habitat for humanity house quilt

Enough with the procrastination! I should have posted this days ago.

I made a mini-quilt to donate to Habitat for Humanity. This one's for the Smith family's house, and they wanted a beachy, Tommy Bahama look. I hope they like this!

recent work

I'm busily working on two small quilts: one for Habitat for Humanity, the other for Flying Geese Quilting Guild auction. The former should be done in a couple days, and I'll post a photo after that. Here's a work-in-progress photo of the FG auction piece.

My plan is to add buttons to it, something like this.

I don't think I've posted this yet! Yet another sweater for my granddaughter Samantha, so that she will be warm in NY when it turns cold. This came from Tina Barrett's book, Natural Knits for Babies and Toddlers. The directions for the booties have me stumped for now. Maybe I'll still do them, if I figure it out.

Here's Samantha in the second sundress I made for her. I guess she likes it!

Orange County Fair "Fiber Artistry"

I went to the OC Fair on Sunday, the last day. While spending time at the Fiber Artistry exhibit with some of the other artists, some photos were taken. Here are some of them.

First of all, this is me by my "Happy Birthday 2 Me" quilt, which is appropriate because my bday is next week.

This is Annie by her colorful house quilt.

Jamie by her wonderful quilts. As featured quilter, she had several there. What a terrific exhibit it was - very professional. It was great to get so much exposure to all the OC Fair traffic.

So nice to see Julie there, by her beautiful quilt.

Stacy by one of her delightful quilts. This one sold!

Peggy by our collection of mixed media books. It was fun getting to see everyone's book again, and it got us to talking. We want to do another book challenge. Sounds like it'll be an altered book challenge next time.

Me and Stacy by the Carousel group project from a couple of years ago. She did the horse, I did the pink rabbit. Wish I'd been standing up straighter!

Video about the Beneath the Surface exhibit

Quilts Inc has produced some nifty videos about the Long Beach Quilt Festival, and one of them is all about the Beneath the Surface special exhibit, that I participated in. Want to see it? Well, go to http://www.quilts.com/ and click on the ruby slippers. Then click on Videos, and you will see a selection of them. Enjoy! I am thrilled that my "It's Your Fault" quilt is one of the ones featured in the video.

new samantha photos

Here are some new baby photos, for those family and friends who wish to see them. I think this is a great mother-daughter photo.

Look at what a cute smile she has! She's over 9 pounds now.

Quite a big smile here. She seems really happy about something. The little outfit she's wearing was dyed and stenciled by me. It's really too big, but the onesies in her size don't fit around her big cloth diaper butt.

Something has her fascinated here.

She's almost as big as Ginger, their miniature dachshund.

I'm thinking about starting a new blog, just devoted to baby stuff. That way the interested people will know where to look, and other people don't have to. I'm thinking "Crafty Grandma." Maybe one of these days I'll get my act together.

what I'm working on, and Long Beach

I was happy to see that  the "Through the Eyes of the Quilter" photography exhibit was at the Long Beach Quilt Festival. My cat Matilda is part of this exhibit, which debuted in Houston last fall.

My visit to Long Beach was short and sweet this year. I was only there on Friday, but I managed to rampage through the entire show, plus work at the SAQA booth, go to the SAQA/Quilt Art reception hosted by Karey, and have dinner with many of the other "Beneath the Surface" artists. What fun!

It's been a while since I've been able to show any quilt activity. This is a little something I'm working on to donate to the Flying Geese Quilters auction in October. I'm mixing tie dyes (from Ghana) and dyed ties. There will be more to it. I am also going to make a small house quilt for a Habitat for Humanity house.

I made a second sundress for Samantha. It's the same pattern as the green one, except a little bigger. Hope it fits.

I finished up this cute little green knit cap just a few days ago. First time I've worked with circular needles. I got the pattern at a little yarn shop in Telluride. Sorry I forget its name, but if you go there it's the only yarn shop in town. It's a delightful little place with a whole room for children's patterns, plus lots of exotic yarns and local products, too.... I like this cap, it's kind of simple and unconstructed. Notice that the ends are tied into a topknot on the top.

 This is how the cap looks with the ends untied. I'm smitten with knittin', I must confess. I'm enjoying refining my knitting skills and learning new things. I have learned how to knit continental style, which is great for lefties and faster than the throw-over style. There are tons of little videos all over the internet that show you how to do all manner of knitting techniques - what a wonderful world.... Besides, it's really cold in winter where my daughter and her family live, so I'm compelled to knit warm things to keep little Samantha warm.

Any other knitters out there? I'd love to hear from you.