Doll Quilts

For a few or maybe some years, I have been subscribing to Benartex's Fat Quarterly magazine (club), not sure exactly what it is called but I love it. What they do is send a little 8 page magazine plus 5" squares of one of their new fabric lines that have come out. You get this 4 times a year. I love getting fabric in the mail, always have.

Most of the time I fondle the fabrics for a while and then end up setting them aside. After a while they go into (another) scappy hexagon flower quilt that I have going.

The last set of fabrics I received with my Fat Quarterly magazine were a set of batiks. Now, as a hand quilter, I don't use batiks in my quilts so these got set on the sewing desk in a stack of other things. When I came across them a few days ago I made the decision that they would work for a doll quilt.

22" x 27"

I think it worked out pretty good.

Kona Bay Scrap Bag

A few months back I bought a Kona Bay scrap bag. I really enjoy buying the unknown. Also, I have come to realize that I like a challenge. (Side note: Some of my best quilts have been fabric challenges from the different guilds I belong to.) When sorting the fabrics in the bag I came across some pieces that were more like drapery fabrics so I set them aside (on my sewing desk, of course) to deal with later, meaning, trying to find somewhere else to put them.

Well, the other day I decided that the best way to deal with them was to make a baby quilt top and donate it to a guild. I had 6 different pieces of varying sizes. Mentally I was thinking of making 12" finished squares out of them and just sew them together. Right! First thing I did was to cut the first one at 12" now making the blocks finish at 11.5". Then, one of the smaller pieces wasn't big enough to cut a 12" square so I cut it at 9". Then I started doing some math and figured this wasn't going to work out well.

In the end I cut large squares and small squares out of what was left, I had the medium squares so I cut strips to make the medium squares large squares. I know, I know, I am so capable of mixing myself up but in the end I had a baby quilt, i.e., a very funky baby quilt.

33" x 39"

I really like flowers (on fabric, please note, I am not a gardener) and these large Hawaiian type prints make me smile. I hope someone will be pleased.

Yes, daughters, I can see you rolling your eyes!

2011 MAQ guild BOM

I've made the decision to unclutter my life, I have too much "stuff" laying around on my sewing desk. No room left to work! So, I pulled out the box with the Maquoketa guild Block of the Month to see how far behind I was. It looked like two or maybe three months. I had the directions for two of the blocks so I decided to make one block of each to give to the guild. I didn't want to take the time to make a set for myself.

Then I started thinking, did I really want to make this quilt for myself? The answer turned out to be NO. So the decision was made to not make any more of the blocks and to give the guild the other set that I had made for myself. The guild gets 16 blocks total and I have an empty box. Wonderful!

JoQuilter Fabrics BOM

Let's go back to Sunday, October 3, 2010. That was the post that I showed my JoQuilter Fabrics Block of the Month blocks laid out on the floor. One of the things I worked on this past month was how to make that quilt longer. I had an idea in my mind for a while, but the "box" it was packed into never came up on the rotation. Finally, it did and I put my idea to work.

What I am going to show you today is what I did with the scrappy blocks I used to test the patterns. The BOM was done using Pat Speth (the Nickel Quilts lady) BOM patterns. Since I had never used any of her patterns before, I figured I should "test" each block with scraps before I started in on my real quilt. I did this for 6 months and, by then, figured the lady knew what she was doing.

When I got my quilt done, I used some leftover blocks for a small quilt. Then while digging to the bottom of the box, I found the 6 scrappy blocks. I decided to put them to good use by making a charity baby quilt top.

36" x 44"

This is the result. Nothing special but a finished baby quilt top. I will be giving this to one of the guilds charity groups to finish and give away. I am trying hard to make the decision that I do not have to finish everything I've started. It's a hard concept but I think I will learn.

In a couple of days I hope to have pictures of the BOM quilt and the little quilt from the extras.

Driving in Style

At the end of July I bought myself a new car. It's the first car I have ever picked out all by myself and was able to buy exactly what I wanted.

Then, with the help of my best friend Lorinda and a company called PrimoWrap in Dubuque, we decorated my new car.

I have gotten loads of great comments from people, including being told my car was "sexy".

Pictures were taken by Joan T. on a fun trip to Galena.

And, yes, the quilts are actual quilts that I have made/own.

Pineapple Chunks

I have been feeling very overwhelmed lately, so I did what I do best, I started another project!

A couple of months ago I saw an ad for Gyleen Fitzgerald's book, "Trash to Treasure Pineapple quilts". It sounded intriguing and it had a scrappy pineapple block on the front. So I bought the book and the special ruler.

Now you must understand that I already own 10-12 specialty rulers that I have never used, so I am asking myself, "why am I buying another one!"

Then I joined Gyleen's facebook page. Then she said she was having a Pineapple Chunk Challenge. 

Here are my first 9 blocks. And it may be the last 9 blocks.

Hexagon Black Diamond Quilt

For those of you going to the AQS Show in Des Moines, Iowa. Stop by and say "Hi" to my Hexagon quilt. The show opens on Wednesday, September 28 and closes on Saturday, October 1.

Each full diamond is made with 49 scrappy hexagons, all just leftovers from other projects or cut from my stash. The exact number of hexagons are written on the quilt label, as I recall it is in the vicinity of 4,900 and some. When I started this, I didn't think that it would ever get finished, it was just something to work on when I was visiting my mother in the nursing home, or at guild meetings, or waiting at the doctors office. Start to finish, the hand piecing took about 7 years, then it got set aside for a while. The hand quilting took about 10 months. I named the quilt, "Why do people think I'm crazy?" Do you agree?

New Roof

I was thoroughly entertained for a couple of weeks by watching a new roof being put on the gazebo across the street. They were putting on wooden shingles, that's what had been on it before. And yes, you could see there feet slipping at times as they walked across it. Mostly they were careful.

What I was really looking forward to was watching them put the tin and wooden topper back on.

Then I got distracted for 15 minutes. Next time I looked the topper was on and the guys were packing up to leave. 

The tale of the tiger!

Once upon a time there were two ladies and they both had little boys that were 4 years old. These two ladies met because they were both quilters and became very good friends. During the course of their lives, one of the friends moved away to many and various places but they still remained very good friends and would continue to visit each other almost every year. One year they both needed warm robes for the long cold winters of Iowa and Montana. During one of the visits in Montana they decided that they would make nice warm fleece robes so they went on a visit to JoAnne's.

But . . . they only had one coupon! What to do, what to do?

Being the very smart woman they were, they decided to buy the same fabric and make matching fleece robes. They had so much fun wearing their robes when the went to visit each other and at quilt retreats. With a quick glance at their backs it was hard for people to figure out which was who and who from which! That was fun!

Finally, the robes wore out so on a trip to Iowa in 2010 they bought more fabric to make another set of matching robes. The friend from Montana got hers made and wore it that winter but the friend in Iowa was too busy and her robe fabric sat in a basket under the writing desk, totally neglected until her 2nd daughter took pity and cleaned the dining room table, laid the new fleece out and pinned on the pattern - THEN LEFT IT!

When the lady from Iowa came home from her shopping trip that day, the fabric with the pattern pieces was still on the table so there was nothing to do but the cut the robe out! She then folded it up and put it back in the basket under the writing desk. Where it sat again. Finally, she made a promise that it would be the next item she sewed. And she did!

Did I mention that those little boys are now 32 year old men with wives. Paul and Lindsay have 2 little girls and a new baby boy born in April. Hank and Mandy are expecting their first baby in September.

2011 MAQ guild BOM

When I looked back at the last post I was so surprised at the date. July 13th seems like so long ago, but then again I wonder what have I accomplished during that time?

Well, I did get two things done. I accomplished my BOM blocks for the Maquoketa, IA, guild. I am turning in two blocks as I did not get the July block done on time. After making those blocks I immediately set out to make the August blocks. I took the pictures and set them aside, thinking I would post them on the blog right away. Guess what? I've already forgotten which were July's blocks and which were for August. Ugh! I guess it doesn't matter anyway, so here they are in no particular order.

I don't remember anything special about the flying geese block. Except for the fact that I cut the red fabric too small the first time round. Where does my brain go some days? Must have been on a mini vacation when I went to cut that fabric.

Now, as for these blocks!

The story goes like this. I decided to see if I could straighten out the drunk! And I will admit it was a challenge. I probably didn't do right by him but I tried, I suppose he will go back to his drinking and wandering around but guess I can't do much about that.

Have a good day!  Jo