A DRESS FOR ABBY AND SOME PROGRESS

I made a dress for Abby this week with a pattern and fabric I had purchased before our trip.  The lace came from a garage sale.

I got a piece of eyelet from another garage sale and made another bolero jacket for the dress.

I finally finished the baskets for May.  I did finish all 12 of them, but they didn't all fit on this chair.  Now I need to get the June baskets prepped so I can work on them and maybe get some finished before we get home and the July baskets are waiting for me.

I made about 10 more of these Ohio star blocks out of mens' shirts and also bought more shirts at garage sales in preparation for Bonnie Hunter's workshop in September.  I needed more light colored ones for the contrast.  The Ohio star blocks will be for a donation quilt and I will try to get some more of those made.

DGD and I worked on the Bricks and Stepping Stones quilt again yesterday and almost finished the top minus the border.  One more row has to be put together before it can be joined.  Not sure yet what the border will be, but some fabric was pulled out for the backing.  I'll be taking it home with me to quilt.

Progress is being made!

BRICKS AND STEPPING STONES PLUS DEEPWOOD ESTATE

The first two rows of DGD's quilt top are sewn together.  I took a couple pictures to give you an idea.  

on the couch

on the floor

I hope she has time to sew this week.  Today is out as she has a babysitting job.  

Yesterday we went back to Salem to tour Deepwood Estate.  It was a rainy day and I forgot to bring my good camera, so these pictures were taken with my phone and it wasn't light enough for most of them to turn out.  The house was built in 1894.

It cost $15,000 to build it, which was a lot of money for a house in those days, but it had all the modern conveniences, including indoor plumbing with hot and cold water and even electricity!  There were lots of stained glass windows, even in the bathroom!

Lovely window in the stairway.

Original bath tub was not a claw foot.

Entry way stained glass with a replica of Thomas Edison's light bulb in the light fixture.

The rest of the day yesterday I spent working on a dress for Abby.  It's a sun dress, so I need to get it sent soon.  It has a little bolero jacket and she will be able to wear it to school when it starts.

We now have a son living on the Atlantic Coast, one on the Gulf Coast and one near the Pacific Coast! Are they trying to stay far apart from each other or us?  That is my question.  Of course the one who just moved to the Atlantic Coast did it on orders of the Air Force, so they didn't have much choice in the matter.  I can't wait to see their new house - maybe this fall.

SEWING IN OREGON

It's been a busy week, but I managed to get some sewing accomplished for me.  I started this quilt before leaving home as I had been wanting to make it for a couple years.  Actually, ever since I saw it at Lori's home when I visited her probably 3 years ago.  I had the pattern in Quilt Sampler of Fall/Winter 2005 tagged, but then misplaced it and couldn't find it until recently.  So far I have over 50 blocks done but none are sewn together yet.

I also worked on my DGD's quilt with her.  She has been super busy with working, being a bridesmaid today, etc., but we managed to get a couple sewing sessions in and the blocks of the Bricks and Stepping Stones quilt are getting sewn into rows.  I meant to get a picture, but didn't, so will do that for next time.  It is really looking great!

There are 2 cherry trees in the yard, so we picked some yesterday.  Yummy!!  The trees aren't producing a lot this year because they trimmed them last year, but the few that are there are luscious.

One day we went to Salem to see Deepwood Estate, but it was closed due to the illness of the tour guide.  Hopefully we can make time to go back.  We tried to see it 3 years ago and it was closed then too.  It looks like an awesome old house.

We are sure enjoying the Oregon weather!  The nights get down to 48-50 and the days haven't gotten any higher than about 82 or 83.  We can handle that!

CAMPING NEAR THE PACIFIC OCEAN!!

Since everyone is either in school or working, we decided to go to the coast for a few days, so Monday we drove to the Tillamook area to camp.  Yesterday we headed up the coast to see some sights.

I'm hiding behind the truck so you can see more of the gorgeous view!

This "Octopus" tree is near the Cape Meares Lighthouse.  It is very strange!

View from Cape Meares - it is awesome!!!

Cape Meares Lighthouse  - we took a tour.

After lunch in Oceanside, we headed to the Latimer Quilt and Textile Center in Tillamook .

Quilt "block" on the outside of the building.

They had an exhibit of the quilts by Lura Swarz Smith and I took pictures of two of them.  Her work is amazing and she a well known art quilter.

This quilt has pictures of the actual post cards that her parents sent from their honeymoon in 1944 and the quilt depicts the scene of her mother placing them in a scrapbook.  Very unique!!

This is a very famous quilt of dancers.  I love how she put quilt blocks in the dresses and background.

I'm sorry I don't have the names of the quilts with me - I left my notebook in the camper and we are at the rec center which is the only place we have wi-fi access.  I'm also not sure I spelled her name correctly.

The Latimer Center has two large work rooms where people can gather to work on their projects.  A group of knitters was there yesterday.  One room has a lot of looms in it.  They also sell items made by people who belong to these groups:  quilts, jewelry, knitted hats, etc. etc.  

After this, we went to the Tillamook cheese factory to buy some cheese (we had seen the way they make it previously, so didn't do that).  Then we went to the Munson water fall south of Tillamook and enjoyed the 1/4 mile hike to and from it through the forest.

Time to go and enjoy the area before we go back to DS's home tomorrow.  Thanks for visiting!

OUR TRIP TO OREGON

I have a couple photos to share from our trip to Oregon where we are visiting our son and family.  

Photo of me beside large tree near Moab, UT

We camped at the County Fairgrounds in Burns, OR.  The full moon was shining and we were the only ones camping there.  When I went to the house of the manager to see if we could stay there, he opened the door in his long johns!

The next night we camped in Sisters, OR at this City park.  Maybe we'll camp there again for the quilt show in July!

I went to another quilt shop with the Quilting Babcia.  This one is going out of business and everything is on sale.   When my GD found out, she wanted to go too, so I went again the next day and bought more fabric, but didn't take a picture of all of it.  

I have been doing some piecing this week.  Below, I'm piecing 9-patches with the leftover blue fabric from my basket BOM.  I don't have my May baskets all appliqued yet, but they are pinned on and ready to go.  I think I finished 4 of the 12 and this week, I'll get the June fabric!  I also have been piecing some sawtooth stars that finish at 4".  I plan to make pillowcases for our bed with the stars in the border.

My GD turns 21 on Thursday and wants to spend her birthday sewing with me.  I have done some of the piecing on her Bricks & Stepping Stones quilt and she wants to have all the bricks out of different fabrics (she needs 180).  She has gone through all my fabrics that I have with me and also purchased a lot.  I told her I would quilt it when she finishes it.

Thanks for visiting!

A WIN AND PERSONAL DELIVERY!

I can't believe it's been 10 days since I posted!  We are in Oregon now visiting our oldest son & family. We have already participated in some fun family events, like our GS's piano/organ recital and his band concert.  He is very musical and even won an award for his musical talents last night from his band teacher.  

Right around the time we arrived in Oregon, I was notified by Quilting Babcia that I had won her giveaway.   When she realized that we were nearby, she suggested we meet at the local quilt shop!  Great idea!  We met there and went to a coffee shop to have a cup and chat.  We had a delightful visit and discovered we had some things in common besides quilting.  The six FQs are by Robyn Pandolph and are gorgeous green with pink roses.  I love pink and green together and my dishes have green in them - wallpaper has pink, so I think the fabric will be perfect for making a table runner.   The color is much better in person than in the picture.  Thanks so much for the beautiful fabric!  

When my GD got home from school (or work), she wanted me to go to the LQS with her - it's a tradition, after all.    Below is my purchase from the shop.  She likes to sew and she wanted to start a new quilt.  I showed her Bonnie Hunter's site and she picked the Bricks and Stepping Stones pattern.  We got started on that, but she needs more black fabric.  I'm sure we will have more sewing sessions when she has time between class and work.  I think school is out June 12 or 13.

My purchase from the LQS

Since then, I have been able to finish some log cabin blocks.  I had started these before our trip, but finished 58 blocks.  They measure 5 1/4" unfinished.  I think I have 146 blocks at home (at least), for a total of 204.  I figure I will need 360 for a queen size quilt.  This has been a travel project, so we shall see how much I do on this trip.  I brought other projects along as well.

Log cabin block made with CW reproduction fabric

I have been trying to keep up with blogs, but the computer isn't always working, so I haven't been able to do it as much.  Thanks for the comments!  

VOTE FOR QUINTUPLET MOM

I have shown you a picture of me with the quintuplets that I was helping with and there is a "Mom" contest on the James Avery web site.  If you have a facebook account, would you go to vote for her?  You can vote once a day until the end of the month, I believe.

Here's the link, which will take you right to the picture (although you have to "like" James Avery Craftsman first if you haven't already):

   A mother's love is multiplied, never divided. 

Thank you SO much!

The photo of Carrie with the babies is adorable.  Maybe you can vote without having an account, I'm not sure.   Here's the picture that is on Facebook to vote for her.  Aren't they adorable?

Grace, Will, Seth, David, Marcie with their Mom, Carrie

APQ BLOCK SWAP QUILT AND MESA VERDE NATIONAL PARK

DH and I are on our way to Oregon and decided to stop at Mesa Verde National Park.  However, before we went there we stopped in Albuquerque, NM to visit Marsha of Grandma's quilts and an APQ block swapper with me and about 10 or 11 others.  Below we are holding the quilts that we made from the swap in 2010.  This was the first time that Marsha and I have met and she brought some other quilts to show me.  I also showed her the quilts that I have in the camper as well as a few projects that I brought with me to work on.  It was wonderful to meet Marsha after all this time.

Me and Marsha

 At Mesa Verde National Park we took a tour which included Cliff Palace as seen below.  We took this picture from across the canyon.  You can see the railing of the observation deck in the lower right hand of the picture.  To get down to the cliff palace, there are metal and rock steps that lead down from the top of the mesa on the left side of the buildings.

After the Park Ranger gave us a tour of the palace area, explaining how they constructed it and the information that they know about it, we had to climb up some stone steps and some ladders to get back to the top of the mesa.

DH ready to ascend the steps (our bus tour guide is sitting on the left side of the steps)

Here I am climbing the ladder to the very top.  It wasn't as bad as we thought it might be!

Here's another view of the crevice that the steps and ladders are in.

Mesa Verde is an amazing national park and we would definitely recommend it.  It preserves a spectacular reminder of the ancient culture of the Anasazi people, which is from a Navajo word sometimes translated as "the ancient foreigners."  They are now called Ancestral Puebloans.  They lived here for about 700 years until the late 1200s.  

DOLL QUILT

In my March 31 post I showed this doll bed that a friend gave to me (actually, she forced me to take it). Have you seen the foam mattress pads that have the bumps all over them?  I think it is supposed to make an uncomfortable bed comfortable.  We had an old one - it came with our first camper and we never used it.  Well, that's what I used to make the doll bed mattress.  I just cut it to size and then cut off the bumps the best that I could.  The smooth side will be up, but the uneven underside doesn't look or feel bad once the mattress cover is on.  I still haven't covered the mattress or made the sheet for it, so I thought I would show you what it looks like.

Today, I finished the quilt top that I will be using for the doll bed, so I put it on the doll bed to show you what it will look like.  I guess I forgot to take a picture of the whole quilt top - you can't see the border at all in these pictures.  I am going to hand quilt it.

Here it is with the doll on top of it.

I think I saw this idea on someone else's blog, but I am going to use this tea towel as the "top" sheet.  I really like the way it looks.

Oh, BTW, I have added a few things to my secret blog.  

MEMORABILIA AND A DONATION QUILT

I finished my display case with my maternal Grandma and Grandpa's memorabilia in it.  There is a picture of them on their wedding day, July 1, 1899, and another picture of them on their 50th wedding anniversary.  Inside the case is their wedding invitation, Grandma's buttonhole scissors, Grandpa's bank book and three items that Grandma made, including crocheted lace that had been on a pillowcase, an appliquéd butterfly quilt block and a pair of mittens.  The printed paper is the text that appeared in the Villa Park Argus in Villa Park, IL (where I grew up) regarding their 50th anniversary.  

My Grandma always was working on something, be it knitting (mittens), crocheting (potholders), tatting (around hankies) or sewing on her treadle sewing machine.  She made mittens and pajamas for her grandchildren, pillowcases trimmed with lace for wedding gifts and hankies - I suppose she gave those to ladies in and outside of the family.  I remember her making an angel food cake from scratch and beating the egg whites with a hand beater made for that purpose.

Grandpa was a carpenter and Grandma was the oldest girl of 13 children.  Both were raised on farms in Minnesota, but Grandpa didn't like farming, so they moved to Chicago where he could get work as a carpenter.  That's how my Mom and Dad met.  Both sets of my grandparents went to the same church.  My Grandpa helped my Dad build our house and then G&G lived with us while Grandpa built his own house near ours.  While he didn't like farming, he did like to have a large garden and I remember him showing me his row of "pop" corn.  I was very surprised that pop corn grew like regular corn.

I volunteered to quilt a donation quilt that someone else had pieced and I got it finished and bound in time to take it to my guild meeting on Monday.  This will be for a teenager and will be donated to Children's hospital.

I quilted it with a loop the loop and put in some dragonflies and flowers from time to time.

Have a nice weekend!

SOME PROGRESS MADE

I finished my April appliqué baskets on May 1 and expect to receive the May fabric this coming week - so, just in time!

More pictures of my "Seasons in a Row" very old UFO quilt.  I got the binding sewn on this morning and took some close up pictures.  Some of the embellishments are just placed on top to give you an idea of what it might look like.  I have some eyes for the snowmen as well as carrot noses on order.  The small black beads will be sewn on for the mouth.

January, February and March

April (bunny tales need to be sewn on) and May (buttons need to be sewn on also)

June, July, August & September - all finished

November & December - Santa's eyes need to be sewn on

Picture of the whole quilt top.  December's row doesn't show up very well,  but it will be staying that way.

This afternoon, I'm going to baste a donation quilt.  I didn't make it, but will quilt and bind it before our guild meeting on the 13th.  Last night I attended and joined the Dallas Quilter's Guild for the first time.  I decided to join so that I would be able to attend a workshop by Bonnie Hunter in September.

Working on my Oldest UFO

I have been really busy, but don't have a lot to show for it.  I spent most of last week working on my secret project.  It was very tedious, so I have taken a few days off from that.  

My oldest UFO is a pattern called "Seasons in a row."  It was a guild project more than 10 years ago and I had completed through September.  Today I worked on that project and finished the October and November rows.  I started on the December row of Santas, but then it was time to fix supper.  I want to get the top finished, but don't know when I will have time to quilt it.

Pumpkins for October and Turkeys & Corn for November

I got my Pheasant Hill table runners quilted and posted them on my Etsy site.  

16 1/2" x 38"

7 1/2" x 14"

Thanks for visiting!