Design Wall Monday - May 1, 2023

Happy May Basket Day!

I love May 1st and the memory of May baskets on front doors.  As you know, a lot of my quilts feature baskets, so on this May Day, I give you some repeat pictures from previous blog posts:

Here are the three quilts that I showed at the “show and tell” at the quilt retreat last week:

Pattern for this one is:  Birds of A Feather by Barb Adams and Alma Allen

In this picture, I’m pointing to the only basket block in my replica of the 225 block Jane Stickle Quilt.  I’m also wearing one of my mom’s aprons.

Baskets and more baskets in this quilt:

So Happy May Basket Day!  Join in our Design Wall Linky Party below and show us what you are making. 

 Later today I’m going to make a few baskets of flowers to put on the front doors of my neighbor’s houses.  When I was a child I would ring the doorbell, leave the basket, and run away.  My running days are in the past now, so I will greet them and explain what the tradition is all about.  Please tell us if you have any May Day basket experiences.  

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Design Wall Monday - March 20, 2023

 Good Morning Quilters!

Are any of you basketball fans?  I am a big college basketball fan, and filling out my March Madness bracket choices is an annual ritual.  It has been fun this year because so far, my bracket is doing better than three of my Grandson's brackets.  I am sure they aren't happy about it, but so far, I'm winning!  And my very favorite team is now in the Sweet Sixteen.  Go Green!

But my main news is that I have another UFO finish to show you this week.   My cheddar baskets quilt is completed!  I blogged about it when I started making these baskets in May, 2018.  You can see my start on it (Here) if you want to go look.  The pieced baskets (with appliquéd handles) finish at 3.5 inches square.

Once I decided on a layout, I was thinking of having a free motion quilter quilt a basket in each white plain block.  But I decided to embroider a basket in the white squares because I couldn’t figure out who or how to get a long arm quilter to continue with my vision of bigger baskets there.  I didn't know Sue Daurio then. I chose embroidery in cheddar floss so the embroidery blends with the pieced blocks and doesn’t overtake the little baskets.  

Recently I sent it to Sue Daurio (her website is here) to machine quilt it for me.  She had some great ideas, and as you can see, the quilting enhances the cheddar baskets and the embroidery well.  Sue’s suggestions helped me decide what the results would be, and I am very happy with it.  

It is one of those projects where I just couldn’t visualize how it was going to turn out, or what to add next, or what size it would be.  Some UFOs are like that, and I am very happy that this one moved along the bumpy path of my thoughts and ideas and came out a completed quilt, and it only took five years!  haha 

Here are lots of pictures of the completed quilt.  The last picture shows Penny Lane with it this week.  She is now five years old, and she was just a puppy when I began this journey.  Penny approves of it.  The measurement of the final quilt is 74" by 74" square.

I have another finish to share with you next week, and then I am back to showing partially finished projects.  The one next week is one of my oldest UFOs.....stay tuned for the rest of the story next Monday.  

But now, what do you have to show us?  I hope to spend some time looking at all of your blogs this week.   There is a break in the basketball games, so I will have time to look at blogs on the internet.  Thank you so much for sharing in our Design Wall Monday Linky Party.  I appreciate you so much.  

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Design Wall Monday - June 7, 2021

Good Morning Quilters!  In 2019 and 2020, I worked on a cheddar basket quilt that had large white empty squares and pieced baskets surrounding them.  See a blog post (Here) I had thought I wanted a long-arm quilter to custom quilt baskets in the large white squares.  But I also wanted to use some basket patterns I had (these are different than the May Day ones), and was unsure if I could explain what I envisioned to a machine quilter.   Plus the cost would be more than I wanted to pay and I was leery of paying someone to do it and then not be happy with the finished quilt.  So I decided to embroider the basket patterns in the blank squares of the quilt, using cheddar embroidery floss.  It involves embroidery on a quilt that is already a quilt top, but it hasn’t been too unwieldy for me.  I thought of combining the May Day baskets into this quilt, but the colors in the basket were not compatible with the cheddar look I was going for.  Remember this post where I had the idea?  (May Day Basket idea)

 

 

We are up at the cabin, and I’m including some pictures of plants near the front door.  We have some English thyme, which is in full bloom right now, and some ferns.  So far the deer have left these two ferns alone, but have eaten most of the other varieties of ferns that were planted along the sidewalk.  I was told that deer don’t generally eat ferns, but they like the varieties I have planted up here.  And as you know, nothing is “deer proof”.

We are up north to visit with my sister and her caretakers to see if we can adjust her meds to make her feel better.  She has been very anxious lately.  I will be sitting with her during her dialysis treatment and will take my embroidery with me.  Here is the basket I’m working on:

What have you been working on this week?  Please join the linky party and show us your design wall.  You know it doesn’t have to be a design wall (mine isn’t this week) - just show us a picture of what you are working on.  Thanks for joining in, and please provide a link back to this blog post from somewhere within your post. 

 Also thanks for all the kind condolences about Mojo.  He will always be in my heart. 

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Design Wall Monday - January 27, 2020

January’s UFO is not one as of yesterday!  The hst pieces were sewn into long strings, and attached to the outside of the cheddar basket quilt.  I have the binding made, and the quilt awaits a trip to a long arm quilter.  Here are a few pictures:

The angel needlepoint background is almost finished too.  It feels good to have some progress.  Now I am picking a UFO to work on in February.  What are you working on this week?  It is the last Monday in January, and I am getting out my valentine quilts to enjoy.  I will show you pictures next week.  

Please link up and show us what you are working on.  I see several Frolic quilts coming together (Bonnie Hunter annual mystery) and a few blog hops.  Great projects, and I am planning on looking at all of the link ups tomorrow.  My only request is that you provide a link back to this post from somewhere within your blog post.  Thanks!

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