Autumn's Golden Days

            This is a scene in our little village, which tickled my fancy.  Notice the empty coffee can to deposit your payment.  Woe to those who only carry a debit card.  You will often see roadside vegetable stands in rural Missouri with the same instructions.  We are a trusting lot.

Another scene on my walk to the post office to pick up the mail.  We have had some glorious fall days.  

      

     I am having difficulty going to my basement sewing room to finish the quilting on "Follow the Leader".  I was almost done, but found a problem with the bottom border, too much fullness in it to quilt without puckering.  So, out came the seam ripper and now I am ready to sew it back on and finish quilting it.  It will be a big relief to have it done.

    I have also done a little decorating inside.  I love the colors in this quilt, the way the blue contrasts with the brick red and cheddar.

     It is another beautiful fall day here today, but after a walk to the post office, I will go downstairs and 

keep on stitchin'

Judy

Ozark Piece-makers Quilt Show

     It was an early morning, still dark, when I left to meet quilting friends, Gina and Patti, for a road trip to Springfield, Missouri.  Why, you ask, would I leave a warm bed to venture out with the night critters and skittish deer families (just waiting for a unsuspecting car to collide with) for a two hour trip to southern Missouri?  The Ozark Piece-makers Quilt Show, of course.  I had heard for years that this was a great show, but never had the privilege of attending.  After a great breakfast at George's Restaurant, (www.dineatgeorges.com) we found our way to the Exposition Center in Springfield.  I will share my pictures with you.  There were many more quilts worthy of photographing, but here are the highlights for me.  Enjoy!

We thought this was a great sampler quilt.  

I am currently enthralled with medallion quilts, so took many pictures of them for inspiration.  I hope to start one in the near (or distant) future.

Here's another one.

I must have moved the camera on this one, but it was good one.

And this one, which started with a medallion, then moved to sampler blocks, then log cabins.  

Can it get any better?

And this sweet thing with the fussy cut fans.

That's all of the medallions, on to the rest of the show.

We all loved this one because of the string blocks, cornered with 1/4 square triangles which became a pinwheel between the blocks.  It goes into my "one of these days" file.

 

The pattern is Country Manor Charm from Evelyn Sloppy's book, Strips and Strings

Here is a close-up of the blocks.

We thought this was a great pattern for a Quilt of Valor or charity quilt.

I love star patterns and thought this was a great one.

It had very nice quilting on it, simple enough for me to do, but very effective.

I love these Crab apple Hill patterns.  And I really like the black and brown.

I took this picture because I thought it was a very good idea for our guild when we have our charity quilt sew-in in January.

This was a Missouri Star Quilt pattern called Serendipity I and II.  It makes two quilts of the same fabrics with different patterns.  I thought I took a picture of the second one, but don't see. it.  I need to look it up on their website.  It looks like a jelly roll and charm pack.  

Patti and I loved the graphic imagery of this one.

And this one was so cool.  We spent quite a while in front of it, analyzing the pattern.  It is nine-patches, with the sashing forming the stars.  Very effect use of shading in the nine-patches.

We thought this was a great scrap quilt.

The center is a vintage feed sack, surrounded by blocks from muslin and vintage feed sack prints.

Here is a great pattern from traditional blocks.  A nine-patch, surrounded by courthouse step logs, then appliqued borders.  The pattern is by Kim Diehl.  

We also liked this one for use of scraps.

I hope you enjoyed your abbreviated quilt show as well as we did the real thing.  That should encourage us to... keep on stitchin'.

Judy

Christmas in September

   You might remember my post in early August about the work on the Pink Atlas.  I also posted this project on Facebook and was contacted by an old friend and previous co-worker about a machine she had acquired at an auction.  She was bidding on a tablecloth and the auctioneer threw in a sewing machine trying to raise the bidding past $1.00.  No one else joined the bidding with the additional incentive and Debbie ended up with her tablecloth and an unwelcome 50 lb. boat anchor, she thought.  When she saw my post about my vintage machine, she saw her opportunity to get it out of her garage.  I said "yes", sight unseen.  We have spent the last two weeks, trying to find a day to get together, catch up on each other's lives, and switch the sewing machine from her car to mine.  Today was the day!

     She wouldn't take the $1.00, so I took her to lunch and gave her a hand-quilted doll quilt for her granddaughters.  Quite a bargain, I thought.  

Here's what she brought me.

A Singer 128

Crinkle finish, Centennial.

Blackside.

You probably noticed it is missing its slide plates, but has the bullet shuttle, a key to the case and some attachments.   The wiring is pretty dicey, but it runs and sews after some Liquid Wrench and sewing machine oil.  I'm in love!

    That's all for tonight.  I'm off to search the web for some black slide plates.

Judy

Quilting Season

     I saw this picture today on Quiltville.com Facebook page and loved it.  That's the way I feel about September.

    I really love summer, but also miss the long days of sewing and the feeling of accomplishment that comes from making real progress on a project in a day's time.  To celebrate, I decided to clean off the cutting table.  Here is the pile of scraps from the summer sewing waiting to be cut into usable pieces.

                      And here is the stack of strips and charms ready to be stored in their bins.

On upper left is strips and squares, lower right is the throwaway pieces from that whole pile and bottom center is some chunks and narrow strips going to someone who uses smaller pieces than I do.  I concentrated on 2 1/2 inch squares to add to the Split Nine-Patch I've been working on, so now have lots more variety for it.

     And finally, I finished row A of my Dear Jane quilt.  Here are the last five blocks of that row.  

It was quite a feeling of accomplishment to put all 13 of those blocks in a baggie.  Now to start on row B.  They don't seem as complicated as those in row A.  Hopefully it will go faster.  

I hope you got some September stitching done today, too.

Judy