A Wonderful Time Was Had By All!!

Returned last night from a wonderful 4 day quilting retreat near Collinsville, Texas. We laughed, talked, sewed, ate great food, and laughed and sewed some more--what a good time we had! We all accomplished a lot! I have lots of pictures to post and wish I had taken more. All the pictures show some of what everyone got done The next to last picture shows my Mystery quilt ready to be sewn together---tiny pieces ( to me, any way) all got sewn together! I even had time to make 3.5 Yellow Brick Roads and embroider 3 baskets for the Aunt Bea's Parlor. You can get a lot accomplished with concentrated effort!!! The very last picture show the "I Miss You" little gifts that my Dear Husband had put in for me to unwrap everyday!! What a sweetie he is! Truly a keeper!!!!

Thanks to all of you--you are all keepers in my book--such a great group of quilters and friends!


Let quilting help you make someone smile!


Jan

Spring is Near!

At least Spring is near on my seasonal wall at my house!!! That's where I have my Lilac Bouquet quilt hanging and it cheers me up on this grey, foggy day! I'm sure you have a favorite wall hanging that cheers you up when you look at it, too! Care to share a word picture of it?

I guess this time of year is hard on everyone because we don't get enough sunlight and it is called Seasonal Affective Disorder, I think. On these dark, dreary days, I turn the lights on in the house to help make things a bit more cheery, then when I go from room to room, it isn't so bad. Of course when I'm sewing, I have every light on in the room that I can find and that helps a lot--guess that doesn't help the electric bill though does it?!!

Nine blocks of baskets are done on my Aunt Bea's Parlor quilt--it's going along quite quickly, but as I've said before, there isn't nearly the embroidery on these that there was on the Polka Dot Girls blocks and they are smaller, but there are more of them!

Let quilting help you make someone smile!

Jan

Red, White and Black Quilt Finished

The first one is a picture (sorry the picture is so dark) of the Red, White and Black quilt all finished. This one is a keeper for us. Maynard quilted it with musical notes--for some reason I thought of musical notes when I looked at the quilt top--maybe because sheet music is black and white!!! LOL!!!

Winter is moving back into the vicinity with temps only into the high 40's and low 50's today. But the sun was shining and if you stayed out of the wind it wasn't too awful. We delivered Project Linus quilts to the drop off point which is Happiness Is.......quilt store in McKinney, Texas. They have just moved into a new place, so of course we had to look around and ended up buying the fabric for a baby quilt for a gift for one of Maynard's co-workers.
The fabric in the second picture is what we picked out. We were trying to go by what another co-worker had told us she wanted and she said she loved polka dots and brown and blue for a boy!!! Hope she will like what we picked out!!!

Let quilting help you make someone smile!

Jan

One Keeper and Three Project Linus

We are caught up on the Project Linus quilts for now until I make some more tops!!! Hurrah!! Plus only have 5 more big quilts to quilt. I feel like we've won a race or something!!!!

The first picture is of Prairie Path--it was done with a jelly roll--I think it was Shangri-la, but maybe someone will recognize it as something other than that and correct me! This one is a keeper for awhile anyway--if we find someone in need we will give it away!

The second quilt is a American Stars. I quilted it with lots of stars free hand. It was fun to do!

The third one is a panel quilt--the panel is pictures of happy, springtime bunnies. Some little girl should like this one!

The last one is a YBR with fabric called Charisma from Moda. I really like this line of fabric--it makes me smile!

So I have quite a bunch of quilts to take to the drop off point for Project Linus. Probably will do that on Saturday.

Let quilting help you make someone smile!

Jan

Two Keepers and One Project Linus

Here are two quilts that just got quilted--I did the 2 small ones and Maynard did the larger one. The first small one is called Metro Blues and is for Project Linus and will be delivered with a bunch probably this Saturday.

The next one is a Faux Baltimore Album by Mimi Dietrich--it started as a panel given to me by my BFF, Debi. It required concentration to get all the little squares in the right places, but was worth it, I think! I'm keeping this one!

The third one is called Candle in the Window and I'm keeping this one, too. It was made from a jellyroll, but I can't remember the name of the jellyroll. I'm going to have to start writing all these things down because my memory is not what it used to be!!!!

Let quilting help you make someone smile!

Jan

Getting These Project Linus Quilts Done----

Here are 4 more Project Linus quilts done and ready to go to new homes--only have 5 more to quilt and I will be caught up with Project Linus quilts. Maynard is working away on the bigger quilts pile and has one on the frame and 6 more left in the pile to quilt! I'm so excited that we are getting caught up!! Don't know why I put a deadline on myself for these, but I did. I wanted to be caught up with the PL quilts by the time I go to our quilting retreat on Februry 23rd because I am planning on working on more PL quilts while I am there--more Yellow Brick Roads--have have 10 bunches of 6 Fat Quarters selected and ready to go with me to work on for just that purpose, plus a mystery quilt all cut out and ready to sew---I plan on getting a lot done as you can see!

The first quilt is called "Down at the Frog Pond" and has frogs in the border and lily pads in some of the other fabrics. The second one is "Boats at Sunset." This is like one I did earlier--if you look closely at the blue fabric you can see boats in it. The third one is "Fabulous Flowers"--this is my favorite--I love those flowers! The last one is "Charmingly Diagonal" and is the one that is made with plain blocks in certain positions and you cut them and sew it back together and you get a quilt with triangles around the edges. I wish I had a link for it to show you the directions. It's a fun quilt to make!

Let quilting help you make someone smile!

Jan

MORE quilts?????..............

Yes, here are some more quilts for Project Linus as we continue to play catch-up with the quilting and binding---we are on a roll and can't stop. I quilted some with just a big meandering stitch on my Bernina and Maynard is doing some on the Little Gracie Pro II using pantograms.

The first one is Ride 'Em Cowboy and is my favorite so far--I hope some little cowboy really likes is !! I found the fat quarters for $1.oo apiece so this was a bargain!

The second one is called Red All Over and is a Turning Tweny pattern I think, but not as many fat quarters, I probably only used 6 because I always buy 6 FQs thinking I will do Yellow Brick Road!

The third is In the Pink which is a YBR and hopefully pink enough for some little girl--LOL!!!

I have 5 in the pile to get ready to quilt--just have to put the backings on since we cut the backings off the roll last night. Then I can quilt those in the next couple of days, I hope. Maynard is working on a big one on the frame right now that was made from a jelly roll--I'm going to have to look back through my patterns to see just which on it is though--I have had a memory laspe---mental pause!!!

Let quilting help you make someone smile!

Jan

Here come the quilts.......................

Three Project Linus quilts from the pile got quilted and one bigger quilt for us was finished also! I've been busy quilting and binding and Mayanrd did some, too. It's been a beehive of activity around here!! I wanted to get somewhat caught up with the quilting so that when I go to my quilting retreat and make more YBRs, I don't make the pile of quilts that need quilting sky high!!!!

The first one is called "Lavender Green" since those are the colors and I vaguely remember a song called "Lavender Blue dilly, dilly, lavender green, you'll be my queen, I'll be your king.." Ring any bells with anyone else or am I making that song up?!! LOL!!

The second one is called "Charmed, I'm Sure" because it is all charm squares. Charm squares are fun to work with aren't they--Being precut makes them so nice to just plan out a pattern and sew.

The third one is "Blue Afternoon". They don't show up but there are old fashioned boys and girls at play in a meadow with ducks and geese and even a pet lamb--very charming! I couldn't bear to cut the fabric so I left it as a whole piece and put a border around it!

The last one is called "Cabin in the Woods" and is one my daughter got me a gift certificate for the fabrics at our favorite quilt store in Columbus, Ohio, The Glass Thimble. I had a wonderful time picking out Thimbleberries fabric and pattern. This one is mine for awhile anyway!!!

Let quilting help you make someone smile!

Jan

Prairie Paisley and Happy Kids Quilts

Prairie Paisley is all finished up and hanging on the quilt rack. I especially like the colors in this one. I changed one of the colors in the sashing and used a darker red than they used in the pattern and I'm very glad that I did--much brighter and more to my liking! I do tend to like the brights!

Speaking of brights here is another Project Linus quilt that I quilted and bound yesterday and it is a bright one. I called it Happy Kids because, although hard to see, the one fabric has happy, smiling kids in it--just what we like to see in kids!!!

Let quilting help you make someone smile!

Jan