Rockin’ Grandpa & Grandma

December 11th, 2008

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Dark or Light?????

December 9th, 2008

Yesterday I was working with the hummingbird blocks (which have been reduced to 2 1/2″ blocks) and the Easy Pieces blocks for the back of The Generations Unite. I want to get the pieces cut out to take to Utah with me next week. Who knows I might have some extra time after I complete my “To Do” list that the girls have for me.

Anyway – I am trying to decide if I like the lighter color around the hand block or the darker color. I can see pros and cons with each.

What do you think?

( FYI – I don’t have this many blocks made. I just know how to manipulate the block I do have made in Word – that is why there are no foot prints in the center of any of the blocks.)

Studio Christmas tree

December 9th, 2008

On the last week of sewing classes before the Christmas break I offer a holiday project for the students to make. I play Christmas music and we just kind of have a party. Yesterday I almost forgot about all of this. It was almost time for class to start and I hadn’t made any of the preparations. Luckily I had time to put up the tree and had all the supplies I needed. Here is the tree that I put in my studio. Before I married Tom the girls and I lived in Maryland and we had a sewing room in our townhouse. One year we decided that we needed a tree in there also (it wasn’t enough to have a tree in the living room and one in the family room) and it should be decorated with sewing notions. I made the tree skirt and we made the decorations. (I am not sure how I got done all the things I did when I had two young daughters and was working full-time – I think that part of it was that I would go without alot of sleep at times. As you can see, I have struggled with moderation in things for a LONG time.)

Here is the angle made from a pair of scissors.

Thimble and bobbin used for oranments. Also the tape measures garland.

What would a sewing Christmas tree be without a hem guage ornaments.

We can’t forgot the thread…………..

or the tomato pin cushion.

And the chalk marking pencil.

What fun memories – working with my daughters
to design and make decorations for this tree.

Trying to practice moderation!

December 8th, 2008

Hello blogging freinds and family members. Over the Thanksgiving weekend I decided that I needed to be have more balance in my life. There is more to life than finishing UFOs. So, to make a break in my thinking I really had to just stay away from my studio for the week to try and change my mind set. I did do some hand work on Grandma’s Hexagarden. This morning I rearrange the small (8′ x 8′) bedroom that we have. I decided to put the E-bay Mania quilt on the bed. I needed something to cover the pillows since the quilt was not long enough. I pulled out one of my UFOs from 1999. I think that I will make it into a pillow sham to use with this quilt on this bed. The quilt was made with white fabric and the small UFO is a cream color fabric, but I think I will use it anyway. I am planning on painting the room and redoing the hardwood floors after the first of the year. We were going to put a full size bed in this room, but after moving the furniture into the trail set-up, I have come to realize that this room is not large enough for the full size bed. The door would just barely open and you would have really no room to move around. Too bad, it was was going to be really nice. But, I think with tweeking the furniture arrangement this room will still be alot nice for our married kids to use when they come to visit. I just have to face the plan truth – this is a SMALL bedroom. Not alot of options!

I really like having quilts that I have made on the beds in our home. I did finish the Train room quilt before I put the ban on my studio. I have loved walking past that room and seeing the bed look so nice. Tom will go into the room to admire the train set-up. I can go in with him and admire the trains (and the quilt and pillow sham).

Living Room Round Robin

November 27th, 2008

This morning Tom has gone to play football with some of the men from our ward, so I am going to make an apple pie, but before that I just wanted to miter the borders on a quilt that I was working on yesterday.

Back in 2000 I participated in a International (this quilt was worked on by a quilter in Canada) Round Robin. I made the center block using fabrics that would match our living room. I put a disposable camera, notebook, and extra fabric in the package and sent it on to it’s assigned destination. All was going well until the next to last quilter. My quilt top ended up with a quilter in Iowa. It stayed there for months and months. I would email this quilter and in the beginning the person would kept saying that the quilt top would be mailed next week. I would wait for a while and NOTHING! I even emailed the quilter and asked to just have my quilt top returned without doing the assigned task. At this point the quilter would not even respond to my emails. In the Fall of 2001 Emily was making plans to attend Iowa State in Ames, Iowa. This was my chance to try and get my quilt. I was determined to go and get my quilt (and the other round robins that were being held hostage there). I know that Iowa is a big state, but this might be my only chance of recovering this round robin. I emailed the quilter and told her of my plans to be in Iowa at the end of August and if I had not received my round robin back by the beginning of August I would contact the quilt shop and guilds in the area and ask for help in recovering the round robin quilt tops. I figured that someone in the quilting community would know this quilter.

My quilt arrived in the mailed just shortly after this email. I was so thankful for her sending my round robin because I LOVE it! (Even though I didn’t finish it right away – other projects got in the way like the Pelham New York Comfort Quilt project.)

Here are the progress pictures of the quilt top on its journey.

( Mary Anne Ciccotelli – Pelham, NY)
(I am hoping that I can find the notebook that I sent with it because I would love to put names/locations with each quilter.



Here is how (except the little piping on the left) the round robin came home to me. I think the reason that I have not completed it was because I like it so much, but I didn’t know exactly how to finish it off. It needed something, but I wasn’t sure what.


I have another Christmas present that is going to use the the living room/kitchen fabrics and I have been thinking about and planning. So, yesterday I just felt like this was the day to work on this project. I went to the attic and retreived the box that holds all the fabric from the living room projects. But it wasn’t the Christmas project that I worked on, I pulled out my round robin and started to think about it. After looking at the top I decided to try some piping on the edge. I used the striped fabric (also on the lighthouse) on the diagonal thinking this would be fun.

Now I am trying to decide what to do about the outer border, or does it need borders?


I had plenty of the green fabric that had been used throughout the quilt and deicded that it was just right for the outer border. I put it on. I am going to have to trim the border down though because the quilt is about 3″ to wide to fit on the wall that I want to hang it on. I also think that I am going to do the facing type binding because right now I think the border looks like a frame and I think I want it to stay that way.
Detail show the striped piping.

All I have left is to do is the rob pocket, decide on the backing and get the binding ready. Then I can quilt.
I really am enjoying working on all of these UFOs. Makes me feel like I am accomplishing alot but most of the work has been done years before.

#13 Revisted

November 26th, 2008
I have a few of my fabric boxes out choosing fabric for a Christmas present.

When Tom started working at Cancer Care he commented that he thought it would be nice to hang a quilt in his office. I let him choose a quilt but he has never taken it to work, partly because the one he choose is actually one that I use in one of my lectures. But, I didn’t think that it would impact my lecture that much. Since he seems to be hesitant to take it to work, I decided that I would make him a quilt that he could take to his office.

One time when I was preparing for a workshop I had the book “Easy Machine Quilting” out and he saw a project like this one and said that I should make that because it looks really cool. Little did Tom know that I had already started this project and it was one of my UFO. I pulled out this UFO and completed it. I named that quilt #13 because that is Tom’s favorite number and it was the project number. This quilt is to big for Tom’s office, so I decided to make one like it but the right size for his offive.
Here is the quilt top for Tom’s Christmas gift.
I am wondering if the borders are too wide – what do you think?

I had this piece of back fabric, but it wasn’t wide enought, so I pieced the leftover strips together and used it in the center of the backing fabric to make it wide enough.

Boxes Donation Quilt completed

November 26th, 2008
Yesterday I decided that I wanted to quilt something up quickly – so I pulled out this little 43″ square quilt that will be donated to one of the Outreach programs at Village Squares Quilters. Actually the real reason I wanted to quilt this little quilt yesterday was when I was getting ready to quilt the “Free” Quilt I had selected one of the Rainbows from Superior thread, but when I started quilting with it I didn’t like the shine on that quilt. So I choose a different thread. I had two bobbins with this Rainbow thread on it and I wanted to put the thread and bobbins (empty) away. So, I quilted it this quilt with that tread.
This top was pieced from blocks from a Stack n’ Whack project that I started in 2005. Last year the Village Squares Quilters had a UFO exchange. I donated part of this project for that. You can see the completed quilt the member made from the blocks I donated in the exchange. Remember the quilt I made from the UFO I received? (It was doanted to the Veteran’s VSQ Project.
My plan is to use the Donation quilts that I complete between now and the QQQ Birthday party to decorate the refreshment area. I think this one turned out really nice. Almost makes me wonder why I decided to convert this project to a donation project.
Because of the boxes I thought a quilting design with gift bows would be nice.

The bows show up better on the back of the quilt.

Quilting completed

November 26th, 2008

On Monday I completed the quilting on the Polar Express – Train Room Quilt. I used the sizable scraps of the border fabric for the rod pocket. I was feeling great. I had one small piece of the border fabric to put in my Quilting Scrapbook. I also added the black binding. Now to sew it down. But………………………… as I was cleaning up for the mini-group to come over last night I found another box that had Train Room quilt supplies. I had a LARGE piece of the border fabric in there. I could have match the pieces I added on exactly and had blue on the the back. Oh well, I am not taking it all out and redoing it. Life will just have to go on.

Falling Leaves Photo Contest

November 25th, 2008


I entered my Turkey quilt in this contest.



It’s voting time! Pick your favorite small project and large project and cast your vote. Voting will close November 28, 2008.


You can click on each of the project titles below the picture to view the full-sized photo or you can view all of the entries on one page.

Only a couple of days left to vote.

I DID it!!!!

November 24th, 2008

I just finished sewing down the binding on the “Free” quilt this morning!!!!!! I made it with weeks to spare before my 50th Birthday!!!!

(Below is what is printed on the label)
Free Quilt

Pieced and quilted by Mary Anne Ciccotelli
Pelham, New York

Started: March 2000 – Completed: November 2008

Pattern: Sunbonnet Sleuth’s Y2K Mystery

One Saturday in March 2000 (at the beginning of my quilting adventure), my husband Tom went to Washington, DC for the day. While he was gone, I started surfing the web. I entered “QUILTING” as my search. Little did I know that my quilting life would be changed forever! One project I found was: “Sunbonnet Sleuth’s Y2K Mystery with 2,000 Charm Squares”. This mystery project was for all the quilters on the internet who had exchanged charm squares. I had not participated in any of these swaps, but I did have LOTS of fabric (with various fiber content) in the attic. I climbed the ladder into the attic with scissors in hand and started cutting strips of fabrics. When Tom returned home, I told him what I was up to and his comment was – “a FREE Quilt”! Little did he know what this “FREE” quilt would lead to and the real costs involved.

After completing 40 of the 81 blocks, I realized that my placement of the light, medium and dark values could have been better. To prove it, I set this project aside and started working on my Y2K Frenzy quilt (which also ended up on my UFO list). I decided that it would be nice to complete this project before I turned 50 years old as a visual example of how far my quilting has come. The one restriction I imposed on myself was that I could only use the strips of fabric that I had cut from fabric in my attic so long ago.

The big dilemma came when deciding what to use for the back. It felt wrong to take fabric from my quilting stash (which I have plenty of). I debated about piecing all the strips and squares that were left, but I didn’t want that many seams in the back of this quilt. So I compromised – I used some of the squares and strips along with fabric from the attic.