Two more UFO tops done

The many checkerboards were connected with the large HSTs -- with a wonky star in the middle of where they came together.  Below the star and to the right you can see that not everything is really a checkerboard.  I used up some already pieced larger squares as well.  And a nine-patch is to the upper left of the star.

Here is the whole thing, currently hanging on the kitchen wall.  Not bad, I figure; and since there is very little "girly" about it, probably can go to a boy.

For the last three days I have been finishing a top that was started inn a Bonnie Hunter workshop last March.

I think I made 12 blocks during the workshop, and then continued on with leaders/enders.  They are all now together, except one which went into the orphan box.  I just finished the borders.

Since I started this project earlier THIS year, I don't count it as an ancient UFO. . .but  I set myself the goal this year of finishing my new starts (except three), so I needed to finish up this one.

I'm adding these two to the bag for Margaret's Hope Chest. I will drop them off on Wednesday, and they will take care of quilting and distributing them.  Maybe I can get one more top together for them by Wednesday.

Sara

Gratitudes:

* Charlie is on a mission trip to New Orleans for five days.  Glad he is able and willing. 
* Women's Chorus mini-concert last night went well
* leftover pizza for lunch

Bonnie's workshops

Monday's workshop was on Cathedral Stars. Here are the twelve blocks I finished during the class time. I made one change to Bonnie's design, changing the corner four-patches in the Jacob's Ladder block for additional red HSTs. Oops! one of those red triangles is pointing in the wrong direction!

Tuesday we worked on Star Struck blocks. What a nice, simple unit to make with a spectacular result! I finished 16 that day.

Sara

Gratitudes:

I did need an injection in my eyeball this time around, but in 24 hours I was fine.

Charlie's good care while I can't open that eye.

NCAAM basketball continues to be exciting

Bonnie Hunter visits

Yes, here she is HERSELF!

I've had a wonderful time with Bonnie Hunter staying at my house while she taught and lectured to the West Michigan Quilt Guild. Here she is with me in my kitchen.

Yesterday we had the workshop on Star Struck, and lots of blocks were made. I myself finished 16, but apparently I didn't take a photo. Nevertheless, I now have the starts for two more quilts that need to be finished before the end of June.

Sara

Gratitudes:

Large crowd at the Guild meeting

Bonnie's lecture on "Scrap USER's System"

Lots of good sewing time over two days

I turned in 6 neonatal quilts and won a pretty FQ

Finished before vacation

I finished the paperdoll quilt for the neonatal unit.

There were some extra dolls at the end of the rows in the fabric, so I made a tight row of friends for the back of the quilt.

Then the big ones, the Christmas quilt for my oldest granddaughter: simple nine-patches with alternate snowballs.

Second the mystery Bonnie Hunter supplied between Christmas and New Year's. She called it "Carolina Christmas" and used red and green. I changed the green to black.

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Sara

Gratitudes:

Bonnie Hunter is here,doing two workshops, and staying at my house!

I finished twelve blocks of "Cathedral Stars" at the workshop.

Beef stew made in the crockpot while we had first workshop.

Third Finish for April

Just finished the binding, labelling and hanging sleeve at 5:30 pm. on "Mountain Majesties in Blue". This was another idea from Bonnie Hunter, but my blocks were quite a bit smaller than hers. This measures 39" x 59". The fabrics were from a "blue" Fat Eighth exchange in February of last year. This February I finished the blocks and borders and began the quilting, but lost my energy. Today I went to work on it with a vengeance becaue I wanted one more finish this month! So I plugged away at the quilting for most of the afternoon.

Now it is time to decide if we are going to a Garlic Mustard "Pull" at our new Nature Park. It is scheduled, but it has been raining most of the day. Just stopped, but the trees will be dripping! May be a sea of mud, and we will all go home at once.

Sara

Big Quilt Action

Last night at our monthly Spoolspinners' meeting, Catherine brought me the too LARGE quilts she worked on while I was gone to Florida. I'm just showinig you the corners, so you can see the great quilting work she did on the borders. Below is the border on the Double Delight (Bonnie Hunter design).

And the next on is also a Bonnie Hunter design, Orange Crush. I just LOVE the orange/red thread for the border quilting. AND Catherine used the enormous paisley deaign on the backing fabric to creaste her own original pattern! This may be my alltime favorite quilt, and it is even big enoughf or our queen bed (if we lie close together).I need to get right to work on the bindings, and then I'll show you the whole quilt.

Sara

Gratitudes:

Sunshine, sunshine

Daffodils in bloom

Garden clean-up finished

Fresh bread fragrance

Wonderful return of quilts

Kona Stars

I am currently working on FINISHING this quilt top. I took a stack of 5" samples of solid fabrics along on our vacation to Florida, and had this pattern from "More Nickel Quilts" as my second, alternating project...for when I was sick and tired of the first project (Spoolspinners' Mystery).

I made my star points "wonky" with various White-on-White FQs I purchased in Florida. Everything else is from the sample fabrics.

Tonight I sewed all the blocks together in a long rectangle. Tomorrow I will give it a good pressing and then consider whether or not there should be a border or two. But how to choose a color?

Sara

Gratitudes:
Had my toenails trimmed by the foot care nurse today
Catherine has finished quilting TWO of my Bonnie Hunter quilts
Evening walk with Charlie and Zeke

Final Retreat Results

The very first thing that I worked on at the retreat was my Double Delight, the fourth mystery by Bonnie Hunter. I had all the blocks made, and the setting triangles cut, so I just had to sew all the rows together. I had pieced a few of the setting triangles, and now that I see them in the final piece, a couple will have to be switched out since the piecing really shows on the polka dots and is distracting. Luckily I have a few large enough pink fabrics to do that, once I get my machine set up again at home.

People at the retreat had an interesting reaction to this quilt top. They LIKE it, and then say they are surprised they like it because the color combination is so unusual. They never would have thought that the cheddar yellow would go so well with the pinks. [But Bonnie says that this is an old combination, now gone out of use.]

The other top I managed to get together was a very quick one that I got off the internet. "Stashbuster Quilt" has very few pieces and is made from Fat Quarters. I had been given six FQs from the same line of fabrics, and I found six more to make this quilt. Each block has only five pieces and ends up being 16" square. Seet blocks 3 X 4. Very fast indeed.

So all in all I put together four tops on the retreat, finished my sample blocks for the Your Way Mystery, and I made a few leader-ender blocks for a future project. Now I need to find borders and backings for those tops, and quilt the little ones.

Dianne has offered to loan me a smaller machine for our monthlong trip to Florida, so I tried two out during the retreat, a Featherweight, and a Singer 301. Both worked very well. I have decided to borrow the Featherweight, mostly because it is a smaller package to fit into a crowded car.

Sara

Gratitudes:

Sunshine today!

Leftover chili I can serve for dinner

Charlie's first class on his Mac laptop

Retreat Results

I've been at a quilt retreat for three nights, just returned in time for the Super Bowl game on TV. This retreat is one where you just bring whatever you want and work on your own projects--and have someone else cook for you, and have a lot of fun. We were 21 in number, and some (not me) tried a little "snow dyeing".

Several of the gals who chat together about Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilts suggested that we plan to work on a BLUE version of one of Bonnie's quilts on Super Bowl Sunday (when the men are all too busy with sport to care what we are doing). For this challenge, I took the Fat Eights of blue fabric that I had from an exchange last year and cut them into 6.5" squares. I had to add several light blues from my stash. I took these on the retreat with me, and on Friday evening and Saturday AM I put this "Scrappy Mountin Majesties" top together. It will be bordered and then given to the neonatal unit of our regional hospital.

Then Bonnie herself suggested that for Super Bowl Sunday SHE was going to be making "Strip Twist" and anyone could join her on that project.

I had 20 bright batik strips in a jelly roll, so I took them and her pattern on retreat with me also. I finished putting this top together just before leaving the retreat site this afternoon. I was interested in emphasizing the pinwheel effect in the middle of the four block sets. so I placed similar colors there to catch the viewer's attention.

More about the retreat results tomorrow, but now it is time to finish unloading the car and get the dirty clothes down the chute, and go to bed.

Sara

Gratitudes:

Charlie and Ray prepared the Super Bowl supper
Dry, clear raods for the return trip for retreat
The game was more interesting than expected.

Anniversary celebration

Sunday is our 40th wedding anniversary. Our daughter Martha and her husband are coming tonight from St. Louis to spend the weekend with us, so we will go out for a family dinner celebration on Saturday with them and son Peter and his wife, who live here in Grand Rapids.

The big party will be after church on Sunday after each service. We have ordered a small "wedding" cake for each coffee hour and will also have punch, cookies and turtles.

Here's how we looked 40 years ago in frigid Minneapolis leaving the church:

I guess we should have another photo taken in the same pose. Compare faces!

Last night I finished a Welcome-to-your-new-House-Block for Bonnie Hunter. Tanya [http://lazygalquilting.blogspot.com/ ]suggested that friends do this, and for uniformity sake we should all use a "neutral" RED background.

I worked very hard to make the printed patchwork on the top one come out exactly on the seam lines, but then failed to make the roof big enough! So I will send her the bottom one that was a better roofing job, plus I had that yellow fabric with the already woven in. . .what do you call those little wooden sticks between the pieces of glass in a window? Anyway, they were provided nicely by the fabric. Plus smooches on the door to welcome her in.

In the same envelope I sent a block from the Carolina Crossroads, which was the thank you agreed upon by that group.

Sara

Exercise: 50 min class in the pool

Gratitudes:

Facial today

conversation with Peter

Martha & John here and laughing

GOEs and Retreat

My smiling partner for reading the GOEs was Jim Young from Northfield, Minnesota. You can see the papers on his left, and he is typing our paragraph of evaluation for this particular question into his laptop, from whence it magically zips to our supervisor and then to the Editors, and then finally to the candidate's Bishop and Commission on Ministry.

We had an evening and full morning of training for doing the evaluating before we started on Tuesday afternoon. We read and wrote reports on 35 three page essays, finishing by about 1:00 on Thursday afternoon. We sat at this desk together roughly from 9-12am, 1-5pm, and 7-9pm each day. It is certainly a good thing to have a person with whom you work easily! BUT I never left the hotel except to walk between buildings during the four days. I did do some hallway walking on two days.

I managed to get on an earlier than planned plane out of Baltimore, but could not do the same in Detroit. Luckily the snow in Chicago was not yet affecting Grand Rapids, and Charlie picked me up at midnight Thursday.

After a quick packing up of my quilting projects, I drove north to a retreat group on Friday and was set up in my corner by 3 pm.

That afternoon and evening I sewed together 2.5" strips from a swap to make a Scrap Bargello quilt, following the suggestion of Bonnie Hunter that SuperBowl weekend could be celebrated with a "Bargello Bowl". It was fun to think about other women all over the country working on this same idea on Saturday and Sunday. I finished the top about 1 AM Saturday. And Sunday afternoon I put the leftover loops into a neonatal quilt top.

Off and on I worked on the layering and pinning of the Carolina Crossroads sections. And I finished stitching one of them "in the ditch". That top is so busy that I don't think any quilting is really goinig to show up.

One of the reasons going on a quilt retreat is so much fun is the collaborations, or opinion-giving that is going on around the room frequently. Jan Lewis has just laid out the blocks for a "Turning Twenty" quilt and Sandy DeCarlo is giving her reaction to the placements. Carol Kuypers is looking on as she works on her own hand project. You can always get lots of "help" with decisions, but you have the final Veto over it all.

Sara

Exercise: very poor this week, except for the days I walked through airports

Gratitudes:

My OWN bed

Interesting meal conversations

Charlie's chili and Ray's hospitality for the SuperBowl supper

Step 6 begun

Here's my first completed "A" block for Bonnie Hunter's Carolina Crossroads mystery. She posted Step 6 yesterday. We are to construct 16 blocks like this plus 16 setting triangles plus four corner setting triangles. Then another clue next Thursday. I hope my "dark" yellows are going to show up enough in the final product. Well, it's too late to change anything NOW. . . .except a border treatment.

It probably won't take a week to make the required blocks, but now we can exercise our brains to figure out how the rest of the pieces will go together into Block B, and then how the whole thing will be set together. So, back to the sewing room to make some more!

Now for some more UFOs:

Batik leaves cut in half diagonally and re-constructed, from a workshop taught by Dianne VanderMeer for the two Bees she belongs to. I have enough to make 12 full leaves and one acorn.

Pineapples made at a class while I was staying in St. Louis for a month in 2005.I have a goodly number of the yellows all made into chevron squares, but the leaves are a lot of work to get sewn down. Lots of them are cut, but I'm not looking forward to placing and sewing them.

And then Dianne gave me this top. I'm not sure, maybe she got the blocks in the Guild Block Party. She suggested I could use these to be the center of one of the quilts I send to the Lakotah reservation. So far, I'm not inspired!
Hmm, with two pineapple projects, it seems like a pineapple over-supply! But John, Jr. loves pineapple, so maybe they should turn into a quilt for him.


Sara

Healthy Habits: The pool was unexpectedly CLOSED because the school district was starting late. No swimming. I was so bummed I didn't do anything to make up for it.

Gratitudes:
Time to read
Working on Carolina Crossroads
Going to bed early

UFOs, page 2

Another that I started just this past year in an internet Mystery.

24 purple and yellow 9-patches with an additional two rows. I need to figure out how to put them together. An alternate block of the opposite colors? Or just sashing? I guess that's what stopped me; I didn't know what to do next.

This is a 25th anniversary idea for Fons & Porter. I organized 8 gals from my bee to make these blocks in Amish colors and black. Everybody got a full set by exchanging them. I got two sets--one for me (and F&P) and one for the Guild small quilt auction. I got ONE finished, it hung in the Guild show and the bidding was so low I bought it back. Then I sent it to F&P for their project. To my surprize they sent it back--I thought they would give them to some charity. This completely made me not want to finish the second one! So here sit the blocks.

From 2001 or so, here is my Row Robin. I made the row on the bottom with spikey triangles. As you can see not everyone managed to make their row the same length! I have sewn the rows together with something inbetween--black? Again I reached a point where I didn't know what to do next--or maybe a deadline of something else intervened.

Healthy Habits: Our Strength and Stretch group was bounced out of our meeting/exercise room by a union meeting, so we met at a mall to walk. Our instructor even showed up after a while and lead us in stretches about four times during the hour. I had taken my trekking poles and so did not get the ache in my back--but boy did my legs get tired! And this evening my knees are aching. However, I did get in 60 minutes of exercise.

Bonnie Hunter has given us the sixth step of Carolina Crossroads, which is making 16 9 inch blocks out of the 3" blocks we made earlier. And some Setting triangular blocks. So it is now clear that this quilt will have the block set "On Point". That construction is calling to me for tomorrow.

Sara

Gratitudes:

Trekking poles

Esther's retirement party

Bonnie's abundant giving

Pieced words

This quilt top has been hanging at the head of our bed for the past year. (Photo is sideways. Top is to left.) My plan here was to make a Night Sky with lots of different stars in it, using my collection of blue fabric with stars/nebulae. I thought it was ready to quilt, in fact it is spray basted to the backing. But it hasn't felt "right" to go on to the next step. For one thing it is an odd size, about five feet square. And it doesn't feel focused.

Hooray, a possible solution has presented itself. I looked at Lazy Gal Quilting (Bonnie Hunter's friend Tonya) and she is encouraging a Winter Challenge on "Free Piecing" --something themed for Christmas or Winter. I remembered some of the stars on this quilt WERE free pieced, because I got bored with how unlike the stars in the sky the Regular star blocks looked. [In fact I sent one of these Odd Stars to Bonnie Hunter as part of a Congratulations shower from Stashbusters.] Then I realized that with Tonya's second area of fame (with me) I could add some piece WORDS to this quilt. This is a new technique for me! Maybe this will solve the quilt's problems.

Right away, I knew the words I wanted were "Follow the Star". We have a family game by that name we play every year only during the 12 days of Christmas.

Today I had time to work on it, starting with the easiest letter - "O". Here is the result. Only one word so far. It took a long time to make the "W". I made it her way, but wrongly. Then I corrected it. Then I made it the way I wanted it to look.

The word is now pinned to the star top, and Charlie is in the room getting ready for bed without any comment being made. It is right over his pillow!. Oh, well. He has his sermon written, and we are packing for St. Louis and then Costa Rica. So much to remember and imagine that the real physical world has little reality for him. He's not very "visual".

Sara

Exercise today: Walk to STOP sign, and shovelling
Steps: 3011

Gratitudes:
Walking with my trekking poles through the fog,
ice melted on driveway,
diabetic chocolate from my Secret Sister

Bonnie Hunter's Mystery

I mentioned that Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville (quiltville.com ) has made her latest quilt into an as-she-goes mystery for her followers (of whom there are MANY). In two days she had over 600 quilters sign up to be in the group. She working on the second step while telling us about the first step!

"Carolina Crossroads" is the title.

Bonnie's first step was the creation of 100 Rail Fence blocks from 1.5" strips, two dark fabric rails and an accent color in the middle. These make 3.5" blocks. She wants us to make them from our stash of already purchased fabric. So that is the task we are all working on now.

I finished last night and here are the ten stacks of ten blocks I put together from dark plaids with a yellow/gold homespun check in the middle.

Now I can go back to working on the December present for my Bee Secret Sister. It's red and white so far. Need to decide about the inner and outer borders....will green make it too one seasonal? Maybe keep it red and white so it can be used all the way through February.

Sara