My maternal grandmother made quilts, but was not known as a quilter. She was an artist and the curator of a museum. Also, an excellent cook and seamstress. In her later life, she traveled across the United States and kept journals of all her travels. Fortunately, her father was a photographer and the family has pictures of her during her childhood.
My mother had inherited one of her quilts and when she downsized asked me if I wanted to keep this quilt. I was honored to receive it. At first glance, it looks like squares sewn together, but standing back, there is a definite pattern.
Each square was bordered with a hand sewn feather stitch.
As I photographed the quilt on the living room sofa, I noticed that the living room rug was one that she hand hooked. I recently took out the carpet and had Pergo put down in two rooms. This rug was in the attic, so I brought it down stairs to use until I could find a new rug. I like it so much, it is going to stay.
Miss Molly, my quality control inspector, had to check the quilt. Yes, she can see through all that hair. That is her winter coat. She will look much different next month when she goes for her vacation and spa treatment.
Have a great day and happy quilting.
Turn dough onto a lightly floured board. Let rest for 5 minutes. I put a bowl over the dough.
I used cheese, pizza sauce, and pepperoni on one pizza. 
I didn’t want two pizzas, so wondered how it would be if I made a dessert pizza using one apple, some raisins, nuts, sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. It was not very good. It would have been better with a pie crust, not a pizza crust. Not wanting to throw it away, I whisked one egg with 1/2 c milk and a little sugar, cut up the dessert pizza and baked it for 30 minutes at 350. Delicious bread pudding.
Usually, I make my own red sauce, but I was lazy and bought a can at the store. There was some left over, so I froze it in little tins. I’ll take it out of the tins, transfer it to freezer bags and put it back in the freezer for later use.
Nancy’s wall hanging was the first one that I received when the swap was over. Her quilts were perfect. It is 15″ x 19″ Another year, she received a small wall hanging that I made.
I always wanted something from Shirley. She is a master of the mini quilt. This one is 17″ x 19″ I had watched her work on this quilt at another group meeting and really liked it. Every year, at the Yankee swap when I got something from Shirley, someone took it away from me. I thought that I would loose this little quilt, but the last person in the swap chose something else.
I went home with Claire’s quilt the last year that Claire was with us. She moved to Florida and I have such fond memories of her. I could have swapped for other items, but I wanted a memory of Claire.
The first was made from two paper pieced flowers. I don’t remember why I made them. They have been in my stash for a long time. My sister in law gave me a toilet paper cover for Christmas. It was knit in Christmas colors, As pretty as it was, when the season was gone, I put it away. The two flowers looked about the same size so using the knit piece as a pattern, I designed a cover. I enjoy adding piping to quilt pieces so piped around the top. It looks like Spring.
Last June, I had a class at the Vermont Quilt Festival with David Taylor. He taught Invisible machine applique. It is an quick,easy, and fun technique. The piece, Under the Apple Tree, was completely appliqued in the class. Then it has sat in my ufo stash until this week. It just needed the border added, quilting and binding. It is 12″ x 12″ so didn’t take long.
When I made the Garbage to Gaa-barge series, I belonged to a group called the Tuesday night quilters. We had lessons and sewed challenges and round robins. At one meeting, a member was making a baby quilt. The fabric was unusual. It was not baby quilt fabric. When it was finished it was awesome. A baby would love to bright colors.
My Christmas cactus has outdone itself this year. It has been blooming continually since Thanksgiving day. It must like how I care for it. It is in an east window. At night, I pull the insulated drapes around it, leaving it to the evening window chill. It apparently likes to be cold at night.
Basket is a Nancy Pearson pattern. It is hand appliqued and hand quilted. 25′ x 25″
Rose is also hand appliqued and hand quilted 18″ x 18″ It has a double row of piping on the border.
Stone Soup was made from a stone soup challenge. A bag was filled with different criteria from fabric stashes and then traded with other quilters. When I opened my bag, I found that there were two different colorways. One was red, white and blue, the other was pastel. They didn’t seem to fit in one quilt so I made two and joined them at the top. They fit over the back of a chair. 
We had already purchased the tulle and cut it into 10″ strips. 
The strips were rolled on a diagonal and the bottom stapled.
The rolled strips were stapled and glued to a circle that was made from a pizza box. Two holes were punched into one side of the circle for the wire to hang the finished wreath.
There were three rows of rolled strips. The middle was made from brown burlap that was glued onto a smaller circle.
Each of us had different color tulle and the sunflowers were very different. We had a great day with fun, laughter, and fellowship. Not to mention the most delicious lunch.
Several years ago, I demonstrated the Lazy Girl Flying Geese ruler It makes four geese at a time. Again, I did the demo five times. There were a lot of cut out pieces. Those pieces sat for a long time until a Guild challenge was to finish a UFO. I pulled the pieces out and finished the quilt. 
It looks as if one light green jumped from one fabric pile to another. It’s o.k. as that color is in both pictures.
The spiral runner was made with from a pattern “Spicy Spiral Table Runner” by School House Quilts. It is made with a 10 degree ruler. The fabric was strip pieced and cut and then sewn back together. Organization is the key to keeping the strips in order.
This table runner is made from a “Piecing with Poppers” pattern by Sharon Mayers. The poppers make a big difference in the piece. I pieced the back the regular way and the front with the poppers to show the difference. The “poppers” really do make the quilt “pop.”I have other Sharon Mayers patterns and will make them in the future.
I was having a dinner party the first part of March and thought a green table runner would be great to celebrate St Patrick’s Day. This pattern is a free download from Connecting Threads, I sewed it together a little different than the instructions. It called for cutting each piece separately, I sewed the sections in a strata and then cut the strips.
This runner was made with the flip and sew method. It was quilted as I pieced it. I’m not sure which pattern I used as I have many patterns with this runner.
This is another Connecting Threads pattern. It looks difficult to make, but in reality is very easy.
