Inspiration

I've been slowly working on the newest sample for our quiltalong. The quilt I am referring to is in a book with no close up shots. The quilt was made right around 1900.
I believe this block was made around the same period. Reproduction blacks seem to be a little harder to find but I'm loving the black with a tiny bit of red and double pink.

These will be the colors we'll be using. Blue, black, gray, brown, shirtings and of course, double pinks. If all goes well with my sample the setting will be red!!

This is a great book to refer to when looking for a specific time period of fabric.

Here's a little pile of fabrics from around that time period. These pieces were in the Chinese Coin quilt that I took apart. Because the doll quilt won't be handle much or washed much I'm using some of these prints in the quilt.

It won't take much fabric, so dig through your scraps and set a few pieces aside.

Feathered Star and Summer on the Way!

Here's a little project I've been working on. It's all handquilted and ready for a single binding. Don't you love how my corners meet?! So many old quilts look this way so I thought I'd leave it for a bit of added charm. This was another possible quiltalong, but I could hardly get it together with partial seams so scrapped that idea pretty quickly. The overall size is 16".

Last fall I won a giveaway from Vivian at Quilts and a Mug. This was one of the Joined at the Hip patterns. It was a kit and after looking at the fabrics and deciding all of them were adorable I made this. Do you know I have never bought a quilt kit before or made a quilt out of a kit? It was really nice to have everything labeled and the fabrics were perfect for this. I have all 4 seasons of angels, but because purple coneflowers and flags are my favorites I started with summer! I used fusible web and am hoping to machine applique this afternoon. Thanks again Vivian! I loved putting this together.

Miriam awarded me with the Sunshine Award for bloggers who "inspire others with positivity and creativity". Thanks so much Miriam. I am supposed to nominate 12 other bloggers, but it seems to me that we all run in the same blog circles, so to speak. I'm inspired by so many wonderful, positive, fun, beautiful blogs I would be hard pressed to name only 12!! So, if you are reading this consider yourself a recipient of the Sunshine Award.

Wool Crazy Update

Here is my Wool Crazy as of this morning. My embroidery is a bit primitive but if I took every stitch out that I wasn't happy with it wouldn't have any!! So I've been having fun combining a few simple stitches to try and dress it up a bit.


I saw this lovely quilt at the quilt show I attended recently. I've been drawn more to crazy quilts in recent months now that I've started my wool crazy. I thought the setting was unusual but very appealing.

I love how the maker added a tiny bit of cheddar!! What a rebel!!!

Quilt-a-Long

This scrappy little crib quilt was one I thought about doing as a quiltalong. Instead of doing set in seams I thought we could assemble it on the diagonal. Test run...next photo....

This is as far as I got! Trying to keep it all straight would have driven me batty. I think the idea is to have fun not go nuts!! LOL
This will NOT be our quiltalong.
My online friend Carol finished her Cheddar Cheese and Crackers quilt. I never get tired of seeing this one!!

Viridian started her CC&C using double pinks for the centers. WOW! I'm really loving this one!!

Another CC&C quilt top done by Quilts on the Way and Jean. Way to go ladies!!

If anybody else has finished one I'd love to see it!!

Top O' The Morning to You!

Happy St. Patricks Day to you and to those of you across the pond I hope your yesterday was green!
I feel a whole lot more Danish then Irish but I've got a wee bit of Irish in me too! I come from a long line of the McNees family who immigrated to Maryland from Cootehill, County Cavan, Ireland in the mid-1700's.

I saw this quilt form a distance and I thought immediately of St. Paddy's day. When I got closer I realized this was the BACK of a quilt. Pretty cool huh? (another huge one too!) I couldn't wait to see what the front of the quilt looked like. See next photo.....


Wow, I had some pretty interesting thoughts on that which I will keep to myself.

For those of you that like to read I have a couple of "green" recommendations.

A few weeks ago I finished "Shannon" by Frank Delaney. I loved it! It's about a priest who comes back from the war shell shocked and travels the Shannon River in Ireland looking for his ancestors.
Another one I read by him some time ago is "Simple Courage- The True Story of Peril on the Sea"
Another trilogy of books set in Ireland is by Brendan O'Carroll. Hilarious, funny and sad and a joy to read.
One of my all time favorites of triumphing over difficulties is Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt.

Happy St. Paddy's Day!!

More Quilt Show Inspiration

This beauty was purchased as a top for $10 at a thrift store!!! It was a huge quilt! If I could only be so lucky to find a gem like that.
The power of a one patch and hand quilting. So simple but really beautiful.

Here was another humongous quilt- this time yo-yo's!! All painstakingly hand stitched to the backing.


I love homespuns and this one was really terrific. There's a lot of movement and secondary patterns going on here.



Another wonderful reproduction quilt.

This one was actually my favorite. The centers of the stars were made from a family members dresses from the early 1900's. I'm a real sucker for sentiment.

Have a wonderful week!

Northwest Quilters Guild Show

I made a quick trip to Portland yesterday for the Northwest Quilters Guild annual quilt show. This was my first time attending this show and if I had known what I know now I wouldn't have traveled through the snow and pouring rain 2 hours to get there. But, even though the quilts weren't exactly my cuppa tea I can always appreciate the work that goes into them.

This one was bright and interesting. Each of the triangles are pieced!! She used great sashing fabric too!

Check that out!



The detail in this eagle was amazing!!



I love scrap quilts but this one didn't particularly stir me, until I saw the hand quilting.


Beautiful!! And brave to do it in black!!



Another one I wasn't enamoured with but the thing was huge and the tag said she machine quilted it on her Bernina!! Holy cow! I'd like to see how she wrestled that!!!

Touch of Comfort and BOM

I saw on many blogs about the Touch of Comfort program so I sent away for a kit. It was quick and easy and I used the machine for everything- even binding. (There's a first time for everything!) I had some bright variegated thread that I used to do a little meandering quilting. It made me smile while working on it so I'm sure it'll bring joy to a child in need.

Look how it came packaged! All cut and ready to sew!!

I finished the latest Vicksburg BOM from Dawn. I didn't realize how lumpy and bumpy this block was until I took a photo. Guess I better work on that!!

Sue from the UK has started a blog and she has some great quilts! Right now she's showing some wonderful toile. Be sure to scroll back a ways and see some older quilts. I'm sure she'd love it if you left a comment and let her know you dropped by.

So, I thought I'd do a little spring cleaning today then it decided to snow! What's with that?! We've hardly had a flake this winter.

House Party

We were out of town this weekend but I did manage to finish another house block. It looks like I should have ironed it before posting but I'm on my way out and wanted to show you all. I had a bit of a time with the skinny stems-thank goodness it is supposed to be wonky!! It's called the Hobbit House.

Last week I received this wonderful package of goodies from Carolyn Forster. The first thing I noticed was the Royal Post tag. How come we can't have a cool name like that for our post office? I thought the package must have been carefully processed and handled while in the UK. Carolyn sent along the wonderful cheddar fabric and cheddar crackers!!! (You can see I didn't even wait for the photo to test them out- yum!) And Carolyn made the cool bag. The tag has her name on it!! This was a thank you for doing the Cheddar quilt along. Thank you again, Carolyn!!!

Speaking of a quiltalong. It looks like most of you would like to do another small reproduction. I had an idea and played around a bit with graph paper this weekend too. I'll see if I can figure it out in Electric Quilt. It has some elements that are similar to Cheddar Cheese & Crackers.

Have a great Monday!!

Mish Mash...

I've been working on a few things but not much picture worthy yet...except this block which has 36- 1" half square triangles and 44- 1 1/4" half square triangles. I may end up changing the center 4 patch but don't think I'll have too much trouble unpicking it and replacing it.
I received my Downy quilts for kids kit and am starting on that today. It was all precut and nicely packaged. I can't imagine it taking me too long to assemble.

Marge, who is on no reply the Christmas in July quilt measures 63" square. (approx as my quilts go!) The striped border fabric is Chateax Rococo by Robyn Pandolph.

Susan R: I do not own the Cheddar cheese and Cracker quilt so I can't tell you what the measurements are on the original quilt. I did offer up a few different sizes for anybody that wanted to make it larger which you can find here.

Speaking of quiltalongs I am curious to know what you all may want to do. I thought the doll size worked out really well. Do you want a complicated pattern or maybe just something that would be fun without a lot of work? Reproduction of an old quilt or a scaled down version of a larger quilt? I've been keeping my eyes open for another project but it may be helpful for me if you tell me what you'd like. Please leave any ideas in the comment section.