odds and ends.....

My cousin Max has me sucked into the Row by Row Experience. The Winnebago is from The Quilted Forest in Forest City where they make the motorhomes. When they gave me the pattern, I was in a hurry and only half listened to what I was being told about Row by Row.

Then Max was sending me photos of kits she was finding. When I finally investigated and saw done quilts with all the rows, I fell in love with them.

Max has been on road trips collecting them and it has been one for her, one for me. We were looking for fishing/camping themes. There is one way up in northern Minnesota that had the words

Land of sky blue waters.

I ended up just making the words for the quilt.

Then I talked to my cousin Gwen, in New Mexico. she is right across the border from Durango, CO and sent me these two kits....

Now she was sucked in. She had to go up to Idaho and was happily collecting kits and patterns along the way. She has gotten her brother and son involved too. When all is said and done,

I should have two quilts. The out west one and the fishing/camping midwest one.

These are blocks from a win at Block Lotto a LONG time ago. They are finally in a top!

More lotto blocks. Most of these are duds I won at the lotto... and some leftovers from other quilts.

My goal was to get them all up to 12 inch sized blocks. They are a nice stack of blocks now.

More left over sections from last fall and the Bonnie Hunter mystery. My heart still wasn't in it.

There must be another way to use these....

Maybe as a border for baby animals. Still not sure...

Another finished top. I had plans to make more stars, but quickly became bored making them. They are made from 2 1/2 inch strips. The rest of the strips became the border. 

Another top added to the "get quilted" pile.

That is enough for now!

Happy 4th of July...

I sent my niece Madi an orphan doll. They got on a bus yesterday headed for NYC. they are sending pictures of the doll where ever they go. 

 Flag painting last month. We did this right before I left on the road trip.

A federal shield that will go on a quilt. I appliqued this to the top using freezer paper on top. 

You glue the edges down and then peel off the freezer paper. 

I loved everything about doing it this way. 

It was so slick and easy.

Here is a link to the super good tutorial on it......(click here for fantastic tutorial)

two finished quilts......

Jurassic Park came back from the quilters right before Thanksgiving. The timing was perfect. Crispy took this back to school with him. He didn't want to do this....

(taking a picture of him wrapped in it, but I endured all the complaining and got a picture to show how big it is)

All he wanted to do was this....

Hold it up to get a good shot of the whole thing. I thought I was being generous. He could have been hauling the ladder out of the shed and helping me pin it on to the wire on the other shed. 

But it was cold and I didn't want to be outside any longer than I had to.

For the longest time, Jacob (Crispy's friend) has been bugging me to make a Jaws quilt. I never got around to it. But, I saw him right before Thanksgiving.

The first thing he said was, "Did you get a Jaws quilt done?"

No.

The long weekend gave me time to think and dig and plan.

I found this fabric with hot babes on it. Yes! Every college boy wants hot babes.

He also wanted a sailboat and a shark.

This is what I came up with.....

He was more than willing to get a picture. I thought the shark was ugly. But he said that is what made him so awesome. So this went back to college with him.

The sailboat construction is based on this adorable quilt!

Jacob wanted the words, "we're gonna need a bigger boat!" they are stamped on with red craft paint using foam letters. 

my package to Idaho.....

I put together a box to send to Idaho (God's country), a rather big box.
I thought about flowers for the memorial service...

and then I thought.....
there will be lots of relatives going to my aunts house....





So instead she will get a box full of.....

toilet paper, soap, paper plates (big & small), cups.....

coffee and kool-aid,

marshmallows (maybe there will be a campfire), cookies (Gwen's favorite kind) and an old LOGIC puzzle book

(I was tired of solving them wrong)

And......

one mini-quilt, "Explore Idaho"

I had one bears paw block and it was just staring at me.

In a drawer I found a mini flag, I have no idea why I had made it.

One small blue heart that needed a home and a small pinwheel block....

It is a good thing I still have Gwen's quilt book, Spirit of the Northwoods, the bear, tree and eagle came out there.
They all came together in this little quilt.
Everything was mailed today. I hope it gets there okay....

down on the farm completed and

.....ready to hang up somewhere. Right now it looks like the family room downstairs. The tractor quilt is down there and this fits that theme.





Here is a picture of the pattern from the book, Leftovers from Country Threads.
Mine is a tad brighter.


It looks cute hanging on this fence...even though I am not 100% happy with the quilting......... I won't leave it there exposed to the weather.

I used teeny tiny buttons for all the eyes and on the farmers suspenders.

I still want to do one that is all flowers. But that will have to wait. I just laid out a bunch of blocks on my design wall....okay so it is really my bed and not a wall at all....but it works just the same.

I am off to sew.....

breezeway and the quilt so far....

I keep forgetting to show these before and after of the breezeway.
For several years this is what it looked like in there...
the ugly blandex was gone,
but now it was....
pink styrofoam insulation
and exposed 2 x 4's.... The new paneling went up and it looks SO MUCH better!
I posted about the Oliver light going in there, but never the walls.
Now the back door REALLY looks bad with its peeling paint.
That will be a summer project, repaint the door.

I took a picture of the page with Cutting Garden.
This may or may not be my next project.

But first, I need to work on finishing down on the farm.

The flowers are all ready to go....

this is going to be big for a small quilt, 35 x 51.

The pattern calls for a 1/2 yard of fabric to make setting triangles. As luck would have it,

our quilt shop in Forest City is having a 12 year anniversary sale this weekend!

Karen and I have made plans to head over there!!

more flowers...

I can't get a decent picture of the calendar quilt....
so this will have to do.

It is actually done and on the wall in the basement.
Then I did some more flowers for Down on the farm.
Slow but sure, I am getting them done.

I have enjoyed making these flowers.

There is another quilt in the book that is all flowers, I might do that one too.

an old pattern....

I found this pattern in a Country Threads book that is "old"....(copyright 1997)
The center blocks are 10 inches....and it is all fused applique.
The flower blocks are 5 x8 inches. There will be 10 of them. They will go along the top and the bottom.
I need to make this a very quick post. The plan is to go fishing and I am getting dirty looks. Instead of helping with that, I am cutting fabric and gushing about pretty flowers.

Heaven forbid I get caught on the computer!! I am off to help get ready....and I am not even sure what that includes. Tie a knot here or there I guess, although, tractor joe is doing a fine job without me!

that turkey quilt and postcard....

That turkey quilt is ready for some embellishment.
I am still working on what that will be exactly,
because I don't know for sure yet.
I pulled out some letter beads to make words. I could sew on some words like "love to hunt" "deep in the woods" "excellent marksmanship"....except most of the good letters have been used.
So that turkey is on hold for now.
I took the strips from trimming that turkey and sewed them together with a variety of stitches. Seemed like a good base for a postcard.
Right around my second cup of coffee, the ideas floating around in my head started to gel...I got out the paint and started painting this morning.

One of the teachers at school has breast cancer. She has gone through months of chemo to get ready for her surgery.

She will get this postcard. The post office is only open for about 45 minutes on Saturdays, and I missed that little window of opportunity to mail this...hopefully on Tuesday I will get there.

Next time I am out to the big city, I will be looking for word beads...

and...

some of that stuff that is recommended for using in fabric postcards. The ugly stitching around the edge is not by design. Some heavier duty needles would help too.

geocaching

We did some quick geocaching yesterday.
There a ton of them in Albert Lea, Mn. We went to 10 and found 8. I could only log 7 of them though... we had been to one of them 3 years ago....geesh.
While at one of them I crawled under an evergreen tree with broken off branches. First I stabbed myself in the back, then I ended up poking myself in the head on one of the branches.
THAT HURT.
My eyes watered the pain was so great....
Tractor joe says he heard me say (bleep) (bleep) (delete)....I only remember saying "that's it, this will be a DNF (did not find)...lets get out of here"

Today is a new day...while my head is still tender, it doesn't affect my ability to think. So I have started a new little project. My turkey hunting aunt Barb is the inspiration....

I am in the middle of it now. It will be a tulle quilt, not much sewing on these kinds.
All the background fabrics are fused down to some batting,
the letters are ready to stamp some words,
and the turkey is ready too.


I don't remember the name of the pattern right now. I'll include that when I blog the finished product.
Right now I need to find out what turkey tracks look like, I may put some of those on this too.

live and learn

Next weekend we will be going up to Minnesota to see my aunt Betty. She recently moved into the Care Center. She has Alzheimer's.
She isn't even that old.... mid 60's.
Her short term memory has become very poor and at home care very hard.

So I made her this quilt to hang on her bulletin board in her room.
I wanted to mail it to her, but my sister said to just bring it with when I come up.

But I want her to have fun mail days......
Then I started thinking.....
okay I will bring the quilt with me and send her something else...


I will send her some other fun mail. I researched making fabric postcards.....

I didn't make mine 4x6, mine is a little bigger.
My quilt label book by Kim Churbuck had a good picture to use. It is closer to 5x6.





The quote "how sweet it is to be loved by you" sounded good.....
only I messed up and my wording is different. I knew it didn't sound right, but I just kept working on it without checking.





Several places said "don't use heat and bond"...they never said why....
I used it and found out...
... the glue gums up your needle when sewing around the edge.




Live and Learn
It was all I had so I used it.



My first postcard is in the mail. Tractor joe is worried..."it will get dirty or wrecked"
I mailed it anyway...regular postage plus 20 cents or so for hand stamping it right there at the post office.



It will be fun to see if it makes it and what kind of shape it is in.
I am sure it will be fine!!

Baskets & Blooms....

.... Block of the month finally finished.

This has been years in the making.

The first year was getting to The Quilted Forest every month to pick up the next installment.

I started off strong enough, but towards the end it was hard.
All that applique.


Each piece was sewn down by hand....

At least I didn't have to think about fabric....each kit had what I needed to make the block.

I did have to think about how it would be quilted....all that handwork....and I ended up sending it to the quilters for a random design. I did hand sew the binding to the back though!!

It is a good thing I still like it, being as old as it is...

It was hard to take pictures of....it has been so windy...and it was rainy a few days too. It measures 47" x 66"...it will go on a wall...

All I need to do now is figure out which wall....hopefully that will go faster than making it went.

It is a Joined at the Hip pattern by Avis Shirer and Tammy Johnson.

almost but not quite finished.....

When I was pulling out the old picture of us...I was also reorganizing things.
I found all these blocks for a calendar quilt. The book is from 1997. I had made a bunch of them for my sister Jane. We put them into a valance for her sunroom/breezeway. I haven't been paying any attention to that room...so I wonder if they are still there??? Anyway...I was able to sew the entire quilt top over the weekend. I fell in love with it all over again. While machine quilting it....
I ran out of the thread I was using!!
Dang.
I was so close...only about 4 more inches at the top needed to be sewn.
So this poor little project is on hold for the time being.
There are plenty of other little things to work on instead.

this was fun...

I am jumping the gun a little on this one...it isn't really done yet.
But it was such fun to make and went so fast. It was an experiment sort of....
I didn't want to sew an applique stitch around the bunny...so I used a pen to make the marks.
I chalked his face and coat.
I will put buttons on the flower centers, which are supposed to be eggs, but I changed that.
The words on the pattern are "be kind"...but I went with the word "spring" instead. I figure it's use-ability will be longer.
and...
I will make the right border wider (I was using what was cut and laying around)...I might follow the directions next time.
What color binding?? blue? pink? green?

No dog no.....

Don't sit on that!

geez Ozzy, I am just trying to get a picture of a done quilt!





Not to bad of a picture. The colors are even darn close to
real life.
It isn't up on any wall though.
Right now it is just hanging cock-eyed over the back of chair. It looks nice
there....maybe that is as far as it will get this year.