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!

Back to business

      I feel like a huge weight has been sitting on my head and have been unable to write and post. The longer it went, the harder it is to get back to it. I want to write and post, but I feel like I was stuck in cold molasses. I have been working on lots of things and I will post photos of them, but I am not going to try to go in order, but just get them out there.
    I am posting what is on my wall at the moment- a very scrappy In and Out top (free pattern, Jo's Country Junction). I had made one before, but a ton of strips from Quiltdiva Julie had me try a scrappy low volume background one. I think it looks happy which is what I was going for.

     I think the Helene disaster has affected me deeply. I visited Asheville in March and drove through WNC and was stunned by the beauty and people. When I saw the places I had seen and photographed just totally devastated and left to fend for themselves, I tried to do what I could and still am. I sent quilts to Keepsake Quilting which they distributed with help (over 3,000), sent support to Samaritan's Purse (mudding out, rebuilding), Operation Rescue (brings donated campers to families in tents), Valley Hope Church (Christmas presents for families), Mountain River Campground (rebuilding), Montgomery Sky Farm (feeding thousands) and others that I vetted. All of these places have great followups on Instagram. Please let us not forget these fellow Americans who have lost literally everything, especially in winter and at Christmas.

Kaleidoscope Korners and Judging

      I finished sewing the Yenter kaleidoscope blocks and put them on the wall. The borders will go on after the blocks are sewn. I tried half orange and half turquoise. Yuck! I then put all the orange up that the pattern calls for. Better, but then I found the identical fabric in blue and green on a big Quilted Twins sale. So, I will wait until that fabric comes in before I sew anything else.

     Also, got the results for the Quilts Unlimited Show from The View in Old Forge, NY finally after a 5 day delay. No more show entries for me.

Flannel Fabric plans

    Every year I make members of my family flannel pillowcases. I used to buy woodland themed fabric in the Adirondacks on vacation from a store in Inlet, NY. They sadly retired, closed, sold the building and a great tradition vaporized. I have searched for another source for a while and was able to get a bunch of it from Hancock's of Paducah and equilter. Some even on sale. I used to love the quality I bought- it was mostly Moda and Northcott, but they don't seem to be making it much anymore. I like to feel the fabric before I buy and can't do that online. If anyone knows of another source, let me know. It seems plaids and pastel baby print flannels are the majority of what is out there, not useful to me.
    All the fabric I bought seems ok except the blue plaid- not a great texture for against the face. It is all washed and ready to cut. I usually sew all them on retreat in November all at once. Easier that way and I leave all the mess there. I will use the gray dot and green dot as cuffs for a lot of them. I use the taco or burrito method to sew them. I don't own a serger, so I use French seams.

Yenter Kaleidoscope

    I think I have only bought 4 kits in my whole quilting career. I like to make my own choices and tweaks. Two of the kits I remade differently. One I changed from raw edge applique to set in strips. And then I saw this Floragraphix V Jason Yenter border fabric with pattern at the Quilted Twins and bought the fabric. I read the instructions many times until I understood how the borders were cut and layered. I made  kaleidoscope quilts before that were cut from the full fabric (Maxine Rosenthal book), so this was different plus they are much bigger. I bought the orange as in the pattern photo, but I am wondering if a turquoise would be better.

Would turquoise be better than the recommended orange? I only have a scrap of this turquoise, used it for color idea.

The pattern and fabrics cut.

Have to press seams open on this type of block!

Crumbs combined play together

     For a long while, as leader enders or when I was frustrated with something, I sewed these blue crumb blocks with a red diamond center. I tried all sorts of ways to work them. I finally decided I would just make 7" Unfinished blocks and pile them up. After a substantial pile of them, I stuck them on the wall with all sorts of combos and added borders, like piano keys. Nothing jelled. Finally, I thought, keep it simple and just put them in rows and columns. Looked okay. Then I used a scrappy border of blues so I did not have all those seams in a binding (I really dislike tons of seams in a binding- just doesn't lay right).
    I decided to go real crazy and enter it in a show in at the View in the ADK. A couple of years ago my entries were rejected and I was crushed. Because the deadline was Aug. 30th, I forced myself to do a simple straight line design to give it texture and get it done. Ok. Then I entered it with lots of problems with computer entry forms. Sept. 9th I find out whether it or the pink floral OBW were rejected. If so, I will not try this again. It is expensive and wrenching because you don't know why it was rejected. I just wanted more people to see it in person. I will put it in my guild show next year anyways.
    So here is Ordering Chaos, 51 x 63.

Back

Low volume blocks ready to load!

    Another quilt project gifted by Quiltdiva Julie is the low volume strip blocks. I cut them diagonally, added burnt orange strips (fabric also gifted by her), and played with a number of layouts until this one emerged. I just love the fabrics used for the strips. Of course, I had to cobble together another row to make the design work.
    Well, I webbed it and sewed on a cool border print (Bohemian Rhapsody). Now it goes to the quilting line up. Hopefully my ruler work from the upcoming class will be able to bear fruit on this top! Yes, the border fabric is gradated, not a lighting issue. I like that. Don't know what the binding will be. I never decide until it is quilted and trimmed. Then I audition fabric next to it.

Diamonds look terrific, but ruler work needed

     On September 6th, I was supposed to take a ruler class with Kim Werth of Rochester at my Nolting dealer. Why? Because I stink at them. I don't know how to cleanly quilt holding onto a slippery ruler with one hand and moving a big longarm with the other. If I make the plastic ruler sticky, it doesn't move well. When quilting on the diagonal, you have to use a ruler. Didn't know that when I bought a longarm. I do all hand guided quilting and am not changing. However, Kim postponed the class because her father suddenly passed away the day before.
    Instead of the class, I went to cardiac rehab as usual. What wasn't usual is that the treadmill I was on with just a couple of minutes left-the motor exploded with sparks, pops, a couple flames. None of us were injured, but it did me in for the rest of the day- I was useless. I thought at first it was gunfire due to the flashes and loud pops as I dove off the moving belt. I am glad I was not electrocuted!
    The last quilt I did with rulers, a 3 dudes design from strips the Quiltdiva Julie sent me, is all on the diagonal, which I love, but needed rulers to quilt it. The diamonds are lovely, quilting- well, I tried. It is all bound and ready for referral to fly out the door.
UPDATE: The quilt package is made is going out the door to a man who has young children and is gravely ill with cancer. The referral came from a friend who is the 4th grade teacher of the man's oldest child. I had an extra block that I used for the tote bag that holds the quilt and goodies.

Another out the door!

     I received a quilt referral from a woman at church who has a niece undergoing treatment for aplastic anemia and a bone marrow transplant who is 22. Yikes. She is very scared and having a hard time with treatments. They basically kill everything off inside you, then add the bone marrow. Has to be a horrifying experience. I sent some photos of what I had, and the woman picked one. I washed and made the bag and kit up for her and she delivered it. I understand the young woman is pretty ill and no progress yet.
    This was the quilt and package.

    This was the quilt package. I actually had an extra block from the quilt to make the pocket on the bag. I sewed it on the premade tote bag with the classic Bernina 830 Record in the background as it is my only machine with a freearm.
    Originally, I made the quilt inspired by one I saw in a show. It did not turn out how I was thinking, but it is pretty. I was going for a floating effect. I have a hard time using black fabric. I used different black prints here, but it is still too harsh and did not give the floating floral effect I wanted.

Quilting detail