When at my fall retreat in November, a lovely young woman who worked at the Inn shared that she was expecting her first child. After seeing all the quilters’ work, she asked me about having a quilt made for her baby.  No need to ask me twice! She wanted stars and the colors red, black and gray.  Hmmm.  At first I thought those colors would be challenging, but instead they were a joy!

I mailed the quilt off to her last week. Sadly, I could not gift it to her in person as the Quilt & Sew-In had to be cancelled ...

The Spring Quilt & Sew-In has been cancelled.  Although it was definitely necessary to cancel this event, it has made me somewhat sad as I so enjoy all the amazing creative souls that come to the retreats.  We laugh, we sew, we share, we laugh, we shop and yes, we sew! Some I only see at retreat. Hopefully there will be a rescheduling at a later date, but more likely it will all need to wait until next year.

My last social sewing for some time took place last week at the home of a friend for 3 days. There ...

Connecting While perusing social media Debby Brown posted this link for ways to connect with one another while we are refraining from in-person contact. I knew about one of the ways for personal contact, the other two were new to me. The Quilt Show is having a membership sale right now. I rejoined last night… Continue reading Connecting & Freeing Up

Purging and reorganizing have consumed me the last couple of months.  Last week I went through the two donation bins of fabric, blocks and quilt tops I have.  Some I passed on to other worthy causes.  I pulled a couple of quilt tops ready to be quilted. Then I found a panel of bird blocks. I immediately cut them and paired with two solid fabrics.  Two days later a completed Hospice quilt top was on my design wall!

This was such an easy and gratifying sew.  As soon as the fleece I ordered for the backing comes in, I’ll ...

Finally together! Over four years ago I mentored a high school senior and she made a quilt as part of her senior project. I also made all the blocks that she did before she arrived at each session.  She’s graduating from college this spring so….time to finish this quilt!

Not my colors. Surprise – I like it! It is bright which is definitely my style.  The quilt, backing and batting are all ready to go to the long arm.  This quilt is marked to be a graduation gift for another student (how fitting is that?).

Another project box empty ...

And yes, I meant every single one of those excessive exclamation points. Usually I’m lucky to get two out of two quilts juried in to a given show. This time, not only did both Lupines and Rose Hip get in to the Mancuso Brother’s Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival, they BOTH RIBBONED!!!!!! That is a bucket list item that I never, ever, Ever, EVER expected to check off! Guess what…done! To the judges: THANK YOU for making a dream come true!

Yeah! Block five is done and I am now working on the sixth and final block of Lollypop Trees.  The pattern has many more blocks, including appliqued borders, but I have simplified my plans for this quilt.

It will be a wall hanging with two rows of three blocks.  The blocks are large, so it will be a sizeable wall hanging and the plan is to hang it over our bed.  The borders and sashing will be pieced. I still need to sit down and calculate the pattern for those – will probably recruit Hubby (the family math nerd) for some ...

Although it’s not yet quilted, my Tula Strings is a flimsy that I am SO happy with! However, there were over 200 cuts leftover which I have now turned into triangles.

Lots of solid shot cottons have been cut into more triangles to turn the strings into flying geese.  About half are even pinned! These will be going to a sew-in with me next month where I will be joining two friends for two evenings.

Why such ahead of time prep?  I’ve been in the midst of a massive cleanout of our home – closets, storage, and workrooms.  The ...

Spring Quilt & Sew-In has 2 spots available! Please come join in the fun & creativity!

April being not too far away, and the Spring Quilt & Sew-In Retreat, I prepped blocks for the charity quilts that the attendees will be sewing. The first block is for a quilt called Mid-Century Quilt. There’s a variety of blues and tans for the blocks and enough blocks to build a twin size quilt.

Thank you Pineapple Fabrics for donating the fabrics used in these blocks.

The next two sets of blocks are for nine-patch quilts. One will have various light neutral squares in the ...

Have you ever noticed how our world is becoming devoid of color? Have you looked at the color of cars lately? I would say that a great percentage of cars are either black, grey, silver or white. Why is that?

I can tell you one reason - it's cheaper. A friend recently bought a new vehicle and if she wanted anything other than black, she had to pay extra. Imagine how much easier it is for the car dealers to find a car when they only need to find a black one. Last year when I bought my car, I ...

I'm still plugging away at my Spirit Song quilt top, albeit intermittently.  So far I have four of the twelve 16" blocks completely assembled:

Four 16 Inch Blocks Assembled, Eight More to Go

I’m also working on an applique wall hanging for above the bed. That, however, won’t be finished for a long time. Then came the window treatment. Our bedroom doesn’t have much light, so this is the best I could get for a pic.

This bedroom makeover is quite a change for me, and I’m glad to say I like it. It was a project that seemed to take me forever – and it’s done!   A nice way to start off the New Year.

Linking with: (links will be applied on the appropriate dates)

My year was not as productive as some, but it was enjoyable. It is the process, not the progress that I now focus on.  There was still a lot of thread used! Each year I post a pic of my empty spools.  Not as many as last year, but I also had less partial spools when the year began.  It continues to amaze me how much thread quilters go through!

What are my plans for 2020? I will continue to minimize the contents of my studio.  I have been cleaning out my craft bins, tossing, gifting and rearranging as I ...

It’s been a fun and busy week.  A friend has a family farm and invited two of us for a 3 day sew-in.  All that time concentrated on sewing and friends (and food) was such a treat! I put the main body of this batik and black & white quilt together.  I cut the squares after I reorganized my batiks a while back.  Now I’m working on the borders.  I need to cut a little more and look forward to a finish before the end of the year.

Yard/house chores have taken some of my time.  We mainly ...

Oh how I like to say “finished!”  Two of these are little, one bigger, but all make me happy.

First, for a couple of little Christmas time gifts, I embellished these towels.  From my stash, I made prairie points and cut strips.  These make great hostess gifts and guild gift exchanges.  They’re also pretty quick!

These next are, as my hubby declared, “Cute, Cute, Cute!”  I found these little dishes at our local Habitat Store.  Buttons added around the rim and magnets on the bottom and voila! Pin dishes.  I am struggling though, I want to keep one.  I ...

Busy week – blowing leaves, Thanksgiving, decorating the house and family.  I did manage, however, to work on the flying geese for my Tula Strings quilt.  I sewed two cutoffs together and from that made the flying geese using a paper piece pattern I drew on EQ.  What I love about this is the accuracy.

I narrowed the inner border and the geese borders are on three sides.  One more to go – yippee! Then, unfortunately, it will go to the land of unquilted flimsies until next year. This will make five flimsies and there are 3 Hospice flimsies.  There’s also ...

Progress! Yeah! I first brought this project to a retreat in SC and got a number of blocks completed.  It then it made its way to the Fall Quilt & Sew-In and I completed all but about 4 blocks.  At last they are all complete, sewn together, and the first border is on.  This solid border, however, is probably going to be reduced. Unfortunately, there was gobs of rain today and could only get this inside picture – pretty dull.

The border is my next step.  There are a ton of the cuts from the strip sets that will be stitched in ...

It has been awhile since I've had the luxury of sewing for relaxation, for myself, without any deadlines or external demands.  You guys -- this is so much FUN!  I snuck back up to my studio after dinner last night, thinking I'd just putter around for 30 minutes or so, and before I knew it, it was after eleven.  

These are all 4" Birds In the Air blocks right now, nothing is joined together.  I'm still deciding if I like the mix, adding in new fabrics, and rearranging the blocks on the wall.  Although this is a scrappy ...

And yes, there was even more fun stuff at Market…see why I never got to the quilts? (Previous two posts have more good stuff.)

So much has happened in the past 2 1/2 weeks: International Quilt Market, International Quilt Festival, and a whopper of a cold, a lovely weekend with my older son and DIL, and some home improvements. So I’ll start at the beginning…with one detour: I sold a quilt at Festival after all! I’ll post on that in a few days (I shared on FB), but first let’s start with Market. And read to the end for the big surprise!

I arrived on Sunday of Quilt Market–usually I fly in on Tuesday or Monday and begin ...