What's Your Favorite Block?

Do you have a favorite quilt block? This next month for one of the swaps I am in she is asking for a 12.5" block of our choice. Now that opens a whole world of possibilities........I do like the simple 9 patch....and then there is a House block that I have loved for many years. Lately I have been into Crumb Chaos to try and tame the scrap heap! Log cabins are a fav as well. On my design wall now I have several blocks...half square triangles in cool/warm colors, and another block that I am not sure of the name of but it would work. Dresdens are really nice...I could do a word block with something inspiring like "SEW" or something like that. My but the possibilities are endless.  Maybe I will just close my eyes, fan through my sampler book, and randomly pick one. I will let you know what I choose......

and then I need to think about the fabric choice.....contemporary, retro, solids, scrap heap. What for the background if there is any? Wow.....for one little block there is a lot to think about.

After Christmas / and a year in review

This year I bought a gammill........These are some of the projects finished for the year. and of course there are a few UFO's around just waiting to be finished.....

Wonder what next year will bring?

Had to work yesterday and so Christmas gifting with the family was a little late.

I gave Gary his bed the day before and I think he likes it!

Made my heart happy.

I have to stop posting things that I make before giving them because the girls both said they had

a preview of the snap it bags I made for them. Oh well, much better in person.

Santa was good to me.

 He made some fancy new circle templates for my quilting machine.

 Now I want to try some Baptist Fans and some other patterns with them.

I hope you had an enjoyable weekend. Here is to a quilty New Year!   Jeri

Happy Holidays

and so to all of you I wish you a blessed holiday. I have my family here and we are readying for out time together. To me that is all I ask for.

I will leave you with this. I just can't get enough of this song......

Merry Christmas friends.

Pincushions and Pillows

Tonight is our christmas party at my Quilt Guild. I made this pincushion to exchange. It turned out a little larger than I thought it would be , but I am still lovin' it. Hope my exchange partner likes it. I used this tutorial and tho it took a bit of time it went together pretty easily.
http://www.talkaboutfabric.com/forum/patterns-tutorials/55-%5Bfree%5D-wild-flower-pincushion-anna-maria-horner.html
 Don't you just love to give handmade goodness. I sure do. I can't wait to see what I will receive.

I also finished stuffing a dog bed for my grand Pug/ Gary last night. I am thinking he will like this. It is like a giant pillow all fluffy, which is what he chooses to sleep on at home! ,,,,,,his mama's pillows. This one is a special one just for him.

Today is baking day at our house. We have several kinds to make. My husband loves this part of Christmas. He is quite a baker. Off to assist the master baker. Have a great day!   Jeri

Christmas Sewing

Busy here getting ready for Christmas. I have found a little time in the sewing room sewing for Christmas. I like to try and make a little something every year. This year I made these little pouches for my family. I plan to put a gift card in each one. They are great to use for the IPod and its headphones or keeping all those store reward cards in.

These are called Snap Happy bags http://www.threesistersfabric.com/patterns-7/all-patterns-26/snap-happy-by-stitchin-sisters-1529.html

These are the medium size bags.

This one is my fav.

I made it from a recycled quilt for my daughter. She loves the GM Flowergarden.

Tomorrow I will tackle a dog bed for a certain little pug I know....... :) Jeri

Scraps and a Holiday Hostess Gift.

This was posted on FaceBook today by a friend of mine.
I just may need to do a quilt like this. Ideas are forming...........

Finishing up a couple of hotpads for a hostess gift today. I used this tutorial.....
http://www.ohfransson.com/oh_fransson/2010/06/quilted-potholder-tutorial.html
and I used some of my most favorite "wordie" fabric.

I made each one a little different on the front.

See those "wordies" of inspiration!

and the back.......

I think I will tuck in a few extras for the gift. Thankyou Tami!  I'm  sure your party will be a hit.

JERI

November Blocks

Wow where did November go?

Time to get the November blocks in the mail.....

This one is for the ScrapBusters Bee.

http://www.flickr.com/groups/1678797@N25/

These were kind of tricky,

they are for  Do Good Stitches / Harmony group

http://www.flickr.com/groups/dogoodstitches/

Time to get ready for Christmas.  Jeri

MFA Thesis Show

Congratulations to my son on an awsome Thesis Show.

We had a great weekend in San Diego for my son's show.

Here are a few pictures.

Each piece made rythmic sound.

Such a creative mind.

These shoes tapped out a 4//4 cadence.

This project was completed at 6:00 PM Saturday ....Showtime

The show kept us all busy the week before...into the wee hours.

The artist in action.

another of Jon's pieces.

We are so very proud of him.

Weekend Workshop

This weekend I attended a workshop with Karla Alexander.    

http://www.saginawstreetquilts.com/

 What a fun day. I finished about a third of the quilt that I started.

 We had 20/plus quilters working on about half a dozen of her quilt patterns.  

I learned her method of quilting curves.

Here are my wonky rail blocks.

such a beautiful sound.....sewing machines working away....

Busy sewing......

sewing, sewing.....

blocks taking shape......

The design wall helps to play with settings....

creative juices were flowing.......

More creative juices flowing....

Such a great day......

Thankyou Karla,

Now to get more blocks done.....    Jeri

Wind Me Up, Hear Me Sing

My son Jon is drummer in a band by the name of "The New Kinetics" in SanDiego.

                      https://www.facebook.com/thenewkinetics

This week they released an animated video on UTube. Here is the video. Jons' character has the blue and white striped shirt. It's funny, but the characters actually look like their band member counterpart.

Enjoy, Jeri

Trick or Treat

October Blocks

Today was a great day to finish up my blocks for the month. I am part of 2 Bees and so it was a good day to finish up the blocks to mail off next week.

These Greek Cross blocks are for the

http://www.flickr.com/groups/dogoodstitches/

Do Good Stitches Bee

These Wonky Star blocks were for the

http://www.flickr.com/groups/1678797@N25/

ScrapBusters Bee

It is kind of fun to just do a couple of blocks just to try them, and I certainly have the scraps to use.

Hope your weekend was a good one.  Jeri

BOO....etc.

Finishing up a quilt today for my sister. Halloween is just around the corner. Hope she has time to get it bound, if not.....2012!

Hot off the presses.............

A look at the whole quilt.

Spiderweb.

another closeup.....

The Quilt Expo over the last week was amazing, took some awesome classes, great vendors, learned so much. Kind of overload.....I was able to apply a few of the factoids I learned to this Halloween quilt. I had it halfway finished before and so the last part was much easier to do because of the classes I took.

some amazing quilts at the Expo.

works of art.

This one won the top award.

That teabag has itty bitty cross stitching on it.

Such inspiration.

This one looked like a painting.

Good Times, Jeri

MQX

Tomorrow and the next day I am taking classes at the Machine Quilters Xpo here in Portland. I am looking forward to some great classes............

Quilt Show

Yesterday and today was the Quilt Show put on by Westside Quilters Guild. I sold tickets  for a while and then answered questions about our charity quilting. The show was a sucess. So many talented people in our guild and a fun vendors mall. Amazingly talented quilt art speakers too. Here are some pics.

This is our Guild Raffle Quilt for the year. The quilting on this is beautiful. It truly makes the quilt.

Love this.

Beautiful applique on this one.

          These were the result of a class some of our members attended. Making a quilt from a picture.

I am still drawn to House Quilts.

So many pretty colors.

Someday......I will make a selvedge quilt.....

and of course I love the scrappy quilts.

This is one of AnnMaries' I love her stuff. My goodness look at that straight line quilting. It makes the quilt.

and some more "Modern Houses"

Another scrappy quilt. This one is handquilted! Patty Dobbs does such a beautiful job.

and I am also drawn to the antique quilts. Especially that Grandmothers Flowergarden. Love it!

What a great show. We have some very talented quilters in our guild.

                                          Jeri