Row, row, row your...

...quilt?

Are you doing the Row by Row Experience? Well, I'm not, but I have to share a couple of things from my LQSs that are participating.

I saw this "row" in one local quilt shop, and I think it is one of the prettiest I have seen. The designer is a store employee, Annette Rose, and I think she did a beautiful job.

The snowflakes are made using English Paper Piecing and then they are appliqued to the background and the stitching is added. Aren't they sweet snowflakes?

 You can click on these little snowflakes to see more detail.
The pattern includes a sheet of cardstock shapes to cut out for the EPP.

Have you seen the clever fabric license plates some shops are selling in conjunction with the Row By Row? Here is one offered by another local quilt shop recently featured as one of the "Top 10 Quilt Shops in America" in whatever magazine it is that does that. (I'm way too tired to remember or to bother looking it up.)

If you would like a chance to win one of these fabric plates, and a copy of the pretty snowflakes pattern, leave a comment and I will draw a winner on Wednesday!



Saturday I attended a class at Village Dry Goods in Brigham City taught by 4 very fun sisters. It was entitled "The Care and Feeding of Featherweights". We learned all about cleaning, oiling, greasing, adjusting tension, changing needles, belts, and lightbulbs--and more!










Our instructors said it was the first time they had ever had 4 men in a class--and they have taught this class a lot! Two of the men came with their wives. The other two were there on their own.

Haven't sewn in three weeks, other than a very little hand stitching when my Mom was willing to have the lights on or blinds open in her hospital room. Not making much progress on the Stars in The Garden.

My thanks to those who have inquired as to my Mom's health, and especially for your prayers and encouragement. It has been a long three weeks--she was in the hospital for 3 days, home for two, and then back in for eight more. She has been home for a week now, is starting to feel more like her old self,  and we are finally beginning to lighten up on the around-the-clock care. Maybe one day soon I will be dusting off my sewing machine! And hopefully I will be able to get back to blogging.

Remember to leave a comment if you are interested in the pattern and license plate.

Drawing is now closed.

Until next time,
Janet O.

Distractions

I am supposed to be back to my UFOs, after my 2 month obsession with minis to get ready for the trunk show. But what's a quilter to do when 2 of her favorite designers are running SALs at the same time? Join in, of course!

First up is Lisa Bongean's Primitive Gatherings 10th Anniversary SAL. She is doing a "pieced only" version, and a version with "piecing and wool applique". I have been trying to convince myself that I only need to make one version. Making multiples has been my downfall in the past, so I have chosen to do the pieced/wool applique version, and ONLY that version--so far. And, so far, I LOVE it!

Then Pam Buda has been running one of her Pocket Patchwork SALs. This one is called Market Day, and she offered the regular version, and a mini version. Which one do you think I did? : ) 

It is such a cute little patriotic quilt--just 16". Pam bordered hers in red and bound it in blue. I tried every red I had in my patriotic drawer, and my CW repros and I didn't feel like any of them clicked as a border. Then I moved to the blues. This was the only one I felt did anything for it, but I'm still not sure if I will leave it on. I tucked the little red dotted strips behind it to see how it would look bound in red. What do you think?

Recently I was a poll worker for a primary election. I knew turnout would be low and I needed a handwork project I wouldn't finish in the first few hours of the day. This project has captured my eye on Gayle's and Kathy's blogs. (It is from the Spring 2013 issue of Primitive Quilts and Projects.) Okay ladies, I caved!

I can't believe I actually started another hexie project. The one I already have going is 17 years old, at least. But I like this, where my old one is made in fabrics I had purchased decades ago when I started quilting and I don't care for them anymore.
This will definitely be a long term project. You can see I didn't make a ton of progress, but it is a start.

During my mini obsession in the past few months I haven't spent much time with Gidget. So this past week I found a few minutes here and there to brush up on a couple of favorite designs.

It was fun to play, but I can't believe how rusty I have become in what seemed such a short time. I need a few more practice sessions before I sit down to quilt an actual quilt.

On Independence Day DH and I drove an hour up a nearby canyon to a favorite lake. It is just a small lake and the trail that circles it is a little over a mile, and is peppered with a variety of wildflowers. We had just received our Fitbits in the mail the day before and thought it would be a good inauguration to walk the trail. It was a gorgeous day at Tony Grove.

Forget-me-nots

That was the only boat on the lake and I wished I had been in it.

Violets

There was such a variety of wildflowers, but two particularly caught my eye. We usually go up later in the summer and I don't recall seeing these two before, and they are two of my favorites. Click on the right photo to see the butterfly.

Until next time,
Janet O.

Gallery Expansion, Market Day SAL, and random stuff

 Between thrift stores, antique malls and contributions from family members, I rustled up a few more wooden yardsticks to expand the small quilt gallery. The photo above is of the hallway outside my sewing room door. Again, credit for this idea goes to Ann Hermes at Notes from the Quilt Lab blog (and as I read further back in her blog, she credits Sheryl at Temecula Quilt Co., for giving her the idea)!
Below is my small quilt corner, which has been updated. Now I can move these around without adding pinholes to the walls. I even added a couple of wooden rulers in the space between the corner and my design wall, where it is too narrow for a yardstick. The other side of my design wall has the same issue and I hope to find a couple more wooden rulers to fill that space.

I'd like to continue the gallery expansion to the wall above my HQ Sweet 16 (Gidget), so I will still be  scouting out yardsticks for a while.

Did you notice the little cottage in the bottom of the photo above? Someone recently found it at a thrift store and gave it to my Mom. She said she thought I would have a better place for it than she would. Isn't it sweet?

I have to tell you that it is entirely possible to catch up on Pam Buda's Market Day SAL in one day (begin here with the revised fabric requirements). I just did it Monday. Hadn't even chosen fabric before then. Now everything is cut and stitched, waiting for the big reveal Friday. I stuck with Pam's colors and chose mostly fabrics with a patriotic theme. Is anyone else wondering what we are going to do with the second gold fabric? 

I have had fun seeing what others have been guessing as to the layout. Gave it a whirl and I can say I have absolutely no clue where Pam is going with this one. I'm quite certain this is not it.

Recently I posted a little quilt I was making from the leftover HSTs of Terry's Goodnight Irene quilt. Well, I wasn't happy with the border, so I trimmed it down and added more. Maybe I went too far, but this is it now. The little broken dish blocks are 1"

 I had a few more HSTs to use, so I tried little pinwheels this time. This is about 7" square.

The black borders are all on my colored star blocks now. They need to be trimmed--the squares were not all exact, so the borders are acting as coping strips, besides being part of the sashing design. This gives you an idea of the Garden Maze setting that I will use when I can decide on a color for the sashing strips. I need about 2 yards of whatever I choose, and I was wanting to work from stash. I don't have many cuts that large, unless they are even larger than that, which I intended for backings. Most of those are busy prints that would be too much for this purpose. I played with the rainbow idea, but it didn't click for me. I may actually have to buy something (horror).

You sew star points that match the cornerstones onto the ends of the sashing, and it creates the effect of the Garden Maze design without having to make tiny X blocks for the cornerstones. The idea was found in one of Sharyn Craig's wonderful books on settings (Setting Solutions and Great Sets). Does it make more sense now to those of you who were "smiling and nodding" when I tried to describe it before? : )

I am enjoying seeing the red/white/blue posts popping up around blogland. Even if we've seen it before, it is fun to be reminded of all of the possibilities.

Which reminds me, each time I have posted about this quilt I have had people email asking about the pattern.

It is a Primitive Gatherings pattern called Primitive Picnic Quilt. I did add extra rows and I put the borders on it to make it larger. It is on the Primitive Gatherings website, but not if you search for it by name (why?). You must use the product code, which is PRI-197. Or, you can just use the link above, of course. : )

Until next time,
Janet O.