A VERY BUSY MONTH

I can't believe I haven't posted since January 8th!  I hadn't done much sewing over the Christmas holiday so I wanted to get started and get something done.  I had this quilt in progress up until the borders needed to be added.  I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, but finally decided to add the sawtooth stars all around.  I think I made 46 stars so that with the border added the final measurement would come to 90" x 104" for a good size queen size quilt.  I have made 5 quilts for future family wedding gifts.

Most of the blocks were started when Barbara Brackman was posting her Westering Women blocks.  I didn't make all of them, but most of the blocks in this quilt are from those, except the large center one and at least the blue and black block on the right side.  Here are a couple close up of blocks.

My next project will be to quilt this one as well as 3 other quilt tops that I finished recently.  I bought backing fabric for this quilt, but now I can't find it.  I cleaned up my sewing room for my sister to sleep in and I don't remember where I put it.  

I hope you have been doing a lot of quilting so far this year! I'm doing the best I can.  

Happy quilting in 2022 and hoping you are all well.

 

 

WESTERING WOMEN AND WINNERS!

Congratulations to the winners of my give away!  An email has been sent to first place winner, Chantel L.  of At the corner of scraps and quilts and 2nd place winner, Marsha of Grandma's Quilts (Marsha and I have been APQ blogging buddies almost since the beginning).  I will send out their prizes as soon as I hear from them.

I had gotten behind on making the blocks from Barbara Brackman's "Westering Women" 2016 BOM, but now I'm caught up.  You can still find these 12" blocks on the Civil War blog.  Barbara also gives you lots of amazing information about the civil war.

Here are all 12 blocks finished.  I want to put them into a queen size quilt and am not sure how I will do that.  I will probably put them on point with an alternating block (non-pieced) in between.  Any ideas will be welcome.

These are a larger picture of the 4 blocks that I just finished.

Thanks to all those who entered my give away!  I wouldn't be doing this if it wasn't for all of you!

WESTERING WOMEN BLOCK - OOPS! Change that to ROUND ROBIN BLOCK

Here is my Westering Women block for July!  ROUND ROBIN block for the next season at my quilt guild.   I decided I would do it for another year because the RR quilts came out so nice.  If I get very frustrated this year with coming up with a new border every month, I might not do a third year of it.  

I don't know what happened to my mind, but I had been looking at the Civil War Quilts web site to see when the August block will be posted.  The August one will be posted on the 31st, so currently I am up to date.  I like it that these are 12" blocks.  And we only have to do one per month.  I'm not sure it will make a big enough quilt but I can always add wider sashing and borders.

This RR block is also 12" and I made it with CW fabrics, so that probably added to my confusion!  Am I getting old or what?  I found this block in Quiltmaker's 100 Block Vol. 2 from Winter 2010.  It was done in black, red and white.  It was stunning, but that doesn't really go with my decor, so I opted for the CW fabrics and changed the black to blue.

I'm also trying to get some projects finished for a possible craft show coming up in December.  I have 3 of each of these pillows almost finished.  They were in a panel and I also have a lap quilt that goes with them.  The pillow cover tops are quilted and the backs have a velcro closure so they can be taken off and washed.

Have a nice weekend!

GOALS FOR AUGUST

I'm up to date on the Westering Women blocks.  The last one was super easy!

I have been working on a UFO lately.  It's a quilt I saw at Lori's home several years ago and liked a lot.  I don't remember when I started it, but I got tired of having it in a box, so I determined to myself that I would at least finish the top.  It appeared in the Fall/Winter 2005 Quilt Sampler magazine and is called "American Crossroads."  I already had 93 blocks finished and needed 63 more to make it into a queen size quilt.  I just finished 24 blocks!  So now I "only" need 39 more.  I'll try to get them made this week.

So, it seems I am back in the groove!  I also plan to get 2 wall hangings quilted this month.  One is my round robin!

Do you have any goals for August?

SOME PROGRESS MADE

I am happy to report that I finished Row K of my Dear Jane quilt early!  I have even gotten a start on the last 2 rows by making copies and getting the paper ready for paper piecing.  I'll see if I can get another row done and maybe finish the next 2 rows before the end of May.  I'm sorry that my picture isn't very good - the lighting in my sewing room isn't very bright and the flash won't work because it's not dark enough for that.  BTW, block K-5 is supposed to be appliqué, but I paper pieced it instead and it went so fast (its the 1st block in the second row with the 4 diamond shapes).

I got the Focal Point table runner all pieced.  I'm amazed with the design!  I can't imagine how Joanne was able to figure out how to intersect the circles and get all the pieces in the right place.  I had to rip out my piecing several times - and with the stitch set smaller, it isn't easy!  However, I persevered and got it done!  I was amazed at how good it looked.  Hee Hee!

 This morning I started quilting it and first stitched in the ditch around the white and into all the white diamond shapes.  Then I quilted feathers all around in the white space.  I'm not sure what I will do next.  I made the border more narrow than called for in case the bride and groom get the cabinet on their gift registry - so maybe this can go on top of it.

I really have to hand it to Joanne for this design!

Here's my block for the Civil War  Westering Women's sampler quilt for March.  I still need to appliqué the stem down - but don't have any brown thread!  Wow!  I better get some soon.



Have a great week and thanks for visiting!

ISSUES AND TAXES

I'll get the frustrations out of the way first.  I've had issues with my IMac for several months and have talked to Apple support quite a few times.  They have reconfigured my computer, but not everything was fixed and I kept putting off calling them again because it always takes forever.  Well, yesterday I finally forced myself to call them and it looks like things are just about fixed.  It wasn't that I couldn't use the computer, but one of my most important genealogy files was missing (its found now!) and some photos are still missing.  So tomorrow one of the senior agents is going to call me back and hopefully get that fixed.

The other frustration was just getting all my income tax stuff put together and that is almost finished, so I feel like I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!  Yea!

Here's the civil war Westering Women's block from Barbara Brackman's Civil war blog for February. It was a very easy block.  I'm planning to make all the blocks red, white and blue.

I found this doll bed at an antique shop and couldn't resist it.  DH is going to fix it up and either refinish or paint it.  I came across the green stripe at a quilt show vendor's booth and thought it would be perfect to cover the mattress.  I plan to make a quilt for it and a pillow and will sell it, hopefully, next December.

Now that my "issues" are almost resolved, I think I'll work on my Dear Jane blocks for March!

Spring is almost here!

NEW BOM, A FINISH AND DESIGN WALL

When I saw Barbara Brackman's new BOM, I had to join in.  It's only one block per month!  And she is adding lots of history about wagon trains going west - one of my favorite topics.  I love to read about the "Westering Women!"  Here is the first block.

Independence Square

I showed this quilt in December when it was just a top.  Now it's finished and will be donated to a child in the hospital.  I am demonstrating how to make the ten minute block at my guild today and this is the sample to show how it looks when put together,

When I was looking for backing I cam across this "cat" fabric in my closet.  The colors were perfect, but it wasn't quite enough.  That was easily fixed by surrounding it with this coral colored fabric.  I probably got the cat fabric at a garage sale.  The fabrics for the top of the quilt were from Good Will.

It was fun quilting the top with the squiggly lines.  Some of the quilting thread was variegated.  The purple shows up at dark blue in the photo.  I didn't really put 3 squares of blue together.

In September I participated in a "bow tie" block exchange and had been trying to decide how to use them.  Yesterday I saw the eagle block (found at a garage sale as well a few years ago) in my closet and when I put it up on my design wall with some of the bow tie blocks, I knew it was what I wanted.  It has to fit on a particular quilt hanger which is 29" wide and with 7 blocks across it comes to 28".  It's not all sewn together yet, but that shouldn't take long.  It will be nice to have another patriotic wall hanging for July 4th!

Have a great quilty week!