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!

Not a lot of Quilting Motivation

July has been a crazy busy month and I just can't seem to get back to the swing of quilting.  I do bits and pieces, but since it's August I need to get a move on before school starts up again!  I had a list of house projects to accomplish and I still have a few more on my to do list, but I have gotten a lot done.  They just take so much time.  I have a big house and it's hard to get rid of stuff, but I have been hauling carloads away.

I do have a bit about quilting at the end of this post!

Our biggest news this month was the birth of our fifth grandchild, Kathryn Ruth.  Her mom is my oldest daughter Amy.  Kathryn was born July 11th.  My sisters were here staying with us for a few days for a family memorial service and visit and we caravaned to Boise on the 15th.  Kathryn is adorable! 

I got to see my twin grandchildren, whose mom is my younger daughter Lisa. This is Remy

And this is Finn.  

On the 17th I brought Kathryn's brother and sister home with me.  Nicole is 5 and Jared is 7.  We had a lot of fun with them.  My husband took Jared on a 9 mile backpacking trip one night.  Nicole and I were the drivers dropping them off at one end of the trail and picking them up the next day.  The trail goes along Dworshak Reservoir (lake behind the highest straight axis dam in North America).  

One of my sisters came back up with her son and and we took our boat out on the same lake.  We love the swimming docks in the lake, the kids really enjoyed jumping into the deep water.

Dent Bridge in the background.

My sister gave the kids a ride back home on the 24th and I started in on house projects.  I finally got to my quilt room.  I pulled a bunch of fabric off the shelves and got it all refolded. 

 I got these three blocks done from the Enchanted Garden Block of the Month I joined.

I have been doing leader ender 9 patches with an alternate block out of Kaffe Fassett leftovers.

 I am machine quilting this quilt for a friend.

Other than that I have been organizing projects and cutting up scraps and staring at all the things I want to do!

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.

New Year's Eve

Here it is, the last day of the year 2018.  Hard to believe!  I have made my list of projects I will post tomorrow, in the meantime I have binding to finish on two projects to end the year with!  I have not actually counted my finishes of the year, but it's close to 40.

We had a great Christmas with our daughters and grandkids.  The twins turned 1 in November and were a lot of fun and Jared is 7 and Nicole is 4 and they love presents!  I also got to see my sisters.  On the way home I snapped a couple pictures.  We had pretty good roads, just a bit of snow close to home.  It is a six hour drive each way.

Payette Lake, McCall, Idaho

Highway 55 in central Idaho

My tree is several years old and I had it working when I set it up and now it has blank areas that should be lit up by lights!  I am taking it all down today.

 My sister is going to be a first time grandmother in May.  I will be making a quilt for the baby, but I saw this kit on Dec. 21st at Quiltreasures and bought it.  The new mother to be loves giraffes and my sister loves monkeys.  I thought the baby needed a quilt at Grandma's house since she will be born in Kentucky!  I pieced it over the weekend and had it ready to take to Boise on Dec. 24th!   I brought it home to quilt it, which will happen sometime!

 Since we got home I have been in my quilt room.  I had leftover flannel squares from a quilt in my last post.  I couldn't bear to throw them away so I whipped up this 18" pillow.  I had a pillow form on hand and the pillow is now on my couch in the family room.  I photographed it on part of my cutting table.  The quilt in the background was made by my friend Melissa and the collection of Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls were given to me by my boss over the years.  She collects them at yard sales, although a couple were made by a friend years ago.

 Last summer I participated in a Christmas in July log cabin swap and the blocks are still not assembled in to a top.  I had leftover strips and I have been sewing them together as leader/enders for a few months.  I then had to decide what to do with them!  I had this green rick rack in my stash and have no clue what I originally got it for.  It was huge!  I now have a scrappy wallhanging, complete with sleeve.  I quilted feathers in the scrappy strips and finished it Friday.

 I showed this wallhanging in a previous post and it is now quilted and bound!  I look forward to hanging it next year!  I did an allover swirl pattern in the quilting.

I finished quilting this twin size quilt.  I twas over half done and has pretty simple quilting.  I have the binding sewn on, but not stitching down.

 This is a tablerunner made of leftover triangles from another project that is not completed yet!  I straight line quilted it on the diagonal and have the binding ready to stitch down.

I think that is all I have for now!  I have another week off work and I look forward to more quilting!
Happy New Year and I will quietly be ringing in the new Year at home.

Linking up to Design Wall Monday and Monday Making.