I've been busy machine quilting the scrappy flannel rail fence quilts.
I kept the quilting simple, just stitch in the ditch along the coloured rails and the pink border.
I chose a pink backing for this one. It is also flannel, with gingerbread cookies, hearts and stars. The binding was made from cotton, in a pastel harlequin pattern.
Finally managed to find the correct combination of light, time and assistant to photograph the quilt. I love to use natural light, but had to take this one in the house as it was too windy outside. I plan to use it as a winter wall hanging in my living room.
Another Monday with nothing on my wall - but I have an excuse, as we've been on the road for the past week!
I do have some fabric to show that I bought at many different locations while travelling......
I began by choosing some yellows as that colour stack was a bit lacking in my stash, and of course some greens and oranges came along for the ride.
Then I found these beautiful butterflies and a soft floral print on pale yellow...
The five 1 yard pieces were in a bundle in the sale basket at the quilt show - cute for kids quilts......
Then a few batik fat quarters came home to play.....
Fairy frosts were calling my name - a half yard of yellow and fat quarters of the rest.....
I had been looking for a great fabric to use as my "teaching aid" next winter, as I have a large number of quilters in my Florida group who would like to try a stack n whack, so this Oriental fills the bill.....
I'm always on the look-out for cute panels for kids and baby quilts, and the little animal print was calling my name.....
I had been looking for some gradated fabrics for a while, and found these being cleared - fat quarters of some and half
-yards of others......
By then I wasn't looking for yellows any more, and these blues seemed to want a new home.......
These ten 1 yard pieces were tied in a bundle at the quilt show, and came to $3 per yard.......
And finally an unusual brown fabric that DH pulled from the shelves, along with some grey stone fabric, called Stonehenge.....
Total damage - 38 yards
We had a lovely drive home yesterday, with weather that varied from sunny to light showers. Unpacked the van and headed for bed!
Today I've been catching up on bills, mail, laundry, and returned home to find NO BREAD!
Decided to try the stone ground whole wheat flour that I picked up a Bonneyville Mills - haven't tasted the bread yet, but just took the loaves out of the oven. My counter is cluttered because I have a tiny kitchen and I also believe that you only use appliances if they are out and readily available. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!)
Tomorrow I hope to get my new fabric washed.....
DH and I attended the NQA show in Columbus OH Thursday. As always, we visit all the quilts first, and there were lots of them! They had a special exhibit of tree quilts that were varied and wonderful. Best in Show was awarded to the same quilt that won at Paducah - apparently she turned down the $20,000 prize so she could keep the quilt! We had a quick snack then visited the vendors. My tote bag was getting heavy by the end of our visit, and the last booth we visited was one selling packages containing 5 x 1 yard pieces of coordinating fabric. I spotted a sale basket, and scored a 5 yd bundle for $10, and an odd assortment of leftover yardage that held 10 yds for $30. I wish I had visited earlier when there was more variety, but then I would have had to carry it around. Between the show and various quilt shops that we have visited this week, I have quite a selection of fabric to add to the stash!
By this time we headed out of town to visit the Longaberger Homestead in Frazeysburg OH (about an hour east). The site is beautiful, and we enjoyed the factory tour. I don't collect Longaberer, but have a good friend who does, so I sent her a couple of pictures.
We'll be heading home early tomorrow morning. I'm looking forward to some home cooking again! My fingers are itching to get some quilting done as well!
It rained overnight, but today was a lovely sunny day for driving. We left Elkhart IN this morning, and meandered our way to Columbus OH, stopping at a few quilt shops along the way. A few fat quarters hitched a ride....
Tomorrow we are off to the NQA show in downtown Columbus!
The quilt gardens were quite interesting, and will be beautiful when they are in full bloom. The last picture was taken in the garden in Elkhart. The Rotary Club has sponsored a garden make-over in the well field in the city. There are 13 wells and many ponds that provide all the drinking water. The gardens are still under construction on the north side, so there was a piece of heavy equipment at the top of the quilt garden. There were a large group of volunteers planting annuals when we were visiting the gardens.
Each sign lists the plants used in the garden as well!
We had a lovely day touring the heritage trail from Elkhart through Middlebury, Shipshewana, Goshen, Nappannee etc. Hunted the quilt gardens - found almost all of them. Some are planted on a slope, but many were almost flat, so difficult to photograph. DH often held the camera over his head to take the picture. A few places provided a viewing platform as well!
We also visited Bonneville mill, which is usually closed on Tuesday, but a church group was having a special tour, so we joined in. I bought some corn meal, whole wheat flour and some buckwheat flour, all freshly ground! Stopped at a couple of quilt shops and a few more yards followed me home!
Nothing on mine 'cause I'm still on the road!
My family reunion was wonderful on Sunday afternoon. We had about 75 attendees, and the games, run by my husband and two sons had great participation. The rain held off and it wasn't too hot. The pot luck was great, and my 3 nephews and one great-niece were there for the first time.
We made it to Indiana today. Started looking for some of the quilt gardens around Elkhart, Shipshewana etc. The ones we found were pretty, but not in their full bloom. They should be spectacular in another month. Made a quick visit to Yoder's Dept. Store and Lolly's Fabrics in Shipshewana. Didn't need anything but DH found some interesting fabrics, so a yard or two had to come home with me!
I stopped making blocks when I had 35, so used a five by seven layout for this brighter scrap rail fence quilt. I like the higher contrast of these blocks, as it shows the pattern much better. I never realized that I used so much green flannel for backing quilts! I am planning to use three borders, a plain one, then a pieced one, made of leftover pieces, and then a final plain one.
After this is stitched, I have to concentrate on laundry, then packing for our week of adventure.
Hopefully, I'll have internet access while on the road, so I'll be able to report on our trip and quilting opportunities along the way.
I finished 3 scrappy flannel rail fence baby quilt tops, all with similar blocks but each has a different border. I'll be doing lots of machine quilting when I return from my trip!
Now I'm working on some brighter colours to make another quilt top, this one will be larger than the baby tops. I still have a few more blocks to complete before working on a pleasing layout.
It has been raining here for the past two days - great for the garden, but not for taking pictures of quilts outdoors.
Since finishing Indigo Stars (picture to follow), I looked around my sewing room to see what other areas needed work. I had a half a shelf full of flannel trimmings. I like to use flannel on the back of baby and kids' quilts, but always have a few inches left over. I saw a picture of a nice
scrappy rail fence quilt, and thought this might work for the flannels.
I began by cutting 2 1/2 inch strips, then into sets of four pieces 2 1/2 x 4 1/2 inch rectangles. After cutting for a couple of hours, I began matching darker and lighter rectangles, then stitching them into blocks.
This is the first quilt centre, waiting to be stitched, and I have enough leftover blocks to make two more!
I fell back on my old favourite "Hooked on Quilting" feathered hooks. I began by stitching a curved line, using the blocks in the sashing as guidelines.
Then I quilted the feathered hooks on the right side of the line, changing the size to fit the space.
This was followed by the left side.
I managed to get the quilting done in the interior of the Indigo Stars quilt. I began with some "stitch in the ditch" on the small grey-green border, then I outlined all the motifs in each block. I chose to stitch a free-form feather design that would fill the background fabric easily, making an almost mirror-image in each area. (Almost, as I didn't mark anything before beginning to stitch!) I decided to stitch the binding on before finishing the quilting in the final border - that way I can centre the design. I managed to get the hand stitching finished before I headed to my guild dinner, so today I plan to get this one finished! I did no sewing yesterday, but I baked 4 loaves of bread, made my first batch of pesto, as there was enough basil, then baked a double batch of chocolate chip cookies. Dinner was easy - re-heated ribs that I had slow cooked last month (freezers are wonderful), cooked some rice and green beans and dinner was on the table!
I attended my guild's "end of season" dinner on Wednesday night. This year, the executive decided to do their own catering. It was an ambitious task, feeding almost 120 ladies, but they did an awesome job. They prepared cold ham and roast beef, along with a huge variety of salads, homemade pickles and lovely rolls. There were fruit trays and plates of squares on every table, as well as a couple of herbs in pots for decoration. As usual, we are each asked to bring our own table setting - placemat, napkin, dishes and silverware. The tables looked very festive with multicolour mats and dishes.
As a guest speaker, we had a couple from Brockville ON talk to us about their support of an orphanage in Chernobyl area of Russia. They head up a foundation that has been helping there for the past 10 years. They now take care of 4 orphanages in the area, as well as items for the community. One of their projects is to provide a quilt for each orphan to keep (most of the donated items are owned by the state). Our Community quilts project sent them home with 6 more quilts to take on their next trip.
It is amazing to see the work they have done there - rebuilding the bathrooms, providing books, a tractor so that they could farm more of the land to feed the children. Last year they raised enough money to help with a renovation of the town hospital! Their charity only uses 1% of donations to cover their overhead - a remarkable feat! I have just added another quilt to my summer list - to send to Chernobyl!
Started this morning by ironing and starching the backing fabric. Then I clamped it to my cutting table, covered it with batting, then added the appliqued and pieced top after it also was pressed and starched. As you can see, I still use a grapefruit spoon to help close the pins.
This quilt is from a kit (Christmas present from DH) from Connecting Threads called Indigo Stars. I don't usually buy kits, but DH liked this one, and as it was applique, he figured it would keep me busy for a while. It was very unusual, as the diamonds and centre squares were basted to paper shapes (like English paper piecing), then appliqued to the background. The instructions said to slit the background fabric to remove the paper after stitching, but I dislike doing this. Instead, I starched and pressed each shape very well, then stitched most of the shape, removed the basting and the paper, then finished the final side of the stitching. This method did make very sharp points, but I'm not sure if I'd try it again.
3 out of 4 isn't bad.... I just have to finish stitching the last one and a half bows, then I'll be ready to sew the borders to the quilt!
I used a narrow machine blanket stitch on the swags, but changed to a narrow zig-zag stitch for the bows. I found I had more control while turning the sharp ovals. Now I'll have three quilt tops lined up waiting to be quilted, so I think the next step is to prepare backings and get basting.....
Our bedroom is almost back to normal after its new coat of paint. The pictures are hung, furniture polished and in place, but I reminded DH that he forgot to clean the ceiling fan.... I am still sorting through a collection of costume jewelry, left to me from my mother. I need to simplify things, and I rarely wear any of it. I'm cleaning and polishing, saving some of the special items, and the rest will be donated (my friend's church sale has a jewelry area, so they will probably end up there).
My mother's first cousin, Elsie, passed away on Friday. She would have been 97 this year. Until February, she lived in her own apartment, but we could see that she was becoming very frail. A fall sent her to the hospital, then into a nursing home. She died in her sleep. She and her husband Bill were the only members of my mother's family that we saw
regularly, and they were the only adults that I was allowed to call by just their first names. They spent weekends with us on the boat, and attended all my dance recitals, birthdays, Christmases etc. When my father died, my mother and Elsie moved into the same apartment building, living next door to each other. I think they got along better later in life, as there had always been a bit of rivalry between them as children and later as adults. Elsie and Bill had no children, but enjoyed our family, as well as their nieces and nephews. The second picture has Elsie on the left, me in the middle and my mother, Doris on the right. I know she will be sorely missed.
I finally finished preparing all the applique pieces... First tracing the shapes onto the applique stabilizer, then spending an entire evening cutting out all the shapes. Then I glued the stabilizer shapes onto the back of the fabric, using a washable school glue. Back to the scissors and cutting out all the pieces, leaving a seam allowance on each. Then I spent 2 days with a glue stick, turning the edges to the back...I think I managed to get all the glue residue off my fingers!
I finally started stitching the scalloped swags by machine, using a tiny blanket stitch, with invisible (monofilament) thread in the needle, and "bottom line" thread in the bobbin. I use an open-toe embroidery foot on the sewing machine so I have better visibility and I stitch very slowly.....
I added the sashing and cornerstones to my current project, but am still trying to decide on the final border. I am leaning toward an appliqued border, with scallops and bows, but I don't want to overwhelm the blocks.
After playing with pieced borders, I don't feel happy with a plain one. Decision time today. I also have two quilt tops waiting to be quilted, so I guess I have to make time for those as well!
I began by choosing some yellows as that colour stack was a bit lacking in my stash, and of course some greens and oranges came along for the ride. 
Then I found these beautiful butterflies and a soft floral print on pale yellow...
The five 1 yard pieces were in a bundle in the sale basket at the quilt show - cute for kids quilts......
Fairy frosts were calling my name - a half yard of yellow and fat quarters of the rest.....
It rained overnight, but today was a lovely sunny day for driving. We left Elkhart IN this morning, and meandered our way to Columbus OH, stopping at a few quilt shops along the way. A few fat quarters hitched a ride....
Since finishing Indigo Stars (picture to follow), I looked around my sewing room to see what other areas needed work. I had a half a shelf full of flannel trimmings. I like to use flannel on the back of baby and kids' quilts, but always have a few inches left over. I saw a picture of a nice 
3 out of 4 isn't bad.... I just have to finish stitching the last one and a half bows, then I'll be ready to sew the borders to the quilt! 
My mother's first cousin, Elsie, passed away on Friday. She would have been 97 this year. Until February, she lived in her own apartment, but we could see that she was becoming very frail. A fall sent her to the hospital, then into a nursing home. She died in her sleep. She and her husband Bill were the only members of my mother's family that we saw 
