PRAIRIE SWEETS AND A WONDERFUL GIFT PACKAGE

Good morning! It is a bright and sunny day in Florida.....so far. The weather has gotten into the summer cycle of afternoon storms. We had several last week. Sadly, a tourist was struck by lightening at the beach last week and did not survive. The family was trying to get off the beach when it happened.

I received the best package in the mail late last week. It was from Mary of Quilt Hollow. It contained this wonderful miniature quilt! My kind of colors and style. And beautifully machine quilted. You may be familiar with Mary's machine quilting that she does for customers on a Statler (I think I remember that correctly). The quilting on this tiny quilt was done on her sewing machine and so well done. I feel so special that she made this for me.
And if that was not enough, the package also contained a prim style stripe towel, three fat quarters of Civil War reproduction fabrics, and a prim style note pad. All very "me" kind of stuff!

And to make it even more special, she sent me "Folk Art Favorites" by Joined at the Hip. The book contains several quilt patterns and almost all have a house in them. One pattern has houses & pineapples. I think that is my favorite. Pineapples are a symbol of hospitality. I do love house quilts!
Thank you so much, Mary! We have been chatting a good bit by e-mail for a while and I certainly enjoy her company. We have very similar opinions on many things. Most of you probably already visit Mary's blog but, if not, be sure to do that soon.

I wanted to start the quilt with the houses & pineapples the same day I received the pattern book. Had to restrain myself because of so many unfinished projects. I did some hand applique on my basket blocks. I did not photograph those this morning but will do that very soon. I decided it was time to get busy and sew the Prairie Sweets blocks together. The individual blocks have been ready for a good while. And I had them stacked in order of the way I had decided they needed to be layed out. It was just a matter of sewing them together. The quilt pattern does not include a border but I decided to add a pieced border of squares. I am not totally happy with this quilt top. It is pale compared to most of my quilts. It has a good variety of Fig Tree fabrics and most are what was used in the original quilt. A friend had expressed some interest in this quilt. I think I will e-mail and ask if she wants it. I didn't get much of the final border in the photo but you get the idea.
I mentioned in the previous paragraph that the fabrics are almost all Fig Tree fabrics. The backgrounds are not. The pattern design is by Joanna Figueroa of Fig Tree Quilts. The blocks are easy to make. It consists of a pinwheel block sashed by more background fabric. The circle is hand appliqued and covers part of the pinwheel edges giving the pinwheels the appearance of having been set intothe circle. I think you could just as easily use fusing for the circle and do raw edge machine applique. Mary of "My Needle & Thread by Mary" blog has her blocks from this pattern as her header picture. And Darlene of "Quilting Daze" shows hers on the January 10th, 2008 post.

Enjoy your day and come back soon for another visit.

Karen

Rudolph & Co.

Here is the finished quilt top for the reindeer blocks I showed you yesterday. The pattern is called "Rudolph & Co." and is a Jan Patek pattern. The pattern is on the cover of the book but I worked from a pattern that was on the cover of a Quiltmania magazine last year.
To finish the top, I had to applique one more nose and do all of the eyes. Then sash the blocks and add the borders. The fabric came from stash. I am trying to figure out if I bought the Kansas Trouble floral that is the final border on the quilt or if my friend Jeanne gave it to me. It is a big hunk of fabric and will also be the backing. I can't remember purchasing the fabric and if I did what it was for. I just know it was folded nicely on a shelf in the sewing room.

The antlers on the quilt are traced from a child's hand. I used what came with the pattern but you could easily trace the hands of any young child to kind of personalize the quilt.

This was a finish for the Charming Girls Quilt Club. You can click on the logo on the left side of my blog to find out more.

REINDEER

I am going to give it a try. The Charming Girls Quilt Club. I think you have probably already seen the information on some other blogs about committing to finishing a certain project each month and having a chance to win a prize for doing it. Here is my project that I want to finish this month. The reindeer blocks are from a Jan Patek pattern. I have nine blocks appliqued except for the eyes. I did hand applique on the reindeer but decided to do raw edge applique for the eyes. They are ready to go. Then I need to sash the blocks and add a border. To qualify for a finish, it does not need to be quilted. The quilting can be done another month for another chance at a prize. Incentive to get some projects done.

Sorry that my photo is not the best. I usually take my pictures in the morning light. It is dim right now. Getting close to dark plus a storm is moving in. But you get the idea.

I finished a quilt top yesterday and have already taken it to be quilted. No photo as I was in a hurry. You have already seen two quilts like it last year. It is another basket quilt using my husband's grandmother's painted flower blocks as a triangle in the basket. I will post a picture when I get the quilt back. I need it to be finished by the end of the month.

Thanks for stopping by for a visit.

Karen

ANTIQUE PICKLE DISH QUILT

I was looking for my little flag quilt this morning so I could put a photograph of it in my blog in honor of our Independence Day celebration on July 4th. It is hiding from me somewhere. Instead I took a picture of this antique red, white & blue Pickle Dish quilt. The pattern is sometimes called Indian Wedding Ring. I was going to ask a quilt appraiser to do an appraisal for me several years ago but she was overwhelmed with quilts at the retreat I went to. I opted to have another quilt done when she said she could only do one that night. The only quick info she gave me on this was that it was probably from 1900 to 1910 and the pieces were smaller than she was used to seeing in this design. The quilt is in good condition. It has the same off-white fabric from the front as backing. It is nicely hand quilted. I am going to offer this quilt for sale for the same price I paid for it about 15 years ago and that is $400.00. If you are interested, please let me know. I have been slowly letting my antique quilts go since we down sized in house size. I just can't keep every quilt I would like to.
I have finally finished the machine stitching on the Circuit Rider blocks. Here are pictures of what I finished since my last post.
There are two more rose blocks just like the one below. Since they are duplicates, I have left two out of the line up. There were five of these in the original quilt. I opted to do the four for the four corners and selected another block to use within the quilt.




Had to do some hand embroidery on the Bible block. It is the only pieced block in the quilt. It is a combination of piecing and applique.
Now to lay all the blocks out and decide what is going where and sew it together. I will post a photo after I get it together. I am going with no border like the original. The raw edge applique method is certainly faster than hand applique but the machine stitching can be slow going on blocks with lots of curves. I am glad to get that part done.

I went to the local quilt shop today to purchase fabric for two more of the quilts using the painted blocks my husband's grandmother has made many years ago. I hope to get one put together very quickly. That is what I will be working on this weekend. I couldn't get the same exact fabrics that I used on the previous two but got something similar.

Have a wonderful holiday weekend if you are celebrating Independence Day! Come back for another visit soon.

Karen

MORE CIRCUIT RIDER BLOCKS

This past Saturday was the monthly gathering of the Sew 'n Sews. Kenyan was our hostess. There were only four of us but we had a good time. I took photos of two quilts Kenyan finished but accidently deleted them off the camera. Darn! She has made two quilts for relatives that are going off to college and they are good ones.

Sometimes we have a project to work on when we get together. This time Kenyan showed us how to make these little mats. Mine is not finished but the top is done. She was making two very cute ones and of course those photos were deleted also. It is nice to put a focus fabric in the center part. She was using some really cute bathing beauty fabrics for the center of hers.

I purchased a new book called "Lucy Boston Patchwork of the Crosses" by Linda Franz. You can purchase it here. Cathi has been working on blocks for this quilt for a while and has gotten me interested in the project. Be sure to pay her a visit to see the beautiful blocks she has been hand piecing. I am resisting the urge to drop everything and make some blocks right away.
I have been spending a lot of time stitching on blocks for the "Circuit Rider" quilt. Below are the newest blocks I have completed. The first three are blocks I have substituted for various reasons. The cardinal block I created myself. I found a line drawing of a cardinal and simplified it for applique. The branch & leaves came from a Jo Morton pattern. I added extra leaves and the circle surrounding .
The next two blocks came from the Electric Quilt computer program.











Gwendie has been working on the Circuit Rider quilt also and has just completed her top. It is definitely worth a visit to her blog to see it.

I have been tagged by two bloggers. One is from Deb. at A Quilting Journey. The other is from Danielle at "Want to Bee Quilting". Pay them a visit if they aren't on your regular journeys through Blogland. I am supposed to tell ten things about myself that you might not know. I have done the seven thingamajig before a couple times, so I may repeat myself.

1. My mother lived with us the last ten years of her life. My husband was living in a house with four generations of women. Myself, my mother, our daughter, and grand-daughter. He survived with flying colors.

2. I started quilting in 1990.

3. I am originally from Ohio.

4. I have a sister who sews really well.

5. I used to make Barbie doll clothes. Many, many of them. My daughter did not much care for dolls but the neighbor girls sure liked playing with the dolls and clothes. I made them for cousins, nieces, neighbors, and people I didn't know all over the country.

6. I love strawberries.

7. My first quilt class that I took was for a Mariner's Compass taught by Cindy Blackberg. She also taught me how to design quilts.

8. We have been friends with a couple for about 45 years and vacation together at least twice a year and some times more often than that.

9. I buy more quilt patterns and quilt books than I will ever be able to make in my life time. Don't we all do that?

10. I have a collection of chicken items but I don't want to add to it any more. I have way too many and have packed away many of them. I like fried chicken. My favorite stylefried chicken is from Barberton, Ohio.

That's all for today. I will be spending a good part of the day stitching on the remaining Circuit Rider blocks. I am over my deadline for finishing the machine stitching and need to get a hustle on it.

Have a wonderful holiday weekend!

Karen

CIRCUIT RIDER BLOCKS

Today I am posting photos of the completed Circuit Rider blocks. I still have more prepped and ready for stitching. I also need to create a few more. They all need a final trim before they get sewn into a quilt top. Enjoy looking!






I changed the Princess Feather block from the original pattern. The original had many, many little ins and outs sort of like fringed edges. The block was rated difficult in the book. It would have been difficult even with machine stitching like I am doing. I don't remember what the block was called in the book. I used the curve of the original feather patten and a coin to make the curved smoother edges. I like the result and saved myself a headache trying to stitch all those thingamajigs!












I have a dental appointment in about an hour to get the final filling in the tooth that I had a root canal done on. I either lost part of the temporary filling or part of the crown broke off. I hope it was just the filling as my wallet can't stand more expense! The tooth is already on it's second crown.

I will be back to stitching on more of the Circuit Rider blocks this afternoon.

As always, thanks for stopping by for a visit.

Karen

FABRIC SHOPPING

Today was a fun day. I went to visit my friend, Vicky. She lives about 40 miles away but the road to a friend's house is never long. We went to lunch at the Catfish Place. It is a local restaurant with southern style cooking. We both had fried shrimp and real hashbrown potatoes. I had cole slaw with mine. We then had blackberry cobbler with ice-cream. We were told that they bake the cobblers right there each day. Delicious!

After lunch, we went to a local quilt shop that is fairly new. It is called Lillie's. It has been an online shop for a while and now has a real shop. Imagine our disappointment when we got to the door and it was locked. The sign said closed Sunday and Monday. But the owner was there working and she said we could come in and shop. Here is a link for the store if you want to check it out. Some of the fabrics were from the sale area for $5.15 a yard. I know I have purchased an odd lot of stuff. It is for different projects in the future and a bit for stash.





The can-can flower fabric came from my friend Vicky's E-Bay fabric store which you can visit here. I got a yard of the fabric. Not my usual fabric but I have an idea in mind for it.
I also picked out some fabrics from her off cut bin. She sometimes offers a box of these for auction. She said the last boxes weighed six pounds and held about 18 yards of fabric. One of her customers told her it was like opening a Christmas present when she got the boxes she won. I have no plans for these fabrics. Just going into stash.

I have been doing machine applique and need to photograph several blocks to post on my blog. I will do that in the next couple days. I have been pacing myself on the blocks trying to do a minimum of two per day and three if possible. One day I did four but there was less stitching involved on a couple of the blocks. The blocks are from the "Circuit Rider's Quilt" pattern book. You have seen some of the blocks on an earlier post here. Stop back for a visit later this week to see what I have accomplished on them.