Happy Birthday Dennis!

Today is my hubby's earthly birthday.   He would have been 72 today.   I miss him so but his place in Heaven was a gift and I know he is surrounded in love.  Keep watching over us honey.

Quilting is Finished

This is such a beautiful quilt.   Other than having to work in so much extra fabric, I think it turned out great.

The color of the green is truer to the top picture on the longarm frame.   Here it is trimmed.

My customer has asked that I add the binding and she is bringing me more of the green fabric.  Hopefully I can complete it this weekend. 

Quilting an Antique Hand Pieced quilt

I LOVE old quilts!   Just love them.   A friend brought me one to quilt for her.   It is a beautiful Churn Dash block quilt.  Like most hand pieced quilts, the maker is able to fit pretty much any size block together to make a quilt top.   The reason for making the quilt top is not to match the seams but to finish the top.   Quilts like this pose problems for longarmers.   This one is no different.

I got the quilt loaded on the machine and immediately knew the pieces used in the quilt block are not uniform.   I pulled out my handy spray starch and gave it a quick, heavy shot across the first row and let it dry.   There were still some places where there was more fabric than space but I'm hoping to be able to work them in.   Here is a picture of the piece with too much fabric.

You can see on the right side how much extra fabric there is but on the left side, it quilted out smooth. 
I'm going to work on it some more today and I'll most more pictures tomorrow.

Hope you are all enjoying your quarantine and making lots of fun projects!  I've made more than 500 masks - most I've given away but I have sold about 25 on Etsy.

Hands2Help2020

Once again I am participating in this wonderful drive to make quilts for charity.  My first quilt that I finished and am mailing out tomorrow is for MercyQuilts.  These quilts go to Mercy Hospital in California for their cancer center - end of life arena.   All the people who are there are at the end of their battle with cancer.   The quilts are given to the patient for warmth and comfort while at Mercy Hospital and after they are gone, the family gets to keep the quilt.   I am honored to participatie with this quilt drive.  @hands2help2020  #hands2help2020

This is the finished quilt.
Here some pictures of the in progress quilting.   I love the baptist fan design.

This quilt is also my finished entry in the Scrappy Quilt Challenge that is a year long by the month challenge at Persimon Dreams .  The  9 patch is the January pattern that I made into a disappearing 9 patch block/quilt.

Gail's Quilt

Just before I found out about Jennifer and her cancer, I began a quilt for her oldest sister, Gail Ann.  Gail was diagnosed a few years ago with MS.   The disease has progressed quickly forcing Gail to retire and change her and her husbands life.   Kevin, her husband, retired at the end of last year.   They have been avid travelers, mostly by truck and camper and then truck and camper/trailer.  Gail's inability to safely walk has not slowed down their travels one bit.   She and Kevin continue to travel extensively.

They live in such a warm (not) climate, Gunnison CO, that I thought it might be a nice gift to make a quilt Gail could wrap around her in the wheelchair or when she sits on the couch.   When I found the fabrics (all from my stash!) they just seemed to call out her name.  Her is the quilt I made for her.

On the back I used a fleece blanket for added warmth.  The quilting, which was called water lilies, shows up very well in the next pics.

I had a couple extra blocks left over and so I made her a zipper bag to keep special things close to her.

I know that she is enjoying using these items!  Love you bunches Gail Ann!

Jennifer's Quilt

When I found out my SIL, Jennifer, was diagnosed with multiple types of cancer, I immediately began making a quilt for her.   I had this gorgeous floral fabric I hated to cut and I love to do the braid technique so this is what I came up with. 

 She begins her chemo today.   I hope this quilt will keep her warm and wrapped in love.

Happy 2020 (a bit late)

It is March already!  I can hardly believe it! 
And its not that I haven't been busy, cause I sure have.  But..... well time just fights with me getting on the computer.   Actually, I'd rather be sewing or singing than doing anything else. 
I got my laptop up and working and thought maybe that would motivate me to get my posts entered in a more timely manner.

So, today I finished a quilt and bag for my newest grand niece born on March 9th, Rebekah Lynn (named after her momma). 

This fabric was a piece I received from Doris Golleher, my dear friend who now lives in Heaven!
It is such a cute lamb print that I knew it would be perfect for this precious Lamb!  I backed it in flannel.   It should provide lots of warmth in the Colorado cold winters.

The rest of my completes I will add on a more daily basis to get caught up.   (Hopefully!!)

Happy New Year!

I hope and pray you've all had a wonderful beginning of this new decade 2020.  It's hard to believe that I have lived thru half of the 1900's and am into twenty years of 2000.   Do you all remember Y2K?  Oh what a scare that was and look where we are now!

I have started off my New Year by accepting the scrap quilt challenge at Persimon Dreams   It is a year long challenge so plenty of time to get 'er done!


January's block is the easy 9 patch block.   I jumped in and grabbed my charm square scraps and pulled out browns and creams.   Now, I am not a brown person but I have so many charms in those colors that it was a quick pick and since I will be donating this quilt to Mercy Hospital in California, it will make a really nice quilt for a man. 

On Friday, it took me about 3 hours to make all the blocks and then I decided I needed to do some kind of disappearing 9 patch pattern with them.   Searching thru the internet, I found 2 that were different than the ones you normally see.    Here is what I began with.

After cutting them as per the directions and resewing them together, this is how it looks.

I am very pleased and finished 4 of the blocks yesterday.   I hope to finish the rest today.   Yes, yes I know - its a year long challenge but getting the top assembled is satisfying and then I have the rest of the year to get it quilted and bound. 

What a great way to start of the New Year!