North to Lake Erie

We've continued our adventures in spooling and have added another 40 spool blocks or so to our supply. I purchase a cute little two level craft bin (for the cute little spools). I have one level for  finished blocks and one for the spool kits. This is going to be a long term project, so we are trying to stay organized.

Even more exciting is that Quiltmaker magazine arrived with the instructions for the last step of Bonnie Hunter's Lazy Sunday Mystery Quilt. It is absolutely gorgeous. I  have the first 3 steps completed, and I have everything cut for the final step. But, it's on the back burner till the end of the week.

We are heading north to Lake Erie.  During our stay we will visit our longarm quilter, Sandy Erwin. There is a new quilt top to drop off. Jana wants to check on the status of Papa Don't Peek, as she is anxious to see it quilted. Her dad's birthday is still several months away, so there is plenty of time.

This might seem a little crazy, but on my last visit I joined the Ohio Star Quilt Guild in Port Clinton. Yes, it is nearly a four hour drive. But we visit several times a year. And they are nice. One of their project is quilt blocks on buildings. We will be on the lookout for these and try to identify the name of the quilt blocks.

Quilt Block at Our Sunset Place on Sand Rd, Catawba Island, Oh

There just happens to be a quilt shop, Nautical Needle too, I would not be right to go without checking that out. Finally we are fishing and swimming and doing nothing but relaxing.

In between the Craftsy BOM and Bonnie's Lazy Sunday I did manage to complete a baby quilt for a co-worker. It's the first quilt I designed, pieced and quilted. It's not exactly a masterpiece. But she was happy with it. That's all that matters.

A gift for baby Luna. 

I was so happy to find Goodnight Moon fabric. And I found a fun stripe with bunnies and bears sitting on quarter moons. It is delightful. Part of the fun in making quilts for someone is finding that perfect fabric that is

meaningful to the recipient.


I mentioned that I joined Ohio Star Quilters Guild. They are a great group and very gracious to let me be a long distant member. My first project with this group is a Round Robin. I have never done one and I am looking forward to this little quilting adventure.   The Round Robin starts with a 12.5 inch block. My block is below. I chose it because Port Clinton is a place to meet with quilting friends. (my little symbolism). On our visit, this block gets dropped off and soon I'll receive a block to add a border to. Fun! Fun! Fun!
Have a great week everyone! 

Meeting Point Block

We've got spool fever!

I don't know how I missed it first time around. Apparently last year Bonnie Hunter introduced a Leader/Ender Spool Challenge.  As I understand it the idea is to use your scraps. The spool unit could not be any simpler. Just start with strips of 1.5 inch fabric. The smallest piece possible is 3.5 inches long. Next kit up some blocks, and when you have a spare moment or two you are ready to sew. Just keep sewing and collecting spool units. When you tired of it, make a quilt.  It's not a contest, there is no end time or number. Just you and your scraps. I love it! You can click on the Quiltville link in this blog to see the instructions, or try this link. If, and that is a big if, I did it right it will take you to the post  You can also see a link to the original challenge in the Quiltville block post. Go head give it a click! .Leader Ender Spool Challenge. 



I thought the spools where cute, and I have some scrapes. So Friday night I started to make some kits. It I didn't like them, I figure I could make a few mug rugs. Regardless there is nothing lost, and a good use of scraps. I made my first few units and I was hooked. They are so easy, and did I mention they are cute.

Spool Kits

Saturday it was rainy. We are caught up on our Crafts BOM, and I am waiting for the recent issue of Quiltmaker to finish my Bonnie Hunter, Lazy Sunday Mystery.  So what's a girl to do, beside sew?
I try to to an even number each time I sit down to sew, 2, 4 8, whatever. . I pieced off and on Saturday. My granddaugther Jana arrived in the afternoon. At first she was not excited about these, but helped pick out fabric scraps to cut into 1.5 inch strips..

Start with 1.5 strips. I cut strips and have them  ready in a zip lock bag

Curiosity finally got the best of Jana and she gave it a whirl. It took a few tries to get it right, but she did. And there is nothing like success to reinforce, so before long she was off to the races. Since she is learning we did things a little different from the instructions. She put a pencil line to help her know where to sew, and she clipped the extra fabric and ironed the outside pieces before sewing them to the center.

Aren't these adorable! They are Jana's first four spool blocks.

We sewed like mad until it was time for her to go home. We completed 82 units. We laid them out for the picture and decided that it going to take a whole lot of these to make a quilt, at least four or five hundred. We decided we didn't care. There is no hurry, in between projects we will keep making spools.

Our rainy day accomplishment.

As we played with our fabric and searched bins for scraps we noticed we where laughing and sharing memories of how some of these fabrics where used. We are calling it our quilting memories quilt. We will be sure to set a strip or two aside from each project we make to ensure it is represented in the quilt.  Hey, this could go on forever. So I guess we make spools until they can't fit into the bin. Then we make a quilt.

P.S. I am not sure I really understand the Leader/Ender idea, and how it works, but I do understand having scraps. And that is really all you need to do this fun and simple project.

Craftsy BOM-July- Tumbling Blocks

We are finally caught up. This month block was easier than we expected. We really like the way it was assembled in rows. Again the cutting was the most challenging part. It seems we are getting the hang of it because nothing was too wonky and the block went together fairly well.

As usual I got to put my block together first. If we run into a problem, we can figure it out on my block (Jana's idea.). I am still using the traditional fabrics. Initially I had a brighter yellow but it seemed to compete so I picked a softer yellow. I am okay with how it turned out. Honestly traditional fabrics don't keep me up at night, but I wanted to get out of my comfort zone with this quilt. Since we are learning lots of traditional blocks, I decided to use mostly traditional fabrics. I think Jana's quilt will be very beautiful and energetic, just like her...hey mine will be.... well traditional and solid, like a grandma. At least that is the plan. And the last part of plan, we are learning together.

Grandma's Old School-Traditional block

Jana, being in love with bright colors and modern designs picked some more Kaffee Fassett fabric. We thought the pink might be too bright, but it turned out just right.You can see that the block tops are actually triangles sewn together. This is a neat trick that made putting these block together a breeze. I think we had the most fun trying to figure out the fabric, and making sure we didn't sew the words upside down.

Jana's New School- Modern block

An experiment in photography, don't ask why, no one knows.

What a difference fabric makes.

We where a little giddy and silly after finishing these blocks.

Let me get that camera away from that girl!  The block is upside down!

I only look grumpy. I am actually proud of my block. I just can't figure out what grandma is doing.

Grandma! Did you cut off my head again?

Do you know what we are most excited about?  August's block is a basket with a handle, and September are the flowers to fill it up. We can hardly contain our excitement.

We may be a little late getting started with the August block. We are all heading to Port Clinton the first of August for a little swimming and fishing and visiting the Islands, and to visit Sandy, our long arm quilter.

Thanks for visiting and watching our projects come together!

Jana and Darlene (Grandma)

Crafts BOM- June- LeMoyne Star Challenge

The new school versus old school challenge continues.

We have met the challenge. The jury is still out on who won the battle. Was it Jana or grandma or the LeMoyne Star.  We humbly report the LeMoyne star was the winner. We finished the block, but it is far from perfect. Still it will go into the sampler quilt imperfections and all. After all as Jana reminds me. "No worry grandma, remember we are just having fun."

We promised ourselves that we would do each and every block in this quilt no matter what. The lesson to learn for this month was the Y seam. This task was actually fairly easy to complete. The instructions where clear and making a don't sew beyond dot helped the seams lay flat.  The problem seemed to be with our measuring and cutting and maybe even sewing of the diamonds. Jana has the "grandma you go first" rule. That way I can work out the kinks on my block. By the time she does her modern block we usually know what we are doing.

This was not the case for this block. Oh from a distance they are acceptable, but you can see that things don't match up very well. I made so many mistakes in sewing, or cutting, the diamonds that I threw out an entire strip, and had to start over. Jana, on the other hand, just picked them up and sewed the pieces together. Hers where nearly perfect. But we still had trouble for some reason. Perhaps it was uneven seam allowances, or some pieces where slightly different in size. My block was really out of whack at the center. Even after doing these two block I still do not really know what happened.

Jana's modern block:  I think she has a good eye for color. And she is not afraid to take a risk with her fabric choices.

More Kaffee Fassett fabric. It met in the middle, but had the beanie effect.

Grandm's old school block: Thank goodness the dark fabric hides the center problems.

This did not meet in the middle, for some reason it was really wonky.

You might wonder why we have an old tablecloth with duck tape. Well when it cracks or accidentially gets cut we just tape it up and Jana writes little inspirational comments on the tape. I could get a new table clothe for just a few dollars, but I just love her little messages.

Oh yeah, we got it done, but don't have plans to do this block anytime soon.

 Coming next (we mean later this month) - Tumbling blocks -

Papa don't peak ready for longarm! Everyone look! Except dad!

She has done it. My granddaughter Jana just finished the top for her father's quilt. The idea for the quilt began in the fall of 2012. Jana wanted to do something special for her dad. He likes red and black, and she likes Ohio Stars and Friendship Stars. The plan came together. We gathered fabrics, and started to made star  kits for each block. We got off track for  a few months when it was discovered that Jana had a serious problem with her spine and needed a spinal fusion, in December 2012. It was a nine hour surgery. The first month was a challenge, but by mid January she was back to school. And before long, back to sewing, back brace and all. Here is the initial layout. That is a smile of relief that those blocks are finally done. I am proud of her for sticking with it. She took some breaks and we also have been working on the Craftsy BOM 2013 quilt. Now to sew it together. She had reservations, but she sticks with things and got it done.

Whew! that was a lot of cutting, ironing and sewing!

These are the fabrics for the border.

Jana wanted to stay with the red, black and white theme. After 25 stars she was done with them. But the quilt needed to be bigger. Borders were the answer.  She realized that she needed something different to frame the quilt. (It's so nice to just be able to shop grandma's stash). We had two yards of the tree ring fabric so no piecing was needed for the first border. At first she did not understand why we did not just sew the border with a straight seam, but when she saw the results she understood how much better mitered borders look.

What attracts us to certain fabrics? I love anything organic, having to do with earth or plants. When Jana saw the tree rings she said, "The last thing we learned about this year in school is that tree rings help you know how old a tree is."  That was not the only reason she picked  this fabric, but it does add an interesting element. We laughed that when she sees this quilt on dad's bed it will always remind her of the 4th grade.

This is the first quilt where  Jana added a border. She learned to piece the border and  measure the border from the middle so her sides stay even. She was surprised how easy it is to make a mitered border.

Here is how you piece together your border.

Trim the extra fabric

Measure at the middle.

Here goes the borders.

We sew on an oval table, so it can make it difficult to keep the quilt from falling off the edge. Jana used an old chair to hold the extra fabric.

Will the sewing ever end?

So happy how the borders came together.

Jana's picture.

Our favorite block

All Done! Off to the quilter!

Red or Black backing?  Look what we found at Fabric.com

The perfect backing fabric

What a special quilt: Designed and Made by an 11 year old daughter with love for her father.

From a proud grandma! Dad's birthday is the end of September.. The quilt goes to our long arm quilter Sandy Erwin this weekend. Another happy event to end this quilt story is Jana sees the surgeon on the 27th of June and all indications are the back brace is coming off!  Hurray! Update. All went well the back brace is history!

Bonnie Hunter's Lazy Sunday- Part 3

After much anticipation, the newest Quiltmaker arrived, and I have been busy cutting and sewing, sewing and cutting (and ironing). I love putting the blocks together, so I did that first. I did some editing of my stash and pulled a few new colors in.  I decided that the background colors I used in the previous block just would not do in what I call the chevron blocks of this step. I loved the hydrangea fabric and was determined to use it, but it just was not the right shade for the block. So it was edited out and set aside. Perhaps I went a little overboard with my background fabrics for the first block? It worked well there, but no so much with the chevrons.

These are the fabric I didn't use in this step.

 I love how the pinks and yellows came together for this block. I realize it is not really scrappy as Bonnie's was. Previously I teased that my Lazy Sunday will be in the summer. At first I said I would use it to sit on the porch and drink tea. I think I need to change that to raspberry lemonade.

I loved the texture of these fabrics.

Four blocks with a green corner? 

 

 

The chevron block is where my editing game into play. I had to go through my stash and find some more tone on tone and a different purple to go with. I wanted to stay close my original selection. I edited out the purple floral above because it was too pink and there was too much contrast with the purples I used in the first block. I ran out of purple, so found some new on sale. Yeah!

All cut and ready to go. I just need the time to sew.

So only one more edition and the puzzle, and mystery will be solved. This is the first Mystery Quilt I have done that has progressed over so many months. The advantage is that you have plenty time to get each step done. On the other hand, you have to delay gratification and wait, and wait, and wait. That is actually good for me because I usually bulldoze through, making myself a little nutty trying to get everything done as soon as the step is published. No pressure with this one.

Here's a reminder of the previous block. You can see that the pink and purples do carry through to the current steps so I think it will still work well. I have no idea how this thing will go together. I just know I love doing Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilts.

My funky background worked okay here.

Quilts for Dad - Show and Tell

One of the on line communities I enjoy being part of is Quilting Bloggers. This includes bloggers around the world. It's hard to believe, but there are thousands of blogs about quilting. Each week there is a Show and Tell where quilters can share their quilts. The online community votes on their favorite. The quilts are just fantastic.

Normally I just look at the beautiful pictures each week and vote for my favorite. The majority of these quilters are much more skilled than I am. Still I decided to add one of my quilts to the voting. I have to admit the picture isn't the greatest. And the quilt is plain. But it's a quilt that I really enjoyed making for my DH. He loves to fish and I wanted to surprise him with a quilt that had the look of being around fish camp for many summers. And it is not about winning, but about sharing what we love to do. One can not really be part of a community if you only sit on the sidelines and watch the action. You have to jump in and enjoy the fun from time to time.

The pattern is My Old Brown Shoe. The pattern called for several squares to be raw appliqued on each block. That was a bit much for me. So I decided to pick and choose the blocks where the applique would add something to the design. I call the quilt Old Brown Shoe at Fish Camp.

Finished quilt (I mean top-had not been quilted at this point)

Close up off blocks with fish

Of all the times to need batteries in my camera, it is not today. I thought I had a picture of this quilted, but can't seem to locate it. When I get the camera up and running I'll snag the quilt from my  hubby and I will add a picture of the quilting. Sandy did an all over quilt design of fishing lures! It is fabulous.

Click the show and tell button to be connected to the sites. You can enter your quilts. Voting starts on Friday and ends Monday.  You can also click onto the Quilting Bloggers button to see what all the excitement is about.  Enjoy!