TreadleOn HOUSES block exchange quilt

The finished quilt top

I had a lot of fun with this quilt.  First I had to make 10 house blocks to mail off to the captain of the exchange.  

My 10 exchange houses and some scrappy squares.

Then I had to wait for 10 different blocks to be mailed to me.  

When they came I decided that 10 blocks was a difficult number to work with and that even if I went up to 12 it would still be a tiny little quilt.  I decided I would need 15 house blocks.  Then I decided that I would add some trees to make it more interesting. And THEN I decided I would put some sashing between the houses to make the width a good size.  Since there was no color cohesiveness in the quilt the sashing had to be black and white.  Freddy Moran says so!

I really wanted to have some of the blocks that I had mailed away in my quilt so I decided to do my best to match them for the finished design. 

I liked the cat house I sent so this is the replacement

I went looking for a dog to put in the doghouse I wanted to make.  Instead I found this panel.  It was almost perfect as is.  I had to add some glow in the dark sky to make it the right size.

My dog house block 

I had the beach house all finished when I found the perfect sand fabric.  I HAD to rip out the bad sand and put it in.  Of course I don't have a separate picture of it corrected.  But you can see it in the finished top.  

The beach house

 I do not have a detail picture of this house.
Another cat in the window. ;-)
This is also the only detail of that tree.  

I wanted to have the snowy house in my quilt also.  I did a little tweeking with a lead pencil to make a track through the snow instead of a sidewalk.  I also did some enhancement of the smoke coming out of the chimney.

The winter house. 

After I made the 5 house blocks I made the trees.  I just measured the width of one row and decided how much space I had left in the three other rows and made the three trees that width.  Everything was 12.5 inches long so I didn't have to worry about deciding on a length.

The trees were created by a method I learned from Helen Howes. www.helenhowestextiles.co.uk. 

Her wonderful pattern Twelve Trees shows you the free form way to piece them. 

https://www.helenhowestextiles.co.uk/kitsandpatterns/treepatternsandkits.html

In these trees I decided to have grass or, in one case, leaves at the bottom of the background. Just like the houses I start with an oversized piece of fabric.  It is amazing how much better the blocks look once they are trimmed.  

This tree had added leaves.  

I was inspired by my yard full of fall leaves.

This tree was made before I decided to add grass. 
The trunk looks a little unnatural to me.  Oh well.

And finally, about that border.

The little squares on the border were me playing with scraps.  I decided some of my scraps needed to be larger so they got light fabrics at the corners. Then I had the idea to use them in this border because then I wouldn't need to decide on one border fabric.  I just used WOF strips of different colors that I had laying around for the border.  The left one is Kaffe's shot cotton and was 54" long so that helped keep it asymmetrical.

That's it for now,

Hugs,

Nancy

One drive sent me pictures of Sparkles today

 Sparkles was my cat, or I was her human, for 16 years.  The last 5 of those she was a 3 legged cat. She had a cancerous tumor in her right rear paw and that leg was amputated at the hip. After her recovery she was fine and a happy cat.  She could stand tall on that one hind leg. 

I painted her portrait onto needlepoint canvas and my friend Elizabeth Davies did the needlepoint.  The plan was to use it on a footstool.  

Once it was done Elizabeth decided that I needed to have some sort of design around the outside edge of the footstool.  So I chased my cat Lancelot in the snow on the porch and painted his footprints onto more canvas.  

This footstool was the result.  It has so many memories for me.  Elizabeth and Sparkles are long gone but great memories remain.

Hugs,

Nancy

I love fall colors

I guess it is autumn.  You couldn't tell it by the temperatures lately.  Highs in the high 80's last week and down into the high 70's this week.  Beautiful fall weather and the farmers are making the most of it.  Many of the fields are harvested.  

The fall decor is up in Clifford.  I love that old blue pickup!

Driving through our woods today was beautiful.  I had to stop and take a few pictures.  We don't get a lot of color in our trees in North Dakota so I try to make the most of what we do get.  

Down the road to town.  The leaves are starting to fall.

Fall color in the Cottonwoods.

The road home.

The woods had a bad time this year.  Too much wind.  Many trees were pushed over and the undergrowth is a tangle of weeds and broken trees.  I am sure the wildlife loves it. To me it looks like the Shire after the Orc's took over.   

However if I stick to pictures of the roads you can't see the destruction.

Hugs,

Nancy

Playing with Scraps

 Another day, another squirrel. 

The thing is, people give me little triangles...

 I was starting to trim some little squares this morning when I had this idea.  The squares, when trimmed, are about 2 inches. They would only finish at about 1.5 when sewn into something.

 "Why," I thought, "am I trimming these when I am just going to add them to something to make them bigger?  Why don't I just make them bigger now, before trimming!"

Sew that is what I did! They ended up at 3" unfinished.

Once I had two trimmed I was so in love with them that I had to search out some more "neutrals" a la Bonnie Hunter and make up some more sets to sew.

If I only knew what I had planned for them I would be a happy camper.  

But really, the Journey is the fun part, the destination is not.

hugs,

Nancy

Six and a half inch quilt blocks

Hey Mary and Jeni,

Over the last year I have started playing with quilt blocks that finish at 6 inches. Partly because that is the size for most Treadle-On block exchanges and partly because I saw some cute ones while trolling the net and decided to try them out. 

First of course was stars.            >         

Those were because I was making them for a raffle quilt for the River Rat Toga. I can't show you that quilt. (It is a secret until the raffle) but I can show you an assortment of the stars that went into it. 

After that starry fun time I started working on scrappy 6.5" squares.  I became addicted to them.  I bet I have made close to 200 so far. 

I had to find ways to use them up.  

Lots of runners and covers for my vintage sewing machine cabinets. (I try to keep the cat claws from scratching them.)

< First this lap quilt with black and white striped sashing. That only used up 35 of them. 

Next this sample from a class with   >  Jan Mullen  at  the Quilt Market many years ago.  I decided it needed a frame of scrappy blocks.  I found a WOF strip of the background blue for a wide outer border to tie it all together!  That got rid of 14 more.

< This little table topper was made with scrappy blocks from two different projects.  The angled blocks were from my friend Deb P. who was making a paper pieced quilt from a Judy Niemeyer pattern.  

The straight ones are leftover from a Treadle On block exchange  (TOBE) of Modern Blocks. The colors were perfect to go together!  To make it the size I wanted I had to add in a few extra strips.

Then I used up 10 more in a sewing   machine mat.  It was tricky adding the tool pocket that hangs over the front.  I had to make 4 half square blocks for this design

Enough with the scrappy squares! 

<  I noticed these little flower blocks on another blog - I forget where.  They were making tulips mostly which I didn't care for but then someone made one of these!  

I loved them. I did NOT worry about making the little triangles all the same. It is nature after all and Mother Nature loves diversity.

Yes I have 4 now but don't have a picture. The fourth one is blue.

Next I ran across this cute dragonfly  > pattern at the Moda Bake Shop.  It is designed by Jen Daly.  The pattern shows both 6.5" and 12.5" options.  

I have been saving this shimmery fabric from Maywood Studio for years.  It is perfect for the dragonflies.  And the background is a Benartex Fossil Fern that reads SKY to me.

< And then, just as I thought there couldn't be any more cute little 6.5" patterns, Bonnie K. Hunter came up with these little fishies for this summer's leaders and enders.  

Hers were made smaller than 6.5".  

Well that's OK I know how to enlarge a simple pattern like this.

Most of these 3.5" units were plucked out of my scrappy boxes so I didn't have to even make the HST's.

 

Well if there are fishies then there must be Kitties.  These cute little cats are from a pattern from my friend Helen Howes in England. She calls the pattern Counter-Change Cats.   The pattern can be purchased and downloaded from her at https://www.helenhowestextiles.co.uk/kitsandpatterns/patts.html 

I have had the fabric ready to sew these for several months and just started playing with it lately.  The curve is really fun to sew.  It is amazing how nicely it lays flat.  Just go slow when you sew it.

Whew!

I'm glad I got all these 6.5" blocks off my chest.  Now I can go a do a little sewing.

Hugs,

Nancy

What happened eleven years ago tonight.

Eleven years ago July 18th was a Sunday night.  At about 11:00 I heard the phone ringing.  My first thought was who would be calling me at this time of night.  My second thought was...maybe it's Meritcare hospital in Fargo and they have a kidney.

I didn't think it would really be the hospital because I had been waiting for 5 years and had given up on ever getting one.  

But it WAS!

I was told I was the backup patient in case the person in front of me on the list was unable to pass all the last minute tests to qualify. I was told not to take my evening .81mg aspirin and asked when did I last eat and warned don't eat anything more and be in Fargo at 7:30 in the morning.  

Just in case.

About 15 minutes later I got another call.  The decedent donor had two good kidneys and I was now primary for the second one. 

I don't remember if I was excited or scared or calm.  I told Jim and I know we got ready.  Really I don't remember much until we got to the hospital the next morning. I remember they took 16 vials of blood from me.  I remember I had some kind of heart test.  An EKG?  I remember waiting and waiting.  Hungry and thirsty.

I didn't get into the surgery until after 7 in the evening. I remember being wheeled into the operating room and Dr. Mistry asking if I wanted to see the kidney before the surgery.  Hell NO!

Then it was the next morning and it was over, or just beginning.  The rest of my life.

Eleven years ago. July 18 2010.

Ah, the Elliot neck in full view. 

Sewing on the phone!

This is what is up on the design wall right now.  I really like the look of the blue and red 12.5" blocks but I am totally bored with them.  I have to make many more of them.  I was planning to sew some tonight while I was on a messenger video chat with my siblings and I did get four more of the 6.5" blocks made so that is ONE more complete block. 

SIGH...

My design wall.  

In order to try to increase my interest I put up one rainbow block set.  That only lasted until I had chosen all the colors.  Can you tell I don't like to do the same thing over and over again?  I had hoped the fact that I was using many different fabrics would keep me interested but it seems that is not true.

If you notice at the top of the wall is a lone flower block. I saw it on Facebook and thought I could make that little block.   So I did

Isn't it cute?

After I made the 4 red and blue blocks I decided I needed a treat so I made a companion block for the first one.

Ahhh, that's better!

Since I was video chatting with my sisters while I was doing this I showed them the flowers.  Then I was informed I had to make a yellow flower too.  I was concerned because I wanted the flowers to have yellow stamens and I didn't know if that would show up on a yellow flower.  But we found a scrap of orange with yellow dots that will work nicely for the flower center.  I guess I can be flexible occasionally.

Ready to sew the pieces.

So all the parts are cut and laid out. Now all I have to do is sew the petals together and assemble the block.  That will be for tomorrow I guess. It's late tonight.

Hugs,

Nancy

Finished!

My first quilt retreat since November 2019!

I was a bit worried that it wouldn't be safe, but I had both my vaccine shots and it had been 3 weeks since the last one so I decided to go. I was promised a spot away from the others with no table mates.  

This is my spot. Half the gymnasium away from the rest of the retreaters.

My goal was to quilt several quilts and to put binding on them and some already quilted ones.  I planned on using my 301 for the free motion quilting.  I brought several different threads but ended up using Glide 40 weight and it worked well.  

On this Harmonic Convergence wall hanging I quilted loops and oak leaves.

I used a thread holder behind the machine because the spool of glide was too large for the machines spool pin. 

 

Three of the quilts I wanted to put binding on were backed with Cuddle.  What a pain putting binding onto Cuddle.  But I got it on all three.  I had to use the walking foot for that.

On this quilt I couldn't make a mitered finish
because that was ALL the binding I had left! 
I cut off about 3/8" and it worked out fine.

My friend Loretta needed help with a quilt that was way out of her box!  We spent about an hour moving the blocks around and this is what she ended up with.  I have a feeling she is not going to keep this one.  

Loretta's challenge

Another look at how far I was from the rest of the ladies.  

Distance from the others really wasn't a issue until Friday night when an idiot lady arrived and came in talking about how she would never get the vaccine blah blah blah.  I told her to make sure she stayed far away from me because I had a transplant and she mildly said she would.  We didn't hear any more stupidity about the vaccine after that.

There was lots of room and only about 15 retreaters.

This top was the winner in the oldest UFO contest at the last retreat with these ladies.  I finally have it sandwiched and pinned and plan on tying it instead of quilting it.  

From 1987!

Here are four of the quilt tops with their binding sewn on by machine and waiting to go home to be finished by hand.

This is my Bonnie Hunter MQ2020 showing off the binding that was attached at the retreat.  I only had that corner stitched down while there.  I really liked the way the veggie fabric binding finished it off.

Eat Your Fruits and Veggies is it's name.

Here are the quilts at home. These are piled up on the couch waiting for some HGTV time to bind them

 Hugs,

Nancy