What I did on my day off!

This little quilt (about 10" sq) was started about two years ago....worked on it occasionally and decided this week it needed to be finished!  I have Way Too Many quilts that need to be finished but I choose this one that day!  Inspiration is from the Chitra book "Little Bits of Whimsy".......however, I made several changes, mostly the triangle border.  I didn't care for the "spikey" triangles along the outside edge of the original so I made a paper-pieceing pattern for "flying geese" triangles followed by the plain border.  These colors are a bit wild for me!

Now, having said I have Way Too Many quilts in progress, I am off on another tangent!  This always happens when the frenzy of July is over and I can get back to my quiet life!   I was reading An Moonen's "History of Dutch Quilts"

 book the other evening and became enthused to use the panel below along with the other Dutch reproductions drying on the line in the other two photos.   At the Maine quilt show in July a vendor from PA had Dutch fabrics that reminded me that I had some SOMEWHERE but could not find them!!  Off and on for three weeks, I would search various boxes and fabric piles to no avail.  As I was about to leave the sewing room to start a search in a bedroom storage area, I spied two boxes that I hadn't yet checked because I had been too lazy to move the pile of fabric stacked on top of them!  When I moved the fabric and picked up the top box, you guessed it!  There was the bag of fabric in between the two boxes!  Bet this never happens to anyone of you!?!??!?!

I've had this panel for a while, having been bought for me by a friend traveling to Amsterdam.  I knew that I had seen them for sale on an online shop and wanted another.  I thought the shop was in TX so I found a list of TX shops and hoped that when the right one appeared, I would recognize it.  Could not believe my good fortune when I did!  It's here at Happiness Is......

Quilting in McKinney.  I see they also have the History of Dutch Quilts book.

For now I think I will make just a small quilt using the panel surrounded by some quilt blocks and the border fabric strips seen on my clothesline.  The border strips are less than a yard long so that determines the size of my quilt.    I have Petra Prins' lovely "Josephine" fabric that I plan to use in another Dutch reproduction.   From studying the fabric pictures in the book, I think I will be able to find more early 19th century reproductions in my stash because, for me, the more different fabrics in a quilt, the better!!  Looks like stripes and dots were used in the antique Dutch quilts so those will definitely add interest to the mix!

Well, I see the little clock says it's 9pm so that means it is time for handwork while I listen to "Doc Martin" on pbs!  

Can't believe it's been over 2months!!!!

I don't where the time went but it has been a very long time since I sat down to write on my blog!  Between family, two July quilt shows, and a computer upgrade that left me without my main computer for 3 weeks,  I am ready to go back to my quiet life!!  It's been hot here in Maine (I know it is far worse in other parts of the country so I won't complain too loudly!) and since my sewing room is on the second floor, it's been too hot to work there. Really should invest in an air conditioner!!  So, I looked for things to do downstairs where it is quite a bit cooler!  I decided to pin-baste three quilts on my dining room table so I will always have projects in process to pick up in the evenings.  First up is a Basket quilt from an older Jo Morton club.  Her baskets were turned every which way but I just could not do that so mine are all headed in the same direction!  The blocks are 4".....think I will do my usual machine quilting in the ditch and then add hand-quilting.

Second project is my Applecore from Cindy Blackberg's stamp.  Loved every minute hand-piecing this table runner.  Used 147 different fabrics.....all Moda except for two.....one Judie Rothermel and one from "Josephine" by Petra Prins!  They are both visible in the photo.....can you spot them?  When I thought I was done, I read the pattern and discovered it called for two more rows......I like the looks of the seven rows so am leaving it at that!  I pin-basted and then machine-basted and will hand-quilt.  Probably overkill to both pin and machine baste but I feel I get a flatter quilt so it's worth the extra work to me!

Now here is a little quilt that I recently unearthed from a pile of tops from Carol Hopkins "Civil War Legacies" called "Sweet William".  This has been buried a long time! The pink border fabric is from Jo Morton's first line of fabric around 2005!!  (Maybe we could convince Jo to print this fabric again!?!)  The stars could be made as Sawtooth Stars or as LeMoyne stars with diamonds.  My friend Wendy made hers with sawtooth stars and that hung in my shop .......my stars are hand-pieced LeMoyne stars so it didn't get finished as quickly!  Thanks to Wendy I had a sample for the shop!

This is one of the flowers in bloom around here now.....Tansy!  Took a loverly photo of some Goldenrod too but the photo would not rotate so will save that for another time!  I love Goldenrod and let it grow wherever it shows up!  Same for New England Fall Asters!  And now I leave the Milkweed since I learned the Monarch butterflies feed from it.  One year we had a chrysalis on a milkweed plant that we watched until the Monarch emerged......my little granddaughter Khaila was enthralled with it!

This too-dark photo is a 9-patch quilt I made with "Comfort" fabric from Moda's "Collection for a Cause" fabric line.  The only thing that resembles the project sheet is the border (I'll try to get a better photo later!).  Used 180 different fabrics in the 90 blocks.....way scrappier than the original and I like it better!  The original setting fabric was light with tiny red figures (maybe dots) but I like my dark selection better......

One of my new fabrics just arrived in the shop......."Ohio Star" from Blue Hill Fabrics.....I Love this Swag design from around 1850's I think.  Wonderful for borders....comes in two other colorways but I believe this is the document colorway.

Here are a few shots of my booth at Maine Quilts 2012!  Each of those little crates holds about 30 half yard cuts and there were over 40 of them.....that's over 1200 half yards to choose from!  

Time to sign off for tonight......gotta make dumplings for my chicken soup for my husband when he gets in from a long day in the hayfield!!  Then I can relax with some handwork......my favorite part of my day!  A note to my customers.......in my upgrade the Address Book came through with single email addresses but the folders containing my Newsletter addresses did not make it so I need to start from scratch again!  If you want to be on my Email List, just let me know!!   Years ago I would have had such Withdrawal from the absence of my computer and would have had a slight fit over losing the email addresses, but that's life......hardly bothered me at all!  I will confess that I now have a laptop so I could read my email and blogs and go on the Net, but all my programs/files were on the other computer so I could not do bookwork!  Will fix that soon as I hate to get too far behind on bookwork.....too hard to catch up!  I'd rather SEW or QUILT!!!