A New Year

I wanted to share the Quilts of Valor I presented to my son, Mike, and daughter, Kari, at Christmas. They were both surprised!

Another year is about ready to begin. It still amazes me how quickly the days, weeks and months fly by. I wish you all a very Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas!

                                                     Merry Christmas!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I spent a fabulous few days at The Jane Stickle Quilt Retreat in Shipshewana, Indiana last week. One hundred and twenty quilters from all over the world sewing, laughing and sharing all in the same room! On Thursday evening, over
half of us donned our pink, sewing themed pajamas from Target and had our photo taken together. That's a lot of pink in one place!

On Saturday, we watched all day as the first snowfall blanketed the area and kept us inside for the most part.

At this retreat many of us sewed little dresses and shorts for children in Africa. The final total was almost 50 dresses and 7 shorts. This is one of the clotheslines that was hung.

Finally, a couple of pictures from Yoders Department Store. Five quilt blocks on the outside of the building and oodles and oodles of pre-cuts waiting inside.

 

                                       Wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!

Pumpkin time

Fall has arrived and so have the pumpkins! This local market has oodles of them in all sorts of colors and sizes.

I haven't had much progress to show lately. However, just attended the October Sleep At Retreat and finished another Whatnots quilt. This one was a lot of work, but oh, so worth it! It took me almost three days to get to the top stage. Nothing difficult, just a lot of steps. Sixteen 4 1/4" unfinished blocks became...

this top!

Also finished the Half Square Triangle block for the month. Three down and nine to go!

Boo to You!

We have had a few days that felt like fall. So I thought this Halloween project might be a good choice  to work on for Kathy's Slow Stitching Sunday. I pieced the churn dash blocks at the retreat. It's ready for some pumpkins and stitching now. Of course, next week the temps should go back up to the 80s, so I'd better stitch quickly. Don't you love the Red Button Quilt Co. patterns?

Retreat Sewing at The Cottage

Another Sleep At Home Retreat at The Cottage this week!

My goal for this retreat was to sew the Whatnots quilt for the next club meeting.  The churn dashes are 3" finished.I really enjoyed making this one.

In addition to finishing that top, I was able to complete the extra pattern using the 1" strip leftovers. Both quilts were fun projects to sew!

My pillowcases were turned in for the challenge. My lot included four sports, four Halloween and two Christmas themes. These will go to children fighting cancer at Mott's Children's Hospital in Ann Arbor.

This month the first block was due for the Half-Square Triangle Sampler. Blocks are due at the retreat each month. I had a pile of Mary Engelbreight fabrics that I am using. The blocks are all half square triangle units and the quilt uses 8 fat quarters plus background to make them.

Happy Labor Day Week-end!

I hope everyone in the states is enjoying their Labor Day Week-end!

This has been my hand project this week. I have one for each month of the year.When the stitching is done, I will add patchwork to make Fright Night. It's a fun and fast table mat.

We have a local challenge to make Halloween and Christmas pillowcases for Mott Children's Hospital in Ann Arbor. I have fabric and did get two done so far.

Jasper and Annie have been especially cute this past week. They send their Happy Labor Day wishes.

                  Linking up with Kathy for her Slow Stitching Sunday!

Another Slow Stitching Sunday

Somehow a whole month almost slipped by between my posts. How does that happen? I may have been negligent with my posting, but I have been working on projects.

Today I finished the binding on my alphabet quilt from Moda's Spell It With Fabric Designer blog hop last year. I used a jelly roll to make the letters and a bold alphabet print for the backing.

During the last Sleep At Home retreat I finished another patriotic top. While trying to fix a couple of misplaced blocks, I had all kinds of help from Jasper.
After relocating him to his own chair next to mine, I was able to complete the top. It just needs a couple of borders now.

I've been sewing Time Warp Stars, too, and really need to lay them all out for another group picture. There is one star to do and I'll be up to date.

Spent a couple of days at the AQS Show in Grand Rapids. It's always fun to see friends, all of the amazing quilts and vendors (did I mention vendors).

We were fortunate to be in Chicago taking in two Tigers/Cubs games at Wrigley Field. And we won them both! It's been a brutal season, but a faithful
fan sticks with the team through the good and the bad.

Linking up with Kathy's Slow Stitching Sunday.

Slow Stitching Sunday

One more block hand pieced so that makes six - halfway there! They are getting a bit more challenging.

I also sewed a little nine patch quilt for Kathleen Tracy's July small quilt challenge. Nine patches are my favorite blocks so I couldn't pass up this opportunity. My quilt has 1 1/2" nine patches and finishes 10 1/2" x 12 1/2".

Linking up with Kathy for her Slow Stitching Sunday.

More Slow Stitching

Those fabric pieces from last Sunday are now sewn together to make blocks for April and May. Getting June and July prepped now.

Then I needed borders for my patriotic quilt from here. It took longer to press this top afterwards than it did to sew it. (or so it seemed)

Jim and I visited the Castle Museum in Saginaw to see a Lego display depicting buildings from Saginaw. It was amazing! I can't imagine how many hours and the skill involved in this undertaking.

Linking up with Kathy for her Slow Stitching Sunday. Have a great week!

Some Hand Piecing

I was sorting through several piles of projects (and I have plenty of them to go through) and found a BOTM project from 1997. Three blocks had been finished before it was put "in the pile" for whatever reason. The blocks were hand pieced. It was either get rid of or finish, so today I prepared the April and May blocks and will try to finish this UFO before 2016 rolls around.  The fabrics will take you on a trip down memory lane!

Also finished the first five rows for the Temecula Quilts Summer Sampler. Half way done now! Several friends and I are doing the blocks as they were in the original quilt.

Linking up with Kathy for her Slow Stitching Sunday.

Catch-Up

I've been playing catch-up with the Temecula Quilt blog summer sew along. The fifth week was given on Monday and I'm one block shy of finishing row 4.

Also made more Time Warp Stars to catch me up on those blocks. Don't know where that shadow came from on the first photo.

            And finally, my little Hen Pecked quilt is big stitched and bound!

              Hope you all find some time to stitch or sew this week-end!

Happy 4th of July!

                                     Happy 4th of July everyone!

June was a whirlwind month of activity. We had a graduation, a wedding, a trip to Ohio and Kentucky and a surgery. Looking forward to a slower pace in July.

A couple of Time Warp Stars were added to my pile.

This is my brother, Jim with his beautiful daughter, Amy. She had an outdoor wedding with Lake Michigan as the backdrop.

On the way to the wedding, we passed this building which had us both laughing. Love the cow print awnings over the windows!

I hope everyone enjoys the holiday week-end!