More from the library

You have all seen this quilt before. I started my blog with this quilt. And again I didn't follow the rules. But I want you all to understand that the rules I break are quilting rules, not laws. I don't want you all thinking I'm a law breaker. So now that you all understand...this is my version of "Rose Abunda".
When I finished this quilt it was my favorite. It's very hard to pick a favorite quilt, just like kids.
They made these little posters and placed them around the library. Aren't the flowers beautiful?
This is what the original pattern looks like. I thought there was too much applique and that it took away from the the over-all look. And anyone who knows me, knows this is not my color scheme. Hence my colorless version.
Next week I have one more to show you. So till next week...
Take care, Brandie

Another view

I just have to show you the moon from last night. PugsLee was taking her nightly constitutional, I happened to look up the naked dogwood and stared right into the Man-in moon's eye. Of course the camera doesn't pick up the mans eye, but it does show the haze or some might call it fog. Beauty, even at 10 pm. We are all lucky to live with such glorious beauty.

Ok, off my box and on to the quilt show.
This is my revision of "A cottage Garden". This was Morning Stars 1st applique club quilt. We were all to do the same project. This is mine. And I'll let you know a secret, I don't follow the rules.
This is the original pattern. I added a living creature to each of the blocks. I also made the house and HATED it. I thought that the flowers being bigger than the house was too silly and I said it looked like a "Jack & the Beanstalk" house. So guess what? That's what I did.
This was the quilt I gave my favorite cousin. She had been trying to get pregnant for years and finally it happened. I was thrilled for her, and still am.
I went a little crazy with the giants foot. He has a yarny foot. In my imagination, all giants have hairy feet and toes. I stopped at the dirty toe nail. I didn't what the baby to have a foot phobia.
I even composed a silly poem, but it was and is heartfelt. I'm just not a poet.

So the moral of this story is, even an ugly block can turn into something beautiful (at least in my eyes). And speaking of ugly, check out Debbies sunflower (those were her words, not mine).

Take care, Brandie

A library show

One of my small group friends gently encouraged me to take some quilts to the Chico branch library. After gathering up the courage to talk to the librarian, I made plans with her to drop them off last Friday. I loaded up 10 quilts and my MIL and I delivered them. We brought them in and made contact with the librarian. She took the bags of quilts , put them in an office (she said was locked, but wasn't at that moment or when we left), put them on a chair and said "Thank you, I'll hang them this Monday when the library is closed." She then said "Goodbye" and walked off. My MIL and I looked at each other and kind of shrugged and headed for the door. Why was I apprehensive? There was no receipt, No counting of quilts, just a wam, bam, thank you mam.
Well all is right and I needn't have worried. All 10 quilts are there and if I do say, they look beautiful. They are hung below the skylights and even on a cloudy, rainy day, the light was warm and made the quilts look great.
I thought this was an interesting view of the library. Ignore the man.

I've never showed you this one before. This is a paper pieced class I took at Honey Run about 3 years ago. My husband likes this quilt the best because of all the angles. And because I didn't use any "muddy" colors. He likes the pure pigments, I like muted tones.

I'm sorry this isn't a very good pictures. I'll show you better pictures when I get them back. Which leads me to another thing. I won't get them back till someone else brings more quilts in.

This is one of the feathered stars I made in a class. I loved the way the red shows up on the yellow. I don't know if you remember, but I have another FS in my UFO pile. The UFO is twice as big and made of the same colors, just different fabrics.

That's all for today, I'll show you some more tomorrow.

Take care, Brandie

Shopping or Quilting...

Tomorrow is my BBF's B-day. So today we are lucky enough to be able to go to lunch. We are at such different time in our life's. My children are grown and one has moved out. She just put her youngest in school. It has been a couple of years since we have had the time to do anything but morning walks together. So I plan on cramming a bunch of fun into our short time together today.
Later today I hope to get back to my Dresdens. Last week I finished all the stitchin-in-ditch. Maybe today I stitch the interior of the plates. Or maybe the background around the plates. We'll see...

Have a great day!

Take care, Brandie

We have a winner!

I hope you all enjoyed your weekend and have not been waiting by the computer to see who wins. I can't thank you all enough for reading my blog and making comments. I really am thankful to you all. I'm sorry that I don't have a gift for you all. But I will have more give-aways, so come try again.

The hardest part about choosing a name, was finding a vessel to shake them in. A teapot has many uses and this is one of them. Drum roll..........

Michele Hill, from William Morris in Quilting. She is a celebrity. She has a wonderful book out, and another on the way, and she visits my blog. That just gives me goose pimples. Congrats to you Michele, I hope you enjoy the book and ruler. We all can't wait to see what you do with them.
Take care, Brandie

My 100th Post !

I made it. 100 posts. Some people called it a fad and didn't think I would last. But I showed them. Blogging has opened the door to new friends and revived my creativity.


My creativity has gone stale and you all have help enormously. Thank you all who have stopped and said Hello. Now I'm giving you all the opportunity to say a quick Hello.
Stop and say Hello and I will enter your name into a drawing for this book and ruler.
The book has 13 quilt projects and paper templates. The ruler is the same kind of ruler that was gifted to me at Christmas time, and I love mine.

So leave me a message and I'll enter you in a drawing. Tell others about my give-away on your blog, let me know and I'll enter your name again. Sunday night I will draw a name and let you all know Monday morning. Good luck and Thank you all for stopping by.

Take care, Brandie

Yesterday, being a holiday, my Husband and I took a drive. The weather has been gorgeous. This time we went above Paradise and looked down on it.
If you look at the top of the ridge, that is the start of Paradise.

Have I mentioned before that Paradise is on a mountain?
Sorry to bore you with these nature pics. Come back tomorrow for a surprise. It's my 100th post.
Take care, Brandie

Hello again

I'm so glad to be back today. I had that horrible germ that has been going around. I couldn't even hold my head up for a couple of days. But I feel great now. Thank you antibiotics!
Needless to say, I have not done much of anything, including laundry or housework. But Saturday night, Bridgette and I made truffles.
She came up and we rolled 4 different kinds. But let me say right here, I'm Not a professional. I can't roll a round shape to save my life, as you will see.
Unprofessional lumpy truffles. But they taste good and that's all that counts, Right?
We made dark chocolate with orange marmalade, covered in milk chocolate.
Your traditional dark chocolate rolled in cocoa.
My personal favorite, Mexican cocoa with dark chocolate rolled in the same.
White chocolate cranberry, covered in white chocolate.
The hardest thing about truffle making is finding a good tasting chocolate. I have bought bags, blocks and bars. I'm still looking for the perfect dark chocolate. It seems to be eluding me.

Take care, Brandie

Fairy UFO

Yesterday I did complete another UFO. I had started this one about a year and a half ago and at the time was only using stash fabrics. When I finished the top, I didn't love it. So it was sent to the UFO pile. This will be another community service quilt. Hopefully some little girl will love it.

If you look very closely, you can see that I wrote on it. I quilted "Sugar and spice and everything nice" onto it.

The writing is easier to see on the back, it's just backwards, so use your imagination.
Take care, Brandie

The first Daffodils

Yesterday on my walk, I saw these guys looking at the sun. They're so sweet and sunny looking. Happy flowers.
Yesterday I also started quilting on a UFO. I 'll have pics for you all tomorrow.
Today I'm going to try to get to my Dresden. I have to finish up a little baby quilt first, then I can reward myself by working on something truly beautiful.
Take care, Brandie

Rain..bow

Yesterday was a beautiful day. the sun was shining and air, almost warm. The family went to lunch and we caught a rainbow. It was a wonderful day.
Paradise is about 20 miles above the city of Chico. Every time you leave Paradise, you drive past a little canyon. But do you stop and say "AWE"? Not often, but yesterday we did and it was worth it.

The rainbow that made us pause and open our eyes. Can you see it? I've learned that it is very hard to capture everything on a camera. Our eye sees it, but the camera doesn't.

Standing on the top of the cliff, trying to take a pic of that rainbow.

I do believe this is the first bee of the season. I only hope she doesn't get caught in the next storm.

Another view, this one is to the left. A beautiful day and I'm glad I stopped and took a breathe.

Take care, Brandie

Black and Blooms

This is one of my all time favorite quilts. Black and Blooms is tribute to my Grandmother's garden. Her garden's had everything. Fruit trees to roses and everything in between. She had a passion vine on the south side of the house that had beautiful blooms. Every year I was in awe of these unusual blooms.
So I made a quilt to capture that memory. When I look at this quilt, I'm again surprised at my creativity. I think I may have lost it somewhere.

I had a lot of fun with the quilting on this quilt. Years from now, the fabrics will be wore away and the the thread will be holding all together. I used a variegated purple and a variegated green thread. That is what you first see. There is a background of black, bottom-line, that makes a grid behind all the other quilting.

If you look really close you can see the dot-grid in black behind the green feather. (ignore the lint)

Again this is one of my all time favorite. Thank you Grandma!

Take care, Brandie

A green finish

I finished up the green circles yesterday. It couldn't have happen at a better time. Tonight is guild night and I will be able to give it to our community service lady.
Years ago, I started this to learn curved piecing and free monition quilting. At that time, I wasn't very good with either, so it was put aside. Well now it is just takes up my precious space.
When things don't go perfectly well, I tend to set them aside. If you'll look carefully you'll see this doesn't even line up. Each row is a different length. And one end doesn't have a border.
But looking at it now, I think it's kind of charming. It has a Gee's Bend look to it. So now I'll say, "I meant for it to look like this."
Take care, Brandie

Green circles

Yesterday I had a large coffee and I almost finished "Green circles" another UFO. I was buzzing for hours. I had forgot to ask for a decaf. The one good thing thing about full strength coffee, is I accomplish quite a bit. But the headaches are not desirable.
So today I will be finishing up the quilt. One more out of the basket!
Take care, Brandie

The beauty of green

For those of you who are still waiting for spring, I have a couple of pics of green.
Yesterday I noticed this green moss growing on the east side of a pine tree. Whatever side it grows on, will be beautiful.
Even moss on an old stone fireplace. Can you see the little fern growing in the rocks?
How about now? Gorgeous!
The middle of winter makes even ivy look beautiful.
This years first violets. So dainty.
Wild iris's growing along side the road.
Beauty is every where, be careful not to step on it.
Take care, Brandie

CHOCOLATE!

This weekend my MIL and I took a truffle making class. It was a lot of fun and boy did it taste great! Our teacher is a local Chocolatier, with a shop in down town Paradise. She was a very knowledgeable teacher. Did you know that each American consumes 12 lbs. of chocolate every year, while the Swiss consume 22 lbs.? Americans always get the bad rap about our bad eating habits and our percentage of over weight people, but we eat less chocolate. Hmm. Doesn't seem right.
So here is our teacher showing us how the Ganache looks when it's ready to use. She had pre-made 3 different kinds of Ganache. 2 dark chocolates, 1 milk and 1 white chocolate.

After the Ganache was release from the pan, we rolled them into balls. Pretty easy right? Only if your hands are cold, like my MIL's. All her truffles looked round. Mine, not so much, That's why I only have a pic of her truffles.

This is the one thing about my MIL being with me, that I don't always like. She takes pictures of me all the time. Most of the pictures show me with my eyes rolled back and my mouth wide open. I'm not a good subject to snap pics of. But she did capture 1 pic of me looking almost normal. But her camera does this weird thing to my body, it adds like 50 extra pounds!

(You can also see what I meant about the lack of sun)

These are my truffles done. We than rolled the Ganache in all sorts of things. Powdered sugar, cocoa, ground coffee, raw sugar, nuts and coconut.

My MIL's truffles all packacged and ready to go.

A close up of mine. I didn't package mine. I knew it would be a waste. And it was, these trufflles aren't around any more. They disappeared in 2 days, like I knew they would. It was a fun class and if she has more classes, I'll be there.

Take care, Brandie