Building an "I Spy" house pt. 1

I was reading Belinda's blog Brown Dirt Cottage about how she works. I decided I would attempt to show you how I work when I am improvising. I started with the idea from Sarah at House of Krom of I Spy houses. I made a simple sketch.















You can see that I am not an artist.

I chose some fabrics. I like the polka dot that Sarah used. I found this at our local quilt shop. It is shades of navy blue.















I cut some strips of the house fabric of different widths. It is helpful to use a fabric that is not directional.















I started by sewing strips on either side of the piece I wanted for the door.
















This piece is one of the windows and I wanted it up and to the right of the "door". I sewed a strip the the bottom so I could place it where I wanted it.
















I wanted to other window to the left and up a bit.















This time I sewed a strip to the side of this window. That is why it is easier to work with fabric that is not directional.















You can see that there is a gap but you can easily fill gaps with more fabric. You cannot be afraid to cut or to add to if you need to.
















Almost done. I put a strip on either side and at the top. This house is a bit wider than I would like but that's ok. I can either trim or adjust the border to make it fit.

















Now I need to add the roof and the sky. I really like to have some sky on either side, in this case it will be a narrow strip.

I hope you find this interesting and/or helpful. Let me know how you work.

Fun Weekend

We had so much fun this past weekend. Lots of time on the beach, lots of laughs, lots of food, lots of family. Our two sons and their wives and two grandsons were with us. It was wild at times but we prevailed and enjoyed each other.


















Our little one got to enjoy the beach.


















Sunday night we had my aunt, uncle, another uncle and cousin from Tennessee and her family for hamburgers and hot dogs. The children had so much fun. They came back on Monday and we all went on the beach together.


















My daughter in law is out of school for the summer so it is my vacation too. She is taking the boys to her mothers for a while. I will miss my babies but I have so many ideas swirling in my head. My other daughter in law has several baby quilts she wants me to make. I plan to sew myself silly.


















These liberated stars is the first one I am going to do. I love looking on the internet and stealing ideas. Sarah at House of Krom has a fabulous idea of "I Spy" houses. I just had to visit my local quilt shop yesterday to find some more fabric. My next project will be the houses with novelty prints. I think this is just a great idea and so much fun. I love the interaction that we bloggers have. It is fun, creative and we are always learning new things. Everyday is a school day!!

Fresh Veggies

We have been visiting our local Farmers Market and finding some delicious fresh vegetables. We have gotten some wonderful tomatoes and today they had butter beans and string beans. So I spent most of the day cooking.
















I usually put corn in my butterbeans but it is a bit early for corn. Won't be long though. Fresh is so much better. I cook my butterbeans the southern way with fatback. They are sooo good. We also got squash and blueberries.
















I had a little time yesterday to get organized.

BEFORE:















I found these cute little plastic drawers at Target. I wonder how long I will be able to keep it looking this way.

AFTER:


















I also did a little sewing, some liberated stars. This will be a baby quilt for a friend of my daughter in law.















A big family weekend coming up. Our son and daughter in law from the other end of the state are coming to the beach. Our other son and family will come on Saturday. The only one missing will be our daughter who has a weekend planned with her sorority sisters from college. My cousin from Tennessee and her family are coming on Sunday. My other aunt and uncle will be there too. All of them will eat with us Sunday night for grilled hamburgers. It should be fun.

First daylily

I found my first day lily bloom in the backyard this morning. Isn't it beautiful? I just love my day lilies. Some of the first ones I dug up from my uncle's yard. The ones from his yard are the
big double orange ones and they bloom a bit later. They are the ones at the top of my blog. Yes they are from my yard. I love the ones along the side of the road this time of year.













Then I went around to the front yard and found a gardenia bloom. I usually have so many blooms on this bush I have to stake it up. I must have pruned it too much last summer because so far I only have one. I miss my gardenias. They smell so wonderful in the mornings.















I had such a pleasant and productive weekend. I had two machines going. I brought my machine that I use for machine quilting downstairs and put it on the dining room table. That worked great. I could go up and sew on borders and come down and quilt.















I am getting much better at machine quilting. I set that as a goal a couple of years ago. It honestly just takes practice. Somehow I get better when I am not uptight about what I am doing. I finished my neighbors quilt and the baby is not here so I am doing good.














I have found a really cool, nifty tool for cutting strips and blocks. I am clumsy with a ruler and this makes it so much easier. A woman at a quilt shop showed it to my aunt and me and was gushing over how easy it made things. I thought there was no way it could work as well as she said but it does. I used it to cut the borders for the baby quilt and cut them in no time.
















I am still pondering what to call myself. My aunt calls herself a quilt maker rather than a quilter. I am going to call myself a quilt designer and maker. I have only one quilt from a pattern. All my quilts are one of a kind, some more unique than others. Why shouldn't i call myself a designer. I am a designer if I create what I am doing!! Will someone arrest me and say you can't call yourself a designer? They better not. I actually got two commissions for quilts this weekend. I think I will be busy this summer.

Labels

Last night at my Bible study we were talking about how we label ourselves. I have been thinking about that issue lately. A couple of weeks ago I met a man casually. I could tell you that I met him at a bar, which I did. I don't hang around bars! My oldest son was a bartender for years and my husband and I got in the habit of eating at the bar in a restaurant. You can meet some very interesting people. Anyway my husband asked this man what he did and he said he was a potter! He sure didn't look like an artistic person much less a potter. Then he said he was an engineer but now he is a potter. I thought to myself. Will I ever have the nerve to identify myself as a quilter? When someone says what do you do I usually say I am a retired math teacher and I now keep my grandsons. I should say I am a quilter because I am. What do you say when people ask you what do you do?

I have been stuck for a while but I was reading Sarah's blog and she got me excited about making placemats. She has great houses by the way. This is perfect for me. I can make small quilts and have fun doing it. I am not into doll quilts. When I was teaching and the kids got bogged down I would do a series of short assignments and we all felt like we were accomplishing something. I can make a placemat and feel like I have completed a project even though it is only one!!














I love this fabric and it looks great in my orange kitchen. I decided on a disappearing nine patch for the front and my wild fabric on the back. I have no idea why I bought that fabric except I love it. The print is too big to use for anything but a backing.















The orange is actually a batik with a hint of purple. It is great with the print.














It feels so good to get back in my studio (I am trying to think of myself as an artist). I put on the Elvis channel on the Sirius radio and have a wonderful time with my fabrics and machine.

JOY at last

Believe it or not I have been sewing and working in the yard. I planted some impatiens with my grandson yesterday. He got soaking wet as usual. He said you watered me Nana. The weather here is hot hot, might as well be summer.

I reworked by JOY for Tonya. I like this Y much better. It was a challenge but so much fun to do. I really enjoy letters. I should do it more often. Don't you just love the balloon print as a background?
















My neighbor is pregnant and due at the end of the month. Her husband is a medical resident and on call this month so we are on stand by to take her to the hospital. Wouldn't that be fun! They don't know if it is boy or girl so I had to use green and yellow. I have shown this before but it is now together and I need to quilt it soon so I can get it done before the baby arrives.
















And this is the cute print that will go on the back. I found both prints at Walmart. The one for the back is a larger version of the one I fussy cut for the front. I really like the old nursery rhymes. Kids still love them.

Playing with JOY

Tonya wanted some happy words so I volunteered for JOY, she wanted 4 letter words but I decided to be different. I did not have my grandsons this week so it was sort of a mini-vacation for me. But you know how it is at the beginning of the week you think you have so much time and at the end of the week you haven't done what you wanted to do. Oh well! I did start on my word.
I did one version and it was way too big. This is what is left of the J. I hated it as you can see but tried to salvage some of the pieces.














Here is the two Os that I did. There should be some heart in JOY and the middle of the O is the perfect place for it. The first one is so much bigger than the second one. I loved the balloon material for the background.
















I dislike this Y so much. I can't figure out how to do a good Y! I follow Tonyas directions but mine always end up looking so bad. I just don't know what to do about the Y, what is JOY without the Y, JO!















This is where Iam so far and I hope to work some this afternoon. This beautiful Saturday afternoons makes me want to get outside but I also want to finish my JOY. I love that little white tool that you see in the picture. It is great for pressing little seams before you go to the ironing board.















Some of the words Tonya has gotten are cockeyed but I can't quite figure out how to do that without messing everything up. I am always interested to read about how other people work. Every one is so individual in how what they do and how they do it.
I have a couple of other thins started at least started in my head. Lets get to work.