Cathedral window Quilt

I finally finished my third Cathedral Window Quilt, that I made for a Christmas. I think I started it in May, and mostly worked on it while watching TV.

Finished Projects

I have had 4 quilt tops done for some time, but have just not been in the mood to put them together. I went down to visit my sister, who also qullts. She has a nice tall queensize bed, which we lay out the quilt, batting and backs on. so we can pin them together. I made two lap size maple leaf quilts, a scrappy  tulip quilt, and  a summer winds quilt.
Once they are layered it doesn't take to long to put the binding on and tie them. I enjoy doing handwork while watching TV. It helps to keep me a wake to see a whole show. Their has been many a time, though, that I have fallen asleep with the needle in my hand.

Nova Scotia Trip

Last summer, Evelyn, a friend of mine,and I took a trip to Nova Scotia. We have been their severak times and enjoyed stopping at a nice Bed and Breakfast in Creignish. It use to be an old school house. We loved it as the dining table is set in front of a huge, (really huge) picture window. In front of the window are all sorts of flowers. She has quite a few hummingbird feeders hanging right outside. Theri is also food put out for various rabbits, red squirrels, and chipmonks.
It is fascinating to sit their eating breakfast, and see the panorama  of flowers, constant hummingbirds,at  the  feeders,and other animal life.
We became quite friendly with the woman who owns it. She tried to teach us how to play the dulcimer, make jewelry with copper  wiring, and jewels etc,,Unfortunately, I am not a very good music  student.
Evelyn, and I decided we would share our craft with her too. That fall we got together to  make her a Maple Quilt, and send it to her. At the same time I made  the exact quilt for a nephew,  and his future wife for their wedding. I like to put a label with their names and the date of their marriage.
I have a lot of friends that come from Canadien background, and a Maple Quilt seems to be appropriate for them. They are very pretty and easy to make.
If you ever get the chanceto go down east, Nova Scotia has beautiful scenery, and not a lot of traffic, but great roads.

Curtains and Quilts

Last year, I decided, I was sick  of looking at all the curtains in the house, and it was time for a change. I have a very small house, but still  needed nine sets of drapes, and two picture window drapes.  I lined them all as it is good insulation in the winter.
My sister and friend love to yard sale,or as another friend says shopping at " sidewalk boutiques."  You could say this is our weekend entertainment. You would be surprised at how much new material you can find this way. Anything I buy I just throw it in the washing machine first, then I know it is clean and preshrunk. All my drapes have been made, from materials we picked up.
I usually line them with inexpensve white sheets from Wallmart. It is a lot cheaper than buying lining by the yard. Yard sales are also great for picking up used sewing machines. If you  know anything about the care of machines you can get some really great buys.
One of the last finds we bought, was a huge bolt of material, thet we devided between three of us.. We have all made at least one set of curtains each and used some for backing a quilt. I know I stilll have some of it around in my stash.

One of the last bolts of material we found, and split, I made my son's curtains and a quilt to match. It had boats and nautical scenes on it. The name of the quilt was Patience Corner. My son is very tall and I did not make it quite long enough, so I had to make several more blocks and add on to it.I didn't pull it apart, just attached another row on. I did it after this picture was taken.
At the same time I made another one for a nephew in West Virginia.

Mary's Fourth of July Party

Every fourth of July for the last several years, our friend Mary,her husband Jake,and family, have had all our crowd over for a fireworks party.  Mary is a marvelous cook, enjoys entertaining, and loves people. We never go anywhere without bumping into someone that Mary knows.
We go  early and  the younger ones are their too. We feast on appetizers, then the main course. When we are sufficiently stuffed and can't eat another bite, we go out front in comfy lawn chairs and watch the fireworks. Of course they are always spectacular.
As Mary , will not let us contribute by bringing any food to the affair. I decided I would make her  a  quilt for her and her husband to commemorate the occassion. I made a Log Cabin Quilt out of red, and blue plaid, and white centers. In the center block, I copied the picture of a fireworks spray. Unfortunately, I had only been able to pick up the small transfer paper, so the next year, I made another the same but with a larger  picture. I labeled it with Mary's Fireworks Extravaganza, and date.

A Great Buy

One day at our favorite enterainment, namely, going to yard sales, I found a great buy. I  came across an Around The World Quilt top. It was all finished except the borders. and of course filling and backing it. It even had the matching borders all cut out and ready to go. Their were even enough extra put together , that I did up as a baby quilt. I thought it had beautiful colors.

Pin Wheel Quilts

Evelyn, a friend of mine, made a beautiful pin wheel quilt in red print, that I just loved. Of course, I had to try one.    I decided to make one for a Christmas gift for my friend Lorraine. I first met Lorraine in Sunday School, when we were proabably about 8 years old.We have been friends ever since. She had just papered her bedroom in a pretty blue and pink flowered wall paper. I chose a pretty small flowered print with a white background. It was called Scrappy Quilt. I can't remember what site put it out. It has kind of a 3 D effect. I also made a couple of pinwheels, and altenated with a simple square block.

Christmas With Cy, my 2 year old grandson

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My randson Cy, lives in Waterville, ME. with my son, Charlie and his wife Laura,so we don't get to see each other that often. We do play phone tag a lot though.
They usually come down for Christmas, and I get up at least once in the summer. This year his car broke down, so my son Larry and I went to Maine instead. Larry and Charlie hoped to fix the car.
When Cy was born, I made him a couple of quilts. One was embroidered  blocks of bears, and bunnies. The embroidery took too long for my taste. I also made a mistke on the borders. I should have joined them diagonally at the corners. Didn't think of that till it was all finished, and wasn't going to pull it out. I can't remember what the other quilt was. At my age, I am allowed to be forgetful.
Last Christmas, seeing that he was nearing two years old, I thought I would make him a twin sizequilt. I found a Ships at Sea pattern on about.com. Christmas Day he ignord all presents, but loved the bannana box, we carried the presents up in. He sat in it and played with some of his old toys and had a grand time.

My niece Marcia's wedding was coming up, so I decided to try a Tulip Quilt. I used a small red printand a small green print forthe leaves. It worked up quickly. I mostly make machine quilts.
When I finished that I made a small nap quilt, in pinks and lavender, for her mother, who is always cold. Just the right size to pull over you while snoozing in a recliner or couch.
Three of my girl friends who are in a Women's Club, and were running a raffle for some cause, so I made another in deeper reds, and greens. I liked the darker colors best of all.

Wedding Bells

Wedding Bells

Dresden Plate Quilts continued

I don't know what I am doing wrong, but when I put in several photos, only one is printing. Obviously, I am not doing something right.  However the good news they uploaded so much quicker. I hope I figure this out.

Autumn Blues

I can't believe that summer is almost over. It has been such a wierd summer. At first it seemed to do nothing but rain. Then of course it goes right into terrific heat.
 Last year I planted blue morning glories to climb over a bench with an archway over it. They did pretty good. This year I bought more expensive seeds and they really didn't do much at all. I guess it was all the rain we had.
Why is it when it is about to frost all the flowers look so beautiful. We might as well enjoy them while we can. Here is a picture of it with my 10 year old Toyota. I hope it last me a little longer.

Crazy Quilt

New Log Cabin Quilt

Trying to reduce the stash of material by making Linus quilts

I goofed and didn't get the Linus quilts printed with  Reducing the stash of materials. I am definitely a novice at this.Here are the other quilts I meant to put in.

Crazy Quilt with borders between blocks

One of the crazy quilts ,I decided to put  borders around each block . It gave it a litle different look and help to make a larger quilt.. I also used all my leftover pieces from borders to make another border around it all.

Diamondds are a girl's best friend

Here is another Diamond Quilt. I think the Diamond pattern is quite impressive.I have made quite a few of them as they look so good on the bed.
My sister Elly made matching pillow shams with a ruffle around them. She just keeps two extra pillows for show and throws them off at night. The room looks so nice with it on.
I have never made the pillows, as I have given all of them away except one, that I made, for myself, that is just great to pull over you for an afternoon nap.Very warm and cozy.

Schoolhouse Lessons

I decided to make a School House Quilt. I didn't think it would be that difficult.
For some reason I had more trouble with this pattern, than with ones I thought were more complex. I don't know,  joining seams, lining up, it was just an aggravation. never the less, it finally got finished.
 I gave it to my daughter in law, Laura.She likes to collect quilts.

An earlier quilt.

Way back when we first started, I picked up some material that had cute quilting scenes on it . They were done in blocks, like a picture frame. I decided to cut out the individual blocks and make a quilt out of it. Actually it was the size you could just throw on the back of the couch.

A few more Linus Quilts

Everyonce in a while, when I need a break from larger quilts, I do a a few quilts for the Linus Foundation. One day we went shopping at sidewalk boutiques,(yard sales) and we found a lot of unfinished projects that some quilter had made. Very hard to pass these up.
 Eventually I added on to these to make some small quilts. Others  were made out of my stash of material.

Believe the Directions

Last year my niece Christina was getting married. She has always loved the Cathedral Window Quilt, so I decided it was time, I tried it.
The first try was a disaster. The directions say to use muslin, as the backing. I thought regular cotton would be much stronger. "Big mistake" Because you fold the materials in a way that you are dealing with four, and sometimes eight layers of cloth.
 I had to use a thimble, to push, a needle through, and sometimes a clamp to pull it through. I soon gave up on that and went out and bought a bolt of muslin, and eventually nine yards more.
It was much easier with muslin. It still took me many months to finish it,  but I really loved the finished project.

Being of the old  school, don;t waste anything, I eventually finished the first one, but will stick to muslin fom now on. I am working on  another one now.  It is great to take  few of the blocks to work on when you have to wait someplace or when traveling.

Little stars on the prairie

I tried this next pattern, which looked very difficult as you read throgh it.When you went through it one step at a time, it was really not that difficult. I rather like this pattern.

I decided as I am getting older, and my hands are getting stiffer, it would be smart to make a quilt to put aside for all my grandchildren for their future wedding.

A little silly, as some are around 10 years old. Actually I have one new grandchild a boy who just turned two recently. I thought I had them all done. Now I will have to think about that. I just recently made him a Ships at Sea Quilt at Christmas time.

Basket Quilt

I found a BOM pattern of a Basket quilt. I can't for the life of me remember what BOM stands for, something of the month. I believe I got the pattern from the Quiltaholic's Page. I love that site.

This was a fun quilt to make, as each basket was a little different. It was supposed to be a square quilt, but I like them to be a little longer than wide, I just added an extra piece to the top and bottom, before adding the borders. I think, I made this for my daughter=in-law Laura.

Charity Quilts

Smalll Crazy Quilt with pigs in center

Small printed Sunbonnet Sue & Christmas motif quilt

Sunbonnet Sue & Crazy QuiltPreprinted Sunbonnet Sue & appliqued Sunbonnets Sue

Two machine appliqued Sunbonnet

A lot of quilters make quilts for different organizations. My local Senior Center collects them for the Linus Foundation. I believe they are given to children, of all ages. Most ofthe time I make small ones, but do make a few larger ones for teens, etc.

A lot of the ones I made, the director of the center had a lot of preprinted materials of animals, and children related materials. So many are made or centered around these prints. You always have odds and ends of batting, and sometimes I just use flannel for a filler.

Using up all the fabric scraps

After you have made a few quilts, you begin to notice all the leftover scraps. Quilters can never throw a nice piece of material away. I use a lot of the scraps for making Crazy Quilts. It is relaxing , after working on a lot of pattern quilts, just to sit down and do Crazy Quilts. You can sew any scrap of any size, mixing any color you like. Just sit ddown and do a few squares, and forget about them til you feel in the mood again. I usually try and make different borders, and sometimes put a border, between the blocks.

When making some for children, I often put some thing of interest to them inthe center of each block. They uhave lots of bright colors that children like.

My sister Elly had made a lovely Diamond Quilt, and it looked so nice on her bed. Naturally I had to try one. The problem with trying a new pattern, you get carried away and usually end up making three or four.

I enjoy working on them, but it is much more fun when you get together with friends or family, to sew and chat. We often go to each other 's house for a day or two.

I am going to try and atach some Diammond Quilts.