A Quilter's Day Out!

I am very pleased to announce that I will be the speaker at "A Quilter's Day Out" on May 2, 2012!

I am so excited, first of all, that I was asked to be the speaker. For the past 18 months or so, I have been less diligent with my patterns and my blog than I would like to be. Both my husband and my mother had some health challenges that needed to be dealt with, and thankfully both of them are doing much better now. I feel that this invitation is just the extra little push I needed to get me going again with my patterns.

The event is called "A Quilter's Day Out", sponsored by the Ohio Star Quilters of Warren, Ohio. The location is the DiVieste Banquet Room, at 754 North River Road in Warren, Ohio.

I will speak on how I got started with quilting/quilt patterns, how to pick colors for quilts and ideas for assembling.

The event also includes coffee and rolls, luncheon, mini mall with a variety of vendors, a display of quilts and smaller quilted items, and raffles.

Donation is $25. Contact Sher Johnson at 330-727-0631 for tickets.

Tickets are also available at these local quilt shops:

Just Quilt It, in Warren, Ohio (330-469-6956 or 330-847-0646)

Quilter's Fancy, in Cortland, Ohio (330-637-3106)

Quilting B's, in Cortland, Ohio (330-637-0002)

Olive Grace Studios, in Cortland, Ohio (330-637-0800)

Designers Two Fabrics, in Cortland, Ohio (330-638-3737)

Shaker Tree, in Garrettsville, Ohio (330-527-0112)

Bernina Store and Sew Much More, in Boardman, Ohio (330-726-9396)

Shaffer's Countryside Quilting, in Sharpsville, PA (724-962-9394)

Along with others, here are a few of my newer patterns that I'll be talking about on May 2nd:

Cucumber Harvest, Day 1

Day One of the cucumber harvest yielded 21 cucumbers! I just might have to buy a canner if this keeps up. There are TONS of baby cukes on my plants.

What have you been doing this summer?

In May and June I watched many baseball games--my son's team, Sharon Elks, came in first place in the Sharon Farm League with an undefeated record! We (we = me, my husband, my parents, my in-laws, my sister-in-law, my grandparents, family friends) really enjoyed watching the games--and really enjoyed the great coaching by my son's coaches, Coaches Voytik, Shaffer, and Weisen. These men were patient with the kids and really taught them baseball skills and sportsmanship.

For the Fourth of July we were at Kibbe's Island near Tionesta. This is a nice campground for families, and they have a tremendous firewords display. We went up last Friday and came home on Monday evening. It really was a relaxing weekend. Andrew was so busy with his friends--fishing, playing baseball, swimming, and riding bikes, that Michael & I hardly saw him! We all had a great time.

Now it's time to catch up with the weeding and the laundry! Followed by lots more summer fun.

2 New Patterns!

I have two new patterns for sale--"Crown & Tulip Four Patch" and "Bee Skep Pillow."



"Bee Skep Pillow" is made entirely of wool, although I think a Woolies flannel from Maywood would be terrific for the body of the pillow. If you don't have rick rack, or aren't a fan of rick rack, embroidery stitches would work just as well to show the 'layers' of the bee skep.



"Crown and Tulip Four-Patch" is wool appliqued on a cotton background. I had a nice plaid which I cut up to make the crowns. I used the colors in the plaid as a starting point for the other colors used for the applique.

These are both great applique projects for spring! They are both smaller, doable projects you can work on in the evenings after you've spent the afternoon cleaning winter out of the garden.

On an entirely different note and to follow up from my last post--Andrew's thumb is fine. Wrestling is over and now we're in the middle of baseball.

After a long time away . . .

Happy Valentine's Day! I realize I'm one day late, but compared to the fact that I'm 6 months late with a post, I think that one day isn't too bad--it's all relative.

To celebrate Valentine's Day I made my own "heart tree" using red and pink fabric scraps I had, and steam-a-seam 2 double stick fusible web. Basically I cut two squares the same size (5", 3", 2", etc) and made sandwiches of fabric, steam-a-seam, and fabric--with the wrong sides of the fabric against the steam-a-seam. Make sure you peel the paper off of the fusible web! After I fused the sandwiches together with the iron, I cut out hearts. I used regular thread to make a loop to hand the hearts. This was a simple, fast project. I really liked my "heart tree"--it added some color to our snowy winter. Here are some close-up shots:

Yesterday and today Andrew has been home sick with the stomach flu. He also has a broken thumb--he broke his thumb at wrestling practice about a month ago. This afternoon he gets an xray to see if he can stop wearing the splint. Fingers crossed!

Catching Up With Summer

Here's my small project for June--"Wool Pennies and Scallops"--it measures 8"x10" and is my interpretation of the traditional wool penny mats [patterns and kits are for sale at Shaffer's Countryside Quilting (http://www.shafferscountrysidequilting.com/) or by emailing me].







Where has the summer gone? I did have Wool Pennies and Scallops done and ready for sale before the end of June. As for my July project . . . well, it is still a work in progress:








I think I need to add something on the left side--a hummingbird? Bumblebee? I am waiting for inspiration!





During July I also made a wool picture:






The background is coffee-stained pages from an old book, and the flowers, leaves, vase are wool. "Wool picture" sounds so boring and not very descriptive. What do you think I should call these?


Now it's time to make the small project for August, which I haven't even started yet! Where does the time go?

New Pattern: "Summer Buds"

This summer one of my goals is to make one pattern a month for a small project. This is the first one of these patterns! I've named it "Summer Buds" and finished size is 21" x 27". I did wool applique on a cotton background--I also used cotton for the borders. I am very happy with the rick rack, and I also embellished the berries with seed beads, although that is hard to tell from this picture. As for the picture--honestly, this wallhanging is not crooked--my photography skills are crooked! Patterns are available at Shaffer's Countryside Quilting (http://www.shafferscountrysidequilting.com/) or by emailing me at darlenemccoychd@gmail.com .

The new Block of the Month started at Shaffer's Countryside Quilting last weekend. I am happy to say that I am designing this quilt for the store. No applique this year, though. If you are interested in signing up, call Judy at 724-962-9394. Here's the first block:

I'm working on my next small pattern--June is just around the corner!

Have a Happy Memorial Day!

Win "Fresh from the Garden Gift Set" from the Vintage Workshop

If you haven't checked out The Workshop Window, the blog from the Vintage Workshop, you are in for a treat! They have so many great ideas, and now they are having a contest to win one of two gift sets of bags, aprons, etc.--really, there are too many goodies for me to list them here--and all of them have images of vintage seed packs! Click on the link below to see the gift sets and to enter the contest! I know you'll be adding The Workshop Window to your list of favorites!

http://blog.thevintageworkshop.com/?p=1618#more-1618

I've been having a busy spring--not only sewing but gardening, too. I have a couple of new projects in progress. I'll be posting pictures soon!

"Folk Art" Picture

The weekend before Easter I made this picture (I needed something to cover up some holes I made in the wall when I tried to hang shelves--I had to call in the calvary) and now it is hanging in our dining room.



I've been toying with the idea of making folk art-ish pictures out of wool. I made a willow tree and gave it to a friend. You can see it in the picture below--I hung it on the wall in my sewing room to take a picture. The red framed fabric is images I cut out of Cake Rock Beach fabric from Moda, and I put it in vintage frames--I can put better photos up in a different post.






Anyway--I have a nice collection of vintage wool, and a small collection of vintage frames, so I figured why not use them together? So I made a picture! I am thinking of making another, but completely out of fabric-- a summer wall hanging.

Time flies

Time flies! I can't believe it has been months since I last posted. Time got away from me--and now it is spring!


I have been busy with two new patterns--Quilter's Garden and Quilter's Dozen. Both are queen-size quilts, and both are available as a regular pattern or as a Block-of-the-Month program. The blocks in both quilts are 18 1/2" square. In 2009 Shaffer's Countryside Quilting in Clark PA (http://www.shafferscountrysidequilting.com/) ran both of these as block-of-the-months, and they were successful. Peggy Sheehan, a long-arm quilter from New Wilmington PA, quilted both of these for me. She did a fabulous job!


Quilter's Garden combines piecing with applique:





Quilter's Dozen is a pieced sampler quilt:

If you are a shopowner and are interested in either of these patterns for a Block-of-the-Month for your shop, please email me at darlenemccoychd@gmail.com.

If you are interested in purchasing the pattern for personal use, either email me or you can place a phone order with Shaffer's Countryside Quilting at 724-962-9394.

One of the other things I've been busy with is a new puppy, George. George is now 3 months old, and we've had him since he was 6 weeks old. George is just adorable--not always as well behaved as we'd like, but we're all working on it. This is George when he was new to us--he is much bigger now!

An oldie but goodie . . .

This year I have been spending a lot of time working on the pattern for the Block of the Month at Shaffer's Countryside Quilting in Sharpsville, PA. When we discussed doing the Block of the Month at the end of last year, I said that I'd like to do an applique block of the month, but I wasn't sure how many people would be interested in committing to doing a year's worth of applique. Consquently I offered to do two block of the month quilts--one that combines piecing and applique, and one that is all piecing. This pattern will be available for sale after the first of the year (2010!) either as a single pattern or for stores to do their own block of the month.

Here's a teaser--these are two of the blocks that customers have picked up this year, although not in these fabrics. I've started to sew some of the rows together and I'm really excited about how it is turning out!

Family Challenge

This summer my mom, Aunt Bonnie, Grandma Margie and I decided that we would have a family craft challenge. Our challenge was to do some embroidery and make something with the piece that we embroidered by Labor Day of this year. The pattern we used was available as a free download some time ago from pattern bee at http://www.patternbee.com/ (also check out her great blog at http://turkeyfeathers.typepad.com/ ).

Last Sunday the four of us got together for tea and to show each other our projects. Check them out--

Here's my mom's project--she embroidered a corner of a napkin that has a crocheted edge:

Here's Aunt Bonnie--she embroidered hers in colors to match her living room and is going to put her piece under the glass in her coffee table.

Here's Grandma Margie with her embroidery.

Here is my embroidery--I made mine into a pillow.

It was so much fun to get together and share our projects with each other. I was suprised by some of our choices--3 of us stitched a yellow ribbon, and two of us stitched blue birds!

We are going to have another family challenge--but first we have to decide on a new project, which is a challenge of its own because there are so many nice project ideas to choose from.

After much time spent imagining my own blog, I am finally writing my first post!! In the next few days I will continue to add more information and pictures to my blog, and will be posting frequently. I hope you will check back often to see the projects I am working on.

We had a busy Labor Day weekend--yesterday we spent the day at Lake Erie, today we had lunch with my grandparents, and tonight I finished writing a new pattern, "Honey Time"--pictured to the right! "Honey Time" is a wallhanging, 34" square, and a great way to use up some of the little scraps you have in your sewing room that you just can't bear to throw away (the buds, leaves, bees can each be made from a 2 1/2" square!).

Tomorrow (Tuesday, September 8) this pattern will be hot off the presses and available for purchase at Shopowner's Night in New Wilmington, hosted by the Where the Corners Meet Quilt Guild. If you are in the area, this is always a nice event to attend. The guild members and shopowners that attend are terrific ladies, there's always good food to eat, and lots of fabric and patterns to buy!

"Honey Time" will be on sale at the Shaffer's Countryside Quilting table. After this event, you can contact Judy at Shaffer's Countryside Quilting (724-962-9394) to order "Honey Time".