Quilt #3 - 14 Karat Gold Fish

    Granddaughter Addison's quilt, Belle, is well under way and, in fact, on the quilt frame in the process of being hand-quilted.

    Therefore, I needed to choose a pattern and a color palette for grandson, Jericho's, quilt. I picked the quilt called "14 Karat Gold Fish" from my Simplicity pattern book.

    However, I didn't want to use the blues, yellows, oranges and pinks shown in the book. Per his mother's request, I opted for green, blue, orange and brown. The sashing is green and navy.  I have 12 (of 48) blocks completed. Here's a peek! = )

Blessed, to be a Blessing

    One of the things I wanted to be able to do when I started this whole quilter's journey thing, was to make quilts to donate. I figured most likely they would be for fundraising type events. There are several charitable organizations that we've supported over the years; most of them because our lives were somehow touched by the disease or circumstance those organizations serve. We've made donations to:

    Juvenile Diabetes Foundation -- my sister was a Type 1 diabetic from the age of 12, and issues related to her diabetes are what took her life at the age of 38.
    American Foundation for Suicide Prevention -- our nephew was a suicide victim in 2006, leaving behind a family with lots of questions, memories, and reasons to trust God.
    Hines Heros -- an organization established in memory of our nephew, who was killed in the war in Iraq in 2005.
    City Gospel Mission -- an organization dedicated to equipping the homeless and underprivileged in our home town, Cincinnati, Ohio.
    Whiz Kids -- an organization established to pair Christian adults with inner-city, at risk kids from our neighborhood, for tuturing and mentoring.
    Faith Food Pantry -- run by our church to help meet the physical and spiritual needs of hungry people in our  neighborhood.

    These are a few that are near and dear to our hearts. Another is Connections,  an organization whose mission is to help victims of childhood sexual abuse find Hope and Healing. We, like lots of folks, have a close family member who was a victim of this horrific crime. She is a beautiful, whole, healed woman now, but the issue remains close to our hearts.

    So, when Connections put out a message requesting donations for their up-coming "Be the Scream" awards banquet, I decided to make a small lap-sized quilt to donate. = )  Here's what I came up with!

    I wanted to do something relatively simple, since I only have 3 weeks to finish it. So, I sketched out a simple arrangement of 12 colored six inch squares, with 3 inch solid white sashing and 6 inch borders. I wanted to do something with batiks, and I wanted it to be a little "girly." So, I chose pinks, purples, and oranges. I really like how it turned out.

    The back will be solid white and I got purple quilting thread. Now I need to decide if I want to quilt by hand or try doing it with my machine ... decisions, decisions.

    I've linked this post to Fabric Tuesday on Quiltstory! = )

Grandbabies Quilt - Finished!

    I finished up the scrappy HST quilt I was working on for the crib in the grandbabies' room. Here are a couple of photos.  I took them before I washed the quilt. I wanted to get the pencil lines I'd drawn on out. Anyway, it turned out very cute after washing. It's all crinkly and comfy looking!

    Pray you have a Blessed Easter!  He is risen!!  Hosanna!!!

   

Quilt #2: Belle - Top Complete

    I finished piecing the top to our grand daughter, Addison's, quilt. It's called Belle and it's from my "Simplicity" pattern book. It will finish out at 72" x 90". Here's a shot of my final placement.

    And here's a couple photos of the top all put together.

    I already have a Hobb's 100% cotton batting for it that I got on Connecting Threads for 40% off a couple months ago. The backing will be a simple white muslin that JoAnn's carries in 108 inches wide. No piecing. I haven't decided whether to do the quilting in white or pink. I think the pink will look cool on the solid white back, but don't want it to look odd on the green and blue elements of my quilt. I'll figure it out. I need to get the whole kit-n-kaboodle loaded onto my quilting frame first!

    Here's a close up of a few of the flowers.

One for the Grandbabies

    Last week, I finished Ashley's Journey to use in our grandkids' room at our house. It's currently on the full size bed we have in there. I decided to get some practice with half square triangles by making a scrappy crib size quilt for the baby bed in their room, too. After all, practice is the only way to get better at quilting!!

    I pulled out all my scraps and sorted by color. Also purchased a yard of solid white to go along with a few white-on-white scraps I had. I cut eighteen 4 inch squares from each of the following basic colors: white, purple, blue, green, yellow, orange and red. Paired a white with each colored print. I drew a line on the diagonal and sewed a quarter inch seam allowance on either side of my line, then cut on the line with my rotary cutter. After trimming to square them up, I ended up with 216 half-square-triangle blocks. Here's a shot of how I arranged them to make my crib quilt.  There are almost an infinite number of ways to put the squares together. I tried various zig zag patterns and ended up with diamonds, bordered by a jagged rainbow edge.

    I learned several things while making my placemats a few weeks ago. Such as, it's a good idea to press my batting. It's a great idea to tape everything down to make sure it stays smooth in order to pin-baste. I learned a few new things while working on this crib quilt. Like, the spot where four HST come together is a really thick seam. And, it works best if you press seams in opposite directions when you're piecing a column, so that when you're putting them together you can "nest" the seams--making it much more even. Probably could've learned those things by reading some before I started ... but, it's a process, remember? = )

    Here's my pieced top, taped down and in the process of being pin-basted. You might notice that I eliminated a column of triangles (went from 6 to 5). I had a scrap of batting that fit with 5 columns and didn't fit with 6. So ... I eliminated the row in order to eliminate a trip to the fabric store to get more batting!

    I'm using a yellow gingham for the back, and hand quilting with yellow thread. It's looking really good and I've just got a little bit to do. I should have it finished by the end of the week! Here's a picture of me (and Cyrus) working on the hand-quilting. (Note: my post-chemo hair is coming in nicely, and I think it may end up being the same color as the hair that fell out. That's a good thing!)

    I've linked this post to Fabric Tuesday on Quiltstory!

Quilt #1: Finished!

    Ashley's Journey--my first quilt ever--is finished! I did the last of the hand-quilting on Monday and put the binding on Tuesday evening. Here's a photo of it, taken from above our two-story foyer. I took one of the back, too. Can't really get much of an idea of scale from these, but it finished at 65 x 88 inches. It fits on a twin-sized bed.

    It makes me smile everytime I look into the grandkids' room. = )  Such a sense of accomplishment and gratification. It's been about 9 months since I purchased the fabrics. And those 9 months have been quite the adventure--in more ways than one!

    God is good ... all the time!!

Changing Seasons

    Spring has arrived, and Larry called the utility company to have our gas turned off today. I'm kinda sad. OK. Not kinda sad, I'm really sad. Actually, I teared-up a little when I went into the living room and now I'm (unsuccessfully) blinking back tears while trying to swallow the lump in my throat. Let me explain.

    A little over a year ago, we had a fireplace wall built in our living room. It has a ventless fireplace with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves on either side. We'd wanted a fireplace when we built our place, but decided to wait until we sold our old house and were in a better financial position. It was finished the end of last April--the same week temperatures went into the 80's and stayed there. So, about six months ago, we had the gas turned on and were able to use the fireplace for the first time.

    We decided that throughout my chemotherapy, I could use the fireplace during the day to warm-up our living area. (As it turned out, we pretty much heated the house with it, but that's another story!) And that's just what I did. If I wasn't feeling well or simply felt chilled, I flipped on the fireplace. Some dark, winter days, there's really nothing like a fire in the fireplace. Not only did it warm-up the room temperature, it seemed to do something to my heart, too. There were days when I'd have our main floor at 76, 77 or even 78 degrees.

    Somehow, it seemed like snuggled up on the couch with a quilt, by the fire, everything was alright--everything was going to be ok. I think in some sort of way, on some days, I depended on that gas fireplace to keep me company, to make me feel loved, like everything in my world was warm and snuggly and safe.

    So, today, the gas goes off. No more fireplace. Silly. I know. But I can't help it. I'm gonna miss it and the sense of safety, peace and hope it somehow gave me when I needed it ...