Christmas QAL August - Post 1

Cathi of Shakerwood Quilts http://shakerwoodquilts.blogspot.com/ is our host today for the Christmas QAL.  She's just posted a picture of some yummy cookies which are making me hungry since I haven't had breadfast yet.  Time to get going.

I'm almost ready.  This is a pic of the dining room table on which sit two quilts; Festive Mystery is on top with the prairie points laid out around it and the Quilt of Valor is beneath it sandwiched but not basted. 

I'm hoping for real progress of either of these quilts today.

I completed the eleventh block in the Treasure Chest QAL and it is called Ozark Trail.

I am getting very interested in the history of quilting, partly because of a conversation I had this week with a history buff and partly due to an excellent article I read this morning in AQS's American Quilter magazine which was about the quilts that were made and the women's role during the Civil War.  So when I make a quilt block called Ozark Trail I get very intrigued and want to know more about it.  Anyone have any good sources I can refer to to learn more? 

God Bless.



Boy's Nonsense Block

The second block in the Ben Franklin Mystery Quilt is Boy's Nonsense.  What a cute name.  http://erikhomemade.typepad.com/erik_homemade/2012/07/free-boys-nonsense-quilt-block-pattern.html

My two blocks so far. Very different looks although most of the fabric is from the same Robert Kaufman fq bundle.  I love it.

I got half way through making the next Treasure Chest block, Ozark Trail, when I ran into trouble and quit that project for today.  I folded and pressed my prairie points for the Festive Mystery Quilt instead.  So, I 'm trying to keep up with everything. 

God Bless.

Pets on Quilts Post

Do I have a pet?  Yes.  Do I quilt?  Yes.  Can they be combined?  Um, maybe. 

Moxie's my black cat, and I have made a table runner with black cat silhouette blocks.  I used Kay Mackensie's applique templates from her book Easy Applique Blocks and just made my own design.  The background fabric is the cutest fabric with cats galore literally hanging around a sewing room.  I just love it.  It must be fun to have a menagerie of cats and dogs, although my one cat tends to rule here.

The critic.

The tough critic.

Is that a bad review or do you like it so much you are making it yours?

I also want to share the Lollipop Playground wall hanging I just completed, also a Kay Mackenzie design from her book Scrap-Applique Playground. I added the AccuQuilt Go! dog and that makes it appropriate for the Pets on Quilts show.

Enjoy the Pets on Quilts show.  Thank you to Snoodles of Lily Pad Quilting for hosting and working so hard to make this show happen.
 http://lilypadquilting.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-2012-pets-on-quilts-show-is-here.html?showComment=1343912019263#c2519823439258730886

God Bless!

Boston Star Block

I made the first block for the Benjamin Franklin Mystery Quilt that is being led by Erik Homemade Coffee Break Ezine http://erikhomemade.typepad.com/erik_homemade/  It's called Boston Star Block.  I love this block and the fabric I am using.  It's from Darlene Zimmerman's Clothesline Club for Robert Kaufman.

 

God Bless.





July Christmas QAL - Post 2

I'm making accessories to match my Festive Mystery Quilt.  Sharon's angel and Lesley's Christmas Tree napkin both from previous Christmas QAL's.  And as soon as I get Lynn's email, I'll be making mittens. 

My quilt top is sewn together and it's wonderful to have a quilt top finished, almost.  I think I'm adding prairie points to this quilt.  I've never made them and like the way they look so I think I'll give them a try.  I found this tutorial http://modalissa.blogspot.com/2010/03/prairie-points-and-pillowcase-tutorial.html

If I have enough fabric I will give them a try.

It's lovely.

July Christmas QAL - Post 1

Across the pond Sue of Quilt Times  and Hazel of Hazel's Quilts are making good progress on the Festive Mystery Quilt, and on this side of the Atlantic Sharon of Vrooman's Quilts is keeping up with them.  I'm on my second mug of coffee and have finally decided on the layout for my version.  I tried two:

The thing I like about this layout is the double star, but I'm going with this instead.

Unless I change my mind again.

Blocks, Blocks and More Blocks

I've been keeping busy making blocks and putting together a table cover.  Take a look.

This is Grandmother's Tulips and is the tenth block in Eleanor Burns' Treasure Chest QAL http://www.facebook.com/#!/quiltinaday  It looks as if October will be the month to finish this quilt.  Is time flying by or what!

I caught up with one more block in the Coats and Clark Spool Quilt project http://www.coatsandclark.com/  and am now only one block behind.  Thought I'd get it done today but didn't manage it.

And because I joined the Northcott Fabric Circle http://www.northcott.net/ and wanted to add a project to my page I made this lap quilt/table cover.  From start to finish it took me two days to make.  I think I was able to complete it so quickly because I did not follow any directions, just put it together. It's the Central Park fabric from Northcott.     

That's what I've been up to.  The Christmas QAL is this Saturday hosted by Lynn from Sew'n Wild Oaks Quilting http://sewnwildoaks.blogspot.com/ so it will be another busy Saturday of sewing.  Life is good:)

God Bless.







Amongst the Trees

It's been a stressful week, but today I awoke light-hearted and optimistic and that's the best way to feel, in my humble opinion.  So I worked on my Kay Mackenzie design, "Lollipop Grove" and finished the quilt top.  I added the little AccuQuilt dog and just love him.  I need to get the cat die.  My sun could look better, but it's fine.  I'm going to move on to making blocks for all of the QAL's I've joined.  I hope your Saturday is as nice as mine has been.

God Bless.

Spool Quilt QAL

Coats and Clark is celebrating their 200 Years Anniversary and one of the ways they are doing this is a quilt design of thread spools. http://www.coatsandclark.com/  I love thread spools and have happy memories of a time when I was a kid and used my mother's spools to play with and pretend they were little people.  This was way before Weebles came along.  So far there are four blocks issued for the quilt, and I finally have time to work on them so today I made two of the easy ones.

I also made progress on my landscape quilt and got the sun and the hillside sewn in place, but I need to purchase a different fabric for the stream so I can't go further with it until I do.  There's also the FMQ, Treasure Chest QAL, and I want to join Eric Homemade eZine's Ben Franklin QAL.  The Christmas QAL is in two weeks and I don't have my blocks sewn together yet.  And I'm still working on my QOV. 

Life is good when that sewing machine is humming:)

God Bless.  



My "Playground" Activity

I may never win the lottery but I am very happy when I have a win in blogland.  Recently my joy was to win Kay MacKenzie's new book, Scrap-Applique Playground.  It's a neat book with fun designs.

  Thank you to Kay http://www.allaboutapplique.net/ and to Susan Brubaker Knapp http://wwwbluemoonriver.blogspot.com/ on whose blog I was chosen the winner. 

With my penchant for jumping into projects feet first without fearing how deep the water is, I began making the cover quilt, "Lollipop Grove".  It's my first landscape quilt and is going pretty well.  Kay's designs in this book use patchwork/crazy patches for the appliques.  It's very relaxing, and I love to see my little scraps getting used up.  The lollipop treetops are fun to make.  This is what I've done so far.

I've just placed my patches on the background to see how I'm doing, so this is not the final layout.  Lots more trimming and shaping to come, as well as the sun, birds, and small "gumball flowers" to make.  This is Kay's quilt:

Designers do have the best scraps, don't they:) 

 I hope you are having a wonderful Saturday.

God Bless.





Wonderful Progress Until My BooBoo

I have been sewing the cornerstone strips and the blocks together on my QOV project and had to stop before finishing for a few reasons.  First, that center star needs to be embroidered with some personal information of the giftee. So that middle row is not sewn to the other rows and the star is unsewn to the adjacent blocks.  But I think it looks pretty nice.



Second, this cornerstone has been unsewn and resewn twice and needs to be done again.  Can't do it today because of a little accident.

This is my finger that was cut on a broken mug.  If it doesn't stop bleeding soon I'm off to the ER.

But I'm still a happy person because this quilt top is almost finished.  Believe me, with this top the rest will seem easy. 

God Bless you (and my finger:)



This Little Bird Was Calling To Me

I felt as if I have been working on the same projects for a long time and needed a switch so today I made a mini quilt to hang on my new table stand.  This block is called How Tweet It Is and is designed by Lynette Anderson for Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks Vol. 3.  I began working on it around 10:00 AM and finished about 3:30 PM.  That's not bad considering there is quite a bit of handsewing.  There are little yoyo's and some embroidery.  I used Lynette's templates for the bird and mound, but fortunately I have the flower die for my Sizzix and so they were very easy to cut.  I used Steam a Seam 2 to attached the applique but I also machine stitched around it.

I enjoyed my break.  I'll have to get back to my big projects now.

God Bless You.

June Christmas QAL 2

I've been working on the blocks for a few hours but only have ten made.  And I'm strip sewing as much as I can.  So it's time for a cup of tea and some visiting.

Sue mentioned something about guessing the layout of the quilt once the blocks are made.  You can't be a passive blogger on Sue's watch:)  She's going to keep you busy.   What do you think of this?

or how about this one:

And then there's my favorite:

Be sure to visit Paulette's blog  http://sweetp-paulette.blogspot.com/ .  She has shared a recipe for Nanaimo Bars (no baking) and a how-to for Christmas napkins.  Both are on my to-do list.

God Bless. 

June Christmas QAL 1; Pretty Far

Paulette of Sweet P Quilting and Creations http://sweetp-paulette.blogspot.com  is hosting this month so please visit her blog to join in on the fun.

The mystery of the Festive Mystery has been solved, but not by the investigators.  None of us who played along came up with the right block layout, so Sue http://quilttimes.blogspot.com/ had all of us stumped.  But it was fun playing along.  Congratulations to Donna http://sosewcrafty.blogspot.com/ who won the drawing. 

I wrote in my last post that today I would see "how far off I am" in my guess.  As you can see, I was way off.

Sue's block is on the left, my guess is on the right.

I have Sue's block turned the wrong way but you get the idea.  So I'm off to make 22 more blocks while listening to an audio book and doing a load of laundry.    Hopefully, I'll get outside and cut the grass before it becomes a wildlife kingdom out back. 

See you later.

The Mystery of Festive Mystery

Sue of Quilt Times http://quilttimes.blogspot.com  gave the Christmas QAL participants a challenge:  try and figure out the design of the blocks/quilt.  We have some clues: 
     We know the quilt is 42 X 60 and that the blocks are 9".
     This made me think there are 4 blocks across and 6 blocks down with a 3" border.
     We have our ABCDs.
     We know  it's festive.
    
Since we have 20 C's I thought they would be used between the blocks as a kind of sashing but only across, not down.

That left the As, Bs, and Ds for the blocks and border.

I had to abandon my idea that we were making  pinwheels because I couldn't come up with a 9" block that was pleasing.  Finally I came up with a version of the Friendship Star at I think looks pretty nice.

      This block will leave plenty of patches for a pieced border that I think will look good. 

So that's my guess.  Saturday at Sweet P's http://sweetp-paulette.blogspot.co.uk  I'll find out how far off I am:)  Paulette of Sweet P Quilting and Creations will host the Christmas Quilt Along this month, so join us there.  It's always fun.

The ninth block of the Treasure Chest Quilt is Prickly Pear  http://www.facebook.com/#!/quiltinaday and mine is finished.

This block is really easy to put together and has a great finish. 

Only 3 more blocks and we're done. 

I'm going to be looking for a new qal to join. 

Or else I can finish all of my WIPs that are piled up in my sewing room.

God Bless.

Something Good

In May and June of 2011 I worked on blocks to donate to the Quilt of Valor block challenge hosted by SewCalGal.  I sent in 15 blocks and didn't think I would hear about those blocks again.  But in fact I have heard about some of the blocks that I made and am so happy to be able to share the nice thing that's happened.

Some of my blocks along with blocks made by a quilter in Virginia and a quilter in Florida were made into a Quilt of Valor by a quilter in Wisconsin and presented to a veteran in a ceremony in Chicago honoring veterans of the 442nd RCT.  I received a thank you note from him with a caricature of him holding the quilt.

How nice is this!

The veteran, George Okamoto, also received the Congressional Gold Medal and was written up in his hometown newspaper in Indiana. 

George, thank you for your service to our country and your contribution to my freedom which I enjoy every day. 

Now just between you and me I admit that I am thrilled that some blocks I made have honored a deserving vet.  It's really a nice feeling and I feel very happy about this.  It's terrific to hear back about something I did.

I spent all of yesterday working on the QOV I'm making for my brother and I think I can see a light at the end of this tunnel. 

I tried sewing together 4 of the 6 inch blocks to make a 12 inch block and I like the results. 

I'm going to mix them with the other 12" blocks I have and hopefully it will all go together easily and look good.