Kitty Wall Quilt

Last week, I mentioned that I was going to put together a little wall quilt for my Pink room.  I did that over the weekend and finished it up yesterday morning.

It started out with this, an unstitched, vintage stamped tablerunner that I found at a flea market awhile back:

It had some damage on one end but the other end was in good shape.  I stitched it last Fall, not really knowing what I wanted to do with it.  I finally decided to sew it into a little wall quilt.

I pulled out a few of my 1930's reproduction prints:

After adding a piece of lightweight fusible interfacing to the back of the stitched piece, I trimmed it.  Then I cut strips of the 30's prints in various widths and sewed them down to a foundation.  When I had that done, I cut the strips and sewed them on each side of the quilt.

Then I added 2 borders.  When the front of the quilt was done, I ironed a piece of fusible fleece to the back of the quilt knowing that I had no intention of hand or machine quilting it!

Before sewing the back on, I added a sleeve into the seam at the top, attached to the backing fabric so I could hang it.  I wanted to do it all on the machine rather than by hand.  Then I sewed the back to the quilt like a pillowcase, leaving an opening at the bottom for turning right side out.  I blind stitched the opening at the bottom closed and pressed the entire quilt.

Last, I made a few fabric yo-yo's to sew onto the corners of the stitched piece using some vintage buttons in the center of the yo-yo's.  They are sewn through to the back into smaller buttons.  The purpose of this was to hold the front of the quilt and the back of the quilt together.  Like I said, I didn't want to "quilt" it.

Here is the finished quilt:

And here it is displayed in my little pink room:

The quilt rod is up a little high.  I had one of my crazy quilts hanging in here but I got tired of looking at it.  It was larger than this so the rod for that one was at the right height.  I didn't want to move the rod and leave holes in my walls so I balanced this out by putting this pretty porcelain doll on the dresser.

On the other side of the dresser I have a vintage mirrored dresser tray with a small lamp.  The mirror reflects the light.  It's really pretty in person.

This quilt looks very "1930's"!  It looks a little babyish but I don't care, I like that look and the pretty pastel colors!

My Little Pink Room

You may remember that I painted my computer room over a year ago.  Other than hanging my pictures back on the wall, I finally just finished it.  I spent the last week stenciling the Wisteria back in here.

This is the way the room looked before I painted it pink:

It was a pretty sage green which I had sponge painted and then stenciled the Wisteria in just the corners.  I got tired of the green though and decided to paint it pink.  Well, I painted it white and then sponge painted it pink.  Here's the room now with the Wisteria back:

This time around, I made the flowers a brighter purple so they kind of pop on the pink walls.

In this photo, you can see the stenciling that I did in my kitchen years ago.  I love that fruit border and plan to use it again if and when I decide to freshen up the paint in that room.

The next thing I plan to do is to make a little quilt for this wall.  I have an embroidered piece that I've been saving to use.  I'll surround it with patchwork done in 30's reproduction prints.

That's my project for next week so be sure to come back and see it!

Special Holiday Edition of Crazy Quilt Quarterly Magazine

I know how much everyone loves Crazy Quilt Quarterly magazine so I was thinking that it would be fun for everyone if we put together a special Holiday issue.  This won't be the Winter issue, this will be a special Christmas issue.

It will be a little bit different from the quarterly issues.  I'm looking for submissions ladies!!!  Here is what I'm looking for:

Christmas or Hanukkah Crazy Quilt blocks, high quality photos at 300 DPI.  To go with it, I would like a short story of a favorite Christmas memory and a vintage photo of you.

Think nostalgia, old fashioned, warm fuzzies, cozy holiday memories!  Think of years ago when our mom's put so much silver tinsel on the Christmas tree that you couldn't see the ornaments!  LOL!!!  Think of grandma's house, the smell of cookies baking and hot chocolate.  I know it's a little hard to think of Christmas right now with Spring coming but I need time to put this together.  I think it'll be a lot of fun for all of us.  I love the idea of sitting down in the afternoon with a cup of tea and reading through everyone's favorite Christmas memories and of course, seeing all the crazy quilt eye candy!!!

The deadline for submissions is May 1st.  The issue will be released in September.

There will also be some nice cookie recipes contributed by my mother a few other surprises!

All contributors and advertisers will receive a complimentary digital copy of this issue in September.

I'm hoping to get lots of submissions!!!

And in case you haven't heard, my new book is out:

You can find it at Magcloud!

A Valentine For Mom

Well, my new computer is down again!  Every time I get a Windows update I have trouble getting it to reboot!  Win 8.01 is the worst version I've ever seen!  I have the Geek Squad coming later this afternoon to fix it and to upgrade to Windows 10.  I pray that takes care of the problem once and for all.  Honestly, I'd love to go back to Windows 98 or even XP.  I never had a stitch of trouble with either one of those versions!

Anyway, I'm on my "slower than Molasses" laptop right now.  I thought I would share a photo of the little cross stitch ornament that I made for my mom for Valentine's Day:

It's a little complimentary design that I found online.  I used Sampler Threads to stitch and some metallic blending filament in the peacock.  I hand dyed the fabric myself.

I just finished reading Killing Lincoln.  Excellent book!  One of the best I've read in many years!!!  There was a lot more going on than what I knew about!

On the genealogy front, I'm still stuck on my 3rd great grandmother, my great, great grandmother and my great grandmother.  I really don't know where else to look for more information on them.  My 3rd great grandmother was a cousin of General William T. Sherman of the Civil War.  I can't say that I'm bouncing off the walls over that, I'm just trying to figure out who her father was.  I thought if I could figure that detail out with my 3rd great grandmother, then perhaps I could figure out what the deal is with my great great grandma Phoebe and my great grandma Adria.

I guess I'll work on that for a little while.  But first I have to the get the stupid tax stuff together.

Crazy Quilt Seam Embroidery

I haven't been doing much in the way of stitching lately.  I've taken some time to work on my family tree and I've been having a great time with that despite being so incredibly stuck on my 3rd great grandmother!

I've also taken some time to do some reading.  There's been a lot of books on my "want to read" list so every afternoon around 3:30, I make a cup of tea and read a few chapters.

I love history so my current read is "Killing Lincoln" by Bill O'Reilly.  This also helps to put me in the 1800's "state of mind" which is where I'm focused right now on the family tree. 

In thinking about when I get back to stitching, I thought I'd start working up a few seam treatment patterns.  Most of you know that I mostly use Waste Canvas to embroider the seams on my crazy quilts and when I get a bee in my bonnet about some new ones, I chart them out on my computer.

For today, I have 3 flower borders that I thought I would share here in case I have any waste canvas girls out there!

Right click on the image and save to your computer then print it up and enjoy!  If you use these, please send me photos!!!  I may include them in an upcoming issue of Crazy Quilt Quarterly Magazine!

Antique Mall Find

Yesterday was such a nice day here.  Sunny and about 40 degrees.  We decided to take our Model A out for a little ride.

We took it up to the antique mall in Volo, Illinois.  Not far from us.  We hadn't been there in awhile and thought it would be nice to walk around.

I wasn't looking for anything and I didn't plan on buying anything but you know how sometimes, something jumps out at you.

Well, this is my little find of the day:

I've been collecting pretty little vintage cat figurines for many years.  I don't buy them very often but sometimes I see one that just calls to me.

I love the soft colors of this one and his pretty little face.

In other news, Milagro Millie is doing so well!  I just took this photo today:

She's still very little and rather squirrely but her tail fluffed up a lot and she's so incredibly sweet!  I had her spayed back at Thanksgiving, she's had all her shots and she's doing great!

2017 Calendar Contest Reminder

Just a quick reminder everyone!!!!  The Crazy Quilt Quarterly magazine staff is holding a contest for the 2017 Crazy Quilt Calendar!!!  Click on the image below and check out all the details!  There are prizes for the winners!!!!

This is the 2015 Crazy Quilt Calendar:

And this is the 2016 Crazy Quilt Calendar:

If you need some ideas, hop over to Magcloud and take a look at them!

Thank you To My Staff!

I'm a firm believer in being grateful for what we have.  The sweet ladies that help me with Crazy Quilt Quarterly magazine are awesome!  It wouldn't be the nice publication that it is without them.

Mary Anne Richardson of Magpie's Mumblings blog is the most awesome proofreader!  She catches all the typos (on my part) and misspelled words and corrects grammar where necessary.  Mary Anne also contributes articles.  Thank you MA!

Cathy Kizerian of Cathy's Crazy By Design blog has some incredible ideas and suggestions.  She also helps by contributing articles and she helps with finding projects, blocks and articles by other crazy quilters.  Thank you so much Cathy!

Kathy Shaw of Shawkl Designs blog also helps by contributing articles, suggesting crazy quilters and their blocks and is absolutely awesome with Adobe Illustrator!  Kathy makes all the patterns look nice!  I can't figure out Illustrator to save my life.  I'm a Photoshop girl!  But Kathy does a great job!!  Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!

Available at Magcloud

Please take a moment to visit the blogs of these wonderful and talented ladies.  They too are crazy quilt artists and have created some of the most beautiful work I've ever seen!

Crazy Quilt Inspiration by Pam

I'm please to announce that I've just released my new book, Crazy Quilt Inspiration by Pam!

This book is a visual study guide of my projects.  Each one includes a brief description.  It is intended for crazy quilters, new and experienced, to use as a reference book for when ideas and inspiration is needed.  It's pure, concentrated eye candy!  I hope everyone enjoys it and finds it useful!

This is volume 1.  There will be a volume 2

40 pages and available at Magcloud.

And don't forget, the Spring 2016 issue of Crazy Quilt Quarterly magazine is available as well: