Happy Father's Day!

I just came from visiting my parents. I gave my dad the gifts from me and my family. We visited for awhile and started to look through some old photo albums.

This is me and my parents before my brother was born. My mother was pregnant at the time. I must have been 4 years old,

Here's a picture of my dad holding my brother. This must have been in 1962 which is the year my brother was born.

The old photographs made me nostalgic. I don't think I'd be a quilter if it wasn't for my dad. He was a tailor. As a little girl, I remember falling asleep to the sound of his sewing machine. My dad had the sewing machine in my room. I was always fascinated by it. I wasn't supposed to touch it but I did end up getting the needle stuck in my finger once. Oops!

My dad doesn't sew anymore. I feel as though I'm carrying on for him! It doesn't seem possible that so many years have gone by. I hope my own kids have nice memories of me as I do of my own parents.

Arcadia Avenue Blocks

 

 

Arcadia Avenue blocks are done! I'm so shocked to be done this quickly. I think I came up with a process that worked for me. Each block is made up of 12 paper pieced wedges. I would work on 3 wedges at a time. It only took for sessions to complete one block. I would spend a day or two sewing the wedges together to make the actual block. The blocks are grouped randomly in this photo. I still have to decide what color to make the background. Actually, the background is made of 2 different fabrics that are very close in color.

 

These are the last 2 blocks I made.

 

 

 

Find Your Way

 

 

Target Practice

 

I plan on finding my 2 background fabrics. I'll have to cut 60 degree triangles which seem to square up the hexagons. I have a few other projects to work on for now but I feel lost without my paper piecing! I've started knitting a new shawl. I'll share it with you next post!



More Farmgirl Blocks

 

 

Here are the latest blocks for the Farmgirl Vintage Quilt Along. This is the Crops Block. There are so many ways this block can be used! I've seen long "vines" of this block. I've also seen it paired with a floral block. So many possibilities!

This is the Egg Basket Block. This is one pretty block! I could see a whole quilt made of these blocks just using up my fabric stash!

These are all my blocks so far! I'm making the 6 1/2 inch blocks. There will be a total of 45 blocks. I'm having a great time making these blocks and using up my fabric stash. I'm just making 2 blocks per week. A nice summer project!

Mystery Quilt Revealed!

 

 

The Tewksbury Piecemakers had the last meeting of the year last night. We had a guest speaker, a raffle, an ice cream social and the reveal of this year's Mystery Quilt pattern. This quilt top is my version of the pattern. There are no directions for borders. I found this border online and thought it would look great with the pattern. I had enough fabric and preferred the quilt to be a little bigger. It finished at 66 X 96. A little bigger than I expected but that's fine with me!

The pattern was written by Debbie Caffrey and is called Just Around the Bend. It's made with just 3 fabrics. I added a different fabric for the sashing. I'm sure you could also add different fabrics for the border as well. I found it amazing that the last month's instructions included 11 different settings for the 24 blocks we made! This is quite the versatile block!

I have pictures of quilts made by fellow members using the same directions. The settings as well as the fabrics are all rather different. It's so fun to see how the quilts look after we all followed the same directions.

 
 

 
 

 
 
                                                                           

                                                                                              

 

 

 

                                                               

                                                                

Don't they all look lovely?? And so different! It's surprising that there are so many settings to choose.

 

This is next year's raffle quilt. The blocks were all made by various members of the guild. Each block was taught by Sally Palmer Fields. She was a local quilter who taught many of the founding members of our guild. Our guild will be 25 years old this year. The theme of this year's quilt show will be "Silver Threads"! So appropriate!

              

 

 



                                

Starburst

I finally finished Starburst which is Block 10 of Arcadia Avenue.  I've been piecing this poor block for days! I'm working on too many projects right now. I'm trying to finish the mystery quilt from my quilt guild. Our last meeting is this Tuesday and each of the participants is encouraged to bring in their quilt top. Of course, I have to finish the darn thing first! It is fun to see how different everyone's quilt top looks. I'll post pictures next week.

I'm also still trying to finish machine quilting Ladies of Downton Abbey. I'm working on hiding the threads. And I also started the Farm Girl Vintage Sew Along a few weeks ago. What was I thinking??

I only have 2 blocks left to piece for Arcadia Avenue. I'm hoping the mystery quilt will be done very soon. That only leaves 2 projects. It doesn't sound too bad!  I think I'll be okay!!

Here are all the blocks together! I love them! Hope you do too!!

Farm Girl Update

These are the 2 latest blocks for the Farm Girl Vintage Sew Along. The block on the left is Cool
Threads. I didn't think this block would be difficult but it took much longer than I anticipated. The block on the right is Churn Dash which is a familiar block to most of us. This block was very quick to make.

If you check out A Bee in My Bonnet, Lori Holt pieced a heart into the center of the Churn Dash block. So cute! I didn't see her post until after sewing my block. I'm so afraid I'll fall behind that I try to make the blocks as soon as I can! I should check out her blog post before sewing the next 2 blocks.

Here are the 9 blocks so far in the Sew Along.  I'm sewing the 6 1/2 inch blocks. I think they're adorable! Not bad for a stash quilt!!  I'm already looking forward to the next 2 blocks!

More Machine Quilting!

I've been machine quilting Ladies of Downton Abbey.  I have finished quilting each block. I still have the sashing as well as the set in triangles along the edges left to quilt. I thought this would be a good time to work in all my threads. Each block was quilted individually so I cut thread each time. Each block was quilted the same way. I tried to make a secondary block design using my quilt pattern. I think it's hard to see in the above picture.

 

 

 

 

You can sort of see the pattern in the backing. I felt like this was taking me forever but I'm glad I stuck with it. I still have to decide how to quilt the remaining areas. I'm hoping the quilt "speaks" to me!! I used King Tut thread in a variegated beige color.

 



I think my two kitties approved of my quilting! They liked laying on it and getting it ready for me! It's so nice to have 2 helpers.