Miri’s Giveaway

I’m still trying to catch up and forgot to tell you about Miri’s Giveaway to celebrate her 100th post on her blog! You have until tomorrow, the 30th, to enter. Miri is giving away one of her mini quilts.

Two cuties and a giveaway by Jackie

My two little grandchildren spent time together for the first time last week. One day we all went shopping together and I can’t resist sharing a few of the photos. The girl is a year old and the boy is 15 months.

Jackie of Canton Village Quilt Works is having a giveaway on her blog in honor of her birthday.  Quilt books and jelly rolls and more! You have until tomorrow midnight, the 29th, to enter.

Debbie

Where I’ve been, who I’ve met – Part 1

I’m going to start catching up here a little bit at a time. Last Wednesday, the 17th, I went to the American Folk Art Museum to see the Paula Nadelstern exhibit. Seeing her work up close, in real life, was a thrill. Every quilt is amazing. If you are going to be anywhere in the vicinity of NYC during the next few months, you should do whatever you have to do to make sure you get to see this exhibit. It’s open thru September 13. They also have a table with a bunch of fancy real kaleidoscopes that you can play with. It was a lot of fun.

In the afternoon, I met up with Henya of Chicken Stitches at the Lion Brand Yarn Studio. We sat for about an hour talking life and knitting. I showed her my redwork embroidery and she showed me a few knitting and crocheting projects she is working on. Henya also advised me on how to go about making my first pair of socks and which yarn to buy. I had bought the book Socks from the Toe Up by Wendy Johnson, the day before  and we went through it to decide which are the easiest toe and heel to start with. Here’s the yarn I bought to make the socks.

When Henya first came in she took out a little plastic bag with some wonderful little gifts for me. First there was two skeins of a beautiful yarn from Russia. It really is from Russia, the label is all in Russian!

Then Henya took out some of her stitch markers she brought for me that she sells in her Etsy store! Here are the adorable little things.

It was fun to meet Henya. She’s such a nice person. You can see that when you read her blog. Here’s a picture of us in front of lots of colorful yarns.

Have a good weekend,

Debbie

Kreativ Blogger Award

Last week, Henya, of Chicken Stitches,  honored me with the Kreativ Blogger award.

The rules are to link back to the person who gave you the award, write a list of seven things that you love, nominate your own list of seven for the Kreativ Blogger award, along with links to their blogs and place the Kreativ Blogger logo in your post.

7 things I love (not in any particular order of importance):

1. Flying in airplanes, airports, watching airplanes from the ground, etc.
2. Doing any kind of needlework.
3. Collecting fibers and fabric.
4. My two little grandbabies.
5. Blogging, almost.
6. Meeting people live that I’ve met on the Internet.
7. Quiet.<G>

7 of the many blogs I like to read (in no particular order):

1. Tante J’s Adventures in Knitting
2. A Legacy of Stitches
3. Threads from Karen
4. sredeluxe
5. Quiltgranny’s Shoe
6. Jenny of Elefantz
7. Exuberant Color

One more block

All I have to show for the past few weeks is one more finished reverse redwork block for the red and white baby quilt.

I’m going to the states this week for a couple of weeks and expect to have some photos to share. I hope to get to the Paula Nadelstern exhibit at the American Folk Art Museum and lots more.

One thing I always make time for is entering giveaways. I just entered a great giveaway at Tonya’s Sewing Room. Lots of great goodies including 14 fat quarters! You have until June 21 to enter.

Debbie

Checking in

I don’t have anything worked on in the past week and a half to show, so I’ll share some photos that I took on Thursday evening at a meeting of my local quilting group.

Most of us did not have much to show. I brought my redwork blocks and luggage tags. And, I forgot to turn off the macro on my camera, so the photos are not so clear.

Nechama, the hostess, and a few of her wonderful landscape quilts:  

Two of Yehudit’s quilts:

These blocks are a little different

Most of the reverse redwork blocks I’ve made so far for the baby quilt were vintage blocks that I collected some years ago from various sites and embroidery groups where vintage blocks in the public domain were shared. I also collected some blocks from the free BOMs at the Sentimental Stitches site. Click on Free Stuff in the sidebar. A few other places, too, but I can’t remember where. There’s also the J.F. Ingalls patterns that I saved from here.

I recently came across a great blog by Jenny of Elefantz. She has an Etsy shop where she sells her own embroidery designs. The Wonky House and the camel come from the freebies in her sidebar.

 

I’m putting aside the redwork blocks for a bit to make some more luggage tags for us all to use on our upcoming trip.

Debbie

Two more blocks

Yet another two reverse redwork blocks for the baby quilt. I also finished the first round on Amy’s block in the RRbloggers Round Robin (link in sidebar, too) that I’m in. Can’t share it with you because majority ruled that we will wait until the very end, and show only the finished quiltlet. That's over a year from now!

Yesterday I went for the second time to a meeting of a new quilting group in a suburb of Jerusalem. Some of them are beginners and some of them, who have been quilting for a while now, insist on still calling themselves beginners, LOL! After having seen some of my miniature works last time, they asked me to teach them the basics of foundation paper piecing. I had a wonderful time showing them how do to it along with a few of my little personal techniques that I do a little different from most other FPPers.

Susan wrote a little about the meeting in her blog post yesterday, along with a photo of me showing one of the steps!

Debbie

What I’ve made in the past week

I made another reverse redwork block for the baby quilt. A cute little elephant! This makes four done. Haven’t decided yet how many I’ll be making. I started working on the next block.

I recently decided that I wanted to make bright colored luggage tags that stand out when you’re looking for your luggage on the carousel. I’m making lots of them for various family members.

I googled '”luggage tag tutorial” and found quite a few, but this is the one that looked like it would work for me. I prefer tags that are covered (private), so after making them according to the tutorial, with a few minor adjustments, I spent some time trying to solve the puzzle of how to alter it to be covered. Here you see what I came up with. I plan to make some smaller ones, too, for the hand luggage.

It’s a fun thing to use up some fabric stash with.

A few weeks ago, after spending months entering various giveaways, I finally won! I won a cute little handy scissor sharpener from Angela on her blog. Angela is offering several quilty giveaways again this month. Check it out.

Have a good week,

Debbie

Great Giveaway to enter

I love entering blog giveaways. The Inklingo blog, by quilters who use Linda Franz's (of Quilted Diamonds fame) Inklingo collections, is having a really cool giveaway for quilters. You must check it out. Logo with link will be on my sidebar until May 18, when entering the giveaway is closed. Have fun, Debbie

RR Bloggers starting block

May 15 is the deadline to mail our starting blocks for the RR Bloggers. You can always see the blogs of the others in the group in the link for the RR Bloggers ring in my sidebar. I used components of a block designed by Carol Doak especially for the members of her CarolDoakQuiltingGroup group on yahoogroups.

Debbie

Baby quilt progress

I've finished two more reverse redwork blocks for the baby quilt for my granddaughter. Taking a little break to make a block for a group quilt that is meant to be a surprise for the recipient. So, I won't be able to share that until the quilt is presented, which will be at least six months from now! I also made a block for an RR. Picture tomorrow.

Debbie

Home made stamps

For some time now I've been reading the blog of Susan Purney Mark. Every week she posts "Stamping Monday". She gives great ideas of how to make stamps out of just about anything you can find. She also asks for readers to share their stamp making. I made these a several years ago. This one with a wave like pattern was made from erasers. I carved them so that, when stamping, the ends next to each other form a continuous pattern.

These were made from something that I can't remember what it's called. It's a very thin sponge-like thing. After I cut out the bells, as an afterthought, I glued the negative of what I cut out to a block, too.

This was made from the same sponge-like stuff. I wanted to see what it was like to stamp it and get the secondary pattern.

Enjoy, Debbie

Bloggers Quilt Festival

Amy at Park City Girl is hosting a Bloggers Quilt Festival this week. To be a part of this festival, you just write about your favorite quilt on your blog, put the logo and link to the festival on your blog and then add yourself to the link list of the Park City Girl blog for the festival. Put a comment on that post letting Amy know, with a link back to the post on your blog. I have a lot of favorite quilts, but one of them is one that I made about eight years ago for my son for his Bar Mitzvah. Here's the link on my old website that tells about it.

Have fun, Debbie

Nice yarn shop

I had heard about this yarn shop some time ago and every time I'd been to Ra'anana I kept looking for it whenever we drove down the street of its address, a main street. I was just curious to see the place, not like I need any yarn or anything, LOL! Anyway, two days ago we were walking on a side street there and I bumped into the shop! It seems that all the stores on this side street have the address of the main street. Anyway, it was closed for afternoon break and I didn't have time to wait or come back later. That was good for my pocketbook! I hope I get back there someday when it is open. It's such an interesting looking store, with an unusual outer decor, that I had to take some pictures.

I noticed the store because of this sculpture that was standing on the sidewalk.

Now take a look at the railing and the front door handle. How cute!

Debbie

Yesterday's Quinglish

What is Quinglish? Quinglish is the term someone coined years ago for our gatherings of English speaking quilters from around the country. They occur once or twice annually, usually on Passover or Sukkot or both. Usually graciously hosted in the home of Terry in Ra'anana. This year's new and capable chairperson's of the Accent Quilters, Adi and Michal, ran the show and did a great job. I know that Terry's camera got many more good pictures than me. If Terry uploads them, I will edit this post to include her link. In the meantime, you'll have to settle for whatever Show and Tell I managed to record. As usual, if you click on the photo you'll get to a good enlargement where you can see more detail.

Adi and Michal holding up Terry's appliqued circles of hand-dyed fabrics

Marlyn with her prized pinwheel quilt Tzvia, Adi, and Terry holding up Tzvia's and Henrietta's quilts made from the same pattern. At the time they were making them, neither knew the other was doing it Tzvia and Terry with their Stack and Whack hexagon quilts and a second one by Terry

Tzvia and Terry with their Jewel Box pattern quilts

Tzvia and Terry with their quilts made using Ricky Tim's Kaleidescope style

Monica and her unusual quilt made of mostly hand-dyes. Some of the fabrics Monica painted. I sure wish I had captured the center embroidery better! Miri with her Disappearing nine-patch set on point and two quilts made in the log cabin style, but totally strip pieced! Miri will be teaching workshops on these two patterns at The Quilt Center in Bustan Hagalil.

Progress on red/white quilt

I've finished one of the reverse redwork blocks for the red and white baby quilt that I'm making. For the next week and a half or so I'm busy with other things and then I hope to get working on it more seriously. Here's the block.

Lately, I've been trying to enter a lot of blog giveaways. I haven't won any of them yet, though. There's a very good one now, PigTales and Quilts giving away 30 fat quarters. WOW! Have a good weekend, Debbie

Quilts I saw in Florida

I'm sorry that I didn't get a chance to write about this quilt exhibit before it closed this past weekend. When I was in Florida a few weeks ago, I went to the Ocean Waves Quilt Guild Exhibit in Homestead. There were many art quilts among the traditional and contemporary. A lot of variety. I'm still waiting for the results of the viewer's choice poll to be posted to their site! Here are some photos of the quilts that I found interesting. Click on any photo to bring up details of quilting or enlargement of text. The first two are what are sometimes called 'slice' quilts. A group of quilters cut up a photograph and everyone makes their section and then it's sewn together and quilted.

Next is a quilt in which I loved the effect of the light illusion in the center. I think the spotlights on the quilt also had an effect on the photo. I liked the stitching and the different fiber supplies used in it, too.

Next is a quilt made of many little molas that the quilter bought on vacation in South America. You can see the embroidery detail in the enlargements.

Unfortunately, I did not get the description and maker's name of this next one. I thought it was well made and I loved the quilting. I tried to get a good detail of the quilting.

Added June 25: See new comment with explanation, by Rosa Brito, who quilted this quilt.

Enjoy, Debbie