Making Progress!

I have made progress on the twins quilts!  I had to do a lot of juggling to get all the pieces to fit, but ended up sewing blocks in units and adding filler strips where needed.   I also worked on a few other projects.  I also can't believe how cold it is and the snow we have already had this year!  I hope it is not a prelude of what is to come over the winter.  Work continues to be stressful, but at least we are in school every day, so I need to be thankful I am not teaching Kindergarten and First Grade via Zoom like last spring!

Remy's quilt top without borders.  

If you will notice there is a difference in this one.  I accidentally switched the unit with the green bear, it is supposed to be on the other side of the top!  I noticed after all six sections were assembled and I decided to leave it so it isn't the same as his sister's!

Finn's quilt top

I made 6 border stripe tablerunners for a friend.  They are quick and easy and use the quick turn or pillowcase method of finishing, no binding!  These use the 60 degree ruler.  The ones on the bottom are wider, using the bigger 60 degree ruler.  I didn't even know there was one, but a friend had it.

Linking up with Design Wall Monday.

Piecing and Piecing

Things are the usual crazy busy here!  I have had some distractions, but have managed to piece a bit.  I went to a retreat a couple weeks ago and worked on a couple projects.  Neither of them are done, but that's the story of my life! 

This is a quilt I am working on for my brother.  It needs borders.  It was a kit I purchased with my brother in mind and I'm finally getting to it.  I worked on it at the retreat.

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I saw the American Patchwork and Quilting magazine with the pattern Sew Many Strips.  I cut out hundreds of 1.5" strips and pieced them at the retreat and started making blocks.  These are NOT my normal colors at all.   Most of these are Bonnie and Camille fabrics, except I added other low volume backgrounds.  I only have 27 blocks left to make and then the pieced border.  I have no idea what I am going to do with it when I am done though!

I pieced three more tops for my friend's shop.  I couldn't get great pictures, but here they are.  Lots of work with panels.

My younger daughter came to visit and brought the twins!  They are 16 months old now.  My older daughter will be here later today with my other two grandkids!  Spring break!

Linking up with Small Quilts and Doll Quilts.

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.

A Couple of Finishes and a Visit

After my big basting spree (I actually added one more since my last post) I was able to quilt and bind two of the quilts and I am working on two more.  It feels so good to have some finishes!

A fellow teacher is undergoing cancer treatment right now and she has been so complimentary of my quilts and likes purple so I quilted this up from my basted pile and it was delivered to her last week.  She loves it and said the colors are perfect.  I have so many quilts it feels great to be able to gift them.  This is not paper pieced, it's one of the stack and slash style quilts.

quilting closeup, I had fun doodling

I pieced this top 4 years ago and 30's are not my style of fabrics!  My oldest daughter likes them so her room here at home is decorated with 30's quilts that I have accumulated over the years.  I had assumed I would put this there eventually, but I found out about a quilt shop owner that has never received the gift of a quilt and I enjoy her quilt retreats and I finished this quilt (Thursday night!) and dropped it off to her Friday on our way to visit our daughters.  She loves it.  I had a ruler and made 21 dresdens.  9 of them were made into a wallhanging and I sold it to my wedding singer.  I came up with this setting for the rest of the blocks.

quilting closeup

As I mentioned we made a weekend trip to visit our daughters and grandkids.  My husband finished the fall farm work and we hadn't gotten to see the twins since the end of July and the other two kids since the first week of August.

oldest daughter's kids 

My four grand-kids - two sets of cousins!

younger daughter's twins, almost a year old!

 We went for a family hike.

 Salmon River Canyon on the drive home.   My husband did a river search here with our dog for an accident victim.  This is actually on the straighter part of the drive home up through central Idaho!

linking up with Design Wall Monday

Vacations!

I haven't posted in quite a while.  There are lots of good reasons.  First off I was working on a wedding quilt, and hopefully get to finally post pics next week as I mailed it today.  To make this a quilting post, yesterday I actually sewed!  I used up some leftover strip sets from a msytery quilt and made this little 15" square wallhaning.  I happened to have some silk flowers I took apart and stitched on and added some beads and fun machine quilting.  A quickie little project for my stairwell.

Now, the rest of the post is about my trips and family!

In June my sister received an unexpected surprise and won a trip for two to Washington D.C.  I was her guest as her husband couldn't take off on short notice, since we already had another trip scheduled, more on that in a bit!  I drove to Boise June 21 and at least got to see my grandkids.  The twins were 7 months old at the time.  I will post a pic of the other two later in the post.

Remy (left) and Finn

We took off on June 22nd and did some touring of  D.C. before her awards conference for the Presidential Award for Math and Science Teaching (PAEMST).  She is a 6th grade math teacher.  We have a high school friend who works at the Pentagon and he gave us a private tour on the weekend.  We walked miles!  

Beautiful display in the Pentagon.  There were many quilts on the walls that they rotate given in memory of 9-11

 My sister and I went to all the monuments, Arlington Cemetary, Smithsonians (I went to one more than my sister when she was busy, as well as the Capitol and gardens) saw friends of my sisters for lunches from her time of her husband's two tours at West Point, and we went to the awards banquet at the National Portrait gallery.  It was lovely!

awards dinner with my name card!  We had assigned seating.

I flew home from Boise and flew back down three days later to take off on a long planned trip to Maine to a wedding.  I flew with my other sister to Niagara Falls first and then we drove across to Maine, stopping to look at many covered bridges in Vermont.  It's so hard to pick just a few pictures!  We had a great road trip!  We also crossed over to the Canadian side and got lots of great pics from there and we loved the Maid of the Mist boat tour.

American Falls, Bridal Veil and Horseshoe Falls from front to back.

One of many covered bridges we saw

 When we arrived in Bethel, Maine on the day of the wedding rehearsal we met up with my daughter, her husband and their two kids.  They had been on a different schedule, but had also flown into Niagara a day earlier than I had!  My sister and I took the kids for the morning of the wedding and went to a couple more covered bridges in Maine.  

Then on July 6th was the wedding!  Nicole was the flower girl and Jared walked with her as a sign bearer.  The groom is their mom's first cousin.

 The happy couple Kristine and Mike! 

 After the wedding both sisters, my BIL, nephew (best man for his brother), my daughter, SIL and grandkids and I went to the coast.  It was my first time seeing the Atlantic ocean and the grandkids loved it!  We went to Acadia National Park.  The next day we drove on down the coast stopping at lighthouses.  We left my daughter's family in Portland, ME to fly home and the rest of us went on to Boston.  My nephew flew home (he is also an Army officer stationed in Texas) from there and the other 4 of us went to Cape Cod and toured around Boston walking a lot of the Freedom Trail.  We flew home from there and I finally drove home on July 11th!

me at Acadia

one of several lighthouses

Since arriving home I machine quilted the king size wedding quilt (the couple lives in Kentucky, so it needed to be mailed), and I have done a deep clean and some painting in my house in anticipation of having a big birthday this weekend!  I am throwing my own party!

Easter, quilts and kids!

I thought I would share an Easter quilt I have had for years.  I used to do a lot of round robins, row robins, block robins, etc.  This is one I made the center for and was delighted with what I got back!  I should have steamed out the fold in the center.

center block closeup

I finished quilting this Washington State Internet yahoo group quilt.  I collected the blocks 13-18 years ago and have had the top in my stash for YEARS!  I custom quilted each block and bound it in black.

I was trying to show the blocks on the top row, but wasn't successful!  It was nice enough weather to go out in my back pasture for photos.

Last year I cut up a bunch of earthy batik strips and some sashing.  The pattern is in one of my Jelly Roll quilt books.  I was at a retreat last April and one woman ran out of projects!  Unheard of for me, I always bring way too much!  I handed her this packet and she sewed up a bunch of blocks.  Last week I sewed up a bunch more and got the top assembled this weekend.  Now it will go into my to be quilted pile and will eventually be donated.

My oldest daughter and two kids were here during spring break this past week.  Nicole will be 4 in May and discovered her mom and aunt's Barbies.  She had a field day!  They had so many growing up and LOTS of accessories.  Some of the things have gone by the wayside (like the Barbie car and beds) and a few more went away when I was cleaning things up, but wow, she spent HOURS and HOURS playing with them and has quite the imagination.  She was wearing her princess costume!

 I didn't seem to get any pictures of Jared by himself!  He is 6 1/2 and was with my husband continually!  He loves being Grandpa's shadow on the farm!

 The twins weren't here visiting, but here are a couple pictures.  They are almost 4 1/2 months old now!  Finn and Remy!

Linking up with Design Wall Monday and Monday Making.