Ward Halloween Party

October 29th, 2008

On Saturday our ward had a Halloween Party. The Young Women and Young Men were asked to decorate a scare hall and another room that wasn’t scary but fun for the little kids. This is the room that I got involved in.I gathered up a bunch of boxes on Thursday and Friday. Saturday morning we met at the church to construct the box maze. It was not actually a maze, but it separate into two routes and then came back together at the end. The picture above is the entrance. Rachell had brought a bunch of decorations that we used here and inside the boxes.

Moriah had brought a bunch of textures for the bottom to add interest while crawling. Cooked oatmeal in ziplock bags, cooked spagetti (in bags), crushed egg noodles and leaves. We decided to put the leaves directly in the boxes. It was alot of fun, but kind of a mess to clean up. Tom said that next year he was going to bring the leaf blower and just open the door and blow them outside. I had brought fall/Halloween fleece that I had and we used these to cover up the boxes. Some of the boxes did not have tops so this worked to enclose the maze but enable us to get inside and help a stranded victim if needed.

We used the chairs as support against the sides of the boxes. It turned out to be alot of fun. (Gave me my fill for decorating for Halloween this year. )

Here is Snow White……..

and one of the seven dwarfs.
(All seven of her children we dressed up as one of the seven dwarfs and her husband was the handsome prince.)

These young mothers had such creative ideas. Oh the good ole days………….I remember making alot of fun costumes (usually late into the nights before Halloween). Maybe if I can find some pictures I’ll do a Halloween post on Friday (but that was in the time if film and not digital).

The activities committee hosted a Chili cook off. Lots of good Chili. It was a fun evening.

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Reasons why I love George!

October 24th, 2008

I have been quilting on my Back to School quilt the past few days and I love George. As I have been working on this quilt and really enjoying the process I have been trying to decide what the difference it.

1. I love the throat space – a big 20″ and the size of the table. I can quilt on part of the project without having to stuff and fluff as I work. Since my table is out in the open I do have to fold it up sometimes so it doesn’t fall off the table. If I start feeling the least bit of drag I know it is time to rearrange alittle.

2. I love the speed. Not that I go fast all the time, but that when I want to the machine will keep up with me. I don’t even have George set on the fast speed. I have it at the middle setting and I still don’t ever put the medal to the pedal.

3. I love the set-up (any my new studio workspace). I don’t have to move my machine back to it normal place before sewing classes – I just leave everything as it is (except taking quilt off from under the needle.


Here is a snapshot of some of the quilting on the Back to School quilt.

Posted in George, Quilt: Back to School | 2 Comments »

Grandma’s Hexagarden

October 24th, 2008

Yesterday I pulled out all my hexagon flowers for my Grandma’s Hexagarden and arranged them for the layout.

I don’t know what I was thinking – the amount of flowers I have would make a very large wallhanging and to get the portions that I wanted I would have had to fold a few more flowers (and I wasn’t too excited about that). I have some leftover flowers. Maybe I will make them into a smaller wallhanging and take that one with me when I go on the road to teach.


In working with the folded flowers yesterday I have decided that the folding shows up better on the plainer batiks. (Have to remember that if I decided to make a project like this again.) This picture shows how I have each flower labeled so I will know which flowers to sew together. I have the top row of flowers all attached to each other.

Posted in Quilt: Grandma's Hexagarden | No Comments »

3 Lables sewed on

October 22nd, 2008
Today I sewed on three labels. Feels great to be finishing up these projects. The first label sewed on was on the Morning Quilt.
(If you are wondering why the leaves and vines are blue – because the yellow is out on my printer and I didn’t want to go to Staples before I printed the label.)

Here is the front of the quilt – sorry for the angel – my quilt holder is at work.
Here is the label for Splash of Silver. Now it is comletely done.

The third label for a quilt that Emily finished. It is going to be mailed here on the East coast so we decided it was silly for her to take it back to Utah just to have to mail it back to the East.

Posted in 2008 Completed project, Quilt: Morning Quilt, Quilt: Splash of Silver | 1 Comment »

Can you guess why I like my job?

October 21st, 2008
I really do enjoy teaching children to sew. Here is one of my new students that started this Fall. She just completed her sewing bag.
Quilting continues on the Back to School quilt. I decided to quilt the calculator portion with a grid. I was trying to figure out some freeform quilting but none of it seems right. I am now going around the crayons on the border and then will quilt in a wood grain.

Posted in Quilt: Back to School, Students (Children) | 2 Comments »

Anyone for a new project?

October 20th, 2008

Saturday after we dropped Jason, Christy and Ty at the airport I had the feeling like I wanted to go home and just start a new project. But………….that is not sticking to my goal of working on and finishing some of my UFOs. Emily called and we talked for awhile and I told her my feeling of wanting to just go and start a new project. She help convince me that was not a good idea. I decided to work on the binding for my Morning Quilt. I sewed it on the front and now just need to hand sew it to the back. I hate having the hand sewing on the rod pocket at the last, so I did it first. Last night I worked on one side while we were driving down to Manhattan for the Annual Manhattan Temple Ordiance Workers Devotional.


On Saturday evening after I sewed the binding on the front of the quilt I decided to pin base my Back to School quilt. I am feeling really intimated about quilting this quilt. I am not sure why, but I am. I visited Patsy Thompson Designs trying to get some inspiration. She has a great website with alot of fun samples for free motion quilting. I have printed out all the FREE downloads and niow have more wonderful resources to add to my free mtoion ideas binder.I have started quilting the outlines around most of the piece, now for the free motion stuff. I hope that I can do justice to this quilt.
Sunday I completed the embroidery work on the final pieced block for the Generations Unite quilt.

Posted in Quilt: Back to School, Quilt: Morning Quilt, Quilt: The Generations Unite | 4 Comments »

It’s great being a Grandma!

October 20th, 2008
Here is Ty with Grandpa playing with the trains.

Four generations of Ciccotelli’s
The cute M&M costume Christy made for Ty’s Halloween costume.

Jason, Ty and Christy on Coney Island beach.

Lunch at the original’s Natahan’s

The 3 Ciccotelli boys.

Posted in Family | 1 Comment »

VSQ meeting

October 15th, 2008

Today at the Village Squares Quilters meeting we had 28 wonderful quilts displayed for the Splash of Silver challenge. I am sorry that I forgot to take pictures of all of them, I will do so at the quilt show and share then. Each member got to vote for the three quilts they liked best. A 1st place vote received 5 points, 2nd place vote received 3 points and 3rd place vote received 1 point. All the points were tallied up and the winners are………………………..3rd place – Fran Osinoff – Birthday Celebration (left)

2nd place – Susan Wolman – Princess and the Silver Pea (right)
1st place – Mary Anne Ciccotelli – Splash of Silver (center)

No – I didn’t get the bibs done that I was suppose to. But, the guild did present 100 bibs and scarfs to St. Mary’s home for children. This guild does such wonderful outreach projects.


And – we presented the quilt the group had donated blocks for. The quilt was given to Susan as a comfort quilt to wrap her while she is going through the recovery process of cancer treatment. (This is the one I quilted earlier this week.)

Posted in Quilt: Splash of Silver | 5 Comments »

Splash of Silver – VSQ Challenge

October 14th, 2008
This post is a summary of my progress on my challenge quilt. Since I was not a liberty to share my ideas and work before the voting I added to this post as I worked on this project and had it published on the day of the voting.

Village Squares Quilters 2008 Challenge
Splash of Silver
Your Challenge is to create a quilted wall hanging with this theme.
Rules:
1. The entry must have three layers and be a quilted wall-hanging.
2. Shape: square or rectangle
3. Dimensions: no side longer than 25 inches nor shorter than 10″
4. Choice of fabrics and use of embellishment is up to you.
5. Bring your qults in by 11:30 on October 14.
Brainstorming:

I had put this picture of a Christmas card in my idea folder a while ago. The idea I had at the time was to make a much larger quilt to hang in my studio during the winter. But , I decided to use this as my inspiration for my challenge quilt.

I saw this picture on Susan Cleveland’s website and decided that I wanted a border like this quilt on my challenge quilt.

Friday, Sept. 26, 2008

This is 1/2 of a side of the spikey border that I drafted.
Monday, Sept. 30, 2008

Sections of the border that I am paper piecing.



Part of the border pieces laying on the sample center.
The swirl lines are chalk and the two snowflakes are practice ones.
(Note to self – need to include some large snowflakes also.)

Experimental top and all the border pieces completed.

Now to pieced the border together.

Close-up of the different silver fabrics used in the border.

Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2008

The borders have been pieced onto the center section – there are a bunch of ripples in the border, I am sure I can press into submission.
Next to add the swirls.


Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2008

The swirls were done with a metalic thread. (Kind of a pain to work with.)

Here is my challenge quilt hanging, I am trying to decide if it has enough stars.

October 2, 2008

Visit my post – Sneak Peak – to see what I am working on today on this quilt.

Also, I should remember that I have come to the conclusion that pressing into submission does not work most of the time? So, I am also redoing the border to get rid of all the ripples that you can see in the above picture.

One side completed (right side of the picture), one side pinned down (bottom of picture), and two more sides to be worked on.

October 13, 2008

I am in the process of blocking the quilt – still trying to get it to lay flat.
Binding and rod pocket ready to attach when quilt is dry from the blocking.

October 14, 2008

I made it – it is completed. Needless to say – I dodn’t get alot of sleep last night.

Whoops – I forgot to wash off the chalk lines. You can see the quilting lines much better on the back.

Posted in Quilt: Splash of Silver | 2 Comments »

Contest for the messiest creative space

October 13th, 2008
Here’s a glimspe of my studio. After preparing for the workshop last week and working to complete the pattern lots of stuff is just out. Also, Jason (SS), Christy (DL) and Ty (1 1/2 yrs old grandson) arrived on Saturday afternoon. So all the stuff that I did not get put away from the main floor also came down to the basement (and Tom and my’s bedroom).

Not as bad as it has been in the past, but I really do’t want it to get that bad. Having the children’s sewing classes four afternoons a week does enoucrage me to clean-up before classes start. Today is a holiday so I have another day before I have to do the mad dash to get things cleaned up. Anyway, Teri posted about a Contest for the messiest creative space. I don’t think I’ll get to much cleaning today because here is what is on my

To Do list for today:
1. Finish binding comfort quilt that a group of us have made for a friend. (BTW – I quilted it last night and into the early morning hours.
2. Quilt and bind my challenge quilt (voting is tommorow, so watch for the progress post tommorow.)
3. Make 12 bibs to turn into the Outreach coordinator at the Village Squres Quilters meeting.
4. Preparations for the VSQ board meeting (since I am president I should try to be alittle organized).
5. Prepare “Easy Does It’ for President’s Challenge award.

After I get all that done I will just sit around and eat bon bons and watch TV – oh yah – I have my 1 1/2 year old grandson here. Much better things to do thatn sit around and watch TV. I did stay home from the zoo so I could get some work done. Anyway – back to work.

Posted in Family | 4 Comments »

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