Dinah's Delight Step Three

Cynthie, at Iowa Star Quilts has continued to struggle with computer problems, but she now has step three of Dinah's Delight posted. Scroll to the bottom of the page as all three steps come up on the same page. Here's a pic of my blocks.

Next step you can start assembling. It's a really cool quilt..trust me!

It Doesn't Look Like Spring

I should be posting something to herald spring as I'm more than ready for it's arrival! But I realized I had not shared a picture of the silk flower piece I made when teaching the class last month. I finally finished quilting the background and binding it a couple weeks ago. It's a very simple piece using fall leaves.

Close up. I love using metallic threads for accents.

Today's mail brought siggies. Two friends, Anne and Sylvia from Germany sent these lovelies.

Happy Thursday!

Two New Siggies

Two more siggies to share today.



From Mandy in Australia..isn't he cute?
Simone in Croatia makes a personalized Gothic initial for everyone she swaps with.

Not much else to report..except I am making progress cleaning the sewing room.

Siggies & Some New Goals

I'm once again behind sharing the siggies that have arrived in the last week or so.

From Cristina in Italy

Ria in The Netherlands

Mary from The Netherlands

I finished cutting, sewing and embroidering 4 new siggies last night so I'm good to go for a few days or so on that front.

I've decided I have to set some goals for myself and maybe if I at least mention them here I might be more apt to stick to them

First of all.............my sewing room is a MESS!!!! I'm going to devote at least 1 hour each day until it is back in order.

After that is done (or concurrently??) I am going to devote at least 1 hour a day to about five projects that keep nagging at me but not getting done.

1. Copying all of my best recipes to the computer so all of my kids and grandkids canhave copies. I started doing this several years ago and actually completed several sections and gave them to everyone at Christmas a couple of years. But I have a long way to go and no progress has been made for much too long.
   
   
2. Going through the last of a stack of hometown newspapers and cutting clippings I want to save for genealogy records. I finally got smart and started cutting and pasting the info from their website directly into my genealogy software. But I still have a stack of a couple years worth of newspapers from before I got smart.
   
   
3. Washing my kitchen cupboards. Enough said about that.
   
   
4. Updating my quilt record books
   
   
5. Updating family picture albums
   
   

Well, there are probably a dozen more things I've been putting off. But that's good for now to work on. Don't bet your hard earned money on me getting it all accomplished very quickly. But I'll let you know every now and then if I've been sticking to the hour a day commitment or not.

Of course tomorrow doesn't count because we have a 3 hour drive to Wichita (each way) for a doctor appointment. But today works assuming I get off this computer and get started!

Inspiration Comes When You Aren't Expecting It.

A week ago I was agonizing over what to do for a border on my Baltimore Album Sampler. This afternoon I finished it and I must say that I am really happy with the way it's turned out. It's certainly nothing like I first imagined. I didn't think I wanted to add any more applique, but in the end I did.

Tuesday or thereabouts, I was sewing on another project when a piece of template plastic fell out of the cubby hole under the desk and onto the floor. It was a piece I had drawn and used for a quilting template in the white inner border of my string star quilt "The Fabric Of My Life" .

It occurred to me that I could use it for an appliqued swag of sorts and that is exactly what I did!

It's pretty hard to get a straight on picture of the top since Tom's arms (and legs) aren't long enough to stretch it all the way out. At this point it is about 84" square. What do you think?

I drew the "wave" (as my friend Geta has called it..and I think it fits) on the back of the border section and then used back basting to applique the long strip of blue fabric. It went really quickly even with the back basting step.

Lastly I added flowers to each corner.

Now I really should get busy quilting this instead of adding to the ever growing stack of tops needing quilted. At least I can move it from the list of UFO's on my sidebar to the "Flimsy" section.

I need to take a bit and make a new supply of siggies to trade; make a few 9-patches for ribbon toppers for this year's guild quilt show; and start a new (or pick up an old) hand project so that I have something to work on in the car Tuesday when we drive to Wichita for Tom's doctor's appointment.

After that..maybe I'll start to quilt this..or one of the other tops on the list.

It feels really good to be done with the top four years after starting.

Quilting Among Friends

I promised to share some pictures from Monday's wonderful trunk show at my quilt guild (Little Balkan's Quilt Guild in Pittsburg, KS). Linda Everhart from Among Friends
wowed us with her fabulous use of color and creative designs.

If you are not familiar with Linda, please visit her website . She has developed a unique method for raw edge reverse fusing and machine applique/quilting which she calls Fusique. If you've ever wanted to make a stained glass quilt, for instance, but didn't want to deal with all that bias tape, this might be just what you've been looking for.

Linda has appeared on Simply Quilts and Kaye's Quilting Friends on PBS. You can even watch the latter show on her website. She has traveled internationally sharing her love of quilting with many. Many of her stunning patterns are actually "twofers" as you can create a reverse image version at the same time. You'll see what I mean in the pictures below.

It was a pleasure meeting Linda and hearing about her quilting journey and philosophy of life.

With her permission I'm happy to share some pictures from Monday night's trunk show.

Reality Check

In 2007 I made this silk flower and tulle wall hanging and donated it for the silent auction at our guild's quilt show.

I don't know who bought it or remember how much it went for, but I think it was a decent price.


It was one of favorites, actually. I liked it alot.

Well guess what? It's back in my home!

A couple weeks ago a friend from quilt guild was shopping at a local thrift shop and guess what she found there?


With this price tag?

No chance of getting a big head around here! LOL.

I'm glad I had my name on the back. For $1.50 I'll happily keep it myself.

Last weekend I was feeling in between projects and still letting ideas for the border of my Baltimore Album quilt percolate in my brain. So I dug out a box with more of the pieces my grandmother cut out.

There were just a few hexagons in this size so I sat and hand pieced them. Not sure what I'll do with them now. But aren't the fabrics fabulous? In one block alone there are fabrics from a skirt I wore in the 1950's, a dress I made myself in the early 1960's and p.j.s I made for my sons in the mid 60's.

Today is chicken and noodle dinner day at church. So my custard pies are baking and I need to go tend to them.

Tomorrow I'll try to post some pics from Monday night's fabulous trunk show at guild.

Pray For Kate

Today I want to share a story with you and ask a favor. This sweet, darling little girl is in a battle for her life and she really needs your help.

Her name is Kate McRae. I worked with her grandmother many years ago when we both were nurses in Iowa. Kate and her family were featured on the Dr. Phil show, so some of you may already be familiar with her story. Kate really needs your prayers right now.

You can read her story here and sign up to follow her progress.

If you believe in the power of prayer as I do, then please take time each day to ask for God's healing hand. If you don't pray, then consider sending your positive thoughts Kate's way. It may be the most important thing you can do today.

Decisions, Decisions.........

Thanks to everyone for the input on my Baltimore quilt. The responses couldn't be more varied and I appreciate all the suggestions.

I don't think I've ever agonized this much over a setting before. My problem wasn't so much that I couldn't think of what to do, but that everything sounded like a good idea to me. I really liked the idea of no sashing and having the blocks "float". But I really liked the idea of sashing too. And I liked plain sashing and pieced sashing.

Finally I just made myself pick one! And this is what I've done so far. And I like it, even though I know I would have liked no sashing just as much. That would have been an entirely different look. Maybe I'll have to make another???

So now I still have to make the border decisions. I've come up with a couple more ideas there so will let that percolate over night at least.

Quick supper tonight and a meatless one. We love spinach/pepper and feta pizzas. So easy with store bought crusts (almost as easy to make your own but I didn't this time), creamed spinach and lots of chopped and sauteed onions and peppers.

I think they've cooled enough I'm going to go eat some.

Thanks again for the advice everybody!

Final Block and Layout Decisions

I drew this block yesterday afternoon, inspired by the 6" Indiana Rose block in my Sylvia's Bridal Sampler



And here are all 25 blocks laying on my living room floor.

I had been assuming I would do some type of sashing between the blocks and was thinking of something like this (ignore all the colors)

It's kind of a reverse of the sashing my friend Linda has used on her set. She's more ambitious than I am and I think she plans a pretty elaborate border, possibly appliqued. I just want a plain border..maybe won't be the traditional Baltimore Album look, but then I seldom do things the traditional way.

After seeing the blocks laid out I'm now leaning towards either no sashing at all or a blended sashing of the same background or another light color. What do you all think?

And in my goal to continue to use my stash, the idea of using this fabric for the border has been growing on me.

I bought this about 3 years ago at Nuts and Bolts in Yoder, KS. Considering it wasn't purchased with any project in mind, it's kind of amazing how well the colors seem to tie into this quilt.

I'm sure open to comments, even if it's to say I've totally lost my mind!

And One More BA Block

Here's another block that I think would look lovely repeated for a whole quilt. It's my version of a pattern by Bonnie McCaffery published in Quiltmaker Magazine in 2000.





Just one more block and I will have 25 and I think that will be it. I haven't done too bad..7 blocks in the last 9 days.

One More

I no sooner posted the other siggies than the mail lady delivered this lovely from Betty in West Virginia. Thank you Betty!

Siggie Catch-up

I've been lazy about posting the wonderful siggies that have arrived in the last couple of weeks. It is so much fun to receive the creative blocks and letters.

Jannine from The Netherlands

Jolanda, also from The Netherlands

Joyce from Florida

Renate from Germany

Who else wants to trade?

Crocus Wreath

Here's my block for today. It's a modified version of Crocus Wreath from Quilter's Cache. I think an entire quilt using this block would be great. A couple of my flowers are a little wonky, but that's character, right?

The background fabric is the same on all of these blocks, even if it looks different in the pictures. I don't always get the color adjustment the same.