Vintage Memories BOM

I'm not sure what I was thinking back in November but I signed up for a new BOM being offered by one of my LQS Honey Bee Quilt Shop and I finally started on the three months that I had accumulated. We are doing this in Maison De Garance by French General using the pattern Little Scraps by This and That. The patterns are very easy to follow and while I don't think I would have picked this fabric on my own and I am really starting to like how it's coming together. Below are my first three months ( 6 blocks)

Lest I get too carried away I do have a civil war quilt that I have to finish before April so this will no doubt fall behind again but they are fun little blocks to do on cold rainy day.

Prayers for Joanne

Joanne needs our prayers right now. On January 11th at 9:00 in the morning, 38 year old Joanne Heim suffered a major stroke and remains in a coma. She is the mother of 2 young girls, Audrey 12, Emma 9 and wife to Toben. You may know her as The Simple Wife. She is a fellow blogger and a student at the Denver Seminary working on her MA in Old Testament Biblical studies. The family is praying for a miracle and have claimed Psalm 46 as their prayer for her. Toben, Audrey and her sister Kristen have been updating her blog and have left a list of ways you can help, financially, prayers, cards so please take the time to check out her blog and keep her in your prayers.

They no doubt have a long long road ahead of them but as we've seen recently with Gabby Giffords miracles do happen and God hears our prayers. You can follow her progress at The Simple Wife or by clicking on the Praying for Joanne button on my sidebar.

Thank you for holding her up in prayer.

Fat Quarter Shop 2010 Christmas BOM

I am so glad I signed up for the Fat Quarter Shops 2010 Designer Mystery BOM. We are in month 8 and it has been so much fun. I did the FQS 2009 Designer Mystery and fell in love with the ease of their BOM and just couldn't resist doing another one. We are making blocks designed by a different designer each month and using Kate Spain's 12 Days of Christmas. I think the wreath is my favorite so far and think it would make a great pillow as a gift for next year so this will be one pattern I'll be going back to and what a cute little house we got to make this month.

Fall Squared Quilt

This is a quilt I started sometime in 2009 and finally got all the blocks made and sewn together sometime this past fall but then with the holidays it just got set aside. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with the back but found this Saltbox Harvest circles in flannel and thought it would be a perfect contrast to the squares on front. The picture makes it look more orange but it is really more of a nice rich barn red. At the moment it is just laying on top of the backing but it's on my "to be finished in January" list so we'll see.

Christmas 2010

I never posted pictures of these two finishes since they were Christmas gifts but have no excuse for waiting till mid January. My brother is always hard to either buy or make for so this year I made him a pillow with pictures of he and his dogs. He lost one of the dogs (Sheila) this past year to old age so it was sad and since they were siblings Kaycee is also getting up there in age and I hoped this would serve to remind him of the good days.

I also joined Fat Quarter shops Mystery Quilt BOM back in June of 2009 and finished it up in August 2010 ( obviously I fell behind somewhere along the way). I had been working on this with the intent of giving it to my sister for her birthday but it ended up being Christmas.  As I was taking a photo of this quilt outside the front door a roadrunner was just checking things out and stood there long enough for me to take his picture.

Wool projects and some finishes

I was finally drawn into the world of wool and love it. I started with a free project sponsored by Kaaren at http://thepaintedquilt.blogspot.com/ who does First Friday Freebies and did this little Halloween wall sampler and while I enjoyed it for my first project the pieces were very tiny. I then moved onto a cute pumpkin pillow for Halloween and the size of the pieces were much easier to work with. This a pattern by Buttons and Bees and I had run into her at the Austin Quilt show and loved how cute all her patterns ( and buttons) are. I then started working on a fall candle mat of autumn colors and pumpkins and really enjoyed doing this so know I'll continue in wool. I have also been working on a couple of fall pillows (embroidered) and finally finished and feel caught up for awhile. I started a fall quilt last year and have been just doing one block at a time as I felt the urge but finally decided a couple of weeks ago that I needed to finish it for fall this year. So the top is finished and it turned out larger than I had anticipated mainly since I decided to add the stacked bar border at the last minute, but I am very happy with it so far but it will have to go on my bed now, a bit too bid for a couch quilt. Now it's time to put all my things away I've been playing with and get busy on some Christmas gifts.

Austin Quilt Show

So the Austin Quilt Guild Show was this weekend and I went on Friday and had a great time , saw some awesome quilts and bought a few new things to work on along with a really cool African basket I'll be able to use at the farmer's market. Here are a few of my favorites....

Sweet Baby Things

I realize I'm lousy at blogging but I am still actually sewing. My great neice and nephew are expecting their first child ( a sweet girl) next month so I have ventured off my normal quilting to make them some quilts and things. The first one is a quilt made with her name (Cheyenne) and matching pillow). The quilt is cotton but all the stripe fabric is flannel and it's got a satin binding so is super soft and perfect for a new little one.

Since her theme was bugs and butterflies and her colors were all soft pastels I also found this cute flannel panel and made this other one and machine quilted some of it but most of it I did hand embroidery around all the circles for a little more fun.

And then since no baby should be without a lovey I made her this fun lovey with some textured minky and terry and added some fun keys for her play with.

Now if I could just manage to get my own son married and have grand babies of my own I could learn to love this.

There's a Square in There and a vintage rescue

I've had this pattern ( There's a Square in There)  for a while now, written by Kate Conklin http://kateconklindesigns.blogspot.com/ and finally decided to cut it out this weekend. It was a really fun pattern to both cut and sew and her instructions were spot on. I used Fresh by Moda which is very bright and cheerful so this will probably end up as a picnic quilt for somebody. Can't you just picture the ants crawling across it one by one....

I've also been working again on a vintage quilt top ( Old Maid's Puzzle pattern) that I rescued from a local flea market and spent hours last year fixing all the places it was coming apart. I backed it with a reproduction 1930's fabric and was questioning whether I would hand quilt or machine quilt it. I've had it sandwiched for almost a year now and decided if I waited until I had time to hand quilt it, it would never get done and someone else would have to rescue it in another 20 years. I feel so sorry for these quilt tops that are living out their lives just stored in boxes in all these stores and for some reason I feel compelled to buy them and bring them home. So, I machine quilted it this weekend and it's ready for binding and finally after all these years it will get used this winter and spend the rest of it's life in plain sight. I'm sure the backing and machine quilting have ruined it's integrity but I loved the pattern and loved that someone spent that many hours hand piecing it with all their cherished scraps. I'd love to know where it started life.

Baby Barn Swallows

 I've enjoyed the new barn swallow babies outside my front door from the first sighting of their eggs to bubble gum babies. They have finally grown up and flown away and the parents were back this morning nesting once again.Since I have three cats I was having to keep the cats inside as much as possible at the end so the parents could teach them to fly in safety.

Hazel's Mystery Quilt A-long

I've been slowly working on my blocks for Hazel's BOM Mystery Quilt at http://hazelsdiary.wordpress.com/and finally this weekend got caught up so now I have the first 8 block done and 4 of the setting blocks. This is photo of the eight blocks and some the borders that are cut but this isn't how it will ultimately go together I just wanted to see what the overall color scheme is going to look like. The block on the right is just a trial of how they might possibly look with the setting triangles.