Monday Design Wall

Baby, its cold outside!  The wind is blowing about 25 miles an hour with light fluffy snow and about 25 degrees outside.  We are tucked inside for the day.  First, I had some very ripe bananas that I needed to make into banana  bread. Done!

 

Second, my husband starts his two weeks of night shift tonight.  (He got called off for last night and we watched the Super Bowl.)  The guys on his shift like treats so before Christmas I sent my husband's favorite bar cookie, butter chewies.  The guys loved them.  So I wanted to send a treat with him tonight and had all the ingredients for butter chewies on hand.  They make the house smell so good.

 

This weekend I was able to spend a day and a half at a small quilt retreat at our church.

This is a picture of part of the group of ladies who attended.

 

We had a little show and tell by Cathy, see her peeking out from behind the top.  She will be quilting this quilt for a friend.

 

Sylvia made this on Saturday and I brought it home to quilt for her mother-in-law. 

 

Corry has been on a mission to finish UFOs.  This windmill quilt is full of signatures and she figures she started it around 2009.  It is king size and now ready to be quilted! 

 

She also brought this Thimbleberries quilt and found out the top was finished.  So she pieced the backing out of the leftover fabrics.

 

Last, but not least is my project.  This is a panel from our trip to Shipshewana, IN this past summer. My friend, Kathy O and I are planning this quilt and working on the design and blocks together.

I apologize for the quality of the picture (its a picture of a picture) as didn't take a picture before packing up to go home.  I received the picture from Cathy K.

This quilt will be lap size when we are finished.

 

Thank you to Corry for all the planning and thank you for all the fun "quilty sisters".

 

Now that I am finished with writing the blog, the sun is shining!  What's on your design wall?

 

Today I am linking up with Judy at Patchwork Times,  Monday Making at Love, Laugh, Quilt, and Cynthia at Oh Scrap! 

 

Yours in quilting,

Terry

 

 

 

Monday Design Wall

Nothing has changed on my design wall this week.  I am still working on Alletiare, Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt.  I haven't had time to make much progress.

 

Under the needle of my longarm is this lovely batik beauty. 

This quilt pattern is Friendship Triangles by Edyta Sitar.  I will reveal the full quilt in Friday Finishes this Friday.

 

Today I am linking up with Judy at Patchwork Times,  Monday Making at Love, Laugh, Quilt, and Cynthia at Oh Scrap! 

 

Yours in quilting,

Terry

 

Design Wall Monday

My husband was off work this weekend and what a treat it was.  We hung mini blinds in both both bedrooms and cleaned up the house together.  I am blessed with a husband that believes that if we work together then we can play together.  We also had a date night going to see a movie along with popcorn.  Yummy!

 

It doesn't take too much to make my guy happy.  While he was sleeping after working nights, I received a UPS delivery.  When he woke up, I told him about the delivery.  After working 24.5 years for Coke, he received his retirement gift.  A Big Bertha golf club for all the years of hard work he put in.  He was a like a kid in a candy store.

 

I have been taking a little time for piecing.  I am so blessed that my longarm business has grown and continues to grow.  I miss being able to sew for myself.  I have decided to take time to do what I love.  In the evenings or on the weekends, I have been carving out some time to finish up UFO's.  Below, is the scrappy strips sent home with us when we visited Shippshewana last June.  The form asked that we complete one light block and one dark block.  I completed mine Saturday and will be mailing them off so they maybe added to other blocks in Shippshewana for charity quilts. 

 

I have set up a small table and portable ironing board in the front room.  I working on pressing the 296 half-square triangles for Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt, Alletiare.

 

 

I have them stacked in piles and now squaring them up.

 

Finally, I am sewing them together when I can steal 10-15 minutes at a time.

 

Time to get busy over at the longarm.  Have a motivational Monday!

 

Today I am linking up with... Monday Making at Love, Laugh, Quilt, Cynthia at Oh Scrap! and Judy at Patchwork Times.   

 

Yours in quilting,

Terry

 

 

 

Monday Design Wall

Good Morning!  What a Monday morning we are having here in Illinois!  Freezing rain is falling along with winds gusting to 40 miles an hour.  As I sit here at my kitchen island looking out the back door, ice is forming on the deck and wire fencing.  The weatherman is predicting 1/4" to 1/2" of ice coating forming on everything.  I am just praying that we don't loose power.  We may also receive about an inch of snow.  We are spoiled here as we have had a pretty mild winter to this point.

Yesterday we had a quiet day at home after having a large Christmas gathering here on Christmas Day.  We served about 14 family and friends dinner and later played dominoes.

After getting home from church yesterday, I spent the day cutting fabric for Bonnie Hunter's Mystery Quilt, Allietare.  You can find the free pattern and directions HERE.  I worked on cutting the 296 half-square triangles for Clue #1 using the constant grey and neutrals.

 As I am cutting the neutrals, I was also cutting the 2" x 4 1/2" rectangles for Clue#2 and the 3 1/2" x 7 1/2" rectangles for Clue #3.  Some of the neutrals I pulled out to use were less than a fat quarter of fabric.  After cutting the above units, if there was any fabric leftover, I cut it up to fit my storage system, i.e. odd size strips go in the string bin,  2" square, 1 1/2" squares and crumbs.

 

I am really excited to be using up some of the fabric and not returning it to my drawers.  First of all, its exciting to have stash that you can pull from (its taken a long time to get to this point).  Second, I like when I use up a piece of fabric (makes room to go shopping).  Third, I have enjoyed seeing the wide selection of neutrals I have been collecting.  I try to be frugal when shopping and only by fabric with a purpose to go with a specific pattern or project.  Neutrals are my one "freebie" when shopping.  This means, I allow myself to always myself to shop for neutrals without guilt.

 

My sewing/texting buddy, Cathy and I have agreed to work on this Mystery quilt together.  We have swapped fabrics.  She also helped me out by giving me the constant grey for the project as a Christmas present.  She was traveling and visiting her daughters out West and was shop hopping.  I was so excited about receiving the fabric as I was being a good girl, staying home and finishing customer quilts.  She is farther along than I am on the quilt but its not a race.  I want to enjoy the experience.  My goal it to have the clues cut out before going to a quilting weekend on January 15th.  My plan is to quilt on customer quilts during the day and work on cutting in the evenings.  Yesterday I made great progress.  The advantage of being behind, I have all the clues printed and can cut all the neutrals at once for each clue.  I don't think I have ever cut a whole quilt out before starting to sew. 

 

Today I am joining Quiltville's Bonnie Hunter's Monday Linkup, Monday Making at Love, Laugh, Quilt, Cynthia at Oh Scrap! and Judy at Patchwork Times. 

 

Have a marvelous Monday!  Be safe out there as you travel in this wintery mix of weather.

 

Yours in quilting,

Terry

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hello Everyone! and my Design Wall

I know that its been too long since my last post, October 8, 2015, actually.  I would like to be Super Woman, but its just not possible.  So I have not blogged but have been taking care of my family first.

My husband made a major career change on October 5th.  My job has been to take over absolutely everything I can handle so he can study, go to class and learn his new job.  I have to say I am so impressed with him.  He really put his whole heart and soul into his training and he loves his job.  It is fun to hear him tell people we meet how happy he is at the new job.  The new company values their workers and encourages comradery.  They also believe in paying a living wage, benefits, and safety training.  For all this, I am very thankful for his new career.  It has changed our lives for the better!

 

This weekend, my dad and step-mother came back to Princeton.  On Saturday my sister and I hosted an birthday open house for my dad's 80th birthday.  It was fun to reminisce with guests and all their stories.  On Sunday, we celebrated Dad and Pat's 12th wedding anniversary with pizza and a game of dominoes.  I am proud to say I won! 

 

This morning I drove out to the hotel and visited with Dad and Pat while they ate breakfast.  I was able to buy and wrap their Christmas presents.  I delivered the Christmas gifts to the hotel so that they can take them home.  We will probably not see them again until Spring.  We live about four hours apart. 

 

This is what is on my design wall.  It will be a Quilt of Valor when finished.

 

Now its time to buckle down and finish customer's Christmas quilts.  This is what is on my longarm being custom quilted. 

 

 

Have a great Monday!  Today I am linking up with Judy at Patchwork Times.

 

Yours in quilting,

Terry

 

 

Monday Design Wall

Oh my gosh!  I just checked my pictures from the blog design page and my pictures are showing up again.  Oh, Wanda, if you fixed this for me this weekend, I am forever grateful!  I am doing the happy dance.  Yeah!  Hopefully, things will stay fixed for a long time.

I was at a sewing weekend with some awesome ladies and Wanda is retired business skills teacher.
She looked my phone over and didn't know what or if she could help without my laptop computer.  Wouldn't you know it was one of the times I didn't take my laptop with me but this morning I can view and choose pictures for the blog.  Whoopee!

This is Wanda, who is looking at her first quilt which has just been quilted.

Below is Carol Onken, the longarm quilter talking about Wanda's quilt. Many of us gave Wanda advise on how to trim her quilt and how to add the binding.  She went home ready to do the handwork on the binding.

 

Hugs and prayers to Wanda today.  It was one year ago that her husband passed away.  I hope today you can smile at the many memories you two made together.

 

Betty brought some fun show n' tell.  Betty emptied a suitcase of charity quilts.  Notice below the fun way Betty uses panels by cutting them up and adding them to strip sets or by applique.

Betty come out from behind your quilt! 

I am sorry to say, I did not get pictures of all the quilts Betty finished and donated.  They were all adorable.

 

Below is Susan, our hostess, showing Carol Onken's button fabric quilt.  This was a block trade our group completed back in 2011.  Many us are still working on our layouts and sewing the tops.  The white blocks with the X in them were the additional blocks Carol added to make the quilt queen size. 

 

Below is Betty rendition of the quilt. 

 

No sewing day is complete without a food celebration.  Yum! 

Never a bad cook in the bunch and we usually come home with new recipes.

This weekend was no exceptions, I have three new recipes.

 

Kathy was learning how to use her new sewing machine while making this batik beauty.

 

Linda whipped up this batik quilt along with a baby quilt. 

 

Melanie was the UFO Master!  She finished this king size quilt and another quilt called "Twiggy" for her camper's bed. 

 

Sylvia worked on this Doug Leko quilt. 

 

Thank you to Susan and all the ladies for a fun, productive weekend.

 

Today I am linking up with Judy at Patchwork Times.

 

Yours in quilting,

Terry

 

Monday Design Wall with So Many Possibilities

I left with three friends last week for the Shipshewana Quilt Show, a shop hop and antiquing.  I was so tired from preparing to leave on the trip, that I was afraid I wouldn't be able to enjoy myself.  Boy, was I wrong about that.  We had a great trip and we are singing "I left my money in Shipshewana".

For Design Wall Monday,  this is still on my design wall from last week.  Look at the quilt "possibilities" to follow.  Lots of fabrics came home with me for future quilts.

 

Now to show you my purchases in Shipshewana.  The first quilt shop we stopped at was "A Little Bit of Lolly's" in the basement of Davis Mercantile in Shipshewana. 

They had Happy Hour from 5-6pm and all fat quarters were a $1.50.  So we sat down around this row boat that was filled with rolled up fat quarters and there were several quilters already enjoying happy hour.  We started chatting and asking each other "if you find another fat quarter like this can I have it".  It really turned into a group effort quickly.  The shop clerk was chatting with us and encouraging us to dig.  I asked if I could sit in the middle of the boat for a picture for the blog.

The first picture was safe.  See my foot is still hanging out and I am anchored to the floor.  But remember the store clerk was encouraging all of us.  Things quickly spiraled out of control.

First, they said just lay back and look like you're having fun.  No problem, I was having fun!

The clerk chirped, "they buried a quilter in fat quarters last year".  That's all anyone needed to hear and suddenly everyone was digging up armloads of fat quarters and burying me. 

I don't even know everyone that helped, but we were giggling and laughing. 

It truly was a "Happy Hour" of fabric fondling.  More quilters wandered in the door wondering what the heck was going on inside.  Notice that I never let go of my stash of fat quarters!  We visited Yoder's and the Cotton Corner the first day, also. 

 

Wednesday, we back and did the shop hop first thing in the morning before the Quilt Show opened at noon.  The shop hop included Yoder's Department Store, Caroline's Cottage Cottons, Lavender Patch, The Cotton Corner, Sara's Attic, The Quilt Shop at Essenhaus, and Pumpkinvine Quilting.  All the shops were nice, friendly and ready for all the shoppers.  If I had to pick one shop, Caroline's Cottage Cottons was my favorite.  It was located in a cute, brick cottage with all the fabrics I love:  civil war repros, 1930's repros, and many other fabrics, kits and samples.  On our way back to Shipshewana my phone refused to let the GPS show us the way back.  We resorted to using the old fashioned map and found the Topeka Quilt Show and Sale. 

At Topeka, you could buy quilts already to put on your bed or quilt tops that needed quilting.  Kathy O bought an antique Double Wedding Ring top.  When she showed it to us back at the hotel, we discovered it was just two rows of the quilt.  It is enough to make two table runners, or a bed runner and table runner.  It was made with double pink and some fun vintage fabrics.

When leaving Pumpkinvine Quilting we saw this fun car appliqued with the flamingo!

At The Quilt Shop at Essenhaus, we saw this cute Bobbin the Robin pin cushion.  We did collect the Row by Row Experience patterns at each shop.  This little robin had on her shower cap and a towel draped over her wing.  Check out her crocs on her feet.  There was a whole assortment of shoes to choose from, i.e. saddle shoes, crocs in many colors, ruby slippers, bunny slippers, high top tennis shoes, sequined tennis shoes, etc.

Above are my Row by Row patterns.

Below are my collection of recipes from each shop on the shop hop.

 

Last but not least, below is my stash purchased in Shipshewana.

 

Below is the newest panel released by Yoder's, 2015 barns. 

 

Below is last year's 2014 panel from Yoder's. 

 

Its always good to travel with great friends...

but its good to get home and sleep in your own bed.

 

 

Today I am linking up with Judy at Patchwork Times.

 

Yours in quilting,

Terry

 

 

 

Monday Design Wall

I am doing the happy dance this morning.  I have been working on a quilt top for my friend, Kelly, for over two years and I finally have completed it.  The story on how this quilt began can be read HERE.  The quilt is 105" x 110"

We get a little silly at our sew days, so I had to strike a pose.

These were also a project for me.  These two blocks will end up as pillows.  They are made from leftover fabric from my parents' quilt.  The block patterns are out of Lori Holt's new book, Vintage Farm Girl.

I was also working on the small barn quilt, quilting it on my domestic machine.  This is a quilt commissioned by my neighbor.  It is also a Lori Holt pattern that was free, at the time I printed it.  It feels good to be working on UFO's and  making progress at getting them finished.

Congratulations to Suzy for finishing her row by row quilt.  Love the colors!

Cathy C was working on quilts of valor.  This one is called Letters from Home.  It is hung upside down.  The blocks look like envelopes with the top open, when turned right side up.

Another quilt of valor by Cathy C.

This is a memory quilt in-the-making by Nancy B.  She was using ties, boxer shorts, and shirts for fabric from the gentleman who had passed away. 

Linda's quilt from a layer cake.  This is a Missiouri Star Quilt Co pattern. 

Way to go Wanda!  She finished her first quilt.  She had one more border to add at this point. 

Its beautiful, Wanda!  Congratulations.  Before she left she had the backing, batting, thread color and quilting pattern picked out.

Suzy made a beautiful blue snowflake quilt.  She had been shopping for and saving fabrics for a while for this project.  It was stunning to look at and we were encouraging her to keep this one and not give it away.

Yesterday started the Row by Row experience.  This will be the block pattern and kit available from Susan's Calico Creations in Fulton, IL  The shop is two blocks from the mighty Mississippi river and the windmill you see in the quilt block.  The windmill still works and they grind flour inside.  When the weather is nice, we take a walk along the river's flood control dike.  Its a beautiful view.

 

Today's schedule is busy.  This morning I am off to agility classes with Indy.  Then headed back home to help Corry finish quilting her king size quilt

At 3pm, the farrier will arrive to trim and put new shoes on our horse, Hoot.  After that will have to finish laundry and re-pack my suitcase.  Tomorrow morning I am headed to Shipshewana with my friends for the quilt show, flea market and shop hop.  Its a busy week. 

 

Today I am linking up with Judy at Patchwork Times.

 

Yours in quilting,

Terry