Blogger's Quilt Festival

I am linking up with Amy's blog for the Blogger's Quilt Festival, so if you love quilting you can check out all the other quilts linked with her blog.

This quilt I made two years ago for our soldier son Lucas on his fortieth birthday.

It was meant to celebrate Lucas as well as serving as a memorial for his fraternal twin brother Matthew whom we lost in 2006, one week after their 38th. birthday.

Matthew lived in Hawaii, he was an Ironman and Triathlete, and we miss him every day. It isn't something I will ever "get over", but Matt had such joy in life that we try to honor that as we live with the grief.

Matt loved Hawaii and especially Maui where he and his wife lived. He thought he lived in the closest thing to earthly heaven in this tropical paradise, with his passion for the ocean and swimming.

So I designed this quilt using fabrics I had purchased in HI., appliqueing some beautiful tropical flowers and quilting hibiscus all over in between the photos.

I chose to use many of the twin's birthday pics from over the years, and at the bottom one of the last pics of Matthew and a recent one of Lucas.

I burned out on applique years ago, but I was grateful for all the practice I had when attaching these flowers.

I have made several memory quilts and designing the quilts to fit around the photos is always a challenge- it reminded me of when I wondered what earthly use all that math would ever be to me!

The photos have a narrow red piping and I made a piped binding to finish it off.

Out of all of my quilts this one will always be special.

Black And White And Red All Over!

I am linking up with Finished For Friday over at Lit and Laundry, Frugalicious Friday, Feature Yourself Friday and Show And Tell Friday where you can see other interesting projects in blogland this week.
Here is the second of what will be four black and white and red quilts from my hands this year!

It is the challenge project from Quilter's Bee in Peoria, AZ.

This is the Disappearing Nine Patch [D9P] Second Generation pattern and it made up quite effectively in these colors. I did mini tut on the pattern here.

I used almost all of the fabrics in the challenge set and added quite a lot from my stash. It's what is called a "controlled scrappy" quilt, the colors are controlled but the individual fabrics are not.

These few 5" squares are all that's left from the two yards of the original challenge fabrics.

To use up more smaller pieces from stash I pieced thirty two rectangles 9"x 20" to make the interesting backing!

The quilting shows a little more on the back, it's that speedy, easy freehand square spiral.

Then to be altogether frugal I took the trimmed backing pieces and sliced them 2.25"wide for the double fold binding!

This was a very easy, simple and fast quilt and I am done just in time for show and tell at Quilter's Bee Saturday morning.

I have the baby Matthew tomorrow and I hope to get Andee's latest quilt on the LA because she needs it back quickly to enter in an art show so I will slip it in ahead of other's that aren't so time sensitive, it should be easy enough, it requires very simple quilting.

Claudia's Last Quilt

I am linking with Finished For Friday sponsored by litandlaundry .

Claudia from our Montrose quilt guild, gave me two quilt tops to longarm for her, one I finished for her before she lost her life so suddenly. That one was for her granddaughter, you can see it here.

The other is made up of nine hand embroidered nursery rhyme blocks that she had been working on for years. I don't know that it was for anyone in particular and Claudia told me "no rush Ros, just when you have time!".

After her sudden and sad death I decided that I needed to complete this, her last project and get it to her family.

I finished the quilting this week and plan to bind it and get it mailed to her family so they can enjoy it.

New Shoes....And Socks!

Monday again and I have the baby Matthew. We went to the park this morning and as he ran hither and thither and yon his clogs flew off his feet now and then! So I decided we would visit the shoe store to find something else, and my favorite shoe store for toddlers, Stride Rite of course! His daddy wore them and I actually went to the same store location for shoes for Matthew's older cousins.

This necessitated a visit to the Mall, where, honestly, I go about once a year-maybe!

We found some handsome leather sandals.......

and some nice new socks!

As it happens right outside the shoe store is a little ones play area, no one over 42" tall is allowed! Well, other than parents/grandparents that is.

Matthew loves that place, he ran.......

and climbed .............

and hollered with joy for a good thirty minutes.

After which he was quite worn out so we had to leave before he got fussy.

We passed the Brookstone store and there right up front were these fascinating balls that flash wonderful colors when bounced.

One of them came home with us and it is his new favorite toy-for the moment! He bounced it all over the house until GM decided it must be nap time!

He's getting too big for the Pack'nPlay but it wouldn't be quite so bad if he would lie lengthwise instead of crosswise!

I think I might skip the gym tonight, I am feeling a little weary myself!

The Proverbs Woman

Remembering my dear Mum.

Born January 13th. 1918

In the arms of her Lord and Savior Oct.18th. 2001.

A wife of noble character who can find?

Her husband has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value.

She brings him good not harm all the days of her life.

She selects wool and flax and works with eager hands....

She gets up while it is still dark;

she provides food for her family.........

She considers a field and buys it;

out of her earnings she plants a vineyard.

She sets about her work vigorously;

her arms are strong for the tasks.

She sees that her trading is profitable and her lamp does not go out at night.

She opens her arms to the poor and extends her hands to the needy.....

When it snows she has no fear for her household; for all of them are clothed in scarlet.

She makes coverings for her bed; she is clothed in fine linen and purple.

She makes linen garments and sells them.....

She is clothed with strength and dignity.....

She speaks with wisdom and faithful instruction is on her tongue.

She watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness.

Her children arise and call her blessed;

her husband also, and he praises her:

"Many women do noble things but you surpass them all."

Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.

Give her the reward she has earned and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.

Proverbs 31

Disappearing Nine Patch, Second Generation!

I have been wanting to try this next step to the very easy D9P.

The Fabrics for "Bee Challenged"

are 1/4yd. pieces in red, white and black

and I thought that with the addition of some bits from stash I would have plenty for a quilt and decided that it would be perfect to try out the Next Generation pattern.

For any who aren't familiar with this pattern, What follows is a simple tut.

Assuming [always a risky business, lol] that you already know how to make the 9 patch, you then cut it through the middle in both directions as for a basic D9P.

Take one of the resulting squares and place it on a tone on tone, solid or other contrasting fabric square the same size, right sides together.

Draw a diagonal line corner to corner across the block as shown, being careful to mark exactly as above, with the line below the small center patch, in this case the solid black.

Stitch 1/4" either side of the drawn line .............

and cut apart on the marked line between the stitching.

These are the two blocks you will then have. Fun and easy and here's a way to set them.

I have used controlled scrappy fabrics in my three chosen colors.

So there is another fast, easy and effective design and another way to use up small yardage pieces and scraps!

Finished For Friday

I am linking up with Finished For Friday.

Friday is the end of the work week for many and not just for those who work outside the home. The weekend can bring a more relaxed life, or a busier time for those with children and spouses and all kinds of extra activities.

Either way it's fun on Friday to celebrate what we have accomplished during the week!

Another of Andee's quilts came off the longarm and is ready to deliver to her on Saturday. It took me about two hours to "bury the tails" on this quilt after the quilting was done.

Custom quilting usually requires a lot of stops and starts leaving threads hanging - sometimes it's possible to simply snip some of them off, depending on the quilting and the thread used.

It's quilted with leaf wreaths in each block and leaves trailing around the borders and in the sashings. It can be a challenge to decide just what design to use to compliment the piecing but the leaf motif came to mind fairly quickly as I pinned the quilt onto the leaders.

The batting is Quilter's Dream "Dream Angel", genetically engineered to be non- flammable, lovely to quilt and it drapes nicely. The threads I used are SewFine on top and Bottom Line in the bobbin, both by Superior Thread company.

I prefer the time consuming method of threading the tails back into the quilt "sandwich", it's neater and more secure. There were a lot of thread tails on this quilt which is why it took me two hours!

VTT

Any guesses as to what this odd looking item is?

If you hail from the NE area you may know that it is a lobster pot buoy. This style was used many years ago and has now mostly been replaced with a new shape. The buoys not only identified the location of the pots but also showed ownership. They came in a variety of color combinations and I am guessing this too helped the lobsterman to more quickly identify his traps. There are different sizes, this one is 36" overall, the wooden part is 24" long and 3.5" thick.

See the initials "L.A"? They stand for "Lloyd Atwood", DH's second cousin. He used to lobster fish off Brantrock, MA. and when DH was a kid he would go out on the boat and once tried to help remove the lobsters from the pots but managed to tear off the claws rendering the lobsters almost valueless so cousin Lloyd put a stop to that!

This is a weight that was used in the pots, it's just a brick and usually three or four of these would be needed to to keep the pots on the ocean floor.

We found a similar buoy for sale on the internet for $85, just for an old beaten up piece of wood, LOL

I am linking up with Vintage Thingies Thursday sponsored by Colorado Lady and Time Travel Thursday where you can find other odd treasures displayed by vintage and time traveling bloggers!

The Gardener's Apprentice

Quilting On The Orient Express

This was the theme for the Fall retreat of the San Juan Quilt group and on Saturday an intrepid group had planned a thematic dinner appropriate for the Orient Express.

They used their wonderful quilter's imaginations to come up with the meal and all of these wonderful decorations.

Fabric fortune cookies with quilt style quotes inside.......
Coolie hats on the drinking straws..........

Miniature take out boxes filled with sweet treats........

the Orient Express steaming along the buffet............

the Asian style buffet...........

and a Panda bear with his sleeping mask because we all needed extra sleep after this weekend!
The Uncompahgre Bed and Breakfast, an historic building in Montrose, CO. was an old schoolhouse, now a charming Bed and Breakfast with accommodation for 26 overnight, so it fit our quilt retreaters very well. We set up shop in the large dining room, and all weekend our machines whirred as laughter and chatter filled the building from early morning to the wee small hours[ for a valiant few!]

Some of us gathered for a photo-op Saturday on the front porch, I remembered how to set up the timer on my camera so I was able to run back and hop in the picture [that's me on the far right in front!]

These first two pics in black, white and red are my work, they are to be single bed size for our two older grandsons. Obviously I still have a ways to go to get them large enough but they don't have to be finished until Christmas so I think I can do it! They are taking a little longer because I have to mostly make up the design as I go to fit around their chosen logos, the Knight's Cross [or Iron Cross] for Daniel's and the Arizona Cardinals Logan's favorite team.

The following pics show sewing progress from some of the other retreaters: