I have been to New Hampshire, Vermont, back to New Hampshire again, and now I am back in Maine.  It’s been a lot of driving, but well worth it.

While in Vermont, I spent the night at a very nice B & B and then attended my daughter’s wedding.  It was wonderful to see family, get a new family,  and make new friends.  The wedding was so much fun.  Children were welcomed with gift bags and lots of games.  It was like a big family party.  Two small children, one was two months old, the other just under two years old were attendants. There was also two little girls who were not flower girls, they were fairy princesses. They had flower crowns and wands.  Also there were two little boy ring bearers.  The children were so well behaved and cute.  They knew exactly what to do.  The bride and grooms grown children and their spouses or partners were all attendants also. 

The wedding was held outside.  There were a few chairs for those who needed them.  When the guests came through the gate there was a sign telling them to choose a quilt and pick a spot.  They sat picnic style as families on the quilts.  If you notice, there are a few Miss Rosie quilts on the fence and in the trunk.

 

 

 

While I was in New Hampshire, I took pictures of several wall hangings. I’m not sure if I have shown them before.  The Mariners Compass quilt was made several years ago.  It was not paper pieced.  I know that I didn’t know that technique at that time.  I noticed that I used some of the lightning fabric from “A Wild and Crazy Night With Suzanne.  I must have had some left over. This was made about the time that I decided to buy extra fabric and create a stash.

Have a great day and happy quilting.

 

I like making challenge quilts.  This challenge was fun.

We took the first letters of our names.  My letters are  BSM.  Then we assigned a color, a quilt pattern and a quilting pattern to each letter. You could decide which technique went with which letter.

 

 

 

Mine was easy  For B, I chose color.  The quilt is brown, burgundy, beige and blue. I had never though to put those colors together, but they played very well and made a pretty quilt.

For S, I chose the quilting pattern, stippling and swirl.  Stippling is very relaxing to me.  It is one of my favorite machine quilting patterns.

For M, I chose the maple leaf pattern.  This was an easy pattern to make as I had just made a maple leaf wall hanging for a  Concord Monitor article.

This is a very small quilt. It was a pleasure to make it.

Have a great day and happy quilting.

 

Melissa’s quilt is finally pin basted and ready to quilt.  As I was eating breakfast, I realized that the kitchen table was a good size for pin basting. My regular basting table is in the garage.  It is a rainy day and cold and damp in the garage.  I think that I’ll stay inside.

 

The clamps fit on the edge of table.  They held the two long sides.  The backing and batting was clamped on the ends, but the top was a little too short.  I pulled the ends as I pinned to make the top taut also.

 

 

 

I probably use more pins than I need to use but the pieces are not going to move when I quilt.

The pins are all placed, but not shut.  I do that later using a grapefruit spoon as an aid.

Here the pins are all shut  

If I forget to close a pin, it stands up and is very obvious.

 

 

 

The background fabric is a beautiful white on white batique that I bought at the Bittersweet Fabric Shop in Boscawen.  As I was piecing the quilt, I realized that the design is separated feathers.  I think that I will quilt around the feathers and use a few swirls to connect them together.  I don’t know what I will do with the melons.  While I’m quilting the feathers, I’ll make a decision about that.

Have a great day and happy quilting.

Well, I’ve done it again. I took a break before I basted Melisa’s Quilt and stumbled upon a you tube video,  Laura Ann Cola was showing how to make a woven quilt.  The quilt uses nine fat quarters and one yard of a solid background.  I did have to add the border fabric and the backing.  The pieces were 10″ long and different widths.  I could cut that out of the Japanese fabric pieces.  It is all straight sewing.  No matching seams.

It is such a unusual quilt and I really liked it.  I knew that if I didn’t make it now, I would never make it, so I wrote down the instructions and started cutting. Then, I started sewing,  It was so easy and fast.  I had the middle pieced in an afternoon.  I sewed the triple border today.  Now, I have another quilt in the “ready to quilt” pile.

This quilt would  be very nice with thirties fabric, or Christmas fabric, or solids,  It would be nice with stripes, although the pieces would have to be fussy cut.

It would be perfect for a Guild sit and sew day.  Most could go home with a finished quilt top.

I still have to baste Melissa’s quilt.  Oh, well, maybe tomorrow.

Have a great day and happy quilting.

It was cloudy and cool today so I decided to stay inside, not do gardening, and get caught up on the Splendid Sampler blocks. It was too cool to sit on the porch swing and sew on the Grandmother’s Flower Garden.

It was a very productive day.  I not only finished the three remaining Splendid Sampler blocks, but I finished  the latest Moda Block head block.  I had cut the pieces out yesterday.  Then I got really busy and finished zigzagging the edges of the flowers on Melinda’s Quilt.  I started that quilt in a class on fusible applique with Sue Pelland at the Vermont Quilt Festival.  There was just a little bit more to do to finish it.  Now, I can baste the backing and batting on the quilt top and quilt it.  It will be nice to have something finished.

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Clamshells designed by Helen Stubbings

 

 

 

  Milk and Cookies designed by Rebecca Bryan

 

 

 

   Balance designed by Wenche Wolff Hatling

 

 

 

It is great to be caught up on all the long term quilts, – Splendid Sampler and Moda Blockhead 2,  The temperature quilt is up to date.  Dear Jane is still sitting in her box waiting for me to make another block.

We are supposed to have another thunder storm tomorrow, so I did go out and pick the raspberries.  There were more that I got a few days ago and it looks as if there are lots more to come.  I’ll freeze some.  They will be so good next winter.

Miss Molly enjoyed her day off from sitting on the swing and checking the neighborhood.

Have a great day and happy quilting.

The day lilies are beautiful.  I look forward to them every year.

      

Even the ditch lily is pretty,  

 

 

 

This is the Splendid Sampler block #5.  That doesn’t mean that I have made all five.  I’ve only made one other.  I have three to make up sometime.

This block is called Point Taken.  It is designed by Susan Ache.  Susan says “Who says that a star has to have points,  Chopping off points is part of the design. ”  I’m not sure that I like chopped off points.  Maybe in the whole quilt, it will fit in.

 

Have a great day and happy quilting.

The orange ditch lilies are all over the place.  It is good to see the yellow day lilies back in their spots.  Hollyhocks are stating to blossom.  Also the Marguerites.  The perennial geraniums are almost finished.  I did hear that if they were cut back, they would blossom again.  I’m going to try that and see if it works.

 

I made the Moda Block Head #5 just as it was in the pattern and didn’t like it.  It is a 24″ block with 8″ corners.  The corners looked too large.  Yesterday, I checked the Moda blog and saw pictures of the block that other quilters made.  One had stars in the corners and the middle.  That was much nicer.  Today, I made the block and am very happy with it.  I’m glad that I don’t have to follow someone’s pattern and can add my own twists to it.

 

 

 

 

Have a great day and happy quilting.

I had worked in the garden yesterday and was reading a book for a while. All of a sudden there was a big clap of thunder.  I had intended to take a shower as I was going out for the evening.

 

Miss Molly had already gone to her safe place.  If she sits in the corner, she can’t see lightening and maybe the thunder won’t hurt.

 

 

I thought that I could take a quick shower before the storm really hit, so I grabbed clean clothes and went into the bathroom.  As I was washing my hair, I felt something down around my legs.  Miss Molly, who absolutely hates baths, was in the shower with me.  She was sopping wet.  If I hadn’t been in such a hurry to get ahead of the storm, I could have given her a nice bath.  That will teach me to not shut the door.

Summer is wonderful.  This afternoon, I picked the first crop of raspberries.  There are a lot more that will be ready in a day or two.  It pays to prune and weed in the spring.

 

 

Several years ago, I had a class and made a Hawaiian quilt.  It was supposed to be a wall hanging, but my walls were full.   I added large triangles and appliqued the pattern on the pillow fold down.  It was made before I did machine quilting and is hand quilted.  The quilt is echo quilted every 1/4″ in the center.  The applique pattern in quilted in the triangles and then echo quilted.  One evening, as I was quilting, my Dad remarked that I would never finish that quilt.  There was too much quilting.  I not only finished it, but went on to make many more.

Have a great day and happy quilting.

The temperature quilt is half done.  It will take one whole year to finish it as I make one block each day.  The bird is the high temperature of the day and the sky is the cool temperature of the day.  The colors are not my usual colors, but I pulled fabric that I usually bypass to make it.  I’m thinking of making a chart of the fabrics that will tell the temperature range for each fabric.  It’s in the thinking stage now, but I’m sure some idea will come out some day.  I have a nice fabric set aside for the middle border.  The black fabric is in N. H. I will bring it up to Maine the next time that I go back and forth.

The farmers have worked for two days from dawn to dusk and all the hay is baled and hauled away.  Most was baled in the small bales, but there are a few big round bales in the fields.  I took a picture of the men working.  The view is beautiful  I really don’t stop and look at it as much as I should.

This is the last of the 14 charity quilts that I made this year.  I still have lots of fabric to make more.  

Have a great day and happy quilting.

It was a beautiful day today.  Sunny, cool, crisp with a little breeze blowing.  We went to the pond for a little while.  I sat and watched the others take the first swim of the season.  They said that the water was warm.

Molly had company  She entertained three gentlemen friends.  Odie is a labradoodle.  He is a gorgeous dog.  Just the right height for patting without leaning over.  Ziggie and Mr. Gibbs are Schnauzers.  It was hard to get a picture of all of them together.

 

 

 

 

It was fun to sit on the porch, shuck peas and watch the hayfield across the road being mowed.  I expect that they will bale the hay in the next day or two.  Farmers work very hard.

Several years ago, I had the pattern for a mystery quilt.  I went to a local quilt shop for the fabric.  I had one piece of fabric that I wanted to put into the quilt and was looking for additional fabric to go with it.  Suzanne was working that day and I asked her to choose the fabric for me.  When the quilt was finished, it was wild.  It looked like a very stormy night with black clouds and lightning.  I named the quilt “A Wild and Crazy Night with Suzanne”.  She does know what I named the quilt.

That was the second and the last time that I asked someone else to choose the fabric for my quilts.

Have a great day and happy quilting.