Six of our youngest kids in the loft at Grandmother and Grandfather's.
Left to right: Bekah 12, Abe 9, Evabeth 14, Paul 18, John 16, Jacob 20.

Vertical landscape outside the window

Blenko Glass from Sweet William

Honey, I'm Home!!!

We arrived home, safely, late last night.  We had a wonderful time, but there's no place like home. 

We saw beautiful country and shared some special times with family.  Some of the things I miss about living in West Virginia is the smell of woodsmoke floating through the air, the quiet of the forests(lots of bright green ferns), and the ever-present potential opportunities for some highly entertaining people watching.  My favorite part of my week was the evening activities.  We had evening singings and devotionals and afterwards, my nieces and nephews would gather at our cabin and stay up 'til 2-3am playing cards and laughing in loud whoops and hollers.  Music to my ears.  I would retire much earlier with a good book, but after I would doze off,  I'd be frequently awakened by their laughter and my heart would just smile and I'd fall back asleep.  I'm still smiling while I'm thinking of it.

 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!!