Double Your Pleasure, Double Your Fun.....

This week I received two doll quilts in the doll quilt exchange that Lori (of Humble Quilts blog) organized.  I was so pleased, that I couldn't believe my good fortune!  I started humming that little jingle about Doublemint gum.....double your pleasure, double your fun.....with two quilts instead of one!  Thank you thank you to Laura Valdez of Coal City, IL!

Here they are, shown with the log cabin doll house:

They are both quilts from the monthly Temecula Quilt Company's Monthly Mini program.  I love, love, love the fabrics in both quilts.  Here are more pictures of them:

Sophia Grace and Rosie love them too!  A new quilt for each girl, just perfect.

I love the border on this one, with the straight line quilting that fits it so well.
Here is the view from the back of the cabin doll house, with all the animals that live in it:

Memorial Day poppies were sold this week, to help support the veterans, and I am always glad to contribute.  

In memory of all the fallen heroes that we honor this week, I will close this blog post with a field of poppies, and the poem about Flanders Field:

by John McCrae, May 1915

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Working on Several Projects This Week

Like many other quilters, I enjoy working on several projects at once.  I don't worry about it, it's just the way I work.  In grade school my report card would have a notation on it...."Judy enjoys working on several things at once"....which was a nice way of saying I was often reading a book when we were doing other work.

These two have been moving along toward the finish line:

The four patches were in my stash, and were actually part of another project, but they are being used here to make this patriotic redwork into a crib sized baby quilt.  I auditioned some red and white hst's, but they seemed to overpower the redwork even more than the four patches do.  Redwork looks best to me when it doesn't have to compete with anything else.  

This next quilt is for a friend who is having some health issues, and when I had the middle finished, through the small hsts part,  I showed it to her and gave her the choice of whether she wanted it finished as a table topper, or finished as a couch quilt to snuggle under.  She chose a quilt, so I am adding consecutive pieced parts around the outside to make it big enough to snuggle under.  The outside border of triangles is not sewn down yet, and I will probably add another row of them.  The four inch square pieced border makes the quilt 36 x 36 inches, and the next round of 3" hsts will make it 42" x 42".  I will keep adding rounds until I feel it is big enough.  

She likes pink, and this quilt is in softer colors than I usually work with - it's delicate blues and pinks with beautiful roses.  It reminds me of some of the beautiful wallpaper in bedrooms years ago.  It has a different feel as I make it, and I think it's because I have sent up so many prayers for Michelle during her illness.  

The Instagram pictures of a quilt from the Spring issue of Quiltmania has caught my attention.  The quilt is "My Small World" and is made up of tiny pieces.  It's designed by Jen Kingwell, an Australian quilter who designs fabric for Moda. 

There is a group doing a quilt-a-long, and I am tempted to join in.  I love tiny pieced blocks, and this quilt is full of them.  Lots of 1" by 1" bits.

The above picture is from the internet, and I am not sure if Jen Kingwell is one of the ladies holding up the quilt.  If you want to see what the buzz is about, google "My Small World Quilt" and you can see several pictures about it.

Here's a close-up from Jen Kingwell's blog:

She has little interesting bits about her world, such as a square with the Sydney Opera House.  It would be fun to put in bits of my "world", that is bits from places that mean a lot to me....the St. Louis Arch instead of France's Eiffel Tower.    Right now, I've cut some sky pieces and have them laid out, ready to sew together.

What are other quilter's working on this week?  I'm going over to Judy Laquidara's blog to find out.  (Here)

Redwork Progress

One of my three girls gave me a bouquet of tulips, and I picked a lilac from her yard.  The flowers are now at home in an old vase that was my Mother's.  It is a very appropriate remembrance of my Mom on Mother's Day.  I miss her-especially our telephone chats.

Last week, I bought a fuchsia hanging plant, and they remind me of my sweet mother-in-law.  She always had one or two fuchsias hanging from her front porch for the hummingbirds.  She treated me just like a daughter, and that is what I try to do with my daughter-in-laws.  They are daughters to me.   Here's my fuchsia:

Here's an update on the Redwork quilt that I am making, with a lot of help from Dee, my best friend.  Here are two newly finished squares.  We have 84 squares planned for the quilt, and are now past the half-way point.  The squares are 11" by 11" right now, but I may cut them a little smaller later.

Needles, Thread, and a Thimble

Thistles

Also, I just finished a Redwork patriotic piece that I am now going to put some patchwork around.  My friend Sharyn Woerz cleaned out her sewing room and gifted the pattern to me, and I plan to make it into a crib-sized quilt with a patchwork border.  The pattern is part of a monthly series and is available on the web.   This one is probably the July design.  Thank you Sharyn, it has been a fun Redwork project, and I got lots of comments from people when I was working on it in public places.

Fourth of July Parade

The Redwork is fairly large, and I cut the white fabric larger,  to give some space around the embroidery.  The fabric is cut 25" by 30" right now, and will make a nice crib sized quilt.   I'm looking forward to adding the patchwork. 

Pinwheels maybe?  Red and white, or red, white and blue?  Four patches? Hmmmmm...I love the planning and thinking part of quilt making too, don't you?

It's Monday, and time to see what's on other quilter's design walls.  (Link)

Doll Quilt Exchange This Month

There is a doll quilt exchange going on right now at Lori's blog, (Humblequilts.blogspot.com), and I signed up to make a little quilt for someone else.  First I looked on the internet for ideas, and spent a little time looking at doll quilts at The Quilt Index. (www.quiltindex.org)  If you have never looked there, it's a wonderful place to see old quilts and study them from the comfort of your living room.  Once on their site, you can search the quilt records from the top righthand box on their main page to find what kind of quilt you are looking for.  I searched using the "advanced search" feature, and looked at quilts in the date range of 1876-1900, and put the word "doll" in the pattern name spot.  There were 47 doll quilts for me see with this particular search.

Here's a picture of the one I chose as my inspiration for the little doll quilt I am making:

I studied this quilt, and saw that it was made up of four patches, and calculated the size of the quilt if the squares were one inch each.  It would be about 18" X 18".  I wanted it smaller, so I cut the squares l.25"X1.25", to finish at 3/4" each.  

It is basically a nine patch made up of 4 patches with nine four patches that are all  little 3/4" squares, and 5 patches that are nine patches with four patches in them (the pink and white squares).  Confusing, I know, but here's a picture of my quilt with the nine patches all laid out ready to sew together:

The original quilt had no binding (edges were just turned in) and no batting, but I finished this one with thin batting and used binding that was cut 2 inches wide and double folded.  

After I assembled the quilt and bound it, I tea-dyed it to make it look older. It looks like it should be some kind of game board doesn't it?   Here's a picture of the completed quilt next to an old Chinese checkers board.  My Hitty doll is in the picture too.  She is dressed in brown, and has a little coral pink necklace, so she looks great with the little doll quilt.

The quilt finished at slightly less than 14 inches square.

I am not going to show you the complete label, as I don't want to reveal the person who will own this little quilt until it reaches her.  But here is a partial picture.  I am trying to do better work with labels, plus I have a goal of putting labels on all the quilts I have made in the past.

The label fabric is the muslin before tea-dying and the back of the quilt shows the darker result of the same fabric after the tea bath.  It really does age the look of the quilt.

I hope you have a great Monday, and I'm heading over to Judy Laquidara's blog to look at design walls.  (Here)