Christmas Quilts

I've finally gotten over my 2-month "block"of not feeling much like sewing and I'm back to multiple projects--LOL! First, I'm making Bonnie Hunter's annual mystery quilt which started on Thanksgiving. I'm proud of myself for keeping up with every week's 'clue' but have to come clean: After making Bonnie's wonderful scrap quilts for 2 years now, I've learned my lesson! I'm making a very small quilt--half the size of Bonnie's 'small' quilt. My colors are different than hers too: aqua, lime, lilac and yellow/gold (although it looks orange here).

And. . . I started another project too *sigh*
Every year since I've been quilting, round about November, all I want to do is make Christmas quilts and every year I'm just SURE I'm going to want to make nothing but Christmas quilts ALL year. By about mid-February, I'm on to spring florals--SO, I have to get going on this adorable "Deck the Halls" quilt! 


I'm going to make it smaller than the pattern to fit on my foyer wall so I'm making 2 of these units and 3 of the applique units and reducing the size of everything. Instead of 3" finished half-square triangles, mine will be 2 1/2" and the wool applique candies and gingerbread men will be 2/3 their size. It will end up about 38" x 45".

Wonder if there's any other Christmas quilts to see on Judy's blog for Design Wall Monday!

Ahoy, It's A Boy!

It's been ages since I've posted but life has been tempting me with things other than quilting! My husband is retired now and travel seems to take up a lot of our time--no, I'm NOT complaining--LOL!

My daughter's best friend is expecting her second child on Christmas day and I wanted to make a quilt for her as I did for her adorable first child. Here's the cute story: It's a boy and they've named him Pierce. She promised her husband if he'd agree to have a THIRD child, (yes, she loves parenthood that much!) she would let her husband get a boat. Thus the theme of little Pierce's bedroom: Ahoy, it's a boy. Here's my rendition in quilt form--Minkee on back, of course!

A Finished Top!

Remember the Wagon Wheels blocks I made a couple of weeks ago in a Sandy Klop class? I decided 4 would be enough what with sashing, a first border, a piano keys second border and another plain border. (I'm loving that red!) This finished 44" square and is the perfect size for the wall quilt rack in my foyer. AND, since this week commemorates the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, the Civil War reproduction fabrics I used are appropriate. I was able to show this top to my Civil War-buff husband on Father's Day, promising him I would finish quilting it within a couple of weeks. 

Here's the quilt I just hung in my foyer rack: the block exchange I did with my quilting group, the Calendar Girls, at the end of last year. Really gets me in the spirit for the 4th of July!

Did you post your week's efforts on Judy's Design Wall Monday?

McCloud Retreat!

Every year by best quilting buddies and I go to northern California for a retreat in the pines in the tiny, historic town of McCloud. There we stay in a 100+ year old building with an inn (and huge classroom) on the top floor and shops and restaurants on the main floor fronted by a wide porch with benches and flowerboxes. It's pretty much the same as it's been for decades except for the upgraded rooms at the inn. Along with the wavy glass in the extra tall windows and antique-looking fixtures, the bathrooms and beds are pristine and plush and the reproduction wallpaper (including William Morris designs!)--Delightful!

I vowed not to buy any fabric even though we stopped at 2 quilt shops on the way. I have more than my sewing room can tolerate as it is! but we had a vendor at the retreat with really good prices on really nice fabric and since my batik and 30s stash is pretty meager, I purchased 5 yards in 1/2-yard pieces (middle row in the photo). Then we played a hand of "Batik Poker". There were 15 of us taking part so 5 of us tossed a fat quarter of batik into the pot and drew a card. Highest card won all 5. I won with a King! This was repeated with 2 other groups of 5. At the end there were 3 of us with 5 fat quarters each. All 3 of us set our winnings on the table for an all-or-nothing draw of a card! First card was a 9, next card was a King, my card was. . . an ACE!!! I won all the fat quarters!! There they are along the left side of this photo.

Then we had an Auction with all proceeds going to the American Cancer Society. There were about a dozen wonderful prizes on display at each of us could bid on. Where do the prizes come from? They're donated by us quilters, of course. There were big baskets of yummy foods, fancy bags of fabric, home and yard decorations, anything you could think of! I had my eye on the fat quarter tower that came in a delightful basket-purse and ended up the high bidder!! (Its on the upper right in the photo next to the column of fabric that came inside it). I also bid on a basket full of wonderful Sunsweet items donated by a lady who runs the Sunsweet Growers Store in Yuba City, CA. It's the best gift shop I know and I use their shipping service every year to send delicious and useful items to loved ones at Christmas.

So all totaled, 13.5 yards of fabric!! I should be ashamed of myself. . . 

 I figure I sat at my sewing machine for about 28 hours from Friday afternoon until Sunday at noon. WELL--a girl's gotta EAT! I brought 4 projects to work on but only ended up doing two: an apron from a darling pattern I found, and the 1st and 2nd months in the BOM I'm starting (a Nancy Rink pattern through ThimbleCreek Quilt Shop in Concord CA) and a paper-pieced pattern I've been putzing with for a couple of years. 



I started with the BOM because the quilt has 68 fairly intricate blocks and this BOM is only 6 months! Yeah. . . do the math! I spent the first 13 hours making the blocks you see on my design wall. That's all of month one and 1/3 of month 2. But if you see the finished quilt you'll know why I couldn't resist!


Next I made "My Neighbor's Apron", a pull-over-your-head apron sort of like a smock and just adorable! Well, that left not too many hours to sew. I did a little paper-piecing on an on-going project the rest of the time. 

Aren't retreats the greatest?! Why not sign up for one yourself? And take a look at Judy's Design Wall Monday while you're at it!

Wagon Wheels

I took a wonderful class last Saturday with Sandy Klop of American Jane! A more delightful speaker/teacher you'll never meet! I know you've all seen her charming and fun designs full of nostalgic 50s and 60s kids and animals with the bright colors of that day reproduced.

Sandy spoke to our guild the night before the class giving us the story of her journey of becoming the beloved quilter she is today. She showed probably 40 of her colorful quilts--EACH and EVERY ONE of which I LOVED!! Take a look at her blog and the American Jane pattern and book page.

Anyway, the pattern we made was Wagon Wheels, a 15" block that's a mostly paper-pieced design. This photo shows her fabrics but I had this Fat Eighth bundle of Barbara Brackman's "Metropolitan Fair" line (which I fell in love with several months ago) and felt this pattern was perfect for it. I also changed it to be totally scrappy (my blocks are below) which I really like.There are 57 pieces in each block and curved piecing so I was only able to make 2 1/2 blocks in the class. But I continued for another couple of hours when I got home and ended up with 4. I plan to make 9 total.



I'm off on a 3-day quilting retreat to the Mt. Shasta area so will have time to make more of these blocks. I'm also bringing 4 other projects along so I can bounce around as the mood strikes. Should have a lot to show at next week's Design Wall Monday!

Two Tops and Three Tops-

Two tops--My quilting group, The Calendar Girls, got together all day Saturday and sewed quilts for community service. We'd independently been making 9" blocks for a couple of months in two color-ways, red, white and blue and batik and white. We had a little contest to guess how many total blocks would be turned in to make the quilts and I was overwhelmed with the total: 141 blocks were made by the 15 people in the group! No one came close to guessing that many. After 7 hours, we had 6 tops made! Here are 2 of them, before borders.

Three tops--
Remember that duct tape dress form class I took a couple of weeks ago? I put it to good use this last week and had a great time making 3 tops that I LOVE! The white one with the red and pink border is made from a vintage linen tablecloth from the 50s. The blue one is the same Simplicity pattern made of a flowy rayon. The other is a gauzy fabric with a Butterick pattern that wasn't so easy to work with but I Frenched all the seams and it will be nice and cool in our 100+ degree summer.
 So, did you post to Judy's Design Wall Monday today?

Round Robin--FINISHED!

Is there a better feeling than completely finishing a quilt? I finally had time to finish the round robin quilt I made in a series of classes at Thimble Creek, that wonderful quilt shop in Concord, CA. We started with a center block of our choice and had four more rounds. I was inspired by Freddy Moran's love of "brights with black and white"so that's what I made for the center. I also told everyone that I wanted this quilt to be small so I could hang it in our foyer. Boy, did everyone come through! the first two borders were made by the quilt shop's owners, Roxie and Joe Wood--aren't they cute?! The third border, sorry to say, was made by one of the other talented round robin-ers whose name I can't remember--sorry! At that point, I was ready to say that I didn't want a fourth border I loved it so much as it was but Sandy Klop (of American Jane fame) said, "Oh, I know what I'd do with it!" Tell me, would you say 'no' to having sweet, wonderful Sandy add something fun to your quilt? Me either!! And look at the adorable 'twister' blocks she added for the perfect finish!

I love my round robin quilt! It measures 41" square, perfect! And I quilted it really nicely with little circles in the yellow border and following the peaks in the colored points and making flowers in the colored squares all using variegated thread. I certainly do have an easier time completing smaller quilts. I tell myself over and over to just do small projects. Hasn't worked very well.

Get over to Judy's design wall Monday post and see what other clever people have finished!