January Monthly Mini and The Baggie Challenge Conclusion

Barbara recently mentioned that she was the recipient of a boatload of scraps (maybe she didn't say boatload) from Carol Y.  I was also blessed by Carol with a good sized box of her scraps. As I spent a pleasant hour or so sorting through them, I ended up with a nice little pile of some vintage scraps. Those scraps, along with a few little pieces from my Mom's scraps, became my monthly mini. Thank you, Carol!

This finished at 11 1/2" x 14". I am thinking about calling it "Half a Century". I am no expert, but the scraps seemed to include a couple of mourning prints from the early 20th century, along with a piece of indigo. There was a piece or two that appeared to be from the 30s or 40s, and a piece from my Mom's scraps seemed to be more 1950s to me. I did have to fill in the blanks a bit with a couple of little repro scraps, and the border print is definitely a repro. I don't think the binding is a repro--it was just a piece of leftover binding from an old project. But the red matched the color of the red in the blocks, and I liked the diagonal pattern in it.

The quilting was kept very simple. Straight lines all the way, and only neutral grey and navy blue threads were needed.

Linking here with Wendy (The Constant Quilter). Check her out for the list of other monthly mini-acs.

After making a monthly mini for the past 4 years, and making minis for a few years before we started the monthly gathering, I am running out of room for all of these little quilts. I have given away many of them, but there are still dozens of them here. They are rolled up and stuffed in baskets, folded on shelves, covering tabletops, and hung on walls. I realized tonight that I have not changed my yardstick gallery in years. So I hung my new little quilt there. Okay, so it was only one change--but it was a change. 

So let's get down to business. I had issued a baggie challenge to Wendy's monthly mini makers during the last quarter of 2021. It is time to wrap it up and choose winners of prizes! There were twelve of us who participated, and it was so fun to see your creations. I marveled at the creativity. Participants were as follows, and are linked to their post with their baggie challenge mini:

Amity Quilter

Barrister's Block

Busy Thimble

Gladiquilts

JulieK Quilts

My Material Creations

Quilts, Gravestones and Elusive Ancestors

Rogue Quilter (me) I wasn't included in the drawing, of course.

The Constant Quilter

The Joyful Quilter

Timeless Reflections

Wabi Sabi Quilts

There were a couple of others that started baggie projects, but I couldn't see that they were completed. 

The winner of the drawing is Sandy at My Material Creations. Congratulations, Sandy! Your prize is one of the quilts shown below (with a few other goodies). Let me know via email which one you would like. I was just going to send the winner my December baggie challenge creation, but it is a little bigger than most of my minis. If it is larger than you would like, I have included a couple of the smaller minis I have made from bags of scraps. It is your choice.

I drew three other names, and they will receive a small surprise package. They are The Joyful Quilter, Gladiquilts, and JulieK Quilts. I will be in touch with you if I don't already have your address. Congrats to all the winners, and my sincere thanks to all who participated. It was really a treat to see the wonderful things you all made from a container of scraps!

One final thing, while we are speaking of challenges. I grew up with a puzzle for the family to work on during the holidays. After my father passed at Christmastime 5 years ago, my Mom kept a puzzle going year round, until she had to move from her home because of health issues. I have wanted to put up a puzzle in my home, but I could never figure out where it wouldn't be in the way.

Well, this year, after we took down the Christmas tree, I decided not to move the furniture back, and we put up a puzzle in the place where the tree had been. We started out with an easier, 500 piece puzzle, and we had it done pretty quickly.

Now for the challenging part. Hubby was going to town and asked if I needed anything. I had seen this puzzle at Natural Grocers earlier in the week and had resisted (even though I am fascinated by sea turtles). So I caved and asked him to pick it up. It took all the time I could afford Saturday just to turn all the pieces over and find the straight edges. Haven't connected any of them yet. The entire border is solid black. Won't that be fun? But I love this puzzle! Enlarge the photo to get a good look at the intricate stained glass effect. Wanna come help?

I'll leave you with this photo of the sun breaking through the frosty branches the other morning, after it crested the mountaintop. It has been a deep freeze here lately, but we haven't had the snow our friends in New England and surrounding areas are experiencing.

Stay safe and warm, and be gentle with each other.

Until next time,

Janet O.