Design Wall Monday - February 20, 2023

Good Morning Quilters!

The Mid-Atlantic Quilt Show is this week in Newport News, VA.   I have several quilts there, in the "Churn Dashers of Tidewater Virginia" special exhibit.  I am happy to be traveling to the show to see the exhibit in person.    Since we used to live in Williamsburg, VA, there are friends there that we will be visiting also.  

I have not worked on my Benjamin Biggs quilt at all this week, but instead, I've prepared several quilts to ready them for hand sewing the final seam on the binding.  I have four quilts to bind, and I will be binding in the car, all the way to Virginia and on the way back home.  Hopefully I will get all four quilts bound, and I will be caught up in quilt binding until I get another one back from a long arm quilter.  I may possibly pick up one on the trip back home, if it is ready for me.

The only thing I have to show you this week are some little hsts I made to turn into a small quilt.  I found some red plaid triangles, sewed them into hsts and trimmed them all to 1.25 inch by 1.25 inch.  They will finish at 3/4 inch square, and the little quilt will be 3.75 inches by 4.5 inches if there is no border added.

Here are some possible arrangements for this small quilt:

This one above doesn't use six of the hsts.

I will probably assemble them like the next to the last picture - I do like the broken dishes pattern very much.  But it was fun to play with the small blocks after I trimmed them while I was in the car today. What do you think?  

What are you working on this week?  I will show you pictures next week of quilts that I have seen at the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Show.  I will be looking at your pictures, and reading your blogs while I am away.  

Thanks for linking with the Design Wall Monday Linky Party.  We have such a talented group of quilters participating each week, and I thank you all.  Click the link below and join in with us:

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Decoration Day, a Day of Remembrance

A sacred day of remembrance to honor those who paid the ultimate price for our freedoms.  Thank you to those who have died in our nation's service.  We honor you on Memorial Day.

We cherish too, the Poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led,
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies.             by Moina Michael
  

This Memorial Day (formerly Decoration Day), I am featuring three patriotic quilts, each decorated with buttons.

The first one is a folk art flag pattern from Jo James.  I don't think the pattern is available now, but this site shows where it was available previously. (Here)  It's 17 x 24 inches.

Second is a cute little mini flag - it's only 6.5 in. by 9 in., and was made by Monique of onlydollquilts.blogspot.com, and was shown on her blog in 2011 (Here)  I really like her blog.

The above two pictures were saved on my computer - I was doing a private version of what Pinterest is all about for many years.  So my home computer hard drive has lots of files of quilts that I like.  Now I save them on Pinterest so others can see them too.  

Below is a small quilt that I started years ago.  It is now just a top, but will be a pillow cover, or a wall quilt.  It measures 16 x 20 inches in unfinished state.  The outside borders may get cropped somewhat when I decide what I'm going to do with it.   It's on my design wall now, so it will remind me to get it completed.  Check out all the other design walls (at Patchwork Times - here).

The beginning picture is of adorable Madeline Grace Wallace, then 4, carrying flags at the National Cemetery in Little Rock, Arkansas, May 25, 2012.  It was in the newspapers on the web last year.  She was helping her mother, U.S. Air Force Tech Sgt. Wendy Wallace, honor the soldiers who died in protecting our freedom.

AAQI Quilts for Sale

AAQI Quilts for Sale - This is the last year for buying little quilts to support Ami Simms wonderful organization, Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative.  Thanks to so many of you for supporting this wonderful cause.  If you would like to buy a little wall quilt, I have two still for sale!  This first one is 9 inches by 9 inches, and could also be used as a doll quilt, or a mug rug. Click on the name under the quilt to go to the site if you would like to purchase it to support the cause.

OCEAN WAVES REMEMBERED

The second one is made of homespun plaids and black, and is 6.5 inches square.  It would make a good mug rug, or you could hang it on the wall.  I hope they find a good home!  Again, click on the name under the little quilt to go to the site to purchase it.

HOMESPUN HOPE

Thank you very much!

I was sewing on a charity baby quilt this week, and somehow blew a fuse on my sewing machine.  At least that's what the onscreen error message indicates.  I think Bonnie Hunter is right, the old machines have fewer parts to contend with, and are more reliable.  This is the second time I've blown a fuse on my Janome.  So, instead of sewing up a storm this weekend while hubby is away in Florida golfing, I am using my rotary cutter and mat, and am cutting up a storm, in preparation for sewing when my machine gets back from the shop.  There is always something to do in the quilt room, right?

AAQI Quilts for Sale, and In The Design Process

AAQI Quilts for Sale!

I just noticed that two quilts I made for AAQI are now up for sale!  I'm going to "advertise" them on Facebook too, so I hope they sell soon. 

The first one is called Ocean Waves Remembered, and is for sale for $40.  It's 9 X 9 inches square, and has hanging triangles on the back.  Click on the title under the quilt to go to the AAQI page.

OCEAN WAVES REMEMBERED

and the second quilt for sale ($30) is #12672 named "Homespun Hope".  It's 6.5 X 6.5 inches and is made from leftover scraps from my friend Jill's quilt.  Jill sat next to me at the Dear Jane retreat in Shipshewana, IN and has provided me with scraps for more quilts for this great charity.  I love her plaids! Click on the title under the picture to go to the sale site.

HOMESPUN HOPE

These would make wonderful gifts, and can be used as wall hangings, or mug rugs. 

A friend here in Williamsburg, (Mary Jane Gantzler) gave me her little snippings from her blocks for East Street, and I have started working on them to make another little quilt for AAQI.   Here is a picture of the little purple hst's that will be part of a new little quilt to donate:

The donation quilts have to be 9 x 12 inches or smaller in size, so that is perfect for these little scraps.  These little hst's will finish at 3/4 inch square.  So cute! Thanks Mary Jane!

Here's a start on another little one, using some red and white scraps from my Easy Street blocks:

It would finish at 4.5 inches square right now, but I will be adding more so it will be larger.  I'll let you know when these are sent to the AAQI organization, and again when they come up for auction.  Such fun, and all for a good cause.

Merry Christmas everybody!  

Easy Street, Part 3 and Party Serendipities!

Here's the latest part of Bonnie Hunter's Easy Street Mystery:

I will finish this step by Friday, and am having lots of fun seeing other people's version of this quilt.  So many of us!  Fun, fun, fun!

This week has been a party week!  At one party, my friend Mary Jane Gantzler, brought her doll to show to me, because she had seen my blog.  Her doll is a tiny Raggedy Ann, in a Longaberger cradle.  It has the smallest quilt I have ever seen!  She made this yo-yo quilt for her little doll in her lovely basket cradle. Mary Jane also made a nice little mattress, pillow, and sheet for her little Raggedy Ann.

Do you see how awesomely tiny this quilt is?  Well done Mary Jane!

The little babies are supervising my trimming up the small hst's for a future quilt for them.  I keep trimming the hst's, and hope they will like the quilt I make.  The little squares are trimmed to 1.25 inches.  I didn't show them the little yo-yo quilt picture, as they might like it better than the one I'm planning for them, and I don't want to think about making that.

At another party last night, a friend's daughter, Samantha showed me her little rabbit friends:

She liked my two little baby girls, and I really liked her little rabbits.

No parties on the calendar today, so I plan to head to the quilt room and play.

Little AAQI Quilts to Donate

Here are two little quilts I made to support Ami Simms and her organization, Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI).

The first one has been made from my first attempts at paper piecing about a year ago.  I made these red and white half square triangle rows for an ocean waves paper piecing pattern.  This summer I made them into a little wall quilt to donate to AAQI.  

It's called "Ocean Waves Remembered" and measures 9 inches by 9 inches.
The little HSTs are 3/4 inch squares.


The second one is made from scraps thrown away by my friend at the Dear Jane retreat last year at Shipshewanna.  She was cutting little triangle pieces off her blocks, and I liked the scraps and made a little quilt from them.  Remember my first little AAQI quilt?  It was named Homespun Triangles, and has been sold.

I thought I'd used all of her scraps in the above quilt, but found some more scraps the other day when I was doing my quilt room clean-up.  I made another plaid scrappy one, and am naming it "Homespun Hope":

It is only 6.5 inches square, and the HSQ's are one inch.  I have just contacted AAQI about these two, so it will be a while before they are for sale on the website, alzquilts.org.  I'll let you know when they appear there.

Both of these have the suggested hanging triangles on the back:

They are lots of fun to make, and I love to help.   I imagine they are selling a lot of their little quilts at the big quilt show in Houston right now.

Is it too soon to mention Christmas?

While I'm at the lake in the summertime, I am part of the Victorian Quilter's Guild, near Manistee, Michigan.

They make ornaments to decorate a Christmas tree, and auction off the tree to raise money for charity.  Here are my contributions to the tree for this Christmas:

The top five ornaments are 4 inches square, and I just played around with fabrics that I had at the cabin.  The requirements were to make ornaments four inches or smaller.

The bottom four are my first attempts at making house blocks as shown at this blog:  http://buildinghousesfromscraps.blogspot.com  I made the four houses in January, and they are 3 inches square.  I had debated joining in the fun of making a house a day, but I don't have enough novelty fabrics to cut into little cute little somethings to fit in each window.  So I stopped with just four houses, and they were in my sewing basket.  

Anyway, I made good use of the four houses I had, and added them to the guild's Christmas tree ornaments.  Some child will enjoy looking at them on their Christmas tree.

While I was making these ornaments, I played around with Santa Claus fabric that I bought for the ornaments, and made some slightly larger ornaments to use for a gift exchange among some internet friends.  So if you are one of these friends, pretend you didn't see them here.  

Here are the log cabin ornaments, at about 6 inches square:

They are ready to mail when the time comes, and I feel very virtuous for having a little bit of a jump on Christmas preparation.   I usually approach Christmas with a big surge right after December 1st, and at the end of the month I make a mental note to start a little sooner next year.  This year, I'm one small step into the preparation.  Yeah!!

AQS Quilt Show in Grand Rapids, Michigan

The past three days were spent at Grand Rapids, Michigan at the AQS Quilt Show.  I enjoyed myself very much.  One highlight was a visit to the Grand Rapids Public Museum on Thursday night to see some very old quilts.  Here is some eye candy from that museum visit:

I stayed with my friend Joan, and took two classes.  One was a 2.5 hour class on Drunkard's Path machine piecing.  Here's a vintage small piece that Joan had at her house, and she let me take it with me to class, for show and tell.

Here's the sample I worked on in class (it's about 10 inches square):

I found the machine piecing of the curves very easy, and with no pins.  It went very well, and I'd like to make more.

There wasn't a miniature quilt category at the Grand Rapids show - or else I missed it completely!  I was surprised.

Hope you have had a good week, and were able to look at some quilts too, or work on some of your own.

AAQI Charity Donation and Gonk

Here's a picture of my charity quilt with a Gonk.  I thought they matched with their plaid character!


My Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) charity quilt has now been given a number, and is in their internet listing of quilts for sale at the website:


www.altzquilts.org


There are lots of beautiful quilts for sale there, all for a great cause.  This one is named "Homespun Triangles" and is #10405.  I see several quilts there that I want to buy.  They put a price of $40 on this one.


Do you know what a Gonk is?   Gonks are egg-shaped toys from the 1960's.


I visited my friend Dee recently, and her brother had brought his Gonk over to her for eye repairs.  Her older brother Harry, used to cruise around his neighborhood in the 60's with this Gonk strapped in the back seat of his ultra cool 1957 silver Chevy convertible!


Now he keeps his Gonk on his houseboat, where his children and grandchildren can enjoy him.  Anyone else have a Gonk about 50 years ago?


I'm posting this small quilt on the pieceful life blog with the other posts for Little Quilt Monday.  I like to see what other little projects people are working on there.


http://piecefullife-elizabeth.blogspot.com


I'm in Michigan in the middle of a forest, so I have to go to the nearest town to get internet service, so please forgive me if I don't respond to your posts very quickly.  I am on vacation from internet service, and it is showing me how much I miss it.

Fourth of July Quilt

This quilt idea was from a quilt shown in the magazine Miniature Quilts, Issue 61.  As it's pictured in the magazine, it has 260 yo-yos and was made by Michaele Daramus.  The yo-yos are 1 and 1/4 inch in diameter.

After making a lot of yo-yos, and looking at the size of the quilt as per the instructions, I decided I wanted a smaller flag, and made my yo-yos into two flags.  I gave one away to a friend as a gift, and kept the one you see below.  It has 126 yo-yos, and measures 9.5" by 15."

The small log home is in the living room of our cabin in Michigan.  The grandchildren are getting too old to play with it, but I love it because it looks very similar to the outside of the real cabin.  There are several animals (deer, bear, elk, etc.) who live inside this toy cabin.  Sometime I will show the back of the toy cabin, and all the animals who live there.

I hope you have a fun filled week!  We Americans are celebrating our freedom with lots of American flags flying.  We are at our cabin for the summer, chilling out in the cool breezes from the lake.  Life is Good!

AAQI Quilt Made from Dear Jane Retreat Scraps

At a recent Dear Jane retreat in Shipshewana, IN, a friend sitting next to me was throwing away the little corners she snipped off.  I collected them, and she started giving them to me when she saw I was rescuing them from the trash.  I'm such a sucker for plaids!  She told us her father-in-law was suffering from Alzheimer's and I made this little quilt to help in a small way with the AAQI's fund raising efforts.


After I made the half square triangles and put them together, I was thinking about a plaid border, and went to the website to see what size quilts they wanted.  The quilts must be 9 x 12 or smaller in size.  Since it measured 9 inches square before adding a border, it didn't get a border!  I used the plaid that I was thinking about using for a border for the binding and the back.  The AAQI's instructions have cute little triangles on the back for hanging purposes. Instructions:  http://www.alzquilts.org/sleeve.html


I think I'll add these to all of my doll quilts from now on, and then if I want to hang them up, they will be good to go!  Here's the back:

I will let you know when it is for sale at the AAQI site, as there is an application and waiting period.  But right now, little bunny is enjoying it at my house!

9 inches x 9 inches, machine stitched and machine quilted.  Hanging triangles on all four corners on the back.

Easter Chicks Having Tea

This is the first small/doll quilt that I made, years ago.  My friend Dee gave me a kit from the Little Quilts store in Georgia (http://www.littlequilts.com/)

It was made many years ago, and has had lots of use as a mug rug, a hot pad, a display quilt, it's been everywhere.  Everyone who picks it up says something nice about it.  It is much loved.  The tea set is the tiniest I own too.  I've had it for about 40 years, and bought it in a dime store. 

The outside measurements are 6.5 by 9.5 inches and the half-square triangles measure 1.25 inches.

Little chick wanted me to show you the back of it too.  The prints that the Little Quilt store selected are lovely.  Hope you enjoyed today's quilt.