Row 3 is Finished!

Who would have thunk it?? I am finished hand quilting the first 3 rows of my row quilt! There are 8 rows in the quilt, then the sashing strips to do.

I also made the runner in the next post from start to finish in the last 2 days. While trying to figure out why I got so much sewing and schoolwork with the children done these past couple days, it dawned on me...

...I have not been inside a vehicle for the past 48 hours!! No errands, no shopping, no driving kids around...

Better not get used to it!

~Joan

Starting Row Three

Today, in between grading math lessons and tests and listening to read-alouds, I was able to finish the hand quilting on row 2 of my row quilt and start the 3rd row. Here is the first block in the 3rd row. Notice the simple easy-to-mark quilt lines. I'm going to finish this row by quilting a straight line down the center of each sashing strip and cornerstone.


Here's a view of 4 blocks...2 from row 2 and 2 from 3 (that looks confusing!)...



And last, but not least, a picture of rows 1 and 2 with the quilting finished. The large yellow stitches are my basting, not quilting.

My DH has been gone all day (he usually works from home), and he will be home soon. I need to finish up a few quick things so I can devote the rest of my evening to meeting his every need.

~Joan

Where Are YOUR Quilts?

I have TWO in my bathroom! This is a picture of a quilt my friend, Misty, made for me. Well, actually she pieced the top, and I hand-quilted Baptist fans on it and bound it. It was the first piece I had hand quilted in some time, and it reminded me how much I enjoy the hands-on process of hand quilting. Every time I see it (which is often), I am reminded of my dear friend.

It is a Barn Raising setting of log cabin blocks--my favorite block! The bathroom walls are painted a nutmeg brown color.





This is a shot of the curtain in there. This is a Thimbleberries fall fabric from a few years ago. I used the same print to make the large blocks in my shower curtain, below.

A funny quilter's story. One day, my DH came out of the library (where these photos were taken) and asked, "Why have you been holding out on me? Why don't we have a quilted shower curtain?" I wondered if he'd slipped and konked his head, but found out that he'd been perusing a quilt magazine while (ahem) in the library.

I took the same focus fabric as the curtain valance had been made from and came up with the shower curtain...

I just made very large 9-patches (Each block in the 9-patch finishes at 3"--good scale for a large piece). Having never made a quilt top into a shower curtain before, I was stumped as what to do with it after I had the top pieced. I checked a couple pattern books I had and saw two viable options. One had batting and one didn't. I opted to not use batting, but just line it with a coordinating fabric. It isn't truly "quilted" at all, merely lined. Then--how to hang it?? I didn't want to use fabric tabs because it would be pulled back and forth several times a day (hopefully!). I ended up binding it like a regular quilt and then putting small buttonholes (vertically) spaced across the top to slip the metal shower curtain hangers through (that were already there). Works like a charm. Even after 2-1/2 years of wear, there is no visible wear to the buttonholes like I suspected there might be.

Thus endeth the bathroom tour. Aren't you glad to be moving on to something else??

~Joan

Row Quilt: Row 2, Block 1

I am counting the HST row as row 1, so this is row 2.

This block is very near completion. I just need to do a little more in the top left triangle (the gold one). Don't worry...I won't be giving you my progress in block by block blog posts! All the Monkey Wrench blocks in this row (there are 5 of them) are made of the same red, blue, and cream. The triangles around each block are scrappy.

One of the things I like so much about hand quilting my extremely scrappy quilts is that you get up close and personal with each fabric. So many of my quilts have the last of a favorite fabric in them.

Since I pieced this with 2 other ladies, I get to see a sample of their Thimbleberries collections. Some must have been designed right after Lynette Jensen got off the ark. I'm talkin' old.

Soon I'll post about my quilty bathroom. Curious??

~Joan

Maiden Stitches Made in New Quilt

Our family's schedule has gone to pot. Everyone is staying up way late and then subsequently sleeping in nearly daily. Except for my oldest son and one child per day who has to get up for work. I have somehow miraculously been getting up early most of those days. I have used the quiet, alone time to finish basting and then hand quilting my mystery quilt. Anyone think they know the pattern?

I am quilting across the HST and in the ditch going the other way, to form an "X" in each of those blocks. I am always interested in what designs others use for their hand quilting, so I'll be giving lots of details with each picture. I like to quilt as far as possible w/o starting in a new place. I also like to mark as little as possible. Just yesterday I ordered another Hera marker. The one I have has a sharp point on the non-marking end that (to me) makes it uncomfortable.

In the above picture, the dark green at the bottom is actually the top outer border. There is a 2" finished cream strip between each of the rows. At the top and bottom of the quilt are a row of HST flipped every other one so that the black (which pulls those rows together) is as shown. I have a perfect stencil for the cream. I used Mark-B-Gone to mark it and have quilted across halfway. I am going to remove those markings today. Then I decided to leave the cream rows for last so the Mark-B-Gone won't be on the quilt as long. My intention was to quilt it from top to bottom. Now that's been changed a smidge. I will skip the cream divider strips until the end.

This was a commercial pattern. I'm not sure if it's still available. I know I sold mine with a kit on eBay. One of the two ladies I made it with emailed me. She doesn't remember the date (other than a really long time ago). She hasn't yet completed the first quilt the 3 of us made together (the original Thimbleberries BOM kit, which I call the calendar quilt). Unfortunately, although I love the quilt, I did not make a label for it or even date it on my Web Shots page. If you want to see it, click on the Web Shots album link to the left. It's in the first album, which consists of my personal quilts.

I also quilted most of the first block of the row quilt last night. Pictures coming later. Hopefully taken with my camera which has spent the last 6-7 weeks vacationing in GA. I hope it comes in the mail today. This new camera is not only taking mostly-fuzzy pictures, but there are white spots on most of the shots. They look like semi-transparent perfectly round circles floating around that don't add to the pictures at all.

~Joan

New Kitchen Toy

Come on in and take a sniff. Here is a loaf of fresh-from-the-bread-machine cinnamon raisin bread. Or at least what's left of it. We had a couple over two nights ago for dinner. I served some dinner rolls that got lots of compliments. The guests assumed I made them from scratch (because we usually do). The ones I served were Sister Shubert's. They are so good, but they are expensive when feeding 10 regularly as we do. I knew I was going to be preparing the meal myself since my 3 oldest girls were all gone or out of commission. Translated: I needed all the help I could get.

But that meal got me thinking back to when home made dinner rolls were a staple on our dinner table. I went to a local thrift store looking for a small attractive table to use for an end table. We recently switched our living room furniture around, and a little table would be nice to have for beside our sofa. If you're wondering why the last 3 sentences are in the same paragraph, hold on!! While I was looking for a table, I saw a like-new bread machine. It was in pristine condition. Made me wonder if it ever had been used. It was just $10, so I got it. We've had bread machines in the past (4 if memory serves me correctly, which it rarely does). We had been given them all and gave them all away again (except for one I bought for a song on eBay--remember the memory thing...I suffer from short-term memory whatever-it-is).

So last night we made 2 consecutive loaves of cinnamon raisin bread to test drive the machine. Well, in reality, we made the first loaf to test-drive it. Since that loaf all but evaporated off our counter, I had Susanna make a second one. That's before that weird thing happened to her eyes. Her loaf also turned out perfect...and she's hooked on using the bread machine. There is an English muffin loaf in there right now, very near the end.

Must go do some really important stuff.

~Joan

Eagle Eyes

Susanna had fun making Eagle Eyes tonight. They are a wonderful candy treat. My aunt first made them for my family on a long-ago visit. You lay out the square "waffle" pretzels, put one Hershey kiss on them, and place them carefully in a 375-degree oven for a minute or so. Remove them and immediately push one M & M candy in the center, then let them cool. Yummy!

We were laughing insanely at this picture. To us it looked like instead of someone propping their eyes open with the proverbial toothpicks, they used pretzels.

We made these once with Hershey hugs, which were swirled milk and white chocolate. Those we dubbed "Zebra Eyeballs". We never had a name for these, but we put our heads together tonight and came up with Eagle Eyes. Now you can enjoy them, too.

Happy new year!

~Joan