2014 Coming to a Close

It has been quite a while since I've posted so I will try to catch up before we are in the New Year! In November I went on a mission trip to Nicaragua with a group from our church. We have been sponsoring some children to go to a Christian school there and I was able to meet them in person after corresponding for almost four years.

 This is Angely. . .

 Maria . . .

and Moises, who had been out of school for a while because of some surgery. We found him at his home with his parents and what a blessing to get to see all these precious children!! It was a truly great trip!!

A lady from our church began a Sewing Ministry and Sewing School there and here is the classroom. It is amazing what these students have learned. There were 12 who graduated while we were there and took home their very own sewing machine to be able to have a home business. There was a fashion show with many of the garments they had made.

Here is an example of one dress this lady was finishing up that week for the show.

 Speaking of finishing, I really did complete my quilt top, "Words To Life By," SBOW, from Primitive Gatherings. That was all those hundreds of half square triangles I grumbled about earlier! 

 Here is one more block of my Primitive Garden quilt, also from Primitive Gatherings.

And now as the Di Ford Mystery Quilt has come to a close for 2014, I have completed the first round! Oh well, maybe in 2015 this will become a quilt.

I made this little doll quilt for Lacey who is two and loves her babies! It matches her room.

This is our quilt group (minus Gerry taking the picture) at our Christmas luncheon!

Jake has now turned four - where did the time go??

After 14+ years in the making - I have decided to finish my Bible Quilt (designed by Jan Patek as a BOM). The blocks have been completed for years except for the embroidery/words. Since I do much more hand stitching now, it will be prettier than if I had done it years ago. How's that for making yourself feel good about procrastinating!!?

 And now one last project - my Dear Jane quilt that has also been in the making for 12+ years. This is my first triangle/border block. I found a FB group, Jane Stickle Quilt Group, which is very encouraging and I can see that I might now finish this historic quilt. Here are two websites with great information also:

Dear Jane and

That Quilt, where she gives pictures and step by step instructions on how she made her blocks.

 I've had 65 blocks out of 225 completed for a while. I am setting some new goals to finish this quilt.

 It is VERY challenging at times, some blocks have 45 pieces in them and they measure 4.5" finished.

That's a LOT of tiny pieces. I chose all my center block fabrics years ago and identified them in a layout provided with the EQ Software. I chose to make them just a little brighter than Jane's original quilt, OR, as I say, what hers may have been before fading some over 150 years ago. 

Of course, Christmas was celebrated amidst all of these posts, but now the decorations are put away and I am looking forward to new GOALS for 2015. 

Happy New Year!!

Miles of Triangles & More

I always enjoy seeing these beautiful trees in the fall. There are few leaves left now but the colors were just gorgeous!

I've been working on hundreds of half square triangles for my Words to Live By quilt, the SBOW for 2013 from Primitive Gatherings. I've had them all ready to sew but just kept putting it off. However, I can't finish the quilt until they are sewn so half are done. It's hard for me to be exactly accurate so one was 1/2" too long and one 1/2" too short. Maybe this third will be just right. I just have to fudge a little and make them work.

 I've sewn a couple more Farmer's Wife Quilt Blocks - the fabrics are what makes these little blocks.

One more block in my Primitive Garden!

An 8" quilt for a friend's 70th birthday. Our group makes birthday quilts for special years and this time, like mine, it will be small quilts all attached to each other and she loves cats.

I just love this picture! We kept our grandchildren and took them to a fall festival. He won the little pirate's patch and put it on. It was so cute how he felt like he had to close his eyes to wear it. Love the sweet smile and apple painted on his cheek!

Current Projects

The center for my Di Ford quilt - I am getting more broderie perse appliqué sewn down. I had to redo my stems - I realized I had made them too large for this setting so instead of always wishing I had changed them, I JUST DID IT. Now it looks much better!

 I sewed the binding on the medallion quilt - again, by machine. Still working on getting my settings just right. I used the walking foot both times to get it to feed more evenly for me.

 One more block in my Primitive Garden quilt - birdhouses! It's a long block so I divided it into 3 pictures!

 I really enjoy watching birds in our backyard and

identifying all the different ones that come to the feeder!

Take some time to stitch today!

Quick Medallion Quilt

 It all started Saturday afternoon with these fabrics which had been residing in a plastic shoe box, just waiting for the perfect pattern.

This Villa Rosa Designs would be the one!

 I tried a couple of combinations of fabrics for the center and inner border

and chose this one!

Here is one layout I had early on but then decided the burgundy paisleys were too dark and took away from the border. I find my camera to be one of my best tools for looking at my quilts and seeing what needs to be moved or taken out.

Here is the final quilt top! Made in just a few hours! It is 54" x 63". I enhanced the colors on my computer so it brightened it up a bit. How fun is this??!! Makes me want to take another fabric combination and try it again! Happy Stitching!

Believe Retreat Project

In 2008, my sister, Patsi, and I went to the Believe In Yourself Retreat in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, given by Kristin Steiner and Susan Edmonson! It was 4 days and we had a GREAT time, mostly just being together and working on this project above. However, we neither completed ours.  As often happens, you get home, put it on the shelf and years, yes years later, you realize it's never been touched. I decided it was still not too late and was worth doing and enjoying the memories of it.

Here we are - ready for the evening!

We all received these goodies to begin our mixed media project. And yes, the cookies were delicious!!!

 Our teachers, Susan and

Kristin.

Here is Patsi working on her project. As you can see from our table, there were lots of embellishments we used! Now the rest of my project below!

 As you open the screen doors, here is what's inside! A little quilted booklet you might say. There's a little bird nest at the very top made of scrap threads.

And the back here.

 These pages are fabric/paper/embellishments all combined.

Here is the flip side.

 Now the close ups and details! The little booklet was made of corrugated cardboard that was the packing for some kind of tuna. Susan Edmonson found those.

 Fun with paint and writings, painted laces, scrapbook paper, gesso, canvas, etc.

 A little more sewing here and embellishing.

We took some things that were special to us to put in our embellished treasure chest.

We made a little side trip over to the 'Blowing Rock' and the legend. Great memories and what a fun time we had and now a finished birdhouse, too!

More Charity Quilts - Cathedral Pattern

 First, let's just get this out of the way - this fabric that is. I figure after 20 years of aging it and using lots of pieces off of it, I must not be going to sew this.

 I recently packed up three shopping bags full of fabrics, a little cross stitch, etc, and let someone else be in charge of sewing it. Actually I had one long arm customer who was making many charity quilts take one shopping bag full.

 Some of these ended up in the quilts below but the rest went to Goodwill. No more guilt for me on not sewing these fabrics!!! It truly felt so good to share these with someone else that would use them.

 The Cathedral by Villa Rosa Designs is the pattern here. I've shown them before, little 4 x 6 postcards with simple cute patterns.

 I added some fun 'newer' fabrics to make these older ones pop, bought a beautiful sunflower batik almost half price for the backs and had two quilts ready. Here is my machine binding that I'm so thrilled about - thanks to Nancy at Tattered Garden Quilting.

 These quilts are very similar but different quilting designs and bindings.

 Now to find them a home!

 These fabrics were leftover from a little quilt I made last year. Just enough to make this baby quilt!

Another all machine binding!!

And, just as a word of caution! Yesterday as my husband and I were eating lunch, we heard a really loud crash. So loud we even looked outside. When we went to the other end of the house this is what we found in the guest room bath!! The glued mirror had fallen off of the wall and shattered into a million pieces. A mess to clean up and wash quilts and things that were laying close by but mostly we are just so THANKFUL no one was in the room. This is where the crib for the babies is and could have been so tragic. So, now all our mirrors have clips at the top to hold them in case the glue lets go. I have now heard of several instances like this, even our next door neighbor, but many times a towel bar or adjacent wall caught the mirror before it crashed. Don't let it happen to you!