MAKING A LITTLE HEADWAY

I spent a couple days fiddling around and not getting much done, but I did do a little sewing that might turn into something some time down the road.  Do you have days like that?  Where you just can't get settled down and decide what to work on?    One problem is that I need to get busy with the scrappy border on the barn quilt and I'm just putting that off - but will probably get serious on it next week.  (I'm also putting off working on taxes).

Yesterday, I decided I would finish the little quilt that I started for me.  I made one like this for a customer and had made some blocks for one for me at the same time when we were in Florida for Christmas.  So I decided to get it put together and got this far.  Now I just need to quilt and bind it.  This is Meg's 4-patch Doll Quilt from Jo Morton's book, "Jo's Little Favorites."  There are so many adorable quilts in that book.  

I also have been working on the basket blocks and this one is finished now.  It's block #9.  I machine appliquéd with a button hole stitch and hand embroidered the words and letters.  I have the other 4 blocks set aside to do any hand embroidery on them.  Some of them call for buttons and bows to be added after quilting it.  So, I will decide then whether or not I add those items.  I don't think I'll add all of them.

DH and I are going on a short trip this weekend to Ocean Shores, Washington, and will be meeting his brother & SIL there.  Should be fun!  Have a nice weekend!

A 2009 BOM UFO

Back in 2009 I started making this BOM ( A Tiskit A Tasket ) that was on the Bunny Hill Designs blog.  I finished 7 months of it.

Then, I got very busy because I was retiring in December of 2009 and I had a lot of quilts to make that I wanted to give as gifts to friends at work, so I put this aside and it stayed put away for more than 10 years!!  Below are the 7 finished blocks.

I don't know what finally got into me, but I dug it out and this morning I picked out fabrics for all the appliqué and now they are all ironed on the fabric.  I still have to do some embroidery on most of them, plus stitch around all the appliqué.  I hope to find some time to get these finished and then put together.  It is such a cute project!

I may have to set it aside again for a little while so I can get my taxes ready to send to our tax man.  Ugh!!  But I promise I won't let it sit for 10 more years.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Years ago I made this valentine table topper, so I thought it would be good to get it out and put it on the table.  The hearts are hand embroidered.  I made it in 2011 and posted about it here.

Here's how it looks with my wool flowers sitting on top of it.  I purchased the flowers at a garage sale many years ago and they never wilt!

My honey left a sweet card on the table for me to see when I got up.  I always (almost) get up before he does.  I'm glad I remembered to get him a card and get it on the table before he got up!

A QUILT SHOW AND "GETTING THERE"

Last week I went to the Willamette Valley Quilting Festival in Albany, Oregon.  I didn't take very many pictures because my phone battery was very low.  My friend and I had a very good time!

This first quilt won the best of show award and is super beautiful!!

This next quilt is the just like the quilt that my Mom made for me as a wedding gift!  I was so surprised to see it.  My Mom loved to embroider and do cross stitching.  I picked out the pattern and she did all the cross stitching.  She had the ladies of Eastern Star hand quilt it.  It will be 58 years old in August and has survived a lot of wear and tear.

This quilt was made with all Australian fabric.

This was a simple wall hanging and I loved the fabric and quilting design on it.

Another section of the same quilt.

I just loved this zebra quilt!  Very striking!

Description from the Zebra quilt.

I had to take a picture of this quilt.  I hope you can read the various element descriptions.  Very creative!

I love this quilt.

And last, but not least, here is how my "barn" quilt is coming.  I am almost finished with the top!  I had planned to use a border fabric, but realized that I don't have enough of it, so I'm adding a scrappy row of fabric and then a wider border of the brown background fabric.

On Tuesday I had a gum transplant (called free gingival graft) in a section of my mouth and it is so painful because the dentist took a part of the roof of my mouth to sew onto the area where my gum was not growing back after the oral surgery I had.  This has been more painful than the actual surgery that I had before because the roof of the mouth is very sensitive and doesn't heal very fast.  It seems to hurt more now than it did a few days ago.  I can hardly eat anything so I'm mostly eating jello, milk toast, macaroni and cheese and small pieces of chicken.  I'm not starving, but it is frustrating.  Trying to keep the food on one side of the mouth isn't easy.  

WHAT'S ON MY DESIGN WALL?

This is the quilt that my guild made for a raffle quilt with the proceeds going to the Yamhill County Historical Society where we meet every month.  I loved this quilt and donated a couple of my Moda blockhead 6" blocks for it.  

I used it as my inspiration for makeing a quilt with my Moda blockheads blocks.  I have about 50 of them.  I have made 6 columns of these blocks placing them on point and offsetting them so I get the zig zag effect, which I have wanted to do for quite a while.

I will place these sections on each side of the quilt. (they aren't sewn together yet).

Yesterday I made the barn that I will put in the middle of the quilt.  I will have 2 rows of blocks in between the side panels and the barn block will be in between the upper blocks and the lower blocks, somewhat similar to the placement in the raffle quilt above.  I still need to appliqué a tree next to my barn and make a couple more blocks to fill in the center rows of blocks.

I'm looking forward to going to the first quilt show of the year on Friday in Albany, Oregon.  It's been a long time since I went to one.  Today it is supposed to rain all day - we've been getting lots of rain lately, so it's a good day for sewing!  What's on your design wall?

FIRST FINISH FOR 2020!

I have been very delinquent about posting since we arrived home from our trip.  We were gone exactly one month and were very happy to get back home.  It took a week to get unpacked and organized.  We drove home in 4 1/2 days from Florida to Oregon.  One day we drove more than 800 miles!  That's the first time that has happened with me in the car!  

On the trip I was working on the 4-patch blocks in Meg's Four Patch Doll Quilt, designed by Jo Morton (from her book "Jo's Little Favorites".  I made it for a customer and she wanted it to be larger, so I got carried away with making the 4-patch blocks and ended having enough for a small one as well (19").  The large one measures 39" square.  I couldn't figure out how many blocks to increase it by since it is "on point."  Once I was home with my design wall I put them up and realized I had an extra row.  I'm also making this quilt for me.

While in Kansas I went to the local quilt shop and they had a charm pack of Shelbyville, by Jo Morton, so I purchased it to use for some of the 4-patches.  The top right block below is from that collection, as well as the first and last block in the third row down.  There are other ones as well.

There is also a fabulous quilt shop in Florida that I always visit and it is huge with just about anything a quilter would desire!  It's A & E Fabrics and they have a blog:  https://aandefabrics.blogspot.com.  The shop is going on line soon.  I got 15% off because I belong to a guild and they also have sales every month.  I found some really cute fabric that I will use to make things to sell at craft shows.

Now, I am thinking about goals for 2020 and my main goal is to make a queen size quilt with the Moda blockhead 6" blocks that I made a couple years ago.  I have over 50 blocks and have an idea.  I will keep you posted as I get started on this.  I also have a Pineapple Nine Patch quilt that I started and really want to finish.  I haven't made a list yet, but I'm thinking about it.

I went through my blog from 2019 and made a list of all the quilts I had posted about - there were 33.  Three were donation quilts, two were quilts I finished for a friend.  Several of them were sold at craft shows.  I didn't always post about quilts made to sell, so there were probably more that ended up being sold or that I still have.  Of the 33 there was one queen size quilt, a lot of table runners and wall hangings.  I participated in 10 craft shows!

Thanks to all my readers - my blogging friends!  I feel like I know you even though we have never met.  Luckily, I have met quite a few of my blogging friends and hope to meet more of you in the future.  I hope you all have a wonderful year and that we will inspire each other to use up our stashes and scraps!

SEWING IN FLORIDA

We are in Florida visiting our son, DIL and DGD.  We're staying at an AIRbnb.  The house we are staying in is really cute!  There is a sun room, which I have turned into my sewing studio.  Here are a few pictures.  They had this portable ironing board and it sits perfectly on one of the chairs.

I placed these finished 4-patch blocks on the window sill.

I'm also working on sawtooth stars for a block exchange.  I've been sewing flying geese onto the center square.  I need to make 40 of them and noticed that I had cut some of them wrong.  I brought extra fabric along, so I'm OK.

Abby turned 11 yesterday and had a party with her friends.  She received this bike for Christmas.

HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE!

WINTER TRAVELS

We are visiting our youngest son and his family in Kansas and it snowed all day Sunday and has had temperatures in the 20s.  The boys have had fun playing in the snow and we were able to go to their school Christmas concert.

A couple days ago I went to the local quilt shop, Quilt Head Quarters in Overland Park, Kansas, and bought a couple items.

I also went to the Legler Barn Museum in Lenexa, Kansas.  The barn was built in 1864.  Usually, on Wednesdays there is a group of quilters there hand quilting.  I was unable to see them because they were on a break for the holidays, but the barn was very interesting and there were several quilts hanging up there,

Crazy Quilt - see description below

Various small quilt in a display,

Quilt on a rack in process of hand quilting

It's a small museum, but very interesting.  I found out that Lenexa, Kansas is the Spinach capital if the USA!  Who Knew?  I even bought a cook book in which every recipe contains spinach.  Thought I would try some of them out.

We've had a great visit with DS, DIL and 2 adorable grandsons.  They are sweet boys, aged 9 and 11. We are leaving today for Florida.

LAP QUILT FINISHED

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  We were a small group this year, but we had a great time together.

Here is a picture of my finished Christmas lap quilt made with strips of Christmas fabric.  It measures 60" square.  My grandson is holding it up for me and you can see part of his head and his feet.

There is another close up of the border quilting, thanks to Lori Kennedy's instructions.

I'm participating in a block swap with Barb in Connecticut.  I am making 40 sawtooth star blocks like these:

I love the pink fabric with the dark blue points.  The pink fabric is designed by Kim Diehl for Henry Glass & Co.  

I have one more craft show this coming weekend and that will wind it up for the year.  I think I have all (if not, most) of my Christmas shopping done.  Let's enjoy the season!