block lotto inspired.....and finished!

It isn't next year yet, but here I am. I need to get these two quilts posted before I forget again.

 I always wanted to get a better picture, You know the kind of picture where the quilt doesn't have feet. And maybe, no shadow of my head. 

I guess it doesn't really matter, does it?

Patterns for the birds and hearts....

(bird block click here)

(heart block click here)

The other quilt was part of the Polka Dot Challenge with the Blue Earth Quilters.

We bought a packet of dotted fabric and made something with it.

Anything we wanted.

I played block lotto by myself and made star-crossed blocks.

(star crossed blocks click here)

It became a pink quilt because I had some large chunks of pink here, at home, ready to use, without going shopping. I gave it to Crispy to use on his couch, in his apartment, in Ames. It had left without a proper photo. He brought it back over Christmas so I could take its picture.

Okay, now I will say it again....

see you next year!

December things....

The mystery has taken up a whole lot of sewing time. I am almost caught up. I need to put together my brown and white checks or step 3 of the The Grand Illusion Mystery!

The April blocks from Block Lotto were finished into a quilt and gifted to my brother-in-law for Christmas. He had some of these blocks ending up in his mailbox.

I won the X blocks in November and wouldn't you know....

Some of them ended up in his mailbox too!

Big O's will be added to the X's. Only not these. They are for the drawing this month at Lotto. I will make more for this quilt. 

Eventually.

These are part of the Blue Earth Valley Quilters block exchange. 

We met at the library in Blue Earth for the exchange, but one person wasn't there....so I am two blocks short. I will get them soon.

I have no idea what these will become.

I only know this quilt needs to be done by August.

It is nearly January! See you next year!

one more post for November.....

I started making Santa postcards. I painted paper to use and ran out of beard paper. That is why there are some floating pig noses on the two cards. They are his face painted on there, waiting for me to come back and work on them. 

These coasters are made with 4x4 tiles and 6 pack beer containers. You cut them up to fit and glue them to the tiles with mod podge. Then spray it with acrylic sealer. I should have saved them for Christmas presents. But they have been snapped up and are now living elsewhere.

There was a surprise snow day on Wednesday. I took this when it was 4 inches, I think we ended up with 8 inches.

So.....

The binding went on this t-shirt quilt. It took forever to come back from the quilters. I told Amanda it would be done before it got REALLY REALLY cold. I forgot to measure it. It's really long and about that wide (hold your arms out)

This is the park uptown next to the grocery store. I looked so pretty with all the snow.

USUALLY tractor joe leaves for Wisconsin to go deer hunting with my brother-in-law. He would have been gone, but with all the snow, he waited until Thanksgiving morning to leave.

So he was home on Wednesday.

I was busy sewing some new star blocks for a quilt. I was in my own little world. The TV was off and the blinds were all open. Lots of natural light coming in.

Well in walks tractor joe. He did a trial run with the snow and decided not to leave after all. 

On goes the TV and the blinds are pulled shut.

I squawked about this.

And continued to sew.

Heavy sigh....I messed up sewing on one of the blocks when the room got dark and noisy. I couldn't even go back and fix it. I had already trimmed off the triangles. 

I really need to pay attention.

Another example.

I started the Bonnie Hunter Mystery yesterday. Clue one had you cutting strips for HST''s.

NO WHERE does it say to sew the strips together.

But that is exactly what I did.

I don't know what I was thinking.

Two options, no, three....

make something else with them

pick the strips apart

or

proceed as if nothing was wrong and pick out seams later.

I decided to pick out the seams later. At least half are just a small little area that seems like nothing. I do have a few units done!

With them like this, I want to have black and white nine patches in there.

But who knows what it will be, it's a mystery!

Now back to picking out seams.

little by little makes a lot......

I won these last summer at Block Lotto. 

I received one black background block. That one gave me the idea to do a layout this way. I made more black blocks. I am short two yet. They are cut and ready to sew and should be done later today. The setting triangles will be plain black around the edge.

So far I am loving this. I am thinking it will be a wedding gift...but I keep changing my mind. I also would love to keep it!

I was also sewing these together. They are this months block at

Block Lotto!

They were simple enough to put together and made the limit of 9.

There is a block exchange at the Blue Earth Valley Quilt Guild.

There are 12 of us. The guidelines are...

(the word "rule" is too harsh for them)

make 2 different 7 1/2 finished blocks using the same gray background and a solid color.

Any block we wanted.

We each picked our color. I used lavender. The choices were getting pretty slim by the time I chose a color to use. 

The exchange group is also making the raffle quilt for the 2016 MN Quilt Guild Show.

I think it will be in St. Cloud that year.

Then is was 13 blocks to make instead of 12.

It seemed to take forever to get the top block done 13 times,

My choice for the second block went super simple.

I am looking forward to the group exchange. Right now it is set for January, but if everyone is finished earlier, we will exchange sooner.

I can't wait to see all the blocks together. 

girls weekend......

Last summer Jane (my sister) and Max (my cousin) thought it would be a really fun to go to Winterset, Iowa. So much to see there!

Karen and I said we would go too.

Last weekend we made the road trip.

Planners in the front seat, tag alongs in the back seat.

We saw all the bridges, John Waynes birthplace, Fon's & Porter quilt shop, a local winery, and ate at the Northside Cafe and other stuff!

Along the road to Roseman Bridge. Characters from the movie, 

The Bridges of Madison County.

The quilt shop. It is small, but we all found one thing to buy.

Window decor for a yarn shop. Maybe it should have been Robert still waiting for Fancesca to get herself out of her truck and join him as he headed out of town in the movie.

Every bridge had a geocache (or two) nearby. I did not always find it, but was sure to look.

This is my kind of cache. Nice and big.

 It is hidden at the History Museum in Adel, Iowa.

I love my geocaching app. When we stopped, 

I would open it and hit...

"find nearby caches"

Now, this weekend I will stay home and sew!

AQS des moines quilt show last week...

Last week at this time I was in the shower getting ready to head down to Des Moines for the quilt show with Karen. We were trying to figure out how many years we have been doing this.

We still don't know, but several for sure.

This year we were in search of two special quilts.

One made by Lynne http://patcherymenagerie.blogspot.com/

And this one by Julie http://quiltdivajulie.blogspot.com/

The chains keep you from getting too close, but that doesn't mean I didn't lean over a bit and take a closer look at things. It was really cool to see both of these in person.

You see them on their blogs and all, but it really is true...that pictures don't do a quilt justice.

In person is so much better!

I was so happy when I learned that both of these would be in Des Moines!

It was fun watching people stand there and stare

and smile

and put there heads together to talk

 and point out this or that on the quilt.

I used my tea towel challenge bag as planned. I decided to join the AQS this year.

So my bag was heavy right from the start. I got a free (out of print) book, one of last years magazines, a catalog and show book. My bag got heavy right at the door.

As I meandered through one of the booths and out of it I could 'feel' this body moving with me. If I turned, it turned. 

Who is following me? It turned out to be the shop owner. The bag caught her eye and she needed to get a closer look at it! So as best I could I filled her in on the why and how this bag came to be.

It was made during the tea towel challenge last winter.

Now today I am off to meet my cousin Max at The Quilted Forest in Forest City.

I will also stop and mail my block lotto blocks from September.

Three were worthy of entering, the first one ended up being a disaster.

Not sure what went wrong with that one! 

I have Octobers done, just not pressed or pictured yet.

the old star quilt.....

Yesterday morning I sent a text to Crispy asking for a picture of the old quilt with the new binding. This photo came back. 

It took me a minute to figure out what I was looking at. 

Oh geez, he is still in bed, and this isn't exactly what I was thinking for a photo.

He tried again when he got up.

I think they are 12 inch HST's forming the star. The blue and red checks at the top and bottom are 4 inches.

where did September go?

WAY back in August the Blue Earth Valley Quilters had their quilt show. Friday night was a Jelly Roll Derby. Those participating brought a jelly roll to use, along with 2 1/2 inch squares for inserting between strips. I finished somewhere in the middle. 

Karen finished first! 

I bought mine from Connecting Threads. It contained 27 strips, so I bought two. For the derby I used 40 of them. I wondered what to do with the rest of them. I could make this or that....

In the end I just made another long strip with them and added it to the top, then the bottom to use it all up. And now this is ready for the quilter!

This is as big as my Celtic Solstice is going to get. I started hating my colors, and I wanted these cleared out before the next Bonnie Hunter Mystery.

Using what I had, I started putting things together in different ways, just to use them up.

This one used up a lot of the border sections. They are in the sashing instead. Another future baby quilt or tablecloth. And then there were still left over sections....

Table toppers or dresser scarves. 

Now I am ready to THINK about doing another mystery.

When Crispy was packing for school, this quilt was on the pile. I asked why he wanted to take that ratty old thing. 

"It's my favorite!" 

Really?? 

Uck. Let me fix it first.

 I chopped off the old binding and added the new darker blue that is in the picture. There are some weak spot in the top, but this should give it new life for a while.

It was made back in the 90's.

I don't have a picture of what it looks like. It is a County Threads pattern of a big star. I didn't have the pattern, but I was able to figure out the math and put it together one snowy afternoon.

I'll work on getting a picture.

catching up on things.....

Way back in July, my cousin Max, her daughter Emma and my sister Jane came down to visit.

One of the activities was making postcards.

To keep it simple, 

they used cards (cut up cereal boxes) that already had paint on them,

left over painted paper and words from my stash.

They both did a basic bird on the cards.

I never took a picture of the completed cards....

BUT,

Max sent me this photo. They painted a canvas dark purple, then used a toilet paper tube to make the white circles.

Emma's cards were then glued to it for wall art in her room. 

I thought it was so cool!

The peaches came in, and I started painting this old globe last month.

My middle son bought several boxes and we canned about 20 quarts.

It went pretty fast once we got going.

I also did some frozen peach pie filling.

Then a coworker of his had sweet corn that was going to waste. We went out there and picked a bunch. I spent yesterday freezing it. 

The globe is still not finished, but further along. All the land is black and the sea white. I am pretty sure the student I work with will be able to see the land masses much easier. 

June's block at block lotto was this sunrise block. 

I won these but I don't have a group shot of them all together. 

They are all just blocks yet, but I think I know what I will do with them.

I need to buy some more fabric! 

Officially these are called Spokes at block lotto. They are July's block. I was totally shocked when I won these too. I think of them as fireworks. 

This is the first batch of blocks that arrived in the mail along with mine.

August's block is called windows. These will make an awesome quilt. 

I donated all my chances for these. 

All the lotto block patterns can be found [HERE]

I bought the pattern and kit for this bag from Connecting Threads. It make two bags, one purple, one blue. I needed to get zippers, D-rings and strap stuff to make them.

I had to go to Des Moines for a few days to attend the Iowa Braille Summer Institute.

Helpful classes for when you are working with the visually impaired.

On the way I stopped for what I needed 

and finished one of the bags in the hotel room.

It is 9 1/2 inches wide. I want to make another one that is just a little wider now.

That black is the zipper, it just lays on top and is sewn down that way.

I like the look and will probably do more zippers that way on bags.

The Blue Earth Valley Quilters and Woodcarvers Expo is this weekend. Been getting ready for that. I still need to finish sewing a hanging sleeve for one little quilt. I better go do that, as we are setting up tomorrow! 

I love my bag.....

The buffalo was put out. There was a Titonka sign on it too, but never took a picture....

Signs advertising the food ahead in Titonka....Ragbrai would be coming through

And then the thousands & thousands of riders arrived. I don't know who this is. As I was taking a picture he entered the shot. I told him he would be on the blog. I was garbage patrol. Emptying the garbage cans as they filled. 

There are always stragglers. When it was "over" and I was walking home,

I went by Dave's shop. He had a whole little party going with this group.

I did not ask or look at what was under the skirts.

I finished this bag! I had started it Monday and there it sat till I could get back to it.

It is made from old decorator fabric samples.

The pattern has a side pocket that I left off. There is a zippered pocket on the end. 

I went simple and just added two slip in pockets on each end. 

They will be good for adding all that last minute stuff I forgot to pack!

Over all the bag is 20 inches wide, and 12 x 12 inches on the ends.

Nice and roomy.