Design Wall Monday - November 1, 2021

 Good Morning Quilters!

This past week I decided to work on something small and simple, and an Instagram friend, Taryn Faulkner, had pictures up of a #Halloweekendsewalong.

Her name on Instagram is Reproquiltlover and she inspires me because she loves to make copies of vintage quilts, just as I do.  Anyway, she made a cheddar and white pinwheel doll quilt that made me want to make one too.  I looked in my stash of hst pieces, and found some red and white ones.  Here is what I made:

It is 12” by 15” and the pinwheels are 3” square.  While looking for two color hsts to play with, I also found these, and I could make another version in tan and white:

Taryn said she pressed all the seams open on her small quilt, so I did too.  The hsts were already made and the seams pressed to the red side, but each seam after that was pressed open.  I thought you’d like to see what the back side looks like:  

I will be adding a border to it.   I also got out a fall quilt UFO to see what was to be added to it to finish the top.  I chose some fat quarters from my stash to make more blocks to get it finished.  I hope to have some progress on it to show you next Monday.

This is the view each morning, from my bedroom windows:

Soon the trees will be bare branches, and the grass underneath will be a colorful thick carpet of fallen leaves.

What are you working on?  Please join the linky party below and show us what you are doing.  Thanks to all of you who talk about Design Wall Mondays in your blog post, and also provide a link back to this post.  You are my kind of people.

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Design Wall Monday - July 26, 2021

Well, another Monday is here……and I played all week.  Had a great family party yesterday and loved seeing some of our Hansen relatives again.  Between party prep, overnight company, and actual party, I did very little quilting.  I did finish this doll quilt top:

It’s a doll quilt I’ve been working on along with the larger one I just finished.  The 11 inch square little Apple Core quilt is all red print fabrics, 100 pieces, none the same.  I started it quite a while ago, and as I was finishing it this week, I was thinking…….who would start making a little quilt this small?  I am getting older, and now had a little trouble with the small pieces, but finished it is.   And finished is better than perfect!  The matching big quilt is named “Red Delicious”.  What would be a good name for this little one?   Maybe just “Small Red Delicious”, or “Little Red Delicious” unless you come up with something very clever.  

I posted a bouquet this past week on Facebook, and had lots of opinions about the “weed” classification it has.  What do you think?  

It has such a pretty name here, “Queen Anne’s Lace” and is so delicate and lacy.  I think of it as a “flower”,  but not for my garden.  A flower I can cut for free any day of the summer, along any country road around Ludington, Michigan.

Here are a few pictures from our family party yesterday.  Hubby in his boat, a shot of the cabin from the lake, and a picture of hubby, his two sisters, our brother-in-law, and me.  The “old folks” at the party.  Penny Lane is in the picture too. All the other guests were children, grands, and one great-grand.

What has your week been like?  I am looking forward to seeing your pictures and reading your blogs.  Please link up to this Design Wall Monday Linky Party!  I hope to do the link correctly this week, as I had done something wrong last week.  Thanks to those of you who let me know the link wasn’t working.  It should be good today.

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Design Wall Monday - May 17, 2021

Good Morning Quilters!

The little doll quilt I started last week is now finished.  It measures 12 x 13.5 inches.  As I said last week, it is a copy of one of the doll quilts in the Mary Ghormley Collection which is at the International Quilt Museum in Lincoln, Nebraska.  The original doll quilt is 17.25 x 19.5 inches.

I made the little triangle corners on the back for ease in hanging it up, should I decide to do so.  If I remember them, they are so easy to add before the binding is added.

And next is my progress on the stars for the “10 Cents A Chance” quilt.  12 stars each week is just enough of a goal for me.  The first star field is now half finished.  

Since there are six flags in the quilt, I have 1/12th of the stars finished.  I like the primitive look of the appliquéd  stars, and am learning how to do them better with each star.

I spent a lot of time outside last week in my flower beds, now that the weather has improved.  I think I overdid it a little bit yesterday though, because I can really feel it in my tired muscles.  Today will be spent inside looking at all of your lovely blogs.  Please participate and show all of us what you are working on.

A reminder that if you choose to link up, I request that you link back to this post and urge your readers to come to Design Wall Mondays so your readers can see all the design walls here.  And no, you don’t have to have an actual design wall to participate.  But please do link back to this post.  Thanks!  

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Design Wall Monday - May 10, 2021

Good Morning Quilters!  This week I copied a little doll quilt from the many doll quilts in the Mary Ghormley doll quilt collection.  Her collection can be viewed online at the international Quilt Museum.  Here is the link to this particular doll quilt (Here)  This little quilt is also in  a book about Mary’s doll quilt collection, Childhood Treasures, by Merikay Waldvogel.

Quilt top next to the picture in the book:

Sometimes I must stop whatever I am working on and make a little doll quilt.  I can’t explain it, I just do it.  This week I plan to machine quilt it and add pink binding.

I also made one week’s worth of stars in the “12 stars a week plan” for the 10 Cents a Chance Flag Quilt.  So far, so good.  

Friday, we visited The holland Tulip Festival, in Holland, Michigan and here are some of the beautiful tulips we saw:

What are you going to show us in your linky pictures this week?  I am looking forward to seeing your linkups.  The rules are the same each week:  Please say something about the Design Wall Monday linky party, and provide a link to this blog post from somewhere within your blog post.  Thanks!

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Design Wall Monday - October 26, 2020

     True to my name, Small Quilts and Doll Quilts happened this week. 

 (1). I was putting some scraps away, and found some broken dishes blocks that were lost a while ago.   When I was making the broken dishes king sized quilt (this one) I lost some blocks, and had to make more.  Now that quilt is completed and I found the lost parts.  I decided to make a doll quilt with the blocks, and used all but one block.  The top is made and it's ready for machine quilting.  It is 14” by 18”.  The broken dishes blocks are 2 inches square.

(2) When Bonnie Stapleton gave me some of her civil war repro scraps, there were some pieces that I thought went well together, and this week I joined them together, quilted and bound the little quilt.  The little hsts are 1.5” square and the quilt measures 6” x 7.5”.  I will be using it as a mug rug.  Thank you Bonnie.

(3)  While I was working in the box of triangle pieces, I found a group of cheddar triangles and decided to make a fall wall hanging.  I added muslin to each triangle to make them squares (hsts) and trimmed them to the largest size they could be uniformly cut.  Turns out that was 2.5” x 2.5”.  The center is 17.5” square.  I added 3” borders to them, and it is ready to machine quilt.  

The only other thing I did this week was to embroider Charlie’s name to the leaf on the back of the Third Week in October quilt repair job of last week.  Someone suggested I add “In memory of Charlie” to the leaf and I did.  Primitive looking but just fine with me.  Hunter will like it.

What did you work on this week?  Looking forward to seeing your linkup pictures and reading about them.  Thank you for posting each week.  Please provide information about Design Wall Mondays and a link back to this post.  

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Desgn Wall Monday - September 21, 2020

Good Morning Quilters!  

Quilting activity:  I am working on a doll quilt that I am trying to put names in the center of signature blocks.  It is not going well so far.  I am experimenting with waste cloth cross stitch, desolvable cross stitch foundation, and just regular embroidery of a name.  I am debating tearing out what I’ve done so far and starting over.  The usual disappointment when something doesn’t look like I imagined it would.  But I will work on another project and come back to this.

 

Current events:

News/weather/health/politics/information overload keeps on getting more than I can take.  You too, probably.  I said last week that I was trying to ignore it all in this space,  and I shall try again this week.....

Right after I say this:  RIP RBG.  She had so much grit and determination and stamina.  I differed with her views, as I am pro-life, but I admired her good qualities.  Her death took all the fun out of me on “Talk Like A Pirate” Saturday.  I didn’t feel like it at all.  Argggh!  I am praying for the next person that fills her shoes, and the coming process of choosing that person.

Nature Stories:

A little mouse has decided to live in our mailbox.  He gets in by coming through a little drainage slot on the hinged door.  We have cleaned out the leaves (nest) twice!! before we figured out what was happening.  Now we are leaving him alone.  The box is long, and we will get letters from the front part, and he will live in the back part, all nice and dry in his metal house.  You can see him on the left side of the picture of the open mailbox.

Some squirrels have gathered lots of pine cones into two big piles at the base of two pine trees on our property.  Penny and I took these pictures on our walk Sunday.

I guess instead of burying them like acorns, they are just making big piles of cones.  My internet search says these mounds are made by red squirrels and are called middens, and all this work could be done by one single squirrel.

What are you working on?

I thank you all for participating in Design Wall Monday.  Lots of beautiful projects each week.  You amaze me.  Thanks, and please talk about Design Wall Monday and provide a link to this post from somewhere within your post.

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Design Wall Monday - January 20, 2020

The decision has been made on my January UFO.  Thanks for your input.  I am in the process of making small half-square triangles to ring the outside of the cheddar baskets quilt. Here is a picture of the progress on the hsts:

The six quilts that are going into the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Show in February are now ready to be sent to Virginia. This week I finished the hanging sleeves and labels for all of them.  The quilts will be part of an exhibit of reproduction quilts made by The Churn Dashers of Tidewater Virginia.  I am still part of their group even though I no longer live in Virginia.  This exhibit includes several versions of an old quilt owned by one of the members.  I made a larger and a smaller copy:

Another small quilt that I am including in the exhibit is a simple one patch quilt:
I made it for my old Raggedy Andy and Raggedy Ann.  The squares are 1 inch:

Andy has had several repairs as he was much loved while our son was teething. Also Ann has lost her apron, but is in slightly better shape.  Here’s the simple quilt:

Please link up and show us what you’ve been working on.  If you do link up, please provide a link back to this particular blog post from somewhere within your post.  

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Design Wall Monday - January 6, 2020

I am trying to stay "whelmed" in 2020......not underwhelmed.......not overwhelmed........just in the middle....whelmed.  I think of it as being happy with the progress I am making.  To be encouraged by the work finished each month in 2020.

I have now documented all of my UFOs per my last post of 2019.  My plan is to finish one each month.  The UFO for January is a quilt that needs the outer borders added, and then it will be ready to send to the long arm quilter.  But before I start on it, I have worked on five smaller projects:

(1) While doing the inventory of UFOs, I found a needlepoint angel project from long ago, that I had planned to make into a Christmas tree topper.  She was put into timeout because I ran out of the yarn for the background around her.  Last week I went to Michael's and found some yarn that was close to the color of the background, and am using 1/6 of that yarn to equal the smaller yarn from the original project.   Meaning I cut a piece of yarn and separate the twisted pieces into six separate pieces, much like embroidery floss.   Here are two pictures:

   
You can see the straight line on the right side separating the original background and my replacement background.  When it is finished and made into a Christmas tree topper, it won't be noticeable.

So the reason it was stopped has been solved, and I am moving forward with it.  Very satisfying.  

(2) In December I was working on the binding for a baby quilt that will be for a future great grandchild.  I have two side finished, and am slowly finishing it up.

I will post more pictures of it when it is finished.

(3)  In preparation for putting some quilts in the Churn Dashers of Tidewater Virginia group display this spring, I am finishing the last of my entries.  I am not a machine quilter, but am attempting to machine quilt baptist fans on this small quilt.  Here is my progress so far:

Not fun for me because I'm not very good at it, but the only way to get better is to practice.  It is about 29 inches square, so it is a good practice piece.

(4)  While in Shipshewana at a retreat, I asked Gretchen to show me how she hand quilts.  She is a regular linker to this blog (Here), and does beautiful hand quilting.  While doing the inventory of the UFOs, I found this small square that I had started hand quilting a long time ago.  It is out now, and I am working on my hand quilting skills......or lack of skills right now.  But as with machine quilting, only practice will get me to be better at it.  

As you can see, it's a start, and I feel like I know what to do after talking to Gretchen.  Thank you Gretchen!  Now it's practice, practice, practice.

(5) My favorite project this week is a doll quilt!  You know how much I like to make them.  This one went together very fast and is a simple design.  While I had the Needlepoint Angel project out, the extra pink yarn from that project gave me the idea to use it to "tie" this quilt.   Here are some pictures of it on the little doll bed.  I had enough of the fat quarter used for the borders to make a little doll pillow.  Also, I found a piece of leftover binding that was just the right amount.  Great fun!

Also a closeup to show you the birds decal on the old doll bed.  

I hope you share what you are starting and finishing this new year.  My design wall is still empty, but progress is being made here in organizing the sewing room and the UFOs.  I'm feeling whelmed!

If you link up with Design Wall Monday, please provide a link back to this particular blog post from somewhere within your blog post.  I appreciate it!

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Design Wall Monday - August 19, 2019

Hello Quilters!  I have had a great "catch-up" week, with no company.  All the sheets are washed, hung out on the clothesline for that fresh air smell, and all the towels are now clean and folded and put away.  I am also refreshed, and ready for more company next week.  We love to have friends visit.

And the copy of the vintage quilt that I am getting ready for the quilt show in Newport News, VA next spring, is now a top.  I shared a picture of it with you last week.  Someone asked last week how to get a nice straight look with the sashing, as it is lined up without cornerstones.  There is a YouTube video about this (Here) 


I found with this quilt that I had to measure the sashing carefully to keep it a consistent width since the sashing was three fabrics sewn together.  If the blocks are a consistent size and the sashing a consistent size, the math works.  

After finishing the large quilt, I knew I wanted to make a doll quilt just like it.  I am often asked how I figure out a smaller version of a larger block.  This is what I did with this block:

The block consists of four flying geese, two half-square triangles, and some filler pieces.....and four outside rectangles to put it on point.  Here is a picture of four of the small blocks I have made:

The large quilt has blocks that finish at 9 inches square, with sashing that finishes at 4.5 inches.  So I aimed for a doll quilt block that finishes at about half that size.  There are four flying geese units in the middle, and I decided I didn't want to go any smaller than a finished size of 1.5 inches by .75 inches for the 4 geese.   (Geese are always half as tall as they are wide)  So I cut rectangles at 2 inches by 1.25 inches (adding half inch total of seam allowance).  After those were made, I guessed at making the half square triangles to finish at 1 inch square.  I added background triangles to fill in the blank spaces, guessing at the size needed, and ended with a "middle" of the block that finished at 3 inches square.  With the outer red triangles added, the block finishes at 4.25 inches.  An odd size, but not important for a doll quilt.

If you want to try to make some small geese to make this block, I will give sized for the rest of the block pieces next week.  For the geese, cut four pieces 2 inches by 1.25 inches and eight "sky" pieces 1.25 inches square.  Add the corners to the "geese" and cut away the extra fabric from the back behind the sky.  And NO, I didn't save these little tiny triangles - they were way too small to make something with!

Hubby bought me gladiolus two times this summer.  A farmhouse family has them for sale out by the road on his way home from the golf course.  Lucky me!  Here is the second bouquet:

Michigan weather has been so perfect this summer for the flowers  And crops too.  Sweet corn and blueberries are in season right now.  I picked giant blueberries last week, and am enjoying them for breakfast now.  Yumm!!

I hope to have the doll quilt finished to show you next week.  What's on your design wall?  Please linkup and show us what you are making.  As always, please link to this particular post somewhere within your blog post.  Thanks!

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Design Wall Monday - July 15, 2019

The broken dishes quilt is almost finished! It will finish at 100" by 100".  Here are pictures of the quilt on the log bed at the cabin:

 I have one more long seam left.....to attach the bottom 20" by 100" to the mother ship.

Last week I thought I had not counted well on how many broken dishes blocks that I needed.   So I made some more.  Then this week, I found the rest of the broken dishes blocks that were missing. 

So, I have laid out two doll quilts from the extra broken dishes blocks.  They will both finish at 14" by 18". 

The last seam on the big quilt and both doll quilts will be sewn together by next Monday, even with company coming to the cabin.  I love this "almost finished" stage.  I have my sewing machine set up in the log bedroom, in front of the windows looking out at the lake.  I feel blessed!

What is on your design wall this week?  I am so happy that you link up and show the rest of us what you are working on.  Please link back to this particular post from somewhere within your post this week.  Thanks.

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Design Wall Monday - June 3, 2019

We just got back from a trip to Texas to attend a Grandson's graduation.  We have two more grands graduating next year, and we just found out that one is graduating on a Thursday night, and the other one on the next night.....but one is in Texas and one is in Michigan.  We will see if we can attend both, with some quick airline flights between the two.

This week's airline trip was typical of airline travel in current times.  The flight to Texas was cancelled completely, and we flew the next day instead.  The rebooked flight had 3 segments instead of the original 2.  The flight home left Corpus Christi airport 2 hours late.....our connecting flight in Houston was also late, and instead of arriving back in Grand Rapids at 11:30 PM, as we had planned......we arrived home at 2:00 AM today.  It's a good thing we are retired and we don't have to get up in the morning and go to work!

We enjoyed our visit with our daughter and her family very much.  She and I sorted and fondled and reorganized her yarn collection.  So much fun for me.  She crochets beautifully, and can make just about anything with a crochet hook.  I came home with some yarn and a few of her creations.  

To show you that I am still quilting a little bit this week, I have the pink doll quilt almost finished.  Here is a picture before I add the top and bottom border (they are just placed there for the picture).

I keep saying "next week I will get more sewing in", but this time it could happen.  I am home all this week.  I have the Spring cleaning bug too, and am making progress there also.  It's all good!

Please post a picture of what you have been working on.  I so enjoy looking at all the beautiful work you are doing.  Just link back to this particular blog post somewhere within your blog post.  Thanks!

Please forgive me as I am not very good at replying to your nice comments on the blog.  I will try to do better.  I really do enjoy hearing from you!

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