BOMs & More

Hi Everyone...well, June was a very busy month with Matt's graduation, my niece Nicole's graduation, quilt classes, etc. Joy and I started attending "fuzzy slipper" nights at Orange Quilt Bee, which are FREE sew nights twice a month. I have met some really great people there, in particular Ruthie (another widow) who has just been so wonderful and encouraged me to come. Anyway, between the fuzzy slippers and my classes, I have been able to get quite a bit of sewing done. This is such a great outlet for me and is my "therapy". I'm at my happiest when I'm there.

One of the classes I attended in June was an "Abbey Bag" class with my bestest buddy, Joy. This class was taught by our Teacher Extraordinaire, Ms. Janet, and I have to say it was really fun. We took the class with several "employees" of Orange Quilt Bee which made it extra special. It was a head-spinning, whirlwind class and thank goodness I had my pieces cut before I went to class because that really helped me get the bag done in just a couple of hours.



Here is a picture of me (courtesy of Joy) tying my pincushion portion of the bag, which then got hot glued to the flower portion that it sits on. The bag portion was sewn to the flower before it got hot glued. The pincushion is filled with "lizard litter", which actually is crushed walnut shells. I put in 1-1/2 to 2 cups, which made it very heavy and able to sit well on the edge of the table without falling off. It was fun and they all turned out so cute.























Here is a picture of four of the Abbey Bags that were made that day in class. Mine is the blue one. Don't know if you can see the material clearly or not but it has all kinds of sewing notions on it.....i.e., scissors, pincushions, thread, etc. It's really, really cute.




















I finally finished my Home Is Where the Heart Is block for June. This one was very time consuming with a lot of hand stitching. I think I'm slowly but surely getting better on my hand stitching.



















Here is the close up of the bride & groom as well as the church. Click on the picture to enlarge it and look at the flowers. These were tiny little french knots to make the flowers and then I had to back stitch the stems.





















The July Tisket-A-Tasket basket came out on July 5th and I just had to make this one patriotic. Not sure what the sheep has to do with the design of this block but it's cute anyway.




















This is the July Home Is Where the Heart Is block, minus the blanket stitching and the hand work, but I just loved how it turned out. The sand fabric (provided by Ms. Yvette) has tiny paw prints on it so I decided I had to "add" a dog in this scene even though the pattern didn't call for it. Can't wait to finish this one and see how it turns out. The little girl is sew cute now. Yvette and I are making ours into wall hangings because this quilt would be well over king size when it's done and I just don't want to have to try to quilt something that size or pay for professional quilting on that large of a quilt. I got a really cute hummingbird hanger to hang these on when they are done. I think they will look really, really cute once they are all put together.




















Now, I'm starting the quilt for Craig's charity event, which is supposed to be sometime in October and then I need to make another quiilt for Tricia's daughter, Kate, for her big girl bed that she is going to get in January for her 2nd birthday....busy, busy, busy... so stay tuned as there is more to come in July.

Love to all my family and friends !