Trail Mix

I finished this quilt last fall and had it quilted by A Plus Quilting of Midland. The name of the quilt is Trail Mix and it is king sized. I love the way it looks on our bed. I think I posted about this quilt quite awhile ago. I pieced all of the blocks together on our Singer Featherweight ( I love that little beauty) during scrappy sew days at Guild. It took quite awhile to complete the quilt as I only worked on the quilt one or two days a month. Many of my friends thought I was crazy for using so many scraps and because the light colored squares started out at 1 1/4 inches. I love the final outcome. This week I started another scrappy quilt at Guild using 1 1/2 inch squares, using a pattern I found on the internet. It has been fun to dig into some boxes and pull out some scraps of fabric that I forgot I even had.

Christmas Gifts

When I became a Nana 9 years ago our grand children received quilts from me every year for Christmas and their birthdays. This past Christmas I decided to do something different. I bought travel pillows and made pillow cases for each of the seven grandchildren. It was a lot of fun choosing fabrics for each of them.
This is Allie's pillow case.

This is London's pillow case.

This is Grady's pillow case.

This is Cameryn's pillow case.

This is Gavin's pillow case.

This is Kingsley's pillow case.

This is Liam's pillow case.

A Quilt for Kingsley

Our daughter asked if I would make a quilt or 2 for our grandson Kingsley who is now 5 months old. I found this fabric at Hobby Lobby and thought it would be great for a little boy. I used flannel for the backing and machine quilted the quilt. I sent it to Kingsley along with a fleece Minnesota Vikings blanket (the kind where you layer two pieces of fleece, cut the edges into strips and then tie them). Both Kingsley and his Dad loved the Vikings fleece. I have an order for another robot quilt so hope I can still get the fabric when I can get back to Hobby Lobby.

Computer fixed - yea!!

We have had some major computer problems for quite some time now. The finale was a bad hard drive. Thanks so much to PC Medic we now have a new hard drive and the computer "works like a charm". We have a lap top but I was just having trouble getting the hang of using the key board. Now that we have our desk top back I hope to get back to blogging. Stay tuned.

Modern Technology

I love my computer, especially when everything works well. During the last couple of weeks we have had some technical difficulties with one of our programs. And we changed internet providers so that created some hassles too. During the last couple of weeks I spent more time on the telephone with "tech" people than I did with my sewing machine :( I spoke with some very friendly people from the Phillipines and from India and even Janet from Ohio in the good old US of A. Hopefully we have everything back up and running. I still have to do some installations on our lap top but am avoiding that for the time being.

In November my Mom and I dug through her fabric stash looking for fabric to use to make Christmas gifts. While in her upstairs I found boxes, baskets and bags of balls of yarn of all sizes, all left overs from some of her knitting and crochet projects. I gathered a large amount of the balls and brought them home. I found a crochet pattern for an afghan, Blazing Ripple Throw. I can do basic crocheting and read very simple patterns. This pattern called for a dc3tog stitch. I had a terrible time trying to figure that stitch out. Finally I realized a wonderful source for such problems -- the internet. It didn't take long to find the stitch instructions and figure it out. I used my Mom's left over yarn and made 5 afghans. My only expense was a size N crochet hook. Because the hook is so big it doesn't take very long to get an afghan made. I am still quilting but have found that I really enjoy crocheting too. I have taken my crocheting in the car and found that I don't have to deal with pins, needles, thread, scissors, etc. Quite awhile ago I read an article in our local newspaper about a woman in a neighboring town who collects afghans and delivers them to Veterans homes. Since both my Dad and my husband are Veterans I thought that was a very worthwhile cause. A week or so after Christmas I delivered 2 afghans to the delivery location, a beauty shop, then last Thursday I delivered these 3 afghans to the same beauty shop. I have enough yarn here to make 2 more afghans, then I will be checking out my Mom's stash to see if she has any more left over yarn.

Where Has The Time Gone?

I can't believe that it has been over a month since my last post. Things have been very crazy here. Along with all of the usual chaos before Christmas with shopping, gift wrapping, decorating, baking, Christmas partys and programs I was fighting a nasty cold that just didn't want to give up. Then two days before Christmas one of our twins was diagnosed with whooping cough. He and his family were given anti-biotics and were quarantined to their homes. Since we had all been together before the diagnosis all of our grandchildren were checked, given antibiotics and quarantined. So were weren't able to see our children and grandchildren for Christmas. That was very hard for me, especially since everyone lives so close. Fortunately my sister-in-law and her family from all over the country were here in Hillman for almost a week so we were able to spend time with them. Shortly after the whooping cough passed the stomach flu hit several of us. As of this very minute everyone is healthy again. We were able to have Christmas with our daughter and her family on January 1 at a hotel in St. Ignace. Then we had Christmas with one of our sons and his family on Saturday evening and we gave gifts to our other son and his family on Sunday afternoon. I certainly hope we never have another Christmas like that. I have managed to do a little bit of sewing and some crocheting. Before Christmas I was going through my Mom's fabric stash pulling fabrics to help her make pillow cases for her great grandchildren (14) and 4 grand children. I found boxes, bags and baskets of small balls of yarn. I brought home a large bag of yarn scraps and started crocheting afghans. I have 1 done and 2 in the works. There is a lady here that collects them for a veterans home and I am happy to make the donations. I am in the process of hand quilting a quilt and right now I am trying to decide what I want to do with the final borders. I am hoping to have this quilt finished for show and tell at my Guild on the first Thursday in February.

Have you been bit by the 10 minute table runner bug?

I have never been real fond of table runners, maybe because our table is round. Anyway I have been enjoying making these fun little runners. They take 1/4 yard of focus fabric and 1/2 yard of background fabric. And although I haven't actually timed myself I am sure there is a little more than 10 minutes involved. I made a fall runner for our table and enjoyed it so much that I made a Christmas runner and we are enjoying that. Our grandson London attends kindergarten at a parochial school. I thought it would be fun to make table runners for the kids to give to their parents. I provided the pre-cut centers and asked the teachers to have the kids use finger paints to put their hand prints and names on the fabric. Then I took them home and finished the table runners. They will be used tonight for the kids Christmas program, then each child can take theirs home, all 23 of them. We also have 7 table runners for gifts in various stages right now and hope to get them finished by the weekend. As I have mentioned before, my husband has been doing some sewing. Six of the seven table runners are his project and he has been working on them. He also helped me with the table runners for the school kids. He did a lot of the ironing and I did the sewing. I thought it was a perfect match.
PS - I can't take credit for the hand print idea. I owe a huge thanks to my friend Donna from Gaylord who shared with me a similiar project she had going. I was thinking that it would be fun to make these featuring the kids art work or rubber stamps or . . . . . . . . The possibilities are endless.