Waggons West Etsy Shop

Sunday, March 31, 2013

Catching up: Alabama Bound


The Spuds were all home this week.  The Bama Boy brought his blanket.  I was finally able to get some pictures.


Here you can see the quilting.

He also brought home his Pokeymon comforter.  It needed a bit of love.  I added a binding.  It was not easy.  It is not pretty.  It should hold things together for a bit longer. 

It is Possible...


... that my kitchen might get back to normal. 

Friday, March 29, 2013

My Camera

has gone walk about.  I think it didn't like all the construction noise and paint fumes. 

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

My Kitchen...


...is in my living room.  At least the part of it that isn't headed for the dumpster.  We are re-doing the floor.  Which means we re-do the walls.  Right now I am supposed to be pulling staples out of the old sub floor.  I am taking a break. 

If you look closely out the door you can see some of what is left of the 15 inches of snow we got on Sunday.  It is melting fast but that is a lot to melt.  

In the picture is a spud and friend he "Tom Sawyered" into helping. 



Monday, March 25, 2013

Saturday, March 23, 2013

Early Bird PQ 4:6




A very quick post to get this on-line before the noon deadline tomorrow.  I will add more details and a better picture tomorrow.  

This is the final Project Quilting Challenge: Hurray Spring.  Think outside the block.  It was a challenge just to finish something this week.  My friend Bev gave me the final push by telling me to make a worm and add a robin.  

 

This quilt was made from quilter's cottons.  It is fused, raw-edge applique.  The checkerboard is pieces.  The grass is paper pieced.  It is quilted with an assortment of embroidery and cotton thread.  The piece measures 12 x 13 inches.  


The new thing for me on this quilt is the swirly, spirally FMQ. 

Go to the Project Quilting Flickr page   and check out all of the other really amazing projects! 






Friday, March 22, 2013

Cotton Anniversary

Cotton is the gift of choice for a second anniversary.  Seems fitting.  This is the second anniversary of my wee blog. 

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Paper

 Annie, over at   Annie's Musings, is in to paper these days.  She is doing some really awesome paper art.  I am loving her dictionary pages, stamp art, and tags.  It has me itching to get out the paper and glue.  But I have too many fabric projects trying to push their way out of my brain and into the real world.  So I thought I would dig out a couple of my old paper projects to share.

  

I went through a phase where I just had to cut up paper into little strips and glue it all back together.  
 

No one ever seemed to get it.  But that is OK with me.  I have about a dozen of these hanging on the walls downstairs (Ok, truly, they used to hang on the walls downstairs until the spuds took over the space.  My pictures started mysteriously disappearing about the time the nerf gun and foam sword collection reached critical mass.  They assure me that all of my art is safe and sound stacked next to the table, but frankly, I've been too afraid to look and see.  Perhaps I will so that I can get pictures of some of the ones I like better than these.)

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Ephemera Anyone?


A lady I know is downsizing.  She has a couple boxes of treasures: pages of recipes, clippings, travel spots, craft ideas, house ideas, holiday stuff.  The graphics are pretty cool.  She would like to have it go to good homes.  We are in the process of trying to package it to sell in the shop.  All you paper people out there....

1.  Do you buy ephemera?
2.  What attracts you to a lot?
3.  Postage?  It is easiest for use to put it in priority envelopes or boxes.  Does that make it cost prohibitive? 
4.  Do you like to get a mix of stuff or do you want a package of Christmas or big ads or what?
5.  If you are searching for paper treasures, what search terms are you most likely to use?  
6.  Speaking of cost....  ??? 

Any suggestions or advice would be greatly appreciated.  

Monday, March 18, 2013

Beat the Blues Blog Hop Give Away Winner

And the Winner is Sandra!

What a wonderful giveway - comes from you - with love. I also enjoy trying new recipes. I also enjoy watching Nascar races with my husband. I also take time out to play and give loves to my cat. I try and spend time with my mom on Saturdays. Thank you for joing in the Beat the Winter Blues Blog Hop and giving all your followers such a treasured gift that only a quilter would understand.

Thank you everyone for stopping by!  It was absolutely fascinating to see how many different things quilters do in their non-quilty time.  Yet there are so many common threads:  cooking, sewing, gardening, knitting and crocheting.  Thanks for the glimpse into your world. 

Stop by again.  I will be having another give away in a few weeks.  This time, some vintage fabrics will be making an appearance. 

Saturday, March 16, 2013

Shamrock Quilt


This is a quilt I made for a charity raffle.  I was only able to get a couple quick pictures last night. 

It is made from one charm pack and a bit of additional fabric.  I digitized the shamrock you can see in the middle.  The rest of the quilt is quilted with a smaller version of the same.  It is about 40 x 52 inches.  I used a fusible batting for this.  It worked pretty well and held together through all of the rough treatment it received running through my embroidery machine. 

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Swamped


 Sorry I haven't been posting much lately.  There is a lot going on in Meatspace around here. 

If you live in the St Louis area you can check out Mission: Clean Stream/GM Earth Day.  We are still accepting vendors if you are interested in sharing your green product/living/crafts. My TV interview about this was just released.  Totally goofy.  Hope I can duck out of doing more. 

We are prepping for a Trivia night.  I don't even remember if I shared the shirt bags with you already.  Sorry if this is a repeat photo.  We are making 8 of them.  I have one left to go and I am trying to get a quilt finished for a raffle prize.  I'll share pictures when I get a chance.  I'm digitizing a shamrock for the quilting but I have to finish the bags before I can set up the embroidery again.

In the meantime, there is still time to enter the Beat the Blues Blog Hop giveaway.  Check it out and then see all the amazing things quilters do in their non-quilting time by reading through the comments. 

Sunday, March 10, 2013

Welcome to Leaf Springs (PQ 4:5)

The challenge for Project Quilting this week is to pick up a magazine, turn to page 28 and draw your inspiration from there.  I, quite foolishly, asked my husband to pick the magazine.


Yes, page 28 of Four Wheeler is a lovely article about Leaf Springs and how they can improve the speed on your four wheel drive.  The image, while relevant to the article, was not exactly inspiring.  I stressed until Wednesday.  I briefly contemplated cheating (GASP!)  I did look at a second magazine.  This one was the AAA travel mag.  Page 28 had a gorgeous picture of a Kentucky horse farm with graphically interesting stark white fences on brilliant green.... curved seams... NOT happening.  Back to leaf springs...  Wednesday and not an idea in sight.

Well, I drove a 1953 Willys Jeep CJ3B.  It seemed the logical choice for this.  Finally an idea, then a rough sketch.  That required pulling out almost every green, blue and grey fabric in the stash.  Fortunately the red, white and black were easy.   What a mess.



Did you know that you can use your front door as a light box?  Well you can.  Although it does make the neighbors look at you funny.  (So what else is new?)  Lots of machine quilting.  I used Heat and Bond light.  While I like the ease of using it, it is too thick for a quilt that needs to drape fortunately this is a wall hanging. 



Frantic stitching Friday morning.

 

A few stitchy details and loose leafy embellishments.  


Photo shoot on Saturday.






And it is finished!




Thus you have it.  Welcome to Leaf Springs.


 The details:
Raw edge applique fused on to a base of muslin.  All the fabrics are quilters cottons.  It is machine stitched and machine quilted in black thread using a straight stitch.   The binding is exactly 4 inches of my most favorite fabric ever. 
(Asked Spud one to measure it for me.  "1.1 x .6 cubits."   True measurements  14 x 20 inches.   Way off in his cubit estimation.  Blames it on a growth spurt!)  It is finished with fast finish triangles for hanging.

Go check out the Project Quilting Flickr page.  And check out all of the cool Project Quilting projects from past seasons. 

Be sure to check out my give away while you are here.   It is part of the Beat the Blues blog hop hosted by Michelle at Quilting Gallery. 

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Page 28

From This
To this..

Making progress on my page 28 project.  Not there yet, but I have hope of finishing by noon on Sunday.  

Beat the Blues Blog Hop Give-Away.




This give away has ended.  Check back for a new one coming soon.  
 
Wool Felt Party Purse.
 I am jumping into the Blog Hop with Give-Away party hosted by Michelle at Quilter's Gallery.  These are always fun events, a great chance to wonder around the blogosphere and meet some new and interesting quilters.

I am always intrigued by the secondary projects that quilters make.  We quilt.  We love to quilt.  We eat, sleep and breath quilting for the most part. But in that space that is occupied primarily with scraps and gifts we make other things.  Some are fabric.  Some have no fabric to be found.  What do you make when you aren't quilting?  Do you find that making those things helps with your quilting?  In what ways? 

Almost all of my non-quilting projects involve fabric.  I tried to pass as a yarnie once by describing the rug I was crocheting.  Things were going well until I mentioned that the yarn I was using was really strips of fabric.  I do like to stitch things and experiment on my embroidery machine.  If you you've followed my blog at all you know that I make iron on patches or merit badges for things that amuse me.  I upcycle t-shirts and clothing and I also like to make bags and purses.

For this blog hop, I've decided to be a little different.  I am going to give away one of my party purses.  This one is made with a cream wool felt.  It is embroidered with dark navy blue roses and vines.  The button is a rose as well. I sell these for $35 at shows and in my shop.  I thought it would be nice to share one with you all.   

To enter, leave a comment below.  Tell me about what you make when you are not quilting.  Make sure you leave your email address if you are a no-reply blogger. 

I will have pictures of my giveaway prizes up this afternoon.   soon.  I  have an important meeting this morning and almost forgot about the blog hop.  I need to have a placeholder ready so this is what you get.   There will be some fabric involved and some embroidery.  The hop goes live tomorrow so check back then for all of the details.

Sadly, because of the new postal rates, I won't be able to afford to ship outside of the US this time.  I can send a couple badges, but I can't send anything bigger and it just doesn't seem fair to say the international winner gets a badge and the domestic winner gets a package.

This contest will run until March 17.  At that time, I will use the random number generator to pick a winner.  Winner's will be notified by March 19 and the package will ship shortly thereafter.  Thanks for visiting.

Now go and check out all of the other fantastic blogs and give aways!  

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

MAQS 6: Mini Avengers!



I'm posting a bunch of pictures of my Mini Avengers quilt.  Just because.  This was made for the Mini Art Quilt Swap 6 on craftster.  My partner said she liked cute things and avengers.  I found the image of mini avengers either on her pinterest or during a google search.  They are paintings from the etsy shop of FeerieDoll.https://www.etsy.com/listing/111652488/iphone-5-hard-case-the-cute-avengers?

   Here is the label.  I did it with my embroidery machine, digitized and everything. 





The quilt measures about 10 inches by 32 inches long.  It is intended to be a table runner.  It is made from Kona cottons using fused, raw-edge applique techniques.  The quilting is done by machine using a straight stitch along the lines of the applique.  It has a false back on it to create the knife edge instead of a binding. 


This mini breaks all the size rules for the mini art quilt swap, but I just couldn't make it any other way.  I had to wrestle it out of the spuds hands (and the husband's) to put it in the mail.  I think I might have to make another one for them.   Be sure to check out all of the other amazing quilts made for this round.  I already shared the beautiful quilt dfabbric made for me here

Six to Go.

My friend K and I are making shirt bags as prizes for a trivia night.  We have two finished.


Why, yes, the pocket is upside down on the gray one.  And how is your week going? 

Monday, March 4, 2013

Swamped

And trying to match some green fabric.  Why am I always one block short of a dozen?

(At least this time it wasn't because I messed up but because there weren't enough pieces in my 99 cent charm pack.)

Now I have to fill in a hole. 

Sunday, March 3, 2013

MAQSs 6 Swap Quilt



I Received my Mini Art from Dfabbric yesterday.  It is the sweetest quilt you can imagine.  I love the plaid piecing.  The border fabric is exactly my favorite shades of pink and green.  The roses are so sweet. 




The quilting is amazing.  It the perfect combination of geometric and floral.   It is so creative with the floral quilting on the geometric portion of the quilt and the diamond pattern on the floral fabric.  The contrast is stunning.  Perfect.


And then there is the little applique house...  how adorable.