A dozen on the tree

I've made a dozen new hexagon flowers over the past month.  Our company has come and gone, and this morning I pinned them together in sets of four and rested them on our Christmas tree.  DH suggested that a photo of them would be better if we'd undecorate the tree first, leave a few ropes of beads, and let the photo focus on the flowers. Yes, that would be a simpler picture.  But I have a goal.

I now have a "Where's Waldo?" sort of photo.
Can you find --
-- the ornament that represents the college from which DS graduated ?  (He was in the school of dentistry.)
--two personalized ornaments I won in a drawing from AnnieO ?
--hexagon flower with fussy-cut Christmas designs from an old Thimbleberries fabric?
--a folk art style German ornament featuring red skis ?
-- "a major award!"

I hope your Christmas was Merry and Bright.

Merry Christmas

Christmas wishes from my family to yours and from me to you.   


The charm of a vintage Christmas card illustration isn't the same as the reality in our driveway this morning, but we just have to deal with what comes our way.

May the beauty of the season bring peace to your heart and a smile to your face.
Merry Christmas to all.

Favorite Christmas angels

I've admired Jim Shore angels for some time and finally bought one for myself.  This one is "Quiet Peace," dated  2008.  I like the simplicity of the stars on the quilted skirt and I appreciate the message at this time of year.  This my second favorite Christmas angel.

Our #1 Christmas angel is pictured on the left, our granddaughter Madelyn.  She's wearing her Christmas dress, standing beside her first Christmas tree in Heidelberg, and hugging her new favorite friend, Clarice (the friend of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer). 

Maddie helped decorate their Christmas tree this year, and she's been leaving the ornaments in place.  That's admirable for a 2-1/3-year-old girl. She's talked to us about Santa Claus, she's sung Frosty the Snowman for us, and we've seen a picture of her beside their first snowman of the season (decorated with peanut M&M's).

Our Christmas Day greetings to DS, DIL, and Maddie will be via computer video call this year, as they'll be in Heidelberg and we'll be in Iowa.  I'm sure we'll hear an excited story from Maddie about Santa Claus making a visit to their home. 
Enjoy your Christmas angels!

Sorting, listing, and a special gift

A quiet weekend with one quilting goal in mind.  I've been sorting and listing all the UFOs and WIPs and kits I can find.  

None are strangers to me.  No hidden surprises, other than one UFO I can't find (yet).  I truly want to make or finish nearly all of them, but 5 or 6 just don't look that appealing anymore.   I'm not counting quilt tops that are ready to be quilted--just WIPs and UFOs and kits and projects ready to start.

The latest count is 4 WIPs, 18 UFOs and 23 kits.  Looking at these, plus my extensive stash, plus all my books and patterns and magazines that keep whispering "look at me, look at me!" - -I hope I can put a stop to unnecessary shopping in 2011.  I need nothing more.  
Many of us say that, but we just can't stop ourselves.   I have extra incentive to control the spending.  This coming Monday, my weekly work hours will be reduced (thank goodness, it's my choice).  Those reduced work hours also mean I will have more time for quilting.  Hurrah!!

The mailman brought a delightful gift to my door today.  I won a giveaway from AnnieO of Annie's Quilt Orts.  She made the two personalized Christmas tree ornament stockings just for DH and me.  The lace on my stocking is a cute feminine touch, and she added two festive Christmas FQs in the package.
How lucky we are to have quilting and blogging friends who share their time and talents.
Thank you, AnnieO!

Four finished and gone

Four quilts finished over the weekend.  I sat on my behind/backside/derrière for the majority of two days, quilting and quilting, trimming and binding.  My quilts aren't finished unless they have a label.  Preprinted labels with the name of our Q guild were sewn to the backing before I quilted each one.   

All four Qs are masculine in design and colors, and none is larger than 54" x 54". 

Two of the quilts were from precut kits, and two were from UFOs.  (hurrah!!!)

The graphic quilt in the first photo is my favorite.   DD Carrie made the top several years ago, and it was hidden away and nearly forgotten.  It's her version of the cover Q from the book Casting Shadows. 

The plaid snowballs quilt and the red/black 9-patch quilt were "kits" that I brought home from guild -- complete with clear instructions and precut strips/pieces ready to go.  They were easy to make.  

The fourth Q was a red/white/blue UFO that was put away in disgust.   I wrote about it months ago.  DD Amy had sewn the top (from a kit I made for her).  I had a terrible time with tension while quilting it.  I had to put it away in frustration.  I couldn't stand to look at it!  

This weekend I took out enough stitching so I could remove 2 rows of blocks, reattached the borders, and made the finished size smaller. 

Yesterday my DH delivered the 4 donation quilts to the lady who's sorting and preparing to deliver them in a day or two. 

Tonight I'm putting up my feet and sewing some hexies.   It's been a long time since they've had my attention.  

It's an SP day

An SP day is my name for a "stay put" day -- don't leave home, get stuff done, focus on what needs to be ignored and what needs my full attention, no distractions, no excuses.   Get  Stuff  Done!

North Iowa and southern Minnesota are under a blizzard warning-- not just a blizzard watch.  We're not watching the skies and Weather Channel to see how the weather might develop.   A blizzard is coming, and we've been warned.   We've had freezing rain through the night, which will be topped by  3-5" of snow today, plus 40 mph winds.  But go north a bit over the Minnesota border, and the prediction jumps to 8-12" of snow, or more. 
Plus a deep freeze is coming.  Three nights next week with predicted overnight lows of -6, -14, and -15 degrees. The cruel joke here is that "winter" doesn't officially arrive for 10 days.

I like this snowflake clip I found.  Looks kind of like a complex quilt, doesn't it?
Happy weekend shopping, if that's your plan.
Happy SP day, if that's your preference. 

Batting at a glance

My leftover batting pieces accumulate way too quickly.  I used to fold and stack them into piles or stuff them randomly into big bags.  Every time I needed batting for a smaller project, I'd wander through the stacks or bags till I found the size I needed.  Time wasted!

Now when I have leftover batting, I measure it, write the dimensions on paper and staple the paper to one end of the batting.   I never exaggerate the dimensions.  I want to honestly know how big that batting is.
I use Hobbs Heirloom 80/20 batting for most of my projects, so if the batting is something else, I write that on the paper.

I use over-sized shopping sacks to hold similar widths. The length is irrelevant to me at this stage. I group them according to width.  I have my 16-19" width bag, 20-24" width bag, 25-26" width bag, etc.  If I cut a chunk off a strip, I update the paper so the paper is always accurate.  Otherwise, I'm wasting my time.

A large flat box holds smaller square/rectangular pieces.  The lengthy, very skinny strips go into another bag.  I use those to practice machine quilting, as a light-weight filler for packing boxes heading to the post office, and sometimes to pack breakable items going into storage.  I haven't donated any yet, but I've read that some animal shelters appreciate leftover batting for dog bedding.   Not very much of my leftover batting goes into the landfill--only the tiniest strips.

My batting tags and bags save me time and frustration, and we're always looking for more time for our quilting.

Crunch time for our donation quilts

The time is near for our local quilt guild to distribute  assorted quilts we've been working on.  It's crunch time for the procrastinators slow, deliberate quilters, such as myself.

I've written before about the organizational skills of Miss A.  The first two quilts I made from her precut kits have been turned in, a blue/white boy's quilt (soccer theme), and this feminine quilt featuring an old Hoffman fabric with vintage orchids.

I quilted the blue/white quilt with straight stitching, but the orchid quilt called for something else.   I  did some very simple outlining of some flowers in the large squares first, and then I added simple loops and meandering in the rest of the spaces.  

This orchid quilt is one where up close, the fabrics are nice, but seeing the quilt from a distance, you see the real beauty of it.  The fabrics and design blend so nicely.

When I turned in the two finished quilts today, Miss A said all the types of quilts needed have been well covered -- except smaller quilts for men at nursing homes, ones that would tuck comfortably around legs in a wheelchair.   So I took home two more shoe boxes with precut quilts -- smaller quilts for men.    

These two quilts will be the opposite of the orchid quilt.  These fabrics look nice together up close -- coordinated black, red, and white fabrics -- but from a distance, I don't think they'll look like they particularly "go together." 
But that's not the main goal here.   We're not worrying about cut-off points of stars, or whether fabrics will produce ooh's and aah's when they're sewn together.   In the spirit of Christmas and giving, we're showing some often-forgotten folks that we quilters care.  We're making something just for them.

One more from the family

How quickly a week passes when it includes a couple family Thanksgiving gatherings, followed by a 36-hour bout with some intestinal nastiness.  Strength just doesn't come back as quickly as it did when I was younger.

Not much sewn this week, other than a few rounds on my pineapple blocks. 


So I'm sharing a third quilt that my MIL showed us this summer, quilts made by elderly relatives, with no specific dates known and no labels attached. The most worn quilt is described here, and the scrappiest one is described here.

The hexagons in this quilt are 1",  it's 72" across the top edge, and the length is 86".   It's in pretty good shape.  There are a few stains, but they're minor.
The backing is plain cotton, and it doesn't appear to be the same cream fabric as the cream rounds of hexagons on the front.   The cream fabric on the front has become almost threadbare, while the cream backing seems much more stable.   (Maybe the result of sun damage to the front?)
 

It's entirely hand stitched, the piecing and the quilting, and I feel only a very light batting inside.  Some of the fabrics could almost be modern ones.  The round of green hexagons in one block was probably made from different fabrics, as their colors have changed over the years. 

Good Grief!!   I've been trying to line up photos of the blocks in a nice horizontal row for 25 minutes.
Shame on you Blogger!!   Shape up!   Behave!
I give up!    I have wasted space, but it wasn't my intention.

I gave away one more quilted project today.  When I took my pencil tree (mentioned in the last post) to a new home, I also took my favorite Santa wallhanging as a companion gift.

It's a little one, 13-1/2" x 16", and I've written about it before.  I had fun making it and wouldn't mind making another one to replace this one.  I think I have more of the outer border, a favorite Thimbleberries Christmas fabric.  This was my first completed paper pieced project -- bordered, quilted, bound, and labeled.  
When I've shown it to people, some miss the fifth Santa.  They only see four at first glance.

I have a lot of catch-up blog reading to do.  I'm trying not to spend so much time with the computer, but I'm curious and I just can't stay away too long.