Both NYE Mystery Pictures for 2008!

This isn't the greatest picture, but here are my first six Colonial History quilt blocks I am doing in bluework, I just finished the seventh one last night while watching Slumdog Millionare which was good, but haven't taken a photo yet.
I need to iron them and they will get a border...trying to decide if I should go with blue or red? Let me know if you have a suggestion or reccommendation!

Ann B. Smith's mystery for NYE 2008 is all quilted and bound. I finished it up at my Quilt History meeting! I love it, and it doesn't have a home yet! Sorry for the wrinkles in it!

And the borders are on the Double Delight from Bonnie Hunter's NYE Mystery!

The top border hangs over the wall and it is a bit smushed for the picture, but I didn't have two people available to hold it! I couldn't be happier with the end result for either of these quilts!!!!!

I have a freelance job in a bit, but after that I plan to do something sewing related!

Productive Weekend at Quilt Camp!

I hardly know where to start...Here is the room we were quilting in at camp. You can see our quilt auction quilts on the back wall and my sewing station is the second machine in from where I am standing. The only glitch in the whole weekend was when my dang Janome machine went kaplooey four hours into the whole deal! Sigh. I ran in to Wal-Mart and got a cheap machine which ran like a top all weekend. The gals all could not believe how fast I returned and got to sewing!

Here are the sleeping quarters. My roommate was Tina. She was a super nice gal though I dind't really get to talk to her much since we were only in the room awake together for about 10 minutes total! Our room is the one right next to the bathroom opening.

Here is the inside of the room. Nothing fancy and I should say that the first night I had the bed with the post...I had to LAUNCH myself in by the light of my cellphone at 2 AM without waking up Tina..not easy to get in a sleeping bag, it involved hitting my head a few times, but I slept all the way through breakfast Saturday morning. I had some migraines, but by Sunday I was finally feeling well.

Had big plans to post what I would be working on before I went..never happened and actually I never got time to make some of this stuff because there just wasn't enough time...so I have these bags all cut out for the nieces and nephews for Christmas but that is where they are at. I did manage to make progress with the two Streak of Lightening quilts in green and pink!

I also brought my completed NYE Mystery designed by Ann B. Smith. I sewed the binding on and got half way through hand sewing it on. It looks great!

One needs the pink border put on but they are together!

And what I was doing all afternoon and until 2 AM Friday and again ALL DAY Saturday finishing around 5 PM is my Double Delight border! You can see it partially done in the first picture, but by the time I got the blue border on the sun had gone and the pic isn't great...will get another one when there is daylight and I am home!

This took forever but adds so much to the quilt that I am happy I did it. I will save this quilt from our house if it ever burns down...seriously...someone posted how many pieces are in that quilt and I can't remember but it is ALOT!
I finally met an online quilt friend who belongs to the group (Hi Becky, that is you) and coincidently she was working on Bonnie Hunter's Carolina Crossroads quilt! She got her whole top together and she was seated across from me by luck and it was such fun. We talked about Bonnie and Quiltville, she brought Bonnie's book and some of the gals were so excited to go buy it and check out the website so that was fun! So here we are side by side (we sewed in the chapel of the camp) with our quilts under us!

Here was our camp mascot. He is a service dog in training (two of the gals train him) and he was very well behaved. The only time I heard him bark was when they told him to speak just after this photo! We made many more quilts than this all told, a few gals left by the time we hung them and a few didn't find space to hang them or didn't come out til later but their quilts were gorgeous too! I have more pics of the individual quilts I may show later on...I feel like I really got to know all the gals or at least most of them. I can't say that I have ever joined a friendly group--seriously nice people who made me feel right at home and who I hope to get to know in the years to come. I will be going back to camp in November!

Quilt Camp Rocked!

Do you see any of my finished work? Amazing weekend at quilt camp! Have lots more pictures to post, but here is a sneak peek!

Giraffes, Fixing the DD, Quilt History Block and Tablerunner of the Month Progress

The whole family went to the Wildlife Zoo last Sunday and the highlight was feeding the giraffes! Aren't they cute?

Here is my Country Lanes block from my quilt history class. This one went together extremely easily! Very happy with it!

Did some repair work on the Double Delight...turned that messed up block around...didn't find anymore so it is ready for borders. Last night we cut strips so I can make a cheddar border and then a nine patch border...thinking blue on the outside at this point.

At my tablerunner class I put together this butterfly April tablerunner.

I have only worked on the machine applique of one of the butterflies, but am liking it so far...a vast improvement from my last machine applique. The teacher helped me understand how to do it and I have lots to do before the next meeting!
Quilt Camp next weekend, so I am working on getting things assembled by project. So far I have my Double Delight borders all ready to go and a charm square bag for Suli (since I gave my mom the last one I made!). I have to get more stuff ready to go...decisions, decisions!

March's Quilt History Group

Here is my nephew Ben with one of his Eye Spy quilts I made him.

Can you spot the tiny tomato on this plant yet? I took this picture about two weeks ago and already there are more out there...shouldn't be too long before they are turning red!

I enjoyed my Quilt History group again as usual...I had plans to type up my notes and info from the class so that I would have a record of my learning and others who may be interested could read it too but I have been SO busy that I am just getting to it now. I finished up my online class on the Arizona Constitution tonight--yay! I don't even need it anymore since I was one of the zillion teachers laid off in Arizona last Friday, but I paid for it so I finished it anyway.

We talked about Mountain Mist at our Quilt History meeting and I learned alot. Alot of the information our speaker gave us was from "The Origin of Mountain Mist Patterns" published in Uncoverings in 1995 by Merikay Waldvogel and from her own personal tour of the Mountain Mist collection when it was displayed in Columbus Ohio on October 2008.

Stearns and Foster was founded in 1846 because of the need for cotton batting that wouldn't tear or stretch. They built a mill in Cincinnati, Ohio where they had other poducts such as air filters, mattresses, horse leg wraps, medical supplies, quilted robes and upholstered furniture. They sold cotton batting in bulk as 50 pound bales and kept it in boxes to maintain the loft. They banded the rolls of batting with plain dark-blue tissue paper wrappers and retailers could put their information on them. In the 1920's there were eighteen names for this same cotton batting. They advertised "100 percent new cotton fiber with no second-hand material with a glazene finish to make it easy to cut and quilt" the glazene was apparently a water and flour mixture!

There were big changes in 1928 when the company bought Putnam-Hooker Co. which specialized in southern cotton products. Frederick Hooker took over the batting marketing for them. He made the outer wrapper colorful with 16 different quilt blocks and included a full size quilt block pattern on the inside of the wrapper to encourage sales. This was a huge marketing success. Some of the patterns in the wrapper were original designs by art teacher Margaret Hays of Chattanooga, Tennessee (though some say her sister helped or did them entirely). Others were updated version from old quilts, or name changes of well known patterns. The designs simplified over time perhaps as they got feedback from quilters about the difficulty of some of the patterns. (These ladies didn't have rotary cutters folks!)

The original printing dies for some of these patterns were on display at the M.M show and are really neat to see. I have a picture but couldn't find any online to put here. The dies were labled with letters for each wrapper and when one was retired it was often replaced with a different pattern. Pattern C--the Shamrock was published in 1928 but was difficult and was discontinued and isn't listed with their patterns available for sale.

There were a total of 130 patterns available and while they were not the first pattern incentive that went along with batting (in 1919 Rock River Cotton Company out of Janesville, Wisconsin included a pattern with their batting) it was quite successful. They also hired a woman for to be Phoebe Edwards Lloyd who answered quilters questions and got fan mail. Three gals and even Hooker took turns at being Phoebe though the original had used part of her grandmother's name for eight years before turning it over. Hooker stayed with the company until 1956 (27 years) and people remember him as a fabulous, smiling, hardworking man.

So that is a bit of the history we talked about...there was much more but you get the idea. If you are still with me at this point (thanks!) we got two or three more bluework blocks to do (I still had one to go from last time since the skin on my thumb wore off and I tried to remedy it with little plastic cots which made it worse!) and we got one simple block to sew that I plan to get to tomorrow along with a zillion other odds and ends.

I am going to quilt camp next weekend so I brainstormed a list of things I need to get together for that...lots of prepping stuff. I think I am overly ambitious about what I can get done in 2.5 days! More on that tomorrow I am sure.

I also went to a tablerunner of the month class at another shop in town. Barb is the teacher and I was the only student this month. She is FABULOUS! Seriously I learned a ton and the price was right so thank you to the gal that sent me to this shop for classes. She taught me how to do applique on my machine and it looks SO MUCH better than the stuff I have done on my own. Pics on that tomorrow too. I have to finish it but getting there!

The Whoops on my Double Delight and a Norway Linen

Migraines bad lately...not doing much sewing...my parents are in town this weekend (at my sister's an hour away) from Texas so I will be going up there this weekend. Hoping I feel better for that. Other problems....

Check out the close up of my Double Delight....it is hanging waiting for borders and I noticed a WHOOPS block the other night...one of my nine patches is messed up...sigh. I can't leave it or I will lose sleep, so I shall rip it out and fix it! Also plan to scour the whole thing for more whoops!

Last weekend Randy and I stopped at an antique mall for a huge outside flea market they had and for $2.75 this brand new (but who knows how old) linen about Norway on it! Pretty sure it was purchased there because it had a price tag on it that looked like the ones I remember from when I was there. Randy and I visited Norway a few years ago...I was tickled to death to see that the linen had the Stave Church on it which was one of the things we visited while we were there. Here is one of my pictures of it!

We got to see the coast of Norway at Arendal (and stayed on an island there) and travelled by train all the way up to Solvorn where my great grandfather Anton Walker was born and raised before moving to Wisconsin at age 18. I need to type up a blog reminiscing about this trip from the handwritten journal I kept at the time...so the linen brought back a lot of good memories of the trip of a lifetime I got to take. Oh and to make this fabric related too...I bought several meters of a blue plaid and red plaid fabric when I was there and I still don't know what to make with it. I may try to combine it with this linen. If you have any suggestions let me know! Also, tell me about your trip of a lifetime!