Lots of Quilting and House Flooding

 My last post was on Jan. 10th.  On January 12th my husband called me at work at 12:15.  He said get home now, we have flooding.  My boss sent my co-worker with me and she improvised with all the students for the afternoon.  (22 students K-6)  It turns out a supply line on an upstairs toilet burst and flooded through the main floor and into the basement.  It was a huge mess (still is).  I called the only carpet cleaning service in town and they were able to come out and with their big machines and suck up water and brought fans and dehumidifiers.  We had sheetrock and flooring damage and finally have a contractor ready to start repairs next week.  It's been tough to find someone.  The insurance company was great, they have already paid us for what the adjuster came up with.  

Then we had a second flood last week.  We have a small water heater in the kitchen under a corner cabinet.  It is above my sewing room in the basement.  Yep, it started leaking and water was pouring down on my cutting table.  It is ruined.  Thankfully the ceiling and flooring had not been replaced yet!  So.... upon installation of a new water heater we purchased Friday... we had a third flood in the kitchen under the sink!  I think we are done now.  I am just looking forward to having flooring and walls and ceiling again!

Back to quilting!  I really have gotten a lot done in the last month, even with all the disruptions and disorganization of my house, although not a single bit of actual machine quilting, just piecing.

First off I am doing a Brown Bag Mystery called Double the Fun.  It starts in March, but the participating shops are selling the bags with cutting instructions ahead of time.  You get to see a strip of one fabric and the rest is a mystery!  One of my my bags is a Me and My Sister Design bag and one is a Tula Pink bag.  This should be fun.  Bags are still available online!

I have been doing a block of the month through Your Best Friends Quilt Shop.  It is done on a Ten Sisters design grid and the squares are one inch finished!  

This top is made of strips leftover from the twins quilts I made last fall.  It is a large throw size and will be finished as a donation quilt to a church group with a lot of outreach programs.

I am participating in the Tula Pink Nebula BOM.  Here are the first two months.

This is a block of the week I am doing through Your Best Friend's Quilt Shop.  The owner loves 30's.  I am unsure how this is going together.  I think we are supposed to get 50 blocks.  It is definitely not my style, but the blocks are fun to make.

Snowman quilt shop sample

Bees shop sample

Snippets Shop Sample - love the colors!

Gnomes - shop sample

Dresden quilt - shop sample.  This one was all cut and with the tops all sewn.  I just had to assemble and applique the wedges!

Bees - pattern by Krista Moser.  I took a class from her and loved this quilt and I got to make it as a shop sample.

Linking up with Design Wall Monday.

Still Quilting!

 I honestly have no excuses for not posting photos.  I did post some of them on Instagram.  I got very depressed with the holidays and things not being "normal".  I have nothing to complain about, we are healthy, we have jobs, our children and grandchildren are healthy, but working at a school and dealing with masking took it's toll along with winter blahs.  I do worry a lot about all the families affected by virus.  It has been a rough year for so many people, so I told myself to pull it together!

However, I did keep quilting, it kept my sanity!  I don't even have pictures of everything I made.  I switched phones and thought I transferred everything, but everything is out of order.  I also have a new computer.  Yes, nothing like new electronics to drive a person crazy!  

These won't be in the order I made them, but here goes!

A year ago when I visited my daughter and grandkids in Kentucky, she asked me to make a new tree skirt.  Their tree is decorated all with yellow duck ornaments (I also make or buy the twins yellow duck ornaments every year).  I had these navy Sparkle Suede fabrics and they seemed to set off the yellow ducks.  I had them for another project, obviously I hadn't started that project.  I drafted the pattern myself based on the size of their center opening in their tree holder.  It arrived in time to spend December under their tree!

I was commissioned to make a T-shirt quilt for a sort of relative by marriage. The weather was terrible and I didn't get outside pics so the pics are on my basement floor.  This is an original design/layout.

A friend and I participated in the Merry Mayhem New Year's mystery.  I am not a fan of green, but I loved the new line of fabric called Blooming Bunch for Maureen McCormick from the Brady Bunch.  I do like the layout of this mystery quilt and I really did piece it in one day!

From the same line of fabric I made three aprons.  The toddler size is in the picture.  I also made three tablerunners for my friend's quilt shop.

This is a topper/wallhanging I made this weekend.  It turned out pretty cute!  It is about 30" square.

The next two are for my friend's shop.

I made this tablerunner for a gift.  I loved the dimensional poinsettias.  I used red batiks.  It is hard to see the silver sparkles in the background.

Okay, I will try to keep up with reading blogs and posting on mine!

Linking up to Design Wall Monday.

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.

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.

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.

Mystical Prism Quilt Top

I assembled the top for my Mystical Prism quilt.  I am shocked it is together after only having 3 blocks done last week.  It went together well and I am thrilled with the colors.  I took photos outside by myself and that was tricky as the wind came up!  The quilt is huge, 102 X 102.

Mystical Prism Quilt

I love the effect of taking a picture of the backside of the quilt top as it was blowing in the wind.  I had it clothes pinned to our old duck pen.

 Linking up with Alycia for Finished or Not Friday.