Quilting

Wow. I have no idea where the weekend went. It whizzed by and I didn’t get much done, unless you count socializing. So, I’ll have to fall back on work done last week!

TheFirstChild invited me to go with him to look for apartments last weekend, while SweetiePie was working. The drive was 1 1/2 hours each way, so I took along a quilt that’s been in the binding pile for a few years.

Pretty sad, huh? Usually I manage to get my quilts done if I get them that close to binding, but for some reason this quilt and one other one have been waiting for awhile. I finished the binding on our trip with time to spare and now the quilt is being skillfully modeled (well, except for that left side that she’s let flap around) by my pine tree model.

This quilt is from a friendship block exchange that the quilty peeps and I did in the 90’s. Every two months we would each make 4 copies of two blocks and meet to exchange them. Each block is a 4 inch square.

When we were exchanging our blocks, there was a group of women in Indianapolis that did the same thing, and my setting is similar to one that was done by a lady from that other group.

For the most part, the four of us quilty peeps all have the same blocks. I think I threw an extra “tester” block or two into my quilt. For example, I don’t think the other quilty peeps have this little beehive block that I tested. I think I’ve mentioned before that I’m partial to beehives, having been born in the beehive state.

But they do have the covered wagon block that I did as a nod to my pioneer g-g-grandparents. I think I’m the first quilty peep to finish my quilt, but in their defense, I sent my quilt out to be hand quilted. Because, I’m realistic, and I knew that if I were to quilt this, I’d be lucky to ever finish it.

Didn’t the quilter do a great job? I love how she quilted each block individually, to echo the pattern of the block.

I love this quilt — every time I look at it, I’m reminded how much fun I had with the quilty peeps when we would get together and exchange our blocks. Quilty Peeps — we need to do this again!

There’s so much work to do around here that finishing up old projects is the closest I can get to actually getting something done. I’ve seen so many beautiful quilts while reading all your blogs — it makes me hungry to start something new!

XOXO,
Anna

Have you all had a good weekend?  I’ve had a fun, relaxing weekend.  I didn’t mean to spend all day cleaning yesterday — I was just going to clean out the little cupboard that holds my yarn.  After that I planned to spend the day quilting.

But, when I got the cupboard cleaned out, I looked around and decided the family room needed to be cleaned.  After that was all cleaned, well, I could see the messy breakfast room, so that had to be cleaned too.  And then the kitchen.  You get the idea….one thing led to another and before I knew it the day was gone.  Do you ever do that — start cleaning and you can’t stop?

Then today, I washed and folded the fabric that I bought in Chicago last week.  Then I decided I’d go see MeMum for an hour or two and work on the binding to the quilt we tied for SweetiePie and TheFirstChild at the bridal shower.  Well, HBO was running all the episodes of John Adams and we don’t have HBO, so I bet you can guess what happened.  I got sucked into John Adams and watched the first three episodes (it’s wonderful!)  I’m happy to report I got the binding all done though!  And did I ever show you the back of the quilt?  We found this cute print with home and family words on it.

There wasn’t enough for the whole quilt, so It’s just a big giant 40″ x 40″ block in the middle of the back.  Anyway, after all that John Adams and sewing, I came home to prepare for my monthly week in New Jersey.  I made the beef stroganoff casserole and the chocolate chip cookie mix that Jewels gave us in Chicago last week (they are yummy — thanks Jewels!)  Now my lil’ family will have a few goodies to munch on while I’m away this week.

Oh, and I almost forgot — look at the goodies I got in the mail this past week!  Sweet Vallen sent me some Rose Water and it needed some padding in the envelope, so she wrapped it in that fantastic silky fabric with the big red flowers — isn’t it cool???  Thanks Vallen!  I can’t wait to try the rose water — I’ve seen lots of great recipes on the web that use it.

And that’s not all — Darlene and Thimbles sent me and Mama Bunny that adorable pincushion with some cute pins.  I was so happy to see that Thimbles didn’t forget his Mama!  I love pincushions, and this one is so cute with all the sewing things on it.  Thanks Darlene — I love the way it’s stuffed — will you tell us what you stuffed it with?

Thank you, thank you Vallen and Darlene for being so thoughtful and kind.  {Smooch}{Smooch}
I hope you all have a fun week planned.  I’ll be working in New Jersey and catching up on all of you from my hotel room!

XOXO,
Anna

Wow! You are all awesome! I had great fun reading all of the six word memoirs that you left in my comments. You’re a very clever group — thank you so much for taking the time to leave me some inspirational reading.

I have no idea where this last week went. I think it’s been five lost days. I was gone all week for work travel, so there hasn’t been much crafty inspiration going on around here. (Although, courtesy of the O’Hare air traffic controllers, I had enough airport time to finish the messed up monkey sock pictured in my previous post and start the second sock — I heart you, ATC!)

Anyhoo, I thought I’d show you some pictures of one of MeMum’s quilts. These are pictures that I took to put in the blurb book that I made her for Christmas. MeMum is a fantastic quilter, and if you only know one thing about MeMum, it’s that she’s a perfectionist. Pretty little hand-quilted stitches and perfect points.

She made this quilt for MyDadLovesMeBestSister, quite a few years ago. Each tree is made with a different black and white fabric. Three of the trees have one dark red triangle, so technically, the quilt isn’t entirely black and white. MeMum made this quilt back when black and white fabrics were pretty hard to find and it’s sort of a family joke now, ’cause whenever we go into a quilt shop and see a great collection of black and white fabrics, she always says “You have no idea how hard I had to search to find so many different black and white fabrics.”

There is a really pretty quilted feather edge running all along the outer borders. When MeMum marked the quilt, she flipped the template some odd way and one long border was backwards. She didn’t notice it until she had that whole edge quilted. All those hours of beautiful quilting — if it were me, I would have said — “Look, it’s just like the intentional mistakes left in the Amish quilts!” But not MeMum — she unpicked that entire border and re-quilted it. See what I mean? I told you she’s a perfectionist!

Eventually, I’ll make a section on my projects pages for MeMum’s quilts. I’m woefully behind in updating those extra tabs up there. In the meantime, you’ll probably be seeing a few more of her quilts in blog entries.

XOXO,
Anna