Emily's Pleiades Quilt

I am linking up with Finished for Friday and Lush Friday.

Emily's Pleiades quilt is ready for our trip to Boston in two weeks.

Each of the stars in the group has it's name embroidered on it. The quilting is a freehand folk-art floral and the stars have line dancing and stippling around the name.

Emily requested "pink and purple" and that she will have! The backing is pieced three different fabrics from stash. The large print I fell for and had to have and it has sat in my stash for some years. I think Emily will enjoy those gorgeous flowers.

Quilt Of Valor

Here's another QOV, a scrap log cabin from Donna in AZ. It will go back to her for binding, label and laundering before going to a wounded warrior.

Quilted with a neutral thread and freehand peacock feathers.

Donna provided a lovely cream Pima cotton for the backing, it shows up the quilting design!

Singing His Praises BOM Quilt DONE!

Saturday was spent with my AZ quilty friends just sewing, visiting, laughing [a lot] and I was so happy to put the final stitch in the binding on this quilt.

It has been a few years in process, the blocks are PP and each block custom quilted

I am donating it to Living Faith Church to raise money for the Memorial Fund in memory of Matthew.

The red flange around the sashing sets off the blocks.

I blogged about it here so I won't repeat the details on the pattern but it is called "Singing His Praises".

This was the smallest block, these tiny pieces could never have been sewn without the benefit of paper piecing!

This is the last of my UFO's for the year and I am hoping that I will end 2010 without any incomplete quilts.

I am currently trying to finish little Emily's bed quilt but I have had tension issues the past few days and had to frog a fair sized area, I'm hoping it's ok now. I suspect it may have been the fault of the bobbin winder and with some adjustments to that I hope to be off and running, er, quilting!

Daniel's Flag Quilt

Well, here is the first of the twin's quilts, I added extra blocks and four borders to make it fit a twin size bed- it measures about 78"x93".

Quilted with freehand Baptist Fan, the thread is a light tan so the quilting is subtle and the block design is the star!

It is even labeled, I applied the label before quilting so it's good and secure. I can't wait to see his face and help him put it on his bed!

The backing was a real deal at Bernina Connection Summer Sale, 75% off, and a nice flag design, a CW repro. I do need to launder the quilt with Synthrapol and Color Catchers, because I had half the blocks made when I realized that one of the reds is a batik and they throw dye like crazy.

Daniel's sister's Pleiades quilt is on the LA ready to quilt. I hope to start on that tonight, still haven't positively decided on a quilting design for it.

I really haven't had the heart for blogging or much else the past week. The loss of two dear quilter friends was a blow that will take some time to absorb.

I have had the beautiful baby Matthew to enjoy, and quilting that has been my sanity saver for the past 4 years.

This quilt goes back to Leslie in TX probably I will mail it after the gym tomorrow.

There are swirls in the black background, I was trying to make the stars more prominent, and Line Dancing inside the star blocks.

The thread is variegated yellow King Tut and solid gold Signature in the bobbin.

This baby quilt is a kit from Connecting Threads where the top is already pieced and the backing is Minkee.

Needing a baby boy gift in a hurry this worked nicely, quilted with a simple freehand geometric design.

Last time I used Minkee on the back of a baby quilt I used Dream Angel batting so I did the same with this-but the quilt is heavier than I like, I think this brand of Minkee is different. I have another of these quilts in stash and I will skip the batting when I make that one.

This afternoon I made the binding for the flag quilt and hope to finish that tonight. Our soldier son was in town for the weekend so the family gathered here for pizza, sushi and Boston Cream pie [courtesy Costco, my favorite fast food place!]

Claudia

Claudia lost her fight for life this morning. She left us too soon, she was only 62.

I really don't know what to say, I am in disbelief along with the rest of our Colorado quilt group that we have lost these two wonderful women in less than one week, there will be a big hole now at Huggy Bunch on Wednesdays.

But I wanted to let you know, thank you for your prayers and good wishes, I know these two families can use them.

May God bless them all and each of you.

In Memory Of Sharon

The past few days have brought more than their share of sadness and loss.

Sharon left this life on the weekend, a dear and special friend, a lovely lady who will be sorely missed from our Colorado quilt group. I am shocked and grieved, the photo was taken at Spring retreat, Sharon was always so full of life.

Claudia, another live- wire and dear CO. quilt friend. Claudia is in intensive care in Grand Junction with a hole in her aorta. If you are praying person she can use every prayer, the next week will be critical. I understand that her chances of recovery are not high, but I also know that prayer can result in a miracle.

It's odd that I would have a quilt from each of these ladies here with me-not the one above that I quilted and blogged about recently, it was for Claudia's granddaughter, but she had also asked me to quilt the one below.

It's hand embroidered with nursery rhyme characters, Claudia has worked on it for several years. She told me "no rush" on the quilting.

Sharon's last QOV

Sharon had made this quilt for a wounded warrior, even quilted it on her DSM. I made the label and she sewed it on and gave it to me a couple of weeks ago. I was waiting until I had finished a couple more QOV's to mail them all off together.

I will include a note with this one to let the recipient know it was Sharon's last quilt for QOV.

Another quilter friend Andee over at "A modern Diary" Blogspot, lost her well loved Grandma over the weekend- the world is a poorer place for us this week.

Finished For Friday

I am linking up today with "Finished For Friday" and "Sew And Tell" and "Lush Friday".

There is only one more Schnibble in Andee's "Year Of The Schnibbles and she already has that one under construction.

Meantime I have quilted her last one, seen here............

"Chinese Lanterns".

I quilted it with bamboo stems and leaves, and around the border gingko leaves using variegated thread that Andee loves, in the Superior Rainbows line with Bottom Line thread in the bobbin.

DH has a finished project too! Because little fellow is nowrunning all over the place, I decided that we should have a semi-permanent gate at the top of the stairs along with the less permanent one at the landing. There are only two steps below the landing so he is reasonably ok there. He can go up all the way like lightning and then bump down on his bottom, very cute but not safe unsupervised!

I found a sturdy, metal/self-closing gate at St. Vinnies for $6.99 and when I looked it up online found it costs $70 new! It was missing $8 in hardware that I ordered from the company along with a 5" extension to make it fit the stairway.

It is bolted into the wall top and bottom, but simple to remove during the times when he isn't here leaving just two round plugs on each wall, not unsightly at all.

I feel a lot better having this safeguard in place, even though you still can't let him out of sight!

VTT Mystery Bowl?!

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This bowl was in a basket at St.Vinnies, and it was $3.50, it took my eye right away, so pretty, and it reminds me of things I remember from the '60's. There are no markings on the base so

I have no clue about it's origins, age or value and if any anyone can help I am curious about it.

Vintage or not, I really like it so I will probably keep it!

[Some update info indicates it may be "Fenton" or "Carnival" glass.]

Last week I showed a set of vintage china we found in a house my DH is rehabbing.
That was not all we found though, and this next piece is Noritake I believe according to the "N" marking but my online searching left me none the wiser.

Maybe some other VTT bloggers can take a stab at identifying, I don't think it's very vintage but interesting anyway!

Update, Nippon not Noritake!

The last thing I have to show today also came from the rehab house.......

It says "Hand painted in Italy", there's some kind of mark indented in the surface, but I can't decipher it. Another mystery!

Update, maybe"Capidomonte" ?

I think it's adorable, about 6" across, I thought I could make a pincushion out of it. Gives me an excuse to keep it around!

Wordless Wednesday, Blueberry Boy

Loves frozen blueberries!

Black And white And Red All Over!

It must be my year for this color combination. One R W & Black quilt already completed and three more in the works, I think at least three more!

This is the SITP I sent to my friend Kate, Tatersmama, in May, and I liked it so well I thought I'd make another but with more red than black. I began with a few blocks but other more urgent projects took me in different directions the past month or so.

Our two older GS's need new bed quilts and when I asked about color, design etc, I found that both wanted black, white and red, Daniel's with the Knight's Cross in the center......

and Logan's with AZ Cardinal's logo. .......

Once I knew that, I began to add to my stash of these colors [now probably I will have enough for half a dozen quilts,LOL] and yesterday when BJ came to sew with me, I pulled out the second SITP project to take inventory and see what I could do to incorporate this design in Daniel's quilt, surrounding the Iron Cross with these blocks and whatever else I need to make a generous single bed size.

I wish that I had liked EQ enough to keep it because I know it's the perfect venue for this sort of designing, but maybe I can persuade Loretta to help me out! I do have a very simple piece of software for quilt design so perhaps I will see what I can do with it but the learning curve is such a waste of time-IMHO!

I stopped at Kinko's on my way back from the gym this evening and made enlargements of both the Iron Cross and the Cards logos because Tuesday I am sewing all day with friends in Chandler when I hope to begin work on the applique for these two quilts and tomorrow I have baby Matt so probably no opportunity to get to the print shop. My choice is never applique if I can avoid it but I doubt I have any other option for these two quilts. I am thinking about a 24" applique square in the middle of each quilt surrounded by whatever blocks and borders I come up with!

Here's what I have made to date of the SITP blocks:

Four 12" Monkey Wrench [or Snail's Trail] blocks

Four 12" large star blocks, two each of black on white and white on black

Fourteen of these 6" small star blocks, I might make two more of them.

And eight of these small four patches, they could be the basis for a larger block- at the moment I have no intentions of making more of the Snail's Trail. As with Kate's quilt these will be controlled scrappy, anything that appeals to me from my black, white and red assortment.

An odd thing happened in the middle of all of this, BJ invited me to take part in her QS project called "Bee Challenged".

The bag to which the directions was attached contained eight FQ's, would you believe black, white and red!

What a coincidence! I haven't yet decided if these will be part of Logan's quilt or more likely something quite separate, I need to make another baby boy quilt and they could work.

If anyone has ideas/suggestions I am all ears! BJ says I need to put them on a design wall but mine are small portables, not large enough, I only use them for watercolor quilts. I suppose a large design wall is something I should work on but I think I'd still like it to be something portable that could be stored out of the way when not in use.