Happy Memorial Day!

Thank you to all of our veterans and soldiers for all their sacrifices! Our nation is free and proud due to your efforts and we appreciate it.

Friday's quilters at the Golden Gese quilt shop in Concord, New Hampshire was filled with gals working on their Hunter's Star quilt blocks. Here is a sample of the finished quilt.

Sue chose to do the red and cream theme.

Beverly wanted blue and white.

Maureen was far enough along to have a block assembled! Good work, everybody!

Look at how beautifully made this is!

Maureen also was showing some lapel pins that a friend of hers had made for sale. Pretty!

As for me, I was working on the hand hemming of my binding for the "Twinklers" quilt.

Miss Tanner likes to sleep in the flower pot!

Happy sewing everybody!

Tuesday Travels

Tuesday was a fun day at the Sunshine Club at the Alton, New Hampshire Senior Center. I was lazy and did not set up my sewing machine. I did bring in a nice 17 piece batch of Civil War reproduction ¼ yard cuts to cut into a home made charm pack of 5" squares. I also got a nice big stack of 2½" strips and a few 1½" strips out of it, too. Wheee! Now I'm ready to sew!

Sue worked with me and she made great progress on pressing her last batch of hip  clips. These are a fashion accessory that her granddaughter has been marketing.

Look at those stacks of product! These are sold for ten dollars a pair to fasten onto the short sleeves of your tee shirt to add a little pizazz to your outfit.

I also turned in a finished candle mat to the growing stack of small quilts and pretty potholders for a Fall charity event called Bowls for Hunger. They are hosting an auction to raise funds.

The morning was enhanced by cups of fresh coffee and chunks of milk chocolate, yeay!

In the meantime, back at my house, I've been making French Lavender sachets and working on some 8" sawtooth star blocks. Here are a few for you to see.

I love making these blocks because they give me an excuse to play in my scraps and try new color combinations. Whenever I sew the last row onto the star block, I get a thrill to see it all come together!

Happy sewing!

Studio Day

Yesterday was a quilting day at the Ellen Peters' Cat Whiskers Studio and I had fun! Here is Ellen loading my little 16-patch clone of Little Red Riding Hood.

The backing was all cobbled together from the trimmings of the first quilt and it is a nice soft tan gingham flannel.

Here I am, ready to quilt!

Loose spirals in a golden tan thread looked great but did not photograph very well.

Like the first quilt, this clone also has a red, red border, whee!

The lawn has grown shaggy as Miss Emma Lynne and her kitty friend, Mr. Tipper like to observe.

Happy sewing!

Too Hot!

Tuesday's Sunshine Club at the Senior Center was filled with quilty fun! I gave a brief tutorial on binding a potholder to Mary. She and Meb were admiring all of Meb's candle mats.

They are all so pretty!

Sue was plugging away on her last batch of hip clips, a sleeve-fashion accessory that her granddaughter had been retailing.

As  for me, I worked on pressing my strip sets for the log cabin quilt border. I made five sets. Each one is made up of four or five strips of 2½" Civil War fabrics.

I tried laying out some of the log cabin blocks but soon discovered that their sizes are too uneven to use without a good trimming up session.
In the meantime, the very hot record-setting weather has brought the crabapple into full bloom!

There is a very subtle scent that just sort of smells like fresh laundry. Now, where are the bees?

 Stay cool and sew!

Thursday Visitor

Just a few notes from the Senior Center last Tuesday; here is Mary showing her microwavable bowl potholders. Nice work, Mary!

We also enjoyed Meb's hand work on her small quilts.

Then on Thursday, Bella, Matthew's wife, came to visit with little 5 year old Giovanni, her son. He sure enjoyed playing with Miss Emma Lynne, my lady Labrador retriever. What fun!

The Spring sunshine was lovely but we needed our jackets.

Nice smile,Gio!

The alameda crabapple is just opening up and the forsythia bushes were gorgeous this year!

 Happy sewing to all!

Red Riding Hood Clone Quilt Progress

Just a quick check in of what's going on at the Friday Quilters at The Golden Gese Quilt shop. Here's Maureen with a first block for her Hunter's Star made using HST's like with Jenny Doan over at Missouri Star Quilt company.

As for me, I was sewing more than snapping pictures. I liked the Little Red Riding Hood quilt so much that I decided to make another one just like it.

I had already made the 30 blocks of 16-patches so I was just sewing them together on Friday.
Although the newer top is not an exact replica, the mood is the same with all of the scrappy Civil War 2½" squares.

You may observe that my hair is just as wild as before but it looks a little shorter after my Tuesday haircut, LOL!

Spring is still wonderful here but there certainly are a lot of rain showers in between the breaks of clouds and sun. Not much sun, but some sun makes me grateful to see it at all.

This is a branch of the rose nectarine tree that Felix planted over 20 years ago. Isn't it lovely?

Happy sewing!

Little Red Riding Hood

After a week of showers here and diligent hand hemming, there was one sunny day to photoshoot my finish of "Little Red Riding Hood."

This little couch snuggler measures 62 by 70 and has a flannel backing.

I freehand quilted the spirals on the rented longarm up at the Ellen Peters' quilt studio in nearby Laconia, New Hampshire.

The fabrics are all Civil War reproduction from my stash with the one exception being the red border.

This has a 100% cotton batting by Warm & Natural. It was very breezy as I tried to get the quilt to hold still on the clothesline!

This was my own invention that just grew from my pile of 4-patches which I sewed into 16-patches as blocks. I set 30 blocks as 5 x 6 and added two borders.

I hope that you are enjoying Spring as much as I am!

Happy sewing!