Thanksgiving Blessings

We arrived at my father-in-law's just in time to go to dinner at the Elks Lodge this evening. Tomorrow we will drive down the street a bit to brother-in-law Mike's house for Thanksgiving dinner.

I am grateful for so many things. How does one count her blessings? They are infinite!

The last thing I did before loading up the car was to go up to the sewing room and gather the necessary materials for cutting out more stars for the hand-pieced 6-point star I've been working on. I will work on that after I finish this post.

An update on the computer situation: I finally got a laptop I am happy with; I had a test-drive on a Dell that wasn't so fun; but now I'm happy with an HP, the same brand as the one that crashed. Something to be thankful for - a local computer technician who will work so willingly to make a customer happy. 

I spent most of the day Tuesday retyping all that I'd lost a week ago when the crash occurred. Another thing to be thankful for. That was a huge relief. I think that if I can get my photo editing program installed, I will be back to (ahem) normal. Whatever that is!

This Thanksgiving greeting is a bit early, but I will go ahead now and send all my sweet readers very happy Thanksgiving wishes. I am definitely grateful for your loyalty.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Jayne 

Hand Piecing Progress

Have I mentioned how much I enjoy hand piecing? Yes, I suppose I have. I know that machine piecing is the way to go when I want to finish something fast, but there is a certain calming and relaxing feeling that comes over me when I slow down to sit with a project in my lap, a needle in my hand, and fabric coming together in a slow, methodical and peaceful way.

Here are the blocks I made while riding to and from the OSU game in Minneapolis.

I have quite a stack of these now, and in the new year I suppose I should come up with a use for them. I have a few ideas brewing in the back of my mind, so I doubt it will be too difficult to make a decision.

Another UFO that I have been working on is an ages-old hand-pieced star quilt. Just look at how far I am on this quilt. Why does a person just quit on something when she is so far along to finishing?

I began this quilt in the late 1990s, when our son was in high school and we were attending track and cross country meets all the time. Projects like this were so easy for me to take to meets and work on while waiting for events. I did a lot of them over the years.

I think I remember why I stopped working on this. I was stymied as to how to finish the edges. I couldn't bear the thought of whacking off those beautiful stars that I'd so carefully stitched together. After all this time, I think I can do it now. The picture above is of a long side, and I will just straighten by cutting off the one point on each star.

The trouble comes with the top and bottom edges. They are a good bit more uneven, as you can see above. I am still pondering the issue. In the time I've not worked on this, my templates went missing. I spent a big part of Tuesday digging and rooting through boxes and bins looking for them. I ended up just drafting new ones--I never did find my originals. They will show up sometime.

Here's an update on the computer situation. I  am learning a new laptop; the HP died, and I have a Dell now and all my regular programs are not loaded on yet. It's aggravating, isn't it? We take our computers for granted, and then when they go haywire, we are simply lost without them!  What dependents we are!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Ka-Blooey!

Talk about feeling defeated.

That little hissy fit my laptop threw last week was apparently just a precursor to the whopper it threw yesterday. Oh my goodness! After I had typed for 4 hours for the historical society it proceeded to CRASH and nothing was saved.

Yeah, it was awful.

After accepting that I would have to rewrite all 4 hours of work, I had to accept that buying a new laptop was necessary. A couple of bitter pills to swallow, that's for sure. (And this post, again, comes to you via my iPhone/iPad).

But one must move on! My troubles pale in comparisons to those that others have. 

To brighten the mood, let me show you two sweet first-graders who had snow days on Monday and Tuesday.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Tidying Up

We made it home from the Twin Cities - all 15 hours on the road. Whew, what a trip. The weather got a little dicey about 5 hours into the trip, and that made driving a bit more stressful. But the Buckeyes won, and we had so much fun. The temperature at halftime was 19 degrees, and we had snow flurries the entire game. Gracious, we were cold! But you know, I'd do it again without any reservation - we had that much fun. This picture from the post-victory celebration with the fans shows the snow showers.

I have looked at the blog, and have tried to clean it up a bit. Posting from an iPhone isn't the neatest way of doing things, is it? Things are behaving better from the laptop - especially the oversized pictures.

While I did get my laptop back on Monday as scheduled, I have had to re-install some programs that has slowed me down in the business of blog-posting. I think I have things back the way I want them, and can proceed without delay.

The early arrival of winter has made for some very scenic surroundings at our house. Since I have no new sewing pictures to share, I can at least invite you over to my little corner of the universe to take in the scenery. Do you like sunrise pictures?

This was taken Tuesday from one of our bedroom windows. Isn't it lovely?

Here are some snow pictures from Monday.

 

 Isn't it magical?? Those four pictures pan from right to left from just outside our front door. Looks like black and white photography, doesn't it? It's not; these are unedited photos; it's just the conditions. We got about 4 inches of snow, and I am so glad we arrived home before it began accumulating.

I stitched four 16-patch blocks on the trip - one on the way there and three on the way home. I had more daylight on the way home, so I accomplished more. I will get them pressed and show them to you tomorrow. I am also working on another UFO from the challenge list, and I will try to get some pics of that as well.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Buckeyes Win on the Road!

We had a super-fun time in Minneapolis as we braved the frigid weather conditions to watch our Ohio State Buckeyes beat the Minnesota Golden Gophers. Fun, fun, fun I tell ya! The final score was 31-24.

We are on the long 12-13-hour trip home now. I'm stitching 16-patches and making the most of my time on the road.

Happy quilting, friends!

Jayne

Friends in Sanibel - Part 3

Today I will show you the quilts by the 4 other friends who vacationed and sewed in Sanibel. I just hope I attribute each quilt to the correct maker.

Linda had recently traveled to Australia and brought back the fabrics used in this table runner.

She also made this table runner. CORRECTION! I am told that this froggy table runner is a Kay creation, not a Linda creation. Linda did make one on Veterans' Day, and I wondered why she would want two! Ha!

This gorgeous blue quilt is made with a line of beach-related fabric. I hope you can tell that there are seashells and such in there.

 Two different quilts; variations are obvious. Both made by Maria. I'm betting granddaughters are in mind for them, wouldn't you say?

Pat is the maker of the three quilts above.  The first two were quite a bit simper and faster than the third. What fantastic variety. CORRECTION! This pink Kaffe Fassett star quilt was made by Georgia, not Pat. Sorry, girls, for getting it wrong!

Georgia finished this quilt and then made the pillow cases to accessorize. Isn't this a soothing, yet striking beach house quilt? Love it!

We are having fun in the Twin Cities. We are T-minus 3 hours until game time. The current temperature is 7 degrees. Game-time forecast is 18 with a high today of 25. Oh my.

Happy quilting friends!

Jayne

Friends in Sanibel - Part 1

I'm scheduling a few posts for while I am away on a long weekend trip with DH. Back in September, DH and I decided that we'd like to go to an away Ohio State game. DH thought it'd be fun to go to Minnesota, and so we proceeded with making plans. Our new son-in-law is from the Twin Cities, and so we invited the newlyweds to go with is, and make it a family affair. We are hoping to connect with his mother, aunts, cousins, and any other friend and family we can muster up.

The thing we didn't consider as much as we might have is the weather in Minnesota in November. Yes, this weekend is the game, and we've been following MN weather -- they have about 20" of snow. The forecast for Saturday game time, is 21 degrees, windy and snowy. Won't we be having fun??

GO BUCKS!

Since we will be gone for several days, I have a few posts to fill the void. Two Frienzies, Kay and Sherrie, went to Sanibel Island, FL, about a month ago for a week of sewing. Kay sent many updates while they were there, and I'm just now getting to a point where I can get them organized and edited for you to enjoy.

The condo has a balcony, so all the week's projects were hung out for a photo op. What a show, right?!

Those who participated are many of the same ladies who show up for part or all of our annual June Quilt Camp - Georgia, Linda, Pat, Maria, and of course, Sherrie and Kay.

So let's see some close ups over the next few days. I have no idea what order to go in, but I'll come up with something.

While I'm traveling, I will be taking my little box of 2.5" squares; I will be making some 9-patches or some 16-patches, or both!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Friends in Sanibel - Part 2

Just after I posted Part 1 of the Sanibel Story, my laptop threw a hissy fit. Then she refused to allow me to access any files or websites. Great. I'd promised to finish this series and I'd only gotten as far as the first installment.

I took said laptop to Tech Guyz, and they are fixing her. I will pick her up Monday morning. In the meantime, I'm left to post from either the iPhone or the iPad. So far so good with that. I'm using the iPhone currently.

Today, I will share the quilts made by Sherrie and Kay while they were in Sanibel, Florida.

The three photos above are all from Kay. 

I'm not sure of the pattern on the first quilt, but the other, as you can see, is Flower Patch Pattern from Craftsy. Looks like fun!

Sherrie made this fabulous Rapid City quilt in a very pleasing combination of greys and yellows. What a fantastic result!

So, the pics I'd planned to edit are coming to you as taken. Maybe I will figure out editing before installment #3.

Happy quilting! 

What We Accomplished Yesterday

Here's a wrap-up of all we accomplished yesterday at Sherrie's for our annual day of sewing on Veterans' Day. We are ever-grateful to our veterans and active-duty military for the freedoms we enjoy and often take for granted. We are also grateful to Sherrie for welcoming us each year to converge on her house for the day.

Kay made this doggie quilt for her granddaughter's new puppy. Must be one special pup - or maybe it's one special granddaughter! ;)

The dog quilt didn't take much time at all to whip up, and when it was done, Kay went to work on hand-quilting that beautiful 9-patch quilt that you've seen here a few times in recent months. Click here and here, if you need your memory refreshed.

Linda made pillow cases - one for granddaughter; one for grandson. She was thrilled at the quick finish on these.

Then she finished another quickie - a table runner;  yes, those are frogs and yes, this is for herself!

Three of the group were paper-piecing, all quite coincidentally, too. The variety couldn't be more striking, either. First let's see Sharon's. You may recall that she was working on a Block O Buckeye quilt at my house last week. This is the same quilt, but the O parts are paper-pieced, and she made all of them yesterday.

The A block and B block may look exactly the same, but in reality, the B block is larger, to account for the shape of the O. Here's the link to last week's post about Sharon's quilt; you can see the pattern there.

The above four pictures show the teeny-tiny paper piecing that Sherrie did yesterday. Amazing.

This is Sherrie's pattern; I didn't ask which version she's making.

Pam whipped up this paper-pieced table topper/wall-hanging. It is 3-dimensional. She is learning to piece and quilt at a class, and this was a recent project they did.

I can mark a UFO off my list! I removed old borders; measured the center correctly, made the outer border bigger. I am much, much  happier with it now.

I also prepped another project for quilting - Sunday Best, my Schnibbles that is on the UFO list. I needed to stitch together some batting remnants, press and stretch the backing, and pin the top on. Very happy to have this ready to take to the machine. My goal states that I want it quilted and bound, so I have a bit more work to do on it.

This is mid-pinning; it's got lots in place now.

Frienzie Lyn was with us too, and she was there to be surrounded by loving friends and cheering up. Her mother had just passed away, and she was a bit weepy and fragile, as one would expect. We did our best, I think, to comfort her and give her a chance to reflect and share special memories. What are friends for? We have all been close enough now for so many years - we know where we can always go for love and support and comfort. That's just what Frienzies do.

Happy Quilting, Friends!