Very little quilting was done yesterday as I was out of town for a good portion of the day. I want to thank everyone for the well wishes sent to me for my mother who is in the hospital. So here is an update for those of you who have placed concerned and left questions – there were too many to answer individually. My 87 year old mom had a hysterectomy yesterday as she is battling cancer yet again in her life. The doctor feels it was at stage one and confined to the uterus but we will not know until all of the pathology comes back later in the week. The surgeon uses more modern tiny cuts than years past and recovery is fast for most people. It goes slower though as you age and have more problems getting around. Most stay in the hospital one night – the doctor originally said one night for mom but after seeing her this morning I think they will decide to keep her in one more day at least. I will go back tomorrow or the next day depending on when she goes home so that I can help her the first couple of days. I live a little more than two hours away though so I can’t be there every day I have other siblings near her that are in and out now.
It was a very long day yesterday – started at 3:30 AM and I got home close to 5:30 PM in order to unwind and relax I got a little quilting done on Star Crazy and then went to bed by 9:30 – how I made it to then is beyond me! I took my kindle to bed with me to read awhile before falling asleep and I think I only read two pages when I said to heck with this and shut the light off! Then of course I woke up with a splitting headache at 6 AM.
I got this section done on the weekend.
Most of this was on the weekend and the straight lines last night.
Today I have a list of chores I need to get busy with and I would love to get in a little exercise as it helps me to relax. I should find out later today from my sister what day mom will be getting out of the hospital but most likely won’t know until sometime tomorrow if I will be driving back on Wednesday or Thursday.
Now I guess I better get the day rolling!
In the past month or so I have had about 4 or 5 new readers – one just yesterday – ask me where did I get the pattern for the “Looking Through the Fence” quilt. I thought seeing as I am out of town today I would schedule a post that tells about this quilt and maybe some others this week.
I made this quilt last fall, I hand pieced it in September and October of 2011 while we were traveling in our little motorhome. This is really a very easy quilt to piece. I would say confident beginner? I was told that the individual block that makes up this quilt is called “Kansas Troubles” there are different blocks though that go by that name – not all the same one either 
Looking Through the Fence is my name for the quilt as it reminded me of a lattice fence.
I saw the pattern for the pillow at the Moda Bake Shop web site. If you click on that link it leads you to a post on pillows for the couch. There are 5 pillows lined up on the couch – the pattern for this one is the 2nd from the arm of the couch. If you scroll down throughout the list of instructions you will see how easily it is made. If you want pillow size follow the directions for it – if you want to make a quilt just keep on making those blocks until you have enough!!
Now if you go back to the top of the Moda Bake Shop site and click on the header or just click on my link again – it takes you back to home – which would be the latest date that the web site has been updated. They have wonderful patterns – free – with instructions telling you how to construct the quilts.
I made several of my smaller quilts last year from this web site. They have patterns for beginners and on up. I love making the beginner patterns even if I am not a beginner! They are fun and easy to do. Use a lot of white or black with wild prints or plain old pastels and you have lovely looking modern quilts.
Another I made from that web site is this one, Geese in the Park – the link to it is here. This is made up of large flying geese units and you just turn them this way and that to get this arrangement.
I am in no way connected to the Moda Bake Shop and they are not a sponsor of my blog – I have no sponsors – it’s just me I am just a very satisfied customer!!
I got to thinking yesterday about the fact that I will be at my mom’s about 2 days this week. I had to get sewing stuff ready for the week – I won’t bring any sewing for the day that she is in the hospital, too many people around and talking so much! We will be in and out anyhow and Mike and I will only be there part of the day. But for the two days at her apartment I had intended to just bring the Farmer’s Wife to quilt – then I remembered how warm she keeps it there. It might be too hot to quilt – I will bring it and if I get too warm I can set it aside and work on Joseph’s Coat.
So I spent several hours in between doing laundry cutting out and pinning the next row yesterday. Another red added-
Looking down at the row added.
When looking at the new color added to the last color it looks orangey to me, because it is by the carpet? I don’t know so I brought two pieces in to the dinning area table and the contrast between the colors is better in here I think.
I pin segments together and stack on the sandpaper board covered in felt. I start at the bottom of the quilt and work my way up. Then when I piece as I finish I stack from the top of the quilt to the bottom. Then start putting that row together. This really helps to keep things organized and sew the correct pieces together.
I don’t know if any of you remember that when first started this quilt I knew I wouldn’t have enough of my background fabric – the right hand side of the photo. I ordered more but they didn’t have the same color so I ordered a different light green which turned out much darker than I wanted it to be. I bleached it, and didn’t quite care for it so then I tea dyed it! 
then it was kind of peachy – but I wasn’t going to try anymore. I figured that if the quilt had graduated colors than the background could too. In this row I am starting to use the fabric on the left for the background and you can’t even see it when it is laid out on the carpet – weird.
I finally found one lighting source in the house where I could see the difference on the quilt but I figured if I hadn’t had to try so hard it was not going to be so noticeable of a difference in color that it wasn’t going to matter in this quilt.
I’m sure y’all are getting sick of Joseph’s Coat (yes I am keeping that name for the quilt for now) – but I really have not worked on much else recently. I got a lot of circles prepped last night and this morning and last evening I sat for about 2 hours stitching! I have 14 more circles to prep for this section of the quilt top that is done – that feels great!! After I get those attached I will get back to work on more rows so there will be changes coming up.
This is the only area left that needs circles on it.
Overall view.
I think I will get the remaining circles done this weekend, next week is kind of up in the air on what I will get done. My mom is having surgery on Monday and will be in the hospital for a night or two then home. I will be there on Monday and then maybe on Wednesday and Thursday. We are kind of playing it by ear right now as to how much care she will need after surgery. She might surprise us all and be just fine. If she needs me to stay with her for a day or two day I intend to bring the Farmer’s Wife quilt with me to work on. I have it ready and it is easier than bringing a bunch of pieces. I can quilt in between helping her out a little.
I hope you all have a great weekend!
by Karen on January 20, 2012
in quilts
This group is usually a very small gathering as it was this morning. Only 4 of us today! Sometimes we have up to 8 but usually 4 or 5. Very created though. Two of the ladies were working on a project for the quilt guild – which I am not a member of right now. It was interesting watching them working on these blocks. I am not sure what they will be turned into – a quilt for the group for some purpose or will they end up being each person’s UFO? Which is one reason I am never interested in doing blocks for a group to try something out because chances are they get tossed when you get home into a box or bin and you never look at it again!
But this is what they were working – portraits of themselves – although it did not look like either one of them – I don’t really think it is intended to either.
June’s supplies:
Janet’s:
More stuff:
June’s portrait:
And a little more – let’s get her dressed!
Janet’s
And a little bit more!
They had patterns for hair and glasses ect. June is fusing and Janet is using spray adhesive. I am not sure how these will be quilted and finished – I’ll post more as I see it.
Me – prepping more circles! I think I got about 25 circles prepped and ready to press here at home. I didn’t bring much with me this morning.
What are you working on this Friday? I thought to work outside again this afternoon, but it is chilly, damp and gloomy outside today – only 41 degrees. I think I will wait for a sunny day!! I got the house part way cleaned up, I’m taking a break and then?
by Karen on January 19, 2012
in quilts
I’m not sure when I had daffodil buds this early – but we noticed yesterday that the plants that line up in front of the property were up out of the ground. Today I went along the ditches to pick up trash and got a 13 gallon bag full and – would you believe I found a tire complete with a rim tossed into our trees!! That was a first, I have never found a tire before. People I am not a land fill.
Iris’s and daffodils and ground cover that stays out all year round.
daffodils
and a dandelion!
As you can see my yard needs to be cleaned up still and the beds cleaned out – but you know even though we have had a mild winter so far winter is not over. We might just get snow in February like we did last year – I seem to recall 2 or 3 snowfalls that accumulated about a foot of snow total in one or two weeks. I think the flower beds can wait until March before I clean them up. I am using this mild weather though for some clean up of brush. I am cleaning up an area of the far side of the front yard in the tree line. We get so many small trees and thorny things growing that you can barely walk through areas. I want to get a lot of that cut and cleaned up so that this spring I can use the riding lawnmower in it to keep it from growing back.
Starting today I decided that I need to count that in my exercise routine and try to work out there for an hour a day at minimum in good weather to get it taken care of – well I stick to it – I hope so.
Tomorrow is quilt group morning. Small group. I think I will wait to start the Farmer’s Wife quilt though another couple days and give my fingers a complete week of healing time and then back to work quilting. Tomorrow I have more circles that need prepping and plan on getting more ready.
Progress made yesterday on several projects even though it was such a screwed up morning and I wasn’t able to get around to my quilting projects until late afternoon. Our truck has been having some health problems 
Mike had taken it in to the shop the other day and they said a part is ordered but that it was well enough to be driven if he wanted to come back and get it and then bring it back later in the week when the part arrived he could. Well that was a mistake! We decided that I would drop him off to get the truck and I would then go to the fitness center and the grocery store. I drop him off and get to the other side of town only to have him call and say come back and get me the truck can not be driven! So back across town I go to get him. Sit around and wait awhile only to have him come back and say they are giving him a loaner – well that is good but has delayed us both from the start of our day. By time I got in a work out I need to get some lunch before shopping because I was running on empty by then. Had a few other errands to run and got home by 1:30.
I finally got started to put my batting together around 3 in the afternoon. After reading a couple of the comments I was reminded that I have the heat press tape to put my binding together instead of sewing it. I knew I had it but I find it a little hard to hand quilt through – then I remember the previous times I used it I put it on both sides of the seam area and I thought I would try just one side this time – that is what is said to use but seeing as it is mostly used for machine quilting I thought for hand quilting because you are handling it so much more than maybe two sides was better – now I will find out how one side works.
So this is what I was doing yesterday:
pin the backing to the carpet so it will be wrinkle free (I do this only with small quilts for the hoop and use the 3 roller for large quilts)
I smooth my batting over it with no pins and then the top which I pin down to smooth out wrinkles.
Then I get the basting pins out and get busy pinning – the whole operation took about an hour from start to finish. Now this quilt is set aside and will be taken to quilt groups on Fridays – the project will take awhile to finish but that is ok.
I made more circles and got busy with appliqueing them in place while Criminal Minds and CSI were on last night, I have run out of circles and need to make more, I think I need about 50 more for this last section before I start to make more rows.
My newest quilt book arrived in the mail on Tuesday while I was visiting my mother so I was able to get it out yesterday and give it a good look over – I love it!! So many bright ideas for borders – Judy did a great job with this book. The author is Judy from Patchwork Times of Design Wall Monday. It can be purchased from her for an autographed copy or from your local quilt shops I assume. This will be a quilt book I will use I am sure – I am trying to not buy books either – I am trying to be frugal this year and control spending on all fronts!!
After reading all the comments yesterday on what you do with your batting it seems that the biggest use for scrap batting is either sewing them together to make more quilts or to use them for table runners/mug rugs. There are some of you that throw them away almost immediately though.
by Karen on January 18, 2012
in quilts
What works in progress do you have? Run on over to Lee at Freshly Pieced and see what everyone is working on.
Today I am going to be piecing some batting together. I have one king size batting available and I do not want to cut into it for the small Farmers Wife quilt which is only 52 x 65 inches! I know that one of the pieces in this stack of small pieces of batting is an ok size and I will zigzag sew pieces of batting together to make a large enough piece to use. I use the sewing machine to do this – do you?
After using up a lot of very small pieces of batting to wrap Christmas decorations in I didn’t realize my small pile of useable pieces had gotten so small! I will need to start searching the on line shops to see what the prices of batting is right now and order some to keep on hand for small quilts. I normally get king size batts and cut them for small quilts – getting 3 or 4 quilts made from each package, but I think I need to start just ordering more useable sizes.
Do you baste your leftover batting together to use in a quilt – what do you do with your left over pieces – I have heard some people toss them in the trash, some use them on their floor mops for dusting the hard wood floors, some use them for dusting the house and some like me use them by sewing them together and using them for small quilts. What do you do with your odd bits of batting?
At some point today I will be prepping more circles. I got home from my visit to my mom around 5 PM so after putting together an easy meal I watched some tv to unwind and got more circles on the Joseph’s Coat quilt. I also woke up early this morning so I started to prep more circles as I was watching the early news and having a cup of coffee. I took this photo of Joseph’s Coat last night but then added more circles so what you see in this photo, there is now about another 1/2 row of circles done.
I never did get the next color of red pieces cut out. I’m not sure if I will get to that today. I might just work on the batting and the circles. I will get back to quilting on Star Crazy also – my fingertips have healed up a bit again so I think they are ready to get back to work.
I am leaving bright and early in the morning with my daughter – who actually has a day off for a change! – to go visit with my mom and youngest sister for most of the day. So I am scheduling this post – any comments that need to be approved will be done so in the evening.
Instead of a nice warm day it is going to be cold! Here the high is around noon I believe and in the 50’s – up there – what the heck – 38 for a high and that is around 7 AM! I think it will be about 32 degrees when we head for home. It is sometimes hard to believe what a cold front can do, putting one part of the state in the 30’s and 100+ miles away in the 50’s.
Thank you Nedra for posting on your blog that you were turning your 50 Farmers Wife’s blocks into a quilt and setting on point. That got me thinking of my 20 that I had finished in the middle of last year and not touched since. I just did not want them hanging around waiting for more blocks to be done.
I have been working off and on the past several days on the Farmer’s Wife and it is complete – not perfect – but complete. Finished size is 52 inches x 65 inches. Not perfect I say because those darn setting half square triangles on the sides went and stretched a little bit and I was too lazy to take the offending ones out and re-do. My excuse – this is not a show quilt – and I use the 100% cotton batting that shrinks up just a little bit and gives it that vintage look – it will not be all that noticeable after it is quilted, washed and dried.
The border – 1 1/2 inches of the same white used in the quilt, 1/2 inch of Fairy Frost reddish/orange and 2 inches of black. (these are finished size measurements)
If you want a show quilt do not do as I do – fix the offending areas immediately 
but if you just want to have fun and make quilts like I do – don’t worry about it!! There is too much to do in life without stressing out over your quilts.
The only UFO’s I still have hanging around my house are 2 Little Brown Bird blocks which will be turned into something before the end of the year and the Pineapple paper piecing blocks that I intend to make more of this year. Also on the list of course is the applique border for the Red and Green Quilt and quilts to be quilted – are they counted as UFO’s I wonder – the tops are made so in that respect they are not unfinished – but they need to be quilted.
Next up this week – I need to baste some batting together to have a piece big enough for this quilt. I know I have several fairly good pieces in the bag that I save them in. After Christmas I got rid of a lot of the small pieces by using them for wrapping some of the decorations in for storage. I still have some good size pieces though to use up. Then I need to piece a backing, I have no wide backs and I’m not going to buy any. I want to get this quilt pin basted and then start having this be my quilt group project for awhile and continue at home quilting Star Crazy and working on Joseph’s Coat. By Wednesday my fingers should be healed enough to once again get back to quilting.
Well I took a break yesterday and plan to again today from both Joseph’s Coat and Star Crazy. Instead I spent off and on all day yesterday and will again today – Monday working on putting together the Farmer’s Wife blocks!
I got a lot done on Sunday. I have all the blocks organized and sashing on. Today I need to put all the half square triangles in place and then sew the rows together. From there I will decide about a border.
Early in the afternoon Sunday this is what it looked like. The black just really makes these color pop I think.
Monday morning I am this far, I am delighted with the progress made. Some of the blocks I am not satisfied with as they had a bit of black on the outside edges of the blocks and the sashing is black also. The black is a different color of black – but there you go. I am working with fabric on the shelves and I’m not buying anything new. One of the blocks that looks black is actually a dark green but that doesn’t show in the photo and one has a tiny print of pink in it which also doesn’t show up in the photo. When working with scrappy blocks though you can’t always find a color that you haven’t used – especially not always having it in your stash. I can live with this quite easily.
Run on over to Judy at Patchwork Times and see what everyone else is working on today.
These nice open white blocks in between the scrappy blocks will have a nice quilted motif of some sort on them to stand out.
