A Little of This, A Little of That

It seems I start off each blog post with, "It has been a busy week....", and then proceed to tell how little I have been doing in the quilting department. This has been a busy week with family things but I have done a little bit here and there in the quilt studio.

First off I have cut out more half squares for my leader ender project from Bonnie Hunter at Quiltville. I now have a small basket full of these so I can have them handy right next to my piecing machine.

I have over a hundred done now and plan to make at least 300.

I have also been working on my string blocks and have over a hundred of them made. I have them in set of two because I need blocks going in two different directions so this makes over 50 sets.

At one point in our life we lived in Japan for 3 1/2 years. In Japan is was necessary to carry your own tissues for the restrooms when you were out and about. We generally carried the small packets of tissues to wipe after using the restroom and also another one to dry our hands after washing. Paper towels were never provided. Most Japanese carried cloth handkerchiefs and used these to dry their hands. It was very common to see these cloth handkerchiefs on the sidewalk where someone had dropped them accidentally. They were always clean looking and it was very clear that they had been used to dry hands only. Being a foreigner, I was very intrigued by cloth handkerchiefs. When I was young it was very common to have these cloth handkerchiefs and we used these all the time to blow our noses. So I started to pick up these lost handkerchiefs and collected them all the time we lived in Japan.

I always thought it would be great to make something out of these handkerchiefs. I few years ago I found this book to make all kinds of things out of handkerchiefs or to use handkerchief type fabric to make things. I have let this project stew in the stash for several years now and I think I need to start making something from all the handkerchiefs I have. This projects folds the handkerchiefs so they look like butterflies.

I even have a couple of handkerchiefs that have butterflies on them so I need to really think through how I want to make this project. The one shown in the book is a full size quilt but I am thinking more of a wall hanging.

Well, this is all for this week. I will talk again next week.

Bright as the Summer Sun

Here we are with another week flying by. I am not sure I am ready for Thanksgiving but it sure is coming ready or not.
I have decided that I am going to do the Bonnie Hunter Mystery this year. It has been a few years since I have done one. I have printed out the mysteries in the past but have not had the time to do them yet. So this year I decided I owed it to myself to enjoy the experience.
So I have pulled all my fabric from stash after getting the colors strips from Lowe's. I am very excited about this quilt. I will only be using fabrics from my stash.  Here are my selections.

I have finally put together this quilt top that I was working on back in March of this year. I am making it for an old co-worker. It is queen size and I will not be putting borders on it because it would probably not fit on my HQ very well if I made it bigger. It is 93 inches by 105 inches.

The sun was very bright today so the colors are a little washed out. This quilt reminds me of the Summer Sun.

Well, I do not have any more news for this week other than tomorrow I go up to Coalville to a Camper World with the trailer so my husband and grandson can go hunting for an elk. I will just be in the trailer sewing my string blocks and enjoying the solitude.

Take care and I will talk again next week.

Another Week Has Come and Gone

Life certainly does not slow down. I hope each week that I will have time in the quilt studio and every week I find myself on Friday and I haven't done anything significant in quilting.
I no longer have major work in the yard, yeah!
I am coming to the end of job searching, yeah!
I am done with bottling for this year, yeah!
So, other than routine house work I should have more time for me to do what I like to do.
I still have not made decisions about the Grandmother's Garden blocks because I have not talked to my friend about the reality of making these two quilts.

I have finished the binding on my table runner and so I feel very good about that.

I have also had to buy a new camera, I dropped my old camera one too many times. I purchased a Nikon Coolpix. It was on sale at RC Willey and will work nicely with taking pictures of my quilts and other things.

I have also finally finished Miss Columbine and will start Miss Crocus soon. I am trying to add more texture to each of these embroideries and so I am very happy with the leaves on this flower. I had to totally change the leave from the original so it would more closely match the leaves on the Columbine flowers in real life. I am happy with the results.

I would press her but I don't want to set the transfer pencil to a permanent state.

I have decided that I need to just start quilting the tops I have ready and to stop fussing about running out of batting. The cost of a very large roll of batting is out of my reach at this time but I want to quilt so I need to move forward and get these tops quilted.

I hope that I have more to show next week. Take care!

Look at These Amazing Blocks

I have a friend who has given me some blocks to evaluate to make a couple of quilts. He wants me to tell him how much it would cost and if I will put these blocks together into quilts.

There are 163 hand sewn blocks with original fabric. I am guessing that they are definitely from the 1930's, 1940's and possible from the 1950's.

I sorted them into some rough sections.

Blue on the outside.

Blue on the inside.

Pink on the outside.

Pink on the inside.

Green on the outside.

Green on the inside.

Yellow on the inside.

Yellow on the outside.

Red in the inside.

Purple/Lavender on the inside.

I think you get the idea. I have a few more pictures but this is enough for this post. My problem is that I know that these are a wonderful find. They have original fabrics and are hand sewn. 24 of the blocks are markedly smaller than the rest but the sewer had written that she planned to applique them to 12 inch background squares so if they are scattered over the quilt you would probably not notice the different sizes.

My friend wants a price for putting these together and making the quilts. I have no idea. Also, I think that they should be hand appliqued on the squares not machine appliqued. I know it would take me years to hand applique these onto the squares. What to do? What to do?

I need some advise and help to know what I should tell him.

I have not been able to do much of anything else but some mending in the quilt studio this week.
I will hopefully have more time next week.