Quilts for Kids

I ordered 2 quilt kits in October, then I got sick, then I went on the quilt shop bus tour. All good excuses but basically I forgot about the little UPS box sitting beside my sewing machine.  So I started working on them yesterday. Here is the first one, the fabric is already cut into strips for you, easy peasy.
They ask that if you make one with their fabrics to make a 2nd one with your own fabrics.

So on the Bus tour I was on I won a bundle of fabrics.  I used them and some of my own leftovers to make this 2nd quilt. 

Then I opened the 2nd quilt kit. It has the same fabrics as the first except the 1.5" inner border on this one is red instead of blue. 

This is the quilt I made for this one.  I had enough of the green/orange leftover for 6 blocks so I used them too.

Now I still have a little leftover and I have this green print with ladybugs from a custom baby quilt I did last summer.

  So I cut that into 15 squares for the focus fabric. This is as far as I got.  I do think I will have to go and buy some fabric for the outer border. But that's OK.  These are too much fun to make.  I was really getting them done too. And then my phone rang.   When I came upstairs (while talking on the phone), look what is happening outside!

Yeah! Snow, finally. 

And here is just an update on my UFO from forever. 

My Father Christmas hooked rug that I should be working on instead of or at least in conjunction with the donation quilts.  It is here on the floor inside my sewing room.  I think I put it there Thanksgiving day before company arrived.  

(It had been sitting on a chair in the living room.)  

Oh and the beer case in the background....I use the heavy cardboard for the bottoms in my purses.  They're pretty sturdy, very light and free.

  And yes, Father Christmas was just tossed there upside down. 

I have no shame.

Christmas Quilts Part 2

I will call this Nancy Halvorsen quilt day.  I love her applique designs; her books have great instructions and great pictures--very important. 

These are 2 tea towels for me!  I have no idea how many of these I made and gave for gifts.  The Santa one on the right, I think was a pattern in a quilt magazine.  I don't keep good notes on smaller things like this sometimes.  

I made Up on a Roof  Top in November 2004. It's companion, You better not Pout  I made in Nov. 2005  I remember using mostly scraps for these quilts.

These are 2 little angel quilts, I made in 2004 as well.  My notes say I made 6 total. They were gifts for family.  I also made one in patriotic colors with the angel holding an American Flag, but I must have donated or given that away.  I haven't seen it for a while....
They both have the words "Let Heaven and Nature Sing" stitched on them.  The top one I should have used a darker thread, it doesn't show up well.

This little one I made 3 of November 2004.  Two were gifts. (I was busy in Nov. 2004)

I love this quilt! I made it in 2006. It's about 42" square.  Again, I used fabrics from my stash and bought the border ones.  I think I did buy a few fat quarters for the 3 wise men's robes.  I machine quilted this on my domestic machine. It is not a good job.  The tension was giving me fits especially in the beige background areas. When I got it out this year and  looked at it, I was bummed.  After Christmas, I think I will take out the quilting (it won't be hard the tension it that bad) and re-do it. Before I made it, I made a smaller version of just the center panel with theHoly family.  I gave that one to my sister. Let me see if I can find a picture. I just remembered that when I was writing about this one.

Here it is, I love it too.

Today I am working on donation baby quilts.  I have 2 pieced and a 3rd almost done, one more to piece then I need to get back on the HQ and finish my Spring Journey quilt.

A Christmas Quilts Show

I have all my Christmas quilts up, so it's time to start documenting them. That means a little quilt show, this will take a few days.  I have a lot of Christmas quilts.This is one of the 1st quilts I ever made.  It was suppose to be a pillow, but I didn't know how to make it into a pillow so I just finished it. It's all pieced and appliqued by hand. I hand quilted the year in the bottom border 1989. 

These next to pictures show little quilt kit quilts I bought at whatever the Michael's craft store was, before it was Michael's (when the name comes to me I'll just yell it out, ok?) Edit: LeeWards it used to be LeeWards--remembered after a good night's sleep! I'm not getting old just sleep deprived, *wink* They were all the same design line and had some stitchery in them.

 This is my log cabin wall quilt, it's about 50".  I made this in 1993.  It's hand quilted.  After I put it together, I was so disappointed at how the dark green strips made a secondary pattern so pronounced (poor fabric selection and placement on my part--but that's how ya learn).  About 5-6 years ago, I got over it, finally! And I really like this one. Here's a close up of the quilting in the border.

And here it is on the wall behind my Christmas tree this year.  I took 2 days to decorate the tree.    

How was my Thanksgiving?

 Thanksgiving, doesn’t that already seem like so long ago? Well, let me tell you about my Thanksgiving, mostly so I don’t forget that this was the year that the oven went wacko. I was so stressed out last year, I guess, with my job that I don’t even remember last Thanksgiving (2008). My parents, Grma and Great Aunt were here and apparently we had a very nice day…I thought that was 3 or 4 years ago. Then I found the pictures, yup they were here, last year.

So Thanksgiving 2009, I’m laid off, so no work related stress to deal with and the turkey is doing it’s happy little turkey thing in my oven. It’s been in there going on 5 hours and I’m thinking it should have only been 4/12 hours (barely a 15 pound bird), finally the little popper on his butt ‘pops’. But, I know not to trust these. So I also check him with my own thermometer—twice. He's done. Fast forward about ½ an hour, Meghan has the gravy about done and everything is on the table. We start the carving and my new electric knife I got at Kohl’s and blogged about a couple weeks ago…was worth the money. Unfortunately, it didn’t help the undone thighs. Oh the top of the turkey was done, but the bottom, no. So what did I do? Well, after sharing a 2 second look with my husband (OH MY GOD THE STUPID #@#$%# TURKEY ISN’T DONE!!!) I calmly advised my family of the situation. My dad’s aunt said, “Well, we’re not going to starve, just put it back in the oven for a while.” - Oh the wisdom. So, I put it in another roasting pan and cranked the heat up. We put everything in the fridge that needed to. I did some dishes, discussed at length with my mom, grandma and aunt what could have possibly been the problem and about an hour later we ate. It was done. It was delicious. (Friday I went out and bought an oven thermometer, and that's the problem it's off, way off. Paul will fix or I'll be getting a new oven for Christmas.)
Now, if that isn’t enough of a story to make this the thanksgiving that we all remember…**November 2014****: “Remember the time mom’s oven sensor/thermometer went bad and the turkey wasn’t done….hahahahha”. Well we can also say, “OH yeah! That was the same year, Grand pap (my dad) went peasant hunting in the morning and when he got home, Jake bit him, and it got infected and after we finally ate, he had to go to the ER and have intravenous antibiotics because it started hurting so bad…..” I am not making this up.

(Jake is my dad’s 12+ year old English setter. He’s never bit anyone, he doesn’t even growl. They’re just not that kind of dog breed. We have a Gordon setter, same deal.) So we don’t know what triggered it. He’s an old dog and they don’t go hunting very often anymore. Did he just want to stay in his dog crate nice and warm in the back of my dad’s truck? Is he losing his hearing, eye sight, getting doggy dementia and my dad startled him? He was fine and acted like nothing happened 10 seconds later. My dad called him out of his crate and said he jumped right out and came over to my dad wagging his tail. He’s been fine since. Sadly, my dad had to go back to hospital for a 2nd round of intravenous antibiotics on Saturday, (they wanted to admit him at that point but he refused-yup, if the infection doesn’t do him in, my mom might.) He went back in on Sunday and it's finally responding to the antibiotics and the blood work came back that his blood isn’t infected so that was a relief.  But he had to stay home from hunting camp. It’s the 1st day of buck here in PA and “the men in the family” go to the mountains. As I’ve said before, all the deer are here in suburbia, but there’s no messing with tradition.
Is it ok if I wish for a really quiet Christmas, like “shhhh...Nobody talk, breathe, move.” Let’s just watch the tree, wrapped in a warm quilt, or maybe bubble wrap- it’s safer. Is everybody up to date on their booster shots, flu shots? Rabies vaccination anyone?

Monday already?

Well, there goes November!  I have nothing new on my design wall, but yesterday I finally had time to start on the Spring Journey Sampler quilt that I loaded on HQ a week ago! 

I'm doing a feather design in the outer border, so I got the top border done and then started working my way down the quilt, doing SID just to stabilize layers.  Since this quilt is set on point and the setting triangles are so large, I pre-marked the feather spines in the triangles. I am stitching them and doing the SID around each block and sashing first and then I will go back and finish the feathers and quilt.....I don't know what yet in each block...it will tell me what to do when I get there I think (hope-*wink*).  But as I was finishing stitching the spine in one of the triangles I was just "itching" to do some feathers....just to see how it would look.  It's not the best picture, should have turned lights on the machine off, maybe.  It probably wouldn't have helped; I'm a crappy photographer! 

For your viewing pleasure...

...and the continuation of my documenting my quilts.
 This little wall quilt I made in 1995, it's hand appliqued and the bow was attached after the quilt was finished. This is the 2nd one I made.  The first one my SIL made such a fuss over-I was compelled to give it to her.  This is one of those quilts that never seem to lose its appeal for me. I just love seeing it every fall.

This is an oven mitt.  I never use is, just hang it on a cabinet knob every October and put it away when the Christmas decorations come out. It was a project from a LQS in 2003, called The 3rd Saturday of the Month Club. You paid a small fee in January and got your first little project. Then as long as you brought the completed project into the shop the 3rd Saturday of the following month; you got the next month's pattern free.

This is the quilt on my bed right now, made in 1997.  It's all flannels even the backing.  The pillow panel at top is cottons.  I machine appliqued those using a loose zig zag stitch. This was before I had a machine with the blanket-stitch. There was no way I was doing all that by hand. It's one of the few quilts I've tied. 

This is a lap size 'raggy seams' quilt I made in 2004.  The front is all homespun's, the back is mostly denim from the kids' worn out jeans. It was amazing how little usable denim is left from kids jeans after removing seams and holes in the knees etc.  I had to go to a thrift store and buy some large men's jeans to make up the difference.

This is a Little Quilt (literally and patterningly as well). It is only 13" x 17". I hand quilted it.

I just love this little guy too. As I've started to document these quilts.  I'm finding some of them haven't been labeled... GASP!  Bad, Diane, bad. 

And in this process am seeing first hand why it's so important.  --It's a pain in the butt to go through 4" ringbinders of patterns and notes to try to find the date that I took a class (that quilts further down) or in this little quilts case looking back through my quilting photo albums.

Much easier to just flip the bottom up and read the label. 

This is another Little Quilt, scrappy 9-patch made January 2004.

This little winter door hanger I made in 2005.  The pattern was in Amer. Patchwork Mag. in 2004. 

 He hangs on our door almost all year.  Annie will use her nose to ring his little jingle bell to get our attention when she needs to go out.  Our 1st westie, Haley, taught her that, but Haley rang the sleigh bells  on the hinge side of the front door.  It, too, was a holiday decoration, that stays up year-round.  

Annie will hit the big ones first, but if we don't jump up within 30-40 seconds.....she'll start flipping the snowman.  Sometimes we just watch her do it, cracks us up. 

And finally, my no diamonds Lone Star. It's made with HST.  I think 5/2005 is when I made it.  It doesn't have a label, and the class notes just have 4/29 on the top of one of the pages (in my hand writing).  I don't remember and didn't have a picture of it in my photo album.  Wow, I really dropped the  archival ball on this one.

The "design wall"

This is my design wall the little maple leaf quilt is ready for quilting, I will probably just do it quick on my 4.0, I've never tried the built-in stipple stitch. I got this little kit on my quilt bus tour and am glad another project I bought is getting done. 

The 3 embroidery blocks are up there only because I found them in a drawer a few weeks ago.  I made a bunch of these while oldest son was in Iraq, I think the 1st time.  I had more of them (all with different little sayings) but used them for gifts, pillows etc.  These are what's left.  They'll probably get taken down and put away again, until inspiration strikes.  

The other 2 blocks are orphans. 

On Saturday I finally loaded my Spring Journey sampler quilt on HQ but have yet to start. I figure I can work on it a little, while waiting for the dang turkey to thaw. haha.   I've marked the huge setting triangles with the spines for feathers and will probably quilt the blocks and sashing "as the quilting spirit" moves me as I go along.  I know once I start on this, I won't want to stop.  (Its an illness, I know.....)