Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Fall Favorites

Indiana may be land locked (excluding the southern tip of Lake Michigan and the Ohio River to the south), void of varying elevations (750 ft is the avg. and 1257 ft at the highest point), filled with fields of corn and soy beans which could be construed as dull, but this time of year, I can't help but feel invigorated.

The combines resemble some sort of lighted monster as they munch their way through the fields,  and continue rumbling late into the night.  Harvest time is always exciting.


The changing leaf colors make for very beautiful scenery across the entire state.  Here are a few of my fall favorites.

I hope you allow yourself to slow down for a moment at this time of year to allow your senses to absorb the beauty all around!

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

T-Shirts Galore

    With the hubby away on business, and the younger family members at their respective campuses, I found plenty of time over the last month to get caught up on a backlog of promised t-shirt quilt tops.  In last month's post, I introduced Rosencrantz and Guildenstern into the mix of our existing pets...Snickers, the aging cat, Leo the shepherd, Derby the crazy mutt, Duncan the big horse, and Hawk the adorable pony.


Needless to say, those two kittens
have delighted in assisting with the design, preparation, measuring, cutting, pinning, sewing, pressing, and trimming; all the necessary steps in creating a T-shirt quilt, but they sure slowed the process for me.  For every three pins I placed, they removed one.  I had to be very careful not to sew their paw right into the quilt!



It's always rewarding to see a pile of shirts   morph into a fun personalized quilt!  
It was only four short years ago, for my daughter's high school graduation, that I gave my first project a whirl:

Every year since then I have had requests to put someone's old pile of t-shirts into a quilt.  I have finished eighteen to date.  The Official T-shirt Motto, "It's only a t-shirt quilt," comes into play often, while trying to make shirts of all different colors, shapes, and sizes, fit nicely into a quilt.  I have chosen to make "Scrappy" quilts, some having uniformity while others are random, but each one is unique.  Here are just a few of the end products.





So with the "alone" time I had recently, this is what was created, with the exception of Sarah's Tuft's quilt that I did not photograph when it was completed since she saw it in person:



Now they are off to be quilted with a long arm quilt machine, and upon their return to me, I will put the binding on.  Tada!  Ready to be used comfortably for years!
Until next time, I hope you enjoy each day to its fullest!