Photos from Thanksgiving:
Melanie and I with THE QUILT
8 rows of the second Dear Jane quilt "Insanity Revisited" this one will eventualy go to my younger daughter Jessica
My family that I comment on from time to time on my blog - the most important people in the world to me. From left my hubby Mike, Melanie, Ric, Me, Jessica, Shane - in front Jessica & Shane''s kids Ciera and Utah
Ciera and Utah with Max their dog that came along for the family trip
And as if I don't have enough projects in the works - this is a new knitting project. Now that I have the knit stitch down pat I am working on learning how to purl so one side is knit, one side purl. This will be a shawl like thing - I say thing because I wonder if it will be more afhgan size when I am done? I am not following a pattern but just put 100 stitches on the big needles and going from there!
For now the Dear Jane quilt “Insanity” will reside on my bed. Melanie is going to hang it on a wall after I give it to her so I need to put a hanging sleeve on the back of the quilt still. I am going to make the sleeve in such a way that a bracket can go in the middle to give the weight of the quilt support as it is heavy. For now though the quilt is on my bed and it will remain there for about a year for me to enjoy. I put the Twisted Star quilt that I had on the bed so the back of the quilt which is a purple moda marble is on top, the Insanity is on top of that making the underneath quilt look more like a bed skirt. At night I will simply fold the quilt and lay it over the tall stool I have in the bedroom in the corner of the room so it is out of the way and then when I make the bed in the morning it will go back over it. I still need to design a label for the back of the quilt. I haven’t uploaded the program I use on my new computer but I decided to get a newer version of Print Master Gold anyhow so I will do that soon. I have Print Master 12 and I think it is up to version 17 or 19 now and have newer ideas for it with internet access. I’m sure plenty of new clip art also which I use a lot on my labels.
Dear Jane "Insanity" on my bed
My younger daughter-Jessica will be receiving the second Dear Jane “Insanity Revisited” sometime after that one is finished. I need to sew row 8 on to the blocks and then I will post a new photo of that quilt. While the grandchildren were here examining the quilts 
which they love to do asking what will be next I showed Ciera the “Little Brown Bird” quilt and told her that I was thinking of making that one – her words “that one will be mine”. (I told her maybe she would get it when she was 21 – she is 7 now – that should give me plenty of time to make it and enjoy it if I decide to do so). Utah spent one evening working on a design for a quilt that he wants me to make – he said it would be the quilt to use while watching tv in their basement family room which is a little chilly in the winter. Designed by Utah and made by Grandma – he specifically said that it had to have scraps of fabric in it from a quilt that I made him last year He had the big pad of drawing paper out, a square quilting ruler and colored pencils – he did a really good job but was only about a 1/4 of the way done with it when they left for home. He took the drawing home with him and said he will finish it and send it to me – I don’t know if he will keep his interest but if he sends it back I will see what I can do with it.
by Karen on November 29, 2009
in family
We just got back from our camping weekend. I haven’t had time to look through photos but I wanted to put a link here to my daughter Melanie’s blog where she posted photo’s of our Thanksgiving.
I will post again later if I get to it. While the kids were here visiting we got a photo of me and Mel holding up THAT QUILT that she has been waiting patiently for me to finish. Now she has had her first look at it and will wait awhile before I hand it over! She was drooling I will get one of the photo’s from Mike to post.
by Karen on November 27, 2009
in family
I don’t know about anyone else but I ate too much. We went through so many pumpkin pies – we love it. We eat it for breakfast, dessert, snacks – it is the only time of year I make it. We are bringing the leftovers with us.
We made use of our motorhome as we had too many people in the house the last couple days and when that happens it is very handy to have the motorhome next to the house. We make use of the extra sleeping space and the bathroom – it is heated and has water in the tank. But because we did use the bathroom and it is almost time for winter that means we must dump the tanks and then winterize the pipes. We decided the easiest way to do that is to go camping We will have fun, go hiking, enjoy nature and then dump the tanks and when we get home Mike will winterize the vehicle.
We will just be gone for the weekend – our last camping trip of the year – it will be a short trip but enjoyable. The campground that we are going to is a short drive - less than an hours drive from here. It is supposed to be in the 60′s this weekend although the evenings will be chilly.
While the kids where here we made use of the firepit that we had gotten for the stone area that Mike added to our deck. Here is a photo of the stone area and when Mike gets all his photos loaded on the computer I will put one on of the kids roasting marshmallows on Wednesday – they had fun and it made them feel like they were camping. We will be able to enjoy this fire pit almost all year round. It has a cover to go over it to protect it from the rain but most likely most of the time it will be put under the protection of the roof on the porch. There is a table top that you can put over the area that you put the wood in and then it turns into a table.
along the backside of this area Mike is building a rock wall that will provide extra seating if necessary (although most of the time it is just the two of us so plenty of room for the two chairs there) and maybe a bench on the side that is highest off of the ground (next to where the chairs are). It made for a nice area for a fire in the middle of a chilly afternoon. All this rock is from our land - we grow rocks pretty good in Arkansas! The flat stones though we had to buy - we hardly ever find any that flat in our yard
by Karen on November 25, 2009
in family
The house is full, the grandchildren are visiting here are some photos of my cuties having fun.
Wii game talent (Star Wars challenge)
Utah and Ciera working on a drawing
A Christmas tree all trimmed up and Santa peeking around the corner, gifts under the tree with their names on them
My second Dear Jane - Insanity Revisited now has 8 rows finished. I need to sew the 8th row onto the 7 rows already put together. Not sure if I will be working on that over the next couple days or not. Dear Daughter #2 and family+ large dog Max arrive in an hour or so and will be here until Friday. Our little house will be bursting at it’s seams.
Block 13, Row 8, Insanity Revisited - those white specks are just thread clippings that I hadn't noticed - somehow I constantly have thread clippings sticking to the furniture, me, husband, all over the house - why is that
Here is some of the quilting on the Christmas Baltimore Album quilt. I decided to use a tone on tone yellow King Tut thread for the quilting on the red sashing. I think it sets it off well, the red thread would have just disappeared in it. I have 10 hours or so of quilting in on this quilt already and have barely made a dent in it. Good thing I really didn't plan on having it done for the Christmas season this year no way no how would it get done!!
I decided now is time to get back to work on the second Dear Jane quilt “Insanity Revisited.” I started this quilt in April of 2008. I had been so busy the past year with other projects that I have not gotten much done on it this year but I would like to get busy and get several blocks done a week or more if possible in between working on other projects.
In the last two days I got done with two blocks.
This one is from row 8 number 11
Row 8 block #12 work in progress. This is a photo of how I make this block. I cut a square of background fabric at about 5 1/2 inches. Then I cut out the 4 hearts using freezer paper. I draw a chalk line around each heart where the stitching will be. I clip curves where needed and needle turn applique each heart in place. I use my Dear Jane square ruler to help with the placement and I glue baste the heart in place and then do the stitching. I square the quilt block when the applique is finished by pressing first then cutting.
Row 8 Block number 12 when it is finished.
The Baltimore Bliss quilt top will be set aside for a little bit until I can mark the design for the quilting. I thought I had a feathered wreath stencil big enough to use for the big quilting areas but I didn’t. I found a 14 1/2 inch stencil of a feathered wreath though on line and have it ordered. As soon as I get it I will get to work marking out the design and then I will quilt in on my hoop. Over the next week in between visiting with family for the holiday I will get the batting stitched together from the large scraps that I have and figure out what backing to use.
In the meantime I have gotten my bathroom painted and Mike has been putting up new towel rods and robe hook. I got a new off white shower curtain and some cream and brown towels. A nice big chocolate brown rug on the floor. I have a linen closet in the bathroom that used to have a door on it. If I recall right the door was damaged and got taken down. I painted the shelves and got baskets for loose items and left it open. I was tired of it that way and thought I would make a curtain for it instead for the new look the bathroom has now. (The bathroom is more the color that I had wanted for the kitchen when I messed up and didn’t get the darker shade so I got it for the bathroom instead for a totally different look in there.)
I had a jelly roll that I bought in September – it is called Mill House Inn by Moda. I took half of the strips and combined them with strips of various widths of cream fabric I had on the shelf and made a curtain out of it. This is one of the many things you can do with a jelly roll other than make quilts. If I get tired of it as a curtain I can trim the edges where it is hemmed add a border, add some applique and make a couch size quilt out of it!
Here is the new look, complete with new flowers in my big olive jar on the top of the cabinet
You couldn't quite see the olive jar with the flowers in the previous photo. Because of where the door is situated I have no photos of the shower curtain or that side of the room - too small of a room to get photos of and who wants to look at the bathroom anyhow when it is so small!!
So this is why I didn’t post yesterday. I was busy sewing strips and doing various other things around the house. I finished up the curtain today. The other half of the jelly roll will be used for something else. It has mainly green strips & pinkish/beige strips left in it. I might end up making a table runner of some sort for the dining table with it. The orange batik cloth that is on it now is old and I found out the other day that it had torn a little when I washed it – I really think it is rotting! It is old for the life of a piece of thin fabric – this was not quilting batik fabric but a sarong type of fabric.
I got done with one more of the “Insanity Revisited” blocks on my second Dear Jane. I’m not the best at cropping and editing photos, I cropped part of it that will be the seam as it looked uneven but I didn’t do a good job at it and now it looks lopsided. I can never seem to focus quite right either on small squares – I probably should have stood further away from it – I’m a quilter not a photographer
H-10, almost done with the 8th row. It actually is square the photo just doesn't look like it!!
Ok I got the Baltimore Bliss stitched on point today (by machine ) it was pretty easy to do considering the size of the quilt – it is finished at 45 x 65 I believe.
I didn't quite get the quilt laid out flat and took the picture and didn't realize I would need to take the photo over again when my battery ran out! Why do these camera batteries always seem to run out so quickly - that is this camera does anyhow. One day I am going to get a new camera, I wouldn't mind something smaller that takes even better photos. There are so many to choose from now. I will post another photo another day. I will see how much batting I have left and baste some more together to get rid of more of these pieces. This quilt I will go ahead and use my hoop for and can quilt in the living room while watching tv. The Christmas quilt will be on the frame for awhile so I might just as well work on two at once in the quilting stage.
Last night while watching tv I got this block finished for the "Insanity Revisited" quilt. This is the name I have given my second Dear Jane quilt. I have 7 rows sewed together and I am piecing the 8th row right now. This is block 9 from the 8th row. This is also block 100 out of the 169 blocks needed so it is moving smoothly along.
I was lucky and managed to get my H1N1 flu shot today. I called the medical clinic to see if it was in yet and they said they got some of the serum yesterday and to get down right away and get my shot before it went to someone else I scurried right on down and got it before they ran out. I am in one of the high risk groups so I was glad to get it although my arm is a little sore tonight.
It has been sweater weather lately – I like wearing sweaters and sweatshirts so it feels nice to me. I am baking muffins tonight and I know the house won’t heat up much – instead the oven heats the house just enough that the heat isn’t coming on. I am making two different kinds – well one batter, but two different ways. One half of it has raisins and walnuts in it and the other half is walnuts and chocolate chips. It is an oatmeal batter. It sure smells good, I have a feeling these breakfast muffins are going to be for snack time also!
by Karen on November 18, 2009
in quilts
I finished my 6th Baltimore Bliss blocks that I got from the Fat Cat Pattern site. That is all of them that I am making for this child size quilt. I really had fun with these blocks they were fairly simple to make and I needed that after all the difficult work on some of the quilts that I have made this past couple years. There are six more blocks in this series of BOM blocks. I will continue to collect them and make another child size quilt from the next set and use a different color scheme for it.
The 6th block in this series. I had only used this blueish (I'm not sure if that is a word but it is for me) color fabric in one block so I had to make sure to use it in this one so it would all balance out right. I redesigned this block. I didn't care for the flowers as it was designed - it would have had two colors layered on each petal and nothing in the center of them, I preferred to do them this way. Also the leafs next to the flowers were a bit bigger and I thought they took up too much room so I made them smaller.
Or set like this with sashing and borders around the whole thing. This lay out would be the easier of the two as far as quilting it would go although on the border and sashing I would probably put a braid like design on it which would be a bit of quilting. Any fabric used in these blocks is down to very little left over so whatever the sashing would be might not be from these colors - one of the reasons I am leaning towards the set on point version - I have plenty of the background fabric as I got quite a few yards of it - it is such an easy color to work with so I got a bit of it.
I really like the two blocks in the middle the best for some reason. Not sure why. I should have used the light green fabric a little more but I ran out as I almost did with the plaid. The hazards of using up scraps! All of the colors except the background fabric was pulled from my scraps. I am really trying to be good and use a lot of them up.
