Another Old Photo

Are you tired of photos yet?  This is my Great Grandfather's family.  He is standing up on the left.  There were 9 children in this photo.  Not all lived to adulthood.  I actually knew several of his brothers and sisters.  Pretty cool, huh?

I would like to get a professional copy made of the two old photos.

Namesakes

This is one of my brothers, who happens to be named after the relative in the photo in the previous post.

We sure have kept the memories alive.  I named my daughter for my Great Grandmother.

I guess all that I can hope is that some day someone thinks as highly of me as I do of some of my relatives!

Relatives

Yesterday afternoon my cousin called and invited me to come over and look through old pictures.  This is a picture of my Great Grandfather.  I was very fortunate to have known him!  He lived to be 91 years old.  He came over from Europe in 1908 when he was only 8 years old.  Pretty good looking guy, huh?  :)

Blue Nursing Home Quilt Quilted

Over the long weekend I put this quilt on the frame and finished up the quilting.  I just did straight lines in a random boxy pattern.  I like the way it turned out.

Home

We were out of town for Thanksgiving so I am a day late in wishing everyone a good holiday.  I have so much to be thankful and am truly blessed.

Mad Hatter

I finished up this hat last night.  It's just rows up and down of single crochet, then I folded up the bottom.  It's very thick and I think it will be very warm.  Not sure who it will go to yet, or if anyone will even want it!

Another Addy Picture

The good thing about this picture is it does not include a chewed up quilt!  I went upstairs to work on Mom's curtains last night (which I finished! woohoo!) and while I was up there, Addy got into some mischief.  She got into the garbage, the dirty dishes, on the counter, and in the clean laundry!  She was a busy dog and wore herself out, so she decided to take a nap, I guess!  Now, so that you don't think she is a small dog, that sofa is a full size sleeper sofa, and yes, she takes up that much room!

It's a good thing we love that dog...

Red Beret

Would you believe that I crochetted this hat?  I surprised even myself because it seemed like it would be well above my skill level.  I am very pleased with the results and plan to make another one very soon.

Curtain Call

I got a call from my mother asking me to make her a set of curtains for the windows on either side of her front door.  And could I make them before Thanksgiving?  ho ho ho.  Yeah, well, they won't take too long.  They are just narrow curtains with casings at either end.  I sent her this picture to see which fabric she wanted.

She chose the second one, the one with the white background and little black accents.  I cut the material out last night and intend to do the sewing tonight.

There is actually a story behind that fabric.  It has been in my stash for a very long time.  Probably since the 1980's.  I think I bought it at Wal Mart.  I liked it so much I bought several yards of it, and also bought several yards of it in reverse - black with white designs.  My intentions were to make a sun dress.  Hmm.  Yeah, well, you know that sun dress never got made, right?  hahaha

Another Addy Patch

Since I was repairing one quilt, I thought I might as well repair another.  Addy took a chunk out of the edge of this string quilt a while back and it has been waiting patiently for me to repair it.  I did that last night.  It's back on the quilt rack in the front room and getting plenty of use with these cold evenings!

I finished the binding on Joyce's Pink Log Cabin Quilt.  It is done!  Going to take it up to her Thursday.

Just A Little Bit More

Here's a pic of the pink log cabin I'm taking to my mother in law over Thanksgiving.  It needed the binding yet in this picture.  Since then I have attached the binding to the back and to two sides of the front.  It won't take long to get that all done and it will be ready to go.

Somebody Tell Me Why I Have A Dog

Addy decided the Paducah 2014 quilt tasted good, apparently.  I was NOT happy.  Not happy at all.  But, to be honest, I make the quilts to be used and if something like this happens, it just happens.

Here's the repair job.  I guess I could have matched up the materials and binding, but that would have taken a lot of time and effort.  It's fixed and done.  Now, to go get that dog a few more chew toys...

Two More

Yeah, I know I should be quilting, but these hats have interrupted things for a little bit.  I promise to get back to quilting asap.  In fact I wanted to go straight downstairs after work yesterday, but Johanna walked in right after I got home, then we went out to supper, so that shot my plans.

So instead I made these two hats!  The smaller one is for Johnathon and the larger one was originally for Ben but Johanna said he would not wear it.  I asked if she would and she said yes, so she got it!  Going to make Nick and Ev each one, but think it will be a different pattern.  Working on different things right now.

Since we didn't order pizza last night, I'm going to try my plan again.  The go straight downstairs part, at least!  haha.  Then order pizza when the quilt comes off the frame.

Tomorrow night I am going out to supper with my sister, so anything I do will be later.  Doubt I will work on any quilting tomorrow night.  As long as I get the binding on it over the weekend I will be happy.  Need to take it up to his mom over Thanksgiving.

Baby Hats

I got sidetracked...  Saw a pattern to make newborn and preemie hats for babies.  It looked like something easy I could crochet, so I whipped these two little hats up.

I'll donate them to the local hospital.

I am trying to find a pattern to make a quick crochet hat for Johnathon, too.  I might just modify this pattern.

Tonight I would like to go straight downstairs again and finish up the quilting on the pink log cabin, or at least get most of it done.  And I've already decided tonight we are having pizza for dinner, so I'm not cooking!

Got Down To It

I was in the mood to quilt the moment I walked in the door after work tonight!  I went straight to the basement and started quilting on the pink log cabin that's loaded on Gemma right now.  After making one pass tonight, I turned it and will only have one more full pass and a few more inches to finish!  I could have kept going, but I needed to do a few things upstairs, so I am content with what I did get done.

We have had rain for a couple days now and the wind is really picking up.  Think we might get some storms tonight.

Final Owl Pics

Here is what the owl quilt looked like when it was finished:

Sorry about the bad lighting.  I did quilt through the owls with the all over meander.  I used a grey thread, and it didn't take away from the owls at all.

Pink Log Cabin In Progress

After finishing the little owl quilt, I got right back to the frame and loaded up the pink log cabin.  I was able to quilt half of it over the weekend and feel pretty good about that.  Just doing a simple meander, but it looks nice.  This top was made years ago and I am finding that my borders are a little bit wavy.  Not stressing over it, just easing them in where needed and keep on going.

Weather is turning colder this week.  We are supposed to have rain for four days straight starting tonight.  That doesn't bother me as long as we don't get the wind with it.

We raked leaves yesterday for several hours and I'm paying for it today with allergies!  I'm also paying for the marathon quilting I did over the weekend with a sore wrist.  Going to take some medicine that should benefit both of those issues and hope for the best!

Thanksgiving is next week.  I was thinking of making a chocolate lava cake in the crock pot for dessert, so I thought I would test out the recipe yesterday to make sure we liked it.  It was good, but not exactly what I was expecting.  Not sure I will want to make it for the holiday or not.

Quick Post

Here's the top for the baby quilt.  It's 36"x42".  Going to try and get it done tonight.  I would like to make one more owl for Johanna to put in a frame with the blue material as a background, then when the baby is born, add his name inside the frame.  That just sounds cute to me.

And if anyone is interested, here's a list of what I named all the owls.  Quit laughing....  :)

Yup, that's Who's Who.

What A Hoot

These cute little guys are getting turned into owls!  Johanna needs a baby quilt (by Saturday!) for a shower.  She informed me of this on Tuesday, so I found a very cute pattern on Craftsy and bought it.  I have added all the beaks and eyes and have all the other parts ready to be sewn down.  I named all the owls as I was making them.  Here are Steve, Henrietta, and Maggie:

I just made the eyes out of scrap fabric and sewed them down, same with the beaks.  The pattern had buttons for eyes, but I can't do that for a baby quilt.  It was a lot of fun picking out fabrics.

It's A Start

This morning before I left for work I attached one side of the backing to the longarm frame.  Tonight I hope to finish loading it so tomrorrow I can get some quilting done on it.

Back It Up

Last night I put together a backing for a top I have had done for quite a while.  The top is a log cabin I started many years ago when we were camping for a week, and finished a while back with some borders.  It's a good sized top and will be nice when it's done.

I used some material I had bought the remainder of the bolt from Miller's out in Arthur on a visit earlier in the year.  The top has different pinks and neutrals in it and the backing fabric is white with tiny red dots.  Had to get creative to make it big enough out of the yardage I had, but it is going to work.

I would like to get it loaded onto Gemma either tonight or tomorrow.  Wednesday I don't have to work, so it would be a good day to get started on the quilting.  Of course, Ev asked me to help him rake leaves Wednesday before he goes to work.  We'll see if he still wants to do that, and if so, I will just have to quilt when he leaves for work!

Planning to make a big pot of spaghetti sauce tonight.  Also thinking I need to make a pot of stew pretty soon.  Getting to be that kind of weather.

Lucky Seven

We had a great time in Arthur yesterday!  There ended up being seven of us that went.  We came from all directions and even had a friend from Tennessee join us!  That was Marla's sister who was up visiting for a few days. 

One of the nicest things about yesterday's trip was that we also had Sharon from Country Home Quilting with us.  She is from the area and knew a couple of places to visit that we didn't.  And she also introduced us to a new to us restaurant, which turned out to be very good. 

I had a lot of fun and bought my share of fabric, of course.  It was so nice to visit with friends, browse the shops, and enjoy a meal together.  Definitely a good day!

Bear and Fish Rows

Tonight I was able to get the blocks sewn into rows for Johnathon's quilt.  Each row has six blocks in it and there will be eight rows.  Four rows with mostly fish in the centers and four rows with mostly bears in the centers.

Also did a little bit on the pink potholder.  I think that I might actually have it figured out now.  These folded star potholders are a little time consuming but turn out real pretty.

Anticipation

Eagerly anticipating my trip to Arthur tomorrow!  It is always so nice to see friends and spend the day with them.

Hoping to get some sewing done tonight after work, but no promises.

Is It Really November?

The temps have been so warm for this time of year, it is hard to believe we are in November!  It was in the 60's today, which is unusual.  Guess we better enjoy it while we can because I think some pretty cold weather is on it's way very soon.

Tonight I have some errands to run after work, so I doubt I will get much sewing done.  Didn't do any yesterday either.  It will get done eventually.

This weekend I am meeting friends in Arthur.  Looking forward to that trip!

The Process

The above picture is the back of a scrap of material that I marked on to help with placement in making the Amish Star.  I only marked one because I wanted to make sure these marks were correct, or if there was anything I could do to make the instructions clearer.

The center part went down fine and lined up with the markings, as did the first round of the dark color.  The above picture shows the first point on the second round of the dark.  I first placed it in the wrong spot, AGAIN, and had to stop myself and change it before sewing.  I almost made the same mistake as what I did on the blue one.

This is as far as I got on it last night.  It was 9:45 and I was ready for bed, plus I didn't have any more squares cut for the points!  I am planning to draw full lines on the next one, not just hash marks.  That will really help me with placement, I think.

There are so many other projects I need to be working on instead of these.  But they got ahold of me and I just couldn't stop!  Kind of like those little wonky star blocks a while back!

Potholder is Done

It's done.  Not at all my best work, but it was a learning process.  The way the instructions were written on the tutorial I followed were difficult for me to understand.  This does not mean they were difficult - just that I found them to be that way!  haha.

Anyway, I finished it and put binding on it last night.  It now resides in the drawer next to the stove, ready for use!

Been having a little trouble with the 401 breaking the top thread.  Not sure what's going on there.  It did it towards the end of making this potholder, so I'm thinking it was because of the extra layers of fabric.  I switched over to my old Kenmore to finish it and everything worked out fine.  May need to put a different needle in the 401.  Not worrying about it.

Little Bit Closer

Went upstairs this morning and sewed a little on the potholder.  I had to dig out some batting scraps first.  I have plenty of batting downstairs by Gemma, but I wasn't going to run down there if I could find something upstairs.  And I did.  What I was really looking for was my stash of insulbrite, but didn't come across it right away and had to keep moving or I would have been late for work!

Anyway, I put two layers of batting and a backing on the star and went around the outer points and all around the edges.  The smallest diameter measurement is 8 1/2" so I'll cut it out in that size circle, then bind it.  I may add a little more quilting inside the star.

I just realized I will lose the 'star' on the backside once I cut the circle and put the binding on, so I'll have to outline the points inside somewhere.  Whatever works, this is jus the practice piece!  And I end up with a new potholder out of it.

Let It Go

I was digging around in my vast collection of material, looking for pieces to use as the foundation for the potholders.  These pieces won't be seen at all, so it is a good opportunity to use up the ugly ducklings, or pieces I really doubt I would use.

I finally settled on these two, but it was hard to decide!  I just have a difficult time letting go for some silly reason.  Anyway, these two scraps will get cut into roughly ten inch squares and then marked on the backside with placement lines for the folded points.

Time Change

These twice yearly time changes are a pain in the patoot to get used to.  Kinda dragging this morning.

I did attempt to fix the Amish Folded Star by adding pieces where I misplaced them.  Here's what it looks like now:

I also deviated from the instructions I saw by sewing down the flaps through the centers before the batting and backing were in place.  Since this is just a practice one, it was getting on my nerves.  And it seems each example of how to make this does things a little different, so I don't really think there is a 'wrong way'.

That material in the back is just a scrap that won't be seen.  I'm going to cut this into a circle and make sure it doesn't show any of those empty spaces on the last round of points.