Guild Challenge

Hey all,

It is almost Christmas!!  I am excited because today my son arrives and tomorrow my daughter arrives.  We are so excited.  Have a good bit on the 'to do' list, but wanted to write this post so I would be up to date on what I have been working on.

I have finished the Black and White plus one guild challenge from Mountain Quiltfest.  The challenge is to create a quilt with a perimeter less than 160 inches that is comprised of only black and white fabrics and one other fabric, I think I remember that the other fabric had to read as a solid.

Matt and Taylor's baby quilt 60 x 60

I really liked the quilt that I did for Matt and Taylor's baby and had enough of that fabric to make another, only revised to be smaller.  Their quilt was about 60 inches square and this quilt needed to be
a max of 40 on each side.  So I revised how I made the stars, shrunk the sashing and border....I was also not in love with the center square on Matt and Taylor's quilt.  So I was talking to Will, my son, on the phone and asked what he thought.  We were tossing ideas back and forth and he said something about a setting sun, and that made me think of the moon over a mountain block.

Shadows of Kilimanjaro 37 x 37

I took a free motion quilting class on craftsy.com by Leah Day, so I decided to do various quilting designs in each of the orange blocks.  I was thinking, pick ones that are organic looking, that would remind people of nature.

I did bamboo on this one.

A vine with long fronds.

 A lotus looking pod.

 Pebbles.

 Flowing water.

Flowers.

Curly vines.

 I also quilted each of the animal blocks and the mountain and the sun.  I decided not to quilt the white areas, so I just need to put on a label and a hanging sleeve.

I hope each of you has an amazing Christmas and remembers that we celebrate this season because Christ died on the cross for our sins and this gift that God gave us is the ultimate gift of salvation and it is worth celebrating the birth of the Christ child.

Merry Christmas.

Terry

A Jere' Funk Mystery Quilt

Hey all,

I don't know why I have had such a hard time keeping up with this blog this year...I really enjoy doing it.  This post should have been written around Thanksgiving!!!!

At the June Mississippi Quilting Association (MQA) they offer classes.  I took the class with Jere' Funk.  She sent fabric and cutting directions to do before you arrived to class.  With the class only being one day long, you would not make enough progress if you didn't have the cutting done ahead.

I decided I would like to have a Christmas throw and I had enough fabric in my stash to make the throw size without buying a thing!!  At the class I got about 8 blocks made (out of 20).

After I got home from the meeting, I was in full prepping for surgery mode as I was having replacement knee surgery in a month and in that time I also had a trip to Denver planned.  So I made about 10 pots of soups and package and froze them in individual servings.  I also trimmed all the shrubs, built some furniture and various other tasks to try to be ahead.

Christmas Hugs and Kisses  58 x 70

So during the fall, I finally got the blocks back out and finished them.  I only needed one seam to be done.   My friend Lauren came over for a sew day and I got them sashed then.  During the Thanksgiving holiday I rented my friend Lou Caffey's long arm and quilted it. After I got it home, I quilted Christmas words in the white area.  So it is done and hanging across the back of my love seat.

Rudolf

Merry

Christmas

All

I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Sew on,

Terry

An I Spy Quilt

Dear Readers,

Despite all the projects I wrote about last post, I took time out to do a special I spy quilt.  There is a little boy in our community and a member of my church that has Mitochondrial disease.  His name is Judson and his story has touched my heart so I made him a quilt.

Several years ago I bought some of Pat Yamin's Come Quilt With Me templates for eye spy quilts.   I purchased the 5 in diameter hex that comes with the hexagon template and the setting triangle.  I also purchased the smaller size, but I used the 5 inch size for this quilt.

I have a large collection of novelty prints and some were already cut into hexies.   I had also picked up a number of other prints this summer when I was out in Colorado.  So I spent a night or two cutting them into hexies.  I talked to Judson's pre school teacher to find out what his favorite color was and what he liked.  She told me super heroes and black!  I was so surprised about the black.  I had thought I would use a red for the star points, but I decided to change them to black.   I machine quilted the quilt on my Juki.  Just stitching in the ditch on all the seams.  The back was spiderman fabric with red on either side.  I did not write down the finished measurements but I think it is about 55 by 77.

I got the sweetest note from Judson's mom, Raven, and she sent me these photos of Judson with his quilt.  I am so happy he likes it.  

 I have also recently taken a trip to Colorado...I will write about that another day, but it was a fabulous visit.

I am behind in grading...ugh.  I will be working on that till I am caught back up, then on to the other projects on the table.

Sew on.

Terry

Granite Table

Dear Readers,

I have started sewing again this week, but I also finished a small outdoor granite table.  For the last 2 years, when I had the new counters put in, there had been a piece of granite leaning against my house by the front door.  It was the piece where the stove top was going to be...they don't cut that out till they arrive at the property to be sure it doesn't crack during shipping.

So I had this piece of granite 36 x 19 that had 4.5 inch cut outs at each corner.  So I moved it to the folding table I had put in the garage.  I then cut a left over 4 x 4 from the fence I had put up last summer into legs.  I also cut a 2 x 4 into lengths to support the granite.  I positioned the legs in the cut outs and screwed the 2 x 4 to the legs.  I then stained the legs and supports.

I had purchased 2 inch castors, but decided they looked too small, so I returned them and bought 3 inch castors.  They look more in proportion to the legs.  So today I attached the new castors and flipped the granite onto the table legs.  I didn't think I could do it by myself as the granite is heavy, I had just moved it to my dolly to get it to the garage, and kind of leaned it against the table and slid it up there.  Getting it down was promising to be tricky.  I ended up tilting it up on the edge, grabbing the cut outs and lifting it down...almost dropped it, but got it there.

I have too many sewing projects going at this time...here is a partial list...
      1)  Pigeon Forge challenge quilt

      2)  Jere's mystery quilt

      3)  Bonnie Hunter mystery

      4)  Tumbler quilt

      5)  Celeste's mountain quilt

My other project I just set up for is to finish getting the wall paper paste off the wall in the hall...  it never ends, but it keeps me out of trouble.  It would sure be nice to have that done before Christmas time.  I will have to stop playing games on my phone to make inroads into all those projects!!

Sew on...

Terry

Block Buddies

Dear Readers,

Last week I made some of Monica Solorio-Snow's block buddies that she talks about on her Happy Zombie Blog.   I won't give the directions here as she does a great job on her blog.  Click here to read how to make them.  Meanwhile here are some pictures of mine in process and being used.

trimming the batting to the board.
 

See how the pieces stick?  And because of the plastic board they can be stacked.  

I love these and I know they will help as I have to run a ceiling fan as I am of "that" age.  I hate to have pieces get away from me.

Happy sewing!!

Terry

New Headboard

Dear Readers,

Last summer I made a headboard from a door from my grandmother's house.  I did not like how it came out.  It was too long, and did not look cool like the ones I had seen on pinterest.

So I had several people look at it and sent
pictures to Celeste, but no one really liked it.  So Celeste sent me some pictures of headboards from pinterest.  I did not see one I loved, but one looked like a braid quilt, and I liked that...but did not want to deal with cutting the angles.  So I started thinking about quilt squares that had right angles, as they are so much easier to cut.  I got my graph paper out and drew out a log cabin block using 1 x 4s for the logs.  Of course 1 x 4's are not really 1x 4, they are 3.5 inches wide.  So then I decided it needed a frame so I planned to use 1 x 6's (that are really  1 x 5.5's) for the frame.  I made a trip to Madison and picked different types of wood and a medium stain that I hoped would look different on each type of wood.  I picked a poplar, pine, red oak and cedar.  I stained all the wood and the backing board and had it ready to go.  I was a little disappointed there wasn't a bigger contrast.  Celeste and her beau, Blake, and my son Will were coming for Labor Day and we had planned to assemble the headboard at that point.  I borrowed the key to the wood shop at school and we moved over there and went to work.



Celeste, Blake and Will did the cutting, and I acted as general contractor.  At some point during the process Will moved to doing the sanding and I stained the new cut ends.  Celeste and Blake did the assembly once the cutting was done.  Even though there wasn't as much contrast with the stain as I had wanted the change in the grain was really pretty and gives it enough contrast.

It went together pretty well.  We had a few issues with tool my caulk gun  that we were using with the liquid nails, as it was bent and we had a few runs to Wal-Mart, but it went together well.  Blake screwed the frame to the backing board to further secure it.

When we came home, we had the trial of getting the door off the posts.  I had put it on to stay so that was a trial, but the kids (well adults!) worked together and got it done.  They put the new headboard on and I had them pull the mattress back so that I could put a coat of tongue oil on it to seal it.  It is all sealed and back in place now, thanks to one of my students, her bother and friends,  and dry enough that I can sleep in my room again.  :)

Veiw of the Log Cabin Block Headboard

Close up view

Summer Projects Upholstered Chair

Dear Readers,

Another project I did this summer was to reupholster a chair.  I had been working on it off and on for quite some time.  Well just before summer started  my son Will, my dad and his wife Nancy came to visit for my dad's birthday.  So they asked about the chair and next thing I knew, I had help on getting the old upholstery off.

I didn't make them work the whole visit.  We took time to have brunch and Jeff and Anne's and watch Jeff shoot across the pond at some turtles.

We also took some time to get together with some cousins from Grenada...

Frances talking to Duncan

Aunt Maria, Lamar Pitcock, Uncle Bobby, Frances

Emma Kate and me

Will, Duncan and Emma

After school got out, I got brave enough to to try to put the chair back together again.

It is not perfect, but it will do for my bedroom.

Soccer Stars

Dear Readers,

One quilt that I made this summer was called Soccer Stars.  My son called me one day and told me a coworker's son had cancer and he was a big soccer player.  I decided to make him quilt for when he was doing treatments.  I found a soccer panel on Missouri Star's web site.  So I ordered it.  I looked around at several quilt shops and found fabric for the background and inner borders.  I decided to make stars from 5 inch blocks and 2.5 inch squares to snowball the corners.  I chose the colors for the stars from the colors of the backing.  

Once I made the stars I sat down with some graph paper and figured out how to put them on as a border, I had to work out how big the inner borders going around the soccer field would be so that the stars would fit.

I took it to Bernina Sewing Center in Jackson to quilt it.  I decided to use a pantograph to quilt it and it went OK, till I was almost done and realized I had put the backing on 90 degrees different from what I should have...so I bought a piece of fabric and we sewed it on while it was on the long armer and finished up!!

Never heard back from the boy on whether he liked it or not.  I know that is not why we do things but I couldn't help but be a little disappointed.