SEPTEMBER 22?!?!? WHAT HAPPENED?

Can you believe this?  September will be over a week from tomorrow!!  I must be having too much fun or something - the time is just flying by!

Last year I bought the Quilt Sampler magazine as I always do and in the Spring/Summer 2017 edition, on page 78, I saw a table runner named "Topsy Turvy" that I really liked.  It was from Quilt Haven on Main in Hutchinson, Minnesota.  It only took me a little over a year to finally get around to making it.  It is a paper piecing pattern - not my favorite thing, but not too bad.  First I made one out of civil war reproductions.

Then I decided to make one with Christmas fabrics and I just finished that top.

I also decided to make this "Welcome Wagon Quilted Door Hanger" that is in the Simple Graces book by Kim Diehl on page 88.  I love her designs and I decided to make a couple of these to keep one and give one away.  This is the front section that I have done for 2 of them.  I still have to put them together and make tassels for them.

Does your local quilt shop carry this magazine - Country Pleasures?  It is free at our LQS and it has quilting events (and other crafts) as well as a free block each month.

This is from the May 2018 copy and I decided to use it in a Christmas lap quilt that I am making.

The green blocks are the Disappearing Pinwheel Trinket Box and the red blocks are the Disappearing Pinwheel Roundabout from the June 2018 issues.  The blocks go together quickly and are 14" square, so I didn't need to make a lot of them.  The lap quilt measures 55" x 55".  It isn't quilted yet.

Here's a close-up of the fabrics.

l'm sorry I've been so slack at blogging recently.  I've just been so busy with quilting for craft shows as well as family.  This next week there is a large quilt show in Portland - Northwest Quilting Expo - that I plan to attend, so I will have pictures to post.

Have a great week!

GOOD NEWS FROM THE OREGON STATE FAIR!!

I decided to enter these 2 quilts in the Oregon State Fair.  I figured - why not? When I went to the fair last week, of course I wanted to see if they won anything.   I was surprised to see that I got a blue first place ribbon for both quilts!  Flags of the Revolution was in the "machine appliqué" category and Dear Jane was in the "mixed techniques" category.

Flags of the Revolution

Dear Jane's Journey

Below are a few of the quilts that I liked best at the fair.

Below are the quilts that were awarded Best of the Show.  They are well deserving of that award.  I just wish they would have hung them so that we could have seen the whole quilts.

Yesterday I had cataract surgery on my left eye (the right eye was done a month ago).  Everything went very well.

PROGRESS???

The time is going faster than ever.  And I have been busy with another craft show at the Harvest Fest that took place this past weekend at the Yamhill Valley Heritage Museum.  It is a wonderful facility displaying the history of the area and demonstrating typical methods of harvesting - this weekend anyway.  And, it's only about a mile from my house!

In between sewing items to sell, I have worked on this Christmas wall hanging.  I basted it, along with several other things, a while ago and have done some quilting on it.

Here's a close up of the quilting on the lower section.  I still need to quilt the car, trailer, trees and the "snowballs" under the words.  I'm determined to get it finished before Christmas this year.  Last year, I gave up on it when we decided that we would spend Christmas in Florida.

Another large project is Bonnie Hunter's Bowdacious quilt that I decided to make for my 9 year old DG (who lives in Florida).  I plan to get it finished before early October so I can show it at my guild meeting.  In later October, I will be traveling to Florida again and we will celebrate Christmas early while there in Florida, as this year we will be home for Christmas.

Below are the latest block sections that I have been working on.  And I just now noticed that the lower right one needs to be fixed!  Oops!

Below are all the blocks that I have finished so far.  I need 40 of these.  I needed 15 more when I took this out last week, and now I have finished 2 and have 2 more almost done.  Each completed block has these 4 sections (like the ones above), and has 53 pieces.  I had decided to make this quilt after participating in Bonnie Hunter's Virginia Bound workshop in Texas and seeing this quilt that she showed us along with other quilts of hers.

I sorry that I haven't been blogging as much lately.  The time just isn't lasting as long lately.  

YAMHILL COUNTY FAIR

As I said in my last post, I entered my Dear Jane's Journey quilt in the Yamhill County Fair and won a 3rd place ribbon.  I was very happy at how it was displayed.  This is what you saw upon entering the crafts building!  The quilt on the right won the 1st place ribbon and Best of Show.  It is a beautiful quilt and the quilter who made it also made 2 other quilts that I will show.

Here are the 2 other quilts and these were designed by Crabapple Hill.   I'm sorry, but I didn't take a picture of the quilter's name.

Snow Days

Snow Days

Snow Days

Mystery of the Salem Quilt Guild

Here are some other items I saw at the fair that I liked:

I recently joined another quilt guild because it meets during the summer, Gone to Pieces.  They are making a 14' tree skirt that will be sent to Washington DC to go under a 20' tree at the Department of Agriculture for Christmas.  Here are a few pictures of the tree skirt.  It is designed to look like a wagon wheel with each section of the wheel depicting an aspect of the State of Oregon.  All the Christmas trees for the DC government buildings will be from the Willamette Valley forests, which is where I live (not in the middle of a forest, but in the valley).

Mt. Hood with skiers skiing down the mountain

Light House with all the light house names in their respective locations

Eastern Oregon John Day National Park and a wagon train, etc

Making a 14' tree skirt is a huge undertaking and there is still a lot of sewing to do by hand which we all will participate in at our next meeting.  

Stay cool and happy quilting!

SPECIAL SHOPPING TRIP

I just finished these socks this morning.  I think I've knitted over a dozen pair of socks, mostly for myself, but some were for my DIL and 2 DGSs.  I learned how from a lady at church and it is getting easier with each pair.

My LQS has a couple special ways to keep you coming back.  For one thing, they have a punch card (actually a key ring with a plastic punch card on it).  When it is all punched, you get $25 of free fabric.  I finally finished a punch card.  The reason it took me so long is that sometimes I forgot it and I had to start a new one.  You can't combine them.  Also, you don't get punches for anything on sale, and since I buy mostly from the sale bolts in the basement, it takes a lot longer to get one card all punched.  This is my first one and I have lived here 4 years!

The second thing that they do is give you 25% off the week of your birthday and you can use the $25 card to pay for it.  Since my birthday was Tuesday, I planned my shopping trip for Wednesday morning.  My DS#1 gave me a gift certificate of $1 for each year of my life and combined with the $25, I had a nice round number to spend!

I saw the table runner pattern for Nordic Stars in the November/December 2017 of McCalls Quilting Magazine and used part of my $ to buy fabric for it.  I took 2 pictures and neither one turned out very good, but I'm including both of them so that maybe you can get the idea of what it looks like.  The pattern looks easy, but it was kind of hard to get everything lined up just right.

There are 4 shades of blue and a white background.

Here are some of the other items I bought on my shopping trip.  A new ruler by Creative Grids.  I had read good things about these rulers, so I thought I would try one.  So far, I really like it.

I bought 2 different white on white fabrics that maybe you can see if you enlarge this picture.  I used the bottom one with the snowflakes for the background of the table runner.  I didn't have much good white fabric, so I hope this will last a while.

I also got a couple different red fabrics as you can never have too much.  I should have enough fabric to last a while, but you never know when you will need a particular color for something, as well as fabrics for backings, etc.  Even though I keep sewing all the time using up fabric, it doesn't seem to decrease much.

I entered my Dear Jane quilt in the Yamhill County Fair and got a 3rd place ribbon.  I will also be entering it into the Oregon State Fair soon.

This weekend is the 2nd weekend that I will be a vendor at the Powerland Steam Up Quilt Show.  Powerland is a place of interest mostly to men, but to give the ladies something to do while the hubbies are busy looking at all the antique steam engine tractors, etc., they started a quilt show several years ago.  This is my second year as a vendor there.  If you are near Brooks, OR, this would be a good weekend to attend because the weather is supposed to be very pleasant.  The quilt show is in the air-conditioned Truck Museum.

Hope you have a quilty weekend!

TRIP TO WASHINGTON

We took a short trip to Washington state this week and saw so many amazing things!  First of all we visited our DGD and she took us to a couple quilt shops.

The Quilt Shoppe is located in Poulsbo, WA which is a scandinavian town with a street named King Olaf!  The owner is Norwegian and she has created some Norwegian type patterns.  Unfortunately, I didn't take very many pictures there, but if you ever get to that town, you should stop in.

Next, we went to Quilted Strait in Port Gamble, WA, which is a very cute, old town.  The quilt shop is wonderful and we had a good time looking at all the fabrics.

I didn't buy much and don't have a picture of it.  Don't you love the quilt in the above picture?

Next we went to Olympic National Park and up to Hurricane Ridge at 5242 feet elevation!  The drive up there is beautiful, however, they are re-paving the road, so it is down to one lane for a significant section of it and took a little longer to get up there.

The Visitor Center is on top of the mountain with a perfect view all around!

Look at this!

Then we drove down to SW Washington and went into New North Light House, built in 1898.  The light is still in use and can be seen for 17 miles out to sea.

It wasn't too tall, so we were able to make it to the top!

I had been wanting to go to Astoria, Oregon in the North East corner of Oregon for quite a while.  We crossed into Oregon via the Astoria Bridge, which is 4 1/2 miles long.  The special thing for me is that I have a good friend whose husband worked on building the bridge in 1966!

While in Astoria, we learned a lot about the Columbia River.  The entrance to the river from the Pacific Ocean is the most dangerous of any other river in the USA and it is called the "Graveyard of the Pacific."  Over 2,000 ships have gone down there.  The ships are required to have a "bar pilot" help them go through the entrance (which is called the bar).  The Columbia River Maritime Museum was so interesting!

We also went to the Flavel House Museum, which was built 1883 by Captain George Flavel, a bar pilot and business man.

I love touring historic homes!

Astoria is the oldest city on the west coast and got started because of the beaver trade.  I love history and there is so much more to learn about this area. 

Now, I'm anxious to get some sewing in this weekend!