Secret Christmas projects - now exposed! =cD

Over the Holidays I had several Christmas projects that were being given as gifts, that I had to keep secret.  OHHHHH it was tough!!  haha.   Well here they are:

The first quilt I'm showing you is the WVU quilt.  I've lived in Cabell County, WV my whole life, so I am a Herd Fan from wayyyyy back.  BUT, WVU is such a big part of my heritage, that I could not pass up the opportunity to make a quilt for one of my dear old friend's hubbies.  ;c)

 Started out by printing the WVU logo backwards, and tracing it onto fusible.  Then I cut that out and fuse it to the center white piece of fabric.

 This quilt is just a series of borders, applique, and quilting. .  once all the borders were complete...  I penciled in WVU WVU WVU WVU around the thin white outer border... the corners are little blue WV symbols ;c)

 With my darning foot and a wide zigzag stitch, I went around each WVU.   The center was quilted with my version of McTavishing

 In the wide outer blue border, I appliqued the words:  "Let's Go..  Mountaineers!"  In yellow fabric

 And the back is some licensed fabric with WVU print on it.  

Another shot of the finished quilt!  

 The next quilt I made was for my friends in Texas.   I feel like I know this family so well, since I've seen their pictures up close and personal ;c)  They're great people BTW!     Sharon, Raymond's daughter, had this quilt made for HER daughter. . .  when LAST Christmas, her daughter had one made forHER! haha. .  paybacks.. but the GOOD kind!  

Sharon picked out all the greens and browns for this quilt.  The white areas are Mr Kotz's shirt remnants.  The center block is called "Texas Tears". . this is a memorial quilt for Mr Kotz.  From what I can tell, Sharon and her daughter must have loved him very very much.  

And here's the back where you can see how I appliqued through all 3 layers of the quilt.  It gives an interesting effect on the back of the quilt.  

And last but not least, I made ONE more Crown Royal quilt. . BUT. . since this was the last quilt I completed before Christmas, I did NOT have a chance to get a finished photo of it before I had to get it in the mail.  But here is the TOP!  ;c)

I hope all of you had a very merry Christmas !!!

How-To Flickr Slideshow

I had a really hard time figuring out how to add a flickr Slideshow to my blog. Once I figured out how to do it, I realized I was trying to make it much more difficult than it really is.

If anyone out there is curious as to how to embed a slideshow from flickr onto your blog I will try to explain it here.

1. Go to Flickr and open and account if you haven't already done that.

2. Choose "upload" and upload any and all photos you wish to include in your slideshow.

3. Once the photos have been uploaded you have the option to add a description and tags. . go ahead and do that now.

4. While you are still on that same screen - at the top right hand corner there will be an option to "add to set" or "create new set." You will want to create a NEW set. Choose a name and description for your set and save.

5. Once you have saved, go BACK to the flickr homescreen. (Just click on FLICKR logo.)

6. Click on the link that says "YOUR PHOTOSTREAM" now all of your photos will show up to the left, and your SETS will show up on the right hand column of the screen.

7. Click on the set that you just created. Your set will show up and in the top right hand corner there will be an option to VIEW SLIDESHOW.

8. Choose the VIEW SLIDESHOW option and then you will get this screen:


9. At the top right hand corner there will be an option to "SHARE"

Click on "SHARE" and then click the 2nd code that will give you the HTML "embed" option.

Copy to your clipboard and then go to your blogger screen.

10. If you would like to include the code in a Blog Post, Copy-Paste the code here.

Now you have you can preview your Slideshow, and Publish your Post! ;c)

This is a slideshow I just made that includes all of the quilts and things I have created since 2006.

You can also add a slideshow to your blog by adding a GADGET.

Go to your DASHBOARD and click ADD GADGET.

Choose the HTML option. Enter the embed/HTML code from flickr and then save.

Now the slideshow will be on your sidebar of your blog for everyone to see.