New From Quilted Lovelies

Autumn Leaves Are Falling

The new fall line is available at Quilted Lovelies! Richly colored quilted table runners, quilted placemats and napkins will add autumnal beauty to your home.

Merle's Day

A lot of Merle’s fans have asked what his day is like. It’s jam packed with lots of doggie activities! To give you an idea, here’s his schedule on any given day:

6:45 a.m. BREAKFAST!!!

7:00 a.m. WALKIES!!!!

7:30 a.m. Post walkies nap

9:30 a.m. Mid morning nap

11:30 a.m. Outside to do my business, hunt for rabbits and roll around in the grass

1:30 p.m. Post hunting nap
3:30 p.m. Mid afternoon rest
5:30 p.m. Get head scratched
5:35 p.m. DINNER!!!

7:30 p.m. Depressed. No bunnies to be seen from the window.

10:00 p.m. Bedtime

Wow, what an exhausting day! And Merle gets up the next morning and does it all again. Where does he get his energy? Hope you enjoyed this peek into the personal side of Merle.

From Lost To Found To Fabulous

Looking for exotic and stunning jewelry made from upcycled and reclaimed items? Look no further than Fanciful Devices. Using things the rest of us would either throw or give away, Fanciful turns into striking necklaces, earrings, rings, pins and bracelets. Plus you learn something new with each description. Check out some of her “lovelies”!

How To Retrieve Your Scissors From Across The Sewing Table In Four Easy Steps

Don’t you just hate it when you’ve finished sewing and can’t find your scissors to cut the thread?  You scan the table and there they are, on the other side, down near the end.

Now the sensible thing to do is sigh heavily, get up and get your scissors. But with my simple plan, you never have to leave the comfort of your chair. Let’s get started!

1. Try to snag the scissors with your 6” x 24” ruler.

2. If that doesn’t work, use the ruler with something else to bring you closer to your goal. I used a 6” square ruler.

Great. Now the scissors are stuck under the iron. Keep trying!

Can you reach them yet?  No?

3. Now that the scissors are a little closer, use your big ruler to see if you can drag something else to use, like a pencil.

4. Hook the scissors with the pencil, being careful not to poke yourself in the eye with either item.

Et voila! You have your scissors, never had to get up, and it only took 8 minutes!

 

The "Art" Of Conversation

This is a typical conversation at my house. My husband and daughter were watching the really bad Batman movie from 1966 on TV:


Me (came into the den and saw the back of Catwoman): “Is that Eartha Kitt or Meredith What’s-Her-Name?”
Hubby: “It’s Lee Meriwether, not Meredith.”
Darling Daughter: “Wasn’t she on ‘Sky High’?”
Me: “No, that’s Linda Carter.”
Hubby: “She played Wonder Woman, not Catwoman. Lee Meredith was also Buddy Ebsen’s secretary on that detective show. What was it?”
Me: “It’s Lee Meriwether and the show was ‘Barnaby Jones.’”
DD: “Who does Eartha Kitt play?”
Me: “She’s not in this movie.”
DD: “Then why did you mention her?”
Hubby: “Shh, I’m trying to watch this bad movie.”

After that great intellectual discussion, it was back to the show. SOCK! POW!

Norman Strikes Again!

That Norman! The chocolate lab who tore apart a vintage Grandmother’s Flower Garden quilt in April (see The Dog Ate My Quilt) has developed a taste for old quilts. This month, he chewed the corner off a gorgeous vintage Bowtie quilt. Not as extensive as April’s damage, but Norman’s owner is starting to think I’m paying him in Milk Bones to tear up her quilts.

I had to replace half the bowtie, batting, backing and binding. I could not locate a green striped fabric that came anywhere near what the original bowtie looked like, so Norman’s “mom” decided to go with contrast and picked out a polka dot.

I noticed there was another quilt in the bag, and it was the Grandmother’s Flower Garden quilt I fixed in April. Oh no! Immediately, I did the mature, professional thing and jumped to conclusions: she hated my work and was throwing it back in my face. Can you believe I was wrong? The worst worn flower in the garden had batting falling out around what was left of the fabric. While the owner didn’t want me to make a completely new flower (too expensive), she did ask if I could “put a patch over it” to keep the batting where it belonged. Well sure, I can do anything. Hahaha. I mean, how hard can it be to make a one piece patch, sorta hexagonally shaped semi circle, complete with seam allowances? Pretty darn difficult, that’s how hard! The patch and I had a few differences at first, but after I threatened it with the fireplace, things fell into place.

Everybody is happy for now, but I sense Norman is plotting his next “challenge”.

UPDATE: This blog won American Quilter's Society Blog Of The Week on June 4, 2010.  Thank you Norman!  Your Milk Bones are in the mail!

Sofa.com's Comfy Award

Sofa.com is a trendy sofa company in London, dedicated to building high quality, custom made sofas for a fraction of the usual custom price. One of their passions is comfort, and their blog is devoted to all things comfortable. I would love to be able to visit them and all the funky shops the blog mentions! Sofa.com’s latest mission is to recognize companies that understand the significance of comfort and coziness in one’s life.

Quilted Lovelies was recently honored with a Comfy Award, and a very lovely post on Sofa.com’s blog. Check out the badge! Pretty slick, huh? I love their avant-garde pictures too – not what you’d expect in merchandise photography. Take a look at their site; you’ll wish they delivered to the U.S.

Enjoy and stay comfy! :)

CitizenS.A.M.

This great organization is composed of volunteers who desire to support our Armed Forces. They send quilts to transport wounded soldiers from the battlefield to safety, plus helmet liners and Christmas stockings. There are several more volunteer groups that involve writing cards and letters, adopting a soldier, helping out the K-9 unit and more.


If you are interested in volunteering, please click on any of the links above. If you have any red, white, blue or patriotic themed fabric that you don’t want anymore, I would be most appreciative to receive it. I recently started making quilts for them, but one of their stipulations is that all the quilts have to be made of 100% cotton, red, white, blue or patriotic themed fabric. After only 2 quilts, I am quickly running out! If you’d like to donate your unwanted fabric, please send it to Quilted Lovelies, P.O. Box 126316, Benbrook TX 76126. If you’d like to volunteer your time or make a donation to CitizenSAM, please click on CitizenSAM to go to their home page.

Thank you so much for your help!

The Dog Ate My Quilt

Destroyin’ Norman, the Labrador Retriever is one lucky dog. When his owner brought me the product of his labor (1st photo), I wasn’t sure I could put Humpty Dumpty together again. The Grandmother’s Flower Garden quilt was over 70 years old and fragile. Now a dog had taken a big bite out of it. How is one supposed to age gracefully with a chunk missing?


The first thing I did was look at it for a day, hoping some magic power would come through my eyeballs and fix it. When that didn’t work, I got busy. One of the half flowers at the border needed replacing as did a 2 foot section of the border itself. The batting, back and binding for the section also had to be replaced (next 3 pictures). Then the new section would have to be hand quilted, matching the stitches of the original quilter (“Good luck with that,” Norman chuckled). Two big challenges were finding fabric that matched the old border fabric, and trying to attach the new section to old fragile material. Finding the fabric was easier than I thought it would be; thank goodness Depression era colors are popular right now. Getting everyone to play together nicely was another matter.

The old border fabric and the background hexagons are very delicate, and fell apart in places when machine sewing was attempted. After more than a few Diva Moments (“This looks like trash, and trash is not allowed to exist in my presence!”), trying the Magic Eyeball trick again, and walking away a couple of times to mutter to myself, everything finally came together and stayed together. I wondered if there was a place I could take the quilt to have all the negative energy removed, but decided a good airing would do just as well.

Norman is out of the dog house for now...

Americans Helping Americans

Get some good priced Quilted Lovelies items and help out a great cause at the same time. Americans Helping Americans is featuring some donated items from QL in their online store. All profits go to AHA!

http://store.helpingamericans.org/

Time For A New Look

At last, renovations have started on my aunt's Flower Garden quilt.  It's a little sad covering up an old flower, but at least it's still part of the quilt.  Now the old flower is protected, and the new flower makes the quilt more stable.

The first picture shows an old flower that has seen better days (see the far left blue flower in the middle).  Good-bye old flower!  The new flower is then basted over the old to hold it in place (picture 2), then hand appliqued to the quilt (picture 3).  Finally, the quilt stitching on the rest of the quilt is repeated in the new flower (picture 4).  My grandmother made some of the tiniest stitches I've seen; it's going to be challenging to match her standard.  Only 11 more flowers to go, and it's finished - I may be writing from the looney bin next time (ha)!

Grandmother's Flower Garden Quilt, Part VI

Yay!  The last two flowers are done, and they are as different as night and day.  The flower on the left is a coral beauty made with a modern fabric in a scallop design, and matching solids.  The look isn't too much for the quilt though because of the medium scale print (believe me, I checked!).  The second flower is a typical small scale floral in pretty pinks and greens.  The middle ring has another floral in cream and pink, while the center is a tiny cream-on-cream floral.  Lots of flowery goodness!

Up next, the new flowers will be appliqued over the damaged flowers, providing more stability and less stress to the surrounding fabrics.  Stay tuned!    

Two New Product Lines For Quilted Lovelies

Two new product lines have been added to the Quilted Lovelies line-up: doll quilts and hot pads.

The doll quilts come in two designs, checkerboard and diagonally striped.  The checkerboard doll quilts feature bright fabrics in carnival inspired colors of turquoise, red, yellow and chartreuse, just to name a few.  They come in two sizes, 10" x 14" and 12" x 14".  The diagonally striped doll quilt is made up of triangles pieced together to seemingly form rows of flowers on a solid yellow background.  Both designs are perfect for 18" dolls.

Two of the hot pads designs are primary colored quilt block patterns in 2 sizes, 8 1/2" square and 9 1/2" square.  The third is a whopping 16" x 14 1/2" (that's big enough for a lasagna pan).  I made them because I couldn't find a hot pad big enough to fit under the crock pot.  I made a "guinea pig special" for me, then my mom wanted one, and a neighbor, so I made a dozen of the smaller ones and 4 of the larger ones.  The big hot pads are pieced squares and rectangles in spring colors of lime, yellow and turquoise, and can also be used as a table topper or a wall hanging.  

Not a new line, but 7 new coasters designs have been added as well.  Coming soon: placemats and quilt block kits!