Beaded Buttons

Last night our small group of crazy quilters got together for our monthly meeting at Bonnie's house. Her mom, Anna, taught us how to make these wonderful beaded buttons.
Aren't they cool? You can find out how to make these here.

Fun with Friends

Yesterday Jeanette and I went to Kathy's house to work some more on our Snowmen projects. We toured her beautiful yard and I was so in awe of her flowers I didn't even think to take pictures.
Jeanette brought show and tell, she has been a busy little beaver.
This is a pillow case, she made a pair of them, aren't they gorgeous?

And how cute is this quilt?
Then we had a wonderful lunch, again no pictures, but then we got down to some serious work.Kathy has been a real over achiever as she had finished six of the twelve blocks.




Kathy wrote about it on her blog too. I think the real party started after I left. Is that a wine glass I see in the center picture? You can check it out here.

Early morning flowers

I thought I would dash out early this morning and take a couple of shots of my garden. After a quick trip around my garden I realized that evidently many of my flowers don't open until later. I guess this shows my true colors, I'm not a morning person and not much of a gardener.

Round Robin

This is Cobi's block and the theme for this round robin is 'autumn'. My contribution was the short fat tree, the basket of flowers and the fly stitches seam treatment.

Tin Swap

Here is the wonderful tin that arrived in the mail today. It was made my Kerry in Canada and she really knows my style. I love vintage and tatting so you can imagine how much I love this little tin. The one I sent off can be seen here.

One row done

I'm on a roll and finished the row today. I forgot to mention in the last post, this block is called the ribbon star block.

One down and I don't know how many to go

At our local guild meeting each month someone demos a quilt block and this year they are featuring a row quilt. Well, as usual, I'm behind. Everyone else is in the third row and I am just starting, so in my quest to catch up, I've started with this month and I am going to work backwards. This if my first block and only 5 more blocks to go for this row. I haven't even checked out to see how many blocks are in the first two rows, but this block looked like the easiest, so I thought I would start there, so not to get discouraged.

More fun with friends

On Saturday the Minnesota Quilters held their monthly guild meeting, with the theme being "Hard Times" quilts featuring quilts from the 30's. Kathy, Jeanette and I, being new members, and having a great interest in this program, headed to Minneapolis to the meeting.
We arrived a little early, so we had to have a bite to eat. You can't go to these things on an empty stomach. Kathy had spotted a cute little coffee shop called the Cupcake where we found fabulous pastries and coffee.
We headed to the meeting and found everyone to be very warm and fuzzy, in spite of us causing trouble at the door, with one of us trying to get in with her Farm Bureau card and one of us not bringing her membership card at all.


These we just a few of the miraculous quilts on display.

A Sew on the Go Project

I brought this fun kit called Cool Coasters or Marvelous Mug Mats at the quilt show in Duluth from a vendor called Woolylady. The really cool thing about it is that all the wool was precut and everything you need, including the needle was inside the kit. The only thing I did differently was use different colored pearl cotton to buttonhole around the designs. I started with the thread they provided and it just didn't look jazzy enough, so I set that thread aside and used it for attaching the top and bottom together. Luckily I just happened to have some different colored pearl cotton along with me so I started working on them on the way home. I don't really need coasters so I may put them on another piece of wool and frame them or make a pillow.

Happy 4th of July

Here are a few more flowers from my garden.

Birthday fun and more

We had to take a quick trip to Mpls yesterday and I found myself in Brooklyn Park once again. I previously talked about an insane place called S R Harris, but didn't have my camera. Well this time I went back with my daughter and camera in hand.

Here are a few trims.

Sometimes you find exactly what you are looking for and have to pull with all your might. Some fabric was on rolls and Shele stood on one side and pulled and I went on the other side and pushed. Sometimes she pushed and I pulled.

Most of the fabric you cut yourself.

It's not for the unadventurous or ill at heart type.


It's more fun than a barrel of monkeys. But the fun didn't stop there, we took Shele out to celebrate her 21st birthday. We went to a wonderful Italian restaurant called Zelo and sat on the terrace.


She ordered a cocktail and much to her disappointment, didn't get carded.

We had to splurge and get dessert.

It was a wonderful day.

My Kitchen Window

I don't dare take a picture of anything in my garden until I get out there and do some work. So here is a picture of my kitchen window. The two bigger vases in the back are 2 inches high and I got those from a second hand store. The smaller ones I got from a previous neighbor.

Happy Birthday Shele

My baby is 21 today. She is a bit of a shoe horse so in honor of her birthday I made this quilt for her.


I had extra fabric so I made a matching pillow case.


My furry friends thought they had to help.
Smokey never misses an opportunity to mess up quilt blocks. She is a terror in my sewing room and is rarely allowed to come in.


Sofie Mae, on the other hand, wants no part of those shenanigans and is always welcome.