April is Flying By!

Where has the month gone?  I haven't a clue.  My daughter and grandkids visited for 8 days and the next weekend my other daughter and husband were here.  I went to two quilt shows and did yard work.  Now I am getting ready for a quilt retreat this weekend!  It's taking me awhile to cut out my project, the 6" blocks for Farm Girl Vintage.  I have 3 blocks made and will take the other 45 blocks with me to sew up.  It is time consuming to cut out sampler blocks!   

My big finish for the month was my Fire Island Hosta.  Below are photos of it with closeups of the quilting.  I had fun with free motion.  It's hard to stuff a 100 X 100 quilt through my Pfaff Grand Quilter, but I did it!  I set up extra tables around me to hold the bulk.

 I had pre-entered the quilt in the Palouse Patchers quilt show in Moscow, ID.  I am not a member of the guild due to distance but this is the third time I have entered in their show.  I am glad I had the deadline or I wouldn't have gotten it finished!  The photo below is a bit blurry, but you can see my ribbons I shockingly won!  All voting is done by members before the show and viewer's choice is voted on Saturday by quilt show attendees.  Since I had company I didn't get to the show until Sunday and I also needed to pick up my quilt that afternoon.  I won Viewer's Choice - Large quilts and First in Machine Piecing!

Below is my favorite quilt in the show.  I loved all the detail and I didn't get the name of the quilt!  I like to take pictures of the tags so I can remember these things and I didn't do it.

detail of the above quilt.  I loved the rivet accents.

I got this old UFO quilted in March and finished the binding in April.  It was from 2000-2001 and was a row robin with the Pat Sloan Yahoo group back then.

This is also the last picture of our cat I accidentally  took.  I had him put down last week at age 17 1/2.
We got him at 5 weeks old.

quilting detail in the border

I also finished my Folk Art Album quilt in memory of my friend Debi.  She gave me the kit.  I started it in 2009!  I hand stitched all the wool applique onto flannel.  I just stippled the backfround for some dimension.

Folk Art Album

quilting and stitching closeup

an outdoor shot of the quilt

I went to the Seaport Quilters show last weekend in Clarkston, WA.  It was fun to meet up with my friend Mary from Washington!  I was also with three local friends, and had a great day.  

Now to some non-quilting pictures!  My husband loves to take our grandson on adventures with a neighbor and his grandson.  They were dressed as Daniel Boone and went looking for treasure with maps and yes, that is a pretend hatchet!   They walked a long way through fields, woods, crossed a creek and there was a clearing where they somehow found the makings for grilled cheese sandwiches, Jared's favorite food!  The boys found a treasure box with chocolate coins and real coins and thought it was great fun.

My daughter and I drove to Sandpoint, ID, my second trip that week, seven hour round trip!  We picked up sandwiches and ate them on Lake Pend Oreille. Nicole went with us, and was a pretty traveler.  She loved the sand and the play equipment at this park.

Nicole at Lake Pend Oreille

Jared was a Fireman for Halloween last year and brought his costume so he could go to the volunteer firefighters meeting with Grandpa.  He loves to be with Grandpa and we were doing some farming during the time he was here which thrilled him.  He rode in trucks and tractors.    

Doug, Jared and Nicole.  She was actually dressed for bed but loves being outside.

When our younger daughter was here the next weekend we went for a walk. This windmill was originally put up by Doug's father and grandfather in the early 30's.  They sold the property in the 40's and we acquired it in 2010.  There is a house on the property we rent out and we farm the fields.   Doug rebuilt the base for the windmill and all the blades are in good shape.  It doesn't actually pump water now, but it's a great keepsake.  In the field behind it we have the first release of Huffman wheat planted, named after our son Brad.  Here is the link to the blog post I wrote about the wheat. 

Check out Patchwork Times to see what others are working on.

Road Trip and Quilting Progress

Yesterday I needed to go on a road trip to Sandpoint, ID, 7 hours of round trip driving, but it was a beautiful day, with beautiful scenery. As a reward I stopped at Bear Paw Quilting in Coeur d'Alene.  It is a gorgeous shop with so much variety!  From 30's to wool to Kaffe to modern to batiks and everything in between.  I have no business EVER buying more fabric, but I get bored sometimes.  I have so many projects to work on.  Both daughters want certain quilts, my granddaughter a needs a big girl quilt (she will be 2 in May) neighbor "kid" needs a wedding quilt July 2nd, and lets not mention those 40ish quilts that need quilted.

Don't laugh (I have one friend that will laugh!) but this is SOME of my fabric storage.  Yes, it is exploding!

We won't mention strings and strips.  I did make two cute blocks as leader enders when I was piecing the backing for Fire Island Hosta.  I will continue with this project but if Judy D. thought she had a lot of strings, she hasn't seen mine yet.  I'm afraid to put them all in one place because they will NOT fit in one big bin.

So back to my trip, I have been wanting to find fabric to make Tula Pink's City Sampler, 100 Modern Quilt Blocks.

I am not a green fan, never have been, BUT I was drawn to black, gray and lime green.  I bought the bottom 8 fabrics at Bear Paw and then stopped at Stitches and Petals in Moscow.  I bought the two fabrics on the top row left side.  Amazingly I found the next four from the left already in my stash in a FQ grouping from the Wild Hare in Orofino.  I then picked the final 4 fabrics on the top row right from my stash.  The most amazing find was 5 yards of this Kona gray for background already in my stash!

Now back to fun things, like defrosting my freezer and cleaning house! I did make a bit of machine quilting progress on Fire Island Hosta.

Spring Break and Machine Quilting

I am on spring break this week!  I started my vacation by finishing machine quilting and getting the binding sewn on by machine on my Folk Art Album wallhanging Thursday night.  It looks ruffly, the binding and sleeve are not stitched down.  I did a lot of texture quilting, which is not really visible but I showed a block in my last post.  I still haven't tacked down the binding. This is such a special quilt to me!

Friday I had major oral surgery.  I must say the relaxation drugs worked well, and I don't remember much of Friday.  By Saturday I was up, although in pain and decided to machine quilt instead of stitching binding down. I was supposed to "take it easy" and what's easier than machine quilting!  I know it stresses some people.  I had this quilt basted and ready for quilting.  I have someone who wants to purchase it, it's a row robin from the Pat Sloan group around 2000.  It also needs its binding stitched down now.  I did some different texture quilting in the rows and border, I will get a better picture when the binding is finished.

I want to get started machine quilting my Fire Island Hosta and needed a backing.  One of my goals this year is to not buy backing.  I had to for the Folk Art Album quilt as I wanted a nice flannel.  Other than that I have a huge amount of fabric I need to use!  I took all the leftovers and figured out to cut them in multiples of 4" finished and then started laying them out.  Some pieces were a full 20 1/2" so that was my goal block size for assembly.  The backing is 104 X 104.

This is another quilt I may have shown before.  It's simply straight line quilted and it's from leftovers of another project.  It needs binding stitched down too and will be for a donation.

Our oldest daughter and two grandkids are coming for a visit late in the week. We haven't seen them since Christmas.  We are very excited to see them. Nicole will be two next month and Jared is 4 1/2.  His vacation from preschool is next week.  He called yesterday with plans for he and grandpa.  He loves our farm trucks!

Check out Patchwork Times and Cooking up Quilts

Quilt Camp Progress

I had a wonderful quilt camp (aka retreat) at Palouse Divide Lodge.  I didn't get any pictures taken this time, it was pretty rainy and there was a lot of slushy snow to walk to the top of the mountain.  It was a great group of women and the food was wonderful.  I was pretty intent on piecing my Fire Island Hosta and it turned out very well I think!  I think my colors are more intense than this but it was hard to get them adjusted correctly.  It is 100 X 100, bigger than my design wall, hence the bend at the bottom!

queen size Fire Island Hosta

I took my Pfaff Grand Quilter with me to machine quilt the top mentioned in my last post, but didn't have the urge to do that after wrestling this huge top while finishing the piecing.

My sisters went to quilt shops for me last summer and neither of them quilt.  It was pretty funny when they came to visit and brought all the goodies they accumulated for me!  One sister bought a quilt pattern she loved at Quilt Expressions in Boise called Fair and Square.  She told me when I made the quilt, entered it in the fair and won ribbons and couldn't find room in my closet for it, she would take it off my hands.  I took that as a challenge to make her a new quilt!  It seems a bit wild but it really grabbed a lot of attention at quilt camp!  Black sashing will go between the blocks and there will be 20 blocks altogether for a queen size quilt.

Fair and Square, first six blocks

Linking up with Patchwork Times and Main Crush Monday.

Prepping for Quilt Camp

I get to go on a quilt retreat this coming week, 4 nights!  I am very excited to hang out with friends and quilt.  My hip is getting back to normal after two months of therapy (we still don't know why it went wacky, but oh well), and that will help my comfort level of being able to bend and walk!

For my main project I decided to take my Fire Island Hosta quilt I started last year.  I LOVE this quilt.  I had the center sections done and this weekend I cut the outer two paper pieced borders and have this part assembled.  It will end up being 100 X 100 when it's finished.




I have a large sewing room and the adage of filling more space if you have it is true.  I am not the neatest person when it comes to my fabric. I think I need a little chaos to create.  However my cupboards of unquilted tops were a bit out of control. Several had fallen out while looking for something else.  I took a before picture and an after picture. The tops on the left side have backings with them.  Altogether there are 42 tops there.  Then I remembered two tops that were in a bag I took to guild for show and tell!  YIKES 44 unquilted tops!!!  

A friend who sang at my wedding 32 years ago saw the pictures on Facebook and picked out two quilts she wanted to buy.  This is one and I have it basted and ready to take to quilt camp and will machine quilt it there.  I do all my quilting on a Pfaff Grand Quilter.  This top is 54 X 78 and was made in about 2000.  I was involved in the Pat Sloan yahoo group and had a couple friends that were very "country".  We did a row robin exchange.  The backgrounds are all Buggy Barn Fabrics and there are several Pat Sloan fabrics in this quilt.  I really am not a "tan" person so I am glad this will find a new home!

I have another quilt cut out using Kaffe Fassett fabrics and I am almost finished with the hand applique on my Folk Art Sampler wool applique wallhanging.  I will be taking that along to machine quilt too. I think I will be busy and probably won't finish everything!

Linking up with Patchwork Times and Main Crush Monday.

Design Wall Monday

I have something new on my wall!  Not that I finished one of the other projects but I needed to put up my Fire Island Hosta. (pattern by Judy Niemeyer) I went to a retreat with 8 other women this past weekend and I spent the whole time sewing the pieces for this quilt top.  I am working on assembling it now.  I am so excited because I love the visual impact.  Picking fabrics was tough and I changed a couple fabrics during the cutting process. Most of my quilts involve purple and I am not a green fan, but I am excited by this quilt!

pieces for my Fire Island Hosta

ul

our 9 week old Border Collie/Australian Shepherd  puppy, Leia

Flower Bed, tulips are already starting to fade away

winter wheat field near my house.  I just watching our crops grow!

Linking up to Patchwork Times.

Design Wall Monday New Projects and a Finish!

My design wall is exactly the same (I MUST finish those two charity tops), but I did finish a quilt last week!  I had pre-entered it in the Palouse Patchers quilt show that was held this past weekend in Moscow, ID.  Entering it was my motivation to finish the quilt and it was down to the wire, but I made it.  I drove the quilt and a friend's entries to Moscow Friday.  I attended the show Saturday and didn't even get a picture of the quilt hanging!  My friend brought the entries back Sunday night and I was shocked to see two ribbons hanging on the quilt!

Finger Lakes Log Cabin - pieced Nov/Dec 2013 Quilted March/April 2015

Ribbons won - First in Piecing and Second in Machine Quilting

My friend Anita Brumley's quilt.  She won first in Best Use of Color and a Second in Viewer's Choice Large Quilts
photo by Anita

I fell in love with this quilt by Debbie Goetz.  She called it Bubble Gum and the pattern is called Cotton Candy Dots 2 by Amelie Scott.  I love the simplicity of the pattern with the random dots appliqued on which were added by Debbie.

 At the Quilted Posies booth I found this aqua /grayish brown bundle of FQ's.  I purchased the fabric on the right at the Island Quilter booth and 3 of the coral/orange fabrics and had the remaining 3 corals in my stash.  The fabrics at the top I removed from the pile and will be on the back of the quilt.  They were too distracting to me.  I am so anxious to make this quilt!

However I will be going to a quilt retreat this coming weekend and decided to actually read the directions for cutting out my Fire Island Hosta quilt pattern.  I am using this selection of fabrics.  I added a few more and changed one my last post about the quilt.  The light fabric is a mottled Nancy Crow gray I have had in my stash for years.  I now have most of it cut out.

 Check out more Design Wall Monday posts 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.