 8" x 32" with flower petals and leaf free-motion quilted.  Yes, Spring is bursting out all over the sewing room wall. 

 

 

 

We got rain last night....lots of rain

A friend of mine posted a Facebook picture of how high the rain water came up on her patio last night during all the rain....reminded me of this Johnny Cash song....."How High's The Water, Momma?"



 

For all the Johnny Cash fans.

 

 

 

 

True Colors - An April Calendar

Anna Maria Horner's "True Colors" fabric collection was just the right color for my April calendar.

 

It's all about A Song Title - An Art Quilt

Have I told you lately that I belong to "Art Quilts Around the World", where 20 or more of us make  art quilts based on a chosen theme.  The theme this month was A Song Title.  After much deliberation, I decided on "Frog Went A Courtin'."  Here's my finished art quilt

Notice that Miss Mouse isn't wearing white...rather, she has very blue hair today.  She did venture out of her hollow tree and is sitting on the roof top oogling at her fancy frog.   Also, the big black snake isn't big and isn't black, but is a joyful snake of many colors eyeing the frog for reasons other than Miss Mouse's. 

 

In doing a little research about this folk song, I learned that there is quite the story behind the lyrics which have been altered and added onto and updated through the ages.   It dates back 400 years and was all about Queen Elizabeth I who very often gave members of her ministry animal names.   Although she never married and was known as the virgin queen, she did play love games with several suitors before rejecting them as unsuitable to be her king.  Her frog in the song refers to Francis, Duke of Alencon, France.

Froggy Went A Courtin' has been recorded by many, including Tex Ritter, Burl Ives, Bob Dylan,
Elvis Presley, Pete Seeger, Bruce Springstein....just to name a few.  I found this delightful version sung by Elizabeth Mitchell and thought it would be fun to share.