Local Quilt Show Visit

I love to see what others are working on.  This week the Country Quilters Guild had a quilt show at the Bethany Lutheran Church in Ludington, Michigan, and it was a treat.

Here are a few pictures:

I love half square triangles and this quilt was full of them.  It's made by Estelle Stickney.

Close up picture:

This one has buttons, and you know how much I love buttons!  

It's made by Sandy German, and a closeup shows the buttons better:

Here's what I call a "cheater cloth" quilt, as the triangles are printed on the fabric.  It's so cheerful looking, isn't it?  Made by Jean Mertz:

Such a pretty blue!

Speaking of blue, here's my final picture of this week's post.  These are not grapes - they are blueberries, and they are big and luscious!

I made a blueberry pie this week, but of course, there is nothing left of it to show you.  I'll be making another one for this weekend.  Hand picked and they don't charge you for the berries that you eat while you are in the patch!

Pure Michigan!

Progress, Always a Good Thing!

Binding has been added to a king sized quilt that I made to warm the upstairs bedroom at the cabin.  I selected a polka-dot fabric, and it compliments the quilt fabrics nicely.  Sometimes a quilt has to wait until I decide for sure what I want to do, and this one waited a year.

I reviewed several you tube videos on attaching binding, and this time everything went smoothly.  I think it also helped that I've added binding to several doll quilts, and am getting better at the process.

Practice does improve my work.  I am happy with all four corners this time. Usually I like one or two, and the other ones, not so much.  I love progress!

Corners:

Here's the quilt on the bed:

I didn't measure the quilt to give you the details, re finished size, and block size.  I will measure it and add the info later.  I'm away from the cabin (in Ludington) to connect to wifi, so I can post today.  

   Here's another picture:

Here's part of the turkey family that has adopted our yard as their own.  The two little ones were out of the picture.  The wildlife here has our old yellow labrador who is 13 years old, remembering her roots.  She went on point yesterday, to show us that she's still got her hunting instincts.  She was so cute with one of her front paws bent and her tail straight out, with her eyes intent on something she saw in the woods. 

Pure Michigan.

Sophia Grace and Rosie looked over the maple leaf quilt, sat on it, and pronounced it entirely too big for their taste, and they want me to work on something much smaller.  They are a tough audience.  You can see the clam shell machine quilting (By Two Sisters of Bear Lake, Michigan) in the picture.

 I'm hooking up with Design Wall Mondays at Patchwork Times to join the other quilters there.  Patchwork Times Design Wall Mondays

Bags, Bags, Bags this Summer

This summer, I have acquired two new bags, one made by my daughter, Christa, and one that she helped me make.  She is very talented, and made the "messenger bag" in a soft tan material below.  She showed me how to make the red bag, which has pockets all around the outside.  The messenger bag now holds my laptop, and I use it to visit the library (to wi-fi so I can connect with you all with this blog).  The red bag will be used to keep my car take-along project in while traveling.  It's red with little white buttons print all over the fabric.

Below are two bags that she also made and brought to show me.  The first is for granddaughter Sophie Rose.  Sophie picked out the Hello Kitty fabric, and the purse is so cute.

The below purse is the same pattern as the red one she helped me make.  It is a great size and has lots of pockets.  She has a ruler in one of the pockets on the outside, to show how it holds long things with an extra fabric "loop" to keep the rulers from falling out.  The picture is a little blurry, I don't know why.  Sorry about that.

I love the circle fabric she picked out for her bag. It's always fun to see what she is working on; she has such fun projects.  I am posting on Tuesday, but am still hooking up with Design Wall Mondays, as I like to post there and also look at what other people are working on this week.  Design Wall Mondays at Patchwork Times


I am traveling most of this week, and will try to be in Grand Rapids, MI for the AQS quilt show on Friday and Saturday.  

Love Entwined Start and Michigan Tiger Lily Start

I decided to start in a small way on Love Entwined, the 1870 Coverlet (see link to read about it) Esther Aliu's blog 

The center is a Mariner's Compass with small circles surrounding it.  I think there are about 32 little circles, but I'm not sure.  Anyway, I am starting to make the small circles because I haven't printed out the pattern for the Mariner's Compass yet.  I'm still reading about how to make it, and I know how to make circles, so that's where I am starting.  

Here's my fabric, and the start of many small circles:

I should have put a dime in the picture to show you the size.  The next time I will.  These little circles are very small, smaller than a dime.  How do I make them?  I trace around the pattern on the back of the fabric and before cutting it out, sew a running stitch with strong thread about 1/8 to 1/4 inch outside of the drawn circle. I cut the circle out, close to the stitching line.  By cutting out after sewing the gathering stitches, I have a bigger piece of fabric in my hand while sewing.  I pull the thread to gather the fabric around the pattern, and tie the ends into a knot.  It then gets soaked in water, and laid out to dry overnight.  I don't use starch or any other product.  I find that wetting it and drying it out will keep the circle shape good enough until I sew it down. When I am ready to sew it to background fabric, I snip a few of the gathering stitches, and pull out the pattern, and then reshape it into a circle and applique it down.  The circle pattern is from a set I have from Karen Kay Buckley, called "Perfect Circles".    

Michigan is so beautiful this summer.  Here's one example.

One of the native wildflowers of Michigan is Lilium lancifolium, commonly named Tiger Lily.  Since the Detroit Tigers are our favorite baseball team, I've been on a search to find some Tiger Lily plants to put in our yard.  Here's a picture of a Tiger Lily in bloom that I took this morning, at the building where the local quilt guild meets:

This plant has what different sources call "bulbils" or "bulbets" along the stem that can be collected and planted to produce new plants.  It will take at least two years to grow a flowering lily from the bulbils, so I am collecting some and planting them.  I used to have these flowers in my yard when my children were small, and I want to have some again.  Since they are native to Michigan, hopefully the deer will leave some for me to enjoy at the cabin.

Here is another picture of the bulbils along the stem:

Pure Michigan!

Doll Quilt and Birds of A Feather on my Design Wall Today

I'm not very good about replying to comments on my blog this summer, and I apologize.  I'm at a cabin in the woods, and the only internet service I have is when we go to town and I go to the library or McDonald's restaurant to use their free wi-fi.  But someone commented on this doll quilt, that it looked like it was woven.

It does look woven, but I don't know why.  Maybe because there are stripes fabrics in it.  But it's just solid blue fabrics mixed with blue prints and stripes in 1 inch squares.  The picture is taken on a bench with some pillows that are made from bluework that was purchased from E Bay years ago.  Can you tell I like blue?  LOL

The Birds of a Feather quilt has another square almost completed.  It still needs a few red berries, but I will add them when I get back to my stash in Virginia.



Next is a picture of my "design wall" at the cabin, which is the floor in the living room:

It's Monday, so it's fun to go to Judy Laquidara's blog to see what everyone is working on:  Design Wall Mondays

Here is a picture of some more visitors to our cabin.  They were just passing by:

Love Entwined - I am Love Ensnared, Love Enamored, Love Engulfed, Love Enchanted!!

I do have my colors selected for Love Entwined.  They are all from my stash. And I bought a book about Mariner's Compass construction.  

My head is filled with LE, and I look at pictures and notes on the web about other people's progress, and I am itching to start mine.  Here's a caricature of what I'm feeling like this summer at the cabin:

I haven't started on it yet because I brought several other projects with me to the cabin, to work on and I plan on starting on LE when I get back to Virginia, but my head is filled with LE.

Here's my progress on the other projects at hand:

Knitting a baby blanket to give away with my Virginia neighborhood craft club's January giving events:

Status:  Almost finished.  I work on this while watching Detroit Tiger games with my hubby.  Detroit is having a great season, and I am knitting away during the games.  It will be finished soon.

Birds of A Feather quilt by Blackbird Designs:  I thought I had this square finished, but decided to add some turquoise leaves to it, because there is turquoise in all the other squares, and it needed it.  So this one is now finished.

I have another one finished:

The Birds of A Feather project was started by my friend Sharyn, and I am taking it to the finish line, using some of Sharyn's fabrics, and some of mine.  So it has Sharyn's batiks, and some of my civil war fabrics, so it's a fun mix.  I am happy with my progress on it, and am starting another square.

Next project I have with me is the redwork quilt, and I am working on this square (or I should say, I'm not working on it).  My friend Dee and I are doing this project together, and both of our last names start with "H" so this square is appropriate.  It is on the back burner.  I shall put it in the car to work on while I'm riding about, while hubby is driving.

Next, binding a Maple Leaf Quilt that will go on the upstairs king sized bed at the cabin:

It came back from the machine quilter last summer; I took it to VA to do the binding; and it's back at the cabin, still waiting to be bound.  I will get this quilt bound this month, and show you a picture of it on the bed when it is there.  I was unsure of navy or shirting for the binding, and still haven't decided.  I don't think it matters much, as it's just a utility quilt.

The latest doll quilt status is:  top is finished, and I need a piece of flannel to use as batting, and then it will be quilted and bound.  It was so much fun to do that I hate to finish it.

The last project in my hands is the local Michigan quilt guild is doing a raffle quilt with squares of birds, either paper pieced or appliqued, and they want them on blue sky background.  Since I had some birds from Sharyn's Birds of A Feather that I wasn't going to be using on my version of it, I bought a fat quarter of sky fabric and made four squares for the guild raffle quilt.  I hope they like them:

So the above are things I've been working on while my head is thinking about Love Entwined.  I don't really have six hands as my cariacuture shows, but it would help sometimes.  

I will close with some visitors to our front yard this morning.  There was a Tom and a Hen, a teenager, and two little baby turkeys. They must have had two broods this year, and only one is still with them from the first brood.  

It's not a very good picture, as they turned to go just when I tried to take their picture - a little camera shy, I guess.