One Year

 It has been almost one year since my last post. I never thought it would be this long before I would get back to my blog and friends. About this time last year my husband and I started talking about putting our house up for sale and moving to a condo where we would have no basement stairs, no steps and no yard work. As much as I loved my flowers and garden, I could no longer keep up with everything.

This is the way things progressed—

September was spent preparing the house. Packing up things as much as we could to make the house look uncluttered. Most of my things were in the basement. That included all my card making “stuff” and all my sewing and quilting “stuff”. I had a lot of storage spaces in the basement and I had a lot of stuff in them. We had finished the basement in a way that I enjoyed my time in my space.

The house went on the market the first Friday afternoon in October. In about 24 hours we had an offer which we accepted. Now the packing really started. Thanksgiving week, we moved our things to an apartment and to a large storage unit. From the time we decided to move up until the time we had to, the market went dead. No places where we wanted to go came on the market until about two days after we moved into the apartment.

We saw the condo and it was everything that we wanted. We closed on January 15, 2021. We moved into it on March 26 and finished our lease on the apartment on May 20. It has been a long road. We are so thankful to our Lord for the place he has provided for us. My space is limited so I am still trying to decide on what to keep and what needs to go.

The entrance to our building 

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A Birthday Gift

I have a friend who has a birthday in a few days. I wanted to have a gift for her when we have lunch together on Friday so I went looking on Pinterest for some ideas.  I found a picture of these small fabric trays. After deciding what I would make and the fabric I was going to use, I remembered that I had a piece of the Pellon Flex Foam 1 Sided Fusible Stabilizer that I had purchased some time ago.  I had watched some videos on how to use it and thought that this might be a good project to try it on. I had some 10 inch squares that I thought would work well with what I wanted to make. 

 The fabric had been chosen and the Flex Foam fused to the back side of the fabric that I wanted to be the inside lining -- the fabric that could be seen the most. After laying the outside  square on top of the lining piece, I squared up the block and sewed around the whole square leaving an opening so that it could be turned. As I began turning the piece inside out I realized that I had turned the one piece of fabric the wrong way. There was no way I was going to try ripping out the stitching so I just decided that was the way it was going to stay and that it would be mine to keep. I went ahead and finished it. Later I was able to fill it with 2 1/2 inch half square triangles. Four stacks fit perfectly.

So it was then time to make the second one that I would use for the birthday gift. This time I got the fabric turned the correct way.

This afternoon I was able to make a birthday card for Linda. I think that this was the first card that I have made in about a year. 

I pray that all are safe and managing these difficult days well.

Triangle In A Square

In quilting we have many blocks that use triangles to create design. We have many different triangle rulers -- right triangles, 30 degrees triangles, 60 degrees triangles, etc. One of the triangles that I had not seen used until recently is called the "isosceles" triangle. The base and the height of this triangle are equal. Creative Grids has a ruler called "Tri-Recs Triangle ruler. It is actually made up of two rulers. As I saw quilts made with this triangle, I knew that it was one that I would have to try one way or another. I think one of the things about this square is that it creates movement in the over-all quilt design. My illustration below shows the square, then what a block would like when we take four squares, do a little rotation and sew them together as a four-patch. I love this.

Well, I had to give this block a try. I needed a table topper to go with a wall hanging that I have up in my livingroom made out of  Moda"s grunge fabric. I had been collecting fat quarters of the grunge fabric. Guess I really like it. I got the fabric out and started cutting. The finished table topper measures approximately 27" x 27". This project took me just a few days to make.My biggest challenge was getting the center of the spinner's to match up. It did get easier as I went along.

Dachshunds -- Lots and Lots

This is another quilt that I just finished. The fabric with the dachshunds was given to me by a friend some months ago. I was always looking for a pattern for inspiration. One day I found that pattern. I was able to find the perfect border fabric in my stash. And here is the finished quilt. It measures 35" x 45". When I was piecing the top together, I got down to the bottom red strip. Guess what? I had no more red. I had to wait for several weeks before any of the quilt stores opened up.

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I used a pretty piece of flannel for the backing and did all the quilting myself.

My "Fancy Foxes Quilt"

Sometime ago I saw a picture of  a quilt made with a pattern called "Fancy Foxes". I was hoping to try and make a quilt of my own someday. Well, with all the time we have spent at home these past four months I got my chance.

I needed some little boy quilts and decided that this would be the perfect time to make this pattern. I tried to figure out how to make the block myself. I got pretty close but could not get the lower part of his face to look right. So. I found the pattern was made by Elizabeth Hartman and was available as a PDF download. So as soon as my PayPal payment when through, I was able to download the pattern. Here is a link to the pattern -- Fancy Foxes.

Oh, what fun I had seeing each fox's face completed.

The finished quilt measures 34" x 46". For the background I used Kona medium gray fabric that I had purchased at JoAnn Fabrics. Thankfully I had written the color along one of the selvages because I ran out of the fabric. When I was able to go into the store earlier this month I found that they still had some of the fabric.

For the backing, I had a piece of light gray flannel that was perfect. I pray that some little baby boy will enjoy this quilt.

"William"--The Baby Bear Quilt

This quilt, called "William" is a pattern that can be found in the book Fat Quarter Baby Book by It's Sew Emma . The first time I saw a picture of this quilt I fell in love with it. I was looking for  a design for baby boys and this quilt was the perfect answer. The quilt will be donated to one of the charities that our Pieces and Patches Quilt Guild sponsors. It really was a very simple pattern to do. I got a lot of enjoyment out of making the quilt and I hope some little boy will enjoy having it.

I used 2-inch finished squares so this quilt is a little small. The quilt finished to 34" x 38". If you used 2.5-inch finished squares, your quilt would measure 42.5" x 47.5". If you were to use 3-inch finished squares, the quilt would finish to 51" x 57".

4-Patch Stacked Posies

A couple of years ago, Mary Lou Hallenbeck was the speaker at the Pieces and Patches Quilt Guild in Jackson, Michigan. She had written a pattern which she called "Four Patch Stacked Posies". I knew that this was something I really wanted to try. Not long after that, I had a chance to visit the East Lansing Country Stitches store. I found this material on sale that I thought would work for this technique.

Finally, I had a chance to give it a try last month. The first step is to find the repeat of the print and cut four pieces using that repeat. The challenge comes at trying to get all four pieces lined up, one on top of the other perfectly. Using lots of straight pins and lots of time I came pretty close.

My repeat was about twelve inches. I did not try to cut the strips on the width of the fabric. I cut my strips vertically and then cut  that strip into three 3 1/2-inch squares.

From these squares, I have four squares that are identical. By putting the same point in the middle I get four, very different blocks. The four squares are sewn together as a four patch. Sometimes, it was really hard to decide which way I wanted to sew them together because I liked all my choices with the four squares.

Here are three different designs using these four identical squares. Not sure why I have only three pictures, but my guess is that I didn't like the fourth choice.

First choice

Second choice

Third choice

I have all my squares sewn together in blocks. When I am able to get to a quilt shop, I will get some coordinating fabric to finish the quilt. It will be nice size lap quilt or wall hanging.

Continuing To Learn

Every once in a while, I sit down at the sewing machine and practice "Free Motion Quilting". It looks so easy when watching a video. BUT IT IS NOT EASY. The teachers say "practice, practice, practice".  Boy, is that a true statement.

These placemats were done the last of February and the very first part of March. The quilting does not show up in the picture very well. On the middle red, I used loops and meandering. On the outside sections, I did straight line quilting.

On the following placemat, I tried pencil quilting. I love the effect, but I was surprised at how much the fabric migrated during the quilting process, even though I thought that I had pinned the quilt sandwich together well. I think I was able to salvage the placemat, but I see the distortion every time I look at the picture.

I am enjoying the sunshine this afternoon here in Jackson, Michigan. Praying that everyone who sees this post is well and enjoying your day.

It Is Finished!!!

Getting a project finished is a great feeling. We began a sew-along at our Pieces and Patches Quilt Guild in August of 2018. We were doing one square a week using Lori Holt's Farm Girl Vintage book. During the winter as I had time I would work on my blocks. I finished my blocks in mid July, 2019. During next few weeks, I got all the blocks sewn together. The only thing left was to add the border, have it quilted and put the binding on.

During the summer I bought fabric for the border, back and binding. In February 2020, I began thinking about getting it finished. The guild quilt show was coming up in May, and it would be fun to show it there. After putting the first piece of border on, I knew immediately that it was not not the right fabric. I found a piece of fabric from my "stash" and decided to use it. It worked beautifully. Got the borders sewn on, took it to Jeanne to be quilted and put the border on a few days after I got it home.

I love my quilt. I made all 6-inch squares. I learned so much.

I got it finished!

The Red, White and Blue "Sawtooth" Star

A few days ago I saw a picture of this quilt block on Pinterest and immediately knew that I wanted to make something using it. I figured that if I made four squares, that would be enough for a table topper for Memorial Day or the Fourth of July. By using 2 1/2"strips and 2 1/2" blocks, the overall block would measure 16 inches, making the table topper finish at 32" x 32". Once I found my red, white and blue fabrics, I was all set to give it a try.

Love the result. Simple but very patriotic.