3 FINISHES; A LARGE QUILT, A MINI QUILT AND A PUZZLE!

This "Barn Quilt" is made with my 6" Moda blockheads that I made a couple years ago.  They came out one per week and I kept up with them for quite a while, then got behind.  I knew I wanted to make a queen size quilt and that I would probably need extra blocks, so I started making additional blocks (OK, I confess - I made extra blocks of some of the easier ones - not the 72 piece ones).  I saw a quilt that I really liked that had a barn in the middle with some rows of the blockhead blocks.  I posted about it January 28 of this year.  I found a barn that I liked better and put it in the center and added borders to make it large enough.

If you have any ideas for a name I could give this quilt, I would appreciate suggestions.  "Barn Quilt" isn't cutting it for me and I'm not good at naming quilts.

My DS and DSG came over for dinner yesterday (we didn't do any hugging) and I had 2 people to hold it up.  It is too large to hang on my clothes line.  It measures 94" x 96".  DGS and DH had to stand on step stools to get it high enough and then it was still dragging on the ground.  I had to take the picture quickly so I didn't have a chance to get it straightened out better (DH said to hurry).

I also finished the Honeycomb mini quilt (I won the pattern from Janet).  I like the way it turned out - I machine prepped it according to Kim Diehl's instructions and quilted it with clear thread, again according to her instructions.  I am pretty good at following directions - I would never try to figure out how to paper piece it or piece it any other way.

My lily of the valley plants are blooming, so I cut a few stems and put them in a tiny vase on my desk.  I have always loved the way they smell!  And they are so dainty!

DS has a new camera, so he took some pictures of my flowers with his new lens.  They look very different enlarged and close up.

Clematis

Bleeding Hearts

Pansy

 Here is the 1000 piece puzzle that we finished this morning.  Ordinarily, I wouldn't make a 1000 piece puzzle, let alone buy one, but when I saw this at a garage sale for only 50 cents and it was a Springbok puzzle (my favorite kind), plus a puzzle with all sewing notions, I couldn't resist it.  I think I have had it for at least a year, maybe two years, so I wasn't sure I would ever make it.

But, we had made all the other puzzles that we have (except the Christmas ones), so I decided to bring it down from the attic and set it up.  It took a whole week to get it finished, working on it while watching TV usually.  Turns out that it is missing one piece, which is pretty good considering it was bought at a garage sale.  The weird thing is that it had some duplicate pieces.  I had to set up an extra table to hold the trays of pieces because the puzzle took up almost the whole card table.  We're leaving it up for a while so we can look for the lost piece.

 Well, quilting and non-quilting friends, it has been 4 weeks and 4 days of isolation (except for the trips to the store for food) and we are still somewhat sane!  How about you?

STILL KEEPING BUSY!

 I guess I'm lucky to be a quilter, because the time is flying by!  I'm not bored, I'm definitely keeping busy and while I would like to be able to go out more (let's say to the LQS or something), I'm doing OK.

I finished the top of this mini, Honeycomb, by Kim Diehl.  As I told you in a recent post, I won the pattern from Janet.  This is one of those things helping me to keep busy!  It is very much outside my regular style of quilts, but it was interesting to do.  The hardest part was digging through my fabrics for all the different pieces.  Then I followed Kim Diehl's method of machine quilting with clear thread.  I wanted to do the borders with a similar chartreuse fabric, which I didn't have.  So I went online to look for some and I found the exact same fabric that Kim used for the borders, although I'm not sure it is the same color.  I used something different for the inner skinny border and corners.

Sunday didn't lift my spirits at all because of having church on line, which is very weird.  Plus not being able to have DS & DGS over for dinner.  After DH & I ate, I texted DS to see if we could do FaceTime at least.  He responded:  we're on our way!  So we decided we would just sit on the patio and visit, which we did.  They brought me some tulips from their garden and DGS painted some egg shells for me for easter.

That made the day much better!

We finished another puzzle called "Opera Cats."

I also got this Jo Morton design almost finished - "Nine Patch Chain.  I need to put a border on it but haven't decided exactly what I will do for that.

I hope you are all doing well and that we will be able to be released from custody soon!  Ha Ha!

ANOTHER WEEK OF ISOLATION

I can't believe it's almost 3 weeks since we came home from Hawaii.  I've been isolated since then, except 2 trips to the grocery store and one trip to the post office.  But, somehow, I've been able to stay busy!!

This is the 3rd puzzle that we have completed - not to mention it was the hardest.  I have 2 more puzzles waiting to be made and then I may just have to get a new one.

I broke down and started making some face masks.  I made some for us and family members and donated a few.  I'm not sure if I will make more or not.  If I do, I'll need to make them with tie straps because I'm out of elastic.

In the mean time, I entered a drawing that Janet had on her blog for National quilters' day and I won this pattern!  I love all things designed by Kim Diehl, so I decided to start on it right away.

These squares are the start of the background.  Next, I will need to figure out how to make the Half-Hexies which will then be appliquéd on top of these blocks.  It looks interesting and is something different.

Call me crazy, but I also decided to start this Jo Morton pattern (Nine Patch Chain) from her "Jo's Little Favorites II" book.   I plan to make it a little larger than the pattern calls for by increasing the size of the blocks from 2 3/4" to 3" finished.  Not much of an increase, but I might add more blocks too.

Here are some strips sewn together to make into 9-patches.

I finished quilting my Barn quilt a couple days ago and decided to make a scrappy binding.  I thought I would see what I could find in my "leftover binding" drawer.  I was surprised to see how much was in that drawer.  It seems that I put leftover binding in there a lot, but rarely take any out.  This time I only wanted civil war reproduction fabrics and I got enough from the drawer to bind about half of the quilt, so I did need to cut some more fabrics.

This is the pile of binding ready to go.

I agree with Janet, that even though I'm staying home more, it doesn't really seem like I have more time available.  I have been spending some time working puzzles and probably have watched a few movies.  Other than having a little "cabin fever" I'm doing OK and hope you are too.

What a Week!

How has your week been?  Mine has been pretty good even with staying home for a whole week, except to shop for groceries twice.  I have spent most of the week in my sewing room and have gotten quite a bit accomplished.  I finished 2 things.  I started this one before we went on our trip to Hawaii - well actually both of them.  And finished them this week.

Dragonfly Table Runner

I bought this panel at the quilt show in Albany, OR and made it into a wall hanging using the Secret Window Panel Wall Hanging directions from Jordan Fabrics.  You can see the directions on YouTube if you search the name of the panel in Jordan Fabrics.

The rest of the time, I have been making house blocks.  My quilt guild isn't having a "BOM" this year, but just suggested that we make house blocks.  When I saw the house quilt that Barb made, I decided I wanted to make a quilt like hers.  You can see hers here.

Here are the blocks that I have made so far.

All the houses measure 11 1/2" so with sashing and a border I think it will measure about 58" square, which is a decent size.

Are you getting tired of cooking yet?  It doesn't take me long to get tired of it.  I made some soup on Monday and have more of it in the freezer.  It wasn't that good.  We also had some leftovers in the freezer that we had one night - pork chops.  Tonight we will have cabbage and sausage.  Tomorrow I am going to fix stew in the crock pot.  I will give some to DS#1 to take home.  I think we need to keep our space from him since he will be flying home from Texas and could get exposed to the virus without knowing it.

I got some flowers from a neighbor yesterday!  Wasn't that sweet?

DS#2 is a registered nurse and is taking care of corona virus patients.  He has a wife and daughter at home.  

I am thankful that I have such a wonderful hobby that I can keep busy with and even make things which will brighten up other people's lives.

HAND WORK ON TRIP TO HAWAII

WARNING:  Heavy with non-quilting pictures!

We had the trip to Hawaii planned for a whole year and there weren't any "rules" by the time our flight left on March 12.  There didn't seem to be any reason for not going, so we went!  During the week that we were there, things changed and things started to close.

I took 2 different hand work projects on the trip.  One was knitting dish cloths and I finished 2 and started a third.  I also worked on an embroidery project from Jenny of Elefantz.  There will be one per month and at the end it can be made into a quilt or a book!  Jenny is giving directions to make it into a book and I'm leaning that way.

I still need to put a beak and an eye on the bird as well as another spiral under the first leaf.

Now to the trip!  Our youngest son is in the Air Force as many of you know, and he will be retiring at the end of this month.  He had stayed at this cabin last year (the cabins are 50 feet from the beach) and this year was the last time he could reserve it since it's on a military base.  He invited us to go too.  They have 2 boys, ages 9 and 11, so of course we wanted to go to be with them.  Here are a few pictures. I'm sorry that none of the pictures have the boys faces as they don't want them put on the internet.

Last Friday we went to this beautiful lagoon to do some snorkeling and hopefully see some sea turtles.  When we got there, some people were gathered in a certain area because they saw some turtles, but then the turtles went away.  I decided to swim over to the area by the rocks (see below) and then my son pointed over to that area and said he saw a couple turtles.  I continued to swim over and got to see 2 sea turtles!!  In fact, one of them brushed up against my arm!  I was so happy!!

I didn't have a water proof camera to take a picture, so I took a picture of the postcard that I sent to my granddaughter.  They are just amazing!










Saturday we went to the Polynesian Cultural Center and saw various shows demonstrating some of the dances and languages of the island cultures.  This one was for Hawaii:

There is also a quilt shop at the cultural center where they actually have Hawaiian fabrics for sale as well as hand quilted quilts.  This description on how to make a Hawaiian quilt was on the wall:

We went to Waikiki Beach for DS and my grandsons to have a surfing lesson.  The weather was perfect that morning.

DS is on a surf board in the water, Eli (9) is being helped on his board by the instructor and Jonah (11) is waiting.

Below they are paddling out to the deeper water with the instructor.  They were too far out when they were able to stand up on the surfboards to be able to take a picture of that.  They all did really well and were able to stand up to do some surfing, although the boys said that they were better at it than their Dad was!

This is a view down the beach and you can see Diamond Head.

One day we went to Iolani Palace and saw the room where Queen Liliuokalani was imprisoned and the crazy quilt she made during her imprisonment.  I have a couple pictures of parts of the quilt.

It was pouring down rain and we didn't have an umbrella, so we got soaked.

There is a reflection of the light fixture at the top of this picture because the quilt is under glass.

More reflections on the top left.

We went to the the Pacific Aviation Museum (which was partly closed) in Pearl Harbor.  The Arizona memorial was closed, which was a big disappointment.

That's the trip and it was fabulous!  I can't even believe how much we packed into the week!  Our flight home was a little over 5 hours - we left Hawaii about 1:00 PM and with the time change arrived in Portland, OR about 9:00 PM.  Our son & family didn't get home until Friday morning at 7 AM and they left at the same time we did.  They got re-routed through Cincinnatti!  They live in Kansas and changed planes in Seattle, then to Cincinnati and back to Kansas.  Does that make any sense?

Now that we are home, we are going to stay away from people just in case we got some germs while on the plane coming back.  We don't want to spread anything.  Everyone seemed to be healthy, but what do we know?

Thanks for visiting.  I hope you are all doing well.  Maybe we can get a lot of sewing done since we will be home more (or less sewing if you have kids home from school).  The LQS is closed at least until April 1, but I might have enough fabric to keep me busy!

DELINQUENT!

I have been very delinquent concerning my blog postings. But I really have been busy doing this and that.  It seems like I have been jumping from one thing to another lately --  again.

Yesterday I had some spare time and decided to cut up a panel and make it into a window wall hanging.  I have done this before and the panel I am using was purchased at the quilt show in Albany in January.  My LQS had the grey fabric that goes with it.  Here is what I got done yesterday,

It will also have the grey fabric on each side.

I’m sorry about the pictures not showing up below. As I said,  I was leaving on a trip and I’m in Hawaii right now.  We had this trip planned for a year and decided to go ahead with it.  I don’t have my laptop with me,  just my son’s IPad and haven’t been able to get the pictures to show up.  I don’t know why they didn’t show.

In my last post I told you that I was going to Ocean Shores, Washington for the weekend.  Here are a couple pictures I took while crossing the Columbia River.  The first one is going across to Washington on the bridge.

The second one is taken from the bridge looking east and if you look carefully, you can see snow-capped Mt. St. Helens (that erupted in 1980) in the distance.  It is about 85 miles away!  I had never seen it from this bridge before.  I looks like a small white mound in the distance.

Today we are leaving on another trip - I will tell you about it later.  Thanks for visiting!

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!