Quilts Mailed!

I finished the quilts for my soon to be three year old twin grandkids.  I mailed them last week.   It cost a minor fortune to mail them from Idaho to Kentucky!  I also made a quilt top for a friend from a kit she had.  For the twins quilts I used three patterns by Elizabeth Hartman and figured out my own layout.

quilting closeup on Remy's quilt.

closeup of Finn's quilting.

Labels.  I do not have an embroidery machine, so I improvised with the lettering on my regular machine.  Their last name is covered for privacy.

This is the Tula Pink quilt I made for my friend with a fussy cut block closeup below.

Linking up with Design Wall Monday.

Almost 3 months, really?

There will be quilt photos at the end of this post!  

 

I seriously cannot believe it has been almost 3 months since I last posted!  I am still here really!  I got a new computer and I could not figure out pictures for the longest time, but now I hope I can blog again on a regular basis.  I haven't really even kept up with blog reading either and I will try to be better!  

I have made quite a few things during the time I was not blogging, some have showed up on Instagram.  My oldest daughter and kids were here in both July an August.  My sister and I drove a rental car to Kentucky to see her son and two grandkids (the baby was born July 6th in a fire station!) and my two grandkids and younger daughter.  We both flew back separately in August.

We had our harvest and Doug is planting fall crops.  School started at the end of August and we are in person all day.  We have 21 students K-6.  I now have Kindergarten and First Grade in the second classroom full time all day...  The staff and parents wear masks in the building, students do not, but we really try to keep them distanced.

Oh and don't forget the wildfire on Labor Day!  It was horrific.  We live at 3100 feet and the closest small town is 12 miles down the side of a mountain in a river valley at 1,000 feet.  First off in late August there was a wildfire on the lower part of the hill.  One house burned and my coworker was evacuated and kept out of her house for several days.  Then came Labor Day.  The winds were over 50 mph and Doug was not harvesting due to the extreme fire danger.  Our power went off and I immediately got the fire radio (Doug is a volunteer firefighter).  I also looked out and saw that a tree had fallen onto our Caterpillar tractor hooked to a plow (ready for plowing a fire break).  Doug went out to cut up the tree and yes the radio went off.  The winds whipped that fire around like crazy and 13 houses, 26 vehicles and numerous outbuildings on the hillside could not be saved.  It was horrible.  The fire came within 500 yards of our house, but it was across the road and a field with a fire break around it.  Doug was with the fire department down the road trying to save houses and my BIL used the tractor (after finishing removing tree limbs) to plow fire breaks around our houses.  Anyway, we live in a horrible cell phone reception area, and our landlines went out.  I borrowed a portable cell phone charger (I must buy one).  I had to go stand in a field to call anybody!  Our power was out 47 hours and our internet out 3 days and landlines 4 days, but we made it through (Doug hooked up a generator that Tuesday morning) and I feel horrible for the homes lost.  We had school on Thursday that week, the fire was under control by then and they were letting people on the road.  The fire burned over 1600 acres.

Now back to the land of quilting!  I am making bed quilts for my twin grandkids third birthday in November.  I finally got started!  I am combining a couple of patterns, my daughter picked out the blocks she liked (I took the patterns to Kentucky and we went to a quilt shop in Cincinnati).  

The kids will each have one block of each set either orange or yellow and then I am using teal, purple and pink for Remy and blue, red and green for Finn.

I participated in a summer sew along where all the fabric was provided.  Although I have made plenty of sampler quilts, I love the fabrics and supported the shop!

I am doing the Nebula block of the month starting in January.  The designer came up with six designs to work with the special rulers and it is called Journey2Nebula.  I am behind, but I made two tablerunners out of the first pattern because I couldn't decide on fabrics!

Here are 3 of the shop samples I made this summer too.  I made more and have other projects, but I need to find them on my phone amongst the grandkid photos!

Linking to Design Wall Monday.

Ending 2019 with Quilting and Family

Time flew from Thanksgiving on!  After traveling for Thanksgiving I quilted 3 small quilts for a friend.  I am trying not to overload this post with too many photos, but there are quite a few!

Two of them were You are My Sunshine quilts that I did thread painting on.  It was a lot of fun.

detail of quilting

 The backing for the Santa quilt was a minkie/velour type fabric.  The dimension of the quilting on the backing was amazing!

I participated in a Secret Santa Swap and made this tree wallhanging for my assigned person.  I used an Improv tree tutorial.  It was fun to make and I would love to make another one with bigger blocks for myself.  Unfortunately I have yet to receive a gift so that is sad.  The person keeps saying she will mail it but she had "forgotten" who I was!

 Every year at my school we make these paint filled glass ornaments.  They are so interesting to see the color combos and how they turn out.  Next year I think I am going to leave black out of the options of paint bottles. 

 I also organized these lighted snowman ornaments. 

My oldest daughter and husband and 3 kids came to visit for Christmas.  We hosted some of my husband's family for Christmas Eve.  It was fun to have kids here!

This is Kathryn - age 5 months.  The quilt is an old one on the back of the couch.

 My grandson Jared is 8 and loves machines of all types.  Since it was not farming season he saw my Brother Innovis BQ 350 machine and it has a touch screen.  He loves to figure out how things work and he taught me things about my machine!  He wanted to sew so I got out my pile of pre-cut 6" scrap squares.  Some of the fabrics are less than pretty and are an accumulation from several sources.  He was very diligent and we ended up with three machines set up and Nicole was in charge of putting squares together for others to sew.  The first top was quite interesting and my daughter Amy sewed it in offset rows as the corners would not have matched well!  It needs squared up and borders added and then finished and donated!

 After Christmas my husband and I were scheduled to fly to Kentucky to visit our younger daughter and her family.  Unfortunately my husband woke up very ill and couldn't make the trip.  I was a bit paranoid during my all day trip (3 planes) that I was going to get sick, but did not.  Several people from our Christmas Day dinner with relatives (not at my house!) got the stomach bug. 

On the first full day there we walked across the river to Indiana!  I have added two states to my collection of those traveled in.  We did get to visit with a niece who lives about an hour and a half from my daughter.

Finn loves slides!

Remy is a lefty and loves coloring

Look for another post soon with my first finish of 2020!

Three Quilts Basted

This has not been a productive summer quilt wise.  I have had too many other things going on.  I had previously held two "basting parties", although it's not really a party if you are there by yourself!  I basted several quilts each time and have them all quilted.  I started that process again.  One basting party was in this post.

For my design wall my One Block Wonder is still there.  Check it out here.

I am trying to get back in the quilting mode, but of course school started and I had to go back to work last week!  Hence, the basting so I don't have to think when I get home from work and there will be a project ready.  I need to do more, but I need to get the bottom one quilted first as it is part of a quilt along.

These are the three quilts I have basted so far.  Two of them are OLD, OLD UFO's!

My younger daughter came to visit for the weekend and brought her 21 month old twins Finn and Remy.  Her husband stayed home to do some house painting.  Much easier to do without toddlers underfoot!  The kids were not totally impressed with the farm equipment.  They each got a truck ride to the field and saw the combines in action.  We have home storage and the truck was dumping food barley in the bin.  It is used to make items like Fiber One granola bars.

I did post a quilt a day on Instagram for August, so if you are not a follower follow me there @julie.huffman .  A very original handle!

Linking up with Design Wall Monday.

Baby Quilts

I recently made some baby quilts and the recipients have them so I can post pictures!  There are seven more days of school left this school year and I have lots of great quilting plans for the summer.  I usually do all my outside work/house chores in the mornings so I can quilt in my basement in the afternoons where it is cooler.

This is the first quilt.  I made it for my new great niece, Evelyn Rose born in April.  I had struggled with what to make and finally saw the raw edge bullseye rose pattern and knew that was it.  Then I had to acquire pinks.  I wanted to stay a bit more on the pastel side.  I finally got it made and quilted.  I gave it a wash to fluff it up.

Roses for Evelyn Rose

embossed rose minkie backing showing the rose quilting

Evelyn Rose on her baby quilt

I have a new granddaughter scheduled to arrive in early July.  My daughter Amy sent me a palette of colors she would like and wanted flowers.  She made a mobile of fake flowers in these colors.  We found the floral fabric online from the Butterfly Haven line.  She suggested triangles or hearts.  This is what I came up with.  It is quilted with hearts!  I delivered it to her this weekend.

This next one isn't a baby quilt, more of a lap/recliner quilt for a dear friend.  She is so giving and I decided to make her a quilt for her birthday.  The only problem was her birthday was May 16th and I decided to do this on Mother's Day!  Since my husband was busy working all day in the fields I had a free day.  I didn't take a picture of the backing, it is Care Bears.  She loves Care Bears and I knew it would be perfect for her as she is so caring of others.  I found a floral fabric in my stash (she sent me flowers for Mother's Day) and a couple coordinates and this is what I came up with.  I made the entire quilt start to finish that day.  I quilted flowers in the floral fabrics and a very wiggly line through the other fabrics.  I delivered it to her on her birthday and she was thrilled.

This past week I was on a two day overnight field trip with the 5th and 6th graders.  I think we put on about 500 miles on the bus!  We traveled to Central Washington and a town along the Columbia River in Oregon studying agriculture.  We had a great guide and some interesting tours at dairies and feed lots and potato processing plant along with the Sage Center in Boardman, OR.

I barely had time to do a load of laundry and pack up before we headed out 12 hours later for Boise to visit our daughters and grandkids.  It's hard to get 4 kids to all look at you with good expressions at the same time.  The twins, Finn and Remy, are 18 months old now, Nicole is 5 and Jared will be 8 in August.  Jared and Nicole are the ones having a new baby sister!

 Linking up with Design Wall Monday.