Three Great Books

I found a great give-away that I wanted to let you know about. Head on over to http://good-knights-news.blogspot.com/2008/03/give-away.html The Knightly News. It is for three books by Max Lucado. Go check it out and enter your name to get a chance at winning these. Take care and God bless, Cory

Another One Done!

This quilt is a Thirteen Flavor Nine-Patch. It was a class I took in April '02' through the guild I belonged to then. It was taught by Carroll Griffiths. The theory of this quilt is to use 2 colors in 6 shades from light to dark and one background to make the thirteenth fabric. I had a hard time deciding what color scheme I wanted to use until I found the border fabric which is red and purple raspberries. I really enjoyed piecing this quilt. It looks very fussy to work with but you strip piece the nine patches and it goes very quickly.

Once the top was done it was put away as I have been struggling getting over my fear of machine quilting. Well, I have conquered that by quilting on scraps or donation quilts to learn and get better before I started quilting on the tops I want to keep or give as gifts. This quilting was a freemotion design that I played with on paper before I started on the quilt. And I quilted a donation quilt with a meander with flowers and leaves scattered about. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of that quilting. On this one, I started in the middle and worked my way out and around each row until I reached the outer edge. I really like how it turned out.
Thank you for stopping by. Take care and God bless, Cory

Is it a fish? Is it a cloud?

One the way up into the foothills several weeks ago, we were admiring the sunset on the clouds.
Then we took a curve in the road and found the biggest small mouth bass anyone will ever see.

Done!

This kid has been waiting for this quilt since last Christmas. The top was pieced in time for wrapping. He picked out the wonderful flannel on the back and now it is quilted and bound. He loves it.








The center blue area is a printed panel and the outer borders are pieced. This is the first time I have free-motion quilted anything like this and I am very pleased with how it turned out. The fur is rough feeling like real fur with the quilting I did there.
That is number one off the UFO list and onto the Completed List.

Quilt-a-thon Day 2

Saturday I got to work on personal quilting.

These are steps 4 and 5 of the mystery quilt I am working on.

Step 4 was to cut the strip pieced units into 2" subcuts. There are 5 different combinations and each color combo was cut into 32 pieces. (not all are shown)

Step 5 was to take the squares that had the triangle on the corners and add the red and green rectangles to them. There are 64 of each of these pieces.

We have two more steps of this mystery and then I should have more that enough time to get it completed before christmas.

Thank you Judy for giving us the motivation to get something done. Take care, Cory

Quilt-a-thon (a day early)

I am participating the the Quilt-a-thon over at Judy Laquidara's Patchwork Times http://www.patchworktimes.com/.

I used my extra day yesterday to get a lot of quilting done. It was all for the Hugs Ministry at our church. We give quilts and stuffies to the local sheriff and CPS for kids in crisis situations.

This quilt was orphan blocks from another Hugs quilt that was all demin and red four patches. These 5 orphans went together perfectly with the blue strips, red gingham and solid blue. It is about 40" square. I haven't picked a back for it yet.

This blue, tan and green is the delectable mountains block. One of the ladies who help took the half square triangles I had pieced and cut them and sewed the mountains and then pieced the top together. Yesterday I layered the batting, backing and top and sewed around the edges and turned it (envelope method of finishing).

I still need to quilt it but that won't take long as I do an easy meander on most of these donation quilts.

This next one is a disappearing nine patch. Those are fun and quick and give you a really easy way to get sashing. This one is also finished envelope style and ready for quilting.

This last one is a top that was donated by one of our church members. It was almost queen size and had been pieced almost 30 years ago. There are lots of fun fabrics in this. I cut it into four pieces, added 4.5" borders and got 4 really fun, unique quilts. This is number three. One and two are already gone and number four is ready to be layered. This one is also ready for quilting.

I have been quilting today and will share that in the post later today after I get them ironed.

I hope everyone has been having fun quilting. We should do this again on National Quilting Day on the 15th of March.

Take care and God bless, Cory

Here is a contest for a blog makeover that I found while surfing this morning.

TheTrendyMommyBlogDesigns.blogspot.com

You can enter to by going to their blog and posting a comment.

If I win, I will use it to create a new blog with a great look for the Hugs Ministry. I'm crossing fingers and toes on this one.

Good luck everyone. Cory

Get a head start on the Holiday

5MinutesforMom is hosting a fantastic give-away this holiday season. Go check it out so you can get in on the winnings as well.

Thankful Thursday

We will shout for joy when you are victorious and will lift up our banners in the name of our God. May the Lord grant all your requests. Ps 20:5

I am thankful that my teenager as started to act like a pleasant human more often than not.

I am thankful for my husband's commitment to sobriety.

I am thankful for the opportunity to make quilts through my church that will go the children in crisis.

These are all answered prayers for me. Some have been prayed for a long time.

Crystal at God is in Control http://candlebabe299.blogspot.com/ is hosting Thankful Thursday. Please visit her to participate. Thank you Crystal.

Take care and God bless, Cory

Bragging

We, my son and I, were able to go to Quilting in the Garden on Saturday. This is the quilt show http://www.alexandersonquilts.com/garden/ that Alex Anderson hosts annually at Alden Lane Nursery http://www.aldenlane.com/ in Livermore. It is a wonderful show in a beautiful location. The quilts are hung in the 300 year old oak trees that are on the grounds of the nursery. Unfortunately, this year, it rained. They were not able to hang the quilts in the trees. There were quilts in the buildings. And we got to see Valori Wells and some of her quilts. And my son got to make a quilt block.

This is the child who complained about having to go. I reminded him of all I do for the family and that he should be good and enjoy himself so that Mom would not be cranky.





Now, doesn't he look like he is having fun? I think so too.

He got to meet Alex. She is one of the most friendly tv quilt stars I know. Like I know all that many, huh.

We even make it over to the Diablo Valley Quilt show as well. They have their show the same weekend as Quilting in the Garden every year. The shows are less that 30 minutes apart and it makes a lot of sense to me.

We had a good time together. DS said, "It was more fun than I thought. I thought we were just going to sit in a chair and they were going to show us the quilts." I told him that is a trunk show. His response? We aren't going to one of those are we?:-)

Quilters are a generous bunch

Several weeks ago, I saw a post on Debra Spincic's blog offering scraps to anyone who wanted them. I commented that I would take them for my church's Hugs Ministry. We are sewing blankets (not just quilts, but polar fleece, crocheted and knitted as well) and matching them with a stuffed animal for the local sheriff and fire departments to have on hand when they go to a fire or accident involving children.
Last Friday this is what I found on my doorstep.









You probably can't tell by the pic how big the box is. It is nearly 20" square and 10" deep. It is huge!


And this is what it looked like after I opened it and looked through it. The strips and scraps just kept falling out. She must have had to sit on the box to get it closed.:-)


Thank you Debra from the bottom of my heart!


You will find a link for Debra's blog in the sidebar. She is a wonderful quilter.

UFO Incentive

As you can see I have added a UFO list to my blog. Hopefully this will give me a push to get some of these things completed. As I get them finished, I will create an FO list and move them there.

I have recently seen on other blogs UFO and FO listed being published. I have also seen one with a excel table that had columns for all of the stages and couldn't figure out how to created it here. When I find the blogs again I will put links here.

Take care and God bless. Cory

Give-away Opportunity

I found this give-away

at The Preachers Wife. Here is the link to the contest http://www.challies.com/draw.php?userid=11027. The link to the Preacher's Wife can be found in my sidebar. Sorry about any confusion I might have caused.

Sounds like it will be a perfect addition to my church's library.

Thought you might be interested in entering it as well.

Take care, Cory

Q.O.V.

I first posted about the Quilts of Valor here http://cjcal4now.blogspot.com/2007/07/vip-mail.html These are quilt for injured soldiers. You will find the links for Q.O.V in the post linked above.

Here is the first of two quilt tops completed for Quilts of Valor.

And a close-up. The second one is three quarters done and very similar. So, in a couple of days, when you think you are seeing double, hopefully you won't be. :-)

My husband went to the mountains last weekend for a man's getaway. We were chatting about the weekend on Sunday afternoon and he says, "Oh, I brought you pinecones. Your gonna like them." And he hops up to go to the car. I'm thinking, Oh, great, what am I gonna do with foot long pinecones. We saw 12" long pinecones the last time we were up there and I commented on them. So I figured that he remembered and was kind enough to bring some home for me.

Aren't these just the cutest pinecones you ever saw? He was right, I do like them.

I WON!!!

Does all caps mean you are shouting? OF COURSE IT DOES!

I was reading my bloglines and saw the headline about the winners of the book. I thought nah, I never win anything so I won't bother clicking to open the blog and read the whole article. But, I did anyway. Scrolling down, I see CJ at the top of the list. Cool, another CJ has won. Click to see who this other CJ is, and.... Hey.... It's me. Wow! I won. Now that is really cool.

I won the book Woman in Red http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1593154445?ie=UTF8&tag=jenniferssnap-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1593154445 over at 5 Minutes for Mom http://www.5minutesformom.com/. This is a blog by moms for moms. It's great. And right now I think they are even greater. Go check them out. Thank you Jennifer, Susan and Janice. I will now go to bed with a smile on my face.

Take care all and God bless.

4 Generations

I was reading Leanne's post about 4 generations of first born daughters at http://leanneshouse.typepad.com/leanneshouse/ She is the third of four generations of first born daughters just as I am. That means first born child and daughter.

Here is a pic of Me, Grandma, my daughter and Mom. This was taken in 86 or 87 and the little one in blue is now 24. We have taken lots of 4 generation pic like this over the years and this was the only one I could find quickly this morning so it will have to do. Nearly ever time we got together, we were posing for these 4 generation pics. When I find more, I'll post them as well.

This makes me wonder how common or how rare is 4 generations of first born same gender.

Hope you enjoyed this little walk down memory lane with me. Take care and God bless.

Rising Early

There are benefits to rising early. Really, there are. If I keep telling myself that, maybe someday I'll believe it. LOL :-)

My husband left for work early today. I mean early, as in 4:15 a.m., I made his lunch and sent him on his way and got busy reading email and blogs. At one point I hear what sounds like rain. Sure enough, it's raining in July in California which is very rare indeed.

As I got up to refill my coffee cup, I noticed the sunrise through the tree out front (see Three little monkeys post) and think "that looks like a beautiful sunrise". I grab my camera and head outside in my robe and barefeet.

It's an okay sunrise. As I am heading across the wet lawn and into the wet street to get a hopefully better pic I am rewarded with this view in the west.














Yes, it was a beautiful sunrise this morning.

Mom's Quilts, Part 2

These two quilts are on the bed in the third bedroom. This is the room where my sister stays. There are two quilts on most of the beds, not because we are cold but because Mom is a very prolific quilter and she is running out of room to store them. :-) These are both Drunkard's Path and they both look so different due to fabric choices and layout. They are both wonderful.

This quilt was made using the leftovers from a challenge Mom and I did. I bought a half yard of each of the brights and cut them into fat quarters and sent Mom one set. I got the quilt she made and I gave her the one I made. This one is similar to the first one she made. When I unpack it, I will post pics of it. The interesting thing was we both did pinwheels for our challenge quilts.

This is Mom's interpretation of her aunt's drawing of the Pearson farm where her father and aunts grew up.

Hope you all have enjoyed Mom's quilts. I enjoyed sharing them with you.

Take care and God bless

VIP Mail

I felt so important yesterday morning when the mail man delivered this well before his normal delivery time.



Let's ignore the fact that I was standing on the curb, barefooted, hosing out the cooler. Not the most attractive pose. Thank goodness nobody had a camera! :-)

This is what was in it.

This are for two quilts for Quilts of Valor sent to me by Debra Spincic. You can visit her blog here and click on the link for Quilts of Valor on the right side. http://debraspincicdesignstudio.blogspot.com/

Quilts of Valor is an organization that gives quilts to wounded veterans of our armed forces. This is just one of the small things we can do for the men and women who put their lives on the line every day for us.

When the tops are pieced, I will be sending them to Deb Geyer at http://debgeyer.wordpress.com/ She will be longarm quilting them.

I will post pics when the tops are ready for quilting.

P.S. Did you notice the peaches on the table in the pics? We got them from a friend at church and now I think I need to make a pie or cobbler.

Until next time, take care and God bless, Cory

Mom's Quilts

I had the opportunity to go home at the end of June. Unfortunately it was for a funeral. I was able to take some pics of quilts that Mom has sewn.

This is the tabletopper on the coffee table. It looks like the created it after receiving the Jim Shore Angel as the colors match perfectly.

This is the quilt in the master bedroom.

This is on the bed I slept in. The bed is an antique wrought iron bed. I don't remember if it came from Grandma's house or Mom and Dad got it at an auction.

This is my niece Brooke. She and Grandma worked on the quilt last summer during her vacation at the lake. The pics are of her dance recitals and the did all the piecing herself. She had done a great job on it.

That's it for today. I'll share more soon.