Design Wall Monday

I have something on the design wall besides a patriotic quilt! Imagine that!! For those of you that didn't get a chance to see all 15 Honor Flight quilts, click here. They are all done and delivered! Woo Hoo!!

I pulled out my Judy Niemeyer Stepping Stones quilt and began working on that again. Here's the progress so far. (I can't believe that I started this in March and am just now getting back to it!)

I had to finish piecing the last 12 blocks and decide the layout. The column to the far left is pieced and waiting patiently for the neighboring columns to be done as well. I still have to piece the borders and I hope to get to that later this week, but I have a lot to do this week so my quilting time will probably be very limited. :-(

While I was piecing the final 12 blocks, I was sewing long strips together for another Margarita Sunrise quilt as a leader/ender project. I guess that I should call it Berry Bliss Sunrise since I'm using a Berry Bliss Bali Pop this time instead of a Margarita Mango one. Berry Bliss Sunrise reminds me of an ice cream flavor. YUMMMMM..... Click here to see the original Margarita Sunrise Quilt, which is quilted, trimmed and ready to be bound.

I have three quilts that are quilted, trimmed and ready to be bound plus another that is ready for quilting. I'm excited to be getting things done, but when I reach this point with quilts, it never fails that I find another project that I want to start or one that NEEDS to get done right away.

I also pulled out my hexagon project and started working on that again while watching the baseball game last night. Here's what it looked like the last time I posted about this project. I have to count how many I have completed (over 50, I know), and take some time to lay this out and decide how much bigger it's going to get.

I guess I should look at it from a different perspective. It sure is good to have so many options from which to choose, right?

Take a look what other quilters have on their design walls today. Go to Judy L.'s Patchwork Times and be prepared to be amazed!

Stash Report - Week 33

I finished up all the Honor Flight quilts and three more quilts are being quilted so I used a lot of fabric this week. If you want to see the pictures of the completed 15 Honor Flight quilts, click here.

I did some quick math and realized that I used almost 70 yards of fabric making those Honor Flight quilts and just about half of that came from my stash. Half! Can you believe that I had almost 35 yards of patriotic or red, white and blue fabric in my stash? WOW!! (I think I have to commit to make a lot of quilts for another organization. It really got me moving to make these quilts and I sure did use a lot of fabric.)

Anyway, I've been busy with other things as well, and three more quilts are in the process of being quilted. All three of these are UFOs so I'm really excited to get them done. I just might get caught up with the two UFO challenges that I joined back in January.  :-)

Here's the report.
Fabric Added This Week: 3.25 yards
Fabric Added to Date: 137.50 yards
Fabric Used This Week: 25.25 yards
Fabric Used to Date: 305.375 yards
Net Fabric Used for 2011: 167.875yards
UFOs Done, Done, Done (Pieced, Quilted, and Bound): 7
UFOs Still to Do: ???
New Quilts Done, Done, Done (Pieced, Quilted, and Bound): 27
Quilts Ready to be Quilted and Bound: 9
Quilts Quilted and Ready to be Bound: 3

Check out how other quilters are doing with their stash usage. Go to Judy L.'s Patchwork Times.

A Box Full of Quilts...With Pictures

I turned in the 15 Honor Flight quilts today. Here they are loaded in my car.

Here they are sitting on my table waiting to be boxed up.

It's hard to believe that these are done and delivered. I started pulling fabric for these quilts at the end of May and began sewing them during the annual sister's weekend the second week of June. I had fun piecing some scrappy blocks and having my sisters and a couple of nieces help lay them out to get the "perfect" look. I was anxious to see how the log cabin quilt was going to look because when Barb left the weekend, she had made only a handful of blocks and took home LOTS of skinny strips of fabric. (I knew it would look great, but I was impatient to see the finished top.) 

Although I'm really excited about who these are going to, I'm also a bit sad. As I was working on these I felt very close to my dad, my mom, and all my brothers and sisters. These 15 quilts were finished in a pretty short time frame (about 2 months), but it sure did feel like I relived a lifetime while making them.

I remembered the trip a bunch of us took to Baton Rouge to see the USS Kidd (a sister ship to the USS Ingersoll on which Dad served). Dad was our guide as we toured the ship that very hot July day. He recounted his experiences in the radio room and I can still see him sitting at the desk showing the grandkids how he copied code for hours at a time. Of course I also remember him telling stories about all the places on the ship that he found to sneak a few winks. But I think my favorite memory of that tour was when Dad had the grandkids lying on the beds and he was telling them stories. It was magical listening to him and watching them! 

While sewing these, I remember the year Mom made all of us outfits using the same bolt of fabric. The twelve of us looked alike in our matching shirts, shorts, skirts, etc. As an adult, I feel like perhaps the producers of the movie The Sound of Music saw a picture of us and decided to incorporate that into their story line. (Do you remember when Maria made the kids play clothes out of her drapes? Maybe the producers combine our picture with the famous curtain scene from Gone With the Wind. Who know, it could have happened that way.) 

Anyway, so many memories came back while I was working on these. I miss Dad and I miss John; but it was wonderful to relive some wonderful times and to feel them so close to me as I worked. Now that these all done and delivered I think I should start thinking about making more quilts for future flights - but probably not so many. :-) By the way, as I was working on these, I realized how much I love the Sweet Liberty fabric by Pat Sloan. All but one of these quilts has some of that fabric in them, either in the top or as the backing. Also, these were all quilted using Superior Thread's King Tut #919 - Freedom.  I love the continuity...

Here are the quilts, in no particular order. I know there are a lot of them, but I think it's worth a look and I hope you enjoy them.

We Have A Winner!

The drawing for out raffle quilt was done last night and I've been in contact with the winner. 

Drum roll, please.....

          Congratulations Pam Baur of Huron, OH!

Thanks to everyone who bought tickets and supported Lynn and myself in our Breast Cancer 3-Day fundraising. We met our goal of raising $5000!!!

Design Wall Monday

I actually have something up on the wall! A non-quilting friend saw a couple of the Honor Flight quilts that I made and asked me to make a lap quilt for her father who is struggling with his recent decision to move into an assisted living facility. He is VERY patriotic and had quite a collection of patriotic items. The move required a substantial downsizing so many of his decorative items were either sold or given away.  :-(

My friend really liked the patriotic Log Cabin lap quilt that I made recently so that's what we decided to make for her dad. Since the Honor Flight quilts were only 36" x 48" and we knew that would be too small for him, I increased the block size to 9" so the overall quilt size is 54" x 72". The top is completely together, layered and ready to quilt!

Check out what other quilters have on their design walls today by going to Judy L.'s Patchwork Times. Be prepared to be amazed!!

Stash Report - Weeks 31 and 32

The last two weeks have been a bit crazy around here, but I think things will start to settle down soon. Last weekend was our Breast Cancer 3-Day walk and that kept us busy for a couple of days before the event, all weekend and then of course recovery/unpack/de-brief time.  :-)

I am in the process of hand stitching the binding on the Honor Flight quilts and I'm really excited how they have all turned out. I'll start posting pictures tomorrow of those. My goal is to be able to turn them in Saturday morning out our guild meeting.

I have not had a chance to bind the three larger quilts that I quilted two weeks ago. :-( I would really like to get to that this week, but we'll see.

Today is the final day of the Berlin Heights Basket Festival and Lynn are I will be drawing the name for the winner of our Breast Cancer 3-Day raffle quilt. I always get excited for that. In one way I hope it's someone I know that wins, but I also think it would be cool if the winner was someone who bought their ticket because they read my blog, or other net posting. I guess I'll just have to wait and see, won't I?

Here's the report:
Fabric Added This Past 2 Weeks: 0.0 yards
Fabric Added to Date: 134.25 yards
Fabric Used This Past 2 Week: 14.0 yards
Fabric Used to Date: 280.125 yards
Net Fabric Used for 2011: 145.875 yards
UFOs Done, Done, Done (Pieced, Quilted, and Bound): 7
UFOs Still to Do: ???
New Quilts Done, Done, Done (Pieced, Quilted, and Bound): 12
Quilts Ready to be Quilted and Bound: 9

Check out how other quilters are doing with their stash usage. Go to Judy L.'s Patchwork Times.

Playing Catch Up

Since I was gone this past weekend, I feel like I've done nothing but play catch up. Lynn and I walked in the Cleveland Breast Cancer 3-Day last weekend and it was truly an amazing event. Let me make a clarification here. Lynn walked all 60 miles again this year, but not me. I had some issues with dehydration on Friday so my journey was shorter than Lynn's. (I don't know, could it have been the rain we walked in for a couple of hours, followed by mid to upper 90 degree temperatures for all three days?!?)

After a bit of feeling sorry for myself as well as disgusted and angry about my issue, I decided that I needed to re-evaluate my purpose for participating in the event. I soon quit counting miles and started counting the conversations I had with people and the help I was able to give them. I had raised the $2300 minimum to participate and that's really all that mattered, right?

I didn't take my camera this year because I am terrible at taking pictures. If you're interested in seeing pictures of the event you can click here. These were taken by the event staff and posted on the 3-Day website. I know Lynn took a few, so I'll have to ask her to forward them to me so I can see if there are some that I should post here. I just looked at some of the previous years' pictures and realized that Lynn, Jack and I are in a fair number of pictures. Jack and I are even in a couple of the 2009 Dallas/Fort Worth pictures. I forgot about that so it was fun to see them again.  :-)

In regards to quilting, I have finished machine stitching the binding on all 15 Honor Flight quilts and I'm in the process of hand-stitching them to the back. I really do like doing binding so this isn't really a problem for me. I have to admit that I did think about quilting while I was on the walk. A couple of times I thought it would be really relaxing to be able to do some quilting. Of course I didn't take anything with me because I was sleeping in a tent, "lights out" started at 9PM and I knew I would be too blasted tired. I was right!  :-)

My goal is to finish the bindings this weekend, take pictures, and hand the quilts over to Jeanette at the guild meeting on the 13th. I'm sure I'll have some time to work on it this weekend while I'm selling raffle tickets at the Basket Festival. Sunday we will be picking the winner for this quilt. I hope you got your tickets!