Finished!

I finished my little sewing case, which is a Lynette Anderson kit that I purchased awhile ago.  It was fun to make!  The hardest part was stitching the design onto the pre-made case using a curved needle.

The front side turned out pretty well!

The backside looks a little crooked...

I will let it sit for a few days before deciding if it's worth unstitching parts and straightening it out.

It will be a nice little case to carry tools to classes!

FYI

I finished up the appliqué on this quilt so it's now ready to be pinned and quilted.  I have two quilts ready to be pinned and quilted!

Utah Quilt Guild is celebrating their Ruby Anniversary in 2017 and members of the guild are creating red and white quilts in honor of this anniversary and for a traveling exhibit.  Their recent newsletter gave details of this traveling exhibition so for those of you who are interested, here are the list, so far, of places the red and white quilts will be exhibited:

The travelling show will be displayed at the Brigham City Museum of Art from January 28 through March 25. The museum is producing a catalog for the show. The Ruby Jubilee show will then be at the Dixie Quilt Show in St. George April 13-15. HMQS is next May 4-6. The next showing will be at the Springville Museum of Art July 29 through September 16. Finally, the Ruby Jubilee Celebration at Quilt Festival 2017, September 19 through 23. 

I'm sure this will be an awesome exhibit!  I'm excited to see it!

White Elephant Sale - One Man's (or Woman's) Junk....

Last week I got ambitious and cleaned up my sewing room.  Don't worry - it's a mess again already, but at least it was all clean as I began quilting that pile of quilts.  It always feels good to me to clean up and organize my sewing space in between projects.  If it gets too messy I just can't seem to get anything done.  It's OK if it's messy during a project because I don't like to put everything away each day as I am working on something, but after finishing one and before starting a new one (or starting to finish a new one :) I just need to straighten it up a bit.

I had extra motivation this time because my quilt guild is having a White Elephant sale next Wednesday night.  They do this once a year - everyone cleans out their sewing space and brings those items they no longer need or want.  You know the saying, "One man's junk is another man's treasure", well someone at the meeting will surely need that something that you don't need anymore!

Bid cards are placed by each item and, like a silent auction, the highest bidder at the end of the evening wins the item.  All of the money collected goes to the guild, so it's a nice fundraiser as well.

Here is my pile of stuff to go!  As you can see, there are a lot of batting scraps that I have been holding onto for way to long.  They are odd sizes, like 30'x 90".  I put this stuff out when the Little Bits ladies were here the other day and some of the batting scraps are gone already.  You don't need big pieces of batting for miniature quilts!  My new favorite batting is Quilter's Dream - Request, so that's what I keep gravitating toward and these scraps were getting ignored.  I will be happy if someone else can use them.  I think I should clean a little deeper before Wednesday night though and see if there is anything else that needs to go.  My goal is to not come home with as much stuff as I bring :)

Dear Jane, I WILL finish you!

Most of you have probably heard of the famous Jane A. Stickle quilt completed in 1863.  It is my understanding that it resides at The Bennington Museum in Vermont and they bring the quilt out for display just once a year.  Brenda Papadakis became fascinated with the quilt after seeing it in Richard Cleveland's book Plain and Fancy.  She was able to travel to the museum and trace the blocks which she shares in her book "Dear Jane: The Two Hundred Twenty-Five Patterns from the 1863 Jane A. Stickle Quilt".

Jane famously signed her quilt, which apparently was unusual at the the time, and her inscription in the lower right corner triangle reads: "In War Time 1863, Pieces 5602, Jane A. Stickle".  The quilt contains 169 square blocks that finish at
4 1/2 inches and 52 triangular blocks.  Each of these blocks is a little work of art.

Since Brenda's book came out in 1996, there have been many, many reproductions of Jane's quilt.  To quote Richard Cleveland, "As long as Jane Stickle's quilt endures, it will challenge and inspire quilt makers of succeeding generations."

I started making my own "Dear Jane" quilt, oh... a long time ago.  Then I got side-tracked with other projects and put it away for awhile.  My goal this year, 2014, was to work on it every month and try to get it done, but I got side-tracked again....

Now however I have some new motivation!  My sister-in-law's miniature quilt group in Logan, Utah,  the Sew Small Miniature Quilt Guild, has begun a Dear Jane challenge and Cathie invited me to participate as an honorary member!
                                                 (Hunter's Moon block)

I quickly accepted the challenge!  I needed something to get me motivated to work on my Dear Jane quilt again and this is just the ticket.  Each month Cathie will email me the list of blocks the guild has chosen to work on or focus for that month and we're to complete at least three of them.
The list for October is:
A-3 Hunter's Moon
A-7 Dad's Plaid
B-1 Bachelor Buttons
B-12 Starflower
C-9 Jane's Tears
E-1 Aunt Exie's Phlox
E-10 Five & Dime
F-13 Tour de France
K-7 Rose of Sharing

(Dad's Plaid)

I was surprised and excited to discover that I had already completed all but one of them!  I have been making the blocks in order and I am now up to G-8.  So, the requirement is that we make three blocks, at least, each month. This month I made K-7, the one on the list that I hadn't made, and G-7 and G-8, which were "next in line" for me.  To date I have completed 86 square blocks and 20 triangles.  So I am a little over half way done with the square blocks and a little less than half way done with the triangular blocks.  Time to finish!  I am SO excited about this challenge - thank you Cathie and Sew Small quilters for letting me participate :)



                                                    (Bachelor Buttons)

(Starflower)

                                                         (Jane's Tears)

(Aunt Exie's Phlox)

                                                       (Five and Dime)

(Tour de France)

And the three I completed this month are:
                                            G-7 Indianapolis
                          Hand Appliquéd and Machine Pieced

G-8 Justin's Comet
Hand Pieced

                 

                                                    K-7 Rose of Sharing
                                                    Hand Appliqued

Very Busy Little Bits

We had a FANTASTIC Show and Tell at our Little Bits meeting yesterday.  Everyone has been busy, busy creating beautiful works of art.

Leota, who is a fabulous photographer, took some beautiful flower photos on a trip to Hawaii.  She designed these Sashiko patterns from her photos and made this beautiful wall hanging.  Her Sashiko stitches are so even and the designs are wonderful.  I think she should publish this pattern!

Annie, who has become a master at back-basting hand appliqué made this beautiful picture, embellished with embroidery and hand quilting.  She said the frame is too small but she was just trying it out to see if she likes it framed.  She does (and we all did too) so she is going to get a larger frame for it.

Annie also finished up her Postage Quilt top.  She is going to hand quilt it.  I will be anxious to see how she does it because I would like to hand quilt mine as well.  When I get my top finished, that is!
We exchanged these blocks as a group back in 2012 and slowly we are finishing them up.  Eleanor and June have completed theirs, Annie is getting there and some of us are still working on them....

June brought a couple of her amazing glass bottle art pieces to show.  The other one is purple, a gift to a friend who loves purple.  June is keeping this teal one :)

This quilt is June's original design.  Boy, who needs a pattern in our group anymore?  These ladies are creative!

This quilt is a fun way to use up scraps of fun fabric!

Sherida made this adorable, soft pink owl for a baby shower she is going to.  One lucky little baby!

And....Sherida is Zentangling a pumpkin!  What a GREAT idea and how fun!  This will make an awesome decoration!

Sherida shows one of her monthly minis - near completion.  I love her fabric choices.

This work of art is Sherida's as well.  It is a beautiful little landscape, embellished with hand embroidery and quilted.  Then it is very cleverly framed on a canvas, covered with burlap!  Another great idea!

This stunning quilt was made by Eleanor.  I love the colors and the geometric modern quilt look.  She always does a great job finishing hers too - nice machine quilting.

Then Eleanor started pulling all of these little duffles out of her bag.... and they kept coming and coming and coming.... in four different sizes and all kinds of fun fabrics!

(We drew names for Christmas gifts and I think everyone is hoping Eleanor got their name :)

I hope Lori doesn't mind that I'm showing her pictures as well.  She sent me some photos of things she's been working on and I shared them with the Little Bits gals yesterday.  Everyone had a great time seeing what Lori has been creating and we miss her at our meetings!


These are some items she has made for her grandkids :)

Someone is going to have a baby!!

We saw these little blanket animals at a shop she took me to in Colorado Springs.  I bought an animal with the minkie fabric and instructions, and Lori has two done already!  You are supposed to cut the stuffed animal in half and sew the little blanket in between the head part and the bum part.  Lori's look so cute!  I'm still having a hard time deciding whether I can actually cut the stuffed animal in half though....  I may just make a little doll blanket FOR the stuffed animal....  I'm a "softie" when it comes to stuffed animals.  I used to buy them for my kids because I like them!

TQS Block of the Month - September

Today is October 1st and I am all caught up on my TQS block of the month - A to Z With Ewe and Me!  Remember I am making two....







Here are the two blocks I made for September.  Those hour glass blocks are teeny tiny.

After completing September's blocks I was able to sew the entire center sections together.  Here are both of them - they are slightly different, can you tell where?


The center sections measure 23" x 32".  That gives you an idea of how small some of these pieces are.  All of the letters are hand appliquéd.

Here is how it looks on the back.  There are so many seams I am not sure how in the world I am going to quilt this!

You can kind of see my hand appliqué stitches on the back - I use the back basting method.



I just downloaded the pattern for the borders so on we go!