Wood Hazel

I was asked by a couple of blogger buddies I've know since my painting days, to post some pictures of Hazel. Thank you so much for your interest in our new puppy! You will see in her picture how honored she was to pose for you!

Losing Mabel was hard. She was a good dog and very sweet. Not long after her death, we couldn't take her absence any longer and searched for another beagle, When we found Hazel she was just about 7 weeks old. Now she's almost 8 months old and what a spunky little thing she is. Total opposite of Mabel, as black is to white (Mabel's main color was white and Hazel's main color is black :) ).

Hazel occasionally enjoys a good tail chasing and when she catches her tail, she'll drag herself across the room! She sleeps on her back and when it's chilly she will crawl all the way under the wood stove. Hazel actually thinks she's talking, when she greets the girls after school and knows exactly when each bus is due (unless of course she's passed out, under the stove).

We feel so lucky to have Hazel. She's smart, caring, stubborn and an instant member of the family. She;s our Hazelnut!

And here she is!




And here she is, in her favorite position. You can see she's actually smiling!!!!!



Ok, modesty isn't one of her qualities!!!!!

Thank you again for your interest in Hazel, ladies!

Natural Beauty!

Yesterday ended with a decent cover of snow. The snow eventually turned to an icy mix throughout the night. When I woke up this morning, I was surprised by two things; school had a two hour delay...

and THIS VIEW! Yesterday we woke up to frozen pipes. Image dealing with that before the morning java!!! This morning was quite different and greatly appreciated! Astounding that Mother Nature.


Can you see our Hazel, in the bottom right corner? Such the snow puppy!



It's difficult to see but there is a beautiful fog over the swamp that catches the light.



And there's my youngest daughter enjoying the extra couple hours outside, before school.

Found Some Cool Widgets For My Blog

Hi everyone!
I couldn't believe some of the fun countries I saw in my hit log, visiting my blog. Thought it would be fun to share with you. So I went online and found some fun widgets that track from where some of the hits are coming.

Thank you everyone for your visits and revisits to my blog! I greatly appreciate your interest. Would love to hear from you, so please feel free to comment on any of the posts.

More Sneaks of the Rail Fence Quilt

This is a picture of our Wednesday snow storm. I enjoyed watching the snow fall from the window, as I quilted. What a majestic scene. Not long after starting, the snow was supposed to turn to rain, but it didn't until much later in the evening. That night, we had some really cool thunder and lightening. What a cool storm and almost on the anniversary of our terrible ice storm that really knocked the heck out of our state, last year.










I am using a flower and a leaf stencil I created a while ago and connecting them with a nice meandering line. The quilting will be hand quilted all over the quilt.

I really love the colors. The quilt reminds me of raining candy ! Yummmmmmm.

Since Beginning of September

Wow, can't believe I hand quilted all these in less than 3 months. Some of these quilts have a LOT of hand quilting on them. I KNOW because my fingers are so callused, I have a hard time using my sense of touch! In the past, I'd quilt one and then take a break for a month or two.

Been enjoying the quilting so much lately, one is not even done before another is either started or fully considered. These days, I have fabric set aside for several quilts, at once! Just can't stop! Maybe it's because of the unfriendly economy that is pushing me towards my old, favorite, comforting craft. I know I feel the kind presence of my family that have long since passed away; hear the conversations we used to have while we did our sewing.... I am lucky to have such memories.

>

What I Am Working On Now

I am so excited to do another crazy quilt! They are so much fun. Must admit, sometimes not as easy as they look. So many pieces cut at once, all getting mixed and repaired, and making sure they all face the correct direction when sewing can sometimes not go as smoothly as I would like. Aaaah, but when the quilt is done, it looks so good and effortless.

Shown are blocks I've started with fabrics for my crazy fence rail quilt. I have been dying to use a fun teal with pink and yellow, and this time, I WENT FOR IT!






Hoping the finished piece is either a twin or full size quilt. So many quilts available for purchase are smaller (lap, baby, throw....). I'd like to have a fun quilt that can be thrown on an entire bed. It's so fun to offer a pile of quilts and have a guest pick one to cuddle with for the night.

Must admit this winter it's been hard to imagine cuddling with quilts! It's December and My New England garden has roses blooming and daylilies sprouting. Starting to worry what next spring will bring, if all are so confused now.... That's a head-scratcher.

Yippee! Over 1500 Hits!

Thank you everyone for looking at my blog! I never thought I'd have such loyal followers. Appreciate all the hits and interest in what I am doing!

Pink Christening Quilt Wholecloth FINISHED!

As promised, more pics!







I really love the way this baby quilt turned out. It was a challenge to follow my lightly drawn lines for the pattern but well worth the effort.

Christening Quilt Wholecloth

Repeated a stencil over and over and then hand quilted the intricate pattern. Total time took a little over two weeks to complete. Always relaxes me to do this type of quilting.




I promise to have more pics tomorrow!

Blue Plane Wholecloth Toddler's Quilt

Just finished this 50x70" crib or toddler's quilt. Really enjoyed doing this quilt. It incorporated both my love of sewing and my creative side.

This beautiful crib or toddler bed quilt shows a fun airplane soaring to new destinations. Images are HAND QUILTED with blue thread and feature a little plane flying through clouds, surrounded by swirling winds, crosshatch diamonds, quilted squares and more clouds. Adding fun interest, the quilt has patchwork borders and double-folded dark blue binding.

Quilt pattern was NOT a pre-printed kit. Airplane image was hand drawn, crosshatch and squares were created with a ruler, the swirling wind was drawn with a quilt border stencil and the outer border's clouds were also hand drawn, all done by me.

Drunkard's Path "2012" FINISHED!

Finally have a computer with which to post my Drunkard's Path "2012" quilt! My other computer died during backup, a couple weeks ago and it's taken forever to try to recover my old data. Aaarg! I am sure you know how it feels to see "Hard Drive Fatal Error In Progress". That's exactly the way I felt.

While waiting for a temporary computer I had the opportunity to wash and naturally dry the quilt on the drying rack, in front our wood stove. What a wonderfully nice freshly washed smell it now has.

According to some people, December 12, 2012 is a significant date. That's when the otherwise very accurate Mayan calendar ends. Of those believers, there are those whom believe our world will end! How dramatic!!! You really should Google the subject for the whole story and all the versions...

I am not so sure exactly what will happen (possibly just a few minutes will be added or subtracted to our day, week, month or even just to the year) but am eagerly awaiting the eve of December 12. PARTY!!!!

I am sure you have guessed, all the circles represent planets and stars. I chose to use a light blue background to represent the sky. It's a nice calming color and shows my belief that everything will be fine and December 13. We will have blue skies and great weather (plus compositionally, it really pulls the blue in some of the blocks out, bringing the quilt colors together, nicely). Hey, maybe even the economy will reverse itself!!!!

The quilt is bigger than I planned. It is 56"x74" and is shown spread out on a king sized bed, making it a good quilt for most bed sizes and a topper for a king!





More Drunkard's Path blocks close up.



>


You can really see the unique hand-quilting in these photos.

Drunkard's Path "2012"

Done!
This took a long time to piece and hand quilt. Really like the way it turned out!

Will show the entire quilt once my computer is fixed and I have my photo applications back.... aaarg! At least you can sort of see the hand quilting in a couple shots.






Please stay tuned!!!!

Drunkard's Path

Another sneak peak!

The colors are green, purple, blue, yellow and orange. The hand quilting will be along the triangles, making a diamond pattern. Also each circle will be treated with a special pattern, different from the others.



Interesting thread I'm using for the quilting. It's a bend of green and yellow. It looks so cool, the way it appears, on the quilt. Hope when the quilt is all done, I am able to capture the thread quilting with a camera. The funky colors can be seen in the jelly bean shape quilting in the photo above.



Eager to finish, but fingers are getting a bit raw. Talking about working fingers to the bone!

Drunkard's Path Quilt Block

"2012 or 2060?"
SNEAK PEAK!
Do the Mayans have it right or does Sir Newton? Will 2012 just change our calendar as we know it and in 2060 the galactic event will happen? Who knows? For me, it's an interesting subject to design a quilt around.


This is just a small part of the whole quilt. Lost count how many pieces are actually in the quilt. Probably will count again, when all sewn together.

Flower Pinwheel Twin Quilt

Hand quilted (green and pink fabrics) with handmade flower stencil.

Moon and Stars Diamond Quilt

Moon and Stars Twin quilt is made with 100% cotton fabric and it measures 58x69.

The green fabric is a combination of two fabrics; one with fun swirls and the other has a pretty green bird pattern. The lighter colorful fabric has stars of all different colors. The backing is made with 100% yellow on yellow cotton fabric. I chose to use the same yellow fabric on the binding, to give it a 3rd dimension.

For the hand quilting I created the moon and star stencils myself.

9 Patch Crazy Quilt

Standard twin size quilt. Machine pieced and hand-quilted with a puppy dog theme.


Close up of quilting. Show puppy paws and bog bones.


Close up of the crazy block and binding. The same dark green fabric is used for the quilt backing.

Each of the stencils (puppy paws and dog bones) for the hand-quilting were designed and (painstakingly) created by me.

A Quilt I Made For My Mother

Many years ago, I made this Drunkard's Path patchwork and applique quiltquilt for my mother. It tells a story of our times spent on Cape Cod.

She has since passed away, so it's mine to pass on to my girls.

Twin Princess Quilt for a Princess!

This standard size quilt is made with 100% cotton Disney fabric and it has princesses all over it, both on green fabric and on blue! Very fun fabric and all related so well one would have thought it was designed with quilters in mind!

It measures 66x82 (fit for a twin). There are 320 blocks, made up of two pieces. That's 640 pieces total!!!

Backing is the lighter of the two pink fabrics. Both pink fabrics are also Disney fabrics and both have a really neat sparkly, glittery specks, all over them. Both have stars, the darker pink all in silver.

I hand quilted all the layers together. First on my quilting rack, where I outlined all the diamonds. Then I removed the quilt off the rack and hand quilted princess crowns on the inside each of the diamonds, using a round embroidery hoop.

The binding is a combination of both the pink fabrics and is machine-stitched on the top and hand-stitched on the bottom.

Hope you like!!!