A Finish, A Road Trip (with a blogger meet-up), and Guild Stuff

 Settler's Puzzle is finished!

So happy to have this completed. It was not the oldest UFO in my quilt closet or cupboard, but it was started 12 years ago in a class with Pam Buda, so it is good to have it ready to put on a bed. That is exactly what I did with it when we got to our daughter's house in Eugene, Oregon. I even took a couple of photos of it perfectly centered on the twin bed. Now they are nowhere to be found in my photo storage. Go figure!

We try to get to the coast when in Oregon, if at all possible. It was a beautiful day, and we enjoyed a few hours of the sand and sunshine.

No one enjoys it more than my granddaughter!

And just in case some of you are wondering, I DID get my toes in the water.

After a lovely week in Oregon, we headed for home, but took one brief detour to McMinnville. That is the home of Ruth, the blogger at Country Log Cabin blog. She has talked of a quilt shop there on occasion, and we finally had time to swing through the beautiful countryside to reach Boersma's. Ruth met me there.

She immediately felt like an old friend, and we chatted as I did a very quick job of shopping, and checking out. Our visit was shorter than I would have preferred, but we had a Zoom meeting we had to make at our hotel that night, and we still had to drive across the state. Thank you, Ruth, for taking the time to meet me, and for bringing lovely, handcrafted gifts. It was such a pleasure to finally give you a hug, and see your stomping grounds, after years of following each other's blogs.

In Guild meeting last month, 4 of us brought our "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" quiltlets, from Pam Buda's Vintage Patchwork book. 

These each finish at 10 1/2". Mine is in the upper right corner. I actually got it quilted and bound. I love seeing the variety achieved with fabric choices, when each of us used the same pattern.

Tammy shared what she did with 10 vintage Dresden Plate blocks.

So clever the way she made up for a difficult number of blocks to work with by using blank blocks in two opposing corners, and quilting them as though the Dresden Plates were there. 

Tammy is heading off soon for a two year mission in Africa. We will miss her, but she will be amazing.

Our guild project for May, from Vintage Patchwork, is "Wives and Daughters".  I love the book, and the BBC production. I didn't want to miss out, even though I will not be able to attend the meeting when we share them, due to leaving the country for a little adventure. I mostly followed the pattern. Just did my own thing with color placement. This finishes at approximately 6 3/4" x 8 3/4". Just a tiny thing.

Purples often find a home in my quilts, so I just had to share this gorgeous collection from Heartspun Quilts (Pam Buda), called Plumberry Farm.

What I have always loved about Pam's collections is that they look like you have been collecting the fabrics for a long time. They don't all have the same undertone, or coordinating prints. It looks like you have been collecting, not just buying a collection. Good job, Pam! :)

I'll end with a little video I took on a walk to the bottom of the family farm last month. You will see and hear sandhill cranes and Canada Geese, and hear peacocks from the neighboring farm. You will also see a fox slinking in and out of the picture. I hope it works for you. But don't try to watch full screen, or it will be blurry. I took this with the full zoom on my phone. Enlarging it doesn't do you any favors.

That's all for now. Until next time,

Be creative and be kind!

Janet O.

Village Dry Goods and Pam Buda UFOs

I've spent a lot of time at Village Dry Goods lately (the quilt shop over the mountain). I've been to their "ChitChat, Finish That" days in March and April, and I also went to their 2-day UFO retreat in March.

Here is what I have to show for all of those sewing days, and a few snatches of sewing time at home. And as I wrote this post, I realized that everything I have to share was designed by Pam Buda. She has designed beautiful quilts over the years!

This is Pam's Pattern, "Every Little Bit", that was in the June 2015 APQ magazine, but I started it in 2021. When I was posting this, I checked and found a couple of copies of the magazine on Amazon, and a few on eBay, if you are interested.

There are two more vertical rows in the pattern, and then a couple of borders. Since taking this photo, I have completed two blocks for the next row. Also, I'll note that Pam designed it with 2 different designs in the cornerstones, alternating every other one. I opted to stick with just one. 

                                                                                       

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    At the Village Dry Goods UFO Retreat, I completed Row 4, and Fran (shop owner) thought it deserved to be modeled. :)             

At the VDG class I attended where Pam taught in 2024, we worked with these patterns shown below. I have already made the upper right design (see previous post), and I started on the lower one (Stargate) at a previous ChitChat day, only to realize that when I cut out all the pieces for every block, I cut something wrong. I corrected the problem before the UFO retreat, and I got this far with it. I am making every star in a muted Fall color--each a different fabric.

This Pam Buda design below was 12 years in the making, for me. It is called "Settler's Puzzle" and I started it in a VDG class with Pam back in January 2014. It was February of 2021 when I finally finished the top, and it had been hanging in my sewing room closet ever since.

Then recently there was a need in my family for a twin size quilt, in a hurry. I hadn't planned on adding another border to this, but to bring it close to a twin bed size, that's what I had to do. I happened to have enough left of the gold fabric, so I stitched it on, and had my quilter give it an edge-to-edge design, but with a border design in that outer border. (The colors at the bottom of the above photo are more true.)

This gives you a better idea of the quilting. I am currently halfway through the binding process (using the green fabric), so it should be finished before it gets too hot to have a quilt over my lap.

This last project is from Pam Buda's book "Vintage Patchwork". Every one of the 12 little projects in this book can be made from one layer cake of fabric. There is even a cutting guide included, so you make sure you can fit them all within those 10" squares.

This one is named "Tess of the d'Urbervilles". Each of the quilts is named for a classic book of literature, or a title character from such a work. I read "Tess" once in high school and once in college, and I loved it. I tried to read it many years later and I found it very depressing. 

The edges on this look wavy because I have just pinned the binding to the back and I still need to stitch it down. This is 10 1/2" square. I just used leftover HSTs from 2 other projects.

Our guild members each have this book of Pam's, and we have been making a different project each month. It has been fun.

I bought myself a new toy tool at the UFO Retreat. It is lovely and practical--my favorite kind of tool. This is a beautifully crafted, weighted clapper. I drooled over them the first day, but thought I would pass. Then I tried one, and knew I wanted one. Working with tiny pieces as much as I do, it can often be difficult to get the seams to flatten, even with a regular clapper. But this weighted clapper does an amazing job, and looks amazing while doing it.

That is the natural wood colors, not stains or dyes--even that purple wood. It is Purpleheart wood. There is Redheart wood in some of his other designs. This is 3 1/2" x 13 7/8".

These are made by a man who lives in my valley, but are sold exclusively through Village Dry Goods. The photo below shows a few more designs on their shelves. There are more coming because they are trying to stock up for Shop Hop coming up later this month.

Pretty cool, aren't they? It can be hard to choose a favorite. I wish you could see every design, but they are stacked in front of each other.

I will end with the beautiful bouquet-of-the-month for March, from my daughter. (April's bouquet comes this weekend.)

And I cannot close without a sunset, because there have been so many beautiful ones lately. This was earlier this week as I walked over to my sister-in-law's to drop something off. Taken from their driveway. They also live here on the family farm.

Flowers and sunsets are two of the things that calm my soul. I hope you are finding time for whatever does that for you!

Until next time,

Be creative, and be kind!

Janet O.

Amethyst, Onyx, and Topaz

The working title for this piece was "Amethyst Crystals", but as I was finishing the binding on it, my love of semi-precious stones led me to think of stones in more of the colors of the quilt. Hence, the new name.

After tying off the thread on the last stitch of the binding, I placed it on my kitchen island while I went for my phone to take photos. That is when I noticed the matching colors in the gorgeous bouquet of flowers my daughter had given me. She works part-time for a neighborhood florist, and for Christmas she gifted me a "Bouquet of the month". This was the beauty she brought me in January. She knows how much I love these colors together.

The top of this quilt was finished 2 1/2 years ago, based on the Pam Buda pattern called Haunted Maze. I started it in a class she taught for Village Dry Goods in July 2023, and completed the top the following month. It became buried in a pile of small flimsies. I finally pulled it out last fall and started the quilting, doing stitch-in-the-ditch on my domestic sewing machine. When I got to the border, I switched to my Sweet 16 quilting machine, but tension issues would not resolve. So it was back to my DSM for some straight stitch quilting in the border. I had planned on something swirly, but I don't like to FMQ on my DSM, so this is what I settled on, and I'm okay with it.

An "almost finish" is my Circa 1880 quilt (another Pam Buda pattern). I had it quilted by my longarm quilter. I thought I would do it myself, and even practiced the Baptist Fans on another quilt to make sure I could handle it. But my shoulder didn't love all the pushing around of the quilt for those sweeping arcs, so I let the expert handle it--and she did it so well. It has been 6 years to the month since I had the top assembled and bordered. It is about time it got quilted!

When it came to the border quilting design, I didn't want it to look modern or fancy. In searching vintage and classic quilting patterns, I came across this book.

Can you see the design quilted on the border of the cover quilt? It is just diagonal lines, and I liked it right away.

Here it is up close.

I am very pleased with how this border design turned out for the Circa 1880 quilt, and I can't wait to get it bound and actually use it on our bed.

The stencil used for the Baptist Fan quilting is from Barb Vedder's Etsy shop. She designed it herself! You can find it HERE. My longarm quilter also quilted my Schoolhouse quilt using this stencil (hopefully I can share that in my next post), and she really liked it, so now I have ordered one for her.

That is the end of the quilty content. The orchids in the kitchen windows are blooming, which always brightens cold, winter days.

These keep blooming until spring flowers are starting to open, so I really don't care that they usually don't bloom again until winter returns. They are at their best when I need it the most.

The sunset was stunning a couple of nights ago. It was another one of those nights when the sunset was flaming in the west, but casting a beautiful glow onto the east.

Western Sky:

Eastern Sky:

Walking north from my home, I could turn to my left or my right for glorious color. It was magical!

Getting this post written in February was something I was determined to do, and I am just squeaking this under the wire. 

I hope that in this time of chaos and division, you are finding some calm and peace with needle and thread, good books, music, nature, family and friends--whatever soothes and comforts. Find the beauty and the good where you can, and create it, if you can't!

Until next time,

Be creative, and be kind!

Janet O.

Summit, Schoolhouses, a Swap, Sunsets, and CJ

Lori of Humble Quilts blog usually hosts a doll quilt SAL each year. This year it was called "Summit". I did not get it completed in time to be a part of the "Summit" linky party, but I wanted to share it with you. I finished the top on January 2, after having worked on it during two Zoom sessions with the Chookshed Stitchers the last couple of days of 2025.

Though the quilt that inspired Lori's SAL had three borders, I wasn't sure I was going to put any borders on it at all. Then I made the decision to pay homage to my house quilt, and use leftovers from that border to put a border on this little thing. You see, the five stars in this quilt were the leftovers from the cornerstone stars I made for the house quilt. When I saw that "Summit" had 5 stars that finished at 4", I decided to use these five leftover stars, but they finish at 3". That meant my 16-patches had to also finish at 3". Not as hard as I first imagined. The strips I cut in order to make the 4-patches had to be 1 1/4", so those squares finish at 3/4". I cut the borders 1 1/2", and the quilt measures 17 1/2".

I am also thrilled to show you the finished house (or schoolhouse--in order to maintain the alliteration of the post title) flimsy!

One side appears darker than the other--my sewing room lighting just makes it seem that way. This fits nicely on our queen-sized bed, but I haven't decided yet if I am keeping it. It will be a hard one for me to give away. I am planning on having my usual quilter do Baptist Fans across this one. If you are new to this blog, you will find the information on the pattern that inspired this in my previous post.

For Christmas my guild did a mug rug swap. I was feverishly working to get mine finished the day of our usual meeting, when a friend from the guild called to see why I missed our meeting the night before. Such a "duh" moment. We had talked the previous month about needing to have the meeting a day earlier in order for our president (who was hosting at her home) to have us over. I made that note in my guild notebook, and then promptly forgot all about it. Anyway, this is the mug rug I made, which someone will be receiving in our meeting this month. The rotary cutter is for perspective--and because it matched so well. ;)

We had some gorgeous December sunsets. It was hard to narrow things down. This was taken on December 9th. You can click on these for a full screen view.

The photo below is of CJ, my brother-in-law's llama. When I am out moving around the yard taking photos (or for any other reason), CJ moseys on over to the fence to see if I have anything to feed him. 

On December 10th I caught the following photos of the sunset.

Of course, CJ had to get in on the action.

I felt like he was saying, "This is my best side."

I hope your new year has begun well. I'm not a resolution maker. I work on goals each day, so I don't feel inclined to set new ones as a year starts. But I do like to continue to focus on being kinder, more grateful, more thoughtful, and more intentional. There is always room for improvement, and it usually works better for me one step at a time, rather than huge leaps and bounds that are hard to maintain.

Thank you to all who visit my little corner of blogland. I appreciate the comments, suggestions, inspiration, laughs, and most of all, the friendships. Blogging has broaden my horizons in ways I never dreamed!

Let's make it a happier new year!

Until next time,

Janet O.

Northern Lights...and some quilting

On the 11th of November we had a wonderful show from the Northern Lights.   I just couldn't seem to get a blog written until today  (and there will be a little quilty content).                                   

This photo was taken from my deck, looking kind of Northeast, using a 3 second exposure. Usually we see more purple and green, but on this night the reds were popping.

Often in our area when these lights are visible, you can hardly see them with the naked eye, but a 3 second camera exposure will give you beautiful color. I wanted to share some comparisons with you of the "naked eye" view, and the "3 second exposure" view.

When I take the first view, I don't always get the camera framed up exactly the same after resetting for the second view, but you get the idea.

I could post dozens of photos from this night, but I will just share one more pair. Interestingly, this pair was taken looking due east.

The first shot in this pair was zoomed in a bit more than the second.

I hope you enjoyed those. I was out on the road between our home and our son's, taking photos for about 1 1/2 hours, with a brief hot chocolate break. It was a wonderful night!

Now for the quilty stuff!

In our tiny guild (only 7 members now), we like to have a small monthly project everyone can make individually. The last couple of years we have purchased the Temecula Monthly Mini postcards.  Tammy had made each monthly quilt, and then put them all together in one large top. Here she is displaying the finished product. I love this finish! She used fabrics from one designer, and it made it cohesive, but still very colorful.

Ruth brought her finished tops to share, and I got a couple of photos showing a few of them. She favors Civil War prints for a more vintage look. That is where I usually land, too, so these really speak to me.

This year we are using Pam Buda's Vintage Patchwork book to make a small project each month. All of the projects in the book are named for books of classic literature, or characters in such books.

The first project for our guild year was a pincushion that I opted not to make. It was a busy time. This month several of us brought our finished tops for the November project, and I can't believe I didn't get a photo of them all. But I can show you a photo of mine. 

This project is titled Scarlet. If you have this book, and check out page 43, you will see how I went a little rogue (a very little).

Mine finished about 11" square

And finally, the house quilt is still progressing. After I had sewn together all the rows you saw in my last post, I draped it over our bed to see if it needed a border or not.

I liked it best when just taken by the window's light, because the colors were more true. 

This shows you the original design I have been loosely following. Valerie Langue is the designer, and the pattern is found in American Patchwork and Quilting, October 2020, page 48. (I am not on Instagram, but apparently you can find Valerie there.)

Valerie has a row of sashing and stars around her outer row of houses, and then notice how her outer border is a darker neutral? I like that idea. It is just a little different than what you'd expect. I do love Valerie's original quilt, but I was determined to make a two-color quilt entirely from stash, though I did originally intend to make the stars red. That changed.

My quilt is large enough without adding the outer row of sashing and stars--besides, I didn't want to make that many more stars. I will just put that darker neutral around the outer edge with stars in the corners. A bonus was that I found in my stash that darker neutral shown above that was the same print as my sashing, just in a different, darker color-way. Hooray for stash!!

I am planning to put that final border around all 4 sides, but the edge of my design wall was full of other things, so there was no room to place the fourth border up there, in case you thought I didn't realize I only had it on 3 sides. ;)
                                                                                                      I share a lot of sunsets here, but not many sunrises. This was taken by my son, as he and his wife were leaving their home the morning before Thanksgiving. (That is our home to the right.)

So much for which to be thankful! The friendships created through blogging are among them. They have been a blessing in my life!

Until next time,

Be creative, and be kind!

Janet O.