Geta's Giveaway

Boy, I can't believe more than a week has passed since I've posted anything. I've been BUSY..trying ever so hard to get my Dutch Treat quilt completely finished by the end of January. I'm in the home stretch...one more border to complete the crosshatching on and then binding. Think I'll make it?????? Only if I get off the computer!

I've been remiss in not pointing you towards my friend Geta's January giveaway. And it's almost too late! You have until tomorrow to enter for a chance to win her latest pattern for these darling little pocket projects. Scoot on over!

Workshop

I had a wonderful time Monday teaching a workshop for my guild..The Little Balkan's Quilt Guild. The girls made some BEAUTIFUL projects. Two of them were completely FINISHED! The others soon will be and I hope they all enjoyed themselves as much as I did.

Here are some pictures Tom took during the day.

I enjoyed presenting a trunk show that evening and again on Tuesday to the Joplin Town and Country Guild. I'd like to just curl up in the recliner and do some handwork today, but it's chicken and noodle dinner time at church again so I need to get busy and bake some apple dumplings to take over and work this afternoon.

Maybe tomorrow I can veg and quilt.

Busy Week

I had a wonderful day yesterday teaching my silk flower and tulle floral wallhangings in a workshop for our guild. I'll share more pictures later but here's a glimpse of the wonderful projects the participants made





You might find this article in today's Pittsburg paper interesting. There are two major inaccuracies. My son, Michael is a non-commissioned officer, not an officer in the Army (he would want me to correct that) and of course I made him quilted Purple Heart wall hangings, not knitted ones. LOL. I don't knit.


Now we are off to Joplin.

Borders Added

The appliqued borders have been added. Now they need quilting of course.

Top border

Bottom border

I'm pretty sure I am going to finish with a scalloped edge that follows the curve of the vine. May find a few more leaves to add here and there. It's my own design.

This is going to be a busy week..a workshop, two trunk shows and chicken noodle dinner at church. Catch you all on the other end!

New Siggies

I need to catch up with the siggies I've received in the last few days.

Elizabeth from France

Illene from Australia



Wanda from The Netherlands

The siggies themselves are wonderful and always so creative. But reading the notes that accompany them are often an even bigger treat.

I'm always open to trading with anyone reading my blog..the more the merrier! Just email me to exchange mailing addresses.

Now, I'm off to finish sewing the appliqued borders to my Dutch Treat. Yep! I got all four appliqued this week, except for the corners which I'll do after they are on.

Here's a sneek peek.

Happy Saturday!

Dinah's Delight Step Two

My friend Cynthie at Iowa Star Quilts has posted step two in her latest mystery quilt. Poor girl, as if being sick over Christmas and dealing with Iowa's nasty weather wasn't bad enough, she got hit with some malicious adware and she's spent days and days trying to get rid of it so she could post the next step in the mystery.

If you haven't started on this one yet, you might want to reconsider. It's another fabulous scrappy quilt. She does them so well!

Lucky me, I get to test her patterns, so my top has been done and waiting for the proper time to reveal. Here are the blocks from step 2 which I made last month.

Even though I get to see the pattern before the rest of you, she still gave it to me in steps. So here I was trying to figure out how the first two steps might go together. I'll just say..this ain't it folks! There are more blocks to come.



But it is getting interesting, huh? Now run to your scrap bag and start making blocks. You know you want to!

A New Year

I've been busy..just haven't taken time to blog about it. So I'll try to do some catching up.

First, looking back on last year. My goals at the beginning of 2009 were

.............to continue making quilts from my stash of fabric and limit the new fabric purchases

.............to finish as many UFO's as possible and limit the new projects started

.............to ignore both of the above when I felt the need to just enjoy myself

And this is how it turned out:

13 quilts --3 were baby quilts, the rest were sofa sized or larger; 5 were UFO's

9 wall hangings or table runners, etc. ---1 was a UFO

3 new full sized quilt tops made but not quilted

3 small quilts quilted for someone else

111 Dutch Treat blocks reverse appliqued (to complete the 196 in the quilt) and 11 rows hand quilted

17 Dear Jane blocks sewn (to bring the current total to 158 out of 169)

I started both Dear Jane and Dutch Treat in April 2008. I'm definitely happy with the progress on my Dutch Treat (more later in this post).

And I'm disappointed that I dropped the ball on the Dear Jane. I only had 13 more to go at the one year mark and have only made 2 blocks since then.

I gave two trunk shows in 2009, which was a new but enjoyable experience.I have two more and a workshop scheduled for next week.

For 2010 my goals are pretty much the same. I'll keep the monthly list of completed projects in my sidebar.

I still need to use more of my stash. And that's fun for me since I love making scrap quilts and I also like the fun of starting something without being sure if I'll even have enough of the fabrics I start with. I guess it's my way of designing. You know what they say..."necessity is the mother of invention".....well that sort of applies to quilting I think. Some of my favorite quilts are ones where I had to change plans part way through and was surprised by the outcome.

On that note...this is the top I pieced this week.

My borders aren't that crooked. This picture was taken before all three were actually sewn. I was testing to see if I liked the way it would look and had them just laying in place.

In case you don't recognize it, I used the same block that I've come to refer to as "Grandma's Block". I just love it and I think I've only scratched the surface of the ways to use it.

You can see all the versions to date using this block here

The best news of all is that this morning I finished quilting the last block in the Dutch Treat. I started quilting it about 3 1/2 months ago. Considering I was pretty much out of commission for several weeks in November due to H1N1, I'm proud that I finished the part of the job this soon.

Now I need to add borders, applique and quilt them. That won't be real fast either.

I'm so glad that I have such an enjoyable hobby. Because it's good to be able to sit inside where it is warm and toasty and not have to venture out for days on end. We are having the coldest weather we've seen since 2001. And you have to go back to 1979 to find a string of days like we've had. We are supposed to get down to -7º tonight. I was used to this kind of weather in Iowa, but after 23 years living in SE Kansas, my blood has gotten awfully thin I think.

So it's good to sit in front of a sewing machine or cuddle up in the recliner with a good movie and hand work. We have plenty of groceries and no need to go out.

Hope the rest of my Midwestern friends are staying warm as well.