Boxing Day 2012

Merry Boxing Day! The kids all liked there presents and Katy outdid herself on all the gifts she made:dresses for the girls, hats for Johnny, and an ornament for us with Patricks ultrasound picture and the saying "The best parents become Grandparents". I was floored to get an iPad from Joshua.  Now I need to figure out how to make the most of it.  Time to clean up all the mess from Christmas Day, make soup, do laundry and pack for a 5 day trip to Kentucky, go to the mall and get new notepads on my glasses and get RoseE's ears pierced,  and go to Stitching Post and exchange the quilting template Denny bought for my Christmas gift ( I already have the one he bought so now I can pick out one I want).  I wonder if I will find some time to quilt...I have 2 I need to get done ASAP for the latest Habitat For Humanity house recipients. After we get home, niece Claire and  one or two kids will be coming for a weekend visit.  I have to get Remi's quilt quilted and bound. Mid-January I head to Florida for a week to babysit the grandsons while Kristi goes to Georgia to find a house to move to at the end of March. Victor started working in GA just before Thanksgiving.  Hoping they get to stay there a long time! After Florida we start to focus on Mimi's May 4, 2013 wedding to Trey Trammell, and the arrival of Patrick Liam Jay (Chris and Katy's baby) in late February.  Life does stay busy!

It's been too long since I posted!

       Oh my!  where does the time go?  Since my last post a lot has happened.  Katy and Chris are married (May 25) and are expecting a honeymoon baby!  Mimi is engaged and trying to get a date set at church.  Her fiance, Trey, is in the US Army and is now in Okinawa for a 2 year assignment.  His sgt. suggested they have the wedding before the halfway point of his tour rather than later if he wants Mimi to move over there.  So their originally planned July 6 date is out and Mimi needs to okay a date with Fr.Boyer.  Too much to go into here...
    I need to get back into quilting, so I brought 4 tops home from Community Project workday at the end of June.  An unexpected trip to Kentucky last weekend kept me from getting going on them.  Denny bought me Red Sappers for the quilting machine and I have done 2 quilts since the wedding and I do like them.  No time for anymore here today.  The washer is beeping at me.  It's grocery shopping day.  And CL is now meeting on Friday evenings.  Having both Gabe and JoeE gone at camp has the house awfully quiet!  Annie and Jamie are there too.  When Jamie goes back to work later this month he will be going to Cameroon and next to The Congo.  Jim has an office job starting in OKC on Monday, and will be staying in the guest house guest room weekdays until they can get relocated.

Design Wall Monday

I brought home a bread bag full of fabric samples from Ladies' Auxiliary quilting a few weeks ago. On my design wall today are rectangles to make a third quilt top.

The first top I made from the small (5x6) rectangles in the bag. Kind of busy, but enough order to make a passable quilt.

Next I used large rectangles and made this diagonal rows design.

There are lots of rectangles left, but the busyness and colors just aren't playing well, so I may call it quits at 3 tops. I have a wedding dress to be getting started on!

Wrap Them In Love

I mailed a box today to Wrap Them In Love. 7 quilts sent to me by other Sunshine Guild members for quilting, 2 from Mom, 1 of my own and a NAQG Community projects reject. Pictured below are one of Mom's, mine, and 3 by Sarah L. Not sure if I've had pictures of all of the others on the blog....

Advent friends "Scrappy Trips"

The scrappy trips blocks have become quilts and been  given to our Advent Friends.  They were well received!
If you look carefully you will notice that I had to trim blocks down.  One of the hazards of swaps and lottos is that with so many different makers , not all the blocks are always the same size.  If the sizes are close enough I can fudge them together with slightly narrower of larger seam allowances, but if there is a 1/2"  difference that would leave no seam allowances at all, which was the case with one of two of these blocks.  So I decided to trim all of the blocks down to the smallest size and to use sashing strips so I wouldn't be bothered by the seams not lining up.  I added the black cornerstones to continue the diagonal dark line formed by the blocks.

The Smaller quilt is for a 5 year old girl.  I chose the blocks with the brighter colors and novelty fabrics and used bright red paisley for the sashing and binding.  The border fabric is butterflies on a bright blue background and all of  the butterflies are edged in red.

 I quilted both quilts with the same all-over edge-to-edge design, which I am calling Tumbling hearts. On this one I used Cream colored thread.

 The larger quilt is for the mom of the family.  It has the remaining lotto blocks.  On of the blocks failed to mead fabric selection guidelines but I liked it anyway  and it helped me decide sashing color. Blocks were not supposed to be monochromatic in addition to the dark/black diagonal fabric.  But one block that came is done with all blue fabrics.  It is a beautiful block but does stand out somewhat due to its lack of other colors.  We (Denny usually collaborates with me on block placement) decided to make sure all the blocks adjoining the blue block had blue in them to  kind of bleed the color out across the quilt top.  Actually there were only a few blocks that did not contain some blue! I chose a teal blue floral print for the sashings and binding.  There was enough of the large floral I used for the border to make a back for the quilt as well.

   Again the tumbling hearts quilting ,  but on this one I used a color of thread called "Blue Moon."                                                                  




Scrappy Trips Around The World is a great way to use up 2.5"strips longer than 16 inches.   The  pattern for Scrappy Trips Blocks  a'la Bonnie K. Hunter, can be found at http://quiltville.blogspot.com/2005/06/scrappy-trips-around-world.html