Marcus Brother's Binding Chosen

This is my choice for the binding on my Scrappy Jacob's Ladder. I wanted a red to accent both the scrappiness of the front and to work with the Stewart Tartan on the backing, too.

By the way, when you look at the upper picture, you will notice that I chose to use a Half Square Triangle as the corner block. Everytime I tried to put a four patch there, it looked wrong, so I gave up and threw four HST's together for the four corners!

I got the binding all cut, joined, and pressed with starch to glue it together.

Then I stitched it onto the quilt. It is exhausting to horse around a big 84" square queen. My hat's off to those of you who quilt big quilts on a DSM!!!
My skills are poor at sewing down the attached binding by machine. It does not give me the finished look that I like, so I'm stitching the hem by hand.

Yesterday my sister, Suzanne, and I enjoyed a visit and celebration of her 70 years on the planet. She loved my gift to her of a Chinese dragons designed sterling silver bracelet! She has a nice collection.

We had an ice cream at Shibley's in Alton Bay, New Hampshire, after a lovely pot roast lunch at The Senior Center's Open House. Here you can see that there was more progress being made to the roof of the new addition. Roofing sure does make a racket!!!

As for the Celtic Solstice blocks that had been going together bit by bit, their production came grinding to a halt when I discovered that I'd run out of the orange/green four-patches!

Moan and groan!!! I'm only up to having made 18 blocks and I need 25. Oh well.

Did I miscount? Or did I lose a whole batch somewhere? Back to the salt mines! I know it's only 30 that I need but I rebelled and sewed up some scrappy Balsam fir needle Christmas sachets instead.

Ain't it great to be a grown-up and do whatever you please? LOL!

Happy sewing!

Making Our Own Sunshine

There were cool showers this morning as I drove to The Pearson Road Community Center (a.k.a. the Senior Center) in Alton, New Hampshire, for The Sunshine Club. The leaves are still all green now, but a frost advisory is up for Thursday and Friday nights. Soon we will have the gorgeous New England fall colors on the trees.

 The roofing is not complete on the addition to the building and a few damp puddles collected inside. But there is no need to worry, as there is no sheet rock inside yet either. Sunny breezes arrived in the afternoon.
 

At The Sunshine Club, Marjorie, (on the left below) had been given a Moda Sandy Gervais jelly roll in lovely fall-like colors. She and Sue (on the right) had great fun playing with color arrangements.

The more we played, the better it looked! Here is what we all liked for color placement.

We realized, of course, that you cannot truly control a jelly roll 1600" quilt top's strips, but it sure was fun to try, LOL!

Later, Sue was quilting her all-greys jelly roll quilt on her domestic sewing machine. She was doing a wonderful job of stitching in the ditch down the long strips.
I encouraged her to keep reversing direction to help prevent any rippling underneath. To the best of my knowledge, Sue doesn't have a walking foot, but her Singer was going right along on the three layers without skipping stitches.

And how about that great faux leopard fabric bag that Sue got at Joann's? It's roomy enough to take her folded up quilt! Sue is unstoppable when she's quilting and that's what I love about her!

After Marjorie put her strips away to sew at home, she pulled out a baggie of sugar pink yo-yos to work on!

Yesterday, in the sunny breezes, I prewashed a whole beautiful group of fat quarters that had been given to me by Debra. She is from western Massachusetts and she visited us with her husband Pete.

I love them all so much, thank you, Debra!!! 
These browns just glow!

There was another gift that I received recently that I am pleased with, but will dispose of properly, LOL!

At the foot of my favorite chair out on the deck, either Mr. Tipper, or Miss Tanner, left me a nice fresh dead mouse!

Thank you, my pretty cats, for NOT letting them run through my kitchen or pantry!!!


The cooler weather had me ready to put another quilt on the bed, and I chose the reproduction Churn Dash that I finished this spring.

This one is only 82" square, but it fits our queen nicely. I had used the Nature's Touch by Pellon for the batting, so it is a wee bit drapier than Warm & Natural batting and a little lighter.

It was fabulous fun to collect all of the 6" (finished in the quilt) churn dash blocks from all over the country in our Civil War reproduction swap!

The 4" (finished in the quilt) cornerstones are scrappy four patches that I made myself, that is, they were not swapped.

That was because the Block swapper's four-patches are generic fabrics and this time, I wanted all Civil War stuff. After all, I AM a fabric snob!!! Not a people snob, but definitely a fabric snob.

The quilting was done with my freehand hearts and loops on Ellen Peter's HandiQuilter Avanti, and I'm pleased with my progress at getting more smoothly flowing lines.

My sister, Suzanne's birthday celebration was postponed for one day until tomorrow, so I'll miss my Wednesday Sew & Sews group but I'm sending them my best regards!

Happy stitching!

All Scrappy Jacob's Ladder

Today was blessedly cool and breezy and perfect for line drying some Civil War neutrals. I am working very hard at playing with the fabrics that I already have in my stash rather than just continually buying more.

It was fun to wish my older sister, Suzanne, a happy 70th birthday, even if it was only on the phone, for she had run off to Maine. We made an appointment for an ice cream treat at Alton Bay, New Hampshire's  Shibley's restaurant on Tuesday after The Sunshine Club. That left me free to go quilting at Ellen Peter's "Cats Whiskers Quilting Studio" in Laconia, New Hampshire!!! Wheee!

Linda and Roseanne were piecing and binding and were great company. Linda showed me her authentic 1930's signature quilt that she will be repairing where some of the fabrics "popped" (disintegrated).

Meanwhile, Ellen was loading me up to get longarm quilting on her big machine. A great big super-duper "THANK YOU" to Ellen for all her help and coaching! She's a wonderful teacher!

This was my scrappy Jacob's Ladder with the four-patch pieced border. I had chosen a Stewart Tartan yarn-dyed woven plaid flannel for the backing. I love RED!!!!

After an hour of quilting, Ellen suggested that we all take a break and go to get a Dairy Queen treat, so we piled into her car and went. I learned too that yesterday had been Ellen's birthday. Happy belated birthday, Ellen!
The real adventure was that we rescued a small white Bison Frise lost dog. He was scampering right across the intersection of the very busy traffic light at the corner of Oak and Main Street!!!
We cruised the neighborhood telling everyone we had found the dog. He went with us to the D.Q. and tried their cup of complimentary water. He sniffed it politely, but refused.

Two little boys eventually came to the door to say that it was their lost dog, so all was well. But Ellen's very gentle rescue Collie dogs sure were curious before the owners showed up, LOL!
Roseanne spoke to the boys' Mom and learned that the dog was new to the household by only two days. She'll need to be much more careful.

I quilted the Jacob's Ladder with Mary Johnson's freehand Baptist Fans.Link here.I was so very grateful to not need the Groovy Boards that are cumbersome and time-consuming. The Groovy Boards are perfect for when you want great accuracy, but this was a practice quilt of a utilitarian nature. Thank you so very much, Mary!!!

It was one O' clock when I started, and five when I finished, with a one hour D.Q. and dog break, so I figure that's three hours for a top that measured at 86" square before quilting. It would've been twice that if I had needed to trace the patterns on the Groovy Boards.

As tired as I was when I got home, I did trim off the extra backing and batting, just using scissors and my trusty kneeling pad.

Tomorrow I bind!!!

Thank you to the good techies that are helping me to produce blog posts again.

Happy sewing!

Regrouping

I was working today with a different techie and we were able to get this picture loaded. It is the morning's work from the Marcus Brother's Sew along. I had all pictures of my progress but those are all gone, sigh.

At least I'll be able to load pictures from now on, at least I think so.

Happy sewing

There They Were, GONE!!!

All my Friday Quilter's pictures for you were eaten by the computer, never to be seen again! So sorry! I will try again using new pictures and a different photo program.

Here is a recipe for those of you who love kielbasa, cabbage, and pierogi's. Layer them up like a Lasagna, sprinkle with shredded cheddar and bake for 30 minutes at 350F.

"Pierogi Pie"

Happy sewing!

Scrap Bag From Moda

I indulged myself in an Ebay-purchased scrap bag from Moda! Should be fun!

Happy quilting!

Never Forget.

Carrying On

Thank you so very much to all of you that have posted sympathetic and always loyal comments to me here in the past week of computer problems! I truly appreciate all of your encouragement. It is not clear to me if the problems are solved or if I have just figured out "work-arounds" to issues.

Yesterday was a fun time at The Sunshine Club at The Alton, New Hampshire Senior Center.

The new addition keeps taking shape, now with a roof and some interior studding for walls inside. I asked our director, Roney (pronounced, row NAY) if it would be possible for The Sunshine Club to store an ironing board and an iron in the future. She said she thought we could. Yippee!

Sue (on the right below) was working on her black and white borders for her all greys jelly roll top. Sorry that I snapped this picture when nobody was smiling, but we must've needed more chocolate, LOL! Georgiana and Paul had joined us just for fun.

In the foreground above, you can see the large rumpled mess of my scrappy Jacob's Ladder getting it's first two pieced borders sewn on. Sue got most of hers done but has another black border to attach.

Back at home, I'm looking forward to another big squishie envelope from the Block_swappers containing my next big batch of four and a half inch (unfinished) HST's and 4-patches..
 In the meantime, I have the October deadline group ready to send; 8 sets of six each, 48 HST's, and 48 four-patches.

 They're are easy to do, but it always surprises me that they do take some time to complete.

Happy sewing!

Marcus Brothers' Blocks

 This is the basket block from August 30th, I believe. I chose to use some of the last bits of the Busy Thimble snippets green in the center that I believe is an older Jo Morton, and when I was running out of it used what I KNOW is a Jo morton for the basket bottoms. The cheddar is an Andover, too

 Then for this past week's entry, was it Nancy Rink, I think? I made the block above. As I have worked on these blocks, I have been using a Marcus Brothers' background. But the second block in the series, shown on the left below, I had done with one of the odd snippets backgrounds. Later I decided that it looked too white to work with all the rest.

In the process of re-working the block for the matching background in that lovely rich tea-bag tan, I discovered that my first block was sewn all wrong. I had put the dark black and olive green outer units in completely backwards. If you look at the correctly sewn block on the right, you can see that they describe a square on point around the cheddar spinners. I never realized it until I was making the block again.

In the meantime, I am loving this cooler weather! Perhaps we are finally done with the horrid summertime with all the bugs and weeds. Everybody loves the Fall!

Happy sewing!

Still Trying

This is the Alton Senior Center that is under construction from pictures I took on the 2nd of September.. I am trying to use new ways to find my pictures to be able to post. Thank you you all for your patience!

Sue was working on her all greys jelly roll 1600 inches top.

It is very difficult still to post pictures, many steps are needed to find them. This is Marjorie with her layout.

Happy sewing.

Perhaps the End?

I do not know if I can continue blogging. I used a paid tech support service that said that they were "optimizing" my computer. Now my photos just disappear into the bowels of my computer. Matthew is trying to help. all my photos were saved into one big jumble of one folder instead of being by date, each in their own folder.