What I'm Working On

Doing some straight-line quilting on a gingham patchwork chevron quilt...and yes, I know some of the points are cut off, but that's what happens with this pattern. I made large half-square triangles with a nine-patch block and a plain white block. This was an experiment, so I don't mind that the points are "gently tucked away", as one of the speaker's at my guild once said.

Blogger's Quilt Festival

I'm participating in the Fall 2013 Blogger's Quilt Festival over on Amy's Creative Side. Quilters all over the blogosphere will be featuring their quilts and you can vote for your favorites in a number of categories. There will be lots of quilters' eye candy, for sure!

I've entered my "Jane As A Teenager" quilt in the ROYGBIV category. You can check it out here.

If this is your first time visiting my blog, welcome...take a look around. To see photos of the process of making this quilt, just click on the Dear Jane label here or on the sidebar of my blog. I posted photos of each block and triangle as I made them, as well as photos of the quilting process.

And after you're done visiting my blog, be sure to check out all  of the other entries in the Fall 2013 Blogger's Quilt Festival.

Enjoy!

Blue Is Still My Favorite Color

My Jane Stickle quilt came home with a Viewer's Choice Blue Ribbon from the Tompkins County Quilters Guild show earlier this month!

One More Out The Door

About a month ago, I blogged about a bunch of floral nine-patch blocks that I had accumulated as a result of a guild exchange back in the spring of 2008.  The blocks are now sewn into a completed quilt that will be going to one of the outreach projects that my guild is involved with (I'll leave it up to our Outreach chair to decide where it will find a home).

Just some simple meandering quilting...

The backing fabric came from my guild's charity-project stash and it was just the right size to use as a binding as well. I love to sew bindings down by hand and don't usually like to finish them by machine, but sometimes it's OK to do. I folded the backing over to the front and then used the buttonhole stitch on my machine to sew it down. It will do.

Since the backing/binding fabric came from my guild's stash, I can only count the blue and white fabrics as coming from my pre-2013 stash -- just over a yard. But at least this quilt is now leaving my house!

Spring Into Fall

I made this top back in September 2011 and just finished it this week. Another one off of the list!

Here's another look at the wavy grid quilting that I showed a couple of weeks ago...

The floral fabrics were leftover from two other quilts that I made back in 2007 and 2008 (one of which was displayed and sold at the 2007 Sisters, Oregon quilt show!). I still have another top with these florals waiting to be quilted. Soon, I hope, soon.

Five more yards of pre-2013 fabric used up!

Finally, Another Finish

Life has been way too busy and I haven't had much time to do any serious quilting, sewing, or blogging lately. I'm hoping to get back on track with everything soon. This is a small baby quilt made with leftovers from two quilts I finished back in July. Some of the strips were already sewn into sets, so I just added more white fabric until I came up with enough for a small quilt. This was strictly improvisational, just finding places for all of the leftovers.

You can see the straight-line quilting a bit better in this photo...

And I had a couple of double-pinwheel blocks left over from the previous two quilts, so I used them on the back of this one...

The leftover came from these two quilts...

The photos don't do the fabrics justice...they are much prettier in person.

The backing fabric came from a quilters' rummage sale earlier this year, so I can only count about 1 yard of fabric as coming from my pre-2013 stash.

Blue Is My Favorite Color

The last month or so has been really busy for me with a number of visits to quilt shows, and I haven't had much of a chance to catch up with editing some photos to show on my blog. I promise I'll get to them sometime, maybe before winter sets in (but hopefully, before that).

Anyway, as some of you may remember, my Jane Stickle quilt was on display at the recent quilt show at the New England Air Museum (organized by my friend Jackie Kunkel). I was fortunate enough to make a trip there to see the show in person and was even luckier when I was there to hear the announcement that my quilt won a viewer's choice blue ribbon award!

Not only do I love getting the award, I really love the award itself -- It's one of a kind!

On the Prowl in Bennington

Just a few more photos from my trip to Bennington, VT. The quaint motor inn where we stayed. Nothing fancy, but clean and cozy, with better coffee than at the chain hotels...

And, of course, this crazy Russian girl couldn't pass up a chance for a photo op here... (too bad it was closed that day)...

Large cats were on the prowl in downtown Bennington... part of the local "Catamount Prowl". I learned that catamounts are what Vermonters call mountain lions/cougars/pumas/panthers. (When I first saw them, I thought I was back in Pennsylvania -- they look an awful lot like Penn State's Nittany Lions). I didn't take too many pictures of the catamounts because, frankly...how shall I put this...I found most of them to be quite ugly (or should I say, not to my taste). And there were too many of them, too close together.

But this one appealed to me...surprise, surprise...

One of the others...

Here's a YouTube video about their Catamount Prowl...And if you're on Facebook, you can see what all of them look like here. I won't complain too much about how they look since these will be auctioned off to benefit the arts...and that's a good thing.

More of Bennington

(photo-heavy post -- click on photos to enlarge)

Here's a shot of the entire Bennington Museum...part of it was a Catholic church at one time...

The museum has the largest public collection of work by Grandma Moses...I'm not usually much of a primitive-folk-art person, but I found a lot of her paintings had a mysterious appeal that I can't quite explain. Unfortunately, photography was not allowed in the Grandma Moses gallery, so no photos here, but here's a link that shows her work. Note the one called "The Quilting Bee".

There were a few other things to see in and around the museum.

All historical museums seem to have an old sewing machine or two...

Love this foot pedal!...

We came across Robert Frost's grave...complete with lovely red leaf and lots of coins...

The grave is located in the graveyard adjacent to the Old First Church of Bennington...

  And not far away is the Bennington Battle Monument...

 We were told by a local that a 60-something-year-old woman goes up once a year or so to the top (on the outside!) to change the light bulb!