Criss Cross Blocks

March 15th is coming up soon and that is the deadline for the last of the Civil War reproduction swaps of the Criss Cross Blocks. These will be for the "Across The Spectrum" quilt designed by Sherri Bain Driver that was featured in McCall's Quilting magazine in the Nov/Dec 2011 issue. The blocks are a tiny 5" unfinished! I find them very challenging. Here I am making them up with Moda's "Collections For A Cause" Civil War reproduction fabric in a medium sage green. Civil War greens are so muted usually, aren't they?

For the swap, (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nickelswap/) I make a set of eight blocks with matching plain 5" nickel squares and send in 6, keeping two for myself.
I confess that I am becoming a true fabric snob when it comes to the Civil War reproductions! Recently there was a sale on them at Hancock's of Paducah and I got some. When the Fed Ex truck pulled into my driveway, my heart beat a little faster; YES, it was my fabrics!

Aren't they wonderful? I call them, "Imported from Paducah!" LOL! I hope to use them in that medallion quilt that I saw in the most recent Quiltmaker magazine.
My policy on quilting magazines is very simple. I will ONLY subscribe to ONE at a time. That way, I have something happy to look at when I'm waiting in a Dr.s office or waiting for Matthew to come out of a class at his college. But now I also have the Hancock's of Paducah catalogue, too! Wow, it's nice and thick and colorful. Yippee!!!

Thank You!

First, let me thank everyone who did vote for my hearts quilt! One of my friends told me, after I had posted numerous requests for your votes, that such pleas are against the rules and would disqualify me. Sigh. Oh well, thank you anyway!

Please Vote for My "Hearts" Quilt~

Please everybody, vote for my quilt on the Quilting Gallery blog! http://tinyurl.com/6rg38r5

This quilt was made a couple of years ago on Valentine's Day to give to my Husband Wonderful's Aunt Lucy who turned 90 years old. I made up the design using machine applique and Linda Monasky of the Bear Paw Gallery in Alton, NH did the longarm quilting. I was on a NO BUY at the time, so it was all from stash. I made the pattern for the hearts by folding a piece of paper and cutting out that "almost-an-ice-cream-cone" shape. I did a few until I got one that I liked. The red fabric on the back was a piece of rayon plush velvet that was given to me by a friend who knows that I sew. She had been using it as a Christmas store window display for her tanning salon which had to close.
Aunt Lucy is still going strong and she loves her quilt!
Thank you for your support!

Happy Valentine's Day!

I enjoyed today with my true love, Felix! And to keep it quilty, here are two new Happy Scrappy Houses!

So now I'm up to ten of these. If you are new to visiting my blog, welcome, and here is the link to Bonnie K. Hunter's instructions for the houses:
http://quiltville.blogspot.com/2005/06/happy-scrappy-houses.html
Thank you to all of my wonderful readers and commenters! I'm sending you each my mental hugs !!!

Trimming Up

Yesterday I brought home my version of Bonnie K Hunter's http://quiltville.blogspot.com/2005/06/patches-pinwheels.html "Patches & Pinwheels" from my longarmer, Linda Monasky of The Bear Paw Gallery http://www.thebearpawgallery.com/index.html in Alton, New Hampshire. Bonnie Hunter does beautiful FREE patterns with lots of helpful and friendly tips all through her instructions. Thank you, Bonnie!

And Linda Monasky does drop-dead gorgeous longarmer quilting! She did an all over edge to edge meander with two different designs on the two borders. The narrow inner border got a freestyle loop de loop, while the wide chocolate brown border got trailing ivy vines. Linda always respects my budget but makes me look good! Thank you, Linda!

Here is where I wrestled against the breezes and cold temperatures to trim away the excess batting and backing fabric. I chose Cream Rose Cotton batting by Mountain Mist which is a little lighter weight than my usual Warm & Natural preference for this King-sized 92" X 104".

I had to use chairs to hold the quilt in place from the wind gusts and a kneeling pad for my ancient joints!

The backing fabric is a cream and brown wallpaper stripe that I bought as an 8 yard bolt during Joann's winter warm up sale a few weeks ago. It is a flannel but it sure did shrink a LOT when I washed and dried it in the dryer! One 3 yard piece shrank 7". But it looks great and feels cuddly.

Here is a closer look at that pretty quilting that Linda did.

I'm not sure what I'll name this one. Maybe "Calliope Music" would be good because it certainly has that carnival feel to the mood. Maybe you have a good idea for a name for this quilt?

Early Risers

Saturday! I was up very early for me, at 5:30am, awakened by Raven's cold nose bumping my hand to tell me that she needed to go out. She has never had an accident in the house, so I was happy to oblige her. I tried going back to bed but kept thinking of the special Hazelnut Creme New England Coffee that I had set up last night all ready to run through the Bunn coffeemaker in the morning. The coffee won. I poured it through and it was delicious.

Snow is predicted. That will temporarily render my designway wet and messy. Other people have a designwall but I use my driveway. So I worked hard to finish assembling the eighth row of Sister's Choice and pressed and pressed and pressed.
Then I carefully carried it upstairs and auditioned some border selections. Geez, nothing looked right! All the stuff that I had bought to be the borders was sickly. I was working with tans and creams as the inner border with a medium green as the outer. I hated it!
Felix distracted me with a fabulous breakfast of fried eggs with Kielbasa slices and sauted green cabbage and Pillsbury Grands biscuits. As I ate, I'd look over at the quilt top draped over the two rocking chairs. Then I got a bright idea! Try a deep turkey red to work with the green? I tried it and I loved it.
So back out to the driveway to spread and smooth out the top, then I use a steel construction worker's rule to measure through the center length to find the number to cut the two inner borders, then do it all over again for the top and bottom borders. I'm loving how it looks! The pictures do not do it justice because my beautiful warm pea soup green points all look black and the inner border looks brown instead of turkey red.

In the middle photograph the breeze just would not quit playing havoc with the left edge, turning it over to show the underside. Oh well, live on a hill, then there is always a breeze! LOL! I love it in the summertime!
Here is a shot that shows the first of the wide outer borders:

It is a very nice-looking green and cream paisley that is 5 1/2" cut and will finish at 5". It kinda blends in with the asphalt here but it will be wonderful when I get the last two sides sewn onto the top.

Sister's Choice Blocks

Gracious, here it is Thursday night already, and I have so very few pictures for you! I've had fun sitting outdoors in my folding chair soaking up the glorious sunshine to fight my Seasonal Affective Disorder. Most days I need to bundle up but right in front of the garage there is good protection from the northerly winds. I do a minimum of 15 minutes every sunny day.

 This week I sent out a lot of swaps and was often trying to make the little Gilmanton Iron Works Post Office before they close the window from 11am to 1pm. We are so small that the postmaster, Linda, needs that time to process the mail and there is no one else to mind the counter. The next nearest station is six miles away, so we love our Post Office!
I didn't take pictures of all the outgoing swaps, but here is one of "foliage" prints in 2 1/2" Half Width Of Fabric (HWOF) strips with ten different foliage fabrics in each baggie.

The baggies are new to me; they are the "Snack Size" from Zip Lock and are 3 1/4" X 6 1/2". They fit perfectly! Then I throw all the little snack sized baggies into a big gallon sized Hefty with the zipper. If you think you might like to join the foliage swap here is the group address.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/qvwashedswappers/ It is a Yahoo group that you would need to join and we do prewash.
The other project that I've enjoyed working on this sunny week, is my long unfinished Sister's Choice. Bonnie's recent slide show inspired me! http://quiltville.blogspot.com/2012/02/sister-oh-sister.html The blocks have just been languishing in a basket. So I took them out and laid them out on the driveway, aka my design wall. Thank goodness it was not too breezy!

 These were all made from Civil War nine-patch swaps from the Nickel swap group.http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nickelswap/ These were from last year and I want to make two twins from them eventually. This will be the first one. Here is the layout that I liked using a six by seven block layout. The last row never got photographed because the wind started to pick up and toss the blocks around.

I quickly picked them up in order and labeled the stacked rows with a slip of numbered paper pinned to the top block of every row. Today I was pleased to get all the blocks assembled into rows. Tomorrow I plan to dig out my ironing board to press the rows and join them up. But I'm thrilled with my progress! Whee!

Super Bowl

For dyed-in-the-wool Patriots fans like me, the Super Bowl was a disappointing loss to the NY Giants, who played brilliantly. But for me, the day was not a total loss.
Keepsake Quilting's mothership store was hosting a Super Bowl Sale. When each customer got to the register, she got to pull a preprinted slip of paper out of a bag to discover how much of a discount she would receive; 10%, 15%, 20%, or, one lucky lady could get 25% off her order on regularly priced items. I was there to buy a few Civil War prints for swaps with no particular quilt project in mind. I was scandalized that some of them are now over $11 per yard! I refuse to pay over ten. I looked carefully in the sale/outlet room first.
Yippee! I found a Jo Morton, a Judie Rothermel, and a Windham from the Chester Country Historical Society 1840 reproduction! They were in the $6 and $7 dollar a yard range, but of course, would not qualify for further discounts at the Super Bowl register drawing.
At full price, $9.92 per yard, I found two Civil War prints that I really liked; one off-white shirting and a fabulous cheddar. My drawing at the register was for only 10% off, the minimum, but hey, I'll take it!
I got everything home and quickly prewashed it in Orvus in my extra big bathroom sink and hung it out on my clothesline right away. I'm sure it froze overnight, but it was perfectly dry in this morning's sunshine.

That was yesterday and I had also cut up some Civil War stuff for my Nickelswaps. Here are the pretty little sets all ready for their baggie and mailer.

Now I'm off to the Post Office to mail them off!

"Recent Developments"

I'm still poking along on Happy Scrappy Houses and got another four blocks done! That's the good news.

 And, I tried squaring these four up by using the ginormous 12 1/2" square ruler and did it much better than when I was using the 9 1/2" square ruler. That's more good news!

The very-less-than-terrific bad news is that the first group of four measures in at 9 1/2" square, while the next four, completed today, measure in at a perfect 10"! Now everybody's gonna get sashing all around, so maybe there is some room to fudge it and make everybody play nicely with each other. I think it will all work out. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it!

Debra from Massachusetts had some cute ideas for the name of this quilt, but I've decided to call it "Recent Developments". I guess I'd better not let it become a UFO or the name will be a lie. LOL!

RABBIT!!!

When I was a little kid back in the 1950's, we made fun and games out of nothing at all. One family tradition was that the very first word uttered on the first day of the month was, "RABBIT!" You must not sleepily murmur, "Good morning." You had to remember when you awoke that it was the first day of the month. My five-years-older-than-I sister, Suzanne, was a crackerjack at this. She would come right up to my bed where I was still sleeping and boldly say, "Rabbit, Victoria, Rabbit!"
People who did say rabbit as their first word uttered got good luck all month long. Those who stumbled would get a brand new chance next month. I know that it sounds too simple to be very much fun, but we honestly looked forward to the first of the month. I'm convinced that we learned how to read and use a calendar at a younger age because of it.
So to you, my blogees, I say, "RABBIT!

Later;
To keep it quilty, I did work directly on Step 7 of Orca Bay today. I completed two stacks of ten of the winged geese for a total of twenty. I think that brings me up to 70 of the 128 needed. They sew so sweetly when they are well starched!

Having done that, I decided to be a VERY BAD GIRL and start something new that I've been just itchin' to begin! I dove into the two inch strip bins and played house all day. Specifically, Bonnie K. Hunter's "Happy Scrappy Houses from Quiltville.com.http://quiltville.blogspot.com/2005/06/happy-scrappy-houses.html

They are easy to do but require great fun in making all the design decisions as to which color for the roof, what will go in the window, should the door be light or dark, do I want the neutrals all to match or not? I especially wanted to start this because my guild (Belknap Mill Quilter's Guild http://bmqg.org/has a challenge out for "Buildings." I can't find my copy of the newsletter, Material Matters, to review when it is due. Maybe June? Not sure. But this will be perfect for it!

Because I'm the only quilter left in the whole wide world who still makes every cut from the lines on my mat, instead of from the lines on the ruler, I am clueless as to how to square up these blocks the way that Bonnie describes. I used a big 9 1/2" square Omnigrid (oh yes, I HAVE them, I just don't use them! LOL!) and aimed for the 1/4" overlap near the corners of the topsy turvy houses. Then I thought I was supposed to use the big square ruler as if it was a template. Well, that sucks.
So the first one that I squared up got kinda too small, but in the ballpark sized, so I'll still use it. The other three seemed better trimmed; right side & top edges cut, then rotated to do the opposing sides as Bonnie said. Maybe I should try using the larger 12 1/2" Omnigrid. They all have too many competing lines on them. I'm a simple woman. I need a simple ruler. And I don't want a sewing machine that's smarter than I am! LOL!

The most important thing to me, is that I had a ball!