FAITHFUL BORDERS ON

I put the final border on my "Faithful" quilt top, but I plan to add corners so it can be set on point.  Lori has "Quilt-A-Longs" at least once or twice a year and I have participated as often as I can.  This one was fun and not too hard as I had lots of extra HSTs laying around.  Go to her blog to see the other participants.

Since I made my costume dress, I decided to wear it for the trick or treaters last night.  Here's a picture of me holding the "flag" I made.  Do you think I look like Betsy Ross?  I asked the trick or treaters who I was and some of them came close with the answer of "someone who made the first American flag."

Actually, not many kids came to the house last night compared to other years.  (BTW, the quilt I'm holding is one that Lori had posted on her blog and I just HAD to make it.  It wasn't a QAL, but it is now one of my favorite quilts.

Wow!  It's November today!

BLOGGERS' QUILT FESTIVAL - SCRAPPY

I have always been drawn to scrappy quilts, so years ago when I started following Bonnie Hunter, I thought her ideas were great.  I love going to garage sales and I started buying men's shirts to make quilts and I have made some donation quilts out of them.  The pile just wasn't going down though!

Then I heard that Bonnie Hunter was going to be speaking at the Quilters' Guild of Dallas and giving a workshop!  I wasn't a member, but I knew some members of my local guild who were and asked if I could ride with them to the next meeting.  I think it was in May that I went to the first meeting and joined the Dallas guild and signed up for Bonnie's workshop in September, because I wanted to be sure I could get in it.  This might be my last chance and I wanted to be sure I didn't miss out.

On September 7 I attended the workshop with 2 of my guild friends and had a wonderful day!  Below is a picture of Bonnie and me holding up a mystery quilt of Bonnie's that I made a few years ago.

Here is my finished "Virginia Bound" quilt.

Virginia Bound

I am entering this quilt in the scrappy category of the Blogger's Quilt Festival.  If you so desire, you can go there and vote for the quilt you like best, or even nominate one of the quilts to be the "Viewer's Choice."

HE LIKES IT!

What a relief!!  The costume fits and he likes it!!  Below is a picture of the one eyed, one horned, flying purple people eater (without his horn and wings) in his scariest pose!  My DIL is making the horn and wings. :-)

Yesterday was the Harvest Heritage Festival at Cedar Hill State Park and my quilters' guild always participates by setting up a booth to demonstrate quilting.  It was a perfect day for sitting out at Penn Farm, which is located in the park.  Penn farm was settled during the 1850s and stayed with the same family for over 100 years.  Here are some pictures of our quilting booth and other activities going on during the festival.

We had our raffle quilt on display and sold lots of tickets for the drawing to be held on December 9.

Wagon rides pulled by these draft horses was fun for the children.

Look!  The leaves on the tree behind the horses are turning yellow!  We are in Texas, so fall starts a lot later and we don't have the flaming colors like the northern states have.

Who knew there were vintage base-ball clubs around?

They even make their own balls and bats!

It was cloudy a lot but didn't rain.

Me hand quilting a doll quilt wearing my period costume.

Another guild member hand quilting an applique quilt.

Isn't this quilt gorgeous?

She is one of the founding members of our guild and also an excellent quilter!

It was a good day.

CORSICANA QUILT SHOW

Yesterday I went with a friend to Corsicana, Texas to the 33rd (Wow) annual Piecemakers' Guild Quilt Show.  They do things differently in Corsicana and I really like their system.  First of all, their quilt show lasts all month - and it is free!  Yes, it is on display for the whole month  - or I guess for 4 weeks during October.

Secondly, during the quilt show, they hand quilt next year's raffle quilt!  Yes!  Their raffle quilts are hand quilted!!!  I do love that.  These ladies are dedicated, are they not?

Here are some of my favorite quilts from the show.

Blue Baskets by Becky Stephenson

Grace and Glory, by Judy Green

Garden Party by Judy Green

I'm sorry I didn't get all the titles and makers of the quilts.  There were many other beauties there.  The pictures aren't the best as they were taken with my cell phone.

Thanks for visiting!

BASKETS ALL FINISHED!!

Woo Hoo!  I finished all the little applique baskets!  Here are 6 of the last batch - there are 2 of each of these.  I am soooooooo glad to be finished with the baskets.  Next comes the medallion center which consists of a bouquet of flowers - but they aren't too intricate, luckily.

I had to take about a 2 1/2 day break from quilting to make a halloween costume for Jonah.  In his kindergarten class they are singing the song, "The one horned, one eyed, flying purple people eater" and he decided that's what he wanted to be for Halloween.  Grandma to the rescue (am I a sucker, or what?).  The costume is in the mail and my DIL is going to add some fur patches to it.  Below are the feet complete with claws.  The hands also have claws.  Jonah wants to be scary.  I'm sure we'll get a picture of him in the costume - I hope it fits - and I will post it when we get it.

I'm going to a quilt show today - hopefully I'll get pictures for you.

WORKING ON LORI'S QUILTALONG

Yesterday I got up early, as usual, and planned to go for a walk after doing a little sewing.  But, then it started to rain!  I was happy because I really wanted to keep working on the "Faithful" block that is Lori's Quilt-A-Long.  Plus, we really needed the rain.

Under my sewing table is a plastic bucket that something came in - I think it was a bed skirt, or something like that.  You know, the kind made out of heavy plastic with a zipper.  Well, I throw extra triangles into that bucket whenever I have some - which is quite often.  

I needed 44 1 3/4" HSTs for the Faithful block and I only had 4 from my other basket of already made up HSTs, so I retrieved the bucket from under the table and started searching for reproduction triangles.  

I found quite a few and started making the HSTs.

I had to get some extra fabric because most of the triangles in the bucket were not reproduction fabric, or were too small.  I tried to use as many different fabrics as I could.  See that brown/beige HST in the lower right corner above?  The dark side with the dark brown and the kind of lacy looking flowers/leaves is one of my favorite fabrics and I think that is the last piece I have of it.  It's kind of sad to use the last piece of a favorite fabric, isn't it?

Some of the triangles were really large, so I just cut them down with this "All-in-One-Ruler."

Here's how my block looks now.  I really like it!

I think there is one more border and then I might add corners to it so it can be an "on point" wall hanging.  I'll think on it some more before deciding.  Any suggestions would be welcome.

BUSY WEEK!

Where does the time go?  I can't believe it's Saturday already.  I finished two projects that I posted about before.  This Divine Felines wall hanging is now posted on Ebay to sell.

The table runner is now living on my coffee table. I should have stood on a chair to take the picture.

It is a good fall/halloweeny color.

Thursday we went to the Texas State Fair and it was in the upper 80s and too hot for us.  The bird show was good, but not quite as impressive as the last time we went.

Big Tex greets you when you come to the fair - yes, he talks!  Last year he burned down, so they made a new one.

I started quilting DGDs Bricks and Stepping Stones quilt and got about half of the inner part done.  I might get back to it today, but I have a special project to finish first.  I'm making a dress that I will be wearing to demonstrate quilting at a Harvest Heritage Festival in a couple weeks.

Have a nice weekend!

VIRGINIA BOUND - QUILTED AND BOUND!

Virginia Bound, designed by Bonnie Hunter, is FINISHED!   I went to Bonnie's workshop on September 7 and I finished sewing the binding on October 2.  This quilt is published in her book,  Scraps & Shirttails.  Thanks for a great workshop and quilt pattern, Bonnie!

I'm pretty sure this is the fastest that I have ever completed a quilt.  Usually it takes months, if not years!

I was kind of surprised that the light colored diamonds seem to pop out at you.

I quilted it on my Janome 6600 sewing machine and the quilt pattern (as much as I could follow it) is from Angela Walter's book, Free-Motion Quilting, and is swirled hook.  However, it took me a while to figure out how to do the hook, so depending on which part of the quilt you are looking at, you might not see it.

This picture contains some of the blocks that Joan sent me - I sent her some of mine in exchange.  I also traded some fabric strips with other people at the workshop.

Since the top is scrappy (mostly made with men's shirts that I bought at garage sales), I figured that I would make a scrappy backing as well.  The majority of the fabric I used for the back is from either garage sales, thrift shops or was given to me.

Except for some of the border fabric, that is.  The cheddar/orange fabric is from Andover's Jo Morton and I bought it at a garage sale for $2.00 per yard.  Same with some of the dark green in the border - I had to throw in some reproduction fabrics!

I decided to participate in Lori's quilt along (QAL).  It will be a small one and I hardly had to do anything to get this first part put together because I had all the HSTs leftover from other projects.  The basket block was also a leftover block.

Tomorrow we're supposed to get a "cold" front!  I'm not sure how cold it will get, but we'll take anything lower than the 90s - or 80s.  Woo Hoo!!

VIRGINIA BOUND BASTED!

This morning I basted Virginia Bound and I have 2 other quilts/backings ready to baste.  Once I get the table set up, I want to have more than one quilt to baste.  That's not counting my 2nd surprise quilt.

I want to get started with the quilting ASAP so I will be finished with the binding by next Thursday.

This afternoon, I plan to baste DGD's Bricks and Stepping Stones quilt.

Besides getting this basted, I made up a quilt panel that I had purchased several years ago at a garage sale.  It had the panel with the footprints and words as well as the pattern, but not any of the other fabric.  I'm glad I finally got this finished.  It just needs the binding.

 Sometime last year I saw this block thought it would be good for a fall project.  I don't have very many fall quilty decorations, so decided to make a table runner out of it.  Each block is 12" finished, so I decided 3 would be long enough for either my coffee table or dining room table.  I still need to get it quilted and bound.

We have had a day or two of cooler weather, and tomorrow are supposed to get some more.  Yea!!!  I love cooler days and changing leaves.  The Texas State Fair starts today and I hope it will be cool enough to go in a week or two.  It lasts about a month, I think.

ALMOST FINISHED VIRGINIA BOUND TOP

I finished the inner part of the top and am almost finished with the borders.

There will be a blue inner border between the pieced border and the middle section but first I need to finish the corner blocks.

 
Here is the inner section of the quilt being held up by my DH.

My plan is to get this quilt (Virginia Bound) basted sometime next week.  I want to get my DGD's quilt (bricks and stepping stones) ready to base while I have the table set up, so I can baste them both at the same time.  Then, I plan to quilt Virginia Bound before my next guild meeting so I can take it to show.  The Dallas guild calls it "Bring and Brag!"  Most quilts I have made have taken me a long time to finish - years sometimes.  So, I want to break that habit and get this finished fast.