'Early For Monday' Report!

Tomorrow will be super busy so I am posting tonight. Starting out with Matthew, taking him to preschool and then a couple of appointments. So far I haven't packed but there are a pile of clothes on top of the bag awaiting final dispensation! To take or not to take! Ugh, that's the part of a journey I hate, trying to figure out what I need and what I can do without because I also hate to overpack! But then there's the dilemma of not having things you do need, oh my!

We have a 6am. flight Tuesday so we'll need to be out of the house soon after 4am. Now I think I should have simply booked us on the red eye, next time! We also have to ensure we have all that is necessary for one small dog, more complications.

After church we gathered at Matthew's other G'parents for a Matthew birthday party [his birthday is Tuesday].

He had a grand time with all the new toys,

and this wonderful helmet since he will be learning to ride a bike!

Searching for something to do hand work-wise, I came across this very cute idea at Ravelry for a "Button" quilt made from knitted "buttons".

They are very small, only about 2" diameter so it will take very many of them to make anything other than a doll quilt. However it will give me something to do with my hands and I can decide later what to do with any "buttons" I knit.

BJ, Lauren and Shayla came to sew yesterday. I didn't take any pics because we took off for an hour or so to go to the Olde World Quilt Shoppe and to Babbo's for lunch.

But I did get the borders on the pink and brown diamonds and I really like this quilt. Not sure how it should be quilted, and it will go on the stack awaiting the longarm anyway so there's time to decide.

Tuesday Quilt Report

This pic. shows my pink and brown blocks on the design wall and I am very happy with the result. It will get a brown stop border then a pink final border.

Orphan block pot holder!

More pot holders to take to MA. some with selvedges, a few from orphan blocks, you know how it feels to get the left overs out of the fridge, same thing with these bits and pieces!

This is Andee's wedding gift for her niece. Wedding isn't till June so she has lots of time to bind it. Who would think that orange and purple, opposites on the color wheel plus leafy green, would look so great together, I love it!

Quilted in a freehand floral/leaf design with a lime green thread that sets it off perfectly.

Sunday Finishes

This evening I finished quilting the latest of Hannah's quilts. Multiple fabric colors allow a wide variety of thread choices and I ended up with a gold/green Valdani 100% cotton thread. The bobbin thread is also Valdani a solid gold cotton.

The backing is a very pale green print and this color choice seemed the best. I decided to use a panto, I was unsure how well I would be able to see the thread, as it turned out it was a wise move!

Yesterday I began to sew the binding on another baby boy quilt and this evening finished it off making it a fairly productive weekend.

There is no batting in this quilt, the Minkee backing is enough.

It's Cooler Here!

We are back in the Colorado mountains for a couple of weeks where it's in the 40's at night, sooo nice and the days are great too, a whole lot better than 120degrees which is what is predicted for Saturday in Phoenix. Yuck.

My CO. Huggy Bunch meets on Wednesdays and it was so lovely to see all those dear quilting ladies.

This was my accomplishment for Wednesday, a scrappy backing ............

for this red, white and black quilt top made from orphan blocks left from other projects- you can tell that I am working at using up all those left over fabrics from my grandson's quilts.

As of today this top is also ready for quilting which makes eleven quilt tops I have stacked up now awaiting their turn on the longarm! This one was a kit and there was insufficient fabric for the border so I had to "punt"! First I added a little one inch "stop" border then I took four left over blocks and sewed them to the corners to make the rest of the fabric fit and would you believe those wee blocks were exactly the size needed to complete the borders, simply amazing! This not even the border fabric the kit showed so go figure!

However my dilemma does not end there-the kit was supposed to include binding and backing but there's no way enough fabric for that. I don't understand what happened but I will need to purchase a backing and decide which of the left over fabrics will do for binding.

Now about the QOV's, I had thought that I was falling behind in my plan to quilt at least one or more a month, until I remembered that I had delivered four more to Bernina Connection earlier in the year. So now I find that I am way ahead of schedule, yippee!

This last one was finished up on Monday before we left for CO. but I have two more just like it back in Phx. as yet unquilted! My CO.Huggy Bunch ladies just love making these scrappy beauties and it definitely helps to keep their scrap bins low!

Andee Is At It Again!

After a small hiatus, Andee is back at her sewing machine turning out quilt tops!

Here are the two latest.

The elephant quilt, quilted with an elephant panto which you can barely recognize because the fabric is pretty busy-but I know it's there and so will Andee! I used a variegated thread with the same colors as the quilt.

The backing is also an elephant motif.

I love this quilt, Kathy chose the kit, just "had to have it", Andee said! The fabrics are so dramatic and the folk-art flowers free hand quilted in a pale aqua thread look really pretty on the black fabric.

If you double click on the pic you will be able to see the flowers up close.

Now that she is back on track you will be seeing more of her work frequently I suspect!

Catching Up

Between quality time with the baby Matthew, three trips to Algodones to the dentist [400 miles round trip each time] a session with the local A-1 rep to adjust my long arm machine and some actual quilting, I haven't had time to blog about it all!

I have another of Andee's quilts to show- that Andee is a prolific quilter and since she had a bit of a shopping spree at the Shop Hop on Saturday no doubt she will be turning out even more quilts!

I think this one looks very Provence-like, the colors are quite lovely.

It's custom quilted with the spineless longarm feathers and graceful swirls and gentle curves.

Aren't the fabrics beautiful?

I have one more quilt on the LA that I plan to finish before we leave Thursday- we are flying to Boston for DH's 50th. HS reunion[ he's an old guy you know, LOL!]

Baby Quilt

The second in the baby quilt series of similar colorway and design from Andee. She made it using left overs from the last one with some coordinating additions, way to go to using those pesky scraps Andee!

The center fabric has cats all over it so I pulled out a panto- gasp, yes I did another panto- that I remembered from long ago, I think it's called "Scaredy Cats" or something and they do look scared - or something!

Yesterday I visited a couple of quilt shops with a friend from Alabama, picked up this adorable Lucy fabric for an apron...........

and the red shoes for my shoe addicted friend Gale...........

this to add to the watercolor quilt fabric collection...........

a nice large floral panel that will make a quickie quilt when I need one in a hurry........

a few notions like these adorable little scissors - you can never have enough/too many.........

stain remover touted to be the very best and a new Chaco marker.

The afternoon was passed giving a lesson on the longarm on feathering and I think my student took home some new skills to practice.

Now I am taking a short break from the longharm to work on piecing this wedding gift quilt-the wedding was late March- I have six months don't I according to etiquette?

The pattern L chose is a very traditional Pat Speth design from her " Amazing Nickel Quilts" book.

L chose the colors substituting greens for the blues though I see the colors are very much more dull than in reality probably because I had the flash off. Click on the pics to get a truer idea of the colors.

Turns out that L's tastes are very traditional and she leans towards the scrappy style- the fabrics are mostly Civil War repros and some Thimbleberries I think. Some came from my generous stash of CW repros but I did have to buy more to add to the mix, I never have a problem buying new fabrics, LOL!

The two parts of the blocks are made and I am in the process of finishing trimming the HST's this afternoon to get the perfect 4.5" squares. I think it will go together quickly once the blocks are constructed.

I haven't yet decided on backing or the quilting design but I am leaning towards feathers and perhaps a burgundy/red backing. We will see what L thinks - I only took her to two quilt shops

[I will swear that on a stack of Bibles and I never even breathed on her or cast any spells or anything] before she had contracted the dreaded pox -quilting pox, that is- and would you believe she went home and immediately infected her teenge DD and now they are both addicted! More about them in a future post, it is a very funny tale!

D9P and a BOM!

Here's the sweet pink D9p for baby Jacqueline, the first Phoenix baby born on labor day so she actually made the news!

This quilt is wicked fast & fun to make.

Currently I am struggling onward with this much dreaded Block Of the Month, one of only three remaining UFO's I have to finish this year in order to begin 2010 with a clean slate.

"It's called Singing His Praises" by Sherry Moore.
The blocks are mostly paper pieced which I really don't mind if the directions, fabric allowances & cutting instructions were more dependable. A couple of the blocks have pieced sections because no matter how carefully I cut there just wasn't enough fabric. This pattern is not for the faint of heart & would be very difficult for an inexperienced quilter.

Here are my 12 completed blocks not yet sashed.

I doubt that I will ever make another BOM with fabrics included, this experience has quite turned me off them but since I am now down to the sashing & borders [also pieced] the end is in sight & I hope to get that part finished up tomorrow.

These are the corner blocks-the first one took me a couple of hours, partly because I had to dig through all the cut pieces at every step to find just the correct size for each section of the block. It is only a 5" block so if you double click on the pic. you will get a close up & be able to see that the pieces are often quite tiny. This is where PP helps to attain great accuracy in reproducing the design, the only other way would have been to applique & that would have been faster & easier. Hindsight, 20-20 right, but PP is what the pattern called for so I soldiered on! After the first one I was ready to quit & not use this part of the design, but this afternoon I was re-energized & tackled three more of the little devils!

With any luck I may have a flimsie to show tomorrow night!

VTT, Quilts

I'm a quilter so you know what you will frequently see on my blog, the title leaves no room for doubt!
For Vintage Thingies Thursday no surprise I have more vintage quilt stuff to show.
Last Saturday we went by a yard sale in the village, I didn't expect much [& wasn't too disappointed] mostly junk except for this quilt - for one dollar, can you believe? It's hand quilted, not terribly well & I have no idea of it's vintage - or even if it is vintage though it looks it to me. It's very heavy & I'm wondering if it has an old wool blanket inside? It was obviously a "planned quilt' because the fabrics all match from block to block & the border & binding too. Anyway, I think it's quite charming in a shabby chic sort of way, it's a nice cuddly quilt, a little worn but in fairly decent condition & with that lovely wrinkly look that quilts get when the batting inside shrinks up more than the fabric. I just couldn't leave it there for $1, could you? I washed it up & all the stains came out. Oxyclean rocks!

I have been buying more vintage blocks & tops on eBay - it is very addictive & here are a couple of my latest purchases.
These are all hand pieced vintage items, such tiny stitches, they are very special to me & I will take great pleasure in finishing them into usable quilts. I would never devote so much time myself to hand-sewing. When they saw them each of my two GS's said "someone has waaay too much time on their hands"! I explained that these were made many decades ago, 60,70 or even 80 yrs. earlier before there was a TV [or two or three - or more] in every home, & many women sat & sewed in the evenings after all their other household chores were done.
We also talked about the cost of sewing machines & the fact that not every household had one.
They like to hear about "the old days" & this was a "teaching moment" I could not resist!

The border on this scrappy quilt top is hand sewn too & a little "wavy", but I think I can "quilt out" the fullness of the extra fabric. For non-quilters, this is what can happen when the piecer doesn't measure the top carefully & cut the borders to fit.

I purchased these charming Grandmother's Fan blocks unfinished but with most of the hard work done, again hand sewn. There are plenty of them to make a nice size quilt especially if I sash the blocks. Typically these blocks were made from scraps of clothing, feed- sacks & other available bits & pieces of fabric. Included in this collection were several "fans" not yet attached to the center piece & a few odd blocks of other types quite unrelated to the fan block design.




One block was completed but we'll never know why the maker failed to finish her quilt. The same applies to all these incomplete items & I like to think about how it would delight the original owner to have them used. If you click here you will see one setting for a Grandmother's fan quilt but that's not how I plan to set mine after make these fans into full blocks. You can be sure I will be using a sewing machine - perhaps my trusty old treadle that sews such a perfect stitch & if I do I will post about it!
These may not seem like such treasures to others but to a quilter they are!
I'm going to stop looking on eBay at these vintage quilt pieces so I will not be tempted - well, at least I will try!
Now if you are hooked on vintage you can visit coloradolady's blog to see the list of all the other participants in VTT.