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

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

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

Catching Up Part 1

Since I haven’t posted in a while I have some catching up to do. I finished both of my versions of Barbara Brackman’s Freedom’s Friends BOM. Here is a  LINK to the BOM patterns on her blog. 

They are just tops and still need to be quilted. In fact I am getting quite a pile of tops that need to be quilted.

My Blue version.

 

My Colorful version

This top turned out completely different than I initially planned. I was going to use all the colors of the rainbow in it, but after the first block was completed it went in a completely different direction.

More snow today, we got another 4 1/2". We purchased a snowblower and we will be trying it out soon! It is suppose to continue to snow Monday and Tuesday, so will wait until it has finished to put the snow blower to work.

Happy Quilting! Rebecca

Mom's Quilt Top

We had our first real snowfall on Monday, October 2, we got about 4". I would say winter is here for us!

I am going to try to blog again, I keep hoping that they will improve our internet speed. A few years ago they laid a bunch of cables along the roadway right in front of our house, but there has been no improvement. It takes me all day to do a post on our desktop, because it takes so long for things to load. If I post a photo I just get up and go do something else for at least 15 minutes, then it might be up. So today I am trying a Blog app and will see how it goes. One reason I want to start again, is that Audrey at Quilty Folk is going to do a QAL, it sounds so fun and so very generous of her to host it. It would be nice to join others in posting my progress. (Sorry I don’t know how to do a link yet)

When my mother passed away in February of 2012, I inherited some of her sewing items. One item was an applique project she had started for my sister back in the 1960's. My sister had taken it home with her when my mother went into a nursing home and a few years ago she mailed the quilt top to  me. The original project was for my sister's twin beds, when she was going to high school. My Mom hadn't finished it when my sister  had graduated from college and moved on to a job in California. Then my Mom sewed the two halves of the top together to make a quilt big enough for my sister's new bed.

Now what do I do with it? I am thinking of separating the two halves and make them into two twin  size quilts for my youngest son's two daughters. They are now ages 2 and 6. The problem there is I don’t know how washable they will be, might not be suited for young children.

 Pattern, templates and etc my Mom used.

Extra fabric, I could make more blocks and enlarge the top.

Batting included!

 Well, we will see how this post turns out!

Happy Quilting, Rebecca 

Life: The Good and the Bad

For Slow Stitching Sunday I will be working on my fifth block for Freedom's Friends BOM. It is called Society Rose. This is a good part of life, my stitching. Linking up with Kathy's Slow Stitching Sunday HERE

Another good thing, I won a contest!! I never win anything so this was such a surprise! Missouri Star Quilt Company had a naming contest for two new quilting designs. I named this one Bloom and Plume and won a $150 gift certificate!

Another good thing, my quilt is on exhibit at the New England Quilt Museum with the other Hospital Sketches quilts. I won't be able to go to the exhibit so was so thankful they put a short preview up on their web site and I could see mine hanging in the museum. I think this is the highlight of my quilting career! If you go HERE you can see a few more.

Another good thing, we got two logging truck loads of green firewood delivered. It will need to sit and season, but we have firewood for several winters to come. Below is a short video of the first load being unloaded.

He ran out of room so had to put some of the logs on the other side of the drive.

So now for the Bad. First I hurt my left knee. How? I have no idea so have been unable to do many of my normal activities, such as mow the grass, which you might have noticed on the pictures above.  I haven't been in to the doctor yet, just trying to rest it, elevate it and ice it.

Now for the next Bad thing. It looks like our insurance is not going to cover the damage to our roof from the snow and ice storm last winter. They will cover the ceiling damage, but not the roof damage. That doesn't do us much good, because it will probably leak next Spring and we will have ceiling damage again, and have to pay our deductible again! So angry and disappointed! And I know there are many people in much more dire circumstances, like the flooding in Kentucky, so we are so lucky in many respects.

But I have my quilting to console me! Thanks for stopping by! Rebecca

Sunday Quilting

 I have started hand quilting the border for my Springtime Album quilt. I purchased a ‘half hoop’ from Ebay. I got a really good price. With shipping it came to $31. I had looked at others, one on Amazon for $90 and another on Etsy for $85. I am really happy with it! It is very comfortable to quilt with. I will be linking up with Kathy's Slow Stitching Sunday as soon as I can.

It had never been used.

I also got all four borders prepped for applique for my Cassandra's Circle top. So if I get tired of hand quilting today I will work on these borders. They are not sewn on to the top yet for easier stitching, but once they are I will fine tune those corner vines. I will probably add more flowers and leaves in the two corners that don't have the plumes.

I also finished my grandson's quilt top. I don't know why I find borders such a pain, but they are on finally. It measures about 78"x 94". A big thank you to Chantal of At the Corner of Scraps and Quilts blog for making me aware of a mistake in the piecing, all taken care of now I hope. You can read her blog HERE. She always has some wonderful scrappiness going on over there!

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Now that that top is done I will move on to the next grandson's quilt.  I have been collecting fabric for it and I think I have all I will need now. I just need to wash and press it all. It is made from 2 1/2" strips so I will be able to use my Accuquilt Go cutter. That will certainly speed things up!

I will be making the quilt from this book.

This is the one I have chosen.

I think I have plenty of black on white fabrics and black on black fabrics.

A tub of colorful batiks for the color blocks.

Happy Quilting! Rebecca