Works In Progress

Ready for binding. This is an oldie but goodie that I "found" recently.  The date on the back label says 1994, so that's when my bee did our brown bag trade. I put the red/blue plaid in the bag, and the bee member who chose my brown bag was to make a block and return it in about 8 months. Well, Jackie H. made me a small quilt!

I think this pattern was on the cover of American Patchwork and Quilting at some point (1993 or 94).  It's about time I bound it. Sheesh.

And this is a sneak peak of my wool circles appliqued on shirting. It's going to be a 20-inch pillow once I add borders and the back. And once I run to the quilt store for a 20-inch pillow (not today; it's too icy, so I'm staying put.)

Do-Overs

There are not many times in life that you are allowed a do-over. I bet the guy who drove into the Chinese take-out parking lot a little too fast on a slippery night and cracked our bumper would like a do-over.

"North Wind" pattern.

I should probably name this quilt "Do-Over" because there are many things that I did and had to undo because the results were less than pleasing. (The first thing I did was machine quilted the top with nylon thread, but the results were wretched; I picked out every last stitch and hand quilted it.) These do-overs really make a project drag on and on.

The left "stripe" is the original fabric color that was hidden in the seam line.

I had just gotten to the point of hand quilting the border, when I realized that the fabric color had changed. At first, I thought the border was dusty. But a few shakes later, there was no dust; just major fading, in a few month's time. I did not keep the top in the sun or even where a lamp light touched it.  This caused the project to go to the bottom of the pile while I stewed over what to do.

I finally found better fabric for the border, added red cornerstones, and finished quilting it. Binding should be done in the next couple of weeks. Whew!

Sunshine quilt

And the quilt is Buddy approved!

I received this quilt (shown above) from my quilting buddies. (We're loosely called the Girl Gang as we used to do Jan Patek's Girl Gang quilts each year). I must say I was completely surprised that they were so thoughtful, and very quick, as the quilt was started and finished in less than 3 weeks! They were trying to help me feel better as I go thru a rollercoaster of treatments the next few months.

And this bit of sunshine is an orchid on my co-worker's desk. It's funny that when people at work are given plants for gifts, they bring them to me to babysit (I have luck keeping them alive). And people bring their orchids from home, too (we have a great window with indirect west light).  We now have 5 orchids in our care. I always thought orchids were tricky to grow, but all I do is water them once a week and make sure they're not standing in water.

"Do Something" blocks 2012

Every year in early December at our bee's party, our most generous hostess, Sandy Z., gives willing participants a brown paper lunch bag containing one of her antique quilt blocks (she must have quite the collection, because she has done this for several years now).  The catch is that participants must make "something" from the block and return it to next year's party. If you aren't able to do something with the block, then the block must be returned to Sandy.

And here are the results shown at this year's party, from last year's block. It's amazing how similar some of the blocks look considering the making was all in secret.

Marie M. used antique fabrics and blocks to surround her basket.

Peggy S. did lots of piecing on hers (she gave her BlocLoc ruler a workout for the flying geese.)

Debbie S. did more with reddish-browns and some appliqué.

Meghan also had a plaid basket and used more reds and browns.

Carol T. is going to make  a needle case with her block  (this is the outside; inside not quite finished). 

Sorry for the blurriness...I couldn't get Linda G. to stand still for anything! The block she started with is on the lower left, and she made three more blocks to match.

And this one is mine. I was the only one with solid colors in the basket, so I went with more solids. I'm not sure what else I will be adding to the block -- maybe four different borders in the style of Gwen Marston?

Christmas Card Production Line

Here's our Christmas cards for 2012. Of course the cards have fabric! One-inch strips of batik (shown uncut on the right) both inside and outside the card. Husband G gets a big kick out of coming up with an original card every year (there was only one year that he was so busy we had to buy our cards...I ended up enclosing a note to apologize to everyone for the non-homemade card!)

Most of the 80 or so cards are now on their way!

Here is last years's card, also embellished with fabric: See the fabric triangle on the front?

And here's a shot of the inside and back:

Hand-dyed wool penny runner

One of my latest finishes. I've been working on these pennies as a take-along project for quite some time. But YAY, it's finally done, and in the right season.  It is about 42 by 15 inches. The colors are quite a bit more muted than I can capture, and the lights are not as light as they appear.

The large pennies are 4.25 inches, the medium ones are 2.25 inches, and the small penny on top is a little over 1 inch. I whip-stitched these together, then onto the backing with regular brown sewing thread in a primitive style.

I bought the kit as an end-of-season deal several years ago from Country Sampler in Spring Green, Wisconsin.  The pennies were simple to do.

My biggest challenge was figuring out which color was which. How hard could that be? Well, here are the color names I had to choose from, with none of the colors identified on the felted wool pieces:

• Rusty nail brown
• Faded gingerbread
• Country pumpkin
• Pumpkin mold
• Jack-o-lantern stripe
• Brown tweed
• Pumpkin tweed

The olive, yarrow and red were the only easy colors. I was nervous that if I started cutting without thinking, I would run out of a key color if I chose the wrong one. But they were very generous with the wool, so there was wiggle room for possible boo-boos.

Antique Broken Dishes

I picked up this quilt top a few years back; it was labeled a doll quilt, but it's 22 by 28, so it's closer to a small baby quilt. No info came with the piece, but the fabrics looks nice and old (maybe prior to the turn of the century?)

I love the jumble of colors.

A close-up of some of the fabrics.

Even closer...

And the back. I'm prepping this for hand quilting over winter.