A Little Update

Wednesday was my birthday, and it’s been fun. Someone brought me a strawberry cake to church last night, which worked out great because I could eat a small piece and share the rest with everyone else. Alan and Dave took me out to Olive Garden last night, and that was fun. Dave’s birthday is one day after mine, so we were both celebrating. The festivities will continue tomorrow with the family. 

I got a couple of customer quilts done. This one is batik. 

Her husband picked it up, but hopefully she likes it.

This one is a donation quilt Penny made. I like the happy colors.

I hung a different one up on the wall of my quilting room. It’s an antique string quilt. The batting is lumpy, and the stitches are kind of large.

I don’t think I’ve hung this one up before. It’s interesting how the maker used the big checked fabric. There’s red and white check, and red and black check. From a distance, the checked strips looked pieced.

April Plans

The UFO number for April is 

I have four lists, but one of them only has nine entries on it, so I’m off the hook for that one. 

Numbers 2 and 6 are done, and I have an extra month to work on 7. That seems like a good plan.

I have a list for “Quilts to be quilted (and bound)

I’ve only finished the January one, I still need to work on February (6), March (7), and now April.

“Tops to Finish Piecing” — I’ve done none of them.

Maybe I can get something done on this. The Logging In quilt only needs a border at this point. I will and try and work on that one this weekend. 

Of course, I’ve been busy with church activities. The men are cooking this week, so I won’t have any responsibilities until the 9th. I spent yesterday shopping for dog toys. Reba has a stuffed alligator she is very fond of. She’s had it about 4 years and usually sleeps with it in her bed. 

She had a big tantrum on Sunday and removed the stuffing and the squeaker. 

This one had to go in the trash, and I absolutely can’t find a duplicate. I found something similar, but I can’t come home with one new toy, so I bought three. 

I gave Reba her choice, and she decided on the bright green one.

She took the other two outside and buried them, but Ruthie dug up the red one and brought it back inside, 

She’s sleeping with it right now. 

Color Study

I have a few more pictures from the Cuero Quilt Show that I want to share. One of the things that interests me most about quilting is how different colors or contrasts can make the same quilt patterns look so different. Apparently, their guild did a mystery quilt last year, and several were exhibited at the show. The pattern is a three-color quilt. 

It makes a big difference whether a dark or light is used for the background. Very interesting when you see them all together. 

The reception at church Saturday turned out very nice. The color for ordination is red, so we decorated with red roses and red candles.

The guestbook table:

And the food:

We also had a potluck lunch on Sunday (fifth Sunday), but I failed to take pictures. I came home Sunday and took a nap. I was super tired. After my nap, I started cleaning out my closet. I need to go through the drawers too at some point, but that will have to wait. 

Inspiration!

Betty and I drove to Cuero yesterday to attend their quilt show. It was nice, and it looked like the attendance was pretty good. It wasn’t a very large show, but they have a pretty small guild. Well, it’s a small town, after all. I took a few pictures, not everything, but I took pictures of the ones that inspired me. 

This was one of my favorites. Very pretty. 

The butterflies were hand quilted. I took a closeup of the quilting.

Here’s a pretty bargello:

And some more pretty ones,

This was an old one made from sugar and flour sacks, according to the tag. It said it was about 100 years old. I always am interested in the old ones.

Can you guess which one inspired me? It was the exploding heart. I bought a pattern from one of the vendors to make one. I know they have been around for a couple of years, and I wasn’t interested before, but all of a sudden, I felt like I needed to make one. I’m going to do it!

Happy Day

Yesterday was such a good day. My church sewing group hosted the Cade Middle School Kindness Club. About 35 6th, 7th, and 8th graders came to the church and helped tie comforters. They worked for two full hours and got 89 quilts done. We had already pinned them and sewed the hems, so tying them was the last step. It’s so wonderful to have that many done, and they enjoyed it too. 

Here’s the entire group: 

I just want to say they were so friendly and so polite, they were a joy to be around. They can come back anytime!

I went to my shop after all that and worked on finishing the twister tote. Yay! I got it finished.

Here’s one that shows the handles better.

I managed to get a zipper in it—yay again!

And, I put a mesh pocket on the inside:

It will be gifted tomorrow to a pastor friend. I think she will like it. Now I need to make my pastor one! Oh, and one for myself! 

Vintage Quilts

March has been a month for quilting old quilt tops. The first one was brought to me in January, and I finally got it quilted. 

It is quite large and is what I call the hummingbird pattern. 

Lots of feedsack type prints in this one, and pretty a much a little bit of everything as far as colors and prints.

I posted a closeup of this one when I was quilting it. 

I like it a lot. In fact, I came home and searched my 5,500 Quilt Blocks book looking for the pattern but found nothing. I haven’t been able to locate all my “Aunt Martha” books, but I thought it looked like something that could have been in one of them. Anyway, I finally broke down and did what I should have done from the beginning. I got out a pencil and a compass, and I drafted a hexagon and marked out the sections. I now have a template I can use if I get a burning desire to hand piece a quilt.

The other two were string quilts and look like they were pieced by the same person. 

The maker used every kind of fabric available including polyester double knit and tufted bedspread fabric. They both weighed a ton and were quite challenging to quilt. The one with the borders was especially awful. I texted her and told her it was going to have some tucks in the borders and maybe other places, and she said she knew they weren’t flat, and she didn’t expect perfection. That’s a good thing, because they aren’t perfect. But, they are done, thank goodness.