More on Katie Squares

Here's the latest on my "Katie Squares" quilt top. I've added the sashing strips and cornerstones. Next will be a black border. The options are a three-four inch black border, or a narrow border-1" or so, and then another narrow border also 1" or so of a color and then the wider black border. I suppose a third option is to just finish it as it is. One width of fabric would about do for a backing if I did that, otherwise there will have to be a pieced backing. I have some blue plaid shirting I am thinking of using for the backing. I had almost given that piece to the Salvation Army until I saw a pattern for a shirting quilt. Now I am happy to have saved that piece. But that brings up the questions, how do you get over wanting to save EVERYTHING? I love my stashes. Finding them and what is in them is a subject for another day.

It's Sunday and doll club day is here on Saturday so there won't be too much sewing the rest of this week. I need to finish a Bleuette apron for the apron challenge and get the house ready. January is the first month of the apron challenge and the hostess gets to chose the apron to be made each month. We did not specify that a sample had to be ready, but of course it would be nice. And of course, there is work. This is a busy week at work. We will be putting up the full Valentine run of cards on Monday. Then I will training a new hire on Wednesday and Friday and we have an installation on Thursday. So free time will be limited.

So for now-stay warm and safe-

Judy

Snowman in the House

Can you imagine? It's COLD outside. It's cold inside after dark. Not really cold, but cooler. Why do we need a snowman inside? Well, because he's cute and he looks warm with his had and muff and because he's cute! (Yes, I know I said cute twice. Is there a better reason?) This is the first of two and the first to be completed and it's my Mom's. She did the embroidery and helped with the layout on the snowman's face. Some of the rest fell to me.

The pattern is from The Wooden Bear. She does lots of fun things, and this is the second of what I want to do from her repertoire. The first was a hanging that goes on this same rack for Halloween. I call it Boo, but that's not the right name. I believe that was Happy Jack and was in the Fons and Porter Quilt magazine.

When the second Snowman is completed, I'll post pictures of both so you see the differences between them.

I've also been working on a project I call "Katie Squares". That's because the beginning of this project came from my friend Katie. She gave me a bag of small squares ranging in size from 4 7/8" x 5 " to 5x 6". They've been squared up and sewn together and here's a preview of what the quilt top looks like now.

In a day or two, I'll post another picture of the progress made on this quilt. It will be a donation quilt and I think it will turn out nicely.

Keep warm!

Judy

First Finish for 2010

It's already January 5, 2010. Even tho I know it is really early in the month, it still seems that the month is passing quickly. Part of that is because I will be hosting my doll club meeting on the 16th. Everyone knows how hard it is to keep your house picked up when you would rather be quilting or at least doing something besides housekeeping. So this morning I set my goals to vacuum two rooms plus the hall and a few other "rugs" before I could sit down and sew. When that was done, I remarked the stitching lines on my last "Quilts for Kids" quilt and got busy. I used a silver marking pencil because the border and some of the blocks were black with brightly colored salamanders and the marker I used before would not show up on the black. The problem is that the silver was wearing off before I could get the stitching in. Between marking, and moving the Christmas tree and the table with flowers, I finally finished the quilt up about 10 minutes ago! Hurray! When the last one comes back to me, these will be sent off for a good deed for 2010. Here's a picture of the quilt--

Looks like a good quilt for a boy to me. Now on to the Love in Bloom wall hanging from McCall's Quilting-Jan-Feb 2010 issue and some potholders started from some remnants purchased a year and a half ago.

Happy Quilting!

Judy

Pillowcase Project

My doll club has been doing a charity project for the last few years. Two years ago we made up cabbage patch type dolls,

and in 2009 we made lap quilts.

This year we will be making pillowcases. Today Mom and I pressed, cut, and organized the supplies for 16 pillowcases.

These will be sewn on doll club day which is two weeks from tomorrow. Looks like a good start for 2010. I'm hoping that others in the club will enjoy this enough that we will be able to do one or two a month per person-that could be as many as 176 pillowcases for charity! Wish us luck!

Judy

Winter in Iowa

This year, winter has been tough. This first picture was taken at my Mom's house. Lots of snow! Of course, we all expected this would melt away and everything would be back to winter "normal".




HA! Winter just keeps on coming! This next picture was taken the day after Christmas as I was leaving to go to work. What isn't showing well, is that we have ice underneath all that snow on the tree. This is a Redbud tree and I have been trying for years to keep this one and a few others alive. Since it is now Jan 1st and the trees still look like this, there is a good chance they will have to be replaced and new ones planted. Originally, I had planted four of these trees to honor each of our four children. Eventually, we went to two Redbuds and two Red Maples. We'll have to wait and see what Spring brings this year!


This next picture is of the Evergreen trees along the road. Even they seem to be weighted down from all the snow.
Come Spring there will be a massive clean up around here to take care of the results Mother Natures storms of Winter 2009.

Lastly, there was so much snow on the highway that the snowplows could not see our mailbox. The mailbox was knocked right of the upright and now it is sitting on a snowbank. And while the postman is placing our mail in the box at the moment, when the snow does melt, I don't think he will put mail in a box sitting on the ground. And it is so cold-0* today, it will be a long while before any new posts will placed in the ground. Oh the joys of living where it snows!

Take care-Spring will come (I hope)!

Judy

Star-Flag Wall Hangings

In my last post from Christmas you saw a group picture of my family. Every part family unit is holding a wall hanging. The story here is that I came across a kit for this item at my local quilt shop. The kits are called Snap Sacks and there is a new kit put out each month. This wall-hanging was the July offering. I purchased one to make for myself because the price was right, it looked like a fairly quick and easy project, and it would be a good July 4th decoration.

As it turned out, this project did go quickly, and I liked it so much that I felt it would be a good gift for my children for Christmas. I hurried to the LQS (local quilt shop) and purchased the additional fabric it would take to make four more. When I started cutting the pieces for the wall hangings, lo and behold, there was enough fabric to make six! This was perfect because, now I would have enough to make one of the hangings for my DM (Dear Mother) and DS (Dear Sister). How lucky could I get? The fabric turned out to be enough because I changed my mind on how I would cut the red stripes. There is a stripe in that red fabric and I had originally thought that stripe should run the length of the stripe. When I discovered that by changing the cutting, I could get six items, it was the literal no brainer-I went for it.

These wall hanging projects even went on a small vacation with me! My husband is a fan of old cars and we attended a Lincoln Zephyr meet in Keosauqua, Iowa. While he helped with the judging on the concourse, I stayed in our motel room and sewed on these projects. Of course, after we returned home, they had to age a while since working took up some of my time-Holiday season was approaching. But the urge to finish before the holidays actually arrived took hold in time and all were successfully finished and in boxes long before any visitors arrived.

I still love this little hanging and I think all the recipients liked them too!

Till next time,

Judy

Christmas Adventures

Even though Christmas has now come and gone and the house seems so very empty with only hubby and me here, we have lots of memories this year. Both of our daughters and one son were able to make it home for the holiday. We played games and cooked and did all the normal stuff that families do. Then, Christmas Eve just before 5 PM, the electricity went out. Of course, a winter storm was predicted and we knew it, but being optimistic, we just went about doing our own thing. We just put a little more wood on the fire and called the electric company. Power to be restored in two hours, or so the automated system said. So we played charades and ate goodies and waited for two hours, and then three and then four. To make a long story short, we waited all night and more. The son at home could check out the status of the repairs on his phone but mostly the answer was power will be restored in two hours. Oh, and there were nine people at my house!

Our son even began making croissants by candlelight! Now that is having faith that the oven would work the next day!


Now no power can be lived with when you have a heat source. But when we got up the next morning, we were also without water. With nine people at home, that becomes a bigger issue. We brought in buckets of snow to melt, but the melting is a long process, and do you know what you get from a big bucket of snow? About an inch of water and it takes FOREVER to melt.

And in just a little while, the telephone went out of service also. We really don't know what happened there, because after about eight hours it came back on without having contacted anyone about the problem.

Our son in law suggested that we all go to his parents house to celebrate Christmas because there was power there. And although we resisted as long as possible, it finally became obvious that this option would be the best-we had thawed raw turkey and a prime rib to think about, plus all the side dishes that were started and ready to put in the oven. So we packed up the gifts and were just getting ready to put everything in the vehicles when the miracle of the day happened and the electricity came back on! So everything was unpacked and we began the process of starting the meal and getting cleaned up as the water came back on too!

During the morning after we had light and heat again, we opened the curtain to the sliding glass door and found an interesting snow sculpture on the glass. First my sister said we had an angel on the door, but then we decided that we had an eagle for Christmas.

On a whim about a week and a half ago, I made all of the ladies aprons. Guess it is not working out too well to have five ladies in the kitchen at the same time!




Guess we made up after all.
And when we weren't looking, the croissants came out of the oven. Not bad for only the second time making these beauties!

When it came time for gift exchanging, I had everyone open this particular gift at the same time. That way, no ones surpise was spoiled. Last July, I made one of these wall hangings for myself, and thought it would be a great gift for everyone on my list.

This last one had to wait until today as my oldest son couldn't make it out on Christmas day because of snow and ice covered highways.

I hope everyone enjoyed Christmas this year. It will be one to remember!

Judy