2021 - Quilting - been at it since 1974, not quitting anytime soon!

 2021  I moved, I read a lot … Let’s see, what else did I do?  Oh, yeah – I quilted every day that ended with “Y”!  Here’s some of my favorite finishes:

When my son and his family were in Panama, all their belongings were in storage.  When the Almeda fire hit, the storage unit burnt down.  No one takes winter clothes and quilts to Central America – the low temp in Panama during the 2 years was 65!! 

They lost many beloved belongings:  photos, paperwork, love letters and 27 quilts!  So first thing on my list was a new quilt for each family member – FIVE! Twin sized quilts.  Twin size is great for snuggling together on the couch!

Disappearing 9patch for my DDIL  This replaced her Master’s Degree graduation quilt. Same pattern and some of the same fabrics!

Double 4patch from my DS  This replaced his Nursing Degree graduation quilt.  I was lucky enough to find the “Nurse Quotes” at Forget me Knots Quilt Shop in Bandon Oregon.  Thanks Michelle!

Stripe Me Lucky quilt for my DGS (10)  A Jen Kingwell Group pattern.  Made with stripes, brights, superhero fabrics and Mickey Mouse among others.  I love this pattern!

                                       

Square in a Square Superhero quilt for my DGS (8)  He’s still into superheroes and this simple quilt turned out really graphic – I like that!

                        

Zig-zag Rail Fence for my DGD (4) This was the same pattern I made for my oldest DGD (15) now.  I still had some of the pink and I spy fabrics from the prior quilt.  A big hit!  In fact, she loaned it to Pancho, the chihuahua, so he would know Nana loves him too!!  But she took it back that night to sleep under!

                                  

P and I took a CraftTour to Japan in January 2020.  Jim West throws a good tour/party!  We brought back some fabrics and some food/candy wrappers and wanted to make a memory tote bag.  18 months later … it was so!  This is a big bag and heavy with the interfacing to keep the wrappers from  ripping.  But I like it already – just perfect to take a whole project to retreats!  

                        

HOME wall quilts.  I was moving; my son and his family were moving back to the US after 2 years.  We obviously needed a wall hanging to welcome us!  I had the Moda Alphabet book – mainly because of this quilt and of course, the alphabet!  So, at April retreat I started making the wall quilts.  P, my table mate wanted one too – soon we were all about “me, me, me!”  They turned out cute.  One was hanging when the Panama gang returned home.  And I just finished mine in time to hang it with other house projects. P made me promise to not tell that her's (pink house) isn't done yet!!

                                  

During the deep days of quarantine P and I worked endlessly on “My Small World” quilt by Jen Kingwell.  They were great fun but tiny pieces!!  We each made ours ‘our own’!  With family jokes, geographic references and printed initials!  There were supposed to be more NY Beauty arcs but we made a little ‘hill town’ instead.  Much easier and still cute as a button!  For the back, we started with the fabric calendars we bought at "Tomatoes".

Back

ModSquad met as often as we could, masks in place.  And after we finished last year’s challenges we moved to Improv piecing. 

Improv is a lot of fun, but we discovered a marathon of improv was much easier than an improv challenge each month.  But the end products were so diverse and fun to see in the group.  Well worth the trouble.  We had one month left after they were done … so our new assignment was a improv holiday challenge.  It could be any holiday!!  I had so much fun making improv trees. There was a wall quilt on Pinterest – I tried to make it (in an improv way, you know!)  but no worries, it turned out different and I loved the process.  I admit I have enough extra trees for another quilt twice as big!!

  

Well, it's January 2, 2022 and I feel better with the blog caught up.  I won't even tell you my plan!!  You've probably laughed enough!  I'm working on more UFOs to generate some quick finishes.  There are at least 2 retreats planned.  And wouldn't it be nice to go on a quilt adventure with Craftours??  We'll see!

Stay tuned for the 2022 adventures!  Including visiting the kids this month so we can have Christmas!!  The weather has to calm down sometime, right??

  

Some more quilt stories that are my favorite

Blogspot has changed photo selection - Arrrgh!  But I found this wonderful photo of my Great Niece N and Granny (my mom).  N is back home after a hospital stay.  I know Granny is watching over her - their spirits are so alike.  God bless you, N.

When I started making QOV, I thought, "Well, this is a good program, but I've got veterans in my life that I want to make a quilt for first.  My DBIL was one of the first 3 recipients.  I was afraid that it wouldn't go over well, but of course, it did.  He loved his quilt.  And we love him!

A spring challenge (loosely interpreted!)  It now belongs to our local Habitat.  They hang it at their Annual Garden Tours!  Can you find the bunny?

This little scamp moved in and used the wall quilt I was binding as her new quilt when I went to make her bottle!!  Mom and Dad's Blue and White wedding quilt on the back of the couch.

Reminisce by Lori Smith.  Challenging but oh-so-worth-it!!!  Scrap Happens, our Lincoln NE small group all made the border blocks to exchange.  We didn't all finish at the same time, but the ones that were ready (a year past deadline!) hung in our guild show.  Exciting to see them all in a row!  And no - they did not look alike, in fact, we couldn't convince some people they were all from the same pattern!

 

I love this July wall quilt.  I adapted a pattern, to make it bigger and I love it.

We used the Blue and White wedding quilt pattern to make a "get well soon" quilt at South Shore in Newport.  Fun working with  non-sewers.  But it turned out awesome!  Tied, not quilted for comfort.

Starry Starry Night.  Variation of a Red Wagon pieced star.  I was laying this one out at a small group quilt meeting in Lincoln NE.  I had all the stars lined up all in a row and MJ, a neighbor looked at it and twisted a star, and I almost fainted!!  But she convinced me they 'twinkle' when mixed up.

A challenge at the Brookings guild.  We all wrote a technique and each month we pulled one out of a lunchbag!  We started with a center block, then drew paper piecing, applique, words, triangles and squares!!  My friend had a new embroidery machine and sold me these lovely vintage nautical blocks that are in the top and bottom borders.  The poem adapted by a poem, 'If You've Ever Lived on a Island' embroidered around the center:

If you ever lived by the ocean; if you ever lived by the sea,

When you return inland, your spirit will have been set free.

If ever you've heard the sea gulls, the waves,a foghorn, the winds,

then you've heard the song of the ocean and the peace it sends.  ... so true!

A flying challenge at Brookings.  I asked my Grandkids what should be on it.  Airplanes, obviously, birds, bees, hot air balloons ... then we got silly!  The house from 'Up', Superman, Mary Poppins ...  Most of these are cancelled stamps, some pictures of stamps (there was a deadline!)  Blocked with very heavy boxes sitting on top of it - because it couldn't be washed, of course!

Leftover blocks from A&J's wedding quilt.  I sewed them up and used it as a charity quilt for Soroptimists!

Mr D with his big boy bed quilt.

Next time ... back from the quilter ... The PlusX Covid quilt!!  How Exciting!!

Time to Recap 2019!!

You sure didn't get "the rest of the story" on the blog this year!!!  Sorry about that.  I've been playing Wheel of Fortune - too much - and apparently boycotting the rest of the web!

P and I watched a new series on HBO (via BBC One)  Years and Years!  OMGoodness - it was so good.  Slightly in the future with the same political and earth problems.  It was fascinating and slightly scary!!!  One line got my attention.  Paraphrasing here:  "Remember when the political news was boring??  We used to go to the kitchen and get a snack!!!  Art imitates life!!!!

I taught Hand Embroidery last spring and I loved it!  The samplers turned out modern - just as I wanted them to!  Lots of personality in them.  I thought I would teach it again this fall, bought supplies and everything!!  But By My Hand tightened up their store space and there's no longer a classroom.  Sigh!  Oh well, who knows where I would have found the time!

I feel that I was a slacker this year in the sewing room!  The last of the dog-damaged quilts from Portland were made whole again.  And that sucked up alot of the energy in the room.  I am not mentally equipped to repair badly damaged quilts!!  And the dog-lovers have been warned!  Yes, I still love them, even the 4-footed ones!

My 2019 QOV program was ambitious!  We all worked on Sawtooth Stars and I ran an alternate block raffle each month - so making 17 alternate blocks or begging someone else to do it monthly!  We made more money than we thought we would and we did end up with plenty of quilts for the year.  And although I had my doubts about an 'inbred' selection of quilts ... that didn't happen!

Sometimes you couldn't even tell the same star blocks were in them!!  2020's monthly block is a string block aka StashLab's String star.  I'm loving it and the blocks have been coming in like clockwork.  At our December Open Sew weekend I put the first QOV top together - just to be sure it was working!!  And boy-oh-boy did it!!  Gorgeous!!

So my Finished list - 2019 included:

2 repaired quilts
6 wall or baby quilts
4 QOV quilts!!
5 pillowcases for GKids
10 Fabric Post cards for exchanges
1 Queen sized!!
10 ModSquad monthly projects

Not bad for an off-year!!

Just so you don't think I've slowed down too much ... I attended 6 Quilting retreats!!  Finishing School and Bayshore in Bandon;  Brookings Guild and 3 Amigos in Gold Beach; Sisters Week at Black Butte (2nd year!) and 3 Amigos Beach Bums in Crescent City over Labor Day Weekend!!!

P and I joined and worked on Jen Kingwell's BOM thru QuiltMania.  We were keeping up pretty well until they had the reveal ... and we didn't like it!  Darn!  We're going to change it up a bit - or get used to it!!  And oh, my! we bought a boat-load of her fabrics - probably enough to make 5 of the quilts!!!  Oops!

I read 45 books this year. (if I finish the one I'm reading!)  That number is probably a little soft - I have problems writing down the computer books I've finished!  Something about getting them ready to go back to the library helps me keep track!

Favorites:

The Day the World Came to Town  Jim Defede - The Broadway musical was based on this book.  I loved the characters, the story and how good you felt that even on 9-11 there were people in this world that did good deeds for strangers, against all the hate and fear that was blossoming.

Invisible by Andrew Grant  An Army Intelligence Agent goes undercover at the courthouse to solve a murder.

Relic by Alan Dean Foster  SciFi  The last human in the universe is telling our story

The Museum of Modern Love by Heather Rose  - Fascinating story of the famous performance artist Marina Abramović, who staged a show in NYC.  She sits quietly at a table and audience members can participate by joining her at the table - no talking, no touching.

The Book Artist by Mark Pryor  A spy novel with so many twists and turns you can't put it down!

Here and Now and Then by Mike Chen  SciFi  Set in San Francisco where a time-traveler gets stranded and has to live invisibly to save the future.

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles  Our book club read this.  If I had known that Russian literature could be this charming - I would have read more a long time ago! :-)

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens  Another Book Club - fascinating to the last page!!

The Threadbare Heart by Jennie Nash  The description says '...23 tubs of fabric' and I knew that I'd like the main character already!!

We are experiencing a West Coast Winter Storm!  And I am up way too late!  So I may add photos to this later ... or not!  Here's to 2020 where we will do more of our favorite things and pass on the joy of living to everyone we see!!

A little bit of this ... a little bit of that ...

The storms are over for a few days, the sun is out, the seals are back on the rocks, all is well.  I'm finally feeling more like me - that respiratory flu I got was a bugger to get rid of (knock on wood!)

This year was a very busy year.  We took the older Grandkids to Disneyland; I went to Road to CA at the beginning of that trip.  Then, in the fall, I went to the Houston Quilt Show and on a Sew Many Places Quilting cruise ... it was a crazy, crazy year.

Note on links:  Some links have more than one quilt discussed.  I linked all the quilts to that same page.  So read the entire entry you're linked to - you may hear about more than one quilt on this list ... then you can skip the links to that same page.

In 2016 I managed to finish 5 bed quilts; 3 throw sized quilts, and 4 various sized wall hangings!  Plus, 15-20 pillowcases; 8 receiving blankets; 8 pj pants for kids; 6 Christmas stockings and 23 fabric postcards!!

Bed quilts:  Plaid Double 9 Patch QOV
                   My son's College Graduation quilt
                   Yipes Stripes KINGsize quilt for DH for Christmas (see below)
                   Mr K's Big Boy Bed quilt - very well received!! (next time)
                   Mr D's Kindergarten SuperHero quilt

Throws:      Baby quilt for new Great-great nephew
                   Two Disney throws for the Gkids who went to Disneyland
                 

Wall Quilts: Mini Fragmented quilt (see below)
                    Guild Traditional Block Challenge
                     Bayshore Red and White Bento Box challenge (kids quilt)
                     Say Uncle Wool on Cotton Class Project (ribbon winner!!)
                     Dancing in the Moonlight - Barbara Shapel class project
                     and a Woolies Stitch Along Totebag

I got 2 ribbons at quilt shows!! But only read 50 books this year!! More on favorites next time.  I was apparently too busy to read(?) or at least too busy to keep track!  AND I lost weight!  Not as much as hoped, (as if!) but a move in the right direction - I'll claim it!!

Here is the Double 9patch QOV 19 fabric pieced back! Bless my QOV quilter - she said it was fine, she didn't mind at all!

 

Somehow I didn't blog about the Mini Group Fragmented challenge.  We each took a design and fragmented it - handing the project off to the other members to make a part of it.  I'd seen a wall quilt of SF with a line of buildings on you know where (Pinterest!) and I loved it.  I adapted the idea to our condo units sitting on the point above the ocean.  It was a challenge in many ways! It took a village!!

Here's the finished Bento Box Red and White Challenge. Newport has a very active charity project and this quilt went to the Child quilts portion.

Oh the fun I had collecting stripe fabrics with white backgrounds.  Years and years of visiting different areas of the country and shopping with quilting friends ... let's just say it was a million dollar project!!  I saw a stripe quilt on Red Pepper Quilts - I think I started collecting stripe fabrics the very next day!  My DH loved it when he saw the top.  I asked a Long Armer friend to baste it for me and she talked me into just letting her quilt it.  I was going to quilt it with my walking foot.  It was big - 110 x 110 and I think my harp is 10"!!  Thanks C for the great quilting on it. Below is the top on the bed - checking for size.  The color is better in this photo than the ones of it done.  Cheerful - and reminds me of a lawn chair!

Below - finished and on the bed - look, a pillow tuck.  That maybe be pretty 'retro' these days, but is anyone else tired of stacking pillows in shams every night and putting them back up every morning??  Yes, I know it doesn't sound like a hard life ... but I'm glad this one is big enough for a pillow tuck!

Folded back so you can see the simple curved quilting and the surprise stripe on the back.  You'd think I would have used extra squares - but there weren't enough!!  So I had to actually cut more stripes from the leftover fabrics to get more to make one row 110" long!  Totally worth it though, it makes me smile every time I see it!

I have to find my favorite pictures of Mr K's big boy bed quilt.  AND I have to get back to the sewing room.  I'm a woman on a mission this weekend! I'll be back with more tantalizing details of Life in General!! (tee-hee)

And the countdown begins

December 1st! Wow - that was fast! Lincoln is an "almost northern" city that thinks that it isn't! On the first Saturday of December we have the Star City Parade - it had to be cancelled today. We've got ice. We haven't been to the parade for years. We went a lot when the kids were little. I remember sitting on the hood of G's car with my two kids, G and her three kids. [Cars were bigger with flatter hoods back then!] Huddled under blankets with a thermos of hot chocolate.

Then there was the year that my girl scout troop was one of the troops picked to carry the banners announcing each entry. The girls were dressed in angel gear and the wind really whipped that glitter edged wing into their cute little faces. Ouch! That's Miss L - the mischievous angel on the left in the picture above. One thing I discovered about walking with the girls in the parade - on a cold day you can see a bunch of quilts in the crowd. Most were "picnic" quilts but there were a few that were not. "Grandma's best" is not the one you take to keep warm at a slushy parade!

Also pictured above on the right is A as one of the three kings in the annual church Christmas pageant. Another activity we were involved in every year. Something always happened that made you smile. But not like one of my favorite movies: "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever." Loretta Swit is the emergency choir director! Really fun if you can find it!

Decorating commences today - I'll let you know how it went tomorrow.