ALOHA quilt

I didn't have to wait long to get this quilt quilted. As I was posting the 'Twins' post- Lynn called and said if I had one to quilt to come on over...was she reading my BLOG or my mind... THANKS LYNN! Anyway after two afternoons it is all quilted and I am glad it is DONE! I've wanted to make this quilt since we first saw the fabric at Trends in March. I first posted it on my Design Wall back in June after my Quilt Retreat. It is made with fabrics from Jennifer Chiaverini's Aloha line at Red Rooster Fabrics. I used some of my favorite Quilter's Shade Blenders to go with it. The Hawaiian Beauty patterns I'd planned to use on it isn't what it ended up with. I did the Wind Dance Border and Forget-me-not quarter Block in the Blocks. Now on to the Binding... My FAVORITE part because then it is really DONE!!!

TWINS?!!!

http://elmcreek.net/index.php/main/news/sarahs-twins-cast-your-vote/ Sarah is having TWINS, not my Daughter...although I can hope, can't I? Hope I didn't cause anyone to stop breathing with my title on this post... Sarah is a Character in Jennifer Chiaverini's Books about the Elm Creek Quilters. We have the chance to cast a vote by making these 'twin star' blocks as directed from the instructions page on the link. Pink for two girls, Blue for two boys and Purple for one of each. The deadline is Labor Day so there is still time for more people to make blocks and vote. We won't know who's vote won until the book comes out next JULY! The blocks will be donated to the LINUS Project to make baby quilts. By the picture you can see what our "votes" are. I used some of the fabric from both my SBS (Sylvia's Bridal Sampler) and the "Aloha" fabric from the quilt I just put final borders on this week - shown below. Using Jennifer's "Aloha" fabrics and my favorite - Disappearing 9 patch pattern. I can hardly wait to quilt this one, but I have to wait my turn on Lynn's Longarm... This is Lynn's Mariner's Compass that goes in the mail for her Round Robin. we are doing this Round Robin with the SBS offline Quilters Yahoo group. It feels so good to have completed these deadlines and getting them in the mail EARLY, before the deadline date. Next week is the Walla Walla Fair and Frontier Days deadline and my entry form has already been mailed for that. Now to get all the tags filled out and put with the entries. AND finish the quilts I want to enter. Most are already DONE! My word for the year "DONE" is a good one for me since I'm more often 'a day late and dollar short'...

Design Wall Monday 7-26-10

I can't go to bed without putting up my Design Wall Post for the week. I took this picture when I was at Lynn's and had my Marti Michell Blocks with me. I am in the home stretch with this quilt top. I have only 3 blocks left to make. the picture is sideways but for the purpose showing now it doesn't really matter. There really isn't an up and down to this quilt. I am still debateing the setting and sashing fabrics. I've but the star points and have made the choice to set the quilt blocks straight using the 2- 1/2" star points in the corner intersections. I'll be finishing the last 3 blocks this week and getting the sashing strips ready. Last week was a bummer for quilting for me. I spent more time reaing about quilting... Finally read some of Sandra Dallas' books that Marilee has been recommending. Hopefully the "flimsy" will be my Design Wall next Monday. I also have the Round Robin to work on for Renee. Hope you take time to check out other Design Walls at Judy L's Blog too.

A long, long time ago Pioneer Day

I've been whining that we aren't "celebrating" Pioneer Day here in Walla Walla all week... I had to go to the dusty old Photo albums to find this picture of the last time I dressed up the family and made covered wagons to "parade" on Pioneer Day. This was in Connell in 1980. Before I had a real daughter to put in the wagon. I remember wanting that little red wagon just for this occasion. I have celebrated other Pioneer days and even been on the Trek and reversed the Trek with DH a few years ago by car. here is my adventurous husband climbing over Independence Rock. Way up there- that tiny speck is him -so far up there on the rock. as for me I walked around the whole roock to find the name of my ancestor who left his name on this rock. P.G. Sessions was his name. He was the son of Patty Bartlett Sessions who was a Pioneer Midwife who kept a diary as she crossed the Plains with Brigham Young to reach the Salt Lake Valley back in 1847. These pictures haven't been Blogged since I started Blogging the year after this trip and the Walla Walla Stake TREK. Only once have I been in UTAH to see the "Days of '47 Parade" on Pioneer Day, July 24th. I see that BYU TV is showing the "Days of 47 Parade" on TV so my DVR is set. I love to see the little primary children sing as they walk and walk and walk... Again this year I will have to miss seeing it and my grandchildren will miss seeing it. I don't know that they have ever seen it! here's another place to see some 'old Parade' Pictures. If I could, I'd put the songs on here to play ... Pioneer Children sang as they walked and walked and walked and walked... BLESSED HONORED PIONEER!

Design Wall Monday 7-19-10

I have lots of things in the works still. The last few years I have made several "flimsies", some are on the UFO list and some are not. I got signed up for another Round Robin with the SBS group. I should read the Round Robin Book to go along with this. Anyway, I got half of the Paper piecing done on Saturday so that is what I choose to put on my Design Wall this week. I've been trying to go slow so I don't mess up. I only made enough copies enlarged to do this once. I like these colors a lot and hope for a good resulting quilt next year. It will be going all over the United States. My group doesn't include the ladies who are International. Lynn isn't in my group this time either which is kinda sad. I think she wants to do two, we shall see how that plan goes. My ordered black fabric came so I can work on more of my "Roses" designs in my spare time. Maybe next week I'll have the Round Robin in the mail. The one I get to work on is already in the mail to me. My goal still is to get the "Ring Around the Rosy" design submitted to a magazine - the question is which one??? Check out more Design Walls through the Mr Linky @ Judy L's Blog P.S. I got mine done and the one from Renee came in the mail Monday.

Pictures as Promised

I took a lot of pictures tonight at guild so I could share all the beautiful quilts that were made from the 1/2 yard Challenge. I did the quilts as a slide show to save time uploading the pictures individually here. There were 8 entries and the reversible table runner was the prize winner with the most votes. Congrats to Barb L. My entry is the 5th one in the slide show done with the blue and yellow fabrics. It was determined that the 1/2 yard challenge quilts be shown as a group at the Quilt show in September. That will be fun to see them all displayed as a group. For the TA-Da quilts I will post non-moving pictures for you to see. I had to go and print them quick after guild, so I could adjust the brightness on them. They are still a little darker than I'd like. First here is Colby's Farmer D9P Next is my Block of the Month done in Robyn Pandolph Fabrics. And... last but not least is our "Ring Around the Rosy" that we submitted to the Animas Quilts contest. To us it is a winner in spite of not winning the $250 from the contest. This is 1/4 of the whole design. I didn't want to make the full quilt until we knew if we were going to get the fabric provided to make it for a magazine.

Design Wall Monday - 7-12-10

It's Monday and I have accomplished a lot since last week. My aching back tells me so. I made a few more of the Blocks for my American Beauty Quilt and quilted 3 quilts. I will be binding like crazy to finish them for Guild. Pictures of the finshed quilt will be up after the meeting as promised. So on my Design Floor this week I have my Marti Michell quilt once again with the Blocks I've done added and I could add the star sashing and have 1/2 the quilt done next week, IF I work hard on it. Opps, I have the #3 block placed wrong I see now. I rearranged the 30 Sylvia's Bridal Sampler Blocks on my WALL at home so I can see them all together. I made a couple new ones for it also. Gotta keep up with the Block of the week. Especially since I'm choosing them this month. SBS 30's Quilt Count is up to 48- I posted the rest of my busy week Here if you want to see... I have done 300 posts now! I know you're looking but I had no comments on my posts last week :( Check out other Design Wall's from Judy L's Patchwork times

"Sweat Shop"

I have been quilting at Lynns' all week and today when Paul called to check on me she said I was working in the "Sweat Shop". Too real to be funny in the heat we've had this week. Welcome heat, I might add. I have many UFO's and this week I quilted 2 small quilts that didn't even make the UFO list here on the Blog. I finished quilting my 3rd quilt on Friday. It is only 10 months late for Colby's 5th Birthday. It is such a nice feeling to cross this project off. I did a simple meander with Black thread on top and bottom. Here is the APQS Long Arm machine with Side Saddle working Hands-Free. I quilted the "Ring Around the Rosy" 1/4 sample quilt from the design contest we entered and didn't win. :( I turned and re-loaded this quilt to do the side borders, (something I've never done before). We will submit our design to a magazine soon! And we are planning to enter a few quilts in the County Fair next month also. Lynn and I have been working on our 1/2 yard Challenge that was issued by Pam at our Local Guild. I have seen Marilee's, Lynn and mine and all of them are very different, using the same number of cut squares, and tri-angle shapes. The projects are due at this next week's meeting/potluck. I will post pictures after the meeting. There will will be many to show...Lynn has quilted 6 quilts since last month's Guild. I guess we have earned the "title" of 'Over-achievers'. It's been fun to take FINISHED QUILTS to the meetings lately to show and not just 'flimsies' or quilt tops. It makes my 'word' of the year mean more to be able to say these quilts are "DONE" We have many new Digital quilting designs to try out on the tops we have spent the past 3 years making, plus the totes of UFO's from years of quilting. I've been wishing I was at Sister's for the REAL "Outdoor quilt show" that is this week. I'm glad I have a little bit to show for staying home. I didn't plan ahead enough to get my ride there and back and I would not like driving all alone for sure... I'm living it through Bonnie Hunter's BLOG, because she is there.

Design Wall Monday - July 5, 2010

Marti Michell "American Beauty" quilt made with the "Wild Roses" line of fabric by Marti Michell Here finally is my American Beauty quilt Blocks on the wall at Lynn's. I have only 5 blocks of the 12 made. I realized putting them on the wall that I didn't make Block 1 and I'd made two of another Block, so I gave the extra one to Lynn for her original Marti Michell "American Beauty". I've decided to make this one a little different and set it straight with the Star sashing. The setting squares fabric will be an extra border. On my wall at home I've put up my 30's version of my SBS, but they don't all fit. I think since I might not do all the blocks I can just arrange them how I did them or however they look best. I have 48 blocks made in the 30's fabrics now and I won the challenge for the month of June by making 5 of the 7 blocks posted here Maybe I should suggest that we have a 30's fabrics SBS Swap to get more blocks to add to this quilt. That would get some of the hard blocks done for me...hahaha. My goal is to have this one done by next March when Jennifer's Next Book "The Union Quilter" comes out. Click on the link to see other Design Walls this week at Judy L's Patchwork times

Almost born on the 4th of July!!

Jeffery Gordon Crowther [aka: Sgt Jeffery Crowther] Jeffery came to our family around the 4th of July, arriving just 2 days after the birthday of AMERICA. He grew up thinking the fireworks, parades and celebrations were all for his birthday too. One year the Circus came to Umatilla and parked the tents within walking distance of our house. I think he really enjoyed that Birthday! It's no wonder he wanted to show his Patriotism by serving his country. We are so pleased he is doing his part to keep our Freedom. It's been a few years since he celebrated his Birthday at home with us. I had to show a few of his happy times and cute snapshots. Here he is the last time he was home with all of his Neices and Nephews who love him. We Love and Miss him every day! I wish the Army didn't station him so far away from his Family. Happy Birthday to my red-headed Army boy. I fly my flag proudly because we live in America, Land of the Free!

Parting is such sweet sorrow...

Jes and Janessa are moving to Arizona. They leave Friday... :( We had our family picnic tonight and got some pictures to remind us of the bittersweet reason we gathered. Jes bbq-ed hot dogs and we had salads, chips and lots of desserts. Thanks for everyone brings yummy stuff. Brant and Tina came to help and have a little vacation. We are excited to have all but one child home again to visit. Here's a picture of Janessa with 4 of her 5 siblings. It will be hard to see my baby girl go and harder still to say goodbye to Jackson. But I know that Jes will take good care of his family for me. He's getting the chance to live his dream and working a job in his chosen field. That's the good part of it all. I'm such a bawl baby when it comes to "goodbyes". I cry when Brant and Tina leave after coming for the holidays. The house gets so quiet when everyone is gone. Here are the Grandchildren with Grandpa and I on the bridge at Pioneer Park. Not everyone was happy to get their picture taken and it's hard to get 13 children all looking in the same direction. The Grandchildren signed the back of a white T-shirt so I can put a picture on them on the front. Grandpa got a new T-shirt for Father's Day so I had the grandchildren sign his too.