KATHY'S FANCY STITCHING NEWS



Postings and ponderings of a quilting and knitting addict!





Thursday, March 26, 2009

Next Generation of Quilters


Katelyn (9 year-old grand-daughter) had a great time sewing on her first project, a full-length apron. She loves to help me cook when she visits so I know it will get used often. She could not believe I was going to let her sew "by myself?" Yes, Dear... I was about your age when my mom taught me to sew. Here she is sewing the straps for the apron.


And here is the completed project, complete with cat fabric pockets. She was VERY proud of the finished project. She says she is going to "quilt like Granny Kat" soon.



Next is my daughter Jennifer. She has just started quilting in the last year. Most of her quilts have been baby quilts for friends. This one is a pattern taken from Quiltmaker magazine. Jenn pieced the top and I quilted it using Jodi Beamish's Angel Wings panto.



She is enjoying quilting so much she is already planning on 3 more projects. She is very good about finishing one project before starting another one... I greatly admire her self-control. That means NO UFOs!




I am so thankful that both of "my girls" share my interest in quilting.



And lastly, I wanted to share a few pictures of spring flowers in LA. These are called wild azaleas. My grandmother always called them "pink honeysuckle", but they are a bush rather than a vine like honeysuckle. They are my very favorite blooming thing in our woods right now.




Have a wonderful day, and share your interests with someone today... remember you are planting seeds for the next generation of quilters.

Kat

Friday, March 20, 2009

AND THE WINNERS ARE...

Numbers were placed in a dish, stirred around well, and then drawn.. and the winners of Wonder Wallets are:



1. Millie 2. Terri 3. Paula 4. Jennifer



Millie gets first choice of which one she wants, then Terri, and so on down the line. Yes, I know I said I was giving away 2 of these, but I have 4, so WHY NOT??

I have already emailed Millie and Terri. Paula and Jennifer are local area quilters, so I will personally deliver their wallets after Millie and Terri pick.

Thanks to all who entered, and please keep reading... I have lots more posts up my sleeve!

Kat

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Give-Away is Soon!

Good morning to all!

Just a quick reminder about signing up for the 2 Wonder Wallets give-away... I'll cut this off at 5pm tomorrow evening. So far only 15 have signed up... your chances of winning are good! If interested, see the post 2 down from this one to sign up. And it looks like I will indeed hit my 1000th blog visitor tomorrow!

I apologize for a lack of postings... I am actually ALMOST caught up with my customer quilting list, so I want to keep my "nose to the grindstone" today. I can't stand the pressure of being way behind on my quilting schedule!

As soon as I get a chance I have some wonderful pictures of DD and "Katie-Bug" to upload. Katelyn came last weekend and enjoyed her first time sewing. She made an apron and was SOOOOO proud of it. Jenn completed another baby quilt for a friend... yep, she is hooked on this quilting thing, too.

Got to run... quilts are calling. Take time to enjoy the wonderful spring weather today, and of course, the blooms and blossoms.

Genesis 1:31 (KJV)
And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.


Have a great day!
Kat

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Another Blog Give-Away

Check and see what Jodi at Simply This, That, and the Other is giving away. Leave a comment, post to your blog, or WRITE A POEM to get your entries in. And you will love the wonderful prizes!

Kat

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Blog Give-away!

I am so excited about the blog that I have decided it is time for me to do a give-away!



What will it be? (drum roll, please).....





TA-DA!!!! It's a Wonder Wallet! (Lazy Girl Designs). I LOVE these little wallets! They hold cash, change, credit card, driver's license... and they are still small enough to fit in your jeans pocket! Plus, by making them out of "vivid" fabric they are much easier to find in your purse when you go digging for your wallet.

I've made a big batch, but they are leaving fast. I only have 4 left, so I will give away 2 of these in celebration of the arrival of spring and my 1000th blog visitor. At my estimation that should occur in about a week, so the drawing entry will cease on Friday, March 20th at 5pm central time.


To enter, just leave a comment to this message. Only 1 entry per person, please. Please be sure that I have a way to contact you (either via email or your own blog/website) in case you are one of the winners. And please also SPREAD THE WORD about this give-away! I will give you a second entry if you post a link to this blog entry on YOUR blog. Just leave a comment here with the link to your blog so I can check it out. I would be very excited if I had about a hundred names to draw from!!



So there it is... winners to be picked sometime next weekend and they will get to choose which of the 4 wallets they would like.



Kat

Spring In Louisiana

Yes, I am aware that the calendar says it is still winter, but in Louisiana, spring starts in early March. We have so many things blooming right now (and pollen covering everything that stays still!) that there is no way you can say this is winter.


I am posting some pictures of a few things, but hope to get down into the woods next week and take a few more pictures after this rainy spell. I am not fussing about the rain... we greatly need it!




Irises in the front yard are really beautiful right now. The white ones are in full bloom and the purple ones should be opening up soon.


I probably have waited too late to get pictures of the yellow jasmine growing in the woods... it has the most WONDERFUL smell and provides color all through the woods. I finally talked DH into transplanting one to the house to trail on the front fence.








The flowering quince has just about finished blooming. It is one of the earliest things to bloom here, and usually starts opening in January! The bright scarlet flowers show up well because most other shrubs are bare stems at the time the quince is blooming.











Although this is not a very good picture (the sun was hiding as I was trying to snap these.) I hope you can tell what they are.

The tree on the left is a red bud. (Now WHY are they called RED buds when the flowers are PURPLE?) They are in full bloom right now. They seem to be EVERYWHERE! We have lots down in our woods... they add a bright, cheerful color to the normal woodsy view this time of year.


The tree on the right is a sassafrass. They have these beautiful popcorn-looking buds plus the leaves turn wonderful shades of gold, orange, and red in the fall. These also grow everywhere here. They are also very useful trees! The dried leaves can be ground to make gumbo file' (a seasoning) and the roots can be boiled to make sassafrass tea, which tastes somewhat similar to root beer.




Our cat Teddy (short for "Teddy Bear", I'm sure she will have an identity crisis someday because she is named after another species) stands guard over the garden. She is one of our 3 outside cats.

The others are Stinkerbell (DH has such a creative mind when it comes to naming critters! Stinker is a black/yellow/white calico) and Zoe (can you tell that I named her? Zoe is a long-hair black and white cat.)


I wonder what Teddy is watching?




She is watching David planting things! That's right... in Louisiana our gardens can go in very early! Here he is watering the tomato and pepper plants he has just put in the ground.



Other things he has planted: radishes, beets, potatoes, rape, collards, and kale.


Things to plant next week: asparagus and hops (for a friend that brews his own beer).


Things to be planted in the next few weeks:
corn, purple hull peas, butterbeans, rattlesnake beans (snapbeans), zucchini, cucumbers, crook-neck squash, okra, cantaloupes, 3 varieties of watermelons.


This is all in addition to the blueberry bushes and the satsuma tree that are already planted.


So as you can see "spring has sprung" here. I love this time of year!


So go enjoy nature where YOU live today! Every season offers a wonderful view of God's creation. We just need to slow down and look for it on a regular basis!


Kat

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

My First Blog Award!

Thanks to Patricia , I am now sporting a Kreativ Blog Award (see right side column)!! I'm so glad that other are enjoying this blog... I know that I am enjoying the process (most of the time). As part of the award I must pass it on to others and make a list of things I am thankful for. But... no time for that tonight. It has taken me 2 days (of course, just working on it when I have a spare moment) to figure out how to save the Kreativ Blog Award image where I can upload it to the blog... confessions of an almost-computer-illiterate person!

Now, off to bed! A full day of running around picking up/delivering quilts, then quilting a quilt this evening has me all tuckered out. More posting tomorrow, I hope. I have taken a few pictures of our beautiful spring flowers that I hope to post soon.

Kat

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

My EXCITING News!!

Title: Peach Smoothie
Quilter: Kathy Ellzey
Residence: Robeline, LA
Year: 2007
Owner: From the Collection of the Historic Arkansas Museum
42" x 42"


HAPPY DANCE! HAPPY DANCE!! : )


I found out today that my quilt "Peach Smoothie" will be included in a quilt calendar published by the IMQA!! The calendar will be for 2010 and will be on sale at MQS in May. HOW EXCITING! They chose winning quilts from 2006, 2007, and 2008 MQS to publish in this calendar.
Because I no longer own this quilt I had to get special permission from The Historic Arkansas Museum so the quilt could be included. They graciously allowed this (and also for me to post a picture on my blog).





The quilt is a wholecloth done on yellow batiste, with shadow and cut-away trapunto. The peach color is achieved by a neon orange underlayer of fabric. The quilting motifs are designs by Karen McTavish. I used Hobbs 80/20 batting and Superior Bottom Line Thread.


Peach Smoothie won 1st place in Innovative Wholecloth category at 2007 MQS, and then won 1st place in the Miscellaneous category at The Great Arkansas Quilt Show in Little Rock, AR in 2007. It also won "Best Machine Quilting", which was a purchase award, and that is why it now belongs to the museum.


WOOHOO! I think I'll need to buy about a dozen calendars!

Kat

Retreat Report








WOW! We all got LOTS of things done at the SIL retreat! I finished a total of 9 Wonder Wallets (I've already given away 5 of them), put the fringe on a crocheted scarf, and got 5 rows of the Glorified 9-Patch quilt made.







I started sewing the G9P rows together and realized this was going to be a BUGGER!! I finally ended up hand-piecing the intersections and then sewing the large part of the curve on the machine. So... the quilt top is NOT done, but the rows are coming together nicely. Maybe by the time I get ready to hook all those rows together I will have figured it out... I am leaving the 1/4" seam allowance loose, (not sewing all the way to the end of the seam) but they still do not meet like I want them too. My perfectionism just met its match... I think however they go together will be OK... finished is good! And then there is that old saying, "IT'LL QUILT OUT!" Yeah, RIGHT!


DEBBIE got 2 projects completed... she pieced a baby quilt from the Stash Pot Pie pattern. It turned out SO cute! I can't wait to see how she quilts it.




Then she pieced this puff quilt. Such BEAUTIFUL fabric (and this is for a friend's dog!). It really turned out so sweet and I know her friend, and the dog, will greatly appreciate it.







MARY ANNE got her "Brown Bear" quilt completed. (This picture does not show the borders on it... I had to leave before she got them added, but it is completed now.) It turned out really cute! (Of course, I am prejudiced since I taught Kindergarten and 1st grade, so I probably read this book about a gazillion times!).




So even though the wind BLEW, and panties were not painted, we had a great time! I just can't wait until the NEXT SIL quilt retreat!



Kat
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