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!

CHRISTMAS PROJECTS

I finished the Christmas table runner that I showed you in my last post.  I was happy to have the paper piecing finished!  And I'm happy with the finished product!  It's a large table runner - 22" x 47".

An indoor picture that shows the quilting a little better.  I used a lot of different green fabrics for the trees.

This one shows the backing and binding better.

Next, I worked on finishing a lap quilt measuring 60" square.  It is made with scrappy strip 8" blocks and solid red for the sashing and border.  Whenever it comes to quilting, I usually don't have any idea how I plan to quilt it until the time comes.  I decided to just quilt wavy lines across the whole quilt not including the border.  I wanted something nice for the border, so I went to Pinterest and didn't see anything there, but I did see some of Lori Kennedy's designs.  I remembered that I had torn out some pages of her designs from my American Quilter issues, so I found this one that I thought would be good - if I could do it.

I decided to try it on some scraps.

I tried another one of her designs also:

I liked the holly one better, so tried it on the red fabric with green thread.

Lori's instructions are so good and she breaks the design down in steps.  If you haven't tried any of them, you should check out her website at lorikennedyquilts.com .  She has many design there.  I'm so happy that she shares these in her blog and in magazines.  If you haven't joined the American Quilters Society, it is well worth it.  Their magazine comes out 6 times per year.

Here is a picture of quilting the design on the actual quilt border.

And a picture of a section of the quilt.

Thanks to Lori Kennedy for helping quilters like me!!  

A NEW PROJECT AND UNSEWING

I found the Yuletide Forest pattern in McCall's Quilting Magazine, November/December 2017 issue, and saved it.  The main problem with it is that all the trees are paper pieced and I really don't like PP. However, I really liked the table runner, so decided to make it for our coffee table.

Here it is on my design wall, not sewn together and the paper is still on the trees.  The second tree on the right has to be fixed as I accidentally cut off the seam allowance.

This is a close-up.  There are 2 of each red fabric for the 4-patches.  For the trees, I used a variety of green fabrics.

This is the offending tree block.

This morning I decided I needed to sew some velcro onto Abby's unicorn pillow to get it finished for her birthday and the first strip that I sewed on had black thread on the bottom (which is actually the outside of the pillow), so that won't do.  Another need for the much used seam ripper

My craft show last weekend was quite successful and there is another one tomorrow.  Is it really the middle of November already???  I better check out my inventory of Christmas gifts that I have purchased this year and see what else I need to get.  Have you finished your Christmas shopping yet?  

A VISITOR FROM NYC WITH ANTIQUE BLOCKS

One of my cousins came to visit from New York City!!  She and her hubby had never been to Oregon before and were on their way to a conference in Newport.  We were able to spend most of one day together.  Of course, I had to clean house first !!  But, we were so busy talking she probably wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't cleaned.  They came over for dinner and besides myself and DH, our son & grandson were here.  We didn't stop talking until they had to leave.

Sometime, in the past, she bought these blocks at a sale in New Hampshire (probably 40 years ago) and she never got around to sewing them together (nothing new there, right?).  I thought some of you might have a guess as to when these fabrics were made.  I'm thinking 30s.  There are 49 of the X blocks.

There are 12 9-patch blocks and a lot of them have pieced sections like this one.

Then there are these appliquéd panels, but they are not finished either.  They are appliquéd on a printed panel and there are stains as well.  Maybe I can cut out the good sections and make something out of them.

This one has pieces pinned to where they go - and I'm sure they have been pinned for at least 40 years!  I don't know what I will do with these.  She said I can do whatever I want to do.

 During the summer I started these socks for my 2 younger grandsons (ages 8 and 11).  I just finished them and sent them with their Halloween cards.

I have been very busy sewing for Christmas craft shows, so I haven't done much blogging.  Thanks for visiting!

CHRISTMAS QUILT FINISHED

 I finished the Christmas quilt that was made from a kit.  This is just about the first time that I didn't wash the fabric before sewing it together.  The fabric was cut into pieces, some of which were pretty small, but other were large.  I just started cutting it up without thinking too much about it.  Then, when I was pressing some blocks, it seemed like the red would stick to the iron and move over to the lighter color.  I was afraid it would bleed, so I tested some red and white together in water and it didn't bleed.

My first post about this was September 12.  I had the blocks done but not sewn together.  Last week I was reading Barb's blog and she was showing a finished quilt - just awesome - and showed how she washes it in her bath tub.  She had some bleeding and needed to fix that.  I have also read in other blogs that some quilters wash their quilt as soon as they finish it.  I rarely do that.  Now I'm wondering if that is something a lot of quilters do.

Anyway, I decided to wash this one in my tub because I wanted to be sure that it wouldn't bleed as I plan to sell it and my washing machine doesn't have a gentle cycle (well, it has it, but it certainly isn't very gentle).  I used 2 color catchers and some Dawn.  I soaked it for a couple hours and rinsed it a couple times, then put it in the washing machine to spin and dryer it in the clothes dryer.  It came out perfect!

Here' a close up of the appliquéd ornament in the center.

This is the backing fabric and you can see the quilting better.  I quilted it with a goldfish thread on top and bottom.  The backing fabric is dark green with light green and gold dotted lines.

Another project that will be for me is this wool appliqué wall hanging.  I really need to get it finished or I won't be able to use it this year.  All the pieces are stitched down by machine and I just need to do a little hand embroidery and find some more buttons to sew onto the backing on the sides.

My cousin from New York and her hubby is in town this weekend - her first time to visit Oregon!  We will be spending the day with them today and then they will be going to Newport, on the coast for a conference.  I rarely get to see her, so this is great!!

Please let me know if you wash your quilts as soon as you finish them - and why.  Do you wash the fabric before hand?

Here's a couple pictures of the beautiful fall trees in the area.

 I love fall!!