A Few Finishes

I have managed to finish 4 projects out of six so far on the 2016 Finish a Long that I shared in this post.  First, my Scrap Squad quilt is finished, photographed and the blog post will be done today for Quiltmaker.  I can't wait to share the quilt with all of you!

I then picked three small quilts to quilt and bind.  I am getting back into the mode of machine quilting and it feels great!  I am also working on a secret gift for a friend's birthday.  I had to deal with getting all my tax stuff together for our CPA last week.  The joys of being self employed farmers and dealing with the estate of my FIL!  

I am thrilled to have this Dragonfly wallhanging finished and hanging!  It was all hand appliqued in the car or on trips.

Hand Appliqued Dragonfly wallhanging for my guest bath

quilting closeup

Leaders and Enders project for a donation quilt, quilted in the ditch

Fairy Frost leftovers - donation wheelchair quilt for care center

quilting closeup

 My friend Robin in Washington sent me these beautiful vintage Grandmother's Flower garden blocks. She also sent some precut hexagons and extra fabrics!  I sewed the row together on the left and I will sew the next row and then try to hook the two rows together.  The blocks are beautifully done, but they have a super tiny seam allowance.  It will be a great quilt when it's finished and I'm excited to own these blocks!

I am linking up with Patchwork Times and Main Crush Monday!

10 Year Blogoversary and Giveaway!

I can't believe it's been ten years since I started blogging!  It's been haphazard at best, but I enjoy sharing my quilts with others.  I spend so much time quilting it's hard to squeeze in the blog posts!  

Before I get to the giveaway (keep scrolling, I am giving away a quilt!), I will show my design table.  I can't show the project, but the pile of pieces in my last blog post is now 49 sashing units with 24 pieces in each unit. I look forward to being able to share the quilt after it posts on Quiltmaker's blog, but first it has to get finished!  Check out Patchwork Times for other Design Wall projects.

Now onto the giveaway!  The first photo is my linen closet.  I think I have a few quilts.  Believe it or not, I just refolded them all on New Year's Day.  There is everything from tiny miniatures to a couple king size quilts in there, lots of wallhangings too.  Yes, there are quilts sitting on the floor!  I have given away many, many, many quilts and I guess I am a quilting fanatic!  Really me?  I have about at least 35 on display in my house right now too.

SOOOOO.... I picked some quilts that I can part with and the random number selected from everyone who leaves a comment on my blog will get to pick which one they want!  Or you can tell me a type of quilt you are looking for and I might find it in my stash.  I have very few earthy colored quilts though!  Leave a comment about which quilt is your favorite and you MUST include your email address or have your profile linked to an email.  I know I have a few friends who won't be able to comment so contact me some other way (FB, email, etc.) and I can assign you a number!  

None of these are huge bed quilts, but are nice extra quilts to have on hand or cuddle with!

#1 Chop Suey - batiks 75 X 100

#2 Gemstones - Fairy Frost 68 X 88

#3 Deb's Oriental Garden - Asian fabrics with gold metallic 60 X 80

#4 Row Robin - 66 X 93 flannel backing

#5 18 X 21 Art piece - panel, heavily machine quilted and embellished with yarn and beads.  Hanging sleeve.

#6 Canyon Dance 51 X 69.  Thin batting, but very cuddly couch quilt.  Crooked photo!

#7 Old Glory 51 X 62.  Hand appliqued and has a hanging sleeve for a wallhanging

I tried to put in a variety for everyone, Enjoy!  I will draw the winner Friday, January 22nd, 2016!

Design Wall Monday

I feel like I am swimming in projects and not finishing anything but I keep seeing so much inspiration! I have my latest Quiltmaker Scrap Squad fabrics and design picked, ready for cutting and piecing.

My Fire Island Hosta is currently off the design wall, but not finished.

I made another Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt block and now I really want to get a bunch more blocks cut out.  I hadn't worked on them since 2012!

I started the Farm Girl Vintage by Lori Holt Sew Along and have 3 six inch blocks made.  I am using a mixture of fun "girly" prints I have been collecting over the years.

Farm Girl Vintage Blocks

The project below is the one on my design wall currently.  While I was at a retreat at Reflections Inn at the end of April a friend ran out of projects.  I had obtained a jelly roll of Mixology Fabrics at a retreat last September in McCall, ID hosted by Craft Taffy the sister site of Quilt Taffy.  As a side note I highly recommend their retreats and I'm signed up again for this September.  There are still openings. 

I had seen a cover quilt on a Scrap Quilts magazine by Fons and Porter called Strippy Pyramids and cut the strips and have been hauling them around.  My friend Rosan pieced the strips together and I put the triangles on my design wall.  I have the top two rows sewn together, along with the bottom two rows (they are piled up on the floor).  I realized there is no purple in this quilt!  I guess I am branching out.  My quilt guild friends will think this is funny because I would NEVER use orange and yellow for years and years!  Now they are showing up a lot more!

Strippy Pyramids

I have some machine quilting to do and lots of end of the year school stuff and field trips going on too.  I am linking up with Patchwork Times, check them out for other Design Wall projects!

Design Wall Monday

Time has flown by.  I haven't posted design wall Monday for a bit as I really can't show some of my projects!  I have two small charity quilts on my design wall.  My first blog post for Quiltmaker goes live Friday and I also have my second quilt going live on April 3rd.  Be sure to follow Quiltmaker's Quilty Pleasures Blog!  You will get to see two quilts I have been working on this year.  Here is a hint on the second one, part of the border and backing!

scrunched up backing, border and binding for Scrap Squad quilt #2

Design Wall - Leftover scraps from Scrap Squad quilt #1.  This will be a charity quilt when it's assembled.

Design Wall - This has been on the design wall for weeks.  I keep compacting the pieces.

 I made these two child quilts for Quilts for Kids.  I requested two quilt kits, the only thing I had to provide was assembly, quilting, and batting.  Even the backing is included in the kit.  I happened to have the same gray Moda Marble the kit included that I was able to use for
binding on one quilt and I had enough backing left on the first quilt to use it as binding.  Below is a quilt top I made from a Connecting Threads kit and I will get it quilted for a graduation gift for a girl that was a member of my 4-H group for years.

quilt for Lindsay - worked on at a retreat and didn't have a chance to really lay it out so I just sewed rows and then tried to arrange them.  I don't recommend that!

I gifted this queen size quilt to my late son's former roommates Cole, and Danielle.  

Check out other Design Walls at Patchwork Times.

Design Wall Monday

I haven't gotten to do much quilting lately but have dreams of new projects and I'm working on my first quilt for the Quiltmaker Scrap Squad.  Sorry can't share pictures of that one!  I have sewn a few rows on the scrappy 2" squares quilt.  Its fun and bright.  The Itty Bitty blocks are still on the wall.  I'm linking up with Patchwork Times.

Here is a new project I want to start at a retreat in early March.  I fell in love with the Fire Island Hosta pattern and struggled with fabrics.  This isn't the final selection, but I'm loving the blue and green.  The colors aren't showing true on this one.  The light fabric is a Fairy Frost pale aqua.

I have been working on cleaning our rental house instead of quilting.  Bleh!  We purchased the property in 2010.  Doug's grandparents had owned the property and sold it in the 30's after putting up a windmill and building a grainery.  All these years later we were able to acquire it.  The house is different, but still an old farmhouse.  We had been renting it to Doug's brother for four years and after their dad passed away New Year's Eve BIL moved back to the family home as he is inheriting it.  We hired a few things done but I'm sort of a fanatical cleaner.  We have had some interest in renting without advertising so I hope those pan out.

side view, we had the windows put in instead of screen for circuit break safety

We also had a new front porch built.

Design Wall Monday and Day of Service

I have today off work and to remember MLK I will be making a quilt for Quilt of Valor.  I have made many quilts for the American Hero project, but this will be my first QOV.  I received the fabrics last year in a kit from Idaho Public TV. It will be a rail fence quilt.

Last week I showed the pattern and strips for this quilt.  This is what I have so far.  I sewed and sewed and sewed!  Since I was enlarging the pattern I needed more squares.  There will be a white applique strip around the center, pink frame around the whole top and another applique strip on the top and bottom to elongate it to queen size.  I will need to add one border around the whole top.

 I am linking up to Patchwork Times Design Wall Monday.

Design Wall Monday - New Projects

I have been saving this pattern since June 2001.  It was in McCall's magazine.  My late friend Deb loved it and we each planned on making it for the other one we found out later, although neither of us started it.  She came closer, buying the pink fabric which she gave to me.  I am in the process of making some quilt tops to give as gifts, letting the recipients pick from a selection.  I am altering the pattern somewhat and making it queen size so we will see what it looks like in the end.

image from the magazine

It's hard to tell, but there are 15 strips hanging there.  They aren't pressed yet.  I am making 5 more to make the center.

This is another new project!  Quiltmaker started Itty Bitty Blocks this month.  Each bow-tie finishes at 3".  The idea at the end of the year is to have a row quilt.  I made 8 blocks very quickly out of bright and black and white scraps.

I'm linking up to Patchwork Times, a fun place to find more blogs to read!

Quiltville Mystery and Design Wall Monday

My design wall is pretty blah.  I still have the wool quilt on there.  So much for my goal of finishing it by the end of the year!

I am all caught up on the Quiltville mystery!

 This is a quilt top I made at a retreat in November.  I used a jelly roll pack and finally got borders added.  I used a pattern in the book Jelly Roll Quilts by Pam & Nicky Lintott.

 I bought the kit for this quilt about six years ago.   It is called Snow Day and was a Moda Layer Cake project by Kansas Troubles.  These are NOT my normal colors!  I finally pieced it at the November retreat and fused on the snowflakes.  I will be stitching them at the same time as quilting and then adding a few buttons.  I finally got the borders added to it also!

I am linking up to Quiltville Mystery Monday and Patchwork Times Design Wall Monday.

Design Table Monday

I have been busy canning and juicing grapes.  Takes a lot of time away from quilting on my days off work but it's worth it throughout the year!  I have lots of canned tomatoes now, I made a lot of salsa last year and have plenty left.

I did finish the borders on my Crown of Thorns, I need to get that photo taken, but I don't have the space at the moment.  The same two projects are on my design wall and I have an extra table set up for basting.

We are going to a wedding in less than two weeks and I decided to give the couple a quilt I already had the top ready for.  They will be living in a small pole barn and I thought this quilt would fit the bill.  Even though some of the blocks were made by friends, I am just not a scrappy quilt person and with over 250 quilts in the house I thought I could part with one!  This is a pattern from Quiltville called Sister's Choice.

When I pin baste for machine quilting on my Pfaff Grand Quilter, I lay the backing out on a banquet style table (the heavy brown ones) and clamp the backing to the table.  I then lay out the batting and quilt top, over that and baste the center, then move it over the table to do the rest.  This quilt is just full size, but I have a six foot table end to end with another table and it gave me room to get the quilt laid out lengthwise.  After the quilt is moved to one side or the other I just clamp on top to hold it in place.

Hooking up to Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times.

Design Wall Monday, August UFO #31 and it's September!

I so can't believe I forgot to post to my blog yesterday, after being so good about posting every day in August except the power outage day.  I was so gung ho on machine quilting (I will show that quilt later in the week) that it slipped my mind.

My design wall has not changed from the last two weeks, but my design floor has changed.  I will be going to a retreat in mid September and was trying to decide on projects and I have had the Crown of Thorns pattern for 10 years.  I pulled all the batiks from my stash except for a couple light ones.  Gee, the pattern was in my colors, imagine that!  Now to get the pieces all precut before I go and have our county fair and going back to work for the school year in between!

My last UFO of the day for August is at the bottom, a row robin top.  It was from my guild several years ago and I didn't end up with enough rows so I made some checkerboards to fill in.   I will have to decide what I'm going to do for September.  I am actually getting low on showing UFO's after showing 31 of them!! Linking up to Design Wall Monday.

Row Robin top

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Design Wall Monday, August UFO #4

On my design wall is the quilt I put up yesterday for my August UFO#3. It's going to stay there until it's finished and the story behind it is on yesterday's post.  I also have some leftover bits of the two quilt tops I finished last week.  I put them up to see how they would look and I like it.  However I think my brain really needs graph paper to plot and plan after I finish sewing some more 4 patches and count all the pieces I have available.  I think it's the anal math part of me coming out instead of trying to just wing it. Below these two pics is my August UFO #4.  I grabbed a top out of the cupboard of MANY quilt tops to be quilted and laid it on the floor.  I LOVE this quilt top, now I need to quilt it, yeah along with my daughter's wedding quilt and all the other quilt tops I have! 

Linking up to Judy L.'s Design wall Monday here.

Folk Art Album - wool applique on flannel

Bits and Pieces of Mocha Meringue leftovers

Sand Castles - UFO #4  this is an OLD quilt top and I forgot how much I loved these florals!