What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

"A Dark and Stormy Night".   That is often the opening line to some novels, and it certainly was true here last night.  The wind was blowing and seemed to be finding it's way into the garage, rattling the interior door.  Rattle, rattle, rattle as I lay in my bed, hoping it wasn't a burglar trying to creep inside.  The rain was falling, and the wind chimes, hung from the eaves just outside my bedroom window,  were ding donging in the wind.  I couldn't settle so got up at 4.00am, made myself a cup of tea, and ...

Lots of details here.

This project started with a bible verse in my head many months ago, but without knowing what to do with it.

Back in June and just before our trip to Nashville, some of my quilting buddies and I took a day to shop in some of the area quilt and needlework shops. While in one of them one of the girls was looking at the panels. I am not a panel person. But I wandered over there and decided to look, and that was when this panel told me that it had to be part of ...

 I had a day out in Waikanae yesterday, climbing aboard the bus (free for oldies like me) for the 40km trip down to Waikanae. 

 This morning, I wanted to up early enough to go down and get a few things done before everyone arrived. They didn't come till a little after 10 am but we did have 5 of us today. 

We were able to get 9 pillowcases done. Three of them go to the kits that where done. Colleen took 2 quilt tops home to quilt. She's doing 2 quilts for Saturday as well. We all had fun. It was 2 on the cutting and ironing, with 3 of us sewing. I was sewing on my new machine. At first, I ...

 This morning, I was up and ready to go. I took down some of my embroidery pieces. Gerilyn's mother was coming and she asked for us to bring some of our work. 

I had to stop at LCPUD to drop off the electric bill. I thought they would be closed, but they were open. Then I remembered some businesses are open today so they could get the Friday after Thanksgiving off. Then it was to Colleen to drop off her honey and check on the quilts she needed bound. I told her mom wasn't back yet and Georgie ...

Today, I just wanted to get things cleaned up and then I pretty much worked on my genealogy all morning and part of the afternoon. 

We went to Sandy's retirement party at the Olympic Club in Centralia. We went into a room I didn't know they had. lol It was fun. We chatted with friends and then came home after about an hour and a half. It was a 3-hour thing.  I did enjoy it. Patrick was chatting with Judy, who used to work with him. They were getting caught up on city friends. 

We always have fun ...

…or, time to take inventory, and make adjustments.

That escalated quickly. 

Since that last post, I’ve had a whole lot of distractions that, of course, keep me from quilting. They’re not all bad. Several of those distractions were times with family (yay!) and friends (yay!) due to a bunch of birthdays in one week. That’s good. But other distractions are happening due to friends and family experiencing a myriad of health and life issues, and that’s not good. 

Photo of fabrics that wanted to be in the Mod Owls Revival quilt sent to cheer a friend

I know, I can't believe it either!

I started the quilt in 2016; I think it became a flimsy in 2016 and it went on my longarm in 2017. Two moves and 10 years later, it's finally finished.

Tada!

The flimsy in 2017

Everything I could tell you about it was disclosed in previous blog posts; just search for Girl Gang and they should come up for you. I smile every time I see it and the song immediately pops in my head--it's a happy song and it is now the name of the quilt: Let Me ...

And heading soon to a friend. Happy Monday, y'all!

Folks, I'm on a roll, but only because Katrina helped me out by quilting this quilt and the Girl Gang DIY Sampler. I'm absolutely giddy. But more about the quilt:

I made this for my friend, Kevin. He and I have been friends since the 10th grade and we have been in and out of each other's lives due to distance and time (just like so many others). When we reconnected shortly after the Hubs and I moved into the Home at the Top of the Ridge ...

I think I’m in my Chatty Cathy phase. But to spare you, I have whittled this down from what I originally wrote to save you from eye rolls and thinking, “What is wrong with this girl?”

The last couple of weeks have been busy. A good part of that time was spent with friends, and two of those times were spent at quilt shops and fabric stores. At one of those quilt shops, I ran into a favorite customer of the quilt shop I used to co-own, and had a wonderful time catching up with her. But I have ...

...and the babies just keep coming (thank goodness).

I added this photo because it's amazing how it looks inside my studio vs outside.

Constantly.

We returned from Nashville a week ago Sunday and we’re happy to be home, but…in our absence, weeds went wild, some of our garden veggies tanked, the beautiful cedar tree in our front yard died, and then there’s this:

This morning, I was cleaning up. Had the usual stuff to do. 

Then Patrick and I went downstairs to work on kits for QOV. We get tops back a lot faster with kits. I must have about 10 quilt kits out there right now. Hopefully they will start coming back. Patrick picked the colors; I had the patterns ready. They are different than the one we have been doing. I cut the fabric. Then we finished up with 5 kits. There are 2 already in the car, so now I'm at 7 kits. It's a waiting game from ...

 Matariki is celebrated as the Maori New Year, a time of remembrance, celebrating the present and looking to the future.  I joined in the "Matariki Kaumatua (respected elder) Day Out"  bus trip yesterday with several friends.  This was organised by our local library for older people in the community, and two buses took us out to Foxton Beach Estuary to celebrate the spirit of the season.

I was having morning tea in the library cafe with this group of friends from the Cancer Society some weeks ago when staff member Henry stopped at our table to tell us about this ...

 The Rainbow Scrap Challenge nominated colour for July is teal so I went looking to see what I had tucked away in my bag  making bits of pieces.  Of course there were several pieces of fabric, waiting to be stitched up into bags for foster kids.  I do wonder of I will ever empty this  bag, especially with a few fabric donations coming my way recently.

So I got to work cutting and stitching and made four little draw string bags.  Featuring dolphins, and crickets, and there was enough of the circus animal fabric for two small bags.  With no ...

 I've been sitting doing some slow stitching this afternoon, on a rather dreary day.  It's grey outside, and showery.  Not that it matters, I'm nice and cozy inside, happily big quilt stitching one of my two teddy bear cushion panels.  And I've finished.  Gemma gave Teddy the once over.  I wonder if she noticed the little brown bird in the tree?  These will be made into cushions for foster kids when they are completed.

Is that a birdie?

This morning, I got some cleaning done. Then I headed to Centralia to meet up with Sandy and her sister JT (Jeannette). We must have talked for over 2 hours. I've missed Sandy since her job moved out by us. She couldn't get her Monday's off. The two of them were checking out downtown Centralia by the time I got there. The restaurant was nice and cool. I could have stayed there all day!

We were in the low 90's today. I believe WA broke records on being so hot today. We have another hot day ...

I've been on a bit of a binding roll lately.  On Saturday I went to the monthly Stitch In day organised by my quilt club.  I always like to have some hand work ready to take along, as it is difficult these days for me to take my sewing machine along.  Binding fits the bill quite nicely.    So my dinosaur quilt came for a ride, the binding all clipped up, ready to hand stitch down.  I haven't quite finished all the machine quilting yet, but that doesn't matter, I can catch up with that at home, during ...

 It's always exciting to have a finish.  Even a small one.  I've been making easy small blocks this year in RSC colours each month, for a small baby quilt.  It all started when I decided to use up some donated strips of white fabric  printed with tiny blue flowers.  There was just enough to cut 25 five inch squares from the strips, so that was what I worked with.   Each month I added two strips of the nominated colour, starting with blue.

I stitched a few easy blocks each month

Last month I got the top completed, pinned ...