Quilt club!

This morning was my monthly quilt club--a block of the month club.  Each time I go I receive a pattern, instructions from the teacher, and two small pieces of fabric that must be included in that month's block.  There is not enough fabric to sew the whole thing using only those two pieces, so we must add our own fabric and design choices.

 

The two fabrics given in August were the light pink and one of the dark pinks.  I have decided to add one color and to use premium white muslin liberally each month. Since I want a larger quilt than the twelve monthly blocks will make, I decided I need to make thirty blocks this year, so three for each of six months, then two for the remaining six months. 

My second block in August was almost identical to the one above, and my third block was completely different.  The only difference in the seams is because I was not turning this one in, and the corners were all white, I did not sew together two triangles to make the corner squares.  If I had been turning this one in to the quilt shop, I would have had to make them according to the official pattern.  The placement of the colors makes an amazing difference, doesn't it?

Here are the August blocks the quilt shop ladies made:

Ha--I realized the pictures are sideways but . . . they're quilt blocks so it doesn't matter!  I'm thinking of making at least one with color placement like the blue/gold one in the lower picture and I don't know about the others.  The two turquoise fabrics are the must-use fabrics for August.

This is what my niece was doing during the class:

Yes, crocheting.

A quick email from Kevin . . .

. . . said we will stay with another of his friends in Brazil and to please bring another hostess gift.  So I pulled out my sewing machine and fabric and whipped up another pillow cover.  I corrected the mistakes I made on the first two and I'm really delighted with this one.

I used a darker color for one of the reds plus the small square in the middle and I like it.  Now I'm wishing I had used a more muted white and . . . and . . . and.  I know this will be gratefully accepted with the good wishes and gratitude I feel toward the families who have been so kind to Kevin.

Here are all three pillows:

Hostess gifts completed!

I have a busy first-of-the-week coming this week, then a few days of downtime (big holiday in Korea).  I was actually planning to make the pillows during those few days, but decided to just get going on them.

I did my favorite get-going mental game which was to do things in little steps.  Eating an elephant a bite at a time, you might say.  First I had to get down the box of fabric.  Then I had to look for a pattern.  Then I had to choose fabrics.  Then I had to just cut out the pieces, etc, etc. Everything I did was only one thing and then I could quit and do something else for awhile.  If I wanted to continue to the next step, that was fine too.  I do this all the time when I have a project I'd rather procrastinate doing.

However . . . I'm very happy with the outcome because they are d-o-n-e done!

They are 14" square and have an envelope opening in the back of the cover so they can be easily removed and washed.  In addition, I'm going to have Kevin write a note to each of his families inside on the back of the quilted part with a Sharpie.  That way they'll have a little special something from him, but it won't be open for just anyone to see.

If plans change and we don't give away both of the pillows I won't mind keeping one . . . . :-)

Making a couple of hostess gifts

When we go to Brazil we'll stay with a couple of Kevin's friends.  I want to bring gifts to the families and I know hostess gifts often reflect the native area of the giver.

I mentioned cactus jelly earlier, along with some quilting, and settled on the quilting.  Here is a hint of the pillow covers I'm making:

Red, white, and blue figure prominently as well, so you may guess I changed the colors from the directions I'm following.

Both quilt blocks are underway and I'll post more when I have more to show.

Oh, and Kevin requested I bring jars of peanut butter along.  I guess certain Brazilians appreciate ambrosia as much as my family does.

Hostess gifts

When we travel later this month we're going to stay with friends of Kevin's in a couple of towns.  I want to bring them something that is kind of native to the United States and maybe to our area specifically. 

We live in the desert, so I've thought about bringing something like cactus jelly.

However, although I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to find something like this, I'm thinking about making a pieced and quilted pillow cover for each family, and perhaps using a red-white-and-blue color theme as I did in this quilt I made last year:

That quilt is on my bed right now and I like it more with each passing day.  Anyway, I think the red-white-and-blueness of it is subtle enough to not shout UNITED STATES, yet is still American, don't you think?  I'm thinking I might make each cover the same as one of the five blocks with the small pieces, although I have to see what size pillow forms are to make it the right size.  Or I might use a different pattern.  I think I can buy the pillow forms here, then cram them into my luggage.  That will leave room when I come back for all the souvenirs, right?

Mystery Quilt Pictures

I started this Mystery Quilt a few weeks before Autumn 2012 and finished just as Spring 2013 started.  Haha, just in time to pack it away from Autumn 2013, right?  Of course not.  It's been on my bed since the day I finished it.

The "Mystery Quilt" aspect of it is that the directions started off by telling me to collect "light warm toned fabric," "medium warm toned toned fabric," and "dark warm toned fabric," plus a couple of others.  Then came weekly instructions to cut so many triangles a certain size, and so many squares, etc.

Finally there were instructions to start sewing and I could finally see what I was making, which was a fall leaves design.  I'll have to say, if I'd known exactly what I was making I probably would have chosen different fabrics.  The "medium" ones turned out to be rather eye-popping.  All of them were from my stash and the stash I inherited from my mom (thanks Mom!).  The fabrics come from the 1950s to the 2010s!

There were no specific directions for setting the blocks and I didn't need the lap-sized quilt these squares were going to make (it is 5x7 but you can't see the top row of blocks in the top picture), so I put in sashing and a wider border than suggested to make it usable for my queen-sized bed.  It's just what I wanted!

Quilt teaser

I got my quilt back from the quilter today.  All I have to do now is trim the edges and sew on the binding.  The binding will take a couple of weeks because I'll do it by hand.  More pictures in a couple of weeks. ;-)

I am pleased with this quilter because she did a beautiful job and has good prices.  This is the second quilt she's done for me and how's this for trust--I didn't know how much she was going to charge for the quilt because I had some additions, so I just sent the top to her and asked her to let me know the total.  Today I received an email giving me the tracking information, telling me it would arrive today, and telling me the total!  I got a check right out to the mailbox, and was very pleased she trusted me.

Mom called out and said, "Walk quietly and come see this!"

And this is what I saw:

Carolyn's cat Curio found a long piece of my quilting fabric on the floor. Usually he ignores things like that, but my mom said he nudged himself between the folded layers, then rolled over until the 5 yards of material was nicely arranged around him. The most surprising part was that he stayed wrapped up there for about five minutes before nonchalantly walking off.

Pantry Challenge 50%

I think this space is going to have more food talk than usual this month.  Don't worry, I'll get back to the usual children and chickens in February.  Except for that Mystery Quilt.  Watch for updates on that soon.

Tonight was Baked Corn Dogs, a recipe Holly sent me.  You can see it on my Meal Plan Sunday post.  Mine look nothing at all like the ones in the recipe.  The recipe woman must have used the world's most absorbant flour if her measurements are correct.  My cornmeal dough was more like a thick batter and almost unusable.  I added at least 1/4 cup more flour and was able to get the dough around the dogs.

 

All that said, my family really liked this recipe.  It was almost like a corn dog but much lower in fat.  I served a trio of fresh vegetables with it.

 

That virtuousness was kind of undone by our dessert, and I went to the store to get it too.  Root beer floats hit the spot after our yummy corn dogs.

 



Mystery Quilt Update

Today is the big sewing day for the week.  Thirteen blocks has taken me about eight to nine hours today.  Ho hum.  My back is killing me.  I'd take an Excedrin if it weren't so close to bedtime. ;-)

On the good side, I like these fabrics much better than I liked the medium ones last week.  Not as jarring.  Since I had a more limited fabric selection with this group, the blocks look more like each other, too.

So here is the top one in my growing stack:

Those yellows aren't actually that yellow.  I say that every time, don't I?  LOL

Mystery Quilt III

Week 5 is the first sewing week and I was right--it's a leaf pattern.  I'm pleased!  Here are my 60s-00s retro fabric blocks.  There are ten here and that's it for the week.

The colors look rather garish here.  The quilt is going to be bright, but a bit different from the appearance here.  Each block is 9" square.

Mystery Quilt III

Of course I didn't *do* MQ I or MQ II, but I *am* doing Mystery Quilt III. :-) 

When I first heard about QuiltersWorld's mystery quilt about a year ago, I hadn't ever pieced a quilt and didn't want to learn on a quilt I didn't even know if I'd like!  Since then I've pieced two projects, including a bed-sized quilt, and feel confident enough to delve into a Mystery Quilt.

Week 1: instructions to find light, medium, and dark "warm" toned fabric scraps, along with cream or white background fabric, and the quantities were given.

Week 2:  start cutting specific colors into precise sizes, including triangles!  I've been wanting to do something with triangles, which is something new for me.

Week 3:  I don't know yet because it's only week 2.  I suspect I'll have 2 more weeks of cutting, then start sewing in Week 5.

I think the pattern might be some kind of leaf pattern.  I hope it is, but am open to whatever it works up to be.  I've been wanting to make an Autumn quilt for several years now, so thanks to the colors, no matter what the design turns out to be, it'll be an Autumn quilt.

The yellow looks awfully bright in this picture; in reality it's a soft mustard color.

A bittersweet day

I moved to Nevada four weeks before Sophia was born, so I knew nobody when she arrived.  Imagine my surprise and pleasure when an older couple from Church handed me a gift bag that contained a soft flannel blanket for her.  Nearly every night of her life she has slept under that blanket.

However.

Because of that, the blanket has been in shreds for about a year.

See what I mean?

I had the idea of making a new cover for the old blanket, but when I laid the old blanket out on the new fabric, I realized the old blanket was made using really wide flannel, quite a bit wider than the fabric I could find in the stores.

I asked her if she would rather I cut the old blanket down a bit to make it fit the fabric she had chosen or just make her a new blanket all together.  She thought about it and said she'd rather have a whole new blanket.

Then I procrastinated making the blanket for months.  :-(  Today I woke up with only about two hours of early morning work and nothing planned and knew this was the day to get 'er done.

The ties turned out to be much closer together than I thought they were going to be, but I decided to tie every white polka dot and not skip rows.  It took about six hours to tie, but probably an hour and a half of that time was spent wasting time threading yarn into the biggest eye needle I could find.  It was a challenge!

While I was working on it I wondered what Sophia would do about her old blanket.  I thought she might refuse to part with it.

I put it on her bed about twenty minutes before she got home from school and waited . . . .

When she got  home I told her there was something in her bedroom for her and she dashed in there to see.  She came out of her room wrapped up in it.

After a bit I cautiously asked her what she wanted to do with the old one.  She promptly replied that she wanted to "eliminate it," i.e. get rid of it.  I asked her how.  She said she wanted to put it in the huge trash can in the alley.  I asked her if she wanted to put it in a plastic bag first and she said no.

We walked out to the alley and she opened the lid and just tossed it right in.  I guess Mommy had a lot more sentiment for it than Sophia did!

I hope this one lasts for another eight years.

My patriotic quilt

In June this year I decided I wanted a patriotic quilt.  Well, actually, I'd decided a couple of years ago I wanted one, but this June I decided to actually make one.

 

I came across a pattern I liked and thought I could make, but I didn't like the stars, so I left them off..

 

 While I was piecing the top, my constant worry was--how am I going to quilt this?  Tying it was out of the question because I don't like that look for any but the most casual quilt.

 

One day I was searching online for professional quilting services and eBay popped up.  I found a quilter I was comfortable with (in South Jordan, Utah, what's not to like?), bid on her auction, then sent it off to her.

 

Because I had nixed the appliqued stars, I decided to go with a star design in the quilting. 

I chose a simple red for the binding because the rest of the quilt was so busy.

 

Isn't it luscious after washing and drying?

I can't wait for it to get cooler so I can really use it a lot!

Pioneers!

Pulling a handcart--hundreds/thousands of poor European Mormon immigrants crossed the American plains to Utah pulling handcarts because they did not have enough money for a wagon and team.  Some of my mother-in-law's ancestors came to Utah by handcart.  A handcart this big would carry about 500 pounds of a family's supplies.  It was rare for anyone but tiny children and sick people to ride.  Almost everyone walked.

 Quilting for area charities.

 Our friend G.W.P.

 A braided headband like pioneers braided rugs.

My quilt is really close to being finished!

My quilt has come back from the machine quilter in Utah and I love the way it looks!  It was really, REALLY nice to have the fun of making the top and not have to worry about hand quilting it (as something to give to my youngest daughter upon her marriage, as long as she doesn't marry until she is 35), tying it (not a big fan as a general rule), or trying to man-handle the whole quilt under the (very short) arm of my sewing machine and sew on it for a week or two.  Or three or four.

Now I have to figure out about the binding, which will take me about four or five days to hand sew, then wash and dry it to get it to crinkle up. I can't wait!

This is not the quilt top picture I thought I was going to post today

I finished the "medallion" (center) of the patriotic quilt a week or so ago, but needed to add a border of red, then a border of blue to complete the top.

My math skills were atrocious and I sewed pieces onto my border strips I didn't need, then had to tear out the seam or cut them off.  I will say I made all my precision cuts accurately though.  You know the old saying--Measure twice, cut once?  It is true and it works.  :-)

So here is the quilt top:

Why is it folded up for storage instead of being sandwiched with batting and a backing?

Why??

Because my 31 year old workhorse of a sewing machine is on the fritz!  The last time I used it I heard some alarming squeals from the wheel part on the right.  I opened it up and took a look around but you could put what I know about sewing machines in a thimble and still have room for your big toe.  I oiled it and closed it back up and it seemed to be working a little better.

Today it went back to its squeaks and squeals, then finally all but froze up.  I had about 2-1/2 feet left to sew of the final border piece, so I tried turning the wheel by hand, but it was almost impossible, so I gave up.

Tomorrow's duty is to take it to a repair shop. 

Here is the old girl in all her glory:

A new quilt project

A pattern for this quilt popped up on my Facebook page and it struck a chord.  Don't ask me why, because on all the patriotic days (Memorial Day, Independence Day, and Pioneer Day) it's typically about 100 degrees here, but for a couple of years I've been wanting to make a patriotic quilt.

In the United States, that means red, white, and blue!  This quilt calls for all different reds, blues, and cream/white/patterned fabrics.  I'll have to say the whites turned out to be browner than I expected, but I'm okay with it.

The next step is to see if I have enough of the background fabrics to make 20 squares 6 1/2" each.  I could use creamy muslin and make them all the same.  Then I'll sew the nine-patches together with the squares to make an 18" nine-patch.  Then I'll start assembling the whole thing.  This one has several rows of sashing outside the medallion, which I haven't ever done before.  Something new.  Another thing I'm thinking of doing is having the whole thing machine quilted by a professional.  I haven't ever done that either.

I can't wait to finish it!

Valentine's Day Quilt

For two years I've been saying I'm going to make a Valentine's Day quilt to be used only around Valentine's day, and this week I finally made it. It is 42x50--just right for a cold winter's evening with a good book.

Today we are taking down the tree

A few years ago one of my friends solved a very minor problem in my life. I had three graduation tassels and didn't really know what to do with them (NOT hang them from my rearview mirror!), but didn't want to throw them away. My friend put hers on her Christmas tree every year. I've been doing the same ever since. I think they look pretty, I know where they are, and for a couple of weeks each year I can prove I graduated from something.

One little story about the one on the left--I went to a four-year high school and my senior year, all three of the kids in my family were at the same school. At graduation time our school chose dark red "disposable" gowns (vs. rented), so, with an eye to the future, I bought mine a little long. Two years later my brother L wore my cap and gown, and a year later my brother M wore the same outfit. We all had the same tassel as well, but I ended up with it because it was for my graduation year. So this is really the "family tassel."

In the fall I saw an online "quilt-along" with instructions to make a Christmas tree skirt. I'd been using the same one for about 25 years and it was long over due to be replaced. It took me awhile to get started, but I made this tree skirt during the fall and had it under the tree before Christmas. I'd never pieced a quilt like this before and it was fun to see the design appear as I sewed pieces together.