yes, I'm still here!

I know, I've been a bad blogger here!

But I do write the blog for Bear Patch, and that has been more of a priority lately!

So, I've neglected my little frayed edge account.

Today, Christmas Eve, I have some minutes available to update here!

First, I love this picture of my son-in-law, Ben, with Jack (left) and Ian (right).  They were visiting the Atlantic Ocean shoreline of North Carolina.  Baby Leo must have been napping.  It makes me so happy to see their happy faces!

Next, here's a big beautiful barn quilt hanging on my house.

Specially made by Jarry and Mary, my brother and sister-in-law.

They make quite a creative team!  I love it!

I got a new rug for my living room, after an unfortunate incident with some red wine on the old one.  I was really actually glad that happened, because I needed to replace it, anyway!

This turns out to be a good replacement.

And I've been sneaking in a little sewing, too, but not so very much.  I did make this contemporary Christmas wallhanging, called Shining Star, from a pattern by Sandy Gervais.  It's part of our Christmas display at Bear Patch for right now.

And here's my only other Christmas sewing, a runner called Crazy Christmas Trees.  It's one of the Cut Loose Press patterns and uses a special ruler called the Spiderweb.  I did a little tutorial on it last fall for a retreat group, and there were a lot of Crazy Christmas trees made that day!

I have been slowly working on some English paper piecing.  This is a block from Sue Daley's Round We Go block-of-the-month.  We're supposed to be making 4 each month, but I think I have made 8 now when I should have completed 16!  Oh well, I might be making a smaller version!  This block is a reminder of my recent trip to Kauai, with turtles, seaweed, bubbles and sunshine!

 This stack of fabric came home with me from Houston Quilt Market in October.  It's called barkcloth, a heavier fabric than our usual quilting cottons.  It's like the old curtains my grandma had, and usually had some large floral motifs.  Most of these prints are on a small to medium scale.  This fabric comes from a company called Ella Blue, and if you click on the link you can read a story about the designer and what inspired her.  I saw a quilt made from these with just a scrappy assortment.  Looking at them like this makes me realize I need to add in some lighter colors.

a little English paper piecing episode

Don't ask me why - I've got a couple of new handwork projects started.

I guess I have very little resistance to something eye catching!

It doesn't help that I have a group of like-minded people at Bear Patch!  We have our monthly Paper Pizzazz group, plus I have co-workers who aid and abet me!

The blocks you see below first caught my attention in a quilt called Floating Colors that I saw on the Paper Pieces website.  It is from a book titled Millifiore Quilts.

Later, I saw another quilt called Quatro Colors by Sue Daley, and I put 1 + 1 together and figured out that they are actually the same block.

 

I ended up ordering the acrylic templates and necessary paper templates to make a few of these blocks.  I got the starter pack, this made me feel like I wasn't tackling anything that I couldn't manage!  Well, now that I've dabbled a bit with colors and shapes, I might want to get a few more blocks done and put this together for something to hang on my wall.

If you are comparing the 2 quilts, Floating Colors and Quatro Colors, the difference in them is a 45 degree turn.  Also, the Floating Colors uses assorted colored pieces where I have used light background pieces in mine.

I don't really have a good color plan worked out for my blocks, I'm basically just picking things that I like out of my stash and mixing it up as I go.  We'll see what develops!

Then, at the Quilt Market in St. Louis last Spring, I saw a new Sue Daley block program that interested me.  Since I'm the leader of the Paper Pizzazz group, it's part of my job to bring new ideas and projects to the group.  Debbie (my Bear Patch boss) is a great enabler.  She always tells me that if I like it, go for it!  So, I ended up ordering this Round We Go Block of the Month program.  There are 5 more people starting this along with me, and we can sign up more if you are interested.

Below is my first attempt at picking colors and fabrics for a block.  The block is round and after it's assembled it will be appliqued to a background square.  This picture just shows my bits of fabric laid together on a design board.  I'll be able to show you a better picture when I get some sewing done.

I just finished a book, The Lost Boy, that is a real page turner.  I've read some other books in the series by Camilla Lackberg, and this has the same recurring characters.  I've discovered that there are 8 books in the series, so I should figure out which I've read and which are still out there waiting for me.  This happened to be an actual softcover book loaned to me by a friend (a Paper Pizzazz friend!).  Mostly I've been checking out digital download books from the library, and I was so happy when I figured out that I can get them on my phone and play them over the car speakers when I'm driving.  It's great when technology works in my favor!  With a drive of 40-45 minutes to get to work, I can move through a book at a good pace.

Read any good books lately?

out standing in the field

This is the best time of year to take a trip in my little area of the country.  It's many shades of rich green, crops thriving, everything's growing in the sun.  I love the long views whenever I am on a little rise.  Sometimes the best viewpoint is on a bridge at an interstate exit!  I was out at "the farm"-- it was owned and operated by my grandparents when I was a child, then my dad, and now my brother and his wife, Mary.  They do a wonderful job of maintaining and improving the land with their forward-thinking farming methods and conservation.  I caught this picture of the soybeans and the area set aside for wildlife.

And the roads are set out in neat grids, so they are often straight.  In this picture, I can see the trees way down the road that are a couple miles away.

Mary loves roses, and has developed a nice rose bed with several varieties, these are just 2--

They have to be very hardy to survive the wind, storms, snow and cold!

On another note, this is a quilt that my mom just finished.  It's about 80" square or thereabouts, made from 5" squares.  It's for her great-granddaughter, Aurora.  She has hand quilted it, with a shape or letter or number or object in each square.  The dark pink in the star and border is a paisley, which she quilted following the lines of the paisley shapes.  Now she just has to get it out to Washington for Aurora!

And I've done a little hand-stitching, too, working on a UFO that I wrote about here last year.  I basted the whole works to a background fabric, and I have been stitching the outside edge to the background, like an applique stitch.  I'm over halfway around.  Then I need to decide what to do.  I think I want it for the center of my dining room table, so I might put a very thin batting (or heavy flannel) under it with a backing fabric, then do some big-stitch hand quilting to hold the layers together.  I'm in no rush, so I will give it a bit more thought before I land on what I want.  The directions for the hexagon design were part of a sew-along from Sue Daley's blog over at suedaleydesigns.com.  It was called the Forget-Me-Not Sew Along, and you can get the instructions there at no charge.  I only did a portion of the sew-along, deciding that I didn't need a huge project!