Log Cabin Lunacy!

Whoohoo, it's the Full Moon tonight! I'm celebrating a well cleared off driveway and making the second 16 block run of Log Cabin blocks for Log Cabin Lunacy!

My blocks get dropped upside down on top of an awaiting strip.

Technically, these are random widths from my scrapbag.

But I found myself deliberately choosing strips that seemed to be about a cool 2" wide strip.

No matter how hard I try to be scrappy and free, I do find myself editing the choices for whatever I think will work best in the final outcome of the quilt.

Here they are all stacked, pressed and starched, yippee!

Oops, no, no,  those stacked and pictured above are from last month's batch of blocks. Here are this month's bevy of beauties.

I love that Paula Barnes cheddar strip on the top block!

Today we had fun at the Alton New Hampshire Senior Center with The Sunshine Club, and Mary, seen below, had brought in her sewing machine.

Sue had brought in her stippling/darning foot and sold it to Mary to use for Free Motion Quilting. We got it attached correctly but the lower thread was all loopy when we tried it. Mary will consult her manual for her machine to try to adjust the tension at home.

Sue was hand quilting and it really doesn't show because she has chosen black thread onto the black fabric. I think that when the quilt gets washed it will show up and be lovely with crinkles.

Mary was also trying out some possible layouts with her scrappy double 4-patches.

She has more to make but it's fun to see them and to play with them.

Thank you, Mary, for taking my picture so that I can appear on my own blog! Here I am, cutting away on separating those Lover's Knot blocks.

I had a great day and I hope your winter is wonderful, too!

Linking up to Log Cabin Lunacy sew along over at JulieKQuilts. Link.



Happy sewing!

Monday Fun!

It seems as though last Friday was 100 years ago what with all the hustle and bustle of the season and several dog calls, too. For those of you who may not know it, Husband Wonderful and I job share a part time job for our town as Animal Control Officers.
But here is Beverly, over at The Golden Gese Quilt Shop, with her beautiful tumbling blocks just back from the quilter.

 This was done using the Missouri Star Quilt Company's rhombus tool with the easy way tutorial.

If you're interested, here is the link to that. Link.
The backing is really cute, too!

The quilting is pretty tough to capture with the camera but here is a close up for you to see it.

Maureen, seen below, was very festive in her holiday red argyle sweater. She worked on some more microwaveable bowl potholders. Nice work!

Maureen also had been busting some of her deep stash to make sets of colorful coordinating placemats. Very cool!

The three of us all worked together to cover up the knee-knocking adjustable knob on the back of my favorite sewing swivel chair there at the Golden Gese Quilt Shop.
This damn knob has hurt all of us with bad placement the way it sticks out and whacks you, right at knee height, as you walk by!
We covered it with a piece of packing foam and secured that with heavy polyester twine. Take that you blasted knob!!!! No more bruises!

I had thought about this solution for the chair knob problem as I was lying in bed going to sleep. I was wondering where the devil that I would be able to get a piece of that dense packing foam.

As luck would have it, my very dear friend, Ila, sent us a dozen perfectly shipped pears with the exact packing foam that I needed!!!LOL

Thank you, Ila! Just like a kid that plays with the box instead of the toy, right?? Well, we love the pears, too, thanks!

While I was at the Golden Gese Quilt Shop, I sewed my heart out working on those Lover's Knot neutral blocks.

I think that all the doubled seams are now sewn! Whoohoo!! I still need to cut them apart and trim off any leftover dog-ears on their corners.

Of course, the biggest news of today is not quilty. Gilmanton, New Hampshire, was listed as having gotten 7" of fresh new snow last night! You go get'em, Plow boy!!!

Miss Emma Lynne got so excited that she forgot that her cat friend, Mr. Tipper, really does not like to play tag and romp in the snow.

Later, when Tipper calmed down, they met up as friends again.

Aww, so sorry, my buddy!

Please don't forget that today, Monday the 12th, is the first day of the all week long celebration of The Golden Gese Quilt Shop's 30th year in business.

Nancy is offering a special 30% off on everything, except the consignment items and the sale corner.

The shop is located at 22 Liberty Street in Concord, New Hampshire and the hours are 10am to 5pm.

Hurry and get dug out! Sale ends at 5pm on Saturday, December 17th, 2016.

In the meantime, stay calm and quilt on!

Linking up to Em's Scrapbag. Link.
Linking up to Love Laugh Quilt. Link.

Happy sewing!

Sunshine News

Yesterday was our first real staying snow of the season, yippee! It really started to make it feel like winter.

The roads were terrible and our fun Senior's Yoga class was cancelled so we stayed in and were safe.

Later in the day it stopped snowing and we used the last remaining daylight to sweep the windshields clear and plow. While it was stormy, I got out this quilt that Felix has been using for his favorite nap  quilt.

It had gone without a label for almost a year and a half, so I made this one and stitched it onto the quilt. Click to enlarge if you like.

This is a picture of the Shenandoah Valley quilt when it was done last year, so that you can see the whole thing.

It was a great way to use a jelly roll with a couple of coordinating charm packs and it finished at 66" by 82" for a nice twin sized quilt.

By this morning's sun, the driveway and roads had cleared, so I got to go to The Sunshine Club over at the Alton, New Hampshire, Senior Center.

Sue and Mary were working on layering the pieced backing for Mary's string quilt.

There was lots of checking sizes and smoothing.

Soon there was a quilt sandwich!

They worked on pin basting the layers together with some success.

But a few puckers needed to be corrected. Mary is still not certain if she'd like to tie, machine quilt, or hand quilt this pretty top.

I did a little more distance on my binding of Summer Poppies and was thrilled to have turned the last corner!!

When I got home, it was fun to get a package in the mailbox from Joann's of one of their super duper online-only thread specials!

These were half price 3000 meter cones in cream colored 100% cotton and I paid $10.49 each with discounted shipping at $1.99 for the two cones. Good deal!! They were made in Greece, who knew?

Here and there at home, I've had great fun piecing some more blocks for various projects like that churn dash.

Also, there were some of the split 9-patches to go with the 6" churn dashes, too.

They always look so nice when they've just been pressed flat with an iron and starch, after only finger pressing during construction.

And I may have mentioned it before, but I am up to 30 blocks made of my 8" quarter Square Triangle blocks. That's half way to what I need, so I'm still picking out reds and creams for more.

My very limited attention span loves my freedom to jump from project to project and never be bored with one thing. All in all, it was a great day! I hope you had fun, too!

Linking up to Oh Scrap! Link.

Happy quilting!

Staying Sane Through The Silly Season

I am enough.
I am enough.
I am enough.

This is a sustaining and life affirming positive statement. We all need to tell ourselves this, over and over, at this time of the year. Please let's not allow the Holidays to make us crazy with unrealistic expectations!

That being said, on Friday, we had a lovely time sewing at the Golden Gese Quilt Shop on 22 Liberty Street in Concord, New Hampshire.

Shop owner, Nancy, wants to remind everybody that December 12-17th from 10am to 5 pm is her 30th Anniversary SALE!!!!! That's right, 30 years in the business and she is offering us 30% off everything in the shop (except for consignment items and the sale corner markdowns). Wheeee!

Maureen and Beverly, seen below, were looking at Maureen's planned microwavable bowl potholders.

Beverly just got back her special wall hanging from the quilter and it's lovely!

Now it's trimmed and ready for a binding, but can you see those cool dragonflies? Click to enlarge.

Jan, seen below, was getting her layers made for her gorgeous Christmas table runner.

Jeanne, below, was sharing her big finish of the Easy Hourglass Quilt all done in earth toned batiks and it's a show-stopper quilt!!!

As for me, I put together a set of two pillowcases, not shown, and poked along on the hand hemming of my binding on the Summer Poppies quilt.

If you'd  like an easy and refreshing recipe for a beverage, try this: Half diet Cranberry-mango juice mixed with half raspberry flavored seltzer water over ice. You can add a splash of vodka, or not.

There's always a simple pleasure to share with a friend; just ask Miss Emma Lynne and her cat buddy, Miss Tanner!

Linking up to Busy Hands. Link.
Linking up to Can I Get A Whoop, Whoop? Link.
Linking up to Oh Scrap! Link.
Linking up to Love Laugh Quilt. Link.
Linking up to Em's Scrapbag. Link.

Happy sewing!