Block 12 Finally Finished

Yes, this is block number 12 in my Periwinkle Lane series, and it is finally finished! Hip-hip-hooray! Now I must decide how I want to set them.

We had a busy few days. It was my birthday the day before Thanksgiving, then Thanksgiving happened, and today I am trying to recooperate from all the fun and festivities. Actually, I am trying to recooperate from all the cleaning and cooking and cleaning! LOL! It's no fun having a birthday the day before Thanksgiving when you have a house to clean.

All our children made an appearance on Thanksgiving. They were all here at one time for a couple of hours. Number 1 son and girlfriend came early, daughter and friend came a little late, and Number 2 son and family came a little later. It was lots of fun, but I couldn't keep up with the dishes and play with the babies too! Next Thanksgiving we will have two little ones running around! Next year I think I will purchase a precooked meal and just heat it up so I can play, too!

Last Saturday was my Quilting 101 workshop. I received another bag of scraps given to me by thee different quilters so I am sorting through them and cutting them up into usable shapes. I have scraps strewn around my sewing table. Recently I made myself a pledge that when I received scraps I would get them sorted and cut ASAP so that I don't have a collection of scrap bags under my table again. So far it is working pretty well. I have already used some of those scraps in quilt blocks I have made.

I find it so fun to use other quilter's fabrics in my quilting. I feel like I have a part of them in my quilts. I also like the idea that they use my fabrics in their quilts because then there is a part of me in their quilts. The Ying and Yang. I love it!

When I get my table uncovered again I want to cut up some squares and sew together the friendship blocks that I received in our friendship exchange at retreat. It is going to be a cheerful, colorful quilt.

Happy Quilting

Kaleidoscope blocks

The stacked strips in this picture have been sitting on my sewing table waiting to be finished for a while. I finally pulled them down last week to work on them. I have decided to make a 20 (4 x 5) block quilt. The ruler I used to cut my blocks is the one shown in the picture. The blocks are 12 inches finished. I know there are other ways to put these blocks together. I choose this one. The instructions are on the back of the ruler board.

These are easy blocks to make. I have found, though, that I must take much care in sewing an accurate seam allowance, and of course the cutting of the strips must be accurate. I also learned to press the dickens out of these strips when they are sewn into a strata. If I did not, my wedges did not come out even. I needed to stretch a little here, and ease a little there. But all in all, very easy sewing. I was at the beginning of my "turquoise period" when I pulled the fabrics for these blocks! Turquoise and purple is my favorite color combination. It runs a close tie with red, white and blue.

I have felt very creative with this project. After I get these blocks finished and all sewn together, then I must attend to making borders. Any ideas? I have been reading books on borders. I want to be more creative with borders on my quilts, but often I sew on the old standby, two or three strips of different fabrics just so I can get the project finished, quilted, bound and ready to give away.

What are you working on? Christmas gifts? UFOs? New projects? Charity quilts? Whatever projects you are working on.....

Happy Quilting

Veteran's Day on 11-11-11

Today is USA's Veteran's Day. I want to take a moment to honor all the veterans, past and present, who have served to protect our country. Thank you for the sacrifices you, and your families, have made. In addition, today is November 11, 2011 (11-11-11). The year 2012 will be the last year in this decade where the numerology of the month, day, and year will match. I wanted to make a post on this day to historically mark the date in my blog (deep, huh). My goal is to have 11 happy comments on this post. So ladies, please help me out and leave a happy comment on this post so that I may reach my goal. Also included are more photos of our retreat. Note that some of the jelly roll quilts have small squares of a "zinger" fabric between the strips. This adds a nice interest to these quilts, yes? In addition to all this jelly roll maddness is a photo of Jeanne's table runner. Cute isn't it?

Remember to leave a comment. Happy Quilting

More Retreat Photos

Here are some photos of the Jelly Roll Race quilts. A few quilters made two and three quilts. The winner made two race quilts while I had not finished my first!

Retreat Fun

This last weekend I attended a retreat. It was so fun. We sewed and laughed and ate and complained about the drunk baseball dads. Saturday afternoon we had a Jelly Roll Race. In the evening we played Left, Right, Center. I did not win. Sunday we exchanged some friendship blocks. In between all those activities we sewed lots of things. I made four quilt backs (my least favorite quilting activity) and sent them off with our resident machine quilter. One of those quilts I needed to finish the borders, then the back. I am so thrilled to have those four quilts out of my sewing room and on to their machine quilting destination.

The quilt pictures are three of the tops that were finished last weekend, and one quilted (but not bound) quilt. Roberta made the Irish Chain style top, I made the dots baby quilt, and Patti made the Beatles top. The beige piece that is quilted is Jane's quilt. It is a result of two exchanges. First we exchanged the beige star-type blocks (sorry, I don't remember the name of that block). Then Jane brought those blocks to another exchange and those blocks went to Monica to finish into a top. Monica appliqued the center medallion and the Celtic style border. Monica also sewed all the blocks/pieces together into the final top. Jane had it machine quilted. Remember when I showed the quilt top with all the different pumpkins (and one block that represented a slice of pumpkin pie)? That was the quilt I finished for Monica in the swap block exchange, and this is the quilt top Monica finished for Jane. That exchange was lots of fun.

I had planned to sew my quilt backs on Friday, then Saturday I scheduled my kaleidoscope block sewing, and Sunday I was going to sew together my newly acquired friendship exchange blocks. Ha-Ha-Ha! So much for my organization! I finally had my quilt backs finished Saturday evening. Sunday I started working on my kaleidoscope blocks. I only finished four blocks, but that is four more than I had finished when I left home! Since I have not yet decided how many kaleidoscope blocks I want to make, I might actually be done. Who knows! I need to lay them out and really decide how big I want this quilt to be, and then I will know how many more blocks I will want to make.

There were many Jelly Roll Race quilts sewn. I will post pictures of those in my next post.

Happy Quilting