2 FINISHES AND STRING BLOCKS

Two projects finished last week:  The QCR Mini Table Runner is quilted and bound.  I decided to do straight quilting because I really like the way it looks.  I plan to make more of this table runner in other colors.

The Declaration wall hanging is quilted and bound.

And hung above a picture of George Washington praying during the Revolutionary War.

Then I decided I needed a change and I had a few string blocks done a while ago, so I decided to make more so I could sew them into a donation quilt.  What I like to do is have a row of blocks for each color and I need about 8 blocks of each color.  I sew the strips on a piece of paper .

This shows the paper on the bottom of the strips.

Then, I trim them to the size of the paper.

So far, I have 8 blocks of brown, red, blue, yellow, green and 6 orange.  I also am making blocks with a variety of colors.

Mixed colored blocks and blue blocks
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Have a great week!

A WIN! AND SOME PROGRESS

I won a QCR Mini ruler (Sew Kind of Wonderful) from Randy a couple weeks ago!  It's a curved ruler and there was a pattern for a table runner included, so I decided to use it right away and make up the pattern.  I picked out 2 batiks to start with and since I didn't have enough of that fabric, I  picked out 2 more.  It went together very easily and I have the top done!  It is different from my traditional block designs, but it's fun to try something new.  They have some other instructional videos on Youtube that I might try too.  There is at least one book.

This is the mini ruler.   I'm not sure how many patterns are available for this ruler.  I'll have to do some more exploring.  Thanks, Randy!!

Several years ago - at least 10 - I saw this fabric in my favorite quilt shop in Texas, where I was living at the time.  I made a few of these wall hangings; gave a couple away and sold one I think.
I had some of the fabric left over and had always planned to make one for me.  Finally, I came across the fabric and decided this was a good time to make it up.

I changed the design a little because my math skills have deteriorated a lot in the last 10 years.  This is what I came up with.    I have the perfect place to hang it when it is quilted and bound.

Last year, I participated in the scrappy string challenge that Lori held.  Since I didn't finish the spider quil then, I thought it was time to get it done.  I didn't want to make it too big, so it measures 5 feet square for a lap quilt.

Do you see the cat in the lower part of this picture?

I used fabrics that were in my stash and used 2 different fabrics separated by scrappy pieces of fabric for the border.

This challenge was, of course, supposed to be a way to use up (AKA - get rid of) some scraps.  It did use some scraps, but of course, didn't really make a dent in my scraps.  I think I need to start making more string quilts. 

QOV ALL FINISHED!!

Sunday I finished sewing the binding to the back of the quilt and Monday I got the label sewn on.  It's all ready to go.  As soon as I know if there will be a retirement ceremony or not.  If there is, I will take it with me and if there isn't, I will send it to him.  

I quilted it all with white thread on the back, but on the top I used different colors:  brown on the eagle feathers, white on the head, etc.  In the border I used grey thread.  I didn't purchase quite enough of the backing fabric, so I added a panel down the middle with some extra blocks and patriotic squares that I had.  I'm happy with the way it turned out.  It measures about 71" square.

This morning I was reading the latest blog from "Love" and she was talking about watching the Memorial Day concert and how she gets tears in her eyes when she hears the National Anthem.  It made me think about the flag that she gave me several years ago that I had hanging in our camper for years.  She wrote these words on the white stripes:  "Oh, say does that star spangled banner yet wave, O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave?" by Francis Scott Key, 1779 - 1843.

A few weeks ago, I came across that flag from Love and decided to hang it on my TV cabinet.  It's hanging on the knob that opens the DVD storage shelves.  Under and to the right of the flag I have placed tiny houses made out of wooden blocks and painted to be village stores that I have lined up on the bottom shelf of the cabinet.  I found them at a garage sale and thought they were/are so cute! 

Love's handwriting on the white stripes is perfect!

I'm sure I would have had tears in my eyes too if we had been watching the concert.  I meant to watch it, but then forgot!

I have finished 3 quilts during our time of isolation, and now I want to just work on a few smaller project.  I do have one  smaller wall hanging that is partially quilted, so I think I'll finish it first.
Thanks for visiting and have a good week!

Quilt of Valor for my Son

I just finished the top of this quilt for my son.  It's not an official "Quilt of Valor" because I'm making it myself and I'm not going through the QOV organization.  DS is retiring from the Air Force, where he served for 23 years and we are very proud of him.  He was a Lieutenant Colonel C-130 pilot.  I plan to baste and quilt it next week.

He is supposed to have a retirement ceremony June 8, but we don't know if that will even happen.

I needed to get the red, white and blue "grunge" fabric that I wanted to make the flying geese out of and since our LQS has been closed I emailed a friend who works at the LQS in our town to see if they were open or would let me buy some grunge.  She said that they aren't open yet, but they are working on putting all their fabric on line and she would be working on Monday.  I went over there on Monday and was able to get the grunge.  I should have purchased the backing the same day but didn't, so a friend and I went there yesterday and they are not open yet, but fortunately, I was able to get the backing, so I will be basting it on Monday.

Our son and his family have all been studying at home:  2 boys doing their school work on line (they are finished now), our DIL taking graduate classes on line also, and DS studying on line for his new job which will be starting soon, I think.  They sent us pictures of the boys at a restaurant with huge pancakes - the first time they could go to a restaurant to eat!

Oregon is starting to open up as well as long as there is 6 feet between tables in restaurants, etc., etc.  Yipee!!

UNCLE HENRY'S BARN

Thanks for all the great suggestions for my barn quilt name!  I ended up taking one of my sister's ideas, which really seemed to be the right name.  When we were kids, we would go to visit my Mom's aunts, uncles and cousins in Minnesota every summer and we always stayed with Uncle Henry and Aunt Gertrude.  I even spent over a month there the summers I turned 13 and 14 - it is a very fond memory.  So "Uncle Henry's Barn" seemed right.

I finished the house quilt, which I named "16 Houses"!  That name was pretty obvious for me.  I love how it turned out.

When I was looking for backing in my fabric closet, I noticed these blocks I had made for a quilt that I gave my brother and SIL.  I had made the top too large and taken these blocks off, so I decided to use them on the back.  I had just enough of the yellow fabric, which has eagles flying across the back.

I wanted to share a couple more pictures of the doll quilt that I received in Lori's doll quilt exchange. The doll, named Albert (after my grandpa), was my Mom's doll and is about 100 years old.  He doesn't look that old, does he?  He has new hair and shoes and I made him some clothes a few years ago.  I think a doll quilt should have pictures taken with a doll.

The quilt I received is large enough to wrap Albert up in it.

My next project will be a quilt of valor for my son who is retiring from the Air Force.  His retirement ceremony is supposed to be June 8 but we don't know yet if it will take place.  Once I decided to make him a quilt (which will be a lap quilt), I ordered a panel with eagles on it and have decided I want to have a flying geese border made out of red, white and blue grunge fabric, so I hope I can get some of that fabric locally or I will have to order it on line.  I need to get going on it!!

Thanks for visiting!  Hope you are all well.

DOLL QUILT RECEIVED!

Yesterday I received my doll quilt from Sandy as participants in Lori's doll quilt exchange!  Lori has been doing this for about 7 years and it is such fun!  I love my quilt, made with broken dishes blocks. I am amazed at the variety of fabrics in it and there are only 2 fabrics that I have had in my stash - all the others are new to me.  I just love it!

This is the back of the quilt, which has another beautiful fabric on it!  Thanks, Sandy!  She even hand quilted it.

I took this picture early this morning on my favorite chair for taking small quilt pictures.  You can't really see the chair, but I kind of liked the dark shading of the photo.

And here is a photo of the doll quilt that I made and sent to Patty.  I machine quilted mine.

I like to take pictures of doll quilts with a doll model.  This is Albert, my boy doll that had belonged to my Mom.

Thanks to Lori for organizing this exchange!!

On to another topic.....The house quilt that I blogged about on March 28.  I finally got the batting I had ordered.  I had already marked the quilt top using Barb's large fan template.  This is the first time that I have ever used the Flexion pen, but I finally bought one.  

 

Yesterday I basted the quilt and started quilting it.

Hopefully, you all are doing well and keeping busy by quilting and possibly even cleaning out closets!  I plan on organizing at least one closet, but haven't don't it yet.  I hope I get to it before they open up the state because if I don't, I'm afraid I will put it off some more.  Yesterday I wasted a couple hours on the phone getting a quote for car and house insurance, only to find out that they recommended that I keep the company I have!  At least they were honest about it.

So, happy quilting to you all!

3 FINISHES; A LARGE QUILT, A MINI QUILT AND A PUZZLE!

This "Barn Quilt" is made with my 6" Moda blockheads that I made a couple years ago.  They came out one per week and I kept up with them for quite a while, then got behind.  I knew I wanted to make a queen size quilt and that I would probably need extra blocks, so I started making additional blocks (OK, I confess - I made extra blocks of some of the easier ones - not the 72 piece ones).  I saw a quilt that I really liked that had a barn in the middle with some rows of the blockhead blocks.  I posted about it January 28 of this year.  I found a barn that I liked better and put it in the center and added borders to make it large enough.

If you have any ideas for a name I could give this quilt, I would appreciate suggestions.  "Barn Quilt" isn't cutting it for me and I'm not good at naming quilts.

My DS and DSG came over for dinner yesterday (we didn't do any hugging) and I had 2 people to hold it up.  It is too large to hang on my clothes line.  It measures 94" x 96".  DGS and DH had to stand on step stools to get it high enough and then it was still dragging on the ground.  I had to take the picture quickly so I didn't have a chance to get it straightened out better (DH said to hurry).

I also finished the Honeycomb mini quilt (I won the pattern from Janet).  I like the way it turned out - I machine prepped it according to Kim Diehl's instructions and quilted it with clear thread, again according to her instructions.  I am pretty good at following directions - I would never try to figure out how to paper piece it or piece it any other way.

My lily of the valley plants are blooming, so I cut a few stems and put them in a tiny vase on my desk.  I have always loved the way they smell!  And they are so dainty!

DS has a new camera, so he took some pictures of my flowers with his new lens.  They look very different enlarged and close up.

Clematis

Bleeding Hearts

Pansy

 Here is the 1000 piece puzzle that we finished this morning.  Ordinarily, I wouldn't make a 1000 piece puzzle, let alone buy one, but when I saw this at a garage sale for only 50 cents and it was a Springbok puzzle (my favorite kind), plus a puzzle with all sewing notions, I couldn't resist it.  I think I have had it for at least a year, maybe two years, so I wasn't sure I would ever make it.

But, we had made all the other puzzles that we have (except the Christmas ones), so I decided to bring it down from the attic and set it up.  It took a whole week to get it finished, working on it while watching TV usually.  Turns out that it is missing one piece, which is pretty good considering it was bought at a garage sale.  The weird thing is that it had some duplicate pieces.  I had to set up an extra table to hold the trays of pieces because the puzzle took up almost the whole card table.  We're leaving it up for a while so we can look for the lost piece.

 Well, quilting and non-quilting friends, it has been 4 weeks and 4 days of isolation (except for the trips to the store for food) and we are still somewhat sane!  How about you?

STILL KEEPING BUSY!

 I guess I'm lucky to be a quilter, because the time is flying by!  I'm not bored, I'm definitely keeping busy and while I would like to be able to go out more (let's say to the LQS or something), I'm doing OK.

I finished the top of this mini, Honeycomb, by Kim Diehl.  As I told you in a recent post, I won the pattern from Janet.  This is one of those things helping me to keep busy!  It is very much outside my regular style of quilts, but it was interesting to do.  The hardest part was digging through my fabrics for all the different pieces.  Then I followed Kim Diehl's method of machine quilting with clear thread.  I wanted to do the borders with a similar chartreuse fabric, which I didn't have.  So I went online to look for some and I found the exact same fabric that Kim used for the borders, although I'm not sure it is the same color.  I used something different for the inner skinny border and corners.

Sunday didn't lift my spirits at all because of having church on line, which is very weird.  Plus not being able to have DS & DGS over for dinner.  After DH & I ate, I texted DS to see if we could do FaceTime at least.  He responded:  we're on our way!  So we decided we would just sit on the patio and visit, which we did.  They brought me some tulips from their garden and DGS painted some egg shells for me for easter.

That made the day much better!

We finished another puzzle called "Opera Cats."

I also got this Jo Morton design almost finished - "Nine Patch Chain.  I need to put a border on it but haven't decided exactly what I will do for that.

I hope you are all doing well and that we will be able to be released from custody soon!  Ha Ha!

ANOTHER WEEK OF ISOLATION

I can't believe it's almost 3 weeks since we came home from Hawaii.  I've been isolated since then, except 2 trips to the grocery store and one trip to the post office.  But, somehow, I've been able to stay busy!!

This is the 3rd puzzle that we have completed - not to mention it was the hardest.  I have 2 more puzzles waiting to be made and then I may just have to get a new one.

I broke down and started making some face masks.  I made some for us and family members and donated a few.  I'm not sure if I will make more or not.  If I do, I'll need to make them with tie straps because I'm out of elastic.

In the mean time, I entered a drawing that Janet had on her blog for National quilters' day and I won this pattern!  I love all things designed by Kim Diehl, so I decided to start on it right away.

These squares are the start of the background.  Next, I will need to figure out how to make the Half-Hexies which will then be appliquéd on top of these blocks.  It looks interesting and is something different.

Call me crazy, but I also decided to start this Jo Morton pattern (Nine Patch Chain) from her "Jo's Little Favorites II" book.   I plan to make it a little larger than the pattern calls for by increasing the size of the blocks from 2 3/4" to 3" finished.  Not much of an increase, but I might add more blocks too.

Here are some strips sewn together to make into 9-patches.

I finished quilting my Barn quilt a couple days ago and decided to make a scrappy binding.  I thought I would see what I could find in my "leftover binding" drawer.  I was surprised to see how much was in that drawer.  It seems that I put leftover binding in there a lot, but rarely take any out.  This time I only wanted civil war reproduction fabrics and I got enough from the drawer to bind about half of the quilt, so I did need to cut some more fabrics.

This is the pile of binding ready to go.

I agree with Janet, that even though I'm staying home more, it doesn't really seem like I have more time available.  I have been spending some time working puzzles and probably have watched a few movies.  Other than having a little "cabin fever" I'm doing OK and hope you are too.