He's Home!

I can't begin to tell you how happy I am to have my son home! He has been honorably discharged from the United States Marines. Home safe and sound! Semper Fi!

A Year Of Schnibbles Day 2, 3, 4 and 5!

Day 2: The flying geese are coming together. The round white dots are numbered, keeping things organized.

Day 3: The blocks are coming together!

Day 4: I don't really want to talk about what happened today. LOL! Let's just say I had a couple of words with the geese and neither of us were happy campers...

Day 5: Ta Da!

Hopefully tomorrow I will get some time to machine quilt this top and get the binding and label on so I can display it on my table. I'm thinking of calling it Flying South For The Winter, what do you think?

September Schnibbles Day One

Today the fabric and pattern came that I ordered for September's A Year Of Schnibbles. I need a table topper for our Thanksgiving tablescape so I looked for something Fall-ish.

Miss Rosie's Quilt Co.'s Winter White Schnibbles pattern.

2 Charm Packs of (Moda) Deb Strain's Pumpkin and Spice.

3 yds of matching fabric for the background, borders, backing and binding.

After I looked at the pattern and fondled my new fabric for a while I started cutting! This is what it looked like afterwards. Woops! I forgot to cut my outer border. Oh, well. I'll show that to you tomorrow!

A little trash...

And, lots of leftovers!

It took me a few minutes to figure out the instructions for the flying geese. I had never made them that way before. Brilliant! I wonder who thought this technique up? It is pure genius!

Trimmed my flying geese and stopped for the night. Tomorrow I'll get back to it after the Tootie Babies go home.

Did you know that you can right click on your picture in Compose mode and drag it to wherever you want it? You can also crop your picture by right clicking! Wow, I just figured that out!

The Great Pumpkin

I started this last fall and just finished the hand quilting and binding. This is a pattern from Country Threads. I used big stitch quilting and it went FAST!

The Great Pumpkin even has a label!

My son is back on US soil! He is at Camp Lejune, NC outprocessing. He should be home with us in a week or so! Semper Fi!

Home Sweet Home

My house is a mess! Well, at least the downstairs is. All the rooms are torn apart, furniture in the middle of the room and walls half painted! Last week we had oak laminate flooring installed in the living room, dining room, master bedroom and master closet. This week the walls are being painted in the living room dining room, entry, kitchen, master bedroom and closet! Oh, how I long for order!

This is the dining room with half painted walls. The darker color is the new paint.

This is the living room. No paint, just chaos...

Oh, I need a blindfold! The red is being covered with the same color as in the other rooms. Do you see the Tootie Babies art work on the fridge? I really hate things hanging on the front of my fridge but who can resist those little scribbles.

Stuff from the living room and dining room stretches as far as the eye can see.

Master bedroom (Tootie nap room). I'm not even going to show you the vast wasteland I call my bathroom. There is nothing in there. Not one thing.

There is good news and bad news. The good news is this weekend everything will be back to normal. The bad news...the upstairs is next!

The best news of all though is that my son is on an airplane right now headed from Iraq to the USA! I think next week he'll be back home with us!

You Are My Shining Star

Another little quilt from the series of Lori Smith's Fit To Frame patterns. I have had this one competed for a while, I just forgot to show you. It's machine pieced and machine quilted. And it has a label!

Detail of quilting.

I hope you had a quilty day. I'm almost through big stitching The Great Pumpkin. I ran out of thread so I'll have to go to the store tomorrow!

An Experiment

There were some excellent ideas in the comments for the Labels, Labels, Labels post! Sew Create It Jane mentioned she has a hard time coming up with names for her quilts. I have a trick I'd like to share with you!

First, pick up a magazine (not quilt related), get a pencil and some paper. Next, flip through the pages of the magazine jotting down any ideas for names you see. That could be titles of articles, words from advertisements, names of places or even recipe titles. Don't stop to think about this step...just write!

I'm using a Better Homes and Gardens magazine. This is my list:

Trail Blazer (this is from an ad for a car!)
Celebration (the name of a town in Florida)
Choosing Sides (the title of an article about side dishes)
Making Memories (an article about making holiday cards)
Lullaby Baby (name of a flower)
Black Eyed Stella (also a flower)
Starstruck (a flower too!)
Cookies and Cocoa (what else?)

Now, think about quilts that could go with the names.

Trailblazer could be a quilt with Drunkard's Path or Snail's Trail blocks.

Celebration might fit with a Christmas quilt or for a birthday gift. Also use this name for patriotic red, white and blue quilts.

Choosing Sides would be a good name for a Night and Noon or a Log Cabin quilt. Or maybe a black and white quilt.

Making Memories sounds like it goes with a photo quilt or an album block with signitures.

Of course, Lullaby Baby is for a baby quilt.

Black Eyed Stella would be great with bright fabrics and a black background or maybe a quilt with Sunflower blocks.

How about Starstruck for a Sawtooth Star quilt? Or, a quilt with star themed fabrics.

Cookies and Cocoa would be a good name for a predominently brown and beige quilt made with homespun plaids.

I'm sure you can see where I am going with this little experiment. It's really not hard to name your quilts. Book titles, chapters, names of plants or flowers, songs, recipes or favorite sayings can give you great ideas!

Now I keep a little notebook to write down inspiring names whenever I see them. I also collect special quotes that might relate to quilting. Try it and have fun!