What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

The drawing for the raffle quilt benefiting Steps to Hope was held this week. I am happy to report that the charity made almost $800 from its efforts. Thanks to Pam B in Delaware who graciously allowed her stunning quilt to be the raffle prize. The money raised will help residents of the shelter take care of their basic needs. I was gratified to learn that over half of the donors purchasing tickets were blog readers. Thank you all so much! The drawing was held last night, and I do not know who won yet. But it is very possible ...

I am happy to report that Lemon Twist is almost finished! When I finished ripping out all the bad stitching (see my post Quilting Lemon Twist), I did some trouble shooting and discovered the top thread was not seated into the tension discs. How it jumped out is beyond comprehension, but there it was. I re-threaded the machine, did some test stitching, and all looked good. But I was nervous, and stopped to check the stitching multiple times on each replacement row and through the end of the quilting. All was well.

I removed it from the longarm, and trimmed ...

So much to say this weekend, settle in for a long and picture heavy post. This week has been brutally hot, with highs in the 90s (which is really hot for us) and humidity at 85% first thing in the morning. Ugh, I hate this kind of heat. So, nothing for it but to hide in my cool basement and play with fabric and paper. First, I finished the Japanese prints wall hanging with the gold sashing. It is quilted and bound, and awaiting a label. I had enough jelly roll strips to make the cranes go all the way ...

Two more shipments arrived this week, and I immediately went to work making appointments for delivery. Two boxes arrived from Pennsylvania, and I was scared for a moment that they might have been damaged. The box was coming apart at the corner, and looked like it had been through a tornado. But thankfully, all were still intact and escaped any harm. The Amazing Grace Quilters sent 14 beautiful quilts in several sizes.

My focus now is to get quilts to the wonderful first responders in our area who took care of the public and worked hard in the aftermath while ...

This month teases us with nice warm days, followed by freezing cold ones. I am ready for it to moderate, and be warm enough during the day to run around without a coat. The daffodils are coming up, and just starting to make buds. I am hoping for some happy flower faces soon.

A few more are coming up in the circle too.

I got this photo of a pretty bluebird sitting on a limb. I’ve been seeing a bit more activity at the birdhouse, and I have hope that they are going to raise a family there this ...

Time for a Sunday Chat, so get a cuppa and settle in for a long and picture heavy post. I have so many things to share today as these past couple of weeks have been busy! The bird feeder has been very active lately with really cold nights. My Sweet Babboo has kept the birds happy with the premium sunflower hearts again, after they rejected the other seed he bought. The suet cake is being consumed at a rapid rate and we have to put out new ones regularly, so much so that I ran out of ingredients to make ...

It was a rainy day last week when we planned to make a trip out to Lake Lure to deliver quilts, and preview the route we were planning for a car club drive. All the quilts that have been collected since the last delivery were in this shipment, including these lovelies plus more than a dozen more.

My Sweet Babboo filled the car for the drive, putting quilts and bags of other donation things in the back seat. First stop was the humane society thrift store to drop off a couple of bags of items culled from around the house ...

It was a fun week this past week, with a couple of days to sew, plus Virtual retreat on Friday. I got out the scraps from the mis-cut pajama pants, and I think I may have enough fabric to get a top, if I find the right pattern.

Going through my pattern boxes, I did find a top with princess seams. This might work since I do not have enough width to put a piece on a fold. I needed to move on to another secret project, so I’ll come back to this in a bit.

This week we ...

The past few weeks have seen many boxes arriving at the post office with beautiful quilts, and much progress in our project to get quilts to hurricane victims. Settle in for a long and picture heavy post! And grab a tissue, you might need it by the end of this post. It has been truly heartwarming to see the generosity of quilters. These two quilts arrived from Elaine E of Goldsboro, NC.

Judith C of Orange City, FL sent 4 twin size quilts.

Deanna Augustin of Columbus, NE sent this huge queen/king size quilt.

Fellow guild member Lydia G ...

Since we didn’t do the house party because of the snow, I had two pints of blueberries to use up. I decided to do some blueberry muffin tops, with a basic muffin recipe from my Good Housekeeping cookbook. I use a Muffin Top Pan, one that doesn’t have a deep well.  This gives you beautiful tops (the best part of a muffin!) without deep dry bottoms. I forgot to take photos, but these show what I did, same as another time.

The pan gives you beautiful muffin tops, with nicely browned bottoms. Yum, breakfast!

I made my Butternut ...

Reading this past month or two has been a mixed bag. Two books were meh, one not my cup of tea but others may enjoy it, and only one to recommend. Links are provided for some to Amazon so you can read the full synopsis.

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley – This book was recommended by an employee at our local used book store, and she was so effusive in her praise I decided to get it without checking out the reviews. In my quest to find stories to read that are unusual, the book jacket synopsis seemed to ...

In the past two weeks, so much has happened with our quilt project for victims of Hurricane Helene. For the distribution of the quilts received I have concentrated on the areas hardest hit that have not been the focus of other groups. Boxes of quilts arrived over the course of a couple of weeks and I sorted some into categories to take to those who needed support. On a cold and overcast day, My Sweet Babboo and I drove down to Columbus, NC to meet Diane Nelson at Steps to Hope. Below on the left are Scott and Gay Pleune ...

The post office has been busy this week, as packages have arrived from four different states full of quilts. First, From Judy C of Orange City, Florida came seven beautiful quilts.

All of these are different designs, and most are large bed quilts. This one is so colorful, and the stars are lovely.

This one is striking, isn’t it? It has about a zillion pieces.

Two more, the fall leaf one is big, while the smaller one will keep a little girl toasty warm.

From Donna T of Kansas City, MO, a bright and colorful quilt of food fabrics ...

Last week I needed to get busy on two Quilts of Valor. This one was loaded onto the longarm, but I didn’t get it done until midweek. I really like the way the piecer, Judy, did the borders around the panel, with pinwheel blocks and small eagles creating a frame.

I quilted it with my favorite pantograph for QOVs, a star and swirl design called Blue Star from Urban Elementz.

I chose a light blue Glide thread for the top, and a matching color Bottom Line in the bobbin. I thought the pale blue would blend well on the ...