Design Wall June 21st

My design wall today has 28 blocks attached that I won on the block lotto. I still have a few more on their way to me.

A big thank you to Coralie (Canada), Julie (England), Laura (GA,USA), Linda (Texas USA), Maree (New Zealand), Mary (WA, USA), Ramie (WA, USA) and Sandi (GA, USA).

What do you buy for an 80 year old ?

My cousin John will be 80 years old next month and I wanted to buy him a little present but what? Suddenly the thought came to me to make him a notebook with a fabric cover. I found a photo of him as a youngster with his mother, our grandmother and great-grandmother. Hope it gives him a smile.

Todays workshop at Poppy Patch

Todays workshop with Helen Spence was making an interesting block with 4 FQ's and background fabric. The FQ colours rotate making this a very nice table runner.

Each block measures 15 inches.

Visit the New Blog

Hamtune Quilters of Northampton England have a new blog.

If you want to see the rest of the quilt made for an exchange with Northampton Western Australia check out the site.

hamtunequilters.blogspot.com

Family Tree quilt goes together

Gradually my Family Tree is coming together.

After adding a 1 1/4 inch border to every picture I was very unsure how to make all the different size photos fit together.

Chris [ usually called Mr Fixit ] suggested making them all either 6, 9, 12 or 15 inches plus the 1/2 inch for the seam allowance.

As I had been using a jelly roll I just added a strip to each side and then cut them down to various sizes.. all went together well except I had a 6 inch slot missing, so I added another photo of my in-laws wedding and I now have it ready to quilt.

June Block Lotto

The block for the June entry in the Block Lotto, was a simple three piece green, blue and purple set. I managed to make 9 this afternoon.

It is fun being taken out of my comfort zone, I would never have put these colours together!

Block Lotto

Wow I won on my first attempt.
36 blocks will be winging their way to me from all over the place, Florida, Canada, New Mexico, Derbyshire, Georgia, Texas, North Carolina, New Zealand and Washington. This is so exciting.
My blocks to send to other people that won are off to Georgia and Oregon tomorrow.
Check out the link button on my side panel if you want to play.

My design Wall

I have all the photos printed on fabric ready for my FAMILY QUILT. Today I finished putting on the first borders and now have to decide how I am actually going to put them together.

In my research I managed to find photos of all my immediate family members back to all eight Great Grandparents, some are photos of paintings. I have also added other photos to make it more interesting, there is a business card from a family member in Hawaii, letter from an uncle while a prisoner of war, wedding announcement from the newspaper for my parents etc etc..

I have used part of a jelly roll, and I now have the rest of the jelly roll to fill in spaces and bulk it out, but how I am going to handle this part of the quilt I have no idea!

Machine embroidery

This has been a hard time for me and I did not trust myself with a rotary cutter!!

To pass the time I did a lot of machine embroidery on my Brother Innovis 4000D.

I love the cowboy hat and boot full of flowers, and the frog design has been on my "to do" list for a long time. They measure about 8 x 6 inches, and I have no idea what I am going to use them for. Maybe a bag front, cushion, picture.. who knows?

The family

After John R Glasspool [Jack]'s funeral the family took the wreathes and placed them on his wife's grave. He will be interred in the same plot eventually.

L to R : Eleanor kneeling down, Abigail in pink, Jacqueline and Richard together, Ken and Carol [ Chris's sister and husband] and then Chris is his new suit.