WEEKEND QUILTING

The weekly Civil War Block comes out on Saturday, and since this was an easy one, I made it right away.

My guild had a workshop Saturday to make donation quilts that will go to the critically ill children at Dallas Children's Hospital ICU.  Below are blocks made by one of our members.  She is making a larger quilt for a teenager.  I made 2 baby quilts using this same pattern with novelty fabric.  I took pictures, but they were blurry, so I'll post them another day.  Each block has 5 squares of equal size and by sewing them together in a certain way, you get the diamond in the middle.  It looks really nice and is very easy and quick, especially when we used 10" squares.

Now I have 3 donation quilts (those 2 plus a string quilt) to baste and quilt.  I hope to get at least a couple of them finished during this next month.

I spent a couple days quilting on my basket quilt, but I'm having some problems with the stitches skipping.  I cleaned the machine, changed the needle and still have the problem.  I think I need a new free motion quilting foot as mine has a rough edge on it that might be catching the thread, so I'm going to go by a sewing machine store in Arlington tomorrow when I go to my Jo Morton class and get a new foot.  I'm sure my machine needs servicing too, but I'm going to put that off and take it to be serviced while we're gone.  The only other thing I can think of for the skipped stitches is the basting glue.  I noticed that there is a little bit of stickiness on the needle from time to time.  I didn't have that problem on the other quilts that I spray basted, though.

Here is my "mini-design wall" with some of my Thread Head Quilt Along blocks.  The Ohio stars in the top 3 rows are ones that I just finished this morning.  My design wall is sandwiched between the door and a cabinet, so it doesn't hold many blocks.

Below are close-ups of 4 of the Ohio Star blocks.  I love easy blocks!  These went together very nicely.  It's a good think JoAnne had us cut 4 1/4" squares for the hourglass part because even that made it a little scant for 3 1/2". 

We're getting our taxes done on Wednesday, so I need to go over the figures to make sure I have everything ready.  Ugh!  Good luck with yours....

VINTAGE POTHOLDERS AND A FINISH

Last year Karen from Log Cabin Quilter sent me some vintage potholders.  I posted a couple pictures, but am finally getting around to a couple more.  I found this small wood rake at a garage sale for 10 cents and took all the lace and ribbon off of it, DH painted it black and I hung it on the side of my china cabinet.  

This is the side view of my china cabinet.

This is the view from the front.  These are some of the cutest little potholder dresses that I have ever seen.

It seems that after Christmas, when the mad rush is over, I like to work on some Christmas items.  A couple years ago I bought the Art to Heart book "I Believe" by Nancy Halvorsen, and I hadn't made anything from it.  I was looking through it one day and decided to make some tree ornaments for the grandchildren.  They don't read my blog (or if the older ones ever do, they haven't told me), so I'm posting the pictures.

The Santa ornament is for Jonah.

The singing cats are for our 15 year old grandson - he is musically inclined.

The girls (2 of them) will each get an angel.

And the baby Jesus is for Eli.  It feels good to have these done for next Christmas.

A week ago or so I spray basted this basket quilt in two sections and I've been thinking about how to quilt it.  I didn't want to do an over-all pattern.  Today I decided to get with the program and get started.  I did a vine with leaves in the sashing, but that picture didn't download for some reason.  I'll post it next time.

I'm using Aurifil thread and really like it.  It's the first spool I have ever tried and I'll definitely get more!

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

I thought I'd share some of the antique valentines that were in my Mother's collection.  (She never threw a card away).   These are about 100 years old.  Aren't they sweet?

Valentine's day makes me think of my grandmother, who was born 135 years ago today.  

Hope your day is sweet!

MORE BLOCKS AND A STUDIOUS GRANDSON

It's been a while since I blogged - I have been keeping very busy not only just making these blocks, but I finished a strip quilt top and I'm waiting to get some batting to be able to quilt that.  

We kept warm and stayed inside for all the bad weather, snow and ice.  If you saw any news coverage of the weather around the Super Bowl, you know how much snow and ice we had because we live about 10 miles from Cowboy Stadium.

I was very happy to see this log cabin block was the Civil War block for this week - it's the easiest one so far!

Last weeks civil war block was a lot harder, but I got it done!  I plan to keep up on these each week while I'm home.  Hopefully, I can do them when we're out of town too or I will get behind fast.

These next six blocks are for my Thread Head quilt-along. 

We got this cute picture of Jonah by email this week.  As you can see he's studying up on being a 2-year-old!  I'm sure his parents appreciate that.

Thanks for all your comments!

TWO FINISHES!

I got up at 5:00 AM and made two of these blocks for my churn dash/star quilt - patterns from Thread Head.  

I'm so excited to have my flag quilt finished!  From the first time I saw it on Lori's blog at least a year ago, I knew I wanted to make it.  I can't remember when I started it, but when I saw Lori's quilt in person last June, I was determined.  I have it hanging on my quilt rack, although it really doesn't quite fit - it's a little scrunched on the rod.  I'll think of a better place to hang it.  

I don't know if you can see how I quilted it or not.  The meandering quilting on the blue square is done with variegated thread, so the dark part doesn't really show up.  It looks like it's not quilted very much because all you can see is the lighter blue thread.

I probably shouldn't have used a directional fabric for the field of blue, because when it is hanging, it's going sideways!  Oh, well.  I am very happy to have it finished.

This is the donation quilt finished.

I don't know what got into me this afternoon.  We've been hunkering down in the cold and icy weather, but I decided to do some cleaning!  The dust in my sewing room was at least an inch thick!  It's a lot better now, but I still haven't finished because I decided to vacuum out my closet too.  Oh, my gosh, it was bad too.  I even found some stuff to get rid of.  Woo Hoo!  Maybe I'll continue some more cleaning tomorrow - or maybe not.

Hope you are all keeping warm!

TWO AWARDS!!

Carolyn at Lee Prairie Designs is a dear blogging friend and she has picked my blog to receive the Liebster Blog award!

The aim of this Liebster Blog Award is to bring recognition and exposure to small blogs who have less than 300 followers. If you accept this award, you then agree to chose three other small blogs that you would recommend to others.  I can think of "many" blogs that I read, enjoy and are deserving of this award but ------I can only chose 3 blogs and here they are!


Theri at Theri's Quilt Stuff - you will be amazed at her bird quilts!


Liri at Liriopia's Legacy - a wonderful seamstress and quilter who loves vintage finds.


Joan at Keeping You in Stitches - home schooling mom who quilts with her daughters.


I hope you will visit these blogs - I know you will be inspired!  Thank you, Carolyn!


Then, just today I received an email from Cate Newton to inform me that my blog has been featured on the list of the 50 Best quilting blogs which was published on the Guide to Art Schools web site.  I have put their badge on my sidebar.


I feel very honored today.

HALF SQUARE TRIANGLES, ETC.

I made 120 half square triangles (HSTs) for this little quilt.  They finished at 1 1/4" square and the quilt measures 13" x 15 1/4".  I lost my directions for the number of rows and haven't been able to find them - they were from the Jo Morton class.  In the first picture I have all the HSTs lined up and started piecing them row by row while keeping them lined up.

Here it is all pieced together.

It's quilted and bound.

Back view.

This week's Civil war block - Kansas Troubles.  This is an actual block made into a quilt in Kansas in 1850.  See this blog for some history as well as directions for each weekly block.

I quilted this baby quilt which will be donated to the children's hospital in Dallas (through my quilting guild).

We've started to plan our next trip, which will be later in March/early April - back to see the grandbabies!

MORE BLOCKS AND A CLASS

I have been busy sewing.  On Saturday the 4th block came out for the Civil War quilt, so I made it up.

Two more blocks for my Thread Head quilt along.

My design wall is looking a little fuller, and I have quite a few of the alternating blocks made.  I plan to make this into a king size quilt.

I decided to take the Jo Morton's Little Women Club.  I purchased this FQ set of Jo's fabric.

The first quilt pattern is for a small HST quilt and I'm doing it in pinks & browns as the sample was made.  I started on the 120 HSTs last night.  I decided to get it made right away, so I'll have it to show next month.

I also machine quilted my flag quilt and as soon as I get it bound, I'll post a picture of it.  I'm happy to have that almost finished.

Thanks for visiting!

WORKING ON BLOCKS

The last few days, I've been working on the blocks for the Thread Head quilt along.  I'm not going to make all the blocks but will mainly make churn dash variations and some sawtooth star variations.  

I also liked this Kansas Troubles block (below) and made 2 of them today.

I've been strip piecing the alternating block.

And I now have a stack of about 26 almost finished.

I got some more reproductions from the scrap bin that I can use in this quilt and in the civil war quilt.  The first block pictured is all from the scrap bin, so the scraps are pretty good in size!