another friend and surprise...

Another great friend - and another great surprise!!!!

A friend that I quilt for stopped by 
and surprised me with a very generous gift!

THE cutest turkey fabric!  
A matching orange-y/red fabric! 
THE BEST MUG with quilt-y slogans all over it!!
And a PINK project box!!!! 

See? The CUTEST turkeys!  
And that mug!! I'm almost afraid to use it, it's so cute!

As you can see, my newly received pink project box
has my newest project fabrics and blocks -
my tiny Shipshewana houses!

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you dear friend!!!
Christmas has arrived early!

Quilty friends are THE BEST!
You know what I'm talking about, right?

a nice surprise and friends that surprise

Are you the same as me, 
in that you have a good friend that you've never, ever met in person?

Remember (waaaay) back in school when we had pen pals.
Write a letter in your best handwriting, seal it into an airmail envelope, stick an airmail stamp on it, and mail it off.  And then wait for WEEKS and WEEKS to get a response back.  We did grow a friendship that way. Continents apart and correspondence only a handful of times a year, and a good friendship was born.

Today, in this century, electronic mail is the norm, 
and I'm still making friends by correspondence.
Albeit with a handful of correspondences an hour, not just during a year.

I met a new friend when I joined an online Prim Quilts group, as she became the group moderator.  We've shared pics of our quilts, projects, our homes and our lives.  Being hundreds of miles apart, we've never met in person, but through this correspondence we've become friends.  
I mentioned on this friends' quilt-in-works picture that she shared that I had the same project on my list of "someday quilts", and that I had once had the pattern, but had lent it out or given it away, but I still really liked it.  She offered me the pattern after she was finished.  Of course I said yes, that would be great.

A few months later,  
she asked if I'd like the whole, unfinished project...
that she was just over it.  Done. 
My question was, are you sure?  
Too many hours invested, fabric invested, 
cutting blisters and needle-pricks were involved.  
She said YES - she was sure - just finished.

Well, fast forward a few weeks, 
and this Humongous envelope arrives in my mail box!!!
(: My Sweetie, of course, thinks I've ordered another whole fabric line. :)
I excitedly open the package and, OH, what a surprise!!
I had forgotten the size of the blocks and quilt itself from my long-ago wish list.

Look at these blocks!!! and there is border fabric AND extra fabric!!

The remaining applique pieces are cut out, ready to needle-turn!!

Gorgeous fabric choices and excellent needlework!

I LOVE IT!!!  I love it all!!!
I am so blessed to have such a wonderful friend.
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you for being in my life!
And thank you for such a generous gift, Karen!

I don't promise it will be finished any faster here than it would have been there, but I do and will treasure it! 
(And another smile for the day:
you should have seen my Sweetie's face when he saw me open a package of another unfinished quilt - hilarious!)

Happy Stitching to you!  

PS. I have been told before that I collect UFOs.  
True.  So true. :)

building tiny Shipshewana houses...

little THREE INCH HOUSES!!

Aren't they just the cutest??!!

My messy process, above, 
is a little dab of glue on the paper to the first fabric piece, 
then the usual paper-piecing from there, using 
Judie Rothermel's trimming ruler for the little seam trimming.

I don't know if I'll do a house a day, as some are doing, 
but they sure are fun to fit in here or there during the week!

Many thanks to Hanne for the pattern
(Her pattern of her own design, is available at:
 Hanne's Quilt Corner -Tiny Shipshewana House),
and to May Britt (AbyQuilt) for helping me get going on this!

Along with Hanne and May Britt, there are many other gals from around the world that are making these tiny houses so that when we all return to Shipshewana, Indiana for the Dear Jane retreat in November of 2015, we'll share our quilts of our own little neighborhoods!
 

royal friends and scrap built houses

You meet the best people through quilting, I think.
And those friends get you into THE best quilt-y projects!

First up: Royal Friends

Last Autumn, at retreat in Shipshawana, Indiana, 
a friend and I were going to a quilt shop (imagine that:) .
We offered a ride to a couple of other quilters (they are from out of the country).
Little did we know that those out of country quilters were royalty.
After fabric shopping, they acquired their royal headdresses!

Here is a picture of the new friends in the back seat,
riding like the royalty they are - 
the Norwegian Queens in their crowns:

 I was riding up front (as co-pilot) with our driver:

(She is even wearing her driving goggles and cabbie hat!)
And, our royal bounty for the day:

Secondly: Scrap Built Houses

So what do I see online recently?
Those very same royal friends 
shared pictures of their foundation-pieced, 
three-inch houses!!!

I never knew that royalty could be such troublemakers!!
             That's my way of saying that I let my arm be twisted.  Again.
OK, full confession here - there was really no arm-twisting involved. :)
The royal plan is to bring a finished quilt top of little houses 
to the 2015 Shipshewana fall retreat.  

We have a year, and I'm full in - 
Building Little Shipshewana houses!!

I'll soon have more to share on my little, scrap built houses,
because I'm starting my construction this week!

See?  That's the kind of stuff that quilting friends 
(even royal, quilt-y friends) get you into!
Stash building AND house building!!!!

culling the herd

I thought of this today as I was in the sewing room...

an oldie that still makes me chuckle:

A city lady and her traveling companion 

were riding the train through the countryside 

when she noticed some sheep. 

"What a nice bunch of sheep!" she remarked. 

"Not a bunch, herd", her friend replied.

"Heard of what?"

"Herd of sheep."

"Of course I've heard of sheep." 

"No, a sheep herd." 

"What do I care what a sheep heard. 

           I have no secrets to keep from a sheep!"

Hee hee.

So back to the culling of the herd -

Culling the herd is a farm girl reference
to thinning the number of the animals in a herd.
Or in the case of this quilting, farm gal - 

culling my Wooly Stash Animal.

aka:  'downsizing of the wool stash' ,
to help make my sewing room easier to access.

All of this started when I saw that a friend 
posted on facebook that she was looking for a place to find 
wool scraps.
I have wool scraps.  

 Bushels (yes plural) of wooly scraps.

Though this friend lives in another country,
I decided that I could surely help her out. 
I piled, cut, folded, 

squished, packed, and shipped.

Boy do I feel better.  
I've culled the wooly herd! 

(I know she reads my blog, but I'm sure she'll love this when it arrives in a few weeks time.)

Lucy Boston

I'm continuing my Lucy, Patchwork of the Crosses journey, 
slowly drawing to the end of this great quilt project. 
Connecting blocks into rows, 
and the rows into a quilt top.  

I've found that I'm not happy with 
the remaining blocks that I already have made.
Rather, the predominant color in the blocks.
It seems that I have a lot of red and pink blocks left.

So instead of putting these reds/pinks all in an outside row together, I'm making a few new blocks (there's NOT a fabric shortage around here or anything:).
Here is one of the replacement POTC blocks
that I don't think I've shared before:

MyLifeIsAStitch.blogspot.com
Lucy Boston POTC fabrics - Almost to the end!

And the fabrics from which it was made:

MyLifeIsAStitch.blogspot.com
Lucy Boston POTC fabrics

Sorry that I don't have any selvage info on the top two pieces, but the bottom floral/medallion fabric is from the Cocheco Mills IV collection.

I think I'd be ready to start the quilting process
if I'd just stop making more blocks!!! :)

Lucy, Lucy, Lucy!

signing your work

I love making gift quilts...
especially if they are for babies.
But I'm sometimes, OK, always bad 
at labeling the quilts that I make to gift.

Because most of the time I'm binding them on the drive to deliver them, it seems that I don't have time to get a label on them.

Here are the quilts for the new great-nephew and great-niece that I delivered this past weekend:

To remedy this labeling downfall on my part

(because I know that I'm bad at labeling),  
I instead quilt in the pertinent baby info...
baby's name and birth date, my name, county and state.
Here are examples:
the gift for Ben

and the gift for Lucy:

Finally, here's my example of how I quilt in my info with my name, relationship, and my info:

It's all done free-hand, usually with the same thread color that I've been quilting with, so it doesn't stand out  (I do usually use a blue/water-out marking pen so I can make sure I get my spacing correct before stitching).  
Most gift recipients don't know that I do this, so at some point, many calendar pages past the birth date , some catch it and are surprised.  My family members know that I do this, so always look for it.  Which is good - checking to make sure I've stitched in the correct info! :)

Do you label your quilts - gift or kept??
And what method do you use?? 
I'm looking forward to hear your secrets to getting your quilts labeled.

Happy Stitching!

my I Spy quilty gift

This is the quilt that I made for the newest great-nephew:

My version of I/Eye Spy,
using the 16-patch and X blocks.

loopy quilting and crayons for the backing

I didn't happen to have a yard and half of setting fabric that I thought went well with all of that scrappy/eye spy/busyness, so had to get some fabric from a friend (Thanks, Janet, for coming to my rescue!!).  She had some on hand that wasn't as white as what I had in my stash... (remember, this quilt was being gifted to a family that lives very rurally and has well-water.  And in some places in Ohio, that means high iron content, so orange sediment and orange coloring on everything!, even with a water softener SO NO WHITES in the quilt).

It finished at 48" square, and had more than 48 different fabrics for I/Eye Spy entertainment... bugs, houses, corn, candy, birds, letters, sports balls and equipment, mice in string cheese, spiders, lizards, and the list goes on and on.

Well, it entertained me as I was making it, 
so I'm hoping it will entertain the little guy for many years to come.
Truth? I'm still enjoying it, just looking back at the pictures!
I'll probably will do this layout again.
It may even be my new go-to for baby quilt gifting, I like it that much!

9-patch swap blocks are here!

A great, squishy package arrived in my mail box,
and I couldn't imagine what it was...

I didn't remember ordering anything...
I did a double-take - 
it looked like it was addressed in my hand-writing.
Then it struck me - my blocks from the 9-patch swap!!! 
They arrived!!!
I had almost put them out of my mind, so it was a nice surprise! 

 50 pairs  - all 100 little, three-inch (finished) blocks!!
Thank you to all the bloggy friends 
from across the nation and around the world 
that made these wonderful little nine-patches!
They are all gorgeous!
All different fabrics and colors - 
I don't think that there are fabric repeats in any of them! 
Also, I don't have many of the fabrics from which they were made!
Amazing!

Also a BIG thank you to Barb (of Fun with Barb blog)  
for coordinating and doing all the swap work!  

So now to decide what to do with them.

Too many ideas! 
And, not enough time, as usual.
I have a baby quilt to get finished -
which I'm delivering Sunday at the family gathering...
Hopefully sometime this weekend I'll be able to get to play with them.
 
Happy Weekend to you.
Hope you are getting time to play with your fabrics!

another meandering

Oops - forgot to share this finish from a couple of weeks ago!
I got to quilt this for a friend: 

Very cute little animals and trees, 
so I did a forest-like, leafy, loopy meandering:

 and I think it's traveling to Alaska to live!

seeing double - meandering

I recently got to quilt a baby quilt for a friend.
Well, really, I got to quilt two!
Since she was making one quilt, 
she went ahead and made the second - a twin quilt,
though not for twin babies.

Isn't that a great and smart idea?
To make two at the same time?
Since you already have everything out and going...make the second to have on hand  (you know you're going to need another baby quilt gift sooner or later!).
I wish I was that together when I was making a baby quilt!!
Or that smart. :)

Here are the two quilts, quilted:

I ran them on the same long backing.
Cute fabric and cute block layout:

(I'll have to remember that block layout, also.)
 Do you make two of the same when you make a small gift quilt?

It's so nice to have smart friends! 
Hopefully some of it rubs off on me.

Happy Stitching!

selvedges,

selvedges...
I don't salvage them.  Ha Ha. Amusing myself :)

I don't collect them for myself.
Sometimes, if I'm thinking when I trim fabrics, I'll save them for a friend.
But, I don't usually even pay attention to selvedges.

But then I saw these!:

CUTE selvedges!! Riley Blake-Witch Hazel

And the fabrics are really cute, too!

more favorite Lucy Boston POTC - blocks and fabrics

Happy October!!
I've been working on the addition 
of row SEVEN to my Lucy Boston quilt!!

And this row has More of my favorite blocks!!

I don't know how each row can have more of my favorites, 
but it does.  :)
Maybe it's because I love so much the fabrics that I'm using.
Maybe it's because of how the fussy-cutting changes the look of the fabrics.
Or, maybe it's how the fabric colors compliment each other and draw your eye to explore each block.
Anyway, I thought I'd share a couple more of my FAVORITE
Patchwork of the Crosses blocks and the fabrics that I used...

My Life is a Stitch . blogspot.com  
Lucy Boston, Patchwork of the Crosses, adding row seven!!

 Fabrics in bubble gum pink and greens!

My Life is a Stitch . blogspot.com  
Lucy Boston, Patchwork of the Crosses, adding row seven!!

The pink fabric on top is Marcus Fabrics, by Judy Rothermel, the middle green piece is also Marcus (by Rothermel I think), and the bottom dark green stripe is an Andover, by Jo Morton.

My Life is a Stitch . blogspot.com  
Lucy Boston, Patchwork of the Crosses, adding row seven!!

My Life is a Stitch . blogspot.com  
Lucy Boston, Patchwork of the Crosses, adding row seven!!

In the above picture, as these were quarter yard fabric cuts, I don't have much in the way of info on the line or manufacturer.   Only the word "Divers" on one, and Pattern #606 on the other... BUT, I did write on the selvedge (at time of purchase) that it was Newcastle Fabrics, Divers 1863.  Later, I searched online and found that these were by Margo Krager, from the fall of 2011.  The line had not only these gorgeous peach and madder reds, with a little brown in it too, but also from the same line of fabric was this fabric:

My Life is a Stitch . blogspot.com  
Lucy Boston, Patchwork of the Crosses, from row six, a one fabric block

the lovely purple with red medallion that I used to make this block:

My Life is a Stitch . blogspot.com  
Lucy Boston, Patchwork of the Crosses, from row six!!

a block with all one fabric, from the last row I added in August.


So you see, with those great fabrics to fussy-cut, 
how can I not add more to my favorite blocks list???

Back in a few with the row addition!
My thanks to everyone for the compliments and for sharing your Lucy blocks with me!
I just love, love, love seeing all the different looks this block can have!
Also, I have a story to share soon about my friend (Mary Jo), her Lucy quilt, and their trip to England to visit family!!

Happy Stitching!

Flags, times 4

For September, and the second installment 
of Flags of the American Revolution sew-along,
(hosted by Lori of Humble quilts)
we were to do the 
four flags with tree appliques.

This sew-along is from the book: Flags of the American Revolution by Jan Patek.
With each block/flag there is a brief history written by the editor - Edie McGinnis.
I'm really enjoying the history lesson as I do each block!!

Anyway, these were 
FOUR good sized applique blocks,
but, I got them done on time - whew!

Specifics:
Each block finishes at 20 inches by 10 inches.  
I'm using cotton on cotton, 
with YLI silk thread to hand-applique.  
And, I still need to press my blocks (because I don't like my hand-applique smashed flatter than flat and not look like applique, I won't press these until they are together as a quilt-top, ready to quilt).

Appeal to Heaven, Block #2, and Bunker Hill, Block #3:

And Pine Tree Flag, Block #4 and Pine Tree, Block #8:

I did take a few close-up pictures so you can see my fabrics:

For the lettering on the Appeal to Heaven block, 
I used a Valdani pearl cotton, size 12, color O540, a variegated dark green to black.  
I used it single thread, and did a whipped, running-back-stitch
which is my favorite hand-embroidery stitch, 
that my Great-Grandma B taught me long ago.

October's 'assignment' is five flags with pieced stripes! 
Sounds like a lot of blocks for one month, 
but they do look pretty easy (and fun).
Can't wait to get started!