Winters Heritage House Quilt Display

It was fun to display a few of my quilts again at the Winters Heritage House quilt exhibit here in town again this year.  Last year my quilts were tied up for a trunk show I did for my guild, so it had been two years since I had any quilts in their exhibit.

Numbers 15 and 18 were my contributions.  :)

And, it was fun to again view the quilt I had machine quilted for my friend Laurie last fall.

It never ceases to amaze me how much better a quilt looks after you've taken a break from being too hard on yourself re: your machine quilting abilities.

:)

Another Zip Pouch!

OK, this makes me laugh....  I say I don't like particularly like batiks, but when I went to stitch this project, these batik scraps begged to be used!

My friend Phyllis who is a sewing newbie inspired me to make this cord holder.  She saw the idea on Pinterest and made one, even tackling fusible interfacing and Velcro all by herself!

Again, I had a zipper in the perfect color from my thrift shop stash.

I'm still trying to get the hang of the best way to do the zipper tabs, but I think I like Missouri Star's method the best.

These pouches are addicting....

Nancy Virginia's Hexagons

The time has come for me to finally part with my sister-in-law's quilt!  I had finished stitching it for her back in January, but only now got around to photographing and hand delivering it to her over the weekend.

It's such a dear quilt!  And, its sweetness was so difficult to capture....  

But, here's my attempt!

Nancy stitched the hexagons out of her clothing scraps sometime between 1978 and 1986.  I offered to turn the hexagons into a quilt for her for a Christmas present last year.  

She wanted to use the quilt on her antique sleigh bed, so we configured it exactly for the bed.  We were able to fit all 13 hexagons onto the top of the double bed.  (I love it when things work out so perfectly!)

I simply topstitched the hexagons onto Kona cotton (color PDF) with Aurifil 50 wt thread (I love that thread - it blends so beautifully!), then machine quilted it with a 3-step zig zag stitch using a walking foot, giving it a vintage feel.

Here's a shot of the label (you can never have too many hexagons!).

Because I knew it was going to be hard to part with this quilt, I shot lots of pictures.

A few in my backyard:

Then, a few at my friend Linda's lovely house in town:

She's a wonderful photographer with a good eye for lighting, so I had her snap some pictures for me too:

And, a few pictures at Bryan & Nancy's home. They have a spectacular view of the mountains to the west, but we had to wait until the sun set, and by then, it was almost too dark.  

I would have loved to take a picture right in the center of this field, but that was easier said than done with the tricky lighting and the very limited time we had left to shoot some photos!

So, I was happy to get at least these shots:

This is the reason why it was hard to part with this quilt:

 Nancy's quilt has been perfectly content to lay across this chair right inside my front door since January.  Numerous friends and customers have seen it and commented on it.  I hated to part with it; the longer it remained on my living room chair, the more it seemed like it wanted to stay put.  But, it feels good to have documented this dear quilt, and to have completed my goal of finishing a quilt for each of my sisters and sister-in-law.  (Here are pictures of Renee's and Alison's from previous Christmas's.) 

Nancy, I hope your beautiful hexagon quilt gives you many years of joy!

Comfort Quilt for a Pastor

I had the privilege of machine quilting this special quilt for a customer who lovingly stitched it for her pastor who is going through cancer treatment.

  

She purchased the quilt pattern and Scripture motifs from the Log Cabin Quilt Shop in Bird in Hand.  

Since the Scripture blocks needed to be the main focus, I did a simple stipple in the body of the quilt.

Then, I did some squiggles (need a name for this design!) in the inner border, and piano keys in the outer border.  (I find if I practice on my white board first, it saves me from having to practice on a quilt sandwich, eliminating waste.)  

:)

I'm thinking I need to do a similar quilt for myself!  I had purchased a quilt kit to console myself during my cancer journey 8 years ago, but never got around to stitching the quilt.  These Scripture blocks would be perfect for incorporating into that quilt, as they remind me of all the time I spent dialoguing with the Lord re: my bewilderment....

Below are closeups of each Scripture block before they were quilted:  

Trusting that this quilt will bring comfort and healing!