DOLL SHOW REPORT

Well, the doll show wasn't a total loss!  It was a learning experience, though.  Most of the shoppers were looking for antique dolls, which we didn't have.  Someone bought my favorite new doll quilt - the bow tie quilt.  I guess I'll make another one.

Our table

I took my Mom's doll with me so I could look for new hair for him.  Here's his picture with the old hair.

I found a vendor who had lots of wigs as well as other doll items.  I got him a wig and when I got home, I took his hair off as well as the cap protecting his brain.

Here he is with the new brain protector!  😏

I love how he looks with his new hair!  It isn't glued on yet, but is just sitting on top of his head.

While there I purchased some shoes and socks for him.  Aren't they spiffy?  Such cute loafers!

I also got a smaller doll re-strung - a porcelain doll that I had purchased at a thrift shop.

BTW, I decided to name Mom's doll "Albert" after his (and my) grandpa.

TRIP TO DOLL SHOW

I found out about a doll show when I was looking for a place to get new hair for this doll.  This was my mother's doll and I'm guessing he was new about 1920.  Yes, HE is a boy doll!  Doesn't he look cute wrapped up in this quilt, which, BTW,  I got in Lori's doll quilt exchange in 2014?

Ready to go to Doll Show

Here he is sitting up on the quilt in the clothes I made for him.  When I inherited him, he was wearing a dress!  So I made him these overalls and also some flannel pajamas.

When I found out about the doll/toy show, my quilting friend and I decided to be a vendor.  I have 2 complete doll beds, a bunch of doll quilts, the porcelain doll in the blue dress below, and some other items I'm hoping to sell.  My friend has some dolls and toys to sell.  I had a pattern and some fabric that I got at an estate sale, so I decided to make it up - the yellow dress (30s style and fabric) below.

Lastly, here are the bottom border triangles for my DJ quilt that I have done so far.  I'm taking a short break before I make more.  

Bottom Row 1-6 & 8

Next, the last Moda Block of the Week.  These blocks finish at 6" and there will be 48 of them.

And last weeks BOW.

I love the background fabric and will try to purchase a couple yards when it is out in the stores.

Have a great weekend!

PATRIOTIC QUILT, ETC.

I finished a patriotic lap quilt that will go to a veteran.  The guild I belong to has taken on this project with Serenity Hospice.  On Monday our members donated 7 patriotic quilts!  (I just now noticed the backward block!)  Oh, well....

I finished my bow tie doll quilt by stitching in the ditch around each block.

The backing is some fabric that I have had for quite a while.  I really like it and it is CW fabric, but doesn't really look like CW fabric and doesn't seem to fit into many quilts, so I'm glad I got to use it for this doll quilt.

Then, I decided I needed to get back to my Dear Jane quilt.  I finished the triangles on the right side.

Right side triangles

 

Right Side 12, 5, 6, 11, 13

Bottom Row 5 and 6

Total triangles finished is 6!

On my walk a couple days ago we saw these deer in front of the biggest tree in the neighborhood.  The native americans used to meet under this tree over 100 years ago when there was a trail that they followed along the creek in the ravene just down to the right from the tree.  I just love this tree and the deer!

Happy quilting!

PROGRESS AND SOMETHING NEW

I finished the top of the bow-tie doll quilt.  It measures 15" x 17".

The pink and brown HST doll quilts are totally finished.

 
Small one measures 13" x 15 1/2".  Larger one measures 15 1/4" x 17".

I saw a new BOW (block of the week) being offered by Moda designers and decided it was something I could keep up with.  Each Wednesday a new block will be presented on the blog of one of the 6 designers for Moda, including Betsy Chutchian, Jo Morton, Lynn Hagmeier, Lisa Bongean, Jan Patek and Moda.  Click here to get to Betsy's post that explains everything.  

These are the bundle of Betsy's new fabrics that I ordered from her.

This is the first block, which was designed by Lynn.  All the patterns are free and measure 6" finished.  You can start this any time, even after a couple months as the patterns will still be up and there will be 48 of them.

I love the background fabric.  It's from Betsy's new line - Rachel Remembered.  

DESIGN WALL AND SCRAPS

I found these two little bow tie blocks when I was digging around in a bin.  I'm pretty sure that Barb sent them with the bow tie swap last fall.  They are so cute that I decided to make a doll quilt using them and more that I'm making.  The will measure 2" finished.

 Here is what I have so far.  I have 32 and I'm not sure how many I will need - I need to decide exactly how big I will make the doll quilt.  I think they'll make a cute quilt.

I'm also making some pink and brown HST doll quilts.  The HST blocks on top  finish at 1 1/2" and the HST blocks on the lower quilt finish at 1 1/4"  Once I got started, I just couldn't stop!

Several months ago a friend from my quilt guild asked us to collect the scraps we get from trimming blocks because she uses them to make doggie beds for a shelter.  So I decided to start saving them.  I've been doing it since around Christmas and I forgot to take them to our last meeting.

This bag is almost totally full of trimmings.  I save just about everything that's usable and these are less than 1".

I decided to weigh the bag and it weighs 1 lb. 9 1/2 oz!  One yard of fabric weighs about 6 oz. and costs about $11.

That means that this bag of scraps is worth about $46.75!  Yikes!!  I'm glad that someone will be able to use the scraps instead of just throwing them away!  Do any of you save these and what do you do with them?

MY 4TH FINISH FOR THIS YEAR!

I'm not sure when I started this quilt, but maybe 2 weeks ago.  It measures 56" x 70".  It's my second T-shirt quilt and I'm not hoping to do any more of them.  

I just hope the recipient likes it!

Here's a close-up picture of part of it.  I ironed fusible web interfacing on the back side of all the T-shirts and then cut them to 12 1/2".  3 inch sashing was sewn on to each side of the block and then I  used a template to slant the T-shirt by trimming off the sashing so that every other block would tip the opposite direction.  The finished block measures 14".

For the backing I sewed a lot of the trimmed portion from the sashing into the center column and added a few other T-shirts on each side.  I quilted it in a large stippling design on my domestic sewing machine.

I haven't had time to post because of being very busy with this quilt and some family obligations as well as trying to get my tax documents prepared for our tax preparer.  I'll be glad when the tax papers are out of my hair!

Because I have more quilting to do!!!

TWO FINISHES!

This past week I finished DH's "Vintage Tin" quilt!  It was a year's worth of work on the embroidery in secret and then making the pieced blocks and the border in secret as well.  It was kind of fun surprising him for his special birthday.  This picture doesn't show up the embroidered blocks very well, but they are in another post here in case you haven't seen them before.  It measures 68" x 62".

I usually have a pile of string blocks that I work on from time to time and I got this string block donation quilt finished this week as well.  I do love these type of quilts.  This one measures approximately 67" x 52".

Here's the backing for the donation quilt.  I got this strange looking fabric at the LQS for $4.00/yard! I had originally planned to use it on a queen size quilt, but changed my mind and used something different.  I think I have enough of this for another donation quilt.

Guess what!  I have another new project!  This is a T-shirt quilt that has been commissioned by the SIL of a friend.  The T-shirts are here, and I bought a lot of wonder under for them.  These fabrics will be borders for the T-shirts.  School colors are navy blue and gold.  I plan to get started on it this week.

Are you starting any new projects this week?  Thanks for visiting!

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!

THE JOYS OF QUILTING and A GIVE AWAY!

I have been busy quilting DH's Vintage Tin quilt.  On most of the embroidered panels I am quilting cross hatching.  I mark the quit with my Clover hera marker.  While I don't like marking quilts, it has to be done sometimes.  Especially on straight lines.  The hera marker puts a dent in the fabric without putting a colored mark on it.  You can see the dent in the picture below.

This shows more of the cross hatch quilting already done on the second embroidered panel.  Now, I'm working on the outer border of flying geese.

At one point where I had to stop for either putting in a new bobbin or some other reason, I couldn't find one of my quilting gloves.  I was quilting along and noticed that the quilt seemed thicker in one spot and thought I better see what was going on.  My glove got quilted onto the back of the quilt!  That is one of the "joys" of quilting.

Now for important things!  I'm having a GIVE-AWAY to celebrate my 700th post!!!  I started blogging in 2008 and have had a lot of fun with it.  I've learned so much from other bloggers, gotten encouragement, ideas and fun!  Seeing what other quilters are doing is amazing.  So, I want to have the give-away to express my appreciation to my readers.  I remember the first comment I got and also how excited when I received a comment from outside our country!  Quilters are the best!

The prize that someone will win is a 24" square of labels and 2 yards of fabric from my Etsy shop.  You can go to my Etsy shop by clicking on it in my sidebar and see the fabrics that I have for sale there in the "fabrics" section.  I don't have a huge selection, but maybe there is something that you can use.  

I will have the giveaway open for 5 days and will select the winner on Feb. 7, 2017 at 7:00 PM Pacific time.  A second winner will get a panel of the labels.  Just leave a comment on this post and tell me approximately how long you have been blogging and just one thing you have enjoyed the most from other bloggers.

WHAT? A NEW PROJECT?

Oh, yes!  Lori of Humble Quilts had a QAL (quilt a long) with this quilt last year - or was it the year before? - and I bought the book, but had other projects to work on so I didn't participate then.  So, last month, I started looking at this pattern again, and besides the eagle in the middle, it looked pretty easy - and I'm all about easy.

This is the whole quilt.

So, I thought I would get started with some of the easiest blocks.

Before I knew it, I had 12 blocks finished!!  All from my stash.  Of course, I'm machine appliquéing them, so that makes it a lot faster too.  So, what will I do when I get all the blocks finished except the middle one?  There's that eagle.  And he's a rather strange looking one at that!

My next post is my 700th!!!  I think I'll have a give-a-way to celebrate!  So be sure to check back in a few days.

VINTAGE TIN REPORT

I am working on the backing for the "Vintage Tin" quilt top that I made for DH.  BTW, this pattern was designed by Crab Apple Hill Studio.  Here are some pictures of some of the embroidery panels.

These are the top panels.  I personalized the top panel and another panel by changing the pattern's license plates.  The one in this top panel has our old Texas license plate number instead the number that was in the pattern.

This is the backing fabric.  It covers most of the back, but I will still need to do some piecing.  I found this in the "sale basement" of my LQS and I bought all that was on the bolt.

DH has had a few motorcycles in the past, so he liked this block a lot.

The pattern had a California license plate and I changed it to an Oregon plate!  Same goes for the Illinois license plate, which was an Ohio plate in the pattern.  We both grew up in Illinois and lived there some years after we were married.

Hopefully, I'll get the quilting done in the next couple weeks.