One block at a time - it could happen!

Now that I am retired, I am hoping to spend more time whittling down my pile of quilting projects - new, old and well, vintage.  I was reading one of my favorite quilting blogs over the weekend and learned of a great way to do this - one block at a time, one day of the week! 

When I learned of this, I had two projects in mind.  One is a queen sized log cabin quilt in greens and off-whites with reddish-orange centers.  I have a large amount of fabrics stored away for this project but nothing is cut yet.  The other project is a lap sized quilt of 10" blocks with 2" sashing plus borders.  The blocks are the monkey wrench pattern and the fabrics are scraps from past Civil War quilt projects.  This was originally started as a class project but was never finished.  I chose this one to do as the Scrap Basket Sunday project because the fabrics are already cut.  Since I now split the majority of my time between urban life in NJ and mountain life in PA, I need to have projects that are appropriate for both places.  This one will be perfect for the mountain house, and it most likely will "live" there after it is completed.  I had no idea that this would be a variation of the the same block that Kim has chosen to do until I read further in her blog! 

Here is what I am using for this project with one completed block: 

 

I will be bringing one of my spare machines to the mountain house so I can chain piece the cut fabrics contained in the box.  The timing is good - this Saturday is opening day of trout season in PA.  Anyone who has a fisherman in the family knows what this means!  

 

 

 



Ava's Wish

I've been vacationing in Florida for Spring Break - my 7 year old granddaughter's spring break that is!  The Hubs and I took the Amtrak AutoTrain down to Sandford, Florida which is very near DeLand.  This was our first stop so I could visit the Quilt Shop of DeLand.  I did manage to find some interesting fabrics for the electric box cover project.  I will audition these fabrics later this week to see which one (or both) works as a suitable disguise for the ugly gray circuit breaker box in our family room.  I will post the completed cover or covers when it is in place.

I also was able to visit one more quilt shop (Peggy's Heirlooms of Tomorrow) in Ocala, the town where we were staying for the week.  There were many more quilt shops in years past but one by one they have closed.  This one is in a new outdoor mall and is very near two sporting goods shops which keeps the Hubs busy while I shop to my heart's content. 

This trip, I had my granddaughter with me.  As we entered the shop, she noticed a particular fabric on display.  She loved it and she said she wished I would make her Dad a quilt from it.  Of course I said I would, so one more, no two more, projects have been added to my list.  Here are the fabrics she picked:

 

These folks in Florida sure love their football teams and the Florida Gators are one of the favorites, and my son is a big fan - a big fan!  Gator stuff is ubiquitious no matter where you go!  So we bought some Gator fabric and the coordinating colors - dark green, royal blue, orange and white.  I have not yet decided if I want to do 9-patch blocks for fence rail blocks for the front (or maybe the back will be the blocks).  But the quilt will be called "Ava's Wish". 

 

The second project is to make a pillow case from the same fabrics for my sweet granddaughter, but shhhhh, don't tell, it's a surprise!  

National Quilting Day - my way!

National Quilting Day was established in 1991 by the National Quilting Association. Officially, National Quilting Day is the third Saturday in March, which would be today.  Unofficially, the celebration has expanded to the entire month. 

I would love to have an entire month to do nothing but quilt, however, now that I am retired, I am busier than ever!  I have been busy finishing the quilt below however.  It is for my sister's grandson.  I especially liked the fact that she came with me to the LQS to pick out the fabrics.  I think she did a nice job.  It was supposed to have a different binding on it but when I showed her the quilt after the quilting was finished (another fabulous job by Karen Thompson) she thought yellow would look better.  I agreed, however, I did not have enough of the yellow fabric shown in the middle star so an extensive search began.  I didn't find the exact match, but I found one that really complements the other colors.  Below are pictures of the front and back of the quilt along with a close up of the beautiful quilting. This quilt be will on its way to Colorado in 10 days and hand delivered by my sister to her very sweet grandson! 

For the rest of National Quilting Day, (the Hubs made a wonderful blueberry pancake and sausage breakfast and has corned beef and cabbage on the stove for dinner, so no cooking for me today), I am digesting the contents of the magazines displayed below.  Hopefully I will find a new tip or technique to try or a pattern to add to my ever growing project list!   

Now, one of my next projects will be to make a small wallhanging to cover the electrical box shown in the picture below.  This is in our lower floor family room of our new mountain house.  We need to be able to access this box once when we arrive and just before we leave so we can't just cover it up.  I have solved the access problem by purchasing a very decorative swing arm curtain rod which will hold the wallhanging very nicely. So it can just be swung (is that even a word?) out of the way when needed.  Now I just need to figure out what to make!  Stay tuned!  

Feast or Famine

Well, my retirement didn't start out exactly as I had planned.  Within one week of my retiring, I ended up with gallbladder surgery which really knocked the wind out of my sails for several weeks.  Of course, there was no other option other than the surgery so I just rested, recuperated and relaxed. 

With that out of the way, I am now knee deep in quilting projects.  Some are oldies but goodies but some are new.  I am trying to finish up some older projects that just needed quilting and binding.  But I am also selecting and cutting fabrics for some new projects, mostly baby quilts.  Now that we have a mountain house in PA, I am doing all of my hand sewing of bindings and hand piecing projects there and all of the cutting and piecing steps at our NJ home.  That may change in time but for now I have enough to keep me busy in both locations. 

This week we are in the mountain house so I brought a binding project to complete.  This was an older project that was an online mystery quilt project.  I finally brought it to the longarm quilter with three other quilts so it is now ready for binding.  I haven't decided where this quilt will eventually "live" but it is one of the few quilts in progress that isn't a gift for someone else!

My next project will be binding two wall hangings that I may use in the mountain house.  I am auditioning one of them this week to see if it works here.  Here is a picture of one of them.  Both wall hangings are identical. 

These will be bound in the burgandy fabric which will make them stand out nicely on the wall.  I will post pictures when the binding is completed on both of these.  This is hung using a "Hang it, Dang it" quilt hanger.  Easy to use and it hangs on one nail!  Self leveling to boot!  Love these! 

I should have two more projects to post soon.  These two are gifts so I don't want to post the pictures until they are given to the recipient. 

I will say, it has been feast or famine this month but having a mountain house has certainly kept me motivated to keep things moving so I have something to sew when we are here.  But hey, whatever works in my quest to quilt!