Monthly Mini x2

With Mom's passing in July, I didn't get a monthly mini made that month. I have made up for it this month by making two. I am linking this post with Wendy at The Constant Quilter blog. She is our monthly mini motivator and mentor.

 On the left is "Busy Thimbles in Blue", and on the right is "Scrap Basket Half-hex with Chrome Detailing."

 

I wanted these to be the same, but different. Each one has two striped borders and two tone-on-tone borders. The tonal and striped prints are reversed in position from one to the other. The centers of each are scrappy, and use one shape that repeats and flips. The tonal print on each one got cable quilting, while the striped print on each got straight line quilting. I tried to use an unexpected color on each binding, though I will admit that the chrome yellow is definitely more unexpected than the grey/blue.

I did stitch-in-the-ditch around the thimbles. I knew that there wouldn't be good daylight to get a photo showing the quilting by the time I had this one bound, so I took the photos before sewing the binding down on the back.

The quilting on the half-hex was a little harder for me to decide. I started out quilting vertically between the rows of hexie shapes, but it wasn't enough. To quilt along the seams horizontally would have emphasized that these were half-hex shapes, and I didn't want to do that.  I finally chose to do diagonal lines through the rows of hexies, as if I was doing the hanging diamond design. Then I wondered if I should make diagonal lines coming from the other direction, but decided that would be too dense for this little thing. So I left it alone, and it has grown on me.

I am writing this on August 23rd, the day Hubby officially retired, after over 40 years with the same company. In the morning we are flying out to the east coast. By the time this post goes live I will have spent a week in New England hunting down ancestors, while including a couple of quilty adventures along the way. From Maine to Massachusetts, I will have scoured graveyards, visited historical societies, and witnessed where my Mayflower ancestors landed and lived. And if all has gone according to plan, I will have met Wendy, The Constant Quilter (see link above), and have paid another visit to Cyndi (Busy Thimble blog) at her Busy Thimble quilt shop. 

The day this posts I will be trying to squeeze in a visit to The New England Quilt Museum on the way to the airport to fly home. It has been three years since I was last in Massachusetts for our oldest son's wedding reception, and six years since I visited Maine while on a trip to see my oldest daughter who was living in New Hampshire at the time. This is my 6th visit to New England and I have loved every trip. I will share more about it after I have recovered from all the fun.

Thank you to everyone for the very kind and loving comments on my last post about Mom's passing. I tried to get as many answered as I could before we left, but I didn't get very far. I will try to catch up soon. Is anyone else having trouble with comments on their blog NOT coming through to their email? About midway through the comments I received on my last post, they stopped coming through. I went to settings and it doesn't even give me the option to select an email to receive comments. That has never happened to me before. I sent feedback to Blogger. Hopefully it is a glitch they will work out. They finally fixed the header photo problem, so I will wait and see. But it is a pain to not be able to reply directly.

One last glamor shot of the two little quilts and then I am out of here. :)

Take care, until next time!

Janet O.

For Mom

After having been moved into a skilled nursing facility on July 6th, my Mom was a resident for one week before she fell and shattered bones in several places. She spent another week heavily drugged, to mask as much pain as possible, and then finally let go of this life, of which she had been tenacious.

           The figurine below is from Willow Tree and is called "Loving My Mother". It was gifted to me by a dear friend when she learned of Mom's passing.

As children my siblings and I remember Mom often teasing us that a song we learned in our church's children's auxiliary was something she wanted to have sung at her funeral--by us. But when I sat down with her 2 1/2 years ago to plan her funeral program, she decided to have it sung by her granddaughters, granddaughters-in-law, and great-granddaughters instead. We changed "Mother" to "Gramma".

These are the lyrics to the song "I Often Go Walking":

I often go walking in meadows of clover,

And I gather armfuls of blossoms of blue.

I gather the blossoms the whole meadow over;

Dear mother, all flowers remind me of you.

O mother, I give you my love with each flower

To give forth sweet fragrance a whole lifetime through;

For if I love blossoms and meadows and walking,

I learn how to love them, dear mother, from you.

A few days after Mom's funeral, when I finally had a chance to breathe, I pulled out the tub of scraps from Mom's quilts and found the bag of leftovers from the blue and white "Storm at Sea" quilt she made for me decades ago. Then I pulled down the thick loose-leaf of quilt patterns and photos I saved from magazines that Mom was discarding many years ago. I remembered one I wanted to use.

I only had a photo of this one, and a sketch I had made years ago of possible block construction. An internet search for a bouquet block pattern yielded nothing that resembled this. In Brackman's Encyclopedia the Crown of Thorns block seemed to come closest--but that doesn't have patterns, so I was back where I started. I drew up my own pattern, making sure to avoid the set-in seams that were used in the quilt in the magazine photo. I could only tell that when I studied the blocks closely. It is obvious on one of the blossoms made from striped fabric.

There is significance to the fabrics in this little quilt.

Each of the blue "blossoms" is made of scraps from my Storm at Sea quilt, but the blossom to the right was also from the last maternity dress I made. When I had my last baby (over 30 years ago), Mom said she would use the cotton fabric from the dress in quilts--and she did. I used that same fabric to bind this quilt. The green is from a quilt my brother now owns, and the purple was from the last quilt Mom made, when she was 85. Blue and purple had been her favorite colors. The background fabric is little blue blossoms on a white background. I don't know if Mom ever used it in a quilt, but it was from her stash. This little quilt finished up at just over 9" square.

I hand quilted everything on this--even the stitch-in-the-ditch--in homage to Mom, because to her if it wasn't hand quilted, it wasn't a quilt. She taught me everything I know about hand quilting, especially the tiny stitches. She was always very gracious about my machine quilting. :)                                                                                          

I call this "Blossoms of Blue". Mom, this one's for you!

Janet O.

                                            The quilt on Mom's casket was one she made in 2003. It is, of course, all hand quilted.

A Belated Monthly Mini

I'm just going to pretend it isn't July yet, and post this as my June Monthly Mini, linking up with Wendy at The Constant Quilter blog.

This was Pam Buda's recent "Quilt Archeology" project and she called it Abigail's Doll Quilt.  It is based on an old doll quilt that she believes is a "cutter" from a larger quilt. It is originally a two color quilt. I bought the kit she offered on her website, and I planned to follow the two color theme, but you know me and two color quilts--love the look, but really struggle to make them myself. So, of course, I didn't.

 

 

 

This photo lets you see the quilting better. It is SITD around the triangles, and part of a cable pattern in the sashing. 

The backing is a piece that has been in the stash for a while.

 

The binding got stitched down while Zooming with Chooky and friends--such a fun time. I was on for a few hours in the afternoon, and joined up again for a couple of hours in the night. When you have a tedious step in a project that you have been putting off, this is a great time to do it. You listen, chat and laugh and before you know it, the task is completed and you didn't even notice how tedious it was.

My iPad only shows 9 people per page, but there were sometimes 20 of us on at a time, from Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Canada, USA--and probably more, but those are the ones I can recall from my time with them.

I've had the opportunity to Zoom with a couple of other blog friends this past month and I have to say, it's the next best thing to being there! Thank you, ladies, for your willingness to visit.

Yesterday I made a quick stop in an antique mall and looked through their vintage quilts.  This particular mall is crammed full and all of the aisles are narrow. There was nowhere to unfold the quilts. One in particular really caught my eye. I just took down the hanger and draped it over a pile of rugs. This is it.

 

Look at the dense quilting--the stitches are small and uniform.

Does anyone feel confidant in giving a time frame as to when they think this might have been made? I could find no label or signature/date in my effort to get a good look without being able to unfold it. 

Check out the beautiful Baptist Fans quilted to create a border around the outside edge.                                   

 

And the photo below shows the only stain I could find, without being able to open up the whole quilt. I am really tempted to go back and get this quilt. I keep telling myself I don't want to be a collector. But maybe it is too late for that kind of self talk. :)

 

Wishing my friends in the USA a wonderful Independence Day celebration this weekend, and I hope my Canadian friends had a lovely Canada Day--even if it was on lock down.

Be unexpectedly kind to someone today--they probably need it, whether you know it or not.

Until next time,

Janet O.

Oh, I meant to say that I got the follow.it widget all worked out, with help from their team. If you have been a follower via email, this post should still come through to your email. Please let me know if this is working for you.

 

This and That

Last week hubby and I celebrated our 43rd anniversary. The day before we went to a few local downtown antique shops and had lunch at a crepery. There was a quilt in one of the shops that caught my eye, but I talked myself out of buying it. The next day hubby placed money for the quilt in my anniversary card and told me to go get it. It took me a few days to get back to town, but it was still there, and it came home with me.

It is in great condition, has no odors or stains, and is well put together and hand quilted.

 

Interesting to see the quilting pattern. See how every other line stops a few inches from the circles in the inner corner?

 

And love that pretty purple backing!

I am very happy that I had a second chance to get this quilt.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are only two prints in the quilt, and the rest are solids. I don't know much about fabrics of this era. Would you say these are 30s fabrics?

A few posts ago I shared photos of my mini quilt rack that I'd had for months, but only recently got stained. Several of you had asked for dimensions so you could have someone make one for you. One person sent me photos of the finished product. I would love to see any others that have been completed. It is fun to see the tweaks each woodworker makes. This is the photo Sheri Lesh of Iowa sent to me of the quilt rack her father made for her. If you had someone make one for you (or made it yourself), please email me a photo and I will include it in a future post. Thanks, Sheri--and I love your little quilts! Just from what little snatches you can see in the photo, doesn't it look like a fun place to play?

 

I have had a couple of good sessions in the sewing room this past week. I've mostly been catching up on the latest blocks in my SALs and working on my monthly mini--but I won't show it just yet. I still have to quilt it. I think this will be the last time I will attempt a block of the week. I struggle to keep up. I altered last week's Heartfelt pattern and ended up with these 8" blocks.

If you are sewing along, too, you can probably tell what I changed. And now Gay has thrown a curve ball at me--an appliqued medallion for the center. I guess I will have to make a Feathered Star or a Mariner's Compass.

 

You may have noticed that I've added a new email subscription option in my sidebar. It seems to be working, but I have not been able to make the transfer of my Feedburner email subscription list work. It is supposed to be "easy", but it keeps telling me it failed and I can't get anything more than an automated response to my requests for help. If you are following via Feedburner, you may need to transfer yourself using that subscription option, if you still want to follow along. I do appreciate each follower and don't want you to feel like you can't follow if you prefer email notifications. If you know of a better choice, please let me know and I'll look into it.

 

ETA: I have had an email from the follow.it people that addressed my issues. They had me send them the email subscription list from Feedburner and they were going to transfer the email addresses. If you have been following via the Feedburner emails, would you be kind enough to let me know going forward if the transfer worked and you continue to get notifications? Thank you!

 

Until next time, 

Janet O.

Click photo to enlarge and enjoy a full screen of this sunset!

 

An attempt to find my "Words With Friends" friend, Terry

Terry--I don't know if you will see this, but it is the only way left to try and reach you. A few days ago my Words With Friends app froze, and when it was finally restored everything was wiped out. I had no stats, badges, levels, or friends. Any of the games we had in progress are no longer available to me. I've tried through the app to locate you again, with no success. I know you have seen my blog, but I don't know if you are still visiting.

If you see this, please click on the "View My Complete Profile" link on the left column of my blog and use the link you will find there to email me. That way one of us can send an invitation to the other to start new games. We have played for years, and I'd hate to lose you now!

Janet O.

Monthly Mini, etc., etc.

It was getting down to the wire and I needed a monthly mini made quickly! I rummaged through the sewing room and came up with 4 mini basket blocks that hadn't made the cut in a mini quilt a few years back. The baskets were from Kansas Troubles fabric, so I went to some bags of scraps given me by my retreat buddy and found the one of Kansas Troubles fabric. That was my beginning. I told myself I had to make my mini from the 4 basket blocks and scraps from the bag. This is what came of it.

It finishes at 10 1/2" square, and is all machine quilted, stitch-in-the-ditch. I did the binding on it while Zooming with Chookyblue and friends for her Chookshed's 9th birthday. It is lovely to sit and stitch and laugh with gals from across the globe. When I came out of my sewing room after two hours of visiting hubby said, "it was so good to hear you laughing" (have been under the weather lately and not laughing much). Linking here with Wendy (Constant Quilter Blog), our motivator and mentor on the monthly minis. 

I am surprising myself a little that I am keeping up relatively well on the BOM and BOW I am doing. The BOM is totally caught up and I have 2 blocks to catch up on with the BOW. That is doable. Here is the progress to date.

You may notice in the lower set of blocks that a few weeks ago I did begin throwing a bit of cheddar into the blocks. The lighting on the bottom isn't great but that is cheddar. I am going to toss a piece in here and there. At the moment I think I will use it only in the center of a block, but that rule could change if I decide I don't like it.

 

I received a surprise bundle in the mail yesterday. I didn't think to get photo of everything, but there was fabric, and Aurifil thread, and then there was this.This sweet little patriotic cross-stitch piece was made by my dear friend Kris, of Lavender Quilts blog. She mounted it to a lovely piece of weathered cedar fence for a great rustic look that I love! Thank you so much, Kris! It will be loved and enjoyed!

 

 

Things have been blooming around here, and I love things that bloom! Fourteen of my sixteen lilac bushes have been laden with blossoms and the air has been laden with their fragrance. It is delightful. I went out last week and cut three stems from each bush. It made two full and fragrant bouquets.

 

Even my Hoya houseplant has been blooming, and this is the first time in the 20 years or so that I've had this plant that I have actually had 2 bloom clusters at the same time. And speaking of blooms, I have decided that due to the extreme drought conditions in our area, this year I am going to lay weed barrier over my annual flowerbeds, and just not plant. It takes so much water to keep them going in the raised concrete beds around our home. I will keep my roses and raspberries going, but let the other beds have a rest this year. I will have more time to tend to my houseplants, more time to quilt, and I will be saving water. Wins all around! I do have a couple of pots on my deck filled with plants that have been gifted to me, and those flowers will be enjoyed during our many dinners on the deck this summer.

The sunset over the farmyard was glorious this evening. I was in my sewing room and whenever I glanced out the window the colors had deepened and spread farther across the sky. I finally had to jump up and get photos. The camera never does justice to the depth of color, but here is a washed out version of what I saw.

I was trying to get this posted before midnight Saturday, but I didn't quite make it. I got tangled up trying to choose the winners of the drawing for the little quilts, but it is all sorted out now.

Barbara will receive Mud Pies and Sharon S. will receive Labor of Love. Congrats to the two of you, and I wish you all a beautiful weekend, and my friends in the states a wonderful Memorial holiday! Be kind and be creative. :)

Until next time, 

Janet O.

Overdue

My post is what is overdue, not the quilt. I received my quilt from Cecile (Patchwork Inspirations blog) in the first week of the month, but haven't seemed to be able to get a post written in order to share it. So here it is! We were participants in the Humble Quilts Doll Quilt Swap, and Cecile had my name. Lucky me!!

This little treasure came all the way from France, along with that clever card in the corner with wildflower seeds embedded in the paper. The wonderfully scrappy Ocean Waves pattern is one I have long admired, and the beautifully hand quilted feathered wreath in the center is an added bonus.  Thank you so much, Cecile. It is an honor to have a quilt made by you!

Another thing that was overdue was getting my little miniature quilt rack stained. You can read about this rack here.  I hired one of the many woodworkers in our community to make this for me. He had it finished in October, but I had told him to leave the staining for me. I love staining wood and it only took me 7 months to get to it. :)

This is where the rack was sitting before it was stained, and I liked it here. But now that it is pretty much the same color as the floor, the baseboard, and the hutch, it is a little way too much brown. So I moved it over by my full-size quilt rack (made by another woodworking neighbor).  I think it fits in better here visually, but physically it is a bit awkward. Still, it will remain here for now.

I know many of you would have painted this piece a pretty color, and it would have been lovely. I also know I have far too much wood in my home, but I love the look of natural wood grain, and I can't bring myself to paint over it. The red oak in this is gorgeous. Here is a view of the side.

Another thing that was even longer overdue was the clearcoat finish on the quilt ladder I bought from a sweet elderly woman at a craft show over 7 years ago (I'm probably getting very close now to the age of that "sweet elderly woman"). It had already been stained, but it really needed a light sanding with fine grit, and then a couple of coats of clearcoat. It is smooth as silk now, with just a hint of a shine.

 

Of all the quilts in this photo of the ladder, I only made one--the top one on the ladder. The next one down was by Jill Reid (this link takes you to her patterns at Windham Fabrics website), and the lower one is by Barbara Black. The one over the chest is by Barb Vedder. Love them all! This is kind of a red/green/cheddar corner.

 

Nothing overdue about this. Is anyone else as excited about this pattern as I am? My copy just arrived and I wish I wasn't buried under so many projects. I'd love to work on this now, but I will try to exercise restraint. Those little baskets finish around 3", you know. So fun! You can find the pattern here.

 

The final overdue item is my blogiversary. On May 16th, three days ago, it was the 10th anniversary of my blog. I never dreamed I would still be at it, and that I would have made so many amazing friends from around this country and the world. I have learned many lessons from you, my friends--some about quilting, but equally as many, if not more, about life. Several dear friends have departed, and I miss their wisdom and insight, along with the shared humor. Whether via Zoom, texts, emails, or phone, the laughter has been good for my soul. As time consuming as blogging can be, I have to say that it has enriched my life by expanding my circle.

You know there is always a drawing for thank-you gifts around this time. I am giving away a couple of little quilts from SALs. To me these SALs are a symbol of the community we create with our blogs. 

 

This first one is from the most recent Humble Quilts doll quilt SAL. I have given away a few of the quilts I have made from her SALs and I am always a little torn to let one go. I call this one "Mud Pies". You can read about it here.

 

Some of you may remember Cheri Payne. This second quilt was from a post of hers on Labor Day  in 2012, where she shared the instructions for this little quilt. She called it Labor of Love. I made mine a bit larger than the original (highly out of character for me). 

I will draw two names and send each one a little quilt with a few other goodies. Please don't publicize this drawing. It is just for those who are regulars here. Thank you for your friendship, and for all you have shared with me. And don't forget--if you never receive a reply to comments you make here, or if you don't usually comment, so you have no idea if you would receive a reply or not, PLEASE leave your email address IN your comment. If I can't contact you, I draw another name. I reply to everyone who comments and has their email linked to their comment.

Enough of that. I hope COVID numbers are decreasing in your area and that you are able to look forward to a greater degree of normalcy going forward. Let's make this a great day by making it better for someone else!

Until next time, 

Janet O.

Drawing is now closed

You may have noticed I have no header photo. I removed the old one to replace it and now it is doing crazy things and will only load my header photo into a small corner of the header space. The photo file is large enough, but no matter what I do it shows up very small on the screen. I've even tried a few other photos. So this would have been my header photo, and may be one day if this ever gets fixed. Click to enlarge it and soak in the serenity.

Anyone else have this problem changing headers, or am I just lucky? It's not like I've never changed my header photo before!