Sampler quilts are simply so much fun!

 

I greatly enjoyed making each block for this quilt!!  Made with all reproduction fabrics, and a couple of orphan blocks, too...I love it!!  I am showing our lawn, hard pressed in these 100+ days of scorching heat.  

We are blessed now to have some 90 degree days!!  Hurrah!!!

Hope you are doing great, each of you!!  

***************************Nurse's Notes**************************

Our friend Angie made it through her SECOND open heart surgery!!!  I am so, so glad...she is taking time to heal and adjust to her new normal.  What an amazingly tough person!!!  All your prayers did all the good in the world!

Comments no longer go to my inbox again. Sigh...what now?  I changed nothing!!!!!!!!!

Julie

Winners and a new baby to love

 

I am making progress on my scrappy sampler top, based on the 2014 Country Threads mystery sampler.  I adore all these fun and scrappy blocks, made with treasured fabrics.  It is supposed to be done, but I am making it bigger!!!  More blocks equal more fun and more to love, right??

This little morsel above....well, I just got out of the car from work, and heard a SCREAMIMG!!!  Somewhere in the neighborhood.  I went running, total panic mode, trying to find what child was screaming, because I thought it was a little human child.  Instead, I found this tiny kitten.  Maybe 3 weeks old, I am guessing?  It was backed up in the corner by the drainpipe, in my neighbor's driveway, and a hawk was after it.  Hense the screaming!!!  I scared away the hawk (what hawk would not be afraid of a wild banshee hollering and running at it?)  The kitty escaped with no talons through the abdomen, which would have been a death sentence due to peritonitis, but his eye was pecked narrowly escaping actually hitting the eye, and also his left front leg is completely flaccid.  I scooped him and up ran him back to the house, him meowing as hard as he could!

Took him to the vet...the eye will be totally fine.  The leg...maybe not.  It is severely injured from the shoulder, so the vet put him on steroids for pain and for swelling, and the baby is now in our home and?  in our hearts.  We shall see if the baby can heal with that leg...the hawk obviously had it by the leg.   He eats like a trucker and meows for anything he wants, and just wants love and to purr with the loudest little voice, sleeping under my hair on my chest.  No, my chest is not hairy, but I have kind of long hair and that is just the best nest for this baby, according to him.    So that is my drama for the week!!

Remember this leader and ender from Bonnie Hunter about a decade ago? I am finishing it!!!  I recently received gorgeous scraps....my totally favorite thing, and some of the scraps will be used to make more bowties!!!

Hurrah!!!

Any drama for you this week??  Hope everyone is doing fantastic!!

The last post's repro stack was won by Mary Jo Belk, by random drawing.  I do not have your email address, Mary JO...can you please write to me? Thank you!!!

Julie

1/2 square triangles!

I had a chance to work on these 1/2 square triangle blocks.  All solid fabrics.  They were great fun to sew!  More to come, now that I have triangulations and can make them more accurately.  

 

The patterns are all found in this book by Lisa Bongean, of Primitive Gatherings.  It is a lovely book!

Would anyone like some reproduction fabrics?  This bundle was on the free table at guild, and I really would like someone to have it.  Just leave a message, and if more than one person is interested, I will draw for it on Tuesday.

Does everyone know about this but me?  This stuff is great!  It works as a template, like cut out cardboard, but is much thinner and makes a wonderful template to press around for simple shapes.  I love it!!!

**********************Nurse's notes*************************

Our friend Angie made it to Cleveland!!!  A long journey, but she is tough, and she made it there.  A plan is being formulated about what are her next surgical steps for her heart.  Your prayers worked!!!  Thank you so much for them!!!!!!!!

Julie

Prayers for our friend Angie

 Dear everyone, 

I ask you to lift up our friend Angie.  Many of you know her as the Threadcatcher.  She is embarking a perilous land journey over many miles to Cleveland clinic.around 600 miles via emergency ambulance.  Her heart cannot withstand the changes in altitude with care flight by air. I would love a thousand voices lifting her up in thought and prayer!  Please stop what you are doing and do this, please.  I pray for safety and strength for her journey.  She is such a darling person.  Thank you!

Sampler from much loved fabrics

 

I started this sampler, of all reproduction fabrics.  It was a quilt along a lot of years back, and I have always loved it.  It is super fun to work on!!

I am slowing working on these heart blocks, from a Facebook quilt along.  These are labor intensive little things!

TILDA fabrics!!!  Aren't they just so pretty??

I am making progress on the 1/2 square triangle quilt.  Lisa Bongean of Primitive Gatherings has a book with all sorts of different 1/2 triangle patterns.  Great fun!!!

Thank you for your prayers for our Angie.  Hospitals, doctors and surgeons are working out details to get her the care she needs!!

Julie

!!!!!!!!!!!ATTENTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IMMEDIATE PRAYERS NEEDED!!!!!!!!!!!!

 The ThreadCatcher

Angie S. has been a blogger for many, many years.   Above is her blog link.  Angie is an amazing quilter and lovely person, and we have been friends for lots of years...she is so easy to love!!!  She also needs your prayers, and now.  If you are not a praying person, please send some positive energy out into the universe for her!!

Angie had open heart surgery recently, and she did very well through it.  She is tough, and that is no joke. A few weeks out from this, she had another heart attack, and she really did not realize it...and neither did her local doctors. She just knew she felt awful.  One of her bypass grafts shut down, and also...she has developed a hole in-between the left and right ventricles of her heart.  Now this particular problem is almost always fatal, immediately, for the adult person experiencing it, according to her cardiologist.  BUT ANGIE SURVIVED IT!!!!!!!!!!   Now?  She is going to a world class, premier heart surgery center...to have her heart fixed again.  This means probably another open heart surgery for her.  She is a tiny thing...and I am asking for your support and prayers for her, please, please, please.  Angie rocks it...tough as they come...but this is a hard and long road!!!

Thank you!!!!!  I really appreciate you.  Thank you!!  Angie says I have permission to share this...

Tada!!!! Done! almost...

Hello!  I finished the checkerboard border on this quilt.  I am so glad, and now I just need to send it off to be quilted.  It feels great to finish this one.

This quilt is together, also.  I just need my borders, and it will go in the same package as the other one, to be quilted.  The red is the backing.

I have started making hearts for patients, and I will leave them randomly around the hospital.  Maybe actually in the waiting rooms....for the very intensive surgeries??

https://www.facebook.com/IFoundAQuiltedHeart

https://www.ifoundaquiltedheart.com/

Hope you are doing fantastic!!!

Progress on the second red, white and blue quilt

 

Good morning!!!  Hope you are doing well today.  I am off work at the hospital today, and so I am cleaning and sewing.  Above are my blocks for my hubby's red, white and blue quilt.  This is the second one I have made of this pattern.  I am making fast progress now, with all the components made and ready to sew.  Hurrah!  I can sew blocks together!

I found this little floral quilt, wool applique and plaid fabrics for the border.  I love it...makes me happy!!!

What are you working on today???

UFO's I never knew I had!

 

I knew I had this UFO, above.  It was just a pile of blocks, created with much love and joy, by me.  I just had not gotten them put together yet! But now?  I do!  And the quilt has a border!  Yahoo!!!!!!

This quilt, however, is not mine...yet it a UFO.  I was going through my scraps, cutting them to sizes I use most, and I found it crammed into a bag of scraps.  hmmmmm.  Where did this come from?  What to do with it??  It had a 10 inch wide yellow border, just on two sides.  So, I cut much of the border off, left a narrow strip, added the leftover yellow to the top and bottom, and added the lavender border.  Tada!!!  This will be a perfect quilt for chemo!!!

Onward!!!  I am working frantically on the RWB quilt for my hubby, but I have to dust, honestly...it is needed!!!

Julie

Star centers and plaid hearts

 

Hello!!!  Above are the centers of my husband's quilt.  He liked the red, white and blue quilt I recently donated, so I jumped on the chance to make one just like it for him.  I am making such good progress on it!  It is going so much better the second time around. 

I made this block as a practice block.  Ignore the center, please, I just trimmed it to fit when it was too big for the rest of the block. But now?  I know how to make the block!  Hurrah!!

I have finished the applique on all but two of my applique hearts.   These just scream fall time, don't they?  But here, it is over 100 degrees each day.  HOT!!!

Hope each of you is doing fantastic!

Julie

Children's quilt tops are complete.

 

Hello!!  I am off work today!  I finished my children's quilt top today.  I am packaging it up to be longarm quilted, then it will be shipped to Ukraine this fall.  I loved making it!!

My friend Annie M. has made two quilts in the same time frame.  Above is her quilt for a boy, 

and below is her quilt for a girl.  I just love them both!!  Annie is a fast quilter!

I am off work for four whole days!!!  Watch out, world, I am on the loose!!!

Julie

How are you doing?  Working on something today?

Happy Fourth!!!

 

Happy Fourth of July to those quilters in the USA!! I am working on the above blocks, for a children's quilt, going to a refugee Ukranian child.  I am loving these bright, fun fabrics!!!  I hope this will find a child in need of a fun, bright quilt, for a glimmer of happiness in a terrible situation.

Nancy, who blogs below, sent out the word for these quilts.  She needs 25 of them.  

O, Quilter -- Can You Help? (nancynearphiladelphia.blogspot.com)

Here are some fun facts about our July 4th remembrance.  

Hope each of you has a happy day!!

Julie

Busy, busy, busy days!!

 

Good day to everyone!!!  I am chasing squirrels around here.  I just love plaids, as many of you know already, and I decided maybe an autumnal quilt was in order...with hearts.  Oh, my heart just sings while working on these applique hearts!!  This was so I could have some hand work to do on a recent road trip.

I finished the hand quilting of this little quilt, and it will actually be a pillow, to replace the absolutely worn out one that my husband uses for his back while sitting on the couch.  I love hand quilting!

I finished this quilt, too!  This is from Lori's quilt along, of Humble Quilts.   All plaids!!!  and hand quilted, just in time for the fourth of July.

What are you up to???

*********************Nurse's notes*****************

Hospice has been closed for two weeks now, and I have floated to many other units in the hospital, nursing very different populations of patients.  From sickle cell patients, (one young sickle cell patient asked for one thing...a Twix candy bar!)  of course I got her one, LOL!...to oncology, heart patients, to ICU and vented patients, to code blues, to a darling Alzheimer's patient who fell backward and had a brain bleed.  To a young man, who left against medical advice...and I am afraid for his very life, he is so sick.  It has been challenging, exhausting, and so, so fun.  I even went to the ER for a day and did ER nursing!  Wow...I really respect those nurses...they rock!!!

I am delighted to be off today!!!

Julie

Round and round I go!!

 

I have been making flying geese to go around the Squirrel Star quilt.  So named because...it is a squirrel!!!  It is sort of a springtime, pastel quilt.  I have sewn a zillion flying geese for it and have more to go.

I went to an estate sale this spring, and the lady selling her things and was moving to Switzerland.  In her things were some 100% cotton sheets, still in the yellowed, old packaging.   I bought a couple.  I took one out of the package, washed it, and WOW!!!  It is the softest, thickest sheet I have ever imagined, much less felt.  It is wonderful for piecing!!!  They were a very odd size, and the one I washed was smaller than a twin size.  I am loving piecing with it!!!  I translated the writing on the package, to find out what it said.  I have never seen such a high-quality sheet in my life.

I was just playing here...fun piecing!

I added another round on the Unity quilt.  I made this round simple.  I could not make the scraps I had work right in making the round in the pattern, so I just did this.  It will be just fine!!!

Hope you are doing fine too!!

Julie

Quilting this and that

Remember the Unity Quilt that Bonnie Hunter designed, near the beginning of the pandemic?  Here is my start on that!!  I really concentrated on pressing and accuracy.  I just love it!!  Again, this is a collaborative quilt with Annie.  Super fun!

I have been making a few little taco pouches in-between things.  Here are my efforts.  You can find the free pattern here:  

Taco Zipper Pouch | Riley Blake Designs

I am surprised at how simple these are.  A very fun sew!!!

 Jo, at Jo's country junction, has been sewing tiny stars.  She did a video all about them.  I remembered my tiny stars, and just pulled them out to admire these tiny blocks, and to cut a few more of them.   You can find her video here:  

Sew with Jo: Making STAR BLOCKS and chatting with you about scraps and thrift store finds!! - YouTube

My stars are four inches finished, and Jo's are three inches finished.  Itty-bitty!

Have a wonderful day, each of you!!!

Yahoo! Two finished tops!!

My friend Annie and I made very similar quilts for a wonderful charitable cause. 

A quilter named Ray is making quilts for the Veterans in his church!! Annie heard about this from JO, of Jo's Country Junction.  This following is from Ray himself.

"The church I am a member of, Saint Hilary's Episcopal Church, is holding a Veteran's Day dinner on Nov 10 to recognize and appreciate veterans. Last year we gave 13 red, white and blue quilts to veterans in the congregation. We have more to recognize and want to include visitors, guests and veteran family members with quilts. So many have gone for so long without any recognition or acknowledgement. Just trying to change that in some way."

Mine is above.  We had several different pattern options to choose from.  Annie designed the quilts, and I picked one design that she sent, and we were off to the races!!!  These were the centers of the blocks, that I was making a couple of weeks ago.
 

This one is Annie's!!!!  I love her border the best.  We had so much fun making these together and cannot wait to work on our next ones!!  Isn't that so cool how different they look, using the same block????

Enjoy your sewing!!

Julie K

Garden and progress!! and a FINISH!!!

 

Good morning!!!  Whew, it has been a barn burner around here...lots of work, and more work.  I am OFF today!  Hurrah!!!  And guess what?  I have been slowly hand quilting the above quilt!!  and IT IS COMPLETED!  A few minutes each night has done the trick. I quilted around each applique piece, then did a 3/4 cross hatch in the open areas.  Simple.  Lots of stitching, though!  I am delighted is it done.

It is on the big bed, for a picture.

\

I call this the "King's bed."  The quilt is square, so not bed shaped, but I put it on there anyway.  I am celebrating this long-term project being done!

I put together these plaid blocks, in red and blues.  A true UFO, completed too.

The garden just beckons!  Tomatoes and squash are going just crazy with growth.  

Tiny tomatoes are popping through the blossoms!

This tomato plant was purchased from Costco and has tomatoes on it already.  I planted a whole packet of tomato seeds back at the last of January, and the plants are big, now.

A lone zinnia, with many other to come.  The bees like them.

The little garden is really growing, too!!  I am so happy about this little project.  Radishes, swiss chard, peppers, carrots, and peas.  I also planted my last year's Halloween pumpkin seeds around the edges, hoping the vines would trail over the edges and grow pumpkins.  

Hope each of you is doing fantastic today!

Julie

IN search of perfection

 Good day to you all!!  I have been working on a donation quilt with my friend.  We are making the top, choosing backing, sewing binding, and sending it all to a gentleman making quilts of valor for his group.  OH dear.  I thought using all the different reds and making those little blocks, using 1/2 square triangles would be more accurate. IT IS NOT!!!!!  I had such a tough time making all those points meet!  I pinned and sewed carefully and most are not accurate, anyway.      NOT PERFECT!!!  Well, the blue ones are good, anyway, LOL!

Another picture of some of the red blocks.

This, however, is perfection. Isn't that the prettiest thing?  I have no clue what it is, but the supermarket has them on sale.

A tomato!!  Hurrah!!!  I love growing things...and they smell so good.

Hope each of you is having a PERFECT day!!!

  My little garden is flourishing!