Paper-piecing prairie tablecloth

Please ignore the ugly hammock but it was all I could come up with at 7 a.m. to get this pic taken.

The "fields" in the middle look horrible, I think.  Too traditional for the modern paper-pieced borders, but, oh, well. 

See the schoolhouse with flag and fencing?

And the church with stained-glass windows up above?

For the backing I used this nice Kaffe Fassett that I got for 40% off - yippee!

Going to be doing some basting today, and then some hand-quilting.  I'm going to try to make the icky prairie in the middle more modern.  Any ideas?  I was thinking maybe some Aurifil thread?  Never used it before, though. 

BTW, I lost a follower.  Maybe because I don't blog often enough, or just nothing to their liking?  Maybe they have too many blogs to follow in their reader?  I know I do!  I can't keep up but I don't want to miss anything, either!  Or am I just nosy? 

I hope you all are well!  Please give me some insight on how I can make my blog better - or, better yet, wait till I redo my header, design, etc. 

Have a wonderful weekend!  May you bless and be blessed!

~ Jodi ~

First day of Autumn!

But my morning glories are still blooming every morning.

And Ezra on Labor Day at a family cookout.

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!  

Okay, so my life has been in...

disarray:

But look at my cute little Tomte doll:

and one more:

She's a bit wonky, but it was fun making her.  The pattern is from the "Scandinavian Stitches" book, http://syko.typepad.com/syko/2010/11/on-tour.html.

Here's something else I accomplished recently:

I made this quilt last Christmas for my family Christmas party Yankee swap.  I told my niece (the winner of it) I needed it back to complete the quilting, which I finally did this week.  I had difficulty parting with it at the time, but I was rushing to finish it the morning of the party so it didn't bother me too much.  Now that I've had it back in my home for the past month or so, I hate giving it back!  I LOVE it.  It's soft as butter, and the colors are wonderful, especially the buttery yellow border. 

(Not-so-nice head shadow - a professional photog I certainly don't pretend to be)

It's going to be a chilly weekend - my niece will be very glad to have it back to snuggle under!

Tomorrow is Friday - yaaay!  Happy weekend, everyone!

~ Jodi ~  

Another UFO...

which one of these days I DO plan on getting back to, but not just yet. I'm having fun making baby quilts and Tomte dolls, both I hope to show you by the end of this week.

These are called Pies and Tarts which I started over a year ago. All hand-sewn and received monthly in the mail from an online shop. It quickly got ahead of me and I was feeling overwhelmed.

My hubs and I went to Brenton Point in Newport last Saturday, the day before Hurricane Irene hit Rhode Island. It was foggy and misty, and the waves were pretty much status quo at that point. On Sunday, I'm sure, it was a whole 'nother story. We lost our electricity at about 9:30 a.m. Sunday morning but were fortunate enough to have it back on at around 7 p.m. the same night. Some of our poor family members and neighbors still don't have power.
I hope all of you are doing well! I've been a bad blogger the past, I don't know how long! I have been checking my feed, just haven't felt like posting. My blog has somehow reverted to an old format and it's a pain to post. When I download a pic, it shows up on the screen as all code symbols so I lose track of where I am. It's about time I revamped my blog anyway. A sit-down with my daughter is in order. She won't mind helping me, right, Ta??? Good thing she loves me and has LOTS of patience!
Take care, everyone!
~ Jodi ~

I'm sure it's been done...

although I couldn't find anything like it when I googled "fabric toilet paper holder", but here's MY design, which does need major tweaking, I will admit:

I want to figure out how to make a lid for it, too, but I just wanted to try something different.
I also found this, which my favorite lunch cafe was throwing out because the spigot doesn't work anymore. And I decided to display my heirloom tomatoes in it for fun!

I hope you all are well, whether heading into fall or heading into spring, depending on where you live on this big 'ole Earth. I do enjoy reading your posts, even if they make me drool and wish even more that I had all day and night to quilt (sometimes I wish I didn't have to sleep!) And I love seeing the pictures of your vacation spots!
So take care, till you tarry with me again...
~ Jodi ~

"No one can find the rewind button, girl...

so cradle your head in your hands, and just breathe, just breathe!" (by Anna Nalick)

That's ALMOST what I had to do Saturday when I finished the list! I wish I could have pushed the rewind button and NOT gone looking for all my projects! I will explain.
I've noticed how some bloggers are making lists of WIPs, (works in progress), or UFOs (unfinished objects), so I thought I would do the same - boy, was I surprised, and not so pleasantly at first. I filled up a whole page of projects! I thought I knew all my starts and stalls and distractions, but I forgot about a bunch of them!
The above is a pic of scraps from a project I started back in January of 2010. It was a quilt-a-long hosted by Sugar Stitches, and this is the state of it now, still unfinished. I have quite a few blocks made, maybe even all I need to make, I didn't count how many.

There was a lot of waste, so from large triangle pieces I cut these little 2 1/2" squares, LOTS of them, which I hope to maybe make a table runner, or small quilt out of:

and I still ended up with the scraps in that first pic above, which shows the leftover-leftover scraps which measure at about 2 1/2" across at their widest point, and they're 5 1/2" long. All the 5 1/2" long scraps are in multiples, some seven pieces, some less, but most have more than two each. Oh, and MOST of the fabrics are Denyse Schmidt Hope Valley. I'm telling you all this because I'm thinking of giving them away. I know some people do like to work with little tiny pieces of fabric and with all you creative, artistic minds, I'm sure somebody could create something beautiful out of these babies. Any interest?
Get ready over the next week or so to see the rest of my WIPs. Those of you who have been with me for a while hopefully won't be bored, but it's helpful for me to see where I'm at and maybe get my butt in gear and finish all these starts, AND STOP STARTING NEW PROJECTS! (But it's so much fun, isn't it???)
I hope you are all well this evening! It's 7:24 p.m. Tuesday night in my little speck of the world - a rather muggy rainy evening. May you bless and be blessed!
~ Jodi ~

Is my blog versatile?

First a picture of what I've just finished tonight, the quilting of this baby quilt:

I did free-motion quilting. It came out, ehh. Two small puckers, and I was aiming for meandering. Hmmmm. I'll let it go at that. Notice there are no close-up pictures :-)
Next, I've been very remiss in acknowledging an award I received from Michele of Island Life Quilts. She gave me the honor of giving me the Versatile Blogger Award back in May, and it came at a very busy and kind of demanding period in life as I know it, so I'm just getting around now to following through with the acceptance of it. The deal is I get to tell you seven things about myself that you might not know, (nor care to, either). Then I give the award to five people (I think it's five!).
So sit back and read for a minute or two, if you'd like, of course.
1. I am left-handed. When I was in early elementary school, the nuns tried to bully me into changing hands, but my mom wouldn't hear of it and went into school and told them in no uncertain terms, no way, she was born left-handed, she's staying left-handed. Yaaay, Mom!
2. I had been coloring my hair since I was about 25 yrs old due to going prematurely gray, and one and a half years ago when I turned 50, I went au naturale - gray/white/silver, whatever!
3. The year I turned 50, I became a grandmother to Ezra.
4. The year I turned 50, I had a total hip replacement.
5. I love to bicycle in the good weather and ride about 30 miles a week, not much, but I love it. And I've been walking/jogging about 12 miles a week.
6. I am a court reporter and work in Superior Court.
7. I learned to water ski as a child on a lake, but my parents sold the beach house and that was the end of that.

Now I will give the award to five bloggers who, when I see their blog name pop up in Google, I get a little swell of excited anticipation, knowing that what I'm about to read or look at is going to be fantastic!
1. www.thetinyhummingbird.blogspot.com (of course!)
2. www.helennoblog.blogspot.com
3. www.minimushrooms.blogspot.com
4. www.ilovescruffydog.blogspot.com
5. www.linseed-helicopter.blogspot.com

Thanks for staying with me, if you did! I could have had a list a mile long. Decisions, decisions!
Tell we tarry again, may you bless and be blessed!
~ Jodi ~