Through a Child's Eyes

 I just could not resist showing these precious photos of our grandson looking at the Christmas tree right before his first Christmas.

 The innocence and wonder in his eyes tells it all, doesn't it?

He likes to use his pointer finger and make the Christmas songs play from the book.

May you all have a very blest and joyous Christmas, as we celebrate the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ, and share the time with family and friends!!

Country Inn

Isn't this a beautiful applique project to start this time of year? That is what I thought last year when I took these pictures. However, I had my Flower Pots going and so I continued to work on it this past year instead. So, now I need a new applique project. My hands don't do well being idle when I'm in my comfy chair.

This book is Country Inn by Barb Adams and Alma Allen of Blackbird Designs. There are two versions of this quilt, Evening Bloom and Country Rose - this is Evening Bloom.

 

Now the interesting thing is that I bought these fabrics several years ago just because I liked them, having no particular project in mind. I have a tendency to do that and then later the perfect project comes along to use them. 

 I think this will be more fun than just copying their fabrics. I really do enjoy choosing fabrics for a quilt - one of my favorite parts of making a quilt.

So, now back to my freezer paper for the patterns. I started tracing my templates Friday while meeting with my small group. That's one of the nice things with applique, you can do it in small bits and eventually you have a lovely quilt! Happy Thanksgiving all! We are so blest!

Quilt Album Software Giveaway

Would you like to win some software to help keep up with your quilts? Just jump on over to The Tattered Garden where Nancy is having a drawing for this software. You may be the lucky winner!!

More Quilts from PHQ Quilt Show

 Above is the wedding quilt I made for my daughter, Sondra and her husband Rich.

 This quilt is called Sky Blue Pink, a pattern from Kaffe Fassett's book, Caravan of Quilts.

 Here we have Garden Blooms, a kit from Intown Quilt Shop.

 This is the All Seasons Quilt. The pattern is by Mary Mashuta and it is in a book by Kaffe.

Another Kaffe, I call it Stripes, in his book, Quilt Romance.

Lollypop Trees Best of Show!

 Yes, it is true, I finished my Lollypop Trees, put the quilt in the Pieceful Hearts Quilt Guild Show this past weekend in North Augusta, SC, and won Best of Show! Wahoo! I am excited as I had worked on this quilt over a period of 3 or 4 years. In fact, I finished the top a year ago and it took another year to get up the courage to quilt it.

But, here it is!! It was such a pleasure to make this quilt, from choosing all the different fabrics with my friend, Ille Waters, shopping for the fabrics, trying to discern exactly what had been used on the pattern, to slowly hand stitching each circle, leaf or flower.

 Here is a portion of the border and sashing. I did just a continual swirl through all those squares and then treated the other little baby lollypops with lots of quilting like the large blocks.

 This green block below was the Judge's Choice on her comment sheet. I think the quilting showed up in it better than many others.

 Below is another closer view of this block.

 Just another block. I did all the quilting just as each block 'spoke to me' you might say. I stitched in the ditch around all the blocks and the applique, then filled in with swirls, feathers, whatever seemed to fit that block. I will not deny that it was very tedious work, even on a longarm.

 Another close up.

 One more block!

 This was a fun center. Oh, and I ended up stitching a lot on the applique as the shapes were so large they needed to be quilted to balance out the heavy background quilting.

 The above block in full view.

 And yet another!

 And another. . .

 And one of the corner blocks! What can I say? I really enjoyed this quilt and so appreciate the ribbons awarded me for my effort in time. Hope you enjoy looking at these pictures!! I know from seeing this quilt in the show that there will be more Lollypop Trees started. You can find this lovely pattern by Kim McLean at Glorious Color.com.

Lollypop Trees Quilted!

It may not be very easy to see these pictures, but I have completed my Lollypop Trees quilt! That is very exciting for me as this project has been ongoing for several years, but such an enjoyable journey. I enjoyed every applique stitch. Wish I could say the same about the quilting as it was quite a difficult quilt but worth the effort.

Lollypop Trees is in a quilt show this weekend in North Augusta, SC at the North Augusta Activities Center. I hope to get some better pictures with it hung properly.
Here are just a couple of close-ups of the blocks. Now, let's see what project I'll work on next! Oh, I know, I'll finish my Flower Pots that are just lacking a few tiny circles.

Lollypop Trees

I have finally loaded my Lollypop Trees Quilt on my longarm and have begun the quilting process. Just took me a year to finally get to it but I want to put it in the Pieceful Hearts Quilt Show in North Augusta, SC in October so . . . . . .it must be quilted.Deciding on how to quilt it has been a dilemma but I went for swirls in the border and sashing squares, SID with the blocks and applique - which is a lot of SID, and my version of mctavishing.
It is slow going but so was the applique. Love this quilt!!

Wordless Wednesday

On the Design Wall

This is what's on the Design Wall today! All Squared Up - 35 blocks!

We Still Remember and Will Never Forget!

I received an email from Little Quilts this week, reminding us of the days after 9-11-01 when they asked quilters to make little flag quilts for the families of the policemen and fire fighters who had lost their lives trying to save others on 9-11. We all felt so hopeless and fearful during those days that it only seemed right to get to stitching and do something to try to bring just a tiny bit of comfort to those whose lives were forever changed that day.

These are the little flag quilts I made and hand delivered to the Little Quilts Shop in Marietta. They spread all the flag quilts onto their parking lot and took an aerial photo and actually made a postcard with it and sent it to the participants. It was so incredible to see them all laying there.

So, just wanted to share the little quilt tidbit, remembering back and thanking again all those who served and gave their lives and those that lost their lives that day.

All Squared Up Again!

I found these blocks that I made probably 3 years ago. They were neatly stashed away in a plastic bag with the 'kit' that I had made. It began with some 10 1/2" squares I had purchased and then I cut more of my own to go with those and cut them using the pattern from the Quilt Sampler magazine below. This is the second quilt I've made with this pattern, it's so easy and fun to do. Here is the first quilt I made with this pattern.
Above are the blocks that I've gotten going but after I made these, I decided I needed to get more organized with my fabric choosing.
You take the 10 1/2" square and cut it up in a way that there is very little waste and each square represents one block. So, below, I sorted the fabrics all by color and began putting the blocks together.
Just looking for contrast and compatibility mostly. I had so many similar fabrics that I finally had to add some more to get more contrast, plus it gave me a few more blocks.
The blocks will end up 8" square and as you can see, be a very bright quilt! Happy Quilting today!

Stripes

I posted the center of this quilt months ago and this weekend got the borders attached and yesterday quilted it. Now I still must bind it but I thought it was time I posted something quilt related so here it is. For my own quilting I've been doing my hand applique on my Flower Pots - just a few more circles and I'll have the panels and borders ready to go.Here is a close up. It's one of those that really looks better from a distance but it was fun making all the circles and loosely following the stripes. Soon it will be a QUILT and not just random pieces floating around in my sewing room!!

Sweet Home BOM

I thought if I put my blocks together that I had appliqued and pieced then maybe I'd feel farther along on this project than I really am - LOL! Unfortunately, it was a slight challenge just to get them to come out the right sizes. Guess I've been hand appliqueing too long for precise piecing. But, I specialize in 'making things work,' so again, not so bad from a galloping horse. I think another block will be ready to pick up tomorrow at the shop.

Fourth of July

Here are some family pictures taken yesterday on the 4th of July. Some of the family had their matching Old Navy shirts so I decided I needed to bring out a quilt from the closet from about 20 years ago. I won many of these blocks with the Pieceful Hearts Quilt Guild and also received my own back with the drawing. Mine was the Star within a Star on the left.
We had fun taking the pictures and a delightful day being together! I thought the quilt turned out nice for the photos, but of course we know the star was the baby!

This will take you away from quilting!

Mom is celebrating her birthday here in GA!
Now this sweet face will take you away from quilting, won't it?? We are ready for the sunshine now!