Lets go back to October....

 I went on my first retreat ever in October.

It was pretty nice for sewing. I got a lot done.

There was lots of room to spread out for cutting and sewing and pressing. I worked on my row by rows. I haven't worked on these since. I pulled them out one Saturday, looked everything over, but was overwhelmed by it all. I didn't know where to start back up. It sat out all day and I ended up packing it all back up.

There were 10 of us. Some were sewing, some were scrap booking and my mom was knitting.

She was making mittens. But she kept telling everyone that came down to the kitchen that she was making warmers for a certain male body part!

Really Mom?!

Fast forward.....

I sew at a machine behind the sofa. It is a 1948 Singer. I like sewing here, right next to the kitchen. I can easily go back and forth when cooking. Not that I cook that much, but it is handy.

I was finally putting on some binding for a Christmas gift. There was pressure to get it done and close up the machine. A lot of work was going on behind that wall.

We are taking out the door in the kitchen so a new "front" door was needed. The door in the kitchen was rarely used and this one will probably get the same amount of traffic.

I closed up the machine and they started cutting out the wall. And then they hauled the cut section outside through the.....

new front door! The space! The light! It was all so wonderful!

I asked them to put an outlet in there.

Because....

Well, you never know.

But just in case....

I wanted to put the ironing board in there if I am sewing a lot.

Tractor joe just shook his head. 

I made this some time ago. I'm not sure I have ever shown it.

The strips are 1 1/4 cut.

I wanted to show the quilt that was getting its binding at the last minute, but now I can't find it.

I found this one and can say.....

Merry Christmas to all of you!

My pictures are all so disorganized. I'm going to go see what else I can blog about!

October what?? 17th. Already??

Back in September Mary Fons was at the the Quilted Steeple in Lone Rock Iowa.

She did some classes and lectures during their open house.

There was an outdoor quilt show too.

A nice strong breeze made picture taking hard.

It is located out in the country. A new purpose for an old church.

She went up and down the aisle warming up the crowd before she started. We didn't do any of the classes, just the lecture. There is a picture of the crowd on the home page if you click on the link.

This was a dresser up on the second floor of one of the sheds. It was there when we bought the place.

The drawers were missing and it was falling apart. We added two shelves using scrap wood.

Then stained it...

It turned out a little better than anticipated. But we are still using it the way I had planned. As a grilling station. Our tiny table top gas grill sits on top and other grilling supplies are on the shelves. It is protected from the weather and will be brought inside for the winter. So it should last a nice long time. 

This was last years block exchange quilt. We had a meeting for this years. We will make a 12 inch star block and a 6 inch block of our choice (times 12). They will be in reds and whites. I think I have a plan already...but I haven't sewn one block yet.

That is probably where I should start...getting my blocks sewn.

Went to Des Moines for the AQS quilt show a couple weeks ago. 

Lynne had a quilt entered again this year. I love being able to see her stuff in person! We stopped to stare and soak it all in and take a photo. I bought her a pin too, but that is still in my bag. 

This car cover was made by one of the members of the Blue Earth Valley Quilters. Jan asked friends for orphan blocks to create this car cover. She made it several years ago. She had even sold the car. The new owner loaned it back just for the quilt show last August. I had heard about it, but this was the first time I saw it in person. It is pretty awesome. 

I still need to work on some binding. I can drag my feet with the best of them when it comes to binding. But today is the day. Pressure is on, I want it done before Monday and the next BEVQ meeting. 

One more thing.

The fabric pack challenge this year is Pumpkin Spice. I dug out an old pattern I made about 20 years ago. No Ordinary Cats by Country Threads. While making all the small flying geese and tiny stars that also go in this quilt, I discovered something.

My skills for sewing small stuff has not improved in 20 years. They are as wonky and off as ever.

When I pull this out again to work on it....I may be simplifying the pattern and using 2 inch squares for some of the filler. Or maybe not, but, that is just how I feel today.

I better get busy!

quilt show and tula.....

First a link to Smilebox that will show all the quilts.

Challenge Quilts

This is old stuff now! Last month was the BEVQ

(Blue Earth Valley Quilters)

And the woodcarvers too.

The challenge quilts were made from the same fabric packets bought the year before. You can do as you please. Any size, any style and add fabric if you want. But you must use all the fabrics.

I don't remember how I found this, but I thought it was pretty cool.

lorrie.cranor.org/blog/2014/01/19/how-to-make-an-interleave-quilt/

I did this in an afternoon. I didn't mark my batting. I used the straight edge of the next strip as my guide and that worked for me. I also pressed each strip as I sewed them on. I failed to curve both sides, so I have some straight edges in there too. I wasn't happy about this, but I had used all ten fabrics and called it done.

I was very surprised with a ribbon. 2nd place. Wow.

It shows that you shouldn't judge your own work.

While you may not be that impressed with what you did....someone else might be.

There was the jelly roll derby race on Friday night. 

Here is mine. I think it will make a wonderful throw on the floor baby quilt. I had high hopes of quilting it myself right away. But it it still just a top in the closet.

This is Karen's finished top.

We were the ONLY TWO contestants! 

She won by about 15 inches.

The event has been cancelled for next year due to lack of participation.

Dang. How can I try and beat her? She won last year too.

The Tula Pink 100 quilt blocks continues.

We are over half way now. 

We are in a new school year. Sewing is pretty sporadic. I did pick up a finished quilt last week,

or was it two weeks ago....

Anyway, I still want to get the binding on that soon. 

It is the gift for the wedding that was last May. 

test link

A smilebox link for all the quilts made from the same set of blocks.

Block Swap Quilts

test complete, it works
Way better pictures compared to mine!

my own little dear photograph.....

Link >>> Dear Photograph

This is a photo of tractor joe's grandparents. Back in the 1960's, they retired from farming. They built a house in town. As the family grew, grandpa built a huge table for the basement. That is where people ate for large family gatherings. 

They passed away in the 1980's. Their youngest daughter lived with them. She continued having Thanksgiving and Christmas gatherings and everyone, or mostly everyone, ate in the basement at the huge table.

Last year Aunt Amanda moved to assisted living. It was decided that the house and contents would be sold in an auction. Saturday was the day. Tractor joe went to the auction while I was up in Blue Earth at the quilt show. This table did not sell. The cousins stood around and wondered what to do with it. They talked about just throwing it away. Tractor joe couldn't see that happening and brought it home. 

When our middle son came over he fell in love with it. He could see his friends gathering around it to play cards and games.  He wondered if it could be refinished. Probably, we thought. I sanded the top yesterday while it was still sitting on our back patio. 

There was also a book of old photos that was destined to be thrown away. Not so fast, and tractor joe brought that home too. In it were pictures of the table and his grandparents.

As I sat and admired how it looked all sanded smooth again, the idea for the dear photograph popped in to my head.

I have all kinds of quilt show photos, but I will save them for another day.

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!

the sunrise quilt.....

I won some of the sunrise blocks last summer at BLOCK LOTTO. I was excited, but had no idea what to do with them. Last spring I figured it out and [started here] 

I remade my pattern as the first one was off. It was the same, just done more carefully.

I picked out some background blues and continued to sew the big sun. I did one quarter of it to make sure the rays and ring would all fit together and they did.

The easiest part was the ring of black and white so I did all of them first.

Three of the rays done. Only one more to go.

Center sun done and ready for next border. A big black and white check was added.

I was slowed down a little bit doing the math and trying to figure out how big the sun should be cut and how big the filler strips should be between the sunrise blocks so it all fit together.

After the sunrise blocks were sewn together and added,

another round of black and white striped fabric was used.

This is where I stopped....I started cutting what I had of this aqua blue, and might even have enough to finish.

But, I think I'll buy some more fat quarters and add a few more for variety.

A trip to the fabric store is planned for Saturday.