A Top And A Half

The weather finally cooperated so that I could go to my Friday sewing group at the Golden Gese in Concord, New Hampshire. We were welcoming Claire, our group leader, who recently became a widow due to a tragic accident. Her husband had a seizure while he was up on their roof and he fell to his death. She is so brave as she carries on at the cutting desk. This is the quilt that the group made for her.

The blocks are beautiful.

As for me, I had brought my pressed and starched log cabin blocks to do a layout on the big tables.

The 20 blocks looked great in the Fields and Furrows setting with those graphic diagonal stripes running across the quilt top. The strips are 2½" wide.

I labeled them and picked them up in sequence to sew them together later at home.

Maureen was sewing together some bright happy-looking charm squares that are 5".

Looks good, Maureen!

Maureen and her friend, Sandy from Florida, made these super little zippered pouches that are embroidered with a pattern.

Now those are handy!

Beverly had a whole bunch of cute little printed sayings that she is sewing into a quilt.

When I got home, I was like a house on fire to sew together those log cabin blocks and get them photographed outdoors this morning.

I'm not sure if I will leave this top as is or add borders. I need to measure it exactly, but I think that it is around 54" across.

The scrappy 16-patches did get a border on it and it needs a backing now. So that's all the news that's quilty.

Happy quilting!

Sins Of Omission

My dear friend Grace reminded me that I had neglected to show some pictures of the scraps from Keepsake that I was sorting yesterday, so here they are!

It's a nice mix of color and pattern.

Some of the larger pieces are big enough to glean several 2½" strips that are width of fabric.

I found a new start of some random log cabin blocks and did a few mile a minute rounds on those with a lovely dark brown scrap strip. There's a link to my tutorial on how to do these off to the right on my blog.

The other sin of omission was that I made up a cute little table runner with three orphan blocks that were 16-patches to send to a dear friend of my sister.

There were two blocks left over and I made up a third one to complete the piece.

It was quilted with straight lines, x'd through the squares and I gave it a flannel plaid backing.

The red plaid flannel had picked up so many linty threads on it that I gave it a thorough grooming with my roller lint remover! Hah! All clean now.

Here is the label going to Reverend Carol who gives comfort to us all.

Happy Quilting!

Movin' Kinda Slow...

The big news at Park Hill Farm is that we are finally experiencing some January thaws that have cleared the driveway of ice and snow! Wheeee!

On the quilting front, I noticed that my rotary cutter was dull and I asked Husband Wonderful to install a new blade for me. The sticker showed that it had not been changed since last August!

As for me, I've been in the low-light winter doldrums when it comes to any kind of ambition. Today I rummaged around in my many random piles of new fabrics to find a scrap bag that came from one of the annual tent sales at Keepsake Quilting's retail store.

It was fun to dig through the scraps and sort and iron and cut them into usable sizes. I chose 2½" squares and harvested a few nice stacks of them.

Lastly, I sewed up a bunch of scrap strips into sachet pouches filled with French lavender and dried rose petals. I sell these for $3.00 each or two for $5.00 during the summer months to benefit the local food pantry.

With the driveway open, I was able to get over to my friend's houses to distribute some belated Christmas cheer and that felt good!


Happy Quilting!

Happy Twelfth Night

We have been battered by snowstorm after snowstorm with bone chilling cold weather all along! Thursday dropped 14 inches of fresh powder and here is what it looked like after Husband Wonderful plowed out our driveway.

It is too slippery to walk down to the mailbox, so we drive down to it to prevent falling down.

I've been sewing lots of four patches which I then joined up into 16-patch blocks.

The colors are all creams, reds and greens in Civil War reproduction fabrics.

Miss Emma Lynne enjoys an afternoon nap on the futon.

Happy Quilting!