2013 Finishes

2013 has been an interesting year for me.  The biggest thing that happened to me this year is my move to MO!  We had been planning this move for a couple of years!  Now, after 18 years I'm ready to buy my first home.

This picture was taken from my back porch.

I really do not have very many finished quilts.  I am slooow, not to mention packing, moving, and unpacking takes a lot of time!

Front of the Quilt

Several of ya'll sent me blocks to make a prayer quilt for a sweet girl.

Here is the back of the quilt.

At church we machine pieced and  hand quilted a Great Granny Square Quilt for a friend in church(another prayer quilt).  We had a lot of great fellowship!  Hand stitching takes a lot longer but is so worth it!

 




I also finished quilts for seven year old niece and 17 year old nephew for Christmas!  But I had to have them done by October to give to my mom before I moved.  Quilts are heavy to have to ship!

denim rag quilt

Great Granny Square Quilt

I also helped my friend Chrystal make a baby quilt for her baby, I did not have time to make one by myself, so she came over and I supplied the material.

Not a great picture!

Well, I guess that is five quilts, although only 2 of them were done just by me.  I did quilt the pinwheels quilt though.  There were some small projects along the way and tree finished tops, I'll show you those later.  Did I mention I did all of my work on people powered machines?  Either a hand crank or a treadle were used on the quilting I did.  Except the pinwheel was quilted on my Janome because I had not bought my Singer 16 yet.

I hope everyone has a great new year!

Missy

Almost finished!

I am almost finished with my nephew's baby quilt, he was born July 21!  I just followed the directions on the pattern and this quilt is huge for a baby, especially since I still have the borders to put on!  I sewed up the borders yesterday, but did not take a picture yet.  My goal for this month is to get this thing quilted!  I've been working on it since I think May?

 My hand crank that I use for small piecing is a Redhead 66 or Redeye, depending on who you ask, but since I'm a redhead I'll call her a redhead!  Did you know the feet on this machine, and probably some other vintage feet, are a 1/4 inch on the left side?

 As you can see, I normally put a piece of tape on the right side to mark my 1/4 inch seam, but when doing a HST, the tape is covered, so the left side of the foot is a perfect guide!

 It is perfect for sewing my half square triangles since I don't have 1/4 inch foot for her since she is a back clamper.  I really would like some feet for her, so if anyone has any, maybe we can work out a deal!

 Have you ever heard of Marshall's Dry Good store in Batesville, AR?  My friends at the quilt retreat in Greenville, TX told me about it.  We stopped on our way home from visiting my stepmom in AR.  I got a lot of fabric to build my stash.  The orange and blue was $1 a yard!  The rest $2.99 a yd.  Of course I had to get the penguins and the cute houses with cats.

 These batiks were $2.99 a yard!  Except the yellow at top was $1.  The dollar fabric has some defects in them, but are perfect for quilting!  I got 1/2 a yard of each but the bottom I got a whole yard.

 I also got some great neutrals!  My stash is sorely lacking in that department.  The white on white and the alphabet were $1, then I got two tans, a brown and a grey (even though it looks blue in the picture)

 Can you see the alphabet on it?

My last three were more "expensive", $3.99 for the peanuts and $4.99 for the carrots and Brussels sprouts.  They are for a jar block exchange I am participating in later this year.  I've been wanting to make one so when a group I'm a part (treadleon.net) of said they wanted to do one I jumped in!

I'm going to have fun using this material this year, I'll have to stop there the next time I drive to my step mom's again!

Do you have a goal to finish this month?

Missy

'Twas the Night Jesus Came

‘Twas the Night Jesus Came

‘Twas the night Jesus came and all through the house
Not a person was praying, not one in the house.

The Bibles were left on the shelf without care,
For no one thought that Jesus would come there.

The children were dressing to crawl into bed,
Not once ever kneeling or bowing a head.

And mom in her rocker with baby in her lap
Was watching the Late Show while I took a nap.

When out of the east there rose such a clatter,
I sprang to my feet to see what was the matter.

Away to the window I flew like a flash
Tore open the shutters and lifted the sash!

When what to my wondering eyes should appear
But angels proclaiming that Jesus was here!

The light of His face made me cover my head–
It was Jesus returning, just as He said.

And though I possessed worldly wisdom and wealth,
I cried when I saw Him in spite of myself.

In the Book of Life which He held in His hand
Was written the name of every saved man.

He spoke not a word as He searched for my name;
When He said, “It’s not here” my head hung in shame.

The people whose names had been written with love
He gathered to take to His Father above.

With those who were ready He rose without a sound
While all the rest were left standing around.

I fell to my knees, but it was too late;
I had waited too long and thus sealed my fate.

I stood and I cried as they rose out of sight;
Oh, if only I’d known that this was the night.

In the words of this poem the meaning is clear;
The coming of Jesus is now drawing near.

There’s only one life and when comes the last call
We’ll find that the Bible was true after all. –

AUDRY PATRICIA WOOLVERTON

I know it is late, but the message is always true!  I borrowed this poem from a blog I follow, Michelle at  Life With Lou .

I pray you had a great Christmas.  My step mom gave us a Petit Jean Ham and my mom gave us slippers, mine are totally cute and warm!

Be sure to enjoy a warm cup of hot chocolate on these cold nights!

Missy

Merry Christmas!

I pray you all have a blessed Christmas!

I have been wanting to start a Gingerbread village for years and found this church a couple of weeks ago, brand new at a thrift store, for $5!  The penguin was 50 cents.

I also found my first building for a Christmas village, a church, last week at another thrift store for $1.25!  My friend Cara and I did ceramics last week and of course I did a penguin, I have him caroling in front of the of the church.

I was only able to find a couple of my Christmas decorations in the storage room (we left a lot of stuff packed while we are looking for a home to buy).  I also put my small Nativity scene in front of the church.

Now if I could just keep Squeeky off the book shelf!

The cats have been bad, this morning my husband found the lights over the window chewed through!  Which means they do not work anymore!  Do you see the piece of garland Oreo is playing with that he chewed off the end?  Which is why I do not have a tree!

But of course Christmas is not about decorations and gifts, it is about our Lord's birthday!
Isaiah 9:6  "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace."

I do enjoy my Christmas socks though and really liked this picture someone shared on Facebook!

Did you know the Grinch uses a treadle to make his Santa suit?  Now, I do not do Santa, but I like his picture.  My husband said this is what I look like when I get busy sewing on my treadle.  LOL!  He says I need to train my cats to push the pedal for me!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Missy

The start of a postage stamp quilt?

I made some more rail fence blocks.

Some of my strips had some extra length left, so I cut them 2 1/2 inches.  I now have a start for a postage stamp quilt!

I am just going to put them to the side until I decide if I want it a red and white quilt, or red, white and black!

I got four more blocks in the mail!  These blocks came from Heidi at Meatloaf Quilting, aren't they cute?  I love the apples!

I had a cake order for Sunday.  The 17 year old wanted a sculpted green converse tennis shoe, but the mom wanted something simpler.  That stinking shoe took me three hours to make!  It turned out okay, but the next one I make would look better.  I think the polka dots was my favorite part of this cake!

Until my friend Ashley sends me her blocks and the backing for the rail fence block, I will be working on my sailboat baby quilt.  There is no way it is going to be done by Christmas!  I am going to start sewing the rail fence quilt together next week!

What have you been working on?

Missy

Unique Double wedding Ring Quilt

I went to the quilting bee at the local senior citizens center in Gainesville.  They meet every Wednesday at 9am and hand quilt people's quilts for them.  All of the money they get is donated back tot he center.  I am going to learn so much about the correct way to hand quilt!  This is the quilt they were working on.

 The entire thing is hand embroidered!  Isn't it gorgeous?

I went today to quilt and they had finished it up last week, so there was not any quilting to do!

They will be loading up a new quilt next week, so that will be fun!

Happy quilting!

Missy

Rail Fence Blocks Tutorial.

Hi everybody!  How is everybody doing today?  I'm cold, but that's okay.  I decided to make a mini tute on how to make a rail fence block.  First, you cut strips the length of the width of your fabric.  Cut them 2 1/2 inches.

Tell Muffin to move, then take a red strip and a white strip and sew them together.

After you have two sets of red and white strips, you will sew them together and add another red strip to the end, giving you five strips sewn together.  I want all of my middle strips to be white.

 Lay your strip on the cutting table and trim the edge even.

 I found this great tape at Joann's, you can get it at quilting shops also.  It is made specifically for your rulers.  I used my 12 1/2 inch ruler and marked the ruler at the 10 1/2 mark because this will help me not to make mistakes when I am cutting!

 I cut my 10 1/2 inch blocks.  This is so much easier then cutting a lot of individual strips to sew into individual blocks.  I made 7, I should have been able to get 8 but for some reason one of my strips was like 1/2 inch too short!  I am going to keep the extra pieces though, and use them to make another prayer quilt.  I'm thinking a red and white postage stamp quilt.

 Counting my blocks, I have 28 blocks so far.

 I need 48 blocks to make an over sized throw.

 I am loving the red and white.  I need to pull out my tubs of material and look for some more red material so that all of my blocks do not look the same.

If you would like to help by sending some red and white rail fence quilt blocks for this prayer quilt, just leave me a comment and I will send you my physical mailing address.  I would like the blocks ASAP please so I can get this quilt made and sent out.  All extra blocks will goes toward another prayer quilt.
We finally got snow!

 Oreo loves the snow!  He likes to throw it everywhere!

 Custard likes it too, but I think it is more of her thinking she is getting away with something by being outside, she's such a trouble maker!  LOL

Ya'll have a wonderful day!

Missy

Proverbs 31:21  "She is not afraid of the snow for her household: for all her household are clothed with scarlet."

Isaiah 1:18  "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool."

Rail Fence Blocks

I still have not gotten any sewing done.  I got my strips cut out to make my rail fence blocks,  Muffin liked them!

Please ignore the "dirty" window sills, I have cleaned them, they just need a coat of paint.

I got three more sets of red and white rail fence blocks in the mail this weekend.
Today I got eight blocks from Linda at Art in Search .  She made them on her new to her vintage machine, a 201.  Check out her blog post to learn more about it!

 These two blocks are from Donna at Donna's Lavender Nest, I have been following her for a long time.  She also has a nice shop that you need to visit!  She is doing a sampler quilt with 10 1/2 inch blocks right now, which  I missed since I was without internet for almost a month, but I have gone back and pinned the tutes, so maybe I can do it later.

 These four blocks came from Billie.  She does not have a blog, but she does have a booth in a store in Harrison, AR.  Down Home Creations is in Harrison, Ar, So if you are ever in Harrison, be sure to stop by and say hi!

I really appreciate all of the help and prayers being sent out in behalf of my friend.  Please keep praying!

I'm hoping to get my blocks sewn up tomorrow and write up a tutorial for those of you who have not made rail blocks before!

Missy