And My Sister's Decision is...

Here is how it looks after Tina made her decision...now to figure out the border!

One More Layout..which is best?

Burgoyne's Star Quilt Settings

So I spent more time working on this quilt...I got all the blocks done only to discover I somehow didn't have 9 blocks but 8! So I had to whip up another block...not sure what other color I could add so I did a mixed block and I am not sure I like it. I may have to do another full color scrappy block. I will post some pictures and maybe if I am lucky I will get some feedback on which looks the best!

Making Progress on Another Quilt

I spent about six hours yesterday (and two today) working on a mystery that I didn't participate in awhile back. I think I might not have been with the group at the time they did it. It was created by Dorothy Young and is called "Burgoyne's Stars" I saw the finished quilts in the photo album and knew I needed to do one with a different color in each block using up some of my quilt leftovers. I think this one will go to my sister Tina in AZ. She used to have an Irish Chain quilt I made (way back before I knew what I was doing) that fell apart on me so I passed it on to her. She can't find it and always talks about how she wishes she could find it. So I am hoping she will like this one since it will be similar when it is done. Here are the three completed blocks I have so far--the rest of the blocks are about half together...they are huge blocks!

Mac (my 15 year old son) went skiing with the church group and Randy and I went to help my aunt and uncle move across town. Wore me out and killed my back even though I tried hard not to lift too much. Came home all excited to quilt, but my get up and go went fast so I think I may save the next six blocks for tomorrow...usually when I get closer to the end I can't stop, but I am ready to head to bed with a book (and it is only 10 my time hahahaha!)

To

The Mystery Quilt with borders on

TA DA! I got the borders on late this afternoon and peiced the backing and got the binding cut out. I am really happy with how this looks and debating if I should give it to my mom since she is complaining hers isn't big enough...Kathy says she doesn't mind making a different one for her sister JoAnn.

The Gift of a Quilt--a story worth retelling

This is the quilt gift I got in June 2006. It was made for my great grandmother Annan (on my dad's side) and she gave it to the woman who was raising her grandsons after her daughter died who I proudly call my Grandma Nan though Annan's daughter was really my Grandmother.

So last Friday I spent the day with my Grandma Nan (my father's adopted mother) cleaning all of her closets, dressers, etc. in preparation of her move Aug. 1st. I am the organizer in the family and the always willing to help one, so I was nominated for the job. I have much fun with Grandma Nan though so I wasn't even dreading it and it turned out to be an amazing day!

While sorting through all of the stuff that has accumulated in her apartment the past 24 years, we came across two quilts in her cedar chest drawer (dressers are not made like that nowadays!) and she told me a few stories that I want to record here. The first quilt we came across was a crib size tiny hexagon quilt which was all hand stitched and hand quilted (hours and hours of work) and had been given by my great grandma Annan (real name Eva Maude Lottridge) to her only daughter Florence's firstborn son in 1944 (my uncle Lewis who incidentally built the house I now live in and died in 1998 of ALS). Somehow when my grandma Florence died Annan wound up with the quilt and later when Grandma Nan married my Grandpa Len and had my uncle Rick, Annan gave it to her for Rick to use since she had no descendants except the boys Nan was raising (Lewis, my uncle Jim and my dad Al). Grandma Nan said she used it with Rick and later with the grandkids, most recently Rick's daughter Lindy.

A little deeper in the drawer we came across a double bed size quilt that looks like a large star in the middle and is surrounded by a larger star. It is pastel colored with pink backing. It is also hand stitched and quilted and is in fabulous shape! It has most likely been in Grandma's drawer with little use these past years. Grandma said that Annan had it made (she thinks) by a friend for Nan and Len to have on their bed after they got married. While I oohed and aahed and couldn't believe that Grandma had never showed it to me since we quilt together on occasion (and in fact most recently made a similar star quilt at her place--though mine is triangles made to look like parallelograms, and this one is actual parallelograms) Grandma just stared at me! I mentioned to her that we should refold it differently so as to lessen the fold damage and she said she didn't know about that and wished she had somewhere to display it...while I started refolding the quilt an idea came to me and I said.....Grandma I just bought a wooden quilt stand ($6.50 at a thrift sale!) and it would look great displayed in my living room...thinking someday...and Grandma said you want it, you take it!!!!! I don't know that I have too many more valuable gifts in my house because I feel like I was given a piece of history and a connection to my Dad's grandmother that I never met and then...

A few drawers later we found a Grandma's brag book with long ago pictures of me, my sister Tina and my cousins Carla and Tricia. I found a picture of me asleep on Grandma's floor and believe it or not, the very quilt my grandmother had just gifted to me was pulled up over me while I slept soundly at about 4 months of age!!!!

Well I just felt like it was meant to be...I don't recall the quilt from my childhood and yet there it was with me (none of the other three babies were with it in any of the pictures) like it had been made for me!

I just had to share my luck and happiness at getting this gift from not one Grandma, but two!

Edit** Here is Hazel Joelle in 2021 on the same quilt.  Five generations down.

Happy New Year~

Happy New Year! Yesterday Kathy and I sewed from 7 AM to 10:30 PM (shared one machine, cutting surface and iron) and each completed Ann's NYE Mystery Quilt 2007. She does a great job with these quilts. Very exciting too because Ann says "final tally was just less than 200 that started sewing with me today from 10 countries and 44 states... and lots more will be working on it tomorrow we have several countries represented... US, Canada, Australia, England, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, South Africa, Austria, Ireland and many states... MN, IA, NH, NY, CA, VA, AL, FL, NM, KY, NJ, IN, MO, IL, OR, LA, MI, NC, NV, GA, ID, CO, WI, AZ, WA, TN, NE, TX, MA, PA, OH, OK, CT, WV, SD, SC, MD, AR, MS, AK, KS, WY, ME, DE" so we were in good company sewing yesterday! My quilt has the green, brown and black, and Kathy's has the blues--she plans to give that one to her brother Rick and we will give the other to her sister. They both live in Mass. and I just met them at Thanksgiving. We still need to add borders and decide on the binding and situate the back before we pass them off to Jennifer Bauer for quilting, but overall we are happy with them.

Only real trouble we had was with clue 3. It said to be sure certain fabrics were touching and I did that but didn't quite match the picture, and wound up with all but ONE backwards...and the worst of it was I sewed all the fabric from the strips so I couldn't even just use the leftover to fix things, but had to unsew (or frog stitch as one of my groups calls it) for what seemed like forever! I may be able to incorporate those backwards blocks into the border or back or some other project though.

Randy came over last night and made the margaritas. That was great except Kathy put one of her hearts in sideways! We decided to leave it since it makes her quilt unique and doesn't look bad anyways. We will never forget our day and night of sewing! When we finally got down sewing we played some Euceure with Randy (not sure how you spell that card game) and watched the ball drop. Happy New Year!