More instructions...

Cut from your template plastic a 3 1/4" square.
Then, mark to the right of each point with a permanent marker about 5/8" in from the left. Connect the points to form an off-centered X.

*Label it with the word "top" on the front as it will be very important that you use the correct side!

Next, place the template on the quilt on every seam matching the X with the seams. Trace around the outside of the template.

Then using a good pair of scissors, cut out each new "square" that you had traced on the line.

Lay out your squares putting them together like a puzzle to create the pinwheels. (They go in the same place they were in when you cut them out, just turned.)

Sew them together. Add another set of border strips.

Using more template plastic, cut a 2 1/2" square, then cut on the diagonal. Use this triangle to trim off the corners.

There you go, top completed. You can either birth it and quilt, or quilt and bind. Whichever you choose, but both methods work well.

Well, has anyone started one yet? I hope to see some soon!

Very well then...

You ladies are adorable. How can I resist? ;c)

Okay, we all have limited amounts of time, so I'll just be giving small amounts of instruction at a time. Also, I'm going to assume that everyone knows how to cut, measure and piece, etc. So, I won't always be going into really specific details. However, if you do have a question, please let me know either here or email.

You will need at least 3 fabrics, but you can have as many as 13.

• You will need something either solid or very busy for the border fabric as it should blend easily with itself when cut and pieced back together. You will need four 2 3/4" x WOF strips per placemat.
• For the pinwheels, use a variety of value in your choices. You can use only two fabrics if you like (checkerboard style), or you can pick 12 different fabrics. You will need twelve 4 1/2" squares.

Sew your squares together 3 x 4. And add a border around them with your strips. I used a simple diagonal layout, but feel free to go as random as you like. Just make sure that you don't have two matching fabrics side by side or top to bottom. I would also suggest pressing VERY well and using spray starch! You will be cutting using scissors in the next step and it will so much easier if your piece is nice and flat with a bit of stiffness.

Okay, this should keep all busy long enough for me to take a nap. I only had about 4 hours sleep last night and spent nearly that long at church this morning, followed by a shopping trip with hubby and the kids. Needless to say, I'm worn out!

Tessellated Pinwheel Placemats...

Okay, there have been a few questions on how to make these. Would you like me to post instructions? Perhaps in installments? Let me know and I'll see what I can do. We'll think of it as an early Christmas present from me to you. :c) It really is easy, but you will need some clear template plastic.

Raspberry Tea in Tuscany

Yippee! I finished the top of my Raspberry Tea in Tuscany quilt! I am ashamed to admit that I started this quilt about three years ago. But being that it is for myself, it kept being put on the back burner while I did quilts for others. Now, who knows how long it will take before it is actually quilted. LOL!

TPP Top Done

Here you are as promised. The top is done, but I won't be quilting it today. I'm going to work on some borders of another quilt. As you can see, the top is finished off by adding another set of border strips and then trimming off the corners.

TPP Part 3

Here you go... I've sewn the pieces back together. This is such a fun pattern. Now, I still have a bit more to do to finish the top and I'll post a pic of that too. It really is amazing... you cut and sew squares together... you cut up the piece into more squares, then sew the new squares back together. This is truly the easiest way I've come across to make pinwheels. My mom loves pinwheels and because I tend to be such a perfectionist, I have yet to make her anything as I don't want to drive myself crazy trying to get a whole bunch of triangle points to match up. Not the case with this pattern! Just regular square seams to match, so no problems with that! Okay, I'm off to finish the top of this one now. I'll be back shortly to post the pic.

TPP Part 2

Here you go... part 2. I cut up that beautiful piecing into 20 pieces! Seems like a shame doesn't it. LOL! If you know where I'm going with this, you know it is a good thing. If you don't, come back soon and you'll see. ;c)

Trying Twelve Companion

Last year for Christmas, I made the Trying Twelve quilt for my sister (which is really a smaller version of Turning Twenty). This year I decided to make a pillow for her with yarns to match. There are some gorgeous metallics mixed in there, but you can't see them in the pic.

TPP Part 1

This is the first part of the Tessellated Pinwheel placemats I'm making for my mom for Christmas. I don't know where this pattern originated from, but I saw a friend do it and had to give it a try. I have been dying to do it ever since, but have way to many UFOs to justify doing something new... until I realized it would be a great Christmas present. LOL!

Countdown to Christmas

This was a mystery project I did several years ago. It is an online mystery... 15 minutes or less a day for 15 days. It was so much fun! To make it even more fun, I had my hubby pick out all the fabrics by himself. I think he did a pretty good job!

Thanksgiving Decor...

I just love the fall season with all it's autumnal colors. I could hardly wait this year to put up my Thanksgiving quilts! This first is the November one of the calendar series. The second one I made up quite a few years ago when I was first learning how to quilt.

Underground Railroad BOM #3

We presented our Flying Geese blocks in class and discussed how to best make the next block. And, oh how excited and blessed I was to win the drawing... the Triangle Square Up ruler by Eleanor Burns. What a great treat!

The discussion centered mostly on food this time around. That the Thanksgiving feasts would probably consist more of beans, corn, roots and berries. How precious it was, the candy we still have today that was made in that time (Necco Wafers). That they started out with a huge breakfast and left the food out to be eaten at lunch and dinner. And in the summer, they would suffer from the "summer complaint", not realizing it was from the left out food in the warm temps. Thank goodness for the refrigerators today!

We also talked about "visitors" and how they would easily stay for a month or more! Can you imagine??? However, unlike today, they were expected to pitch in and help out. And if the everyday person wanted to visit, they needed a calling card. If they showed up early instead of at the correct time, or without a card at all... there was no obligation to see them. Now, that is something that could be useful in my life sometimes! LOL!

Halloween Costumes

Forgive me for the overdue updates. Been sick, but am feeling so much better now. The kids had a wonderful time for Halloween. The kids had me make Eeyore's Rice Creepy Eyeballs. Which are really rice crispy treats rolled into small balls, covered with white icing and topped with a red hot candy and with red food coloring painted veins. They were pretty gross looking, but oh, so yummy! Gentry was Pinocchio and Hailey was Ariel...

Stairstepper Completed

I finally finished the binding and gave the Stairstepper to my step-mom. I have two quilts that we picked out for me to make for her and this was the first one. I won't be starting on the next one until after the New Year.

I also managed to make another angel hug. A flannel rag quilt that I made from donated charms from my dear friend, Donna.

Today will be all about cutting! I have several projects that need borders and such, so when I head over to the church I probably won't even bother taking my machine... just fabric and cutting supplies.

Round Two

Finally! I just finished my round on Marge's block (Round 2). It took me forever to finally decide what I should do for it! I do hope I made a good choice.

The next "robin" came in the mail this week... Jane's. The colors are so different from the other two and will be a nice change. It is very geometric and I'm thinking of softening it a bit with some applique. Applique is definitely not one of my strong suits, but I'll do my best. I'm just not sure exactly "what" I should applique on to it. I do have an idea... (Hint: Inspired by part of the star.) I'm definitely open to suggestions though!

I also got the next theme for the Ostrich Challenge. At first, I thought it would take me forever to come up with an idea, but in less than two minutes later I was inspired! It's a secret though and one that won't be revealed too soon, as I have many other things that need my attention and a few months to complete this round in the OC.

School starts back up with the kids and I tomorrow. I have really enjoyed this fall break and figure it will take me a few days to get back in the swing of things. It doesn't help that I'm hoping we can take a field trip on Tuesday. It is up to the hubby, but I'm hoping to take the kids to the corn maze!

Underground Railroad BOM #2

We had our second presentation for the Underground Railroad BOM this morning. I had finished all of the cutting for the blocks and completed the Log Cabin block. Forgive the lines, I had it folded and stored in a ziplock bag and didn't bother to iron them out before taking the picture. This month we will be working on the Flying Geese block. Today we talked a bit about aprons, or should I say "pinner aprons", as they were pinned with straight pins to the clothing... they didn't want to "waste" the extra fabric to make the strips that could be used to tie them on. They were very frugal in that time apparently. I do wonder how many were poked with those pins. Hmm...

Halloween Time...

Okay, well, we are still a couple of weeks away, but I already started hanging my decorations. Here are two wall-hangings. The first is one that I made 11 years ago when I just started quilting.

The other is part of the calendar series. I have two other ones I started last year, but I don't know if I'll find the time to get either finished yet.

Retreat Part 3

Okay, now on to Sunday. Got up early and dressed up in our tiaras, gloves, jewelry, etc. for Breakfast at Tiffany's! On the table were little gift bags that were made to look like purses. Inside each one was a FQ and the most adorable ornament... mauve with black feather type stuff on the top, the words "Quilt Diva" written on it! Can't wait to hang it on my tree this Christmas! We are supposed to use the FQ in a Breakfast at Tiffany's quilt in the next three months. We voted for the best Audrey and she got a prize.

Afterwards, we changed back to our normal selves and started packing up our rooms. Once that was done, we had show and tell followed by the auction. I didn't bid on anything, but my friend did and won this adorable pumpkin plate with coordinating fabric... she kept the plate and gave the fabric to me! Now, I just need to decide what to use it for???

Then we packed up all our sewing stuff and headed home. Now, what I haven't mentioned yet is that there were not any cell phones that worked while we were there... completely cut off from the rest of the world it seemed. As we were headed out of the area and on to the highway, all the phones started going off at the same time! Lots of loved ones demanding to know why there calls were not answered or returned. It was pretty funny hearing all the ladies trying to explain the situation all at the same time on each of their phones. We drove straight home and that was the end of a glorious weekend. I hope we don't wait too long to have the next retreat!

Retreat Part 2

Got up early Saturday morning after just a few hours of sleep and barely got dressed in time to eat breakfast. Afterwards two other ladies and I went on a hike while others went to their classes. We almost got lost as the trail ended up being hidden by not only a ton of fallen leaves, but also a fallen "tree"! LOL! However, being that it was a "self-guided" trail, I wasn't about to give up! So, I finally found my way around the tree. Then we walked down to the dock on the lake for a bit.

After that I broke off from the ladies, went back to my room for a nice refreshing shower and some peaceful time of grooming (something I never get to do at home with the kids running in and out every two seconds. LOL!).

Then, I took a little while to add a couple more rows to my log cabin quilt and visit with the ladies until lunch. After lunch it was time for the winner of the chocolate FQ basket, which I didn't win.

Finally, it was class time for me! I was so excited about finally getting to take one of the classes. The overall design is great! However, it took longer than expected and I was lucky, as were the others, after several hours to have one block done!

I was so pleased when it was finally dinner time, as I needed a bit of a break! At the table we had these cute little plastic champagne glasses with a pretty piece of chocolate inside. Attached was a note inviting us to Breakfast at Tiffany's in the morning.

After dinner we played a game and I got my goodie bag (every one got one) along with two picks from the goodie basket. The goodie bag was filled with all sorts of things including a tooth brush, an adorable notepad, pens, bottled water, peanutbutter crackers and even three FQs! The two items I retrieved from the goodie basket were a thimble and a 1/4" seam guide. The game that was played involved being put into groups, given a paper bag, pen and poster board. You had 5 miuntes to empty the contents of the bag and create a story by taping the items to the board. The story had to begin with "Quilting is better than..." We didn't win, but it was fun anyway. And I can't post the little tale, as it ended up being a tad racey.

Then we had the trunk show/lecture with Janet Jones Worley (author of "Quilts for Chocolate Lovers"). She was hilarious!

Afterwards, I put the mystery stuff away and went back to log cabin and finished up the center. Woohoo! I was so pleased with myself at that moment. However, it was now after 2:00 am again, so off to bed for me.

Retreat Part 1

I've been back from the retreat since last Sunday night, but I had a sinus infection and haven't been able to accomplish much of anything, including writing about the wonderful time I had. But I'm better now and ready to catch you all up on everything!

I had a blast!!! It was so much fun! The activities were great, the ladies (probably around 18)were great, the food was great! I got lots of free goodies while I was there, which was good as I had no budget for the vendors (there were two) or anything. Let's start with Friday. When we stopped in Jackson for the quilt stores I found some of the elusive Jennifer Chiaverini Cross-Country Quilters fabric that I need for my Autumn Sampler. So, yes I bought a half-yard of each as that was a bit more than my weekend budget would allow.

Next we arrived at Natchez Trace at the Pin Oak Lodge. The area was so very beautiful and peaceful that I could have stayed forever and the weather was wonderful. Once we got settled in, we had a great lunch... catfish, roast beef and all sorts of side dishes... yummy! Actually, all of the meals were great... no complaints! Then we set up our sewing stuff in a big meeting room. They split up into groups for various classes. I didn't have a class at that time so I sat near one of the groups and worked on a binding. One of the ladies made a mistake so I spent some time trying to help her correct the problem. It all worked out in the end, thank goodness!

Later after dinner, we did the block swap and the purse scavenger hunt. I won two prizes for the hunt for having band-aids and a tin of Altoids in my purse. One prize was a fabric wallet and the other was a little purse type of thing that I can't remember what the name was... something like hugga-bug??? Anyway, it is made from flannel and is like an oversized change purse type of thing that could hold a cell phone or who knows what. It is really cute though. If you know the proper name, please post it for me. :)

For the swap, they placed the blocks on a table and we walked around in "cake walk" fashion while one of the ladies clapped a beat, picking up a block wherever we stopped. Once we all had 12 blocks we then did some swapping among ourselves to try to get a better balance. I spent the next hour or so putting them all together. I didn't use a sashing or anything as I didn't have any extra fabric with me, but I did think of an idea for what I want to do with the border... so I know what I'll be working on in the next few weeks. I'll take a picture after I get that part done.

The rest of the evening I worked on getting my log cabin blocks (Raspberry Tea in Tuscany quilt) put together. Taking along some UFOs was a great idea! I stayed up until sometime after 2:00 and then called it a day.