Grandma's Country Album

I found another Robert Callaham pattern....actually, 2 more.  this one is called Grandma's Country Album. i really like these quilts that he designed and am happy to have 2 more to do.

Here is the finished quilt.  more of those little squares for the sashings. but a different border.

Grandma's Cabin...these patterns are found in old McCall's Quilting magazines. i have been scouring the internet to find them. the magazine that had this pattern had several pages missing...including the pullout section for the pattern. but that only had the trees, heart and sidewalk, so i could draw them myself. but, the measurements to cut out the house pieces had 2 incorrect measurements. so that took a bit of head scratching until i got it figured out. the sidewalk not meeting the doorway properly is simply my error of not paying close enough attention. we'll just say the cabin shifted a bit on it's foundation....that's my story and i'm stickin' to it. hahahaha

Margrit's Star...this block was pieced a bit differently than usual. the only set in seams were the ones around the edge..the background cream. and there was no .... stop stitching 1/4 inch short to set them in. it went very smoothly. i liked that.

Classic Basket...just a cute little basket with flowers and leaves. simple

Time to go get more blocks together.

See you later

JudyL's Scrappy Challenge for 2014

Judy Laquidara of  www.patchworktimes.com   always comes up with fun things to do. this year it is a scrappy challenge. and we all have scraps, don't we?  some of us more than others....no names mentioned here. hahaha

On the second of each month, she will give us a block. we are to make as many of those blocks as we wish....using our scraps. Judy's plan was at the end of each month you were to use however many blocks you had made that month and make something with them. made one block....you make a potholder or mug rug.  made 3 or 4 blocks....make a table runner. and so on.

But, being the rebel that i am .... you saw that coming, right?..... i am making the blocks each month but keeping them all to make into sampler quilts at the end of the year. who knows how many quilts i will get pieced out of these blocks....could be 1....could be half a dozen.

This is this month's block ...... i made 10 of them.

2 of these

2 of these

2 of these

2 of these

1 of this one

and, 1 of this one.

i am going with a red, white and blue theme at this point. if i run out of rwb scraps i will switch to something else. but, there won't be any running out anytime soon i don't think. unless block pieces are larger than my scraps. but i think it will all work out. i THINK these are 12" blocks but don't hold me to that....but that is close. if i make 10 blocks a month all year...that's 120 blocks. wow....that's a few quilts, right?

Do you know of anyone who has used up all their scraps? or...shudder.....someone who doesn't save scraps and throws them all away?   i do know someone who throws away. almost makes me cry.

Block Rockin' Series

While scrolling through blogs and more blogs and links to even more blogs the other day...i came across this....  www.627handworks.com    go there and click on the top where it says 'free paper piecing patterns'. the blocks are awesome.

She is calling them the Block Rockin' Series. they are named after rock and roll bands.....the oldie but goodie guys. 

Here are the first 2 i have finished.

The Bowie..

The Zeppelin...

I will use the same black and white eyeball burning print for the background on all of them. and the same colors...orange, green, blue, yellow, red, white and black. if i find i need another color later in the series i will add a purple. i am trying for wild and bright colors with crazy patterns.

After all, that is what Block Rockin' is all about.

Go check them out.

My Town .... Corner Store

Here is another block in the My Town quilt....found in Australian Homespun circa 2012. 

This one was pretty simple. not much stitching after tacking everything down.

Corner store sign at the top...with 2 stars for the Starlight Foundation. check out that red and white striped awning. love it.

The welcome mat is out; there are apples for sale outside on the table, and flowers in the window boxes. and the open sign is out.

Flowers in the window box and lollipops and windmills in the outside table. 

A cute simple little block. looks a little puckery....i might have stitched a bit too tight. do better next time.

More Robert Callaham quilts

While at the studio today, i was looking through some old McCall's Quilting magazines.

Lo and Behold!! .... i found 2 more Robert Callaham quilts that i want to make....from 1998 and 1999. i have one issue from each year .... and need 10 more issues for both quilts.

I went online to eBay and Amazon and found all 10 issues that i needed in a couple hours. now i am all excited and just waiting for them to arrive so i can start me some more Roberts. ahahahhaha

Now, the question is....do i want to do the applique in wool felt....like the first one....i really liked that. if so, then i need to order more wool since all i have is black. i'll give that some thought. i'll have to do some serious shopping in my stash and see what fabrics will work. that might be a trick. 

I did find a couple other Robert Callaham's in later issues but it seems he is getting into the more modern looking quilts. there was one that was a strip quilt....didn't look like his style at all. so, unless i come across some other really old issues with other quilts of his....i'm thinking these are the last 2 i will make of his. 

But they should keep me busy for a while. it's not like i have nothing else to do. hahahahaha

More on this later.

Dear Jane .... I'm through with you

Yesterday I finished my Dear Jane quilt....the quilt that i have been working on for the past 2 1/2 years....the quilt that i started to hand quilt....the quilt that sat in a chair for about 6 months because i got tired of hand quilting it. LOL

So, i finally decided if it was EVER going to get done.....i needed to put it on the longarm and finish quilting it. SID around all the pieces in all blocks....all 225 blocks (counting border).... middle mostly machine quilted....edges (border and first row or 2) mainly hand quilted. 

Loading it was not a problem, really. but i had to pull out all the basting stitches before i could quilt it. i pulled out 2 rows at a time. it doesn't get as taut on the machine once you hand quilt around the edges and just have the middle basted. but i made it work.

I even labeled it with my name and city and the start and finish date. started may 14, 2012; finished january 22, 2014.

Last night i cut around all the scallops. i used scrap strips for binding so it has several colors in the binding. i put it on my machine and thought i would have to hand sew it down....but was able to machine sew the binding on, also. otherwise, it might be sitting in a chair for months again. hahahaha

This morning i threw it in the washer and dryer and it is now all crinkly and homey. it is about 90" square.

I really liked making all the little blocks....that was the fun part of this quilt. some are pieced...a lot are paper pieced....some are applique. i used muslin for the back and background and quilted with white thread.

There were 2 or 3 blocks that were impossible to piece so i kind of fudged those blocks...but i couldn't tell you now which they were. 

All in all, it's one of my favorite quilts. i tried to make each block with different fabric and i think i succeeded in that pretty well. there might be one or two that are duplicate fabrics. but when i started this i had an extensive stash to choose fabrics from.

Would i make another one? .... probably not.
Did i enjoy making this one? .... definitely

Now....on to something a bit less challenging.

My Town....from Australian Homespun

Here is my new hand sewing project for this year. it is called My Town and the patterns are found in the Australian Homespun magazines running from Vol. 12 # 3 through Vol. 12 #12.  I am still searching for #9.  i had a heck of a time finding the ones that i have. one i found on eBay and it actually came from Australia...postage costing more than the magazine. 

The fabric line used is Wild Rose designed by Blackbird Designs for Moda. this was a 2011 fabric so it is also extremely difficult to find. i still am missing 1 fabric and on the search for it. hopefully by the time i need a piece of it, i will have found it. 

This project was put together by some of the finest designers in Australia....each of them making a block. and then the quilt was raffled off to make money for a charity in Australia called Starlight Children's Foundation which helps seriously ill and hospitalized children. 

Here is a picture of the entire quilt. it is so soft and warm looking...great colors.

The first block was a Quilt Shop....naturally. LOL    according to the directions, you cut out the pieces and fuse them to the background. then stitch around the pieces and add the details with embroidery. and that is exactly what i did.

I thought it would go quicker than it did.....it took me several evenings to finish. there is a lot of detail.

The ladies are showing up for class. See that little star above the head of the girl in blue. it is hanging from the clothesline and was put there by the designer to represent the Starlight Foundation. the second block has a couple stars, too. i'm thinking there might be a star in each block. i think that is very cool. good thinking.

It is hard to do letters very tiny. my bored husbands chair is testament to that. hahaha  but perhaps it is just me. 

This was so much fun to do. i have the second block fused together and ready to start stitching. it is the Country Store. lots of detail there, too. 

I'm going to try and stay on this project and get it finished in a timely fashion. 

Robert Callaham's Floral Garden is a top

I have finished the Floral Garden quilt top designed by Robert Callaham. the pattern was found in an old McCall's Quilting magazine...i think about 2004.  been working on this one most of last year so am happy to have it set together so i can move on to other things.....and i have...hahaha.....more to come on that later.

Here is the top. it is huge and i had a time getting it all in the pic.and, yeah, it is wrinkly. i had it folded up and stuffed in the cabinet and realized i hadn't taken pics so had to dig it back out. it is going to be fun to quilt....someday. hahahaha

Here are the blocks from the bottom half which i haven't shown earlier. i have been lax...my bad.  this block had set in seams but it was relatively easy. i think i might be getting the hang of it.

This one was mostly pieced with just a bit of applique. check out those crazy quilt squares in the corners.

Cute little birds. at this point in the project, i had about used up my wool felt. the red was gone...so pink flowers. the blue was gone...so pink birds.  purple bow instead of red. the only wool i have left is black, green, purple and pink. good thing this one is all pieced.

This block....ahhh, Robert, i was surely calling you names while piecing this block. not only are there set in seams...but they are all CURVY.  i would do a couple seams and set it down and walk away. after a couple days i would come back and do a couple more seams.  this block by itself took me over a week. LOL and then i had to starch and steam the heck out of it. it's a bit wonky but the best i could do.

More pink birds...hahaha     the inside of the heart has a crazy quilt heart. i followed the directions and used a plain piece in the middle but it seemed too plain to me so i embroidered a red heart in the middle of it. i think it is better now. 

Hopefully i can get this quilted up this year. i have so many quilts to do but i really like this one, so maybe it will get finished in the top of the queue.

It wasn't hard....except those set in seam blocks.....just tedious.  and a whole lot of 2 1/2" squares pieced together.  

It's a keeper.

Green Circle Selvages

Sometimes it is difficult to come up with a different pattern for using selvages. I've been wanting to try circles. I had the Tri Recs rulers for another project and it seemed like that would work.

I cut base fabrics 7" by about 28" .... that would allow me to cut 6 pieces out of each one...enough to make one circle.  after stitching selvages on it, i trimmed it to 6 1/2" wide and then cut out pieces with the Tri Recs ruler and then put 6 of them together to form a circle .... of sorts.

I sewed the circle to the background fabric. i am using feed sacks that i scored at an auction in the summer.

Then i finished them off with different trims that i had. that giant rickrack looks a bit funny....but i'll leave it. there's got to be one oddball in every relationship. hahahaha

I am making 25 circles, so i won't have enough green trims for all of them, but i guess i'll use brown or something else on the rest of them. 

Here is a closeup.  they are coming out pretty good. 

Instead of using a different selvage for every strip...like i usually do, i am using the whole strip...the same pieces, one after another until the strip is finished. so, some sections have 2 or 3 pieces of the same fabrics. and then when you cut them into triangles, some of the selvages wind up on 2 different pieces. and if the selvage is too short, then i just sew the next selvage to it and continue. 

I think this is going to be cool. don't know how long it will take to get it finished. it does go pretty quickly, but i get bored easily and go off onto something else. but i definitely have enough green selvages to make this quilt.....and probably 2 or 3 more.

What are you doing with YOUR selvages? ....  make something.

How to get your cardio workout in the snow

I guess the snow was good for something. i scraped snow off the deck rather than get on the treadmill today. lots more fun.

I push instead of lift and throw with the snow shovel. use the back of the shovel and push the snow off through the rails. much easier on back and arms. and if you work at an angle, the shovel doesn't get caught on the boards. 

Got to do the rail, too.

I did half of it yesterday and finished up today.

That deck wraps around 2 sides of the house...that was a LOT of snow.  10' wide deck.

Come on, more snow....i'm ready for ya.

The first day was still pretty cold....under 20. i had many layers on. don't you love my bright yellow Croc boots? 

Notice hubby was INSIDE the house while all this was going on. 

Snow days...December 2014

We have not had this kind of snow here in about 10 years. i was so surprised. been in the house now for a couple days. But i did get my cardio workout for 2 days....scraping the snow off the deck.

It started the night before...tiny flakes....nothing to worry about. hahaha

This is at 8:30 am...our deck

This is looking at at the pastures ...  8:30 am

Noon

Noon

4:30 

4:30  you can see the difference if you look at the fence and the post in the bottom right corner.

And, in the end....about 10" of snow. i did get some snow dyeing done. so it wasn't a total loss.

It would be nice if this could all go away before we got any more. hubby got the truck stuck today a couple times. might as well stay in the house.

Stay warm and stay safe.