3 of twelve or 6 of twenty-four!

I thought I would play a little catch up today and complete some monthly blocks I have committed to make. It should have been easy; a piece of cake as they say. Well, I'd like to have the piece of cake, please. Make it chocolate, too!

How many different ways can you sew one triangle to a half square triangle and still not have it be right? The answer is so many times, that I had to cut an entirely new triangle! Oh well, Mama said there would be days like this!

These blocks are from a local quilt store, Prairie Point Quilts. Each month they have a Block Party where you buy the pattern and fabric for $2.00. If you bring it back the following month, completed, the next block is $2.00. If for some reason you can’t get there or complete the block, then the kit is $5.00. At the end of 12 months, they present the settings choices, and each color range has a different completion for the blocks. The theme of the 2005 Block Party is “Forget Me Not”, honoring the women in our lives.

I couldn't decide which color to do. I always like blue, but I thought I should push myself a little, so I added the reds/browns too. It doesn't surprise me that I like the blue set better. The blue set is Washday Blues; the line is Mary's Favorite Blues circa 1800 from Windham Fabrics. The reds/browns are from Moda's Wuthering Heights lines, and the set is called Raspberry Truffle.

The first block is named “Addah” for all those able, active, adorable, adventurous, affectionate, agile, agreeable, ambitious, amusing, animated, ardent, articulate, attractive and audacious ladies whose names start with the letter A.

The second block, named “Mary” is for all those magical, magnanimous, magnificent, majestic, melancholic, marvelous, melodic, merry, mirthful, miraculous, mischievous, and sometimes mysterious women.

The third block (which showed me how many different WRONG ways there are to sew a triangle to a square) is “Thelma”. Women whose names begin with a T and those women who are talkative, talented, tantalizing, tempting, tender, thoughtful, thrifty, ticklish, tolerant, tranquil, trendy, trustful, twinkling, and truly a treasure are remembered this month.

Do not value the THINGS in your life, but value Who you HAVE in your life.”

OK! All I had to make was the last one for each color. It’s taken me most of the day! So now, I am all caught up again on these blocks - that is until the middle of next month! LOL!

I guess, it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to finish the very last one from last year’s Block Party, eh? I liked it much better. It’s called Border to Border, and each block had something significant about it regarding Kansas and Missouri (since the state line runs right through the metropolitan area), it’s quite appropriate with the story.

Christmas Cases

I've been sewing all day! The result is fancy TEN pillowcases!

I plan on using these as gift wrap for all the little girls and boys in our family for their Christmas gifts.

There are 2 each of the stripey background with girlie stuff on them, 2 each of the construction tools, two each of the cars with flames, and one of the black and white poodle girl and one of the fashion girls on pink.

So now those are done, and I can mark them off my list. BTW, I also make pillowcases if I have leftover fabric from the quilts I make, too. They make nice storage bags when the quilt isn't being used, and I also like to use them on the bed when the quilt is out. Makes it nice so I don't have to make the quilt quite as big to have a pillow roll.

Baby, it's cold outside!

Kevin with his beloved rag quilt in front of tonight's fire!

As you can see from my Weather Pixie, the winds are at 27 mph, and it is 36 degrees with 76% humitiy! It's COLD!

Home again, home again - FABRIC!

FABRIC!! FABRIC!!! FABRIC!!! (Hear Sharon breathing hard!)

When we arrived home late Thursday night, sitting outside by my garage doors was a huge box! It weighed a ton, or so it seemed. I drug it inside along with our suitcases, and didn't touch it again until yesterday.

What was inside startled me! A friend of ours (Bonnie and I) died unexpectedly a while back. Her stash was divided between the small list of on-line friends, and I thought I had already received my part. I volunteered to finish up a couple of "started" quilts for her family, as well as make a Tom Sawyer quilt for her grandson. So, I was quite surprised to open this box and find more FABRIC!

I've gotten it washed now, and it's sitting here waiting for me to press it. Doesn't it make a pretty sight, just hanging on the back of the chair?


While I was taking pictures of it, I thought I would also show you my "stewdio". It is actually a formal (four season) sunroom on the south side of our house. When we moved my mother into the house, she took over my sewing area in the finished basement, so I had to find a new home. I started only with my sewing machine and one small table. Then, we moved Mother to a retirement community, and my hubby suggested I just take over this room. Isn't he a sweetie? I heard somewhere that you can call the room you sew in a studio if it is devoted to only sewing most of the time. Studio sounds so pretentious, so mine is called "stewdio", as it is where I do most of my stewing!

Now, onto pressing all this fabric, and planning what to do with it. It's all CHILDREN fabric - little girls, little boys, little girls and little boys, kids playing, kids posing, etc etc etc. Maybe some Linus quilts for our Neonatal unit next year?

Home away from home

We left home to travel north for yet another surgery at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN. We've been here so often in the last 18 months, it seems like a strange homecoming everytime we roll into town.

By sheer luck, in Spring 2004, I found a wonderful short-term lease apartment just three blocks away from the clinic. It is on the clinic shuttle route, and the WalMart van will come and pick you up to go shopping with just a telephone call. The apartments are always clean and bright; the staff is always smiling and concerned.

So here we are. My husband had a liver transplant (totally unexpected) in June 2004, and the anti-rejection medicines trashed his kidneys within 6 months. So, his brother gave him the wonderful gift of a kidney, and June 2005 found us here again, along with brother for kidney transplant. A small incisional hernia developed from the liver transplant, and that's what is being fixed this trip. It was a minor surgery, and he even got to come home afterward. Home to the apartment, that is!

So, he's in bed, knocked out from the pain pills, and I've been sewing up a storm. I always bring my sewing machine and enough projects to last a year, it seems! I can't describe what I am working on, lest the people I am sewing Christmas presents for are reading this blog.

The weather was really nice the last couple of days, but today we are getting winds from the north. I think Autumn is over here in the northland! We hope to return to Kansas tomorrow, if his pain is under control.

Fleur Finale!

Les Fleurs de Jardin has finally been completed! I decided to take out all the previous machine quilting I had done, because I just didn't like it. I've spent all the extra time since I posted the original blog about this, adding some of the hand quilted parts and I like it much better now.


The stems and leaves were originally trapunto, and I think that detracted from the overall look, so they had to be re-worked too. I like the handquilting and the couched threads much better.


On this section, I added some fancy embroidery stitches and a few beads to emphasize the movement in the flower.


This is the center section that was paper-pieced. I added more of the couched embroidery threads here to give the three pieces unity.

This was a fun project to do with a couple of friends, I just wish it hadn't taken so long! It all starteda Hallmark card that I can't find right now, but when I do, it has a pocket on the back of the wallhanging so it can stay with the piece.

What is more interesting, is that I kept this piece for about 10 years before I completed it. I can look at the components and see what I've learned technique-wise, but more importantly, I look at the whole and see the colors that I liked ten years ago are still high on my list!

Autumn and Lotto Leftovers

This is the gazebo we built when we put in the dry creek bed about 3 years ago. The Sunset Maples have the most spectacular display this year! The dry creek is about 15" deep, and it is filled a couple of time a year when the Spring storms roll in with heavy rains, and sometimes hail. In the meantime, I let some natural grasses grow, and a little further up the bed there is an abandoned wheelbarrow that is filled with petunias in the spring. The grandkids love to play here, and often will have "garden teas" where they dress up in hats and gloves, and have little sandwiches and soda pop in teacups.



A fresh look down the drive from the backyards is pretty inspiring too. The red maples at the garage entrance side of the house are blazing away, but will soon lose all their leaves.



I decided that I wanted a more refined and cultured part of the garden that would be "just for me". I started the collection with this stupid old "crazy dog" one summer who was rescued from a garage sale on the other side of town. The dog is reputed to be a work of art, made in New Mexico by a famous sculptor, and it's supposedly a caricature of the previous owner's dog. After I heard the story of the dog and it's fame, I wondered out loud why it was in the garage sale, then? Well, it seems the real dog had died, and the replica dog also had died when the vacuum cleaner bit off one it's hind legs. The previous owner was just too sad to see it sitting there any longer. The original art price tag of $20.00 rapidly was reduced to $3.00 and Crazy Dog now sits happily in his garden amidst the plow gear and sawblade sunflowers. A little duct tape fixes him up each year, and he stays in the garden shed when winter arrives. There's also a crazy tin rooster, a blue flamingo and an ugly deformed orange pelican inhabiting the dry creek bed, as well as a one-winged tin owl sitting up in the tree.



A bit further east of Crazy Dog is the home of Crazy Lady. This is a painted tin sculpture one of my friends brought for my birthday. It is in the only shady part of the gardens on the property! She stands in the middle of Nepeta cataria, commonly known as catmint. Her windchimes made a steady little song in the spring and summer as the breezes blow through her hair.



And just a little further east is the Wren House and her bed of sunflowers. I put this little decorative welcome "butterfly" into the shade garden to liven it up a bit when the flowers all stopped blooming. Before I could get it driven securely into the ground, a lively little House Wren was buzzing all over me, chattering and swooping here and there. I thought I had inadvertently entered into her nesting area, but I was wrong! As soon as I walked away (backward), she busily set about picking up sticks and making this her home. She has had two broods that I know of, and she now allows me to come within picture taking distance of her home.




Now back into the house to finish up the pieced backing for the Lotto quilt. I'm sure the quilter will wondering what in the heck I was thinking when she opens the backing! BUT!!!! As displayed, this is all that remains of all the fabrics pulled to put this quilt top together. I even used the fabric that I pulled (and didn't put away) that didn't quite work. Then these leftovers were cut into usable strips and put away (GASP!) in the appropriate scrap bin by size!

Now on to getting projects ready to take with me out of town next week!

Another UFO bites the dust

I've been fighting off a strange virus for the last three weeks or so. It started out as just aches and groans - even my hair hurt! About the time I thought I was over that, I woke up with a scratchy throat which progressed to bronchitis. Phooie! And the weather here has been soooo nice! Just the last couple of days I've been feeling good enough to come out of the bedroom which has piled up with newspapers (for the news junkie in me) and quilting books (for inspiration), and lots of empty water bottles. Ahhhh, it's so nice to be back in my stewdio again, with the south facing windows and the sun pouring in. Today, I even have one of them cracked slightly open to enjoy the brisk breeze that is blowing.

I belong to an on-line friendship group (with Bonnie), and each year we participate in a "lotto block" drawing. At the beginning, one person sends a fat eighth to everyone participating, and on the last day of the month, she draws who will get those blocks. All the blocks are then sent to the lucky winner, and then *she* sends out the next round of fabric. Sometimes the fabrics are fabulous, other times, not my preference, but it's nice to work outside my range sometimes.

This quilt top was just finished with last year's (2004) lotto blocks. The colors in the photo aren't quite right, but close enough. The fabric was a Hoffman challenge from some years back, and not my cuppa tea at all! One of the best books I've gotten in recent times is Sharon Craig's Seven Fabulous Settings. It's sort of a re-write of her earlier book, but much easier to understand. I chose to use the Two for One setting since my blocks weren't all quite the same size, and I had an uneven number of them. I also wanted to downplay the focus fabric, too.

I chose a muted tiny floral Hoffman for the background, and a soft green fossil fern to frame the blocks. I also used a purple fossil fern for the central star piecing and the cornerstones. Now, a new rule I have this year is to use my stash fabric for exchanged blocks and blocks that have been languishing my "to do" bin. And the other new rule is that I must use ALL the fabric up that I pull out for the project. This means that the backing on this quilt will be pieced with the odds and ends of all the leftover fabric. And THEN if I have any left, I will make a couple of pillowcases to go with the quilt. I don't ever plan for a pillowroll on the quilts, so this is always nice to have when I change out the quilt on the bed - to have matching cases that don't conflict with the quilt!

This quilt will be my mother's Christmas present this year. It turned out a bit bigger than planned at 88" square, but I know she'll use it anyway!

Autumn in the Heartland

I took a little stroll through the yard to stretch my back today after I quilted and beaded a couple of hours. Dear hubby was out in the yard, doing last minute things before the last of the season. Things like picking up the hoses, and putting the styrofoam covers on all the outdoor spigots, spreading more straw out on the newly seeded areas of the lawn, and taking in the more delicate yard ornaments. I took along the camera so I could show you how big the yard is, and some of the latest changes in the trees here. Stick through to the last of the post for a reward of something related to quilting and autumn.

We've planted over 45 trees in the last five years - purple ash along the drive, blue spruce in the central garden, standard pears, red maples, sunset maples and October glory maples. I'm afraid with the heavy rains and winds that are moving in tonight, the leaves will be beaten off before they really get to turn their glorious colors.




I like the way they start to turn, just like a paintbrush has been waved over them, either from the top or just one side.


The gazebo and the dry wash were projects from 2002 when our backyard got all washed out from heavy rains. We planted those trees there too. The ones around the gazebo are all Sunset maples, with a redbud and two yellowwood trees to the south side (left). The dry wash fills completely with rainwater during the heaviest rains, and keeps our other plantings from washing away.


This is part of my central garden that sits in the middle of about 2 acres. It looks a bit tired now, but it's given us a beautiful summer. The gazing ball is the first bowling ball I did. I used all the broken tile that was leftover from the bathroom remodeling job that summer.

And the best of today? What I was working on, of course!



This piece will be ready to share very soon. After languishing in my "to do" box for 4 years, I am happy to report I only have a couple more hours of work on it. I took out some of the old stitching and beading that bothered me, and probably caused me to put it aside. Now, my skill and my creative process has matured, and I knew exactly what it needed - but most importantly, what *I* wanted to do to it! So watch this space!

Now, What was I looking for?

I was originally looking for some beads to quilt and bead at the same time on the triptych wallhanging. Did I ever find the missing bead box? Nope! I found the one with all the specialty beads, but not the basic box that fits on top of it. It must be in a safe place, I guess. Whoa, wait a minute! Am I turning into my mother? I didn't find my very special crochet gloves from when I was a kid until I cleaned out Mother's house when we moved her to a retirement community. She always put special things in a "safe place", and then could never find them again, too. LOL!

At any rate, I DID find all this danged embroidery thread. I thought since it was out, I should organize it into usable types. The end result is that I have one large bunch that is called craft thread, which is like a #8 perle cotton, only in skeins. Another large bunch is actually embroidery thread that people have purchased for me as gifts over the years. You know, like the special packaged that are for sale when DMC comes out with anniversary stuff? And then the spools in the box are all my perle cottons. I love these! Some of them are hand dyed, some are Valdani cottons, but most are just #8 and #12 perles. The variegated one seem to be my favorite as I have more of them than the plain colors. And this doesn't even show all the threads I have organized in a DMC carrying case with a current project. All this from someone who really doesn't even like to embroider!

Well, at least I'll be able to choose from a wide assortment of colors for my wallhanging when I get quilting this afternoon. Beads? Why, I guess I need to change clothes and go to the bead store. Is that a sure fire way to find my basic bead box or what?

Dresden Plates and I Spy bag

Another beautiful day here in the Heartland finds me happy, happy, happy! Maybe later on, I'll post some pictures of the yard from this last spring.

I started the day by being fourth in line for my flu shot at 9:30 AM, and I was back home by 10 AM! I got to sew the binding on the last quilt that was patiently waiting. Now, I can sit with hubby in front of the TV and hand sew it down. I just don't do the turned binding by machine very nicely, it seems. I guess I also like the last "hands on" of the quilt before it goes into use - sort of like a last meal with your baby before they go to college or get married or go into the service.

It happens to be a reproduction 1930's Dresden Plate. I looked around a lot for a setting that I liked. I can't remember which of you Mavericks found your Gramma's plates and were wondering how to set them? Here's my suggestion. I quite like them. BTW, the cat is not part of the embellishment on the quilt. Even though she thinks this is HER quilt, there will be another one that she will claim soon. Quite fickle!





And someone else asked for a more complete description of the wonderful I Spy bag that a friend of mine sent for my little Stephen. So here's the picture. Unfortunately, you can't see everything that's in it, but you *can* see how it's constructed. It's a simple 10" square of fleece (both top and bottom), with a window sewn in made from heavyweight vinyl. It's stitched together several times around with a heavy zigzag stitch. The edges are pinked. Everything in it is miniature toy like things with no sharp edges. I would imagine you could put anything in the pouch that you'd like. The list that was sent along with it says what's in it:

A happy face, a clothes pin, a turtle, a lady bug, a wreath, a shell, a jingle bell, a googley eye, a flag, a spool of thread, a crayon, a gold slipper, an apple, a wrench, a button, a marble, a dolphin, a daisy, a star, a pencil, a moon, a paper clip, a watch, and a penny.

Could this be October?

Once again my summer has disappeared while I've been busy doing other things. Late last night and early this morning, I've been looking at blogs, smiling, and shaking my head as I go.

I had all sorts of plans to sew yesterday (and several other days too), but they were changed even before I got up! My daughter called and told me that the kids were out of school and were begging to come over. So that's what the day was. I offer this blog as my one and only contribution to the Halloween festivities. Originally, I was going to begin AND complete a pumpkin patch wall hanging, but hey! there's always next year right?

So we got the day started with the girls favorite lunch - tuna salad on croissants. I got to unveil Stephen's "I SPY" pouch while the girls were making their sandwiches. The pouch was made by my friend Wendy in California - isn't it a great idea? It is made of fleece with a see through vinyl window, filled with micro beads and all sorts of I spy things. There's a spider, a turtle, a Polly Pocket dolphin, a crayon, a wreath, a smiley face, a googly eye, and on and on and on. Stephen just loves it!

Stephen also got to play with the animated cat that screams and turns it's head around that the girls brought for us. You'd think he would scare him, but nooooooooo! He just giggled and kept pointing at it's eyes! LOL!


After lunch, we went to see Wallace and Gromit. It is absolutely hilarious!! Everyone should go see this, even if you don't have a kid to escort you! I just can't imagine the Claymation animation patience those creators use! Then it was home again, home again where we had a quick swim. Can you believe it? October, and we are still swimming? Now, of course, I have to admit, we have the heater going, but all the same. It was 85 degrees this afternoon and it was just delightful!

We also decided to give the pumpkins some faces instead of carving, so here we all are after that event. On the left is Audrey (8), Julia (10), Oma and Opa (ageless). The extra pumpkin between Oma and Opa is for Stephen and it was a collaborative effort:)


And I leave you with my last traditional Halloween contribution. A picture of two conjoined black cats - actually, it's just Bonnie and Clyde taking a nap, all cuddled up together.

First Quilt

So here is my first quilt,ala Bonnie. This quilt was made for a special niece and her husband, and they requested "Warm, please." Not knowing any better, I bought TWO high loft batts for the warmth. This quilt was tied, but I did try to machine quilt through that stuff on the borders - and of course, that was quickly abandoned.

Shortly after I made this quilt, (which they love, btw) I saw an old diary at a museum. What was so fascinating was that the maker had drawn the picture of what she had made. Sometimes it was a dress, sometimes it was a quilt. And best of all, she had also attached snippets of the fabric.

It was nice to flip back through my journal and add the fabric pieces. For some reason I stopped keeping a quilt journal. I have all my quilts in digital pictures, but I rarely print them off anymore. If they are special, like my art quilts, I have them professionally photographed and appraised. I need to really start my journal again. It was great to see the fabrics I had used, and I'll bet I have some scraps left here or there of the ones I've missed. Who knows,someone in the future might be inspired to play with fabric, too, just like I was!

Two posts in one night!

You know how you have lots of things to tell people when you haven't seen them for a while? That's how I feel tonight! Since the next two pictures really don't fit in with anything else that I've posted for a while, I thought I would separate them out.


This picture is Clyde, my twenty pound helper cat. He is the brother to the little princess Bonnie that I posted earlier who was sleeping on the stack of quilts. Here, he is stretched out against the wall. He's sleeping on the part of a 110" quilt top that is too long to be on the design wall. It was stitch group this past Thursday night, and we had some show and tell. And afterward, we left the quilt top pinned to the wall and visited for a while. Next thing we knew, there was the anchor to the quilt!

The next picture is another one of my shard pieces. Ever have problems with your gazing balls breaking in the hail storms or rolling away in high wind? I do, here in Kansas where we get high winds each spring. One year, I watched as over 10 of my beautiful glass gazing balls broke in a ferocious hail storm in the middle of the day. They *were* beautiful, though, exploding pieces of glass shining in the sun, sparkling with the crazy rain, and blowing around in the wind. So, I got to thinking about all those bowling balls I see at garage sales that are really really cheap! And sometimes they're even free!


Now, my friends give me bowling balls, and depending on my mood, they might be elegant like this one, or funky with buttons or whatever.......Of course, not all the friends who have given me bowling balls have gotten them back. Some of them just get to stay on in my yard!

Thread catchers

Well, you all asked to see the thread catchers we made at my little impromtu craft group the other night. So here they are!

The first one is the pattern that we followed from a purchased bag. The second one that is pinned to my design wall is the one that I made. I used my mother's oxygen tubing for the stability around the top circle of the bag. They turned out to be pretty easy after all.

I also found crushed walnut shells that were pretty inexpensive at PetSmart for the filling on the pincushions. The three gals who made these had a good time, and still don't want to be quilters. They assure me that their innoculations are still good against the quilt pox, but you never know when the virus might hit.

Loves of my life

These are my first two grand-daughters who live about 10 minutes away. Julia Grace(on the left) is only 10 years old, but is about 5' tall already. Audrey Anne(on the right) is 8 this year and is as different from Julia as night and day!

Recently, I cleaned out boxes in my Mom's attic in order to have an estate sale there. I found these two old prom dresses that she had saved from my high school days almost 40 years ago! The blue one was my first date - to a Boy Scout Explorer's Ball! The green one is from a Snowball Prom in the winter. Too bad I don't have any pictures of me in them, eh?

I cleaned them up, and put them in their room here at my house, and this is minutes after they found them. The tiara was also from the Snowball too. Lots of memories here, and so strange seeing my grand girls wearing my dresses from so long ago!

Julia likes to sew on my machines, and has a grand idea of making her own quilt. In two years, she has exactly 4 split rail fence blocks done. She just gets to chattering so much, she forgets what else she's doing. Audry, on the other hand, wants to know how the machine works, and could care less about the fabric stuff.


And the most recent addition to my loves of my life is our little Stephen William. Mr. Blue Eyes will be one year old the day before Halloween this year. So far, he likes to play in the fabric squares and sleep on his puppy dog kisses quilt. Since my computer crashed a couple of months ago, I need to search out which CD the pictures of his quilt reside. Maybe that's this afternoon after I go to lunch with the neighborhood Bunco group!

Nothing goes as planned

No picture today, and nothing new to share. Just an inordinate amount of paperwork to do, housecleaning to catch up on, and phone calls to make. I originally thought I would quilt yesterday, but instead of that, I cleaned my sewing room so I could start with a fresh slate. Tonight I have a couple of friends, newly made, coming over to make thread catcher bags. Neither of them quilt, but they do sew. They both fell in love with my thread catcher bags that I have sitting all over the place - one on my ironing board, one by my sewing machine, and one by the design wall. I've made kits of what they need, already cut and labeled, so it should be an easy job!

Old work new again

I've been digging through my bins, promising myself to finish old projects before starting new. Now, they are overwhelming me! LOL!

This particular piece is a fun one I started with two other gals about 5 years ago. I put it aside because I couldn't handquilt it (lyphedema in my right arm), and I just wasn't that good with machine quilting. As the years have gone by, it got buried further and further down in the box. Today, it appeared!

It is a triptych piece, made by cutting a greeting card into three pieces. I gave two of the pieces to quilting friends, and they never saw the whole. The rules were that you had to stick to the colors shown, and we enlarged the card (after we drew the main elements we wanted) to total 9" X 28" - I think that was 400%, but it's been so long, I can't remember. I also can't find the original card - yet.

At any rate, it is now out of the bin, and sitting on my design wall for me to finish the quilting on Monday. That is my goal, anyway. Let's see what happens!

A few more quilts

I know we are all wondering what we can do for the Katrina evacuees. I keep thinking I should just empty my quilt cupboards and send them on their way, but for me the joy of giving is seeing the person's response when they receive the gift. That's probably selfish on my part, and not truly an unconditional "gift", but that's how I work, I guess. I just found out that our local Children's Mercy Hospital has taken in about 75-100 children, and our local Linus Project is asking for quilts. I finished up 2 single fleece throws that are simply tied on the ends, and then this little star quilt that's about 45" square. I am going to drop them off at the hospital tomorrow.

Once upn a time I had a sister-in-law who was very sweet. I've kept in touch with her off and on, and the last time we were at Mayo Clinic with my husband (in June), we saw here there. She is quite young, and has been diagnosed with colon cancer. She's been taking chemotherapy and radiation treatments. This month, she is going to have radical surgery, so I decided she needed a comfort blanket. This is one of Terry Atkinson's patterns (again!) called TicTacMo. I've made it with butterflies as the predominant fabric, and then used her favorite colors in the blocks. She lives in Minnesota, so I know she will enjoy cuddling up with this quilt this fall and winter.

And last, I've started a pile of quilts that I need to sew bindings down. There's a king size Dresden Plate made from leftover blades from one of my friend's birthday quilts, the king size Minnesota Chainsaw, my watermelon quilt (which needs quilting), and a couple of vintage quilts that I had quilted for a neighbor. When I turned around from taking the picture of TicTacMo, my little Princess Bonnie had claimed the pile. Guess this a new meaning for the Princess and the Pea!

Watermelons in August

During the last week of August, my friend, Ibby and I ran away to Iowa for a little mini-retreat with our Iowa friend, Carolyn. For the last year, Ibby had been collecting "watermelon" fabric. Everywhere we went, and everywhere we've shopped, she's said again and again, "Oh! That's perfect for my watermelon quilt!" Last spring, Carolyn and I were joking with her that she had enough watermelon fabric to make us all a watermelon quilt. Do you see where this is going?

Neither Carolyn nor I had ever seen the watermelon quilt pattern, but Ibby agreed to cut it and "kit" it all up for us to sew. Sooooo, when we arrived, we set up our machines and stitched that first night. The next morning we had an outing to Winterset to Fons and Porter's quilt shop, and each of us chose different sashing and border fabrics. That afternoon and evening, we sewed and finished up all the watermelon blocks. Then for about 3 hours in the wee hours of the morning, we just couldn't decide on sashing - first it was green, then it was orange, then it was orange stripes etc. The next morning, our brains finally got straight, and we proceeded on with our own style of finishing it. You can see how different border treatments change the quilt slightly, but overall - they are definitely still watermelon quilts!

I have such good friends, and this winter, when I am snuggled under this quilt, reading or sewing, I will remember our fun little retreat!