President's Blocks

I have been President of Bear Creek Quilt Guild since Feb 2012.  I took over for a friend who had a sudden cross country move.  It was daunting initially but soon I realized that everyone is willing to help and offer advice.

I was supposed to be doing Special Projects which is BOM, fat quarter raffles, etc with my friend, Twana but she carried most of the work as I got busier and more distracted.  Jane and Dana from our bee pitched in on every idea we had for Special Projects, making samples, and completing projects.  It made the year fun and I felt less guilty because Twana had their support.

My son, Paul, died suddenly in July and recovery for the whole family is a slow and painful process.  In early December I told friends and siblings that I felt I had turned a corner on my depression.  I began to be interested in quilting again but in the last week or so I felt dragged down again.  Perhaps it is the holidays…

Tues, December 18^th was the Guild Christmas Potluck.  It was a night of fun and laughter.  One lovely surprise was the ladies gave me 58 double friendship stars as a thank you for being president.  I could hardly wait to get home and put them on the design wall.  I can’t work on the quilt until after Christmas but I am eager to play with these blocks.  I don’t know, but I think I will add sashing.  These blocks were a lovely gift that has done a lot to renew my enthusiasm for quilting and life.

 

 

Crafting with Loralie and Kearstyn

My granddaughters were here for Thanksgiving.  We had a fun visit in my crowded little apt.  My sister, Jeanne, had sent felt candy canes and we decorated them together.  I meant to buy glitter and other items but forgot so we worked with fabrics and marking pens.

 

Still working on first step of the guild mystery

I am liking the fabrics together.

 

nine patch challenge

A friend and I are both doing little nine patch quilts and we are challenging ourselves to do beautiful quilting.  We both watched Lisa Calle's Divide and Design DVD http://www.stonehousequilting.com/shop/product/divide-and-design-conquering-your-quilting-agoraph/

So I grabbed fabric from my stash and this is the nine patch.  The background is a pink I originally bought to line a large tote.  I was trying for a blended type quilt which is not really my style.  I am not thrilled with the little quilt, but I hope it will look better with quilting.  I haven't added a border.  I am not sure which fabric I will chose.

 

 

 

 

Paul Joseph Burrell 6/22/71 - 7/27/12

This is a quilting blog – a journal about my quilts, and inspirations.  I haven’t posted because moments after I posted vacation pictures in the last entry I received a call that my son was being rushed to the hospital.  He died 5 days later.  It is sad and as his wife said – I have my breakdown moments.   This blog will continue to be about my quilts – but I can’t continue to blog without acknowledging our family heartbreak.

Pictures from Greenville, ME vacation 2011.

and my sweet boy

Vacation with Grandchildren

Danielle, Brandon, Kearstyn, Loralie along with Paul and Melynda went with me to visit Kentucky.  We stayed in a cabin at Jellystone Park and visited caves in the area.  I opted out of a canoe trip and one trip to Mammoth Cave, but swam a lot with the littlest one, Loralie.  She grew braver and more adventurous in the water and by the end of the week was on her own with her waterwings.

Selecting Fabrics

So there is another mystery coming and for me it is not really a mystery.  Special Projects, at my guild is doing a 3 part mystery starting in August and I am one of the people who is making up samples.

It requires 3 fabrics with the background a 3 yard piece.  I didn't have any 3 yard pieces in my stash as the only large pieces I have are dark prints that I use for backings, so I went shopping.  I did it spur of the moment but I knew I had several different blues in my stash that would work for the dark fabric that I needed 1 and 3/4 yards of so I just needed a background and another piece 1 and 3/4 as an accent.

I originally selected the light blue and yellow batik as my background but then I switched backgrounds when I selected the yellow.  I auditioned several blues from my stash and this is what I decided on:

At one point before I went shopping I thought about breaking up an old UFO and using those fabrics for this mystery.  In 2010 I took a class in Eleanor Burn's Day and Night and used three fabrics in the one block I made.  I thought I could use that fabric and eliminate a UFO at the same time.  Unfortunately I had precut the fabric for the quilt, so I couldn't use it.  Also I bought the fabric in 2005 or so from Eleanor Burn's tent sale in Paducah so it would be difficult to match the teals.  It is light teal on a creamy white, dark teal and red violet as an accent.  I don't think the red violet shows up well in this pic but it is a nice color combo

Great Great Nieces

I was in Michigan last weekend for a retreat but I also got to meet my newest great great niece.  I did misspell her name in the Hexi post – it is Katelyn Anne and she was born June 18^th.  Her Grandmother is my niece Cathy.  Cathy is only 4 years younger than me and we grew up like sisters. 

Next two picks of Katelyn's big sister Jenni.  Jenni moves around so quickly I had a difficult time snapping her picture.  The upside down one is when she landed on the floor in front of me to have her diaper changed.

Another great great niece, Clarabelle who is also Cathy's granddaughter  - a cousin to the two little girls

Borders Workshop

My friend Twana and I attended a “Borders Galore” workshop today with Winnie Fleming.  She spoke at our guild last night and is a charming lady and a great teacher.

I did not progress as far as the other students because I did some of the prep work late at night and cut some pieces that were supposed to be 3 and 3/8ths at 3 and 7/8ths then crosscut them into triangles.  The angles were wrong and I had to cut more fabric.  I also had to buy more fabric but fortunately the class was in a quilt store.

We worked on mitered borders and making pieced borders fit any size quilt with a floater border (my picture shows the pieced border next to the block but not the floater on yet.)  This was a very helpful workshop and I feel like I can do a much better job on all future quilts.

I enjoyed having a day off work and playing with like minded ladies.  I inadvertently added comic relief when I volunteered to go pick up the lunch they had called in – because I walked out of the store and walked right back in as I had ridden to the workshop with my friend Twana and I had no vehicle to use.

Hexi photos

I took the hexi quilt to Michigan over Memorial Day Weekend.  It is a gift for a new great-great niece due in 2 weeks.  Her name will be Kaitlyn, though I am not sure of the spelling.

I did free motion flowers in each hexi and played with designs in the border.  I stitched the binding by hand but then added decorative machine stitching also.

Catching Up

Time has slipped away from me and I have been remiss in blogging.

A quick catch up and I will try to do better.

I was sick a bit and then travelled to Final Four in New Orleans and had a great time with family there. 

Brandon and Natalie visited for a weekend and we went to Dinosaur Valley State Park and had lots of fun.  Unfortunately that same weekend I dropped my camera by the pool and it won’t work.  I purchased a new one but I am having problems uploading photos.  Purely operator error and I expect I will have some soon.

Sewing – I made samples and wrote directions for snap bags using the metal tape measures.  At our guild meeting we gave people  pieces of pre cut tape and the directions.

I got as high as 4^th lady-in-waiting on the UFO Queen’s list so I finally finished the binding on the hexi quilt.  I will post pictures when I can.

Boot Quilt

I couldn't show pictures while I was working on it, but I did another quilt for a good-bye gift to Judy. Her other bee, Material Girls, wanted to surprise her with a boot quilt.  I did McTavishing in the background with Invisifil thread.  It was the first time I have used that thread, but it worked really well.  I just outlined the barbed wire in the sashing squares and did dense loops, and stars in the charcoal black sashing and borders.

I appliquéd this boot and I put some Nancy Halverson fabric on the spool and then had the thread wrapped around the boot which is more typical of me (if I wore cowboy boots) than Judy but it is fabric from her green and brown quilt and a designer she especially likes.

It's a beautiful quilt and I really enjoyed working on it.

 

Pineapple Blossom is Finished

Many hands working made it go together quickly.

Back to the Mystery Quilt

I and the mystery quilt are back trying to make a go of it again. Impetus is that one bee member, Judy, is moving out of state and we want to show our mystery quilts at our March guild meeting. I think I am happier working piecemeal rather than make 400 HSTs etc. I can better visualize where I am going. I also cut some pieces wrong initially so jumped to another section. Today I went back to the beginning took it slow and here is the section that will be the center of the quilt.  Sorry this first picture is blurry, it was the one that was closest to the correct colors.

I worked on the mystery for two hours and the rest of the day I am working on this pineapple blossom (pattern from www.quiltville.com). Rather than surprise Judy with a good-bye quilt we had her pick colors and we all sewed together. I am finishing up the borders and I hope to start quilting it tomorrow.

Silent Auction

These are the pretties that came home with me from the guild’s silent auction.  I bid on a couple other items but lost out to other bidders.  Looking at these I think I see a light colored quilt in my future as the colors in what I was drawn to all were light and airy.

Bear Creek Quilt Show

The Bear Creek Quilt Show was great!


It is fun seeing so many beautiful quilts and knowing the quilters is a bonus.

Here are some pics of my friends quilts

 The two above are a whimsical applique Lema did.  The quilt is great, my pictures are a bit cockeyed because I was rushing the photos to get out of the way of others there to view the quilt.

 Dana won ribbons for her Judy Niemeyer Glacier Star (above) and her Jacqueline De Jonge Suprisingly Red pattern below.

 This is Judy's design.

 Lucy's machine applique.

Oops!

Well I have changed plans. With the gracious concurrence of the ladies running our quilt show I am going to substitute a different quilt for the California Rail.

I was quilting along and got to the bottom and realized that I had excess fabric and the quilting has distorted the shape of the quilt. I just quilted the black sashing, SID on the edges of the border, did the C curls on the borders and feathers on the left side. I expect that once I quilt the inner colored sections it won’t be pulling as much, but I don’t want to rush this to finish it for the quilt show. I may have to unsew some sections and this quilt will definitely need blocking, so I went to plan B.

Plan B is a scrappy split nine patch that I made in 2005 – 2006. It is the quilt I use on my bed and it has never been in a show. I will get a good photo of it at the quilt show and post it next weekend.

I will have 3 quilts in our show, the nine patch which since I made it while living in Bartlett TN I am calling Bartlett Split Nine Patch, Night Garden, and the Turtle.