By Wisdom...

... a House is Built. Through perseverance a quilt is finished!
I've been working on this one for twenty years, off and on (more off than on!). Last evening I finished putting in that last quilting stitch; so, it isn't truly quite finished yet, it still needs binding, but having this one off the frame sure feels good! The finished quilt, assembled as shown, measures 60" X 63". As soon as I got it off the frame I took the picture. Once it is bound and labeled I will take an official beauty shot.

The original pattern by Indygo Junction was available in twelve individual monthly booklets, these can either be done individually and bound one by one, or set all together as I chose to do. I bought the entire set at a precious little quilt shop in Georgetown, MA back in 1999, after I saw their version done and hanging in the shop, I loved it. It was a great shop, sadly, that shop is no longer in existence.

I changed the design a bit, using a more refined font instead of the primitive one provided and set the embroidered blocks into strips rather than using torn, raw edges on top of a background piece. I also used black thread and a small buttonhole stitch by machine to cover all of the raw edges on the fused applique. However, over all, even with the changes the basic design is the same.

Here is the cover of the May booklet, you can see the differences in my version and the pattern version. If you're interested in making this quilt I am giving away my pattern set now that I am done. 

I am offering the entire set, shown here; this Folk Block of the month designed by Sarah Sporrer if you would like to have it. All you need to do is leave a comment* and tell me which month of the year is your favorite and why. I will draw a lucky winner one week from today. Good luck. To get you started: my favorite month is September, it is my birthday month and I just love the feel of the change of seasons, the days begin to cool and shorten. Good luck!

Life is Good!

*If you leave a comment make sure that it is attached to an email address so that I can reach you and get your mailing address for shipping purposes. If I can't reach you I will need to redraw.

Just Add Insects

The newest porch quilt to be added to a growing collection; they're all from Kim Shaefer's Calendar Quilts and measure in at the same size; 20.5" X 28.5". This one just needs bugs. I messed up when copying the shapes onto the fusible web and forgot to reverse the images, my version is a variation on the pattern as published. Oh, well; it's an original.

I finish all the raw edges so that these quilts will stand up to the elements and won't curl or fray over time. 

A lady bug, butterfly and a bumblebee are pre-fused and added to the flowers and background. 

I need to get this quilted up now; as small as these quilts are, that takes no time at all, binding takes longer.  I love the touch of whimsy that these porch quilts add to our outdoor space. I hang them on our side porch just outside the door that leads out of the sewing room. Mr. Goodneedle and I usually sit out there every evening enjoying the birds and other visitors in and beyond the developing perennial garden space; things that fly, crawl, hop, run or slither on by, we see them all.

Speaking of garden "visitors". My shoes were so caked with mud the other day after working in the garden that I left them outside in the sun to dry. The next day I scraped the dried mud and dirt off the bottoms of my shoes and banged them, repeatedly and HARD, against the brick wall to knock off any remaining dirt. I picked them up to carry them inside and felt a slight vibration inside one shoe. I pulled back the tongue of one shoe and out hopped this little friend. I know he had to have quite a headache after all that!😲

Life is Good!

Bubbly

It all started, as every quilt does, with a stack of fabric. This quilt was to be a special one for our five year old granddaughter's bed. She knows what she wants. The walls of her room are decorated with painted circles: red, turquoise, two shades of green, yellow and, of course, Lynnleigh's favorite color: orange. My daughter-in-law and I selected the fabrics and the background from swatches while standing in the room where the quilt will live. A flax linen was chosen for the background. I knew what Lynnleigh wanted: lots and lots of circles. Circles of every size. I wasn't certain how to execute this one but I spent much time thinking about it and then, suddenly one morning, I awakened with a plan! I had ordered the background fabric wide enough so that there were no seams. I backed the colored pieces with Misty Fuse and went to my trusty AccuQuilt cutter and began cranking the layers of prepared fabrics through.

I gridded off the background fabric with a thermal-ink pen and placed the circles in what appears to be a random-ish (I can't do true random placement, it's not in me!) design within an outline. 

I fused them in place, one at a time with a dry iron. The ironing fixed the circles to the background and eliminated the placement lines at the same time. I left a little additional length as I wasn't 100% sure how long this needed to be. I would take it to the actual bed for a trial before I trimmed anything!

The quilt lay-out before trimming. The quilt top got two-thumbs up from Lynnleigh after the try-out. (Actually, she wanted to keep it, immediately, right there on her bed. I had to convince her to let me bring it back home for finishing!)

The next step was the applique. I used a straight stitch around each raw-edge. The constant turning and manipulation of the quilt under the presser foot caused some of the circles to begin to lift and work themselves loose, I secured them with safety pins. (My pile of safety pins, removed as I went along, revealed that there are 74 circles on this quilt top!

The quilting began! I decided to use "Curls" a pantograph from Beany Girl Quilts. I loved the movement that this added.

Here it is, with the quilting all finished. I am excited to think about Lynnleigh's reaction to it being on her bed for real. It is backed with fabric from a sheet, white background with tiny gray elephants: her favorite animal! 😉 It is twin sized, measuring 56" X 80". 

Yesterday I prepared a pieced multi-color binding from the scraps; it is basted in position and ready for hand finishing. I showed this photo to a friend and she remarked that it will match my granddaughter's bubbly personality! The quilt was named, right then and there! Bubbly? 

Oh yes, the quilt and the girl!

Life is Good!

Are You Positive?

This is the fifth block that I have completed from Nancy Halvorsen's "Be Attitudes" book; each one is more precious than the one before. Positive thinking has done a lot to benefit this lowly ant.What can you accomplish today with the right attitude?

Life is Good!

"Your attitude determines your altitude" - Zig Ziglar

This, That and The Other Thing

Warning: this post is a compilation of complete and total randomness.

There's been a lot going on lately... not any one big thing in particular, just this, that and the other thing.

This picture now greets me every morning when I enter the kitchen, it makes my heart smile. Ever since I've known my husband and his family this has hung in his mother's kitchen. She took it off the wall recently, wrapped it up and gave it to me. She knew how much I had always admired it. It's true, I always have. While it makes me sad that she is beginning to give away her possessions, I am grateful that she is able to delight in placing her items in the hands of those who will treasure them always, that is a blessing.

I spotted this product at the grocery store recently.  So now there's a dryer sheet especially "for men and those who smell them"? Why, I ask. Is Outdoor Fresh not manly enough anymore?

We concluded another successful Quilt Ministry year, we're off for the summer months and will resume our weekly meetings again after Labor Day. This was the last quilt we finished, it was a retirement gift for the outgoing Bishop of the NC Synod of the ELCA; from all reports it was warmly received.

 On the home front: quilting progress is being made on this small quilt for my mother, she purchased it as a top a few years ago at a yard sale and only recently discovered it in an all but forgotten box.

She plans to use it as a seasonal table topper.

Mason helped to design this T-shirt for himself last weekend, after the bridge building was completed. He chose the fabrics for the appliques and the size of the camper. He stood right by my side as I stitched and was delighted with the results... is that not the face of one happy camper?

I finished this book over the past weekend, in all honesty I couldn't put it down. 

If you haven't read it I think you should... it will change you. In a good way.

We attended a funeral yesterday; one for the precious daddy of a dear friend. 

Something that the Pastor said resonated with me: "in reality we all write our own eulogies".

Hmmmm... that we do. One. Day. At. A. Time.

I was sitting in the car waiting for my husband to come out of a fastener store the other day (screws, nails, bolts, etc.); now you know why I didn't accompany him inside. The sun was beating through the window onto my arm and I noticed, for the first time, that my skin had sparkles on it! Okay, I doctored this photo a bit w/ Picmonkey so you'd get the idea. I suppose the sparkles come from my Jergens body lotion, that's all that is on my skin other than soap and water! It's just regular, original Jergens too, no tanner, firmer, healer or other enhancements contained. I've used this product for years and never noticed sparkles before. I suppose there must be some talc or other mineral in the composition of the lotion; enough to make me sparkle in the sunshine. To be honest I'm not really sure how I feel about this.

I'll be back; with more structure, content and regularity...  you can count on it.

In the meantime, it's just been this that and the other thing.

Life is Good!

 

This and That Thursday

There's been but a lot going on lately; but it's not a whole lot of any one thing.  I've been chipping away at the Head For The Border piece, working on machine appliqué of the top and bottom borders. We will have the final reveal/reunion of our group at the end of August and if all goes according to plan I hope to have mine done and quilted by then. We all know what happens to even the best laid plans though. Wish me luck; we'll see, I'm hoping for the best.

There's been steady progress on the quilting of "Got Cookies?"; I'm actually out to the borders now and ready to turn it. 
I hope to have the binding in place next week and be ready for handwork.

I fulfilled a burp cloth request recently; something I still love
 to do, but the orders are infrequent and sporadic.

A certain grandson is soon to have his 6th birthday and he has requested
a Corn Hole game. Nana was able to do her part... PawPaw is still working on
painting the boards in the workshop. Shhhhh... it's a secret!

We ate at Applebee's last night and found tablets for ordering installed at every table now.
I think it's ridiciulous; more technology replacing jobs, plus the added distraction of games
available for play too... nothing like adding to the demise of a family dinner together where
 conversation and eye-to-eye contact used to be the highlight of eating out together. 
This was my rant on the subject, my husband tried to explain things to me from a business standpoint...
not that he was in favor of the tablets necessarily, but simply to give me another perspective. 
Personally, I find the tablets sad for all the reasons stated above... 
what do you think, is this progress for the better?

Speaking of family... there's a great family drama series,
Heartland, available for viewing through Netflix all the way 
back to the premier episode from 2007. Filmed in the majestic Canandian 
Rockies the series centers around a horse ranch run by two sisters 
and their grandfather; it's a joy to watch and I am hooked!
I don't know how I ever missed this from the beginning, but have been
catching up on all the episodes this summer; I'm so happy to have found it.
Netflix is really the best way to watch a series like this: no commercials!

Life is Good!

A Centennial Quilt, Times TWO!

Bailey's Chapel Centennial Quilt 66" X 78"

I've been helping out with a special project for a local church over the last several months. They wanted a unique way to celebrate their centennial anniversary and settled on a quilt; well, actually, TWO identical quilts! One will hang in their sanctuary and one will be raffled off to support the church. You may recall seeing a photo on this blog of the growing pile of "signature" blocks as I embroidered them, there are 58 of them (per quilt!)! The church members sold these blocks as opportunities to have one's name immortalized on the quilt. They opted for machine embroidery in a consistent font/size so that it would look harmonious and the names would be visible from a distance. I worked from printed forms to ensure that the names/spellings/ dedications were exactly right.

There was a celebratory moment over the weekend when focus shifted from these signature blocks to the machine appliquéed banner sections! There are sections for five photo transfers; the church in every season in each of the four corners plus one larger, 12" square panel, in the center of the quilt a group snapshot of the membership gathered in front of the church at the Centennial Gathering last summer.

I've assisted by serving as the designer (thank you, EQ, you make me look smart!) and facilitator for this project. It won't be long now before workshops are scheduled and I can hand over the units to the church members for assembly. This has been a wonderful collaborative effort and I'm proud to have had a hand in seeing them achieve a dream, I am also very grateful to them for their patience with yours truly!

Life is Good!

Catching Up

I took the last quilting stitches in Gregory's quilt early Thanksgiving morning, I pulled a stool up alongside the front while I worked so that  Mason could sit and observe the process for a little while. It was a satisfying start to an otherwise busy day!  With all the prep work and hand washing of dishes afterwards, Thanksgiving is the only day that I completely run out of dishtowels and the bottom of that drawer is fully visible; I can make up an entire washer-load of only dish towels one day a year! That's where I've been. All the dishes are done now and safely stored back in the cupboards; just in time to switch them out next Saturday to my Christmas/Winter dishes! I refuse to begin until December! The Christmas tree lots sprung up, seemingly overnight, on Wednesday last week. I won't pitch myself headfirst into Christmas until I can sit back and catch my breath from Thanksgiving. The good news is I'm ready for binding on this one and the quilt and the big boy bed will be delivered together... soon! I have named this one: "Do You See What I See: Fish, A Frog, and a Floating Dog".

Detail shots (above and below): "F,F, and a FD"
It is quilted in the sashing and inner border with NiteLite thread.
There's lots of fun things to search for and find on this quilt.

I spent yesterday catching up on this month's block from the Bless This House class, block #8.
I decided to personalize this one with a year and an initial, ditching the assigned flowers in the center.
I agonized over the decision of which year to put in the heart... the year I began or the year I hope to finish!  I've got my work cut out for me now, I've committed to a time frame!

All eight blocks arranged on the design wall.
Each block measures 16", the next block is a four blossom Christmas Rose;
a long, triple, landscape panel spans the top before the final borders are added.
Life is Good!