Works in Progress

Guess it's time I shared something--hope my daughters aren't looking at this blog post!!

I've been making placemats for them for Christmas, 2 sets of 8. One is the circles below. I used used decorative stitching for the quilting. This one in the photo may only have part of the lines, but I ended up quilting every seam, and they are actually done.

The placemats below are from a pattern I just got recently--Curve Appeal by Tiger Lily Press. I love the batik I found that has stripes of color running width-wise--perfect for this pattern. The quilting is not done in this picture, but I followed the curves with my walking foot.

I have one of these Spicy Spiral Runners quilted--the front one--in the ditch. Haven't decided what to do with the purple one yet.

I'm doing quilt-as-you-go with this quilt and have 7 or 8 of 20 blocks quilted so far--each one different.

Saw Geta Grama do this mat on her blog so thought I'd try it on my own--not too bad, huh? I like the snow people on each circle. I used my small Corelle plate for my circle, about 7" in diameter.

Thought I'd show off my new nativity, on the left in the photo below. It's from Zambia and different from any other that I have. The one on the right was carved for me by my brother-in-law John a couple years ago. He carves exquisitely--I don't know how he does it.

Below on the left is a nativity from Nepal that I've had for several years, but when I saw the Yeti ornament, I had to buy it to go with this nativity. It seemed appropriate, somehow. 😉

Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and happy holiday season!!

Driehaus Museum and other things

We visited a wonderful museum in Chicago last Friday with cousins Tom & Carolyn DeCoursey.

This is the Richard Driehaus Museum--an opulent mansion that was finished in 1887 at a cost of over $450,000. I sure wonder how much that is in today's dollars. It was restored by Driehaus and contains some of his collections--Tiffany and, right now, an exhibit of some of his original posters. The house is wondrous with 17 kinds of marble, and wood everywhere.

The outside doesn't look very auspicious (the building with columns to the right is not part of the mansion), but walk in.

Above is the dining room. The silver punch bowl on the table is Tiffany.

Every room had a different pattern in the floor--this one reminds me of  the log cabin design--and notice the Tiffany lamp.

My cousins posing by one of the posters.

This room has Islamic influence in the woodwork.

Even the toilets are awesome. :)

I have made a few things--this burlap bag and matching wallet was sold at our church's district conference auction.

This baby blanket will be given away in a week or 2--I don't think I had "tied" it yet with decorative stitches on my sewing machine. It's all done now.

This spiral runner still needs to be quilted, but the one below is all finished.

I taught this lesson at our quilt club in September.

I have some Christmas gifts in progress now, so I can't share them!

Latest Finishes

It's been awhile--time to share a few projects...

Two of our grandchildren have been here this past week, and Hailey likes to sew things.

We worked on this purse with Grandma doing the cutting, and Hailey doing almost all the sewing. I gave her the Diva wallet she is holding--made that earlier this year.

I finished this row by row from Three Dudes Quilting--I think it was 2015's theme--as a wall hanging for sister-in-law Chris. It's called Moon Over the Oasis.

Our quilt group learned how to make these burlap bags during one of our sew days this month.

Aren't they lovely? Many thanks to Barbara and Virginia, our teachers!

SEW many lovely bags and lovely women!

I made a Rogue One quilt for my grandson Connor who just turned 10.

I used an easy pattern with 10" squares. You can see my FMQ better on the back.

Our next quilt club lesson will be making spiral table runners. I have to get busy on samples of steps for that one since I have made several already.

Great Blue Heron

My sis-in-law Janet gave me the Great Blue Heron kit for Christmas--the number of pieces to applique in that thing is astonishing!! I laid out all the pieces at our quilt retreat and got them all positioned (fused), but you know that fusible quits fusing after it's been under an iron a number of times--this is done in sections so several places no longer were completely fused. Then there were all those skinny feathers! How to quilt without tearing them to shreds??? Friend Kathy suggested using tulle. Thankfully, Threads of Time (where we go on retreat) had several tulle colors so I auditioned white, gray, and light blue. Loved the blue and it now covers the entire piece. Very tricky doing the binding too--did that before completely quilting the head and tail so I could lift the beak and tail out of the way. It's done. Toni Whitney has marvelous designs, but I'm not ready to do another any time soon!

I saw the quilt below at the McPherson, KS, Church of the Brethren when we were there for my cousin's memorial service this past Sunday. Beautiful stained glass of Bible scenes. Love it!

Improv QAL

Patty Dudek of Elm Street Quilts, http://www.elmstreetquilts.com/2017/02/play-improv-qal-kickoff.html
has started another QAL, called play.

I've done a few other QALs of Patty's, and have enjoyed them. This one looks to be as interesting and fun. I hope I can keep up since I have several other projects that must get done is the next few weeks. Like most of you, I have LOTS of scraps to use--plan to do that on this QAL as well.

Tomorrow is the first set of instructions--yoohoo!

All quilted--wow, did that give me fits. I decided to put feathers in each of the background spaces, and that was good practice for me since I hadn't done freehand feathers before. However, my thread  broke MANY times, especially when I was stitching the spines. I decided it had to be the fabric since I had changed needles, worked on tension, etc., etc. This shot is taken from our loft.

I had better luck on the color spaces, but my original intention for quilting--echoing the parallelogram--just was too much trouble and I would never finish by Thursday, the day I need to give this to one of my daughters. So, I did the loops, hearts, and stars--quick and easy.

Here's a closer look, with the toe of my shoe included. In one yellow corner I wrote "Natalie & Todd" in the quilting and in another corner I wrote "2016" and my name. I also put a label on the back, just to be sure there was one. This is Missouri Star Quilt Company's Starburst design and was in Block magazine this year--issue 4, I think. It uses 10 inch squares--sew around the 4 outside edges and then cut apart on the 2 diagonals to get 4 half square triangle blocks. I made it bigger than the original, so I think I used 36 10" squares from the pack I bought, and then I cut my own 10" squares from my background fabric out of my stash. The binding is from a leftover jellyroll of yellow that I had.

December

Our Christmas cactus is ancient and has sat in the southeast corner of our sunroom since we built our house 29 years ago. I never do anything special to it, but it blooms every year. This year, most of the pretty blooms are between the curtain and the window.

My starburst (Missouri Star Quilt Co pattern) is done, sandwiched, and ready for me to quilt. Now I have to figure out my quilting design!

I worked on this nativity scene this fall--all handwork in wool. I don't remember who designed the pattern.

Leah Day's Waterfall design. I didn't quilt it quite the same as she did, but close.

A shark blanket for my grandson. All the granddaughters are getting mermaid tail blankets.

Three year old Amelia is doing stickers with Grandpa.

Nineteen month old Camella reads with Mommy.

My nephew Andrew and niece Marie and my new great-niece Bridget with the quilt I made for her.

I think I only managed to get two "bags" made for the Bag It QAL, but I kept all the patterns! Patty does an amazing job designing all those bags! This is a sewing kit.

The other is a little card carrier.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, everyone!!