Free BOM

I just received word that Quilt Doodle Doodles is hosting a new BOM next year called Garden Sunshine.  It will allow you to either embroider or applique (always nice to have a choice) and did I mention it is FREE???!!!  All right, yes, there is a catch...you have to actually download the free pattern each month it is offered.  If you miss a month and want to get it later, there is a small fee, but once a month, I think I can at least download one pattern!!  Use your own fabrics or she has fabric kits for the piecing alone OR piecing and applique both!

Pop on over to Quilt Doodle Doodles, follow her blog and get your free BOM!!!

I'm off to actually get some sewing done today!!

Good Fortune Mystery Quilt

I have decided to participate for the first time in Bonnie Hunter's Good Fortune Mystery Quilt.  If you would like to join in, you can get the fabric requirements and first week's instructions here.

Here is my fabric pull for this quilt, just a bit different from Bonnie's color choices.

Here is another view:

The top is gray as my neutral, olive for the red, yellow for the green, coral for the blue, teal for the orange.

I'm linking up here for the first week.  Are you playing along??

#quiltvillemystery and #goodfortunequilt

Help Another Quilter Out if You Can

Those of you in the United States undoubtedly have heard of the devastating fires in California that have wiped out the entire town of Paradise.


Several years ago the farm I live on was threatened by fire - God bless the volunteer firemen who stopped the fire one mile from the house.  I can't tell you how terrified I was...hubby was at work, I had 3 horses and no trailer to take them away!  A friend from town came out to see if I needed help and the sheriff's deputy came by to make sure I knew of the danger.  I was going to turn the horses loose in the hay field (it was green and moist) and hope they didn't stray from the abundance of food since there aren't complete fences around the field.  Extra vehicles were going to join the horses.  In the back of my truck I had already packed up photo albums, all my quilts and tops, then stood watching the smoke from the fire.  I had warning.  Paradise didn't have much at all as the Camp Fire raged through the community.  The death toll keeps mounting.  Those who survived generally did so with the clothes on their backs.

One family that survived has really touched my heart.  No, I don't know them personally, but I know that they are in need and perhaps fellow quilters can help be a blessing to them.  Melanie has posted about their story, with links to their social network profiles.


Rachelle is a new quilter - remember your passion at the beginning of your quilting journey??  Please read their story (I went to Facebook), pray for them and if you can help bless them, please do.

Have a blessed Thanksgiving.

Bonnie Hunter's Good Fortune Mystery Quilt

I have decided I am going to try doing this quilt!  Of course, I'll start out way behind because of my shoulder surgery tomorrow morning, but I'm going to give it my best shot!  My stash is minimal here at my dad's house, but there are wonderful fabric shops near me, so as soon as I can drive I'll be heading to Home Depot or Lowe's to get my paint chips and get myself situated as to how much of what color I need to buy.  Reds and oranges aren't plentiful here, so I know those will be new fabrics.  I don't have much neutral either, so I'll pick those up to.  Heck, I don't have much green or blue either, so I'll just make it a big, expensive trip to my LQS!!

Are you planning on doing the mystery quilt as well?  If you have no idea what I am talking about, this is the place to go to get all of the information...inspired by her trip last year to China!!!

#goodfortunequilt

HQAL, Liberty Belle and My Other Life

Wow, I haven't posted since July!!  I guess you can really tell I don't like hand work.  I did actually work on my curvy geese a little while I waited for my car to get an oil change...a whole three more added to the total, and I am still working on the green geese!  I have so many more to go that  it is overwhelming!!

I finally got pictures of my Liberty Belle quilt from my phone to my computer.  As much as I hated to let someone else quilt a quilt of mine, I just cannot quilt on my sewing machine!!  I miss my longarm so much!!

Here is a close-up of the quilting and binding - I did a faux piping binding and used a variety of the reds (I think) and blues in the quilt for the binding.  I did put this all together back in April and I haven't seen it in person since!!

While I have been taking care of my dad 750 miles from my home, I have returned to umpiring adult slow-pitch softball and kickball.  I used to do this "back in the day" to pay for my Bachelor's and Master's degrees (with no debt!!).  Now it is my sanity and social interaction.  This is a shot I took of a pitcher in kickball - it is so much fun (note his tutu and angel wings)!  I would not do this during a softball game as those balls really aren't soft!!

Earlier this summer, before a softball game, I found this baby on the ground under a tree.  This fledgling was learning how to fly and had no clue how to take flight from the ground.  He willingly climbed on my finger and I was able to return him to a branch.  I checked later and he was gone so I hope he found his way home.

I will not be doing any hand work until next year as I am having my shoulder operated on on November 1.  Not sure I'll be able to even do much typing, so if I don't make it back here, have a wonderful Thanksgiving and a blessed Christmas.

This Hand Quilt Along is an opportunity for hand quilters and piecers to share and motivate one another. We post every three weeks, to show our progress and encourage one another.  If you have a hand quilting project and would like to join our group contact Kathy at the link below.
Kathy

Lori
Margaret
Kerry
Emma
Tracy
Deb
Connie
Deborah
Susan
Jessica
Sherry
Nannette
Edi
Sharon
Bella
Sassy --> That's me!

Annual Piggy Bank Savings

I am going to join up with Val at Val's Quilting Studio to do the piggy bank savings challenge.  For one year I'm going to save my change and see how much I can accumulate...I'll put the savings towards going to a quilt cruise!  It may take me more than a few years to save up, but that is something on my bucket list.

Since I don't know how to put buttons on my blog (I've tried several times, never successful), this is what the button looks like:


Are you interested in joining us in our savings plan?  It is amazing how fast the coins add up and adding a few bills never hurts, right?  Found money!!!

Hand Quilt Along

I actually picked up my needle and thread!!  I am surprised at myself.  I really don't like hand work but I really love this quilt that I am trying to finish within the next 10 years!!  So I added 7 more curvy geese to the total and now it looks like this:

Can you tell the difference between the curvy geese and the ones I haven't gotten to yet?

I haven't just been sewing to be creative.  I went to a class Thursday night with my Daughter #2 (she is moving from Hawaii to Georgia and I am her first stop on that journey across the country) at a place called Board and Brush.  I got a head start on Christmas by making this for my niece and her husband to hang at their farm/ranch where they raise chickens and cattle.

Their oldest son is really into the chickens and has had a small flock of his own to take care of for the last year or so...he is now six!  I hope they like it.

Still waiting on the baby to be born...another week or so!!  I hope to have a picture of her and her quilt soon!!

This Hand Quilt Along is an opportunity for hand quilters and piecers to share and motivate one another. We post every three weeks, to show our progress and encourage one another.  If you have a hand quilting project and would like to join our group contact Kathy at the link below.
Kathy

Lori
Margaret
Kerry
Emma
Tracy
Deb
Connie
Deborah
Susan
Jessica
Sherry
Nannette
Edi
Sharon
Bella
Sassy --> That's me!

GDPR

Have you all been getting lots of emails telling you that to be in compliance with the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) they (whoever is sending you the email) need you to confirm that you still want to receive emails from them?  After receiving several of these emails, I needed to find out what GDPR was, just to satisfy my curiosity. 

GDPR is coming from the European Union to protect your information on the internet.  Like most laws and regulations from any government, they are about 20 years too late and way too verbose for anyone but an attorney to be interested in reading. 

I have no clue if GDPR applies to blogs that don't sell anything, but just to be sure, you can opt out of receiving notices or following my infrequent posts either with an "unfollow" at the bottom of the email that tells you I've actually posted something or on Bloglovin by going to your page that controls the blogs you follow that way.

I promise that if by some miracle I start posting once a day (or more...but I don't know how they do that!), I'll give you fair warning before you are inundated by posts from me!  Since I don't think you are interested in what I cooked/ate/cleaned, I don't think there is any danger of that!

Happy Mother's Day and HQAL

I hope everyone is having a wonderful Mother's Day with your beloveds.  I did absolutely no sewing in the past few weeks...best I can say is that I have been working on cutting out a new quilt, but even that has been going slowly.  Sorry there is no better report on the HQAL.  My step-daughter didn't get her baby quilt in time for the shower as the quilter was out of town and didn't get to it.

This Hand Quilt Along is an opportunity for hand quilters and piecers to share and motivate one another. We post every three weeks, to show our progress and encourage one another.  If you have a hand quilting project and would like to join our group contact Kathy at the link below.
Kathy

Lori
Margaret
Kerry
Emma
Tracy
Deb
Connie
Deborah
Susan
Jessica
Sherry
Nannette
Edi
Sharon
Bella
Sassy --> That's me!

Hand Quilt-Along and Quilt for Liberty

First off, I apologize for missing posting this morning...absolutely no progress on my handwork.  My life has been taken over by umpiring adult slow-pitch softball 5 nights a week and getting a quilt made for my granddaughter who is due to make her appearance in July.

Her name is going to be Liberty Belle and mom and dad are all-in patriotic, so I designed this for the quilt top.  Doing the Bargello flag with no pattern was quite interesting and challenging!  I used fusible to attach the letters of her name and did a blanket stitch on my sewing machine to hold them down.  The Ohio stars were made from leftover HSTs from this quilt.

The backing for the quilt contains the label I embroidered.  I like incorporating the label into the backing because it certainly will not be coming off without destroying the quilt.  More leftover HSTs (yep, I see the mistake and chose to leave it!) and the part of the red and white stripes cut out to put in the blue star fabric was used to make the label.

Then the binding.  For the first time in 10 years I am sending my quilt to be quilted by another quilter and, bless her heart, she is going to put the binding on as well,  so I made the faux piping binding that she can easily sew on with her sewing machine.  As this quilt is a gift from my in-laws as well as hubby and me, my dear MIL is paying for the quilting and binding since I bought the fabric and made the quilt.

The binding is totally scrappy since I didn't have enough red or blue fabric to make the binding from must two pieces of fabric.  Since this is for a baby, I think scrappy is totally appropriate and all the fabrics are in the quilt.

When I get pictures of the completed quilt from the quilter, I'll put the pictures on here so we can all see how it looks!!  But I'll admit I wish my longarm was more portable so I could bring it to my dad's house with me!!!

Since this is finally off my plate, I'll get back into working on my curvy geese!

Hand Quilt-Along Plus

I have actually made a bit more progress on my curvy flying geese!  The bag containing the quilt top sits next to my recliner and I’ll admit I usually reach for my computer rather than my hand sewing!

Another 5 have been done!

I haven’t just been sitting in front of my computer, I did finish a quilt top that I am donating to QoV to replace the quilt they gave to my dad at Christmas.  I did have to order the fabric since I didn’t have the red/white/blue fabrics here in Nevada with me.  Honestly, I have very little red in my stash at home either!  I followed the pattern by Jenny Doan at Missouri Star Quilt Company Nine-Patch Madness.

Another project is underway because one of my step-daughter’s is pregnant and due in July with a little girl!!  So very excited for the new addition to the family!  And this will be the first girl of her generation on my husband’s side of the family.  They are going to name her Liberty Belle and red/white/blue is the theme of her nursery!  Well, I just happen to have some fabric in the right colors now and I’m creating the pattern for this quilt in my head and using some of the HSTs from the Nine Patch Madness quilt.  Win/win!!

This Hand Quilt Along is an opportunity for hand quilters and piecers to share and motivate one another. We post every three weeks, to show our progress and encourage one another.  If you have a hand quilting project and would like to join our group contact Kathy at the link below.

Kathy

Lori
Margaret
Kerry
Emma
Tracy
Deb
Connie
Deborah
Susan
Jessica
Sherry
Nannette
Edi
Sharon
Bella
Sassy --> That's me!

Hand Quilt-Along

I almost forgot to post!  Not that I have much to post about.  I got a whole 4 more geese sewn in 3 weeks.  Ugh.  I really don't like hand work but I do love how the geese look when I do them by hand.  I did this same sort of block once before but did the sewing on the folded over part by machine.  When I look back at that, I am not happy at all with how it looks, but I'm certainly not going to take the whole quilt apart (it is the center medallion of the quilt) just to change it.  I'm looking at it as a learning experience!  So I am up to 43 geese done, at 10 minutes per goose puts me at over 7 hours of hand sewing on this quilt and I know I'll be pushing 100 hours of hand work by the time I get it finished.  I hope I can finish it this year.  At least, because of this HQA, I am making a little progress.  I have also decided to put safety pins to mark the geese I sew each 3 weeks so I don't have to count them all every time!

You can see all the extra pins I had hoped to use, but I got lazy!!

If you have any hand project and would like to join our group, contact Kathy at
Kathy

Other than Kathy, the rest of us participating are:
Lori
Margaret
Kerry
Emma
Tracy
Deb
Connie
Deborah
Susan
Jessica
Sherry
Nannette
Edi
Sharon
Bella
Sassy --> That's me!

Hand Quilt Along

Well, three weeks since my last report and I've sewn exactly 5 more geese!  Now my total is 39 down, so I am over 10% finished with this endless project!  As they take me about 10 minutes each, I couldn't even manage an hour in three weeks...and I am totally blaming it on my dad's doctor - we spent 5 minutes in the waiting room (one side done) and 5 minutes in the treatment room (finished that goose) and we were out of there.  I was counting on a good 30 minutes total.  That must be the first time in history that someone wanted to spend more time in a waiting room, right?

Minute progress, but I'll take it!

Check out what these ladies have been up to - I guarantee they are much more ambitious about getting their projects finished than I have been!

If you have any hand project and would like to join our group, contact Kathy at
Kathy

Other than Kathy, the rest of us participating are:
Lori
Margaret
Kerry
Emma
Tracy
Deb
Connie
Deborah
Susan
Jessica
Sherry
Nannette
Edi
Sharon
Bella
Sassy --> That's me!

Hand Quilt Along

Have you ever prepared a post ahead of time and scheduled it to post at a specific time, then never be able to find it again?  Well, that's what happened to me!  I have no clue where my post for today went, but it has disappeared!!

But I did make progress!!  Three weeks ago, I had 16 of these lovely geese hand sewn down and I now have 34.  I have decided to do them by color families, so green is getting sewn first...I think there are more of them then any other color!!

I'll admit, this hand sewing only happened because I got the flu and my computer went to the hospital for a few days.  I had no energy for anything.

If you have any hand project and would like to join our group, contact Kathy at
Kathy

Other than Kathy, the rest of us participating are:
Lori
Margaret
Kerry
Emma
Tracy
Deb
Connie
Deborah
Susan
Jessica
Sherry
Nannette
Edi
Sharon
Bella
Sassy --> That's me!

A Bit of Fun From Christmas

Christmas was fun here at my dad's house...all three of my daughters and my three grandchildren were here!  My girls and I have not all been together for Christmas since 2004, so this was really special.  We celebrated Christmas on December 31, since my daughter and granddaughters from Texas could not get here until then...and my dad and I came down with the flu on January 1!  Talk about lousy timing!!  I didn't get to do the things I wanted to with my grands, but they managed to keep busy.  I found a kit for Ugly Christmas Sweater Cookies and they did a great job decorating them.  Can you tell which were done by adults, a 10 year old and a 4 year old?

Surprisingly, they even tasted great!

This is my oldest granddaughter with my new grandson - she's 10 and he's 4 months.

I got a picture of my dad with my middle daughter (she lives in Hawaii, no kids but loves being an auntie).

She always seems to wear her hair up - she's in the Army so I guess she's used to it!

These are my three daughters modeling their new hats a friend of mine in Washington knitted them - there is a hole for their pony tails!  I have one as well and it is so great to have somewhere for all our hair to go!

Yeah, we all have long hair!  I didn't model my hat since I had to take the picture!  They also got matching PJs for Christmas too!

This is my pup, Tara, with her gift sent from my friend Susie, in England.  She loves her cow and can occasionally make the squeaker work!

Not a single thing about quilting...that will be next week!  Not much happening here as I am still working on getting rid of all the yuck from the flu and my visit to the oral surgeon yesterday.

Really Love the Quilted Twins

I really like the Quilted Twins online store.  I don't usually advertise for anyone here, but their prices, quality, shipping costs and customer service is all stellar!!  I just ordered 17 yards of quilting fabric for $55.83 and that included the $5.00 shipping charge!!  That comes out to be $3.28411765/yard!!  All the fabrics are solids and I have plans for every inch of this fabric!  I'll post a picture as soon as it arrives...I only ordered it yesterday and I expect it to be here by Wednesday (they are in Florida and shipping all the way to northern Nevada!).

They also have a page with 122 FREE patterns for quilts!!!  FREE I tell you!!  Awesomeness on that page, and yes, I did go back and count every single one!!!

So, if you are looking for some inexpensive, quality fabric or free quilt patterns, give them a look-see...even if you are out of the United States!  Hurry, because I just checked and lots of the colors are selling out!!

#quiltedtwinsrule

And no, they don't even know I am bragging about them here, so I didn't get a "special" price nor are they paying me to say anything about them!

Hand Quilt Along

I have been putting off finishing this quilt top because I really don't like hand sewing - my arthritis really hates it!  However, I really want to finish this top with its 300+ flying geese that need to be curved with small hand stitches.  To my shame, I only have 16 done, but I'll press on as soon as the flu that has a grip on my household goes away.

If you have a hand quilting or hand stitching project, and would like to join our group, contact Kathy at the link below.

Kathy

Other than Kathy, those participating in the HQAL are:

Lori
Margaret
Kerry
Emma
Tracy
Deb
Connie
Deborah
Susan
Jessisca
Sherry
Nannette
Sassy < You are here
Edi