Catching up

I FINALLY fiinshed my "inherited" quilt--7 blocks were done. I embroidered the rest, looked for fabric, created patterns from pictures and already finished blocks, quilted each block, then put them all together. One fantastic quilter, Barbara, from NY, sent me another center so I could have 16 embroidered blocks instead of 15. Realized a border would be best so quilted it and put it on. Only 3.5 years for my on-again-off-again project. My research led me to find out this was a Thimbleberries BOM in 2006, Vintage Stitches. Couldn't find all those old fabrics 4 years ago but found several. Love this one--it stays here with me.

I refurbished my Featherweight case while the machine is gone, getting a check-up. I think it looks pretty good. (Okay, I see I already posted it, but, what the heck, look at it again--I'm pretty proud of this one.) Can't wait to get my machine back now. AND I just bought another one--white this time--so am eager to receive it.

Carla's blog hop will be here before we know it:

Pick a Pumpkin Blog Hop Schedule

Monday, November 5th

MooseStash Quilting

QuiltFabrication

Elizabeth Coughlin Designs

Just Because Quilts

Made By Marney

ShirleyC

Words & Stitches

Tu-Na Quilts, Travels, and Eats

Tuesday, November 6th

Life in the Scrapatch

Clever Chameleon

Songbird Designs

Kathy's Kwilts and More

VroomansQuilts

Vicki's Crafts and Quilting

Super Mom No Cape

Quarter Inch Crafter

Wednesday, November 7th

Just Let Me Quilt

Count in *all* Joy

MaryMack's Blog

DesertSky Quilting

Melva Love Scraps

Hazel’s Daughter

Adventurous Applique and Quilting

Beaquilter

Thursday, November 8th

selina quilts

Seams To Be Sew

That Fabric Feeling

Just Sew Quilter (that's me)

Home Sewn By Us

My Sewful Retirement

Creatin' in the Sticks (that's Carla)

Looking forward to seeing all the cool projects!

Plugging along

Cerro Gordo Quilters made drain bags last week for mastectomy patients. Here are some of us. A total of 100 bags have been made and will be donated in our area. Thanks goes to Darlene, who recently had a mastectomy, and knows how important these are.

My most recent Merry and Bright block, #9, I believe. I also finished up all 18 setting blocks.

I took my 1953 Featherweight to get repaired and decided to refurbish the case.

Featherweightshop.com has a "how to" on refurbishing these black cases. Worked pretty well , I think, but the chrome latches were very icky and stubborn. They came out looking good, considering how bad they were. Now the case is ready for the machine to come home. The Featherweight Shop is a great site for all things Featherweight.

I only need to put the binding and label on my Thimbleberries adventure quilt. More on that when I finish it up (I hope today, but have to get ready for company too).

More Merry and Bright

These are my latest finished for Pat Sloan's Merry and Bright QAL--blocks 7 and 8, I think. So far, I have been able to keep up. Oh, and there are setting blocks--I have 13 of 18 done.

These are 4 of the setting blocks. Some have red instead of the turquoise, some have green, and some have blue.

Another big project nearing completion is my Thimbleberries "inherited" quilt parts. I finished half the embroidery centers myself, completed 13 of the 20 blocks, having to create or duplicate patterns for all 13, quilted each block, and then put the whole thing together. Now I will work on borders.

Oh, yeah, and I made this banner for church--44" x about 7'. Design by Debbie Noffsinger for our church district's 2016 conference. I liked it so much, I wanted to duplicate it, with Debbie's permission, of course.

Harvest already?

Who would have thought farmers would be picking corn already? It has dried down a lot, however, so harvest is inevitable. The picture below is in our field. Allen has all red equipment (Case IH, I think.). 

This photo below is across the road from us. He uses the green stuff--we all know John Deere. 

I've been keeping up with Pat Sloan's Merry and Bright QAL. This is block #6 from last week. A new one comes out today. I'm using Snow Much Fun fabric. It's going to be a pretty quilt, I do believe.

And these are 4 of the 9 setting blocks I have finished. Need 18 all together. The rest are cut out, ready to stitch. The other 5 I have done are red instead of turquoise.

At our last Sew Day, several of our quilt group made zippered bags from candy bags. Missouri Star has a youtube tutorial on them. 

Here are some sneak peaks of my Pick a Pumpkin blog hop project. It's all done, but I can't show it until my day in November.  😉

Yesterday I finished a new banner for church. In the photo it's hanging from our loft rail--I'll get it up at church before Sunday. This was our district conference theme in 2016, and I asked Debbie Noffsinger, the designer, if I could make a banner from the design. She was gracious enough to give me permission. Our congregation is hosting conference this year (Nov 2&3); my goal was to have it done in time for that. I think I made it! It's 44" x 84".

I'm also working on the Missouri Star binding tool star quilt. I have several blocks finished--maybe 10--with 6 more to go and then the borders will need to be done. Once in a while I get inspired to do some work on my Thimbleberries quilt. I hope to get it done before the year is out.

Never lack for projects, that's for sure!

Pick a Pumpkin hop

Well, I hope I know what I'm doing--I joined Carla at Creatin' in the Sticks' Pick a Pumpkin blog hop. It runs November 5 - 8. Why is that a concern? I am co-coordinator for our church  IL/WI district conference the weekend before--and it is at our church. I figure I can make at least one pumpkin item before then!

Carla's still taking entries, if you want to join. Let her know!

Send her your name, email, blog name and address.

Should be fun!

More quilt blocks

Here's Merry and Bright (Pat Sloan), week 3. I forgot to post earlier, and tomorrow is block 4, which will probably wait until the grandchildren go home next week. I love block 3--made 2 of them, as you can see.

Our LQS, Stewart's Sewing, is doing a block of the month called Marbella. We actually get 2 blocks at a time, or at least we have the first 2 months. This month was applique`. I love the colors in this quilt--that's one reason I wanted to participate.

Twelve members of our quilt group, Cerro Gordo Quilters, are making butterflies so we can swap blocks. Mine are all done, each one different, since I decided to use scraps. I could easily make my own quilt with these, but I'll have a bunch of different lovelies after we all trade.

Merry and Bright BOW by Pat Sloan

Blocks 1 and 2 of Merry and Bright by Pat Sloan

I'm using Snow Much Fun fat quarters by Deb Strain for Moda.