A Jumble of Things

The donation quilt was completed, mailed and received on schedule. It was fun to break my "No New Starts" rule and make something for a good cause. Thanks, Nancy, for sharing this opportunity with us.

I did the "piped" binding for the second time, and liked it just as much as I did the first time. Most of my quilts will still get the hand stitched finish on the binding, but when doing a quilt in a hurry, or just one that will likely get dragged around and washed a bunch, the "piped", or "flanged" binding is sure slick.

Below is the finished top of one of the projects from the Pam Buda class I attended last month. I made fewer blocks, and added the purple on the corners where they met up to form squares on point. I am toying with calling it Geode Crystals, or Amethyst Crystals. Pam calls it Haunted Maze.

I wasn't really careful on the matching of points as I stitched this together, but it has so much movement to it, I don't think it is as noticeable as it usually would be. I have to say, I LOVE that border print. It is from the previous Cheddar and Coal line (Pam just came out with Cheddar and Coal II), and I think it may be one of my favorites of Pam's fabrics. I thought I had more of it in my stash, but this FQ appears to have been it. I have about half of it left. And there doesn't appear to be more than one FQ of it online, that I can find. Pam has several lines in the works, so hopefully my attention will be caught by a print in one of those lines, and I can stop obsessing over this one.

I'd share the other blocks I worked on at the retreat, but I can't find them. Seriously. When I first got home I was just in recovery mode. Once I was back into the routine of life, I decided I should make some progress on those projects from retreat. This was the only one I could find. I had only made one block each on the other two projects, but I did have one of them entirely cut out, and I'd really like to find it. I decided they were lost because my sewing room was a disaster, and was sure that when I took time to clean it, I would find the missing blocks.

So I have really been trying to get more organized in my sewing room. Last week I went through cupboards, drawers, closets, and boxes. I boxed up scraps from several baskets and shipped them to a friend. I sent other boxes of fabric to a worthy group. I then made a list of every finished top that still needed to be quilted, and every UFO I discovered (this is something I have been itching to do for some time, but at the same time, kind of afraid of what I would discover). I dug up 28 UFOs, and only 7 of them are mini quilts. Then there are the finished tops--25 of those. Since that discovery I have three of them prepped with batting and backing to go to my longarm quilter as soon as she is back from vacation. Only 6 of the 25 tops are doll quilt or mini size. Three of them are baby quilt, wall hanging or lap quilt size. I didn't realize I had that many bed quilt flimsies waiting to be quilted.

And I still haven't found those missing blocks. But I found some other things I would like to pass on to someone who might actually use them.

1. A half yard of the turtle fabric, with one turtle fussy-cut out of it.

Also 4 FQs of coordinating fabrics, and the leftovers of the brown FQ that I used part of in the donation quilt at the top of this post. All of these fabrics were from Hobby Lobby.

2. Leftover yardage from Lisa Bongean's Snowman Gatherings and Snowman Gatherings II lines. Also 2 full mini charm packs and one partial.

I made three small quilts and a wall hanging from these fabrics, and it is time the leftovers find a new home.

3. These are scraps that I think I may have picked up from a scrap bin at a shop where you stuff a bag for a set price. I thought I could make a cute mini out of them, but apparently I burned out on making snowmen quilts on the fabric above.

4. What we have here are the 2 Midnight Flight blocks I made in a class with Bonnie Hunter back in 2017, along with whatever pieces I had cut for more blocks (I'm not even sure exactly what I have cut out), and the leftovers from her Easy Street mystery. I had cut out enough for more blocks than I actually made. These are all cut from thrift store shirts.  I know I will never make more of these blocks. I really had a hard time keeping the pieces in the right places, and used the seam ripper SO MUCH just to make these two blocks. Someone braver (and smarter) than I can tackle it.

If you are interested in any of these, mentioned it in your comment--and include your email, if you have never had a response from me before. If I don't have your email, you won't be eligible. I will draw a name if more than one person is interested in any of them. 

I won a prize on a blog this month. Deonn, over at Quiltscapes, held a drawing for this book, and now it is mine! You can check out Deonn's blog here, to see more of the technique from the book.

That is all the quilty content for today. You all know I love sunsets, and we have had some amazing ones this month. Sometimes as I walk in the evening I feel as if the clouds are  coming to smother me. I thought I'd share a few from the past couple of weeks. You can click to enlarge these for more of the effect.

One last thing I want to share. When I am on these evening walks, often row upon row of birds will pass overhead. Early in the month it was the very noisy Canada Geese honking loudly as they flew over. But more recently the birds are very quiet, and I don't always know they are there unless I happen to look up--unless they are a larger bird, and then I can hear the whispering sound of their wings as they flap their way past me.

In the attached video, watch for the line of birds coming from the horizon. Make sure your sound is turned way up and your surroundings are quiet. It helps to expand the image to full screen, too. As they get directly above me, you should be able to hear their wings for just a moment. This never fails to thrill me. And the crunching sound you hear is my feet on the gravel road as I turn to capture the birds flying over. I hope this works. I haven't attached a video in a long time.

Hubby and I are off on another adventure soon, so it may be a couple of weeks before I will post the results of any drawings we may need to have.

Until then, 

be creative, and be kind.

Janet O.

Drawing is now closed.

Partying with Pam Buda (and Fran and Pati)--photo heavy

Back in 2019 the Pam Buda Circa 1880 Club (sponsored by Marcus Fabrics) that met at Village Dry Goods submitted a video of our club to Marcus for a contest they were sponsoring. We happened to win. The prize? A visit from Pam Buda herself. It was scheduled for April 2020. Of course, it was canceled due to COVID. Fast forward to July 2023, when it was finally able to be rescheduled (thanks to the persistent people at Marcus). And that is where I spent two days a couple of weeks ago.

We started on Friday morning with a special party just for our Circa 1880 Club members. The three ladies pictured below made it delightful.

Left to right: Fran (owner of Village Dry Goods), Pam (fabric and pattern designer extraordinaire, and owner of Heartspun Quilts), and Pati (Director of Marketing for Marcus Fabrics).

Though the photo below is a bit blurry, I love it, because it looks like they are all trying to "make a point". I do not recall what they were trying to say. Maybe they were singing. There was a little bit of that happening at one time. (I promise, we were only drinking water with the refreshments of fruit-kabobs and banana cake.)

Below you can see where we enjoyed a little game to help us get to know Pam--and win prizes. Pati asked the question, we guessed the answers, Fran held the bag of our ticket stubs, and Pam drew the winner, then Pati distributed the prize.

After learning much about fabric production trends from Pati, and about Pam's many upcoming fabric lines from both of them, we then had an opportunity to share our Circa 1880 quilts. First we saw Pam's--the one that inspired this whole Club. This was based on a vintage quilt Pam had seen in an older publication.

Then club members had an opportunity to share their quilts. There were so many great versions. I have only chosen photos of 2 that are each set a different way from the original pattern as shown above in Pam's quilt.

Following the fun of this gathering, I had lunch with a couple of friends, and then we visited the Brigham City Museum of Art and History, which currently is hosting the "Light the World" quilt exhibit, featuring art quilts from around the world. We returned to Village Dry Goods to do a little shopping, and I was startled by a familiar voice behind me, calling my name. There was Lynn Hopkins!

Lynn is the designer of the Tiny Blocks that I had been teaching each month in my guild this past year, in Lynn's absence. He is currently serving a mission with his wife for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but he was back in town briefly for a family event. He'd hoped to be able to make the party with Pam, but schedules didn't work out. Above, left we are holding his Circa 1880 quilt, and above, right he and my friend Ruth were looking at something he had made from his Tiny Blocks. You just can't talk to Lynn without ending up laughing, as this photo attests. He has very big plans for the future of his Tiny Blocks. They may get even tinier!!! So maybe I should say he has small plans?

That evening in my hotel room I was  Zooming with Chooky and the Chookshed Stitchers while having my dinner, and stitching some tumblers. Below left, you can see my machine set up on the hotel desk, and to the right you can see some of the global participants that evening. It was the perfect way to close out a quilty day, and it is always a lot of fun.

This is all I got sewn together that evening before calling it quits--just three rows from the box of large tumblers I have had cut for years. This is a start--and I am trying to be totally random. We'll see how long that lasts. These are laying on the Kingsize bed in my hotel room.                                                                                                                                                                                              Next morning we were at the Brigham Academy Center for a full day class with Pam. I love this venue--all kinds of natural light. This class was open to all, not just those in the Circa 1880 Club. They capped registration at 50. Below you can see my table-mates in the foreground.

We made one block from each of the three small quilts featured in her new  pattern, Haunted Halloween. I'll show my progress on those in a later post. 

We had a break for lunch, after which Pam did a trunk show with many of her beautiful quilts. Here are just a few of them.

This was just what I needed after a couple of crazy busy and stressful months of summer. These ladies in the photo below made it so very fun and refreshing. My thanks to Village Dry Goods, Marcus fabrics, and these three gals, for all of the work and time it took to make this great for those of us attending.

Pam has been a special friend for many years, and it was very sweet to spend time with her again. I hope there will be a "next time". Thank you, Pam!

Before I close this I need to announce the winners of the drawing from my last post, celebrating my 12th anniversary of blogging. Sadly, 18 of the comments were from people who did not have an email attached to their comment and did not include their email address in the comment, so they could not be included. 

I had the random number generator choose the winners.

*First place went to Denise @ Count It All Joy blog--she will get her choice of the kits.

*Second place goes to Nancy @ Joy for Grace blog--she will get whichever kit Denise doesn't choose.

Apparently you had to have a blog with the word joy in the title to win this time around.

I have notified the winners via email and will get their prizes sent out to them this week.

I have several things I want to blog about that will need to wait for a time when I haven't already written a chapter book for a post.

Until then, be creative and be kind.

Janet O.

p.s. If you love Kim Diehl, another blogger is having an anniversary giveaway that you might want to check out. Click here.

A sunset from an evening walk during the last week of July.