Water = Life UPDATED

 Dear Readers,

It has been a while since I have participated in a quilt challenge.  In January Possum Town Quilters issued a challenge to create a 20 x 20 inch quilt with the theme water in your world.  You were given two blue pieces of fabric and they had to make up 20% of the quilt.  I chose to make mine to look like a national park poster as that was one of my favorite trips with my daughter.    I paper pieced the letters and curved piece the water.  I pieced the water and the sand and sky together then fusible appliqué to add in the mountains and the trees and waterfall.  

I used two layers of batting, one 80-20 and one wool to make the quilting show more giving the sky and water more movement.  

It was fun to do a challenge quilt - it has been a while since I have done one.  Used left over binding from the national park quilt I did for Sue and Bill.  These will be going to Pigeon Forge for their show this June.

Sew on,

Terry

So while I was at Quiltville Inn for a retreat, Judy told me our quilts had won first place in the Mountain Quiltfest Ultimate Guild Challenge.  That means a ribbon and $100 for the guild to help fund future challenged and entries.

Here are some photos of our quilts and the names of the makers.

The whole group.  I know it is hard to see so here are the groups.

Brenda Crownover, Gwen Sisson and Judy Stokes

Sandie Nix and Watana Cantrell

Julia Graber, Tonya Stewart and CC Coggins

Terry Turnage and Kimberly Smith

Welcome

  Hi Readers,

Last Spring as I was surfing the internet I found a Tula Pink kit (Pining for You) by Free Spirit, that I had been looking at for awhile on sale at 5 Monkey Quilt Shop in North Carolina!  So I took the plunge and ordered it.  I had a quilt retreat planned to go to in September, so I did all the cutting putting the parts for each pineapple in its own zip lock bag.  At the retreat I got about half the pineapples made and every once in a while I would pull it out and make a few more.  Well MQA put out an Unfinished Object Challenge (UFO) and I put the pineapple quilt on my list.  Each month you tackled a different one of your challenges.  I did not get the pineapple done in January.  But I did finish it in February.  

I had decided to custom quilt it and had watched the videos where Tula had talked about Angela Walters amazing quilting so I did a lot of things she did but tried to give it my own take.  I also tried to do something a little different on each pineapple except the ones with diamonds....I couldn't think of anything to do for those.  I also decided that each background color would get a different pattern.  I was thrilled with how this one came out.  

Instead of the rainbow back that Tula recommended I put her giant ladybugs on the back, because,  Why not?

My mother loved Pineapples and often said they symbolized hospitality so that is why I named it Welcome.  

This one has gone to live at Lauren's home.  

Sew on,

Terry

Story Time

 Dear Readers,

I had another finish!  It is called Story Time.  I got the call a little before Christmas that my fake nephew and wife were having their second baby.  I call him my fake nephew as he was my ex-husband's nephew.  I had made The Guardians , a llama quilt, for their first baby so I needed to come up with something special for this new little girl too.  So I ran across the pattern Book Nerd by Angela Pingel.  Bryan and Missy got married in a library and Missy is a principal so I know that they must like books!  So while I was in McKinney helping Will get a bit more settled, I took a day and drove around to a bunch of quilt stores.  Before I went, Will and Celeste helped me think of children's book titles that they had loved as children.  I had not thought to bring the pattern with me, and I didn't remember how many books were on the throw size.  My goal was to find fabric that represented the books.  So I needed lots more titles as I know there would not be a good match for every title.  Will and Celeste came up with tons of titles.  I could not remember if the pattern had 20 or 24 titles so I wasn't sure how to much to buy so I bought a few extra pieces.  While I was driving around I found a cute shop, The Quilt Mercantile, in Celeste, Texas they did not have the pattern tho so I was still buying blind, but they had lots of great designers, Tula, Quilt Apothecary and others so I found a number of things there.   

 Another shop I stopped at in Garland, Texas was the Rocking Bobbin.  They actually had a Book Nerd quilt on their long arm machine.  

She had the idea for embroidering or writing book titles on the spines and suggested using grunge fabric for the spines of the books.  Her quilt did not have the names on it, as her DIL did not want them.  Grunge has been a favorite for a long time so I already had a lot of different colors of grunge that could work for the spines.  She also had some fat quarters that were perfect for book covers.  we had a good time visiting and tossing around ideas.  

So here is my quilt...

I custom quilted this one too.  So I took some close-ups of the pairs of books.  I also wrote titles of other favorite books in the horizontal sashing and on the vertical sashing I did something different on each row.  Just trying to learn more techniques.  

Babar and Frog went a Courtin

        

The Velveteen Rabbit and Goodnight Moon

Angelina Ballerina and 101 Dalmations

Oh, The Places You Will Go! and Bambi

Cinderella and Goldilocks and the 3 Bears

The Giving Tree and One Fish Two Fish

Curious George and Owl Moon

Winnie the Pooh and Mother Goose

The Good News of Christmas and The Secret Garden

On the way home, I stopped in Vicksburg and went to Stitch-N-Frame.  Pick up a couple of more fabrics and found a great piece for the back...This is a Robert Kaufman print...called Library of Rarities by Aimee Stewart.  

I really hope Bryan, Missy, Addy (the older sister), and the new little baby girl will enjoy getting under the quilt and having story time.  I know that is some of my most fond memories as a mother.  We read together a lot.  We loved reading stories and went to the library about twice a week.  Read on!

 Sew on,

Terry

Update:  When the quilt arrived the big sister, was so excited that she played under the quilt for an hour, checking out the books, texture and design.  You can't ask for a better reaction than that!

Peaceful Night

 Dear Readers,

Last Spring or Winter, I really can't remember what month I started, a block of the month challenge  but I was keeping up the first 3 months.  The program was supposed to last 7 months then you would have till Christmas time to quilt and bind it.  Well as I said after 3 months I got behind and put that project aside.  I kept thinking I was retired and I would be able to catch up whenever I wanted.  But never seemed to get to it.  Luckily Mississippi Quilt Association, MQA, was running a UFO challenge.  UFO stands for UnFinished Objects.  I had put this quilt on the 6 I chose for the challenge.  By the way I have at least 6 more that could be chosen for the challenge, but I really wanted to finish this challenge by Missouri Star Quilt Company called 'Tis the Season".  Luckily MQA picked the number of this for the December challenge.  So I powered through it and got it done for the December challenge.  

Anyway I was super pleased to get this done before Christmas even if it was Christmas Eve when I finished.  

Next up is a Tula Pink quilt kit called Pining for You.  Hope to post it by the end of the month.

Hope everyone has a wonderful New Year.  

Sew on, 

Terry

Oh, Christmas Tree

Dear Readers,

I made another Christmas Tree wall hanging for my son so he would have a super easy time decorating for Christmas.  This makes a quilt about 27 x 77 inches.

The pattern is called "Tall Trim the Tree" by Cindi Edgerton.  Unfortunately Cindi has closed her store and the pattern is no longer available.  I hate that as I was going to make one for myself and not knowing it was discontinued I did not make a copy, as I was just going to order a new copy.  The pattern comes with paper pieces to make two tree quilts but I had used the other one to make one for Celeste a couple of years ago.  I did add corners to the top and bottom of the quilt and used the cafe door curtain rods to hang it.  Celeste wanted hers to have all the same snowflake buttons for decorations, but when I went to the store to get buttons, there were not enough large quantities of any one style to decorate the tree consistently.  I went I bought lots of cute little buttons, aliens, stars, some snowflakes, gold balls, red buttons, charms.  So he can roll it out and hang it like it is or hang ornaments on the buttons if he so desires. 

I stuck a piece of paper in the corners so you could see them easier.  

I also made a bag to store it in so it would be easy to store.

Since I did not think of the bag for Celeste's Tree I made her one too!

Merry Christmas!

Terry

The Library

 Dear Readers,

Will ended up with a quilt made in the around the world pattern several years ago and had it in his guest room that had a twin bed in it.  Celeste thought it looked too juvenile and he should not use it on that bed.  So I decided to make him a replacement quilt and made this bookshelf quilt.  

It was based on a video by Missouri Star Quilt Company done by Jenny Dean.  She called her video "Book Review" if you are looking for it.  It was put out in 2021.  I had thought that this quilt would put a big dent in my scrap bins but no, they are still overflowing.  Oh well...more to sew with.  

Next up - working on pining for you a Tula Pink quilt kit.

Sew on,

Terry

Chestnut Homestead's Garden

 Hey Readers,

This summer Edyta Sitar of Laundry Basket Quilts offered a free mystery on her blog and YouTube channel.  She called it her Summer Mystery 2022.  I decided to play along and pulled a lot of grunge fabrics and neutrals to make the quilt.  I added an upper and lower border as I thought it would be more useful if it was a bit longer.  

So with the borders the quilt came out to be 64 x 74.  This is a really nice size for a throw.  I enjoyed the mystery and following her blog.  If you would like to follow it click here.  Will helped me name it and find a verse for the label.  Ed and Katrina have horses and Ed is a lawyer so Will came up with this verse:  

I didn't have a big enough piece for the back so I used this piece of civil war reproduction fabric with a few extra blocks that I made.  

This quilt is going to my brother and his wife in North Carolina.  Hope they enjoy it.

Sew on,

Terry