Humble Quilts visits McMinnville

 Yesterday, Lori Dejarnatt presented her program "Why I Quilt" at my quilt guild meeting (Gone to Pieces Quilt Guild) here in McMinnville!  We had a wonderful time and of course she brought a lot of quilts to share with us.  Here are a few pictures.

George Washington Medallian Quilt

Blind Man's Fancy

Wilderness Trail

Lori had a table to sell some of her patterns and fabric.  This is what I bought.

World Map Fabric

I love this quilt!

Thanks, Lori, for coming to share your quilts and enthusiasm with us!

Cats and Houses!

My sister has 2 cats; Button and Zuzu.  I took some pictures of them so I could show some cats on my blog.  

Zuzu likes the room I'm sleeping in, but I don't let her in for the night.  However, she will go in there any chance that she gets.  Here she is lying on my pillow (which I had embroidered for my sister a few years ago).

My sister got a "house" for her cats, which they sometimes go into.  Katie, notice the fish that I made for Zuzu for Christmas.

Zuzu on the coffee table.

This table in the living room has a drawer with catnip in it.  It also has some old slides that we were looking at to determine if they should be tossed or kept.  Zuzu, of course wanted the catnip and was sticking her head down in the drawer.

This is Button.    Button takes longer to warm up to people, but she is a great cat.

 

Boxes always make good beds.

My sister is a piano teacher and Button is helping with the Mendelssohn Concerto!  Always likes to be where the action is.

One day we went to a historic house in the next town that we saw as we were driving past.  We never knew it was here, at least I didn't.  It was actually a house on the Underground Railroad! I didn't take a picture of it.  Very interesting though.  There are more places like that in the area.

We also went to another historic house  that had a doll house which was a replica of another house close by, so we drove by the original home which someone is living in now.  The docent said that a famous movie was made at this house, but I don't remember the name of it.  Doll house and original house below.

I haven't lived here for many, many years and growing up we weren't aware of all the history!  Now that I'm old, history interests me a lot more.

One more house that we went to see was the house where my grandparents lived.  After we moved to the suburbs of Chicago (into the  house that my Grandpa and Dad had built), my grandparents lived with us while my Grandpa built a new house for them about 1/2 mile from our house.  A few days ago my sister and I left a note in the mail box asking if we could see the house and the owner called us and invited us to come over.  My Grandpa built the house in about 1949.  We don't know how many owners have lived there since 1957 when the house was sold, but this couple has been there for 23 years and have made a lot of changes to the house.  It was beautiful and they were so gracious to let us come in and look at it.   See below.

No quilting is being done these days.  I'll be going home on Tuesday.

Trip to Visit My Sister!

 I decided it was time to visit my sister who lives near Chicago since I haven't been here for about 4 years. I have been here almost a week and will leave on Tuesday.  Of course I wanted to visit a quilt shop, which is a shop that specializes in civil war reproduction fabrics.  The name of the shop is The Quilt Merchant in Winfield, Illinois.  I have been there before several years ago and my sister has purchased gift items for me there.  The first thing I saw was a beautiful churn dash quilt and I couldn't resist getting the pattern (I hardly ever buy patterns any more as I have so many books & patterns).  Here is a picture of the pattern and other things that I bought.

I had to limit myself because of only having a small suitcase with me so this shows the fabrics I purchased along with the darling hanger that I can use to hang small quilts.

I hate to say it, but my local quilt shop doesn't have nearly as many CW reproductions as this shop, which is a lot smaller.  I think The Quilt Merchant is similar to Two Thimbles in Washington state.  So, that was really fun and I could have over done it very easily!

One day (which was a very nasty, rainy day) we drove into Chicago to go see the Glessner House, which was built in the 1880s.  The reason we went was that one of our relatives was a maid there in the 1920s and I had never seen it (my sister had).  It turned out to be a lucky day for us in that we got a parking space right in front of the house and were able to get in earlier than allowed for our tour.  Plus we were the only people there for the tour so it was like a personal tour.  They were excited to know that our relative (my Mom's first cousin) had worked there.  I'm sorry that I didn't take pictures of the inside, but if you are curious, you can look it up on the internet at https://www.glessnerhouse.org/the-house.  I did take a picture of the front door.  The owner of the home was a vice-president of International Harvester and in that era, this neighborhood had 90 mansions in it.

This house wasn't your average mansion and when it was built, the neighbors didn't like it at all.  But the inside was more like a cozy family home with gorgeous furnishings that weren't real opulant but were well made and lovely.   They had wall paper and draperies designed by William Morris.

Here are a couple pictures of the neighborhood.

I need to get busy as some family members are coming over today and we are getting ready for that.  BTW, my sister lives in the house we grew up in which was built by our father and grandfather!  Lots of happy memories here.

Thanks for visiting!

QUILTING!!

 I am busy quilting the future wedding quilt that measures 90" x 104" (see 1/31/2022 post).  I quilted straight lines in the ditch in several places and now I'm quilting each block in the way that I think will work.  I used an off white thread on a lot of places that need that color, then I changed to navy blue and I'm going to try to get all the areas that need that color.  I'm doing that since I'm not using an "over all" design, and that makes it harder because of the various colors and different blocks.  BTW, for those who might be new to reading this, I am quilting on my domestic Janome 6600 sewing machine.  It does have a larger area, but it's still hard to work with.

A quilt this large is difficult to maneuver!

This next picture shows how I quilted this particular block.

I have quilted the white sections of this block and will probably quilt the center and 4 corner sections with brown thread.

Any ideas for quilting the border of sawtooth stars?  I will probably use the white/offwhite thread over the stars and background, but not sure what to do.

I have been reading this book lately and am almost finished.  It's about quilts made while traveling over the Oregon trail or to take on the trip, or after arriving in Oregon.  It has pictures of the quilts and women who made them as well as something about their lives.  I highly recommend it!

Since we moved to Oregon in 2014, I have been fascinated with Oregon trail stories.  I met a quilter who is a descendant of those pioneers and they continue to have a family reunion every year,  I wonder if any of her ancestors are in this book!  Interesting that 12 of the blocks in the above quilt were from Barbara Brackman's Westering Women posts on her blog a few years ago.

Happy quilting!!

BUTTONS!

 I went to a small button show with a couple of my quilting friends.  We went to Lincoln City Cultural Center.  I have loved buttons for years and have a small collection.  I got most of them at garage and estate sales.  This is a picture of most of them.  I have another tiny cabinet with some vintage buttons and a few very pretty buttons.  I have a book on how to make jewelry with buttons, but haven't done that yet.  I'm kind of busy with quilting!

This is most of my button collection.

Here are a few of the buttons that were on display:

Acrylic buttons

Shell buttons

The Cultural Center also had a large display from Washed Ashore (washedashore.org).  Inside there were jelly fish hanging from the ceiling made from the plastics found on beaches.  Outside there were several sculptures of sea life made from the plastic junk that people had thrown into the ocean and has been collected from beaches.  Here's some of them.  I think they are doing very good work.  Check out their web site for more information.

This is about 6 feet tall.

Jelly Fish

Quilting is going on.  I basted another large quilt yesterday and am trying to decide how to quilt it.  Pictures will come at a later post.

A VERY BUSY MONTH

I can't believe I haven't posted since January 8th!  I hadn't done much sewing over the Christmas holiday so I wanted to get started and get something done.  I had this quilt in progress up until the borders needed to be added.  I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, but finally decided to add the sawtooth stars all around.  I think I made 46 stars so that with the border added the final measurement would come to 90" x 104" for a good size queen size quilt.  I have made 5 quilts for future family wedding gifts.

Most of the blocks were started when Barbara Brackman was posting her Westering Women blocks.  I didn't make all of them, but most of the blocks in this quilt are from those, except the large center one and at least the blue and black block on the right side.  Here are a couple close up of blocks.

My next project will be to quilt this one as well as 3 other quilt tops that I finished recently.  I bought backing fabric for this quilt, but now I can't find it.  I cleaned up my sewing room for my sister to sleep in and I don't remember where I put it.  

I hope you have been doing a lot of quilting so far this year! I'm doing the best I can.  

Happy quilting in 2022 and hoping you are all well.

 

 

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL MY BLOGGING FRIENDS

The holidays are over now and things are gradually getting back to normal.  My sister came to visit us from the Chicago area and we had a great time together.  It snowed as we were getting home from picking her up from the airport and we had a few days of a winter wonderland!

We didn't do anything special, just talking, making puzzles, some shopping, playing games, etc.  The time went so fast, and now it's over already.  I did a little sewing while she was here, making cat blocks to turn into lap quilts.  These are such fun to make!  And I continued making them after she left.

In all, I have about 80 of them made, which is almost enough for 2 lap quilts.  

Next, I decided to put together some blocks that I have been working on for a while and I have a quilt top measuring 60" x 84".  I will add a 4" border as soon as I get some appropriate fabric.  I dug through my stash, but didn't have anything that would work.  This will be a donation quilt.  The blocks are scrappy and very easy to make.  These pictures are just sections of the quilt top.  I didn't have any place to hang it up right now.

A friend of mine made this and it looked really nice on her bed.  I hope this one will make someone happy.

And, yes, I have other ideas rolling around in my head that I want to make.  I was just looking over instructions (that I bought ages ago) for making a quilted jacket out of a sweat shirt.  I would really like to have that, but this pattern isn't exactly what I am wanting.

Then, there are some blocks that I got from 2 block exchanges and I need to make something with those.  I think I better make a list.  But at least I made a start in the new year!  

I will check to see if many of you have your lists all made by now.  Many of you are more organized than I am.  Good luck in the new year and I hope you will all have a happy and healthy 2022!

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO MY DEAR QUILTING FRIENDS!

 Before I get too busy to even stop and wish my friends a Merry Little Christmas, I thought I would go ahead and do it.  So, Merry Christmas to all of you!  Whoever you are, I hope you will leave a comment!  I know I have been bad at responding to comments lately, partly because I don't get notified any more when one is made and partly because I have been so busy.

Lately, I have been making some kitty presents!  I got the idea and pattern from Katie at katiemaytoo.blogspot.com.  She made one of these super cute fishes for all of her known cat owners. And she sent me the pattern!  (Not the first time she has sent me a pattern).  Thanks, Katie!

I only have 3 cats in my extended family (My sister has 2 and DS#1 has 1), so the 3 smaller fish are for them.  I made a larger fish just to see how it would look.  The large one is 12 1/2' long.  They were a lot of fun to make and the sewing student that I have decided to make one for her cat (I had given her 3 options).  It was fun picking out fabrics to use.  The fish have some catnip in them.

I had mentioned that I was a vendor in various craft shows and that is done for the year now.  Yea!!  Actually, this is the best year that I have had so far.  Here are a few pictures from the last show.  It was held at the Yamhill Valley Heritage Center Museum which is not far from my home.

At times, the booth was filled with people looking at the items for sale!  

There was a band playing and singing Christmas songs which was very festive!  Behind the bench there is a room set up like a time in the 1800s.

I will wish you a very Happy and Healthy New Year too!!!  We are thankful that we have been healthy these last couple years.  However, our youngest son and grandson have Covid now.  Our grandson is 11 and has a very mild case.  Our son is sicker, but not having any problem breathing, so please keep him in your prayers.

IT'S ALMOST CHRISTMAS!!

 I have been very bad lately, but good in other ways because I have been sewing and have had a bunch of craft shows.  The last one is this weekend!  

I just finished a quilt that I had started before we left on our trip in June.  I originally was looking for an easy quilt that would use up fabrics and that I could then donate.  We went to Kansas to visit one of our sons and then on to Florida to visit another one.  My granddaughter saw me working on it as I had taken my featherweight machine along and I had taught her to make a few things.  She was 12 and will turn 13 right after Christmas.  Anyway, with her help, all the blocks were finished in Florida and when we put them down on the floor to admire, she said she would like to have the quilt when it's finished, so she will be getting it for Christmas.  Here are a few pictures of it.

It measures 70" x 90".  I took pictures of it in the house and couldn't get a good shot with the whole quilt, but you can see how it turned out.

I quilted it with fans and you can see the quilting pretty good in this picture of the backing.

I participated in a Quilt-a-Long with Lori of humblequilts.blogspot.com.  It is a small quilt based on a larger one.

I've been so busy making things to sell that I haven't done as much sewing that I want to do.  But after Christmas I plan to finish a quilt that has been in the works for quite a while.  

I now belong to two quilt guilds as a new one started up in Dayton, Oregon led by a local quilt teacher and designer, Peggy Gelbrich.  I have been a member of another guild for about 3 years and will be serving as the secretary next year.  This guild has suffered a lot during Covid and many members have dropped out.  We tried meeting via Zoom, but that didn't work out very well.  Then when weather permitted, we met in a park, but not many people came.  We hope that now that we are meeting inside, people will start returning.

The next couple weeks will be consumed with some Christmas activities, gift wrapping, cookie baking, etc.  My sister will be coming here for a week and I need to plan meals for the coming holiday.  I'm sure you all will be doing the same, so I will wish you all a MERRY CHRISTMAS now and hope you get all your gifts finished on time!!