Time for the Grand Finale...

I finished these four quilts in time for our family reunion. We'll be meeting in the mountains of West Virginia on Monday.  All of my children will be there- as will all of my parents' children and grandchildren- and  even a couple great-grandchildren. There's over 30 of us, these days.  It'll be good to see everyone and catch up on all the goings-on.  One of my brothers lives in Arizona, the other lives near Chicago and my sister lives in Florida.  My parents live in West Virginia. Get a map out and you'll see it takes a concentrated effort to all convene in the same place at the same time.  And Will and I have two sons in Alabama and one in Massachusetts.  I wonder when some one will move to Montana... just to balance things out.  It better be someone else's kid.  
 


Audrey's Quilt

Audrey is my sister's only daughter and she's just the sweetest thing. Very musical and kind. She's a college student and I thought the quilt would work well in her dorm room. Even if she does live in Florida...

Caitlin's Quilt

Caitlin is my sister's older daughter-in-law. She is talented and likes bright colors- but isn't too girly.  She's very generous and a hard worker.  My nephew is a self-proclaimed caveman, so I thought he wouldn't mind the hot coral color so much since it's paired with green and gray.

Hannah's Quilt

Hannah is my older brother's only daughter.  She's artistic, intelligent and quite the individual. She rooms with my other niece, Audrey, in college.  Sometimes the two girls will come and spend a week or two with us in the summer, right before school starts, and it's the highlight of the season for me.
    

Sarah Jane's Quilt

My Mom pieced this quilt for my sister's younger daughter-in-law, Sarah Jane.  She is a very gentle soul.  Quiet but strong.  I dyed the fabrics to match her wedding colors and then cut them into 5" squares for their guests to sign at their wedding.  If you click on the picture, you might be able to see that many of the blocks are signed. I just quilted and bound it for her.

Well, ya know, I gotta go pack- or at least, get some laundry done! You guys have a great week and I'll catch ya on the flip side!  God bless!

Backside of wedding quilt

 Full Steam Ahead...

Been chugging through the projects.  Got three and a half quilts quilted up this week.  Even got one of them bound. This big one is for my nephew and his wife.  I won't show the front until it's bound.  Lord willing, that'll be this weekend's accomplishment.  My mom made the top.  It matches the baby quilt in yellow and blue in a previous post.  The quilting is plenty flawed, but they're nice folk and won't judge.

"Cutter Keeper"

Isn't that little "basket" adorable?  It's a "This and That" pattern and Sarah and I each made one about two years ago.  It was less than pleasant.  But Sandy liked mine and was wishing for one.  I would have just given her mine- anything to avoid having to make another one- but the colors weren't her style.  She had surgery, today, and so I was trying to think of something to take her.  Flowers?  It just seems redundant amidst the blooms of Spring.  So the basket with dark chocolate is gonna be the plan. Sarah, can I just say that it went together so much more smoothly this time- only took about two hours.  I think having one on hand and having already made one was helpful. Now she'll have a place to stash her scissors, and notions on her sewing table. It's lined with pockets.

Salad please!

"Mom, don't forget to tell Dad that we need some garbanzo beans for our salad!" Yep, Abe eats salad for breakfast and relishes it to the point of it almost being absurd.  But what mother can truly complain about a child loving his raw vegetables?  Not this one.

My version

Their version

My mess- all my mess



Happy Monday!!
I woke up in a great mood, today.  Weird, I know.  But I never claimed to be otherwise.

Just something to listen to as you read...

• Finished the blocks for this Baltimore-ish quilt.  Isn't it adorable, thus far?  The blocks are only 6 1/2" and contained a bit more applique than I usually prefer.  But worth it I'm thinking. I love making leader/enders and ya just can't do that with applique.  It's just so much fun to see that can fill up with them. A lot of the blocks are made from a Moda charm pack from Sandy.  When she makes a road trip I win!  Oh, and I just thought I'd show you a picture of the original pattern.  You know I love batiks and I'm certainly not shy about colors... but that's hideous.  Just dreadful.  No place to rest the eye. Exhausting! And yes, I've cleared off the work table and am onto the next projects- I need setting fabric.

hand-dyed baby

• I got this baby quilt all quilted up and bound.  A sun, some rain and fiddle head ferns at the bottom. My nephew and his wife are expecting a new bundle of joy.  Fun thing about this quilt, the lighter fabrics in the center, I dyed for the guests at their wedding to sign.  These were the extra bits.  Just added some from the stash to make it a nice size.  I'm about half way done with quilting their wedding quilt- and it's only taken me two years.  That's not so bad when you consider my son's isn't done and they've been married for longer than that!
• The kitchen cabinets are all painted.  Lightening McQueen red. I'm still painting the sink base.  Only a couple more coats to go.  A greenish blue.  So bright and cheery.  More me than the earthy tones that were in there. Yeah, the walls are yellow and the ceiling is light blue... can you have too much color? Maybe I'm breaking a quilters' rule. The upper cabinets will have to wait quite a while- they're gonna be a creamy white. And there'll be accents of black. Very 1930's.  Been listening to "Billie Holiday" Pandora station while painting.

FUN!!

Doily Alert!!  I'm planning on getting to the post office, this week, to mail the doilies to the give-away winners.  I have the snail mail addresses for Carol, Angie, Julie and Synthia.  So... I still need Sarah's and Laura's. You can find my email address on my profile page.  

It's a sign!! 

The first six friends who put their names in for the doily drawing all choose different doilies.  What's the chances of that?  Six different friends, six different doilies... and they seem to have paired off perfectly. So that must mean that you each get the doily of your choice! Might as well give them all away!  How could I disappoint any of you?  So enjoy, sweet ones!  Shoot me your snail mail addy!  God bless!

1. Angie
2. Synthia
3. Carol
4. Sarah
5. JulieQ
6. Laura

 

 

 Yeah, I'm feelin' it...

 Of course, it's orange, so... I cut this quilt out a couple of years ago...at least.  I was thinking I'd get it out every now and then and work on it.  Didn't happen, really.  For one thing, it's scrappy and I kept getting confused about what was what.  And I'm making it for me and you know how that is, you tend to put the "me" projects lower on the priority list of things to get done... kinda like my bedroom that needs a good cleaning/organizing.  So, I dug it out because I have a million other things I should be doing.  Kinda ornery that way.  I got all the blocks sewn and now I need to put them together.  It'll go back into the box while I distract myself with other things. Like painting the kitchen cabinets... when I should be quilting.





puzzle balls

Finally stuffed these little puzzle balls. Now what? I haven't a clue.

doily re-written

Finished this large doily.  I practically re-wrote the pattern.  I kinda follow the picture more than the directions... and as I was looking at the picture, I thought, "Wow, they did a really bad job at blocking this one..."  Nope, they did an amazing job blocking considering how wonky the doily was. I didn't notice until I got about half way done and by then I was committed and I liked the idea behind it.  So I went out on a limb and hoped that after all my alterations the silly thing would lay flat. Mission accomplished. I love the little flowers and leaves.





Give Away!!!! 

You knew I was gonna squeeze that in at the bottom, didn't you?  I figure there should be some sort of potential reward for muddling through my posts.  So... put your name in the hat.  If you click on the picture, you should be able to see more detail.  Just comment that you'd like a doily and put down the number of the doily you'd like. We'll count across the top row...1,2,3... and then across the bottom row... 4,5,6.  Left to right.  And just to make sure, give me a little description of the doily.  Actually, I'm just doing that for kicks.  (The bottom one on the right is smaller, but is made from 30wt- much smaller thread, but just as much, if not more, stitching than the large ones.) I look forward to hearing from you!

left to right: back row 1,2,3.  front row 4,5,6.

 Think Spring!

I've been thinking that for a while, actually.  It seems to finally be working.  

• The wood lot is floating in a green haze. 
• John camped out there, last night. 
• Will has plowed the garden.  
• I'm keeping my eye on the perennials sprouting in the flower garden. 
• Been doing some spotty Spring cleaning. Eva is mostly in charge of that.  The girl actually likes to clean.  I have no idea where that comes from.  I don't mind cleaning, there's just so many other things I'd rather be doing.  
• Sewed up some new curtains for the kitchen window from some- well, virtually all- of the 1930's reproduction stash. 
• Hung the painting of potted plants over the dining room window.  Brightens the room up nicely.  Thank you, Sandy. 
• Will trimmed out the windows, doors, and floor in our bedroom after 13 years of doing without. The field mice know it's Spring and like to come visiting in the middle of the night.  Seems to have worked.
• Changing out the wall quilts for lighter, brighter ones.

Welcome Spring!!         

Crown of Thorns made from West African basin and batiks

  
Crown of Thorns...

Done!  I got this quilt cut, sewn, quilted and bound in only two and a half weeks.  And I just love how it turned out.  Phil and Kim seemed to like it and that makes me a very happy camper.  Phil took a picture of it with Will and me, last night, and plans to send it to the lady who gave him the basin, Juliet Contay.  Living in Sierra Leone, I'm sure she has never even seen a quilt so it might be interesting to know what she thinks of this strange technique of cutting perfectly good fabric up into little pieces and then sewing them back together again. A strange practice, indeed!

For the quilters out there, I thought I'd share a couple of things that make my life so much easier.  Most of the veterans of quilting already use these tools but, for the newbies, I thought you'd like to check 'em out. 

Strip tube ruler in action

The first is a strip tube ruler. Love, love, LOVE this tool! There are 192 HST in this one quilt. I made all of them- the cutting and the sewing- in about an hour.  Maybe a little less. All you do is sew down BOTH sides of a WOF tube, set the line(the finished size of the block you want) on the seam and cut.  Flip the ruler and do the same on the other side of the tube.  Press open and, voila!  a HST that is smack on size- no need to square up! No drawing lines on the diagonal and the hassle of feeding that pointed end of the square into the pressure foot. It is so fast and so easy- it makes the bedrock of quilting- half square triangles- a cinch.

project board

The second thing that I'm growing to love is this silly little board made out of foam board you can get at the dollar store.  You just cut yourself a big square- I think this is an 18" square for a 12" block.  Something like that.  It certainly doesn't have to be exact.  Then I covered mine in some batting- I attached mine with loops of packing tape on the underside.  So simple.  But it makes moving block parts- from the cutting table to the sewing machine to the ironing board and back to the sewing machine- a lovely thing, indeed.  The batting keeps it all from shifting or floating away on a breeze. Plus, my sewing table can get a little cramped and this gives me a bit more wiggle room.  My ironing board is right next to my sewing machine but is more narrow than it should be, so I end up stacking pieces and then, wouldn't you know it?  I get them sewn together in the wrong order.  So frustrating.  This little board really helps me keep things much more orderly.  Sandy showed me this little trick.  She is an over-achiever and actually put binding on her boards. Hers do look prettier. But mine are still very functional.

insulin pump- all girly

And I'm showing off my new insulin pump that came via UPS, today.  I was so excited, I started clapping my hands and doing a happy-happy dance.  Then I said to Will, "This is pathetic! All this rapture over a piece of medical equipment." To which he said, "Well, it seems reasonable to me.  It's attached to you, literally, and you use it more than you do the bathroom." And I think he's right. Smiles all around! 

yet another doily

And lastly, a new doily.  Actually, I have a growing stack of them.  Cold winter weather seems very conducive to crocheting, dontcha think?  While I don't crochet much during the day- way too much to do- I do like to sit up at night and watch a movie and around and around I go.  Hard to put down as you see the pattern emerge.  I'm thinking a doily give away is in my- and your- future.  Stay tuned.  Have a blessed week!