This is the final block (#12) in the Block of the Month series. Yippee! This one was pretty tedious, with 72 triangles in this 12" block. As usual, I changed some of the fabrics and did a little rearranging of the supplied fabrics. The new series begins the first week of September and I've signed up for this new BOM series too.

I made a 13th block to add to this series. The BOM series ended up having 8-12" blocks and 4-6" blocks. Unless you set them in kind of a medallion or even put all 4-6" blocks together to make a 12" block, the setting just didn't make sense to me. This extra block now gives me 9-12" blocks, enough to make a 3 x 3 block square tablecloth or lap quilt. I think my leftover 6" blocks will become pot holders. My kitchen is blue and they'll fit right in.

I have extra fabric to sash the blocks and add a border (maybe two). I'll post an update when I get the blocks set. Right now, I'm still thinking Christmas projects need to come first. Ho, Ho, Ho!

The second batch of monochromatic blocks arrived yesterday. I had sent two batches of 20- 6 1/2" blocks and received the same in return, in two mailings. A central hostess sorted and mailed out these blocks to the 50 participants. She certainly had a lot of work to get these blocks back to us.

I did end up with a duplicate block, but out of 40 blocks, this isn't bad. I had 5 blocks from the new batch that I took apart and resewed. They weren't that misshapen, but when you are working with a somewhat small block, there isn't much room for error. The tiny blocks don't have much stretching possibilities, so it was just easier to redo them. I feel that they will all go together easier by just resewing them. This extra work will save me time in the long run.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them yet and will put them on the back burner for the time being. I imagine that I will make a tablecloth out of them, maybe 6 blocks x 6 blocks. My kitchen table is a small round table and a square tablecloth looks nice with the corners draping down. We'll see.

Right now, I need to get into the Christmas gift making mode and get moving. I have several projects planned that I'm hoping won't be as time consuming as last year's gifts. I've also signed up for some classes for various projects that I believe will make good gifts. Although you certainly don't need classes to make gifts, it gives me a jump start. The classes are free at my fabric shop and the motivation is priceless!

There will always be a demand for people to make and donate quilts to various charities. The fabric below was sent to me from Quilts for Kids, an organization that delivers handmade quilts to sick children. Because I'm "financially challenged", they even provided the fabric for the quilt. Rules, inspirational stories, etc., may be found on their web site, http://www.quiltsforkids.org/. There might be a local chapter in your area, and if not, your quilts will be welcomed for national distribution.



This is the quilt label that they also enclosed. When I finish the quilt, I will sign my name and sew this to the back of the quilt.

As I said, there are many, many organizations that are in need of handmade quilts. Many will accept quilts and covers that are knitted, crocheted, fleece, quilted, etc. You will just have to find out what specific guidelines your chosen charity will require.

As life would have it, I was recently on the receiving end of a donated quilt. Not me, specifically, but a dear friend. She has been in ICU for a few weeks and received a beautiful, handmade lap quilt. In ICU, even balloons are restricted, so the only color in her drab room is this beautiful quilt. Once I found out the background of the quilt, I volunteered to make quilts for the ICU unit too. The least I can do is "pay it forward" as that quilt really touched my heart during a difficult time.

I just wanted to point out the great need for quilters to make quilts for charities. Many of you reading this blog are quilters and sewists and your skills are badly needed to keep these charities loaded with quilts. The ICU unit at my local hospital has given over 700 quilts in only a year and a half and are in constant need for more. That's a lot of quilts! So if you have the time, there is a worthy charity near you that needs your help. Please contact them for details and get started on a quilt that will bring hope, cheer, and brighten the day of someone special!

The Block of the Month series is coming to an end. This is block #11, a small 6" block. I think I'm just going to make pot holders out of the three-6" blocks that we have made throughout the year, as I don't feel that they will fit well with the larger blocks. I'll pick up a little extra fabric and make a few more 12" blocks to finish my quilt.

My orange color blocks are finished and ready to be mailed tomorrow!


Here are all 20 blocks....ready to go!

I was also able to redo the wonky blocks that I received in the first part of the exchange. When you have so many people involved in an exchange and so many levels of talent, it's no wonder that a few of the blocks may not meet your expectations. These exchanges are still a wonderful way to connect with other quilters and get a great variety of blocks and fabrics. I highly recommend joining the swaps and having fun!

Block #11 out of 12 is finished. I didn't do the best job on this block because I changed one of the fabrics and the pieces got lost in transition. If you look closely at the beige triangle sections, you will see that each triangle is actually made of four triangles. The original pattern called for the center triangle to be made with the same light blue fabric as the outer sections. I wasn't happy with the light blue and substituted a complimentary fabric which totally lost the definition of the separate triangles. It would have been much easier to just make one triangle instead of combining the four triangles. Up close, in person, you can see the four separate units but they are all but lost in this photo. It's still a nice enough block, but I certainly messed up the whole point of the design!




I received the first part of my mono color block exchange today! Twenty blocks, each reading one color. I was pretty happy with most of them. A couple were rather wonky and I will be enlisting "Jack the Ripper" to help me take them apart and resew them. It was fun to look at all of the different fabrics.


More mono color blocks.....(I did receive one duplicate so it will be returned for an exchange.) Oh, and are you observant enough to see that one of the blocks is rotating counter-clockwise instead of clockwise?




And the last four blocks....

I hope to start the next 20 blocks sometime this week. I have chosen orange for the color, as the hostess said they didn't receive many orange blocks in the first part of the exchange.

After a month away from my blog, I'm finally taking the time for a little update. Summer just seems to be busier than winter and even yard work takes me away from hobbies and crafts. My limited energy has to be divided and some things just have to be put on the back burner.

My dear sister-in-law, Patti, visited in June. One of our main goals was to make a baby quilt that will be given to her soon-to-be-born grand niece. We had planned on making the entire quilt, from design to quilting, while she was visiting.

Here's Patti sewing the strips together to make the Rail Fence pattern. She found some really sweet pink fabrics for the quilt.


A proud Patti showing off her completed quilt top! She did a wonderful job and took great care to make sure that her seams were nice and straight.

Now at this stage, the plan changed. We discovered that the quilt was taking many days of her visit and it still needed to be quilted and bound. Although Patti could have finished the quilt herself, we decided that we wanted to do a little sight seeing and just get out of the house for the last days of her visit. So.....I finished quilting and binding the quilt after she went back home.

The quilt is on route to Patti and I pray that she will like the finished product. Now all Patti needs is for her grand niece to make her entrance into the world!

One of our sight seeing stops was at the home of Gene Stratton-Porter. We toured the grounds and her home and were thrilled to learn about all of the other talents that Gene mastered. Writing was just a small part of her life. She was far ahead of her time as a naturalist, architect, artist, home decorator, etc., etc. She had to have been quite a force in her day when women were "seen and not heard." I had to snicker as I imagined how she must have been perceived by the men of her era....they had to have been pretty intimidated by her!

This is my "almost" finished lap quilt. It's almost done except for
quilting around the squares. I might even finish it off by tying the squares....gotta sleep on that decision. The top fabrics appear be cotton and cotton blends and the backing is flannel. I folded the backing over to the front, used a large zigzag stitch to attach it to the front and make a small border/binding. I'll finish it tomorrow at church and knew that I wouldn't be bringing it back home....thus....a picture of an almost finished lap quilt. It's a little larger than the other charity quilts so I've just left it folded for the picture. Plus, spreading a flannel quilt out on my floor means it will be attacked by cat hair! Just use your imagination to see the full quilt.

Only two weeks since planting and my rhublets are growing up! Check out the difference from my May 19th post compared to today. (No, the penny did not shrink) We've had ample rain and sunshine, perfect for plant growth. I have been watering them on any day that we don't receive rain, just to make sure they never want for moisture.
This lap quilt is another quilt for charity. Again, the material was donated to my church and it has a mixture of fabrics. I do believe that the top is all cotton, but the backing is flannel and my batting is some sort of thin fleece used for lining drapes. I hardly did any quilting at all, just around the scenes and the folded over binding. The fleece batting isn't going anywhere so I don't have to worry about it bunching up like some battings that require heavy quilting.

I have another small quilt to finish for my church. I have the top pieced, but have not laid it out for trimming, pinning, and then quilting. That's the hardest part in my opinion. I'd like to have it ready for quilting by Tuesday, when we meet at church for our afternoon of quilting. We'll see...........

This block was made for the summer block exchange that I told you about a few posts back. The blocks were to be monochromatic and I chose teal for my colorway.

And one block leads to another, and another, and another.......just like chips, I guess. I made 20 blocks for the exchange, the most that you could send, and I will receive 20 different blocks in return. This was a fun exchange because the blocks were quick and simple to make. I get myself in too deep sometimes, making obligations that can be a real burden and difficult to fulfill. These blocks only took about 3 hours total, from cutting----to sewing----to ironing---to trimming. My kind of project.

In just a few days since my last iris photos, about half of the irises have opened up. They line my sidewalk and add some nice color next to my house. Irises are such troopers. They come back every year without any help from me. That's my kind of flower!

I had a spectacular day today at my friend Joyce's home. My quilting friends and I met at her house for a birthday lunch and fellowship. This time, instead of a birthday cake, I made this Cappuccino Cheesecake. It has to be the easiest cheesecake that I've ever made and very tasty. The recipe follows and came from the Taste of Home recipe collection.

Cappuccino Cheesecake Pie
With a rich mocha filling and cute chocolate garnish, this yummy pie is good any time at all.—Elisa Pellegriti, Florida, New York
SERVINGS: 8
CATEGORY: Dessert
METHOD: Baked
TIME: Prep: 20 min. + standing Bake: 40 min. + chilling
Ingredients:
2 packages (8 ounces each) cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup Domino® or C&H® Granulated Pure Cane Sugar
1 envelope mocha cappuccino mix (1/4 cup)
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/4 cup milk
1 extra-servings-size graham cracker crust (9 ounces)
GARNISH:
1/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 teaspoon shortening
Directions: In a large bowl, beat the cream cheese, sugar and cappuccino mix until smooth. Add eggs and milk; beat just until combined. Pour into the crust. Bake at 325° for 40-45 minutes or until the center is almost set. Cool on a wire rack for 1 hour. Refrigerate for 3 hours or overnight. In a small microwave-safe bowl, melt chocolate chips and shortening; stir until smooth. Spread into a 4-in. square on a sheet of waxed paper. Let stand at room temperature until firm, about 1 hour. Using a small heart-shaped cookie cutter, cut out eight chocolate hearts. Top each serving with a heart. Refrigerate leftovers. Yield: 8 servings.

Joyce has a huge pond behind her house and these humongous catfish (and others) came up for a good feast. It was a feeding frenzy and such fun to watch! We all had a great day communing with nature when Joyce took us on a Ranger ride through her wooded acreage. (We held on tight!) Perfect weather, perfect friends, perfect day. :-)

I joined a new summer sway today. There are 50 swappers and we will each be making 20-6 1/2" blocks, using five fabrics with one colorway. Similar to the picture above. I've already picked out my fabrics and it should be fairly quick to get them all sewn (famous last words.....). The best part is waiting for the blocks from the other swappers to arrive. That won't be until mid July so I'll have to simmer down for the moment and be patient!

More garden shots. My iris's are just starting to bud. In a few days, they will all be in full bloom and will line the side of my house with purplishious color!

This is one of my freshly planted rhubarb plants. Rhublets, at this stage. I've planted 12 plants which will give me more rhubarb than I'll ever use once they mature. It will be a couple of years before these rhublets will produce, so I'll have to be patient and get my rhubarb from friends and farmers markets. I'll try to remember to take some shots as these plants grow.

The Block of the Month continues....... this is the May block. I substituted the fabrics again, using only the large blue flower fabric that was supplied. Although I like my fabric choices better, I'm not sure that I chose the best fabrics to make the pattern pop. Do-overs are just too time consuming and this block looks pretty good in person. I think I'll just leave it alone!
And another block in the pinwheel series. I'm still several blocks behind, in spite of the fact that these patterns are simple and quick. I think I need help with time management!

My church has a new quilting group that makes baby quilts for charitable organizations around the area. I joined the quilting group last week and finished my first baby quilt today. The fabric (and suggested pattern) was provided so this is not the fabric of my choice. In fact, this quilt contains different types of fabric, from cotton to cotton blends and polyester. Plus, the fabrics had very different thread counts. Fabrics that I would normally not combine in anything other than an art quilt or wall hanging.

Well, anyway....here it is. It's about 36" x 36", which was a hint smaller than the size of the backing that I was given. It's a very simple 9-patch.


I did want to point out the way that I quilted this baby quilt. Because of the different fabrics and thread counts, and because a baby quilt that is actually used may get washed almost daily, I wanted to make sure that the seams held up to a lot of use. I used a narrow zigzag stitch to quilt the layers and to reinforce the seams. Hopefully, the fabric will actually wear out before the seams give way.

This is the back side of the baby quilt. The zigzag stitch (plus the slick polyester fabric) gives an unusual finish compared to normal quilting but I still think it was the right decision to help this quilt hold up to daily use.

Most importantly, of course, I pray that the child who receives this quilt will live a healthy and happy life!

"Canstruction" was at the local mall today, and my friend Jerry and I went to see the displays. The structures were made by local high school students and the components were all canned goods.

I'm not sure what this one was supposed to be, but I liked it. Kind of an exploding clam, a broken egg......whatever.





This one was pretty obvious. They had actually put some sort of light in the top of the lighthouse.

And this one was my favorite. Simple, but well done.

All of these cans of food will be donated to the local food banks. My pictures don't show much in the way of scale, but this can was probably 10' tall. Many of the structures contained over 12,000 cans of food, so this was a very worthy effort.

This is the carousel at the mall. Just thought I'd throw this picture in too. It's a really spectacular carousel, with every kind of animal from a rabbit to a dragon. Plus, it's a double decker!

Another pinwheel block. Again, not much contrast between the three fabrics but I'm still happy to be using fabric from my stock.

Now I'm heading outside to mow the yard. I needed to wait for the dew to dry up a bit before mowing and decided to put this block together while I was waiting. Thankfully, my yard is tiny and I'll be able to get my work done pretty quickly. Have a great day!

One of my recently added sidebars is for an organization called Kiva. It is a program that loans to small businesses, usually in impoverished areas. I've been a member for a couple of years and have been able to help three women entrepreneurs build their businesses.

When I first joined Kiva, there were hundreds of people asking for loans. As this very successful program has continued, they actually have to look to find entrepreneurs that need the additional help. At times, there are no loans needed, which is a wonderful problem to have.

Once you pick the person that you would like to help fund, you choose the amount that you would like to donate. I picked $25, the most that I could afford, and once the money is repaid to you, you can turn around and loan that same money again. I've loaned to three people and they have very diligently paid their loans back. I just keep my $25 in motion and it continues to help others at no further cost to me beyond the original donation.

Just wanted to throw this out to you in case you hadn't heard of Kiva. I highly recommend this organization and, selfishly, it gives me a nice feeling knowing that I've helped a person in need become successful.

Now go and check out Kiva for yourself! Find the entrepreneur that speaks to your heart and help them reach their goal!

(Just wanted to add that in the time that it took me to write this post, the woman that I funded, received her full funding. I was the second to donate and within 15 minutes, her entire loan was funded. That's how widespread this program has gone and how quickly people step up to help others! Now see if there is someone else that could use a little help from you!)

It's been awhile since I've completed a Psalms block, but I had some free time today and jumped in. I've done this block before, for my own personal quilt with different fabrics, but this block will go into a charity quilt that several of us are working on. The charity quilt will be made with all hand dyed fabrics for continuity.

This is Psalm 16:7; I will praise the Lord, who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me.


Spring brings thoughts of gardening and this is my little indoor succulent "garden". I really enjoy these types of plants. The succulent on the left is blooming and the next picture shows the tiny flowers.

Aren't they pretty and delicate? God's creativity is amazing!

Yesterday was a three-way birthday celebration! Life, is seems, always gets in the way of our time together, and my quilting friends had missed three birthdays. Getting us all together at one time can be a challenge. We decided to have all three birthdays at once and celebrate their special, although belated, birthdays. I baked the cake, which was a simple carrot cake.

Now you don't see my name on the cake, do you? Well, Lois, one of the birthday ladies got all of us, even the non-birthday ladies, special gifts too. She got me ALL of this fabric and the fabric in the next photo, plus the quilt book below.

More beautiful fabric!

This is the quilt book that Lois got for me. It has several great patterns in it.

This is the pattern that I will be making. Lois has provided all of the fabric needed to make this quilt top. I love basket quilts and she couldn't have picked out a more pleasing pattern or fabrics.

I feel so blessed and grateful for this wonderful gift....and for no reason except that Lois is an exceptional friend, full of love and generosity! Thank you, Lois, for this special gift and for your priceless gift of friendship!

Block of the Month time..... I did finish my March block in time. I made it the night before it was due. I've never waited that long to complete these blocks, as you have to have the previous block completed before you can pick up your next month's block without a charge. (It's complicated, but trust me, it's worth having your block completed.) This one is a 12" block.

And while I was on a roll, I went ahead and finished the block that I picked up, the April block. It was a super simple block and didn't take much time. I'll certainly be ready for my May block now. ;) This little block is 6".