Disappearing 9-Patch Quilt

First you sew ten 9-patch squares with the darker fabric creating the “X”…..

Then you cut them apart exactly in the middle both ways….

Now the fun part, rearrange them to create an interesting pattern.

And here it is:

You can get a tutorial on how to do this here.

My first selvage quilt with recycled batting

Ready for Quilting!

Here’s my very green quilt! No, not the color green, but it is made up of fabric that is usually discarded. The batting is made from recycled plastic soda bottles, and I got the backing at a yard sale!

I’ve been reading Karen Griska’s book and following her blogs and finally got enough selvages saved up to make my own quilt. It is really very easy. Just trim the selvages from your fabric and set them aside. I’ve been cutting about 1-1/2 inches off. For full instructions, check out Karen’s website or check out her book.

Now to get it quilted!

Doris

Petaluma Quilt Show

Today, my husband and I went to the Petaluma Quilt Show in downtown Petaluma. This quilt show is a bit unusual in that many of the quilts are hung outside on the street! Others were hung in the Petaluma Museum both inside and in the back courtyard. Here are some pictures of my favorites.

Reversible Quilt Class

While I’ve been on vacation the past two weeks, I’ve been taking online quilting class and learning some new techniques. The class is taught by Leslie Lacika and each week a new lesson is posted. Students also can participate in an online discussion and post photos of their work in progress in the gallery. It’s more fun than just going through a book to learn something new but less stressful than going to a class in person.

Here are the first three blocks I made. One side:

And on the back of each block:

The next week we learned how to do 2 more reversible blocks:

This week we learn how to put them together with sashing!

Happy New Year

Cabin on the Lake Quilt

I finally got this quilt finished in time to give it to Nathan and Emily on Christmas Day. Liz Salisbury quilted it for me on her machine. I put it together a year or so ago.

GreenDimes Saves Trees!

I’m a big fan of greendimes.com, where for just $20.00, you can give them your address and they will help you get off mailing lists. I’ve been using them for 3 months or so and already have noticed that I get a lot less catalogs and stuff. It is very easy to use; now when I get a catalog I just log into greenDimes and enter the name of the company and GreenDimes sends them a postcard telling them to stop sending stuff to me.

How many people in the U.S. have your name?

 This is an interesting website that tells you if, statistically, there are other people in the United States with your exact name. It’s fun!

HowManyOfMe.com

There are 3 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

Environmental Working Group

I found this website a few weeks back; I think it was their database of cosmetics and ingredients that first got me to their page. But besides that great resource, where you can look up your favorite shampoos, skin lotions and all that other stuff we use on our bodies, they also have lots of other interesting information available. Check it out at: http://www.ewg.org/

Mysteries

I found a great website yesterday for those of you who love mysteries like I do. It’s called Stop, You’re Killing Me! It lists over 2,000 authors, all their books with the publication dates so if you want to read a series you can easily figure out the order they were written. Another nice feature are the location, job, historical and diversity indexes, so you can find that book that you read awhile back that was about a woman blacksmith who solves mysteries and has a very crazy family (Meg Langslow, written by Donna Andrews!) Then you can find other books by that author or with similar settings. There is also a “read-alikes” index so if you like, say, Agatha Christie, there are many suggestions of other authors that you might enjoy. Stop, You’re Killing Me!

Hello friends!

I’m moving my whole website that hasn’t been updated in a long time to WordPress. Maybe I can update more often this way! Here is Kira, our Jack Russell Terrier mix.