What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

I swear this winter is hanging on as long as it possibly can. We had a cool, but sunny day yesterday, and things were melting like mad. There is still some snow on the small pathway that leads to our backyard, and I was so tempted to help it melt by shoveling what's left, but I didn't. What will the neighbors think!!!!

And I spotted a house on the next street over that is the same house as ours, but with a metal roof. It faces the same direction as our house, although perhaps not quite the exact ...

I am well behind with reading posts and leaving comments, and that will be the case until the New Year. That will be my catch up time. We have our US side of the family here for the Christmas break. This is a rarity because of the school dates and difficulty with leave. So for the first time in 20 years we will all be together for Christmas. You can imagine how excited I am!

Before all of this started happening I did get organised with my cards and some little felt tags.

I kept to the red and green ...

I sometimes think that when October begins we have a starter calling out Ready, Set, Go!. Everything gets busy all of a sudden. Lots of things are happening and there is always something to do.

The obvious one for us is Daylight Saving coming in. And Spring seems to have found its feet and the garden is booming. I really enjoy seeing the trees blossom.

The ground always looks like we have confetti everywhere.

With all that is happening it is easier to work on small items as well as UFOs.

This is a small embroidery of a flowering gum ...

I have continued to make more of the Strippie quilts with fabric that has waited patiently in my stash. I will get a few more made for donations, in between some of my own quilts. This one stood out with its bright colours and bird houses.

The birdhouse fabric and the flowers on the blue background are the same fabric range.

I added the stripes from some stash fabric.

The backing is also from that range. I also used it for the binding.

It is lovely to have another ready for the donation pile.

I spent some time this week ...

      Valentines Day has passed, but not without card fanfare! This year, I wanted to make humble, cozy cards. I did a variety of styles and I used old jeans and heart fabric. I tried some hand stitching, but I was too slow. I gave up and pulled out a Pfaff machine someone gave me that has a zillion stitches on it, but is a creaky, plastic machine where you hold your breath while sewing on it. It has a blanket stitch that I use sometimes. I tested out a bunch of stitches and sewed the hearts with Glide Red thread ...

There are so many monopoly variations that I wonder if there is one dedicated to quilting. I wouldn’t be surprised!.

A friend recently gifted me some monopoly themed fabric to make a donation quilt. The width of the pieces led me to make a Strippie quilt as per Mary’s instructions. Click on her name for the link. Mary has a great blog with a huge list of basic quilts which are perfect for donations.

Our grandson enjoyed identifying all the symbols on the fabric.

These quilts can be made larger by adding a border, but I chose to ...

We are nearly ready for the New Year. But there is still a little Christmas to catch up on first. In fact, we haven’t celebrated Christmas with our family yet. Our granddaughter was unwell on Christmas eve, so we had to put off our visit. We will instead catch up in a couple of days. The grandchildren are fine with that because they say it sounds like having two Christmases. That is a good attitude to have.

I made lots of cards at the start of December.

And I made lots of these tags for gifts.

I also admired ...

      The 2024 Christmas cards are ready to be written out and mailed. I was able to stamp, paint, add pastels and glue them all up and they are just ready to write out and send. All the mailing labels on the envelopes. Now just to gather up the strength to write them out!

Painted many strips

Over 100 ready to write!

Saturday, the Fiber Fair was held at Beginnings Quilt Shop and we set up a large booth space with quilts, quilted table toppers and runners, embroidered towels, and small items. The spectacular quilt from Pam B was on display with a placard stating that proceeds would be sent to Interfaith Assistance Ministry. Unfortunately, it did not sell. So, I am in the process of identifying a way to get it sold or raffled for the benefit of hurricane victims.

I sold a few things, but the wine inspired runners and placemats are all still available. If you are interested let ...

This week I wanted to use the rest of the surplus of money collected for the Spa Bag project to do something fun for the Safelight Domestic Violence Shelter. I set aside what will be needed for the October delivery of the last spa bags, and found I had just enough to do a special project for this week. In the past I have found some fun water bottles with great messages, but that was not the case this year. I really couldn’t find anything I considered appropriate. The last thing I want to do is give an abuse ...

From time to time, I have to decrease the amount of quilted and crafted items in the house or I would be covered up in them. So, time for a sample sale, to move some things into other hands. I have some cards left as well that were not appropriate for Safelight but still fun, so those are up for sale, too. This is a great time to pick up a gift for someone, or treat yourself. Particularly for my readers who do not quilt, you can have a handmade, unique item for your decor or to give to a ...

As I mentioned on Friday, I have not been sewing in the past month. Instead, I’ve been spending all my free time (which has been precious little) doing crafting projects. I needed to finish making the cards I wanted to do for the guild show. I didn’t do as many as I had planned, but this will just have to do. The cards will be displayed in a basket for customers to look through. I made several with this sentiment, I think it is cute for a quilter.

I was excited to receive a phone call recently from ...

This past week, I managed to eek out a bit of time for some creative fun, and stamped a few more cards for the boutique. I think I’ll stop at 30 to have for sale. The great thing is if they don’t sell, I’ll have them to use myself. I love this sentiment!

Two more with a different sentiment. I put this same saying on the inside of a few other cards.

Are you in the path of the total solar eclipse? See my posts from 2017 when we were able to see one. First, Preparing for ...

A quiet week here on the sewing front, but extra busy with grandchildren staying over for several days.

I have been working on these blocks. Lots of pieces. I had to cut nearly 600 blues and 600 whites. That’s not bad for me as I am not always that patient. I admire those of you who make the gorgeous quilts with thousands of pieces.

In the week prior to the grandies visit I had a lengthy card making session with friends. I managed to finish these and only have the cut some shapes and stamp sentiments to make them ...

      Well the "it" is blog posting. I read all my favs and comment, but I don't seem to have to mental fortitude to write my own. I have taken plenty of photos and get them on the computer, but stall at writing the post. I have a nice list of posts to do on my to do list, but I just stare at it. It is hard for me to write what I do and getting those photos off the camera, named and in the right folders takes longer than it should for me. Too bad I couldn't ...

It seems to be so far away, but I know from past experience that Christmas creeps up really quickly.

I am trying to get ahead, but I know it will still be a mad rush in the end.

I started with one of these decorations from a Bareroots pattern, Everything Nice Christmas Ornaments.

And then added a couple more.

They are a lovely collection. There are six in the set, so I have a few more to make.

The same design is on the front and back panel. The other two sides each have holly leaves.

Just to also explain ...

September has flown by. But Spring is here and we are enjoying some lovely sunny days.

This is what is happening to our orange tree.

We have only recently finished picking the last of the oranges but that wasn’t going to stop the blossom opening. The whole tree is buzzing with bees.

I have been concentrating on hand work. My machines are still not repaired. This is going to be a giraffe, about 8ins wide by 11ins.

I think it needs a closer look.

The stitching is done with a single variegated thread. It is a design by Hazel ...

Good morning. Let’s start off the day with a nice photo of the pear tree in bloom. I went out when the sun came out earlier in the week to get a better shot of the lovely white flowers with the mountain background. It is something to help your mood this morning as we all deal with the time change. Ugh, I hate this switching to daylight saving time.

I really like this one, and it may be an entry in next year’s state fair photography contest.

I’ve been clearing out a lot of my tablescaping stuff ...

It has been a slow start to this year’s Safelight Project, but we have begun to see some progress this week. I am delighted to report that we have exceeded our revised financial goal in order to deliver 50 spa bags and we will be able to do 60. Any additional funds received over the next couple of weeks will go to adding more bags to the total. It would be great to deliver 75 bags, but we’ll see what the mail brings over the next week.

Several boxes and letters arrived at once, containing checks, case sets ...