A Week with Phebe

Here's my progress after one week of working on the center panel of Phebe!

Its definitely been a challenge already. I haven't had much experience with applique but if I had waited until I felt more proficient, I probably would never have begun this quilt.

Points on the leaves and flowers are a particular challenge right now but I think they will get better with experience. By the way, some of the leaves had been stitched down before I stood back to see if they were improving. Yes, they were except I hadn't realized there isn't enough contrast between the stems and leaves. In the back of my mind, I'm already planning to cut new leaves and start over. There are 34 leaves in this part so I'm glad I hadn't stitched them all down already!

Color and fabric selection are the two big frustrations. Those pink flowers may look bright to you but in reality, they're subdued compared to the fabrics I usually use. I'm trying to use softer colors in Phebe because I admire their antique look. I'll probably mix some contemporary fabrics in but I'd like the majority of the fabric to look "old". This is where my problem lies, other than some Jo Morton fabrics I don't have many reproduction fabrics. I've been auditioning fabrics for the blue flowers and red vase all week and not being satisfied. The light teal hill is not an easy fabric to match.

So, tomorrow I'm taking a road trip to Quilter's Station in Lee's Summit, Missouri. This quilt shop has, in the past, had a better selection of reproduction fabrics than any of the 5 quliting shops in the Wichita area. In my next post I'll let you if I was successful in my fabric search or not!

Have a very happy Easter!  

New Beginnings

 Steven and Micaela King

married March 16, 2013

Remember the blue jars I baked? This is what they became - part of the table centerpieces at the wedding. Our daughter wanted a rustic garden theme at the reception and I hope we were able to create that with the moss, rock, wood slice, flowering branches, etc. This is not the church activity center where the reception took place. This is my dining room (the uncluttered half). Unfortunately, I didn't get any photos of the wedding and am trusting the photographer got some good shots!

This is a wedding wish card that guests filled out for the new couple. Made those with the help of one of my daughter's friends. They set on the tables at the reception and guests hung their cards on two tree branches we'd painted with blue glitter. This was definitely a DIY kind of wedding.

After the wedding, my husband and I were emotionally and physically tired but are now mostly recovered and have everything returned to the rental places. I'm trying to sort and condense down wedding stuff into boxes which will go somewhere in the basement.

Speaking of new beginnings ... ! 



I didn't need a new quilting project but after spending 3 months immersed in wedding details and no quilting since early December, I WANTED a new project! Can you guess what I'm making?

Details coming soon (if I don't get too embarrassed about the quality of my work)! This is definitely going to be a stretch of my quilting abilities.

What's baking?

Want to peek in the oven to see what I'm baking?

Its a fresh dozen of jars???

These are spaghetti sauce jars we're trying to make look like old blue canning jars. Do you know how many people it takes to eat 31 jars of spaghetti sauce? I finally resorted to giving church members a jar of spaghetti sauce if they promised to bring back the empty jar. Most people were very puzzled but then they already know I think differently than they do!

The jars will be used as part of the table decorations for the wedding. Individually, they aren't as blue as in the picture.

Basically, you stain the clean jars with glass paint, allow them to dry for 48 hours and then bake for 30 minutes to set the paint. They turned out a little streaky but I'm hoping with the lights turned down a little lower, most people won't notice. So, today I'm baking jars and then will be packing them together with the other table decorations. I'll share a picture of the finished product after the wedding.

Thank you to everyone who sent me a comment welcoming me back to blogland! I promise to do better about responding after the wedding.

Hello Quilting World ...

... I sure have missed you!

Last November I would have had no idea that a stressful Christmas season would give way to a self-imposed exile from the quilting world. For nearly two months, I didn't even check out the blogs I usually read.

Life happened and it seemed to happen over and over again. Perhaps I'll share a little about the past few months in a future blog post but for now, here are a few projects I've been working on.

 My daughter is getting married in less than 2 weeks. Things are crazy around here and the wedding supplies are starting to make my house resemble a warehouse!

This is a moss covered initial "K" which is the first letter of her new name. Those are pink rhinestones, not sure what happened to the one which seems to be green?!? I think I have had my fill of working with moss. Give me good old cotton quilting fabric any day!



I also made this moss covered basket for the wedding bubbles. Notice the moss caught in the tulle. I've given up trying to keep the moss pieces from attaching themselves to anything and everything. If my daughter is smart, this basket and the "K" will go straight to the trash after the wedding. Who wants to vacuum up pieces of moss every day?

Here's something else I made for the reception - a collage of the bride's parents' and grandparents' wedding photos. I also made one of the groom's family and another of the wedding couple's engagement photos. Yes, thats my husband and I in the upper right corner. Perhaps I'll share the entire photo display later. The blue is actually leftover bridesmaid dress fabric and the frames all came from Goodwill. None of them match but a coat of cream colored and a coat of fine glitter paint ties them together. 

 This topiary is destined for the Hors d'oeuvres table.



These are the crepe paper roses which decorated the church at my parents' wedding in 1948. My mom saved them all these years and when we cleaned out her farmhouse, they came home with me. We hope to use the best ones to decorate an arbor in the reception area.

Much more going on here to tell you about, most of it wedding related.

 I'll be back soon, hopefully working on a quilting project!