Chalk up a couple more finishes!

 I am on a roll! Five of the seven little quilts I basted last month are now quilted and bound (plus the tumbler topper I made for my hutch). These are the latest two.

 

You may recognize that one of these quilts is my version of Pam Buda's "Tucker" SAL. 

 The other quilt is from a Lori Smith Fit To Frame pattern. About 4 years ago when a new LQS opened, they had this little star quilt on display. I remember loving it and wanting to make it. I bought the pattern, which was a rare event for me, at that time. Usually I made up my quilts as I went along. Though I loved the shop sample from a distance, I wasn't thrilled with the machine quilting--mostly SITD. I determined that I would hand quilt mine.

Well, according to my blog post from back in Oct. 2011, when I got this project to flimsy stage, it was the first "mini" quilt I ever made. Can you believe it? This was the first!! (And today I don't know that I would even consider it a mini.)
This little top has been sitting ever since then, waiting for me to hand quilt it. I finally faced reality and machine quilted it this week.
To the left is the back view.

I took one final photo of Snowball before gifting it. I added some quilting to the "snow base" and took it out for a photo in its natural habitat. I didn't use a flash so the quilting would show up.

If you follow the Temecula Quilt Co. blog you may have recently seen this rustic looking clipboard from Pottery Barn being used as a mini quilt holder. It was on sale and there was free shipping. How could I resist? This is hanging on the side of my kitchen cabinet now. I love it.


 Look at this cute little heart quilt that was my Valentine from a sweet blog friend (thank you, thank you). Perfect for the little quilt hanger I got for my birthday last year.

 And speaking of Valentines, hubby and I took the day last Friday for a Valentine getaway. We drove south a couple of hours to a couple of events...

The new LDS Temple in Provo, UT is currently open to the public for tours prior to dedication, and the BYU Museum of Art was hosting a Norman Rockwell exhibit. Thoroughly enjoyed both experiences. We also took a test drive in a car we are considering, got a little lunch, and stopped at Trader Joe's before heading back home. Not a single quilt shop was visited in this excursion. I'm slipping!

Until next time,
Janet O.

Bound--and Determined!

The little purple star quilt is bound now. I don't have a name for this yet. Any ideas?


 This photo on the left gives you a better view of the quilting.

I got this one bound, too. I stitched tiny buttons into the cornerstones.
Haven't come up with a name for this, either. I had considered Christmas in Kansas, since it is all KT fabrics in Christmas colors. Maybe that will stick--maybe not.

This Snowy Gathering mat, designed by Lisa Bongean, is all blanket stitched now and the edge is bound.


Is this a great match, or what? This is a mayonnaise jar turned candle holder that a very talented friend painted for me years ago. It looks like I tried to make the mat to match, but it never occurred to me. It just happened. : )

The tumbler topper got stitched together last week. Yesterday I did some simple meander quilting on it  and got the binding sewn on one side and pinned. It is waiting for some slow stitching in the evenings to complete the binding.

Then I will finally have a topper for my dining room hutch when there isn't a holiday topper to fill the space.





Last of all, Snowball got quilted and the binding is pinned down ready for hand stitching.

Now I am determined to get back to work on the T-shirt quilt AND I am determined NOT to join any of the bazillion fun SALs that are popping up like daisies all over blogland. My goodness, it is tough to be strong, with temptation at every turn! But I have made it all the way through January and the first week of February without succumbing. So far, so good!

Until next time,
Janet O.

Happy New Year, friends!

Lots of family gatherings, and health issues for me and my Mom have made my time for blogging recently rather sketchy. Not much time to stitch, either, but I finally got an evening to spend sewing, so I'll share what came out of it.
First up, there was that mindless sewing of HSTs a friend had given me, that I showed in my last post. This is what I did with them. Kind of fun and festive.

The star blocks finish at 4". The quilt finishes at about 15". Did this very hurriedly and cut off lots of star points, but I needed a finish for sanity's sake, so I'll live with it. : )

Got my last block made for the Buttermilk Basin Mystery BOM completed. Chose not to put the snowman in the mitten, but used a free pattern Stacy had shared back in November (click on link above), and made it a little larger to fit the block. I added twig arms and snowflakes to the chilly fellow.





Here are all of the blocks together. Wonder how Stacy will be setting them? Wonder if I will do it her way?

My little snowball block from HeartTohand is ready for quilting. I wasn't sure, last time I shared it with you, what I would do for the border. Sandra (textiletimetravels blog) suggested a simple snowball block. I thought about doing tiny ones, but based on the size of the block itself, I settled for 3" finished snowballs. I really like how it turned out. Thanks, Sandra.




Remember I thought the tree's needles looked a bit spindly. I was going to leave it be, but finally caved and fixed it. I doubled my floss and went back and added needles in between the ones I had already stitched.

                                                     






I do like the end results better.
Compare it to the tree in the top photo.

I'm not usually a participant in after-holiday sales, but there were two things I couldn't resist this time around. All of the Christmas fabrics and kits were 50% off at my LQS. Though I went just to see the fabrics, and I don't tend to buy kits, I couldn't pass this up. This Kim Diehl pattern is free online at Henry Glass and I have loved it and pinned it. When I saw the shop had kitted it up with Kim Diehl fabrics in holiday colors, but NOT holiday prints (that is how I like my holiday quilts)--and it was half off, I snatched it up. It was the last one and I felt pretty smug.

The other thing I couldn't resist was buying a tower of Dark Chocolate Peppermint Roca on clearance. This is not just a guilty pleasure. It is a vital part of my keeping my most important Quilting Goal from last year (which I plan to continue into this year)--keeping dark chocolate in the sewing room. Any time you can combine that dark chocolate with a subtle peppermint flavor, the synergy of the two is undeniable. This is probably the only quilty goal from last year that I actually kept, and may be the only one I carry on into this year.


 

Last, but definitely not least, I have been the recipient of some lovely gifts from quilting friends the last few months. 

To the right are a pair of pretty crocheted coasters from Mary (quiltingrandma blog), and lovely purple mittens and scarf from Doniene (nowitsjustquilts blog). 
In the left photo are quilts gifted to me by Joy P. (top quilt--no blog), and Sandra D. (bottom quilt--kwiltnkats blog). Don't they look pretty hanging together? Each one of these gifts is a beautiful handmade treasure that has warmed my heart and the Christmas season. Thank you, my friends. 

As you all know, blogging takes time and now and then I think I can't do it anymore. Then I ponder the priceless friends I have made, and I know I can't walk away from it. This is about more than quilting. It is a connection with people that have enriched my life in so many ways, prayed with me and for me, laughed with me, shared with me, and widened my scope. I would never have dreamed I would feel so connected to so many quilters around the world.
Bless you all as we enter upon a new year of sharing.

Until next time, 
Janet O.

Heads up to all of you that read blogs without a Google profile. 
From Blogger Buzz posted Dec. 21, 2015:

...starting the week of January 11, we’ll remove the ability for people with Twitter, Yahoo, Orkut or other OpenId providers to sign in to Google Friend Connect and follow blogs. At the same time, we’ll remove non-Google Account profiles so you may see a decrease in your blog follower count.

We encourage you to tell affected readers (perhaps via a blog post), that if they use a non-Google Account to follow your blog, they need to sign up for a Google Account, and re-follow your blog. With a Google Account, they’ll get blogs added to their Reading List, making it easier for them to see the latest posts and activity of the blogs they follow.

Lots of Winter Woollies, and other festive things

This past weekend DH and I had a little overnight get away and I took a few wool projects along to finish the hand stitching. 

My Buttermilk Basin Mystery BOM is completed. Those who guessed that the blob at the bottom was a bell were correct. I was making a rather feeble attempt at replicating the bell from Polar Express. I even considered stitching the word "Believe" on the block, but decided that it wouldn't blend with the rest of the blocks in this mystery.

Speaking of which, those blocks are shown below. Originally I think Miss Stacy said there would be 11 blocks, but now I believe she said she would do a twelfth.

The Attic Heirloom Ornament of the Month patterns were, as the title states, for ornaments, but I made mine into little quilt blocks. I had chosen to just use the first 9 patterns to make a little holiday quilt, but before I could sew them together, I saw the gingerbread man pattern for November and decided to swap out the mitten and add in the gingerbread man. 



Here is the quilt top stitched together. I still plan to add a border or two.

The three cotton fabrics I have used so far are from thrift store shirts. I want to use shirts for the borders, too, but haven't taken the time to dig through the shirt stash yet to select anything.

I finished up the little HeartToHand Snowball block, too. The snowflakes and lettering don't show well with a flash photo, but without the flash it looked too dull. You can find the pattern for this here.

I'm thinking I should have doubled my floss on the branches and pine needles, but it is going to stay as is. It needs a border of some sort. I think I will audition some Snowman Gatherings fabrics for that job.

Most of my stitching took place in the car going to and from our destination, but I did enjoy stitching in our hotel room to Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell in "His Girl Friday". It was showing on TV after DH fell asleep.

Can you tell where we were visiting? (I know a few of you will know.) Click to enlarge photos.
             

                                                                       








After some painful dental work today I have pretty much been a sloth. This evening I wanted to "do" something, but I was supposed to be taking it easy. So I pulled out my machine for the first time in about three weeks, grabbed some HSTs that a friend had gifted me recently, sorted out the red and green and just did some mindless piecing. 
 
 I stopped short of doing any trimming. Can't decide if I will trim these small enough to be ornaments, or leave them this size and make a small quilt. There are so many other things I should have been sewing, but those would all take effort, and I wasn't up to any exertion, mental or physical. : )

One last thing I want to share.
Last year I was awed by Pentatonix' version of "Mary Did You Know?" I still love it, but DD#2 just introduced me to this version last night and it is pretty incredible, too.

 

Hope I did that right--I have never embedded a video in a post before. Hope you enjoy it, too.
Until next time,
Janet O.

Slow Stitching

Over two weeks have passed since my last post, and my only stitching has been of the slow variety in the evening. I enjoyed Thanksgiving with my family, spent the weekend following making my holiday soaps, and since then it seems I have just been putting up Christmas lights and decorations (shown here), and doing physical therapy for multiple parts of my body. : )

I have worked a little on this. It is a pattern called Snowball, from Kathi Campbell of HeartToHand for a recent Farmhouse Threads blog hop. Lisa Bongean also had a great block I hope to stitch up. They are blocks for a quilt, but I am making them as little wall hangings.

You can click here to see what this is supposed to look like. I still need to stitch down the hat, add the pine needles, snowflakes and words. I am removing Christmas from mine. I want it for January.


I've also got this prepped for stitching.

This is the latest Buttermilk Basin Mystery BOM. You can click the link to see what it is supposed to look like. Can you even tell what that blob at the bottom of the block is? Hopefully it will be more defined with some embroidery. It is my own addition.


And I actually made a little (very little) progress on my Stars in The Garden project. The first flower is made, and it gives you a taste of the fabric that will be the path between the stars and flowers.

That is one of my favorite tiny neutral prints. It is an early design from Primitive Gatherings.





And I have Skyped whenever possible with DD#1 so I can visit with this little sweetie. 

This is the granddaughter I have gone to visit in NH twice this year. The adoption is now official and I can finally share her photo with you! Isn't she precious? Of course, I am totally unbiased. :)





I drew the winner for my giveaway last Saturday, as I said I would. Sarah (sarahdidit blog) was notified of her win and the package was sent on its way to her, probably crossing in the mail with the package she is sending me, because I ordered some of her great zippered bags as gifts. 

Maybe by the next post I will have dusted off my sewing machine. I might even sew something with it. : )
Janet O.

p.s. So far I am liking the drag and drop feature blogger has implemented for adding photos.