Easy Street and More

Have started on Bonnie Hunter's new mystery quilt.  I think her mysterys all turn out to be large quilts.  Don't know if I will keep this one or use as a donation quilt but I have the first set of construction instructions done.  Sewing 4 patches from our grey and black and white fabrics.

 

 

I would like to make more quilts for our guilds "Heart Warmers" quilts which we donate to the local hospitals for chronically and critically ill people.  As I get closer to retirement I wanted to find an easy quilt that I could whip out quickly.  I think I found it.  The other day on a blog someone was showing quilts that a friend was making for charity.  I liked that it was just strips sewing together, very quick.

 

So I thought I would try it.  I had some santa, houndstooth and poke-a-dot fabric so thought I would give it a try.  Here was the outcome.

 

I think I may be able to put my stash to good work.



Play Date fun

Last Sunday and Monday I took classes from Bonnie Hunter.  I have been following her blog not for months and just love the ideas she comes up for using scraps.

The Thursday before she did a lecture at guild on the quilts you can make using scraps.  It was a great lecture.  The second best thing at the guild meeting was getting a look at the beautiful quilt made my members of the guild and Dorothy Jones who pulled it together.  Don't think we will have trouble selling these tickets.

The Sunday class with Bonnie was "Star Struck".  We used 2.5" strips and 2.5" squares.  These are the blocks I got made during class.

 

 



Bonnie enjoyed seeing my truck as well as mentioned on her blog quiltville.blogspot.com and I got a lot a great comments on the truck.

The class on Monday was "Oklahoma Backroads".  She switched the lights and darks in a normal "Road to Oklahoma" block to get this quilt design.  Another one using 2.5" strips and 2.5" squares.

Right now I'm planning on using these block to make 2 lap sized quilts. 

I have been surprised at the wildlife I have seen lately.  At the quilt retreats these cranes were directly behind the house we were staying in which backed up to a golf course.

And this young fello has been playing in traffic at Aurelius and Mt. Hope many a morning lately.  Wednesday I  got this picture of him about 3:30 pm.

Maybe over this long holiday weekend I will get pictures of some of my recent estate sale finds

Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Play Date

Yippee!  I have a play date with Bonnie Hunter today.  Today is her Star Struck class through Capitol City Quilt Guild.  Enjoyed her program at guild Thursday night.  She has been in Ann Arbor the last 2 days and now will be in Lansing today and tomorrow.  Will also play tomorrow as well.

Hit an estate sale yesterday and picked up a few items.  I am planning on being a vendor at our quilt show in may and hope to have a booth full of vintage sewing related items.

Hope to have photos tonight.

Happy Stitching

Story of a sad little quilt...

About a year ago my brother was doing an estate sale in Grand Rapids.  This house was in terrible shape, but needed to be emptied.  In a pile of sheets and blankets I saw an edge that I recognized as a quilt.

 It was in terrible shape.   It had large rough stitches holding the back together.

 It was a full size quilt that had been folded in half and the edges sewn together with large running stitches with the thread that was heavy like crochet cotton.  It had lots of hand quilting, triangle shapes with 4 rows of quilting and it was well done with small stitches.

 

So I was hooked. I had to know what was inside.  So I bought it for $5 and brought it home.  I decided I couldn't hurt it any worse than it had been and it was filthy.  So in the washing machine it went for 3 washes.  Then I hung it over a couple of lines in the basement to dry.  It has hung there for about a month.  Got busy with other things.  But I finally I decided to take it with me to quilt appraisals.  I figured I would have time between morning and afternoon appointments and could have a look.  It had a very worn indigo polka dot binding, good clue.  Once I pulled the stitching out, this is what I found.

A circa 1880's strippy quilt.  Little 3.5 inch nine patch blocks set with polka dot indigo fabrics with muslin strips between.  Although the indigo held up wonderfully all but about 2 nine patches are complete gone.  But even in this state it is pretty graphic.  Here are a couple of closeups.

I think it has a little more to tell me with closer inspection, and I think I would like to reproduce this quilt.  Once reproduced I will probably cut it up and just save one section of it after all there is only so much I can keep.

So here is another quilt rescues from the trash.  I'm glad to have has a close look at it and find myself thinking of the woman who made it.  It would be great to find a name quilted in or written on although if it was on any of the white, almost all of that is gone.

Your in stitches,
 Jackie

Tailgate treasurers

This was another good week for sales in Lansing.  One was a quilter and her husband who were downsizing.  For that one I even took 2 hours off work Friday morning to be in the first 10 in the door.  Bought and still got to work on time.  Of course then I had to go back on Saturday to see what else was left.  These are just a few of the finds.

 

The little sewing basket went into my flea market merchandise. The white vase is identical to one I got in the same neighborhood 6 months ago, so now I have a pair.  Will keep them for now. And the little couple is a wedding cake topper, bisque, from abotu 1900.  It also will navigate between my collection and flea market merchandise.

 

All of these items I got at the quilter's downsizing sale.  The little dishes, sewing kit and pear make do pincushion will go in the flea market merchandise.  The rabbit thimble holder, down front and the elephant pincushion will stay in my collection of sewing items.  The glass dome with the spools may go or stay, not sure yet.  I'm trying to accumulate enough sewing items to maybe vend at a quilt show.

This is a large set of old dominos I got Sunday.

These were some salts I bought.  The white one is like a little crock and I love the wooden pair with the spoons.  They are amazing in the workmanship.

Mom found all of these "french Ivory" pieces in a box.  Evidently they got emptied out of a dressing table that someone bought.  There were also button hooks and manicure items, but these 3 caught my eye.  The box was full of rubber bands which got thrown away immediately.  The little piece it like a tooth pick holder, metal base with a ivory slide top.  And I love the little wind up alarm clock.  I may hang onto these items for a while.

Lastly here a a couple of the blocks made out of Betty Smith's scraps.

Only about 30 more to make to make a lap quilt.

Coming up the story of a sad little blue and white quilt.

 

Getting Organized

I have been following Bonnie Hunter's blog http://quiltville.blogspot.com a lot lately.  She does a lot of great things with scraps and lately she has been having "quilt cam" in the evenings, where she sews on her different antique machines.  At an estate sale, actually a downsizing sale, I bought 2 large bins of scraps.  Many were precut into 1" and 2" strips.  But there were also a lot of other sized scraps.  She suggests precutting your scraps so that they are ready to go when you want to sew.  So I have been precutting the scraps I bought and my own into strips of 1.5", 2", 2.5" and 3.5".  Squares in 1.5", 2", 2.5" and 3.5" and bricks in 2 x 3.5, 2.5 x 4.5, and 3.5 x 6.5.

I am going to be taking a class from Bonnie at our guild in November, in fact 2 classes.  So I have been precutting the scaps that I will need for those 2 patterns, Start Struck and Oklahoma Backroads. I'm also saving reds for her Talking Turkey blocks and leaders and ender Bow Tie blocks.

As I have been cutting I still end up with scraps that are too small to save.  I had been throwing then in the wastebasket.  But when I look in there I was surprised just how much there was.  Some of the members of our guild and small groups save their scraps to fill pillow cases which get donated to the local animal shelter for dog and cats.  So I tried to figure out an easy way to save the scraps.  What I hit upon was this.  At lots of sales I have always bought pillow cases to store my quilts in, so I have quite a supply.  So I came up with this.  Take a bucket. . .

and a pillow case . . .

Once it's full of scraps I can just sew the top shut and it's ready to go.  I may even add a cup hook to the bottom of the table I cut at and hang it there.  But for now setting at my right side is good enough.

My niece, Denise is home for a visit.  We all had dinner at my mother's house yesterday so we would all get a chance to see Denise and Jason.  Jennifer and Leif and Darryl and Anna couldn't make it from the Chicago area.  But hopefully we'll see them at the holidays.

Have the quilters again Tuesday night, maybe after that I will post some pictures of recent sale finds.

Race Day

Well this was the day that I had been training for.  My 2nd 5K at Sparrow Hospital.  Thank goodness the temperatures were cooler.  It was nice in that Susie Merchant and the MSU Women's Basketball team were there as supporters.  There was a 5K and 8K so it was nice that I wasn't the very last one across the finish line.  I improved my first 5K time by 2 minutes, 1:0d.  Not much but at least it was better.  Has a picture taken with Sparty.  Now to shower and rest a bit.