SWEET!!

I've declared EVERY year since I started quilting to be the "Year of the Finish!" -- aspiring to complete things, perhaps even that quilt masterpiece we all dream of doing.

Because of Judy's UFO Challenge, I've actually make a plan and I'm following through, and there are some lovely things happening!

My UFO (#1) for this month was Stars Around the Garden, a Bits 'n Pieces Block of the Month that I ended up "tweaking" a little.  It's now finished (well, the top, anyway! :-P) and ready for quilting! Yippee!

It seems success breeds success... might this actually be a finish year!?! :-D  Just maybe!!!!

I finished quilting -- on my little Nolting Hobby Quilter, no less! -- my Thimbleberries Take 5 quilt.  It was on my 2nd UFO list (the list of quilting/binding finishes I hoped to accomplish) for the month of January!!  One more finish!!

I (duh) forgot to set aside binding fabric, so I found some of the blue-with-dots  "Circle of Love" Thimbleberries line on ebay, and when it arrives, this baby will be DONE!

I'm still in the simple meandering stage of my learning curve with the mid-arm....but it's definitely progress! 

 The Pièce de Résistance (probably for the whole year and beyond!), though, has to be my Log Cabins and Fans...

This UFO quilt top that I completed in January has been phenomenally quilted by Mary at Quilt Hollow.

I'm just totally in awe.  Who knew!?!?  I just don't think of my quilts being anything beyond ordinary, but what Mary has done with my Log Cabins and fans:

It feels so good to see finishes for a change.

And then to see what looks to be a masterpiece (thank you, Mary!)....

There's a verse in Proverbs that echos what I feel about these finishes, the Log Cabin in particular:

"Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when the desire comes, it is a tree of life."  (Proverbs 13:12 NKJV)  Verse 19 goes on to say, "A longing fulfilled is sweet to the soul, but fools detest turning from evil."

Longing fulfilled.

A tree of life.

Sweet to the Soul.

Oh, my yes!! 

 Blessings,

Do Nothin's

I've got a serious case of the do-nothin's!

Do you ever get them? It's not the blues exactly. It's not that I'm all that tired or frustrated or mad or lazy.  I just don't feel like doing ANYthing!!  Do you ever get afflicted with the malady?  Maybe it's hormonal....It does seem to come around with some regularity. Yuck.

I've had them for two or three days now.  I sit at the computer and read...following along with tears (like Teresa's mishap with her All Around Town quilt top) and with triumphs (like Thelma's Quilter's Tale) and wondering at the creativity and beauty of other people's projects!  I wanna do something fabulous like that!

I'm not lacking inspiration or things to do!  I have the UFO Challenge quilt #10. It's called Moon and Star Whimsey from the book Relax and Quilt. 

I have only to add some moons and stars to the borders and it will be ready to quilt for Sam.  I've done almost all the machine applique, and it shouldn't take too much time to get the remainder finished.

If I will get started!

Sam has a UK Wildcats print picked out for the backing.  This is one he's wanted for a while.  You can tell by the wrinkles and fold lines that it's been in the closet for too long.

I have the mystery quilt that I'm leading for the Mountain Laurel Quilters...Pieces cut, next steps planned.  If you wanna follow along, I've added a page above with the fabric requirements and February's directions.  Each month the next step will be added until we finish the quilt in October! I LOVE the fabrics I've selected.  But I'm not in the mood today.  Sigh.

I found a pattern to use with my Brown Bag Quilt fabrics...

It's called Granny's Jam Lap Quilt from Laps from Fats by Ellen Replogle.  I think it will work beautifully with the variety of fabrics I was sent and the coordinating prints I've added from my own stash.

I just don't wanna sew today.
Or do the bills. 
Or do my taxes.
Or do my laundry.
Or load the dishwasher.
Or take the boys anywhere.

I wanna sit and think or dream or leaf through magazines and blogs.  I wanna play Spider Solitaire and eat the Turtles in the lovely pink and brown box that Emily bought me for Valentine's Day (not promising for this week's weight loss...)

I was reading in Ecclesiastes today.  "To everything there is a season..."  So true! Today is NOT my season for productivity! :-)  The Psalmist writes, "Be at rest once more, O my soul, for the LORD has been good to you."  (Psalm 116:7)

So today is a mental health day. A day of rest.  A day to remember how good I've got it!  Lord willing, tomorrow and all the days that follow will have sufficient work and inspiration to keep me busy. I'll be sewing again shortly....I get a little crazy if I go too long without touching my fabrics, making something.

Who knows! With a little soul rest, I might even tackle the taxes!! 
.... Um...No.  Let's not go so far as all that, OK!?

Blessings!

Good Words!

Yay!

My first finish of 2011....

Well, actually finishes! Two of them!!

Yippee!!

In spite of that cock-eyed, hair-crossways, dog-legged, turned bass-ackwards block in the corner of my orderly rows of log cabins and fans quilt top....(see here, and Lord, give me patience!! :-D), I got 'er straightened out, slapped two borders on her and and called 'er done!!

I'm hoping to ship 'er off to Mary at Quilt Hollow who does such beautiful breathtaking work, and since making her acquaintance, I can hardly wait to turn her loose on one of my humble pieces! (You should see her quilts in Scrap Basket Sensations by Kim Brackett!  WOW! isn't even close!)

AND... hehehe! Another finish...this one even more satisfying since it's an actual finish, not just a top, but a whole quilt, binding and all!

"A Bushel of Baskets" -- a pattern from 1988 (is that a hoot, or what!?!)...My friend Paula taught a hand-piecing class using this pattern 'bout four years ago (can it have been that long!?!), and I got about 3 blocks in and started rotary cutting and machine piecing! I don't have the patience for hand piecing.

Sad. And weird! 'cause I LOVE hand quilting.
But I couldn't seem to get the knack for it, and the machine work suited me beautifully.

I did some English Paper Piecing by hand -- little half-inch hexagons (all those hexie-flowers you see in blogland? -- uh-huh, they are fun!), and it was so cool that I started a EPP tumbling blocks (yes, a UFO, thank you very much for reminding me, but I knew it would be a long-term project! :-P).  It was a fun block to do.

So Paula quilted "A Bushel of Baskets" for me and returned it just a few weeks ago, and the binding is on...and it's ready for cuddling, or throwing across the bed where the baskets will be front and center, or across the couch where it will be rolled in and tucked under and shared with family and friends.

That's the thing about a quilt, isn't it?  It's a finished quilt, for sure, when the last stitch goes into the binding.  But it's not really finished until someone loves it. 

I've been thinking alot about finished things today.  "It is finished!" -- those are some good words!! 

And it's no coincidence that they were the final words Jesus uttered from the cross.  Without a doubt, His work on earth was complete. The price paid for sin.  The atonement made, the veil in the temple rent.  Redemption rendered.  It was done. Finis! Complete.

The writer in Hebrews tells us "Unlike other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself."  (Hebrews 7:27, emphasis mine)

But like a quilted and bound coverlet, complete and finished....it doesn't become finished for me until I roll up in it and feel the love.  Until I appropriate its comfort and purpose in my life.

Isn't it just the same with Jesus!? His work for our redemption is done.  But we must appropriate Him -- for His comfort and love and purpose in our lives! -- before what He has done means anything to us or those around us.  Have you called Him your own, yet? Have you appropriated all He has to offer?

Just like a well-worn and -loved quilt, He will cover you with His love. And when you are well and truly "finished" -- He will welcome you home.

"It is finished!"  Good words, indeed!

Blessings!

God Laffs

My friend Becky says she's always wanted a vanity license plate  -- if she could figure out how to reduce it to seven or eight letters/numbers -- that expresses, "Man plans; God Laughs!"  Over at Acme License Plate Maker, I mocked one up that at least captures the latter half of the sentiment:

Cracks me up! :-D

And it's just as well that I have a sense of humor about plans....I've been playing around with my EQ6 (haven't convinced myself to spring for the newer version yet! :-D) looking at the Log Cabins and Fans that constitute my UFO #6....

The original was supposed to look something like this (from the cover of Simple Blocks Make Sensational Quilts by Winnie Fleming):

But I couldn't leave well enough alone and started playing around with the blocks for a different layout.  My "mock-up" in EQ didn't inlcude my colors/fabrics (I didn't want to take the time to make it "scrappy! :-D), but I could see the layout possiblities.

After getting the center of the quilt top assembled, I started working on pinwheels for the border (knowing I was racing the clock to get my UFO done in January!!!) -- and then I laid them out alongside the quilt center -- and it looked terrible.  Booo! EQ is a great tool, but things don't always look in "real time" like they do in the mock up. 

So I'm gonna put on plain borders....and I'm putting on the corner triangles...

and I see this:

Isn't it funny that you can plan and look and look and plan and never see a block that's outa place!?  It'll be me and the seam ripper this evening, and with a little diligence, the quilt top will be completed today, just one day past the end of the first UFO deadline.

Would I have seen the error if I'd gone ahead with my plans before auditioning the different borders?  Probably not! LOL 

I have a dear friend -- an expert quilter! -- who pieced her top, auditioned and attached lovely borders, showed it to family and friends, and hand-quilted the thing....Only to hang it in a quilt show with a large-half-square triangle in a block turned the opposite direction it should have gone!  It was the first time anyone had seen the error!!

Sounds like something that could happen to me!!

I think God gets a kick out of all our planning.  One of Job's friends said, "He thwarts the plans of the crafty, so that their hands achieve no success" (Job 5:12).  (Maybe I was being too crafty today!? :-D)   Solomon had a lot to say about plans.  "Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and your plans will succeed.  The LORD works out everything for his own ends -- even the wicked for a day of disaster." (Proverbs 16: 3-4)  Later in Chapter 16, he writes, "In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps" (verse 9).

I do a lot of planning and list making -- but so many times my direction is changed by a circumstance or choice or, most difficult of all, an out-and-out error.  When plans go awry, I can count on a righteous and loving Father to determine my steps, to guide me in the way I should go.  It's like finding a block turned cock-eyed.  He takes the time to correct me, and make me into something better than I first imagined. 

Kinda like log cabins and fans with just the right borders.  And all the blocks turned just the right way!  And UFO #6 marked DONE (just a day later than I'd planned! :-D)

Blessings,

Finishing School!

I've decided that Judy at Patchwork Times is my "Finishing Governess."  Back in the mother country (that would be merry old England), and back in the day (regency era, when men were rakes and women sat in drawing rooms and embroidered....sigh), a finishing governess would be employed the year before a girl's "come out" to polish her for presentation.

So I've got several projects that need finishing! And Judy's UFO Challenge is just the schoolmaster I need (at least I HOPE! :-D).

In addition to the Quilt Tops I listed here, I also want to complete the quilting on some tops that have piled up for way too long.  I'd planned to learn to use my Hobby Quilter in 2010, but never got to it.  So I want to rectify that neglect this year.  I also want to get back into hand quilting, which I love.  Here's what I want to finish up:

Quilts to Finish Completely (quilted/bound) in 2011:

1. Mountain Laurel Sampler (hand quilted)
2. Somerset (Jo Morton - machine)
3. Baby Rose (Jo Morton - machine)
4. Pick Up Sticks (Jo Morton - machine)
5. Razzle Dazzle (machine)
6. Thimbleberries Take 5 (machine)
7. Ocean Waves (hand quilted)
8. Christmas Friendship Star (machine)
9. Batik Stars (machine)
10. Ribbons (machine)
11. 5-Stripe Thimbleberries (machine)
12. 4-Patch Strippy (Jo Morton - machine) 

All the challenges in Blogdom won't help me finish, though (notwithstanding Judy's valient efforts! :-), unless I am determined and persistent!

In Scripture, James had some thoughts about that...

He said, "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." (James 1:2-4)  I like how the Amplified version expounds on verse 4:  "Let endurance and steadfastness and patience have full play and do a thorough work..."

I think I'm ready to let them have full play!! -- as long as they play nicely with the other projects waiting in the wings! :-D -- so that in the end, they may be "perfect and entire" (KJV).

Would that all areas of my life would be so surrended, that the trials that come and test my faith would find ME perfect and entire!  Let it be so, Lord Jesus.

Blessings!

P.S.  In keeping with my desire for accountability, I've added two pages above. One will document my UFO Challenge progress, the other my weight loss/fitness progress. :-) I'd also like to include one for my other 2011 Resolution for a daily quiet time, but I'm not sure how to chronicle that yet.  I'll think more on it and see what works! :-)  Pop over and take a look!  Blessings!

A Brand New Year! :-)

I am the eternal optimist, I think.  I must be an optimist if I even consider making a list of New Year's Resolutions!! When Jeff asked me what mine were, I told him they were the same as last year!! Clearly, I didn't succeed in 2010 (or 2009, or 2008, or....).  But I try, try, and try again. :-D  (Of course, the definition of INSANITY is to do the same thing and expect different results! --- yeah, that'd be me!  LOL)

Every year I say I'll lose weight and exercise.  I'll have a devotional time daily. I'll be a better steward of the blessings -- financial and otherwise! -- that I'm given.  Jeff says I need to be more specific.  So -- numbers and deadlines and such will be added to my usual list to see if that helps me fare any better in keeping my resolutions.

Another one I make every year is to FINISH! something -- so UFO's here I come.  This year, I'll have Judy's UFO Challenge to help.  She's having us make a list of projects, numbered 1 to 12, and each month she'll draw a number and we have to work on that project.   Theoretically, at the end of 2011, we'll have completed 12 UFO's.  I have MANY more than that (I do an "inventory" at the first of each year...sigh), but getting this many done will be phenomenal!

So you and Judy will help me with accountability! The rules are fairly flexible, so I've decided to finish a group of quilt tops (most very close to completion!), and to completely finish (quilting and binding!) another group that I'll list next time.  The quilt top projects are:

1. Stars Around the Garden (a Bits and Pieces Block of the Month)
2. Victory Quilt (Quilt in a Day)
3. Hometown Christmas (Thimbleberries)
4. Wilfred and Cloves  (from Australian Patchwork and Quilting)
5. Daisy Days (Thimbleberries)
6. American Heritage (Thimbleberries)
7. Geese in the Garden (Kim Diehl design)
8. Land of the Free (applique from Piece o' Cake)
9. Circuit Rider (only a dozen more blocks to have them all done!)
10. Moon and Stars Whimsey (from the book Relax and Quilt)
11. Biblical Blocks (from the book of the same name by Rosemary Makhan)
12. Dolly Madison Stars (a two-fabric quilt from BH&G Two-Color Quilts)

I'd like to severely limit my new starts this year.  Maybe Kim McLean's Roseville Album, if I can find the time!!!! (It'll work out! There's that optimism, again!  LOL)

I'll also continue to work on some ongoing projects: The Farmer's Wife Sampler and possibly Dear Hannah or A Mother's Gift and the Layer Cake Quilt Along.

And I'll at least get the Roll, Roll Cotton Boll Mystery Quilt top completed!! :-)

The apostle Paul wrote, "It is written: 'I believed; therefore I have spoken.' With that same spirit of faith, we also believe and therefore speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in his presence...Therefore we do not lose heart.  Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.  For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all." (2 Corinthians 4:13-14, 16-17)

He must have been an optimist, too!  "It is written," he said -- and so is my list! :-D  "I believed" -- and I do, too! LOL "Therefore I have spoken!"  ME, TOO!  Of course,  he was referring to the promises of God and the expectation that, even though we suffer and have troubles, they are nothing compared with the glory that is to come.  Isn't that a great statement of hope!! I think I like old Paul! :-)

So I will not "lose heart!"  2011 is a brand new year, full of promise and the expectation of eternal glory.

Let's get to it!!

Blessings,

Blockhead

This time of year my son, Will, is immersed in Charlie Brown world!! He loves all the Peanuts' holiday classics, and he watches them over and over.  While Will watches the dvd's in my sewing room, I've been busy throwing blocks up on the design wall -- trying to make a decision about which UFO is next!!

Judy over at Patchwork Times has issued a UFO Challenge for 2011. And as I try to decide what 12 projects go to the head of the line, I hear echos of Lucy van Pelt in my head:

I think I have an obsession with making blocks.  I store them on skirt hangers and put them on pegs on the wall to keep them in front of me -- seeing them everyday is supposed  to motivate me to take the final step and set them up in a quilt top.  Not my most effective plan to date. Sigh.

Let's see...

There are my Victory Quilt blocks, Quilt in a Day's 1940's sampler. 18 blocks completed in lovely patriotic colors, mostly Thimbleberries fabrics (I thought that would be interesting -- to make a QinaD pattern with TB fabrics :-D).  The pattern calls for sashing and cornerstones and a cool "ribbons" border....I have the fabric. I have the tools.  I've let this thing hang on a peg for two years or more.

There are my Biblical Blocks. A great group of gals and I did these at Paula's Quilting Pantry with a Bible study that corresponded with each block.  We met every other week for several months, then weather and circumstances had me calling a halt to the class.  We finished 19 of the 32 blocks in the book by Rosemary Makhan...and I pulled another ten patterns from other sources (for those who didn't want to attempt the harder blocks) and there are a couple of those hanging on the peg with the others.  Three years....? Maybe more.  It's languished for a while.

There is Hometown Christmas.  It's a little newer on the UFO list -- only 18 months or so.  The pattern is a little older than that, but I collected the fabrics I wanted to use in it over time, and finally started it last year.  I have 9 of the twelve sections completed on it.  The other 3 are cut and ready to sew.  It, like the others, got pushed to the back burner for whatever interesting thing or class idea or deadline took my fancy.

And there are still others on my pegs (and in boxes, and drawers and bags and closets)....

 

Paul writes in Colossians 4:17, "Tell Archippus: 'See to it that you complete the work you have received in the Lord.'" (NIV)

Traditionally, Archippus is thought to have been a pastor at the church in Laodicea -- the one that the Lord said was "neither hot nor cold" (Rev. 3: 15) -- the church that kicked back, was self-satisfied, in need of nothing, whom God challenged, "Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline" (v. 19).

As I look around my sewing room I see that I, too, am "in need of nothing."  It's easy to become a "blockhead," satisfied with the status quo...going along and getting along, while needful things languish like projects on pegs. 

The Lord's admonition to the church at Laodicea is to exchange the illusion of good living for more difficult -- and more lasting! -- things.  "I counsel you," the Lord says, "to buy from me gold refined in the fire so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so that you can cover your shameful nakedness, and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see." (Rev. 3:18 NIV)

I'll be joining Judy's UFO Challenge.  It's too easy to get caught up in the latest excitement and to ignore those things that need our attention, that have been let go for too long.  (And I ain't just talkin' about quilts! :-)  If I complete the work I have received from Him, as he told Archippus to do, I can look forward to the greatest of all compliments to a believer (or a quilter!):

"Well done, good and faithful servant!"

Blessings!

Dear Jane, More or Less?

Can you believe it!? Some three years after I began, I have completed my Dear Jane quilt top!! 

Maybe. :-)

A group of ten or so of my local quilt buddies got together back in 2007, each to work on our own version of this beauty.

After a few of us got started, it turned into a friendly competition to see who could stay "caught up" on the ten or so blocks we did each month.  I was the first to complete all my blocks!! (I HATE to be outdone!! LOL) But then, Paula finished hers, quilting and all! and I was left behind. 

Paula's FINISHED Dear Jane!!



And just lately, Norma put hers in the frame for hand quilting.

And mine languished in the unfinished projects pile while I deliberated over doing the pieced/appliqued triangles or not.

(At least I've come a long way from "Dear Jane, Why Are Your Mocking Me?" back in April of this year! LOL)


I decided, eventually!, not to do them; instead I will hand quilt the pieced/appliqued patterns on plain background triangles.  I like the less "busy" look of plain triangles.

When I auditioned the borders back in August, they "felt" too big for the small scale of the blocks.  I can't tell now, after they have been attached, if they are too bulky looking.  I kinda like how they enclose and protect the little blocks.  Do you think they are "too much!?"

I made the sashing larger -- quite a bit larger at 1 1/2" finished as opposed to the prescribed 3/4"! -- so that my hand quilting would show up better.  That's why the triangles have to be so big -- at least they have to be so big so that the points are centered in the sashing, see?

I could lop off an inch or two around the edges.  The background fabric triangles would lose their points -- so I don't love that idea (I lose enough points without deliberately sabotaging them!:-D).  And on a bed, the triangles would be part of the overhang and not necessarily affect the look of the blocks.

What to do!?!

Sometimes its hard to know what to "lop off" and what needs to remain to advance the best of the design.  John the Baptist, teaching and assuring his followers he was not the One, said of Jesus, "He must increase, but I must decrease" (John 3:30, KJV). 

What a succinct and perfect analysis!! Even standing back, looking from a distance or through the lens of a camera, I can't tell what Dear Jane needs.  And it's like that in my walk with God, often.  I don't always know what parts of me need trimming, but I know that there must be much less of the "I" and much more of the "He."  If I spend any amount of time with Him, though, He gently tells me what bits of me need cutting loose so that He can advance the intricate and beautiful parts of me He has spent so much time perfecting!

It's a grand feeling to have completed this part of Dear Jane, and to anticipate the hand-quilting journey (another three year project, if my track record is any indication! LOL)... and like my time with Jesus, the best is yet to come!

Blessings!

Quilter's ADD

Do all quilters have Attention Deficit Disorder, or is it just me!?!

I find myself on a snowy evening trying to decide which project I'll work on next.  I just finished binding two give-away quilts, and a third is started with yet another one waiting in the wings.   I'm tired of binding. I'm ready to work on something else!

But what! I've got my Roll, Roll Cotton Boll mystery-to-date all finished, string blocks and all -- and the next installment doesn't come out 'til Friday. Sigh.  The Layer Cake Quilt Along is up to date, too.  So far, so good!

So what to do tonight!?

I've decided I have ADD -- nothing keeps my attention for long....

There's my Dear Jane...Do you know I'm just borders away from finishing the top.  I mean -- the borders are ready to be attached!! I just haven't been in the mood.

The Bali Sea (or Batik) Stars is ready to put together -- blocks stacked in rows, borders determined/pieced and ready to attach when the center in done.  I don't know.  I'm just not wantin' to tie into it. 

Both these projects are on my Finish in 2010 list. I've only got about 15 days -- at least a couple of which will be spent with in-laws and out-laws celebrating Christmas, eating, gift exchanges, dinner and catching up on all the family gossip.

So why am I being pulled to other things.... ?

Like this little slip of a thing from Quilt Shack by R. Norum & H. A. Krohg, called "Wheels on the Bus."  The blocks finish at 6" square.  I have my fabrics all picked out for a blue-billion of 'em so they'll make a large quilt.

Another option is my version of the Clarissa White Alford Quilt....

Clarissa White Alford Quilt, c.1886

I have a couple of blocks completed in civil war repros and the makings of plenty more in a box -- complete with gridded paper (I love Triangulations --   whoa! they have v. 3 now which does half-square triangles in 16th increments and flying geese!!) ready to sew.

And I sooo need to get downstairs to the Hobby Quilter and learn to use it so more of my quilt tops can become real quilts!!

Is anyone else ready to throw out 2010's projects and move along?

Sometimes it's so hard to focus!!

Paul understood how easily we can get distracted from our goals.  "Do you not know," he writes in 1 Corinthians 9, "that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize." (verses 24-27)

It's time to quit "beating the air" -- and settle down, not to a long winter's nap, but to "strict training," projects that need just a little more time and effort, and to accomplishing some goals.  Bali Stars and/or Dear Jane. Bindings. Finishing!

It'll feel good to mark them as "Finished" in the ever growing lists of "To Do!"

Blessings!