Friday, December 31, 2021

December Monthly Mini

 

Twas the 30th of December, and while feeling quite wilted,

She suddenly realized there was no “mini” quilted!

 She ran to her sewing room and picked up the cutter,

And threw down some scraps and started to mutter.

 How could she possibly make it in time?

She’d but a few hours to make this sublime.

 She’d never before stitched so wonderfully snappy.

Sublime it is not but it’s done and she’s happy.

 And, I heard her exclaim as she turned out the light,

“Happy New Year to all, and to all a Good Night!” 

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 I know this is a pretty pathetic end to a wonderful year of monthly minis, but as I said, "it's done"! I found two tiny blocks leftover from our c1880 sew-a-long with Pam Buda (here) and with the leftover strips I made seven more. I pieced them all together, added a border and, voila! Since this micro mini shares its birthday today with our son, Nick, (and for the other obvious reason) I am calling it “Nick of Time”.

 Thanks for another great year of mini merriment! I’ve been asked about continuing for another year. Since it seems that some months, the mini is all I can muster, I would hate to give it up just yet. And, we did pick up a few new followers this year so I would hate to leave you stranded (wink). So, on to 2022. I hope you all have had much fun as I have looking at all these little gems.

 For those already on board and for any newcomers; as always, there are NO RULES and NO pressure. I post on the last day of the month and you can jump in anytime. If you don’t have a blog, but enjoy following along, simply e-mail me a photo and description of your mini and I will post it. 

I do wish you all a very Happy New Year. I thought this vintage postcard was just weird enough to fit the bill for 2021.


We all felt a bit batty in 2021. Let's ring out the old loud enough to say "bring on a better 2022 for all"! 

 Let’s see what our fellow elves have accomplished in this busy holiday month.

 Quilting Babcia (Amity Quilter)

Randy (Barrister’s Block)

Cyndi (Busy Thimble)

Grace (City Mouse Quilter)

Barb (Fun with Barb)

Gladi (Gladi’s Quilts)

Shasta (High Road Quilter)

Julie (Julie K Quilts)

Kathy (Kathy’s Quilts)

Katy (Katy Quilts)

Sandy (My Material Creations)

Angie (Quilting on the Crescent)

Barbara (Quilts, Gravestones and Elusive Ancestors)

Janet (Rogue Quilts)

Kyle (Timeless Reflections)

Cynthia (Wabi-Sabi Quilts)

Wednesday, December 15, 2021

One Bird Too Many

 

Yup, I did it again! This time, I waited until it was completely stitched together before I realized my mistake. I wanted all of the birds in the center of the blocks to be different. Some are the same, just a different colorway. But this one was exactly the same and it was the very last block I made! (Insert very frustrated face here). 

Bye bye birdie! 

All I could think of after my discovery was the song from the animated Rudolph from the ‘60’s. “Why am I such a misfit, I am not just a nitwit, you can’t fire me, I quit…”

 Since it was completely finished, I couldn’t just applique a new bird on as it wouldn’t fit the quilting pattern. So, this poor partridge/pheasant will go into my next pot luck quilt and will be replaced by another as soon as a new one flies into my sewing room. 

 Which reminds me of another song from “Rudolph”, “There’s always tomorrow for dreams to come true!”

 Enjoy your day!

Monday, December 6, 2021

Bird's Nest Soup

 I laid all of the blocks on the floor over the weekend. Some are still not finished, but you get the idea. 


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Now on to the borders and corner blocks. Still in the design stage, but should get a start on them before Christmas. Nothing else to do right?

 After looking at them all, this little guy really stuck out as being kind of creepy.


Not sure if it was his eye or just the blah color of his head, but I couldn’t live with him amongst all those other pretty birds. So… off with his head and on with a more colorful and cheerful noggin.



I won’t be afraid to sleep under it now!

Tuesday, November 30, 2021

November Monthly Mini

 

This month’s mini reminds me of how lucky I am to have such wonderful quilting friends. Whenever I get frustrated with what is happening in this crazy world, I try to remember how fortunate I am to have not only my “in person” friends, but those who live in faraway places who I am in touch with through the wonders of modern technology. For this reason, I have decided to call it "Grateful". 


 When Janet O. (Rogue Quilts) announced her “baggie of scraps” challenge (here) I knew I wanted to do it right away! I pawed through my “many” boxes of leftovers from other quilt projects and tried to decide which to choose. I ended up with this container (an empty Betsy Chutchian “Frivol” box) full of half square triangles from a one of my past community quilts. 


 I played with the layout for a while, but decided on this simple square in a square look in the end. I love the Betsy Chutchian purple stripe on the right, but I have wanted to use the serpentine stripe ever since I bought it and just haven’t found the right project for it until now. I thought about mitering the corners, but I had the extra pink blocks, so it was a good excuse to go with my standard corner blocks! 


 My eye is always drawn to dark fabrics and colors, so it is unusual for me to have such a light quilt. I machine quilted straight lines in the body and simply followed the serpentine (yes – with my “machine”) in the border. 


I want to thank you Janet, for the opportunity to try something new! I know quite a few of you have taken Janet’s challenge as well, so click away and see what our fellow mini makers have discovered this month!

Quilting Babcia (Amity Quilter)

Randy (Barrister’s Block)

Cyndi (Busy Thimble)

Grace (City Mouse Quilter)

Barb (Fun with Barb)

Gladi (Gladi’s Quilts)

Shasta (High Road Quilter)

Julie (Julie K Quilts)

Kathy (Kathy’s Quilts)

Katy (Katy Quilts)

Sandy (My Material Creations)

Angie (Quilting on the Crescent)

Barbara (Quilts, Gravestones and Elusive Ancestors)

Janet (Rogue Quilts)

Kyle (Timeless Reflections)

Cynthia (Wabi-Sabi Quilts)

Thursday, November 25, 2021

Happy Thanksgiving

 Thanksgiving Day is one of the few days of the year that I do not get to stitch. I usually stay at my sister’s the night before and start cooking before dawn. We have fun catching up as we peel and stuff!

 I have neglected my “Bird’s Nest Soup” and all other creative projects to try and finish the repair on this treasure. It belongs to a friend of a friend who called me while visiting Maine last summer. It was made by his aunt 5 generations back. 


 An old family label was attached that stated it was thought to be made c1812. It is always so touchy when you know something about the history of quilts, and you have to gently tell the owner that you are quite sure it was made much later than that. He was very gracious and had done fabulous family research which helped us to determine that the date was closer to 1850. It is beautifully appliqued and quilted.

My job was to replace the fabric that had deteriorated. It was clearly a different fabric than the rest of the green that remained unharmed.


This happens quite often in 19th century quilts. You can still see some of the green under the seam allowance. 

I had to remove all the old in order for the new green to lie flat. It didn't take much effort as the fabric was really rotted.


He shipped the quilt to me in early September and it took nearly 2 months to find the right green. After searching for and dying and overdying many different greens, I finally found the right one in the first place I should have looked! I just never thought to look for a solid fabric at Cyndi’s (Busy Thimble), but there it was – the (almost) perfect solution. A Bella 100% cotton solid. You can see how the color matches pretty well. The leaf is my new applique onto the original stem. 

My goal is to finish the repair by the end of the month. I hope you all get some stitching time while resting after the holiday.

 Wishing all of you a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Wednesday, November 17, 2021

Two and Four Quilt-a-long - a finish!

 

Toward the end of the summer, Katy (KatyQuilts) announced a sew-a-long called “Two and Four”. It looked like a great way to dwindle down the scrap pile and have some fun in the process so I jumped in.

 I finished the top on time (read about the finale – here) and then handed it off to my quilting angel, Sharon Patterson to quilt. I had intended to pick it up weeks ago, but things got crazy and … So, Sharon not only quilted it, but bound it and brought it to our local meeting to show before taking it to the local infusion center to wrap around some deserving soul. She truly is an angel! 


 Her quilting makes the quilt!

Thanks Sharon! And thanks Katy for hosting this fun sew-a-long! 

Sunday, October 31, 2021

October Monthly Mini

 

This month’s mini was a real change for me. I challenged myself to make something “modern”. I decided to make it strictly by machine and to utilize only solid fabrics (a real rarity for me).

 My friend Barb Vedder (Fun with Barb) is a whiz at whipping up fabulous quilts with solid fabrics. I participated in her Zoom lecture at our state show in July on “Sensational Solids”.  It was fabulous! If your group is looking for a great speaker, I highly recommend her. (I’ll take my payment in fabric Barb!)

 So… I used that inspiration to create my October mini. It is a fabric interpretation of a Wassily Kandinsky study in color. I love his circle paintings! 

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 When using the potholdermethod, I usually hand stitch my blocks together. I was determined to make this little guy completely by machine. I pillow cased the blocks,


then appliquilted (I couldn’t think of what else to call it) the circles on each block and zig-zagged them together. For some reason I had a spool of variegated thread on the shelf, and I love the way it brought everything together. It won’t win any machine work awards, but it was a lot of fun!

 I’m calling it “Candynsky”. The name has a 3-way meaning this time. I try to give my potholder quilts utilizing some sort of cooking or food reference, and, since this is the “candy” month, and… well you get the last one!

 Let’s see what the rest of you have in your candy bag this month. Let me know if I have missed anyone or if you are joining for the first time. And, don't forget Janet's (Rogue Quilts) baggie challenge. I'm having a ball working on mine. Hope to reveal it as my November mini.

Quilting Babcia (Amity Quilter)

Randy (Barrister’s Block)

Cyndi (Busy Thimble)

Grace (City Mouse Quilter)

Barb (Fun with Barb)

Gladi (Gladi’s Quilts)

Shasta (High Road Quilter)

Julie (Julie K Quilts)

Kathy (Kathy’s Quilts)

Katy (Katy Quilts)

Sandy (My Material Creations)

Angie (Quilting on the Crescent)

Barbara (Quilts, Gravestones and Elusive Ancestors)

Janet (Rogue Quilts)

Kyle (Timeless Reflections)

Cynthia (Wabi-Sabi Quilts)

Happy Halloween!

Wednesday, October 27, 2021

Such a Sweet Retreat

 What a treat to have our first real retreat in over 2 years! Our “Seven Sistah’s” group was hand picked (by me) nearly 10 years ago and we have been doing our best to gather as a gaggle whenever we can. Our first official retreat was in June of 2012 in a wonderful facility in the mountains of Rangeley, Maine. We met there for four years before moving to a location that was closer to all of our homes. Some of us had conflicts that year and we needed to be more flexible. In 2019 we met at the Vermont Quilt Show instead of our annual summer retreat. And, of course we all know what happened last year!

 So… needless to say we were so excited to have an actual retreat again. Thanks to Fotini for finding this fabulous cottage on Wells Beach, Maine. We all decided it was so well laid out for our needs that we booked it again for May. 


 This was cozy room on the first floor. I like to bring my own quilt and pillow whenever possible. I even had a little sofa so I could applique and not wake anyone up (I am a very early riser). 



 Tina and I brought only hand work, so we took over this comfy couch that has electric recliners at both ends – wow! Tina was finishing up all sorts of little goodies. 



I was simply doing hand applique of my “Bird’s Nest Soup” blocks. I went up to the second floor to take these shots as Susie Karen helped lay it out and then turn the blocks over to get a feel for how the back will look. 
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 Kathy pieced these delicious blocks. I see one of these quilts in my future. I adore it and it uses up a lot of 2” squares! 


 Susie Karen worked on her challenge and then went with Fotini, Charlotte and Kathy to the Portsmouth Fabric Company for some retail therapy.

 Fotini worked on some holiday masks for the British Goods store she works in. Somehow I missed taking a photo!

 Charlotte finished her little challenge and then worked on the most amazing Double Wedding Ring quilt (sorry my came out very blurry – I must have been too excited!). Then she pieced these blocks together. We figured that they put that big black thing there for us to hang our finished tops on, but later discovered that we could watch our British comedies on it! 


 We all had fun stitching along, but Karen, won the prize for accomplishing the most! She had a few blocks that her aunt had given her and she had fun laying them out finishing 4 little quilt tops. Good job! 



 We usually set some sort of a challenge for ourselves. This year we were to make seven “Inchie” quilts that measure 2” square. As usual, I finished mine only last week. However, amazingly enough, I wasn’t the last one to finish. Karen, Susie Karen and Charlotte all finished theirs on site! I was blown away at the creativity of this great group. From left to right: Kathy, Fotini, Susie Karen, Karen, Charlotte, Tina and me. I think I am going to stitch them all together and make a mini potholder quilt to commemorate our fabulous weekend! 


 Hope you get some stitching time with friends this week too.

Wednesday, October 13, 2021

Rogue Quilter Challenge

 

I hope most of you have seen Janet’s (Rogue Quilter) challenge post by now. If not, you can read about it (here).

 She has issued a unique and fun challenge to all of us monthly “mini-acs”. Most of us have leftover scraps from previous projects. Janet keeps hers in baggies and has even offered some of her collection to anyone who does not have a pile of scraps (is that really possible?).

 My father used to call me a pack rat. I have always been enamored of little boxes for my treasures. I have dozens of boxes filled with little bits of color. 


  I don’t use baggies unless I intend to pass the contents off to someone else. These went to my friend Charlotte. 

The first one was a joke, but somehow, I knew she would try to make something with those little slivers.

 Admittedly, I have more strips, squares, scraps in all matter of containers than I will ever be able to use.


Sometimes I pack a few up and toss them on the “freebie” table at our monthly meeting. If Janet runs out of “baggies” to offer, let me know and I will send you one from the pile.

 Do check in with Janet and let’s see what we can come up with. Thanks for the challenge  Janet!

 

Thursday, September 30, 2021

September Mini

 

My September mini is as simple as it gets! I just grabbed scraps from the “scrid” (scrid = pieces too small to be of any use, but I just can’t throw them out!) basket and paired them with one of my favorite prints and voila! 

 
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  I made the top in under an hour and machine quilted and bound it in a little over an hour. I thought about calling it the “Two Hour Wonder”. However, since it is a tiny version of the Chinese Coins pattern and the backing I used reminded me of pennies, I decided to call it, “Pocket Change”.

Have a look into the piggy bank of my fellow mini makers to see what they have been up to this month.

Quilting Babcia (Amity Quilter)

Randy (Barrister’s Block)

Cyndi (Busy Thimble)

Grace (City Mouse Quilter)

Barb (Fun with Barb)

Gladi (Gladi’s Quilts)

Shasta (High Road Quilter)

Julie (Julie K Quilts)

Kathy (Kathy’s Quilts)

Katy (Katy Quilts)

Sandy (My Material Creations)

Angie (Quilting on the Crescent)

Barbara (Quilts, Gravestones and Elusive Ancestors)

Janet (Rogue Quilts)

Kyle (Timeless Reflections)

Cynthia (Wabi-Sabi Quilts)

 

Monday, September 27, 2021

Weekend Update

 We had a lovely rainy Saturday here in Maine! You all know what I mean. A rainy day with no major commitments means sewing room time! I even spent a few hours in the morning cooking up a few weekly meals to alleviate any guilt that might sneak into my soggy brain.

 I finished laying out the center block for my “Bird’s Nest Soup” potholder quilt. I now have 12 finished blocks (all quilted and bound) and the remaining 20 are basted for applique. 


 These blocks have been so much fun to make! In fact, I didn’t even scream when I discovered (after it was quilted!) that I had oriented the backing on this one in the wrong direction.


Now, a rearing horse can be fun when under saddle, but not a good thing when one is hitched to a sleigh.

So, my bird is flying backwards and the poppies are lying down… it could be worse! 

 I was able to piece all the rows of my “Two and Four” quilt-a-long with KatyQuilts. Just a few long seams and we are ready to quilt! 


 I also started my September mini – yes, “started”! I actually made pretty good progress so I should have it bound before Thursday.

 And, when my mini is done, I am going to open this happy package.



My first ever quilt kit! I saw this Pam’s blog (Heartspun Quilts)  and knew I just had to order it. (you can find it on her website: Pam Buda QuiltsI have used Pam’s precise patterns many times so I’m sure this project will be a breeze! I’m looking forward to my first “kit” experience.

 A productive day indeed. Hope your weekend was full of fun too!