I LOVE having company!

(I thought it had, and don't know why this did not publish in April, but I'm going to try it again!!!!)

So many fun & busy times were had here in April!!!
Why?, well, because
I had house guests from out of the country!
My Norwegian friends, 
who I met about five years ago at a quilt retreat,
came to visit me!

I'd not seen them for about 550 days...
but who was counting? 😁
From the time I collected them from the airport,
it was like we'd not been apart those 18 months.
We visited and caught each other up with our lives.
We grocery shopped, cooked, shared recipes,
and, of course, we ate well.

Outside the Morgan House restaurant

They were here after Easter, so we shared the tradition of 
one of our family Easter dinners with them. 

making Sun Buns!

We laughed and enjoyed ourselves to the max...
even attending a couple of wine sampling events. 😂

We visited the #1 Zoo in the United States...
THE Columbus Zoo and Aquarium.

We walked and counted our steps together.
We also did some important shopping....,
visiting local quilt shops!

 

And not-so-local shops, too!

The last full week they were here,
we attended a quilt retreat in the Amish area of Indiana.
Where we also visited, ate, laughed, walked;
and shopped those local quilt shops:

Gohn Brother's

Caroline's Quilt Cottage

Just that last week of visiting the quilt shops and retreat and back to my home, we traveled 600 miles!

I love my quilt-y friends and can hardly wait until we meet up again!!
(I may be counting down the days, again!)

Beautiful October

I don't think I have a favorite month,
or even favorite time of year....
But this October, here in central Ohio?
It has been awesome!!!
The weather has been almost Summer-like,
with lots of family fun times,
many special times with friends, too,
some stitching time thrown in,
and even a little fall decor I've put out! 😄

Here are a few of my favorite, Autumnal, little quilts:

Geese in the Cabin small quilt

12x12 Fall Colors, hand tied

Pumpkins and Geese - 
this pattern was in a quilt magazine 
a handful of years ago, 
that I free-motion-quilted on my long-arm

Bringing out and seeing those little quilts makes me reminisce...
Don't you just LOVE all those fabrics???  
Even if you're not a real fan of Civil War era repro fabrics, 
I think they're so home-y, so warm and vibrant.
Those little quilts, above, I made while working at a 
reproduction fabrics quilt shop, The Good Wives Company.  
The Good Wives Co. was a totally awesome shop, with such inspiration, creativity, quilty love, and wonderful people, and we were all just devastated when they closed four years ago.  I feel there's still a hole in our quilt shop community from them closing their doors. 
I'm thankful for my time there and all the quilty friendships made, and still think about them often, and miss their fabric availability, too, as you can probably tell from this writing. 

Do you have a favorite month, or favorite season for quilts??  
What's your favorite style of fabric?
And do you have a favorite quilt shop?
I try to support all the local shops, and online shops, too....
 - and laugh as I say that, 
because I don't truly NEED any more fabric,
or any more projects, either, for that matter,
to add to my Want-To-Make-Someday list.  

Happy, beautiful October to you!
I wish you wonderful Autumn weather, 
crunchy leaves, and plenty of stitching time in your day.

bad bad blogger - UFOs

UFOs ... in fabric, projects, and blogs.  
I offer my sincere apologies to anyone who's been awaiting an update 
from my little part of blog-land.  
All is well here in central Ohio, and there are no excuses, 
I've just not taken the time here to sit down and write on this blog.

Fun with the family, and activities with friends, quilting and hand stitching time, too.... life just happens! Don't know how to go back and put it all into written word now without making myself crazy trying to remember what happened when, 
so I'm just going to start back in, jumping around a little as I come across pictures.

In May, at a quilt retreat, a couple friends and I started a FB group -  
Scrappy Four Patch Friends ... 
using the simple four-patch block. 
We discussed that we really wanted to challenge ourselves to 
step outside our usual fabric box - 
and not necessarily use the fabrics that we are normally drawn to.
 
I have many double four patch blocks made:

 Like 400!!  
(Most of us are making the little four-patch pieces cut at 1.5", and the larger squares cut at 2.5" to make the double four-patch.)
Stitched into rows and ready to press:

Lots and lots of polka dots in double four-patch blocks!
Definitely NOT my usual civil war repros!, but loving it!!!

Such a simple layout, but will be a great look, I think.

If you are interested in joining in, 
you can search facebook for the group 
Scrappy Four Patch Friends, 
and I'll get you added!

Happy middle of September, and hope everyone is doing well!

little swap quilt recieved!!!!

I'd shared previously that I was again participating
in a little quilt swap, hosted by Lori, of Humble Quilts blog...

Well, guess what I received??
A little quilt from the hostess herself!!
How lucky can a gal get?!?

 Sticks and Stones!!!

It was hand and machine quilted, 
and has the most wonderful little binding!

Thank you Lori, for your wonderful work of art!
I love, love, love all the fabrics, and the pattern, and all the
effort you not only put into it, but also everything you've done to host all the swaps!!!
It's so wonderful to find more quilty friends around the world! 💖

You can visit the link up party to view all the swapped quilts here:
Humble Quilts Swap

Little quilt swap

Again this year I joined in on the fun
of a little quilt swap with Lori, of Humble Quilts blog.
Since I'd been working on my 42-Cents Forever Stamp quilt, 
(and I just happened to have a few leftover stamps)
I decided to use them in my little quilt for the swap.

I made it in March, bound it in April, then carried it along with me to a retreat in Indiana, to mail from there, so it got to do some extra traveling!!

I was given a gals' name that seemed not to have a blog or facebook presence, but just in case she did, I didn't share here what I'd made, until I knew she'd received it.

where have I been?

A whole lot going on, but not a whole lot going on...
while I've been absent from blogland.
I'm guessing you probably know how it is, too. 😊
Great times spent with family the last few weeks
and over the local school Spring break.
 
I have continued working on my postage stamp quilt -
42-Cents Forever Stamps quilt,
and it's a top, 
not just thousands of little one-and-a-half inch pieces!!

I love it!! 
And someone may have enough little 1 1/2" squares left over
to make another some day.😂
(pattern from the book 19th-Century Patchwork Divas' Treasury of Quilts)

Happy April everyone!!

March.... March.... March

Sweetie and I had the grandsons over 
for sleepover a couple of weeks ago,
and at the ages of five and three,
it seems as though they can always teach me something.
For instance, did you know that 
March comes after Jan-bary? 
And that Moms and Grandmas use 
the wintertime (wintertime is after Christmas) 
to march around and clean up the house?  
And that's why it's called March - 
march, march, marching orders, you know!  Cracking me up!!

Guess I do normally, kind of use the time before 
Spring arrives to do some clean up. lol
My own 'marching orders' 
(after putting away all the Christmas decor)
is to get out the Winter stuff - snowmen and snowflakes,
wintery table toppers, etc.
And as of today, we are finally getting
some WINTER WEATHER!! SNOW HAS ARRIVED!! 
(Finally Winter! And I'll enjoy it as long as it lasts!) 
But soon, since Spring's arrival is just around the corner of the week,
all that snowy decor will come down and 
it will be time to put out the Spring-y table toppers 
and bouquets, bunnies and chicks.
Do you do a seasonal change over?

In the quilting department, I've also been taking time to continue piecing the
little one-inch stamps
of my 42-Cents Forever Stamp quilt.
Eighty stamp blocks made, and the alternate
piecing strips and blocks are ready to piece together, too.
It does look rather Spring-like,
so I guess I'm March, March, Marching ahead toward Spring!    

Hope you're enjoying your end of Winter, too!

Havine fun working in the scraps.... still,

and totally enjoying the progress!!

Seven stacks of tens,
plus one more block and six strip-sets gathered:

They all still need a pressing 🤣

for a total of seventy-seven!  ...
I only need THREE more stamp blocks (if I figured correctly) !!!

It seems that this particular quilt
has it's hooks in me!!!

 From this book:

All the one inch cuts of  fabric are just
mesmerizing to me.
So many great memories of previously used fabrics,
and shopping trips, and quilting friends!!

Sweet memories! And it's going to be a sweet quilt!!!

scrap play

Scraps.  Lots of small scraps. 
Postage stamp sized little pieces of fabric... 
one inch finished little squares!
I've had this style of quilt on my 'someday list'
for almost as long as I can remember. lol

So when this quilt:

in this book:

was mentioned at the Fall quilt retreat...
well, I was hooked.  
But I wasn't the only one enthralled.  
There were handfuls of us that needed to do this quilt!
There was a movement of sorts. LOL
We all ordered or purchased books.  
We stocked our fabric stashes with setting fabric.
A facebook group was started for stamp-sized-fabric-minded quilters 
(Thank you Rosemary Youngs!!).


After Christmas, I started gathering scraps.
My scraps,

Scraps sent to me by friends:

Thank you Wendy! Constant Quilter blog

The pattern calls for width-of-fabric strips.  

I decided I'd like my quilt to be a little more scrappy, 

so I cut the equivalent of only quarter WOF pieces.  

Equaling a whole lot of scrap play!!!

And here are some of my strip sets:

There are many more strip sets, but that's a good representation.

I'm finding so many old favorite fabrics in working on this quilt,
and a great way to spend some of my leisure time.
Which is where I'll be this afternoon!

Thanks for visiting!  I hope you are having a wonderful week, too!!

smiling, quilting into February

January left Ohio Spring-like,
February came in like Spring-time,
and our Buckeye Chuck, the groundhog, got to see his shadow,
so maybe we'll still get some Winter weather around here
while it's supposed to be Winter time!
Not being snowed in and freezing is NOT
conducive (for me anyway) to getting much quilting done!!!

No excuses, really, but I'm missing my Winter, 
and cuddling under a quilt that I'm hand quilting or binding!!!
It's leaving me not stitching a whole lot with the nice, sunshiny weather. 😎

I've been playing in my Civil War repro fabric scraps a little,
and getting some small pieces sewn into blocks, but slow progress.

I have quilted a few more quilts for others...
here's a recent one, by a new quilter, Heather:

She made a T-shirt for a colleague's daughter's birthday, and it turned out GREAT!
I had fun quilting it, too! Here are a few pics of some of my fun...
Free-hand, long-arm fun:

 Funny story about this raspberry pink t-shirt block -

As I meandered over one corner, I smelled something, but I didn't really pay attention, just kept on meandering.  On the return pass of quilting, I came upon the smell again, and I stopped.  Looked around. Sniffed the air. Did a double-take, and then a double-sniff-in-the-air.  Yep, something smelled fruity!!  
So I leaned over the long-arm machine and sniffed the quilt.  Felt the t-shirt, sniffed again.  And burst out laughing!  It was a scratch and sniff t-shirt!!!  Rather raspberry-like in smell. That had me smiling the rest of that day.  

And I'm smiling again today, as I see the photo. I can just picture myself, sniffing around the long-arm, in the sunny quilting room, thinking about smelling fresh fruit, JUST like I was standing in the raspberry patch at grandma's long time ago.  

Hope your new week and February, too, are bringing you smiles!
Happy Stitching!!

the last of the Christmas quilts 2016

I think this is the last of the pictures
that I haven't yet shared...

Christmas-y quilts for the grandkiddos!
The Grinch quilt for the ten-year-old:

back of the Grinch quilt

Micky and friends for the three-year-old:

back of the Mickey & friends quilt

Charlie & friends for the five-year-old:

back of Charlie & friends

And finally, a little quilt for the two-year-old great-niece -
Christmas cows 😀 :

back of the Christmas cows

That wraps up the last of the secret sewing/quilting from 2016... 
unless I come across more pictures on my FOUND camera!!

I have been cutting fabric strips for the next quilt project.  
And a little embroidery stitching has been happening, too!

The grandkiddos are all here tonight for a SLEEPOVER! 
Fun, fun! Though we're still awaiting the arrival of snow.
Originally when we planned this over-nighter, we
talked about going sled riding tonight 
(instead we took a walk in the Spring-like weather).

Hope your week has been nice,
and happy stitching!!