Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all of you! This will be my last post of the year. Today, on Christmas Eve I finished a very last minute gift. Not unusual for me but at least it's not midnight!

Happy New Year, too!

Twelve Days of Quilts--Day 12

Hey! I never said the twelve days would all be in a row. So here....after missing a day or two is the last. This one is a Christmas gift and I hope to deliver it to its recipient tomorrow. I just finished the binding tonight and will sew the label on in the morning. A couple of years ago we (members of the Civil War Club at the Cotton Patch) gave each other 12 inch blocks for birthday gifts. As I made them each month I also made one to keep. I had about 8 when the year was over. I also made some at the Pat Speth workshops I attended. I'm pleased with the outcome. It was quilted by the talented Donna Titsworth.

Day 11--Again

I just realized what a lousy picture that was in my last post. So here it is again. Clearer this time, I hope.

Twelve Days of Quilts--Day 11

I'm nearing the end of "The Twelve Days of Quilts" so I thought I should show a Christmas Quilt. I'm sure I've shown this several times over the years but here it is again. I made it as part of a block of the month at The Cotton Patch in 2005. It had 9 blocks. My friend Coleen added Tradition, Joy and Worship to hers and thought that was a good idea so I added them, too.

The Marler Christmas Village resides on the buffet below the quilt.

Twelve Days of Quilts--Day 10

There are really two quilts in this post, but I'm going to count them as one day since they are small and hang close together. These are in my sewing room hanging way up high above my shelves of fabric. The one on the left is hand pieced (English Paper Piecing) and appliquéd using different size hexagons--the smallest being 1/4 inch. I made the other one as part of a Nine Patch Challenge in my guild a few years ago. I won a third place ribbon.

Twelve Days of Quilts--Day 9

As promised, here is the quilt my grandma made for me. She made the top and my mom hand quilted it. It's appliquéd and embellished with embroidery paint. Remember that? It came in tubes. Hey, it was the 60's or maybe the early 70's. It's not in as bad a shape as I thought it was, but has a few stains. I used it in college and my kids cuddled under it in the 80's.

Twelve Days of Quilts--Day 8

My paternal grandmother, Bertha Ward, pieced this quilt in the early 60's. I had a dress made of the fabric in the close up picture. It was one of my favorites and I also had a dress of the same fabric, only in pink.

Grandma made each of her 5 children a quilt top. This one was made for my dad and mom. My mom hand quilted it not long after it was pieced. She hardly ever used the quilt. But she always let me use it when I visited her in the later years of her life. (My dad passed away in 1978.) Mom knew I loved the quilt and gave it to me some years before she passed away.

Grandma also made each of her 19 grandkids a quilt top and started on her great grandkids' tops. My oldest daughter was the third of her greats and I believe it was the last quilt she made (around 1980). She and Grandpa quilted it in straight lines on her sewing machine.

Perhaps I'll show the one she made for me tomorrow. It's been in the closet for many years. It's well worn.

Twelve Days of Quilts--Day 7

If I wake up on my left side, this is what I see.  Sometimes I lay and count the circles on both quilts (yesterday's and today's) before I get out of bed.  I get a different number every time.

Twelve Days of Quilts--Day 6

If I wake up on my right side this is what I see hanging on my bedroom wall.  Tomorrow I'll show what I see if I wake up on my left side.

12 Days of Quilts--Day 5

Let's leave my guest room for a while. We may go back there later.

This is a wall hanging I made several years ago when I took a class from Darci Ashton on Hawaiian Appliqué. It has never hung on a wall, but stays mostly on my coffee table. Not that I can ever see it there because I'm not one to keep a nice, neat coffee table. Where else would one pile all the quilting magazines and handwork in progress?

12 Days of Quilts--Day 4

Another quilt in my guest room. I started this one when I was in high school and finished it on September 11, 2001. It holds a lot of history. I won a UFO (unfinished object) contest at my guild that year for the longest finish on a UFO--33 years!

12 Days of Quilts--Day 3

This quilt is on the wall in my guest room. By the time I finish showing all the quilts on my guest room, you're probably going to get the idea that I LOVE irises.

12 Days of Quilts -- Day 2

This is my first appliquéd quilt. It resides on my guest bed (with the door closed so the cat stays off it). I finished it in 2004 and won the Sweepstakes prize with it at the Tulsa State Fair that year.

12 Days of Quilts

We're slowly recovering from the flu (and Tim also from bronchitis now, too). I'm regretting not decorating the house for Christmas 2 weeks ago because now I don't have the energy to do it. Our kids have promised to come over and help but because of their schedules it looks like it will be another few days before we get it done.

So I've decided to post 12 days of Quilts to cheer myself up. I've probably posted pictures of most or all of these quilts before but maybe there are some of you who haven't seen them.

I'll start with the one that's currently on my bed because it's nice and clean (I spent the day purging my house of flu germs).

Feel free to come back for the next 11 days to see more quilts in my house.

Flu!

Here's Skippy. She's the only healthy creature in our home. Last week when Tim came home from work early he displayed all the signs of flu--sudden onset of chills, fever, sore throat, body aches and cough. Our doctor wasn't in so I took him to Urgent Care where he tested negative for flu. 3 days later, my teeth were chattering and I had fever.

Since we weren't getting any better we went to see our doctor today and we tested positive for flu. He told us to expect it to last 7 to 10 days! We're fairly miserable---no, we are VERY miserable!

I've picked up a needle and thread twice, but just can't seem to stay interested.

New appliqué project

I've started a new appliqué project. I decided I'd really like to try to design something of my own. But everywhere I look for ideas I end up thinking I could just use some else's design. So in the end, this quilt will probably have some blocks of my own design and some blocks that were inspired by other designers.

Here's the first one (my own design):