Dandelions Near The Steps

Hey, I have a Friday Finish !   I'm not part of that linky party, but I am happy to share my first truly finished quilt of 2014.

This is a baby quilt made from the simple desire to sew !  The design is my own, just something to showcase the solid-colored fabrics, picking up the ones that are featured in the dandelion print.  The finished quilt measures 36 inches square.

The batting is Hobbs' Heirloom Premium 80% cotton/20% polyester.
I used Connecting Threads solid strips and a Valori Wells dandelion print for the top of the quilt.

I regret to say that I don't know the maker of the backing fabric, but I am thankful to my friend, JoAnn, in Oklahoma, for continuing to send me her scraps (big scraps!)

 I pieced a few of the gradating solids from the front of the quilt into the back, since I needed to piece it anyway.

I decided to hand-quilt this one since it would show up so nicely against the solid fabrics.  

I love how the light coming in from the window shows all of the contours of the quilting lines.  

Once again, Lottie-dah wants to claim the quilt for her own.   Can't believe I haven't made this girl a quilt yet !

UPDATE:  The quilt has been gifted to a beautiful young woman who is believing God for a baby girl, and has already named her, Abigale Marie Hope !  God IS hope, isn't he..........praise God for all our babies, no matter how old they are, or how long we have to wait !  God is faithful........why can't we be FULL of FAITH?

Wednesday check-in

Yesterday was a fun day.  I did get to drop in on the quilters, but ooh, how I wanted to stay !  There were atleast 6 or 7 ladies there, with their most recent projects draped around the room, and tables set up with works in progress everywhere !  What a fun group has evolved in the last few years.......I hope I have a project ready to work on with them next month.  The only down side I saw was that there didn't seem to be room to baste a twin-sized quilt on a frame like I used to do there sometimes.

I didn't take pictures, as my camera doesn't want to recognize a memory card anymore.  Now I have to take a few on the internal memory, and then hold my breath as I convince the camera to copy them to the card.   That's why my posts are short on photos lately !

But the food program started early yesterday, so I had to be there by 1 p.m.  I so enjoy getting to know lots of faces of the regulars who come weekly.  They recognize me now, and smile and speak niceties......I just love it.  They're my NEIGHBORS, and I love THEM !

This afternoon, I finished hand-quilting the last two blocks of the baby quilt, and will try to get started on the binding tomorrow.  In the meantime, I wanted to share a tip.

 This backing was just barely big enough to stick out an inch on a couple of sides of the quilt, so when it was time to quilt this last edge, I basted a doubled 4-inch-wide strip of fabric to the backing in that area, going through the batting also; then, I had something for the q-snap frame to get ahold of.  Otherwise, I would have had to fasten it too close to the quilt-top to be able to quilt that last side edge.

Anticipation !

Spring can't be too far away........to my wonderful surprise, the first Crocus, in fact, the first blooms of 2014, were proudly lifting their heads yesterday afternoon in my front yard !   Just the day before there was nothing in that spot but a few of what looked like blades of grass, then, VOILA !  Beautiful blooms of brilliant purple against the dry brown  grass just made my day !




Buttercups, jonquils, Narcissus.......whatever they are, are also poking their stems and buds through the ground now too.

 In my flowerbeds, I couldn't resist the warm days, and I raked away a winter's worth of leaves.  I hope I don't regret it when we have the next few days of cold temperature's return !   I just couldn't resist seeing what was hiding below.

I've been hand-quilting, and I have almost completed the little baby quilt with the dandelion print.   Tomorrow is quilt-meeting day, and I think I will just drop by and show the finished brown quilt-top that I started last month, and this baby quilt, unbound.  Our feeding program starts earlier now, so I need to be able to get back home to feed hubby and myself before slipping away for an afternoon/evening's work.

Thursday's storm

Yesterday was a busy day and I didn't get the chance to post.  I want to document the fact that we had quite a severe thunderstorm come through here on Thursday night.

Hubby and I stood in the center of the trailer while the wind whistled like crazy around us, and hail beat against the side and windows.  We were sure a window must break, but, praise God, they all survived the storm intact.

The roof, however, lost a good many shingles and parts of shingles.  We found them all the way out at the edge of our woods.  Also a window in the sewing room had rain in the blind, so it needs to be sealed.  I called in an insurance claim and then contacted a local roofer.  He came and covered the questionable areas of the roof incase we have more rain before it can be fixed.   I'm hoping we can replace this shingle roof with a metal one.

The amazing thing to me is what the storm did to the garden fence.  It's just a nylon mesh type of fencing material, and yet it was able to catch enough wind to be blown over........metal fence stakes bent at almost a right angle !

New possibilities

I found a new way to baste my quilties.

I made a trip to the hardware store, before the rain started....yikes, more precip!.....and I purchased a 4 x 8 foot sheet of foam core board.

I had the man cut it in half for me so that I could get more use out of it.  I would love to be able to mount two full sheets on my sewing room wall, covered in flannel, to be used as a design wall.  But that's just not going to happen here.  My ceilings are an unbelievable 6 1/2  to  7 feet low high.  So, instead, I hope to mount one 4 x 4 ft section on the wall near the machine, and I found a wonderful use for the second piece.

It turns out that this 48-inch-square piece is a great size for basting baby quilts !
I pieced together several leftover pieces of batting and cleared off my cutting table.

 The coreboard has plastic on one side (over foam), and foil on the other side.  So, I just turned the foil side up, and taped the backing to it.  Obviously, I added the batting and top, and then I used my curved needle to threadbaste the quilt.  It is a bit aggravating that the needle continually wants to pierce the foil, but after a bit of trying, you get the 'feel' of it, and can readily baste the entire piece.  I lay it on top of my cutting table, and kept rotating it with each row I basted........it was a great back saver over using the floor, or even my basting frames.

The back is one that I made last night.

 I kept searching my stash for a suitable one-yard piece, and couldn't find anything  modern enough to match the dandelions and the solids.  But I happened upon these teal-blue remnant pieces that were sent to me by Jodie Ann, probably leftover from the backing of one of her own quilts.  I decided to do a little more piece-work to add some interest and make the odd sized pieces work.   I am very pleased with the results.  Thanks, as always, Jodie !

So, this one is ready to begin quilting, and I think that I'll do it by hand, if I can just get enough light coming over my left shoulder to be able to see.   it's been SO LONG since I did any real amount of hand-quilting, but there's just nothing else to compare to the look or feel of it, in my opinion.

After just a couple of generic Tylenol tablets yesterday, hubby is pretty much back to his old self.......praise God for our healing in Jesus' name !   I went and bought the hubs a little valentine....not concerned that he wasn't able to get out and get me one.  I told him I'll shop tomorrow's sales and do twice as well !  Ha !

Now this is how I like it !

I love it like this.......overnight you get a decent enough snow to pretty much cover everything, and the next morning the sun is shining down bright and beautiful for photos............PLUS, then the melting begins !  Praise God.......he wields a wonderful paintbrush !

This is why we CHOOSE and are BLESSED to live in the southern United States ........ so we can ENJOY just a bit of the beauty of snow, without the inconvenience.   Praying God's grace and help to those who ARE troubled with power outages and other inconveniences from this Winter's weather.


Hubby's running a low-grade fever today, so we'll try to keep things quiet and peaceful while he gets back to good-as-gold !

Maybe I can find something to sew !

Snowing again ?

Strangest Winter I can remember in all my 56 years !  I wanted ONE 4-inch snowfall this year, just for the beauty of it, with the sun popping out the next morning and melting it all away.  Instead, it has snowed atleast once a week it seems like, and all of them together wouldn't make 4 inches !

Here's where we are after a morning of snow falling.  It's not a pretty picture, but I just wanted to document it.

Well, praise GOD, we are not in drought !

I found a fabric on Etsy, to back my brown and red quilt-top, but then found out at the last moment that the print was much smaller than what I wanted.  It is SO difficult to shop for fabric online !  So, here I sit, wasting another day.  Atleast I got to play with Allyissia for a couple of hours.  Oh, and my brother, John, stopped by for a nice little 'catch-up' visit.........I miss him, after seeing so much of him right after my surgery, and only seeing him once a week at church now.  Love the family visits !

UPDATE:  After 8 hours of snow, we have a grand sum of about 1/2 inch on the back porch.  This snow is a total opposite to the last one of any substance.  I could sweep the other away like powder........this one is wet, WET, mushy.  And it is OH SO PRETTY coming down !

Fun with solids

Yesterday, enduring yet another of these cold, snowy Winter days, I spent time in the sewing room.......I just love being able to say that.........yes, the sewing room, playing with my set of solid strips from Connecting Threads.  I started out to make something big, but I stumbled across a piece of fabric that would coordinate with many of the colors, and it was only a half-yard cut.  So, I revised my plans, chose colors closest to the print, and made enough blocks for a baby-sized quilt.  That's a good use for these colors anyway, don't you think?

 The print fabric is from Valori Wells.  I bought enough of one large print to back a quilt, but only half-yard cuts of several others.  I wish I had more !

The little top wound up measuring approximately 36 inches, square.  I would like to IMMEDIATELY dig out something to back it with and go to work on the quilting.  I always mean to spend this hibernation time QUILTING, but I forget that in order to do that I need to BASTE up a bunch of quilts during warm weather, when I can do it outside in my yard !  It's just killing me not to be quilting on the brown quilt, but I don't have a suitable back yet, nor have I decided WHERE I will baste it.

No pictures today........

........in fact, I wish I HAD thought to take a couple of pictures.   I got to play with Allyissia all afternoon today, and it did my old gramma heart good.  She's my grand niece, but she provides me with my nana-fix.  She's four years old now, going to pre-K, and is just such a delight to play with.  She loves her baby dolls, and coloring in coloring books, playing card and memory games..........just all the things I miss with my far-away grandkids.

On the weather front, we missed this storm, except for loads and loads of rainfall yesterday.   My daughter out in Oklahoma received 8+ inches of snow !

More storms expected later this week !  I just hope I get to work tomorrow and get to my appointment on Wednesday morning......then, after stocking up on groceries and gas a little, I'm good to hibernate for another few days !   Got my sugar hubby, and my Lottie dah.......what more could a girl ask for.  God is GOOD !

P.S.  It's been awhile since I've given an update on my surgery recovery.   I'm eating ALL THE TIME, even though it takes me a lot longer than most people to eat anything.   I'm having the most trouble with soft items catching and depositing in the upper back of my throat.  Somehow, it's like there's a reservoir there that food deposits in and doesn't go down.  I try to wash it out with lots of fluids, but sometimes that backfires, and up it all comes.  Frustrating......I'm having to learn to be very wary and watchful and careful HOW I eat.  Sleepwise, it's about the same........the couch is still my GO TO.  Once in a  great while I try the bed again, but usually wind up having to move to the couch after a couple of restless hours of choking on my own saliva.   It's weird, but it's my new reality, so I'm just thankful that that's the worst of it, and I'm trying to adjust.   Atleast, I'm able to enjoy my sewing.  Once again I'm wondering if I'll have the energy I'll need for all the yardwork I have each Spring and Summer, but I'm just asking my father, GOD, to  give me strength for EACH DAY as it comes.  I know HE WILL !

Another frustration is my voice.  Now, I've long known that my tongue was my worst enemy.......no matter what good intentions I've had, it's always found a way to go beyond the parameters I set for it.  So, it's no wonder the LORD had to put a curb on it.  But what I miss most right now is long talks on the phone to my sister-in-law, Jean, and my good friends who like to call and chat.  I just can't be heard very well, and I run out of oxygen trying to talk with only one working vocal cord.  Bear with me friends.........and feel free to write me or call and let me just do a whole lot of listening !

A dolly quilt by Dolly !

Hooray !  I finally reclaimed the front bedroom for a sewing room again.   That leaves us with one fewer bed, but a much more productive use of the space.

And while I was going  through some things in there, I ran across the bag of flannel 4 inch squares that my sister brought to me last Fall.  Remember, I made the blue baby quilt from them last month.
Well, today I played around with the pink ones and came up with enough squares to make a little raggedy quilt.
It finished at 22 inches square.

 When I made raggedy quilts before, I used to wash and dry them as soon as I finished one; but this one is so nice and pristine, I think I'll just leave it be.

Diamonds in the Dirt

I am happy to say that I finished piecing my "Diamonds in the Dirt" quilt top last night. 

 You know, it's funny, I started this top just to use up some old browns, and to postpone cutting into a newer collection of greens and yellows.  I'm not sure what I want to use the new fabrics for, so this was just 'passing time and being useful'.  Well, I am CRAZY about this top !    I only hope that I can get a chance to baste it soon.  I'm even CONSIDERING hand-quilting it !   

I KNOW !

I NEVER DO THAT ANYMORE !

I just love the way that the lighter pieces 'sparkle' throughout the quilt, especially in a low light situation ! 

This is not my original design........I saw something like this in a quilting catalog a couple of years ago and drafted it up the best I could.  I made it in a smaller size, but changed the design some this time.  I can see me doing it again, and that's saying a lot for me, because I hate to make the same design more than once.

I have a recipient in mind for this quilt, if and when I finish it, but I'll keep quiet about that as I'm terrible with deadlines and predictions.   I planned it as an extra-large nap quilt.......it measures about 56 X 80 inches.

This layout, without the sashing between the browns, has given me an idea for another setting possibility.

I almost left out this block.......it was an extra I made......but Dorothy Tucker at the quilting get-together the other day said that he just had to make his way into the quilt.   I'm not sorry that he did.......thanks Dot !

Moving right along........

.....I've been working on the brown quilt.  I did get to go to the quilting get-together yesterday, and it was SO enjoyable.  You know, I can sew just about anytime I want, for as long as I want, here at home, but there's just something so great about doing it in a room with other people who are as interested in the craft as you are.  There are projects going on all around you, with opportunities to give an opinion (when asked), or share a tip.  You get praise and constructive criticism (if asked for) on your own finished and in-progress projects.   I miss my Oklahoma Outlaws so much, but this was nice !

When I awakened yesterday, to a temperature of about 15 degrees outside and a powdering of snow on the streets, I was afraid that the day's activities would have to be cancelled for me.   I have no experience driving on snow.   But I went out and swept the back porch, and the snow was so dry that it was like sweeping flour or something.  So I reasoned that the road wouldn't be slippery, and I was right.   I got to go at around 9 a.m., and I stayed until about noon.

I worked on the square-in-a-square blocks that are a part of this newest quilt.  Surpisingly, I only got 12 or so blocks done.  I am using the flip and sew method of making the triangles around the square.  After I sew on the marked diagonal line of the squares, I make another seam 1/2 inch outside of that first seam.   That way, when I cut off the corners, I have already stitched together the leftover half-square triangles !  Usually, I throw them away after they've set awhile needing to be stitched together.  This way, they're done along with the quilt, and suddenly I wind up with usable piecing for this or another project.  Maybe I can work them into the back of this quilt.

At any rate, I've gotten to sew some more this morning, and I've finished all of these blocks.  When I laid them out on the bed, I was struck by several ideas for other quilts using this block, and even these colors.

 I never realized how well red and tan went together......too bad I've cut up about all the reds I have.  Time to restash, I guess !

Work in Progress........

........I've gotten to where I don't post pictures of my quilt tops until they're nearly done.  That makes it look like, POOF, I just whipped something up overnight....ain't I amazin' ? 

I guess I've gotten into that habit because as sure as I announce a project, like this one, I'm just as sure to get side-tracked onto something else.

But, having said that, I wanted to mention, here, that I've cut out and am in the process of beginning a couch-sized quilt.  I wanted to get into my 'browns' drawer and use some fabrics that I've ignored for quite a while.  Looking through a sketch-notepad of quilt designs I've drawn, I ran across one that I made up once before.  I reworked it a bit and started cutting.

I've wasted today, when I could have been sewing, because the next part I want to piece is also the part that's easiest to transport.  You see, our quilting group meets tomorrow, and since we don't meet in the months of November and December, due to holiday busyness, I'm really ready to see these girls again.  Tuesdays are also the day that we unload the truck at the church for the food-giveaway, so I can only devote a couple of hours to the get-together.  Hopefully, I can take my featherweight sewing machine and my piecing and spend a couple of joyful hours in good company.  I certainly hope that the cold temperatures don't keep everyone away ! 

So, here's the beginning layout of the latest adventure.

This photo lets me see where I need to move a few pieces around for better balance.  Love that !

January progress

 I've been slacking on my blog posts this week.

Last weekend, just in time to take the quilt to church on Sunday, I received the backing flannel for the blue baby quilt.

The squares for the front were already cut in a package of squares that my sister brought to me in September.  She had cut a lot of flannel into squares and then decided that she didn't want to fool with them.  I used the blues for a quilt for a new baby boy born to one of our young church couples.

 The penguin fabric for the back was on sale on Etsy for only $1.50 per yard !  I got the 2 yards and it worked out great.  I got it quilted and didn't have to bind it, as I made it 'pillow-style', turning it inside out to stitch around, and then 'birthing it'.

I got the borders sewn on the Snowflakes quilt top and it ended up measuring 46 inches square.  That should work out great for hanging on my wall quilt rack.  I like the stripes.  I hope I can get this one basted soon.

Then, remembering that Alyissia didn't have enough doll quilts for the 3 babies we were playing with the other day, I whipped up an extra little quilt.

 I just used two pieces of pretty, leftover flannels that I had for the top, and some of the remaining penguin fabric from the blue baby quilt.

 On top of all this, I snuck out into the cold yesterday and got the front brakes replaced, and the rear brakes scraped and cleaned.  This cold is a BEAR, but the LORD is graciously providing us with a warm home, and plenty to eat.......GOD IS SO GOOD !  Be blessed !