A Dozen Years Ago Today (as in the 16th, when I am typing this)....

...I started this blog. I can hardly believe it has been that long. It has been quite a ride, one for which I am very grateful (proper sentence structure brought to you by my mother's training--sometimes it kicks in). ;)

During the 12 years I have been blogging, Lori at Humble Quilts blog has hosted a doll quilt swap 10 of those years. This is only my second year participating. I haven't received my quilt yet, but the gal I sent to has received hers so I can share it with you. This is the doll quilt I made. It is from a pattern from Jo Morton's Little Women's Club #14, I believe.

I took several glamor shots around the house before I sent it on its way, but the one below is the only one I even kind of liked.

I combined a little bit of hand quilting with the machine quilting. In the blue/grey triangles I hand quilted a grid pattern on point. I don't know if you can see it any better in this shot of the back.

When I receive my quilt I will share it with you in my next post. I am looking forward to it.

I amazed myself and pushed past my usual tendency to postpone attaching borders, and today I put a small border around my Moda Love quilt top. This was made in conjunction with Chooky and friends at Scrub Stitchin', where many at that retreat completed one of these quilts. 

When I cut these borders I barely had enough of this piece of a Kansas Troubles green print to cut 4 1/2" strips for the border. I got them all cut and as I laid them out around the completed center, I realized I had cut the last one at 4" instead of 4 1/2". There was only a strip about 2" wide left after having cut these. There was nothing left to do but go back and trim 1/2" off the other 3 borders. I would have liked the border to be a little wider, but I did what I could, and I still think this looks better with that small border than with no border at all. I felt like I needed to balance the green in the center.

On Mother's Day I finished the puzzle I've had out for months--Northern Lights in Norway. The sky and sea parts were a bit challenging, but I like a little challenge now and then. I thought it was fun that I had this puzzle out when we saw the Northern Lights here a few weeks ago.

I hope people had a pleasant Mother's Day. Though we did not have family gather, I did hear from each of my 4 children. My younger daughter, who doesn't live far, and also works with a local florist, brought by this lovely bouquet. It just represents spring so well, to me.

I'll leave you with this image from my sewing room window. It is finally looking like Springtime in the Rockies! You can click to enlarge for a better view of the new lambs.

I usually have some sort of giveaway for those who are following along, in conjunction with my blog anniversary, but I haven't got my act together. I've been sick the past week. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!  Stay tuned for something later this month!

Until then, be creative and be kind!

Janet O.

A little bit quilts, a little bit not

I did it again-I went a full month without posting. Bad blogger! Where does the time go? 

It is crazy to me to think back almost 12 years ago when I started blogging and realize that I was posting 2 or 3 times a week! How did I do that? 

So here are the two most recent Tiny Club blocks that I taught in my guild this month. And yes, I do enjoy fussy-cutting.

As usual, I made "storyboards" to define the construction process. The designer of these blocks, Lynn Hopkins, used to do that for us when he taught these blocks before he left on a church mission. The circled block below in the right-hand board shows what happens when you reverse the value placement in your flying geese.

                                                

     It takes me a long time to put these boards together.

What does NOT take a long time is the making of the blocks for the Moda Love quilt. 

I did mix up the background fabrics a bit from when I last posted this, and I like it better this way. Then one evening while Chooky and friends were at Scrub Stitchin' (International Version), I got the top half all sewn together.

Had a chance to share my progress with some of the Chookshed Stitchers after they returned from Scrub Stitchin'. 

Some have asked about our current snow conditions. The photo to the right was taken out my kitchen window two weeks ago! Hard to believe we still had that much snow in the middle of April. The baby lambs couldn't even go frisk in the pasture because it was still covered in snow.

But this was the view of the mountains yesterday, on the dirt road where I take many of my walks. I stopped here as I was driving home from town and took this shot. The snow on the valley floor is gone, but the mountains are still covered.

Just last Sunday there were two events in the heavens I wanted to share. First up, in the afternoon we had a display of a sun halo. There was no sundog this time, which is apparently caused by the orientation of the ice crystals. Who knew? 

Then later that night, about 10 p.m., we had an even rarer event--the Northern Lights were barely visible. You can see one shot in my new header. They didn't actually appear that bright, but the real time photo hardly showed them at all. So the photo below was taken with my iPhone on a 3 second exposure. The green and purple is brighter in the photos, but it gives you a better idea of what we saw than the quick "shutter click".

This is the third time I've seen the Northern Lights, and each time was here in this valley--and this is probably the second best view I've had. My dream is to see them from Iceland, or Norway, or some other such northern point someday. On our Alaskan cruise last September we missed a wonderful display of them in Juneau by 1 week. :(

Yesterday I sent off my doll quilt for the Humble Quilts Doll Quilt Swap. I'm excited to see if the recipient likes it, and to find out what comes my way.

Maybe next time I will have a little more quilty content. We'll see. Until then, be creative and be kind.

Janet O.

Look at me, making big quilts!

Trying to get a second post in here before the month is over. 

First up is a quilt that was a new flimsy 10 years ago. This was my Barrister's SAL quilt, hosted by Randy at Barrister's Block blog. It is made entirely from men's thrift store shirts, right down to the binding, that I attached after taking this photo, but haven't stitched down yet.

Randy did photo tutorials for each block on her blog. I have a page under my header photo that includes links to all of the tutorials.

This was quilted by check, utilizing my usual machine quilter who only lives a couple of miles away, and does an incredible job. Below are two close-ups. It is a good thing my quilter likes to do sampler quilts, because there were 63 blocks in this quilt.

Aside from her talent in quilting, I really appreciate that she gets my style, and when I tell her what I think I want, she will share any ideas that come to her that she thinks might be an improvement, and together we make the final decision. I never pick up a finished quilt and find she didn't listen to what I wanted. 

Next up is the churn dash top--finally assembled, mostly. This is from Chooky's Churn Dash SAL last summer (well, summer here in the states).

The blue fabric pinned on the right is what I have chosen for the border, but I am waiting for DD#1 to indicate how large she needs this to be, so I know how wide to cut the borders. I really enjoyed making this quilt. It is fun to make blocks this size and build a quilt relatively quickly. And I still got to throw a few random 1" and 3" Churn Dash blocks in the centers.

Then we have a quilt for which I can take no credit. Well, okay--I chose the setting fabrics and layout, and sewed it all together. But all of the blocks were made by Karen B., formerly of Log Cabin Quilter blog.

I received a "care package" from her many years ago that contained fabrics and projects that had lost their appeal for her. The center block and four surrounding stars were from one project, and the 8 outer stars were from another. They all played together nicely, and the center of the quilt came together quickly. But I stalled a long time (years) on the borders. I finally took a trip over the mountain to my friend Fran, at her quilt shop (Village Dry Goods), and we narrowed it down to this subtle paisley from a Pam Buda line. I didn't want anything that would pull your eye away from the center, but also didn't want a solid. I stitched that border on the very next day. I think this one will be quilted by check as well. It is too small for a queen bed, but it will fit nicely on the full size bed in the loft spare room.

Are you ready for big quilt #4? I don't know if I am. Here goes. Chooky has invited those attending Scrub Stitchin' (and any who want to sew along at home) to spend some time making a Moda Love quilt--in any of the 3 size options in the free pattern found at the link here. There are three pages to the pattern, each page giving instructions to one size. This is what went up on my design wall when the previous quilt top was completed. I may mix up the colors a bit more. This was the first time I had actually seen them in the places I had imagined they should go.

The fabric in each corner is a KT Christmas print of holiday words. I felt like the holiday color scheme would work with it, but seeing it in the photo, I'm not so sure.

The floral fabrics were sent to me by a dear blog friend many years ago. They are from a Kansas Troubles line. I had waited to find a quilt pattern that would let them shine, but not just be made of large squares. When I saw a Moda Love quilt on Annie's blog back in 2017, it just spoke to me, and I printed her photo from her blog, writing notes all over it as to which fabric I wanted where. I pulled other matching fabrics from my KT stash, cut everything to size, and pinned them together in numbered groups. I even placed right sides together of the fabrics that would be making HSTs.  I packed all this in a tote and took it with me to two retreats in a row (2019 and 2020--just before COVID), without ever getting to it.

With Annie's permission, this photo below shows what was in my "kit", with her photo in the center, very marked up. 

That is why this is NOT a new start, so I didn't break my rule. 

However, this did break my rule--I signed up for Lori's doll quilt swap at Humble Quilts blog. This is the 10th year, and I have only ever signed up one other time, two years ago. Since I have been on my "No New Starts" program for 6 months, I figured I could treat myself to one little doll quilt. And I already have the top assembled. Here is a peek. ;)  Now you know exactly what it looks like, right?

Utah is experiencing the winter that keeps on giving. After years of mostly dry winters, with very little snow, we have been getting dumped on week after week. Every single week has at least a few days with snow (and now occasionally it is rain). We get most of our water in Utah from the snowpack that builds up in the mountains over the winter. With years of drought, our reservoirs are depleted. This winter we are breaking records for snowpack in much of the state (which also means there are flooding problems as that snow melts faster than it can be absorbed and contained). But it just seems insane after going weeks and sometimes months with barely measurable precipitation, to be waking up to new snowfall several times a week. It is snowing as I write, and is supposed to snow all night. The next three photos were all taken last week. (I think the poor birds have been confused, asking themselves if they flew too far north.)

I need someone to explain to me how the mountains are reflected in the flooded field, when the field is about 5 miles away from the mountain. Just puzzled by the science here.

This next photo was taken on my walk earlier this week. If you enlarge the photo and  look along the mountain ridge line, you can see a little glow. The wind is whipping up the loose snow at the top, and as the sun sets it highlights that flying snow. Under the right conditions, it looks like flames. I have posted some of those photos in the past.

Enough rambling.

I've enjoyed quality time in the sewing room lately, and it has felt really good. I hope you are finding time for things that bring you joy, without having to neglect the things that make you a responsible adult. 

Until next time, be creative, and be kind,

Janet O.