A very "dumb" quilt!

 This quilt is probably a perfect (ha!) example of the "dumbing down" of quilting, but guess what?  I love it and I had a blast making it!

    The backing is a nice soft muslin, but it really shows my boo-boos and messiness at certain points.

 (Ignore the filthy deck, please!  That's on my hubby's honey-do list before the deck furniture makes an appearance)

 I practiced my free-motion quilting on these blocks and some are really bad and I should have used Jack (the ripper), but seeing as it's my practice quilt, I left it alone.  I forgot to take some close-up pics.  

 All of these pics are blurry, for some reason - hmmm.

The sun was setting in this pic.  I love the black and white binding, too!  I'm going to hang it over the desk in my sewing room.  I just need to make a sleeve for it and add the hanging of it to my hubby's honey-do list  :-)
Thanks for tarrying with me.  I hope you have a  blessed Wednesday!

Another win!

I won a quilt kit from Shruti of 13Woodhouse Road!  Wow!  I was stunned!  She calls it the Paalvi quilt which means tender leaves. 
You can read about it here:  http://www.13woodhouseroad.com/2011/04/paalvi-is-here.html.  If you are not already following Shruti, you just might want to consider it.  (She's not paying me to say that, either)  Her posts are very interesting, she's from India, she sounds like she has a lovely husband and son, and I just love peeking into her home/quilting/fun/traveling/family life.  Some day I would love to meet Shruti in the flesh, (and not just because I won this awesome quilt kit from her, either!  :-)  I must, must, must finish all my UFOs before I start this one, though!

This is the quilt shop (below) from whence it came, via Shruti.  Not sure how this all works, but it did!  And I thank Lori Gray, also, from Stitches N'Giggles.  Gorgeous package and so nice and neatly made up!

Thank you so very much, Shruti!  You are a wonderful bloggy friend!  I will be sure to post the quilt when I get it all done.   ~ Jodi ~

Completed Gardens of India quilt

Here it is, my (Shruti's pattern) Gardens of India quilt, bound, washed, and dried:

 Photos taken at the Smith-Appleby House in Smithfield, RI, where my daughter and SIL's wedding was held back on May 31, 2008, almost three years ago!  Wow!

 Back of quilt where I deviated from Shruti's pattern because I was determined not to buy any fabric and just use from my stash.

 Waterfall way back there!  The gurgling sound was fantastic, and the birds were chirping!  It was 6 p.m. and the sun was still shining!

 Me and my shadow - yes, I look large, as my daughter so kindly pointed out, but I had on a long flowy skirt and it was quite windy - (that's my story and I'm sticking to it!)  Edit:  She did say it was because of my skirt, though :-)

 

The tree that was - three years ago a huge gorgeous tree stood here which is where appetizers were enjoyed and a three-piece jazz band played at the wedding.  The tree, apparently, was diseased and had to go.  Oh, well.  It made for a good "table" for my quilt, even though the wind wanted to whip it up and away.
And there you have it!  Lots of pics, I know, and I see other bloggers apologize for picture-laden posts, but personally, I love lots of pics so I am choosing not to apologize.  You can skim over them, of course, your choice.  Who's to know?  But I hope you like the fabrics I chose to make up Shruti's quilt.  My darling niece loves it, and she doesn't know it yet, but it's going to live with her in NH, some day soon.
Thanks for taking the time to tarry with me!  Bless and be blessed!   ~ Jodi ~

Winnings from long ago and far away!

Deb, http://deb-robertson.blogspot.com/ who lives in Christchurch, NZ, had this sweet giveaway back in December, I think it was, but as you may or may not know, Christchurch suffered a horrible earthquake that the people, including Deb and her family, are still trying to recover from.  I had forgotten all about the giveaway, and when Deb emailed me about a month ago saying she hadn't forgotten, my goodies were on their way, I felt kind of weird.  Here she was, struggling to come to grips with what her family, friends and community was dealing with and she was fulfilling her giveaway promise, such a trivial matter, with graciousness and aplomb.  I'm not sure I would have been able to carry that off.  This is what arrived at my house yesterday: 

All the fat quarters on the right were wrapped in the green/red/tan fabric, and she also enclosed these adorable buttons and ric-rac which I will be saving for when and if I have a granddaughter! 

The buttons are from Fenella Jameson of "Stitch, the Playroom for Knitters & Stitchers," also of NZ. So kind of Deb! Please visit her blog. It's an inspiration and really makes me at times ponder what is really important in life, and what is not so much. Thank you, Deb! I WILL enjoy all of this!

Inspiration from Malka Dubrawsky - http://stitchindye.blogspot.com/

Thirty-six 6" x 6" improv blocks, mostly from scraps.  I needed some simple, mindless play, and this is what I decided to do.  But bad news!  Most of you know I was without a machine while this thing was being repaired, for more than two weeks?  Well, IT'S STILL NOT FIXED!  I dropped the feed dogs yesterday morning to do some FMQ (free-motion quilting), and they won't come back up, again!!!!  It was, and is, still under warranty, so they shipped it back to Brother, wherever they are.  I can tell they worked on it, but it's doing the same thing - arghghghghghgh!

Good thing I still have my niece's machine, and I've been busy hand-sewing the binding on the Gardens of India quilt.

Here's some more pics of my improv quilt, which I need to name.  Any ideas?

You can't tell from the photos but I'm using a silvery Sulky thread.  I even followed the lines in the gray/black/off white Hope Valley piece that's in the above pic but you can't see it.  I'm doing lots of variations on the FMQ in each of the blocks, and it's great fun!

Don't look at the mess in the background - I'm still putting fabric away (the story of my life!)  And look at the cute little "garden" gloves my sis gave me to use for quilting!  She's so thoughtful!  (I love my sis!)

Have a great weekend, all!  And a special hello and welcome to all my new "followers!" 

Bless and be blessed!

~ Jodi ~

Winner!

Thank you everyone so very much for entering my giveaway through the All Things Vintage Sheets blog and for "following" me!  I wish you all could win, but alas...
And the winner is, according to Jen:  Sue, who wrote:  "Hi, I'm Susan, i'm a follower of the VS blog."  So I've sent her an email and will snail mail her, I think it's five, FQs of vintage loveliness!
And I can't resist posting a pic of my grandson again (I wish I had a finish to show you but I've been helping someone make pillows/cushions/bolsters and haven't had much time to work on my own UFOs = unfinished objects).  So here he is, five months old:

"If I kick hard enough and do this with my arms, I can fly off this chair!"

And now he's pooped from the photo session and going to do a bit of yoga!  (There are lots more pics that my daughter took, but I will spare you - I had to show this one with the pillow I made!) 

Till next time, bless and be blessed!

~ Jodi ~