Tuesday, March 29, 2011

What I have been up to...


I have been busy and time gets away from me, then before you know it I haven't blogged in a week! As many of you know, we finished the MCC Pansy Crazy Quilt. I took some great photographs of the quilt with my new camera. I then used the pictures to make a calendar for 2012. I just love how the calendar turned out! Because we fund the cost of the MCC crazy quilt ourselves, all profits from this calendar will help to fund the next crazy quilt we have decided to do! You can go to this link to order a calendar...http://www.valeriebothell.com/catalog.php?view=productListPage&category=61

Last week was spring break around here and Dixie, her girls and I went to see this exhibit in Kansas City. It was a wonderful exhibit and I had the chance to see the wedding gown that Diana was married in! They had the most fantastic crown with literally hundreds of large diamonds all over it(also a guard standing right there!). I was disappointed that NO photographs were allowed but do understand! This exhibit is going back to England in June, so if you have the chance....I would go!



Thursday, March 17, 2011

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Have a happy St. Patrick's day! I have had a few comment's on the last post about the rebus...I'm going to give you a hint....the top item is a piece of red and white candy!

Talk to you later,



Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Rebus


In Marsha Michler's book, Motifs for Crazy Quilting, she has a section entitled Rebus. A rebus is a sentence, phrase, or little poem put into pictures so it becomes a puzzle to the viewer. Pictured above is my first attempt at a rebus. This is my challenge to you.....what am I trying to say in my rebus? I will give you one clue...it is on my Valentine Quilt. Please leave me a comment with your guess and I'll send some hand dyed laces to the first one to get it right! Good Luck!

On a another topic....Japan. What happened in Japan is exactly why we make the MCC crazy quilt every year. MCC currently does not have a staff in Japan but they are taking donation's to give to organizations they work with and trust. If you would like to donate to MCC for the Japanese people, go to www.mcc.org and they have a donation button on their home page. You could also come to the MCC sale in Hutchinson, Kansas and buy our quilt!

Talk to you later,



Sunday, March 6, 2011

Full Size Picture of MCC Crazy Quilt


Here is a full size picture of the MCC Pansy Crazy Quilt, tomorrow it leaves for Newton, KS!

Talk to you later,


Saturday, March 5, 2011

What a Relief!

Wow! What a week...it was such a roller coaster. As many of you know, myself and 6 other ladies make an crazy quilt for the MCC sale every year. About a month ago, we found out that they moved the deadline up by 3 weeks....AHHHHHH.....we have a tight schedule and we usually turn the quilt in the last day on April 1. Off and on again, I had my doubts that we would get it done in time but I kept working towards the goal as did everyone else. On Wednesday of this week, I sent an email to one of the girls telling her I just didn't think we could do it. First reason, the trim I ordered so all the fans would match never came, second reason, the fabric I ordered never came, third and worst reason of all....I only had 13 of the 14 squares that surround the center. I had no idea where it was! We are all very responsible and all the years we have done this, nothing has every been LOST. Then I thought, did I piece all 14 or did I miscount. That night one of the girls called me and became the voice of reason. I scan all of the pictures of the squares before they are embellished and we found that it was square #5 that was missing. I began to think, if someone returned it to me when they came to class where would I have put it. Well I went down to my shop and saw a mailing tube sitting there. Opened it up, and there it was, but it was not done. We figured it had sat in the tube since July....AHHHHH! What in the world happened, life I guess. Anyway the picture above is what the quilt looked like yesterday morning. I spent 12 hours yesterday piecing and sewing on trim. Dixie spend Thursday and Friday finishing the lost square and Chris helped me sew trim and ribbons and shop for fabric yesterday.

A major miracle happened this morning...we actually tied the quilt and bound it! Here is the cat helping out too! And no, we didn't use white on the back! The only fabric we could find for the backing was a beautiful plum color, but it was lined with vinyl for a drapery type project. We thought, well this will be interesting, will our needles go through it? The fabric store didn't even have a needle around to let us try it before we bought the fabric. So we took a risk....


Well here we are, inside tying the quilt. Thank you Vonda, so much for coming to help at the last minute! We couldn't have done it without you!


Here is Chris and Dixie finally binding the quilt! (I told them to smile...Ha!) Actually they were very happy, we were actually going to finish!


This crazy quilt, I have to say is stunning! It is the absolute best one we have every made! Thanks Dixie, Chris, Vonda, Terri, Pat, Barb, Ginger we have a real winner on our hands!


Here it is still on the floor right after we tied and did the binding. Tomorrow I will try to get a picture of it hanging up! I will be very sad to see it leave, it is so beautiful. Off we will go in April to see it auction off!

Talk to you later,