Blessing Quilt

A dear friend was just diagnosed with cancer.

As I was quilting my latest Disappearing Four Patch,

I decided that this quilt would go to her.

As I was quilting, I prayed.

As I prayed, I quilted in words like

bless, joy, peace, faith, love and grace.

The words are hidden in the outer border,

but they are there.

Hopefully it will bring her comfort and peace.

May all who are going through trying times

feel God's love and peace.

Finished Bucilla Kit

A few years ago I went on a Bucilla Stocking kit kick

and made a number of the felt stockings.

The Bucilla kits are so cute and relatively easy to make.

As long as one goes in the order in the directions,

they go together easily.

Then I started knitting lots of socks.

Last week I was rummaging through something

and found a kit I had started at least a year ago and never finished.

The knitting needles were put aside and work continued on this kit.

Today I have a finish!

 

This Bucilla kit is newer design

and will hang on a wall or door.

The directions call for putting poster board inside the various pieces,

but I used batting instead.

 It won't crease if it gets bent and will hold its shape nicely.

The pieces are very well numbered and the directions

go step by step by number throughout.

As long as the pieces are cut carefully,

things go together nicely.

This will be a nice addition to my Christmas decorations,

unless I decide to gift it to someone.

I think I'm going to begin another kit next.

Which one shall I do??

(I have several from which to choose!)

I'm linking to Design Wall Monday today.

Happy Quilting!

Another Disappearing Four Patch

Some of you know that I really like the

Disappearing Four Patch block.

I like it so much that I've made 6 or 7 quilts using this block.

Well, here is another one!

To me there are certain fabrics that just lend

themselves to this pattern.

Plus,

they are so easy to make!

I bought the fabrics for this quilt while I was

at Missouri Star Quilt Company back in May.

 

Floral prints are not my favorite,

but I really like this one.

The colors are so fresh and fun.

 

It's a bit difficult to see,

but the white fabric has different colored pin dots on it.

They work so well with the prints.

This quilt is pin basted and ready for quilting.

Hopefully by the end of next week it will be a finish.

I'm joining Whoop Whoop today.

Happy Quilting!

Finally Fixed

Back in January, I was so excited to have

"On Ringo Lake" finished and ready for quilting...

or at least I thought it was finished.

I had sewn the borders in place

and had laid it out on the floor to see how it looked.

It looked AWFUL!!

Somehow I had not measured things correctly,

so the quilt did not lie flat.

It was going to require a lot of time and effort

to pull off the borders and fix the problem.

I decided this week was the week to fix this quilt and be done with it.

I spent a few hours ripping the border stitches out the other night.

Then I remeasured everything and was an inch off in each direction.

Wow!!

Who knows what happened that day!

I added the needed border,

sewed everything back together and have a FLAT quilt!

I need to give it another good pressing

and this one will be ready to send off to be quilted.

 

This quilt was a very frustrating quilt for me to make,

even without the border issues.

I will be very happy when it is completely done.

 

The color combination is what drew me to making it.

I do love these colors together.

This will be taken to be quilted in the next few days

and will be a finished quilt soon.

YAY!!

Happy Quilting!

Ocean Dance Finish

Another finish has come out of my

Hidey Hole this weekend.

My husband is out of town

and with few appointments and commitments,

there has been a lot of time for sewing.

Can I just say....

I LOVE THIS LITTLE QUILT!

This is the second quilt I've made using this pattern and

I see more in my future.

Thank you, Judy, for suggesting I make it from Blue Batiks!

 

This one is a baby quilt,

but I am so tempted to get my blue batiks back out and

make a big quilt in the same colorway.

 

This is from the pattern, Canyon Dance,

and is a fun curve quilt to make.

There are templates one can order to make the cutting

of the pieces really easy.

The piecing is easy, too!

The blocks are made and then trimmed to size.

Then, there are no seams to match when sewing

the blocks together except the intersecting seams for the blocks.

 

I am calling this one "Ocean Dance".

It's ready and waiting for the baby to arrive!

I'm linking to Design Wall Monday today.

Happy Quilting!

When the Husband's away....

I get so much done in my Hidey Hole!

My husband went out of town yesterday

(for several days)

and for the first time in I don't know how long,

I had NOTHING on the calendar.

I didn't have to leave my house.

So, what does that mean?

Lots and lots of sewing and creating time.

First on my list was finishing this piece

found in my Box of Shame.

It was going to be part of a larger quilt,

but when I found it earlier in the summer,

I knew it was not going to be made into a larger quilt.

A wall hanging it became.

I am thrilled to have this finished.

This was appliqued years ago...

early in my quilting days.

I look at it now and think of what I would do differently...

like not put all of the dark fabrics on one side,

not put the same fabrics so close together,

not put some of the fabrics together at all,

not use that print for the bowl...etc.

It doesn't matter, though.
I was learning and was new to this quilting life.

It's finished,

out of the box

and gracing a wall in my kitchen.

 

And it makes me smile with it's

huge flower cheerfulness.

It will be called "Flower Power".

:)

 

Happy Quilting!

Four Blocks Finished

In my last post I mentioned being four blocks short

for the Log Cabin Quilt I am making.

Even though I had counted the blocks several times,

I hadn't made enough for the quilt.

After looking everywhere the blocks could have been,

and not finding the missing blocks

I realized I would have to make four more.

They went together pretty quickly, since I was only making four!

They are finished and ready to be added to the rows.

As I was getting ready to sew these blocks into rows,

I was worried about getting them turned or in the wrong place.

I had laid the quilt out on the floor and picked the blocks up in

piles of each individual row.

Then I remembered that I had these pins...

These were purchased years ago and sure come

in handy when sewing big quilts together.

I used pins to keep the squares in the right order

while sewing them into to rows.

I also put a pin with the row number into each 

sewn row, so they won't get in the wrong order.

No one wants a log cabin quilt

with out of whack rows!

Now I can begin sewing the rows together

and finish this top.

Happy Quilting!

Four Blocks Short!

A few weeks ago at Quilt Camp I made all of the blocks

for a Log Cabin quilt.

Or at least I thought I had made them all!

I know I counted the stack at least three times and was sure

I had the 81 blocks needed to make this quilt.

Well,

I finally had time to lay them out on the floor last night.

How did this happen?

I'm four blocks short!

UGH!!

I will have to get out the box of strips and start piecing again.

So close and yet so far.

Hopefully the remaining four blocks will be made soon

and this top will be put together by the end of the week.

Four blocks!

I guess I need to go back to kindergarten and learn out to count.

:( 

Maybe four blocks were left somewhere,

but I've looked through all that I took with me.

Oh well...

Happy Quilting!

I'm Back

July has been a wonderful month,

and very busy travel-wise for me.

While I love to travel,

it is always good to come home

and get back into whatever kind of routine I have.

Plus, I've missed playing in my Hidey Hole!

My husband and I just spent a week in the Bahamas,

celebrating a big birthday for him

and a big anniversary with some dear friends.

It was a week of sitting on the beach,

soaking up the sunshine

and looking at the gorgeous water.

We did read a few books,

drink some adult beverages

and eat some good food, too.

We were on the island of Exuma and

saw the most beautiful beach we've seen.

It's difficult to capture the colors of the water with a camera,

but I tried!

 

And the sunrise....gorgeous!

I did take a little hand work with me to work on while

not sitting on the beach.

This piece of Hawaiian applique was found in my 

Box of Shame and was not half finished.

It's finished now and will be made into a wall hanging or a pillow.

It fit with the tropical theme of the week!

Hopefully I'll be back to full speed soon

and will be creating more things to post.

Happy Quilting!

Pot Holders

In the effort to get things finished out of this

Box of forgotten UFO's I recently found

(called my  Box of Shame),
I am remaking or repurposing a number
 of the found items

just to get them finished.

I had started making these fabric boxes and

had the fabric and batting cut and ready to go.

Some of them had even been sewn and turned

right side out and just needed the opening stitched closed,
before finishing the boxes.

Well, I didn't like how these boxes were turning out,

so into the "Box of Shame" they went.

What does one do with these half finished boxes?

Cut some Insul-Bright

and make pot holders!

The sewn seams were trimmed and removed.

Then the insul-bright was added with another piece of batting,

they were quilted and Voila!

I dug into my left-over binding bin and found

enough binding to finish them all, too.

Nine pot holders finished and ready for use.

AND... another project finished from the 

Box of Shame!

In addition,

I started playing with a charm pack of pastel squares

and some white dotted swiss and have come up with a 

sweet baby quilt.

The colors here are much darker than in real life,

but you get the idea.

There is one more row of chevrons to make

and then the blocks can be sewn together.

It will need a border as this isn't that big,

but it's cute.

The pattern came from a Missouri Star Tutorial.

Have a wonderful Monday!

I'm linking to Design Wall Monday today.

Happy Quilting!

Quilt Camp

For the second year I’ve joined my SIL

and three of her friends in upstate NY for 

Quilt Camp!

We were in a little house set up for 6 quilters

and sew to our hearts content. 

Nothing but sew, eat, sleep and sew some more.

Here we are, all set up in the living room.
There's just enough space for us,
an ironing station and a cutting station.

It was fun to see what everyone was working on
while we were at camp.
The different fabrics and colors were beautiful.

My SIL, Shelly, made these gorgeous blocks for Kim Diehl's
"Pie in the Sky" quilt.
It was so fun to see the blocks added to the wall after she
finished each one.
She thought this pattern would be beautiful in
red, white and blue fabrics.
We all agreed!

(This photo is truer to the colors in the fabrics.)

Missy made this beauty from a kit she'd had for several years.
There are A LOT of flying geese in this quilt.
The top is finished and just needs the borders.
(I didn't get the name of this one... sorry!)

Kathy made this fun quilt for a friend of hers.
(I didn't get the name of this one, either. Sorry!)
Each block was totally different and had to be laid out
individually.  I taught her to "web piece" so she was
able to keep the pieces where they belonged as she was piecing the blocks.
Someone suggested putting a tiny mouse in one corner
and a piece of cheese in another corner.
Wouldn't that be fun??


The fifth camper, Irene, was working on various projects and
for some reason, I never took a photo of her projects.
One thing she is working on is the
365 Block a Day project.
!Wow!

My first project was to make 4,386 of these log cabin blocks.
Actually, it was only 81 but it felt like a lot more!
There wasn't a space large enough to lay them out,
so I will be doing that on my design floor later on today.

Once the log cabin blocks were finished,
I put together one of the blue
Canyon Dance baby quilts..
I need to make one more block for the other top.

The little house is across from this gorgeous view.
There were houses between ours and the lake,
but we could see the sunset between the houses.

It was so much fun and I am already looking forward to next years camp.

Happy Quilting!

Utilitarian Quilt Finish

This quilt I just finished is by no means

one of the prettier quilts I've made,

but it will be well loved, I'm sure.

My sister in law gave me a couple of boxes of

colored jeans a couple of years ago to use in quilts.

I made one for them right away and she loves it.

Her grands can play with it, drag it around,

take it outside, spill things on it

and she doesn't worry at all.

When I had cut apart the jeans, I used my

Accuquilt cutter and cut a bunch of bricks.

Some of these bricks have now been made into another jeans quilt.

It's not a fancy quilt, but it will be durable.

 I just straight line quilted it with my walking foot and used

the blue denim for the binding.

It's the first time I've sewn the binding to the back

and turned it to the front and stitched it down with the machine.

This fun flannel looks so cute on the back and makes it soft.

I did not use any batting as it was heavy enough.

This will be delivered soon and put to use right away,

I'm sure.

Happy Quilting!

Happy Independence Day!

 

Image taken from here.

Wishing all of you a safe and happy day.

Placemats

Last week I blogged about the 

Box of Shame I found in my Hidey Hole closet.

In this box were some placemats I had started years ago for my sister.

She had seen some when she had been on vacation

and had described them to me.

"I can make those!"

Well.....

fast forward a few years

and here they sit.

They were going to have scalloped edges

or pointed edges... I don't even remember.

Nevertheless, they were going to require some work.

 When I found them the other day,

I decided to just finish them

and finished they are. 

They had been sewn together already and were ready

for the fancy edges.  

I thought about practicing some FMQ designs

on them, but in the end just used my 

walking foot with the #4 stitch on my Bernina.

These will go to my sister.

I'm sure she had long forgotten about the ones

she had seen, so these will be fine with her.

:D

 

Eight placemats finished and 

out of the box!

Happy Quilting!