Sunday, December 31, 2017

Quilting Projects

I am not taking time to post photos at this point, but this is the list I posted last New Year's.  I am going to edit it to see how many projects I finished this year!  I am in the throws of sewing room disorganization and what a mess it is!

List from Jan. 2017.  Changes in red!

TOPS TO BE QUILTED:  (in no particular order)
1.  Be My Neighbor (needs done before Jan. 31 for contest)  DONE
2.  Modern City Sampler/Tula Pink  DONE
3.  Christmas Block Robin DONE
4.  Mistletoe Stars  DONE
5.  Country Snowflakes
6.  Poinsettia One Block Wonder  DONE
7.  Red/White Baskets
8.  Green/Blue Diamond Rail Fence
9.  Primary Lone Star (1)
10.  Primary Lone Star (2)
11.  Butterflies
12.  30's Dresden
13.  Pansies (from MIL's stash already marked with quilting design)
14.  Red/White sampler
15.  Floral Sand Castles
16.  Mocha Meringue (1)
17.  Mocha Meringue (2)
18.  Mocha Meringue with blue throw  DONE
19.  WASIQ - tan
20.  WASIQ - blue
21.  Kaffe Stars
22.  Bright Jelly Roll
23.  Modern Jelly Roll
25.  Judy Niemeyer - compass  DONE
26.  Itty Bitty Blocks
27.  Wedding Ring
28.  Fall tablerunner  DONE
29.  Antique dresden
30.  Bonnie Hunter Mystery (can't remember the name!) 2 years ago  DONE
32.  Butterfly Row X Row
33.  Purple/Turquoise Sampler
34.  Vicki's Row X Row  DONE
35.  Turquoise/Black Stack and Whack
36.  Scrap Swap quilt top
37.  Easy Street (Bonnie mystery 4 years ago)  DONE
38.  Vicki's block robin
39.  Janice's stars
40.  Frog baby quilt
41.  Food tablecloth
42.  Aqua/Gray large quilt DONE
43.  Aqua/Gray throw  DONE
44.  poinsettia tablerunner
45.  teal trees  DONE
46.  Fossil Fern
47.  Hawaiian applique
48.  Cathedral window  DONE
49.  Blue baskets
50.  Deb's wallhanging  DONE

UFO's or PIP's (Projects in Progress)
1.  Earth tone batik scraps  DONE
2.  purple batiks scraps
3.  batik rail fence scrap
4.  30's scrap blocks
5.  many, many, many odd blocks (over 100)
6.  1930's Farmers Wife
7.  Batik Farmer's Wife
8.  Rose Applique
9.  Winter Wonderland
10.  Embroidered Christmas  DONE
11.  Amish Sampler
12.  Bow Tucks Purse
13.  Leaf Wallhanging
14.  Blueberry Granola (purple/green)  
15.  Charity quilt (1)
16.  Charity quilt (2)
17.  Quilt of Valor (1)
18.  Quilt of Valor (2)
19.  Magic of Christmas  
20.  Hand Quilted Wholecloth
21.  Hand quilted quilt for Jan
22.  Hand quilted quilt started by MIL
23.  Trip Around the World hand dyed
24.  12 Rows of Christmas
25.  Landscape
26.  Heart blocks
27.  Garden Embroidery
28.  Blue Sampler
29.  wreath applique
30.  wool applique  

HSY (Haven't Started Yet - but have the fabrics)
1. Baltimore Album fusible applique
2.  Glacier Star paper pieced
3.  Something Blue paper pieced  
4.  Mistletoe Lane BOM
5.  Summer Fest Jelly Roll  DONE
6.  Lots of others, but I am tired!

OTHERS STARTE AND FINISHED

Labyrinth Walk
Two Fox Baby Quilts
Two Jelly Roll Baby Quilts
Canyon Dance
Row By Row
2 pillows
Teen Throw Quilt
Ultra Violets quilt
4 donation throw size quilts
Dr. Seuss

Well Bummer, that is only 35 projects finished for the year!!!  Oh well, it's progress and gives me goals for next year!







Machine Quilting and Christmas

I started quilting a HUGE and I mean HUGE quilt before Christmas for a friend of a friend's sister.  It was much bigger than I anticipated, like a king size batting needed a couple inches pieced on one end!  Yikes!  It was tough to push through my Pfaff Grand Quilter, but I did it without any puckers on the back thankfully!  I pin basted it well, stretched over banquet tables.  Here is a photo of the quilt being quilted.  Pay attention to the background, it will be mentioned in a bit!  I quilted a lot of stars in it, but did thread work in the center panel.  I finished it yesterday and my husband is going to deliver it to the friend today.


center panel
spread out on my daughter's queen size bed.  

I have a 460 square foot basement quilt room, it's not all showing in these pics., but this is PART of what I am dealing with.  It's driving me NUTS!!!!  If you look at the picture above and one to the right you can see my TV is now mounted on the wall.  I only waited two years, but DH got it done this week.  I have another week of vacation from school so I am going to dig in and purge, rearrange, etc.  I have WAY, WAY, WAY too many books and magazines.  I have purged magazines many times and I am only getting one subscription now.  Basically I have a HUGE mess.    I wish I had cupboards to hide everything in, but that is not in the budget or time table.  I have a lot invested in plastic!


I went to Costco yesterday and bought 2 sets of these project bins.  Such a deal on price, only $19.99 for 5.  I already have a couple sets and I'm hoping it will help me me able to grab a project to work on.  This year's colors are so much prettier than my previous ones!  Costco is an hour away in a different state, but Clarkston, WA is where I do a lot of shopping!  Oh, I bought food when I was there too....














I will do a year's end wrap up post later today.  I had a goal of finishing 50 projects, not sure if I made that!  I will have to look at my blog and pics!

Now pics from Christmas!  We traveled to Boise and stayed with my oldest daughter,but spent Christmas Eve at my younger daughter's house.  Christmas dinner with all of us was at my sister's, so it was quite the family trip!  The roads were pretty good until we were close to home on the return trip.  It's a twisty drive to get to the southern part of the state up and down out of river canyons.


We bought Nicole a set of twin baby dolls and a double jogging stroller.  She named the twins Finn and Remy after her twin cousins!  She is a girly girl for sure and loved this gift!


We bought Jared a remote control Kubota tractor.  He LOVED driving our Kubota this summer. 
Jared (6) and Nicole (3) with their cousins Remy and Finn!  Remy and Finn were 5 1/2 weeks old in the pic.



We didn't know Jared paid attention to clothes until a couple years ago when he insisted on having Grandpa shirts.  Plaid flannel!  Lisa found a plaid onesie for Finn so here is a pic of Doug and his grandsons in Grandpa shirts!


 Nicole dresses herself....
 Remy and Finn the day after Christmas.







Monday, December 18, 2017

Gift Quilt

I have been working on miscellaneous things like potholders for gifts, but no pics of those!  I did finish a quilt and gifted it to my boss.  She loves earth tones.  I showed this quilt earlier in progress but it's finished and gifted and she loved it!  I debated on borders, but decided it was a good throw width.  It's funny because I have gifted Jenine a quilt almost every year for 8 years, but this year I told her she had to use it!  Use it watching movies and let the dog be on it!  I want her to enjoy the quilts.  She sent me a picture this evening.  I think her dog approved!

The pattern is in the book Color Shuffle by Karla Alexander.  I just did a texture stipple, loopy quilting design.




 linked up to Small Quilts and Doll Quilts for Design Wall Monday.

Tuesday, December 12, 2017

Christmas Decorating and Quilts

Be prepared, this is a long post!  I took a bunch of photos of some of the Christmas things I have on display currently.  There are a lot of things on walls and on shelves that I didn't photograph, like my collection of Christmas mugs and salt and pepper shakers!

Here is my tree.  Very traditional, lots of memento ornaments.  I made the tree skirt in 2006.


Old fashioned phone that actually worked until recently between my in-laws house, our shop and our house.
 Santa made by a friend.
 Tablerunner that I hung on the wall!
 My pewter tree with mini ornaments from my mom and other relatives and friends.
 An old nativity set that I love.
Stockings, even though we aren't having anyone here this year.  One of these days we are going to replace the 20 year old fireplace doors with something prettier.
Christmas village on top of my grandmother's Howard piano, circa 1895.  She was born in 1899 and the story is that she traded a cow for this piano in 1910.  It's been in various places since and needs refinishing but the piano tuner said it's in good shape considering all it's been through!
 Small Christmas village, mostly pieces my mother in law gave me as gifts.  Part 1.
 Part 2.  I have a harder time hiding cords on this one.  It's on my built in china hutch.
 Dining room light.  I LOVE purple.  This year I decided I was going to do some purple!  I swirled craft paint in glass bulbs to make the ornaments and found the others on clearance last year.
 A mini white tree with purple ornaments on my dining table under the light, with purple lights in the window.  I found this all on clearance last year too!
 Another wall in the dining room.  It doesn't coordinate with the purple but I love my toile quilt and snowmen collection.
 Stairwell with a nativity quilt and my lame' fabric angel wallhanging.
 Family room wall.  A friend gave me the shelf hangers.  Santas are on this one with my one block wonder quilt.
 My Jim Shore mini nativity.  I LOVE the quilt designs painted on the figures and I have some of his ornaments.
 A scrappy shoo fly quilt from many years ago along with a wall-hanging made by a friend.  This one I put on my daughter Lisa's bed.
Sorry about the light streak on it, the sun was shining through the closed blinds!  This is a sampler I made in 1995.  My guild members made blocks and I came up with this setting and made a swag border and it is hand quilted!  This is in my daughter Amy's room.
 Snowman collector quilt.  I made this quite a few years ago.  It's on the bed in my son's old room, which my grandkids have taken over.
 My Snippets quilt I finished earlier this year!  I love these bright cheery fabrics from Bonnie and Camille.  This was in my daughter Amy's room, even though it's the bed quilt in my room for the season.  I just didn't want to clean off my nightstand!
A wallhanging made by a friend many years ago.  I made her one as well.  We sent each other fabrics and the center was a pine tree, then we got to do what we wanted.
 Snowman wallhanging at the top of my stairs.  The blocks were from a swap.
 This is in my guest room.  Years ago my mother in law saw this quilt in a Fons and Porter magazine.  She really liked it and I got the magazine and made it for her.  She displayed it once or twice, but Alzheimers set in.  After she passed away I got the quilt back.
A little stocking wallhanging.  The beading detail is not showing the pictures, but there is a LOT of beading on it!
 Wallhanging from a block of the month several years ago.  I love it.  I had to stand in my laundry room to take the pic and the washer wouldn't move out of the way to get a straight photo!
I have several more Christmas quilts, I will have to work on another post!

Monday, December 11, 2017

Gift quilt and Odds and Ends

Have you ever lost things and think you are going crazy?  In the last six weeks I have lost my two favorite rotary cutters, a good pair of scissors, my 60 degree ruler and my jar of modge podge I bought to try the applique techniques in the book Crafted Applique.

I mention this because I was desperately looking for my 60 degree ruler to make a border print tablerunner.  My mom had asked for donations to the gift baskets they give at the Senior Center fundraiser.  I looked on youtube and managed to cut them out (with errors) using my regular ruler and the 60 degree line.  I had a couple issues, but managed to make a tablerunner and a topper.  After they were done I moved a pile and found the ruler.  I also found the modge podge, but not the other 3 missing things!
 A friend had these scraps leftover over and sewn this square background and gave it to me and said do something with it for the seniors.  It languished for a few months and then I decided to add applique.  Seriously it looked like it matched well when I was making it, but now it looks washed out.  I think I did my duty with donating 3 items.
 I finished the square dance quilt and mailed it off Friday to a friend who recently completed her master's degree while teaching and being a mother to three kids in school.  She did so much for us when my son passed away and I have always wanted to give her a quilt.  I thought a master's degree deserved one!  I originally met her through quilting.  She hasn't had time in recent years for it. 
 Wavy line quilting closeup.

I found the perfect backing online for a science teacher and the colors were a perfect match for the front!  I had a matching sort of stripe for the binding.

In October I took 4 quilt tops to a friend 3 hours away.  She has a longarm and was trying to get her business going again.  I have MANY quilt tops.  I was able to pick them up Saturday since I had other errands to do about an hour north of her.  Yep, it was a long day!

I got all 4 quilts trimmed and ready for binding.  This quilt top belonged to a friend who passed away and I inherited it.  It's not really me and I will be donating it after I bind it.  The blocks were all made by members of a quilt group we belonged to online.
 The same friend loved country fabrics and years ago Pat Sloan had a couple lines of fabric that Debi purchased.  I ended up with the fabric and it's not my favorite but I made this queen size 10 minute block quilt.  This is what I consider my ugly quilt, but I would like to make one out of batiks.  It's quick and easy and fun!  I know the top is as least 7 years old.  I will also donate it.
Another friend from South Carolina passed away and had wanted me to have her featherweight.  Her sister shipped it to me along with a bunch of unfinished projects.  We had been in this row robin together (my row is the 3rd up from the bottom).  It's pretty, but I didn't have extra fabrics and decided against borders and will just bind it with red.  I do like this quilt!
 This is the last Bonnie Hunter mystery I did.  Grand Illusion.  I dislike it intensely.  I LOVED my fabrics, but they didn't work well here.  I only used 5 fabrics and maybe that was my problem  I added pieces to the top and bottom to make it rectangluar.  It is quilted in an allover design.  I will probably donate it unless I find somebody who actually likes it!  It is queen size! I haven't done any mysteries since.
 Last, but not least, here is the pillow I received in the pillow swap on Instagram.  I love it!  I have never had a desire for an embroidery machine, but I do love the effects!  I have been busy photographing my Christmas decorations and Christmas quilts so that will be my next post!