Alex's New Quilt...

When the grandkids turn three years old I make them a twin-sized quilt for their "big" bed.  Since Alex is turning three this July, his mom asked that I make another "jar" quilt for his bed since he and Andrew now share a room and have bunk beds.  (I made this "bug jar" quilt for Andrew's third birthday.)

Instead of a strictly "bug" jars, I decided to do more of an "eye spy" type of quilt but put them in "jars".  Unfortunately, I don't have any up close pictures of the "jars", but there were things like tires, animals, umbrellas, candy, monkeys, fish, etc., ....and yes, bugs, too!  

The pieced back...(looks like there is an "orb" on the right side of the quilt because there was nothing on the quilt itself)...

The label...

I hate to mail quilts because I'm always afraid that they will get lost, so as much as possible, I hand-deliver them.  Since we won't be there for his birthday this year, we took it down with us when we went on vacation.

He immediately wanted to go down and put it on his bed!!!   I think he likes it!!!  

Here is a comparison of the two quilts side-by-side.  The brown "shelf" fabric, the black background, and the blue border were different but very similar since the fabric was purchased 5 years apart!

On the Home Front...

I love to garden, but have to used raised beds or do container gardening because of my back and knee.  Last years container garden was a bust and I only have one raised bed that I use to grow green beans in.  Toward the end of the summer last year I saw an ad for the Garden Tower2 and was extremely interested but decided to revisit the idea this year since the gardening season was over by that time last year.  I ordered one this Spring and it came a couple of days before we left on vacation.  This is what it looked like when I planted it before we left on vacation..some plants, some seeds...

And this is what it looked like 2.5 weeks later!!!  Everything is so green and lush and growing so well!!

Loretta

Latest Quilt Project...

Quote for the Day:

 “Few have spoken of the actual pleasure derived from giving to someone, from creating something, from finishing a task, from offering unexpected help almost invisibly and anonymously.”

~Paul Wiener

SPOILER ALERT FOR TRINITY:  If you don't want to see what Andrew's birthday present looks like, don't read this post!!!!

Now...on to the main post...

A couple of months ago I started making the "bug jar" quilt top that is to be my grandson, Andrew III's, present for his third birthday in May.  He is ALL boy and I thought a "bug jar" quilt would be PERFECT for him!  

Isn't he just the cutest thing you ever did see???

 
Don't you just want to kiss those cheeks!!!!!  BTW, he's holding leaves that he has found in the yard of the house that they should be closing escrow on very soon!  :)

Anywho...he turns three in May of 2011 and I have finished the quilt for his birthday present...all except for the binding and the label... and I'm going to share pictures of it with you here!  :)


There are 72 "jars"...all with DIFFERENT fabrics...there are no repeats!   It is machine pieced and machine quilted.

The "white" that you see around the edge of the quilt is the batting.  It will be trimmed back to the outer edge of the blue when I am ready to add the binding.   For those of you who don't know what "binding" is, it is when you take a strip of folded fabric and sew it along the edge to "enclose" the quilt.

The back is pieced also!  :)  How's that for using up extra fabric...can I call that my "decluttering" for today???  LOL
   

I just heart that lobster fabric!  :) 


Scattered throughout the quilt I did machine embroideries...I put the particular insects/animals/reptiles by their "jars"...as if they had "escaped"!  :)

I'm very happy with the way it turned out.  Now I just have to put the binding on, and make a label and sew it on!  

Thanks for stopping by!  Please leave a comment to let me know you were here!  

Loretta

Don't Bug Me....

Quote for the day:

We hope that, when the insects take over the world, they will remember with gratitude how we took them along on all our picnics.  ~Bill Vaughan

Hello to everyone who stops by my blog today...

I've been doing some quilting and some decluttering and I will share both with you today!

As was posted in this post I have been working on  "bug jar" quilt for my grandson, Andrew.  Last week I initiated a swap of bug fabric on a quilting forum that I am on.  Saturday I received the first of the fabrics in the swap and immediately sat down and made them into blocks!  :)  I am now up to 21 blocks for the quilt!

Here's a picture of all but one of the blocks as I have them on my design wall.  (This is not the arrangement they will be in for the quilt...this is just a place to put them and admire them while I make more blocks for the quilt! )

Aren't those bugs just the cutest things???  

Not at all like these...

Which leads me to my decluttering...

The moth pictured above is an Indian Meal Moth...yes...those kind that live and grow in grain and grain products...

Well...if you haven't guessed by now...our pantry got infested with them.  :(:(:(:(:(

So today I went through and checked everything that was grain or grain based...and ended up throwing out probably $50 worth of food from the pantry.  Every box of cereal had to go, all crackers, nuts, etc.  Even things I had stored in plastic Tupperware and glass jars with "airtight" seals had to go.  So far the only thing I've found that wasn't infested was stuff bought within the last two weeks, and for some reason...all the instant oatmeals seem to be okay...we've seen no sign of them in those. 

Basically, I filled 2 big black garbage bags with infested food and a couple of the storage containers.  The storage containers that I want to keep will be washed with bleach before being put in the dishwasher.

No...I didn't get any pictures...I didn't want to gross you out that much.

I've also ordered from Ebay some pantry pest traps to put in the pantry.  When I've used these in the past, I've had no problems with infestations.  Looks like I need to go back to using them continuously.  

On the "up" side...the pantry really needed to be gone through and now it is no longer bursting at the seams!  LOL  That's one way to clean out the pantry.  See...there's always an optimistic way to look at things!  :)

Now, onto a lighter, happier note...my Ebay auctions of the Pfaltzgraff dinnerware end this afternoon.  So far, 2 out of the 4 lots have bids on them.  Hopefully, at the last minute the other two lots will get bids, too.

That means that as soon as I get payment on those, they will be leaving my house!  YAY!  

Now...I'm off to put my whole cloth quilt in the quilting frame so I can get started hand quilting it.  I've been wanting to do one of these for YEARS and finally found a reasonably priced queen-size pre-printed top when we were in Georgia in May.  

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term "whole cloth quilt"...it refers to a plain piece of fabric that is heavily quilted and the quilting design is what makes the quilt...not the fabric design like in a pieced quilt.

Here is a picture of the quilt top I bought.  It is solid white cotton and the design you see in the picture will be quilted with white thread.

Just to show you how truly insane I am...the diagonal lines in the center and around the edge were 2" apart...which I thought was too far apart.  So I went through and added lines between the already printed lines...so now they are only 1" apart!  LOL...Yes...I know...I am insane.  BUT...you heard it here first!  LOL

Thanks to everyone for stopping by my blog.  Please leave a comment to let me know what you "released" into the wild today.

Have a GREAT day,

Loretta

The Start of a New Quilt!!!!

Quote for the day:

“There is a very fine line between hobby and mental illness.” 

~ Dave Barry

Good morning, Peeps!  Glad you stopped by my blog!  Bet you are surprised that I am posting a blog entry in the morning!  Well...me, too!  LOL

For those who know me personally, you know that I am NOT a morning person.  However, I thought since I had a few minutes and was semi-awake, I'd go ahead and show you what I started on yesterday...

This would be considered more of a "quilting" post than a "decluttering" post...

That is unless you've seen THIS...(cue scary music!!!)

Yes, folks...that is a closet full of fabric...called a "stash"...

So, in my own liberal definition of "decluttering"...my making quilt blocks is "decluttering"...because it is using up something that is in the house and making it leave my house...eventually...when the quilt is finished...it will leave my house...and find it's new home...eventually...

So...here is what I started making yesterday...

First off...when you start a new quilt, you make a "test block"...to make sure you read the cutting and sewing directions correctly, and to make sure that you "enjoy" making this pattern.  If you don't enjoy making the pattern, this quilt will become a UFO (UnFinished Object) and will languish in some deep, dark recesses of your sewing room...and we don't want that...we have enough of those as it is without adding more to them!

Here is my "test block" that is made from scraps of fabric:

(P.S. Trinity...ask Paul if he recognizes the brown fabric the jar is made of!  And Erin...do you recognize the fabric the lid is made of?)

I liked the way the block pieced together and so I started cutting the "real" fabric...the fabric I had selected for the quilt...and made these three blocks while watching the election results last night.

These are the start of a "Bug Jar" quilt for my grandson.  It will be a twin-size for when he gets big enough to go into a "big boy bed".

I love how the faint stripes in the gray fabric used for the lids looks like those old zinc lids they used to use on canning jars many years ago!  :)  

When I'm quilting I either watch TV or listen to audiobooks that I download from the library onto my laptop.   The book that I am currently listening to is "Escape" by Carolyn Jessop, an excellent book, I might add!  

She is a former wife of a polygamist who was high-level in the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints cult in Colorado City, Colorado.  I have read several books about the FLDS, especially those which are written by former members.  They are REAL eye-openers as to the "real life" of this cult.  The book that got me started interested in learning about the dark little secrets in that cult was "Under the Banner of Heaven" by Jon Krakauer.  He is a great author that has written many documentaries, including "Into Thin Air" about the hikers to Mt. Everest.   If anyone is interested about learning more about this cult and it's lifestyle, I encourage you to read books by the people who have escaped it.  I have read several and the themes and information are the same, so I know it isn't just one person's grudge.  These books certainly paint a different lifestyle than is portrayed on TLC's show, The Sister Wives.  I have watched those shows and they are so "white-washed", it is pathetic.  It's like glorifying the life of a meth addict when we know that a meth addict's life is not glamorous.  

Okay...off of my soapbox now...LOL. 

I encourage you to see what your library has available to download to PC, MP3, and CD's.  It is amazing what is FREE to us out there...you just need to know about it and use it!  

With that, I'm going to sign off for today and go get ready for my physical therapy appointment.  

Thanks for stopping by!  Please leave a comment and let me know what you are reading and what you have "released" into the wild recently!

Loretta