What a Wonderful World

These are images of a reversible quilt I made for my grandson for his baby quilt (first grandchild). The quilt came from the song (and children's book) "What a Wonderful World" lyrics by George David Weiss and Bob Thiele, sung by Louis Armstrong. The illustrations in the picture book are by Ashley Bryan. My son enjoys Louis Armstrong and when I saw the illustrations for this book I knew this was the quilt to make for his first baby. Good Friend Marilyn does my math for me and these are almost identical to the page in the book. It's one of my favorite quilts and everytime I see it I marvel at how I took on a project like this. It was my very first foray into "go-without-a-pattern." The moon, you can't see it very well in the photo, is a crescent inside a full moon, two different fabrics.
It took DAYS to figure out how to quilt this. Light thread would show on the black side, dark thread would show on the light side. It's a good thing I have an hour commute to and from work so I could "chew" on this a few days. Finally, in a "eureka!" moment I decided to take one tiny stitch, no pattern, sort of a dotted Swiss approach with a light thread but the stitch was inside the polka dot on the black side so it wouldn't show light on dark. Amazing!
Oh, and I bought a new, super duper wonderful camera so my photos will look a lot better in coming days.

insects

OK, I'm catching up with this week's subject for Snappyfriends. It's insects. We aren't in insect weather yet, unless you count the ones IN the house, it's still cold and defoliated, so I looked through my files and found my friend here. I LOVE that he/she is looking right at me.

Still no quilting.

RED

I'm a week behind on the photo of the week with Snappyfriends but I did want to share the bowl of strawberries. The subject, if you can't guess, was something RED. Picking my own strawberries is the beginning of summer for me and I can't imagine not picking. Besides, we're still coming out of hibernation around here and there isn't much red showing up right now.

We spent the weekend doing major spring projects. Strike while the iron (or mood) is hot, they say, and both Patient Husband and I were swinging hammers, paint brushes, dragging furniture and lugging loads to the curb for the trash pickup.

Not much quilting was done. None, in fact.

storybook quilt

It's been quiet as far as the excitement monitor goes. I stayed in town for two nights this week, eliminating three chances to do any quilting or reading. So it's time for a little show and tell from the past.


This is a very poor image of the Peter Rabbit story book quilt I made last year for Granddaughter #1 ...

and this is a picture of her enjoying it. She really gets into her stories. When Peter was running from Mr. McGregor, she jumped up and said, "he ran and ran like this!" and off she went running around the room so we would know exactly how it went.I couldn't hope for anything more.

pincushion swap

I'm sending off my pincushions tomorrow for the pincushion swap. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to say who I am sending them to so I won't till I investigate that further. I hope my recipient likes strawberries! I stuffed them with sand from our beach and lavender from my garden (I dry jars full every summer). When she opens the box she'll have a heavenly scent to greet her!

Hands

Well, I was very happy to see the photo challenge for this week from Snappyfriends was Hands. I love taking photos of hands and have lots. The photo in my header for instance, is of my friend Mary. I did a whole project for a photography class on her hands while quilting.


This one is of the lady who we buy eggs from occasionally. I hope you like!!

I spent the weekend doing the pincushion, cleaning up other projects and FINALLY addressing Christine...again. I'm closing in on her. She had better be watching out for me.

crocus

I looked out the window at work today and saw the crocus is in bloom. I had to take a quick picture because they're predicting cold and a little snowy this weekend and these babies will be sneezing.















I'm going to start on the pincushion I'm making for an exchange through Foxs Lane and friends. I'll tell about it when it's finished. I have many Michigan ideas for it. Let's hope they translate into a pincushion!

quilt frame, morning glories

I received a post from Louise at Handmade in Gibraltar about the quilt frame. Here it is!

I've suddenly become the owner of two floor quilt frames. This is the first one - it's store bought and quite flimsy ( I know, I don't have the spacer bar on it for the picture) and not wide enough for possessed quilt Christine. I put Christine on so you can see my placement in front of the windows for wonderful lighting. Then last week some neighbors of mine offered one that husband bought at a garage sale so long ago he can't remember which decade it was. We crawled up to his attic above the woodworking shop and wow! it's home made by some loving husband for his quilter wife. It has ratcheted sides so when the quilt is turned it will stay turned. It's quite dusty but after I get it cleaned up it will be used to quilt Christine. Right now I'm still trying to maintain my dominance over her with unsure results.

The trees are already in bud, the robins are back, the pussy willows are in full fluff and look!!! A sprouted morning glory seedling!! I don't do well with seeds but I really, really want morning glories. My sister-in-law has them growing wild with complete neglect and I can't pursuade, cajole or beg them to grow for me. I'll baby these completely.

Sunset

I'm hoping to join Snappyfriends in sharing a photo assignments each week. This week's assignment was sunsets. You don't find them much nicer, awe-inspiring, showstopping, brake squealing than over Lake Michigan. During the summer many a glass of wine is consumed on the bluff overlooking the lake at sunset. I hope this helps me qualify for the group! Check the site, it's awesome!!

quilt frames, reading quilts

I love the mess I make!

Soon there will be a quilt on a floor quilt frame. I've never quilted on one before, I use a hoop and it works well. But in managing Christine I think I need a floor quilt frame. In the span of 3 days I have the offer of two! I'm going to use them both. Christine will be on one and the blue string quilt on the other. My quilt/reading/quiet space is large enough for both, near windows where the light is good and now the spring is coming it will be nice.


I like to buy those fabric books, the kind you sew into pages and stuff. I cut them apart and make 'reading quilts' for my grandchildren. This one was Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and it was my first. I gave it to Charlie, my grandson for St. Nick's day a couple of years ago. These are easy and fun and the kids love them.

Spring!

Even thought the temperatures were in the high 40's and the sky was brilliant blue and the sun was warm all week, there was just one thing I had to see to confirm that spring it really here. And...
It really is spring...and early, too! I was curious Sunday about just how close we were. I slogged through the mud in the road to the fields across the street. You can see the snowy ditch that turned out to be much deeper than I thought, but after extricating myself from the up-to-my -knees ditch drift, I found the pussy willows were indeed in bloom!!!

THIS is our second sign of spring. When our dairy bar opens, it's a time for celebration among the locals. Friday dessert was ice cream at Sherman's. We debated about making this dinner, as we have at times, but our Mexican restaurant opened for the season, too, so we had dinner there and dessert at Sherman's. The servings are monstrous and we all love it. Sherman's spoils us for any other ice cream parlor. Happy Spring!!

Pysanky eggs!

My daughter and I took a class in Pysanky eggs last Saturday. It was very fun, didn't require a stash of fabric, and provided immediate gratification! Here are some pictures of the process.


Here Lisa is drawing lines with the nifty tool I can't remember the name of. It has bees wax in a teeny funnel and the hot wax flows through the hole of the funnel for drawing lines.

Dipping into yellow is the first dye step

After dying yellow

The next dye color is orange

The next is red - this is after new lines are drawn before each dip into a new color

Now that the colors are on, it's time to get rid of the wax. Carefully holding it near the candle melts the wax and little by little it's wiped off with paper towels.

Ta Da!

Not bad - not great, but not bad!