Sunday, February 11, 2024

Bramble Blooms & Hand Quilting

 The Weather has sure changed direction here! It was 20* above zero today, so thankful!

Bramble Blooms is done, at least until the next prompt from Audrey. (No hurry Audrey!!) If down the road I feel it needs something else I can add it later. For now though I am happy with what I have.



I made a little progress on my sister's quilt, Bouquet. Five hexie flowers completed and I have six more cut and ready to baste.



I think this is what I will do for the sashings, block corners, cornerstones and outer border.

Sashings, block corners, corner stones and outer border fabrics. (The two background squares in the photo are from the layer cake.)

I would have started appliquing the hexies  to my backgrounds, but have been waiting on fabric. 


There is an interesting story. I ordered 5 yards of background fabric, in the picture below. This is from the website. At least what I thought I was ordering!



The fabric I got in the mail.


So I went looking on the internet for more fabric in this collection. This next photo is from Rene Nanneman's website, Need'l Love. So they had the correct info on the other website but the wrong photo. I contacted them, but they refused to acknowledge they had the wrong photo or were at fault at all. Lesson learned, do more research before ordering online!!!





Now on to something more pleasant. I have made a little progress on quilting my Spring Time Album quilt. Two borders done! I will be linking with Kathy and the other Slow Sunday Stitchers HERE .  I have two borders quilted, two more to go!



 A big thank you to Gretchen of  "Gretchen's Little Corner" blog, she mentioned the needles in the photo below on her blog. I ordered some and I am really enjoying quilting with  them! You can visit Gretchen's blog HERE.




A photo of the top Spring Time Album.




Thanks for reading my blog! I would love to hear from you! Happy quilting, Rebecca

Saturday, February 3, 2024

Still Cold! Two New Projects & Bramble Blooms


The cold weather is still with us. We are keeping both wood stoves going 24/7. We are getting more daylight so that is encouraging. The weather forecasters continue to tell us that a warming trend is coming, just not here yet. Hopefully soon! I hope you will read to the end, we had some visitors!


This was taken Friday morning about 8 am, -54 to -55


 Now onto to quilting. Have you ever seen a fabric or fabric collection and you immediately you think of someone that it fits perfectly? That has happened to me a few times, one example pictured below, was a quilt I made for a granddaughter last Christmas. She LOVES octupusses! When I saw the Kaffe Fassett octopus fabric I said Ashlee.


This is a throw size quilt and she loved it. Minky on the back!

When I saw this layer cake of Tradewinds by Renee Nannemann, my sister's name popped in my head. It was a Missouri Star daily deal so I ordered it immediately. There are only two aqua/turquoise fabrics included in the collection so I did order some different aqua fabric to add to it, plus for the quilt I have in mind I needed background fabric, sashing and etc., those are order too.





This is the pattern I plan to use. It is called Bouquet, by Sherri McConnell. The quilt in the pattern is a throw size 5 blocks X 5 blocks, mine will be larger 8 blocks X 9 blocks. The blocks finish at 9".



First hexie prepped and ready to stitch together. 

The fabrics in the corner and the fabric on top are possible block corners and sashing. My sister likes neutrals, but these might be too dark, I will have to wait until I get a few more hexie blocks made.

More hexies cut out to baste and sew for Slow Stitching Sunday with Kathy, HERE



I am fussy cutting the floral fabric for the center hexies.



I also joined Taryn's Tiny Nine-Patch Challenge. I am doing the 3" size. That is small enough for me!

30 blocks done



More little squares ready to sew. I am using up some my older Civil War fabrics and scraps.



Finally this is where I am on Bramble Blooms. I had to un-stitch the red half flowers, they were too large, so I need to re-stitch them. I also will add 2 more gold triangles. I still am not sure where I will place the word Faith, this is one idea.



So I happened to look out the window and saw this moose.




Then a minute or so later while I was taking her photo another one came around the side of the house, her calf from last year. So I kept taking photos.




Then another one came around the side of the house! She had had twins and they both survived! We see tracks on the snow all the time, but this is the first time I was able to get photos.


Thanks for reading my blog! I would love to hear from you! Happy quilting, Rebecca












Sunday, January 21, 2024

Bramble Blooms Progress

 We have a cold couple weeks ahead of us. -25* during the daytime and down to -30* to -40* at night. Nothing to complain about though, normal winter weather for us.  Nothing like what other people are suffering through around the country. We had friends that flew out to Oregon, they were stuck in a hotel with no power for 4 days waiting for a flight home.  On the other hand, my daughter and her family were in Maui! Lucky them! They made it home okay, no doors flew off or anything, lots of delays though. I am making a big pot of potato soup today!

I am making progress on my Bramble Blooms quilt. It is slow going and I feel as though I am tangled up in the thorny brambles sometimes! Right off you will see that I changed the yellow/gold flower shape. I was trying to hard to make them realistic, the mustard flower has only 4 petals, but it just wasn't working.

I tried fabric after fabric for the border. Below are a few  photos of different ideas I tried. My husband said the greens were too dark, so I went with the creams, that was just to plain.








How about a split border? A little better, not sure.



For some reason I am liking the brown, don't tell my hubby!




This is where I am right now. Lots of things I am still not sure on. One, the red shapes, maybe just half circles and not the half flower shape. Second, the cornerstones? This is best I have come up with so far.

I would like to add another bird and the word Faith, but since I don't know what the next prompt will be I am unsure.




I continue to work on Barbara Brackman's BOM, Herbarium. I am currently appliqueing Block #10, Strawberry Wreath. I need to write a post showing all my finished blocks for this. I will be linking up with Kathy HERE  for Slow Sunday Stitching.


Thank you for reading my blog. Happy Quilting! Rebecca

Monday, December 4, 2023

Bramble Blooms 2.0?

 This isn't exactly Bramble Blooms 2.0, because when I first started thinking about my center panel I wanted red flowers and that was the fabric I had picked out. Partially because Audrey had red flowers but mostly because red is one of my favorite colors.  Then my idea of naming the quilts Faith, Hope and Love changed my direction. I went looking for flowers to represent Faith for the first quilt. I choose the mustard plant for the parable of the mustard seed, and Lily of the Valley for the lilies of the field parable, and of course my bird for the parable of the sparrow. Well, after more research I find that they believe Christ was talking about a different flower than I thought. It is called called Crown Anemone (Lily of the Field). Here are some links where I found this information  HERE and HERE and HERE.  (I hope these links work.) 


Crown Anemone the Lily of the Field


I know I mentioned in many of my replies to comments on my last post that I was not entirely happy with my first center panel for Bramble Blooms. I really felt I had not captured the improv style at all. Hopefully I have done a little better this time. The color for the bird my change, though sparrows do tend to be brown. I will be linking up with Judy at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts HERE 

Everything is glued in place and ready for stitching.



I have been really busy with my Christmas baking, every year I make dozens of cinnamon rolls to give out to family and friends. I also make cookies, white fruitcakes, and two kinds of fudge.

Old photo, but they look the same every year. lol


Happy Quilting, Rebecca

Monday, November 20, 2023

Bramble Blooms and Christmas Stockings

 I have a tentative lay out for my Bramble Blooms center panel. I am so unsure! This is so out of my comfort zone of following a pattern. I am looking for some feedback What do you think? I added the bird ( a sparrow) for the scriptures Matthew 10:29-31 and Luke 12:6-7. 


Everything just pinned in place for now.



Now that I finished the Christmas stockings for my grandson and his family I can spend some time catching up on my applique projects.


Happy Quilting! Rebecca

Monday, November 13, 2023

Bramble Blooms and Other News

Big news around here! My husband got hearing aids! What a difference! He is "profoundly" deaf in his right ear according to the audiologist and almost as bad in his left. It is so much easier to communicate with each other now and the TV isn't up to 50 on the sound. Life is so much better!

Other news, my husband purchased me an electric chainsaw. Now I can trim up firewood myself, if it will not fit into the wood stove. I have wanted one for quite awhile. 

Another type of rotary cutter!

My first wood I cut all on my own! Three pieces that were too large for the stove so I sawed them in half. Hubby was there to help me for my first time running it.



I am trying to keep up with everyone that has joined with Audrey's QAL Bramble Blooms. I think there are 25 of us so far. It is going to be so fun to see everyone's creations. You can read more about it on Audrey's blog HERE

I am working on my floral centerpiece, I looked through a lot of my applique books for ideas, on line, Pinterest., so many ideas out there. I also looked through Audrey's blog posts, at many of her quilts for inspiration. Her creativity astounds me! Her quilts are just so wonderful. 

 Then I read Jeanne's blog Schottosche-A Creative Journal and she is naming her three quilts in the series Morning, Noon, and Night. Here is a  LINK to her blog. That got me thinking! My quilts will be Faith, Hope, and Love. That helped narrow down the choices for the flowers. I looked up flowers and their meanings, there are a lot of different opinions on this subject, but chose what I liked.  For my first quilt "Faith" I have chosen the Lily of the Field and the mustard plant. The Lily referencing Matthew 6: 25-34 and the mustard plant referencing Matthew 17:20. 

I  have no idea of Audrey's plan, but I will be adding words to this quilt, I know she does that quite often on her quilts. There will be a birds too. I am going to free cut the applique shapes as Audrey explained  in her post. I think it will be fun to try this new technique.


My sketch, my applique may not be exactly like this, I plan to free cut the applique pieces. That is something new for me. I may change the bird and its position.



Center panel sewn. It is 25" x 25" which gives me room to play with the applique pieces, I can trim it down later.


Fabrics for the applique




And there was some of this going on too. No grass to mow this time of year but plenty of snow to blow!

Happy Quilting, Rebecca

Saturday, October 28, 2023

Pineapple Crazy and Bramble Blooms QAL


 I am still doing catch up posts. I finally finished a very long term project, Bonnie Hunter's Pineapple Crazy quilt. Another top that needs quilting! (Sorry for the poor quality of the photos) The quilt finishes about 80" X 90". Linking up with Cynthia at Quilting is More Fun than Housework.






A couple of close up photos of the individual blocks. Each block finishes at 5" and there are 45 pieces in each block. I had several quilting friends donate scraps for this project which helped with the variety.






Now to the exciting news! Audrey of the famous Quilty Folk blog is having a QAL! You can read the first post about Bramble Blooms HERE. Audrey makes the most amazing quilts and they are all her own designs. I am hoping to learn a lot through this process, especially about improv and design.


My initial fabric pull.

Possible center panel fabrics.



Happy Quilting! Rebecca