A Fun and Crafty Activity

Here's a non-sewing activity that the whole family can enjoy, and you can still have your hands in the fabric. Seasonal stars made with folds of fabric are just the ticket for some group fun.

I first saw these Scandinavian Stars while browsing through Pinterest several months ago. I liked the idea and thought others would, too. I cut a bunch of fabrics and took them to our August quilt retreat at Needles n Pines. We gathered around the dining table and made our stars, yet I have no pictures. It was night time; dark for quality pics.

When Frienzies rolled around in October, Susan had a fun Halloween activity for us (we like activities, don't we, Pam?). Immediately, I knew Scandinavian Stars would be our activity for November. 

Briefly, the October activity was making this jack-o-lantern out of a canning jar decorated with torn bits orange tissue paper and black construction paper. We Mod-Podged the paper onto the jar. Once dried, just pop in a battery-powered tea candle. Voila! There you have a really easy, re-usable pumpkin!

Now, back to the Scandinavian Stars. We had Frienzies at Sherrie's house, so I arranged with her to bring the supplies for making stars. She fixed up a little ironing station in her kitchen, and we sat around the dining table folding and making our stars.

Sherrie's pretty table ready for our luncheon. She is one of several Frienzies who have Fiesta dinnerware - always a festive table! After our meal, we cleared everything away for crafting.

Pam and Sherrie getting started.

Susan has a finish!

Two stars made.

The Frienzies showing off our stars.

Now, Frienzie Pam took this activity one step further. She prepared enough fabric for 10 stars and took it to her family's Thanksgiving Dinner. Late on Thanksgiving Day, she sent me some messages telling me how her family loved the activity - it was a BIG HIT!

Four generations of Pam's family are represented around this table showing off their completed stars. Love it! The youngest of the participants is Emma seated in the front right; she took to it straight away and ended up making two stars! Yay, Emma! Just goes to show you that this is an activity for any age. Pam says her Aunt Sandy is 80 and her niece Emma is 12. Fun for the whole family!

Pam's daughter Carly requested a Thanksgiving activity every year. I can see why, too. When you can have a project and still maintain conversations, then you have a winner! The Scandinavian Star is definitely a winner.

I have now made 8 stars. The first 4, as you can see, have jute hangers sewn on. These are the ones I made back in August at the quilt retreat. The remaining 4 await their hangers. Two are Christmas and two use 4 fabrics rather than 2. I think they would all look good on a tree or wreath. The fabric does not have to be matchy-matchy.  Great for scrap-busting!

If you are interested in making some stars for your Christmas decorating, the best way to learn how is to watch some YouTube videos. I found several that were helpful. The one I returned to repeatedly was this one by Erica Arndt, quite user friendly and short. 

I will link up with Kathy and her Slow Sunday Stitching party. Let me know if you try these stars! I sorta' feel like they could become addictive.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Bridal Quilt Progress

For awhile mid-month, it felt like I had a bazillion PHDs (Projects Half Done) staring at me and, of course, I couldn't make myself work on any of them. I get that way, sometimes. It's as if the volume of finishing tasks paralyzes me, rendering me unable to engage with any project and finish it.

Throw in a long arm machine that begins to act up, an uncooperative computer, and the normal assorted family events  - well, I was fairly inert for several days.

One of the PHDs I really needed to knock out was the bridal quilt we Frienzies are making for Susan's daughter Kenly. We sewed the parts at the end of September, and then I volunteered for the task of sewing all the long strips (shown below) together to complete the quilt top.

Finally, I have completed this task. I really dragged my feet, but it was so easy and straightforward. The fact that it is a king-size quilt top might have played a part in my reluctance to finish this off - all that bulk! Kings are really hard to handle just because of the mass of fabric one must manage.

Neither of these pictures adequately shows a pretty quilt and that is because of the enormous size. Making matters worse is that a good bit of trimming needs to be done off the sides. I really have no place large enough - or well lit enough - to take a decent picture. You'll just have to trust me that it really is a pretty quilt, in a very subtle, monochromatic way.

I now need to hand this off to one of the other Frienzies who will take care of the next stage of finishing - professional long arming. Going into the Christmas holidays, I doubt this is the most optimal time for us, but oh well.

I have been knocking out a few other PHDs - borders for Autumn Leaves; the growth chart for Cate; quilting and binding Alpine; Hettie's baby quilt - just to name a few. I was also making a little smock for Cate and starting another baby quilt for a friend of daughter Emma.

Maybe now I am back on track. I sewed a good bit on the newest baby quilt yesterday, and this week I hope to long arm a couple of quilts. 

And, best news of all - I've solved my computer woes! With the help of several readers and other bloggers who were having similar problems, I am once again fully functioning!

Hope you all have a productive week!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Cookie Troubles

I've been experiencing some difficulties with technology here in the last few days which accounts for my long absence from posting here. In an effort to fix things, I am appealing to you readers who know anything about cookies and Blogspot/Blogger and settings - especially for Google. I have tried many combinations of fixes, and have even taken my laptop to a tech guy - still no fix.

What I am able to do - for now - is to load my pictures onto a draft from my phone; then come back to my laptop to type text and move photos around.

In these intervening days, difficulties also occurred with my longarm machine. I'd been having such good success with it while doing my own quilts, so when my Frienzie Hettie called to ask me for a quick job on a baby quilt, I agreed to do it. She was about to get a 3rd grandbaby, coming earlier than expected per OB doctor's orders, so the rush was on!

I got along reasonably well until I neared the bottom third of the quilt. Then stitches began skipping and the upper thread began breaking. I removed a lot of quilting stitches while I thought through what my next step ought to be.

In the picture below, my seam ripper is pointing to an area where stitches have skipped. You can see that the needle did go through the fabric, but the bobbin thread did not catch. I tried all the usual tricks, but it soon became evident that my timing was off. 

I have fixed timing before, and while quilters make it sound complicated, it really isn't. I've watched a particular YouTube video about 100 times, and know the basics of what I need to do. I just had to be in the right frame of mind and have good morning sunlight to aid my bright lights - the machine's inner workings are hard for old eyes to see in dim lighting.

While I was fixing things, I took some time to adjust the upper tension; before long I was removing the quilt from the frame. Yay! Hettie also asked me to make and attach the binding; once that was done, Hettie picked up her quilt for an evening of tacking down binding.

The backing and much of the front of this quilt is batik fabric. I know lots of longarmers don't care for quilting on batik, but I'd done it before and never had had any troubles. Even now, I don't know if that contributed in any way to my issues. I may never know, but I do know that with each setback I learn new things and grow more confident.

Meet Ezra Meeker, all 5 pounds, 10.5 ounces of  him! He was born Friday, October 20, and measured 17.75 inches long. He doesn't take up much space on his new quilt! Hettie snapped this for me to post here. Won't it be fun to watch as he grows and fills out this quilt!? 

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Jayne

Frienzies Making Magic

We made some magic and had a magical day doing it. We'd been scheduled to meet this month at my house, and when we learned that a wedding would be in our futures, we turned our get-together into a quilt-making session for bride-to-be Kenly.

Mother-of-the-bride Susan with Sherrie who kept us organized.

 

Lots of pics were taken, and certainly there's no need for me to include a bunch of words. You all know the drill - we eat, we sew, we visit, we laugh, we press and rip, we lay blocks out on the floor. All good! Here's a few glimpses of the fun.

Four of us sewed blocks - Sherrie, Sharon, Pam and myself. Hettie, Lyn and Susan did the pressing and any necessary seam-ripping (and yes, there was a bit). Lyn says she came for "comic relief," and we all need that, too! We had an honorary Frienzie joining us as Hettie brought her out-of-town friend Abby. It just so happens that Abby is a quilter, and honestly, she fit right in. 

Here are a few shots of the nearly-finished quilt - it is monochromatic - very light in the middle with gradually darker fabrics moving top or bottom.

All the diagonal rows are sewn together and those are here with me to sew into the final quilt top. Then it will need to be trimmed. The final quilt will be king-size, so yes, this took up most of the middle of the front room rug. Look at how everyone is studying intently to make sure we have all the blocks correctly placed. It was tricky, for sure. 

What a great group - eight women who taught together at CHS for years and as we retired, we felt we needed a way to stay connected. We have met monthly as "The Frienzies" for over 20 years or more. We sure miss Kay who now resides elsewhere, but the seven who are still local make the effort to remain in touch. And we do make frequent trips to connect with Kay over in the Dayton area.

Hope everyone is having a wonderful Friday! We had the most incredibly dense fog this morning! Finally now the sun is shining and blue skies are peeking through.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Special Kay Quilts

When one member of a long-time friend group reaches a point where her family knows it is necessary to move her into safe surroundings, the friend group feels the absence of their friend immensely. Our group, the Frienzies, has experienced this over the course of the last nearly-two years, when our beloved Kay and her husband were moved to assisted living. Two of us (Sharon and I) were called upon by the daughters to please organize and share the contents of Kay's extensive sewing room and closets.

You can meet all the Frienzies in this post; it covers quite an assortment of topics but if you scroll down a bit, you'll see our group pic and be able to put names to faces. Also, type "Frienzies" into the search bar here and you will have a plethora of posts to peruse.

I've frequently spoken of the Frienzies here on the blog. We all taught together at CHS and as each of us retired, we made and gifted a quilt to the happy retiree. Kay was the first of us to retire; all our quilts ended up being from the same pattern - Christmas Confetti by Thimbleberries. Click here to see my retirement quilt.

So, getting to the point of today's post, in Kay's sewing stuff Sharon and I found many completed quilt tops that were just too nice to allow to fade into the oblivion that occurs when personal effects are sorted in situations such as this. Making decisions in this situation would be difficult for anyone; for the two of us, it was overwhelming. The one thing we were fairly confident of, though, was taking 8 quilt tops and backs (if available) for Frienzies. Sharon and I would finish these quilts for Kay, and give them to each Frienzie. With the exception of mine and Sharon's, the finished quilts have all been distributed. 

Last November, we presented the first one to Lyn. Click here to see that post. It was made with French General fabric; very pretty.

 

We took one particular beauty to Kay herself this last spring, and I wrote about it here. A picture from that day is below.

 

Finally, the remaining Frienzies have been given their quilts. We got together on Wednesday for a luncheon at Sherrie's and we distributed 4 quilts. Typically, I forgot to take pictures, so I asked them all to send one to me. Here is the Parade Of Special Kay Quilts! 

Susan and her Special Kay Quilt.

Sherrie and her Special Kay Quilt.

Pam and her Special Kay Quilt.

Hettie and her Special Kay Quilt.

I did take pictures of each of these quilts as I quilted them, and I may share them in an upcoming post. It gave me great opportunities for practicing at the long arm, that's for sure. I will be getting the two remaining quilt tops out and ready for quilting in 2023. For now, I need a break. 

We all have quilt tops or WIPs (works in progress) and do we actually know what would become of them if the day should come that we cannot finish them? Personally, I hope some friends will take the reigns and do with them something that would please me. And I do think Kay will be pleased to learn how these quilts have been distributed.

Have a great Saturday!

Happy Quilting, Friends!