Donation opportunities and GIVEAWAY

I recently decided that I am going to give away all but my most favorite and special quilts.  They are just sitting around in piles and I think there are a myriad of opportunities for donating them.  My kids obviously aren't particularly interested!  (remember the story of me finding a lot of quilts in my daughter's closet freeze-dried, or vacuum packed!!)  vbg

I've made two for the Quilts of Valor program, but they were made especially for that goal.

I also sent one recently to a blogger who has connections with patients in her hospital.  I'm going to send her more.  In the past, I've sent some to friends to use in a charity they're involved in.

Someone recently sent me a link to her favorite charity, which sounds very interesting.

So I'm asking you for links and/or information about the charity you most prefer for donating quilts to.  And what are your feelings about donating a quilt to charity??  My guess is that everyone will be up for it but might feel at a loss as to where to send them.  My friend Claire could write a book about donating quilts as she is truly the queen of doing that.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this topic!  

Oh and there's another giveaway:

How'd you like to win the book "Pieced Hexies Deux" by Mickey Depre??
Leave me your name and I'll draw a winner on Sunday!  I've never opened the book and am happy to have it relocated to someone who will use it!

Moving along

The kids went back home yesterday at noon so I had some time to work on my Triangle Gatherings blocks as well as my Primitive Gatherings wool applique quilt (which I just learned will be all of 27"!!).



I still need to add another round of half square triangles and then start work on the border.  You've all seen pictures of each individual block as I finished them.  Looks so different all assembled, although I'll tell you that the "football" in the upper right corner would've looked much better if it was round, but what are you gonna do??? VBG

and I didn't have any better luck sewing the triangles on the Janome.  I still had to take off two little pieces at each end and I had trouble feeding the tiny blocks into the machine.  Kept getting stuck.  maybe I needed the walking foot or accufeed?  Pretty frustrating.

I also did two more triangle blocks using my bright Lori Holt-type fabrics!




Couldn't resist sharing a picture of little Emma (note her necklace!) admiring her new cousin Eli, just two months old.  Photo bomb with Jack in the back.  We took the kids for a walk to visit the horses nearby our house-- one of their favorite things to do!

And the winner is.....

Thanks to all who offered to take this darling little book off my hands! ;-)

The winner is:

Mary!!!

Email me your snail mail address and I'll send it your way ASAP!!  I'm definitely going to be giving away more books so keep an eye out!

I did finish the center block of the Primitive Gatherings summer freebie and am pleased with how it turned out!



You may notice the blue markings from the Frixion pen I used for placement of the pieces (which I obviously didn't follow or you wouldn't see the markings!).  I did press them out yesterday when I started putting the top together. 
 Lesson #1 of the day:  check seam allowances on different machines.
The next border for this is a ton of tiny half square triangles (they finish at 1/2").  I sewed one row together using my Juki, which definitely sews a very scant 1/4" seam. When I laid them out I had two extras and then realized the seam allowance was too small.  I took off the two extras.  The rest of the triangles will be sewn with my Janome which sews a better 1/4" seam.  UGH!

Tomorrow I'll post pictures of the next two Triangle Gatherings I finished this weekend. 

 Just an observation about the difference 500 miles can make!  When we left our cabin in Oregon Thursday, we were cheering that the temperature got up to 35* (and  we still have to deal with two leaks in the cabin due to the ice dams!!).  We got back to California and had the kids for the weekend.  Little Emma loves the water so I took her swimming yesterday to a nearby pool.  YUP, it was close to 70* and she had a ball!  So there you have it.  California weather trumps (oops, no pun or political statement intended) Oregon's.  Big surprise!  We still LOVE our time up in Sunriver, I gotta tell you.  Even with all the snow and ice!

Where the triangles gather and a GIVEAWAY

I made some more blocks following the direction of Primitive Gatherings.  I'm definitely not doing them mini as a lot of others seem to be doing but I'm okay with that!  Not sure if I mentioned that I'm using the fabric I bought for the Farmgirl Quilt, which isn't getting done any time soon!  Fun fabrics and nice for a change!







Here are the 5 I've done;  there's a new one this week which I need to get done today as we are driving back to California tomorrow.  This weekend we get the kids so we are excited about that!



I'm not certain how they will be set when all the blocks have been done but I am enjoying the process so far!

I wanted to give you an idea of the view outside our windows here at the cabin.  There is probably a good 3' of snow on the ground and my husband has spent most every day outside shoveling both the ground and the roof!  When I took this picture yesterday morning, there are frozen ice on all the trees. Not sure it came out in this picture.  The trees were all white from ice!  Not snow!



News of the quilt a long:
The block is also know as Goose in the Pond. Thanks to all who reminded me of that.  I also wanted to let you know that you can do as few blocks or as many as you want.  If you don't want a huge project, make 4 blocks and you'll have a small quilt, if you add a little border.

I'm delighted with so many interested people!!

And now for a small giveaway:
I have a small little spiral book with a couple of patterns called "Farmhouse Quilts, Tea for Two" by Liberty Homestead.  If you're interested in winning this, send me a comment with your email address, please.  I'll draw a winner on Sunday!

Odds n Ends for a snowy Saturday and an upcoming Quilt along!!

I did finally get a picture of the Primitive Gatherings summer freebie wool appliqué quilt I've been working on during our drives up to Oregon.  All 12 of the little blocks have been done (they are 5" finished!).  I'm now working on the center block and only have the leaves left.  I had intended to work on the outside borders on the way home until I realized I need to make a bazillion tiny half square triangles first.  I think they finish at 1/2"!  I'm using the Primitive Gatherings triangle papers for them.  I think it's likely I'll add more flowers and leaves to the outside border, which I think looks a little naked compared to the small blocks.  Don't you??
  Isn't this a great little quilt??  


I ran into Bend yesterday and had to stop at Quilt Works to see their current exhibit.  I found one quilt I felt I wanted to take a picture of to share with you:

I think the pattern is Gentleman's Fancy and it's one I've always wanted to make.  Maybe this would be the perfect quilt along I've been wanting to organize.  Anybody interested in it??  It'd be in 3 steps, with weeks in between.  You could make it any size you wanted but I'd probably make the individual blocks 3" so the entire unit would be 15".  Any smaller and you'd be using fractions, which isn't my favorite thing.

Let's say starting March 1st??  Let me know what you think.

Back to the half square triangles for the appliqué quilt and the Triangle Primitives I've been working on as well.  Have a great weekend.  I wish I had been able to go to Washington DC for the women's march.  If you went, I'd love to hear about it.

And now, something unrelated to politics!

I think we can say that today marks a new chapter, whether we are happy about it or not.  I did watch the inauguration, primarily because I like to see what the women are wearing!!  There was one woman in a gorgeous fur coat, which would be highly unwelcome in California.

I'll tell you why I could never be President (or hold any elected office, for that matter).  I was just watching the Trump grandchildren standing aside their grandpa (our new president) and he didn't pick them up, touch them or put them on his lap.  I'd NEVER be able to keep my hands off my grandkids (well, I never am now!).  

I finished up another of the little Primitive Gatherings freebie blocks and am now working on the center!  You will no doubt notice I'm missing a little leaf, which somehow got lost in transit.  Hard to transport the blocks, the pieces, the scissors and, most difficult, all the different colored Valdani threads.  I still wish I had more variety sometimes.  Please don't look too closely at the quality and lack of consistency in my stitches.  I have enjoyed this project and hope to have it together (center and the other 12 blocks) for the trip back to California next week.  The borders need to be appliquéd while attached to the whole quilt.  I'll show you a picture of the finished quilt (or what it's supposed to look like!)



I also decided to make the flying geese that are being flown by Temecula Quilts.  They are rather large but we'll see what they eventually get sewn into.  I love their quilts.

I'm trying to break out of my rut in fabric choices. VBG

 Here are two other blocks I made yesterday, following the designs of Primitive Gatherings, with their Triangle Gatherings weekly sew along.



I gathered fabric to make the Laura Holt Farm Girl quilt but haven't gotten more than a couple of blocks done so I decided to grab some of that fabric for this project.  Rather than use the Primitive Gatherings triangle papers, I'm using up the Thangles triangle paper I've had and am using an uncommon size,
 1-3/4" finished triangles!  I figure this is a great way to use up those papers, which I probably wouldn't otherwise use since it's such an odd size.  Two more to go to be up to date on that.


Aren't they fun and bright?

On a weather-related note, we are up at the cabin in Central Oregon and there is so much snow.  We arrived here to find TWO leaks due to ice dams (from an accumulation of ice beneath the 3' of snow on the roof, in the valleys!).  We arranged for a friend to carry a long ladder back from Home Depot for us and my husband quickly got to work trying to shovel the snow from the eaves.

Speaking of grandkids, my husband is using one of the little shovels we bought for the kids to help shovel the driveway!  We also had a roofer come to remove the ice dams (he is young and skilled and can climb up on the icy roof.  NOT us!).  Let me tell you that helping my husband by shoveling all the snow he took off the roof left me exhausted!!

Back to my machines!!

more log cabin progress a la French General

I think I mentioned that I'm doing Cécile and Béa's log cabin quilt along and have been doing them in miniature (inspired by my friend Janet O, of course!).  This past week I made some more and have yet to decide how to sew them together.  Here are a few options, none of which have a sashing, which I used in the last group.  Will have to add sashing outside, though, to make them the same size.




A pinwheel wasn't my plan but I played around with them and all of a sudden there was this design.  I like it, actually.



Which do you like best?  And if you'd add a sashing between the blocks, what color?  I am stumped on that.

I had a chance to babysit for the new baby for an hour last week and took him for a walk.  
Here he is all wrapped up in his quilt!


On our walk, I passed a "gentleman's club", which I didn't think existed any longer.  Check out this street sign:

Do they have  scantily-clad girls dancing inside?  X-rated movies in private booths?? VBG. 

And then when I was on my way up to SF on Friday to pick up the other kids, I snapped this picture as the moon as setting.


We are back up at the cabin in Oregon, buried in feet and feet of snow.  It's just beautiful but very tough!  Have you ever heard of ice dams?  It's very common here in Central Oregon where you have a huge build up of snow on the roof and the heat from the attic melts it, but then it freezes up, causing an accumulation of ice.  When that melts, it is not uncommon for it to leak into the house!  We had one leak before we left and found another one today.  

We have a roofer on the roof today (lucky us!  They are very much in demand these days) shoveling the roof!  We have about 3' of snow on the roof alone.  He has been getting up on the roof and hammering away at the accumulation of ice!  Someone told us that it's the most snow they've seen here in 20 years.  The schools in Bend have been closed because of the fear of roofs collapsing!  Ah, Mother Nature!  

Is this any way to lead a lecture? NO

I have a bone to pick, if you will.
I went to a local guild meeting last night hoping to learn something from an teacher/lecturer about The Value of Value.  Seemed like a worthwhile idea, especially since my dh, who seems to be settling into his non-working status, is home all the time! ;-)

Anyway, she primarily does appliqué and mentioned a couple of times about a product she uses for appliqué without mentioning it specifically.  She also talked about her method for binding quilts, using a pillowcase method, without offering any specifics.

I approached her after the lecture to ask her about the product she alluded to for her appliqué method.  She told me that I had to attend her class in order to get that information.  WHAT!!!???  Was she kidding??  I think she also said you had to buy her CD in order to find out how to do the pillowcase method of binding quilts.  SERIOUSLY??? Um, I don't think so.

Being a close friend of Bonnie Hunter's and having attended many classes, I have to say that I was shocked that she treated me (and everyone else, for that matter) like that.   I've obviously been spoiled by the likes of Bonnie and others so that I was truly offended by her attitude.

Anyway, here are my first 4 log cabins, sashed.  It makes a huge difference, I think.  I'm even liking them, notwithstanding their tiny tiny size!


Liking them so much that I started on the next two (four) blocks!


This is another line from the French General, with different colors, though.  I think I will sash all 4, once they're done. Aren't they fun?  I'm cutting my strips at about 1", and after sewing the seam, I'm pressing it and measuring 1/2" precisely, so the finished "log" is 1/4".  maybe next blocks I'll do a little demo, like my friend Wendy Reed! vbg.

In case you haven't been following the weather in California, we've been getting deluged with rain.  It had been this way many years ago, but not for years have we had this much rain.  Mud slides everywhere; trees down; potential flooding, my rain gauge is filling up every day!  The worst thing for me is that I'm unable to WALK!! I am falling behind in my steps on my Fitbit, which is driving me crazy!! I'm hoping tomorrow will be clear, finally.  When I was in Oregon at the cabin last week, I got lots of walking in, which was great.  This week?  Not so much!

Two becomes Four!

At the end of last week, before we got the grandkids, I managed to do a couple more of the log cabin blocks for Cécile and Béa's quilt along.  The two blocks are now 4!  And I'm NOT behind, which is a miracle!!



Here's another arrangement of them:


I have packed up 6 little packages for people who expressed an interest in getting my leftover fabrics so I'm OUT of it.  That's making me think that maybe I'll do groupings of 4 blocks for this quilt along.  Not sure if that's within the rules, but I may go ahead and try it.  do something totally different every 4 blocks!

I also finished putting the borders on the Quilt of Valor I've finished.  I am pleased with how it turned out (you may not notice that I ran out of border fabric and had to put something different for the 4th side.... oops!... I don't think it's terribly noticeable).


If I make this pattern again, I think I'd do the large diamond in reds to break it up a bit more.  I also decided to use a yellow for the inner border because I thought it needed something different.  I'm not sure what I'll use for the binding.  I think the red might be too much.  What do you think??

We had the lucky opportunity to have all FOUR of our grandkids over the house at one time (well, the little one is just 8 weeks old).  My son was afraid the 7 yr old wouldn't be able to hold the little one so he and his wife wanted to be in the picture, too!


We were pretty excited to have them all, even for just a day!~

off to the post office to mail the FG scraps and the Quilt of Valor to the machine quilter.  It has actually stopped raining here a little bit today so I may try for a walk.  Brief respite.  We have had a lot of rain.  We keep a rain gauge outside our kitchen door and we've been emptying it every day, with at least 3-4 inches!

A little progress

As I mentioned, I am going to do Cecile and Bea's log cabin quilt along, which isn't very long and won't involve months of work.  My kind of project!

I decided to go mini (thank you, Janet O, for your inspiration!)!  For me, it's more difficult since my piecing is certainly not super accurate.  The strips finish at 1/4", by the way.  The center finishes at 3/4".  The block finishes at 3-3/4"!  I call that small!




I really enjoy fussy cutting!  That's Max in the center (well, not exactly but close enough)


This is a bird.  The other centers are other animals!

I'm using my leftover French General fabrics, which I'm still trying to get rid of!  VBG.  Doing these mini blocks, though, won't use up a whole lot of fabric.  So, if you're at all interested in inheriting some of these fabrics, please leave me a comment and they'll be yours!  I think I'm done with this line for a while!

A great new start! And a winner

I'm kind of excited about the new year.  I'm not one for making resolutions.  I find I don't keep them (usually) so why set myself up for failure. Know what I mean?

And I'm not going to set quilting goals, either.  I don't have lots of UFOs;  but even with the ones I have, I'm not in the mood for putting myself on task for something I'm not really interested in doing.  I'll get to them one of these days.

I am going to do Cécile and Béa's log cabin challenge, which is only a couple of months long.  I also want to do that Canadian women one, although I'm not doing it in red and white.  I'm only 18 blocks behind already.  ;-)
Story of my life.  I would like to have a sew-along but I've yet to find a pattern I like.  Keep watching.

We drove home from the cabin yesterday, after days and days of lots of snow.  I thought you'd enjoy this picture taken in front, with our address barely visible.  That's snow on the ground; it's not snow from the plows!  It's just beautiful.  It was very cold, though... barely above 10*.  I went for long walks with a friend just about every day and I miss that already!  Now that I found my Fitbit (and it's charged), I enjoyed having large totals at the end of the day.  Today and yesterday?  Not so much!! ;-((



On the way home, I was able to do another one of the wool appliqué blocks before it got dark!  I found I was missing one flower so it hasn't yet been sewn down.  I like this block.  I have only one more to go!  Then I'll tackle the center and the borders, which will probably require a drive cross country! VBG

After having done 11 blocks, I decided I needed different green threads so I ordered 3 Valdani greens to tackle the rest of the quilt.  Some of the greens that I have look brown!  The center and borders are large and will need lots of greens.

I also was working on the Mountmellick quilt and found others who have done it already.  Susan Rynex was kind enough to offer me extra border fabric that she had.  Bloggers and quilters are just amazing!  What a nice surprise to come home to!  Now to get back to work on that quilt! WHEW!


One thing I am going to try to do is be a more regular blogger.  I feel like I don't always have something quilt related to say (never have been accused of not having something to say about everything, I might add!) so this will be one resolution I'm going to work on.  Maybe if I know that I need to do a blog post, I'll do more sewing!  I expect to travel less this year, now that my dh seems to have decided he's done working (more on THAT in another blog post! Let's just say I'm not necessarily a big fan!).  So I should have more time for sewing.

Happy New Year to everyone.

I forgot to announce that the winner of the giveaway is CARLINE.
Please email me so I can get your snail mail address and send you the book.
randyiris@gmail.com
I'm going to be doing lots of giveaways this year for sure.  I need to downsize!!!