Hanging Kitchen Towels

Julie sent me some photos of the hanging kitchen towels I put together for her. Each purchased towel makes 2 hanging towels. I did a little research online to find a pattern and actually made one with a found pattern, but it was way too small. So, I made my own pattern. Her kitchen theme is the pizza guy and she really likes wine, so these will go nicely.

Seeing them again, I may actually want to make some for myself now.

Quilt of Valor

I loaded and quilted this quilt of valor for Kathy F of Columbus last night. Her group makes lots of QOVs and I have quilted quite a few of them. I used Clan Green PermaCore thread with a prewound dark green bobbin. The backing is a mottled dark green. The batting is Warm & Natural and the quilt design is Michelle Wymann's Ribbon Twirl panto. It was already on the table and I'm quite happy with the results.

Stockings For Soldiers - update

More stockings were delivered last night. Very pretty patriotic ones:



and added to the ones delivered this past weekend,



I believe that we are up to 112 stockings to fill.

We have lots of items to fill them with and money to purchase more items.

How can you help?
We need more addresses.
If you have a family member or friend that is deployed, please send me an email with the address and we will be happy to ship a filled Christmas stocking to them.

I hope that we can get some help with the cost of shipping them also.

It just breaks my heart to think that there are soldiers serving our country that don't get any packages from home. I hope we make their Christmas a little bit better.

Carole's 9-Patch Quilt

I finished the quilting on this quilt last night, but didn't get any really good photos of the whole thing. Here's a couple of closeups:



I quilted continuous curves in the blocks with a Coats & Clark variegated gold/brown thread that Carole brought, and crosshatching in the sashing. The border is a square feather, I think, I'm not sure what's it's called. It went pretty quickly and I like the finished look.

Stashbusting Week #43

October 19, 2009

Fabric Added This Week - 0
Fabric Added Year to Date - 138.25 yards

Fabric Used This Week - 1 yard
Fabric Used Year to Date - 211.875 yards

YEAR TO DATE STASH USED: 72.625 yards

Catching Up!

In the past few days I have finished 8 hanging kitchen towels for Julie....but, I didn't take a photo. Maybe you can take one Julie and send it to me.

I spent yesterday at Rita's house sewing. She is such a wonderful hostess and her craft room is the perfect place to gather to chat and sew. I made a little (12") Halloween wall hanging from the latest Love of Quilting magazine. I did the quilting and binding after I got home last night and hung it up right away.





I started my Fig Tree kit from Rossville Quilts, and have 9 blocks finished. The rest of the blocks are still in 4 pieces, so I have a bit of work to do on this one still.



I finished the binding on my 2 Quilts for Kids and they are in the washer now and will get sent back tomorrow. I tried a new binding on these and really like it. I used the fabric glue method of Sharon Schambers (I think). I have done this before and really like the method. The difference in this time was the decorative stitching I used. When I have done this before, I stitched in the ditch of the front. I wanted these bindings to be really secure because of the frequent washings these quilts will get.



Today I enjoyed lunch with Julie, Jim, Andrew and Elizabeth. What a treat that was. I gave Andrew his Thomas the Train engines that I got a great deal on and he was quite happy about them. Actually, there was one for him and one for Elizabeth, but I am not sure he will share and she actually is a bit young for them anyway.

Row-By-Row

I received my tote back last night from our row-by-row and I couldn't be happier with what my friends have done. The fabrics are Kansas Troubles and I made the row on top to start it off. I said that I wanted something with a "lodgy" look. Well, I think they did just that. I'm not sure why 2 of the rows are so long, but I may make more of the flying geese and use them as one of the borders.

Thanks to Linda, Lisa, Peggy, Cathy, Vicki and Adrienne. I believe that's the order of the rows starting with the 2nd from the top.

Design Wall - October 19, 2009

This morning my design wall looked like this:



After we looked at a house this evening, I sewed the blocks of this row-by-row together and it is ready to hand over to it's owner on Wednesday.



To see other design walls this week, check out JudyL's blog.

Downy Quilts For Kids

A little over a week ago, I received my kit from Quilts for Kids. I assembled it right away and finally loaded and quilted it on Sunday.



I used a new panto that I won as a door prize at MQR. It was designed by Michelle Wyman and is called Ribbon Twirl. I think it is the perfect design for this quilt. I can imagine the little fairies in the fabrics twirling these ribbons around.

And the back:



I liked the panto so much that I loaded another quilt top that I made to donate to Quilts for Kids and used it for this one also.

Stashbusting Week #42

October 12-18, 2009

Fabric Added This Week - 0
Fabric Added Year to Date - 138.25 yards

Fabric Used This Week - 3.5 yards
Fabric Used Year to Date - 210.875 yards

YEAR TO DATE STASH USED: 72.625 yards


Although not the most productive week, at least I made some progress.

Carole's Pink & Lime Quilt Finished

I finished this quilt for Carole this morning and hung it to take a picture and...oh-oh, I forgot to quilt one of the borders. So I pinned on that side and used my Jaws to hold the other side and finished it up in a jiffy.


The batting is Warm & Natural, the thread is Spring Green PermaCore and the quilting designs are: Chantilly Lace block pattern, ribbon candy in the sadhing and e's & l's in the borders. This quilt has a 1" flange that I wasn't quite sure what to do with.

Exhausted!

Whew, I'm tired! I spent the afternoon with Julie, Matt, Andrew, Elizabeth, Angie, and Marla at the Covered Bridge Festival in Mansfield, IN. We had a great time and I got some nice fall decorations, some kitchen gadgets, a christmas gift, and ate way too much yummy food. Matt and Marla took a helicopter ride and I have a video of it, but it's on my camera, which is in the other room and I'm too pooped to go get it right now.

Before I left this morning I worked on Carole's quilt and I'm pretty happy with how it coming along. The blocks are a Norma Sharp Chantilly Lace block pattern and the sashing is called ribbon candy, I believe.

A Little Autumn in the Kitchen

I thought the kitchen needed some autumn on the walls since the table has these.



So, one of my purchases last Sunday at Joanns was a panel with 5 thanksgiving recipes on it. I cut it apart, added some sashing to 3 of them for this wall hanging and plan to make some hot pads with the other 2.



Picture quality isn't too good since i left my camera in the car overnight and it was still cold when I took this shot.

This one is my first finish for Finn's New Years challenge that I joined. I'm hoping to finish 7 projects before the end of the year..

Stashbusting Weeks #40 & 41

This was a good week for me. The week before there was nothing, so I didn't report. You can't get much sewing done when you're cleaning your house for putting it on the market. (It was shown on Friday and will be again today....wish us luck!)

September 28 - October 11, 2009

Fabric Added This Week - 1.75 yards (I had to buy some autumn fabric to make some thing to replace the spring wall hangings in the kitchen)
Fabric Added Year to Date - 138.25 yards

Fabric Used This Week - 10.5 yards
Fabric Used Year to Date - 207.375 yards

YEAR TO DATE STASH USED: 69.125 yards

Well, at least I passed the 200 yard mark of used this year..... now if I had just not made any purchases this year, I would be feeling great.

I joined the Fig Tree Club at Rossville Quilts and bought a kit, but it's still in the car and I have no idea how much is there. Hopefully, I can take it in the house and start on it this week, so I can report it in and out in the same week.

Common Threads "Stockings For The Troops"

Our guild has taken on a project to send filled Christmas stocking to the deployed troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. We had a workshop on Saturday to make the stockings. We ended up with almost 80 stockings and there were only 9 of us at the workshop.



Look at these cute stockings! Squeakie's daughters kindergarten class used their handprints to make antlers on these reindeer. Then they cut out the stocking shape and she assembled all 16 of them on Saturday.



The students of _________ School donated their August and September Alter Offerings for this project. Their donation will allow us to purchase items to fill the stockings. We've already received some stocking stuffer donations and luckily we had them on Saturday when the children came to present the check to us. They each got to fill a stocking and certainly seemed to enjoy helping.


If you have a soldier deployed and would like us to send a stocking to him/her, please send me an email with the address.

It's a Pumpkin Patch!

My pumpkin patch is quilted. These pumpkins were from an online block swap that took FOREVER TO GET THE BLOCKS BACK.



It's been so long since I had any hand binding to do that I'm pretty excited about this. I quilted it with the Maple Dance panto rather than doing custom.


The batting is Quilters Dream poly and the thread is a Pompeii Lava from Superior Threads.

RoseMary's Black & White

I finished this one on Wednesday and just got a chance to take some pictures yesterday. Do you know that it has been raining here for days!



The busy fabrics make the quilting disappear in the photo of the entire quilt. The batting is Hobbs 80/20, White PermaCore thread and the Seaside swirl panto by Keryn Emmerson. I thought it had just the right amount of straight/swirl to it for this quilt. She didn't want the quilting to take over the piecing and I think I achieved that.

Quilts For Kids

I'm not sure who's blog I read about this on, but I'm glad that I did.

Quilts For Kids has partnered with Downy to provide kits to make quilts. I ordered my free kit last week and received it in just a couple of days. The pattern was included and the squares and strips were already cut. Last night I started sewing it together and how cute is this?



They send the fabric for the quilt and you provide the batting and quilt it. They encourage you to send along another quilt made with your fabrics when you return the finished one from the kit. I put the borders on this one of mine last night and will be sending it after it's quilted and bound.

It's Christmas in October!

The mail carrier has been oh-so-sweet the past couple of days. I won 2 blog giveaways in the past couple of weeks and they came just days apart. Dan said it looks like Christmas around here. Of course, I received 2 quilt tops and backs from Carole in Maryland today, so that was another package for me.

Here are my prizes,


On The Run, a book filled with wonderful table runners written by Heather Mulder Peterson of Anka's Treasures

These are blogs that I visit regularly and I want to thank you both very much!

Flutterby Stitches, a pattern for an armchair caddy and folder cover, both of which are cute as can be, by Natalie Ross in Stitches.

Pretty Quilt of Valor!

I did take some time out last night to load and quilt this one.



I'm sure this Quilt of Valor will make some female solder quite happy. The colors are so pretty and the piecing is very precise. I used Popcorn panto by Jodi Beamish, Warm & Natural batting, and PermaCore white thread.



And the backing:

What's New Around Here?

This should explain my slow-down in quilting lately....It's quite a job getting a house ready to sell.



So, if you know anyone in the market for a nice little house with 4 bedrooms and 1 bath, let me know.