Camera Woes

I have two small, inexpensive digital cameras that I've been using for years when I blog. What are the chances that both of them would decide to quit at exactly the same time? Argh! I know some people can blog from their phones, and since that's the only camera I have right now I thought I'd give it a try on this short post.

I recently made a wooden barn quilt and attached it to the front of the house above the garage door.

It measures 36" square and was pretty simple to make. I used a tutorial I found on the blog of a local gal who makes these and sells them at fairs & boutiques - she also teaches classes at quilt shops all over the country. Her tutorial can be found HERE.

....and it looks like that's all I can post because the rest of the photos I was going to share are all sideways and I can't figure out how to rotate them. If any of you have experience with this and would be willing to share, I'd LOVE to hear from you!

I'm heading to California tomorrow to visit family, and I purposefully timed my trip so I could attend an outdoor quilt show I've heard about for several years now. It's held at the Alden Lane Nursery in Livermore. There are also classes offered, but I will just see the quilt show since I'll have extra people with me who aren't in to quilting as much as I am. I'm hoping it will be a great visit!

Dibs & Dabs

I have finished appliqueing the wool pennies onto these blocks, and I've got them all sewn together. Now I need to add more pennies at the corners where the blocks meet, and find a good fabric for the border - I don't seem to have a piece that will work in my stash - imagine that! Guess I'll have to go shopping! LOL

I met a gal who makes and donates small quilts to her local Ronald McDonald House in Texas. I have sent her blocks before, but last week I made a couple of scrappy tops to send. I found wonderful fabrics on clearance for the backing & binding to accompany them - she will layer them and quilt them and deliver them. Such a good project! If any of you are interested in sending orphan blocks or tops or supplies, I can send you her address. She prefers 10" blocks so the backing doesn't need to be pieced.

I have discovered a new author that I like thanks to the suggestion of my friend Terri. These are murder mysteries and feature London police officers who are married to each other, as well as their friends, family & co-workers. I haven't read them in order, but that would be the best way to do it. Maybe you'll like them too!

On occasion I've been working on a new denim quilt. I'm in love with hexies, and this is a version of one that's new to me. I put the word out to my kids asking for old denim jeans, so as I receive them, I cut the hexagons and then cut larger hexies from homespun plaids. There is no batting in this - the edges are folded over and stitched. Then the hexies are butted up next to each other and joined by a decorative machine stitch. Not sure how large this will end up, depends on how quickly I tire of it!

I'm getting close to a finish on my 20" hit & miss mat. Only about 2" left to go on one side.

On Tuesday I met with my group of hooking friends and there was some great show & tell! Sharon had finished this small mat - she will back it with a nice piece of wool.

Sandy is filling in the background on this Susan Quicksall floral design - lovely colors!

Coralee is also working on the background of her Cranberry Gobbler.

Tonia has made arrangements with an antique dealer to make this rug for him in exchange for some nice antiques - it's looking great! It depicts the Kirkland Temple.

And the two bicycles below are SO fun to see side by side! This is a Polly Minick pattern. Jeanette is staying true to the original with an Americana color scheme.......

.....while Kim is switching it up by omitting the star border and doing her own color planning.

It was decided that at our December meeting we will exchange wooly ornaments - either hooked, or appliqued, or even needle punched. Can't wait to see what everyone comes up with! Hope you all had a nice Halloween - our trick-or-treaters were nearly non-existent this year - only 4 small groups came to our door - much different than it was when our children were small and we handed out hundreds of pieces of  candy!

Home Again

I returned to Utah on Thursday night from visiting my family in California. I took this stitching project to work on during the 12 hour (each way) drive and I did a bit more while I was there. The pattern is a design from Lisa Bongean and was in a recent issue of AP&Q. Lisa used flannel for her background fabrics, but I'm using regular cotton instead. Would have been a LOT faster and easier to cut the pennies with a die cut machine, but I used my trusty old scissors. Whew! Lots of variety in the colors of wool I used. Bought a few colors of DMC perle cotton to stitch with. I usually use crochet thread and it didn't really seem that different to me. I guess it's the variegated thread that makes the expensive stuff more desireable. There will be twelve blocks total when I'm finished - these still need to be pressed & trimmed to size so they look kind of distorted here.

On Saturday I attended our Guild's Hook-In and won this darling pumpkin man that was one of the door prizes. He's even cuter in person. Thanks Tonia!

Before going to California, I joined with the gals who always meet on the 1st Tuesday of each month. I'm making progress on my hit & miss rug.

There were some great projects being worked on. Coralee saw a metal sculpture while on vacation in Washington State and was inspired to hook her own version of a Cranberry Gobbler - very whimsical!

Sandy had her Day of the Dead rug completed......

......and was beginning work on a new floral (sorry for the crummy back-lit photo)

Sharon had finished a wild turkey done in needle punch.

And Stacy was punching a happy sunflower.

I seem to have missed several other rugs so hopefully I'll grab them next time.

Quilting Up a Storm

It's too hot outside to go anywhere, so I've been holed up in my studio for the last couple of weeks doing a lot of quilting - and I'm accomplishing quite a bit! I've had this small Kim Diehl quilt pieced and layered for a couple of years and I finally quilted it and got the binding on. Measures about 36" square.

Not sure why the edges turned out kinda ruffly - especially since I basted the perimeter before adding the binding. I usually like to wash my quilts when they're all finished, but I'm hesitant to do that with this one because of the wool applique - I'm afraid the colors might bleed out and ruin the whole quilt. Does any have any suggestions or experience doing this? Help would be appreciated!

I worked more on my Now & Later quilt - when I start sewing the blocks together I usually do it this way - I think it's called spider webbing? Anyway, makes it so the rows don't get out of order - easy peasy.

I had extra blocks left over so pieced them together and added them to the back which makes it interesting and more fun.

I love this Jan Patek print I found for the back - it was on clearance at my LQS for $4.99 yd. Yay!

When I work on a quilt this big (60" x 80") I like to take it over to the church and lay it out on the carpeted floor in a classroom to do the pin basting since I don't have that much free space in my house. Sure makes it easier!

Years ago I bought some grapefruit spoons at the dollar store that work perfectly for this job. I know there are special quilt tools designed to do the same thing, but they cost a lot more than $1!

I quilted it with a cinnamon roll swirl that is kinda fun to do - and used a variegated thread.

I'll share one more picture of this quilt when I finish stitching down the binding in a few days - that's a nighttime TV watching job -  and put it through the wash. Sure do love that cozy crinkly look it gets afterwards. Meanwhile, a few Delectable Mountain quilts caught my eye one day on Pinterest, so I pulled out a bunch of blue and tan fabrics from my stash and started making one. It's kinda strange to make quilt blocks that aren't square - doesn't happen too often!

Sure wish I was brave enough to quilt feathers in a zig zag pattern, but will probably settle for something much, much easier. Anyway, I'm really liking this color combo! I'd like to think of a clever name for this quilt that pertains to the Wasatch Mountains that I live near.

Sure feels good to be spending some quality time in my studio!

Projects

I've been busy as a bee stitching up several different projects. Today I made this little quilt that measures 9" x 11".  While looking around the house for a good place to photograph it, I discovered how nice it looks with some of my yellowware bowls. The ones with blue stripes have always been my favorite and I have many of them. It was fun to find the perfect striped fabric which I fussy cut for the sashing between the rows.

It worked up quickly since I had the pieced blocks left over from a small quilt I made for Lauren a couple years ago. Only had to make two extra and I had enough. I can never remember if these are hourglass blocks or broken dishes....

Last week I finally gifted DD#2 with a completed quilt. She will use it mostly for TV watching in the evenings when it feels chilly in her basement.

The colors are happy and it was a fun project to make for her, though it took me a lot longer than I thought it would. She was very patient with me and was very appreciative when I gave it to her.

I also stitched up a 'PLUS' quilt and gave it to the gal who does my hair. She's expecting a baby boy in June and told me the nursery colors are navy and gray. I think this will do the trick. She was very surprised when I showed up without an appointment to give it to her.

I quilted it with a simple and easy meandering design. 40" square.

I've finished the border on my hooked rug and I'm ready to tackle the remainder of the inside section.

I recently did a little cleaning in my studio and found six small crazy quilt blocks that I probably made 10+ years ago. I have no idea of what my original plan for them was, so I stitched them up similarly to a quilt I saw on a Facebook page. Not sure if the wool flowers and stems are showing up on such a busy background - any suggestions? Maybe I should unpick the stems and just have the applique in the center section? (please notice the mitered corners on the border - I haven't done that for ages!)

Not Much to Share

I haven't been doing a LOT of stitching lately, but do have a little bit to share with you. I've joined Cheri Payne's Friendship Group on Facebook and have been sewing the quilt blocks that she has posted there. Here's my progress so far. I'm sure there will be some wool applique added at some point - she never fails to disappoint with her designs. These are 4" blocks.

Someone in that group shared a photo of a simple little quilt that I've tried to reproduce below without a pattern. The wool applique makes for good stitching while watching TV in the evenings. This quilt measures about 15" square.

I'm also following along with the Temecula QAL and my blocks are shown below.

I found a backing fabric for my daughter's quilt that she likes. The loud floral is a fun counterpoint to the strict geometric shapes on the front. I have all the layers pin basted together now and it's ready to be quilted.

Last weekend we helped my son & his family move back to our area after his job disappeared in the oil fields. So happy to have them close-by again. Haven't had a hook in my hand since finishing the chicken rug so I need to get busy and decide on what I'll do next. Just finished reading this new book by Kate Morton. She's become one of my favorite authors and this story didn't disappoint!

Update

I'm making good progress on the modern quilt I'm making for DD#2. The top is sewn into two halves - which I had to lay out on the living room floor since it's bigger than my design wall.

And the foundation  papers are ready to be removed - a good thing to do while watching TV in the evening.

I drew my own pattern for the 8" blocks and printed them on inexpensive paper I got from the dollar store.

My rug hooking friend Lauren informed me last week that I had won a secret giveaway on her blog and this beautiful pendant arrived in my mailbox yesterday. The center is filled with a small piece of beautiful vintage wool paisley in my favorite color RED! I look forward to wearing this for a long time Lauren - thank so much!

Holiday Weekend

We don't often leave town on a holiday weekend, but made an exception this time because of the horrible inversion & pollution we've been experiencing here the last week or two. Hubby & I drove with DD#2 and her family five hours south to sunshine, blue skies and warm temperatures - it was perfect! We explored & hiked & swam & ate out and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Here are a couple of things I saw that during our travels that caught my attention. We stopped at Cove Fort which has been restored to resemble pioneer times and I loved seeing this hooked rug in one of the rooms. Rug hooking was a colonial craft and not a pioneer craft, but it was still fun to see this on the floor of a bedroom there.

Here's a close up of part of the floral diamond.

And we saw a barn star on the side of a house that was nice - not seen very often in this part of the country - I'd like to make one for my home someday.

I've been very busy working on a new quilt for DD#2 - she chose the pattern & the colors - I chose the fabrics. Each block is paper pieced in two sections. Each star is formed by sewing four blocks together, so the entire quilt needed to be laid out before I started any of the sewing.

Lots of trimming involved...

Last week when I met with my rug group there was some great show & tell. Nancy had started a new table runner - it will be symmetrical and placed on a small telephone table in her home.

She just had a bit of yarn whipping left to do on this cute piece that she began & finished since our meeting a month ago.

Myra is hooking a pumpkin rug for a friend with vibrant orange colors.

Yvonne is working on a rug that is in a Pat Cross book (if I remember correctly)

It's good to be home!