A whole bunch of randomness!

I did it! I updated my Tuffets Tute to show how I have had the greatest success making a smooth closure on the Tuffets. You can find it in the tabs under my header photo, or just click here.
In order to get photos of the process I made another boxy pincushion--the little purple and cheddar one. This tiny thing finishes at 2" square.

If you look closely you can see a pin head on the bottom edge of the dark pincushion. I hadn't stitched it closed yet. : )

And, as you can see, I couldn't resist taking the little Dresden to the dark side. I love the way a black background makes colors pop!

If you recall the block Lisa Bongean designed for The Splendid Sampler, you may recognize the center of this. Lisa called her block "Dedication Rose", and it was designed for needle turned applique, but I did it in wool.

And then I gave it a few borders to make a little medallion quilt out of it.

 My red/white mini Burgoyne Surrounded was intended to be entered in our State Quilt Guild Jubilee show of red/white quilts, but life happened--and my entry did not. It would have been the first time I entered a show. I finally got another block made. I am making this square, so I only have 5 more blocks to go.
I think it is fun to see how much the 97 pieces in each block shrink as you assemble them.

 


Since everything is already cut for the whole quilt, and some of the little units are assembled, you may wonder why I haven't whipped this up faster. I'll tell you--because it takes so much concentration!! More often than not I am sewing at night and I am too tired to think this hard. But I will say that the red/white version is easier than the black/tan/cheddar version that I did a couple of years ago.

The beast has been set aside for a while now, but I have completed all of the quilting in black thread and white thread. I'll probably do the gold, light blue, and bright green blocks next, but I am struggling to match those greens with a thread. I'll do the grey and navy blue blocks last. There are a lot of those.



If you have followed me for any length of time you know how much I love red/white/blue projects. Take a look at these two free patterns by Stacy West (Buttermilk Basin) available from Henry Glass.
On the left is an 11" x 17" wool applique pattern and on the right is a little pieced quilt about 22" x 28". Oh, I want to make them both. You can find the pattern links here.




I debated whether or not to share this. You have seen a lot of my Mom's quilts lately. But here we go. On Mother's Day the women's auxiliary organization of my Mom's congregation held a little reception with a fruit/veggie buffet after their meeting. 

They featured as many of my Mom's quilts as she could gather. I had to go get photos, but I will just share one I took when I slipped in early, before the women arrived. There are 15 of Mom's quilts displayed here, all hand quilted in her tiny stitches. The quilt in the corner won sweepstakes at our county and state fairs many years ago. It went to the Houston show, too. It is a simple Irish Chain--the thing that made it win is Mom's quilting.

One more random thing, after sifting through the comments on my giveaway and weeding out the No-reply comments that didn't include an email address, the random number generator chose a winner for my drawing. Gayle (middlesister blog) is our winner. Gayle already had the book, and she graciously offered that it be gifted to another winner. So back to the random generator and this time it selected Kristie (cowgirlquilter blog). Congrats to you both. Your winnings will be on their way soon!

Until then,
Janet O.

p.s. Thanks to everyone that left a comment on the giveaway. I enjoyed hearing from so many that usually don't say much. I had 21 "no-reply" comments this time--more than ever. I appreciate the six that left contact info in their comment. If you are "no-reply" and you don't leave your email address in your comment, you are not entered. Sorry, it is just too complicated to deal with winners that can't be contacted. This is supposed to be fun. : )



 

A Wooly and Wonderful Week

Thursday I did a kind of silent trunk show of wool applique at a local quilt guild to get them in the mood for the class I will be teaching for them next month. So I was trying to get a couple of WIPs to the point of flimsy so they could be in the display.

 This is a Kim Diehl design that I have made before. Still needs borders.

This was the one I made last year. I gifted it to a friend last year shortly before she died.

Then it was to go to her dear friend that had taken such good care of her during her illness.

I also added another border to Dedication Rose.

 Sometimes I love it and other times I think I will take the last border off. I'll have to ponder this one longer.

I've also spent a lot of time dying wool for the kits for next month's class, but I won't bore you with photos of that. That ends the wooly part of this post.

This is the wonderful part. Randy and I have completed our challenge. This is the quilt that arrived in the mail from her Friday. Doesn't it look great?

I love that Courthouse Steps block in the center with the other blocks forming a pattern radiating out from it. It is wonderful, Randy! Thank you so much!!
It was wrapped in this beautiful fabric. And look how fun that pieced back is!

This is what I sent to Randy.
It was really fun to swap, and we plan to try another swap when life slows down a little in the new year. Who are we kidding--does life ever really slow down?!?


The wonderfulness finished up Saturday when our church women's auxiliary brought in 5 of the Six Sisters and a bunch of their stuff.

They each spoke to us and then demonstrated some of their favorite recipes. They were inspirational, funny and delightful. DD#2 attended with me and we had a great time--laughing, crying, and eating.

This is my favorite time of year. Aside from the cooling weather, the golden hue of the sunlight and the colors of the changing leaves, I enjoy the Sandhill Cranes that migrate through our area. The other day they were so noisy and I could tell they were getting closer. I grabbed my camera and got out the door just in time to catch this. There were several more that wouldn't fit in the frame. I haven't seen this many together in our neighborhood before. I was thrilled.

This was a post of randomness, but that was my week. : )

Until next time,

Janet O.

This may not make any sense.

I am falling asleep over the keyboard, but I wanted to quickly update a few things.
Dedication Rose (block pattern by Lisa Bongean for The Splendid Sampler) is a flimsy now.

Those HSTs finish at 1/2"--and yes, I foundation pieced them.

And the scraps from that just keep on giving.

The 4 patches will finish at 1". I may throw a border or two on this one when it is all stitched up.

My secret challenge quilt is completed and will go in the mail today. (I think this is small quilt finish #42 for the year.)
The challenge was to make a 12" square quilt using French General fabrics Randy had leftover from a recent creation. It has been fun to plan and carry out a little surprise for her. : )

 




Randy is also hosting a pincushion swap and she shared a link to this Schnibbles pattern. It is a free download on the moda blog (the cutting table) here. I have this pattern, and if you want to make the pincushions boxy style instead of pillow style, check out my tuffet tab under my header photo.

The scraps from the challenge quilt seem to keep multiplying, too. This little brick quilt measures about 9 1/2" by 10 3/4". I am going to bind it in the pink. It is the only fabric of which I have enough. (That sentence structure was brought to you by Mom.)

A sweet surprise arrived from a delightful blog friend, Teresa. Look at these two wonderful quilt hangers--perfect for mini quilts. They both got put to use right away! Thanks, Teresa!!

This isn't quilted yet, but I thought it was the perfect size and colors for this hanger. After it is quilted I think this will be it's home.










That seems to be all, and just in time. The toothpicks holding my eyelids open are beginning to weaken.
Until next time,
Janet O.

Seeing Stars Again

Haven't touched a sewing machine for over a week, and even the hand stitching has been minimal. Instead, I have been busy making soap and testing some new-to-me gluten free flours.

I have managed a bit more stitching on Stars in the Garden.

There are two more flowers cut out and ready to stitch.
Trying really hard on this project NOT to make the flowers and stars all matchy-matchy.  I am combining fabrics I would normally never combine, in an effort to make this look like a real "make-do" quilt. On one of the stars I even used one hexagon of a different print from all the others in that round. I had enough of the original print, but I wanted it to appear that I hadn't. Can you spot it? : )

 Last night I felt like I should be stitching, but couldn't bring myself to drag out a work in progress. Then I remembered Lisa Bongean's recent block for the Splendid Sampler. I am not doing the sampler, but I really liked this pretty little applique block. Lisa did not do hers in wool. I did--and I changed the colorway.

At only 7" square, it is a sweet little block. Here I am auditioning Valdani flosses, and the possibility of adding tiny black buttons to the flower centers. Jury is still out on that.

I discovered that many of the wools I had chosen matched quite well with Lisa's Floral Gatherings line. I may need to piece a border to go around it--when I feel like it.

It is stitching up very quickly. Lisa named it Dedication Rose.

Fun mail today from my sweet friend, Pam Buda. Look at these wonderful scraps from her recent red/white/blue line of fabric. Love this line! Do you think I need to make a few more r/w/b minis? : )

 Maybe this will inspire me to get stitching again. I don't ever seem to stall with this color scheme!

I'll end with this photo of a photo of one of my Mother's quilts. Somehow the original photo became torn in half, but you can still see the lines of the feathered wreaths and diagonal lines Mom hand quilted. It is difficult to tell that the 9-patch blocks are double 9-patches.

She made this in 1991. It won Sweepstakes at our county fair and our state fair, and went to Houston that year. Just the quilt went--wish I had, too.
Until next time,
Janet O.