NOAH, THE SNOWMAN, & THIMBLES

Hello, friends! As you can see by the photo, "Noah" is finished. I think the red border was the right framing for the quilt. As I mentioned in my last post, the pattern had a pieced border that was very busy. I felt there was enough going with the inside of the quilt that the pieced border would take away from it. I tried laying several different plaid fabrics by the quilt and none seemed to want to be there. I tried a plainer blue fabric and it just seemed blah. The brownish red seemed to want to be there. I did simple machine quilting on the piece as done is better than not being done .

I picked up something off the sewing room floor to put it away the other day and beneath was the snowman top I thought had been given away. I am glad that I found it as I do like it. I machine quilted it, added the binding, and displayed it in the front entry way (photo is taken on the living room floor as usual). Hey, it's still January and time for snowmen. The pattern used was another of Joined at the Hip's button up patterns. I am not using it as a button up same as the bunny one I finished a couple weeks ago. I made a big snowman quilt for a friend from a Minnick pattern. I made one of these button up snowmen as part of the backing. A nice surprise for the back.

I have a thimble collection. My new blog friend, Linda from Australia, asked me to tell her more about the thimbles as she has a silver thimble collection. My main interest has been in the old advertising thimbles. The ones that were give-aways. They are a light weight metal with a band of color near the bottom. The company name is printed on that band. I have some of the plastic ones that also have advertising on them. One time I purchased a small collection of thimbles at a quilt guild auction. They are the kind that you could never really use as a thimble. Mr. & Mrs. Santa Claus are from wood. Many are ceramic thimbles. Some have been given to me by friends. Some are in shapes on the top end that would never work in sewing. I have them displayed on an old wood printer's tray. I have a few that are little sewing kits. They look like a tube of lipstick. The thimble is in the top of the tube cap. When the cap is removed from the tube, the thimble comes out and there is a needle & tiny spools of thread on a spindle inside. There are the sewing machine pins that were give-aways by Clotilde Notions catalog. They are representative of antique sewing machines. There is a treadle sewing machine ornament. I have been given some decorative tape measures. An old St. Joseph's Aspirin tin, an old wood spool of silk thread. Just whatever little things fit on the tray.

Tomorrow is the big day and I am a bit nervous. I always get that way before surgery. It is kind of like going to the dentist. I always wonder why I am submitting myself to the torture while sitting in the dentist's chair. You know you need to do it but it's not fun. Going to the dentist is no longer the painful experience it used to be when I was younger and I don't mind so much anymore. Gotta do what you gotta do! I had an office visit with my pain management doctor yesterday. He seems to think recovery is going to take longer than I expect and to be with a lot of pain. Not encouraging but I am going to go by what the surgeon and his assistant have told me. I got through knee replacement recovery and that was very hard. I can get through the back surgery and hopefully be in a lot better shape. Thank you so much for all the good wishes that my surgery go well and recovery be good. It means a lot to me.

I will post again after I am home from the hospital and able to sit at the computer long enough to do it. Probably no photos to post but I will let you know how things are going.

My door is always open to you. Please come back for another visit here in Blogland.

Karen

QUILT LADDER

Greetings from cool but warming up Florida. We should get into the high 60's today and into the lower 70's by tomorrow. Feels good after the very cold weather we just experienced. I didn't see any but there was frost on cars early yesterday morning. We slept in, so we were not up early enough to see it. I suppose the plants will need trimming back after the cold snap got to them.

I don't have a finished quilt or wall hanging to show today. I do want to share two things with you, though. The first is a vintage sewing machine that is a favorite of mine. It is a New Home hand crank machine. I think it is refered to as a New Home Midget because of its size. I can't find the little booklet that came with it but know it is here somewhere. It says something about being convenient for apartment dwellers or young women away from home at school. I don't know if it came in a case when new. Maybe one of you bloggers know more about it. I have had it for quite a while. Found it in an antique shop here in Florida and paid more than I wanted to but I fell in love with it and parted with the money.

The second photo is my new quilt ladder. I know some of you bloggers have ladders to display your quilts on. Just recently, I saw where you could order a quilt ladder from Nancy's Notions. I think it was $79.00 plus shipping. I showed the picture to my husband and asked if he could make one. He isn't the most proficient at carpentry but this looked fairly easy and he said he could do it. He went shopping that evening for the supplies and started on it the next day. I just moved it to the front entry way and pulled out some quilts to display on it. I am going to enjoy changing quilts as the mood hits. There is one more rung on the ladder down lower. I have not put anything on it and am not sure I will. Maybe a shorter quilt.

My latest new is that I am having back surgery on the 28th. For those that follow my blog, you probably remember that I have been having a lot of discomfort. I have tried physical therapy and treatments from pain management doctors. Nothing has helped. I can sit pretty good but standing and walking can be very painful. I am opting for surgery and hope that it helps enough that I can get back to being able to walk around the neighborhood, take nature walks, go shopping, clean the house, etc. I will be in the hospital probably four days and then have a 6 to 8 week recovery time. I will probably post one more time before the surgery.

No other news to report. I am heading to the sewing room in a few minutes to put the binding on a quilt. Thanks for stopping by!

Karen

NOAH QUILT PREVIEW

No finished project to show you this time but I am working towards it. I started "Noah" quite some time ago. I will guess about 4 years ago. I was hand buttonhole stitching this project. Made my way about half way up the quilt doing that and then quit. It is hard to bunch up the fabric and hold it in your hand to stitch things in the middle. I just got tired of it. I can't tell you how many times I almost gave away the UFO. I guess I gave away the book finally as I no longer have it. I made up my mind last week to finish the project. I have been doing the handwork on it every day and finally finished that yesterday evening.

Now comes the border on the quilt. I always thought the border used in the pattern was kind of busy as there is so much going on in the main body of the quilt. Also, it has corner blocks in the border with applique that I don't know what it is supposed to be. Looks kind of like a fried egg shape. There were diamond units pieced into the border. I have decided to use just a plain border and probably red. I held all kinds of reds & blues in homespuns next to the quilt and everything seemed too busy. I have a brownish red plainer fabric that I think I am going to use. It seems to calm the quilt down some. I am waiting on some batting to arrive that I ordered from Hancocks of Paducah a week ago. Then I can quilt this and have it finished. I will be glad to finish.

The "Noah" quilt book is by Red Wagon and is no longer published that I know of. I did a Google search and found some used copies available. One is on E-bay as a "buy now" item and shows the cover of the book with the quilt pictured.

The center of the quilt is over 80 inches long and about 41 inches wide. A long quilt. I had to lay it on the living room floor to photograph and at an angle so it makes it look even longer.

I have started the applique on a block for "Sweet Land of Liberty". I have not worked on that quilt for several months and need to get going again. Plus the applique pieces were laying on the sewing room floor. They could easily have disappeared in there.

Last Saturday was one of my quilt group get-togethers. My head wasn't attached when I was getting ready. I forgot three items that I wanted to take with me. One was my camera, so I have no photos. We were working on a raw edge applique technique project. That is where you just lay your applique pieces on the background and stitch by machine about 1/4" in from the edge. After the quilt is finished, you wash & dry and the edges fray and ruffle some. Tee, one of our members, was leading us in the project. Her finished quilt "French Roses" is really nice. She likes the dark colors like I do and that is what she used. She also started another one using a block from a quilt pattern in a Red Wagon book. I like that pattern better than the "French Roses" pattern so I will have to think about that. I have the book so that is not a problem.

I encouraged the ladies to finally pick a name for our group. We have probably been getting together one Saturday a month for five years and never really named our group. Oh, we discussed it in the past but nothing came of it. Now we have decided to call ourselves The Sew 'n Sews.

That's all the news for now. Hopefully, I will have a photo of a finished "Noah" quilt next time you visit me. Thanks for stopping by.

Karen

SALTBOX HOUSE SAMPLER

Hurray! I finally quilted and put the binding on my saltbox house sampler quilt. The top has been done a good while. Probably three years. Why I waited so long to finish? I don't have a good reason because I do love it. The pattern is by Country Quilts. The designer has several patterns available that have saltbox houses, a favorite of mine. The designer lives in Canada.

The quilt is made almost exclusively from brushed cottons. Both front and back. It is going to feel so toasty warm to cover up with.

I tried taking pictures with the quilt spread out on the living room floor. Something about the angle I hold the camera for the shots gives me blurry photos. I am no camera expert. I finally got my husband to take a couple minutes out from preparing dinner so that he could stand on a kitchen chair and hold the quilt.

I must have left the camera on when I last took photos because it worked fine then and it was dead as a door nail today. My husband purchased a battery for me earlier today plus a spare. Now I am back in business.

I started working on an older UFO yesterday evening. It is a Jan Patek/Linda Brannock pattern. I had started hand buttonhole stitching the different elements with black thread. I didn't do much hand applique at the time. I have too much done to take it out and machine applique it, so I am plugging along with needle and floss and working on finishing it. It was almost half done when I picked it up yesterday evening to work on it. I hope I can keep my interest going on it as I really want to finish the quilt. It would be a good feeling.

Time to get busy. I am so glad that you stopped by for a visit and please stop back soon. The door is always open.

Karen

#4 AND I HOPE THERE IS MORE

Two pictures of the same quilt. I couldn't decide which one showed the bunny better, so I put both in. One was taken from the side with it laying on the floor and then rotated. A professional photographer I am not. This is finish #4 for 2009. The bunny quilt top was made probably two years ago and has been in the closet ever since. I am disappointed that the bunny sort of fades into the background. I should have used maybe an off white with little tiny flowers or just something with a bit of design. Or maybe a different value background. I decided to finish it even though I would like it to be a bit different. I will have an Easter quilt at last. I have a couple other spring quilt patterns with a bunny that I am contemplating making. I have to think about it a while.

The quilt pattern is one of the Button Up patterns by Joined at the Hip. The pattern just said "March" and gave no other name, so "March" it is. I did not make the quilt it is supposed to button onto. It would be one that you hang a different quilt on each month. It would be a quilt with a plain long rectangle that is covered by the decorative quilt and then it has a scrappy border of squares around it. Yes, it would be cute but it makes a wider wall hanging which I did not want. I have used the January pattern twice but not as a separate quilt. I know I used one as a surprise on part of the backing of a bigger snowman quilt. Can't remember what the other one was used for. I have patterns for all the other months of the year but don't think I will ever make all of them. I have to get enthused before I make another one.

I am going to run out of the smaller UFO's that don't need much work but there are plenty of bigger projects or those that aren't very far along in construction. It won't be long before the finishes slow down but it feels good now to have finished four things this year.

I am still doing the machine applique stitching on the pumpkin quilt but it is moving along. I probably have 6 blocks done out of the 12 smaller size. Then there is the large block across the top with a million pumpkins on it to stitch. Well, maybe not a million but I think it will feel like it when I start on it.

We have been having warm weather in the 70's and even low 80's one day. It is due to change to the cooler side though for next week. Wish you could visit me!

Time to head for the sewing room. Come back for a visit soon.

Karen

FINISH #3 FOR THE NEW YEAR

Here is finish #3. This quilt is from a pattern called "Midwest Pride". It is from the spring/summer 2007 Quilt Shop Sampler from American Patchwork and Quilting. I pieced and did the wool applique several months ago. Since then it has been draped across the back of a chair in the living room just waiting for the inspiration to layer it with backing and batting and do the quilting. My New Year's resolution is to finish some of the UFO's langoring in the sewing room closet and mixed in with quilts in the living room.

I like this quilt because the applique designs are all of things I like. Sunflower, crow, sheep, watermelon, a saltbox house, stars, and a flag. It was fun to make. The wool applique is easy to do. I decided that, being a primitive style quilt and having the thickness of the wool, I would resort to the simple machine quilted crosshatch design. It was quick to quilt.

Speaking of the crosshatch design. I have been doing that on everything here of late. I decided that finished was better than unfinished. The crosshatch is easy to do with the machine. I don't plan on doing it on everything I quilt but I like the feeling of "done".

Thank you for all the birthday wishes. I could not do much on my birthday. I had an injection in my knee in the morning and had to take it easy the rest of the day. We did go out to lunch but no where else because I was limping so much. The knee was pretty much recuperated from the injection by the next day. That was injection #4. I can have five but I am not sure I need the fifth. I will wait and see.

I have printed out the free block of the month pattern for January from Bunny Hill Designs. I really like the cute snowman in the basket. Darlene from A Quilting Daze already has her block prepped for stitching. I think I had better work on some more finishes before I start this new project.

I noticed last February that so many of you have Valentine quilts that you have made. I have a couple quilts with hearts but none so specific that I would say it is a Valentine quilt. I have been searching my books for something suitable. I have a Joined at the Hip pattern that I am considering making. I look forward to seeing all your Valentine quilts on the blogs I visit.

Time for me to get busy. Thanks for the visit! Come back soon.

Karen

TWO FINISHES FOR THE NEW YEAR

I have two new finishes for the New Year. I'm on a roll. I figure I need to strike while the iron is hot!

The first quilt is called "Church Cat" and is a Cheri Saffiote pattern. I realized when I viewed the photo, that I forgot the button eyes for the cat. I'll have to search and see if I have any big buttons. The flowers were to have buttons on them, too, but I did not want to cover up the fabrics for the flowers. I started the quilt between Christmas and New Year's, so it did not take long to make. The applique is machine button hole stitched.

The second quilt is from a Joined at the Hip pattern called "Summer at the Farm". I made the top a good while back. I think over a year ago. It is not a big quilt so I don't have an excuse as to why I let it sit unfinished for so long. I like the little quilt blankets on the sheep.

I spray basted another UFO and am going to sit down and machine quilt later today. It is one with wool applique scattered on it, so I am not sure how I am going to quilt it. Probably in a cross hatch grid like I have been doing lately. I just want to get it done. Too many UFO's waiting.

I went to my local quilt shop yesterday. They were very busy. I got there not long after the shop opened. They were having a 20% off sale on Christmas fabric and an end of the bolt sale. I don't know if that is what drew so many people in or if there was something else going on. Maybe a class. My main goal was to pick up my free fat quarters, thread, and a Chaco Liner (I mark the grid work for quilting using these). I wanted to look at fabrics but there were too many people. I'll go back on a week day for that. The shop has a Sew Special club. You get a discount on everything in the store except machine quilting. And each month a free fat quarter. Birthday month, you get an extra fat quarter free. Well, I don't know if you want to call it free. Club membership is $20 per year, but I do get my money's worth from it.

While standing in line with my purchases, the lady in front of me had two fat quarters and she told the cashier that there should be no charge as it was her birthday month. Then I heard her say that her birthday is Monday. Well, lo and behold, so is mine. It isn't often that you find someone with a January 5th birthday. We had a nice conversation about that. I do have a birthday buddy. My good quilting friend, Rosy, has a January 5th birthday. We always try to find a really funny birthday card for each other. One year I made her a small machine applique quilt. It showed a lady popping out of a cake. You could see the legs coming out of the bottom of the cake and a layer of cake on the head of the lady. The lady had no clothes on but the cake covered the important parts. I titled it "Rosy's Birthday Suit". Everyone had a good laugh with that quilt. I do not have a picture of it. Don't know why. I told her that she did not have to keep the quilt. Just treat it like a birthday card.

Hope you are enjoying your day. Thanks for stopping by for a visit.

Karen

NEW QUILT FOR THE NEW YEAR

Happy New Year to all! It is 67 degrees here today and overcast, though the sun is beginning to peep out. Tomorrow is forecast for 74 degrees. We are coming into the two months of cooler weather for this area. I feel for all of you that have to go out and shovel snow. I had plenty of that when we lived in Ohio. I would love a chance to build a snowman, though.



I finished a new quilt last night on New Year's Eve. We find being home on New Year's Eve the safest thing to do. The quilt pattern is by Rhonda Dohna and is called "Blue Jug Summer". I forget the exact measurements but I think it is around 47" square. After quilting, I lost a few triangle points squaring up the quilt. That can happen when you have a pieced border. The applique was "peel and stick" with a very small machine button hole stitch. I just don't have time to hand applique every project I want to do. I have several projects awaiting for hand applique but I decided this past year that some projects would get the machine method. I have another center all layed out and waiting for machine stitching. It is identical to this one. I don't think I will put three borders on it like this one, though. The finished quilt is for a friend and I hope that she will like it.

I have the "Church Cat" quilt ready for doing the hand stitching part of the binding. Maybe I will get to that later today. I also did some machine button hole stitching on "The Great Pumpkin Quilt" this morning. I rather do this kind of thing than watch football today!

We have a pork roast and sauerkraut cooking in the crock pot. We are both from northeastern part of Ohio. For that area, the pork and kraut are the traditional good luck foods for the new year. Lots of people in the south eat black eyed peas on New Years but that is one thing that I really don't care for.

Thanks for stopping by for a visit. Hope you enjoy your New Year's day whatever you do.

Karen