Away to Me has moved.   We are now at Film and Thread!  This website will be closed, soon, so please update your links/bookmarks/RSS feeds.

As an incentive and since we are participating in the fall online quilt festival at Park City Girl, we are going to have a week of giveaways at Film and Thread starting on October 9.  So, hurry on over and join the fun:  http://filmandthread.com

Here’s a peak at some of the giveaway items at Film and Thread starting soon!

Hi, everyone.  I’m moving this blog to a new location and giving it a new name:

Film and Thread.  Click on the name or go to http://filmandthread.com and be sure to update your feeds and bookmarks.  Here’s a sneak peak at what’s coming up:

A look inside my “studio” as part of Quilting Arts Online Open Studio event. 

So, pretty please, come join me over at Film and Thread!

Lisa of Chemistry Couture sent out the fabric for September for the Snip.Sew.Send quilting bee.  There were 8 different fabrics and the requirements were to make a 10.5 inch square block using all of the fabrics and with a star incorporated in any way you wanted.

Lisa sent plenty of fabric, so I ended up making two blocks.  I made the spiderweb block on the right first and hoped that the white looked enough like a star.  Then, just for fun, I made the one on the left.  It is basically a wonky star that I tilted a little before I cut it to 10.5 inches.  It was another fun month to experiment!

Quilting Arts is offering a free e-book with tips and tricks about free-motion quilting.  It does require you to sign up for their email list that gives updates on their new publications and offerings.

If you’re interested, it’s here:  http://quiltingarts.com/Free-Motion-Quilting/

While going through some of my Grandmother’s crochet pieces and old fabrics, I found this vintage sampler that hadn’t been worked on yet. It looked like a good project to work on while watching Project Runway!

A new embroidery hoop was called for and Hancock Fabrics was having it’s 50% off notions sale, so I bought this one.  I love it!  It is a Clover brand embroidery hoop.  It holds the fabric quite securely and best of all, the thread does not catch around the tightening screw while you are stitching.

Next to the hoop was another Clover item that I’ve been wanting to try – punch needle embroidery.

So, I bought that, too!  How cute are the embroidery patterns?  They reminded me a lot of the embroidery patterns that Lolly Chops has offered free on her website, especially the hedgehogs.  Here’s what her hedgehogs look like:

So cute, right?

Lolly Chops is one of my favorite creative blogs.  Last Christmas, a lot of friends received gifts made from the Lolly Chops blog.  And now, just in time, Lolly took up punch needle embroidery!  She offers lots of links and tips and “in progress” photos.  Here’s how her Hank the tree trunk turned out:

I can’t wait to get started and try it with all of Lolly Chops adorable embroidery patterns!  And yes, they are free!

There were two happy surprises this week.  First was, I won a $50 gift certificate to J. Caroline Creative during her recent giveaway!  So, I ordered fabric!  Her shop has a great selection, and it was hard to decide, but here’s what I ended up with:

Since I’ve now been the lucky winner of two giveaways, I’m going to be putting together something fun to giveaway here, soon.  So, stay tuned!

The other happy surprise was that I was able to get in touch with the artist who painted our daughter over 18 years ago.  The painting is shown in the last post.  Her name is Tricia May and she is still doing beautiful paintings.  We had been at the beach (Newport Beach, CA) one hot day and Tricia asked if she could take a photograph of Elizabeth to use in a painting.  After a little conversation and a chance to see her work, I asked if she would be willing to do a painting of Elizabeth.  She did and she captured Elizabeth perfectly.

Money was very tight at that time.  We never had any professional photographs of our daughter at that time, but I saved up to be able to have the painting done as a gift for my husband.  I am so glad that I did.  It is one of our most treasured possessions.  So treasured that when we’ve had tornado warnings that look like they are headed toward our house, I take it off the wall and down into the cellar with me!

I have just finished a quilt, but can’t show it yet since it is a gift, so, in the meantime, here’s a little peak at a recent find from the local thrift store.

No, I didn’t find the Eames chair in a thrift store.  We’ve had that for years, but I did find this fantastic cabinet/sideboard/whatever you want to call it a few weeks ago for $60.  It is in excellent shape except for a few scratches.  It’s perfect to hold a quilt or two in it and fits this space very well.

On top, is a lamp with a cork base that I found for $5.  Let me tell you, these are rare finds in Alabama!  The bad thing is that it is very hard to find anything but very traditional furnishings here.  The good thing is that if something shows up, there aren’t many other people vying for these items!

In fact, let me show you what the living room of our house looked like before we moved in:

Pretty scary, right?  We called it the Cracker Barrel house because the interior looked like the inside of a Cracker Barrel restaurant.  Very country and Queen Anne legs on every piece of furniture.

Here’s what it looks like now:

What a lot of work!  We pulled down the fake beams, got rid of the dangling light fixtures, knocked down the off-center & gloomy fireplace (we have 2 more in the house), scraped the popcorn ceilings,  and did our best to make it fit our needs in a house that really doesn’t match our style.

Do you see our other wooden boat in the picture above?  My husband built that one, too!

Isn’t it beautiful and isn’t my husband amazing?  This was our daughter’s cradle that he built for her before she was born!  We made padded liners that fit inside for cushioning, and there is nothing like the gentle swinging of a boat on its davits to put a baby to sleep.

Our daughter is now 19 and in college, but while she was still small enough to still fit in her cradle, I had a painting done of her in it to give to my husband.

In this painting, our daughter is in the boat my husband made her, wearing the smocked dress I made her, and in front of a quilt that my Mom made her.  So, see, there’s a little sewing involved in this post after all!

Little update:  I just Googled the artist who painted our daughter and I found her!  Her name is Tricia May and she lives in Idaho now!

My husband and I decided to free up the day and take a little drive up to Chattanooga, TN.  We didn’t have anything special planned, but thought we’d walk around the Bluff Arts District which is perched, appropriately enough,  on a bluff overlooking the TN River.

There are sculptures scattered throughout, including a small sculpture garden.

The Hunter Museum of Art sits right on the edge of the bluff.  It is quite a mix of styles architecturally and so is the art contained within.

There was a small temporary Chihuly glass exhibit (no photos allowed) and one Chihuly piece in the permanent collection.

More sculptures on the way to the pedestrian bridge that crosses the TN River.

Head over to Bumble Beans Quilts if you want a chance to win this beautiful bag:

Bumble Beans Quilts is the organizer of the Pixiedust Gather quilt block that I just made.

“Sis” block for Snip.Sew.Send, originally uploaded by anonymousinalabama.

It’s not quite August yet, but I couldn’t wait to go ahead and make Zonnah’s block for Snip.Sew.Send.  Her requests were a 7.5 inch by 7.5 inch block with curves and circles, floral fabric predominant, and the red as a little accent.  She had mentioned that she was going to give this quuilt to her sister.

The original thoughts that came to mind were to make a block that looked like hills with the sunset or a sunburst or something similar, but then I thought, “Why not make it pay homage to her sister by subtly making the block spell out ‘Sis’?”

I used the freezer paper method described here to piece the “S” curves.  I learned that shallower S curves would be easier than deep ones!  The “i” was appliqued on.

Doing a virtual quilting bee has been so much fun.  It is like Christmas when the fabrics come and the chance to make one block of varying kinds each month really stretches the imagination.

Thanks Zonnah for letting me make this block for you and for the beautiful button you sent!