EYE CANDY

 We had a visit from Jenny this week.  She was picking up The Kittens quilt I quilted for her.  And she brought some of her quilts in progress to show off.  Enjoy! 

From the pattern Lloyd and Lana by Elizabeth Hartman.

Sleepy Sloth by Elizabeth Hartman 

AND she brought me some fabric she got from someone who was downsizing her fabrics. Bonus.  Most of them are fairly small but very fun. These are just a small selection of them.  I will definitely be making some blocks with these beauties in them! 

Sharon and I are having a great time "retreating" together.  So this is short.  There are quilts to quilt and quilts to bind and tops to make.  Maybe I'll have a top to show on Monday. 

Here's my weekend linky party list: Can I Get a Whoop Whoop?, Finished or Not Friday, and Beauties Pageant.  The weather is fine!  Join me in a little surfing. 

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie 

Retreat Eye Candy!

Here are some of the projects that got worked on during retreat.  NONE of these are my projects but I sure wouldn't mind owning some of them! 

Do you remember this quilt from this post? Yes, you get to see my darling grands again but scroll down to the bottom.  There's the same quilt without borders.  Thanks go to Janice H. for suggesting the smaller pink border.  Sharon took the quilt home with her and happened to read the comments before picking out the borders.  She loved the idea and followed through with it. Janice was definitely right about this one!  I've got it to quilt it and then on it will go to Project Linus. These blocks were won at a retreat lottery several years back. 

Sharon started working on these hot chilies near the end of the retreat.  She laid them out on two different backgrounds to decide which she liked better the black or the red.  She and I both said the black as soon as we saw them together but I'm not sure I don't like the red better.  Glad it isn't my decision to make! 

MaryBeth was tickled to get this top finished -- unless she decides to put borders on it.

Sharon started and finished this cute Fourth of July wall hanging.  Directions were in  one of Quiltmaker's magazines this year. (Maybe the May June issue?) 

Michele made a tuffet for her grandmother. 

Bea put this together.  I'm not sure if it was a kit or not but I do know she started it at retreat and got it this far along. I think some borders come next. 

Dorothy was working on log cabin circles.  Don't you love her t-shirt?  There were a lot of different quilty shirts to enjoy at retreat. 

That's the end of pictures that I took at retreat.  There were a lot more projects being worked on but I just wasn't fast enough to snap pictures.  

I'll be linking up with Needle and Thread Thursday and Can I Have a Whoop, Whoop? (This isn't posted yet so I'll check back tomorrow to update it.) Take some time to visit blogs and get some great inspiration! 

Small rant -- Why does Blogger make it so hard to work with pictures?!!?  I had planned to show these pictures in a different order but as I started at the top I realized I could no longer move any pictures up or down.  Grumble, grumble.  In the end it probably doesn't make any difference at all but really, I wish it worked better.  I probably should look at Word Press one of these days. I know there are a lot more things I could control with it.... Sigh. 

Happy Quilting All!  Bonnie 

Eye Candy Instead of Triangle Thursday

I've been swamped this week and haven't got a stash of finished blocks for Triangle Thursday.  So in lieu of TT I'll be showing some eye candy from the last meeting of the Country Piecemakers quilt group. 

This is Bonie's quilt.  The main pictures of the trailers and camping things were from fabric.  I love the creative way she set these blocks including a road. 

Mercy used up a lot of her blue scraps with this one.  

 This is a work in progress by another Bonnie in the group. (I think there are either 3 or 4 Bonnies in a group of less than 40.  What?  I always thought Bonnie was an uncommon name until I got involved with quilting.) 

Bonie and Bonnie are both doing this cute applique quilt.  They are both using some of the fancy stitches on their sewing machines so check these close ups. 

Thanks to Bonie and Bonnie for letting me share their work.    

I'm hoping to get into the studio to do some quilting on Ruthie.  I haven't done any more of it since I showed you the scrap quilt on Ruthie on Design Wall Monday.  Maybe by the end of the weekend I'll have the quilting all done but it may not happen as I have SC Day of Service on Saturday.  That is 
Univ. of Southern California Day of Service.  Current students and alumni groups across the world participate in a day of giving back to the communities that we live in.  We'll be doing some work on a playground for an Autism center.  Darn, too bad the weather is going to be COLD.  

Happy Quilting All! 

Where Did Four Days Go?

I can't believe it's been four days since last I blogged. I'm retired, so I don't have that many commitments. So what have I done over the last four days that I didn't blog?

One was tracking the snow melting by the elephant on the patio. This photo was taken a few days ago. We can now see his base although there are many inches on the ground still. I think the sun must have warmed him up & the snow surrounding him melted. A big rain is coming this weekend so maybe the snow will go when the rain goes. Of course, when we get off our little mountain there is much less snow. There were just patches of it on I-84 as I drove to the library yesterday.

Wednesday was my regular stitching group. Here is some great eye candy to share. This quilt was made by Marie while she was visiting her sister in the west. She made it in a week, including two pillowcases. All is done by machine. You can find the pattern in the April, 2010 American Patchwork and Quilting magazine.

These pillowcases make me want to do some cute matching pillowcases for our guest bedrooms. It will be fun to see how Marie quilts this one.

Ada won this as a kit at the guild's Quilter's Day Out last fall. She did some swapping of colors (she added those great greens). She was looking for ideas on how to finish it cause she didn't like the directions. We voted for a simple 1 1/2" border & then the larger border. The pattern showed some horizontal strips at the top and bottom but they really didn't add any thing except inches. If ya know what I mean!

I am still hardly working (as opposed to working hard) on A Tisket, A Tasket. I have the most involved block almost ready for stitching. The block has three black-eyed susans in the basket. Each flower has six or so pieces to applique. I've been avoiding it like the plague. I gave myself a stern lecture and said if I leave it for the last I'll never finish it. Surprisingly enough, I listened to myself! So I've almost got the little pieces ready to go. I'll work on it one of these nights and then start stitching.

Wednesday night I had a great lesson on applique by Linda M. Poole. I'll share the little project with you later. And, it was really appropriate since I am working on the A Tisket, A Tasket blocks.

I'm off to the studio to see if I can make some progress on Mystery for Relays Mystery #13. It is called Super, Duper Easy & will be given tomorrow. I hope it is that easy too. I've picked the main, dark color. I've picked a lighter background color. I need to cut those and then I get to pull scraps for the mediums. I love using those scraps up! I could also sew mystery 12 blocks together but I doubt I'll get to those. There's always a lot of variety in the studio.

Happy quilting everyone!