My Other January Project

As usual, I had a "Big Stitch" hand quilting project that I was working on. If you know me you know that I like to spend at least some part of each day quilting (not that I always get to). It's my stress reliever. Here are a few pictures to show you what I was doing. Half of the quilt is blue blocks the other half  are brown.

The quilt started out because I came across 22 - 6 inch squares from a collection called Lasting Beauty by Classic Cottons. Now I don't make wallhangings any more because I have no wall space left. I don't make large (king/queen) quilts anymore because I don't need anymore bed quilts. What I like to make are nap/twin size quilts. What I call useful quilts. So the challenge was to make that size quilt out of the 22 blocks. First I added to the squares to bring them up to 11 inches, then I added sashing. The quilt center is 4 blocks wide and 5 blocks long. Two of the 6" blocks got tossed.

Next challenge was to figure out how to make it longer. Well, that was simple, just add some 9 patch blocks and a couple of borders. Next is a picture of the border after quilting.

I accomplished my goal. The finished quilt is 61" x 86". (If I had just sewn the blocks together it would have been 22" x 27-1/5". I must say I am pretty proud of myself on this one.

Now I need to bind it but I haven't been in the mood so we will see when that gets accomplished. After the binding is on I will post a picture of the finished quilt.

Enjoy your day! Jo

The month of January

In the first place, I can't believe that the whole month of January and half of February has gotten away from me and I didn't posted any new blogs.

Then, when I looked back at what I had gotten accomplished it was even harder to believe that I had gotten so little done. Where does time go? I remember as a child that days were so much longer. I can't have slowed down that much in my old age. Or could it?

Anyway, I only have two pictures to post for January. The first are paper pieced log cabin blocks that I volunteered to made for a friend. They are made using the Fossil Fern Collection from Benartex. (Remember, I carry all 100 colors in the shop.) This picture was taken before the papers were trimmed and there are four blocks in each colorway. If my math is correct, that makes 48 blocks.



Now, you're probably saying that I didn't do too bad making 48 blocks in January but the whole story is that most of them were made before January ever got here. I just finished up the last few groups in January.

Then came January 21st, I started feeling a slight burning sensation on my left side. By Wednesday the 25th it was worse so I decided I wanted to go to the doctor, of course I couldn't get an appointment until Friday the 27th, then it finally dawned on me what I had. Yeah, the Doc confirmed that I had Shingles. I really didn't feel like getting much of anything done at that point although I did sit in my rocking chair and do some hand quilting. More on that in the next post.

These are the flowers that were delivered to cheer me up. Thank you Joan T.