Design Wall Monday Plus!

Even though things have been crazy, I have made some accomplishments.  Last Monday I posted fabrics for a Quilt of Valor and I am happy to say before the end of that day I had the top completed!  This was a donation kit and not my normal style at all.  I am just not sure of the striped fabric, but I followed the instructions.  I wanted to make sure I had enough fabrics that were included.

Quilt of Valor

This week I also finished the top to Gentle Moments, but realized I messed up the outer borders going vertical.  I had measured but not written the measurement down and thought I knew the correct length and sewed the border on.  With all the bias it sewed on great, but now makes the quilt wavy!  It's 2" too long on each lengthwise side so that will be fixed.  I can't believe I did that!  I will still add another border around to make it queen size, but don't have yardage so that is in the thinking stages.

Gentle Moments

During the process of sewing Gentle Moments and other blocks I have been sewing 2" squares together.  I sewed most of them in groups of 8.  I was originally going to make a block that was 8 X 8 squares (12" finished) and then sash them but started doodling on graph paper and came up with this.   I have some of the pieces on the design wall below.  I need to sew more pieces and the fabric in all the blank areas will be the purple shown.  It will be a donation quilt for a child or teen.

bright strips and background

The other big news is my new sink and faucet.  I asked for a new faucet for Christmas (Doug needs help in the idea dept.) and thought I asked in plenty of time to get the faucet for Thanksgiving when we hosted his family.  Nope, then because of the care needed for his father, it didn't happen at Christmas either.  Doug's dad passed away New Year's Eve and January has been rather busy.  We are also now fixing up our rental house and went off to Home Depot Saturday.  Sunday was spent installing the new sink and faucet!  I LOVE it!

old sink

new sink and faucet!

 Linking up with Patchwork Times!

An Amazing Gift

I realized I had not posted about this incredible gift of a quilt we received from my friend Melissa Devin in December.  Last year she asked if she could make us a quilt out of my son Brad's t-shirts.  For the story of his death in 2013 go here.  Brad was not a super involved person but had shirts from track (districts and state), U of I shirts, Mexico trip shirts, Geography Bee shirts and other miscellaneous ones.  I got the shirts to Mel in August and in December an incredible package arrived.  She was so worried about the quilt because she somehow has the idea I can quilt well, but she did AMAZING!  I LOVE the design, I LOVE The fabrics and I LOVE The quilting.  Yes, I am yelling!  The wheat fabric she used is phenomenal.  She used dog prints and outdoorsy flannels on the back, two of his great loves.  For the story of Brad's involvement in wheat breeding go here.  Thank you Mel, we love the quilt and it's very snuggly.

backing and one leftover shirt

wheat fabric sashing

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!

Grand Illusion Mystery Finished!

I finished the top to Quiltville's Grand Illusion Mystery!  I chose to not go scrappy with this quilt and I also wanted to enlarge it a bit to be rectangular.  I somehow had extra pink and blue half squares so I incorporated those into expanding a top and bottom border.  I love the graphics of this quilt.  I coudln't get away from adding purple somewhere, it's in the polka dot black print!

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

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.

Quiltville Mystery

I am doing the Bonnie Hunter mystery on Quiltville this year.  I did Easy Street two years ago, still not quilted, but the top is done.

Bonnie's quilts are typically scrappy, but I decided to just use yardage.  I bought a light green for a background and a black with polka dots for the black, but everything else was from my stash.  I had 3 yellows to choose from and finally settled on this one.

 I don't have all the units sewn together since I just started this project Sunday night but here are some of my first units.   I am linking up to the quiltville page here.

We had a busy Thanksgiving week with our daughter Amy, her husband Nate and their two kids here for the week.  Our daughter Lisa and husband Kevin arrived Wednesday.  We hosted dinner for 34 people, with WAY too much food!  Everyone brings several courses.  Here are pictures of the grandkids before they left Saturday.

Jared - 3

Nicole - 6 months

Design Wall Monday - new quilt tops

I have accomplished things lately, but haven't posted for awhile.  I am posting pics of two quilt tops finished recently.  One had been on my design wall for quite some time and finally I just started sewing the leftover pieces from the two black/brown/gray quilts tops I made this year.  I added a touch of blue for a spark and I really like that.

This one is the second dresden plate quilt from the same set of blocks I made this year.  I hand appliqued the dresden's in place.  I think I like the 30's without green and I hadn't realized that before.







I went to The Washington State Guild quilt show this past weekend.  I saw lots of great quilts and was totally enamored with Fire Island Hosta by Judy Niemeyer.  I had seen pics of the quilts before but seeing one in person...  I bought the pattern and I'm dreaming of fabrics. 

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.

September is Flying By!

Wow, I do not know where this month has gone and I haven't posted a thing!  I was so busy going back to work on Sept. 2nd, the fair and getting ready for and going to a quilt retreat I didn't blog.  I didn't have anything to show really.  Now I do! 

I was trying to come up with a retreat project and found a Judy Niemeyer pattern called The Crown of Thorns in my stash from 2004.  I had almost all the fabrics, just bought two lights.  I had it all cut and I spent the entire retreat sewing on this quilt top!  I need to cut more strips for the border.  It is very definitely my colors!  It finishes at 70 X 70.

 The retreat in McCall, ID was sponsored by Quilt Taffy .  It was a lot of fun and I especially enjoyed my friend Valerie flying in from Colorado.  I took my featherweight for her to use, I honestly have never used it!  I bought this grouping of fat 1/8's.  I don't normally buy a grouping with the same prints just in different colors, but the modernness and graphics really grabbed me.  On an outing to Huckleberry Patches quilt shop I found a pattern to use with them.  That will be a surprise for later. 

 This is not a great pic, but this is the queen size quilt I made for Lisa and Kevin's wedding.  I finally finished it and they took it home a couple weeks ago.  The background is dark brown and the outer rings are hand appliqued to the background.  I was changing the pattern from curved edges to straight and this is all I could come up with to do.

Linking up to Patchwork Times Design Wall Monday.

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

August UFO #30

Today I did the dreaded house cleaning and got a queen size quilt pin basted and started quilting.  It's going well.  I wound 10 bobbins to start with, it will be interesting to see how many I actually use! 

Today's UFO is one I keep forgetting about.  It's a Block of the Month kit I inherited from my friend Vicki several years ago.  I forgot that I even had gotten three rows done!  I tried to take a picture of the pattern picture, but it's shiny paper.  This one isn't super high on my finish list, but hopefully next year!

August UFO #29

Today was shopping day.  Friday of Labor Day weekend is not the best time to shop but I survived.

This UFO is a HUGE stack of odd blocks.  Some were from swaps, some were samples, some were given to me, some I didn't use in block robins, just a big mountain of blocks that I haven't begun to count.  Someday I will sort them out and I know I even have more blocks elsewhere.  I can make a "Thimbleberries" type quilt, an animal quilt, a jar quilt, etc.  Lots and lots and lots of blocks!

August UFO #28

It's almost the end of the month and I am still coming up with UFO's in my collection to post!  This morning I canned green beans, it figures the garden is producing well and it's time to go back to work.  I had meetings this week and school starts Tuesday.

This UFO was from an internet group swap, but not as old as some of mine!  We swapped the scrappy blocks and I chose to set it with the Twist and Turn method.  This is one scrap quilt that actually made a dent in my scraps!  I set up another table for basting today so I threw the quilt over it for the picture.

 

August UFO #27

Yesterday I showed a red and white quilt and today is another one!  Yes, I have two of them needing quilting when my husband didn't think red and white looked like me!  This was from a birthday yahoo group, I picked the pattern, they made blocks. 









When I was in Wenatchee last weekend we went to the Farmer's Market.  I bought some wonderful sweet corn and at the huge indoor facility they have I found this awesome wood basket.  It's out of a Noble Fir tree burl.  I love it!

August UFO #26

Several years ago I took an unfinished red and white lonestar quilt from my mother-in-law's sewing room and finished it for her for Christmas.  She had Alzheimer's and was no longer sewing.  My husband Doug walked into my sewing room when it was on my design wall and said "That doesn't look like you".  He knew what I was planning on doing for his mom, but hadn't seen it.  I wondered why it didn't that look like me and he said it's red and white.  Well....  I was in a group that was making blocks for each other so I had them make red and white blocks and I have this top.  Of course I haven't quilted it... 

Design Wall Monday and August UFO #25

My design wall hasn't changed since last Monday and you can see that post here.
However I have added a few more stitches to the borders of the wool quilt.  I am linking up to Judy L.'s design wall Monday here.

My UFO of the day is an unusual quilt in the sense of fabric choice.  I bought the fabric from the former Lura's quilt shop in Orofino in the 90's.  At some point I made a 4 patch stack and whack out of the fabric and sashed it with fabrics on hand.  Now what to do with a foodie quilt?  I am not sure.  I could use it as a picnic quilt, although that happens infrequently.  A friend gave me some french fry fabric and I had some candy bar fabric so those will be used on the back.

block closeup

Last week I went to visit a friend and her husband in Wenatchee, WA.  It's a 5 hour drive each way.  Friday we went to Chelan, WA, a place I had never been.  This is a picture of the lake and from the winery where we had lunch, which is the other picture.  We went to the quilt shop there, it's cute and a nice variety of fabrics.

August UFO #24

I'm gearing up for back to school meetings this week, we actually start back with students Sept. 2.  We have done a big clea nout of a lot of areas in our little school over the summer.  Two classrooms, a gym and a former apartment, now storage makes up the whole building!  Oh and a small kitchen.  I still have a bit of organizing left for my kindergarten and first graders.

This is... you guessed it... another old UFO top.  I was in a LOT of round robins/block robins/block robins, even vest robins for a few years, more than 25 of them.  We kept the U.S. mail hopping back then!  This was a block robin and yes, I need to quilt it, like so many other tops in my collection!  I love basket blocks and will need to get this done... someday!

August UFO #23

As I mentioned previously I got involved in swaps on the internet and made a lot of friends.  I became particularly close to two women who both passed away and whom I acquired things from.  Vicki from SC was heavily involved in the Pat Sloan internet group and Debi from WA was a fan as well.  I did make several of the Pat's designs and was involved in several swaps and she also designed several fabric lines.  Through Vicki and Deb I seemed to have acquired a lot of Pat's fabric.  Honestly some of it really wasn't my color choices but I had a HUGE bin of it so a few years ago there were postings on You Tube about the "10 minute block".  Next thing I knew I was cutting fabric and made a queen size top.  I don't find it super attractive and have no clue why I made it so the top sits in my cupboard!  Be careful, if you say you like it you will probably end up with it!

August UFO #22

I did not make this top.  A few years ago my guild had a UFO auction.  I took a couple things, but came home with more than I went there with!  It was fun though.  The rest of the fabrics were included in the bag so I have to decide what to do.  It's a large wallhanging size right now.  I could just quilt it and bind it with one of the darker colors.  Decisions, decisions!