Suddenly, spring has come to Indiana. Trees are budding out, birds are returning, dandelions are growing, and my flower beds are coming alive. I took these photos last week. The flowers made me so happy. I will miss my flower beds when I move, but not all the work it takes to keep them up. I do not have a quilt to show you for this week. However, I did finally finish a counted cross stitch project that I started at minimum 10 years ago. Somewhere in the center, I miscounted, and it discouraged me bad enough I put it away. I just could not figure out where the mistake was. After watching s ..read more

The top is done!! Oh, happy dance!! Flying Thru the Scrap Bin Continued in this post. When I left off on the first post about this quilt back in January, I had rows of geese together. Since then, I have been slowly sewing the rows together to form the top and added borders. A nice way to spend some time on winter evenings. The above photo is of eight rows sewn together. Notice the narrow sashing between the rows of geese, and the narrow border all the way around the top. The above photo shows narrow scrap borders on the parallel sides. I decided to add another border strip to these two side ..read more

Source: Bing clip art I just want to let my faithful readers and subscribers know that I have not forgotten about you. I have not been very good about posting every Monday the last few weeks. There really is a reason for the absent quilting posts. The last couple years have been very difficult for me, and I have to make some major changes in my life. The biggest issue is simply downsizing not only stuff, but the size of where I live. The kids and I have discussed this and are in agreement that a senior apartment would be a better option for me. So that being said, over the next few weeks I am ..read more

I found Paris themed fabrics. The colors are lovely, and I just had to buy some yardage. It took a few months to come up with an idea for how to use this fabric. I felt like something spring and the result is Paris Blooms & Gardens. I made five English paper pieced flowers from hexagons in colors that complimented the black and white Paris fabric. They are hand pieced and appliqued to the blocks. The alternate blocks are a colorful fabric with Paris icons, flowers, stamps, and advertising signs. I used a small black polka dot as the thin inside border and the binding. Paris Blooms & ..read more

Another quilter challenged me to go into my pre-cut bins and make a quilt top before spring. One of my favorite patterns is Flying Geese. I just wanted something I could mindlessly chain sew while watching old movies or Flosstube. I have named this one Flying Through the Scrap Bins. Flying Through the Scrap Bin — Easy to do I pulled the bin that has 5″ squares. Some of these squares are from my scrap bins that I cut during the stay-at-home time of COVID in 2020. And some of the squares are pre-cut packs. I generally don’t purchase those little pre-cut packs of 5″ blocks. However, people do g ..read more

I had never seen or heard of Flosstube until last week. According to Google, it is a sub channel of YouTube. What a wonderful stitcher’s discovery! Source: Bing clip art For me, the easiest way to find the most recent videos is to go to YouTube, and in the search bar type Flosstube. And magically the most recent videos are there for viewing. Flosstube itself is cross stitchers talking about current projects, designers they like, and finished projects. This is inspiring to me because I have 5 counted cross stitch projects that I rolled up and tucked away years ago. Source: Bing clip art I broug ..read more

I have been wanting to do a star quilt of some sort for the last year. I decided last week just to do it – forget those pesky UFOs the need completed. So let me present Night Sky. I looked at all kinds of patterns and pictures of star quilts. I wanted something that had big blocks and less pieces. Well, that certainly eliminated a whole lot of star patterns. My reasoning was and is that a larger pattern with fewer pieces would be quicker and easier to piece. I am just not in the mindset for something complicated right now. After several days of looking, I decided to do a Friendship Star. It i ..read more

I have been looking back through this blog to see what 2023 quilting got accomplished. Honestly, I did not get as much done as I wanted or planned. Real life has constantly interrupted in 2022 and 2023, and they are years I hope never to repeat. Nor do I wish them on anyone else. Source: Bing clip art My 2023 quilting was slowed or stopped by this partial list: I lost my spouse of 39 years in April. A limb fell on my house during a severe storm and went through the kitchen roof right above my stove. Dealing with the house insurance and contractors took up about 4 months of time. It was certai ..read more

This 1930’s One Patch was a fun and easy quilt to make as a wedding gift for my sister and new brother-in-law. It started in 1997 when I purchased a bag of 1930’s nine patch blocks and lots of 3″ squares at a local antique shop for $7.50. I put it aside to work on another time. Another idea for 3″ squares is here. And here are images of one patch quilts if you need more inspiration. The bag kept calling to me. In November 1998 I sorted through the bag, organized the blocks, and started sewing. It did not take long to realize there were not enough 3″ squares to make a bed size quilt. Um…now wh ..read more

Source: Bing clip art As most of my long-term readers know, I usually go to Maine in the fall on vacation. I haunt the used bookstores and look for interesting fabrics in the fabric stores. It is truly a quiet, restful two weeks. I need the down time and come back ready for real life for another 50 weeks. I thought you might be interested in what I found this year for my vacation quilting haul. Books – I have several used bookstores to visit while up in Maine. I think the long winters must by why they have such wonderful used bookstores. I added stops at the Goodwill and St. Vincent de Paul th ..read more