Sunday, January 24, 2021

A Couple Goals for the New Year

I haven't really prepared a list of goals for 2021, but I do have one specific goal and that is to finish a queen size quilt that will be a wedding gift for a grandchild.  I think I explained earlier that I wanted to have a quilt for each of my five grandchildren's wedding prepared so that in case I am not here when they do get married, they will each get a quilt.  This is my last one.

I have decided to make an on point medallion quilt.  I have 13 12" blocks made (I will need one more).  I got the block patterns from Barbara Brackman's blog (civilwarquilts.blogspot.com) .  I saw this medallion design on her blog (I believe) and liked it, so I reproduced it.  At least, I thought it was from her blog.  Now I can't find it.  I will need to add sashing so it each side will equal 2 blocks.  The upper left edge has some blue and off white fabric that I will probably use as borders for the medallion.


You might be able to get an idea of the layout from how I put them up on my design wall.  This isn't the final layout, but I saw a lot of medallion quilts in Pinterest with this same design.  Each of the 12" blocks will have a 1" border.  Then I will need to make the setting triangles and make the border - probably 2 or 3 that will make it come out to the size needed.  The setting triangles will probably be blue and I hope I can find a nice border print for the final border.


When I was looking for a medallion pattern to use, this is the quilt that I was inspired by.


In my last post, I showed you some blocks like this and I have made some more and put them in a box.  I have a lot of the pieces cut and will work on this from time to time.


I also cut some pieces to make the same block out of these fabrics.  The squares on the top right will be the center block and the smaller squares will be used to make the points of the star.  These will measure 9" and will be used to possibly make a baby quilt or some table runners.

In between sewing, I am working on family history.  My sister brought a cassette tape that my Dad had made about his life.  I borrowed a tape player from my neighbor and transcribed it - 7 pages!  Then I started looking for more tapes to transcribe that I know we have somewhere, but I couldn't find them anywhere.  While I was looking, I did find a lot of old letters and pictures and I decided to start writing up my life story.  I have 3 pages so far.  I found some old "Date books" - the kind we used to get from card stores - like hallmark.  Actually, my parents had a gift shop and sold Hallmark cards, so 2 of the date books were from their store. The one that say's Gibson was for 1962 and that's the year they bought that store (in Elgin, IL) They got Hallmark cards sometime after that.  I had entered the dates I had with my DH - the first date was January 22, 1960!  It has been fun to find old love letters from him (that I had forgotten about), some things I had written down.  I didn't have a diary, but at times I did write things in a note book.  Luckily, I still had them and also some articles from the school paper, etc.


I will try to post more often from now on.  And visit blogs more often.  It seems like the time is going by so fast and I am so busy.  Isn't it weird?  But I'm finally getting some things done that needed to be done, so that's good.

6 comments:

  1. I love your inspiration medallion block. The smaller blocks look like they might be from Barbara Brackman's Westering Women BOM a few years back? My sister and nephew do all the family history research so I happily spend my time stitching. Have fun transcribing the other tapes when you locate them!

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  2. That definitely is a beautiful medallion pattern! I stared at it several minutes, and I think I may have to try to make it too! I've made very few goals for 2021. I do hope to get all my Civil War blocks pieced together so at least anyone after me could know what I had in mind for making all those different blocks years ago! Glad you will be blogging more; I do hope to get started again too! It's been too long, but I really haven't had anything to write about. Hope 2021 gets better for all of us! ---"Love"

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  3. I love the medallion. I love the antique quilt you got your inspiration from. What a beauty! Are the blocks surrounding your medallion from the Westering Woman BOM? They look familiar to me. What a great idea to write down those old tapes. It's not easy to find a machine to read such tapes anymore. Good old paper and ink needs to machine to reveal the message. ;^)

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  4. Well, I love family history and I think it is terrific you are preparing information about your life. My grandmother made (crocheted or knitted?) afghans for each grandchild when they married. I treasure mine!! I also have a diary of hers in her teen years. It seems once my grandfather asked to marry her, she stopped writing in it.
    Love the start you've got on the medallion.

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  5. Nice blocks, like the medallion pattern! I am from Sandwich,Illinois, which is an hour from Elgin. Just wanted to say hello.

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  6. your medallion looks great. what a lot of pieces!
    I really like the colors in the inspiration quilt too.
    Happy New Year!

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