Design...floor

Last week my daughter was visiting and she commandeered some of my red fabric and made this Dresden plate. It went together very quickly but then she had to pack...and leave :( before she got finished.

Since she wants a border of red squares around the outside of her dining room 'doily'.(It's for the middle of her table.) I had to get out the Irish chain exchange I organized many moons ago. Trying to pin a date to it is hard....We moved into this house 15 years ago and I have an envelope in the box addressed to me here but the postmark is impossible to read. I'm not even sure if it was before or after Brian's death. I suspect before since I was depressed afterwards, but I had no time before...but that usually doesn't stop me if I have a bee in my bonnet.

So I got the box out and now I'm trying to decide what on earth I was thinking. There are 32 of the pieced blocks completely finished. There are 60! of the background blocks finished. The notes I have say; need 32 and need 31. So I go to my hand-dandy- EQ7 and figure out how many blocks I need for a quilt.

28 Pieced blocks for a quilt 99X110. To used 32 I would have to have a quilt with 8 rows which does not work with an Irish chain, you need an odd number of rows so it is symmetrical...oh, well this great mystery will remain unsolved. Lesson learned, I hope, date your notes with a year and a little information about what you are thinking of concerning the quilt.

Judy has her design wall up and I've linked up with her post here.

Applique Thursday

I am still delinquent in my monthly applique block; just a little stuck on June. Ideas are there and I've even started it. Then the carpet cleaning happened and all the 'stuff' was brought downstairs. I found the 1/4 finished block 2 weeks later. The pattern I"d drawn a couple days later and then the pile of fabrics. Everything is still not together so I am posting one of my old blocks.1990.

The pink is hand dyed silk.
I'm linking up with A Quilting Reader's Garden Applique Thursday.

applique bee

I joined an applique be about a year ago...I've attended 2 times. I do get marvelous e-mails with photos of their show and tell. It also makes me want to get my needle out and work on my Baltimore project. Here is another picture from a 1990 project;

I think I stopped working on these when it became apparent that I would have to plan a layout and I was intimidated by the idea. I may be mature enough to handle that job now.

On a personal note band camp has stated and Jeffrey (17) has to be at the high school from 7-11 and 12:30 -4:30 each day. Marching in the hot sun in the a.m. and then practicing in the band hall in the afternoon. They are required to wear sunblock, shirts, hats and sunglasses. So far no one has fainted or had to go in for heat exhaustion. They also each have a water bottle and have regular water breaks. Jeffrey LOVES marching band. I have my knitting in the car now and get to drive back and forth again. When I need to wait I knit and do not mind at all.

My married children are coming to visit...an extra 10 people, some little (6 boys 2-8 yo)some big. we will have a lot of fun but I may not blog much...I am gathering grandmother materials; paper, paints, glow sticks etc...The month of August is a very full month. :) :) :)

Baltimore album applique

This is the first needle turn applique I ever did. The green is one piece of fabric with the large rose bud dimensional and the small one's not. I learned a valuable lesson. I was stitching away and did all those tiny curves where the leaf joins the stem with no problem, my neighbor was obviously not as good as I was since her little curves were fraying.... I patted myself on the back and told myself I much better my sewing was than hers. However when we started another block and I used the same fabric she had been using I had the same problem, fraying in the tight corners. It was the fabric, not the seamstress. Both fabrics were purchased at quilt stores... Choose your fabric wisely, a tight weave will applique much better than a loose weave.
Here is the back...

I remember the instructor telling me that my stitches could be a bit bigger...I finished this in January 1990. When I had 4 young children. I found that if I got angry or frustrated (so rare!) with the children I could stitch on this a few minutes and I would calm down....I did several applique blocks that year. Eventually I'll get back to it....

OPAM

Her are the books, finished, that needed to be done for Christmas 2010.The M is for Lewis, our youngest, newest grandbaby. The e is for Landon our grandson that will be having his first birthday very soon. Carter get his first r, then Jimmy gets his y and finally Liz gets her ...just because she begged, ornament.
I count this as a finish. I would have liked to get all of them finished for the next 14 years; but that didn't happen. November is going to be over with so soon that I thought I'd just get this out of the way (that, and my camera is going to Scout camp with my son.)
I could wait to count this as a finish when I finish ALL of the books but since there are no OPAM police I decided finish for the year is still a FINISH.

One Project a Month or OPAM

Here is another finish for January! I started these books over a year ago and have blogged about them here. This is the second complete set; for our oldest grandchild. the plan is to get all of the current grandkids their sets before next Christmas. Two down 3 to go.

quilts for december

It's time to put some Christmas away but wait I haven't blogged about my quilts yet. I believe this is a 'Little Quilt' pattern. I made one, then my Mother made one and then my little sister, who does not normally quilt made one. It is finished.
This is from an exchange that I organized, well from 2 exchanges, one I organized one a friend organized and I made 2 quilts. This small one and a large one I'll show later. This one is almost finished. The border isn't quilted. Road to Oklahoma.
Having my boys climb the tree and hold quilts works fine for small quilts but not for large ones. Sooo... they are on the roof here. This is a sampler that I won at quilt guild at least 15 years ago. I won it as a top and had Vivian long arm it then I quilted it in the ditch just around the sashing. It is finished.
This is the back of the sampler quilt. It has the same print but in black as the sashing that Luci Speers put on the top. It doesn't look square but it is.
I read a blog about January being the month to work on WISP (an acronym for Works in Slow Progress) I'm going to get the Road to Oklahoma finished next.