Bunches of cases

      At our guild quilt retreat in November, I was able to complete sewing the annual Flannel pillowcases as well as some other things. I had washed all the flannel and cut it to size as well as the strips for the little band. I was happy I was able to find great flannel online (Dear Stella, Moda, Northcott, Free Spirit) to make them. Most of them are wrapped and ready for Christmas. I have some extra, which is just fine. The cases are folded in the photos so I could get them all in, they are not that tiny. I kept the sheep one for myself. I adore sheep, wish I had one or two.

A refreshing Maggie Pearl

     Although I finished the Maggie Pearl quilt top at retreat in March, I just quilted it. I did not think a pattern would show up well with all those pieces but did not want do straight lined. I thought of the wandering curves that make up a circle and it was easy to do. It moved along swimmingly and I think it looks good to have that curvy pattern on top of the block pattern consistent with each pieced square. I made a striped binding. Once again, I added a border so all those seams won't be in the binding.
    This is an available comfort quilt.

Choosing binding

All Bound in stripe

Back

A Special big find and reorganization

      All my life I wanted a Barrister bookcase. I grew up in a shoebox ranch in the 50s with all modern cheap furniture stuff and styles. Formica, blonde wood, weird shelves and very little natural wood and hand made character. I know there are those that love that, that's fine, but not me. I saw one of these bookcases as a small child when I visited a friend's grandmother and fell in love. In September, my husband and I went to the Roycroft Fall Festival that has art and antiques. When walking up the stairs in the old antique shop on the Roycroft Campus (East Aurora, NY), at the top of the stairs with I swear a glow around it (maybe some angelic music), was a very fine Barrister Bookcase that had just come in. Also, next to it on the floor was a little black case that I knew exactly what was in it- that story another time. I put a deposit on it and we came back during the week to take it home. The bookcase comes apart as they are modular. It is an early one that has the handmade wavy glass in it. I don't have photos of it then as we took it to my husband's work space and we used Howard's Restore A Finish in cherry to go over all the wood twice. Then I lovingly rubbed Howard's Feed N Wax, two coats. Oh, it is very lovely. It even has a drawer on the bottom.
     I decided to reorganize all my fabric and started with filling the bookcase. Then I moved to all my cupboards and redid all that fabric, labeling and refolding. I had done the batiks and hand dyes a while ago, so I left those alone.

All cleaned up and moved in

All filled with precuts in drawer at bottom

My assistant at the beginning who lost interest when fabric filled up

Novelty and Kaffe labeled for better retrieval

Double wall cupboard

Pieces less than a yard, more than fat quarter

Shelves my husband made for over 1 yd. pieces

Twisting Away

      Finished another Jelly Twist (Cluck, Cluck, Sew) top. It is a fun pattern and easy if you layout each block (I use cardboard sheets stacked) to sew. This time, instead of batiks and white, I used strips given by QuiltDiva Julie and low volume whites for the background. It had a rocky start. Looks real different from the other one, but still fun!

I will add a scrappy border yet as I hate tons of seams in the binding.

Previous Jelly Twist

Ann's Gift Quilt

       One of my best friends has taken up quilting with some assistance from me. She is an accomplished home dec seamstress (I am not). She asked me if I would quilt this quilt which is a present for her son and daughter in law. I do not usually quilt anyone else's work as it is too nervewracking. I did this for her, although it was queen size and double sided. Most of the quilts I longarm are about 60 x 80 finished.
      We went over designs and sketched out ideas. The hard thing is she made a second quilt top for the back. While the idea is lovely, you can never center a back top so it coincides with the front one. I told her to add a lot of white fabric at the sides. The designs are not going to match up. Ok, she got that finally. I did not have any trouble quilting over seams. The front top did not lay flat enough, so that was always a struggle. Her batting had a hunk cut out and I had to remedy that on the long arm because I did not see it when loading. I used fusible knit interfacing strips, ironing it on while on the longarm. I trimmed it, but she bound it. They are getting it for Christmas while they will be here from Perth, Australia.

The Front

The Back

Comfort packages continue to roll out

      Over the past months, I continue to receive referrals for quilt packages. It was good that I had them ready.

     This one, the strips from Quiltdiva Julie, went to a young man with 2 small children that has Stage 4 Pancreatic cancer.

     The Scrap Jar Stars went to a young woman battling nasty Stage 4 cancer.

     This Branches quilt went to a woman from my church with Stage 4 Lung Cancer. It went out so fast, I did not get to take a picture of the bag and contents. It is not as big as I like to give, but she is short. She started chemo last week.

Lots of trees in winter

      The 2024 Christmas cards are ready to be written out and mailed. I was able to stamp, paint, add pastels and glue them all up and they are just ready to write out and send. All the mailing labels on the envelopes. Now just to gather up the strength to write them out!

Painted many strips

Over 100 ready to write!