Civil War Block?

Hmmm...I think this red it too red and I don’t think it is a CW repro. This is the first block of Barbara Brackman’s Civil War Project. She will post a new block every Saturday this year. I’m not sure about the other fabrics either. I think I will just continue on using fabrics that look like repros of that general era. I can always remake blocks that don’t work in the final quilt. I had been thinking of starting a sampler quilt and this came along. That is one less step for me if I let Barbara choose the blocks.

Little Applique Quilts

I’ve shared my sewing room for over a week – first, my son was sleeping on the futon (I had my design wall on its side blocking his puppy from getting to my side of the room) and then the boxes of Christmas decorations took over for a couple of days. My son has left and all the boxes are put away. I vacuumed and tidied up a bit and am ready to get busy.

Nothing new to show at this time, but here are a couple of little quilts adorning my dining room.

Sara Masden designed the appliqué blocks in the quilt hanging above the china cabinet. She was the speaker at the first guild meeting I attended (mid-1990’s). People were purchasing a kit to work on that evening under her tutelage. I wasn’t going to do it, but the gals I sat with were so nice. They talked me into it and helped me along. I ended up buying the other kits via post. I hand quilted this one. A better look-

I did the table runner on the buffet at a Pat Sloan workshop. She’s a lot of fun. Her husband helps her with her program and they are very entertaining. So you can actually see the quilt-

I need to find time this week to go thoroughly through notes from previous volunteer coordinators for the Quilters Unlimited quilt show. Ay yi yi, what was I thinking when I volunteered for this job – coordinating over 300 volunteers for a quilt show? It is fun being on the committee and seeing how it all comes together. I love our show. Unlike many big shows, it isn’t judged; you just have to be a member to submit a quilt.

Happy Stitching!

My Quilt Thoughts for 2011

My new background is part of the center of a quilt I made several years ago using the Square in a Square ruler. I liked using it for it’s accuracy, but it left me with a lot of light bonus triangles. I used many of them for the Northwinds quilt and still have a lot more. This is one of the few quilts I didn’t think afterward "I should have done that differently". When I get a good photo of it I'll show you the whole thing. Is it too busy as the background? Let me know if you prefer the plain background. If you don’t want to comment, you can send me an email by clicking on my profile.

My challenge for 2011 is to make significant progress on one of these UFO’s. I know I will always have UFO’s, but I’d like them to be younger!

This Stars and Stepping Stones is the one I think I know what I want to do with – at least to start. It needs some appliqué – I’m thinking a vine and flowers around that light edge. What do you think? This is a square right now (about 50”) and I’d like to make it a rectangle. Do you think it would look odd if I added some piecing to two opposite sides?

These are blocks from a New York Beauty pattern by Karen K. Stone. I started it in a class and never touched it afterward. I really just need to start doing it again, but I’m not a fan of paper piecing though I do like the accuracy of it. Curved seams! I think this is the only time I've ever done them - little nervous about that.

This is from a lone star class taken with Paula Golden. She was a great teacher, but again, I didn’t work on it right away. When I did go back to it, I didn’t know what I was doing and when I put the diamonds together, well, they didn’t go together. I think I will give it another try and if they don’t fit I might just appliqué them to the background. Not sure if that will work either. Was also thinking I could cut the diamonds in half and do something with them as triangles. Any ideas?

I also have some tops that need quilting. Piecing is definitely my favorite part of quilting. I do have a hand quilting project that I started last year using wool batting. It was going very well, but then I got into other things. I started doing it 15 minutes a day and I need to go back to that. In the queue for machine quilting is the Christmas quilt and a string quilt – Bonnie Hunter’s Virginia Bound pattern. I’m scheduled with The Finishing Touch to have a full size pink/brown snowball/9-patch quilted this month. Yippee! I'll only have to do the binding to finish that one.

Yesterday, my daughter and I went to the Winterthur quilt exhibit at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond. We saw an intricately quilted whole cloth quilt that took the quilter only about a year to finish (1815). I said to my daughter that this woman didn't have TV and computer and probably spent hours a day on it.  It is something to think about. We have more things competing for our time, but we want to finish lots and lots of quilts. It's something I struggle with in many aspects of my life - all the quilts I want to make, books I want to read, volunteer activities I want to do, etc. It feels like I'm always thinking of what I should or could be doing instead of enjoying what I am doing. That is something I want to work on this year. While I do want to finish most of the quilts I start, I don’t think I’m going to put a number on how many I want to complete this year like I did last year. That was a good jumpstart, but I think I am now in full quilting mode. LOL This year I want to be more in the moment and work on some of these challenging projects. Thanks to all you bloggers out there who got me thinking about this (especially Lori, at Humble Quilts). BTW, the Winterthur exhibit was very good.

Puppy Dog Quilt

My last finish of 2010! I bought the two main fabrics from Hancock’s of Paducah thinking it would go with my 30’s reproductions. I think I was going to do a strippy quilt, but even though the fabric was shown with the 30’s prints they didn’t really go together well. The fabric sat in my 30’s bin for several years until this fall. I’d also held onto an email with quotes about dogs thinking I’d use them in a quilt some day. This summer my daughter write the quotes on muslin. I was thinking I’d use some other dog fabric, but I’m starting to learn that if I’m not beginning a project I’m excited about there must be something wrong with my plan. Well, the thought occurred to me one day to use the other dog fabric and things began to click. I wanted something easy to piece because this will just be a family room quilt. I only added the brown sashing because I felt something needed to separate the plaid dog fabric at the seams. It’s nothing fancy, but it has dogs and pinwheels and it’s done! Here are the quote blocks-

I’m looking forward to January. I always get a lot done at the beginning of the year. It may still be cold, but the days are getting longer and there doesn’t seem to be as many school and social activities. My youngest son is a junior in high school. He has his license, but we still like to be involved.  Next year – college applications! Yikes!

Happy New Year!

Some 2010 Quilt finishes

 For one of my sisters

 For my nephew’s twin girls

 On my daughters bed here at home – not sure if it is hers or mine.

We had a merry day at my parent’s yesterday. It was a relatively small gathering – just 16 of us. My sister and her family are coming for dinner on Thursday. I’m planning a simple meal – just ham and a few sides. We had planned to do it today, but snow was in the forecast. It keeps teasing us with flurries and now I hear snow will be later tonight. Oh, well. I’ll be better prepared on Thursday.

I just mixed up some bread dough – haven’t done that in quite a while. While it rests I plan to do some quilting on my doggie quilt and continue watching Cranford, a BBC program based on a novel by Elizabeth Gaskell. I had never heard of her or her writing, but the article compared her to Jane Austen. The program stars Judi Dench and I recognize a few others from Austen movies. I enjoyed the 2 programs I watched the other night and plan on looking for the book at the library.

This is the second time I've shown pics of Duke and my 13 year old cockapoo, Penny, is jealous. Here are a couple with her taken in October. They are the best dogs in the world (I know - you have the best dogs in the world, too-LOL).

Machine Quilting, More on Yo-Yos, and a Santa

Here is a sneak peak at what I’m working on. I think you can get a better look if you click on the image. I’m happy with how the quilting is going – a few wobbles here and there, but I can live with that. My daughter did the lettering and drawing.

I have a list of machine quilting reminders by my sewing machine –

1. don’t roll, but puddle the quilt (this was a tip from Patsy Thompson)

2. feet flat on the floor

3. shoulders back and down

4. relax

5. slow and steady -just like driving in the snow ;+)

Yo-yos are coming along. I played with them last night while watching Miracle on 34^th Street. The fabric circles start at 2 1/4", I turn them in 1/8" and they finish at about 1”. I just counted 151 yo-yos. Maybe I have enough for 2 garlands!

This is a Santa wallhanging my husband and I made as newlyweds in 1984. I think it came from a Family Circle magazine. I made all the parts and got frustrated with it when it came to putting it all together, so he finished it. I guess I wouldn't get much done without my family!
Santa's beard and the holly leaves are machine stitched. Putting it all together required stuffing and glueing onto 1/4" foam core. I stitched, my husband glued.

Sorry for the shadows and dark photos. Not sure what I'm doing wrong today.

My family is all here - oldest son arrived with his puppy last night. He's better with doing his business outside (the puppy, that is), but has acquired the lovely habit of barfing all over. So far he has gotten the living room rug, the family room sofa and a Christmas blanket. He better not get to the quilts! I think he'll be a great dog, but right now he is just a little too active for our older dogs. The puppy is a 7 month old beagle. My son said he read that beagles mature at 6-8 months. I think this one is a late bloomer!

Christmas Garlands

A garland made with a selvage and cardstock. As I recall, I made the 1^st “M” and it took so much effort that my daughter made the rest of the letters. I got the idea for this from a Mary Engelbreit Home Companion magazine.

A yo-yo garland in progress - I’m not sayin’ how long ago this was started! I think I’ll work on it when we watch Christmas movies. Typically, I don’t like to do handwork while watching a movie, but I’ve seen them all before.

I was looking at the Christmas quilt top from my previous post this morning while drinking my tea. If I do diagonal lines they won’t follow neatly because the sashing is a different size then the inner blocks. So, I was thinking of doing angel wings somehow (there are angels on some of the fabrics). A lot will depend on how I feel when this quilt comes to the top of the quilting queue.

I plan to start quilting a lap size quilt today. I’m really excited about it. I hope what I’m planning to do works and I will be done with it next week. Can’t wait to show you! Theme – dogs. Colors – blue and brown. Fabric age – main fabrics had been in my stash since 2001!

Peace, Love and Joy to You and Yours.