On The 25th Day of Christmas

Today is my 25th day of Christmas, it is also my 25th wedding anniversary. This year has brought some changes to my life so I won’t be celebrating this landmark with my husband but I do feel that there is much to celebrate. So my children and I are going out for a nice dinner tonight and celebrate that these 25 years brought them into my life and they are my true joy. I have learned that you never know from day to day what life is going to bring you but your true blessings are always there right beside you. I now know all who walk beside me. I wish you all a very happy holiday. I will see you here again after the New Year. Happiness to you all!

On The 24th Day of Christmas

I love 2 color quilts and this oak leaf is a great example of one. And there is that willow tree border that I love so much. One more day to go....

On The 23rd Day of Christmas

Wouldn't this be the perfect room to spend Christmas Eve in!

On The 22nd Day Of Christmas

A true folk art applique quilt, quite whimsical!

On The 21st Day of Christmas

Breathtaking!!!! Look at that inside zig zag border and then the outside border, wow. This is a masterpiece example of a 4 block quilt.

On The 20th Day of Christmas

This is one of my all time favorite quilts. It is a crib quilt that Gwen marston made. I love how primitive it looks and how she did the swag border that doesn't connect. Truly a Gwen quilt and all the fabulous hand quilting. Ladies it would be so easy to reproduce the idea of this quilt by using one block of any 4 block pattern and creating your own border. I love, love, love this one!

On the 19th Day of Christmas

A North Carolina Lily Quilt with that wonderful willow tree border.

On the 18th Day of Christmas

I love this wild and funky flower quilt.

on The 17th Day of Christmas

The pattern name for this quilt was Love Apple, I am in love with it!

On The 16th Day of Christmas

I can’t believe we are already up to 16 days and here I have another Princess Feather. I know this is my 3rd one but I just love this pattern and the colors in this one can’t be beat. I love the cheddar background.
Bonnie asked me how my move was going. We are all moved in and the house is much better with the furniture in it then it is without it. Once I get back to regular blogging I will ask for all your help on how to go from a nice sized sewing room to no sewing room at all.
Soon to be Ex has already moved a new partner into my old home. Here is the funny….she is a chef, GO figure! Riah and I are happily enjoying our microwave dinners in our new home. Thanks for asking Bonnie.

On The 15th Day of Christmas

A Floral Baltimore Album Quilt, absolutely gorgeous.

On the 14th Day of Christmas

How about a blue and white snowflake quilt with willow trees around the borders. I sure do love those willow trees, I am sure it is why I saved a copy of this picture.

As to my last picture posted I have no idea where the original picture came from.

On The 13th Day of Christmas

Those who know me, know that this would be a favorite of mine just because if has a date smack dab in the middle of it. I am going to put my tree up this weekend, yes I said tree. My new place doesn't have room for 9 trees so we are only putting up one. It makes me kinda sad!

On The 12th Day of Christmas

We are almost half way there! I loved pieced quilts and the Tree of Life is a favorite. I like how this one has a random red triangle in most of the trees. The little red sashing strip just pulls it all together.

On the 11th Day of Christmas

This Christmas Cactus is awesome. Look at all the appliqued indentions on the leafs. It almost looks like blanket stitching they are so perfect. And all the small ones also. It looks like a simple quilt but had to be extremely difficult to applique.

On the 10th Day of Christmas

This Peony quilt is not really an antique but it is certainly a great reproduction. The quilting is just unbelievable.

Also this 10th day of Christmas is also my middle childs 18th Birthday, so a special Happy Birthday wish to T on his big day.

On the 9th Day of Christmas

Another Princess Feather. This is one of my favorite patterns. I love 4 block quilts and the border on this one is so fun. I can imagine the maker spending a long winter working on this.

On The 8th Day of Christmas

What can I say...this Mexican Rose is just gorgeous. I am off to visit with my sister and then make my big move this weekend. I will see you all again on Monday. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend!

On the 7th Day of Christmas

I love this Triple Tulips Quilt. It is so primitive looking.

On The 6th Day of Christmas

This sampler is just WOW! I love how she did all the fabulous applique but the center block is pieced.

On the 5th Day of Christmas

Wow I love this one, it is called the Machado Quilt, don't ask me why??? I love the wonkyness of it all. If I was to do a large center applique like this it would never end up totally circular. This is definately one of my favorites!

On the 4th Day of Christmas

A turkey red and green quilt - I love all the different shapes of leaves in the border...

On The 3rd Day of Christmas

A Rising Sun Quilt - don't you just love the border!

On the 2nd Day of Christmas

A gorgeous red and green applique quilt...

On the 1st Day of Christmas

Since all my sewing stuff is packed up preparing for a move and I won’t have anything to show for quite some time I decided to have my own 25 days of Christmas. I looked at my calendar and came up with 25 days that I will have the opportunity to post to my blog the very first being today. Pulling from my extensive collection of antique quilt pictures I have came up with 25 fabulous quilts that would make excellent quilts to display throughout the holidays. So that is what I will do. On each of my 25 chosen posting dates I will display one of these wonderful quilts. Please leave your comments and your oohs and aahhhs.
Without further ado on the 1st day of Christmas I present to you a Princess Feather quilt.

Senior Night

The above picture is of my son and my parents last week at Senior night. He is such a sweetie, he had his girlfriend give my mom one of his old jerseys that night and told her to wear it and he would have goodluck. He did, he scored 3 touchdowns. Anyway, she is so big busted we didn’t think we were going to get it on her but we did. I know I have written about it before, as I am one of the lucky ones. I was adopted by this wonderful family as an infant. They have always been there for me and don’t miss anything my kids are involved in. Their age is beginning to show and I see it is harder for them to drive the long distances to the events that are not held in our area but they haven’t given up yet.
No quilting for me. Life and work has been busy. I am trying to get all my ducks in a row so I can head to Florida with my friends in early November. My daughter and I did take some time out on Tuesday and headed down to the Classic’s Theater to see the original Psycho on the big screen. It was fun. Her friend went with us also and they laughed in places that at one time would have been scary.
I am so glad I have been able to share all these old movies with her.

Castor Bean

The quilt I am showing today is called Castor Bean. I pulled the pic from a magazine somewhere. I was really drawn to it as it reminds me of a small Gwen Marston quilt that I saw years ago when I first started quilting. I believe that hers was called The Pokeberry quilt and is in one of her books. I remember seeing it for the first time in a Lady’s Circle Patchwork Quilt magazine and falling in love with it as it looked so primitive. I still want to make that little quilt and I love the look of this larger quilt also. I am so looking forward to Gwen’s new book arriving in my mailbox. I am sure it will be awhile as I ordered it from her and I know her retreats are still going on. To prepare myself a little bit I took Tonya’s suggestion and ordered some solid Kona cottons from the Fabric Shack. I tried to get some colors that I didn’t have. Our local Joann’s carries Kona solids also but they are $5.99 yard and the Fabric Shack is only $3.99 yard. When I was in town this week I ran into Joann’s and purchased a large cut of one solid and used my 40% off coupon. A new one arrived in the mail this week so I will do that again next week. An easy way to stock up on them as I know once I receive her book I will dive head on into my love of solids again. I had made a couple of quilt tops last winter from solids using ideas from her Liberated String Quilts book.
On another note about the Fabric Shack. Tonya had passed that link on and I was surprised to find it was the quilt store that we visit when we make the annual trek to Waynesville, Ohio in December. It has so much stuff and I am always able to find something there that I have been searching for and can’t find elsewhere. Anyway, as I was online checking them out I found that they have a sale area. I was able to buy some quilt top backings for $1.98 yard. One was a kayaker fabric that I had seen elsewhere and loved but didn’t want to put the money in as I knew it would only work as a back. Now I own it and need to get to work on that fish lap quilt that I want to make for my son.

Putting Ideas on Paper

I spend a lot of time doodling. In fact I have a large book of said doodles that I hope someday will become quilts. I am heading to a 4 day retreat next month and needed to cut out a couple of projects to take along so I decided that this time I was going to sew on something I really really wanted to work on. In the end I couldn’t decide on just two so I have been busily cutting out all three projects. The first one up is my Bitchy and Unstable quilt. I found this tea towel at Paducah in 2007 and just knew it had to be made into a quilt. This gives you an idea of how I draft mine out. I am not a good drawer and I am not good at math so none of my drawings are done on graph paper to scale. I just draw them out on paper and write or draw the pattern or shape out and then just go with it. I have all my blocks cut out for this one and I plan on using Tonya’s freestyle letters around the outer border. Oh and to be shown at a later date I have the most fantastic quote from Joan Rivers that will be pieced on the back, well okay I can’t keep it to myself as I just love it so much so here goes….Don’t Cook. Don’t Clean. No man will ever make love to a woman because she waxed the linoleum –
“My God, the floor’s immaculate. Lie down, you hot bitch.” -Joan Rivers
Moving on to the second top I cut out, it is my daughters age 15 quilt. It is going to be on a black background and it will have raw edged pieced flowers. It will also have freestyle words (yes I am a junkie) which will say Daughters are flowers that are forever in bloom. The last one I cut out was my son’s graduation quilt. He has gone by the name T since he was born. In fact we don’t know if his dad has ever called him by his given name (Tanner). This one was a no brainer as the T block will work perfectly. I want to do single T’s instead the double ones that are more popular so I need 120 of them. Around the edge appliquéd letters will say – (HIS NAME) was born in the year 1990 and was given this freedom quilt in the year 2009. It is based on the antique quilt I am showing. So now you have a little idea of how I work. I am not real meticulous, I just draft out a rough plan and fly by the seat of my pants and more times then not it actually all comes together. I would love to hear your methods for creating your ideas.

Eagle Crib Quilt

Wow, I just experienced 8 long days of baseball and I am glad they are over as some of those days were over 12 hour days. Tonight I am going to go home and prepare a decent meal, yes you heard me right, me is doing the cooking. Anything is going to be better then nachos for dinner. While sitting at games I was able to get a block and a half of appliqué done, the binding on a crib quilt that Carol quilted for me and I read a book. The book I do not recommend. I have been trying to re-read all the Jane Austen classics. While I was online ordering one that I did not have I saw that there was a new sequel to Pride and Prejudice out entitled Two Shall Become One by Sharon Lathan. Well I didn’t like it but I kept reading thinking it has got to get better. So the lesson learned is to stay away from the sequels as nobody could write her characters better then Jane herself. The crib quilt is a free pattern I found online. I love 2 color quilts and I love crib quilts and I most definitely love quilts with words so this hit all 3 of my loves so I just had to do it. It was really simple and took no time. I really like the look of classic quilts. Well I have all of today to get my life back into some form of order as tomorrow night we start football!

Disappearing 9 Patch

The plan last night was to skip the football game and do some weeding. So after fixing some pasta for dinner I carried it to the living room with me and turned on the tv thinking I would try to catch Tuesday’s weather. As I was flipping through the channels How to Make An American Quilt was just starting. Well I love that movie so the weeding idea went out the door.
I had made this little doll quilt earlier using a tutorial from this site. It is a disappearing 9 –patch. It is so easy to make and I believe it will be a good pattern to use later with some fat quarter packs I bought years ago. I had hand quilted it but I had yet to sew the binding down. So I sat last night stitching the binding down while I watched the movie. Pasta, good movie, hand work you can’t make for a better evening. Now I know I am going to sound like a broken record, but if you like to hand quilt and find that you really just don’t have the time please check out Tonya’s method. I used to hand quilt all the time and then upon returning to work and raising 3 active kids I just couldn’t find the time to do it. I went to a quilt retreat with some friends and one of the girls brought a quilt she was quilting on with her. I sat down that evening and worked on it and realized how much I missed the actual quilting part of quilting. I knew I could never complete a larger quilt top and dragging around a smaller one would still be a pain as I would have to take a hoop and supplies also. That is when I read how Tonya quilts without a hoop. I haven’t attempted it with anything larger then 30 x 30 at this point but it does work for me with the smaller quilts. They are so portable all I have to do is throw my thread, scissors and needles in a small bag Dawn made me and roll it inside the little quilt and it fits in my purse. I once again am able to enjoy hand quilting. I have been asked what I am doing with all these little doll quilts, not a thing. They all go on the finished quilt pile. Someday I may display them but for the time being it is not for the finished product that I am doing this I am doing it for the enjoyment of the hand quilting.

Our windmill

I was asked to show a picture of our windmill so here goes. It has an underground pipe that it pumped water through to our barn. That pipe is shut off. It also has an above ground pipe that you hook up to the pump and it will pump to an old cistern. We lived off this windmill for quite a few years but eventually put in a well pump. We do use little water at our house compared to most people as our children were trained at a young age to take quick showers and never leave the water running when you brush your teeth etc. Depending on the wind makes for little water in the summer. We do live in a windy area of the country which did help. A few miles to the north of us they are building one of the largest wind farms in the United States. We can see the BIG windmills going up 7 miles away while we sit on our front porch. While outdoors with the camera I decided to snap a few pictures of my flowers. The above average rainfall in the Midwest this year has really helped them along.
I don’t have much of a weekend planned. I took the week off from attending the kids sporting events and spent some time reading (Janet Evanovich’s; Metro Girl), watching a few of my favorite movies on the tube, 4 Weddings and a Funeral, Pride and Prejudice and Little Women and walking 3 miles each evening. Tomorrow I hope to work on another border of my River quilt and Sunday I will go back to doing ballgames. A few work days next week and then we will be off on our road trip.

Another Little Doll Quilt

It has been pouring down rain here all morning. I love the sound of the rain. As we are the original “green” people my cars are finally getting a good wash also. Yep, we never take them to a car wash we just wait on mother nature to help us out. Talking about being green, we have a working windmill original to our 118 year old house. This winter sleeping was H E double hockey sticks as about mid December it decided to start making a loud screeching noise. It definitely needed a good grease job. But you can’t do that when the wind is blowing so we just had to put up with it. Sunday morning was a nice quiet morning so it was decided that this would be the day that the windmill got worked on. My husband climbed up it 3 times taking all the supplies it would need. Around the bottom of the spokes is a wood platform that he can sit on to work on it. There is no way I would sit on that thing as it is rotting away, but he got himself situated and went to work. Just as he was getting a start a big wind came out of no where and the windmill started moving. I couldn’t get the brake on and he was throwing tools and everything down. It was a crazy sight but he finally got everything and himself down. Needless to say we still have the screeching sound.
I promised to take a picture of the little doll quilt that I put the binding on this weekend. It sure is a busy little thing. I took a close up of the fabrics so that you could see how they all blend together. A little something different for me , but that is the fun of these little doll quilts, trying something new.

4-Block Quilts

Kathie is talking about starting a new 4-block quilt. I have written before about my love of 4-block quilts, it goes back to that Gwen Marston Rose and Tulips book I spoke of a couple of posts ago. Amazon has Gwen’s Classic 4-Block Quilts book as low as $4.00 in the used section. That is a steal.
Terry Clothier Thompson has also highly influenced me. Please check out her website as she has many patterns available. Her 4 blocks are under the title Applique by the Yard. These quilts are so simple yet so elegant. I find that most of the time I am drawn to the ones that are really basic but have an awesome border. I love the one I am showing. It is from my scanned picture collection. The 4 blocks are real basic in that they are the Carolina Lily pattern but the border is what draws your attention. Kathie has gotten me excited about 4 blocks again but my plan this year is to finish some projects up before I start any new ones. I need to hold myself to that, of course that is easier said then done!

Possible Liberated Quiltmaking Re-print

Tonya emailed me that AQS is considering re-printing Gwen Marston’s Liberated Quiltmaking book. I love this book, in fact I love all things Gwen. Last year marked a highlight in my life when I was able to take 2 classes from her. She is as wonderful in person as she comes across in her books. My love affair with all things Gwen started early in my quilting life. I came across her articles in Lady Patchwork Circle magazine and I loved how she was interpreting her life into her quilts. Her little folk art quilts were amazing to me. Gwen and Joe Cunningham’s Rose and Tulip Quilts book will forever be my favorite quilt book. My copy is ragged with loose pages hanging from it and I still read through it at least once a month. In the early to mid 90’s I heard she was having a one woman show in Flint Michigan. Flint is a 5 hour drive I did the drive there and back and the show in one day. The attached pictures are ones I took of Gwen’s quilts in the show. I still carry them around with me 15 years later. This show was the first time that I had seen any of her liberated quilts. I was in awe. I associated Gwen with fun little folk art quilts and masterpiece appliqué quilts and here was something totally different. She taught us all that you didn’t have to stay in that one little mold you have created for yourself with quilting, she was like the Madonna of quilting forever re-inventing herself and coming up with new and fun ideas. If you don’t have a copy of her Liberated book, believe me it is well worth getting yourself one. Tonya is collecting a list of those interested. Please visit her blog and leave a comment if you think you would like a copy. Hopefully AQS will follow through and get this re-printed. I was checking Amazon recently to see if she had anything new coming out and I was surprised at the number of her books that you can buy used for a low price. Check it out. A great way to get to know Gwen and her work.

Graduation quilt

Thanks for all the kind thoughts concerning our sweet Annabelle. She really was a sweetheart. It is finally getting warm, no I mean hot here. The month of May was really chilly for us. I didn’t even put on a pair of Capri pants until last week. With ballgames putting us outdoors in the evening all month I had to keep my warm clothes available. I finally made the closet switch this weekend from winter to summer. Glad to get that done.
On the never ending organizing front I was able to get all my gift wrap contained. It looks so much better. That corner is no longer a blob of stuff. I also got all my flowers planted. I can’t believe we are in the second week of June already. I usually have all my flowers in by late May.
This weekend was busy with graduation parties. We went to many and had a good time seeing a lot of old friends. The quilt I am showing is a mystery quilt I did last summer. I really liked the result and decided it would be perfect for my son’s girlfriend who graduated from high school this year. She is a really personable young lady whom we really like. I really didn’t get a good picture because I was home by myself when I took it and I needed to get it wrapped. I forgot to take a picture of the back which was really awesome. I pieced the back with leftovers from the front. There were a couple large pieces of hand dyes and the quilting really showed up. I think I liked the back almost more then the front. I must give credit to Viki K. whom is a member of my quilt guild. She did the quilting for me. Our cat Maggie decided to come out of hiding and plopped herself right down on the quilt. She is not the friendly sort and seldom will let any of us near her except my daughter so this was a pleasant surprise.

Orange Crush and movies

I haven’t been getting a lot done but I was able to accomplish a couple orange crush blocks. I like how they are turning out. I work in the Agricultural field and this is one of my two busiest times of the year. I have been putting in long hours on top of running to track meets and baseball games. It can all get a little overwhelming at times.
We have been getting a lot of rain lately. It has just been chilly and dreary out. I have yet to get my summer annuals planted and my husband purchased 7 nice sized trees the other day and we haven’t been able to get them in the ground yet. I am looking forward to some warmer weather that’s for sure.
I am still plugging along on watching all the seasons of Northern Exposure. It has been slow going as of late. Last night I had a few hours at home so I spent my evening with Frank Sinatra and Debbie Reynolds in the movie The Tender Trap. I love old movies and had not seen this one in awhile. I also was able to catch Doris Day and Rock Hudson in Love Come Back which seems to be on every other week. Doris Day has always been one of my favorites.

Orange Crush Clue # 3 Done

I have Clue #3 of Orange Crush all done. It was an easy and quick one to do. Yesterday I was able to tear myself away from work long enough to take an all day quilting class that our guild was offering. Let me just say that it was so bad of a class that it was actually fun. We received almost zero instruction, no hand out and no actual project. I can only remember twice in this 6 hour class that the instructor actually got up from sitting and actually walked around or looked at what someone was trying to do. When asked about one of the quilt samples and measurements for it so we could start one like it we were told that it was made over 3 years ago and they couldn’t remember what the measurements were. We spent our time in the back of the room taking pictures of said instructor with the clock behind him and giggling. At 2:30 he actually closed his eyes for awhile and took a power nap. At this time one of my friends said “the Enthusiasm for this class is contagious”. All in all we actually had a fun day.
Tonight I am celebrating my May 5th birthday with my “quilt friends” and husbands. One of my dearest quilt friends and I share a birthday so we get to choose where dinner will be. We picked one of our local establishments called Bruno’s. I can’t wait as it is always so much fun to spend time with all of them.

I was able to get all of clue #2 of Orange Crush finished up this weekend. I am loving my blocks so far! I used to work in such dark colors but lately I am the queen of brights. I don’t know what has happened to me. They just make me happy.
Prom went off without a hitch. They looked so cute together. My middle one is a crazy kind of kid. He just loves to have fun. He told us he participated in the dance off and got runner up. He can be so silly. I spent all day yesterday shopping for chairs. I am in charge of getting the senior baseball players gifts. One of the talented mothers is taking the canvas chairs that come in a bag and painting them with a baseball on back and the boys name and #. Each one will be in the colors of that boy’s University that he will be attending. I cannot come up with 4 black ones for Purdue. Go figure. We went to 15 different places and I struck out. I am not sure where we are going to go with this project at this point.
I had a couple of questions about my doll quilts. One was how do I display them. Well, I don’t. But I have seen really cute ideas. Like the wall of little quilts or rolled up little quilts tied with raffia lying in a bowl on the table. Mine usually just get tossed on top of the finished pile in my sewing room. I was also asked how I quilt them, with a hoop or not. This whole doll quilt mania started when I read how Tonya quilts without a hoop. I have always loved to hand quilt but couldn’t find the time to actually get a large project finished. I decided to give Tonya’s idea a try and I loved it. It works perfectly for me with the little quilts and I can quilt so much quicker without messing with the hoop. She has a tutorial on her sight so please check it out. In fact check out all her tutorials as they have changed the way I approach quilting.