Seeing Red?

I like red. When I needed to choose a color for the darks of my Quarter-Square Triangle blocks, it just had to be red! The driveway has been too windy and rainy and cold for layouts so I was using my tiny guestroom floor. Half the blocks are the Stars In A Time Warp, from Barbara Brackman's wonderful sew along, with the alternate blocks as QST's. Civil War Quilts

Bonnie K. Hunter's methods for construction helped to inspire this layout with her free pattern for her "Chunky Churn Dash," on her fabulous website, Quiltville's Quips & Snips.

I love the optical illusion of seeming to have been set on point when the alternate block is used.

Barbara Brackman had also suggested this as a possible layout and had shown some great looking antique quilts that have used it.

It was so gratifying to finally be able to see what the quilt will look like!! Wheeee! Thank you, Barbara Brackman! Thank you, Bonnie Hunter!

My setting is 121 blocks, set as eleven by eleven blocks and each block is eight inches square. I chose to use the uneven number so that I could have stars blocks in the corners.

The room is too small to get a very good camera angle on the whole thing at once but I was dying to show it off to my two sisters. The guest room door was kept carefully closed for my big reveal during our Thanksgiving celebration. I got my two sisters to come to see it, but Miss Emma Lynne wanted to zip into the room as I opened the door for them to look into the room! Eeeeek!

No, no, Miss Emma! Come, girl, come! Soon she was out from having "customized" the design a wee bit. She was quite embarrassed to not have been welcomed to lead the way into that closed room, LOL!

Now that all the leftovers are eaten up from Thanksgiving, I have just begun the newest Bonnie K. Hunter mystery quilt called, "Allietare." Thank you, Bonnie, for designing a new quilt for us to share!
Link.

I'm struggling with color conflicts because I want to do this quilt in Bonnie's RED!

But I have a commission quilt to do in purple, so I may relent and make this my commission quilt.

Lots more units to make but I'm very pleased to have scratched the surface and to have units that seem to have the right seam allowances, wheeee!

I'm linking up my progress on Bonnie's blog here: Link.

 Happy quilting!

Happy Thanksgiving to All!

Happy thanksgiving to all! Here are just a few pictures of New England foliage to celebrate with you!

Happy quilting!

The Triple Play

When my younger sister, Lucinda, arrived at my older sister, Suzanne's, house, I was delighted that they wanted to come right over to join the Monday Chair Yoga class at the Alton, New Hampshire Senior Center.

From left to right, Lucinda, Victoria (me), Suzanne, and Felix, at the Senior Center.

We met there and shared a great class! Both will be joining Felix and me for Thanksgiving Day turkey at our house.
Speaking of Thanksgiving, Felix and I enjoyed a week-early turkey dinner at the Senior Center.

The meal was ample and there was a good crowd that was in a festive mood.

After we ate, we were entertained by a comic who told funny stories and amused us all.

On a more quilty note, I was happy today to go to the center for our regular meeting of the Sunshine Club. Sue gave me this dear little sewing pin with the Featherweight on it! Thank you, Sue!!

Sue was working on her second Easy Hourglass Quilt in the Red White and Black fabrics that I believe she bought with me last summer at the Keepsake Quilting Annual Tent Sale. Nice job, Sue!

The last Tuesday of every month is the handwork circle at The Evergreen Country Primitives Quilt Shop where we shared some chat and some cookies. Well, of course, chocolate, too, LOL!

It was thrilling for me to be there to finish the hand hemming of my third scrappy Jacob's Ladder, YEAY!!! That's a triple play!

This one is all diagonals, but it shares the same style of inner border of scrappy lights and then a final border of 4-Patches as the previous two quilts.

The sun peeked out from the clouds and let me take some pictures as the breezes picked up.

This clothesline already has a pretty low sag to it and I decided to test it's strength to see if I could capture an image of the whole series of the Scrappy Jacob's Ladder quilts.

Each 82" square quilt is filled with Warm & Natural Batting and each one has a 100% cotton flannel backing, so they are HEAVY quilts!

Each quilt has a different layout setting so that they can be individual and yet be the same. That is so that my two adult nieces and my nephew, who will each receive one of the quilts will be treated fairly. In the photo below, from left to right, are the settings of Sunshine & Shadows, Barn Raising, and Field & Furrows.

This last one, Field & Furrows, was done with a pretty green Florentine scroll  cotton flannel backing and a green binding.

The Barn Raising layout, below, features a red Stuart plaid cotton flannel with a red binding.

And the last one enjoys a Black Watch tartan blue plaid cotton flannel backing with a blue binding.

The wind blew but the clothesline held!

If you click on the next picture to enlarge it, you might just be able to make out Miss Tanner,  one of my two little outdoors-only kitties who decided to join the photo-shoot. She is walking out from between the quilts.

These quilts have taken me a full year and a half to complete. Now I just need to get labels onto them!

This post is being linked to the binding blitz at JulieKQuilts.Link.

Happy quilting!

Sunshine Happenings

Hooray, this time when I went to The Sunshine Club yesterday, I remembered to bring the camera to share the fun with you! Please forgive me for the wrong camera setting that caused a few very dark exposures until I corrected it.
Sue, below, was making more progress on her second Easy Hourglass Quilt from Missouri Star Quilt Company's video. Link.

Beverly, below, was joining blocks into rows for her tee shirt quilt by adding the black sashing.

Dorinda joined us with an amazingly complex applique project that we marveled over.

Marjorie almost has all her pink and black yoyos joined up with hand stitching for her pillow cover!

At home, I had already sewn the prepared binding that I had made and got it nicely attached to my quilt's backside.

I find it very challenging to horse around a big queen sized quilt of 83" square as I am sewing it onto the quilt, but the excitement of a looming finish keeps me motivated!

Now that it is all sewn onto the quilt, I've been doing some of the hand hemming here and there. Can you believe that I have two sides done already?

I did more at the Alton, New Hampshire Senior Center, too!

Another project that I've worked on was getting a couple of sets of tan and calico pillow cases finished in time for Christmas gifts to my sisters.

I'm looking forward to a nice Thanksgiving here with both of them coming for dinner.

My "kid" sister, Lucinda, who is 55, is here via a long bus ride from Connecticut and will stay for a few days. My older sister, Suzanne, is more local, just two towns away from me.

There is so much fun and happiness to make these quilty gifts for my family who treasure them!

Happy quilting!

Friday the 13th

My heart aches for all of France in the bloody aftermath of the hated Islamic radical terrorist attacks on Friday the 13th. May God help France to recover and my special prayers go to the innocent victims and their families.


In less distressing news, I have been working on lots of different projects; a little here, a little there.

Yes, that picture above is the binding for Scrappy Jacob's Ladder #3. It is all prepared and ready to be sewn onto that big quilt. It is an ancient Cranston print of landscape grasses, but the color was perfect! It busted some deep stash, but I still didn't use all of it, eek!

My dear friend, Frances, got home from a brief sojourn in the hospital and continues to do well, although her great niece did get her a hospital bed in their home. Frances loved her newest quilt gift from me, which was an inexpensive Chinese cheater print quilt that can be washed to death.

Frances had advice for everyone; "Don't worry about anything, cause it will only make you sick with a bellyache or a backache. Just take each day and be grateful for what you have!" Not bad for a 99 year old lady!

The Friday quilters met at The Golden Gese Quilt Shop on 22 Liberty Street in Concord, New Hampshire. Below, is Beverly and Elly working on the instructions for one of those little super sack projects.

Maureen, below, was sewing up pieces of her Dutchman's Puzzle blocks.

They sure are pretty in that Ophelia line layer cake from Missouri Star Quilt Company!!

May we all remember to say, "I love you" to those who matter in our lives and thank God for all our blessings. We are not promised tomorrow.

Happy quilting!