Quilts for our Grandsons

I believe that I have mentioned in earlier posts that we are expecting twin grandsons this spring. Our son Greg and our daughter-in-love Rachel are pregnant. We have been very cautiously excited as Mom has had some problems in carrying them. In fact as I write this she is hospitalized two hours from home as she started some contractions on Sunday. Right now all is well with her and the little guys. One of the babies is now 2 lbs., 14 ounces and the other baby is 3 lbs. 4 ounces. We had her baby (babies) shower on Saturday and she received lots and lots of very nice baby items. I made two quilts for the little guys. Greg is a mechanic at a local farm equipment dealership. He has also worked on several farms during high school, college and after college. When I found the tractor patterns on the Fat Cat website I thought they would be perfect for the quilts.

Scrap Reduction

I am on a mission to do some "stash busting" in my sewing room. It seems like I have been cutting fabric for days and I don't feel as though I have made any head way. I went through two rather large garbage bags of fabric that were given to me. I pulled out anything with any amount of yardage and put it in a box. Then I pulled out all of the little pieces, pressed them and cut them into pieces for quilts. I decided that while I was doing that I would cut fabric for several quilts. I am so proud of the organization that I did for this huge undertaking. I labeled several boxes with quilt names and fabric size requirements. I have been cutting 3 inch strips, 2 inch strips, some 5 and some 7 inch squares and then cutting 1 1/2 inch strips for scrappy log cabins. I did manage to get to the bottom of the large box of bits and pieces of fabric so I guess that I am making some progress. I am anxious to just sit at the sewing machine with a box and sew the pieces into a quilt. I have already decided that I am not going to be able to just cut, cut, cut. I need some sewing time too. In the bottom of the box of bits and pieces were some juvenile pieces. I am currently in the process of cutting them for yet another quilt. I am almost finished cutting them, so the next step will be to sew the pieces into blocks. Maybe once I get some sewing time in I will be feel like doing some more fabric cutting.

A Great Day of Sewing at Quilt Guild Today

I enjoyed another great Scrappy Quilt Day at Guild today. We had 15 women there all working on their own projects. It was really fun to see the purses, quilt blocks and even Christmas stockings in various stages. My beautiful little Featherweight and I worked on the Trail Mix quilt again. So far I have not worked on it at home, only at Guild. Well, I take that back, I did do some ironing and cutting when I got home today. The pile of little pieces on the left side of the picture are 1 1/4 inches by 2 inches and will be sewn into 4 patches.

January Thaw

Where did all of our snow go? We have had some warmer temperatures in Hillman during the last couple of weeks (warmer for January here means high 30's, low 40's)! Today it is in the 20's and we are getting a little bit more snow. The flakes are falling so slow that I can almost count them as they come down. I do enjoy the winter weather so it almost feels like a winter slump to me. Yesterday when I was in my sewing room I almost felt like I was in a quilting slump. I had pushed so hard to get the baby quilts done and right now I don't have anything ready to sew on. As I mentioned earlier I am working to use up some of my fabric stash and work on some scrap quilts. Yesterday I had a couple of hours of free time so I spent it cutting fabric scraps for a couple of quilts. Although I enjoyed it I just wasn't as excited about the quality time spent with my rotary cutter instead of my sewing machine.

Missions Accomplished

I hope you were able to get your missions accomplished this weekend. My main mission was to attend our Grandson Cameryn's (#6) first basketball game. He and his team mates looked so cute out on the court (ok, Dad and Papa probably wouldn't use the term cute). Their team of 7 players was missing two players so the kids got lots of play time and boy were they tired by the end of the game.
I also did some playing in my sewing room. After Church today I was able to get this quilt sandwiched and pinned. The name of the quilt is Tilt A Whirl. I hand pieced the quilt and plan to hand quilt it. I also finished cutting out the 2nd Guild BOM for January and got everything cut out for our Guild's mystery quilt. I also stitched some more 4 patches made with 2 inch scrappy squares for a project I have in mind (stay tuned for details as they progress). I finished machine quilting the second of the baby quilts for our twin grandson. After dinner tonight I plan to work on hand stitching down the binding. All in all it was a great weekend.

A Little Bit of Organizing

I decided it was time to do a little bit of organizing in my sewing room. Honestly I need to spend a day or two in there but at this time I don't want to give up that much sewing time. Yesterday I attended a class on color at my Guild. It was very interesting but for some reason my mind turned to organizing - or was it this green dresser that has been in my garage for about a year and a half? On my way home from Guild I decided to devote an hour to cleaning and organizing, an hour to watch Dr. Phil and an hour to sew before it was time to start dinner. It worked out perfectly. About a year and a half ago I received a phone call about a woman in our area who had died (I did not know her) and the family was trying to clean house and get rid of her craft supplies. I called the house and made arrangements to go out and see what they had. When I arrived at the house I was met by the woman's daughter who was here from California and the woman's son who was here from Ohio. They were in the process of cleaning house, painting, getting carpets cleaned, etc. They asked me if I was there for the early garage sale. I didn't realize they were having a garage sale but that sounded like fun to me. The daughter took me to a large pole barn where they had boxes and boxes of crafting supplies. The deceased woman was into all kinds of crafts, doll making, knitting and crocheting, quilting and wood working. I had a great time digging through boxes and finding all kinds of treasures. The daughter came out a few times to add more boxes to the pole barn and to see how I was doing. She also took me to the attached garage to show me more boxes. She told me that they were busy in the house and when I was finished just walk into the house (I love living in a small community). I had a great time going through this woman's stash. Her quilts were mainly utility quilts made with polyester double knits so I did not pull any of those pieces out but I did manage to find a few pieces of cotton. I also found boxes and boxes of rick rack, bias tape and thread. I filled a rather large box up of thread, including 18 spools of hand quilting thread. I was very curious about this green dresser and another one that was there. The husband came home from the dentist and came out to the pole barn to introduce himself and to see how I was doing. I asked him about all of the wood working supplies, tools and projects. He told me all of that had belonged to his wife - she was the wood worker in the family. I immediatly went through all of the boxes again. I decided that both of the dressers needed to go home with me. Our grand daughter Allie is using one of them. The green one is very small, only 30 inches wide and although I didn't measure it I am sure it is shorter than that. It probably could use a new paint job but I just feel that it has lots of character and I like the way it looks in my sewing room. Yesterday when I hauled it into the house from the garage and cleaned it up I noticed that I could see some printing on the boards on the sides of the dresser. It reminded me of my grandfather who was also a wood worker. I am sure both wood workers were from the generation where you re-use and recycle. The dresser is very crude but I love it. I spent over two hours looking through all of the craft items and filled my car with all kinds of treasures. I wonder if someone will have that experience with my "stuff" some day.

Fun at my Quilter's Retreat

I was able to attend a retreat earlier this week with 12 of my quilting buddies. Because of family circumstances I wasn't able to spend the night at the cabin but I was able to go on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. While there I finished up the mystery blocks from Thunder Bay Resorts Murder Mystery retreat from last fall. I also completed the machine applique on all of the flower blocks that I had prepared. The blocks are from a Guild Block of the Month from probably 6 years ago. I used a black background and made the flowers with my hand dyed fabrics. I have taken those blocks to camps and retreats for almost 6 years now. I don't think I have enough blocks so will have to get some more of them fused to the background fabric so I can get them machine button hole stitched. I also cut out Block #1 of our current Block of the Month. I have decided to use my 1930's reproduction fabrics for this quilt.
JoEllen aka Queen of the Log Cabins completed 2 log cabin tops at camp.
Karen completed her scrappy top. The name of the quilt escapes me right now but the designer was Edyta Sitar.
Everyone had a great time at camp and we are certainly looking forward to going back next year. Thank you so much Sandy & Larry for sharing your beautiful cabin with us.