A Happy New Year to All!

Happy New Year everyone! I hope your year is blessed with good things!

My friend and fellow DFW Gang member, Sally made this quilt top and I quilted and bound it today. I called it Sally's Mickey Mouse. This brought my total for the year to 92 quilts for Project Linus! Yippee Skippee!!!

And I just had to show you a picture of the quilt top by designer Billie Lauder, "There's a dog on my quilt." It was quite a challenge to put together, but I was able to do it. I like this one! Now to figure out how to quilt it!

Let quilting help you make someone smile!

Jan

A Merry Christmas!

What a fun Christmas it was for our family here in Texas! The grandboys declared that whatever gift they were opening was "just what I always wanted!" and just loved it! What fun to see the wrapping paper flying and the squeals of delight!

Nathan was a Wise Man in a robe that his mother had gotten him when she was in Sweden in September for a conference. He looked just great in it! Their church has a wonderful Children's Christmas Eve service where the kids get to participate as shepherds, wise men, angels, and bell ringers. They then, help tell the story of Christmas. It is just a great time for all!

After eating a delicious brunch prepared by our daughter, Anne, we played games and spent a pleasant afternoon together. A great Christmas Day. I hope you had a wonderful Christmas, too.

Let quilting help you make someone smile!

Jan

Sit and Sew Christmas Party

It was a fun day of games and laughter and eating lunch and goodies and did I say laughter----we all need laughter in our lives! We did do a little handwork, but this day was more about fun! What a great group of women! These 14 ladies are the core group of this Sit and Sew group and have seen each other through sad times and rejoiced with each other through happy times! There were many gratitude prayers said during our prayer time before lunch---what a special time! Truly I feel blessed to be in a group of ladies like these!

We did a gift exchange where you can steal from one another and that proved to be a highlight of the afternoon also---------I came home with a wonderful baptist fan quilting stencil that Linda's husband, Dennis had made and what a good job he did, she had included some other goodies, too. A fine gift!

Let quilting help you make someone smile!

Jan

Trip To See Grandgirls!

We just returned home after trip to see our dear Grandgirls! They are Isabel, age 8 and Ilena age 4. What a great time we had! We put up the Christmas tree, went shopping, played in the snow, played games, read stories, played Barbies, and Littliest Pet Shop and had just lots of good fun! We even had a Snow Day and stayed in all day---that was fun for us Texas folks!

Got the fabric for a new wall hanging for Christmas from my daughter while there. We visited two quilt shops (fun, fun!). The wall hanging is Churn Dash done in Civil War reproductions. It is so pretty.

We are having the nicest weather here---temps in the high 60's and may reach 70 today--go figure!

Let quilting help you make someone smile!

Jan

Colorful Baskets Project Linus Quilt

Here is "Colorful Baskets" quilt for Project Linus---nice and bright! Hope some little or big girl will like it! It was part of my challenge that I gave myself to do all the quilts in the book by Karen Snyder called "Bundles of Fun." I think that is the last one from the book and challenge! I made it by the end of the year!!!! YEAH!!!!!

The weather has turned a little bit colder here, but the sun is shining most days and so if you bundle up some or layer the clothing, it's still good to go walking. I try to walk a half hour every day--------my little poodle, Buster sure likes to go walking--he's 16 years old, but still walks like a trooper!!!

Let quilting help you make someone smile!

Jan

DFW Gang Christmas Party

There were only 5 of us, but we had a great time at our annual DFW Gang Christmas Party last Saturday. Lots of time to sew, and talk and laugh and exchange gifties (how wonderful those were) and play games and eat! Not necessarily in that order! We always have such a good time together and to think we all met online at the Quilting Passion forum (now at the Quilting Bee forum.) Shown in the picture from left to right are: Debi, Brenda, Sally, me, and Marje.

The second picture shows a tote I just finished that is made with the selvage edges from different fabrics. It was fun to make---several of us in my Sit N Sew group have saved them, so we have quite a stock pile to choose from and two of us have made the bags. You have to leave about 1/4 - 1/2" fabric with the selvage edge in order to have enough fabric to make them pretty when you sew them down, some of mine just show the color dots and printing, which is fine too. You can really do whatever you want with these! That's part of the fun! The pattern came from a recent McCall's magazine.

Let quilting help you make someone smile!

Jan

Two More Tops---One for Me---One for PL

Here are two more tops---one for me to keep----the redwork baskets and one for Project Linus---the bright, cheery one.

The Redwork one is the same baskets (Aunt Bea's Parlor) that I did in all different colors and 1930's fabrics. This time I did them in reds and ivory. The wall hanging is made a specific size to hang on a certain wall in a certain place. It does look like a funny size. But fits very well where I want it!

The PL one is done with the pattern called Patchwork PDQ. It does go quite quickly and each block measures 15", so is fast to put together once you make the blocks.

Been having cold fronts moving through bringing cold, windy weather, but then it warms back up into the 60's and low 70's for a few days and then cold again with a little rain. Funny weather, but we'll keep those 60's days as long as we can! What's it like in your corner of the world?

Let quilting help you make someone smile!

Jan

Happy Thanksgiving!

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day, my favorite holiday of the year! We will travel to Austin and spend the day and Friday with our oldest daughter and her hubby and our grandsons, Evan 7, and Nathan 4. Their other set of grandparents will be there, too from Ohio. Looking forward to a great day!

I hope your Thanskgiving Day will be a blessed one--we all have so much to be thankful for!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Bento Box Blocks

These Bento Boxes are the start of a quilt from 2 jelly rolls from Connecting Threads called Cottage Blooms. They actually go quite fast and aren't hard to do. I got the pattern from Mary Quilts. You do 80 Bento Boxes and then sew them into 20 blocks of four. The setting is 4 blocks x 5 blocks.

I found a new pattern to work on ---so far all I have is the pattern and the white fabric for making the blocks. It is called "Sunday School Singers" and is by Trisha Cobb, who wrote the "Turning Twenty " books. It is done in embroidery and colors. Should be lots of fun! It has the first line of all the songs I used to sing with the kids Sunday School class that I taught many moons ago--------what memories! I bought the pattern while at Sit N Sew and opened it and our table sang all the songs---------we had a ball remembering all those fun songs!

Let quilting help you make someone smile!

Jan

One New Project Linus Quilt

Here is a little quilt that I made for Project Linus. I always wanted to make a Tumblers quilt and I finally tried it because it was so easy to cut out on the Accuquilt Cutter GO! System. It cut the nicest tumblers with the "rabbit ears" trimmed off so they were so easy to match together when sewing. It's hard to tell from the picture, but thosse are all thirties prints---it's scrappy, so I made the binding scrappy, too!! Just having too much fun here!!

Let quilting help you make someone smile!

Jan

Two Quilts

These are two quilts that I just finished for Project Linus.

The first one is "Red, Red Roses" and is, I think, the Easy Peasy pattern. The blocks are 16" and it goes together very easily. It's been awhile since I made it and I just can't remember the name of the pattern for sure---guess I need to write all these things down---then I would probably forget where I put the list---LOL!!

The second one is called "Amy Butler Bold." It uses 6 fat quarters of her fabric and is very bright and colorful! I hope it finds some child who really likes bold things!!!!!

It has cooled down for our part of the country---temps in the 40's at night and 60-low 70's in the day----nice fall weather. We had some rain too and that is nice.

We planted winter pansies. They last most of the winter and it is so fun to see their bright, shining faces sometimes through the snow!

Let quilting help you make someone smile!

Jan

A Flimsy and a Quilt

A flimsy and a quilt-----------sounds like a country western song!!!! LOL!!!


The flimsy is called Summer Breeze and is from the book "
Scrap Basket Surprises." You are probably tired of me talking about that book, but I sure do like it! I have made several of the patterns in it. The fabric is Kashmir IV and I love it! It is such peaceful, pretty fabric. Reminds of a soft, peaceful summer breeze, so the author named it well!

The quilt is one for Project Linus and is named "Braided Colors". It is from the book "Bundles of Fun." It is one that I challenged myself to make all the patterns in the book. I think there is still one more to quilt from that book and I will have them all done. Getting to the quilting has taken a long, long time! My helper has been unable to do any on the big machine because of his work commitments. So I have slowly been doing them on my Bernina---the bigger ones are a challenge! But I'll keep plodding along.


Been having true fall weather here and so it's nice to sit and sew on projects or crochet on an afghan. Yesterday, at our Sit N Sew group, we got to see lots of new things from Quilt Market. Such an array of such nice things! Saw a pattern I definitely want to do, but will have to save up my pennies for that! I need a new handwork pattern, since I finished my last one a couple of weeks ago.


Let quilting help you make someone smile!


Jan

Grandson's Birthday at Krispy Kreme

This was a first for me and lots of fun-----------youngest Grandson, Nathan held his 4th birthday party at Krispy Kreme Donut Shop. We had fun eating donuts and watching them being made---wow---- they make a lot of donuts at one time! Even the adults were impressed! Nathan even had a donut cake which was enjoyed by everyone. Everyone especially liked the ones with orange and black sprinkles.

Then, since it was my birthday, too I chose to eat at my favorite Mexican place, Chuy's----we had a great time there, too. The boys are troopers and acted like gentlemen.

Also, here's a picture of my latest barn block-----------this is a 6" one, so that tells you how little the blue and yellow quilt block is. In fact, Eleanor Burns' pattern was written so that you made two at one time and then told you to pick out the best one---------I thought that was such a great idea!!!!

Hope you are having great days where ever you are!

Let quilting help you make someone smile!

Jan

Quilt Barn Block One

Quilt In A Day Block Number One shown here from the book by Eleanor Burns called Quilt Blocks On American Barns. Her directions are so clear and nice. If you really follow step by step, you can turn out a nice block. Which I still ended up making a couple of mistakes, which tells you I overlooked a couple of steps--------oh, woe is me! But the block still turned out nice, I think!

Our weather has continued to be very nice, but every day they forecast rain and storms, and we don't get them, so I think our Indian Summer will be coming to an end soon! I will miss it! Even though I don't do much outside because of severe allergies, I still like to see the sun streaming in the windows and cheering everything up!

Hope things are sunny where you are!

Let quilting help you make someone smile!

Jan

Project Linus Foursome

"I get by with a little help from my friends" is my song today!!! Two people contributed quilt tops to the total of Project Linus quilts today. I quilted and bound them and they are now ready to go!

Sally made the first two and I named them "Sally's Striped Alphabet." Thanks Sally! They are great and nice and bright and cheery!!!

The next one called "Circus Peanuts" was made by my friend Jackie from the Tuesday Sit and Sew group. She didn't want PL to miss out on any quilts while I was laid up from my surgery, so she made this wonderful quilt!!! Thank you Jackie, you are a true blue friend!!!

The last one is one I made with a little kit from the LQS. I called it Candy Land because it reminded me a bit of the game of the same name!

With the help of my friends, that brings the total of quilts to 86 for the year. This might be another year that we break 100!!!! Wouldn't that be great?!

Let quilting help you make someone smile!

Jan

Two New Flimsys

The first quilt is called "Barbed Wire" and is from the book "Scrap Basket Surprise." That is the best book---I have made a lot of the quilts in there! This was made with all scraps from my stash. That made me feel good!!!! I liked the secondary pattern of the little pinwheels!

More fun with the AccuQuilt GO! I used the 8 1/2" Tumbler die and made a Tumbler quilt. It made the cutting of the blocks so precise and the corners were rounded off, too. This is the first Tumbler that I have made and I found that I liked it! I evened off the sides and put a border on.

This was all from scraps in my stash, too. You'd think my stash would be going down, but it's the same old story--it's fluffed up and looks like more!!!!

Let quilting help you make someone smile!

Jan

AccuQuilt GO cuts a Rag Quilt

Cut strips of fabric 9 1/2" wide. This shows fabric ready to run through the AccuQuilt GO! Cutter. I placed 2 fabrics wrong sides together so that they would be ready to sew after they were cut.
Block cut out and ready to use (Two blocks wrong sides together) You can see the fringe.
Sewing an "X" on each square (2 squares wrong sides together)
Sewing a seam together. Seams are to the front and are 1". The fringe doesn't get in the way.

Three blocks sewn together. I made this quilt with 8 1/2" blocks and made it 6x7 blocks. It is about 37" x 44".

All fluffy after washing and ready to go to a child at Project Linus! The pattern for this quilt can be found here.

Again I want to thank Debi for giving me the AccuQuilt GO! machine that she won in the contest and so many dies-------------I'm having a ball with it. Next I plan to do a tumblers quilt. I have 120 tumblers cut out---I wonder how big that quilt will be??

Let quilting help you make someone smile!

Jan

Quilt Barns With Quilt Blocks

I finished the Quilt Barns with Quilt Blocks that is a free BOM that is available until the 1st of November. Some of the quilt blocks were too much paper piecing for me, so I substituted my own ideas for blocks! It was a fun one to do! Barns have always interested me and I love to see them when driving in the country. The one square is so dark because I made that barn to look like a barn after dark----the sky material has a dark sky and stars and a crescent moon in it. It doesn't show up as well as the others.

I've been playing with my Accuquilt GO machine and have cut out quite a few different kinds of blocks. The rag quilt one is especially interesting because it cuts the fringe for you!!! How great is that! I took some pictures and when I get it all around and get the little quilt finished, I will post my first tutorial!!!

We had rain this morning and more expected this afternoon, so this is a great day to stay in and sew. Just have to be careful how long I stay on my mending foot!

Let quilting help you make someone smile!

Jan

Tiny Tote Bags

These are some tiny tote bags that I made for my grandkids just in time for Halloween. they weren't made with trick or treating in mind, but rather just for a little something from Grandma and Grandpa. They were lots of fun to make and you can find the directions here. You can make 4 small bags from 2 fat quarters. They are tiny, but oh, so cute! They are easy to make, too. I had a lot of fun with them!

I'm out of the boot now and walking carefully on my own! Feels so good! Have been back to Sit and Sew twice now and that feels wonderful! So much fun to see what everyone else is doing! I feel at loose ends here though---don't know what to start on next. Doing some odds and ends now. Will probably start on the Quilt Barns quilt by Eleanor Burns. I have all the fabric, so it's just a matter of starting in with the cutting.

I'm so excited about this truly wonderful thing that my BFF is doing for me----------------------she is giving me the AccuCut GO that she won in the contest that she entered on JulieK's blog----she says that I will use it more that she will----I'm getting it tomorrow. I am truly blessed to have a friend like that! For I know that I will really use it and I have wanted one for a long time. I am doing a truly happy, happy dance to say the least! Thank you, Debi!

She had it at the retreat and I used it to cut stars and hearts and tumblers and it was awesome! I had the most fun with it! It is a remarkable machine!

Let quilting help you make someone smile!

Jan

Wonderful Quilting Retreat!

What a great quilting retreat the DFW Gang had this last week-end! Even the weather was beautiful----fall has arrived and it couldn't be nicer outside! Five of us packed up and went to Quiltin' Gals retreat in Azle, Texas. The pictures show some of the quilts we made----we got a lot done and were very tired when we got home on Sunday night, But what a great time we had: lots of sewing and laughing and visiting and laughing and show and tell, and laughing. We even had time to go to a quilt store near there, Cabbage Rose-----that was having a sale-----made a serious dent in their sale that's for sure!!!! What fun that was! Went for lunch at Olive Garden, which was such a treat for all of us! All in all just a perfect week-end!

Let quilting help you make someone smile!

Jan

Good Monday Morning!

Well, I'm in the orthopedic boot and my stitches are out and all is well in my world and I can drive AND I can go to Sit and Sew tomorrow at the LQS!! This is a big deal---I've been gone for almost a month now!!! Having withdrawls!! It will be wonderful to go back and see all my friends and maybe do some stitching---probably do more talkig and looking at fabric than actually stitching!!!! LOL!!!


My hubby is in PT for his muscle pull in his leg and it is helping him a lot--now it's my turn to wait on him----very carefully though---I'm not going to do anything to set myself back!!! Old age isn't for sissies that's for sure!!!


On the quilting side---I'm finished appliquing the sheep and flowers and now need to decide how to quilt it---it doesn't need much, so I may just stitch in the ditch and call it good. Then bind it and sew their eyes on and it will be finished. Maybe I should sew their eyes on now before I quilt so the stitching doesn't show through to the back----bet that is what I supposed to do----if all else fails I should read the directions----right?!!!


It has turned to Fall here temperature wise in the high 70's and low 80's and it is lovely. Hope it will stay like this for awhile. Just makes a person feel good!!!


Let quilting help you make someone smile!

Jan

End of Recovery Period in Sight!

Doctor says no more wheelchair after Saturday---have to wear orthopedic boot and take it easy, but I can manage that, I'm sure! Doing a happy dance ---in my head----ha! ha! Got the stitches out today, too and that always feels good!


Received the fabrics for the quilt barn quilt and hope to be able to stand for long enough to cut a little bit at a time to start on that---have to take it slow pokey for awhile and enjoy the process!


Hubby says that we are the "walking wounded" here at our house because he is in Physical Therapy for a pulled muscle in his thigh that he did when he pushed himself too hard during a bike ride. If it isn't one thing, it's another when you reach a certain age, I guess!!!


Let quilting help you make someone smile!


Jan

Redwork and Wool Applique

Still mending here with the wheelchair and unable to put full weight on foot------------I can sure emphasize with anyone in a wheelchair! The back on one hand is black and blue due to ramming it into doors as I try to go through with my wheelchair!!!!

But I have still been able to work on some redwork baskets and wool applique. I have all the sheep done and some of the flowers---I have them basted on with the washable basting glue that somes in a little tiny bottle---I really like that stuff! I'm sewing them down with tiny stitches of matching thread. I couldn't reach my embroidery floss, so am settling for doing it with thread. But I am liking the way it is turning out.

I haven't done all those baskets in this short of a time, but have worked on one basket since I have been laid up----LOL!!!

I'm anxious to get back to my quilting---especially the Project Linus quilts!!!! I ordered fabric yesterday for the Quilt Barns quilt from Eleanor Burns---I'm excited to get to work on that one. I like Eleanor Burns instructions---she is so clear about everything! The book is lovely. I'm going to make the 6" blocks size, that way it should fit on the wall I have picked out for it!!!!

Let quilting help you make someone smile!

Jan

Surgery Goes Well!

Got through my surgery in good order and now am in a wheelchair for a couple of weeks. Thanks for everyone thinking of me! I haven't had a lot of pain and I am very thankful for that.


I have also learned that our house is not wheelchair friendly!!!! But I'm making the best of it and coming of with new ideas for moving around!!!!! My dear husband has become chief cook and bottle washer and is doing a splendid job. Our neighbors next door, great neighbors that they are, have brought in a great deal of food and we are happily eating that!!!! Thank you to our dear neighbors. Other friends from Sit and Sew have sent gift cards to restaurants in town---isn't that a nice thing to do--------many thanks to them. I've gotten so many nice cards and phone calls from friends, too. Everything means so much to me-----------thank you from the bottom of my heart!


I've done some handwork---redwork and some wool applique. But mostly have been reading and napping. This morning I tried some time at the sewing machine and sewed together the blocks for a Wicked Easy quilt, but I got awfully tired from just that little bit, so I went back to reading. But it was fun to be at the machine again!


Let quilting help you make someone smile!


Jan

Party Time!

Our second oldest grandson turned 7 this last week-end and had a Pool Party to celebrate! What a great time they all had. And what a bunch of tired kiddos when they finally got out of the water!!! What a great place to have a birthday party!

My surgery went well and now I'm in a wheelchair for who knows how long---the doctor said that it wasn't as bad as he thought it would be so that is good news-----the recovery time will be shorter!!! Hurray! I'm trying to be careful and not run into too many walls!!

Let quilting help you make someone smile!

Jan