The Lincoln Museum Quilt

My Lincoln quilt is on the road to the quilters!

The pattern came from Barbara Brackman and so did some of the fabric. Please read about the quilt on her blog here.  It has only been a little over a year since I won the pattern and fabric so I am right on my normal schedule! I opted to make my blocks 8" instead of 12, so I made a few more. My finished quilt size is approx 64x 72. 

I had some of this awesome Lincoln fabric from my friend Jill and couldn't think of a more appropriate quilt to use it on. 

And I added some homespuns, one which had this slice in it I noticed while ironing the completed backing. I used some fusible and the same fabric and fused it closed from the opposite side.

I'm sending it off to Diane, Butterfly Threads Quilting to do baptist fans for me.  I knew this quilt would need a simple all over pattern. I'll be adding this quilt to my "Reruns; Quilts Inspired by the Past" lecture!! 

I hope you all are having a terrific week.

Fickle Friday

A little of this and that today-
***For some unknown reason I stopped receiving comments in my email on Monday. I really thought nobody liked the French General little quilt! LOL Which would have been completely okay. I quilt for myself and what I like. But I was happy to see there were comments on that post! I  think Google did some updating, and once I went to settings, email, and added my email address to comment notification email and confirmed the email, I was back in business! If you have noticed the same thing, that's how it can be remedied.

***I showed a close up on Facebook of the orphan quilt top border so I thought I'd share it here. It is from my late friend Jill's stash. Thank you for your sweet comments on that quilt! I really enjoyed making it, but doubt my design abilities.

***I have heard from several of you that you are unable to leave comments. Sometimes that happens to me as well and these are few things I try and do. Make sure I'm logged into Google or hit preview first, see if your comment is there, then hit publish. I had this problem more with my phone than with my desktop. If all else fails, feel free to email me your comment.

I got a backing made for a quilt to send to CA. 

The dark green plaid is a bit heavier- flannel? I hope it quilts up with the other pieces. As usual, I didn't have enough of one fabric. 

It is for this quilt that I made from Diane Knott's book. 

I made the binding too so all will be ready to quilt and finish. 

More hand written backing projections..... Anybody else do this? With adding 8" to length and width for machine quilting my backing needed to be 58x68. If you scroll back up you can see the backing is like my sketch. Always good when it works out! 

Here's a bit of what I'm doing if I'm not at work:

 
Trying to stay warm (not like many of you had with high winds and below zero temps) Not sure why  winter waited until February to show itself!

Elsa doesn't seem to mind. 

Please go outside with me!

 And play with this frozen tennis ball!

Sometimes Porter likes it, but his age is showing and sometimes he just wants to stay in, 

When the sun is shining they both like to soak up a few rays.

My Instagram feed for the past week! A real mixed bag!

Have a wonderful weekend!! 

Strip Quilt Secrets- Unleashed! You have a chance to WIN!

 Diane's new book hit the market a few a short weeks ago and I told her I'd love to be a part of a blog hop to help her promote it. I was happy to be a part of her first book release- her quilts and directions are fun and simple! (We made the house blocks from her first book!) She has given highlights on her blog and I would encourage you to take the time to read it. Check it out HERE.  Her secrets are revealed!!

While browsing through the book I noticed this toward the end. What size strips do you  need for which quilt. There are 2 pages of strip widths. I've saved strips but never really know what to do with them- well, here ya go!

I decided I'd do this quilt. I made the mistake of not reading the directions all the way through before starting. I realized there are 4 different blocks in this quilt! One more reason to love it even more.

I opted to make my centers all red like a traditional log cabin block and use my homespuns to 

make it more masculine.

 Blocks A, B, C, D. 

It would have been easier to make all A blocks, all B blocks, etc. That is how Diane wrote the directions. I wasn't sure how many blocks I was going to make so I opted to cut a bunch of strips and figure it out as I went.

The layout is light-dark-light, looking at the outermost strip.

These are 10" blocks and I made 5 of each. I wanted to make it a bit bigger...

Then I saw this "secret" at the bottom of the page. So, I made 10 more blocks. 

And ended up with this lovely top! It is only 50x 60 so I will add a border, do a little meandering and send it to CA to be given to a Camp Fire survivor. 

You can win Diane's Strip Quilt Secrets! 

First off, visit these blogs and leave a comment to win:

Friday January 4 - C&T 

Saturday January 5 - Tanya
Sunday January 6 - Val
Monday January 7 - Lori
Tuesday January 8 - Heather
Wednesday January 9 - Audrey
Thursday January 10 - Susan

Leave a comment here telling me if you collect strips and if you use them on a regular basis. I'll draw a name on Friday January 11th to win a signed copy. I'm so sorry that this is only open to US residents.

Comments are closed so the winner can be notified and announced on Fridays blog post. Thank you all for your terrific comments! So many of us save out strings and strips!

Homespun Tornado

I've been attempting to work on the Lincoln quilt blocks, but having to dig out my boxes, look through for a few blocks,  put boxes away, make blocks... was not being efficient. I thought I'd just get all of the blocks cut out! That was my Sunday project. 

 I've got blocks cut out to make 36 sixteen patches. 

 Here a stack...

 There a stack...

 Everywhere a stack stack!

A quilter never wastes, right?! I even found these in my box! Yes, I cut a strip!!

And the stacks await my arrival this week to start cutting for the sawtooth stars. Then I will organize them and have my "normal" messy room back.

Have a lovely Monday!

Christmas in April

My commissioned quilt will be winging its way back to Michigan today!  So happy to have it done. 

I had to use creative license as the drawings/pattern was very small to applique everything. I did quite a bit of embroidery. 

I put the last section together this morning!

The fabrics are new from Diamond Textiles and were a pleasure to work with. They are called Farmhouse Brushed cotton.

Back to my regularly scheduled quilting........