Grandmother’s Choice BOW–Week 24

Just finished up this week’s BOW block.  Guess I was in a polka dot mood today!

Civil War Windmill – Day 2

Worked on this tiny little wall hanging this afternoon.  Did most of the cutting last night, for this, and two other tiny wall hangings that use the same fabric group.  Now I just need to figure out how I want to quilt it!

Speck 2/5/2013

Finished up this little wall hanging called Speck last night.

Grandmother’s Choice BOW – Block 23

Here’s my version of block 23, which Barbara Brackman calls Girl’s Joy.

Dixie Diary: Month 2

Got this month’s block done today.  I was finally feeling up to it after an unusual weekend involving a one-night trip to the Kalahari Water Park & Resort in Sandusky, Ohio on Friday night.

Grandmother’s Choice BOW – Week #22

Finished up this week’s block this evening.  Barbara Brackman calls this block Jack’s Delight.

I’m not really that fond of the way this turned out.  I think the pattern in the fabric gives it TOO MUCH movement … and just makes everything look off.   Bad fabric choice this week. 

Speck – Day 1

Didn’t take long to put this little quilt top together yesterday.

Not quite sure how I’m going to quilt this one yet.

Fall Leaf Block Swap Wall Hanging 2012

Finished this a few weeks ago, but for some reason I never took a picture of it. 

Two of the blocks are mine, but the other 10 are from my fellow leaf block swappers.

Peppermint Pinwheels 1/22/2013

Well I finished my Peppermint Pinwheels wall hanging this evening.  It was a free pattern by Kathleen Tracy.  I gave more details about the piece when I finished the piecing, which can be found at http://lexingtonquilter.blogspot.com/2011/12/peppermint-pinwheels-day-2.html.

Everlastings – Day 1

Started a new faux appliqué piece last night.  This is a panel from Moda’s Everlastings line.

Grandmother’s Choice BOW: Week 20

This week’s block from the Grandmother’s Choice Block-of-the-Week was called Memory Wreath.  I went back to one of the darker cheddars for this one.

In other news, my cough is still hanging on … but the cough syrup that hubby bought me the other day has worked okay in suppressing it enough for me to do some things.

Church Dash Swap Blocks

I’m involved in a block swap of churn dash blocks …

 

So far I’ve got three sets done … some dark green with yellow flowers (not pictured), some brown print and some cheddar print blocks.  I’ve got another set of green blocks cut and ready to piece this afternoon!

Dixie Diary: Month 1

Well it took me a couple of weeks but I finally decided what color group to use for the Dixie Diary BOM quilt (Barbara Brackman’s latest free BOM).  I’m using several of the French General lines that have been out the last couple of years.  I received some half-yard cuts from those lines from my mother-in-law last Christmas, and I’ve purchased a few additional fabrics from two more of the related lines from stores and at quilt shows.  I’m going to try to add to those by getting a couple more prints to use for the sashing, cornerstones and border.

*I am not doing the appliqué embellishments. 

If you’re interested in following this block-of-the-month, Barbara is posting the patterns at her Civil War quilts blog the first Saturday of each month.

Still can’t decide what colors to use …

While Barbara Brackman’s Grandmother’s Choice block-of-the-week just posted its’ nineteenth week, she started a block-of-the-month program called Dixie Diary.  She posted the first block on Saturday, but I sill cannot decide what color scheme that I want to use for this one. 

My first thought was poison greens and shirtings … since I was going to use the poison greens along with the cheddars for the Grandmother’s Choice BOW, I know that I have a bunch of them.  But decided not to use them.  And for this project, I’m not sure I want to go with them. 

Then I decided that maybe I’d use vintage solids … I got a bunch of solids from Santa for Christmas … but I’m not sure.

Then I thought I’d use the same colors that I used in the Barbara Frietchie Star block from last year’s Civil War Sampler quilt … a combination of bright yellow, olive green and brick red.  But I’m not sure that I’d like an entire quilt done in those colors. 

Oh well … still thinking …

Grandmother’s Choice BOW – Week 19

Finished this week’s block … Old Maid’s Ramble.

Grandmother’s Choice BOW– Week 18

Had a chance to finish this week’s block this evening before the ball drop.  It’s called Cheyenne.

Grandmother’s Choice BOW – Week 17

I’ve been sick all week, so I’m finally posting last week’s block.  Barbara calls this one Mother’s Delight.

Lots of fun new toys!

Santa left lots of fun presents under the tree for me and in my stocking!

		Christmas Presents 2012 VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Stitch-In-The-Ditch in Purple?

Just wanted to share this photo as a way to illustrate how any color can be used to do your stitch-in-the-ditch.  On this piece I used a purple thread because it blended so well with all of the colors in the blocks.  The thread is So Fine! #438 by Superior Threads.  The dark, kind of dusty purple, really goes with the black, the bright purple, the brown, etc. in the backgrounds of these leaf blocks.

And as a shocker, the quilting was all done in RED, can you believe it?  I can’t.  If you had told me a few years ago that I’d be doing some of my quilting in RED, I would NOT have believed you for one second!

*These leaves were part of a block swap that a group of us did in November.

Grandmother’s Choice BOW–Week 16

Worked on this week’s block this afternoon.  I was in soooooo much pain with my knees – but at least this helped me mentally block out some of that pain.  Barbara called this week’s block Capital T.

A Fun Surprise!

Look what came in the mail today!

I’m so thrilled!  Three of the blocks that I did appear in Barbara’s book …

Catch Me If You Can

Comfort Quilt

and Barbara Frietchie Star

It is so neat to see this book finished!  And what a special gift to receive right before Christmas!

Why buy it there?

Over the last few days I’ve been following emails from three different quilt shops as they do their own version of a “stuff my stocking” promotion for Christmas.  First I have to say that I did one of these last year, and it was fabulous fun.  I took advantage of about half of the 12 deals that they offered, and had some neat things in my stocking on Christmas morning!  So I was looking forward to the same this year.  Well, things have not been so exciting this year … and I’ve got emails coming in from THREE DIFFERENT shops! 

So far NONE of the deals have been very interesting.  One shop offered note cards, another one offered coffee mugs … not exactly the kind of quilting stuff I was looking to add to my stocking. 

But what really baffles me are the shops offering rotary cutters and blades, cutting mats, etc.  These are things that you can get at JoAnn Fabrics with a 40%, 50% or even the occasional 60% coupon!   And even if you don’t have a JoAnn’s locally, you can buy it on-line and still get it for less than the quilt shop price even with the shipping cost!

I check in at my local JoAnn Fabrics frequently to see what’s there … and I generally never buy anything there without at least a 40% coupon.  Between the ones they send me in the mail, the ones in the Sunday paper, and the ones that come through on the JoAnn’s app for my iPad, I can usually get about 3-4 items per trip.  And if there’s something else that just happens to jump in my cart as I walk through the store, I can use my Quilter’s Club discount card to get 10%.  I never buy fabric there – once you’ve used the quilt shop stuff, you just can’t switch over to the JoAnn’s stuff.  But all of the notions, batting, pillow forms, zippers, storage bins, magazines (ones that I don’t already subscribe to), etc., all come from JoAnn’s.

If I can save $$ in certain areas of my quilting obsession, I’ll have more $$$ to spend on things at the quilt shops!

P.S.  While I do buy all of my cutting items at JoAnn’s, I switched over to Creative Grids rulers a few years ago and use those now exclusively.  Those are only available at quilt shops.  I put my original (yellow) rulers in my travel bag so they are still being used occasionally.

Grandmother’s Choice BOW – Block #15

Didn’t have a chance until this afternoon to work on this week’s BOW.  Barbara Brackman calls this one Centennial.

Grandmother’s Choice BOW – Block #14

Finally finished this week’s block.  Barbara Brackman calls this one the Bride’s Knot block.

Happy Birthday To Me!

Yesterday was my birthday! 

We actually had my main birthday celebration on Saturday night with the family – since that day was easier for my sister and her family to come for the party.  Mom made me a red velvet cake this year!

I received lots of great quilting stuff from my husband and my Mom.  I got the Blockbase software, 2 quilt design books, some notions like blue wash-out markers and Wonder Clips, etc., four ½-yard cuts of Civil War repros, some 8” fabric squares by Judie Rothermel, and some circle templates.

Of course I got a lot of neat non-quilting presents too … some pajamas and a robe, four Pandora beads, a gift card for some clothes, some cash and candy, an iTunes card, my favorite shampoo and conditioner (the type you have to get from the salon), etc. etc.

That night we all went to Kentucky Fried Chicken for supper – since it was a decent price to feed 6 adults and two little ones – and it’s fairly close to Mom’s house.  The chicken wasn’t as good as it could have been unfortunately.  On Sunday night hubby drove up to Outback to get us take-out (which is fairly common for us) and they messed up soooooo many parts of the meal!   It really kind of put a damper on the rest of Sunday evening.

So it was a very up and down kind of birthday weekend.