Words are Powerful!

My mama taught me that we should always leave people in better shape than when we first see them.  Words are a way to do this.  Words have so much power.  The saying about sticks and stones, I never did believe it.  There are many times I have felt pain from what others have said.  There are also many times I have felt peace, love, strength, and joy from what others have said.  What we say controls how we think, or at the very least, influences our thinking.

I subscribe to many blogs of various subjects.  One came in my email a few days back.  I want to share it with my friends and followers.  The link below will take you to the blog by Chris Brogan.  Please use your words wisely.  God bless you! mary

http://bit.ly/140IbVo

The Reveal

HERE IT IS!  The Reveal at Teal Dragon Retreat House.

What fun was had.  I had a blast showing off our upstairs, which is finally complete except for the furniture.  We’ll get to that eventually.

On with the show!

The person’s quilt that was being revealed had to leave the room while the quilt was set up on the design wall.  All the quilts turned out so wonderful.  The looks on people’s faces was priceless!  Everyone loved their quilts.  So, are you ready?  Here are the quilts.

              

              

               

               

I learned so much on this journey.  My Bee Members are the most helpful and generous people around.  I CAN finish things on time.  Two new techniques learned — LeMoyne Star and a new EASY way to sew Flying Geese.  I would do this again.

Thanks for sharing my journey.  Are you on a quilting journey?  I would love to hear about it.  If you want to look back, just click on the Round Robin Category at the top of this post and you can see all the rounds.

God Bless You, Mary

Round 6

Well, I made it to round 6!  This quilt was my favorite.  I’ve been watching it, knowing I get the last round, and wondering what I could do to add to the beauty of this quilt.

6th Round, what I got

Isn’t it gorgeous.  What to do?  I will mimic one of the borders already done!  I chose the twisted red ribbon border to mimic.  I tried to do a twisted ribbon on a previous round, but was unable to make it work.

Flying geese are used to make the ribbon.  And I learned a new way to make the flying geese!  One seam!  Watch this.

I had to go shopping, to find the right fabric.

Cut into strips.

The light fabric is folded in half.

Then it’s time to layer.  Bottom layer right side up, the light, then top layer, right side down.

Fold is to the top.  Align the right edges, then sew 1/4″ on right edge.

Press and get ready for the magic!

Open the light fabric.

You have a Flying Geese Block.  Pretty cool, eh?

Now, to sew all those blocks.  I forget the number of blocks, but it was quite a few.  But look how it came out!

 I hope you have enjoyed all the quilts I have presented.  I learned that I can meet a deadline, I can try new techniques, and I would love to do another round robin!

Let me know if you have participated in any round robins and how they helped you grow as a quilter.

Thanks, for stopping by.  God Bless you!

Round Robin 5

I’m on the next to last round and getting really excited about the reveal at my Tiki House.  This quilt has a Zentangle as the center.  If you haven’t checked out the Zentangle craze, please click on the link.  It’s a really an impressive creative outlet.  Black and white center and a box of crayons for the fabrics.  All batiks, in every color under the sun.  The quilt has morphed into an extra large size!  Good thing it’s Jane’s because she can handle the quilting.  My challenge is to come up with a small border.

I also was under the gun time wise.  So I thought simple 4 patches would be best.  I cut about 10 inch strips from about 12 fabrics at a time.  Then I sewed strips and cut.  Then sewed together in 4 patches, trying to not have same fabrics close to each other.

Once I had the 4 patches done for a side, I sewed them together, then attached to the quilt top.  I went through this process 4 times.  Let me tell you, it was a lot of 4 patches.

Finished with time to spare!

Round Robin 4

I’ve completed the 4th round of the round robin.  Yea!  This time there was no need to figure a spacer border, the top I got was 48″ x 48″.  So all I needed to do was add 6 1/2″ blocks all the way around.  The suggestion from my bee members were some kind of pieced border.  I chose the square in a square block.  I did half with dark centers and half with light centers.  I really like how it turned out.  Sorry I did not take any pictures in the production.  I was in a hurry to get it done by bee meeting.

Square in a Square

I really like it!  I’m surprised, because my love is colorful quilts, but I think this appeals to the clean, organized me that shows up every now and then:)

What kind of colors do you like in your quilts?  Stay tuned for Round 5.

Thanks for stopping by, God bless you!

Mary

Round Robin Round 3

So I did two rounds in my 1st post.  My goal is to write a post with each round.  Below is a pic of the top I received from my pass off buddy, Debbie.  Aren’t her fans awesome?!

So the tip from bee members…needs curves…WHAT, the fans aren’t curvy enough?  At first, I wanted to do a twisted ribbon, but that proved to be way too much work for me.  So I came up with this curvy 4 patch.

Take 2 squares from 2 different fabrics and stack Right sides up. Then with rotary cutter start at least 1/2″ from edge and cut a gentle curve up towards the right side at least 1/2″ in from right side.  Put top fabric of one cut on bottom of stack.

Squares right sides up

Now you will stitch the two fabrics together.  Just line up the edge and then slowly stitch a 1/4″ seam.  Stop and pivot the fabric as needed to keep the 1/4″ seam.

1st curve a two patch

Then you will stack these pink against brown.  Do one more gentle curve cut.  Sew together and you have a curvy 4 patch!

Curvy 4 Patch

Pretty cute, eh?  I learned this technique in a quilt guild class I took a few years ago.

So now, it’s time to play.

Fabric Choices

Beautiful colors, cut the squares, cut the curves and sew into borders and this is what I came up with!

Round Robin 3

Do you think it has enough curves?  Just wait till you see the finish!

God Bless you

Mary

Goals and Objectives (Life on Hold Revisited)

John Lennon’s song Happy Christmas is one of my favorites.  My favorite line is “So this is Christmas, What have you done? Another year over and a new one just begun.”  So…this is Christmas and I’m looking back to see what I have done.  I’ve almost completed the round robin I started with my bee.  I’ve completed 3 UfO’s (unfinished objects) and 1 is almost done.  Then I will have 4 for the year.  6 was my goal, so I am 2 short.  But it’s a start.  I’ve also worked toward launching my quilting business.  I’ve sold 2 quilts and quilted 10 for a friend.  I’ve got my website up and running.  Check it out at TealDragonQuilts.

My husband and I have the upstairs completed on our Island home.  And it is perfect!

Now all we need to do is add furniture!  That metal chair on the middle left of the picture is my sewing chair.  One of my goals for 2013 is to get a real sewing chair.

I retired from the Lake Charles Symphony Orchestra, so that I can have more Island time and time to sew.  I was with this orchestra for 33 years!  I do miss it, but I really enjoy the extra time on Tiki.

Real Estate has not been good this year.  Business is picking up at the end of the year, so I’m hoping it continues into 2013.

Weight loss didn’t happen this year, but I kept the 30 pounds off that I lost in 2011.  2013 is a new year.  New beginning.

So overall, I really did not get accomplished what I wanted to get accomplished.  But instead of being bummed, I am looking forward to my goals for 2013.  I’ve been working on them and almost have them ready to share.

I hope you are having a great holiday season and all your dreams and goals come true in 2013!

Happy Christmas!

Quilting Motifs – Roses

Roses are my favorite flower and I saw a rose motif over at Lea Day’s 365 + Designs and I started practicing on my sketch pad.  The first attempts looked cartoonish to me, like something out of the Grinch stories.  Friends helped me to see what I needed to do to calm the design down.

It was starting to look more like Leah’s design.  So I did a couple of pages of roses, but still I did not feel ready to quilt in a quilt, especially the one this design is for.

Project got set aside, then I started working on charity quilts and thought, great place to practice the rose motif!  Talked to a friend and she had a continuos rose motif as well.  To me it looked more like the flower, so I borrowed her copy and went back to the sketch pad. It took a while to get the hang of it.  I was struggling and getting frustrated.

So, I thought, if I could just figure out how to do one, then I could worry about connecting with a continuous line. Voile La!  It worked.  Then I worked on a page adding the continuous lines and I felt ready to put it with a quilt.

The quilt is quilted and I feel ready to work on the quilt that was made for this design!

How do you work thru your quilting dilemmas?

String Pieced Quilt

String quilts are strips of fabric sewn together on some type of foundation that can be torn or washed away.  This is a picture of a charity quilt top that I have done for the bee I am in.

2 1/2″ fabric strips sewn together on Phone Book paper.

This is a super simple quilt.  I will go over it step by step in this post. Supplies include:

• 8 1/2″ x 11″ phone book pages
• 2 1/2″ strips
• Thread
• Sewing Machine
• Acrylic Ruler
• Rotary Cutter and Mat

Cut the phone book pages into 8″ x 8 1/2″ squares. *when sewing strips, sew a little past the edge of the paper so the finished squares can be cut into 8 1/2″ squares

The foundation. It will be easy to tear away.

I randomly picked my strips out of a box of 2 1/2″ strips.  The next project will use floral strips.  The sky is the limit!

This box was overflowing when I started this project!

Take 2 strips put one right side up on the paper.  Place it on the diagonal, or straight, or anywhich way you want.  I did the diagonal.  Place the next strip on top and sew a 1/4″ seam.  Sew about 1/2″ past the paper, cut the strips hanging off.  Take off the sewing machine and open and press the sewn strips.

Bottom strip right side up, top strip right side down. Sew 1/4″ seam

I usually do a stack of 5 and chain piece, then stop and press.  Continue in the same manner until the paper is completely covered.

Now it’s time to “square up”.  Turn the block over so that the paper is showing.  On the long sides, cut at the edge of the paper (8 1/2″).  Rotate and measure 3/8″ from edge and trim.  Do same on opposite side.         Now you should have a nicely trimmed 8 1/2″ square.  I tear the paper as I finish the blocks.  You may want to wait until all the blocks are done.  Start at one edge and tear along the stitches.  The paper on the other side of the stitches will lift up.  Then I crease on the next seam and tear along the stitches.  Continue until all paper is gone.  I love this paper.  I’ve never had anything that tears away so easily!

The first String Pieced Quilt, I did 35 blocks, 5 x 7.  Next one is going to be 5 x 6.  Only 30 blocks.  Once you have the blocks lay out in rows and columns.  I tried to make sure none of the same fabric was touching, but please, don’t stress over it.  It will look beautiful, even if same fabric touches!

Now you are ready to sew into rows.  Take column A and sew to Column B, Column C and sew to Column D.  Do this to the end of the row.  If you have one left over, sew it to the last group, or wait til the end.  Then sew B to C, F to G, etc., until you have the columns sewn into a row.

Once the columns are together, you then start sewing the rows together.  Row A to B, Row C to D, Etc.  Then it would be B to C, F to G, etc.  Until you have a completed top!  Easy Peasy.

Now for a few tips:

• Sew 1/2″ past the paper.  This allows for a solid seam at the end of a row.
• Make sure the strip hangs over the paper on the edges.  This will prevent “holes”.  Or you can always take a deeper seam allowance at that point.
• Chain piece for 5 blocks.  This will give you a chance to get up and move around!
• I piece the strips randomly, but I do decide on a color before going to my strip box.
• I pull the strips from the box, then cut at the end of the seam and those leftover strips are first choice in the next round.  When the selection gets low, I pull more from the strip box.

Let me know if you give this top a try.  It goes together quick.  Contact me if you’ve any questions about the construction.  And send pics!!

God Bless You!

Island Time

The Island just has a different feel than the big city.  No worries and no hurries.  Don’t know if that’s a good thing for my business, but it’s great for my health!  Since this is Memorial Day weekend, there does seem to be more bustle going on.

We got in yesterday, afternoon and went out on the deck and Sea Gulls were diving for fish!  So cool.  Hubby worked on the AC, so it’s working like new.  Got my sewing space set up and even was able to sew a few strips before I had to call it a night.  Must be the air, cause as soon as things were unloaded, hubby, puppy and me all three took naps.  Seems like a lot of sleeping to me.

Now it’s Saturday morning and time to get busy.  Hope you have a great day and God bless you.