SOME PROJECTS AND MILLER WOODS

Where does the time go?  I decided that I was going to finish a Christmas project that I had wanted to get finished for last Christmas.  But since we weren't going to be home for Christmas last year, I decided on other priorities.  This year, however, we plan to be home for Christmas, so I am going to finish this wall hanging.  I found it in the November/December 2015 issue of Quiltmania magazine and since we used to do a lot of RVing, I knew that I HAD to make it.  It is now ready for the borders and then quilting.  I decided to do raw edge appliqué, so I have all the pieces ironed on and when I quilt it I will do straight stitching around the appliquéd pieces.  I've never done that before, but I figure that since it's a wall hanging it won't be handled or washed very much.  Plus being on the wall it will be viewed from a distance (not a huge distance, but not super close up either), so it won't be too noticeable.  It will finish at about 54" x 37".

Another wall hanging below, but this one will be for sale at a craft show.  I saw a tutorial from Jordan Fabrics in Grants Pass, Oregon.  A friend from my guild in Texas had some across some YouTube videos from there and asked if I had ever been to the shop.  I hadn't, but did check out their videos and came across the one for Secret Window Panel Wall Hanging (you can find it on YouTube if you are interested).  Anyway, I thought it was interesting and tucked it away in my memory.

While on our trip to Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois in April, I stopped at a quilt shop in Des Moines, Iowa and saw this panel.  It was perfect for the Secret Window, so I bought it.  Then last week while on a shop hop I was looking for some fabric to make the Secret Window out of and the gal in the shop (Grandma's Attic in Dallas, OR) showed me this green batik.  It looked perfect, so I bought some and I'm very happy with how it looks.  It was very easy to do, which is nice.  It is ready to baste and quilt - don't know how I will quilt it yet.

I walk 5 days a week with my neighbor (she is also my quilting buddy and craft show vendor partner) and we decided to check out Miller Woods for a hike.  Usually we just walk around the neighborhood, but we keep saying we need to get out to more interesting places.  This place is wonderful!  It's about a 12 min. drive, so not very far and it's a wonderful conservation park.

They make bird houses and had them nailed to lots of trees and on posts.

 
Two deer were on the path and just stood there looking at us and we looked at them for a while till they walked into the ferns and the ferns were so large that we couldn't see them at all!  We could hear the bull frogs in the pond croaking (if that's what you call it), but couldn't get close enough to see them.

We'll definitely be going back there.

Thanks for visiting - Happy Quilting!!

SHOP HOP AND FABRIC SHOPPING THOUGHTS

I just finished quilting this UFO, which has been hanging in my closet for several years.  Today I sewed on the binding and moved it into the living room so I can hand sew it to the back while watching TV.

I'm so glad to have this almost finished.  A friend of mine bought me the pattern after she saw me admiring the made up sample in a quilt shop.

I stitched in the ditch first, then quilted feathers in the brown setting triangles.  Once it is totally done I'll take a better picture of the quilting so you can see how I quilted each section.

A friend and I went to 8 shops on the "Snowflakes and Stitches Shop Hop" - 6 of them on Monday.  Below you can see my purchases.  I bought more than I had been planning on buying - surprise, surprise!  I have some projects in mind.

When shopping, I always look for the "scrap bin" that some quilt shops have to see if I can get some scraps that I can use.  I didn't take a picture of them, but Grandma's Attic in Dallas, OR had one and you can fill a plastic bag with as much fabric as you can squeeze in for $4.99.   I debated doing it, but decided to see if there was enough fabric I liked to make it worth while.   I starting wondering how much fabric you actually got for that amount of money.  One of the other shops in the shop hop is our local quilt shop, Boersma's Sewing Center and they have a little chest of drawers with scraps in them - those scraps cost 50⍧ per ounce.  I wondered if that was a better deal than a baggie for $4.99.

So when I got home, I decided to weigh some fabric to see how much one yard weighs.  I weighed 4 fat quarters and they weighed 4 1/4 oz.  One yard of a different fabric weighed 6 oz.  So, I kind of averaged it out and figured that 5 oz. is about what one yard of cotton fabric weighs.  So, I weighed the baggie from Grandma's Attic and it weighed 11 oz.  That means that I got approximately 2 yards of fabric for $4.99.  If I bought $5 worth of scraps from Boersmas, which would be 10 oz, I would get approximately 2 yards.   So, I think that price is pretty good.

Am I the only nutty quilter who loves to dig through the scrap bins?  Please don't tell me that I am!

And, oh, BTW, my friend and I both agreed that the best shops we went to were Boersma's Sewing Center, Greenbaum's Quilted Forest, Grandma's Attic, and The Quilted Hill.

BASKETS OF BLUE FINISHED!

I finished quilting it yesterday and got all the threads trimmed off today.  I'm naming it "Baskets of Blue" which was suggested to me by Rebecca in AK.  Thanks, Rebecca!  I took a bunch of pictures, but only two of them turned out very good.  I'm not very good at "arranging" photos!  

I'm so happy to have this quilt finished (always feel this way when finishing a quilt).  It took 1 1/2 years from start to finish.  I plan to hang it in the living room of our new house.

I'm glad that I did a whole appliquéd quilt and now I feel that I don't need to avoid all appliqué.  I think someday I might want to do something like a Jan Patek quilt (I already have one of her wall hanging as a UFO).

Thanks for all the encouragement as I went through this process.

Last week I attended a quilters' guild meeting and the speaker was Rachel Greco, from Grandma's Attic Quilt Shop in Dallas, OR.  She presented a lecture concerning Isaac Singer and the Singer Sewing Machine Company.  Very interesting!  Rachel loves history and she makes it come alive.  I plan to visit the quilt shop soon to participate in a shop hop of 13 quilt shops around Oregon.  What better way to get to know the area?