UNCLE HENRY'S BARN

Thanks for all the great suggestions for my barn quilt name!  I ended up taking one of my sister's ideas, which really seemed to be the right name.  When we were kids, we would go to visit my Mom's aunts, uncles and cousins in Minnesota every summer and we always stayed with Uncle Henry and Aunt Gertrude.  I even spent over a month there the summers I turned 13 and 14 - it is a very fond memory.  So "Uncle Henry's Barn" seemed right.

I finished the house quilt, which I named "16 Houses"!  That name was pretty obvious for me.  I love how it turned out.

When I was looking for backing in my fabric closet, I noticed these blocks I had made for a quilt that I gave my brother and SIL.  I had made the top too large and taken these blocks off, so I decided to use them on the back.  I had just enough of the yellow fabric, which has eagles flying across the back.

I wanted to share a couple more pictures of the doll quilt that I received in Lori's doll quilt exchange. The doll, named Albert (after my grandpa), was my Mom's doll and is about 100 years old.  He doesn't look that old, does he?  He has new hair and shoes and I made him some clothes a few years ago.  I think a doll quilt should have pictures taken with a doll.

The quilt I received is large enough to wrap Albert up in it.

My next project will be a quilt of valor for my son who is retiring from the Air Force.  His retirement ceremony is supposed to be June 8 but we don't know yet if it will take place.  Once I decided to make him a quilt (which will be a lap quilt), I ordered a panel with eagles on it and have decided I want to have a flying geese border made out of red, white and blue grunge fabric, so I hope I can get some of that fabric locally or I will have to order it on line.  I need to get going on it!!

Thanks for visiting!  Hope you are all well.

DOLL QUILT FOR EXCHANGE

This is the doll quilt that I made for Kim, and she has received it now, so I can post it here.  I saw an antique doll quilt like this on pinterest that had been made circa 1870 - 1890, so I thought I would try to make a duplicate.  I didn't know what to use for the border, but I was digging through my stash and found this fabric which was perfect and it had the cheddar in it, so I used some cheddar for the basket and binding.

I machine quilted it since I really can't do much hand sewing any more.

This was a lot of fun!  Thanks, Lori!!

DOLL QUILT EXCHANGE

 Lori of Humble Quilts is having a doll quilt exchange and I am participating this year.  As soon as I get the label on this quilt, I will be mailing it off.   It measures 16 1/4" square and is made with all civil war reproduction fabrics.  Every border is a different fabric, as are the stars.

This backing toile was a small piece of fabric that I found at an estate sale recently.

A blogging friend of mine, Joanne Kerton, has a table runner pattern published in the June, 2016 issue of American Patchwork and Quilting Magazine.  Congratulations, Joanne!!  The table runner is amazing and is paper pieced.  Now that I have had a lot more practice with PPing, I think I'll give this a try, since I love to have different table runners on hand for each season.

It shows three table runners made exactly the same way, but using different color fabrics for very different looks.  I hope they aren't too hard.  Joanne has been designing quilt patterns for a while now and she has hit the big time with this one in a magazine!

Here's what the cover of the magazine looks like in case you are interested in buying it.

Another bonus for me is the article about T-shirt quilts.  I just agreed to make one for my niece - and I've never done it before.

DOLL QUILT SENT FOR EXCHANGE

This is the doll quilt that I made for the Doll Quilt Exchange that Lori of Humble Quilts organized.  I already had made the 9-patches out of fabric from my basket quilt and picked out a really cute red and white shirting for the alternating blocks.  I mailed it to Debra and today I received a very sweet thank you note from her that she had received it.

When I was trying to decide what to put on the back, I happened to see this FQ of toile fabric and luckily it fit!  It was the perfect fabric for the backing!  I hope I'm not the only one who machine quilted their quilt.  I've kind of given up on hand quilting lately - bad me.  I've done my share of it, but don't really enjoy it very much.

Again, here is a picture of the wonderful quilt I received from Laurie:

You can read more about it in this blog post.  Thanks, Lori for organizing this exchange!  This is the first exchange I have participated in for something that it a finished item!  It was fun and easy!

DOLL QUILT EXCHANGE

When Lori at Humble Quilts announced she was having a doll quilt exchange about a month ago, I decided to join it - on the spur of the moment.  I already had some blocks made, so the doll quilt I will be sending was easy to complete.  I'm not showing you that one yet because I want the recipient to receive it first.

However, I received my doll quilt from Laurie (a different Laurie) on Monday and couldn't be happier with it!  She even hand quilted it!  Check out those tiny HSTs!

It has a medallion in the middle!  See how she fussy cut the brown hexes?

Here is my doll bed with it's old quilt on it.  I really was getting tired of it - it was the first doll quilt I made, after all.

Here's how it looks with the new doll quilt!  Much better, don't you think?  Thank you so much, Laurie!

Here's a better view of it.

A couple more Dear Jane Blocks:

B-2

Uh Oh!  look at the lower left corner!  I will have to fix that.

B-4

These were both relatively easy blocks, so you would think I would be able to do it correctly the first time!

Happy stitching!