The Oregon Quilt Festival

 Finally I am getting pictures for you.  I'm sorry it has taken me so long.  I was having problems getting the pictures to transfer from my phone to my computer.  I can't do a post on my phone, so I just had to transfer them a little at a time.  First I will show you some of my favorites and best of show.

This is the Judge's Choice and it is my favorite quilt!

This one was amazing.  It is a raffle quilt that will be featured at a quilt show in Eugene OR in May.  I love it but wouldn't want to make it.

This one was awarded Best of Show and it was made totally with stitching thread for the picture of trees and sky.  

This lion was best of show too.  Can there be more than one Best of Show?  Just wondering.  The lion is so bright!!
 

This is the one that I entered into the show (and I didn't win a ribbon).  The colors don't seem as good as they are in person.

The daffodils are blooming now!

That's all for today.  I will show more of them in a couple days. 

CUTE TEDDY BEARS, ETC.

For several years there has been a vendor at lots of the same craft shows where I am a vendor selling teddy bears that she makes.  These teddy bears are just adorable and so snuggly!  I was able to get these two!  Jeanne Weirich's motto is "comforting hearts one bear at a time" and her Dad, who is in assisted living, helps her stuff them.

While at my quilt guild meeting last month, one of the members had some fabrics that she was giving away and I couldn't resist this fabric with children showing their teeth.  I decided to make a small wall hanging for my dentist and I put a large tooth in the middle as you can see.  I will take this to the dentist on my next appointment in March.  I hope they like it.

The Oregon Quilt Festival is coming soon - February 15-17, 2024.  I will be a vendor and have been making items to sell. If you live in Oregon or near enough to Salem I hope you will come to it!  It will be held at the Oregon State Fair Grounds, 10AM - 5PM (until 4PM on Saturday).  Admission is $12 for adults and $8 for children under 12.  Go to Oregon Quilt Festival for more information.  And, I hope to see you there!

 January is almost gone already!  Time to get the Valentine decorations out.

FIRST FINISH OF 2024!!

 This quilt was the BOM (block of the month) of the Willamette Valley Quilters for 2023 and I kept up with it and it is now finished!  As soon as I saw the pattern, I knew I would make it.  I even bought all the coordinating fabric needed right away, which is very unusual for me.  Most of the quilts that I make are made from what I have in my stash.  

Here it is!  The official name of it is "Vinyard Stroll" but since I didn't appliqué grapes in the corners, I put birds there instead, I changed name to "Garden Stroll."

 The quilt is 76" square and since I needed a picture so I could enter it in the quilt show coming up in February and it was just the hubby and me at home, neither one of us could hold it up by ourselves and I couldn't hang it outside on the clothesline since it would drag onto the ground, which was very wet and muddy, so we hung it on the TV with clamps.  I plan to take a picture of it hanging at the quilt show where it should be totally flat and will take a better picture.

I'm trying to get my sewing room more organized and cleaned up.  It is one of those jobs that never gets finished.  I know it won't ever be perfect.  We have been staying home mostly since Sunday because of the snow and ice.  Church was cancelled, meetings were cancelled and my eye appointment was cancelled.  So I have had more time to do some sewing and organizing, with a little cleaning thrown in!

The ice is melting, but there is still a lot on the ground.  I did go out to get my mail and saw that my garbage hadn't been picked up.  Hope you are keeping warm!

GETTING BACK TO BLOGGING!

I  have things that I want to share, which I have neglected so much the last couple years.  I will be making some changes in my life this year.  First of all, I won't be taking any more jobs as a board member of any quilt guild.  I have been secretary of Gone to Pieces Quilt Guild in McMinnville Oregon for the last 2 years and I am done!  I enjoyed it, but I also took on the preparation of the newsletter each month and that was a pretty big job.  I just finished the last one!  Yea!

I have one more vender job which will be at the Oregon Quilt Festival in February and then I will not be doing any more in person vending.  I will try to sell the rest of my inventory in my Etsy shop.  Of course, I will still keep on sewing, for myself, gifts and donations. I also plan to do some serious work on my family tree and possibly write up the history of our lives.  I have cassette tapes that I want to transcribe because they have some family history, etc.  That takes time.  But I want to dedicate some time to it.

I have several quilts that I have started, a couple of which will be scrappy donation quilts and another that I started for myself which is also scrappy.  I'm sure there are more, but I haven't seriously looked yet.

My oldest grandson is now a student at Notre Dame and is working on a master's degree in architecture.  He is very smart and loves to read and drink tea.  When I was browsing the Etsy site of Elefantz I came across this pattern, which fits my DGS to a tea!!  Notice the "author" of the book that the cup of tea is sitting on - Yes, it is C. S. Lewis.  He loves the books written by C. S. Lewis, which my son read to his children and which we read to ours:  Namely the Narnia series.  This is a quote by Mr. Lewis.  Don't look too close at the embroidery - I was making this the day before Christmas!  The design is by Jenny of Elefantz.  She has an Etsy shop with lots & lots of lovely embroidery patterns.

This week I will get all the Christmas decorations put away and have to finish a quilt that I will be entering in the quilt show.  Here is a picture of part of it as I am quilting it now.  I need to send a picture and registration which is due Jan. 15.

The center medallion (on the left above) is quilted and I'm about to start on the darker triangle on the right side (there are 8 of those).  

Thanks for visiting, and I hope to post the finished quilt in a few days!

 

HAPPY NEW YEAR! 2024!

I buy threads from Connecting Threads and a while back when they had some things on sale, I saw this puzzle at a reduced price.  I like making puzzles, so I ordered it, even though I prefer 500 piece puzzles and this one is 1000 pieces.  The name of it is "Kaffe Fassett's Fabulous Florals Quilt."  The design is actually a copy of a quilt made by him using his fabric patterns.  There are 72 different 9 piece floral designs.  Around each flower is a border consisting of 12 flowers.  These borders are not all different.  I started it right before Thanksgiving and by December 10 I was as far as the second picture.  I then decided that I would never have it finished by Christmas.  We have a small living room and I set up puzzles on a card table in the living room, so it takes up quite a bit of space.  I had to put it away so I could get my Christmas decorations put up and have some room for company on Christmas day.

This is how much I had accomplished by the time I put it away.  Maybe, some day when I don't have anything else to do I will set it up again.

On to more interesting matters.  I belong to the Willamette Valley Quilters that meets in Dayton, OR.  They had people that will register quilts that are "living" in Oregon, so I brought an antique quilt that belonged to my MIL.  It had been given to her mother (DH's grandmother) sometime around 1890.  I may have posted it on the blog before.  

This is a table runner that I made and I just love it.  I plan to make more of them for next year to either sell or give away.  The saw tooth star is my favorite and some day I want to make a large quilt with all saw tooth stars covering it.

I also belong to the Gone to Pieces Quilt Guild (that meets in McMinnville) and during 2023 we had a "Round Robin" program for those who wanted to join.  It was ended on time to finish the quilt and bring it to our December meeting.  This is my RR.  I did the square in the middle last January and other members of the guild added a border when they received the quilt at the next meeting.  Every participant added a border when the quilt rotated to them.  It is really amazing to see the finished products!  I quilted mine just in time to take to the meeting where we showed them

I walk with 2 neighbors in the mornings, monday through friday and on a recent foggy morning I took these pictures because I loved how the trees looked in the fog.  I just love the hugh trees that have grown in this area for centuries! I couldn't get the whole trees in the photos.

The area behind this tree goes down to a ravine and creek.  We've had a lot of rain lately, so the creek has been larger than usual.  A lot of deer live in this ravine and come up to visit us and eat our flowers from time to time.  We love to see them.

This picture was taken in between 2 houses around the bend from the other tree.  One of the houses was built by the people who lived in the other house because they wanted to be sure that the large trees were not cut down if someone bought the lot and decided to cut down the large trees when they had a house built.  These huge trees are over 100 years old and we live in the middle of McMinnville,

This piece of fabric was put on a table at my guild meeting along with other pieces of fabric that this member wanted to give away. I thought this was so cute and decided to make a small wall hanging for my dentist.  I hope it will turn out good and that they will like it.  I will post it when I get it made.

Thank you, dear readers, for visiting my blog!  I hope you have a wonderful 2024!

 

It's November Already?

I can't believe it is already November and I didn't post anything since August!  That is my longest lapse in posting and my only excuse is that I have been super busy sewing.  This Christmas tree lap quilt is one example of that.  First I made a queen size one for a friend, then I made 2 lap size quilts - one sold.

I also have made some wall "Santa" hangings to sell.  See below.   

Last weekend I was a vendor in Polk County Oregon and have 2 more craft shows this month.  I don't need to make any more things for those, but have other sewing projects to complete.  I am almost finished with a kids quilt that will be donated to the police/fire department to keep in their cars in case they need to remove a child.  That sounds awful, doesn't it.  But it is necessary some times and the guild I go to is collecting quilts at our November meeting,  

Then there is a baby quilt (basted) for my hair stylist.  She is due this month.  She is a sweet girl and I want to make something for her baby.  Oh, and there is a  baby shower at church next Sunday.  I bought some really soft fabric, kind of like minky to make a little blanket.  

I have my Round Robin quilt basted so I can get it quilted in time for the December guild meeting when we will reveal them, plus a kind of large green donation quilt waiting to be quilted.  

My hubby has been having some health problems and we don't yet know if we will be able to travel to see the 2 sons who don't live near us like we had planned to do.  It's hard to make any plans right now.  We really want to see those 2 families, but I could be happy staying home too.  As one gets older, one really doesn't want to travel as much - at least I don't.  

My partner in (crime), I mean business, and I decided we want to make simple aprons to use when we are vending, with Christmas fabric on one side and sewing fabric on the other side.  So, we want to get those done by Friday.  We can easily get Christmas fabric at the local quilt shop and I have some fabric with spools of thread, or sewing machines that we could use for the other side.  (All my Christmas fabrics are small pieces so not large enough for an apron).

Our local son won't be here for Thanksgiving (he'll be working in Montana that week) and I have decided that we will go out to eat for our Thanksgiving dinner.  I'm getting too old to do all that cooking.  My granddaughter that lives nearby can't eat a lot of regular food and since they  live with his parents, they will eat with them.  We can get together another day, as we like to talk about sewing, etc.  And I can make a gluten free cake for her - she usually brings her food with her.  She loves to sew and does a lot of it by hand.  At times she comes over to use my serger.  Her brother is a student at Notre Dame and probably won't be coming home for Thanksgiving.

I just finished the quilt that I will donate to the police.  Nothing fancy, just 9-patches and it's about 36" square.

I will try to be better about blogging.  I treasure the friends I have made and love it when I take a few moments to read your blogs.  I don't want to lose that.  I will probably still be sewing when I am a 90 year little old lady and will still be making quilts to donate.  I'll still have scraps to sew together!

Happy sewing and blogging!!

Birthday Shopping Trip at Boersma's Quilt Shop

My local quilt shop, Boersma's, gives us 25% off and we can use completed punch cards, which I had 2 of, so that all helps a lot!  They got in a new line of fabrics designed by Tilda, a designer from Norway.  And since I am of Norwegian descent, I was really interested and when I saw it, I decided I would get some with the birthday discount.

I'm planning to use these fabrics, sewn into 4 patches and with lattice strips.

This will be the border for a table cloth.

Close up of the top fabric.

I also purchased some other fabrics that I needed to finish up  a donation quilt and 3 Christmas fabrics.  I just finished the inner part of this Christmas lap quilt and decided I will need one more strip of trees and then I will enlarge it with a border or 2.  The Christmas fabrics that I got are the white background fabric used in the lap quilt and the plaid for the large tree on the right side below.  I think I will get a couple more plaids

This is from the pattern "Plaid Pines" by Lori Holt.  I made the full size Plaid Pines quilt for a friend of mine who saw it in the window of the above mentioned quilt shop and fell in love with it.  I'm thinking about making another lap quilt sized one and will need to get more fabric if I do.  

Now I'm going to show you some pictures of a pieced section that was found in my son/DIL's house that they moved into several years ago.  It is obviously antique/vintage fabrics that were hand pieced together and I have had it hanging in my closet for a few years because I don't know what to do with it.  Does anyone have any ideas for me?  Including how old do you think these fabrics are?  I know I would have to take it apart somewhat and maybe move some pieces so that it is a more useful shape.  Maybe I should make a large table runner or a Christmas tree skirt?

Thanks for visiting!  Stay cool.....
 

Humble Quilts Presents Program at Willamette Valley Quilt Guild in Dayton, Oregon

On July 19, 2023, Lori DeJarnatt, of Humble Quilts presented a program at the Willamette Valley Quilt Guild and I am a member of that guild.  Everyone enjoyed her program very much.  Lori doesn't believe in the quilt police and believes that a quilt doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful.  She has seen many antique quilts and loves to see how people made quilts with what they had and if they ran out of the fabric, they just put in another fabric.  Mistakes weren't something to cry over or be ashamed about!  I only took a couple pictures, but I do love the quilt in this first picture.

This next quilt is amazing and Lori did most of the appliqué by machine.  

After her presentation, there was a workshop to make baskets without using a pattern.  We had to jump right in and we selected some fabrics.  Lori helped us figure out how to cut the background fabric and how to make the handles.  We spent all afternoon making baskets and I got 5 baskets made.  When I got home, I decided to make a few tiny baskets and I used rick rack for the handles.  You can see the close up pictures of the all the baskets following the picture of the completed wall hanging.  I just finished it yesterday including a label!  I love all the fabrics that I used and my favorite basket is the one made out of the stripes.  I also used the striped fabric for the border.  I made it to fit a quilt rack that I hang smaller quilts on that hangs on the wall.

This shows the quilting better than the front.  I did straight line stitching
 on the border in green and 2 rows in yellow.

One day last week when I was digging through a box of scraps, I came across this small quilt top.  It measures 9" x 9".  I love little quilts like this and use them in various places, such as on a bed side table at home or on a trip in a motel.  Also, I have one on the bathroom counter to set glasses and other things on.   It feels good to finish it even though it is tiny. 

 In about a week, the Gone to Pieces Quilt Guild (of which I am secretary) will be at the Yamhill County fair to sell tickets to our raffle quilt, so I will take a turn at our booth.  I will also be entering a couple items in the fair to be judged.

Hope you are having a nice summer and are staying cool enough!

A Finish and an Outing

I just finished a Christmas Quilt that I made with blocks of the month (BOMs) that were provided by my quilt guild during 2022.  I ended up making them with Christmas fabric and made 2 of some of them to make it the right size - I think I skipped some as well.  I haven't measured it yet, but it isn't big enough for bed size

I have 3 sons and plan to make one for each family.  

I went to my local quilt shop (LQS) a few times, but am keeping my purchases small because I'm saving up on buying fabric until my birthday at the end of this month.  My LQS gives us 25% off for our birthday so I am trying to think about what I might want to buy when the time comes.  In addition to the 25% off, I have 2 punch cards worth $25 each.  When I went there yesterday, I saw some new fabric by Tilda that I really liked, but I want to have a plan for anything that I buy, so I will be trying to come up with ideas.

I went on an outing with the ladies in my Bible study group and we went to the Pittock Mansion in Portland.  Here are a few pictures.  

It was a perfect day.

The view of Mt. Hood which is about 70 miles east.

Another view of Mt. Hood and more of the city of Portland.

Before we moved to Oregon (almost 9 years ago) we would usually come here in June to visit our son and his family.  June seemed like the perfect time to spend here. 

Thanks for visiting!  Hope you have a lovely summer.