Monday, March 4, 2013

A Finish, a Couple of Road Trips and What I'm Hand Stitching Now-

I completed my red and white just in time to enter it in my guild quilt show. It took me a while to do the individual blocks. I did a couple a day and this gave me time to think about what I wanted to do for each block.
I had a birthday a couple of weeks ago and my husband, Dave, took me to a couple of new quilt shops. Daffodil in Nokesville and Suzzie's in Manassas. We also stopped in at Old Town Needlecrafts in Manassas. This area has become a great place for quilters to spend the day. Aurora Quilts is also in Manassas and there's a JoAnn's right near Suzzie's. As you can see I didn't have trouble finding some treasures to bring home with me.

I'm finally quilting Pink Lemonade from Lori's doll quilt along last winter. I found Mountain Mist Cream Rose at JoAnn's and thought I'd give it a try. I'm not happy with it. Some areas are very hard to quilt through. I'll go back to using Quilters Dream Wool for my next hand quilting project.

This past Saturday Dave and I took a drive out to the Shenandoah Valley to the Virginia Quilt Museum. They always have an interesting display of quilts. Unfortunately, no photography in the museum. However, on the way we stopped in at an antique store and spotted quite a few quilts.








 This one was very hard to leave behind.

We are playing around with the idea of buying a farmhouse in the valley some day. We took a lot of back roads through the valley and stopped in at Polyface Farms to purchase some meats from pasture raised animals and eggs from happy chickens. 

This goose sure was honking madly as we checked out the hens.


It was a dreary day - even met with some snow flurries - so I'll only share this one photo of the countryside. We have reservations for a Polyface Farm tour in April so hopefully that will be a nice day and I'll get some better photos.

15 comments:

  1. What a nice birthday! Thanks for sharing the pics of old quilts. It's always so interesting to see what's been made by those before us.:)

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  2. So very nice to see your post!! Think of you often!! Your red & white is so lovely!!! And I love all the quilts from the museum. Always makes me want to make more!!! And your purchases are wonderful!! I've been getting some very good time in on TWQ!!! Making progress!!

    Blessings

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  3. Sounds like you have a very supportive and sweet husband!! Enjoyed visiting your post today. ~karen

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  4. Wonderful post, my friend. Great red/white quilt.
    Oh, happy birthday! Looks like you had a good one. We could go fabric shopping together and fight over fabrics. You found some lovelies!
    Your hand quilting on Pink Lemondade is amazing. You baste very thoroughly. I could learn from you.
    That antique store was loaded with great quilts--I wouldn't be able to afford that last one, but I would definitely have wanted it. What a treasure.
    That goose looks very protective of the chickens! : )

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  5. Happy belated birthday. What a lovely birthday treat from your husband, that's my kind of shopping. Well done on the finish, looks great and thank you for showing such lovely treasures.

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  6. Your red and white is so cute!
    What a lovely pile of loot from the quilt show.
    Love those antique quilts, especially the Dresden Plates.
    What fun you've been having

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  7. Love your red and white.
    Happy Belated Birthday
    Looks like a really fun series of outings. I love those quilts too - seems like great prices!!
    Thank you for the pictures.

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  8. I love how you finished the red and white block quilt... it truly looks like an old doll quilt. Fabulous fabrics that you purchased... just yummy! (How sweet of your hubby to take you quilt store shopping!) I enjoyed the pics of the antique quilts; for some reason the blue, gray, and white was my favorite! The pic of the country side is really beautiful, even in its dreariness!

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  9. Belated birthday wishes Maureen. Looks like you were treated to a very nice day. The old quilts look beautiful.

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  10. Happy belated birthday! Looks like you had a fun day...what a sweet hubby to take you fabric shopping! Nice haul!

    Love the photos of the antique quilts. So inspiring, aren't they?

    And the farm photos are great! What a bunch of chickens! And I sure wouldn't be messing with that goose! Oh my, those cattle have very long horns.

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  11. even though it was a bit of a dark day i think it looks like such a peaceful place to live. i'd like to live somewhere where i could have some chickens . . . a dream of mine.

    your red and white quilt is very pretty~! and your quilting stitches on the pink lemonade are perfection~!

    speaking of quilting stitches, the blue, white and grey quilt sure has a lot of gorgeous stitching in it. all of the antique store quilts were fun to see, thanks for sharing. for some reason i felt instantly calm when looking at the blue and white one. simplicity at it's best~!

    :-)
    libbyQ

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  12. Happy belated Birthday Maureen!!! Looks like you had a nice day!! Lovely old quilts for sale, I would not have been able to leave without getting one of them, probably the one you liked made in 1871!!!!! I even liked the quirkly one with the yellow and blue borders!!!
    I must say your quilting stitches are amazing so tiny and neat, despite the not so easy to stitch through batting, well done!!!!
    What a lovely farm, and I do love those chooks, and the goose guarding them LOL!!! One day you find just the right little rural property......keep that dream alive!!!!!

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  13. Looks like you have a very thoughtful husband, and had a great time on your birthday. I have one of those too - we are very lucky! So nice to see photos of your visits, and hope your dream of a house in the country comes true! Happy belated birthday to you!

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  14. I love your red and white quilt Maureen - the mixture of appliqué and piecing is a nice one. Belated birthday wishes! - your birthday shopping looks like it was fun :-) - what a nice hubby to take you out like that! Nice to see the lovely old quilts - it is always interesting to see what was made long ago. Interesting to see the farm photos - good luck with deciding where you may live.

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