It Doesn’t Get Any Better…

A gathering of friends… quilting friends… over several days – it just doesn’t get any better than that!

My annual (6 years now!) summer mini retreat has come and gone all too quickly – but the memories remain and I know I am looking forward to next year for many reasons.

I think we have a nice mix of people – Some of us have been friends for more than a decade… (gosh now I’m starting to feel old) and some for just a few years… but when we come together it’s all about sharing our knowledge, talents, and friendships. 

 

Our best intentions never seem to remind us to get a group photo until after someone has left… so I cropped a picture of her out of a group photo from another year!

Our Challenge this year was to use a color – shading of that color – to show shape or movement in their project.  We set a 36” minimum size and here are our entries.  Although everyone seemed to have a busy year we had a good showing – many projects completed at the very last minute!

This was a stunning entry – inspired from a photograph of the splash-down of a flamingo in a pond… complete with beads for the water splash.  The second photo shows the birds head partially submerged.

A landscape to ponder…

Someone worked outside the box…

 

by showing the inside of the box.

I want to see the light at the end of this tunnel…

Love the pop of color with some hand painted work in the center.

Lovely light table cloth with the shading in the prairie points that surround it.

Pictures don’t do this justice… she dyed her own fabrics for the shading of the reds.

And last but not least – the winning entry this year! Beautiful undulating work here… and the quilting lines enhance the flow.

I could use the words lovely, beautiful, stunning in describing all of these quilts – I love what my friends create…. such a talented bunch!

I am always amazed at how quickly our days together go by.  Most folks who travel arrive on Wednesday and leave again on Monday… we sew Thursday through Sunday.  There are always a few trips out to this, that, or the other store… and we have even discussed starting a day or two earlier so that they can fit in some more shopping trips around the area.

Our weather was spectacular!  I live in an old stone house that doesn’t have central air – so we have to rely on individual room units when it’s hot.  Some years it’s been miserable – but this year – no AC’s!! It was cool overnight and dry… DRY in July!  And the temps only in the 80’s during the day.  I couldn’t have planned better weather… if I could plan such a thing.

My only regret was not having everyone bring a 5 gallon bucket… so that they could pull weeds to take home… sounds like a good idea huh? LOL

Monday after everyone left I ran a couple errands and then took a 2 hour nap.  Then Tuesday my handyman helper showed up… so I’ve been out ‘helping’ him pull weeds.  I ordered 3 yards of mulch which we will be spreading as soon as the weeds are all out (ha, ha, ha… that’s optimistic huh?)  Anyway – he’s out there right now and I’m sitting here… so I’ve gotta go… pull weeds…

Life Ain’t Perfect…

I recently came across an old quilt top being used in a booth at an outdoor Antique Market as a table cover.  When I moved a couple items to look at it the guy offered it at $20.  I kinda hemmed and hawed about it and started to leave when he knocked it down to $15.  Since we had just arrived I told him we would look around a bit and be back before leaving to decide.

We did go back and I did pick it up… it has a 3 x 6 block center section of Improved 9-patch blocks, a red border, a round of traditional 9-patch blocks alternating with a plain muslin block, a round of log cabin blocks, another red border, followed by another round of 9 patches and plain print fabric blocks ending with an outside border of plain muslin.

It is hand pieced and as I was looking at it I discovered that the maker was intent on using up what ever scraps she had available to her.  I easily found several blocks that had pieced pieces in them.  This black section to a log cabin block caught my attention first as I was looking at the hand stitching on the back.

A couple of alternate squares in the outer 9 patch row.

It is clear that this yellow with blue grid fabric that was used as the center of the log cabin is coming apart badly in nearly all the blocks.  I would like to find a replacement for that.

 

Here is a quick EQ drawing of the quilt that measures approx. 77” x 95”.  I had a hard time making things work in EQ because the maker of this quilt just made things fit where she needed them to…

 

and if she couldn’t make a whole block fit… she put in a partial.  See the yellow nine patch with the tan 9 patch to it’s right with the abbreviated plain block between them… yeah that how she made it all work in all 4 corners.

Our lesson here is that life isn’t perfect – we just need to find a way to make it work!

Annual Mini-Retreat…

Our 4th annual retreat with quilting friends has come and gone all too quickly.  We had a small group this year.  We missed those that couldn’t attend this year and were happy to welcome a couple new faces to our group.  I don’t know why we didn’t take our group picture on Saturday when everyone was there… here we are on Sunday from the left - Me, Dawn, Sue, Neen, Bev, May and Lori – missing are TJ and Brian.

This year I also called on my husband to act as judge for our annual challenge and he brought along our granddaughter Miss K to help.  She had spent some time down at the shop visiting with the ladies over two evenings and had quickly made new friends.  When she and Pop’s arrived to judge the Crayon Challenge quilts on Saturday I asked if she was ready to be a judge?  “But Granny – what if I hurt someone’s feelings?” she asked as she put her hands on her cheeks!  Such a dilemma for an 8 year old!

Miss K and Pop’s looked carefully at each quilt and they compared the crayon colors with the colors in the quilt.  After they had made one round looking at everything they each picked out what they considered their top three.   Since 2 of their 3 were the same those became the 2 to choose between. 

I told Miss K that they would now need to choose between the two and asked her how she thought they would go about it.  Both her Pop’s and I were surprised when she said “well - we could use a decision tree… list the things we like or don’t like about each one and compare”.  All-righty then – a decision tree it was!  Who knew that they teach this stuff in 2nd grade??

Our winner Bev and her quilt with the Judges.

And in no particular order…

Lori’s quilt…

May’s  – sorry about the wrinkles – our hangers might just get fired… LOL

Sue’s…Dawn’s chain…

TJ’s…

Neen’s…

Brian’s…

and mine…

All the quilts were lovely and as usual the pictures don’t do the colors justice.

I’ve always loved our group challenges – it’s always interesting to see what everyone does.

Our Challenge next year will be Stars!  Should be very interesting!!

Hot Water to Soup in 20 minutes… and other stuff

Sunday morning I got up to a dry (and very cold – brrrrr) house.  (Enough of these single digits - Spring can’t come soon enough.)  The humidifier was in need of cleaning so I unplugged it on Saturday morning as I headed out the door for an all day workshop.  By the time I got home Saturday evening I was too tired to mess with cleaning the humidifier… so late Sunday morning I put a large pot of water on the stove to simmer.  The Engineer had already headed out to his woodshop so he didn’t know I was just using a lazygirls method of boosting the humidity in the house.

Well … he didn’t know until 11 AM when he came in after finishing up his project.  “Are you making soup for lunch?” was his question – which had caught me off guard because I forgot about the simmering pot.  He wanted to know if we were having lunch before or after he got his shower?  LOL  I told him to go get his shower and I’d rustle up some lunch. 

Since I had a pot of hot water all ready… I threw a spoon of chicken soup base and about 3 cups of dehydrated scalloped potatoes in.  I had a ham steak in the freezer – so I pulled that out, cut it up, cooked it in a pan and then deglazed with some of the broth and dumped it all in the pot with some dehydrated onion and some pepper.  Everything simmered for 20 minutes until the potatoes were done.  I chopped at the potatoes with my spoon to break them up some and then added 2 cups of light cream.  At that point - we called it lunch.  We were slurping our soup by 11:30.

After the pot had cooled off I packaged the rest of it up for his lunches… I think I have the freezer pretty well stocked now.  I didn’t take a picture Sunday but here is a picture from a couple weeks ago when I packaged up a bunch of beef vegetable soup in containers for the freezer.  I bought these microwave containers at a restaurant store last year.  I had to buy a case but have shared them with my daughter and son to freeze leftovers for lunches.  My husband use to take the freezer tape label off – but I told him to leave it as the writing washes out in the dishwasher and I just remark it.

The serving size is perfect – he has soup or other leftovers for lunch every day.

Enough of that – here are a couple pictures from my Buggy Barn Hearts Workshop this weekend for a group of Jersey Girls.  There are 3 sisters, one daughter and a friend.  They came out last year for a 4 Patch Stacked Posie workshop.

From left to right the fabric combinations are – vintage fabrics, green-brown-creams, 30’s, blue-brown-cream, and the pink-brown-cream I had used as my sample.  None of the blocks have been trimmed yet – there will be 2 other sets with fabrics all switched around.

There are lots of pieces parts to keep track of as you can see by their tables.  We had a good day – everyone got a complete set of blocks done and started working on the others.  Although it’s bitter cold outside - at least they had clear weather to head home in this year – last year when they headed home we had flurries here and they drove into 6 inches of snow at their homes in southern NJ.

Last but not least… this is where I’m headed with the 4 Patch Stacked Posies.  I’ll get a picture of the fabric and post it when I get back into the shop.  I can’t even tell you who makes it… but it’s a pretty grouping.

Enough sitting around this morning… places to go and things to do!

It’s Bear Season…

No not Bear Hunting Season.

It’s the time of year that I do my best impersonation of a bear…

You know it’s Bear Season when…

• You want a warm and wooly coat when you have to HAVE TO go outside.
• You’d much rather MUCH RATHER stay inside where it’s warm and cozy… and wait for spring.
• Your legs have made the transition from bare legs to bear legs…

Unfortunately I haven’t been able to get that whole hibernating thing to work in daily practice… phooey!

Since I can’t hibernate… I have to run out for a couple errands today.  Sure wish it wasn’t windy today… but since it’s snowing in Western PA… I’ll not complain out loud… right now… anymore… today…

Then later I’ll go back to working on my grandsons fish quilt…

The one I’ve been dragging my feet on… the one I lost the backing for… the one I couldn’t decide how to quilt.  Yesterday morning I was looking through a quilt magazine and found my answer.  It was right there… undulating horizontal lines… simple! 

I’m half done… well and then there’s the binding.  It should be in Hawaii by Christmas… only 2 years and 1 month past his birthday.

Shop Hop Weekend… in 500 Pictures

nah… just kidding about the 500 pictures!

I’ll put a slide show below of the pictures I took at Southampton Quilts during the weekend and the pictures my Quilty Friend Judy took of the Shop Hop Quilt at all the shops for me.  I had designed the quilt this year for the Hop so I was quite excited to see the design done up in so many different fabrics!

This was the 9th year of the Hop… I was one of the original 200 or so that participated the first year.  So it is exciting that this year there were more than 1,200 that signed up for the 3 day event with the 8 shops.

I was so happy to be able to go up and work the event.  Yes we were busy!  But it was a fun busy. 

I especially enjoyed seeing old friends!  Quilters are the Best kind of people!

 

Shop Hop 2010

October?? Already?

It seems like it was just yesterday I was listening to the annoying AC units wishing I could just throw open the windows and let fresh air in.  Now those units are off and what windows might be open are open only a tiny bit as it’s rather chilly out there.

We had quite a bit of rain last week and topped off with 7 inches one day.  The ground was already rather moist so it didn’t take too long for the ground water to push up in three places in our basement.  I wish I had taken a picture or video – there was a river flowing (really – making trickling noises and all) from where it was coming in - right into a floor drain in two spots and into the sump pump in the third. 

We have always (for the past 30 years anyway) put things up on pallets of some sort… a lesson we learned long ago when water came in a basement of a house we were renting.  We only had to clean that mess up once to know we didn’t want to do it again.  We also firmly believe in sump pumps… they only have to run once in their life times to make them worth the money and effort.

On Saturday The Engineer discovered the well pit had about 4 feet of water in it.  Good thing he had shut off the electrical supply to that earlier in the week when he was doing some wiring work.  Took several hours with a portable sump pump to clear it out – but no damage done to the equipment down there.  The well water is only used for the outside spigots.

On the quilting front - I did have a finish last week.  This is Star Whimsy from the Star Savvy - Laps From Fats book by Good Intentions.

The first picture is of several blocks before final assembly.  I pulled all my fabrics from the same line – but a couple of the lighter fabrics are a bit too light from a distance and especially with a flash.

The colors are very washed out in this picture… seems the lights here are too bright.

This is my first finish towards a PHD at Southampton Quilts -  Quilt University.

I am currently working on a BOM for a shop sample so this should qualify under my ‘Work Study – Coop Program’.  I’ll have some pictures and details later on it.  Blues and Browns… uuummm pretty!

Oh and a cute fusible applique wall quilt… more details to follow on that.

Now I need to go clean my house… it so needs to be done.  I also need to either cook or throw away those tomatoes… somebody please make them stop! 

I think the next nice day I’ll go out and pull the plants up out of the ground – that will do it!

A Finish… or Two…

Finally… this Aunt Grace Circle of Friends sample is finished (pieced not quilted) and ready to hang at the shop.  It took much longer than I’d have liked for it to… but it’s done and that’s all that matters.

I didn’t put ‘Grace’ in the corner blocks (sorry but I don’t like her)… and I didn’t put 5 leaves on the flower stems… it just seemed to be too busy.  I’ll look at it while it’s hanging and decide if I want to add another one or two but for now - this is done!

Back in mid-March I mentioned that I was designing a quilt for a shop hop.  I sent a preliminary pattern out earlier in the summer so that the shop owners could get their quilts made up.  My good friend Dawn Marie (from up in Maine) used that set of directions and made up a test sample to check out the details for me – Thank You Dawn Marie!! 

In the mean time I purchased a better software program that allows me to more easily edit and place pictures and text where I want.  The pattern had to be divided into 8 pages – one page will be handed out at each shop… visit all 8 shops to get the complete pattern.  Each shop will make the quilt up in what ever fabric line they choose – I can’t wait to see how different they all will look.  After some redrawing and reworking of this that and the other… I sent the completed pattern off last week.  Man it sure felt good to have that done! 

I’ll be going up and helping to work the Massachusetts Shop Hop up at Southampton Quilts (the shop I use to work at)… so if you are in Western MA October 15, 16, 17 - you may want to hop along.  I can’t wait to see everyone!

The One That Got Away…

A little more than a year ago I ran across this quilt whilst out poking around antique places.

I wish I’d had the money for it because I keep thinking about it…

It occurred to me when I ran across the picture again today that I could add this to my University list…

Not a whole quilt… maybe just some blocks to test out the pattern.  Or maybe make it into a bed runner?  Maybe if I put it on the list – I can stop thinking about it.

I did buy the Curve Master Foot at the Lancaster Show last spring… so I can’t use the curves as an excuse for not making it.  Hhhhmmmm?

It seems to be an Antique Extravaganza Weekend around here if one were to believe all the signs posted.  So The Engineer and I will poke around some places on Saturday and then Sunday we are going to treat ourselves to a Crab Cake lunch at a seafood place we like down in MD.  We haven’t been down there in over two years… although we’ve talked about it often. 

It should be a nice couple days for getting out and about to enjoy the beginning of fall. 

Who knows… maybe I’ll find that quilt again and I won’t have to make it!

Cutter Quilt Window

A few weeks ago when my youngest girl was here we found a local farm craft stand and I came home with this.

They had several - all put together in colors… red blocks, blue blocks, etc.

An interesting way to make use of old quilts that really have seen better days and discarded window sashings.

They had very loosely glued craft paper to the back which allowed me to take a peek… very interesting!  Let’s take a closer look at a couple of them.

The blocks are cut to fit on the frames on the back – too bad most of the blocks would fit better in square windows but we don’t have square windows do we?

This one is especially interesting – because this heart is cut from an old quilt and is stitched onto the back of an old quilt – which was only apparent to me once I looked at the back of this. 

You can see the faded colors of the original prints in the Dresden fan pieces.  You can see that the ‘heart’ was stitched onto the other side completely through the layers – which is what made me realize it was added on.  You’ve got to wonder who Velta Wood was…

This one makes me wonder – was this a mistake in assembly?  Or was there some other design element going on in the quilt that isn’t apparently in just one block?

I also love the embroidery block… tattered binding and all.

On other subjects…

I am finally feeling human again… actually enjoyed a cup of coffee today.  Those antibiotics make me feel nauseous… and coffee just wasn’t happening for me.  I even had to ask The Engineer to clean the coffee pot the past couple days… yeah that bad.  Good news was that he was working late all week and I didn’t have to cook.  I just went out and got whatever my mind said would taste good. 

Now that I’m feeling better it’s time to get back in gear.  Let the cleaning begin…

Privy Bags

Last weekend I found this book at a local printshop/bookstore.  I was intrigued by the title and without spending any more time looking through it I made my purchase and brought it home to enjoy.

Later that evening I sat down to enjoy my new find… What it is is a Catalog to accompany a showing of Lancaster County Privy Quilts by the Historical Society of the Cocalico Valley.  Hey, wait a minute - that’s where I live… that’s the local historical society!  And you know what… this showing is still happening – at least until May 15th! 

So if you’ve got an inclination to travel to Lancaster County, PA this show is open on Thursdays and Saturdays, 10 AM – 4 PM.  The Historical Society’s Museum is located at 249 West Main Street, Ephrata, PA. 

This catalog of Privy Quilts would be a delightful addition to any quilters book collection and I am looking forward to seeing them in person very soon.

I am ashamed…

I’m not usually a critical person…

I do try to not see the obvious physical flaws that some have…

But bless her heart… she’s really got a face only God would love… which is good because she really is an angle.

And I feel terrible for wishing her face was different.

But it wasn’t her face that first caught my attention… it was her skirt.  It was made up of lovely pieced homespun stars.

But her face… I’m having a hard time getting past her face.

Yikes… what’s up with that face?

I think she’s gonna need a face lift… or lip tuck… or something…

Five Dollar Cutter Quilt…

Poor sad quilt indeed…

The Engineer and I were walking through a local outdoor antique area the other week and as I passed by a vendor I stopped and backed up.  He was sitting on a cut up very dirty old quilt laid out on the tail gate of his pick-up. 

Let me say – I’m being very kind when I say dirty… it was truly grossly dirty.

I could tell it was cut up and the binding was frayed in two and that the fabric in the blocks was fraying… but I loved the colors – green and orange.  And I loved the Winding Ways pattern…

So I asked the guy if he would sell the piece of quilt he was sitting on.  He laughed as he stood up… said it was really dirty and asked how much?  I offered him $5 and he accepted.  He stuffed it into a plastic bag – which I securely tied shut… did I mention it was dirty? and smelly?

It was so dirty that after spending 2 hours on the soak cycle in my front loading washer with the ‘Quilt Wash’ stuff… the cleaning towels I threw in with it were brown… they had absorbed some of the grime.  Ick!!  So I figured I couldn’t hurt anything at that point – I added detergent and ran it on the hot cycle with a double rinse.  The end result of that cycle was much better – I think I was more concerned at that point about loosing the old towels I use to dry off the dogs.  LOL

The individual winding ways blocks were hand pieced and finish at about 6”.  At first I thought that the quilt was all hand constructed – but in looking it appears some of the blocks were joined together by hand and others were joined by machine.  I’ll have to get my magnifying glass out and see if I can tell if there is any kind of pattern to how it was assembled.  

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There is some staining still – mildew, oil ??? – on the back and as you can see there is a lot of fraying across most of what is left here.  What I have left is approx. 24” x 66”.

Must have been really lovely at one point…