Quilt room...

I love my guest room. It's nestled in the dormer of my 1923 farmhouse, cozy and comfortable. It's also become the quilt room. Not where I create quilts, but it's where my collection of antique quilts lives. And a bear made from an antique quilt. And a stack of antique yellow suitcases, watched over by a Boyds bear (my whole collection of collectible bears lives in the walk-in closet off the guest room).



It's also where I display the tiny hand-made quilts I love to make from orphan quilt blocks. The blocks either side of the hearts quilt are orphans; the hearts quilt is a panel I bought in the late 1970s. On a visit to me in the Tri-Cities, my sister taught me how to hand quilt, using this panel. My passion for quilting had its roots with her, and I am very grateful.



My ribbon-winning quilt, Field of Flowers, was always destined for the guest room. The colors fit perfectly in this room, with the cream-colored bead-board walls and pale green carpet.

It took Madison exactly five minutes... maybe six... to discover the new addition, and make herself at home.

Quilt show, day one... an amazing day

I showed up early at the school again, eager to walk through the show now that ribbons have been hung. We had a record number of quilts entered this year, I think 169. When my friend, Tabatha arrived with her daughter, I excused myself to go walk through the quilts.

My closest quilt was right around the corner from the bazaar, so I dropped off my bag and grabbed my phone, and walked over to my closest quilt, Counting the Hours. And I stopped dead when I saw the blue first place ribbon hanging on it. I finished this quilt at a retreat last January, and a friend told me I had to put it in the show, that it was perfect for the guild challenge (for scrap-buster quilts). So I did (crossing my fingers). I thought the quilt turned out really well, but knew that Civil War fabrics aren't for everyone. I was hopeful, but I never expected to win. I was in tears.

I snapped a quick photo of the ribbon and quilt, and walked back to my friend with tears in my eyes. She took one look and asked what was wrong, and I showed her the photo. "I won a ribbon," I said. She gave me a big hug, and her daughter walked back with me to take a picture of me and the quilt.



As I headed for my second quilt, I ran into the show organizer. "Did you see it?" she asked, with a big smile on her face. (This quilt ended up in the wrong category, and she made sure it would be judged in the right category. So when it won the category, she was thrilled. She said she wanted to tell me in the worst way, and had to be satisfied with knowing that it all worked out.)

The next closest quilt was supposed to be in the miniature category, which has a 25 x 25-in. maximum size. It ended up a quarter inch too big. Bummer. So instead, I entered it into the challenge category, since it's another scrap-buster quilt. I named this one "Best Friends," because it's made with a classic pattern called the Friendship block. I love everything about this quilt, and I took the time to quilt it by hand (which I really enjoyed). When I walked around the partition, there was my quilt with two ribbons hanging from it:  Second place of the challenge quilts, and third place for hand quilting. By this point, I was getting seriously teary, and incredibly happy.

On to the second gym, and my last two quilts. Best Friends was in plain sight as I walked in, with a ribbon fluttering from it. Oh, my... third place in the small bed quilt category. Of all my quilts, this was the one I thought had a decent chance for a ribbon.

The last quilt is a game board quilt, which I call "Checkers, Anyone?" It was my only entry in the miniature category, and there it hung, with two ribbons. And finally, I burst into tears. This little quilt won third place in the miniature category (which doesn't mean a lot, since there were only three miniatures entered). But it also got first place for hand quilting, and that does mean a lot.

I just stood there with tears running down my face. I was stunned, and incredibly happy. It was an amazing, fantastic, wonderful feeling... and one of the best days, ever.
. . .
Tomorow I'll post photos of some of my favorite quilts from the show.

Quilt show... set-up

Helping set up for my guild's quilt show is always a blast. Everyone is so excited, the atmosphere is almost electric. It doesn't matter that people worked hard yesterday to unload the storage unit and bring everything to the school, then worked all day. Today they came back for more.

Yesterday they set up the standards that the quilts would be hung from, set up tables for vendors and the bazaar and tea room, decorated the tea room tables, unloaded crates of bazaar items, hung signs in all the rooms, and set up for the volunteer/vendor lunch room. And all on a warm summer day

Today I got there at 8:00, ready to pitch in and work all day long. I'm just hoping it doesn't get hot today... the air conditioning won't really work until tomorrow. Today we finished setting up the huge bazaar area, helped the vendors get their booths set up, and hung the quilts. And that's what I was waiting for. This is my fourth quilt show with the guild, and the first time I've entered any of my quilts. I was so excited to see my own quilts hanging with everyone else's. As it turns out, I got to hang each of my quilts... cool!

This block pattern is called Grannie Squares, similar to the well-known crochet pattern translated into millions of afghan blankets in the 1970-80s. I always loved the pattern, and when I found the block pattern online, thought it was perfect for a bundle of strips that I bought years ago. The fabrics were designed by Joanna Figuora of Fig Tree Quilts, and I named my quilt "Field of Flowers."

First show...

Last January, I decided that this was the year. The year to stop being a chicken, and finally enter a quilt in my guild's show in July. Getting ready was a lot more work than I bargained for, but I made the deadline, and entered four quilts. I haven't done anything in a long time that made me feel so satisfied.

I especially loved designing the labels. Each is made using a leftover quilt block from one of my projects, and is hand-lettered.

Checkers, Anyone? is a game board quilt, with buttons for markers. It's hand quilted, and I think this scrap quilt will become a favorite piece of decor for the Fourth of July.






Best Friends is made from friendship star blocks, is hand quilted, and has big-stitch quilting to highlight the border.







Counting the Hours is a lap quilt in my favorite Civil War fabric colors. It's completely made from scraps from my sewing room, and was machine quilted. Each year there's a guild challenge, and this year the goal was to make a quilt from fabric you already owned. I entered this quilt in the challenge category.







Field of Flowers is a small bed quilt, made from Grannie Squares blocks, using the first jelly roll I ever bought. It took me years to find the perfect pattern for this roll of strips, and I love how it turned out.

By hand...

When I got home from retreat on Friday, I unloaded my sewing stuff and carried everything downstairs, and left it. And it's been there ever since. It's too cold to work in my sewing room. So I am hand-piecing the blocks of a flannel quilt, in the warmth of my living room. It will take much more time than using my machine, but is very satisfying... and great practice for hand quilting.

This cute red and black bear quilt will be donated to the "car campers," a group of homeless families who sleep in their cars behind the church that hosts my quilt guild.

Game board...

This little game board quilt is one of my favorites, and I plan to keep it. So it's perfect for practicing my hand quilting. The checkerboard is made from 1-inch squares of blue and white, surrounded by a border of red and blue flying geese. The quilting pattern is a simple one: diagonal lines through the checkerboard, and outline quilting for the flying geese. Just straight lines. The next little quilt, I'll move on to curved lines.

I worked on it during the afternoon, while keeping a fire going in the woodstove, and keeping an eye on Madison, who was sleeping on her tower in front of the window. And late afternoon, right on schedule, I looked out to see huge snowflakes blowing around in the breeze.

Finally... we get our snow!

Catching up...

The past six months or so, the story of my life where my blog is concerned. Busy, torn between too many passions. When it's nice, I want to be outside. When it rains, or snows, or is too cold... I just want to sew. That's good for the stack of unfinished projects, but not so good for writing and taking photographs. In the new year, just around the corner, I hope that will change.

One of the old projects I've moved to the top of the stack is this log cabin quilt, made from pastels. It's a very old pattern, called Cabin in the Cotton.



I set it aside when I made a wedding quilt for my niece in 2006, and never got around to finishing it. There have been many others that passed under my needle, but not this one. Lately, I've been in the mood to work on it again, and it's been a great project to take to my Wednesday sewing group. I only have about 30 blocks left to make, the large blocks, and the tiny ones, then I can cut the white sashing strips and start making the top. Maybe I'll take this one to my retreat the end of January.

This is the complete quilt from the book. Isn't it gorgeous?

Welcome home...

Each year, one of my quilt guilds chooses a project, something we can all work on together. One year, the project was to make applique blocks for a quilt. It could be wool applique, or any form of applique using quilting cottons. Another year, we made a quilt from a panel. Each new project teaches us new techniques.

This year, we're making medallion quilts. And in my usual style, mine is made from tiny quilt blocks.



The first month, I started with the little red farmhouse with a blue sky. The second month, I added the gold and cream frame made with half-square triangles. The third month, I added the black frame. And for December, I made a handful of tiny 9-patch blocks (3-in. square) along with plain squares. So far, my little quilt is 15-in. square. This far, I followed a pattern in a favorite book of Civil War quilts. But from now on, it will be all mine.

I'll keep adding borders until June, when my guild takes a break for the summer. I plan to add some embroidery details, like window frames and a wreath on the door, after I hand-quilt it. And if I'm really happy with the finished quilt, I'll enter it in my other guild's quilt show in 2020.

I named it "Welcome Home" because of the farmhouse. Because every time I come home to my own little farmhouse, it welcomes me home.

Cabin quilts...

We decided to spend Thanksgiving at home this year, just the two of us (and Madison). So today, instead of making pies or deciding which wines to take tomorrow, I packed up my sewing machine and quilt projects, and headed for Peggy's.

I finished the last seven blocks for a quilt called Checkerboard Stars, then pulled out a quilt I started back in 2006 called Cabin in the Cotton. It's a pattern from the 1930s, made from Log Cabin blocks in pastel colors, set on point with white sashing strips in between. It's fussy and time-consuming to make, and so worth it... the blocks are beautiful. I have about 40 blocks done, with 32 large blocks (and 20 small blocks) to go.



This has been a good project to take to my Wednesday sewing group, easy to work on while talking. And we do a lot of talking, the four of us. It was a fun, fun day... I love these ladies!

I don't have a photo of the complete quilt, so searched around on the internet and found the original quilt, c. 1933. It is in the collection of the University of Nebraska International Quilt Study Center and Museum, in Lincoln, Nebraska. This is what mine will look like, one of these days.

Runner...

All the years I've been quilting, and I've never made a table runner. It could be because my dining table is round. Maybe.

But our new stereo cabinet is low and wide and beautiful, perfect for table runner. To be fair, I tried to find a braided rag table runner to match the others in my house, with no luck. So I set aside my other quilt project, and picked out fabrics from a stash of my favorite Civil War-era fabrics.

The table runner will be simple, and quick to make. Just 5-in. squares with corners from the same black-figured fabric.



When the blocks are joined together, those cream corners will become a diamond at the intersection of each block. A simple technique that looks complicated when finished.

Welcome...

This quilt has been a long time coming. I cut fabrics from my stash a couple of years ago. At a retreat last February, I made all the blocks. Last week I sewed the blocks together, then the rows, then squared it up. The ladies I sew with every week suggested blue for the border, and I found the perfect fabric in my stash.

Today I cut borders, which turned out to be a challenge because of the three blocks that wrap around each corner. But the top is finally done. The book I got the pattern from calls this quilt "Welcome Wagon."

All that's left is to piece a wide strip to add to the backing fabrics, because I think the back of a quilt should also be interesting to look at.  Then I'm ready to baste the layers together, and quilt it. This quilt is so very geometric, any fancy quilting will be lost in the pattern and fabrics, so I'll quilt it with a simple grid. And that means I'll be able to do it myself. And I love that.

Modern? Not me...

Modern isn't my thing, not at all. I love traditional homes with gables and dormers , clear fir floors that look like burnished chestnuts, and cottage gardens. That's my thing.

So when it comes to quilting, the same love for the traditional burns strong inside me. Fabrics from the Civil War era, and feedsacks from the 1930s, and the old quilt patterns like churn dash, and grandmother's flower garden. I love the colors and the style.

My quilting guild brings in some amazing speakers each month, and tonight a local quilter brought in samples of her quilts, and she shared her ideas for crafting borders that mesh perfectly with a quilt design. Her philosophy is to ignore the rules if they get in the way of your vision, and just have fun with your quilting.

After her presentation, she invited us to come up and handle her quilts, take pictures, ask questions, and perhaps be inspired.

I was.

I loved her sense of color. These greens and blues and chartreuse weren't colors I would have chosen, but they went together beautifully. I also like how she blends traditional with "wonky." Like these four-patch blocks with random triangles on the corners.



Once she arranges the blocks to suit her vision, she quilts the top by stitching "in the ditch," right along the seam lines. This stabilizes the top so she can  let her imagination run wild with more creative quilting, like these random circles. With a geometric design, circular quilting can really set off the quilt.




Wonky works well with square-in-a-square patterns, too. In this quilt of more muted colors, squares of random sizes are framed with strips of fabric, then they're all trimmed to make blocks of the same size. Once stitched together into a quilt top, she appliqued stars of metallic fabrics on top.

This small quilt was quilted in orange thread, using a walking foot. It starts out with simple straight lines, but changing every inch to a tight zig-zag stitch, this . That little touch of creative stitching took the quilt to a whole new level.



Even though wonky blocks and modern colors aren't my style, I learned a lot tonight about letting go and giving my creativity room to breathe.

By hand...

Once in a while, I see examples of hand quilting that make me want to pick up a needle, right then. The accomplished quilter who spoke to my guild tonight brought some of her work to show us, and even let us touch. For someone who loves fabric and quilts, that's a very big deal!



This small quilt is made from hand-dyed Japanese fabrics, pieced in random circles and squares, then quilted using colored perle cotton. I love the double lines of quilting, and the slightly big stitches to make sure the stitching shows. When you use beautiful thread like this, it needs to show.



The border squares are ever so slightly wonky, made by framing colored squares with black and white print strips, then cutting them to size. A quick and clever way to make framed squares.

Quilting with cats...

I've run out of room on the design wall, so brought a new bunch of quilt blocks upstairs to lay out on our king-size bed. Which worked pretty well, until Madison came in to see what I was doing. Then claimed her spot on the bed, and on the quilt.



She gave me an almost "I dare you to make me move" look.

But I did.

Joy...

One of the joys of the Christmas season is decorating the tree... especially with handmade ornaments.

Counting the days...

My sister's Advent calendar hangs across three windows that overlook one of her perennial gardens.



Each envelope contains a "treasure" for her two granddaughters, and helps them count the days until Christmas.

Yellow...

It's the color of spring, and eagerly awaited each year as March heads toward April. The daffodils are up and setting flower heads, and the forsythia wants to bloom but is hesitant.

It's also the color of the vintage suitcases in my guest room, cute striped and herringbone cases with Bakelite or leather handles. Two more, and I'll have a suitcase bedside "table" for guests. Until then, it's a cute little platform for a couple of Boyds bears.

A morning spent sewing...

    Pieris in bloom around the patio... the only thing in bloom on the farm right now

Breakfast with DW and our friend Larry at Testy Chef, then they went off to work on his computer. I was going to head north or south and look for photographs, but instead I headed for home. A few hours' uninterrupted sewing time was just too enticing to pass up.

A new quilt for a friend is in the works, and so are a half dozen others that are almost completed. Madison came downstairs for a snooze and to keep an eye on me.

My kind of day... quiet, and productive.

Vintage...

The guest room is full of country charm... antique quilts, a brass bed with marble finials, and a stack of books on the nightstand. It's quiet and peaceful, with a view over the lawn to the old orchard and well house.

I bought this 1940's quilt from a quilting friend, and it's a perfect addition to my guest room. And though I wish it was in perfect condition, I never turn down a beautiful old quilt. I can always find a way to display them. The green and white quilt on the corner table has a bad stain that ate through the fabric, but it's hidden underneath the white cloth on top. The teddy bear was made from a Grandmother's Flower Garden cutter quilt. And with careful handling, the floral quilt made from tiny hexagons will be beautiful draped across the foot of the bed.

There are other antique quilts in my farmhouse... perhaps I'll pull them out for some photographs on the next rainy day.

A quartet of cats...

The last handmade gifts for this year are these cats... quilted and embroidered with love for my two great nieces, Ella and Vivian. The two on the left are 25 years old, and will stay at the farm with my collection of old bears and bunnies and cats. The two on the right will go to their new owners on Christmas day.

But I just might have to make a few more... you never know when a cuddly stuffed toy will be needed!