A quilt with a story! I sometimes do work for others and had just completed a pillow for a client.  She brought her dil with her when she picked up the pillow.  Her dil said that she had blocks from a old trunk of her granny.  I told her, "You can make a quilt from the blocks."  She did not hear the pronoun and brought the blocks and finishing fabrics to me a couple of weeks later.  I gave her with I thought to be an excessive price to make two quilts.  "Okay," she said.  I have to say that the blocks were ugly and many sizes.  Some of the fabric was extremely fragile.  But look what happens!  The quilt turned out to be beautiful!  I will tell you what she says when she picks up the quilts.

Seaside Serenity

This is Seaside Serenity.  It is a quilt kit that I immediately fell in love with the colors when I saw it at Cotton Pickin's Quilt shop in Washington State.  I don't usually purchase kits but this one shouted at me.  I knew that I was going to try end-to-end embroidery design from JuJu.  This is the  Swirls 1 design. I basted the top, batting, and backing together with 505 spray (lightly sprayed). I recently purchased a magnetic hoop from Mighty Hoops to make the hooping quicker. I started in the middle of the quilt on one side and continued across to the other edge.  The last hooping on the edge was about five inches so when the design went off the edge I would stop the design and forward to another section that stitched on the quilt.  This quilt took some time and patience as there is probably 60 hoopings.  I just wanted to prove to myself that I could really quilt my own quilts. Someone is going to receive a nice Christmas present!
 

Two Years of Work

 This is two years of thread ends that were saved in a quart mason jar as I changed colors on my Babylock 10 needle embroidery machine.  The new thread is tied to the old thread and pulled through before threading the needle. I have no special end result for this thread, I just was tired of finding it on my sewing room floor.  But it is a pretty reminder of the work that the machine has completed.

Tie Dye Time

Last week several friends met at my house to tie-dye white t-shirts and bandanas for the Operation Christmas Child boxes.  These are just a few of the bright results. It was lots of fun and was a great way to spend a few hours. 

Blue Ridge Beautiful

It sometimes seems that a quilt will never be finished.  I started this quilt in 2010 when I attended a class from Bonnie Hunter at the local quilt guild.  All of the fabrics were collected and stuffed away.  This year I decided that several plastic cartons needed to be emptied and this was one of them.  The quilt is from Adventures with Leaders & Enders and called Blue Ridge Beauty. There is only one block in the quilt. When I started to make the blocks again--four of the first six blocks were incorrectly sewn.  So I had to check the picture in the book each time to make sure the colors were in the right position. This was my March Covid quilt--just stay home and sew. Finally finished the top in April.  So glad to have it quilted and ready for gifting.

Making Progress

Several years ago when my granddaughter enrolled again in college I decided to make her a bookcase quilt for graduation.  Later, on one of my Paducah adventures I found a pattern by Crimson Tate titled Personal Library Quilt.  I purchased the kit with a great pattern.  When I started it a few weeks ago, the fabric did not tickle my fancy and I started to dig out bits and pieces of my accumulation.  Most of the "books" are made with left-over binding and small pieces of fat quarters that I have. I asked my GD for book titles and so she gave me two pages of possibilities.  I added "titles" of places she has been and other important events with my embroidery machine.  It is not yet finished because I want to ask her about other items and events she wants added to the quilt.  I love looking at it and I think she will love it too.

P.S.  My grand came over today to help me with the top row.  She loves her quilt and helped me with some Russian titles to put on "her" row. She especially loved all of the different fabrics and then chose the border fabric.  I should have it finished soon and then take it to the quilter on Tuesday.  

Tiny Backpack

It is impossible to tell a granddaughter that you can't make what she wants!!?? So after thinking for a couple of weeks about making a backpack for a teddy bear without knowing the size or any other bits of information and finally using Google to learn more, I had a plan. Stephanie at ManySmallFriends.com had a free online pattern that looked much like I wanted to make. I made the backpack from lightweight patterned denim.She used unique hardware and leather or homemade fabric straps.  My straps are two layers of black marine vinyl with velcro closures. The finished size is about 4" x 5.5". It was very easy to make but I was glad to have Stephanie's photo-packed instructions.  I know some little one will love this backpack.