Snip, Snip, Snip - and some family time

The frayed edge quilt for Lily has just come out of the dryer after two rounds of washing and drying to make sure it is nice and fluffy.  All it needs now is the label and I am waiting confirmation on her full name before printing it on the label material. Here it is when I was still snipping.   I had hoped to get it finished by Friday so I could deliver it to the grandparents yesterday but that didn't happen. We'll see them again Wednesday so I'll deliver it then. While I was making this one I kept thinking that I wanted to make a big one for us. I have a lot of the squares cut for one similar to this one  that I made for the most cold-natured of our daughters and her hubby 2 years ago. In fact, since I started this blog entry I have laid out the front of a slightly smaller one for us. The big challenge will be what to put on the back of ours since I have run out of some of the fabrics I used on the front.  In fact, with two of the diagonal lines I alternated two similar fabrics on the front. Can you tell which ones they are?  This is the top part of the quilt   and here is the bottom part of it - my table is in the way of putting it all together in one place.   This one is on my "design floor" since my "design bed" in the guest room still has the orange crush quilt on it and the design wall I plan to hang up has the quilt from a retreat I went to in November still on it. How many more spaces can I find to lay out quilts on before I finish up some of them? Well, the plan is to work on this frayed edge quilt this week, then finish the top of the orange crush the next week. As long as I have it finished in time for the Bonnie Hunter workshop I'm taking with my old guild in Virginia of February 11 and 12 I'll be fine. 


As I look at the pictures above, I see that I have a couple of blocks out of place - why is it that you can see errors in a picture easier than you can see it just looking at it?


My oldest daughter has started working on her first quilt and we are planning to get together to sew on Thursday.  She is an attorney who works from home on a contract basis with other attorneys. The work is not as steady as working in a firm, which she did for several years, but her time is much more flexible, and allows her to volunteer in her son's kindergarten class. Her two younger ones go to day-care, so we should have some uninterrupted time to sew, then time to visit with them when they come home from school. Sounds like great fun to me. If I can get at least some of my rows of this quilt sewn together by then I could begin sewing the rows to each other while I am there. Always helps to have a goal, even if sometimes you don't reach it.


We were with this daughter and her family Friday night and Saturday morning. It takes a little more than an hour on a good traffic day to get from our house to theirs on the north side of Atlanta. My hubby and my daughter and all of her family participated in the Polar Bear Run (5K for Dave and Becky, 2K for her husband and son, cub runs for the little girls) Saturday morning at a church near her house. It was the first time our family had done anything like that with 3 generations participating - we hope it won't be the last!


After the run we came back down to our county to go to our nephew's wrestling match. He is a high school senior, and we have been attending several of his matches. We are all hoping he makes it to the state championships.


Friday I was able to help out the daughter who lives about 10 minutes from us. Their heat went out Thursday night, and I was able to go over to the house to let in the repairman on Friday so they didn't have to take off from work. Then that afternoon I picked up their 18-month old from her babysitter and met her mom at the doctor's office for her well-baby check-up so she didn't have to try to leave early from her teaching job to get to the appointment on time.


I am SO glad that we are able to do all these things for and with our family down here!

Blog Updates and Another Frayed-edge Quilt

Since I decided to try to keep my blog more up-to-date I have also made some changes in the blog's appearance as well.

• Changed the template and background to something more cheery
• Updated My Playlist - added some songs, deleted some that weren't available any longer from Playlist.  This took way longer than you'd think, but I listen to it every day while doing other things online. ***If you don't want to hear my music just turn your volume down.***
• Added icon for Quilting Bloggers after seeing it on Nann's blog
• Added icon for the Weekly Themed Quilt Contest that Quilting Gallery holds
• Added my Blue BargelloBowl to the above-mentioned contest since the theme for this week is bargello quilts
• Updated the list of blogs I am following, and re-organized them with help from Erin - thanks again for that help Erin
• Took off the 2009 list of finished projects and added the short list of 2010 finished project.

For the last two days I've been working on a new frayed-edge quilt for Lily, our youngest great-niece, who was born January 4.  Her room is purple, so I found a couple of purple fabrics to add to some I have used in previous baby quilts. Here is what I have so far - front side and back side. In the second picture you can see the plan for the rest of the back.  I am hoping to have it finished in time to give it to the grandparents Saturday, but as you can see I still have 5 rows to go, then a couple of washings and dryings. I am clipping it as I go, so I won't have all the clipping to do at the end.  Here are my two Fiskars clippers I use for frayed-edge quilts. The ones on the right are some I bought at JoAnn's Monday.  The older pair have clipped several quilts and now the little orange latch doesn't work so well anymore.  Even though these are designed for ease of use with arthritic hands, I still need a rest after using them for 30 minutes or so, so alternating sewing and clipping works well.

Orange Crush Ready for Borders

It took me longer to finish the body of the Orange Crush quilt than I had hoped, but I finished it last night while going back and forth to watch parts of the Falcons game - toward the end I didn't have to watch so much 'cause they got crushed by the Packers. Hubby was at the game - guess he won't be so happy when he gets home.


I think I will use 2 borders - a narrow one in the black print that is in all the green/black blocks, and a wider one in the green print, with some of the leftover pieces in the middle of each side, and maybe some cornerstones from some leftover pieces as well.  I'll have to see how much I have of the green fabric before deciding for sure. I think if I use those two colors it will bring them out in the body of the quilt, and tone down the orange just a bit. Might try using some of the pale blues for the binding.  It will take awhile for me to think more about the borders.


In the meantime I will be working on a frayed-edge flannel baby quilt for a new great-niece born about 10 days ago. I've made one for each of our youngest 3 great nieces and nephew - for the oldest great-nephew I knitted a blanket.  Here is one of the ones I made -   I'm hoping I have enough of the teddy bear fabric to fussy cut some to use in the newest one too. Most of them have the same arrangement on the reverse side, but the for the last one I made I did something different because I didn't have enough of some of the fabrics to use the same pieces on the back -   I may make this newest one in a similar way. I have to go shopping for more flannel on Monday - Lily has a purple room and so I need more purple in her quilt.

Orange Crush Half Assembled

Tonight I finished sewing the top half of the Orange Crush quilt together -   I had decided to make it 6 x 8 blocks when I saw how big it would be if I made it 7 x 9, since the blocks will finish at 9". I'll have a couple of borders on it, so it will be plenty big enough for roomy throw. I'm still liking the diagonal lines of it, including the light diagonal lines that go between the oranges and thru the middle of the greens.

It was a good day to be at my machine today - here is the view from the windows in my quilting room -  We had a couple of inches of ice-encrusted snow, but most of the greater Atlanta area had more than that. You may have heard about our weather - interstates closed, airport runways closed, pretty messy out there, so we are staying inside. Temps are expected to be in the teens Wednesday thru Friday nights, so it may not melt much for a few days. Guess we didn't move far enough south to miss all the snow!

This picture is just too cute to pass up - our granddaughter Reilly riding in an improvised "sled." She has hundreds of toys - but not a sled - so Mom and Dad came up with this so she could play in it outside today.

Quilt Fiction

I am coordinating this post with My Patchwork Life, my friend Erin's blog. She posted earlier today about some of her favorite quilting fiction, especially mysteries. I have recently read Jennifer Chiaverini's The Aloha Quilt and before that A Quilter's Holiday. I'm a little behind on reading them, since her next one, The Union Quilters, is due out next month. I really liked The Aloha Quilt - it advances the modern-day story of the Elm Creek Quilters, and incorporates a new locale of Maui, since Bonnie, one of the original ECQs, has gone there to help an old friend set up a quilt camp. I've been to Hawaii, but not yet to Maui - this just made me want to go there more. The Union Quilters takes place during the Civil War - I'll want to re-read some of her previous books from that time period to recall the characters. A Quilter's Holiday does advance the story of the modern-day Elm Creek Quilters a bit, and I don't want to miss anything in their saga, but it didn't have nearly the plot that The Aloha Quilt has.


I also just recently read Earlene Fowler's State Fair. This is #14 in the Benni Harper series and I have really liked them all. I do remember thinking when I read about the first one that I wasn't sure I'd like it since it takes place in south central CA, and the main character is a young widow has a ranch and is the curator of a folk art museum. I didn't see much in that for me to relate to, but I have completely enjoyed all of the books in the series, and eagerly await Spider Web, due out in May. Erin mentioned earlier about reading Fowler's Love Mercy. I read that too, and hope she continues that story line as well. Benni and her husband Gabe are mentioned a bit in Love Mercy, though they are not the main characters.


Here are the 3 I read recently -


I have read and loved all of Emilie Richards Shenandoah Album series - Sister's Choice is the latest. The setting is in Virginia, not far north of where I used to live, and where Erin still lives. Richards is also writing a series called Ministry is Murder - these do not involve quilts to a large extent, but the main character's mom has a quilt shop, so there is some mention. I've read several of her other books as well and enjoyed them all, but look forward to seeing if she goes back to the Shenandoah Album series again.

Erin mentioned that Clare O'Donohue had a new title in the Someday Quilts series published in September - that's in my Amazon wish list.  I have read, and liked, the first two - The Lover's Knot and A Drunkard's Path. She also mentioned that Marie Bostwick has a fourth title coming out soon in her Cobbled Court series. I haven't read the 3rd one yet, so need to add that one to my collection.


I have not read any of Arlene Sachitano's Loose Threads mysteries, and the 4th one of those is out now. Might have to check my public library to see if they have any of them.


There is a 4th title out now in the Queen Bees Quilt mysteries - the first 3 were by Sally Goldenbaum, but this new one is by Marnette Falley - Dog-Gone Murder. Should be interesting to see if a new author can keep the same style as the previous one.


I have one of Terri Thayer's quilt mysteries - Wild Goose Chase. There are others in that series, but I'll read this one before ordering more.


The other authors that Erin mentioned - Lizbie Brown, Barbara Graham, and Lani Diane Rich - are all new to me, but I have now placed some of their books in my Amazon cart too.  I am especially interested in the Barbara Graham books as they are set in East Tennessee, where I grew up.

It may not sound like it, but I do like to read other books besides those having quilts in them in some way. Some of my favorite authors, besides the ones mentioned above, are Dorothea Benton Franks, Debbie Macomber, James Patterson, David Baldacci, and Sharyn McCrumb.

Orange Crush Revisted

This will be a test to see if I remember how to do a blog entry and post pictures to it. Yes, again it has been a long time, but I may be back on the blogging track now. Since my last entry in May our family had our annual vacation in Hatteras, shortened by my mother-in-law's death, my hubby retired, and we moved to GA from VA, attended about 20 Braves games, had a mini-family reunion at our house in September, had overnight guests 3 times, went to Seattle to visit our youngest daughter, took a cruise before Thanksgiving, had various combinations of our kids at our house several times (including all 3 families with the 5 grandkids the day after Christmas), attended a 3+ day quilting retreat in north GA, cheered our nephew in several high school wrestling matches, and went to Johnson City, TN where my mom lives 4 times, including last week for the graveside service of one of her sisters.

I did very little in my roomy and bright quilting room until after the cruise, but since then I have been busier in there. More about those projects in the next few posts. I have decided that rather than make this a longer post by including those projects, I'll just start with where I am today and work backward, and forward, later.

I started the Orange Crush mystery with Bonnie Hunter over 2 1/2 years ago. It calls for 2 main blocks, and got enough of those done to make a decent-sized lap quilt, and had started to assemble them. Here is the original plan for my layout. Before getting very far along with putting the rows together I saw a different layout that I have since decided I like better. I hadn't done any more on this quilt until today. I am planning to attend a workshop next month that Bonnie Hunter is giving for the guild in VA that I was a member of, and I want to be able to take this quilt top sewn together. So today I laid out the new arrangement and took apart some of the diagonal strips that I had already sewn together in the old arrangement. Here is what I have laid out so far. Yes, my "design wall" is still the floor. I think I know where I want to put it, and I have something that I think will work for it, I just haven't gotten it all together yet. More on that later too. I've added some more blocks to this layout since I took the picture earlier tonight, and now only need to make 12 more orange blocks and 1 more green one to make it 7 x 9. I think the border will be a narrow strip of the black, then a wider strip of the green with some of the leftover pieces in the middle of each side like I had laid out in the first picture. I'm a ways from that though. First I need to make the rest of the blocks and re-arrange what I have a bit so that I don't have like fabrics touching and so that the light blue centers of the orange blocks are more randomly placed. So now I have a project I am excited about again - and a deadline for completion of it. Sometimes that is just what we need to get going again, isn't it?

Long Time Since I've Posted

I doubt anyone is even checking my blog these days because it has been so long since I posted anything. I have been doing some quilting, but I'll have to admit much of my time between November and February was been spent online house-hunting. My husband announced his retirement in January. He is a librarian at Washington and Lee University and will be retiring at the end of June. This has been in the works for awhile, though pretty much in secret. We plan to move to McDonough, GA, where one of our daughters and her family live. That means we will also be much closer to my daughter and her family in Marietta, GA, and to my son and his family in Athens, GA. We were in GA for Thanksgiving and Christmas and looked at houses both trips. After Christmas we even went with a real estate agent to see 9 different houses. We were back there in February, looked at about 9 more houses, and a few days later made an offer on our favorite one that we looked at for the first time in December. The owners accepted our first offer, and we closed on the house April 30. We've already moved some stuff in, and will be taking more there in a couple of weeks, and will officially move in June 26. Exciting times, and sad too, because we are moving from a town we've lived in, except for 2 years, since 1983.

Quilting-wise, I have finished the hand-quilting on Reilly's quilt and gave it to her in February. Here I am marking some of the designs I handquilted on it. Here you can see some of the hand quilting and here is a close-up of one of the corners of it. and Miss Reilly in her crib on her new quilt.

My Christmas projects included another tablerunner, so I was able to give each of our 3 GA kids a tablerunner. Then I made 8 napkins to go with each of the 3 tablerunners. Here is the latest runner and napkins - I also made bags with ties attached for each of the grandkids for Christmas. The boys' bags with drawstrings are in the front, and the 3 girls' ones are in the back with ribbons that can be tied into bows stitched to the bags.

For Easter I made each of them an Easter basket, similar to the ones I made for our girls when they were little, probably 25 years or so ago. This one is Reilly's and this one is for Atticus. Here are Reba, Jack and Lillian with their baskets. Reba's is the same fabric as Reilly's, but purple, Jack's is the same fabric as Atticus' but green and yellow, and Lillian's is a red print. Reba stuffed hers full with more eggs.

One of our recent guild workshops was called "Nickelmania" - here is the beginning of my version of that idea. I doubt that it will be any more finished by the time I move, but I will have a room just for quilting in my new house so hope to get back into serious quilting then.

For 3 years now I have contributed a few blocks to the quilts that a group of library-related quilters make to be raffled or auctioned at the American Library Association meeting. Here are the blocks for this year's quilts. This one is Carol Doak's Connecticut Star, and these are 3 Wonky Log Cabin blocks. You can see that these quilts will be quite different! The third quilt for the raffle is a bookcase - a pattern that I definitely want to do sometime.

My main goal quilt-wise before I leave here is to finish my second comfort quilt. It was started in July of last year when we had a workshop to get some more started. This is the front and the back of it. Just need to pin-baste it and quilt it. I will be doing it on my machine - probably just some diagonal lines in each section. VesuviusMama will recognize some of the backing fabrics! And she will be surprised that I have actually posted on my blog after all this time.

Pink and Brown Quilts

Reilly's quilt is one of my pink and brown quilts, but I have recently finished another one that I haven't mentioned here. Awhile back the Senior Center quilting group that I lead started making some lap-size quilts using strips and the quilt-as-you-go technique. It took me longer to finish mine than it did the rest of the ladies, but I finally got mine finished and gave it to the Center to put in their shop to sell. Here it is finished and here is a close-up of one corner Here is photo of the back of the quilt . It is always good to learn at least one thing with each project - one of the things I learned with this one is how to make rounded corners. That required me to review how to do a continuous bias binding. I especially like the way a stripe fabric looks in a bias binding, so was pleased with the way this turned out. I cut many more strips than needed however, so could probably make another one without cutting any more fabric. Instead I will just add them to my collection of strips of different widths for another project. This was the same process that we used for the table runners we were taught at Retreat this year, just a different size, and with sashing added. I really like it as a quick to do quilt.
Working on this project also prompted me to investigate walking feet. I have never been happy with the one that came with my Brother CS6000i, so just didn't use it much, but these seams were pretty thick so I contacted a Brother dealer to see if there was a different foot I could get. He said that if my foot did not say "Brother" on it then it probably wasn't a Brother one, and my original one did not, so I ordered one from him, and it seems to be doing much better.
Yesterday I started quilting Reilly's quilt - my first pink and brown quilt. Here are the 4 blocks I've done so far. On the right you can still see the marking pen I use to trace the stencil design, but I will spray it tonight with some water and it will go away. I am outlining the individual sections of the pink and brown sections, and will be alternating the two stencil designs for the cream sections.

Decision on Reilly's Quilt

I am GA still tonight - I'll be driving back home from McDonough tomorrow - about 9 hours if I don't make any wrong turns!! Tonight Kristi and Micheal and I decided that we like the one border on Reilly's quilt I brought several possible fabrics, including the one they thought they wanted as the outside border, but when I laid it out in Reilly's room we all agreed on this - just one wide border of the brown polka dots; I'll use that as the backing too. I also had some stencils for the cream sections that I showed Kristi, she is leaving it up to me to pick between 4 of the 7 I showed her. Knowing me, I will probably practice with a couple of them at least before I decide. I think in the pink/brown areas I will just outline the sections. I did more of a quilting design in Lillian's but you can't really tell what it is, so I think I will do something more simple for this one.

I have had a great time visiting with all our GA kids and all of our grandkids. I left home last Wednesday afternoon, went to Johnson City, TN to stay with my mom that night, then on to McDonough on Thursday. Friday afternoon I went to Marietta, stayed there Friday and Saturday nights, then Sunday afternoon came back to McDonough. I really miss hubby though, and hope that he can come with me on my next visit here. We'll be here for Christmas, but I hope we'll be back before then.

Yoyo Bunnies, Fabric Baskets and a Sudoku Board

I have been working on making some yoyo bunnies - this one is completed and ready to give to Reba, our oldest granddaughter, later this week. I made a quilt for her out of some of these fabrics about 2 years ago. The fabric basket is one of the 6 fabric baskets I have made so far - here it is with some of the others. Starting on the left, #'s 1, 2, and 4 are for granddaughters and they all coordinate with quilts I have made or am making. The one in the middle coordinates with a table runner that I am giving to one of my daughters this week. I had given two of these baskets to the granddaughters earlier this year, but then I agreed to do a workshop on them for the guild, so I borrowed them back to use in the workshop. I am hoping to have the second bunny done by the time I see them on Friday. They take about 60 yoyos each, so not a real quick project!

For some time now I have had in the back of my head the idea that I wanted to make a Sudoku board using fabric pieces in some way that could actually be played. Eventually I came up with this idea I've used Velcro in each square, on the back of each fabric square and as strips on the sides to hold the pieces I've not used yet. I wanted some way to make "pencil marks" - and finally came up with the idea of just cutting out little pieces of each of the 9 fabrics. I made this on muslin with 1/4" fusible bias tape for the major lines. Each of the playing pieces is 2 squares of fabric sewn together with a piece of batting in the middle and frayed edges all around. It remains to be seen how long the playing pieces last, but I could always make more. The 9 fabrics I used are all from quilts I've made. In the middle is a 20" x 40" display board, so it can be folded up if I want. I set up the board by using any Sudoku puzzle, then see how far I can get.

Reilly's quilt and some table runners

As usual when I start a new blog entry, I wonder where to start. I have been working on several projects since my last posting. My newest granddaughter Reilly's quilt - the Squarin' Around that I mentioned in my last entry - is now ready for some borders. Here is the center - and a couple of possible borders - I am going to GA again next week and will take the center and the possible borders with me for her parents to help me decide what to use for the borders. I think the brown with cream dots will be the backing. I'm sure I have thought this before, but I really do think this was the hardest quilt to piece that I have ever done. I like the way it turned out -- but not sure I would want to try it again!

Last spring our guild had a workshop on quilt-as-you-go table runners. I have finally finished 2 - one I started in the workshop and one that I did while helping the Senior Center ladies learn how. Here are the two of them and here they are with the backing showing. When the piecing is finished all you have to do is add the binding. These have been very popular at our guild recently - one lady recently showed 13 she had made!

Honorable Mention

Our guild had a show July 14-18 and I entered 4 of my quilts - Fallen Leaves , BargelloBowl , Simplified Log Cabin and Say it With Flowers . Much to my surprise I got an Honorable Mention ribbon for the Say it With Flowers. I entered it in the handquilted category - I made it for my mom in '06-'07. I think it was the second handquilted one that I have finished. The comments from the judge were interesting. She thought my triangle points need improvement, and that my handquilting needed to be more consistent in size and space between - I thought the points were pretty darn good, and it was only my 2nd handquilted piece so I thought it was pretty good. She did like the theme fabric and felt the colors were well coordinated - I should give all credit to the fabric designer -- this was a kit that I bought so all the fabrics were in one collection from Northcott I think. She did like the checkerboard border - I was pleased with the way it turned out, and it was easier than I thought it would be. She also said "Excellent handling of difficult binding fabric choice - very good binding corners." That was satisfying because it was hard to do - the binding is a strip of the fabric that has a rope design that I used as the top of the binding and right beside that are some strips that show up on the binding on the back - so it was nice that she noticed that. It is instructive to get the judge's comments, but you need a bit of a thick skin. The important thing for me remains to be that I make quilts that I like, in fabrics that I like, that suit the person I am making them for if that is the purpose. My mom says she likes this quilt - and it will shortly be back in her living room - although this morning I was wrapped up in it a bit while working on this blog entry. It was a cool and foggy morning in central VA - a typical August morning that reminds us that summer is fading.

Recent Encounters with Quilters

In the last 6 weeks or so I have been out of town 4 times - Beach Week for our family the 2nd week in June, a 5-day cruise with DH's brother's family the last week in June, a great-nephew's christening July 11-12, and now I am in GA to help middle daughter with her new baby daughter. I am feeling like I will never get caught up on email, blogs, Yahoo groups, etc. However, I have a quilting friend who is way busier than I am and she posts blog entries much more frequently (EH, you know who you are), so I am finally posting a contribution to Blogland.

In the last few weeks I have had two encounters with Quilters - Capital "Q" because both of them have published patterns that I have used or had some relationship to. First of all, a few weeks back I had a whole Friday all to myself - doesn't seem like such a big deal for a retiree, but trust me, it is! I wanted to get some serious work done on new granddaughter's quilt. Her parents picked out Squarin' Around after looking at hundreds of patterns that I showed them in books, magazines, and my stash of singles. We finally settled on some of the fabrics from the "Backporch Bouquet" collection from Maywood Studios, with other fabrics added in. I made a few blocks, which don't look anything like I thought they would when I looked at the pattern, and took them to the beach with us so they could see what I had done so far. We tweaked the fabric selection a bit so I was ready to roll the Friday after the beach trip. I cut out enough pieces to get started on and began sewing them together, did the trimming of the blocks, etc -- and had real trouble getting them to come out right. Such trouble that I felt like I could only use about 10 of the first 20 blocks I made. By the afternoon I was wondering what my problem was, and what I could do differently and was getting pretty frustrated and worried. In desparation I googled the designer of the pattern - Karla Alexander - to see if I could find a link or email address for her. I did find her listed on a webpage with a place to send her an email message. So I did that, describing my problem. As I was thinking about which of my MANY UFO's I wanted to work on while I waited to hear from her in the next few days my phone rings - and it is Karla!! This was not more than 5 minutes after I pressed "Send!!" She said she had just turned on her computer and saw my message so thought she would just give me a call. She gave me some good advice about the situation and encouraged me to continue. I am still amazed that she responded so quickly. Too bad she lives in Oregon and I live in VA - I am the Program Co-chair for my guild and I'd suggest her in a heartbeat for a program but I don't think our program budget could swing airfare for a trip from Oregon!

A couple of weeks ago I had a message from Christine Thresh, who designed the Going Around in Circles Again quilt that our daughter Allie made for the niece of her employers. She was very complimentary of Allie's work on the quilt and we emailed back and forth a couple of times. I was happy to hear the compliments, and gladly forwarded her messages to Allie. Pretty cool!