Update on baby Karter’s quilt

The quilt arrived in Belzoni and mom Dana opened it and was thrilled.  
She sent me a picture to share. 

Karter. Vance Hall

A finish!

Krater’s baby quilt !

An oldie I’m sending to John, Amber’s husband

The back of Krater’s quilt

 Another oldie I’m sending to Amber. 

First of all, I can’t believe I quilted anything. It’s been a long time. I feel much practice is needed, but it’s encouraging to do a quilt myself.  The pattern is one from Pat Sloan website. All the fabric came from my stash, which is awesome.

The two quilts I’m sending to newlyweds Amber and John, my great niece. They got wed at the Beginning of the Pandemic. I’m so happy for them..

Stay at home continued

The last quilt top finish is a Rainbow 🌈 top from a Pat Sloan sew along.  I needed a baby quilt and enjoyed doing this one.  I’ve been working on Circa 1800’, as well as log cabin blocks. 

Cleaning up the sewing room and dealing with scrapes is ongoing. A little at a time but I am seeing results.   Pat is now doing a Free Motion Quilt challenge to help get some of our quilts done. The challenge is great and one of the major parts is to quilt at least 10 minutes a day for practice.  So far I’m hanging in there with that, just missed yesterday so far.  More on that later. 

Stay at Home

I spent 10 months last year and the beginning of this year swapping 50 2.5 in blocks of uneven 9 patch in 1800's reproduction fabric with 9 other people.  In all over 500 of these little beauties.  I have now started to put them together.There are 25 odd rows with 25 blocks on point, then 24 even rows of blocks of 24.   

When I finish this is what it will look like.  I think it will be gorgeous.

 I am working on this a little at a time.  Two sides have the triangles sewn on then you put one after another on as suggested in the directions.  I started constructing 2 rows so I can do one after another.  Doing one at a time was really slow even though I was working log cabin block in between.  I have decided to dedicate one day to log cabin to make progress and another day to another project.

All this free time and such much to DO!

All this free time since social distancing, so much time at home.  Covid 19 has us all not doing our usual activities.  Mostly I miss my quilting and swimming friends.

On the other hand I have been working on things in my sewing room.  I've gotten addicted to Pat Slone and her daily videos.  She has inspired me to start dealing with my UFO's and finish some I was putting off finishing that are current projects.

Top finished with borders added  Bristle Creek Farmhouse

A UFO from Quilts Bayou Days, long gone.  An 18 Block quilt set on point.  I had done 5 applique' blocks and chose to stop there with too many other things to do.  

Up date on Circa 1800' quilt i've been working on this year   First odd row of 25 even/odd rows

Back from Retreat at River House

So enjoyed my retreat, really nice place.  The sewing was great until my Featherweight went out on me.  For a change I finished a top.   Also bought a new machine, a 215 Bernina.  Hopefully won't keep having trouble.

A Dixie Girls Swap

Progress on Leaders and enders

Friendship stars from a pattern by Lisa  of Primative Gathering

I figured out that I have so many leader and ender projects going, I needed to change some to Works in Progress instead.  I think the last count of L and E was 5.  I start too many things for fun, call them leaders and enders, but some don't need to be.

This one in particular is 9 triangles finished at one inch, then put together to make a nine patch.  Too much sewing to be called L and E.  So now this is called a project. I stared in 1800's' but soon started with scrapes.  The black is the only constant.  Oh, did I say the little blocks finish 3 inches?  This will take a while.

Yes, I have been sewing, a little, cleaning a little and much more

Progress on this Leader and Ender from Primative Gatherings

Another block from A BOM from Paula Barnes

My granddaughter Ashleigh's cowl, that I knitted for her.  There are so many mistakes, but life goes on.

My two children Leigh and Edward sent me flowers for my birthday in Jan.  The flowers got lost but finally came in I had to share every day with the kids to show them how beautiful they are.  Not sewing, but an important  part of my life..

A block i made for the future raffel quilt

Lafayette Quilt Shop Run

I don't usually write about shop hops, retreats, or general getting in the car and going with my quilting friends.  However, this was such a fun trip I had to talk about it.  We took off with threat of bad weather, to take Polly's sick machine to Lola Pinks Quilt shop to get it fixed.  We browsed and I bought nothing, but the others bought small things.   

Then we took off to J & B quit shop in Sunset.  Now this shop is stuffed with fabric .  It's very hard to find things in there, but I had a mission.  I'm doing a swap with my group Apple Crispers' and we're doing nine patches and half square triangles.  The pattern is by Lynn Roddy Brown.  She used green setting triangles.  I had to try this, so I'll use one or the other.  We'll see.

 The best part was we ran into Joann sister in law Jean and her friends.  Hugs and introduction all around.  Then we meet them for lunch 11 of us in all.  Really had a great time.

Next, we went to Broussard to a quilt shop called A and A Quilt Shop  Such a nice shop with lots of great offerings  Here, I found this Christmas fabric on sale.  They had a special on end of bolt and I got it for 50% off. Yea! My intent is to make and Irish Chain lap quilt for me.

Sewing room happening

This is my work area by my machine  Here, I'm working on Circa 1800's Club.  These are the last two batches of 50 with 10 of us altogether.
I'm messy when I work, always have been.  Since these are 2 In. finished seam allowance is critical.  Thank goodness for the little template you see here to trim these up.
And of course the ever present cup of coffee.

A closer view, couldn't decide which so I put them both.

I have switched now  to my scrape cutting area.  Again very messy and ever present cup of coffee.

I decided to work smarter and made me a rough list of what I'm working on.
My scrapes are the current ones out in plain sight.  So many others hiding out.  Mostly these are for Leader and enders I have in progress.

Tiding Up

My tidy bobbin ring!

My top drawer

I've been reading on the "Blogger" so many really good articles on cleaning up the sewing room.  What I've taken from all this reading is doing small things and get some progress made.  These two pictures are just  small things, but sure feels good to have done.

One article I read suggested putting away 5 things when you come into your sewing room each time.  Now I'm not always feeling like going in there, but when I do I put away 5 things.  

Another thing Ive been doing is stopping and sorting, throwing out things no longer needed and clean one area.  I'm doing this all over the house. 

The Year Behind

Progress on the Five Year quilt, I"m now ready to applique' to the border  fabric I picked out with the help of the Sewing Ladies

This quilt is from the I Love Churn Dashes Quilt  Still needs binding.  I showed it at Happy Scrappers last month.  Lots of good suggestions for Bindings.

I'm not sure this has ever been on the blog, and I'm not sure when I made it .  The quilting is beautiful and I this Polly did the quilting. I gifted this to my brother in law for Christmas.

This quilt sampler was a pattern from the LQS which has been closed for a while, like years  ago. I gifted this one to my sister in law. I love the back.  I pieced it from the border fabric and a tonal from the line of fabric.  Don't remember the line. I think they named the quilt Louisiana Purchase.

The biggest gift back for me was how happy they both were to receive these quilts out of the blue and the quilts went in their room so well.