Fair results

This is the photo that won a 3rd place in it's category. It is from 2 separate pictures of the Epcot ball at Disney World and the Castle. I had the photo place make them into 1 picture. The proprieter said he didn't think it would work, but it did and I really like the picture.

 

I am so pleased and excited that this quilt took best of show. I just love the way it turned out. This picture was taken before the binding was put on. For some reason the pic with it completed doesn't want to load.

 

I got a really nice surprise yesterday. I posted the other picture of this quilt on a quilting website group I belong too. Bonnie Hunter, who is a very popular quilter than travels the world teaching and has written several books, saw it and posted the picture on her blog. If you go to www.quiltville.com you can see what she does. Click on her link to her blog and scroll down until you see pictures on the left side. There will be a '>' just above the pictures that will take you to her photo page. Click on the picture of my quilt and you will see her comments. I feel honored that she posted it.

 

 

 

Anniversary

Fifty years ago we said 'I do' to a lifetime of love and friendship. This man has been by my side through thick and thin. Always loving, always giving and always confident I can do anything. Together we have raised 4 children that we are very proud of and though they may sometimes make choices we don't understand, they are very good people. We have been blessed.

Another One Done

Finished the baby quilt. I used a couple charm packs for this one. The first charm pack was Goldilocks fabrics and the other was an assortment of pastel colors, with a pastel border. It was an easy and fast quilt to make.

 

I'm pleased with the combination of bright and soft colors. I used my machine for sew all of the binding. With baby quilts I like to do everything by machine since they will get a lot more wear and tear.

These were fabrics I had picked up some time back, so, another quilt that I didn't buy any new material for.

Church Fundraiser

Finally got the quilt for the Church Car Show done. It will be dropped off at church on Wednesday.

 

This was done by paper-piecing from a Judy Niemeyer pattern. I love the color play in this one. Hopefully it will get a good home. Now on to other projects that don't have a deadline to them.

Quilt progress

 

 

This is the progress I have made so far with the fundraiser quilt. Still have a lot of work to do on it.

 

Things are greening up nicely here. The Lilacs are in bloom as are the fruit trees. It is truly one of the prettiest times of the year. Need to get out and weed the flower gardens and get some seeds sowed. Hopefully we are done with the frosty nights. Every once in a while we will see a couple of our deer chasing each other at the back end of our property. It is such fun to watch them.

Easy Quilt

This is a quilt I made for our local Hospice group that has 2 summer camps each year for children who have lost someone. They run a camp for the young children and a second one for older children. They like to be able to give each of them a quilt to keep.

This is a very quick and easy quilt to make. It takes one Jelly Roll and enough 2 1/2" squares of a light or dark color to go between each of the strips. You sew all the strips together as they come off the jelly roll with a block in between each. Then you just bring the 2 ends together and sew the whole length snipping the fold when you get to the end. You bring the opposite ends together again and sew until the end and repeat this until you have the quilt made.

Disappearing 4-Patch Block

This is  a great project for charm packs. With 5 inch squares of fabric, make a 4-Patch block. You then cut the block 1 inch from the center in all 4 directions.

 

 

 

Trade the top left block with the top right block and do the same with the bottom row. The center block is turned once either to the right or left.

 

 

 

Sew the blocks across together into rows like for a 9-Patch and then sew the rows together. This gives an interesting and fun block.

 



 

 

 

This is the quilt that can be made from this block. You can move the block around to a pleasing arrangement.



Jo's Club Quilt Show and other thoughts.

Yesterday was the Jo's Club Quilt Show. A culmination of the past year making miniature quilts. Unfortunately I had so many projects going last year I didn't get around to making any of them. There are 5 different groups that meet once a month to get that month's pattern and have discussion on what we need to know, show and tell and socializing. There are up to 20 people in each group.

 

 

The quilts range in size from the smallest at 13 1/2 x 15 1/2 to the largest which is 43 x 52. The individual blocks in each quilt average about 2 to 4 inches. A 4-patch would only be 2 inches square, so mistakes really show. The ladies did a fabulous job. These are only a few of the quilts that were hanging all around the shop. Next month we start our next session.

 



 

This is our Mr. Wilson on the left and Miss Suzi Q on the right. Wilson needs to be crated when we are out as he cannot be trusted to stay out of trouble. Suzi Q on the other hand can be left on her own and usually curls up in one of their many beds. For some reason the other day she decided she wanted to be in the crate with Wilson and wouldn't get out. We figured that after being caged with him one time she wouldn't want to do it again. Apparently she likes it. Yesterday she got in and wouldn't get out again. So I took a picture of the jailbirds. LOL

 

We are heading into another couple days of a deep freeze and still have tons of snow out there. We are getting every bird in the city at our 2 feeders. The other day we had over 15 Mourning Doves as well as the usual assortment of Chicadees, Cardinals, Blue Jays, etc.

Deep Freeze

It is not as cold as some places, but -35 wind chill is enough for now. Glad we don't have to be outside.

 

Our pines are beautiful with all the snow on them. We have about 15" of snow far deeper than my boots are tall. I'll have to figure something else out to go walk around. Maybe big garbage bags?

 

Thanks to my Christmas present from our kids, I was able to get a good picture of one of our Cardinals. We have at least 4 males, but they are so skiddish any movement and they are gone.



 

 

Anyone up for some barbecue? It is buried in there somewhere. I guess we won't be barbecueing for a couple days at least. ;)

 

We haven't lost our power so far, so it has been a great time to stay cozy in the house. Our neighbor came and plowed our driveway on Sunday. It sure did look nice until the wind picked up and it all blew back. So, we are still snowed in. Need a snowplow!!

 

Wilson doesn't stay out any longer than he absolutely has to. He starts limping if he is out longer than a few seconds right now. Miss Suzi Q doesn't like it either unless, of course, she can chase a squirrel. Then all bets are off. It is so deep neither the squirrel nor Suzi can move very fast. Supposed to have a heat wave this weekend. It might get up to 30 deg. out.

Snow Days

 

The pines were glorious after the ice & snow storms. Fortunately no major damage on our property.

 

There is a path here somewhere. The branches here are usually about the height of my head...now they are almost touching the ground. It took some navigating to get through the usual path.

 

And then, at the end were these berries with ice hanging from them. Since then it warmed up enough that the snow and ice is off the trees waiting for the next snowfall.

 

The days before and after Christmas were busy with family. Now I am starting to re-organize my sewing room to have a new start on the new year of sewing. Once the cleaning is done I will be working on a disappearing 4-patch quilt for the WIC program.

 

Happy New Year everyone.

Winter Wonderland

There are a lot of parts of the winter months that we don't like, especially driving on the slippery roads like we did last weekend. Yuck. It also isn't a lot of fun getting bundled up all the time.

This, however, I never get tired of. The trees are magnificent, especially the pines. Our dogs are very different regarding the snow. Wilson doesn't like it at all, but Suzi Q loves jumping around in it and sniffing our any wildlife she can find.

My sewing machine is in getting cleaned so no machine work for a few days. Sewing room needs a good deal of organizing again and I have my hand-piecing. So as usual lots to do.

Hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year.

The best backing fabric

Found this fabric that was perfect for the back of the car show t-shirt quilt. I just love it.

 

Our friend will get his quilt tonight. I wonder how long it will take him to realize his car is on the quilt.

2 More Down...almost

Well the tops and backings are done for the quilts for 2 great-nephews. One is 4 months old and the other is to be born sometime this month.

This quilt I made from a layer cake pack that I had picked up some time ago. Decided to put sashing with corner stones. It went together very quickly and measures about 52 x 64.

 

 

The second quilt I made with a panel that I had and just added some quick and easy blocks with a couple borders. I think the bears are so cute. It will be a great one for the baby to be born this month.

 

Now they just need to be quilted and the binding put on and they will be ready for Christmas.

The great unveiling

The t-shirt quilt is now ready for the long-armer. It was a new experience for me as I have never made one before. I think I would like to try using a more medium weight stabilizer if I do it again; I think the light weight had a little more give than I liked.

I'll have to take a picture of the backing when it is done as I forgot to while it was on the wall. This is the center of the quilt with pictures of his car.

And, 'tada' here is the quilt. I'm glad I did each one with the same amount of border from the design instead of each block being the same size. Now I am anxious to get it quilted, bound and given to our friend.

This is the quilt made for #2 son's mother-in-law who has cancer. She is a wonderful lady whose company we have truly enjoyed.

 

The fall colors are starting to come out and our burning bush's are beautiful. I always wanted to get one, and now I have a whole row of them. The colors on the trees aren't as bright as last year so far, but they are beautiful anyway. This is my favorite time of year. The warm days and cool nights feel so good after the hot summer weather.

 





A WIN

Entered my 'grandma you're crazy' quilt in a local show. I won first place (viewers choice) in the pieced division. That means I get to take it back there next year to show among the other winners.

This quilt was so much fun to do. I love to see my handpieced quilts develop a little at a time.

I noticed recently that I hadn't set any goals for this year as to what I would get accomplished. Probably a good thing as life's events have kept me from doing much of what I would have listed at the beginning of the year. We will see how it works out for 2014. I still have 4 quilts to get done before the end of the year.

Patriot Quilts

Our Quilt Guild did 2 group quilts. One is totally completed and the second the top is done and is off to the long armers.

 

This one was made from a Fons & Porter kit that I had for years and never got too. I donated it to the group and different people worked on the blocks of their choosing. Amazingly very few of the blocks came in at the wrong size so it was fairly easy to assemble. We will raffle it off at our Quilt Affair in 2 weeks. It really turned out good.

 

 

This one was basically the same blocks with everyone using fabrics of their own. It will be raffled off to a member at some later date. There are a few differences with this one. Some people did extra blocks and there were some blocks not done at all. I used the extras that were done so some of the blocks in the first one aren't in this one. On this one I did the flags and the 2nd block down on the left under the stars in circles.

 

I enjoyed doing this project, but am glad to finally have both of them gone.



WIC Quilt

This is the 1st of a few quilts that I will be doing for the WIC program. I love the circus theme, and the striped fabric reminds of the circus tent. Hope to do a few more for that program when I have more time.

I should have pictures of 2 group quilts soon.

Balloon Glow

This year the hot air balloons haven't been able to launch. Too much rain in the area or too much wind. Disappointing. It is so much fun to watch then ride the airstream. They did set up to do a glow last night. They can be quite beautiful. This is a picture from last year's glow. We didn't hang around for it this year. It was just too muggy. It is really pretty when they do a twinkle. That is when they turn their burners on and off quickly so the different balloons flash like Christmas lights. Hopefully next year will be a better year for it.

 

 

Car show quilt

The car show quilt is done. It took me awhile to come up with an idea that I liked for it. Found the fabrics for the blocks on ebay. This is a lap size quilt about 42" square, and I am pleased with the way it turned out.