Hiding in the Closet (projects, not me)

In January, in this post, I showed you several small design boards with the beginnings of little quilts upon them.
This week I found more hiding in the sewing room closet, and a couple of them demanded attention--as if I had nothing else to do. One of the boards had lots of mini charms that had been randomly sliced into three strips. One row of them had been sewn into the beginnings of a mini Chinese Coins quilt. So I finished the other two rows, and found a lovely Betsy Chutchian stripe to fussy-cut for the border.

It turned out more square than I had anticipated. That is what happens when no planning whatsoever is involved in the design process. It is approximately 9".

Another bunch of mini charms that had been sliced up were mostly from Primitive Gatherings Old Glory line. I had originally intended to make rail fence blocks alternating with sawtooth star blocks, as I did in a few pieces shown in this post. I had a couple of the rail fence blocks assembled when the design board got buried in the closet.

The blocks finish at 2" and the whole things is 8" square.

I decided to switch things up. I put good old Abe in the middle of the rails, made  5-point stars, and after attaching the narrow red border, I decided it needed a sawtooth border. One more side to piece and it will be ready to layer and quilt. This may get a combination of hand and machine quilting. I'm trying to decide if this will be what I take to my family reunion auction this year.

A combination of hand and machine quilting is what I had planned to do on my Kim Diehl Porchside Garden, but after hand quilting the center, I just felt compelled to continue by hand, instead of quilting the borders by machine. Getting pretty close to finished.
 




My thanks to my friend, Mary, who has helped prepare me for the classes I am taking from Bonnie Hunter in July. She surprised me with this in my mailbox!


I am plodding along very slowly with the quilting of The Beast. I keep this picture of the blocks pinned to my design wall and whenever I finish a block, I cross it off.  You can see this is moving at a snail's pace, but at least it is moving.

I am quilting them by thread color (am I the only lazy quilter that does not like to change threads?). I started with all of the black blocks. Now I am doing the white ones. Then I will do the green blocks, the turquoise, the gold, and the grey. I will finish with the navy blue blocks. There are bunches of those!!


It will put a damper on anything else being quilted until this is finished. Not that I can't move this out and change the thread to quilt other things, but that is a lot of effort for a lazy quilter. :)

The winner of the "Bee" panel from my last post is Denise. I already had her address, so it is winging its way to her abode.

Until next time, 
Janet O.

In scanning through the photos I have taken this month to find what I needed for this post, I came across this one I wanted to share.Took it on March 1st.
 
We don't have all this snow now, but there is still plenty in the mountains. We are out of a drought for the first time in 10 years!

It's A Small Honor

That is the name of the pattern from which that little mini in the center was created.

 It was designed by Diane Hansen and was published in the July/August 2003 issue of Fons & Porter's Love of Quilting. It finishes at 4"x6". The pattern was sent to me by a special blogging friend and she knew I would love this mini pattern. Wish I could leave it hanging there, but I donated it to the family reunion auction on Saturday and my younger sister bought it. I was happy to see her get it. Maybe I'll make one for me someday. : )

 

The pattern is foundation paper pieced. I machine quilted it all, except the final round of quilting in the outer border. That is done by hand.

That little piece is really all of the quilting I have done since I got home from visiting DD#1 in NH. But I do want to share a couple of quilty things from my visit with her. If you are ever in the area of Milton, NH, and you love primitive style, be sure to drop in and visit Camille at the shop in the basement of her home. What a treat.

This is my daughter and Camille. Camille is looking at my new grandbaby, but due to the rules governing the private adoption, I can't share photos of the baby on public social media for a few more months. But you can tell by the look on Camille's face that she is very cute! : )

Click on the small photos below to enlarge them and take a tour of some of the displays in this very fun and friendly shop.

 This was what came home with me from Evergreen Country Primitives. Wonderful fabric finds, and great wool, patterns, and notions.

The other quilt shop experience I had in NH took place in Center Harbor.

I just happened to be visiting DD#1 the week of the Keepsake Quilting Tent Sale. I have often heard about it, especially on Victoria's blog, but never thought I would be there. Tried to meet up with Victoria, but had a little family emergency and couldn't get there until later in the day. My daughter and I each filled a scrap bag as full as could be, I bought a book, and these lovely fabrics.

When I got back home to Utah I found two delightful surprises--packages of scraps from a couple of blog friends. I appreciate them thinking of me. I do love scrap quilts and you can never have too many scraps! I emptied my scrap bag from K.Q. and piled them with all of the scraps from the packages together by color family or genre (if there is such a thing in fabric).

One last thing. Saturday was the 37th anniversary of DH and I. We spent the day at a family reunion for which my siblings and I were responsible, and then came home and crashed. But as a parting shot, here we are in our true characters. *LOL*

Until next time,
Janet O.