Just Tumbling Along

I'm back at work hand piecing the tumbling blocks for my little quilt. This is my first attempt at hand piecing and I've enjoyed the process but I have to say, I'm so thankful for my sewing machine!

I just cannot imagine what it must have been like to sew all your clothing, quilts and linens before the sewing machine. Probably, my family would have had very simple clothing and comforters, not quilts.

As you can tell in the picture, I've pieced the lower half of the little quilt together and tomorrow I hope to finish piecing so I can buy border fabric over the weekend. Its made entirely of Jo Morton fabric and I think its a charm quilt, no fabric repeats but there may be the same design in a several colorways. I say "think its a charm quilt" because as I was beginning to piece one of the rows together, I noticed a repeated fabric so I did a little ripping and stitched a new diamond in place.

I'm struggling a bit with the hand piecing and have the occasional hole in the middle of where the seams should join. I know the reason behind this is not stitching up to the 1/4" seam allowance even though I think I am! Considering this is my first hand pieced project, I think I am doing fairly well though.

This Kathleen Tracy pattern is from her book, "Remembering Adelia". She used two brown fabrics for the borders so I'm auditioning some brown fabric from my "resource center" to see if I like it. I may go with a completely different color but feel I need something darker in the borders to act as the frame around the quilt. Perhaps I will even have the top pieced by early next week!

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Thank you, Betty for the disc of Missouri River Quilt Guild Quilt Show photos! I'm enjoying looking at them and finding lots of inspiration there!

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Be sure to go to Loft Creations to vote for Viewer's Choice in the Parade of Strings! This string project challenge was why I began blogging back in January. Stephanie has included my "30 Years on the Fence" quilt in the choices to vote for Viewer's Choice. There are many great string projects there so go check it out!

Catch up time!

My computer is back up and running although not the same. Even though we were running Norton Antivirus, the computer was infected with the Rootkit virus. I hope this never happens to any of you! It was definitely not good and after trying several fixes, my husband had to reconfigure the computer. I'm having to relearn how to do things in different ways. I can't change that but I sure wish I could!

I have a few things to show you - First off, here's my full size "30 Years on the Fence" string quilt back from the machine quilter and bound! Just needs a label and it will be officially done. Its difficult to get a good photo of it but this shows how it looks on a bed. Here are a few pictures of it as I was piecing it which will show you different views. My favorite part is the zig-zag edge!

This quilt, except for the backing and binding, was made entirely from fabrics in my "resource center" and some that were given to me but if I were to make this quilt again, I would probably not make it quite so colorful. This is definitely a memory quilt for me as many of the fabrics are from dresses I made my daughter years ago and other sewing/quilting projects!

On Tuesday, I finished piecing my "Holiday Inn" wallhanging from Jo Morton's Little Women Club #8. Its about 44 inches square and one of the few applique pieces I've done. This was a kit I purchased last year through Liberty Quilt Shop but was unable to finish until this year. I'm looking forward to having it machine quilted and hanging on a wall in our house!

Surprise! I received an envelope of selvages from Betty! I really needed a little encouragement on Wednesday and there it was waiting for me in the mailbox. Thank you again, Betty!

I spent part of my day today trying to make a watermelon slice pincushion. If you have seen Miss Rosie's Fruit Salad pincushions, this was what I was wanting only smaller. When I asked my daughter what she thought it was, she guessed it was "a bird". Help.

I'm looking forward to "Flimsy Friday" as I'll be showing you not only my unfinished project and but also the finished project I made from its trimmings. You'll have to wait and see but I think you'll be impressed!

500 inches of Binding!

Look what's home from the machine quilter - my "30 Years on the Fence" quilt! I've got the binding sewn on and will be starting to hand tack it down later. It looks great! So great, in fact, that my daughter has decided to claim the quilt. Ha, its mine, at least for now.

Can you see what's in the Seven Sisters rosebush growing up the side of our deck? We discovered the nest last week. Our cat, Charlie, was and is still very interested! There was no discouraging Mom and Dad Cardinal though and she is now sitting on 3 eggs. I'm doing my very best to keep Charlie away but its going to be a long month till those babies hatch and fly away!

News coming soon about our new pet!

Heigh-ho, Heigh-ho!

Heigh-ho,

Heigh-ho,

Its off to the machine quilter it goes!

(finally)

30 Years on the Fence

I finished piecing my Picket Fence quilt yesterday! I'm calling it "30 Years on the Fence" because it has fabrics in it from the past thirty years. Some are from dresses I made my daughter so they hold special meaning to us.

Unfortunately, I couldn't get a photo of the whole quilt. When its machine quilted and bound, I'll be able to hang it and stand back to take a photo but this time it had to lay on the floor. It turned out larger than the queen size I was expecting and pretty much filled up the living room floor space. Today I plan to piece the backing and hope to get the quilt to the machine quilter next week!

This is an angle view of it that makes me think of steps! I discovered when going through my fabric that I am in a fabric buying rut. Most of the fabric I buy is floral and a lot of it is sunflower fabric probably from my crafting days. Maybe since my gardening skills are limited, I'm living out my flower fantasy with fabric!

I'm sad to say that I could probably make several more of these quilts before I even put a dent into my fabric stash. I would be low on lighter values but I have plenty of medium value fabric so I see more scrap projects in my future.

My husband says looking at the quilt for too long hurts his eyes. Here's what Charlie, our cat, thought of it all. This will clearly not be one of his favorite quilts.

Besides piecing the backing today, I plan to cook and clean in preparation for Easter dinner tomorrow. While I still appreciate the Easter candy and finery, all of the best chocolate and new clothing in the world are not even a drop in the bucket compared to what Christ did for us all those years ago.

My Easter wish for you - Have a very blessed and meaningful Easter!