I had a whole snowflake block and lots of scraps left over from my various border plans on the quilt. (See yesterday's post.) So this afternoon I spent about an hour in my sewing room putting them together in this 24 x 24 inch square.
What do you all think? Should I make it into a big pillow to go with the quilt? Or should I just quilt it and turn it into a table topper?
After several changes in design, I finally added borders to my frosty blue quilt top. It only took me a month to finish this.
On the cover of the January/February edition of Quiltmaker I saw a half snowflake applique design. It was just what I've been looking for - especially since I didn't know WHAT I was looking for.
Yesterday afternoon and this morning I hid out in my sewing room working on the appliques and the pieced corner blocks. I ended up putting the snowflakes on just the opposite edges of the top right and bottom left. The pieced blocks went in each corner. I love it.
Now I need to find something for the backing and get it quilted.
Happy Holidays from our house to yours! It will be a very quiet Christmas this year - just my husband, myself, and my mother-in-law. We are in the midst of a winter storm with 20" of snow possible over the next couple of days. Luckily we hadn't planned to go anywhere.
Merry Christmas!
Just a quick glimpse of Laura's wedding. Here are the girls in the wedding party all together. When I get some other photos, I'll share them too.
Both of my girls are getting married. The younger one is getting married this coming weekend! The other daughter is getting married in April. Isn't that exciting?
Congratulations to Laura & Jamie!
I'm taking tomorrow off work and meeting Laura in Sioux Falls to do some wedding "stuff". Should be fun. I'm assuming she has a list already made of things we still need to do.
I "gifted" myself with a new book this week. Being a history nut - and especially early 20th century - this book just spoke to me. It is a collection of letters from farm wives in response to an essay contest about whether they wanted their daughters to become farmer's wives. The bonus is . . . patterns for 111 quilt blocks inspired by the lives these women led!
There is a CD in the back of this little gem with the patterns for every one of the blocks. These are all small blocks kind of in the Dear Jane style. It's a treasure!
I need someone to kick me in the rear and get me motivated to do something right now. I go to work, come home, veg out in front of the TV - and then repeat the next day. No sewing getting done since I caught a cold before Thanksgiving.
I need some help with borders on my frosty project. I have the blocks all put together with a dark blue narrow border that will finish at 1.5". But I can't decide what to do for outside borders. As you can see, Sammy is checking it out - but didn't have any bright ideas either.
My frosty blocks are all done - 48 of them - and ready to be sewn together. The last 4 got done this afternoon. Then I laid them out on my living room floor because my design wall isn't big enough for them all.
Besides, this way I could look at them with a critical eye every time I walked through the room. After rearranging them a few times, I pinned them into stacks by row. I'm so tempted to take them down to my basement sewing room right now and start working.
Hopefully tomorrow evening I can get the rows sewn together. The 2 borders are cut and ready. I'm hoping to have the top done in time to take it to Show 'n Tell at Saturday Sampler this weekend.
What do you think? Should I put a fuzzy, cuddley backing on it or not?
Just a quick post. It is all done except for a label on the back! My photo isn't the best, but it does show all of the blocks made by the 12 different gals working on this project.
It will go on display in about a week (after the City Council approves the raffle) in a local shop and raffle tickets will be sold. The plan is to draw the winner right before Christmas and the money is going to a local breast cancer foundation.
Everyone involved feels proud to make a small contribution to cause close to our hearts.
Pam was also working on the binding for 2 quilts she is making for grandkids. Her grandson wanted DOTS - lots of dots. So she has been collecting dotted fabric along with just a couple of stripes to add some contrast. The binding is striped. This quilt turned out so FUN - and will be really cuddly because it has a red minkee back. Her grandson is going to love it. Here is a glimpse of my frosty quilt blocks up on my design wall. I have approximately half of the blocks sewn and have been placing them up randomly, which is my plan for the final design. My flannel wall isn't large enoug for the whole thing however, so when I get all of the blocks done I'll probably lay them out on my living room floor to make final decisions about placement.
So far I'm loving it. My thoughts are that I'll add a dark narrow border and then a wider border of either the white or a light blue. Maybe even add a little snowflake type applique to that border. 
Taking a break from sewing blue and put the binding on a Christmas table runner while watching the Vikings game on TV. This little table runner pattern is done with a border print cut on a 60 degree angle. It takes a yard and a half of fabric. The border print on both selvage sides makes the runner and the center section of fabric will do the back and binding. I have a couple more border print fabrics that I plan to use to make more.
After I got home from work today I sat and looked at my first frosty block with a more critical eye. It just wasn't interesting enough. So I added a half square triangle at the bottom.
Lot's better, right? I just finished making 2 more sets of 4 blocks from 2 more frosty fabrics. These are a medium blue and the other set is a light blue - almost like a glacier blue. 8 more fat quarters to cut into and then the solids. And I should have lots of sewing time this weekend.
I absolutely LOVE these frosty looking fabrics. The bottom one is a 1 yard piece I picked up last winter - without a plan. You know how it is - you just have to have some!! The 10 fat quarters I bought in The Quilt Shop in Chamberlain 2 weeks ago. All have the frosted effect. They're just beautiful. I love the play of blues across the collection.
Now I have to decide what pattern I'm going to use with them. I know that I want to keep some of the pieces large enough to see the beautiful designs on the fabrics.
What do you think? I'm open to suggestions.
I have to show off a previous Saturday Sampler project - this one from a couple of years ago, that I just got quilted a few months ago. This particular quilt is done is Christmas fabrics and quilted with a pretty gold thread using an edge to edge design.
I'm pretty excited because my summer swap mini quilt arrived on Thursday afternoon all the way from North Carolina. The colors are so pretty and most of the fabrics are batiks - one of my favorite things! The quilting stitches are done with a soft greenish thread and are different in the different strips. Some are wavey lines, some are echo lines, some are decorative stitches. Thanks so much, Sandra! Check out her blog at http://adventuresofsillywoman.blogspot.com/ . The other reason I'm excited is that I finally had a day that I could spend sewing. I blogged awhile back about the "someday" file of project ideas that I have. And I showed a photo of a blue and white signature quilt that I saw at the Quilts & Vines in August that was done with a pattern I had in my "someday" file. Well . . . here is my version of the signature quilt, done in the bride's colors. I finished the top this afternoon and it's ready for signatures at my daughter's bridal shower next Saturday. Hope she likes it.
I'm having a giveaway - just because it will be fun. Some lucky winner will receive this Halloween applique pattern and kit.
I bought this kit a couple of summers ago because I just loved the crazy cats in the center panel and the fun colors. But time is my enemy and I just couldn't get started on it. I've been trying to get my sewing room organized lately and felt guilty about so much fabric sitting in drawers just waiting. So I've decided to share with someone who will love it enough to make it.
All you need to do to enter is leave a comment on this posting. I'll have my husband (who doesn't care how much fabric I buy and stash) draw a lucky winner on Thursday night and announce it here on Friday!
I've blogged before about the wonderful displays of quilts at the 2009 Quilts & Vines show (and wine tasting). And since I've not had any time to sew a single stitch in the past week, I'm going to show you another favorite from that quilt show. This particular quilt caught my eye because it is a pattern I have in my "someday" file.
This weekend I'm working on the hand quilting on an autumn themed wall hanging (another UFO), so now I have a reason to finish that quickly so that I can start the Christmas one! This was a 
Thimbleberries Club project from several years ago. I made the top at the time, but just never got around to quilting and binding it. So that top was hanging in the sewing room closet along with several other UFO's. I pulled it out at the beginning of August and started quilting, although I haven't made as much progress as I had hoped. There are pieced leaves and pumpkins in the center that I'm quilting with a pretty simple pattern. But the border is getting a large leafy design quilted in. When I finish it, I'll post a picture.
It's done and went in the mail on Monday. The flip flops are hand appliqued, with little duck buttons holding the ribbons down that make up the straps. I hand quilted the blue border.
It was lovely strolling between the rows of grapes and looking at the lovely quilts. What a stunning setting! The quilts are clipped (with a protective backing) directly onto the wires holding up the grapes. This particular section of grapes was right along the driveway as you entered the winery and had 3 long rows of quilts displayed. Another - even larger - section was on the other side of the buildings. And in between was the barn, the winery building, a food tent, the stage, and a huge tent set up to sit in while watching the trunk show.
This was one of my favorite quilts in the show this year. I loved the colors and the fabulous applique on this one.
This whole idea was hatched by 5 of us over coffee on a Saturday morning last winter . . . getting 12 people together to make blocks for an exchange and use a "focus" fabric to tie them all together. So we went shopping and bought 12 yards of a beautiful Christmas fabric with holly leaves on it. And we put together a list of people to invite to participate. We ended up with 10 local ladies from Mitchell, 1 from Minnesota, and 1 from North Carolina.
What about the 13th block, you ask???? We are going to put that set together and donate the quilt to some charity to raffle or auction as a fundraiser. Well . . . last night most of us got together at Deb's beautiful home and had our exchange party. Mary in North Carolina even joined us via cell phone. Marilyn would describe each block as we traded and tell Mary who had made it. (Mary's set had already been given to her.) The blocks are all gorgeous, by the way!!Kelly brought cheesecake - YUM!!! And Yvonne had a wonderful idea for our charity quilt layout.
Tonya (http://tonyassewingroom.blogspot.com) is hosting a Fat Quarter Bingo game. I've mailed her 2 fat quarters, so I'll receive 2 bingo cards from her via email. She'll determine the bingo pattern needed, and draw numbers at random and all of those playing will be able to keep track. The person getting BINGO first will receive the fat quarters.
The deadline to let her know you want to play is August 10. She is hoping to start playing on August 15.
