It never rains in Southern California!

But it pours, Man it pours!  I love a rainy day when my husband and I are posted up in our house on the hill.  He is in the other room gaming (DC Universe) and I am in my sewing room finishing up some little projects I have due soon.  I'm back to work full-time so I really only get my weekends to come into my sewing room.

My Wool Gatherer's friendship group is making an auction quilt for our Flying Geese Quilt Guild's Bi Annual Quilt Show in Oct.  I'll post more details about the show as we come closer to it.  Mark Your Calendar for a visit to Orange County, California the first weekend in October.

My contribution to the quilt is a single block. I have been struggling with the wool projects I have been doing.  Most of what I have done has been really primitive and unfinished looking.  

I have come to the conclusion that the fun is in the embellishments. I have had a ball making these leaves and flowers 3d.....

.....and my little spider buddy.  Proof that baby anythings are cute.  

I'll share pictures of this quilt as it develops.  Can't wait to see what everyone brings to our meeting on March 30th.  

Have a great week,  hope you all get to sew!

Love Aunti Nicole

Happy St. Patty's Day

Happy St. Patty's Day a photo by AuntiNicole on Flickr.

Made this special for you for St. Patrick's Day. If you are a quilter and enjoy the inspiration of tangling, join my Quilter tangle flickr group.
http://www.flickr.com/groups/1604567@N20/

Mom made Corned Beef and Cabbage (and turnips and potatoes and other stuff) for us for dinner tonite and it was wonderful. So nice to have dinner waiting when you get home from work.

Have a great day! Don't forget your green!
Love Aunti

Its an illusion!

 Once upon a time, I knitted a baby blanky.  My best friend was having a baby and since I didn't know boy or girl, green it was.  Just a simple K2, P2, popcorn stitch.  The quilt was for my niece Patience who is now a freshman at USC.   

Yeah, so this is my first knitting project in 20 years.   Now the yarn selection is crazy, and has grown right along with the fabric selection (which I'm sure we are all aware).  I selected a self stripping yarn and a simple basketweave pattern.

The project took about two weeks and would have been quicker, except that I finished 1/3 and ripped out, completely, twice!

So here is where the illusion came in....  I used two skeins of yarn, that I thought were the same self-striping.  Before joining the two skeins, I did the fringe on one side and prepped the fringe for the other side and set aside, to be sure I had enough.  Then joined.  Low and behold, I don't think I'm knitting tighter, I think the  stripes were different on the two skeins.

I think it turned out pretty cool... but it is just something to be aware of in case you are working on a project where it would not look so cool.  I did not check the dye lot and that might have made a difference.

Interestingly enough this has been finished for a couple of weeks and I've even worn it out but never noticed the zigzag stripes until I laid it out and took pictures of it for you.  So thank you for that!

Basketweave II by Oma Englund

http://www.knittingonthenet.com/stitches/basketweave3.htm

Pretty simple pattern but you do have to count.  

Ok, thats done, back to quilting!

Love Aunti

EZ Quilters in March

Monday I got to visit with my EZQ group.  I love the inspiration I get from these meetings.  Mardell gets the prize this week for inspiring a new way to look at things.  This small wall hanging has a simple background and the quilting just adds to it.  Hand quilted by the way, Mardell does such exquisite work!












She reminded us that you have to put a binding on every quilt.   "In the simplest terms, "birthing" a quilt refers to a quilt that is "bound" pillowcase style." 

It works best with smaller quilts.  You lay the back on the quilt top right sides together.  Lay on top of the batting.  Then sew 3 sides and all but about a foot of 4th side.  Trim the edges so you have a 1/4 seam and turn inside out.  Finish by applique or whipstitch closed.


Here is the finished double pineapple quilt that was made last year by my group.  We put our names in a hat and had an innocent bystander draw for it.  Sherrillee won the drawing and of course had to have it quilted and put the binding on it.  It is just gorgeous!







Been doing a lot of quilting and knitting, nothing to share just yet, but its coming soon!

Thanks for stopping by.
Love Aunti Nicole

Bee Splendid in February

 This month's Bee Splendid project is from Jeanette and she chose this fun tutorial from A La Mode Fabric http://alamodefabric.blogspot.com/2010/06/spider-web-quilt-block-tutorial.html

This block was sooper simple or as Heather from A La Mode would say, Easy Peasy!








Its a terrific scrap buster!  While she gave me purple scraps, Jeanette actually has all different colors going on even some in grey.  Its going to really cool when she gets it done.

I put it in photoshop to see what it would like like as a whole quilt.  I was a little sloppy but you get the idea.

God Bless you all!

Aunti Nicole